You Reject My Advances and Desperate Pleas [February 14]

[dead_black_eyes]

WHO: Lazarus Lawliet and YOU
WHEN: That loviest of days, February 14, pretty much all day
WHERE: Espresso Yourself
WHAT: Someone higher up on the management ladder saw an ironic valentine and thought it would be awesome if baristas handed out hand-made ones to customers on V-Day. As the shop's resident "writer," L was given some scissors and a magazine and tasked with this. The result... well. Tag this, if you really want to see the result.
WARNINGS: L would rather be detectiving. L's grasps on irony, humor, romance, and valentines are also tenuous at best, especially together. This could get dark.



Since hiring L, Espresso Yourself had been a very accommodating employer. Equal opportunity and largely catering to college-aged hipsters, their customer base and employees consisted predominantly of Millennials, and every stereotype had softly saturated much of the shop's attitude toward the generation. L had enjoyed leaning on crutches in the past, finding ways to pardon himself from the ordeals of living life and interacting with other human beings. He had used and abused diagnoses and disadvantages for this purpose, but Espresso Yourself, as a business, seemed determined not only to accommodate his needs, but to boost his self-esteem by making him feel important and necessary.

A young woman in a higher management position had beckoned him aside the day before, offering him an "important project" to keep such a "talented writer" busy. Following his most recent echoes, L thought he knew what actually comprised an "important project," but it had been awhile since his last echo, and it was beginning to frustrate him. He'd been a child-saver, a detective, and he'd been very good at what he did, and every day another pulse didn't occur was a day he was being denied and held hostage by his own life.

Excitedly, the woman had handed him a stack of magazines, some glue, some construction paper, and a pair of blunted safety scissors, explaining the project. Her over-bright eyes and too-wide smile told L that she knew about him, and had therefore dismissed him on an unforgivable level. The condescension was newly unacceptable to a man who knew that his preincarnation had been great, and he resolved to make the project uniquely his own.

Behind the counter, he has a stack of them next to the cash register. They resemble ransom notes more than valentines, but at least his standard look of utter contempt is dialed back a bit. You might actually feel like you can approach the counter today.

Comments

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura snorted. "One pluralization makes you think that? Pushing the detective thing a bit much, are you?"

[dead_black_eyes]

"Maybe. Does that even happen? Do people get pulses from more than one individual?"

[shiromadoushi]

"Who the fuck knows. There's enough shit that makes no sense that doesn't match up that half of us may as well could be."

[dead_black_eyes]

"Do you think you're getting pulses from more than one person? It shouldn't be so hard to give this a straight answer."

[shiromadoushi]

"It shouldn't, should it?" Bakura returned flippantly. "But like I'm going to tell you either way..."

[dead_black_eyes]

"Your secrets aren't going to keep themselves, if you continue being so careless. Some of us actually do pay attention to what others say, you know."

[shiromadoushi]

"You have a strange idea what counts as a secret, you know," Bakura returned.

[dead_black_eyes]

"A secret is ultimately anything you don't want others to know. Not really so strange."

[shiromadoushi]

"A secret is something you don't want anyone to know," Bakura countered. "Different than just not telling certain people things."

[dead_black_eyes]

"I think you can tell one person a secret and it still counts as such. It's if they share that it ceases to be a secret."

[shiromadoushi]

"Mm," Bakura nodded. "But something you just don't feel like telling someone you're not on good terms with doesn't count."

[dead_black_eyes]

"I don't actually think we're not on good terms. Do you?"

[shiromadoushi]

"...Do you honestly think we're friends or something?"

[dead_black_eyes]

"I'm never quick to use that word. But there are many degrees of separation between 'friends' and 'not on good terms.'"

[shiromadoushi]

The teen snorted. "You say as if 'not on good terms' is the low end of the scale..."

[dead_black_eyes]

"It's certainly a part of the low end. It's not the high end."

[shiromadoushi]

"More like smack in the middle."

[dead_black_eyes]

"The middle is neutral, though. Having no opinion on someone whatsoever."

[shiromadoushi]

"That's already a step up from the generic dislike I have for 99% of humanity."

[dead_black_eyes]

"I see. So this whole time you've been trying to pay me a compliment. That's very sweet, Bakura."

[shiromadoushi]

"..." Bakura sighed, rubbing at his forehead with his free hand before taking another sip of his tea. "You just live in your own little world all the time, don't you?"

[dead_black_eyes]

"If you hate 99% of people in this one, maybe you should consider it, too."

[shiromadoushi]

The teen shrugged. "The 1% left make it decent enough. Though if any of them ever decide to secede from reality..."

He trailed off, pausing thoughtfully. "Though I guess you could say that we all have, in a way... With a few exceptions."

[dead_black_eyes]

"There are probably a lot of people who think we'd all be at-home in White Pines."

[shiromadoushi]

The teen snorted. "A lot of people are idiots who belong in worse places themselves..."