(Untitled)

[you_run_i_chase]

Who: Miss Parker and you.
Where: All over Paris, with some suggestions/closed threads tossed in.
When: All weekend
Warnings: Parker is still her own warning label, right?
Notes: Old and new CR welcome! New CR makes me happy!

Comments

Friday night

[you_run_i_chase]

A night on the town, and rather a little drunk.

A BAR. IN PARIS.

[to_be_caprican]

The court yard allowed for smoking.

So this was where Gaius chose to be once he'd sent the address of the place through to Parker. He was in good spirits, having changed into recently purchased clothing for the evening, drinking wine quasi-steadily if pacing himself throughout the day in between the purchasing of things and eating. A new pair of stupidly expensive sunglasses hung from his collar, shoes polished to a brilliant shine, and a lit cigarette wedged at his knuckle.

It was mostly a cocktail bar, despite the fact he had proposed 'dinner'. It was also decidedly unFrancophile, despite everything, because Gaius couldn't tell the difference, but this did mean that the light food it did carry were inexplicable fusion-type affairs, European and Asian both. The nightlife was more or less native, the air mingled in conversation both English and French.

"I like the jacket," he thought to inform John Connor, who had (perhaps wisely) given him free rein to pick the venue.

[metallonkardia]

Wisely indeed, as John had no idea what, why, where - anything, really, and it'd been a fluke to find out they were heading in the same (social) direction. Doubts lingered in his head over the impulsiveness in which he volunteered to go, but despite not having ever met in her in person before, he figured Parker would give him shit if he balked on it.

An eyebrow quirk is all Gaius got for a moment; John, too, was sporting new clothes. (Couldn't very well walk around in full fatigues and gear, and it was all he owned.)

"I'll trust your judgment."

[you_run_i_chase]

Sometimes the thing you needed to do most was engage in a bit of retail therapy. Or in Parker's case, a shit-ton of retail therapy. She'd gone a bit wild to update the wardrobe for both herself and her inmate, and now she was ready to blow off as much steam as she could before they all ended up back on the good ship fuck-you-a-lot.

Parker had been expecting the venue to be not really food related, and she wasn't surprised by it. It was amusing how Gaius seemed to have found the most random place to actually have a drink in, but she wasn't too worried. Her time at the Centre had been well used, so she was more than good with her French accent.

Walking over to the two men on stilettos even taller than the ones she normally tossed her feet into, Parker looked every inch the woman who was out for a good time. Holding a martini glass with some horrific-colored drink inside it, she grinned. "Glad you could make it."

[to_be_caprican]

"Do," Gaius assured John. Seriously, he's got this. So he imagined.

At the click clack click of heels headed their direction, Gaius tipped his head back enough to assess the appearance of their third party with a thin smile of approval. "I see you've taken to Paris as well." He had gotten used to throwing the name of the city around, now, with all the assumption of its connotation. It was a lot like Caprica Capital, he thought, and all the nightlife and urban civilisation and culture that it entailed.

Simple matter of mentally transplanting one concept over the other. "How are you, darling?"

[metallonkardia]

Maybe if he sticks around Gaius long enough, John will accidentally lighten up. Like through osmosis, or something.

On Parker's arrival, he stands - deliberate and on the slow side, as his movements tend to be when he's not in the field - because he has something akin to real manners, mismatched and a little old though they might be. (It's like an after-market CD player in your car; it works but it'll always look a little funny, like somebody jammed it in there carelessly or, in John's case, his wife hit him in the back of the head until he learned.)

"Parker." He extends whichever hand doesn't clash with her martini. "John Connor."

And yes, he does indeed look like some guy named Wayne, if much more beat-up and weathered and with significantly shorter hair. The fact that he's wearing a motorcycle jacket and appears (to the keenest of eyes) to be armed is a pretty good tell of fundamental world differences, too.

Sorry my net when insane last night.

[you_run_i_chase]

"I take to anywhere well, Gaius." Parker's words are an amused arrogance, and she smiles in return to him. She was wearing a well cut black dress to go with the killer shoes, and she looked as if she could be a former model (Why were all the models kids these days?)

Her eyes moved over John, and her grin shifted into a sigh. If he'd been Bruce he would have greeted her like an old friend so Parker knew that this was a case of nothing-fucking-more than barge twins. There were days like today when she wanted to punch the Admiral many more times than her deal allotted for.

Taking his hand and giving it a shake, Parker answered. "Nice to meet you. And I'm doing much fucking better than I had been on the boat, Gaius, aren't you both?"

de nada

[to_be_caprican]

"Yes."

Shaking loose a cigarette, this is offered out to Parker to take. "To the point where I'm a little worried about what we're going back to if the Admiral's not keeping his bloody work about cleaning things up," Gaius adds with a glance from one to the other, but his voice is light, almost jovial. "But I'm personally making the effort to forget all about the Barge, so here's to that."

[metallonkardia]

John doesn't know how to interpret that reaction, so he... doesn't, and just lets it go. Instead he sits back down when it's appropriate, and makes an all right imitation of being relaxed. (He's getting there. A bit.)

"There's certainly something to be said for fresh air." And not being stuck on a prison ship!

[you_run_i_chase]

Parker took the offered cigarette, even though she swore that she was going to quit again. No, really, this time she was going to quit once and for all. Well, maybe at the end of October. Or something.

"Fresh air, food I don't need to fucking cook and drinks. Don't forget insane fucking amounts of money. Been shopping wisely, boys?"

[to_be_caprican]

The lighter is then offered with a flick of open flame. "Define wisely," Gaius says, brightly, pocketing said lighter once done and sitting down as well. The drink in front of him is significantly less colourful than Parker's, but still cloyingly alcoholic.

"I don't suppose most ports are quite like this one. How they'll be urging us all back aboard, I've no idea."

[metallonkardia]

John raises one hand, as if to demonstrate: yep. All new clothes, and absurdly expensive items, at that. It's not even his taste, really, just that he let Bellatrix pick where to go, and then gave himself over to the questionable mercies of the salespeople.

"Fucking magic, probably." Seriously, is the barge just parked here somewhere? Hidden behind the tower, perhaps? What the fuck.

[you_run_i_chase]

Parker puffed on her smoke for a moment before she hooked her finger over the tube of tobacco and sat down as well. An appraising gaze approval moved over both men; Parker liked people who dressed well.

Chuckling at the mention of magic, Parker shrugged. "Pretty much. You just fucking open a door and suddenly you're back aboard the Barge. You don't really get a fucking choice. The Admiral just kinda waits until you do it."

[to_be_caprican]

There is really no disguising the slight look of dull disappointment that Gaius has for this news, for all that it is entirely predictable. He darts a glance to John before his attention winds up in his own drink, which is then sipped from with a busy rustle of ice shards amongst the mix of rum and other liquor.

A man could dream, at least.

"Fucking magic indeed," he says, once he sets the drink down. Because if he's quoting someone, he may as well. He doesn't know where Rome is, but he'd understand the sentiment of when you're in it. "I've been personally enjoying the stark lack of the stuff here."

[metallonkardia]

John raises his glass, saluting the notion of forgetting all about magic while they're ashore, wry smile on his face. (He's drinking watered down iced tea, for the record.)

"Here's to boosting the local economy, and doing fuckall otherwise."

[you_run_i_chase]

Parker shrugs in response to the look, because god fucking knew she tried to escape when she was an inmate. Hell, she tried to escape when she was on the cusp of graduating even. If only it was as easy as some people made it appear.

"It could always be fucking worse," Parker added. "Don't say that too loud, Gaius, I don't want to end up fucking back in Pretty-Pretty princess land." Once in a fairytale was plenty for Parker.

If (when?) she found out that Johnny was drinking tea, she'd tease him for it. But for now she just tapped her glass against his. "Here's hoping the Admiral forgets to pick us up when he's done."