All up in the blogs sayin' we met at the bar

[pacifisted]

WHO: Trowa Barton, A crowd of NPCs and 14 poor unsuspecting saps all under a curse, and anyone who sees this going on or gets dragged in by accident. ADD YOUR TAGS.
WHERE: Alllllll over the City.
WHEN: Thursday, July 22 (Day 1)
WARNINGS: Large amounts of hideous as the weekend wears on.
SUMMARY: The poor kid pissed off Aphrodite and then told her

Comments

[pacifisted]

His morning had already been off to a brilliant start; the young woman across the hall had come out of her own apartment as he was leaving and greeted him with a smile. She'd then complimented his outfit, which had confused him, as it was a dark-colored turtleneck and a pair of skinny grey jeans, which was pretty much the same thing he'd always worn. After several failed attempts to slip by her, Trowa had given up and tried to just let her talk herself out instead; fortunately for him, her husband came out shortly thereafter. The guy took a moment to stare at the pair in sleepy bemusement, then glowered at him and ushered her back inside.

To anyone else, this might not have seemed strange--but then, she was notorious throughout the complex for being an agoraphobic. The last time anyone had seen her leave the apartment was... well, nobody could remember it.

Like hell was he going to go to work after that without a coffee, and he had no intention of risking going back inside to make one himself. God only knew if the elderly woman next door who found it entertaining to speculate about the nature of 'that Winner boy's room-mate' would come out and start on one of her theories straight to his face. He'd already heard the ones about being a live-in probation officer and a hospice worker out to steal the teenaged CEO's money from the doorman, and had no desire to listen to the latest crackpot story.

There--that one. He'd been to this shop before. They were fairly reliable... and more importantly, close to the office from which he was hiring people.

Trowa steered himself in that direction, oblivious to anyone watching.

...so what does Trowa smell like? He's so getting sniffed.

[20_lbs_of_crazy]

It was his hair that Parker noticed first, and the fact that so much of it fell across his face. How could he even see straight with all that thick, chocolate-brown, shiny hair covering half his face? Ooh, maybe it was hiding a secret eyepatch.

Whatever the reason, Parker had the sudden, overpowering urge to brush his hair out of his face - and it wasn't entirely because she wanted to see if there was an eyepatch. She swallowed her last bite of bear claw with some difficulty before abandoning it and moving to sate her curiosity.

Spell or no, old habits were hard to break, and Parker found it hard not to sneak up on people. So by the time Trowa got in line, he might suddenly notice that out of nowhere there was a blonde right behind him, well in his personal space bubble (but not touching) and studying him intently. He probably hadn't heard her approach, but that was par for the course if you were an ex-Navy Seal.

((Let me know if this is okay. Parker routinely sneaks up on just about everybody.))

Rofl, someone else actually doing that to him for once instead of the other way around. XD

[pacifisted]

He could see just fine; after almost a lifetime of wearing his hair that way he'd learned to adjust to having it in the way, catching only snatches of this or that from that half as the hair shifted from side to side. It made for sharper aim with firearms, too. In any case his hearing was good--at least on the right side--as was his internal sense of spacial awareness.

Still, she was well-trained, and while he got the sense that people were standing behind him, he chose to brush it off as the norm for being in a line in a coffee shop. Or, rather, he intended to, but after catching sight of her leaning in toward him in the compact mirror of the woman in front of him, he turned and gave her an icy stare.

No words. The disapproval radiating from him was, hopefully, enough.

[All right -- gun oil, plain soap, Mane'n'Tail shampoo, animal fur, the bacon he fried this morning, and, uh... Quatre. However much of that you feel she can pick up.]

[20_lbs_of_crazy]

Parker sucked at reading people, and it was true that most of the time she couldn't pick up on subtle cues. Even so, a tiny bit of that disapproval wormed its way through her shield of obliviousness.

But for some reason, it didn't bother her one bit. She was in an abnormally cheery mood, even more so after checking this guy out. Also, the Glare of Doom allowed her to see him up close. "Huh. You don't have an eyepatch," she observed, almost disappointed. "Did you have bacon this morning?" She could just barely pick up on the gun oil, but he didn't look like a cop.

[pacifisted]

Her words just about flipped him on his head, mentally, and while he continued to stare at her his expression changed to include slight confusion. Of course he didn't have an eye-patch--where the hell did she even get that idea?

...Was that what people thought of why he had his hair down?

Trowa put the notion aside. It wasn't important just then.

"That's none of your business," he replied, trying to shake her off and not at all understanding where she was going with any of it. Could hardly be some kind of survey; she didn't have a clipboard. Not that he would have answered it even if she did.

[20_lbs_of_crazy]

What Parker thought was... probably not representative of what most people thought when they saw Trowa's hair. Not that he knew that.

Her brows furrowed at his response, then she shrugged off the dismissal. The confused reaction was one she was used to. "So why's all your hair in your face like that?" she asked quietly, genuinely puzzled. "It's got to mess up your field of vision, and it doesn't work as camouflage if you're only covering one eye."

Which, of course, was the only reason she could think of for him letting his hair hang in his face - to make it less identifiable to cameras or a mark. It was amazing how pulling off a ski cap and letting long blonde bangs curtain her face made her invisible to guards searching for a thief sometimes. That was why Eliot kept his hair long no matter how many times she played with it or braided it when he wasn't paying attention during a briefing.

Besides, why else would this guy hide his face? He sure wasn't ugly, that was for sure. Wow.

[pacifisted]

Her insistence upon bothering him was the second strike against the little cafe; he could still remember the first incident ages back in which someone had been forced into staying as close to him as possible.

Maybe there really was some kind of curse on the place.

Trowa wasn't about to give her all of his reasons--it served to confuse and disorient his opponents, it masked some of his features, he liked the sense of safety being partially hidden provided, people subconsciously got the idea that he didn't want to be looked at and therefore didn't look, the long swoop of bangs had been a minor rebellion against the life the rest of the soldier-cut signified--and he wouldn't have been able to, either, only fully aware of some of them.

"I like it," was the young man's curt reply. "Are you done?"

The notion that she was looking at him with the same expression as the woman in the hallway crept into his thoughts; he frowned a little harder at the realization.

[20_lbs_of_crazy]

If he had given her his reasons, Parker probably would have informed him that the subconscious attempt to get people not to look was totally not working. Despite her low tone of voice, there were a number of people in the cafe stealing glimpses of him, if not outright staring at the two of them. Which was weird now that she thought about it. She shot one of the giggling girls a glare before returning her attention to Trowa.

He was shorter than she'd originally thought. Good. He might have less issues with vent-crawling and jumping off buildings than some people.

This time, his brush-off seemed to register. "I didn't say it looked bad," she said, sounding hurt. "I was just curious. Wow. What got into your shorts today, grumpy?"

((asdhsdasdkf this comment took forever, thank you family distractions. Will pick up later on.))

mine took longer, don't worry. /storms suck

[pacifisted]

Actually, jumping off buildings and crawling through vents was more of Heero's schtick, canonically, but if he had to... oh, right. No time for reminiscing. Blond weirdo in a cafe trying to hold the strangest conversation he'd ever had. He had to focus on that.

Trowa wasn't exactly sure he understood her line of questioning to begin with, but the shorts comment was just too much. It made no sense whether in jest or in all seriousness.

"I just wanted coffee."

It seemed an appropriate explanation for his mood. The implications were there to be read by anyone with working ears. Maybe if he could just make the brush-off stick...

I win for longest lag time, though. :)

[20_lbs_of_crazy]

"Well, that's kind of the point of this place, right? To get... coffee."

Parker couldn't read implications, but his attitude was starting to rub her the wrong way. The old awkwardness was back, and she bit her thumbnail, glancing around at the people who were still gawking at them. What was their problem?

She turned and shouted at the crowd of onlookers. "Hey! People are trying to order! Show's over!" Parker turned back to Trowa - the line in front of him had proceeded without them. "Oh, yeah, and you're next."

Sorry, Trowa, you're going to have to be as subtle as a sledgehammer with this one.