capeandcowllogs | A constellation of tears on your lashes

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A constellation of tears on your lashes

WHO: Roy Harper & Laura Kinney
WHERE: Dallas BBQ Restaurant
WHEN: Friday night
WARNINGS: Discussion of non-con/abuse.
SUMMARY: Roy takes Laura on an ill-planned date and talking happens.
FORMAT: Tagger's choice.

Their brief encounter at the auction left Roy with more questions than answers about Laura, though one thing seemed certain: she didn't at all strike him as the roller rink type. It took a little thought, but he'd come up with the barbecue place as an alternative, figuring that there would be good food and tasty frozen drinks, and if they decided to go elsewhere after dinner, it would be a fine preamble.

He'd arranged to pick her up at 8pm and had arrived casually dressed in jeans and a plain red teeshirt. He seemed laid back, much like the establishment. It was busy, but not overwhelming, with the smokey scent of babyback ribs wafting through the air and the laughter of college kids tipsy off daiquiris filling the room. It was fun, and Roy sincerely hoped it would translate to his evening with Laura.

"You gotta try this one drink they've got," he said, pointing to the list of frozen options on the menu. "It's called Miami Vice. It tastes like how being on a vacation feels."

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"If it were some guy doing it to you, I'd have punched him out." Okay, maybe not quite, but words would have been exchanged. Roy shrugged a little. "I wouldn't have danced with any of them anyway."

That made her hesitate. "Even if I was not here?" They had seemed pretty enough.

"Maybe," he admitted, then added quickly, "But I wouldn't have come without you."

"Hmm," she wasn't sure if she believed him. "Okay. It doesn't matter."

She looked around, then back to him. "I haven't been out in a long time. It's...relaxing." Even with the music and the growling at people.

It was okay if she didn't believe him. It was probably only half a truth anyway. He might have gone out still, might have hit on a girl or two and asked them to dance. But that wasn't what he was there for, so what did it matter?

"A pretty girl like you? I find that hard to believe." Another half truth. He meant the compliment, but he could tell she didn't get out much, even if she hadn't said so or given him glimpses of her old life. "Hey, how old are you anyway?"

"Most of my time is taken by managing the Dojo," was her excuse for not going out. Mostly she was bad at it, so she avoided it. Missions were easy, real life was not.

"I am nineteen, why?"

"Just checking." He tried not to look as relieved as he felt. When she'd mentioned needing a fake ID, his mind had made all sorts of leaps it really shouldn't have. And now it was making mental calculations, just to be on the safe side. What was half his age plus seven anyways? "I was worried I might be too old for you."

"Hmm," age was kind of an odd thing to Laura. Prostitution had blurred a lot of those lines, even while it had made some of them...unpleasant. And she had spent so much time away from society she didn't care about a lot of the other distinctions.

"...How old are you?"

"Twenty-four." He didn't feel like he was that old. Would she think that was too old? Why did he even care so much? It's not like they were doing anything besides dancing. Right?

She just nodded as if that was about what she had guessed, and it didn't matter to her at all. The last person she had dated had been in his early twenties.

"Do you wish to dance again?"

Edited 2013-04-22 00:01 (UTC)

If it didn't bug her, it wouldn't bug him. Age wasn't anything but a number and he needed to just shut off his mental commentary and take Laura back to the dance floor.

"You know it," he grinned, offering his hand to her yet again.

She smiled faintly as she took his hand, standing and smoothing down her clothes with the other before following him out onto the dance floor.

It wasn't easy for her to let go, and even in this crowd she couldn't really, but there was something liberating about dancing.

Roy led her to the dance floor, to a different spot a bit removed from the remaining women who'd been encroaching on them before, and as they fell into the beat, he danced closer to Laura than he had previously. Every so often their bodies touched, and for him it was comfortable and comforting. He liked the music and he liked dancing, and it was nice that he had someone he liked to do it with.

Physical contact was sort of a mixed bag for Laura, sometimes she didn't like it at all, and other she did. At the moment, the atmosphere and the relief of dancing seemed to be countering any discomfort she might have been feeling, and she could just lose herself in the motion.

It really was strange to let go like this, but it was...soothing, somehow. She could have done it all night. And honestly, having Roy there was certainly a comfort, he was pleasant and nice and not unattractive, and he kept the other guys from bothering her.

As they danced, Roy made sure to keep an eye on the room, just in case his freaky fan club decided to reappear, and anytime someone seemed to get overly close to them, he would put an arm around Laura as a sign to back off. What was with people? Couldn't they see he and Laura were having a good time and just wanted to be left alone? He wasn't trying to be weird or possessive, but he really wanted those people to back off without him having to cause a scene.

It was after the third time Roy had to put his arm around her, and Laura found herself staring at a woman who was dancing towards them until she took the hint and moved away, that the mutant sighed faintly in frustration. She wanted to growl at them again, to hit them and drive them away so they would stop messing with her nice time. But she couldn't.

"Maybe we should leave!" She mouthed at him in a half-shout.

He looked at Laura, then to the woman, his green eyes narrowing. Without removing his arm from her, he nodded and began to escort her toward the front door. No need to exit the way they came in, he figured.

Once they were outside and able to hear each other again he dropped his arm from around her and shoved his hands in his back pockets. "Welp. That was sort of a bust. Some people."

She didn't speak again until they were outside, just tossing another somewhat feral glare at the last woman before she was out of sight. Once they were on the street and he let go of her, she stuffed her hands back into the pockets of her own jacket, ducking her head for a moment.

"No it wasn't," she answered with a shake of her head, looking at him.

He studied Laura's face for a long moment before cracking a smile. "Okay. It wasn't. I had a good time."

Other pedestrians began pushing past them on their way in or out of the club and just on the sidewalk in general, so he stepped to the side, nudging Laura to move along with him.

"Hey, you wanna go someplace else maybe? Somewhere a little less... insane?"

She seemed to think over his question carefully, her gaze shifting towards the people coming and going. She didn't have classes to manage until the afternoon tomorrow, and Jessica had made enough teasing comments about the date that she knew the other girl was probably waiting up to hear about it...which meant taking her time and staying out late was allowed in both regards.

So she nodded. "Okay."

Roy seemed satisfied by this, though he wasn't sure what sort of entertainment he could offer in terms of places that weren't bars or nightclubs. He thought then to the little park a few blocks northeast of them, and without saying where they were going, he started off.

Laura didn't seem all that concerned with where they were going. She had a decent gauge of what Roy was capable of (she thought) so she knew she wasn't in any danger...and he didn't smell like he was lying at all tonight.

So she just fell into step next to him, not quite at the same pace since she was tiny compared to him, but close enough, looking around to see where they wound up.

Every so often Roy would steal a sideways glance at her, playing this whole situation as coolly as he could manage. He was nervous or uneasy, but Laura was so unlike the women he surrounded himself with, it was still hard to get a good read on her.

"So," he began, trailing off as they approached a crosswalk. "You got a boyfriend back home or something?"

Laura was genuinely startled by that question, and she glanced over at him for a moment, long enough to be noticed, before looking back at where they were walking.

"No," she finally answered. Whatever mess she and Julian had been was obviously over, and she and Tom had dated for a while but never made it anything official...

"I have never had a boyfriend," she answered finally, carefully.

He was a little surprised by that, though considering her age and life spent in a lab, maybe he shouldn't have been. Still, she was nineteen and had been on her own and in the City for two years. She must have had someone. Hell, by the time he was nineteen, Chesh was already pregnant.

But he shouldn't assume anything about Laura just because he'd grown up too quickly.

"There's nothing wrong with that," he said after a pause. "You're young. You don't need to tie yourself down."

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