Coffee bar | bar bar

River
It's forty-fucking-eight degrees and Sam asked if she wanted to go out for coffee.

Under normal circumstances, River would have fallen over trying to get an affirmative answer in her phone, squealed, and probably roused Farrah out of whatever it would be that Farrah was doing to effuse the excitement that she's going out for coffee with a person who doesn't actually suck. There are two things wrong with that scenario: one being that Farrah has already shuffled off this mortal coil to do whatever it is her soul is going to do in the interim before coming back and getting back to doing what she's supposed to be doing. The second being that River's had some difficulty feeling... anything for the last two days. So, she was in the process of doing her hair when she got the text. And the owl, which made her smile and make little cooing noises because regardless of what River has programmed her brain to do for the foreseeable future owls are fucking adorable.

The reaction she has to cute and amusing things is visceral, not emotional. Sometimes, you don't mean to laugh at things and you have no real control over the fact that you do. Such is the reality of owl memes.

So, she texts an affirmative and they settle on a place. She finishes doing her hair and puts a little makeup on so she looks like a person and it makes her look more vibrant than she had been. She's got to make up for the fact that she was an actively unhappy, non-eating, client-slapping for awhile. Now is better- she's convinced herself of this, empirically. She's shown up to work more, she's eating, she's getting up and even called her parents. Yes, I moved. No, I'm not coming back, but I will come visit... Yes, you can come visit once I have an apartment. I love you goodbye.

It made all the difficult conversations easy because they didn't have to register in the slightest. It's all paint by number. And irrelevant to what is going on now.

She got to said bar bar/coffee bar which is just Bar according to the sign. River has doctored her coffee all to Hell and back, and she's got on a pair of yoga pants and a button up shirt. She'd warned Sam that she has to go to work after this, but didn't mind being late. The clothing combination is the kind of thing one wears when you aren't going to be wearing said clothes for terribly long.

Samir
Part of the danger of meeting people out for drinks when concern for their well-being is the driving force behind the meeting is that the other person will mistake the meeting for a date.

Samir has grown quite accustomed to the fact that meeting a person out for coffee or vodka does not for him have to end in his going to bed with said person. Plenty of times he has sensed that need in the other person. It's a substitute for plenty of people. You don't have to talk about your feelings if your mouth is full.

So they're at Bar. Bar Bar. It's a bar and a café. He orders a cup of coffee that he takes black. They're sitting at a booth near the back. He's wearing his usual punk-bohemian getup. It looks as if he just threw them on when he rolled out of bed and intends to have them wind up in the same place tonight. He has his hair pulled back and he has not yet gotten around to deforesting his face.

They're mid conversation. Past the introductory phase.

"So, ah..." They barely know each other. He hasn't seen anything show up on Ginger yet. Might as well throw her a softball. "... the phrase 'double tap' makes a lot more sense now that I've seen the movie."

River
"It's just a fact of life," she tells him, both hands on her coffee cup. She's been drinking it slowly, couldn't find something that resembled a not-coffee that wasn't full of booze because she didn't particularly want to drink at this juncture. Concluded it would be a bad idea.

Thus far, she's been engaging, or as engaging as the young woman can be. Tuned in and paying attention, takes a drink and makes a litle face afterwards that isn't dissimilar to someone who has taken a shot of whiskey and isn't particularly good at handling their liquor.

"When you're doing something, you make sure that it gets done. Also: I can personally attest to the number of times that not neglecting cardio has made my life infinitely better." She nods, solid. Her tone is conversational.

It's weird, because she seems fine. The whole time she's been here, River's been able to carry conversation, content to talk but a little muted. He might've coaxed a smile out of her or two, but not actual laughter. "Well, not infinitely. And I've also felt the gripping woe of finding your favorite snack food riddled with buckshot. Zombieland speaks to me. "

Samir
[we all knew this was going to happen eventually: perc + empathy]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 6 ) [Doubling Tens] [WP]

River
There is a very integral part of who River is and how she operates that isn't there.

It's not muted, nor is it just subtly tucked away so she can review the moments later.

What Sam has gotten thus far is an approximation of how River believes she operates. To be fair, she's gotten pretty close. Still hasn't avoided eye contact, leans in when she's talking to him, continues on and flows with what she's saying. She knows there is a give and take, and she gives and she takes but there is a distinct difference between knowing what to do intellectually and understanding how people work intrinsically and doing them.

She isn't normally like this. He might not have seen much of her, but he knows what it's like when someone is genuinely tuned in and when they're present. Has probably seen people who are like this naturally- disconnected yet aware. In those situations, when you can key in to what is wrong the results are off putting at best. The worst case scenario ends up on the evening news. River Vasquez is not that kind of person, is not exacting. Samir likely gets the impression that the person sitting across from him would have the same reaction to someone trying to stab her as she would someone buying her another coffee.

Samir
It's just a fact of life.

So says the Euthanatos.

They haven't had much opportunity to discuss the differences in their paradigms or the ways in which their mentors impacted their paths. Samir has met River's former mentor. He met him in Los Angeles when his own mentor dragged him to some function or another. He met him again in Denver when he arrived out of nowhere to investigate the chimera attack and the fire that killed several minions of a Nephandus who turned out to not be a vampire or in the fire itself.

Samir did not want to be involved. He told Michael as much. Michael respected that. Went on to tell Samir's friend Elijah that he ought to take a similar tack.

Though he has only known her a few days the entire time he has known her he has known River to be present and focused and serious. Not exactly slow-witted but more content to listen and to think before she acts. A woman capable of feeling. She didn't strike him as a particularly sedate woman.

Something is off about her today. Like she's reached in and shut off that part of her that is actually capable of reacting. Like speaking to an artificial intelligence. A binary personality. It's not off-putting. He has interacted with artificial intelligences before. But the disconnect between how she was the night they went over to Grace's and how she is now jars him a bit.

He chews on the inside of his lower lip before he asks this question. He knows what happens when he asks what the other person wants. Half the time the other person either lies or deflects. So he rephrases it.

"Do you wanna get out of here?"

River
She doesn't know how to react to that, honestly. There's a list of reactions and things that she could have gone through, doesn't know where they're going to go but-

"I really would like a change of scenery," she tells him. Because it's the truth. She would like a change of scenery. She doesn't feel particularly strongly about this, doesn't find that the location has a number of merits beyond the fact that it is a mile away from work and she could walk there if she'd decided to start drinking.

Which, she decided against. Doesn't quite see the merit at the moment, doesn't find the sensation to be delightful or warming or anything of the sort. Just... an inconvenience.

"I don't really like coffee," River admits, "I go to places that have coffee and fake my way through it because, well, other people like coffee. I'm always afraid people are going to see through my coffee charade." She smiles- it's not an unattractive smile. River is pretty. She takes good care of herself.

"Where do you want to go?" puts the ball back in his court, "if we go too far, I might have to call out sick."

Samir
It's hard for him to look at her and not feel for her.

Not even that she wears her pain so adamant for the world to see and ignore. She doesn't. But she is his age and she is female and that has more of an impact on his brain than it would if she were male. His best friend is a bundle of feelings and sure he has done for him what he could but Elijah has given him the impetus to learn how to be a good friend to another young man.

River reminds him a bit of Amanita. Strong and capable yet guarded. He had hurt Amanita with his own inability to simply be in the moment with another person but then she was a student of entropy and time. She knew things he couldn't begin to grasp.

And River's confession about not liking coffee makes him smile a sad but genuine smile. He really likes coffee. A cognitive sort of liking. He had to teach himself to like it same as he had to teach himself to like beer.

"To what?" he asks. He's a highly intelligent young man but he has never had a job before. Takes some digging into his knowledge of the zeitgeist to remember oh yeah most people their age have to go to work. "Oh! Oh. I mean... fuck 'em. Right?"

Heh. Come on River. Help him out. Call out sick. You're a contractor you don't want to go today anyway.

River
[Manip+sub: this is me lying to my work]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 5, 6, 6) ( success x 2 )

River
She thinks about this, really does seem to be thinking about it. Mulling over the pros and the cons and the whether or not it would be a good plan to miss work and damage some of the good standing she has with-

Oh, fuck it. She doesn't have a lot of good standing. She nearly decked one of the customers, she could have actually done a halfway decent job as one of the bouncers, but then again no club wants to be known as the place with the prettiest bouncers in town. Her mind wanders for a second about other options, because indeed she had plenty of options. Did the kind of work that she does because it's easy and it keeps her in shape and it puts her in the thick of the types of people that she oftentimes finds herself having to be aware of.

No use turning a blind eye, and she could always make her days a little easier. Plus, the money wasn't bad and, at the end of the day, she didn't strip for the betterment of humanity. River might be pretty, but she's not going to become a saint for the kinds of things she does on a stage.

"Eh," she shrugs, reaches into her purse and retrieves her cell phone, "if I need money this week I'll go play blackjack. I'm not bad."

She's a hustler.

She dials, waits, goes through the motions of the usual call out. The smile she wears approximates something like mischief, like a quiet delight at doing something that she shouldn't be doing but, really, it was the more prudent thing to actually do. She was wasting her time at the Diamond Cabaret anyway.

"Hello?" obvious gibberish on the other line, "yeah... uh... about that... I blew a tire?" a second, she shakes her head, "nonono, I was coming in from town... I don't know... I don't know... anyway, someone's going to come pick me up but I don't know when the tow truck is getting here... someone stole the donut... It was in Chula Vista before it came here, you can't be surprised... okay... okay, yeah, lunch.... okay... okay bye."

She hung up entirely too quickly.

"Let's go do something daring."

Samir
Daring. Right. Their definitions of daring might be slightly different. He spends his days inside hacking into other people's servers and taking down human trafficking rings and upending government operations. He is on more watch lists by virtue of his name and international travel activity than he can even count. If the FBI ever knocked on his door he would be more concerned of its being the Technocracy by virtue of how difficult it is to remember him let alone find him.

When River proposes they do something daring he meets her eyes and considers that this girl might be out of his league. She just called off work to waste time with him. He is not an adventurous individual. Now he's on the spot.

"Okay." Heh. "You wanna..." He pulls out his phone and glances at the screen. Daring. Right. As if he's just had a reminder pop up at him he flicks his eyebrows and sets it aside in favor of finding her eyes again. "Go to the park and get stoned?"

So daring.

River
"Park with swings or park with trees?"

Samir
This has to be a trick question. Sam glances to his right then his left then his right again before giving up. His teeth flash white as he gives an uncomfortable slash of a grin and his mouth hangs open a second as he tries to formulate a witty response that catches on the fact that he has no goddamn clue what the average park looks like.

"Is... there... a difference?"

Brilliant.

River
"Well, they both have trees, usually? But one is I suppose more of a playground than a park and the other has walking trails and is more designed to be public space. A lot of things actually fall under the umbrella of park, but-" it is at this juncture that it seems to dawn on River that Samir didn't ask her for a definition of parks and public spaces, likely did not

"Cherry Creek is pretty, let's go there- it's half an hour out."

Samir
If he does two things in a day that scare him then maybe they stack. Eleanor Roosevelt is dead. He can't exactly ring her up to confirm.

"... let's."

That's the spirit, Lakhani. He closes out their tab and off to the outskirts of town they go.