Participants:
| Scene Title | Old Hat |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Huruma comes back to the old haunt for part of her old job, and Leonard meets her up close. |
| Date | October 27, 2009 |
He doesn't often drink…all that Baptist upbringing. And it's an old cliche that a wounded cop or solider will crawl into the bottle, post trauma….which is precisely what Leo's trying to avoid. But tonight he comes down and settles at the bar, tugs a bottle of cider to himself with his power once he's gotten a nod of acknowledgement from the bartender.
First night here, and already Leonard has been selected out of those faces in Lucy's that remain new to Huruma; not to mention that Abigail picked him out for her before she physically came back. For a while she could feel him upstairs, and now she can feel him joining the rest from her seat inside of the office behind the bar. Filling out the last few letters of what paperwork she has left.
When the door opens to let her out, the usual suspect might have been one of the girls, Thalia- well, frankly- anyone besides Huruma. Not very many actually saw her go inside, so the exit is a mild surprise. Her shirt is a blaze of red against brown, a loose-sleeved blouse that meets the shiny buckle of a belt on black pants. Brenda is standing right outside when the taller woman comes out, and one of Huruma's hands meets the girl's hair and shoulder, brushing past with the barest of shivers. She moves to sidle around the edge of the bar, though halts quite abruptly across from Leonard, eyelids and pupils aimed down at him. "Drinking is no'going to …help." Huruma's smooth voice offers that one touch of advice with her first words to him.
Leonard looks up, black brows drawing together in perplexity. "I don't know about that," he observes, tone mild. "What makes you think it won't?" There's that studious mildness to his tone, and the dark eyes are clear.
"B'cause you do no'seem t'be stupid enough t'think that it just might." A compliment and a vague insult all rolled up in one ball. Huruma watches him with a passive and neutrally drawn expression for now, one hand resting on the countertop in front of her; winter happens to be rather kind to her skin- her hands are just as long and smooth as he might try to remember them. Even down to the whites of her nails, now clicking once down on the laminate.
"I suspect tha'you've seen it at work- does observation not teach you, Leonard…?"
"I'm not trying to have it help with anything, other than a mild buzz," Leo notes, tone still puzzled. "Are you….you new staff?" he asks, taking a long pull off the bottle. "I know you."
"Old staff." Huruma amends, lifting her heels and slinking around to the other side of the bar. "I came back." Her voice is now relatively behind him, which in itself may be able to cause some superficial uneasiness before she appears again on Leonard's other side. Her presence is hard to miss, even when it is out of sight. Closer now, there are visible touches of thin gold jewelry that glint off of the bar lights, now unblocked by her shadow when she perches on the next stool, long legs nearly sidesaddle. "I am no'surprised tha'you know me, but obviously- it is not from here, as you just now asked if I was new." At this, her eyes turn back over to watch him.
The telekine sets asides his bottle very gently, and turns to face her fully. 'Where do I know you from?" he asks, with something like wariness in his face. Not quite hostility, but waiting stillness.
Huruma fits right into Lucy's as if she never really left- regulars hardly notice her, and the burnouts and troublemakers are automatically wary, regardless of if they know what she does there. She appears to be feeding off of this atmosphere, taking her time in everything. Even her response, which means while perching one elbow to the bartop and keeping one foot half to the ground- Huruma watches the man with an interest somewhere between keenness and genuine curiosity.
"You tell me." Her eyes narrow slightly, lips compressing at one side. Truthfully, Huruma is scouring back through mental files trying to pick out who he is other than Abby's roommate- she knew his mood from somewhere- and his mannerisms face to face have made that twice as clear.
Shit. He probably met her back when he was Alex. The black-haired boy's face shutters, a bit, and he glances away. "I dunno. Memory's crap," he admits, sheepishly. "I live with Abby, work at the Suresh Center…"
Physical cues can be as telling as emotional ones. Huruma's face tilts sidelong as his face turns from hers. After a few awkward seconds, there is a Very Perceptive little noise for him. "Ahh." This followed by eyes that move to stare at Leonard once again.
"And how, exactly, did you come t'meet Abigail…?"
Leo's face turns bland, unrevealing. "I was a friend of a friend, I needed to rent a room, she needed a room-mate. We got along great, and have been living together ever since. About….a year, maybe?" he says, punctuating it with a quizzical lift to his brows.
"Friend of a friend." Huruma says this in the same tone someone might utter 'likely story'. "I remember you. From somewhere. …I have th'feeling it was important." It is hard to tell if she means this, or is trying to lead him into something else. Her head turns to scan the bar, alighting for a few seconds on certain sections before darting back to Leonard. "Well… important to others, f'th'most part."
He rolls his hands, spreads them palm up, and shrugs. It's almost theatrical. "Maybe so," Leo says, tone utterly noncommital.
Huruma lets out a snort through her nose. Fine, be that way. A tiny wash of uneasiness settles over Leo, but that may also be because Huruma leans closer to him. If there is one thing that she knows his mood to be associated with- it is the short era wherein there were baby birds wriggling out of ashes- and wherein she and the Company came to blows. Not that Huruma knows who exactly he is- she can only recall that he had something to do with that period of time. On one hand, he lucked out- on the other, now she is going to be curious.
Unfortunately, she does not say a word. Quite odd.
And he, in turn, leans back….unconsciously holding his stool in place, albeit at a most unnatural angle. It looks like some sort of visual gag. Until he settles it down, and sets it lurching a step or two from her. Mah personal space, please.
"Once upon a time, there was a group of social outcasts- pariahs." Huruma sits back up, her words the beginning of a story that she does not continue. Her fingers find a stray napkin, starting to fold it despite the wet ring from the bottom of a glass. "Abigail said tha'you work here too, sometimes…" As soon as her curiosity comes to a head, it hides behind another curtain, and Huruma has gone into pretending that nothing has happened.
His stare is as opaque as abraded glass. "I do," he says, simply. "Not a trained bartender, but I do what I can to help out, when they need me."
When Huruma finishes doing goodness knows what to the napkin- She ends up setting down a rather perky looking paper crane on the bartop in front of Leonard. "As you should, I suppose…" The tall woman lifts to her feet, passing behind him again with what could be taken as pacing, as she had not been sitting long. "I hope tha'we can be-" Her features suddenly appear on his other side, closeby, smiling with a flash of ivory before moving away again. "-friends?"
Leonard looks down at the crane. "I swear I'm not a replicant," he says, blinking at it, before looking up at her…turning to keep her in his field of vision.
A slow laugh comes next, all while Huruma keeps a smile on her lips. At first she says nothing, but words catch up soon when she moves the rest of the way away from Leonard and turns towards the rest of the room. "I think we shoul'be good here." That's the last of that, apparently; Huruma moves off with slow clicks of shoes and an intimidating curve of her spine, making headway in giving a grabby drunk across the bar a reasonable head start. Like she never left! Ah.
"I hope so," But Leo's tone is decidedly dubious. Clearly, he remains unconvinced. He lifts his glass in salute, though.