savetheearth | action

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Who: Becky and anyone who happens to be there (specifically seeking a Julien for Echo-inducing reasons)
What: Grocery shopping! (And getting startled.)
Where: The grocery.
When: Wednesday afternoon, after the school day.

Becky's spirits have been up since the good news from her clinic visit. It's good to know that particular memory isn't anything she has to worry about, at least not for right now.

And then she realised that in her panic, she forgot some stuff at the grocery. So she's there now, filling in the gaps on her list - mostly non-perishables - and being exceedingly glad the water's not a problem anymore.

Currently, she's in front of the spice selection, trying to remember if there's anything she's actually out of.

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These days Julien usually moves all but silently. He's never been clumsy, exactly, but now part of him is awake in a way it wasn't before and he moves differently. Floors don't creak under him, all shoes might as well be soft, he never entirely loses his balance, he turns aside just enough to not get snagged by or bump against things he's passing close to, and he's just less noticeable when he's quiet. It's kind of ridiculous when he thinks about it. Which he really doesn't these days; it's been over a month, and he adjusts fast.

So today, gathering this and that in a basket and trying to figure out what he'll cook, when he spies Becky out of the corner of his eye and decides to go chat he doesn't think to scuff his feet, and grocery stores aren't places where you want to call out someone's name from a distance.

Instead he's there almost at her elbow, without perceptible warning. "Hey! Fancy meeting you here."

"Gah!" Becky fumbles the container of cinnamon she'd been about to put in her cart, but she manages not to drop it. Still, that gave her quite a start.
"Hi. How did you do that?"

Oops.

He rubs the back of his neck with his free hand, taking a half step back. "Whoah, sorry! I uh... I'm just quieter these days. Didn't mean to scare you." It's not very crowded here, but he's still unwilling to get too specific.

"It's fine, it's fine, you just..." She trails off, closing her eyes. Just what she needed - one of those pulses in the middle of the grocery store. Great.

"Startled me, that's all," she finishes, once the feeling passes.

Julien doesn't appear to glance around - the way his eyes work, he doesn't need to - but he does watch and make sure no one gives her a second look. Seems they're lucky today, this little tableau isn't enough to distract anyone from their routines, though there's someone loitering around who might just be waiting for the way to the spices to be clear.

"Right..." This isn't the place to ask about these things. "Well, feels like it's been a while. How've you been?"

"Not too bad. The beginning of the school year's been keeping me busy, so it probably has been a while." She did, after all, go a month without really checking in on the network.

But this isn't the place to say so aloud.

"How have you been?

"Right, right... Man, it felt weird not preparing for stuff about then. I've only been out of college two years, I assume at some point I'll stop having the 'test I didn't study for' dream? Right?" His voice has gone concerned, but he's smiling.

"Aah, well, I've been better and worse. Some drama with falling out and trying to patch up with friends..." He shrugs, seeming unconcerned. "Still, it'll all be okay in the end. I hope."

"Probably. Mine seem to have been replaced with 'test I didn't prepare to give' dreams, but that's probably job-specific." Funny how the source of the anxiety dreams didn't really change all that much.

Becky smiles a little. "I'm sure it'll be all right. We seem to have found ourselves in a pretty tight group. No point in not trying to patch things up where we can."

"Oh, no." Julien fakes a convincing-sounding laugh. Has to, he can't laugh normally. "Never free of them, huh?"

"Yeah, yeah... There's that. Never know when things get hectic and you need someone, right?"

Becky shrugs. "Anxiety dreams are anxiety dreams. It's just the thing that you're worked up about that changes." It could be worse.

It could be anxiety dreams about this pulse business.

"Exactly."

"There's that." The basket is getting heavy. Julien switches it to his other arm. "I'm just about done picking stuff out. You?"

"I have a little more shopping to get done. Forgot some stuff last week." She was a little distracted at the time, to be fair.

"I hear you. Want to meet somewhere later? I should really get some salmon and I'll have to get that home. Raw fish, you know?"

"I know. Where would be a good place?"

There are a lot of factors to that, these days - places that haven't been attacked, places they wouldn't draw too much attention, places Julien can stand to look at...

"Ummmm. I guess bars would be a bad option even if you stick to safe stuff. Haven't I heard about teachers not supposed to be seen in those places?" he wonders aloud. "Well, there's any number of quiet little shops, right?"

"It's not the end of the world if a teacher goes to a bar, but I'm not overly fond of alcohol anyway, so that probably isn't the best choice. If there's a coffee shop or something that isn't... obvious..."

'Obvious' here meaning 'Starbucks,' since it's attracted enough attention that Mamoru warned her off hanging around there.

"Heh. Well, I can't go anywhere too dark, but I'm good just about everywhere else, now." He hadn't able to go into a grocery store not that long ago. The fluorescent lights alone...

"Well, there's a little bookstore off Beech Street with a bunch of little nooks for readers. Man, what was it called... Bookworm maybe? Wyrm, like the dragon?"

"That should work." At the very least, if the discussion gets too strange, they can always blame it on a book.

[Bertholdt is there for the opposite problem. He has food at home, but nothing he feels like eating. He's at the spice section looking for something that would maybe kick start his taste buds into craving something again. Not that he knows how to cook very well, but with Ryan on him now to get him healthier, he has a small nagging in his mind that he shouldn't be lazy about throwing chicken in a pan with some spices and seeing what happens.]

[He's minding his own business, but someone who's 6'5" is bound to be noticed, especially when he easily reaches up to the top shelf to inspect a bottle.]

Oh - I'm sorry, was I in your way?

[She scoots over a little so he has a clearer line to what he's reaching for.]

[Oh man, he really needs to pay attention more. He has a habit of not noticing anything that isn't on his eye level (which isn't much.) He stammers a little when he looks down at her, fingers curling around a bottle of cayenne pepper.]

N-no, I'm sorry! I wasn't-- uh, paying attention so...

No, you're fine. Happens to all of us.

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