fandomtownies | The Perk, Thursday afternoon

Entry tags:

The Perk, Thursday afternoon

The hotel room Cristina was staying in was nice in that there weren't any other people in it, but it was also pretty boring. Mostly because it didn't have any other people in it. So after a long morning lie-in watching soaps, Cristina headed into town to find a spot to be conspicuously aloof in public.

She'd found headphones, but no walkman in her room, so she was actually listening to the weird-ass music the shop was playing today, trying to decide whether or not to pretend she'd heard of it before. She kind of dug it, but if it was some kind of super popular east coast thing, she had to hate it on principle.

Whatever. She was hanging out in a coffee shop with a book, so she was maintaining at least a minimal level of cool. Sure, it was a giant anatomy textbook, but it was that or all those stupid scientific journals back at the hotel -- or the bible, gross -- and anyway, it was at least interesting to look at.

She flipped the page and found a full color diagram of a dissected human heart and couldn't hold back a smile.

Now that was cool.

[open!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Coffee was definitely on the list of ~~Rosa's~~ Emily's errands that afternoon, after she'd picked up dog treats and hair dye, and she ordered the biggest iced coffee they had and just scoffed at the barista when she asked if she wanted room for cream or sugar.

"It's not coffee anymore if it's not black," she informed them loftily.

And, of course, she had to scoff when she spotted Captain Buzzkill over there, too, shaking her pink head. Oh, look at me, reading a big old book in a coffee shop, I'm so cool.

Please.

Cristina rolled her eyes at Princess Sparkle's order. Who even drank black coffee iced? God forbid you should put some flavor in it, but sure, make sure to water it down first.

She took a big, obnoxious sip from her own iced mocha latte. She'd ordered it with cinnamon. Like a grownup.

And Rosa, rolling her eyes, slurped back, just slightly more big and obnoxious, before stalking up to the other girl like she was trolling for a fight. Maybe she was. Maybe she wasn't. Maybe they'd just see were the wind blew.

"Hey, Buzzkill," she said, clearly trying to use her standing and her height to her advantage looming over her. "What'cha reading? Doing your homework?"

Said, of course, like doing homework was clearly the worst thing in the world you could ever be caught doing by someone else.

Cristina smiled sweetly back at her and turned the page. This one had a map of the entire cardiovascular system, a human frame made out of red and blue blood vessels.

"Nah, Princess. I just like seeing what people look like with their insides out."

That had the advantage of being creepy, vaguely threatening, and true!

"From a book?" Rosa laughed. "Like you can really get the way fresh blood glistens off of bone or hear the squish of spilling guts and organs when they hit the ground from a book."

You could, however, get that from movies, which was what Rosa was pulling this from.

And ignore her slightly craned neck to get a better look at the pictures in the book, too.

"Yeah, but dissecting dead birds is what got me sent to the counselor's office in middle school," Cristina said. "And if you're spilling guts on the floor, you're definitely doing it wrong."

The fact that Captain Buzzkill got caught only solidified Rosa's assumption that she was a total loser. And possibly a sociopath now, too. What did those poor birds ever do to her, huh?

Rosa's moral compass was a little off even in maturity; you could bet it was all over the map in adolescence.

"Depends on what it is you're trying to do," she said, smirking faintly, tilting her head.

They were already dead. It wasn't like Cristina had killed them herself. She was creepy, not a budding serial killer.

"Put people back together," Cristina said, for once shooting for straight up honesty. "Why, what are you trying to do?"

Be a poser, probably.

Gratuitous violence? Wanton destruction? Pointless demolition?

But, yeah, sure, Captain Buzzkill was the psycho one.

"What's the point of ripping something apart if you're just going to put it back together again?"

"You can't put something back together if you don't know how the parts are supposed to fit in the first place," Cristina said.

You know, for a second, it almost looked like Rosa was considering what the other girl had just said, catching the straw in her mouth and tilting her head a little, but, nope, she was just going to stare at her for an uncomfortable amount of time while she sloooooowly sipped.

And then end it with one of those annoying gasping lip smacks that people did when they were terrible.

She wrinkled her nose, shook her head. "Nah. That sounds lame. This," she circled a finger vaguely over the table, "is lame." She lifted the bag of hair dye from the store. "I got crap to do. Hope I don't see you around, Buzzkill."

"Oh no, little wannabe with the pink hair thinks I'm not cool." Cristina pressed both hands to her cheeks in a showy display of ironic despair. "My life is over."

She actually kind of dug the pink hair. She might even consider trying it herself if she wasn't so committed to the whole "black like my soul" look.

Sure, Rosa had let Buzzkill have the last word yesterday, because there were people to shoot, but she wasn't letting her off that easy this time, not even as she headed toward the door.

Plus, maybe she kind of dug that she fought back. Most people were just afraid of her at this point; she went to school with a bunch of ballerinas that basically flinched when she blinked.

"Well, hey, maybe you can find a way to fix your poor broken heart in your dumb old book."

Cristina didn't flinch even when she maybe should.

Or wouldn't until she got PTSD, anyway.

She snorted, looking down at her book and sort of half-petting the heart illustrations. "Shows what she knows. Nothing stupid about you at all."

Kaidan headed to the nearest coffee shop for a big ol' shot of 'wake the hell up'. Two girls were throwing silent shade at each other so hard the air was almost frosty with it.

He edged around them and ordered a salted caramel mocha latte. The cup arrived topped with a mound of whipped cream, chocolate and caramel drizzle, and some sort of little chocolate sprinkles. Kaidan was supremely pleased with this much caffeine and sugar, and sought an empty table from which to partake and enjoy his incipient diabetes.

And to people watch. Those two looked like they might actually throw down.

Oh come on, they'd already shot each other yesterday. How much more trouble could they possibly cause?

Cristina watched the boy order a giant pile of sugar and wrinkled her nose.

Ugh, and he was almost cute otherwise. If only he had any taste.

Ooh, was that shade now directed his way? Game on.

Making eye contact, he took a slow, deliberate slurp of the drink and made an 'mmmmm' noise.

Cristina rolled her eyes and looked back at her book.

"You have whipped cream on your chin."

[ooc: could be a true statement or a troll, you pick!]

Kaidan could tell there was no whipped cream on his chin. He'd shaved that morning and his face still felt a bit peeled.

Smirking across the tables at Cristina, he said lightly, "It'll wipe off clean, but that foam on your shirt?" He made a tsk noise behind his teeth, "Probably going to stain."

[ooc: same!]

"It's a black shirt," Cristina said, running her fingers lovingly over the four chambers on the heart diagram. "I'm not worried."

If there was an espresso machine in the house Hannibal was staying in, he couldn't find it. So, here he was, following his nose to the coffee.

His English might be a work in progress, but his Italian was near perfect, so "Doppio espresso, please," was perfectly manageable.

While he waited, he glanced at the other patrons. And the anatomy book one of them was reading definitely caught his eye. "You study medicine?" he asked in French-accented English.

Cristina looked up.

"Not yet," she said. This guy was French! So, you know, automatically cool. No snark necessary yet. "I might go pre-med at Smith next year, but I haven't decided for sure. I just like anatomy."

Hannibal mostly followed that. He nodded, then nodded again to the barista as she gave him his espresso.

"I go to medical school," he said. "Paris Descartes. What will you study?" He nodded toward the page she was on. "The heart?"

"Maybe," Cristina said. "It is my favorite muscle."

She'd been mildly obsessed with them since she felt her father's stop before she'd even turned ten.

"I like the heart," Hannibal agreed. "And the tongue. But for medicine, I prefer...erm...des traumatismes. Wounds?"

"I like the human heart," Cristina said, wrinkling her nose. "I'm not going to eat it." She shook her head. "Trauma could be interesting. Always something new, at least."

Hannibal smirked a little and didn't answer that first part.

"I do some work with trauma and the morgue," Hannibal said. He gestured with his hand as if sketching. "Medical illustration."

"Now that sounds cool. I was never any good at drawing, though. I'm Cristina, by the way."

"Hannibal," he introduced himself. "Good to meet you. You are American?"

"From California, yeah. You're French?"

Hannibal shook his head and see-sawed his hand. "I am from Lithuania. But I live in France now."

He waved a hand at the seat opposite her in question. "May I?"

"Lithuania. Right. That's one of the former Soviet states, right?" The Soviet Union hadn't fallen very long ago, in her timeline. "Sure. Always nice to meet another fan of anatomy."

Hannibal sat, grimacing. "Not former." In his timeline. "France is better now."

He took a pen from his pocket, dragged over a napkin, and started sketching a heart on it. An anatomical one. "What is California like?"

"A bunch of rich fancy people being assholes at each other," Cristina said. "At least my part of it is. Pretty sure France would be way better than there, too."

"That depends where," Hannibal said with a shrug. "My uncle is rich. He is nice, but he knows 'assholes'," he said with a grin at the word.

"There are some at Paris Descartes as well, especially because I am young, but I do very better than them, and that..." he searched for the expression for a moment. "Shuts up them? No - shuts them up." He was possibly a little smug about that.

Not that he didn't have other ways of shutting them up, but outdoing them was eminently satisfying.

"Success is the best revenge," Cristina said. "Whatever I do, I plan to be great at it. Basically a god."

That was just healthy ambition, right?

For a surgeon, of course it was!

Hannibal grinned. "Me too." He held up the napkin, which had a drawing of a heart on it now, more detailed than the one in the book, despite the medium.

"Get out." Cristina grinned. "That's amazing!"

"I work on illustrations for a book," Hannibal explained, sliding the picture over to her if she wanted it. "Many books," he nodded at the one she had, "the pictures are very old. Now we know more things."

He grinned. "Maybe you will learn to be a great surgeon from a book with my pictures."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The Perk, Thursday afternoon

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject