Stranger places? [open]

[Taitum Marshall]

What the hell?! Taitum stared, slightly bewildered, at the hord of people passing by him to get to their cars. He'd barely managed to find parking for his little scrap metal chip in the huge parking lot that belonged to the mall and it was perfectly obvious why. Everyone had decided, 'hell, black friday's too bad. Let's try saturday or sunday instead.' and then they just decided sunday would be really quiet after all and all of them had piled as a cute little family into their big SUVs and headed down to the friggin mall.

The same friggin mall that he came EVERY sunday, to get his sunday bottle of red wine before he went to the lake to drink away all the bad thoughts and memories of the week and then sleep it off under HIS tree until the cold got him to move. Taitum glared at the shoppers and a load of them piled in and then piled out and in and out and i- HE WAS NEVER GONNA GET HIS DAMN WINE NOW!

Taitum slammed his hand against the car roof before dragging the same hand through his hair and taking three deep breathes. Calm. Temper. Stay Calm. Eventually Taitum pushed himself from his car. He was a damn soldier! If he could take on land mines and AK 47s then he could take on families sunday shopping....

Taitum shoved past people to the grocery store. He heard tons of complaints along the way which he pretended to not hear and when he finally saw the wine section not too far away he beelined straight for it untill he collided with something ... wet, cold. Taitum jumped back at the sensation in his side, ignoring the sting from the stitches he'd recieved not two days prior.

"Damnit! What did you spill on me?!"
Taitum's eyes met the big, round, terrified eyes of a boy in a shopping cart, with a box of, now empty, juice in his fat fingers. The bottom lip tremble was the only warning Tait got before the toddler broke into a scream.

"He's just a little boy!"
His mother scooped him up and Tait rolled his eyes. The woman then 'hmphed' and moved away with her trolley and her wailing child.
"Dear God, may I never have one of those."
Taitum muttered as he pulled his wet shirt away from his body groaning at the mess of orange juice on it. He felt the pair of eyes on him before he even looked up though when he did, he couldn't help but glare.
"So glad to be of service and entertain..."
Taitum hissed softly meeting the staring eyes.

[Evgeny Demidov]

"Oh!" Evgeny snapped out of his trance. "I didn't mean to, I mean, I was not staring." He scratched the back of his head. "I swear, I mean... I'm sorry?"

In reality, he wasn't. Evgeny was just standing there, motionless and eyes fixated into the general position where the black-haired guy that was just talking to him, attempting to find jello with the use of his power. The job did seem to be a little harder than he initially expected, specially due to the fact that he can't see colors with it.

"What... happened to you?" The amount of concentration he had been putting on his little search made him totally miss the fact that a baby had just spilled juice on the guy. "Is that orange juice?" He asked as he took a handkerchief from his back pocket, handing it to the man along with a soft smile. "Look, you should dry yourself."

[Taitum Marshall]

Taitum stopped shaking out his shirt when he heard the man... a grown man by the way, stutter like an idiot school girl. He scoffed for a moment before shaking his head and continueing to shake out his shirt eager to get some air through it to dry it a little, until he caught the scent and tilted his head away at the scent half gagging. No way... now he had to walk around with this smell all day... Taitum's dark eyes flicked back to Evgeny mentally pinning him to the wall to make him shut up but in a crowd like this he knew he wouldn't try anything.

Lucky Evgeny. He really did feel like punching someone right then. Taitum rolled his eyes when the guy asked him what had happened to him. Evgeny seemed quite familiar though. A local he'd seen around maybe? He didn't waste too much time trying to place the face in front of him, instead concentrating on the problem at hand. Taitum winced when he heard the word orange juice and held back another gag before staring down at the spot.

"Wanna take a sniff and see?"
Taitum asked with sarcastic tone to his question and an inclination of his head to the other male. Evgeny pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket and held it out to Taitum causing his face to soften for a moment as he stared from the soft smile to the handkerchief but only for a moment and then his face hardened again and he snatched the cloth from the other male.

"Thank you, Mr. Obvious. Never would have come to that conclusion on my own. Warms my heart to know there are people like you in the world."
His voice was blatantly emotionless as he spoke to Evgeny rubbing uselessly at the spot and making it stain even more...
"All I bloody wanted was a bottle of red wine and a nice relaxing day away from Hammel..."
Taitum muttered under his breath though he was sure that Evgeny would hear, he was standing close enough.

[Evgeny Demidov]

Evgeny shook his head at the proposition of smelling the stranger. He laughed a second after, concluding it was most likely a joke.

"Thanks!" He graciously smiled at the dark-haired man's happiness of people as gentlemanly as Evgeny. He had never been the type that looks to be recognized as a good person, but hearing it once in a while, specially like this, made him feel pretty good about himself. Yes, the sarcasm in the phrase flew-by completely. "Oh, and it's Demidov. Though Evgeny is probably better. Or Ev because I know the name it's a handful. You know what, Obvious is just fine too." He kept smiling as he saw the man in his futile attempt to dry himself. "You should put it in water right away you know. Well, as soon as you get home, of course."

Placing his hands in his pockets, Ev swayed back and forth awkwardly for a bit. Thinking about it, the guy looked familiar. Did he work at Hammel? To have been in intelligence for half his adult life, and having a visualization-related meta-ability, Evgeny was quite bad with faces. He was good at remembering names, data, numbers, and relating them to images or, well, faces, but remembering faces or things just like that, without paying them focused attention, was a skill he did not received upon birth nor cared to improve if such thing was possible.

"Oh so you do go to Hammel," Taking his right hand from his pocket, he snapped his fingers. "I knew I had seen you before. You're on my friday's fourth period, right?" Ev was clearly confusing the man with one of his students since he didn't look that old. "Wait a minute, are you even old enough to buy alcohol?" His face turned into a worried one. Should he report this to Hammel? A minor buying alcohol on town? Aww, but I want to be the cool teacher... "You know what, it's fine, I won't tell anybody this time."

[Taitum Marshall]

Taitum blinked at the laughter feeling the sudden need to correct the male that it had been sarcasm rather then a joke but hearing the laughter just made Taitum sigh and shake his head. He might not be that intelligent after all. You couldn't be good looking an smart after all so Taitum let it slide and instead concentrated back on the stain and not throwing up from it. It was the most horrible smell in the world and he'd have definitely keeled over and died if he could. Taitum was a second time around left dumbfounded by the behavior toward his sarcasm.

Was he like that once? Naive and innocent before ware gave him a backbone of steel and a skin of iron? Taitum licked his lips hiding the twitch of the corner's of his mouth tilting upward in an ALMOST smile. His eyes had softened but his face was still steel cold and emotionless. Demidov... Demidov... hmmm... The P.E Teacher! That was it. The one everyone called the kid in the staff room which he entered ONLY to grab another cup of black and then exited... while being called to stay. Taitum had never really made friends.

Sure he played guard to a few students. Mainly the Ersilia's but he didn't talk to them much... except for Ty because Ty was Livius and Levi was Ty. Thyme reminded his soo much of his younger sibling whom he'd bring the heavens down for which was why he was trying his very best to keep Ty out of trouble. Taitum listened to another bit of obvious advice.
"Yeah will do... once I get through traffic..."
He hissed softly shooting his eyes along the muddled mess of Christmas shopping.

Taitum did a mocking fake look of surprise when Ev snapped his fingers in recognition but his smile faded just as rapidly and he blinked at the tutor before him mistaking him for a student.
"Wow, you're an actual functioning human being? I guess everything is possible if you believe. Law of attraction right?"
Taitum was actually surprised by the fact that Ev had gotten this far in life already.

"Yeah Thanks teach. You're the best... Do you wanna get drunk with me?"
Taitum winked at Evgeny. At some point he had to realize that Taitum was not a child... or... yes a child but one that got given the license to kill at 18 so... it seemed, he was more of an adult then Evgeny was.
"Your name by the way... is something girly..."
Taitum continued to rub at his shirt as he started shoving he way through the crowd toward the wine cellar.

[Evgeny Demidov]

"Erm..." What a weird question. Is he accusing me of being a robot? An alien? "yes?" Ev dazed more into confusion. What a weird student. "Law of attraction?" Evgeny shrugged. "I... doubt that would be appropriate. You know, since I should actually be reporting you and such..."

Evgeny was way too naive and good-natured for his own good. Not only he was obviating the sarcasm in the dark-haired boy's words, but he was also spinning the now two slightly offensive comments he had received, including the girly name comment. Yes, it made him avoid trouble more times than it caused any for him, but it also made people think that he was immature, weak, simple-minded, dumb and unimportant. It may or may not be argued that he actually was those things, but at least back in his old life, people changed their mindset once they knew he was actually a soldier, and a very good one, this was, however, something he couldn't afford here, and either he was doomed to keep this image everybody else had of him or he had to change. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, however, so this was unlikely to happen. People just needed to accept him for how he was, and more importantly, like him for that.

This however didn't appear to be the case.

"My name's not girly." He said reluctantly as he saw the guy walk away from him. "In English it translate to something like Eugene I think," He followed the dark-haired man through the crowd. "So see? Not Girly. And I like it very much thanks." Ev was quite surprised to see that the previous wine comment was honest when he saw himself in the wines section. He didn't think young people were into wine, nor he thought they could afford it. "Really wine? Aren't you kids into beer and... erm... beer?" He grabbed a bottle and examined it before putting it back in the rack. "Well, though I guess if you're going to break the law by drinking you better do it right, right?" He stopped for a moment. Now he was encouraging a minor to drink? Was that illegal as well? He worried a bit. "About that snitching thing again..." He scratched the back of his head. "I won't tell anybody you were buying alcohol but you can't tell either I knew either or you'll get me in trouble."

[Taitum Marshall]

The male who was mentally 5 years younger then he was and probably five years older then he was as well said that it would be completely inappropriate. Taitum sighed and shook his head as he started off into the crowd.
"And here I was thinking war made you grow up."
Taitum muttered like a moody old man under his breathe. Evgeny was innocent. Sweet even and Taitum, his exact opposite.

Taitum eventually reached the wine rack and found that Evgeny had followed him. He'd really tried to be as cold, cruel and untalkative as he normally was and yet, Ev seemed completely immune to it. Taitum paused as he looked across the wines deciding on whether today was a sweet, dry or aromatic day. That was basically the only choices the soldier made when he was deciding on wines. Red. He always took Red. Rich red wines were his favourite. South African or French. The important wines. They got you warm and happy faster then the other did.

Taitum was always tense and the only way to ease up was when he was midway between drunk and sober. His eyes flicked to the oblivious male beside him and then to the wine tilting his head at the label.
"Hold on, what is that...?"
Taitum said softly and reached up to take the bottle in his hands that Ev had put back on the shelf. He eyed it and decided it was better to indulge Mister Obvious for a while. Taitum smirked at the niave man for a moment.

The concern on his features brought forth a quick smile.
"Don't worry. You'll only get into trouble if I actually WAS one of those snot nosed brats we protect and care for..."
Taitum wondered if Obvious would get it now. He decided to slowly lay it out for the man.
"I work in security. I'm about five years over American drinking age... and I used to drink beer when I was nineteen and graduated from Hammel actually but then the moment I left rehab, I drank wine."

Taitum lightly flicked the handkerchief at Evgeny before eyeing the bottle, turning it this way and that.
"Mr. Obvious, you are a lucky one aren't ya?"
Taitum said softly before shifting past him. Evgeny had found the perfect wine for him. It would warm him right up.
"Now, I'll go off and get drunk and you go off and be... what ever you are right now..."
Taitum waved dismissively at the elder male over his shoulder as he headed toward the pay line.