Something close to happy is suddenly mine...

[stillaboyscout]

It should be said that there is never actually a quiet day in Chicago. Ever. Somewhere, always, something is happening, and invariably that something has to do with explosives. It is Chicago, after all.

But there are a lot of people in Chicago, and so specific people can have quiet days. Take Michael Vaughn for instance, currently out and about

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[kineticmachine]

Arlin is not sitting out in the rain. Arlin is, in fact, wanting to go in from the rain, and also wanting food, and also wanting to not deal with any more Organization crap at the moment (you know, after a recent road trip threw both a pterosaur and a polar bear at him), which is why he only has his personal, non-Rift journal with him. He was also getting sick of staying in his flat, which is the only reason he's going to a cafe to draw.

Of course, he recognizes the girl sitting outside almost immediately. This makes him hunch a little bit further into his jacket and attempt to get into the coffeeshop before she notices he's there. This may or may not work, but he can hope, right?

[kineticmachine]

Arlin gives her an impatient glance, then looks down at the sketchbook, considering. He hates talking about the machines about as much as he hates talking about his job (at least he has a legitimate excuse of 'classified' if pressed too hard about that one). At the same time, he knows Trin isn't going to just let it go at 'something'.

"For a machine," he says. He moves as though he's going to draw something, but doesn't. Part of the reason he doesn't want to talk about the machines isn't ingrained; it's more the fact that they don't mean the same thing here that they did at one point. That's not something he's going to admit to anyone, but it doesn't mean he likes thinking about it. Which is what happens any time anyone asks about the machines in general. One would think he'd have more control than that. "It's a hobby of mine."

He could ask her something about herself, lead the conversation away and let her natter on while he only half-listened and ate his food, but at the moment, he can't think of anything to say.

[omnomnomface]

"What kind of machines?" Trin asks, because now she's actually interested. Not in machines, necessarily. Just in what he's doing. He's interesting, and Trin likes interesting. It's better than boring, anyway.

"That's an awesome hobby," Trin says. "I don't really... have a hobby... besides drinking, I guess. And that's not really a hobby, you know? I don't know. Do you have other hobbies?"

She likes to hear him talk, too. She doesn't have many friends (though she can't imagine why...) and she likes just talking.

[kineticmachine]

Okay, whatever, he's ignoring that question entirely. He's not talking about this. So he shifts position a bit, setting down his pencil pointedly. "Some people would consider drinking a perfectly acceptable hobby," he replies, voice laden with sarcasm. "And I didn't exactly come here to discuss my hobbies with you."

You know, as if he came here to talk to her at all, or anything.

[omnomnomface]

"Well, whenever I said that, people would look at me and be like, 'That's not a hobby,'" Trin says defensively. "So I don't know. Other people had hobbies, like... building model boats. Is that what that's for, model stuff? Or do you just draw it? Do the machines ever WORK? Is it, like, functional stuff, or just pretty stuff for, like, the outside?"

She completely ignores the whole 'didn't come here to discuss my hobbies with you' comment. Because if that's what he wants to think, then fine. She's not going to argue that point.

[kineticmachine]

Arlin...doesn't exactly glare at her, but he comes pretty close. "Hence the sarcasm," he points out, jabbing his pencil in her direction. "Yes, they're functional, and did I not just say I wasn't discussing this with you?"

At this point, he's questioning why he hasn't just gotten up and walked away. He questions this a lot. Damn his weird, ingrained politeness -- even when he's not being particularly polite, he can't just walk away from someone who's not doing anything to him half the time, particularly when he wasn't in a terrible mood to begin with and thus at least gives a tiny bit of a shit about social etiquette. Plus, he came to this cafe of his own volition, and he'll be damned if some girl who's trying to be his friend is going to keep him from public places.

Still, he's not going to talk about the machines, no matter how badly she wants to. So he pointedly changes the subject: "Why are you so insistent on having a conversation with me?"

[omnomnomface]

Trin exhales. "You know I'm not that smart," she whines. "You can't just sneak that sarcasm thing up on me!" She shakes her head and proceeds to take a sip of her coffee.

She really just wants to know more stuff about him. But she's not going to tell him that, lest it come of as creepy. Not that he probably doesn't think she's a) creepy already and b) really really annoying. So instead she grins at him.

"'Cause we're drinking buddies, and that's what drinking buddies do!" she exclaims. "You know? I mean, eventually you get to know each other enough that you don't have to talk, but we're totally not there yet so I have to know more about you. Or whatever." She shrugs. Because duh.

[kineticmachine]

"Drinking buddies?" Arlin asks, raising an eyebrow at her. He gives up on drawing for the moment, given the fact that the more he works on this design, the more she asks about it. So the journal gets closed and tucked into his inner jacket pocket again.

He's taking the jacket off (now that his hair and pants are slightly drier, the AC in the cafe isn't bothering him) when a barista brings his food over to their table, so this offers yet another convenient way to not talk to her for a moment. But only a moment, as after a sip of still-too-hot soup, he decides to snark some more.

"Don't both parties usually get a say in that sort of relationship?" he asks. He'll conveniently ignore that he's totally been dragged into relationships like this before; at least he was vaguely interested in those 'buddies'. "And doesn't it require that the parties involved have something even remotely in common?" He's pretty sure they don't.

[omnomnomface]

Trin makes a face at him. "You stick around," she says, more than a little hurt by the implication. . "You agreed last time to drink with me, you're drinking with me now." She sniffs. "And if I just drank with people who had things in common with me, my life would be soooooooo boring." She rolls her eyes. "Besides, we both have things in common! Like we like alcohol. And this coffee shop, clearly. And we both drink black!" She smiles at him, triumphant that she's found so many things that point directly to them being drinking buddies. To mark her point, she takes a long sip of her coffee, ignoring the way it burns her tongue.

[kineticmachine]

And for the second time in the two times Arlin has interacted with Trinity that she has made him facepalm. Yes, Trinity, you have a point. Arlin is aware that you have a point. However, Arlin does not interact with people in normal ways, or at all if he can really help it half the time. "Well, if you would like to hold onto those little shreds of commonality, you go right ahead," he tells her, taking another spoonful of soup. He sounds a bit defeated, but maybe she's not going to notice that.

[omnomnomface]

"Fine I will," she snaps. She shifts in her seat, pouting a little bit, but of course it doesn't last for very long. She glances at Arlin over her coffee, and then looks at his soup.

"Is it good?" she asks.

[kineticmachine]

He glances up, at first not quite understanding the question. Then he realizes she's asking about his soup. And making small talk. He looks down at the soup for a moment, then takes another bite, contemplating it. "I suppose it's decent, for the type of soup one can get at a cafe," he says.

Yeah, if he's in a good mood (or just stuck with the situation, but that doesn't apply here), after awhile he gives up on being an ass and is just civil to people, if they stick around. Though not terribly talkative, as he goes back to sipping at the soup a bit and watching the people braving the rain outside walking by.

[omnomnomface]

Trin grins. "I guess. You know, once my boyfriend Teddy dumped soup all over me 'cause I told him I didn't like tomatoes. I've never been able to eat split-pea soup since." She shrugs like it doesn't matter, but she shifts a little. That's more recent in her long list of wrongs her boyfriends have committed against her, and she used to like split-pea soup. He was making it for her, too. So she just licks her lips and follows his gaze out the window.

"So why'd you come to Chicago in the first place?" she asks, out of curiosity.

[kineticmachine]

Arlin is a little amazed at the sheer amount of names that have followed the phrase 'my boyfriend' in the course of her speaking to him. The fact that nearly all of such phrases are also followed by some horror story or another gets an exasperated look thrown her way. She gets little more than that, because he's already voiced his opinion on her relationships, and he doesn't really think that doing so again will have any profound effect on her thought processes.

The question, on the other hand, sort of demands an answer. He's pretty sure 'because my job demands it' is not one that's going to suffice, given that she thinks he just runs a shop and all. "I'm sure you've noticed by now that it's an infinite source of entertainment, if you can call watching the local politics of the Rift entertainment," he replies, only a hint of sarcasm tinting his voice. It's not really an answer, but he doesn't care.

[omnomnomface]

Trin doesn't notice at all, because her ridiculous numbers of boyfriends are her version of small talk, the ice breakers. She doesn't have anything else to talk about, really. She knows she's not the smartest crayon in the bucket (or however that phrase goes,) and she doesn't care, so she sticks to what she does know. And what she knows is boys.

"Yeah," she agrees. "That's sorta why I came too. 'Cause we were in Atlanta for a while, and not only was it fucking hot--" ignoring the fact, of course, that she was raised in Florida, "but it was sooooooo boring." She rolls her eyes, shaking her head. "So where did you live before?"

[kineticmachine]

Arlin lets her totally miss his sarcasm, because he doesn't want to answer the question anyway, and continues to eat his soup as she rattles on. Atlanta wasn't terribly boring to him, but that's simply because the time he went through it in this world, he happened to be on the run from a mob of demons without available contacts to the O, but that's beside the point.

"I move around quite a bit," he replies, "but right before coming to Chicago I was in Portland." This is technically a lie, as he was living just outside Portland, not actually in the city, and he didn't really live there so much as have an address there he occasionally went back to, but she doesn't need to know that.