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 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..."

[dead_black_eyes]

"Worse places probably exist. I've never heard of one."

[shiromadoushi]

"It's that bad there, huh?"

[dead_black_eyes]

"It depends on how crazy you are. Some people don't even know where they are. They're probably the happiest."

[shiromadoushi]

"The ones that actually need to be there, that type..."

[dead_black_eyes]

"Be careful saying that. I don't think there's a person alive, numbered or not, who could be entirely cleared of 'needing' to spend any amount of time in an institution."

[shiromadoushi]

"If it's someone who's so far gone that they have no idea where they even are? Where the hell else are you going to put someone like that?"

[dead_black_eyes]

"Some could probably benefit. But it is a very large grey area, you realize."

[shiromadoushi]

"Like anything isn't?"

[dead_black_eyes]

"Some things aren't. Society is better off agreeing on that much; for example, murder is, with the rare exception, always wrong."

[shiromadoushi]

"When is it murder, when is it self defense? When is it justified, when is it someone just being trigger happy? If someone went up and shot Sherman in the face like they shot Paul, would that be wrong?"

[dead_black_eyes]

"I don't want to shoot Sherman in the face. I want to peel his skin off in one piece, cook his brain, and feed it to his dog. But yes, that would be wrong."

[shiromadoushi]

"Only because you're involving his dog who as far as we know isn't a murdering sociopath trying to doom the human race," Bakura countered.

[dead_black_eyes]

"Brains are very nutritious. It's the best gift I could give an innocent animal. But like I said... Wrong. Taking a life isn't something a human should do unless the situation is very dire and there is no other choice."

[shiromadoushi]

"'Very dire,'" Bakura repeated with a snort.

[dead_black_eyes]

"Like, if your life is immediate danger and you're not stronger, then it can be excusable to use deadly force."

[shiromadoushi]

"If the life of those I care about is in danger, which it is as long as that ass is gunning for us, then it's still excusable."

[dead_black_eyes]

"That's excusable too. But ideally, everyone would get out of the situation alive, so that the justice system could handle it from there."

[shiromadoushi]

Another snort. "Justice system... Have you missed how corrupt the cops are here? The man murdered someone who had gone to him for help, then murdered his entire family and pinned it on someone else to try and kill him too! And he has the cops in the palm of his hand! Like fuck any so called 'justice' system is going to take care of that!"

[dead_black_eyes]

L was preparing to return with an answer, but his tea dropped from the fingers that delicately gripped it and he went ash-grey, shaking and breathless.

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura blinked, taking a small step back. "...you okay there...?"