Coffee (NOT) Dates
Grian silently stares at the door that Scar had disappeared behind, a million thoughts swirling through his mind. Did he say something wrong?... Was it the killing part? Grian had assumed that killing people was normal considering that Scar had participated in who-knows-how-many LIFE games, but it was probably a sensitive topic considering the fact that murder was the exact thing Scar was working to prevent.
He sighs and takes a few steps backwards before tossing himself on the couch, cringing in pain when he slightly overshoots and lands on his stinger, proceeding to bang his head on a small coffee table beside it. The crunchy-springy noise that followed after wasn't particularly enjoyable.
Grian groans loudly in annoyance, sitting up and rubbing his head, just great. Now he was confused, bored, and would probably have a massive headache in about 30 seconds. He reaches over the coffee table to grab the gun he was carving into an hour earlier. The lines were wobbly and he really didn't want to finish the other side. Though, with nothing better to do, Grian bends over, grabs the screwdriver he'd found off the ground, takes the magazine back off the gun, and goes back to hacking away. He really misses having actual tools but his manifesto powers weren't working properly and would just switch out the dented magazine once he finished up this quick project he was working on.
˚⊹ ‧✩⋆⁺₊𓆩✦𓆪⋆⁺₊✩‧ ⊹˚
It had been six hours. Six. Hours. Scar had presumably gone to sleep six hours ago and Grian was dying of boredom. he had practically walked 100 laps around the living room and even motivated himself enough to finish half the side he was engraving on his crappy gun project. Grian was just about ready to go mental when the room to Scar's room flew open.
"Why hello there!" Scar says happily, almost like whatever happened a couple of hours ago never went down. He was wearing an offensively bright orange jacket with a black muscle shirt under it, wings nowhere to be seen but most likely under the jacket. Grian would be insane to say that Scar didn't look good today; but he was still dazzled by the magical mood change to think straight anyway. "It's a lovely day for some outings, don't you think?"
"Mhm..." Grian replied warily, maybe this was some kind of trap? No, why would it be a trap? "Certainly took your time in there, huh?"
Scar blinks awkwardly before clearing his throat. "Yeeaaah.. About that, sorry for flipping out on you earlier. I was hoping a stop at a really good cafe would make it up?"
"Don't apologize, not your fault." Grian waves his hands dismissively. "We can go to the cafe if you want. Let me grab my jumper from the washing machine first, though. I'm not going out in this." He says, tugging the fabric of an oversized t-shirt Gem had thrifted for him before she left.
Scar nods, briefly laughing at the shirt before chucking a keyring at Grian with a singular key on it. "'kay, here's the keys. I'll be waiting in the parking lot." Scar opens the front door and waltzes out of it, humming an unfamiliar tune to himself.
Grian looks at the keyring. Judging how shiny the key was, it was either particularly new or was replaced extremely often. He's about to go down to the laundry room when something in his pocket starts buzzing. A low, almost annoying sound. Grian's hand flies towards his pockets and he pulls out the obsidian pendant. The obsidian sparkled under the crappy lighting of the apartment and almost immediately it stops buzzing. Watcher magic, of course. Whatever the Watchers wanted, he wasn't the guy to ask. After all, he was kicked from the circle for a reason.
He peers into the inky gem, resembling an ocean of black tar; a lake mirroring the night sky- Wait.
Grian double-takes at his reflection. Instead of the Jewel Wasp Reborn, he expected to see, Xelqua stares back at him instead... Great. Whatever this pendant was made out of, it was resistant to Watcher abilities. It was now seemingly obvious to him that this necklace would be a liability instead of something helpful.
However, if he were to encounter someone with illusionist abilities, then it would prove to be useful, wouldn't it? Grian sighs and clips the pendant around his neck. No one was going to look that closely at it anyway, right?
He checks the time and quickly fumbles out the front door at the sight. He'd been dwelling around for 8 minutes and would definitely take three years to get ready if Grian didn't get moving at this second. All it takes is a quick sprint down the stairs and a sneaky bit of teleportation before he's in front of the shared laundry machines. He grabs his red jumper and sweatpants before ducking into a bathroom and throwing the clothing articles on, shoving his wings under the clothes and triple-checking they didn't stick out. Then, Grian puts the clothes he was wearing previously into a free washing machine and pops a quarter in. He watches it for a second to make sure it starts spinning before walking out to the parking lot.
Scar is standing there, absent-mindedly scrolling on his phone before looking up and smiling an awfully sweet smile. "Grian! I almost thought you ditched me for a second! And you’re wearing that pendant again! It is quite pretty." He comments, ruffling Grian's hair playfully. Upon Scar stepping closer to him, Grian noticed a scar that ran across the right side of the taller's face. Huh, how had he not noticed that before?! Admittedly, it did give Scar's face a bit more flavour than it already did, but it was still surprising Grian had missed it, considering it was quite literally taking up half of his face.
Grian hops in the passenger seat of the black car and watches as Scar enters the car as well, the engine roaring softly as he cranks the gear lever into reverse.
"How'd you get that scar?" Grian asks as Scar slowly pulls them out of the parking lot. Scar shrugs and presses down on the accelerator, veering onto the road. "Explosion. ...Did you just notice?"
Grian nods with a huff of something that could only be described as a mixture of laughter and embarrassment. Scar laughs briefly. "Fair, I usually cover it up 'cause it reveals my identity too much. Got lazy today." He laughs lightly as Scar starts driving exactly the speed limit. Wasn't Scar scared of getting fined? Then again, Grian wasn't too sure if people in LIFE cared about traffic laws or not.
After 15 minutes of idle chatter, Scar parks at a place called 'Boardwalk Coffee'. It's a boring-looking building, all in neutral colours and such, but the smell coming from the building was heavenly.
"Well, here we are!" Scar exclaims, clapping his hands together joyfully. "This place is my favourite! Once, the government sponsored Boardwalk as an advertising trick for the LIFE games and they had me make my drink and stuff! It was so fun- Oh! Did I tell you that I was a part of the LIFE games? Because I am, just saying."
"Nope. But I caught onto the fact pretty quickly, you weren't exactly subtle." Grian shrugs and walks towards the entrance of the building. Upon pulling the door open he's greeted by a sign that tells customers to order at a kiosk instead of going up to the counter, which was kind of strange but Grian doesn't question it. It's not like he's been to a coffee shop in a million years anyway. A lot could of changed.
Scar proceeds to drag Grian over to the kiosk and barrage Grian with a bunch of questions to try to get him a good drink. He eventually decides on a 'London Fog Latte' which sounded like a drink that'd be drenched in steamed milk but was apparently some sort of tea in disguise. Scar orders a Vanilla Sweet Cream Cold Foam, which is an atrociously long name for a simple-sounding drink.
When it was time to order the drinks in cup sizes, Grian realized something when he tried to order a medium.
"So, they use terms in a different language instead of just saying.. large or something?"
"Mhm. Not sure why but it works fine. Venti is large, Grande is medium, and Tall is small, I think." Scar shrugs for the thousandth time today then pauses for a second. Scar turns to Grian with a weirdly apologetic look on his face. "Can you enter your name? I can't really enter my name becauuseee... You get it."
"Yeah, no problem... Wait- Do you not know how to spell my name?! " Grian quizzed, looking up at Scar with wide eyes.
"Oh- Uh.. Yeah so," Scar points to himself with a silly grin on his face. "Dyslexic."
"Ooooooh! I get it. I'll type it in then." Grian nods and turns back to the oddly tall screen. Using a laggy keyboard he types in 'Grian' and presses the confirm button. Scar puts $20.00 into the machine and it spits out change which he quickly pockets. Scar suggests they get a seat and wait for their names to be called, instead of standing with the crowd of people near the pick-up area. Grian agrees and the two choose a cozy table near the corner of the establishment.
"If you're dyslexic then how do you type with like, flawless grammar over text?" He asked, basking in the warm sunlight that was filtering through the windows.
Scar chuckles and leans in to whisper like the answer is a massive, forbidden secret. "I may, or may not use Grammarly."
…What the hell is Grammarly? Grian bites the question down and nods, hopefully putting on an expression that says he knew exactly what Scar was talking about.
After a few minutes, a voice calls out "Grian!" He pops out of his chair and walks over to the counter, where a white-haired man with a facial mask was holding up two drinks, one in a clear cup and the other in a traditional coffee cup.
"Here you go- Ah, hello Scar!" The person's eyes crinkle, indicating a smile as he waves slightly to Scar.
"Etho! I didn't know you were working today!" Scar exclaims, grabbing the drink with the clear cup from Etho's hands. "Etho, this is my friend Grian! He's great."
"Hi!... Scar didn't make you pay for that, did he?"
"What? No! I'm as broke as he is." Grian waves his hands dismissively, grabbing the other drink, which he was hoping was his.
"I see. Just makin' sure-" The man whose name was supposedly Etho turns around as a black-haired man pats Etho on the shoulder. Grian faintly remembered reading something about Etho a few weeks ago but couldn’t exactly be bothered to recall it right now.
"Ethoo! We're short-staffed today! Stop talkin' with Scar and get to work before I make you take those girls' Caramel Ribbon Crunch orders!" He says, propping on hand on his hip.
Etho dramatically shivers at the phrase 'Caramel Ribbon Crunch' and hastily turns back to Scar and Grian. "Nice meeting you Grian, gotta run before Skizz asks my manager to make me work overtime!"
Grian and Scar share a giggle and go back to their seats. Grian dubiously checks his latte, pulling the lid off and looking at the steaming liquid. It looked to be 99% creamer and perhaps one drop of water but judging by the tea bags, it seemed to be otherwise. He takes a sip and his eyes widen. It was surprisingly good, slightly floral and citrusy with major keys of vanilla.
"How do you like your drink?" Scar asks, picking at the sticker on the cup of his drink.
"It's pretty good, how about yours?"
Scar shrugs, "Good as always, I suppose. Want a sip?"
"Sure." Grian reaches toward the cup but hesitates mid-way, Was he really going to share a drink with his friend? He was very aware of Scar staring at him, waiting for some sort of review on the rather sweet-looking drink. Grian decides to shake his worries away, shelve the thought away to think about later and grabs the cup, tilting his head back slightly to take a sip.
"Oh- That's... Sweet."
"What? The drink or the fact that my lips were on that cup?" Scar asks feigning innocence with a sly smirk.
"Scar!" Grian blushes slightly, pushing the drink back towards the taller man. "You know I meant the drink."
"Sorry, sorry! Just teasing you."
The two spend another hour finishing their drinks and talking about random topics that pop up. Occasionally, Scar would talk more about participants in the LIFE games and how if unless you were Corrupted, the group had a pretty tight bond outside all the murdering. Grian learned that Etho was indeed another LIFE player, but had never won a game before. He mentioned that X was currently rooting for Etho to win the next one, but he didn't exactly want him to win, for pretty obvious reasons that most likely included Corruption.
"I've killed him like.. five times. I do feel a little bad but it's not my fault that he's conveniently in front of my sword all the time!"
"Sure, sure."
Eventually, the two start getting bored. So, the two soon go back to the apartment with happy smiles and another memory that Grian could pocket for the rest of his very, very long existence.