The Perk; Tuesday Afternoon.

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

In a rather nice change of pace, Turtle Wexler had found herself in a good mood this morning. She'd slept well and she'd slept in; she'd noticed that the market had made a hitch, albeit small, upwards, and the time she'd spent with Jeff yesterday before radio had firmly shaved a good twenty years off the whole thirty-five-and-pushing-a-midlife-crisis thing to remind her that, yes, she was a self-made multimillionaire entrepreneur fledgling lawyer, but she was still, at the end of things, still fifteen. It changed her prospective quite nicely, for the better, and, as she went to the coffee shop with a backpack full of forms and tax documents and business papers, spreading them all out over the table and settling in happily to work on them over a very large cup of hot chocolate with extra marshmallows, she was even thinking that everything had worked out nicely with the store after all and perhaps she wouldn't even bother with making a deal out of it to Misters Cable and Deadpool, just sort of sweep it under the rug a little for the sake of petty differences.

Assuming that something of the like never happened again, of course. She let out a slight sigh, shifted in her chair, and got back to work on the wonderful sea of papers spread out on the table in front of her.


[[ open for all your afternoon perkly needs! ]]

Comments

[scary-jeff.livejournal.com]

Jeff would have passed by the Perk without doing anything - he'd found out the hard way caffeine didn't tend to agree with him - but that's when he noticed the familiar form inside, grinned broadly, and pulled open the door. Very nearly but not quite knocking himself in the face with it. "Turtle!"

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

Turtle had looked up from reading some materials sent to her by the Squishy flavor distributors about some 'new and exciting changes,' chewing thoughtfully on the end of her pen, just in time to see the door nearly but not quite thwapping Jeff in the face. She winced, scrunching up her face to imagine how it would have felt if it had happened, before grinning lightly. "Hey, Jeff."

[scary-jeff.livejournal.com]

Maybe if Jeff's name had been different, something like Oliver, maybe, the door would've hit, but unbeknowst to him the name had given him special door-avoidance powers.

Or maybe he was just very good at skipping through at the last minute.

He slid neatly into the chair opposite Turtle, and grinned. "What've you got?"

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Oh, not much," Turtle replied, with a light sigh as she settled her hands in her laps and gave her makeshift, vaguely bohemian setup a glance. "The usual paperwork, but I decided to relocate today. The office at the store gets so stuffy and I didn't feel like making my bed today."

[scary-jeff.livejournal.com]

Jeff made a vague gesture at a member of the staff which was supposed to imply that he get some coffee, but as always, the staff ignored him in the name of the greater good.

He sagged a little. "Is that about the Squishies?"

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

Watching the spectacle of shunning with a small, distasteful twist of her mouth in thinking that there'd be a pay dock involved if those were her employees, Turtle then settled to give her huge mug of hot chocolate a small nudge in Jeff's direction, should he want at least something. "This one right here is, yeah," she said. "They're promising some changes in the company that, if you ask me, sound like all the same old crap as before, but it looks like they've extended some of their flavor options, which is good, and just want to to check to see how this distribution has been going. They've been sucking up a lot since that whole Red Ordeal last year."

[scary-jeff.livejournal.com]

"They should," Jeff said, sounding like he was taking maybe a little more offense about the Red Ordeal than was strictly necessary. "The Red Ordeal was really sort of unconsciable."

He grinned at Turtle as he picked up the mug, taking a drink before putting it back down again, near the middle.

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

Turtle gave a light grin across the table at him. "I went with hot chocolate today," she admitted, despite the fact that he'd already know that, considering he'd just drank some. "You know I like to do coffee, because it's what important people drink, but I woke up feeling important enough to not need coffee today."

[scary-jeff.livejournal.com]

"That's okay," Jeff said, shrugging one of his shoulders. "You don't really like the taste of coffee and I'm not really allowed." He cast another glance at the staff.

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Not allowed?" Turtle asked, blinking and thinking that rather a blessing in disguise. Her head tilted. "Allergies?"

[scary-jeff.livejournal.com]

"No," Jeff said, his tone going small on the word. "I'm just not allowed."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

Turtle frowned a little, nose wrinkling. "Well," she said, trying to give it a positive spin. "You're not missing anything but grossness."

[scary-jeff.livejournal.com]

Jeff pulled the hot chocolate towards himself again and took a sip so large that he ended up with brown stains on his face. "I had some a while back," he explained, "Ino brought it and then I couldn't sit still for a bit."

[gkar-lastkhari.livejournal.com]

G’Kar found himself liking the island more and more. He’d even begun to consider staying here for longer than his initially planned ‘few days’. The interesting and diverse mix of the island’s inhabitants appealed to him greatly. Instead of exploring the universe by means of space travel, he could explore it here; through the island’s populace. It was a most intriguing notion.

To that end, G’Kar had set out walking around the town once again. The smell of caffe tickled his nose and he followed it into a small shop.

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"And increase," Turtle was muttering slightly, but happily to herself as she wrote something down on one of the many papers around her, "animal and meat flavors by about...." She leaned over to punch in a few numbers on her calculator, "1.5 per...cent." She concluded the sentence with a particularly firm period and grinned happily at it, taking a second to bask in the genius of her decision. It was around this time, before reaching for the envelop already addressed to the company, to enjoy the atmosphere of the shop and its recharging properties when she spotted someone she hadn't seen before come in. And she'd remember someone who looked like that.

Her head tilted. After meeting the pizza guy earlier, she wondered if he was another knew business owner slipping under her radar.

[gkar-lastkhari.livejournal.com]

G’Kar got the beverage he’d smelled earlier, but couldn’t help but frown a little at the contents of the cup. Human caffe, while palatable, wasn’t quite up to par with its Narn counterpart. It was never seemed strong enough for his liking.

Turing away from the counter, he spied a young woman, apparently drowning in paperwork, giving him a curious expression. He approached her and nodded in greeting. “Good day. Very busy day for you?”

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Any good day," Turtle said, smiling back up at the stranger, "is a busy day. T.R. Wexler." Her pen switched hands so that she could offer out her right for a handshake. "Co-owner of the Turtle & Canary general store here on the island. You must be new in town."

The fact that she didn't recognize him was her first hint; the fact that he didn't recognize her was her second.

[gkar-lastkhari.livejournal.com]

“G’Kar,” he replied, taking the offered hand and shaking it lightly. “New in town, yes.” He chuckled a little. “Apparently, either I am the only Narn here, thus making it obvious to everyone that I’m newly arrived, or else must I have ‘newcomer’ stamped across my forehead in bright neon letters, visible to everyone except for myself.” He finished his statement with a large smirk and a grand arm wave. Why yes; G’Kar does have a rather 'interesting' sense of humor.

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

Turtle bit down on her bottom lip to prevent herself from happily proclaiming out the 'proper' pronunciation of his name that she had given him during last night's radio broadcast. It was not easy to hold back a triumphant G'Kaaaaaaaaahr when you got right down to the wire, but, thankfully, his comment gave her the change to put that silly energy into leaning forward slight with narrowed eyes, seeming to scan his forehead. "Nope. Completely free of neon lights, I assure you."

A lot of spots, but Turtle wasn't sure if it would be in bad taste to mention those, so she didn't.

[gkar-lastkhari.livejournal.com]

“Well, there’s a reassurance. I’m sure spots are daunting enough without the addition of colored letters.”

Though it had been mentioned to him during the policeman's ball, and he had made note of it, G'Kar had not yet tuned into the nightly radio broadcasts. So any funny looks Turtle might have been sending his way would be completely lost on him.

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"They're not daunting," Turtle assured him sincerely, shaking her head. "Different, but I'm friends with a talking felt frog and have a big blue furry spotted monster working counter on Tuesdays. Spots are nothing."

[gkar-lastkhari.livejournal.com]

“Spots can be very appealing.” No, he *didn’t* just waggle what passed for a Narn eyebrow.

Felt frog. G’Kar wasn’t sure if he wanted to ask about that. The monster he could probably handle. At least he wasn’t the only one in this strange town who had spots. But working counter? “Working counter as in for you? Do you own this establishment?”

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

That twitch in what she supposed would be where his eyebrows would be only made Turtle wonder if Narn heads were volition to explosions. She kept a wary eye on it for a second before responding, with a nod, "I do. Well, half of it. That's where the 'Turtle' part comes from, you see. We renamed it after Jane made me partner. Jane Canary. That's where the 'Canary' part came from, but she isn't here anymore. Hasn't been for a while, and her share of the store is technically for sale right now; there hasn't been much interest, I suppose, which suits me fine. I've been doing a great job by myself; not bragging or anything, it's just the truth. I've actually got the sales projections for the last few months here," she started shifting through her papers, "...err, somewhere."

[gkar-lastkhari.livejournal.com]

Hrm...half of a general store for sale? If he was planning on sticking around Fandom for a while (and he is) it might be a good idea to have something to occupy his time with. Other than just aimless wanderings through town streets. This business sale...

“Mind if I sit with you?” He glanced around for a place to put his mug that *wouldn’t* be on top of some of her papers. “And...this store share for sale. I might have an interest in that.”

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Oh, not at all!" Turtle said, moving to motion on his request to sit down and needing a spot for his drink almost before he'd even finished asking, quickly reaching over to bunch a few of the papers together in a folder and set them aside. It was when she frowned at a seemingly errant insurance paper among progress reports caught up with her and she halted, frozen slightly, and stared like one of those spots had just burst open and G'kar started to grow a second head.

"Wait....What?"