(Untitled)

[hadyougoing]

Ava comes downstairs from her typical post-work shower in a bit of a bad mood. She has an especially bad post-vengeance headache, and her field training's been put off for a week, and Sssen's continual hissing about her broodchildren, while normally diverting, was today mostly just annoying

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[shortofcrazy]

There is somebody sitting several stools down. From the looks of his jeans, sneakers, and jacket (and the growing puddle on the floor under him), he is wringing wet from head to toe. He has a towel in his lap and is currently furiously drying his hair with another. The towel has flopped into his face for the moment.

Possible identity tip-off: the hipster glasses resting on the bar at his arm.

[shortofcrazy]

"You do good work," Riley says, grinning at her. "Thanks."

[hadyougoing]

Ava's smile turns a little-- somewhere between secretive and goofy, and she sets the blowdryer hastily down on the counter. (It vanishes.)

"I do my best," she says, very seriously.

And smiles again.

"So ... how are you tonight? Aside from wet."

[shortofcrazy]

"I was going to say damp," Riley says, and it's half a complaint and half sheepish. He lets the towel rest around the back of his neck. "I'm good; your night's involving less puddles, right?"

[hadyougoing]

Ava picks up her cocoa, which is by now totally cool enough to drink, and takes a sip.

"Way less puddles," she agrees. "So far it looks like I've got some hot chocolate, a headache, and a cute boy."

A beat.

"... Way less puddles. That's so not correct."

[shortofcrazy]

Riley cracks a quick, slightly startled (pleased) smile at being called cute.

"Well," he says, "my night's definitely looking up."

Implication: now that you are here.

And I am no longer a human waterfall.

[hadyougoing]

She turns a megawatt grin down at her mug.

Cheerful, "Yeah?"

(She assumes it's not bad grammar that makes Riley's evenings.)

Ava sits down on the only-slightly-water-dropleted stool beside Riley's. "So that's a preemptive yes to ... some kind of hanging out tonight?" Please please please. Her day was so mediocre.

[shortofcrazy]

Riley's own grin is directed sideways.

"Absolutely.

"Did you have something in mind?"

[hadyougoing]

Jackpot!

"Oh-- no," she says, "not really."

Her smile turns wry.

"I figured at a bare minimum I could let you pick the TV show. But I am also totally up for being less boring."

Well. Not totally. Marginally. But any evening + Riley > that evening - Riley.

[shortofcrazy]

He laughs a little and he says, "Okay."

He considers.

"Well, to narrow it down, where do you want to do this?"

Milliways proper? Ava's room? Riley's place in DC? DC proper?

[hadyougoing]

Ava looks shifty.

"I swear I'm not using you for your city. But my vote goes to not-here."

[shortofcrazy]

Riley pulls a bemused face. "Using me for my city? That'd be a first." He absently shakes a little more water out of his hair with one hand, and dries his glasses on a towel with the other. He slides them on. They're a little smeary, but not so bad.

Wry: "You're gonna want a coat."

[hadyougoing]

"Just a raincoat, or an actual it's-cold coat?"

Ava punctuates the question with a large gulp of cocoa, mercifully cooled enough to spare her tongue.

[shortofcrazy]

"It's DC in May," he says. "Just something that'll keep you relatively dry in a monsoon.

"I'm a block from my house; do you want to walk back there or -- go to a movie or something?"

Riley sucks at options.

[hadyougoing]

Ava's eyes light up just a little at 'go to a movie.'

It's so ... normal.

"Oh, yeah!" she says pleasantly, and adds, feeling weirdly like a foreigner, "What's showing?"

[shortofcrazy]

"Uhhh." Riley doesn't actually see that many movies in the theater, so he's relying on TV commercials and his own memory here. "The last Star Wars, some really bad horror movies, Kung Fu Hustle, a couple romantic comedies, Monster-in-Law..."

Should he ask the bar? He should probably ask the bar.