Partially Open Log

[gettingawaywith]

WHO: Dexter Morgan (gettingawaywith), Mazikeen (daughterinexile), partially open to Kristoph Gavin (myscarsmiles) if he so chooses.
WHAT: Dexter makes a visit to Kristoph's teahouse in order to follow a possible kill, and encounters more than he'd anticipated.
WHERE: La Casa de Te, Kristoph Gavin's teahouse.
WHEN: Sometime rather late at night, a weeknight.

Comments

[gettingawaywith]

If there was one thing Dexter was very good at, it was knowing when he was being watched.

As if he had an extra sense, he felt the prickling of some unseen look passing over him, but Dexter didn't immediately perk up the way a normal person would if they felt someone's eyes on them.

He shifted back in his chair, easily. Comfortably. The man looked as though he were almost smiling as he picked up a card with information about tea on it, and as he scanned the paper in one hand, he lifted his eyes and glanced toward the bar. It was a good enough place to start a scan of the place again, to see if he could figure out who was studying him so intently.

Dexter did a beautiful job of blending in, as though he'd had every intention of stopping by and enjoying a cup of tea.

Which interested him about as much as the prospect of sorting M&Ms for a living, unless a kill was concerned.

There, in the far corner. Dexter's eyes moved for the target, but not before they snagged on a woman with a mask that he'd never seen before. She was looking directly at him, and he realized that this must have been the source of the scrutiny he'd felt upon taking his seat. He hadn't been stared at so intensely in a long time, and he never liked being studied like this, so he did what he could to diffuse the situation as quickly as possible.

Dexter...chanced a smile.

[daughterinexile]

Typical, Mazikeen thought as the man first smiled at her. It was, however, a curious smile, almost half wince, and she noticed that it failed to travel all the way up to his eyes. The muscles in his face seemed to be acting out the expression, but there was no meaning behind it, a kind of pantomime of emotion, but a well-played one at that.

Curious, she then thought and, unfolding her arms, slowly emerged from the darkness of the back room. She crossed the room effortlessly, seeming to glide along in her bare feet and pressed slacks, until she finally stood alongside of the man's table, her hands offering a small printed menu, but her face still pursed and wary. Her eyes gave him a once over, trying to search his face for his reaction to her and her mask and her thinly veiled aggression. "May I help you?" she finally said, dropping the small slip of paper onto the table in front of him.

[gettingawaywith]

Dexter allowed himself an inner sigh as she moved toward him.

He'd meant to get her off of his trail, not set her on it. The woman didn't seem like a typical person, so he shrugged off this unanticipated turn in events, hoping that pretending to be busy (or completely disinterested in conversation) would shake this woman.

The mask on her face actually didn't interest him much, just like pretty much anything else that didn't have to do with what he was fixated on when he was on these hunts. Her aggression, on the other hand, set off a very natural-looking defense reaction:

His gaze traveled politely to her visible eye, and he picked up the menu; Dexter answered her question with a normality that was almost painful.

"Not really, thanks. I heard about this place from a friend and thought I'd check it out."

The smile never left his face.

[daughterinexile]

And curious even still, Mazikeen thought as she stood there, waiting. She had half a mind to leave him there, leave him to his smile and to whatever clandestine business he had, but this was Kristoph's territory and his establishment, and the last thing Mazikeen would do was back down from any threat that should arise against him. That was, after all, her job -- her very purpose. Narrowing her eyes, she leaned forward over the table, steadying herself with one against on the tabletop as she peered at him unapologetically. "Perhaps I didn't make myself clear the first time, sir." she said lowly. "You have come to a tea house, have you not? And I am the one who is to serve you your tea." She enunciated each word carefully and slowly as she fought the urge to reach for the knife strapped hard against her upper thigh. Violence was not the answer here, and Kristoph would never forgive her if she stained the teak floor, but there was something about his smile and his unwillingness to flinch that set every one of her nerves on edge.

Straightening up with a slight cough, she brushed her long hair back over both of her shoulders. She continued to stare. And stare hard.

[gettingawaywith]

Dexter sensed her tension, and immediately decided that with such a forceful woman watching over him, tonight would not be the night for a bloody excursion.

The need to kill something flared, completely concealed behind his eyes, and then he released it before he lifted the menu and looked over it, quickly. He spoke without looking at her.

"I'm usually a coffee-drinker. What would you recommend?"

The man furrowed his brow, confused by his server's apparent stiffness. Her scrutiny was abrasive, and now he wanted nothing but to drink the tea and take his leave...

Go away, find his kill another day.

[daughterinexile]

The question was simple enough, but Mazikeen's response to it was almost Pavlovian, and immediately she felt her entire demeanor shift ever-so-slightly, even with all the whistles and bells going off in her mind. She was smiling slightly now, despite herself, though hidden behind the red bow of her lips were tightly gritted teeth. Perhaps this reaction, this sudden ingratiating behavior, was something that Kristoph had ingrained in her, despite her true nature -- a useless desire to serve when called upon, to stand on ceremony in the name of hospitality.

Holding her hands behind her back, Mazikeen dug her nails deep into the flesh of her palm as she went through the usual list of teas that she knew to be popular during this time of year. It was true, such niceties did not come naturally to her, but most of time she was able to hind behind her mask and a small smile. But this man, she thought, was not like the others who visited Kristoph's shop; something about him set her on edge. It was something about that smile, the way it played across his face in a way that echoed her own forced ingratiating expression.

"Chamomile perhaps, sir," Mazikeen eventually said, somewhat flatly. "Some consider it a lovely foil to the weather we're having."

[gettingawaywith]

Dexter had become exceedingly skilled in the trade of reading body language and posture, the subtle shifts in muscle and stance.

She was getting more tense, and Dexter was beginning to wonder if doing what would calm a normal person down was the wrong idea.

If he took a wild steer off of the course, would she relax?

He chanced it, and after she suggested the chamomile, he handed the menu to her with his largest, most congenial boy-next-door smile.

"I think I'll just take a cup of Earl Grey. Thanks."

[daughterinexile]

Mazikeen raised her exposed eyebrow when the man said this. His slight change in demeanor was unexpected and she wasn't quite sure what to fully make of it. She flinched another smile, allowing her voice to become slightly lighter, a strained attempt at politeness. "Very good, sir," she said and turned sharply on a bare foot before making her way back to where Kristoph stored all of the teas in neat, clearly marked wood containers.

Inside, Mazikeen's baser instincts were still rearing at the threat she perceived in the man. Cupping her hand closely to her chest, she could see the series of angry crescent shape marks her nails at left in her skin. She gave him another sideways glance before quickly disappearing around a corner, her mind still focused on what he could be doing here.

[myscarsmiles]

Long days were always best solved with tea and perhaps a massage, and here he was with the first of the two. Sometimes there was dirty work involved, and all of that took its toll on him. Right now, all he wants to do is sip tea in silence or quiet and simply think about the rolling of flavors over his tongue and all the other curious little people in his life. Little ants skittering all over, reaching for things so much larger than themselves...

Mazikeen should be here, he thought idly as he admired the building from the outside. He couldn't say he wasn't happy to see her - he was her only real ally here, the only one he knew he could trust - but there wss something about being known that made him give just the smallest sigh.

He calmly stepped inside and allowed none of his fatigue to show. He saw a single pale head with brown hair, and calmly taking off his shoes, he walked over to said head. He looked at the man, a handsome fellow in his thirties that Kristoph might have seen before (a cricket?), and when he met his eyes he saw something like himself and he smiled.

"Hello, sir. Welcome. Are you being helped?"