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 deeply, leaning back against the counter away from the spill. "Called someone's bluff or something, probably..." he reasoned before taking a small sip of his tea. "Or got him to make a mistake. That's normally how the shows go..."

He paused. "Or it could be how the other you died."

[dead_black_eyes]

"You don't know," L repeated firmly. "I'm not going to speculate wildly until I know more, and this person was me in another life."

[shiromadoushi]

"Isn't that what you do as a detective? Speculate until you figure things out?" Bakura returned idly, looking down at his cup.

[dead_black_eyes]

"Speculate, yeah... but not the way you're doing it. It's too random and unsupported... you have no evidence."

[shiromadoushi]

"Heh..." Bakura's chuckle was faint, but still amused. "As if evidence is ever anything with this sort of thing. You make guesses until something hits a nerve or you get an 'update' on your flashbacks."

[dead_black_eyes]

"This is my life we're talking about. I'm not going to assume that I was some kind of creep before all this, too. What are the odds?"

[shiromadoushi]

"Considering the rest of us? Pretty damned high."

[dead_black_eyes]

"That man? I don't know him, but he saved my life. He continues to save my life, every day, just by having existed and by having anything at all to do with me. So I say he was a hero. I say that he had his reasons. And also that I know better than you what was in his mind."

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura fell quiet, swirling the remains of his tea in the paper cup. "Whatever helps, I guess," he finally shrugged before taking a long drink from his cup.

[dead_black_eyes]

"Oh my God. You're sorry. You feel bad."

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura turned to make a face at the man. "What the hell are you on about now?"

[dead_black_eyes]

"You just looked awkward. Maybe like you regretted what you'd said."

[shiromadoushi]

"I thought it was sad how damned pathetic you were, clinging to the scraps of something that's not even your own past," Bakura returned, tone pointed and a bit harsher than it needed to be.

[dead_black_eyes]

"You're right, though. It is pathetic. And you chose to back off because of it."

[shiromadoushi]

"Yeah. Well. No point to kicking something that's already busted," Bakura pointed out, stiffly.

[dead_black_eyes]

"My life is coming together. It's not 'busted.'"

[shiromadoushi]

"Something so pathetic, then."

[dead_black_eyes]

"If you kick superglue while it's drying, it falls apart. I guess that's a good approach."

[shiromadoushi]

"... kick superglue...?" Bakura repeated, making a face.

[dead_black_eyes]

"You know, because it's fragile before it's completely dried..."

[shiromadoushi]

"You're really bad at this, you know..."

[dead_black_eyes]

"Work with me on that metaphor. I don't use glue very much, I assume that's how it would work."

[shiromadoushi]

"Then why are you using it for a metaphor if you don't understand how it works?"

[dead_black_eyes]

"Frankly I'm still getting a hang of the whole metaphor concept."

[shiromadoushi]

"...let me guess, 99% of your education was chess?"