A Random Coffee House, The Mainland, Friday Evening

[stars_and_money]

Handwavily, Jeremy and George had caught meta for The Graduate at a movie theater on the mainland. It had been... Well, they hadn't exactly caught that much of it, to be honest. But the opening credits had looked good! Really, top notch! Or something. Whatever. Movie theaters were dark and the back row was made for way better things than actually watching a movie. Hey, Jeremy could probably get a private showing of just about any movie with little more than a snap of his fingers, so, why bother resisting the temptation to make out, right?

It had been totally worth it.

And they were progressing to the second part of the date now, and that was coffee. "That is one kickass dress, by the way," Jeremy said, as he was holding the door open for George, entering some random, sort of fancy (but not too fancy) coffee place. "I think we make a pretty dashing pair."

From a guy wearing a flashy suit (as requested!) to a movie and coffee date, that was par for the course.

[ooc: NFB due to off-islandness, and just for the daaate who I just modded with kind permission!]

Comments

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

George was totally glad that she had gotten a chance to see The Alumnus and could see now why it was a classic of cinema. Those had been some excellent opening credits and then the little bits of dialogue she had overheard here and there were really top-notch.

She paused to pose, dramatically, in her dress, which might be kind of fancy for a movie-and-coffee date but hello, he was going to wear the Ferragamo again. She had to step it up a bit to match.

"Still not as awesome as the suit," she said. "Probably way less expensive. Except you said rich people get shit for free. Was it a free suit? You have to tell me if it was, or else that's cheating."

[stars_and_money]

"No, I paid for this, I swear," Jeremy assured her with a laugh. And a slightly more lingering look because hey, she was posing and it was a really, really nice dress. "Although I think I did get a discount... It's kinda hard to remember sometimes."

He'd acquired quite a few new suits over his two recent trips back home.

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

Was he checking her out? Whoa. He was. This shouldn't surprise her, because they had been making out for the entire theatrical length of a freaking movie, but ... wow. It kind of did.

"So rich people get discounts and poor people pay full price," she sighed, teasingly. "How am I supposed to keep up? I work at a record store. I mean, the employee discount is sweet, but I can't be a sugarmama on that kind of salary. Not unless you want to be a kept man on the cheap."

[stars_and_money]

"No, see, the beauty of being me is that I can be my own kept man," Jeremy reasoned. Such high aspirations he had. "And you can just enjoy the benefits. Much easier that way, and you get to keep your salary."

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

"So what do you get out of the deal?" she asked, picking out a convenient table and pulling out a chair. This coffee shop was cozy. Maybe they even served ice cream? That would be just about perfect. "If you're footing the bills yourself, it could just be the Jeremy Darling Swinging Bachelor Pad."

[stars_and_money]

"Your company, obviously," Jeremy pointed out easily enough. He made sure she was seated all comfortably before pulling out a chair of his own. (That stuff was in his blood, he couldn't help it.) "Duh. Why else would I even be here?"

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

"People aren't ... usually fond of my company," she admitted, with a wry smile. "That's the kind of thing I got on report cards. 'Does not play well with others.'"

She wasn't aggressive or violent or anything, just ... antisocial.

"What about you?" she asked. "Nerd? Jock? Slacker?"

[stars_and_money]

"That last one, maybe," Jeremy shrugged, leaning back in his chair, and almost looking like he was giving it serious consideration. "I don't know if they ever really wrote it on my report cards but there was talk of me, like, not performing up to school standrads. Of course, we got kicked out of a couple of schools..."

Or, you know, so many that Tripp Darling had no choice but to send them to a boarding school outside the city.

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

"I'm impressed," George said, raising her eyebrows. "I just dropped out. College, before I even started."

And now she was back in high school again. That was weird.

"How did you get kicked out? Set something on fire?"

[stars_and_money]

"Well, only once, and it was an accident. No one got hurt." Was he kidding? It was hard to tell. Plus, he was tilting his head quizzically now. "How'd you end up back in high school?"

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

"What did you burn?" George asked. "I'm actually not sure. I mean, I know how I'm here. There were tickets, and something higher up the food chain enrolled me, and you don't really argue with ... those kind of ... decisions. Maybe it's a technicality since I graduated early and this place is sort of ... nontraditional."

She bit her lip. "My life is ... really fucking complicated."

[stars_and_money]

"I'm getting that vibe," Jeremy agreed, momentarily (or possibly for good) distracted from that time he'd messed something up in a chemistry class, which had resulted in a mild case of flames. "But hey, aren't all lives?"

His wasn't, really. He just sometimes thought it was.

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

"Most of them," George said, after a few moments of reflection. "The really interesting ones, anyway."

Like Mason. Drilling a hole in his head, looking for the ultimate high. okay, so maybe 'interesting' was a synonym for 'pathetic,' but hey.

"So ... if you don't have a favorite band, does that mean you don't have a favorite movie, either?"

[stars_and_money]

"Kinda," Jeremy admitted. "I mean, I like movies, I just don't... really have any set favorite." He was all abundance, in a lot of ways. "Do you?"

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

She had to consider that one, too.

"I don't know," she admitted. She wasn't coming up with much of anything, except late-night cartoons.

"Except ... you know what's really fun?" she asked, leaning in. "When you're really bored on a Sunday afternoon, and you find a local channel that's re-running a really shitty movie from the 70s as the Sunday Movie. One that you know that they got for like three bucks because they have nothing else to put on. And you only tune in halfway through, so you don't know why those two people are bickering so much, and it take you fifteen minutes to figure out that they're the couple that was using the trip to try to repair their marriage, except it just came out that he was cheating. But he says he's sorry, and that's how you know he's gonna try to sacrifice himself for her the next time the water level goes up. Oh, and it's a disaster movie, like the Neptune Incident or the Gigantic Blaze."

[stars_and_money]

Jeremy grinned. "Oh, dude, I know exactly what you mean." Benefit of the slacker lifestyle! "But, you know, I think I prefer comedies? You know, like... Ones where you don't laugh at a joke and you can't figure out if that's because you're too young or too high, or if it just was a crap joke."

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

"Yes," she laughed. "And there are celebrity cameos you don't recognize, and, oh, the really cringe-inducing racist stereotypes."

[stars_and_money]

"And that's on top of how everything looks," Jeremy added, leaning forward. "There are some fashion things that can just distract me from everything else."

He thought he could make anything look good. It didn't mean there weren't things he really didn't want to wear.

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

"Like futuristic sci-fi movies that have everyone in beehives and go-go boots?" George grinned. "I love the bad special effects. Where you can see that the monster is a miniature and it's smashing up Matchbox cars."

She leaned just as far across the table, feeling ... almost giddy. Were dates always like this? No wonder people liked them so much.

[stars_and_money]

"Hey, go-go boots are totally cool!" A beat. "On girls. Not on me." Because sure, she'd thought that. But he was smiling. "I agree about everything else, though. Especially the effects. Oh, ooh, my favorite is any laser gun ever. The lasers are just colored lines on the screen!"

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

"And now I have to ask if you've ever worn go-go boots," she laughed. "Oh, laser guns. Firing little bright-red bolts of lasers, and then someone falls over like they got hit with a bullet. Except it leaves a black vaporized kind of mark in their shirt. So realistic."

[stars_and_money]

"I've never worn go-go boots, I swear!" Jeremy replied, laughing. Guess he'd never gotten drunk enough around drag queens yet. "And, I don't know, I guess we have to give them some credit. I mean, have you ever seen a laser gun fight? Do you know what's supposed to happen? I don't."

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

"Me, either," George confessed. "Or a beehive hairdo. And I've never been in a laser fight, and I've never ..."

Hmm.

"Been arrested."

His turn?

[stars_and_money]

"I haven't either. We have a good lawyer." And he said that with no shame at all. He was sadly used to Dutch George bailing him out of trouble as needed. "I've been in detention a lot though."

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

"Me, too," George said. "At the old school, I mean, back in Seattle. Not here."

It was way harder to get detention here. You had to put out actual effort.

"The teachers just don't appreciate our genius," she decided. "Or how little of a shit we give."

[stars_and_money]

"That must be it," Jeremy agreed easily. "But that's working for us, right? No more detention."

He would've liked to attribute the lack of detention on his own mellowing out, but no, it was harder to get it at their school.

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

"Do you think we should put effort into getting it, at least once?" she asked. "Just to go out with a bang? All of Apathy Club, just to make a point. Not that Apathy Club is much for making points."

Apathy Club wasn't much for -- well. Anything.

"Hypothetically," she continued -- and she panicked, realizing that she hadn't planned on saying this until the words started leaving her lips -- "would you be upset if I was keeping secrets? Is that a big deal?"

[stars_and_money]

Jeremy tilted his head and twisted his lips as he considered that. "If it was something like... you're really a dude," he decided. "'Cause I'd like to think I'm pretty openminded but I'd also like to know these things. But, you know. Everyone keeps secrets."

He was a Darling; that statement was in his blood.

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

"Not a dude," George said, and, immediately thinking of Pride and transgender issues and everything else, amending, "no ... disrespect intended, to ... yeah."

Gosh, that was very sensitive, George.

"It's weird," she said. "Weird the way that -- I dunno. People here have fucking wings or are secretly aliens or, like, my old roommate was missing his face and was on fire all the time. Everybody has secrets. But I don't want you to, like, freak out. Um. And then stop wanting to kiss me."

Or, conversely, freak out about kissing the dead girl.

[stars_and_money]

Jeremy looked amused in a way that betrayed he found the whole idea absurd.

"What could you possibly tell me that would make me wanna stop kissing you?," he asked, quite rightly. "I seriously like kissing you, George. I basically paid a movie theater to kiss you for two hours."

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

That was ... that was an amazingly hot and sexy and awesome thing to say and it meant George had to sort of dive across the table and attack him. Not really attack. Make out with. Making out was awesome. They should make out for another two hours for free this time, and then go to his room and make out for seven or eight hours and maybe get naked and --

"I died," George said, abruptly. She had only pulled back from the kiss a split second before, and had retreated a bare inch or two. Her eyes were still squeezed shut. "I got hit by debris from a space station and now I'm dead."

No way could she open her eyes now. They were staying glued shut. She might see him run away, if she opened them.

[stars_and_money]

... It really was kind of amazing that there wasn't just an audible sproing! to be heard when Jeremy's brain tried to catch up with what had just happened. See, he'd just been getting into the kissing again, because kissing was nice, and it was starting to be really nice with her, and then... Well, she'd stopped, and said something that was sort of not making any sense.

He wasn't running away. He also wasn't really getting it yet, either. He was, however, staring at her in an owlish, confused manner from the very close proximity.

"Wh-- huh?"

Yeah.

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

Why the fuck had she felt the need to do that? Why just ruin everything like that? Fuck fuck fuck.

George slumped back in her seat and bit her lower lip, not looking up at him. Just because her eyes were open didn't mean she had to look at him.

"I'm a reaper," she said. "... Sorry."

She wasn't sure if she was apologizing for not telling him sooner, or for telling him at all. Or maybe for, well, being dead. Although if he was upset about that, the line started behind her.

[stars_and_money]

"You're a what?" Still processing, yes. "Uh, did you just say you died? As in, dead, deceased, muerto?"

He was still looking more confused than anything else.

"You, uh, look good."

For a dead person.

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

"Yeah," George said, running a hand through her hair. "That kind of dead. Dead-dead."

She wasn't sure if it was better to talk, or wait for him to process more? But he mentioned about her looking good, for being dead, so maybe she should explain about, uh, not being a zombie. Maybe.

"Most people ... they, uh. They die, and then their soul gets taken to see their lights, and they move on to what's next. And some people die and don't get the lights, because they have to wait around showing other people their lights. It's like the worst job ever, you don't get a say in it, everybody blames you, and you don't even get paid for it. And if you try to save somebody, it screws up the cosmic order, and you just have to fucking deal with it, and ... um ... then you fucking ... announce shit in a coffee shop and ... um ... ruin dates."

... Good. That probably helped, George. A lot.

[stars_and_money]

Jeremy blinked a lot at that explanation. To be honest, a lot of it went straight over his head. He'd try and understand more of it later on. For now, he was just going to cling to that one bit he did understand without too much trouble.

"I don't think this date is ruined," he offered.

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

Okay, that had two immediate effects: it stopped the runaway train that was her mouth, and it now had her staring at him like maybe her brain had just thrown a rod. What the --

"... How ..."

Um.

"This is kind of ..."

Jeremy was not on a date with a very eloquent girl. He should have realized that one ahead of time.

[stars_and_money]

Had she not heard his brilliant utterance of 'Wh-- huh?' just a little earlier? Clearly, eloquence had stopped being a requirement on this date just a few moments ago.

"Well, you know," he started, now that he was starting to regain control of his brain again. "I mean, it's not like you're a zombie, right? And you're not a dude. And, and, uh... And okay, I don't really get what you are, uh, professionally and also on the living to dead scale, but, but you're George. Right? You're George, and your dress is maximum, and I still like you, so... Date's not ruined."

Ramble some more, Jeremy.

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

"I'm still George," she reassured him. "I just -- I love that suit and kind of want to take it off with my teeth and, um, so I thought you deserved to know, if it was gonna change things? Instead of feeling like I lied about it, but ... I also didn't want you to not ... want to make out with me and I love that you love bad movies and I ... just ... like being around you."

... good. That was perfect, right there, that was definitely helpful. She should just duct tape her mouth shut.

"I get that it ... might be weird," she added. "With -- whatever."

[stars_and_money]

"It's not weird," Jeremy said quickly. Reassuring girls was kind of built into him, too. He hesitated a moment after saying that. "Okay, I mean, yeah it is. It's a little weird."

Because she was dead. Except she was living and breathing and talking about taking his suit off with her teeth, which meant she was lucky his brain hadn't gotten jammed again.

"But, I don't... I don't think it changes things? That much."

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

George was nodding. "I'm sorry you don't even get an interesting story out of it," she said, impulsively. "I mean, you tell your friends you made out with a dead chick, it sounds like you're a mortician with a sick fetish."

Um. So much for the gallows humor. Now was a good time to pick up her very-neglected coffee and take a long, long sip.

"I get that it's huge," she said. "I mean ... if you need time, or whatever. We can just ..."

Hmmm. "You tell me," she decided.

If he wanted to just ... walk home, and think about it, or take some time off, or even say he was taking time off in order to sound polite when he bailed. That would kind of be totally legit at this point.

[stars_and_money]

"Uh."

Yeah, Jeremy was a slight loss for words. This was not really something he'd ever had to deal with the socialites back home.

"Can I still... walk you home?"

When in doubt, he opted for the polite. And hopefully a little reassuring. Even though he was probably going to take a while to process this.

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

George finished her coffee and set it down again.

"I'd like that," she said.

She wasn't going to push. She was going to give him space, and wait for him to come to her. If he did.

He may decide he wasn't okay with it, and she had to be okay with that, and that was one of those growing-up things she had to do, which was ironic what with being dead and all. It was only fair that he know. She figured. But it didn't make it hurt any less to think that he might never want to see her again.

Now really wasn't the time to sit and be stupid or emo. Now was the time to wrap her coat around herself and offer him the best smile she could manage.

"Let's get out of here."