Where's My Kahlua?

[Lilly Love]

It was about ten in the morning by the time Live finally rolled out of bed. She lazily pulled on her black slacks and orange shirt for work at the minimart. She pulled on her black combat boots, tied her hair back in a high pony tail, slid on about a dozen black bangles, and put on her black hoop earrings. She brushed her teeth, checked her eyebrow piercing in the mirror and quickly fixed what black eyeliner was left on her eyes so that she didn't look like she had just rolled out of bed. She still had almost two hours until she had to be at work but she wanted to have time for coffee and reading.

Live grabbed her bag and headed quickly out the door of her apartments and began towards the Coffeehouse. It definitely wasn't the closest walk but that didn't matter to her. Given Live's powers as a shadow walker, it was easy to get from point A to point B in really no time at all. However, she had to be careful using her powers out in public because of the recent meta-human hate groups going around. She walked about a block or two from her house then turned a corner into an alley way and was gone into the shadows. Literally. Her form changed from human to shadow and she traveled quickly down the side of the road to downtown through the darkness. Thankfully the morning was cloudy. Even though the sun created stronger shadows, it made it harder to find solid shadow paths. If everything was cloudy though, then there was an overall darkness that Live could use to travel more fluidly. Anyone who was watching the shadows close enough would have seen a darker patch quickly fly by on the ground, looking like the shadow of some giant bird sweeping over the ground.

A few minutes later (being able to avoid traffic) Live arrived downtown. She changed back into her human form in an alley where no one could see and then re entered the streets and began her walk to the coffeehouse. It was just about a quarter till eleven by the time she got there. She entered and walked up to the counter, "Hi, I'd like the Colombian blend, medium, with three French Vanilla creamers." Live said absentmindedly as she pulled out her wallet. "Oh, and one of those cheesy croissant things." She added quickly. She paid with her card and then went to find a table to sit at in the back with her croissant while she waited for her coffee to be ready.

[Deleted]

Another day where he got to do two of the things he hated the most: rushing and waiting. Why he had to do both so often was a mystery, or perhaps a conspiracy? But he raged that the whole world couldn’t just work according to his schedule. Like wizards. What did that old guy Gandalf say? They arrive precisely when they mean to? Yeah, that meant that everyone else was either too early or late. Oriel could stand to live privileged like that.

But nooooooo, he had to be here and there by such and such time or else blah blah blah~

And blast it all, Oriel was early out the door. Again. Which left him all the time in the world to do nothing significant other than twiddle his thumbs while he waited for the right time to finally roll around, because he refused to be where he needed to be any earlier than he absolutely had to.

That was why coffee was a blessing that existed in this cold, dark, heartless world.

Oriel often stopped at the coffee shop when he was going hither and thither, in this case from the school to the theater where he was tasked with cleaning out the vomitorium and prop closet. Why did they call it a vomitorium? It made it sound like he was doing something nasty down there when all there was was a bunch of dust and old stage sets/props.

Anyway, Oriel stopped for coffee. Mocha. Yum. He put in the order, then went to tinkle in the loo. Why did he call it a loo just now? He must be missing George already, the girl was going back to England once graduation hit. But digressing is a thing…

When he returned….of course, while he was away for less than five minutes, what was a mostly empty cafe would become full of patrons, limiting seating to a null. Oriel sighed and ran his hand through his long hair(it’d been growing again), scanning the area for something of a sanctuary. Oriel hated crowds, they still unnerved him. He found one in the corner…with a pretty little something occupied across it. “Oy,” he uttered to get the brunette’s attention. “Mind if I sit here? There’s shit place else to go.” Oriel stuffed his hands into his jeans and awaited a response with a slightly irritated expression.

[Lilly Love]

Live had begun to nibble on her croissant as more and more people began to swarm in. She had made it in just before the big rush, thankfully. She hoped her coffee would be ready soon. She really hated people. They were like giant ants swarming everywhere. If she could just live in a world where it was just her, than life would be so much better. She was zoned out, slowly eating her croissant when a voice caught her attention.

"Huh?.." Live said as she looked up to the boy standing in front of, looking quite annoyed. She leaned back, scanning him up and down. She was really not a fan of people and if there hadn't been such a lack of seating in the coffee shop, she would have told the boy to screw off. However, given he was kinda cute, though probably younger than Live, and the place was packed. Whatever small bit of not-bitch was in Live, decided she would allow the company.

She let out a sigh, glanced over to see if her coffee was ready yet, and then back at the boy. "Fine. If you go get my coffee for me when its done." Live's voice was dry and gloomy. She always sounded like someone had just ticked her off though, that was just her.

She motioned to the seat across from her with her left hand and her face made an expression like, 'well, are you gonna sit already?'. Though Live hated people, and hated having to interact with them, she always dealt with them extremely straight forward. She wasn't one to pretend she liked someone.

[Deleted]

Oriel quirked an eyebrow. Well, didn’t this chick have a chip on her shoulder? Oh, well, he thought. At least she wasn’t one of those squealing girls that liked to gab and gossip about make-up and boys and that other girl’s dress that was ‘so-totally last season’. Now Oriel wouldn’t mind gabbing about make-up if he could afford the damn shit, he already tried gabbing about boys, and had been shot down because apparently none of his guy-friends were interested in that shit, and he gave no fucks about whether some bitch’s outfit was some sort of faux pas(is that the word?), because running around in his usual red plaid shirt, he was clearly at the top of the fashion industry.

Oriel snorted, though he was only half entertained by this girl’s attitude. The severe crowd made it impossible to enjoy it to it’s fullest. “I feel inclined to tell you ‘get your own fucking coffee’, and take the seat anyway,” he announced with a mildly miffed shake of his head. He heard his own drink being called out by the barista and he shrugged. “But since I’m headed up that way anyways, may as fucking well,” he conceded. He took a side-step backwards, keeping an eye on the cunt. “The fuck’m I waiting for anyway? Don’t want to be brining you back a double-shot cup o’heart failure when you ordered a frappe.”

[Lilly Love]

Live was use to people either trying to awkwardly ignore her bluntness and still be nice, or just plain old getting pissed at her, trying to talk to some sense into her, and then storming off when they couldn't. This boy though seemed to just kind of accept it, though he also seemed to have no problem being just as rude back. His social skills were basically on par with Live.

She was fairly amazed when he said he was just gonna take the seat anyway and not get her coffee. If he had done so, she probably would have taken back her offer for him to sit across from her. Live wasn't one to give something away in nothing for return.

"They will call for Live." She said bluntly, choosing not to respond to any of his snippy words, though she had a few good comments waiting on the back of her tongue for the young man. She kind of preferred to have to deal with people like this kid. At least she knew where stood with them and they put up no front of pretending to actually like Live or something. Right after she told him her name, she heard her drink being called. "Finally..." She mumbled under her breath. Her eyes remained locked on the boy the whole time.

[Deleted]

Oriel was a direct person, and Oriel liked direct people. Now Oriel was also an asshole, grade-A certified. This girl...they hadn't interacted enough for Oriel to make such a determination, but he'd at least determined that she was a direct, straightforward person. Someone who didn't beat around the bush and try to sugar-coat all their shit in some misguided effort of spare his 'feelings'. Fuck that shit. Oriel would rather know a person hated them and deal with them on that playing field than have someone pretend to like him. It made him paranoid as fuck otherwise, honestly.

As for the seat, he didn't see her name on it, nor her no-doubt hot ass, therefore as far as he was concerned it was free for the taking. The only reason he asked first was because he was supposed to be working on improving those social skills that made him come across as an ass.

Whatever. "Live. Right," he confirmed apathetically. That should be easy to remember and had he not been slightly on edge, he would've come up with something to say about that name. Some joke or some such.

As luck would have it, 'Live's' drink came almost immediately after Oriel's. He grunted and trudged away from the table and snatched the drinks in each hand, then shimmied his way through another growing crowd back to their little corner of the room. "Get your own fucking condiments f'you need'm, I ain't going back through that shit." The New Yorker set the drink on the side of the table and finally claimed the seat as his own. He took a blessed sip of his own cup of caffinated bliss. Idle chatter? What's that? Maybe if he wasn't so fucking on edge, because for the moment all he could come up with was his normal routine of bother bother bother. And again, he was supposed to be working on that shit.

"Mmm....hot," he said with a smirk. Oriel glanced over to the girl. "I's talking 'bout you, not the coffee, by the way." Tongue produced. Back to the his own business.

[Lilly Love]

Live rolled her eyes as the boy walked away from the table to grab both their drinks. She really hadn't planned on having to deal with anyone this morning before her coffee and this extremely rude boy was really going to push her limits. When he sat back down, snapping about how she would have to get her own condiments, she really felt tempted to punch the kid. Live's anger issues were definitely going to be an issue with this one.

"Don't worry, I don't need anything else from up there." Live snapped right back, her eyes narrowing at the boy. She grabbed her coffee and took a small sip, especially since it was still so hot. It tasted perfect, as usual. However, she felt this morning called for a little something extra.

She was about to reach into her black bag when the boy made some comment about her being hot. Live knew she was attractive, not that she was conceded about it but she also wasn't unaware that she had been blessed with a pretty decent face and body. However, she didn't really like people commenting on it. The only time she really handled compliments or anything like that was if she was really drunk at some party getting hit on. Other than that, it just felt annoying and made her wanna slap someone.

"Oh keep your thoughts to yourself and just drink your freakin' coffee." Live grumbled turning her attention back to her bag as she began to rummage through it looking for something. After a moment she began to get frustrated, clearly not finding whatever it was she was looking for. Her expression changed from annoyed to confused and then pissed. "God freakin' DAMNIT..." She spewed through gritted teeth as she finally gave up looking and pushed the bag away, leaning back in her seat and taking another angry drink from her coffee.

[Deleted]

Live wouldn’t be the first person who wanted to punch Oriel, nor would she be the last. Actually, the same applied to if she did decide to punch him. Lord knows he’s had plenty of bruises over his asshole-ry. He’d been attempting to change that attitude, but…in this environment, and against this girl who seemed every much of a dick as he was, Oriel didn’t feel like bothering. What was that saying? If you want respect you had to give it first? Well, Oriel hadn’t exactly given it either to begin with, so it probably didn’t apply here.

“Good to know,” he said, putting his own drink to his lips, his eyes staring out into the crowd. God, why did they all look so fucking happy, it made him want to throw that scalding cup of coffee at them.

Her response to his compliment…well, it made him smirk. She was a feisty one, wasn’t she? Not too creative in her comebacks, but she shot them out hard and straight, which was a whole other quality altogether that he could admire. “Can do,” he replied, flitting his eyes in her direction for a brief moment before fixing them on some ugly-happy couple giggling and flirting with each other across the way. If Oriel was here with Phoenix, and the shop was empty, then the two boys would probably interact with each other in that manner as well. Right now, it just irritated him. Yet he didn’t look away until Live uttered out a mighty loud curse. Oriel snorted. “Don’t take it out on the bag, thing never did nothing to hurt you…..unless it did, then by all means, rip the stitches out of it.” He took another drink of his mocha and returned his gaze to the oh-so-happy couple out there.

[Lilly Love]

The day may have started not to terribly but now Live was just in an awful mood. First, she had to deal with this annoying ass boy and people really weren't her forte. However, she did find the boys level of asshole-ness interesting but it didn't make the fact that she still had to deal with him much better. Second, she had just realized she forgot probably one of the most important things this morning; her kahlua.

Live wouldn't call herself an alcoholic. No, her mother was an alcoholic; she just liked to drink often. She usually didn't drink before work or doing anything important however she always kept some kind of drink in her bag in case of an emergency. And this boy putting her in such a shitty mood seemed like a good enough reason to have a little drink before work. Besides, a bit of kahlua with coffee tasted pretty amazing too.

Live couldn't help but roll her eyes at the boy and huff, "Not that it's any of your business, but I forgot something." She snapped at him, her dull gray eyes narrowing as she watched his gaze scan the crowd. Now she really wanted to hit him, more just for the fact that she wanted to hit something. Plus he was pretty annoying. Not the worst though. Oh, she could think of at least a hundred people who were ten times more annoying. Live kind of appreciated the fact that he was just about as much of a jerk as she was a bitch but he still was another breathing human so he was still annoying. She was glad that he did agree to keep his thoughts to himself. She really wouldn't have handled continued flirting or being hit on or anything along those lines this morning.

[Deleted]

Oriel’s habit to bother the living was gradually getting more under control. He felt like he could, at least, finish his coffee and jet off to work without harassing this girl much more than he already had. But her attitude was making it difficult. It made her interesting. It made Oriel want to poke her more to see how long it took before she truly exploded at him. If annoyed, blunt, and bitchy was he default, Oriel would really like to see her when she was pushed past her limits.

But wow, she sure was frustrated over having not found her whatever-it-was that she needed so desperately right now. And people called Oriel impatient. Well…he was. Over certain things. Things that mattered, in his opinion. Though once upon a time Oriel too would have felt like throwing something at somebody if he suddenly found himself without a cigarette to smoke or a drink to drink. Or a hole to fuck. Anything, really, that he could use to distract himself from whatever was irritating the fuck out of him at the time.

“Ain’t nothing so important you gotta be destroying shit just ‘cause you ain’t got it,” he commented, already going back on his word to keep his thoughts to himself. Though that had been Oriel’s stance on venting for a long time standing….because if you destroyed something, then either you just killed something that didn’t belong to you, or you ruined something perfectly useful of your own and now had to waste money to get another. Oriel took care of his things….said the person who threw his bed across the room in a drunken rage when he thought his boyfriend was cheating on him. Wow, Oriel really must’ve been out of his mind back then.

He took another sip of his coffee.

[Lilly Love]

Live narrowed her eyes. She wasn't destroying anything. Yeah she was a bit harsh with her bag but at least it was still in one peace. She use to have major anger issues back when she was in high school. If anyone ticked her off, she wouldn't hesitate to punch them in square in the face. She had gotten in a lot of trouble because of her attitude back then. Thankfully that had stopped being so violent over the past couple years. However, a lot of that was due to an increase in alcohol consumption.

She let out a huff. Now she really just wanted to finish her coffee and get out of her. She would have just left right then but she hadn't ordered her drink to go so it was in a glass mug that she would have to return before leaving. She took another drink, feeling annoyed that she felt like she had to rush through her coffee. She preferred to drink her coffee slowly, as chugging it down made her nerves like fried wires. This kid was really put a kink her day.

"I didn't 'destroy' anything..." Live spewed at him, no longer being able to hold back a response. "I might start destroying something here soon though." She grumbled under her breathe as she glared at the boy and then looked back to her coffee as she took another drink.

[Deleted]

Oriel got the anger thing. He really did. He still had those issues, since he was a kid, in fact. The worst of it seemed to be over now, for the most part though. It wasn’t that he wasn’t still pissed at the world and how the world fucked him up…he didn’t think that was ever going to go away…but he was at least trying to not take it out on people who didn’t deserve it anymore and instead find other outlets. That anger management class he took last year had, surprisingly, helped a lot with that…as much as he hated to admit. And his sessions with Dr. Neville.

And….overall just being tired. Tired of fucking up so much, tired of pushing away people he actually gave a shit about….He still wasn’t certain what was going to become of him and Kodi. Kodi was his best friend and just the sound of Oriel’s name made the boy shiver. That was….too fucked up for Oriel to take.

He’d done it before, looking for anything and everything to distract himself from the anger. Smoking was his go to, at first. Then sex. Lots of it. Drinking came in there at some point. Then running until he couldn’t breath anymore. In the middle of the night, so he’d never get enough sleep. And that lack of sleep just made him more anxious and irritable and had him seeking more ways to distract himself. Something had to break that cycle, or else…no, Oriel felt like he already hit rock bottom, and was desperate. Desperate enough to just give up do whatever the fuck they told him because doing that was better than doing nothing at all.

So…he understood. Or at least he would have, had he knows anything about this girl. At the moment, all he saw was a bitchy girl who didn’t even want to share her fucking table with someone without forcing them into labor. “Uh-huh….just remember, you break it, you bought it.” Which was supposed to apply to the coffee cup, but could vaguely apply also to his face should she decide to take out her rage on that instead.

[Lilly Love]

Live's anger had been a constant issue through out her life. It majorly kicked in after her brother had disappeared from her life. Getting angry and taking that anger out on the closest thing had been her coping mechanism throughout all of middle school and a decent chunk of high school. It had even landed her plenty of visits to the principles office and much detention due to fights and other such things.

When her powers had kicked in, she had had little to no trouble learning to control them. That was except, when she lost her temper. Even as a meta, her anger was her downfall. However, Live was too prideful to admit she had 'anger issues'.

Live probably would have been able to respect and understand Oriel had she known more about him. However, she didn't and all he was right now was just a thorn in her side, like most people. He had interrupted her morning alone, been quite rude, made comments about her looks that she didn't appreciate, and now was telling her what to do with her stuff. She really considered throwing her cup of coffee at his face. It would have given her such satisfaction.

"It's 'you break it, you buy it' you dumbfuck...." Live snapped, her patience slowly slipping farther and farther away with each passing second.

[Deleted]

Well, now that she had engaged against Oriel’s instigation….Oriel knew he should just leave it alone…but he was feeling the tickle of wanting to get wrapped up again in his old game of annoy-until-they-blow. Basically, if they popped their top instead of keeping their cool against Oriel’s antagonizing, then he won.

…not exactly a great game, seeing at it had gotten him yelled at, chased, beat up, and taken home by the cops on more than one occasion, but it had been a while since he’d engaged in such a game. It was yet another way for the delinquent to relieve stress when he didn’t want to deal with reality. And he was agitated enough to think this might be therapeutic. Maybe.

Or he was just impulsive and got caught up in the moment, which was far more likely than anything else he could come up with to justify it.

Oriel smirked and turned slightly towards the sexy, rage-filled girl. “But don’t ‘buy’ imply present or future intentions?” he argued. “And I’d take that to mean you might break it and choose not to buy it if you don’t feel like it. Saying ‘bought’ implies you ain’t got a choice and this here establishment expects you to pay for the shit you break.” Yes, he was arguing English. Whoever said he never paid attention in class? His grammar usage certainly didn’t reflect it.

[Lilly Love]

While Live and Oriel were probably fairly even in levels of asshole-ness, there was a fairly significant difference; while Live did enjoy tormenting others (especially back in high school), she much preferred to just keep to herself if possible. She didn't bother others if she didn't have to, or if they didn't bother her first. It would take a real special mood for her to want to continue to pick at someone, like Oriel was doing now.

However, if someone poked at her, Live sure as hell was gonna poke back. She was way to prideful and bitchy to walk away and be 'the bigger person'.

The brunette took another sip from her coffee, trying to at least keep herself slightly calm. "What you are saying would be true, if we were talking about my coffee. Bought is past tense, so in order for that to make sense, I would have to have already paid for this mug, which I didn't; I only paid for the coffee. So it doesn't matter what I do to the coffee because yes, 'I break it, I bought it'. If I spill it on the floor, well...I bought it. However, I didn't buy this coffee mug. So to say, 'you break it, you bought it', would be false because I didn't buy it yet. But if I do break it, well then I would be forced to buy it. And 'you buy it' is a command, implying you don't have an option..." She paused and took another sip of her coffee and then looked back up at the boy, her eyes narrowing at the boy, "...dumbfuck."