[OTA] It's the Best of Times

[dreamsofwords]

All things considered, one hasn't seen Alasdair writing much lately. He has been, of course - he's got deadlines - but he's been keeping it to late at night at his house, not so much in public. In light of things, though, school has been called off for the first few days of the week, and sitting in his house feels a bit oppressive just now.

So despite the cold, he goes out with his laptop, dressed for the weather in a coat, a scarf and fingerless gloves, and parked himself at a cafe table with a bottomless cup of coffee. He's tapping away, paying virtually no attention to the world outside.

Storms came and went in Chicago all the time, especially in the winter months. But this system was different. It loomed over the city like a bad mood, and wouldn't be banished, turning from rain to ice to snow and back again. Who knew, Dabney Rush thought as he watched the precipitation pummel the glass of his Gold Coast house, what this kind of weather would bring.

Absolutely, totally normal.

Comments

[heartvestment]

"If your girlfriend complains, I apologize in advance." It's said brusquely, as flatly as possible - she doesn't even make eye contact with him. Yet she still lingers by the table, arms crossed over her chest.

[dreamsofwords]

"...Complains?" It takes him a moment to blink out of the fog of the story and look up at Edie. Seeing her is enough of a surprise; it's not like they can completely avoid each other. They work at the same place, they're in the same Suit.

"Why would she do that?"

[heartvestment]

"Fuck if I know." She shrugs. "She walked off the last time she talked to me, and I guess I must've said something wrong."

[dreamsofwords]

"Ah." The joy of his life. Alasdair looks down at his keyboard for a moment before looking up at her again. "I'd hate to assume you were talking about me."

But you were, weren't you, Evangeline?

[heartvestment]

"--The conversation might've drifted that way for a moment." For more than a moment. "I didn't think I said anything too bad."

[gotyourheart]

The Nine is helping encourage the remaining squatters out of the mysterious houses-- taking a page out of the Queen of Diamonds' book, really. They don't want any more people disappearing, after all.

But she gets distracted by the working writer and she'll lean her hip slightly against the table as she approaches him.

"Isn't it a bit cold to be working outside?"

[dreamsofwords]

"Fucking freezing," Alasdair replies before catching his tongue between his teeth and tapping an entire paragraph's worth of words out. "But it's better than sitting inside and staring at the same four walls."

Or, you know, looking out the window to where the cottage had appeared...and then disappeared again. At least no one had gone in it.

"Besides, the coffee helps. Want any, Row?"

[gotyourheart]

"Sure."

And she'll be stealing a sip out of his coffee cup now, thank you very much.

"You could just walk to some other building to look at a different set of four walls instead of freezing to death."

[dreamsofwords]

"Right, of course, and a glass could fall down in those four walls and knock me on the head, too." Not that that happened or anything. Alasdair certainly doesn't have to go the the kitchen store after this and buy anything. No way.

"Besides, it's at least three degrees above freezing. It's practically balmy compared to the snow that lasted, what, two weeks?"

[gotyourheart]

Oh, of course not. And it's not like Rowan has anything to go replace, either.

"Doesn't mean that it's healthy weather to be out in for extended periods of time."

But at least he's not doing anything stupid like moving into randomly appearing buildings. Silver lining.

[hey_sexy_latte]

At some point, he's going to need a refill. And at that point, Teresa's going to come out with the pot of coffee and do exactly that.

"Sugar and cream, yeah?"

[dreamsofwords]

"You know me far too well," Alasdair says, his eyes twinkling up at Teresa as he nudges his mug closer to her.

"Am I your only customer today?"

[hey_sexy_latte]

"You are a regular," she answers with a smile as she pours.

And then a laugh, "Well, I'm fairly certain you're the only one brave or stupid enough to be coming out here. You can't work inside?"

Where it's, y'know, actually warm?

[dreamsofwords]

"I probably could, I'm just used to doing it out here." Which was because it usually didn't stay this cold for as long as it had. It was February; spring started to make an appearance by now.

"Are you going to help me carry in all my crap if I do?"

[hey_sexy_latte]

"Do I get an extra tip out of it?" she queries with a raised brow. "Because if so, absolutely."

And even if not, really.

[hamelinic]

So. Well. See.

Cynric is not particularly fond of Hearts, for some small number of reasons which Johnny has crushed like a crushing thing that crushes for his particular crushing crush crush and other words surely. But he's got to get his mind together. He's got to stop feeling frantic about the fact Dybbuk's gone missing in a way that feels like his heart cut hard from his chest, the way it did when the First Joker wandered off completely.

So he's focusing on the fact he's just discovered the intricate workings on the back of his new lute strap seem to be letters. Letters what make words. Letters like the ones appearing on Alasdair's laptop.

Don't mind the Joker staring so intently at these meaningless symbols that his chin might come down on top of the teacher's for a half-second.

[dreamsofwords]

"...Can I help you?" It's not that he's unused to this sort of thing. He's friends with Riley James, after all, who read pieces of his novels before she knew they were even published (and she's still the only one who does). Still. Jokers tend to ping the weirdness afoot radar.

Tilting his head back so that Cynric's chin is more on his forehead will just make this more ridiculous. Clearly that's the best option.

[hamelinic]

There's probably something hilariously irreverent and completely whimsical to say right now. Probably. The question is whether he really needs to while he's got his chin on the other man's forehead. He thinks the answer is not.

He thinks the answer is also that C-squigglesquiggle is not his own name because it's lacking a dippy squiggle, and that this one doesn't use the letter X enough.

"How'd you?"

Make with letters, clearly. Or maybe not clearly at all.

[dreamsofwords]

"How'd I...?" he begins, then looks at the screen again. "Write? I just...think up the words and type them out. Like this." And he types a few more, the letters materializing into words and words into sentences on the screen.

"It's science."

[hamelinic]

...what the voodoo black magic bullshit, sir.

Time for his chin to relocate from Alasdair's head to his shoulder for proper up-close and personal observation.

"Science?"

[standlikestone]

Here, have a super cheery Riley sitting next to you with an ice cold soda. In this weather. Yes. "Hey. Hey, I'm doing it. Hey."

[dreamsofwords]

"Doing what, Ri?" Don't mind him, he's in fiction-land. "Hold on, I want to finish this paragraph."

[standlikestone]

"Holding." She waits a good ten seconds before pressing on. "You're ready? Okay? I'm going to tell him. I got him flowers. It's all planned out. A week from now I will be freaking out even more than this."

[dreamsofwords]

Well, he supposed he'd better be, because that has his creative thought, whatever it was, just flying out. "You got him flowers?" Oh, Riley. Trust him. He learned this one the hard way.

Flowers are always a bad idea.

[standlikestone]

"What? What's wrong with that?" Oh god. "Wait, what? They're flowers, what could be wrong with them?"