Participants:
Scene Title | Super Date |
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Synopsis | Warren takes Elle out on a date, a nice change of pace from her first two weeks back in New York. |
Date | August 3, 2010 |
Lit by a swarming sea of headlights, street lamps, neon signs and interior lighting, the bustling Canal Street Market is packed shoulder to shoulder and moves to an urban pulse. Amidst the tight crowds of residents and visitors, it would be hard to see that New York had collapsed in on itself in this cross-section. Spared as much as it could be after the explosion, Chinatown had endured as a pillar of New York City, and its refusal to succumb to the collapse of the other burroughs around it only contributed to the surge of population and interest here after the rebuilding began.
It is within all of this play of lights on the dark streets where that strong facade begins to show its structural cracks. A district so small can hardly sustain the some two-hundred and fifty-thousand residents, piled upon with transients seeking shelter, the unaccounted for displaced housed in local homeless shelters, and the thousands of visitors that pass through each and every day. There simply isn't enough Chinatown to go around, and in the face of more pressing reconstruction, the condition of this portion of the city has begun to continue a slow decline in the years following the bomb. Potholes line the market's street, pieces of broken sidewalk litter the curbsides, and the facades of so many buildings have begun to take on the look of post-bomb New York that so many other regions had assumed. No place in new York was truly spared, some just didn't know they were wounded yet.
The first date of Warren and Elle starts innocently enough. He tried his hardest, using every ounce of willpower in his body, to not let his crazy influence his decisions. He told her to meet him in Chinatown. But he spiced it up a bit, he told her to stop by his apartment first, he wouldn't be there, but the door would be unlocked. She'd find a white box with a blue bow around it, and when she opens it, she'll find a white low-cut Cheongsam, also known as a Mandarin gown in English. It has light blue ornate designs, almost like an artistic representation of her electricity, light reflecting from the fabric and its designs.
Now in Chinatown, she was told to wait at a specific street. She's only left waiting for around five minutes, and there's suddenly a horse carriage being pulled up in front of her. Warren sits in the back, arms spread across the seats with a black suit on, jacket open, with a red buttoned up shirt under it and a black tie hanging down in front. He's also wearing a black fedora, with a red band around it. "Hello Elle, glad you found the dress. Get in." He leans over and holds his hand out to help her up.
Elle certainly was surprised by the cheongsam— she happily put it on, spending a little bit of time twirling around in front of the mirror before heading out to meet Warren. She can't help it, she gets so few opportunities to really dress up. Sure, she spices up her business attire, and wears cute civilian clothes whenever she can, but dresses…well, those are a very rare occasion.
Then, she spends that five minutes waiting, eying others as they oggle at the nicely-dressed electrokinetic. As the carriage pulls up, she blinks a few times, apparently quite pleasantly surprised by the arrival. She smiles, taking his offered hand and stepping up into the carriage. "Well, color me impressed so far." She giggles.
"This is our transportation for the evening. We're going to a restaurant. Just two crazies having a night out on the town." Warren carefully pulls her up, and the carriage is the sort with a little awning over it. They seem to get pulled by the finer parts of Chinatown, rather nice to look at when it's night, with all the lights and signs. It's almost like being in another country. "Is this your first date? If it is, I wanted to blow your mind. You did say romance you."
It's almost as if Elle has never seen this side of town, unable to help herself but to smile as they're pulled on the horse-drawn carriage. The sights, sounds, and smells are certainly pleasing to the girl, who leans ever-so-slightly against Warren as they're pulled along, accompanied by the clip-clop of horse hooves on the pavement.
Smiling blue eyes turn to look at Warren, possibly the most genuine smile he's seen on her thus far. "Well, I've kind-of had dates before…but it wasn't really established that it was a date until after the fact." Oh, Trask. She kind-of misses him. He was so nice. "So where we going to eat?"
"There." Warren points to the rather swanky Golden Luck Dragon Restaurant. He motions for the carriage to stop, and the man nods, then Warren steps out and walks around to offer his hand to Elle. "Pretty classy as far as Chinese places go, thought you'd like it, that's why I got the dress."
A smile on her face, Elle accepts the hand down, tugging the dress just a little to ensure nothing gets shown. She's a decent girl, dammit, despite the fact that she doesn't always act like she is. "I'm sure it'll be great." She smiles up at the restaurant, squeezing Warren's hand briefly. "And this entire place smells like food. I'm so ready to eat!"
Warren leads her in, and they're taken to a table near one of the windows, which gives them a rather nice view, the entire place just filled with a very classy atmosphere. He picks up a menu, looking over everything. "So, you want to order something traditional? We can get regular Chinese food any time, this place has stuff from China." he says as if this is a very amazing fact. "And you haven't shocked me in a while." he notes, apparently keeping track of that sort of thing.
A smile on her face, Elle picks up her menu, scanning through. "Something traditional would be pretty awesome, I think. I'd certainly like it…" She pauses in dragging her finger down the middle, giggling at Warren and reaching out, offering him a shock to the hand with a playful grin. Then, her eyes turn back toward the menu. "Maybe…hmm. How about we get some of these pork and shrimp dumplings for an appetizer? Then…hmm." She peers at the menu. "…Oooh, the Seared Pacific Pompano might be good? I don't know. Oooh…the fresh shrimp sauteed with glazed pecans looks good too…" Elle grins widely.
"I have no idea. Let's both try it! Then if we don't like it, we won't like it together." Warren offers as what he thinks is a fairly sensible idea… sort of. Though he jerks his hand back slightly at the shock, and smiles widely at her. "I've tried to build suits that would give me your ability before, but electricity is very unpredictable and hard to control. Probably great in bed too."
"Maybe we should go with the shrimp, we kind of know what that is, and the pecans… shrimp and pecans…" He stares down at the menu, then nods. "Sounds crazy enough for us."
Elle grins up at Warren, idly twirling a strand of hair around her finger. "I've had powers since I was six. So…I've had a good twenty years to perfect my abilities." Well, that, practicing every day, and a whole bunch of experiments that, while cruel, boosted her control over her ability. "Besides, I'm much better than any suit." She winks.
"Yeah…let's do the shrimp. It sounds like it tastes delicious…can't wait to try it." She grins.
Warren stops the waiter, nodding. He seems to be taking care of the order himself. "We'll just take sweet tea." he says at the end of the order, and focuses on Elle again. It seems he's not going to try and liquor her up. "I thought I only had my ability since I was 17, but Harper told me I had it since I was a kid. They used to do all sorts of things to make me better at it, but I don't remember any of that."
"It almost seems like we're normal, here doing this." Warren decides to change the topic as a large stylized pitcher of tea is sat in the middle of the table, right along with their glasses. Then when the waiter goes away he continues, "It's nice. Calms me down a whole lot. When I get bored, I start building bombs, but since we've been doing these normal things, I'm calming down. I can almost see why Mortimer, the sanest persona I have, whines about having a normal life so much. They all seem happy now, though."
The little blonde smiles warmly, idly linking her fingers with Warren's. Okay, so he's starting to grow on her, just a little bit. But she still has a job to do. She can only hope that they won't make her do what the Company made her do to Gabriel. That…that really hurt. Probably not, though…after all, he's not being 'tested'…he's just having an eye kept on him. She's protecting an investment of her future employers.
His remark prompts a small chuckle. "Honestly…I think you're kinda good for me. Don't tell anyone I said that, though, they'll think I'm going soft." This is offered with a genuine smile that looks so good on her.
"I think you're good for me too." Warren says as he leans forward and places his arms on the table so he can lean forward and watch the two. "I can be very good for you, but I'm still working on that. And no one will know anything."
WATCH> Nadal has connected.
The girl idly trails her fingers over his arm, offering him just the slightest amount of shock to make his arm hair stand on in. She watches him quietly for a long moment, smiling. Part of her wishes that she could tell him how bad she is for him. She likes him, yes…but she doesn't like feeling things. She doesn't like being vulnerable.
Still, she'll give him a shot.
"This is…nice. I needed this…just a relaxing time." She glances around the restaurant, with its warm and romantic lighting, and sighs softly. "Thank you, Warren."
"You deserve it, Elle. This is us having our new life. No matter what else we have to do, there's always time for this." Warren motions around, and pours tea into both of their glasses before sitting the pitcher down. "You've had too much structure, they've tried to put you into a little bottle and make you think there's no life outside of the Company, just like they tried to put me into a bottle. But in my mind, I've always been free, once you're free in your mind, you're free everywhere."
He lifts his glass, wearing red leather gloves on his hands, taking a sip of his tea. "I'm taking you ballroom dancing after this." And, speaking of this, their food is brought to the table, and he nods to the waiter before he leaves again.
She really can't help that smile on her face as she idly takes hold of one of those hands as he talks, once the tea is poured. Elle's mind produces silent objections to his use of 'us', but…she might as well have fun with him while she's doing her job. "I'm still working on that 'free' mindset thing. It's…difficult, to say the least, to come to terms with the fact that I don't need The Company. I've had this dependancy on them for twenty years. It's kinda wierd, knowing that I'll be leaving them in September." She peers quietly at Warren for a long moment.
Elle then sips at her tea, smiling softly. Ballroom dancing? Seriously? "I…don't think I've ever been dancing before. Ever. I don't even know how to dance, so I might step on your toes." Then, the food arrives, and Elle brightens up. Oooh, that looks as good as it sounded!
"I haven't danced much either, but when you've done things as insane as I have, dancing tends to… come up." Warren grins, carefully pulling his hand away from her when the food comes, taking in the rising scents. "It's hard to have that mindset, but you are free. There's no one on the planet who can make you do anything. What we do right now, all the secret stuff? That's a day job. this is life." He motions a hand, indicating their surroundings, then hunches slightly to try a shrimp on his fork.
With a grin, Elle grabs a pair of chopsticks, grabbing hold of a shrimp and taking a bite. Oooh, delicious. Sweet always goes so well with shrimp. "Mmm! Delicious." She smiles up to Warren, then, her head tilted to one side. Really, Elle, you shouldn't let yourself get too close. Who knows what the Institute might have you do in the future? The petite blonde likes this guy, though. She doesn't have to try to pretend to be normal, because neither of them are, really.
"I'm working on getting into that mindset. I like this whole life thing…it's a lot more enjoyable than what I've called it for the past twenty years." As she munches on the food, her eyes idly trail up to the ceiling, and all of the decorations around the place. "I think I might get an apartment at Octagon, too. Fort Hero is cold, and it'd be nice to be closer to you."
"That'd be nice, or, we could always split rent at my place, since we spend a lot of time together, and we've never really lived in a real place, that we can remember anyway." Warren suggests, watching her with the chopsticks, then, not wanting to be shown up, grabs his own instead of the fork. It's clear he has no idea how to use them, since his eyes are silvery for a few seconds before he blinks his eyes, and they're normal again when he starts to eat. "There's more than one bedroom."
Elle smiles thoughtfully as she pops another shrimp in her mouth. That would certainly be nice. She'd have her own bedroom, and she'd see him often…but then again, she has to at least try not to get to attached. After a moment, she reaches out to pat Warren's hand. "Well…if we want to try this whole 'normal' thing…maybe we should date for a while before we move in with each other. You know…really get to know each other before we spend all of our free time together." She smiles charmingly across the table.
"I think that's reasonable." Warren agrees, since he doesn't quite know what's normal, and he can't quite trust his false memories anymore. He trusts her to know what's normal a bit more than he does himself. "We have a long night, so take your time and enjoy the meal. I know I'm enjoying this."
The rest of the evening goes by swimmingly, with Elle quite enjoying herself. After eating, it's off to ballroom dancing; Elle dances like she has two left feet, stepping on Warren's toes a few times, but she eventually gets the hang of it. All the while, she wears a bright smile, fairly obviously enjoying herself immensely, despite her clumsy start.
After wearing herself out from laughing and dancing and generally having a wonderful time of herself, Elle is quite happy to go back to Warren's apartment. Once in the door, she flops back onto the couch, propping her feet up on one of the arm rests after taking off her heels. "Okay…that was an awesome date."
"You asked for it, I just delivered." Warren says as he locks the door behind him, removing his gloves and jacket as he heads to a closet and starts hanging things up. He removes his tie as well, then walks to sit on the edge of the couch, just wearing his red shirt and black pants and shoes now. "I may be crazy, but I've got class… most of the time."
Lifting her feet, Elle puts them up on Warren's lap, a bright smile on her face. "You won't get any arguments from me there." She peers thoughtfully up at Warren for a long moment. So peculiar. Their first meeting, Elle relentlessly zapped Warren into unconciousness and watched as they put him into a medicated coma, then carry him away in a helicopter. Now, she's going on dates with him and putting her feet in his lap. Such an interesting way to start a relationship, really, if you could call it that. "Thanks. I had fun."
Warren's eyes flush with their silvery color, and he moves his hands down to start gently massaging her feet. Who knows if his ability actually helps, but it is a comfort when doing anything he's not quite sure about. "I had fun too. But we're both horrible dancers. I'd like to dance like Satan, that's the kind of thing people expect from me, I think, Satan dancing. I was wearing the devil's hat, the fedora." He grins, and just sits back, relaxing. "Are you going home tonight?"
Ahh, that's nice. She smiles, tucking her hands behind her head as she watches him, with those funky silver eyes of his. So strange. "We are both pretty awful at dancing. I hope your toes aren't too sore after I stepped on them all night." She grins widely, breathing a soft sigh and peering up at the ceiling. "I have to go home tonight. I have to work tomorrow. I think I might take the weekend off, though. Maybe we could go somewhere."
"Why don't we go to Blockbuster and rent movies, then try to cook dinner? We haven't tried to cook yet." Warren suggests, and one of his hands start to slowly run up her shin, averting his now brown eyes from her feet to her face. "Well, are you going home in the next few hours?"
A small grin appears on Elle's face. Aww, he's so insatiable. It makes it kind-of fun to string him along, really. The fact that he is so painfully obvious about how much he wants her just makes her that much more inclined to play hard-to-get. She suddenly sits up, drawing one leg under herself, placing her hand on his. "That sounds good to me. Let me see…" She pulls out her phone, checking the time. "I have…an hour and a half before I should head out."
Warren doesn't say anything else after she says how long she has, instead he leans over when she's not looking, attempting to catch her lips with her's, eyes closed. His hand closes around the one that reaches out for him, but he makes no particular move beyond that, instead waiting to see what she does.
Caught by surprise, Elle almost jumps as he catches her lips in a kiss. It takes her a moment, blinking curiously, before she offers herself a mental shrug. After a few seconds of hesitation, Elle kisses back, her cheeks tinted red. This…isn't so bad, really. But, she likes that measure of control, so she takes it, as usual. After a moment of the kiss, she suddenly grins, a little shock traveling between her lips and his.
Warren winces slightly, then his grin widens from the shock and he pulls back a moment, just to lick his lips. "You know, normal people do it in bed… though I think they do it on couches too, so what the hell." He starts moving forward to catch her lips again, beginning to unbutton the little black buttons going down his red shirt.
A small giggle sounds from Elle, her hand reaching out and pressing against his chest, and she leeeeaaans back, staying just out of range with a grin. "Now, don't get too ahead of yourself, mister." She leans forward so her lips are only centimeters from his. "You've gotten to first base. There's still second and third before you get the home run." She grins, planting a tiny kiss on the tip of his nose.
"You're an old-fashioned girl, I can respect that." Warren grins, turning around to relax against the couch normally again, starting to button his shirt. "You're more than worth the wait, but give me another one of those electric kisses before I find a movie to watch before you leave."
Elle offers Warren a charming grin. "I suppose, since you've been so great tonight and taken me on an awesome date, I can grant that wish." She giggles softly, leaning forward and planting her lips against his with a bit more entusiasm this time. All the while, one arm snakes around his waist. She lets it be nice and pleasant for just a moment…before once again giving Warren a little jolt.
Warren's eyes are half-lidded, his smile still wide, but more relaxed as the kiss breaks and he's looking into her eyes. He licks his lips again before saying, "I love it when you shock me, lets me know I'm still alive."
Wow…someone who really does like the shocks. She grins, lifting a hand and tracing a finger over his jawline. This gesture is finished with a tiny zap to his chin. "Warren Ray, you are really something else…" Elle peers into his eyes for a moment, before suddenly grinning and poking him in the side. "What movies do you have?"
"Why don't we watch Little Shop of Horrors?" Warren suggests, standing up while he rubs his recently-shocked chin, and starts going through his DVDs. "I love that dentist, he's one of my inspirations. I only wish I could sing that good." He holds up the DVD case, waiting for her approval.
A thumb-up is offered in response, the girl grinning widely. "Sure! Sounds like a plan to me. Oooh, I'll make some popcorn!" She hops up, first bounding over to Warren, offering him a little shock-poke, before she darts into the kitchen and fetches out the popcorn they bought at the grocery store. "You know what we need? A slush-o machine."
"We can buy those? Oh, I can build one. That's a great idea. I'll get on it tomorrow." Warren, apparently inspired, pops the movie in and goes to sit on the couch and wait for her, yawning. Looks like they're getting a new kitchen appliance in a day or so.
The petite blonde can't help but grin to herself. Sweet, she's getting her very own Slush-O machine! Once the popcorn is popped, Elle returns with the bag, flopping down next to Warren and offering him a shock-kiss on the cheek. "Thanks again…this has been a great night."