Pounding the Pavement

[chaseandoldlace]

Who: Chase and Clarice
What: A day of job hunting has only one proper reward:cookies.
When: Early Afternoon, April 7th, 2012
Where: Starting at Sweet Lady Jane, then around town
Rating: Low
Status: Private, Incomplete

Comments

[never_blink]

Clarice was getting used to Jenna's insinuations about Chase. He was in here nearly every day, after all, and ever since the day they'd discovered their mutual origins, Jenna had taken an unholy pleasure in teasing Clarice about her 'boyfriend'. All that meant, of course, was that she didn't completely freak out. She did blush and duck her head, that was a given, which was why Jenna found this game so much fun. Her fingers fumbled a moment on the strings of her apron, then she was able to tug it off and hang it on its hook.

Still blushing, she glanced over, and her face brightened. "You brought Lace!" Not that a dinosaur had any business in the bakery, especially during a busy time, but Clarice couldn't help it. She was more than a little enamored with the beast. Picking up her little bag of treats and a box with a tart she'd made for Damien, she came around the counter, with a shy smile for Chase. "I didn't know you were coming by today. It's not the usual time?"

[chaseandoldlace]

"Ah, Lace has been pounding the pavement with me all day, trying to figure out all the creative ways I can enslave myself to the Great Hamster Wheel of Capitalism as Gert would call it." Chase explained, holding up one of the massive corn muffins and turning it in his fingers. "Otherwise known as it's expensive to feed a prehistoric eating machine and the deer are learning to stay away from the castle." That tended to happen with the introduction of a predator that wasn't native to...well, anywhere for another 50,000 years. "Figured I'd stop in and refuel before Lace starts thinking my interviewers are also good snacks."

But one should never under-estimate the persausive pressence of a hungry prehistoric lizard.

"'No sir, I don't have any references, but I do have this dinosaur' only works until she actually starts eating people

[never_blink]

She couldn't help but laugh, and a few of the regular customers returned her smile as the two of them left. Reaching into the paper sack, she pulled out a cupcake that had come out of the oven a bit lopsided, and looked at Chase for permission. "May I? Do you think she'll mind? There's nothing wrong with it, only that the batter slopped over a little, so we couldn't sell it."

Stepping up to the dinosaur's great head, the mutant girl held up the treat. "It's for you, if you'd like it," she offered shyly. She didn't think Old Lace would carelessly take her hand off with it.

[chaseandoldlace]

The moment Clarice exited the bakery, Old Lace went from sniffing the base of a nearby lamp post curiously, to paying acute attention to the sack in Clarice's hand. Chase nodded

[never_blink]

Clarice's breath caught just as the teeth snapped, and there was a faint sparking of pink around her fingers, gone so quickly it was barely noticeable. It was the only sign of a flinch she gave. Whether her power could have saved her hand if Lace's aim had been off was up for debate, but thankfully this time it didn't matter. She still opened and closed her fingers a few times as she lowered her arm, as if to make sure they were all still there.

"It sounds fitting. Would you really be able to rebuild the radio tower?" She knew about his facility with technology, but that was a big project. "What would you do with it?" Thinking about it reminded her of Troy and his love of music. Given a radio station, he probably would have made it all showtunes, all the time, and been happy as a clam. The image made her smile a bit sadly. The iPod he'd given her was still tucked in a pocket of her bag.

She pulled her thoughts back to the present. "Are you sure you're done with your job search for today, though? I don't want to keep you, if

[chaseandoldlace]

Chase had lived with too many girls in his time to miss that smile and it's implications; hell he was pretty sure he looked like that every once and a while thinking about Gert, but if Clarice didn't follow up with an explanation, he wasn't going to press. His experiences had taught him at least that much.

"I think the Stein Bus could help, and I worked at a radio station in Malibu for a while....until my jerkass boss turned half the city into zombies by making a deal with somebody Nico's parents used to know." That was where he drew the line--Chase had accepted the fact that like most shock jocks Val Rhymin was out there but zombies as a publicity stunt crossed a threshold even he tried not to think about. He paused a moment when Clarice asked what he'd do with the station though, he'd been day dreaming about it all day, was the problem. He shrugged, taking a bite out of one of the muffins thoughtfully