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]

"...the thing about prodigies is that once they aren't little and cute any longer, no one cares...." Bakura pointed out. "And if you did get struck by lightening, it would explain so much...."

[dead_black_eyes]

"I'm not bragging about it. It's a matter of fact. And hasn't everything about me already been explained by other things?"

[shiromadoushi]

"As if you could be explained so easily, you giant mess...."

[dead_black_eyes]

"From you that might almost be a compliment. I think I'll take it that way," he said, smiling.

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura made a face just a moment before shaking his head and draining the last of his tea, reaching back to huck it into the trash. "Take it how you will. You'll do it anyway..."

[dead_black_eyes]

"You only have one life to be happy. Well... most people, anyway."

[shiromadoushi]

"And yet people expect you to waste so much of it with bullshit...."

[dead_black_eyes]

"Like eating and sleeping? You're absolutely right. So many hours just wasted..."

[shiromadoushi]

".... You never have any idea what I'm about to say, do you? Or do you just think of the most idiotic thing to say like it's funny or something?"

[dead_black_eyes]

L blinked his huge eyes in response.

"I never try to be funny."

[shiromadoushi]

"..I'm not sure if that's better or worse...."

[dead_black_eyes]

"Does it have to be either? It's my personality, and after this many years it's unlikely to change very much."

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura gave a snort. "So you say now. Give it a few more months on the network, and we'll see..."

[dead_black_eyes]

"I don't understand why more people don't flip out over that. You're effectively becoming a different person from the one you started out as... no matter how real your memories are, you didn't live them, and as far as most of the world is concerned, you definitely didn't own them as experiences."

[shiromadoushi]

"Not all of us are," Bakura returned, crossing his arms. "I'm still me no matter what bullshit I'm remembering. I more meant that shit happens that changes you in this life, not anything else."

[dead_black_eyes]

"But aren't you getting echoes from different people? You'd hinted as much at one point, and I haven't forgotten."

[shiromadoushi]

"Doesn't mean they're changing me," Bakura returned with a glare.

[dead_black_eyes]

"Personality echoes might, though. In fact I fail to see how that's avoidable."

[shiromadoushi]

"I'm not going to get any of those. I'm not Thomas," Bakura returned stiffly.

[dead_black_eyes]

"It's OK to be bitter about that," L said, after giving it a moment's thought. "If someone changed enough to hurt you it's not unreasonable to be distraught about it."

[shiromadoushi]

"...the fuck are you on about now?"

[dead_black_eyes]

"Thomas? Presumably someone whose echoes changed him in a way that you were unhappy about? That's what I'm inferring..."

[shiromadoushi]

"...Someone who's flashbacks were trying to turn him into a moe otaku..."

[dead_black_eyes]

"From the way you talk about him, I assume that happened."

[shiromadoushi]

"...you do realize that more often than not when you guess about this stuff you're totally wrong, right?"