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 Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2009 10:07 pm
Heidi sat opposite Dar, but the blond was hardly paying attention to her technician. Dar had been talking about their first mission, but Heidi was staring at the, very attractive, shop owner.
"What the he-" Dar said, as she watched Heidi eat a spoonful of caramel sundae, licking the spoon to get it all off, but in a very awkward manner.
"Wha? Oh, uh, nothing. Yeah...that pizza thing..." Heidi said, trying to cover her tracks. Dar turned around and saw the man, his back to them. "Really? You can't just leave out flirting for two seconds?"
"It makes me, me!" Heidi argued. "And look at him." She bit her bottom lip. "He's screaming to be hit on!"
Dar sighed. Of all the weapons in the world THIS one had to be her match. Fate certainly had a sick sense of humor.
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Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2009 10:51 pm
It was rare for them to be walking anywhere together outside of missions, Lucien reflected, as he strode down the street with Z striding along beside him. Neither of them had had much in the way of plans for the afternoon, and so they'd gone out to do something mundane, for once. Eating alone wasn't an attractive prospect, even for Z. Pho was good, and quick, and after, Z had proposed a stop at the icecream parlor.
Lucien had his doubts about whether his WEAPON wanted the icecream, or the man selling it, but he figured he'd wait and see. He was aware that Z and Aren were more than acquainted, but beyond that, he wasn't too sure.
As they came up towards the entrance of Nomnomnom, Lucien shook himself out of his half-reverie, and chuckled. The sound caused the violet-eyed boy to glance over with an upraised brow, and he paused, an smile turning his lips upward. "You, the one everyone labels insane, going to have ice-cream. Doesn't that hurt your ego some?"
"No." Z blinked, obviously amused, "but then again, I'm not the one with the image to maintain."
Stepping into the place, Z headed straight towards the ice-cream counter and the man behind it, while Lucien stayed near the door to survey the area. His eyes lit up, then narrowed, as he noticed the pair seated at one of the tables - weren't they also from SHIBUSEN?
The question propelled him forward, and within seconds he was there, introducing himself. "Hello, ladies. I feel like I've seen you two around before, are you SHIBUSEN students as well?"
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Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2009 11:58 pm
Oh gods, more boys. Dar groaned inwardly to herself. This day just couldn't get any worse, could it? The redheaded technician silently hoped that Heidi would just drop flirting for once. Dar liked meeting new people (even if she often said entirely inappropriate things and get them to dislike her), so for once, she wished Heidi would just cut it out so they could have a normal conversation. The pretty blond weapon often made men go stupid when she was around.
"Oh, yeah!" Heidi said, tucking a stray blond hair behind her ear. "I think I've seen you around too. It's nice to meet you." Heidi giggled. "I'm Heidi, who are you?"
She nodded over to Z, who was standing at the counter. "Is he your partner? He looks...interesting."
"I'm Dar," the younger girl said, interrupting them. She had a feeling that, like Heidi, these two were older than herself. She sighed and put her head in her hands. Maybe she'd understand what Heidi was thinking when she got to that age.
She doubted it, though.
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Posted: Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:59 am
Out of the corner of his eye, Z noted that Lucien had chosen to head for the two girls seated at a table rather than the ice-cream, though the majority of his attention was focused on Aren as he leaned against the ice-cream fridge to say hello. He had more than just small talk to discuss with the owner of Nomnomnom, however, and soon the two were immersed in chat, all else forgotten.
Lucien watched Z for a few moments, taking in the fact that the other was not going to join them anytime soon, before turning to the two girls with full-on charm. "Oh, really? I'm Lucien. And the guy over there talking to the man behind the counter is my partner, Z." He pretended to ignore the way Heidi eyed them both as though they were fresh meat, and instead amused himself by placing Z in the limelight. "He is. Interesting, I mean."
"Dar? That's an interesting name." He was intrigued by Dar's actions after introducing himself, though outwardly, he gave no sign. This girl seemed a bit younger than the other, and... exasperated, perhaps? Well, he'd find out soon enough, he supposed.
Looking down, he gestured towards the ice-cream on the table, "So, what flavors are you guys eating? Z and I came since he said he was going to treat," Lucien made that up on the spot, deciding it would give him a valid reason to stick around, at least for now, "but it looks like he's occupied at the moment, so I'm stuck here for a while."
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Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 8:16 pm
Dar shrugged. She had never thought her name was that particularly interesting. "It's short for Daria," she replied. She was glad that she hadn't been given a particularly girly name. Otherwise it would be harder to shorten it to something better.
"Oh, well, I've got a turtle caramel sundae!" Heidi said, answering Lucien. "And Dar has a cherry soda," she made a face. Soda's were made with cherry topping and soda water, then with ice cream added in, like a float. But Heidi thought that drinking cherry bits was gross, so when Dar had ordered it, she had been giving her a disgusted look the entire time the worker had made it.
Dar rolled her eyes. "Well I still like it," she said, taking another sip. Dar liked that he didn't seem taken in by her antics, and perked up a little. She smiled. "Be trapped here isn't really that bad, is it? It's nice in here, right?" The redhead paused. "So....your partner just has a letter for a name? Does it mean anything?"
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Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 9:05 pm
Lucien wisely remained silent regarding Dar's shortening of her name - personally, he thought Daria sounded much nicer than Dar, but it wasn't up to him, and the girl was probably young enough to still be at the stage where she wanted to appear less feminine. Or something.
"Don't like cherry sodas?" The question was asked with a laugh as he turned his attention back to Heidi, though he positioned himself so as to face both of them at the same time. "I like floats, but I've yet to try one of those. Though..." A wry grin twisted Lucien's lips upwards as he admitted, "I actually tend to prefer some of the simpler flavors. Shocking, isn't it?" He found the more elaborate ones to be a little too strange, sometimes, and ice-cream was meant for enjoyment, not as some sort of strange palette mixture. Not to mention plain ice-cream on skin...
He jerked his thoughts back to the present, thankful that his control over his thoughts was such that they'd probably not shown on his face. Catching on to their next words, he shook his head. "No, of course not. Aren Kros runs a nice place, and now I have company while Z does.. whatever it is he's doing." Curiosity caused Lucien to glance over to where the topic of their conversation was still standing, now head to head with Nomnomnom's shop owner. Z seemed to be talking more than usual, though to judge from Aren's face, nothing was amiss.
The next question wasn't an unusual one, and the smile that reappeared on his lips had a slightly sardonic tilt to it. "Yeah, Z's name is just Z. You can ask him about it, if you want, but nobody calls him anything different." He paused, considered, "Well, the SHIBUSEN newsletter has nicknames for him, but mostly he's still just 'Z'''.
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Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 11:38 pm
"No, I don't like cherry sodas. It's icky sucking up cherry bits when you're drinking it," Heidi answered, then: "There's a newsletter?" she asked Dar, leaning towards her and half whispering. Dar wasn't sure why she was trying to hide that she was ignorant about something. She normally didn't seem to care.
"Sure, why not? I believe it," Dar replied. "What kind of nicknames did the newsletter give him?" she asked Lucien. The technician felt a little bad that they seemed to only be talking about Lucien's partner. She was curious about him too, it just seemed as though the conversation was going in that direction.
"So which one of you is the weapon?" Heidi asked. She hadn't ever really paid attention to things going on in the school to know from other students.
"Have you gone on many missions yet?" Dar added curiously.
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Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 5:30 am
"Oh." To be honest, the idea didn't sound too appealing to Lucien either, but manners dictated that he refrain from saying anything overly insulting. Plus he'd never tried it, so who was he to judge?
It amused Lucien no end that the new students at SHIBUSEN were always so intrigued by this Newsletter; to him it was something that was simply part of the school, though even he didn't know who wrote the thing. "Yes, there is. It's released every now and then, and is basically just full of gossip. It's not a bad read." Particularly since the comments it made about him were usually flattering.
He wasn't sure whether to feel miffed or entertained by the way Dar seemed to be so curious about Z, but he knew very well the unconscious appeal that his partner held. Perhaps it was something about the way Z just simply didn't care... though he sensed that Dar's questions were more out of curiosity than attraction. "Nicknames? Let me see..." Lucien had to think a moment - he usually read the newsletter, but it had been a month since the last one had been released. "A label that pops up frequently for him is "Ticking Bomb", but I don't think the last one mentioned anything new." Adjectives like 'dangerous' and 'crazy' were there, but he figured he didn't really need to add that part - they'd see for themselves soon enough.
He really wanted to know what Z and Aren were talking about, though.
Heidi's question caused Lucien to blink slightly, though he controlled the reflexive arch of an eyebrow by replacing it with a smooth grin. "Can you guess?" It was unusual for students not to know of them, so it was a novel experience, being asked such a question. "And yes," he nodded slightly, "we have done a few now. Yourself?"
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Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2009 1:14 am
"I think he is," Dar replied, nodding her head at Z and not letting Heidi guess. She lowered her voice. "Cuz he seems like he's crazy too." Heidi narrowed her eyes. She wasn't crazy! Just because she and Dar didn't like the same things... Hopping in this time, she replied.
"Yeah, we've been on one so far. It was really neat! I got to see DC, and we went by the White House, and I smashed in some guy's head, and I saw this big statue dude sitting in a big building."
"That was Lincoln," Dar said, rolling her eyes. And trust Heidi to roll up the stuff they saw as being equally important as the mission itself.
"What are you two talking about over there?" Heidi called. Apparently, she hadn't let it go that both boys hadn't joined them at the table. Dar smiled. It was Heidi's way to always need to be the center of everything, which might be a reason they functioned so well together, as Dar strove to be left alone, and let Heidi have the limelight.
"Oooh, leave 'em alone," Dar said. "Shouldn't break up a lover's meeting," She really had no idea what was going on, but she couldn't help speculate, as well as tease Heidi.
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Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 1:20 am
Lucien flashed Dar a grin, surprised at her astuteness (or perhaps just her luck), though he hid it well as he nodded. "You got it. Z's the WEAPON, and he is crazy." He gave a one-shouldered shrug as he glanced over to where Z and Aren were still deep in conversation, though he was amused, but not shocked, to note that one of Aren's hands was now running casually up and down the arm Z had placed on the counter. Z didn't seem to mind, and Lucien suspected from the way his partner leaned forward even more, he probably was unconsciously encouraging the other's attentions. Turning green eyes back to the two girls at the table, Lucien's smile took on a wicked twist. "His WEAPON form is razorwire, afterall."
He couldn't be sure if the two at the table had noticed, but he made a mental bet with himself. Heidi would probably notice first, and then, judging from the way Dar and Heidi were interacting with him and eachother, Heidi would find the situation between Z and Aren fascinating, but Dar would most likely see it, catalogue it, and then promptly ignore it.
Waiting for them to react, Lucien cocked his head and listened as the two related their first mission experience. It matched with one of the brief mission updates he'd received from Ashie, on one of her frequent trips to #7, and he nodded. "You guys ran it with Ashie, right? She said you both did awesome."
Hearing a voice raised higher than usual, Z turned his head from its current location mere inches away from Aren's to blink at the girl who had spoken. One eyebrow arched up, then came back down as the violet eyes narrowed, a frown appearing between the his brows in slight warning. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, Aren's free hand came up to cover his mouth, muffling the sound. There was a teasing look in the icecream shop owner's eyes as he spoke over the noise, "we're discussing guy things, if you're really interested."
OOC : sorry imbri, Z & Aren sort of ran away on me... but given that this is gaia, just let me know if the response is making you uncomfortable @@;
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Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 10:10 pm
Dar felt her cheeks tingle a bit, as her answer got a smile from Lucien. Well, that was just ridiculous. She didn't care what he thought, all she had been doing was trying to keep Heidi from hogging the attention (like she always did!) of this, more interesting than average, guy. Heidi was the girly-girl, the one who was in and out of relationships, and Dar wanted no part in that, or at least, had strove to keep a distance. Was living with Heidi rubbing off on her?!? The horror.
The redhead nodded. "Yeah, we ran it with Ashie. She was really cool," she said. She beamed a little, to hear that the instructor had complimented them to someone else. Best not to get a big head though, she thought, and stifled the goofy grin on her face. She looked over Lucien's shoulder, trying to busy herself with...anything else, when she spotted Z and Aren acting much more than cozy. She blinked, not helping the immature giggle that escaped her lips, then turned to Heidi to comment. And sighed.
Her WEAPON was completely entranced, obviously lost in some perverse (as evidenced by the guilty look and crimson cheeks) thought. "Hey!" Dar said, snapping her fingers in front of Heidi's blue eyes. "Knock it off," she hissed. Heidi, not even realizing she had been fantasizing about the two boys, (and perhaps herself, they were called fantasies for a reason, right?) looked away, as Z turned towards the group. Oops.
Dar's eyes widened a bit, mostly intrigued by the two.
"Well, you should be careful. There's many innocent ears here," Heidi said, smiling coyly.
"Innocent, my foot," Dar said, rolling her eyes. "If you're innocent, I'm an A-student."
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Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 2:42 am
"Ashie? Yeah, she's pretty awesome. Flighty, but I think that's just part of who she is." Lucien could see the signs - the faint blush and the smallest twitch of lips, but he ignored those for the time being. Dar seemed to be pleasant company, if nothing else, and right now he wasn't much in the mood, anyway. Plus Heidi seemed to be the type who wouldn't appreciate any attention that wasn't focused solely on her, and the last thing he wanted was to start a confrontation right in the middle of the ice-cream parlor.
Dar's giggle caught his attention, and Lucien realized that they'd finally noticed Aren and Z. He'd guessed right... mostly. The thought caused sparks of amusement to dance in Lucien's eyes as he leaned back in his seat, watching the interaction. He could almost see the scenes flashing vividly though Heidi's brain, and it took effort to suppress the sardonic grin that threatened to escape. Dar's hissed warning was too much, though, and Lucien found himself chuckling at the way Heidi tried to cover up her obvious daydreaming.
He found the way that Dar simply looked on curiously to be a nice change from the usual way girls seemed to react when confronted with the idea of two boys together - giggles and less-than-clean thoughts were completely fine by him, but sometimes it just got to be too much. "Well," he drawled, voice rich with humor as he raised his voice so it could be heard throughout the icecream parlor, "it's not the talking that isn't innocent, I'm sure..."
"Though," Lucien continued, his voice back to its normal volume as he turned to wink at Dar, "I wouldn't be surprised if you were an A-student."
Behind him, Aren grinned, shrugged, and removed his hand from where it was still covering Z's. The WEAPON looked annoyed at having been cut off before he could say a word, but he didn't have a chance to say anything else, because the man suddenly grabbed him close by the ponytail for a quick, hard kiss.
There was a small smile playing about the corners of Aren's mouth as they separated, and the hand holding the ponytail moved to Z's lips, one finger urging him to stay silent for the moment. "I just wanted to give them something to really look at."
It took a second, but then Z's eyes took on an answering wicked gleam. "'Discussing guy things?'" Z's deep laugh rumbled across the room for a second before he shrugged. "Sure, why not. Thanks for listening, man." One hand rose up, to clap Aren on the shoulder. "Now, for ice-cream..."
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Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2009 2:23 am
It was just too much for Heidi. Not that she was about to slam down her ice cream spoon and storm out of the room in a 'well, I never!' sort of huff. Although, the dramatics did quite appeal to her person, as a whole. No, it was just all too much for both her brain to process both thought and balance at the same time.
Her chair fell, and she somehow managed (or was shocked into it) to transform into her WEAPON form before her pretty tan face SMACKED the tiled, albeit slightly sticky, floor. Dar scooped the bat up in her hands, hearing Heidi's shaky OHGODOHGODOHGOD in her head. After a moment or two, the cricket bat was replaced with the fashionable blond, holding Dar's hand. Heidi dropped it quickly, completely red from head to toe, and fumbled to pick up her chair and quickly sit down.
Every atom of Dar's body wanted to laugh and harass Heidi for the next....YEAR, endlessly and mercilessly. But she didn't (or at least, wouldn't, in public), for one simple fact, which was that she figured currently Heidi had already drawn an enormous amount of attention to herself and didn't need to go through any more...for now. She had suffered (or was about to, at the hands of others) enough. All Dar could do was try to stop the train wreck.
"Would you believe," Dar said quickly, wiping up some of the ice cream that had hit the table. "That when I first met her, she claimed that she barely ever transformed uncontrollably, but then after we moved into the apartment, she was changing all over the place! Once, we were carrying the couch into the living room." Here, she clunked her boot against her chair. "Thank god for Army Surplus store boots, though, huh?"
Heidi was remaining decidedly quiet. "She's a terrible cook though," Dar continued, almost running the words together. "I think it's the heat, because one day, she had transformed and fallen into the pot of boiling spaghetti. It's weird that ice cream would do it, right, Heidi?"
"Y-yuh." She gulped. "Weird."
The redheaded TECHNICIAN breathed a sigh of relief to herself. Well, she doubted that anyone bought any of the drivel she was spouting, but maybe it would help them all just...look the other way. "Do you and Z-" Dar cut herself off, coughing a bit. She had been about to ask if they lived together, but she didn't want a repeat, should another mental image make it's way into Heidi's head.
"Er...Have any sort of interesting stories about each other? How'd you guys meet and ..." she realized for the next several minutes she'd have to watch her words very carefully. 'Pair up,' was obviously a terrible phrase to say right now as well. "And decided to, ah...become a WEAPON/TECHNICIAN team? And..." she knew she had asked enough questions for Lucien to answer, but her mouth seemed to keep going on it's own, trying to fill the embarrassing, silent gap.
"Do you have a girlfriend?" she finished, wishing she could have stopped that one from escaping. It seemed as though she was quickly creating a train wreck of her own.
"I hear the Rum Cordial is very good," Heidi suddenly called to Z, almost drowning out (perhaps on purpose?) Dar's own last question.
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Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2009 6:33 pm
The crash as the chair hit the floor caused two pairs of eyes to turn, Z's head snapping back abruptly at the noise, while Lucien merely glanced over. The former let an amused snort before returning to his contemplation of the ice-cream flavors, but Lucien was too much in control of his reactions to do any such thing. One eyebrow merely arched at the sudden transformation, but he said nothing else.
He was also smart enough not to let his eyes linger for too long on Heidi's cherry red face (although personally, it matched the color of Dar's soda quite well...) and focused instead on Dar. "Well, it happens." One slight lift of a shoulder seemed to dismiss the incident, though he was laughing inside. Even from when they'd first met, Z had already had more than enough control to transform against his will, but he'd seen some others do it... rarely. Certainly, those others that he'd seen had never done it simply from the possible over stimulation caused by two guys kissing.
The thought curved one corner of Lucien's lips upwards, though he turned it into a fuller smile for Dar. "That must've been rather painful, nonetheless. I'm sure," Green eyes risked a glance over at Heidi in the hopes that she'd settled, "that it was just the extremity of the heat or cold," he lied blandly, though his eyes twinkled a bit, "it'll improve over time, in any case."
Dar covering up for her WEAPON in such a way was rather sweet, in Lucien's opinion. Of course, Z and himself covered each other's backs all the time, but it was in a rougher way, and certainly not to save the other from embarrassment.
One eyebrow went up as the younger girl continued, noting the pause and change in direction. It made him curious as to what she'd originally planned to say, but the cough alerted him to the fact that it was probably for Heidi's benefit. Mentally, he made a note to ask her later. In the meantime... "We met on the roof of one of SHIBUSEN's towers." That was interesting enough, right? And clean enough. Normally, Lucien would have no qualms about setting Heidi off again, but he had to respect the fact that Dar was trying so hard... so he played along.
"I think it was a matter of simply realizing we'd suit each other." It wasn't a topic he wanted to discuss, particularly since it had been more the case of like recognizing like, and Z seeing through his social masks, so Lucien shrugged, shifting the truth slightly. "Z's form isn't exactly easy to handle, so it was hard for him to find a partner. As for me, it was a challenge I couldn't resist. And... no."
He'd debated for a second about whether or not to ignore Dar's question, before finally deciding that not responding would be more awkward than answering. Normally, he would only indulge in flirting when all parties involved were aware it was just part of the game, but Dar, it seemed, knew none of the rules. But being the way she was, she also couldn't be categorized as prey exactly, so Lucien was left with an odd feeling of uncertainty.
It was thankfully relieved by the arrival of Z, who sauntered over, having finally decided a flavor. There was a smirk on his face as he placed a small bowl in front of Lucien's seat before flipping over a chair from a nearby table and straddling it. Vanilla. Lucien glanced at it for a second, processing the implications and joke contained in that simple gesture, and snorted. "Thanks."
"No problem." A hint of the smirk was still there as Z lifted the spoon from his own bowl and dug in. "Yeah?" The dark-haired boy cocked his head at Heidi as he took the first bite, the only reference to the events of the past few minutes being the amusement in his eyes, "I've got Rum Raisin instead. And Coffee. And Tiramisu." There were fancier names for the ice-cream flavors that Z had gotten, but he had never much cared for the flowery names Aren came up with. Ice-cream was ice-cream, who needed elaborate names?
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Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 7:24 pm
"I hope so," Dar sighed. It wasn't clear if she was sighing for the situation being mostly ignored, or if she was expressing frustration over having to fish a metal bat out of boiling hot water. "I've started just wearing hot mitts when she cooks and keeping ice water next to the stove."
"Heidi's form is pretty easy to handle," Dar said, taking a sip of her soda. "I used to play Cricket when I was back in the UK, so it was sort of funny that she ended up being a cricket bat." Dar couldn't help but snicker a little. "Even though she didn't know what she was." Her green eyes had a sort of wicked glint at his comment. "It seems like his WEAPON form isn't the only challenge." If she had been anything like Heidi, she may have actually said that SHE was a challenge that he should attempt, but it was far too forward for her, and that sort of behavior just left a bad sort of taste in her mouth. If (IF) she were to start dating, she didn't want to play the sort of idiotic games that Heidi did. According to Heidi's silly magazines, boy's liked games, but she could hardly believe that.
Heidi wanted to interrupt, to tell Dar how much of a challenge it was to work with her (it really wasn't, she liked her 'little sister' well enough), but now that her blush had settled, the conversation needed to be more centrally focused on HER! She wouldn't, though, because it would look ungrateful to insult Dar after she had covered for her (had she known that Lucien wasn't buying it, she might have acted differently).
"Oh, no?" Heidi finally asked, needing to say something. "Probably has a boyfriend then," she said, glancing at Z. Not that they were dating, but they WERE partners. She noticed some habits tended to rub off on the other after awhile. She leaned forward, not giving up. "It's a shame. All the good ones play for the wrong team." The blond batted her eyelashes...and Dar wanted to die in her seat, or kill Heidi. Come to think of it, that was probably better.
"Those are some interesting flavors," Heidi said, using the same sort of sing-songy (Dar, once again, thought she sounded like an idiot) voice she used when trying to flirt. In Heidi's mind, even though he had just kissed a guy, she still seemed to be delusional and think that she could have a shot. Dar wondered if "threesome" had ever been on her 'list of things to....do'.
"So...Vanilla," Dar said finally. If Heidi wanted to make an idiot of herself when these two were quite obviously not interested, she wasn't going to help her out this time. "Is he trying to say something there?" She grinned out of one side of her mouth.
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