Suspiciously Quiet

[house-of-mystiq.livejournal.com]

The carnage in the hotel ballroom disappears in a gut wrenching wave of nausea and blurryness. When she can see again, she's on her knees, surrounded by her fellow Exiles.

Raven braces herself for the worst. Zombies roaming the streets, the sun blotted out by swarms of locusts, a world where every restaurant is non-smoking. She opens her eyes and sees...a suburban strip mall.

A Best Buy anchors one end. The other end is held down by a Dick's Sporting Goods. In between, there are a couple of ethnic restaurants, some clothing stores, and, to her immense relief, a Cox Smoker's Outlet.

Comments

[rogue-starsr.livejournal.com]

Sarah does as instructed, and lets Gretchen take her measurements and all, nodding in thanks as the reasoning behind the sports bra is brought up. "That's a lot of help, thank you." she says as she fumbled one-handed with the strings on her first try.
"And seriously, its ok. Uhm... I really appreciate all the help." she settles a little more back into her usual self-confidence, as she finally figures out how to manage the bow one handed. "Ok, so if you don't want to talk about your family more, how about yourself? I'm really new here, so maybe you could tell me what kind of things you like to do in this place?"

[marvel-citizens.livejournal.com]

"I still take karate a couple times a week. Most of the girls have outgrown it, but I think it's fun." Gretchen shoots her a shy look. "And, like, I'm totally tougher than any of the boys at school."

She pops out of the changing room again and comes back with several pairs of jeans and one nice pair of soft brown trousers. "To go with the green blouse - you know, in case you have to go somewhere nice."

Another little blush and Gretchen says, "My shift actually ended ten minutes ago. If you want, I can get you all cashed out then, y'know, if you'd kinda like some coffe or something, maybe tell you all about my namesake." She's staring at the carpet as she speaks.

[rogue-starsr.livejournal.com]

Sarah looks up with a bright smile as Gretchen comes back with the clothes, about to tell her how she loves karate... and totally understands being tougher than all the boys. Then, for some reason, she pauses, hearing the last of it. Then she pauses a little more.

"I'd like that." she replies when she finds her voice.

[marvel-citizens.livejournal.com]

Gretchen's blush climbs all the way to her ears. "Okay."

Still not quite able to make eye contact with Sarah, she quickly rings everything up. If Sarah checks the reciept, she'll find Gretchen used her employee discount. As she packs everything up, a couple of green scrunchies and barettes find their way into the bags.

"Here, let me get this." Gretchen nods to Sarah's arm. "There's a Starbucks just down the mall, or a Java Dave's up the street if you prefer something independent."

[rogue-starsr.livejournal.com]

"I... uhm, I'm not usually big on coffee, too much energy is usually more my problem. But if either of them have hot chocolate, this is on me." she replies, having noted the discount.

[marvel-citizens.livejournal.com]

"Java Dave's has great hot chocolate. You can get flavor shots in it. The raspberry is really good. Oooh, and so's the mint. Or the vanilla. I know it sounds silly, putting a shot of vanilla flavor into hot chocolate, but it's really yummy."

Gretchen leads the way. She waves at a conservatively dressed girl with matching purple eyes and hair behind the counter.

[rogue-starsr.livejournal.com]

Sarah takes the purple hair in stride - growing up among super heroes and few others will do that. She waves, a little more shyly, then follows after. "Actually, that sounds wonderful. Its been ages since I had hot chocolate... I, uhm, end up kind of bouncing around a lot, not always a lot of time to really get used to anywhere." she explains, stumbling a little as she tries to figure out how to explain her situation without really explaining it.

[marvel-citizens.livejournal.com]

Gretchen orders a raspberry hot chocolate and a vanilla one. "That way you can try them both and see which one you like better."

She leads them over to a pair of overstuffed chairs nestled in one corner.

"Aw, man. Moving can be hard. The way Nana Gretchen - my namesake - tells it, she wasn't able to stay in the same place for more than a few months at a time until she was in her 40's. Are your parents in the military?"

[rogue-starsr.livejournal.com]

Sarah tries the raspberry one, savoring it a moment, then the vanilla one, bringing a wide smile to her face. "Mmm, I like that one." she replies, before considering the question. "I guess I can sympathize with her... yeah, my parents are special forces, kind of always on call sort of thing. But I think we get some down time for a bit... I'm hoping." she replies, not really having to stretch the truth too much there.

[marvel-citizens.livejournal.com]

"I hope so, too." Gretchen stares into her hot chocolate, blushing.

[rogue-starsr.livejournal.com]

Sarah glances at the blush, then gets one of her own. She quiets a few moments, sipping from her hot chocolate, paying it very close attention before she turns her attention back to Gretchen. "So...uhm, you said you liked karate?" she asks, reaching for whatever topic comes to find first.

[marvel-citizens.livejournal.com]

"Totally!" Gretchen looks as relieved as Sarah to find a nice, neutral topic. "I started taking it in kindergarten. My brother dropped out when he was in the eighth grade, but I love it. I keep telling him it's like a live action video game. Each belt is like a level, and each level you earn a new weapon."

[rogue-starsr.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was... strange. Not entirely bad, but a neutral topic is definitely nice. "I never really thought of it like that. But then my parents didn't really use belts or anything when they were teaching me. You must be pretty good by now, in that long."

[marvel-citizens.livejournal.com]

"If you're here for awhile, I could, you know, show you my dojo. I get to do demos for the new students all the time. It's really fun in front of the little ones, because they can't sit still. You can tell the ones who'll be begging their moms to take the class, because five minutes into it, they'll be on thier feet, trying little kicks and punches of their own."

[rogue-starsr.livejournal.com]

Sarah grins a bit at that, thinking back to the start of her own training, and all the time she spent training under Captain America for granted. "I'm sure I have enough time for that anyway. I don't think I'd qualify quite as a new student... though I'm not even quite sure what martial art I'd be closest to now. But I'd love to see your demo. Maybe when my arm heals up, we can show each other a few moves."

[marvel-citizens.livejournal.com]

"That'd be fun." Gretchen grins over her hot cocoa.

"Hey - it's not karate, but have you seen Tomb Raider III yet? I mean, if you have, that's totally cool and everything, but, you know, if you haven't, I, like, don't have any plans tonight and stuff, and y'know, I totally understand if you don't want to or you're busy. I bet you're totally busy, what with just moving to town. But, like, if you're not, um, you know, we could, if you wanted to, kinda see it at the same time, y'know?" Gretchen takes a deep drink to shut herself up.

[rogue-starsr.livejournal.com]

Sarah can't help but giggle a little at the rambling, quickly stifling herself, her blush not entirely gone yet in its own right.
"I'd love to." she replies, when Gretchen finally works on her hot chocolate. "I travel light, so unpacking didn't take much time. I'll just need to go by the hotel and get changed." She pauses again, the blush growing a touch again. "You'll... uhm, have to tell me about it a little. I haven't seen any of them. I mean, it sounds like fun, I just... don't go to many movies." Or any, but she's trying not to sound too weird.

[marvel-citizens.livejournal.com]

"Awesome."

Gretchen grins like she just got a pony.

"So...um...you want to drop off your stuff and meet at, say, 7? There's a theater right up the street." She points out the window. "You can almost see it from here. It has 20 screens. I'm sure they'll have a showing around then, and if not, like, we can totally kick some boy's butts at Dance Dance Revolution."

[rogue-starsr.livejournal.com]

Apparently the grin is infectious, Sarah quickly picking it up too. "Sounds good... uhm... hopefully it'll be showing, since, well, the arm... and, uhm... I don't know how to dance." She adds the last part somewhat more quietly.

"Ok, 7 o'clock, I'll be there."