Errands

Sid Rhodes
[let's get the ol' awareness roll out of the way]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 10, 10) ( success x 3 ) Re-rolls: 2

Jim Thompson
[ Ooh, yeah, my turn! ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 4, 4, 6) ( fail )

Sid Rhodes
It's early yet for people to be out loitering about.  The I-25 corridor is still crushed with the morning rush hour traffic as the worker bees head in for the Monday morning grind.  Some people get to go in a little later than most, though.
That's why the crowd at Kaladi is only just starting to thin out.  Despite the location of a Starbucks right across the street, Kaladi does pretty well for itself, serving DU's college goers and educators, and more than a few of the townies as well.  The inside is clean if small, with seats crammed together along a table attached to their large window front, and a smattering of tables and booths besides.  The baristas are gruff but quick, taking and filling orders at an impossibe speed.
It's still a little too crowded for one individual, however.  On a bench just outside the front door she sits, shoulders hunched, long red hair hanging like a thick wavy curtain to either side of her face, obscuring her appearance.  There's a notebook open on her lap, filled with neatly written notes and diagrams.  Maybe she's a student at the university, though there's no book bag near her, just an old messenger bag next to her on the bench, jammed into her hip.  She's dressed in old faded things - her once black tee is now dark grey, the knees of her jeans look ready to split, the heels already shredded, and her black sneakers are scuffed as hell.  If she's a student at the univesity, she's barely making the cost of living.
Though she seems wholly engrossed in her notebook, tapping a black pen against her chin, she's very aware of the people on the street.  One group of twenty-somethings happens to pass a little too close.  Automatically, she slides her feet under the bench, making sure that she's well out of the way of contact.

Jim Thompson
Jim is following behind the gaggle of young scholars. Or more aptly, Jim is trailing in their wake, lost in the materials clutched in his hands.
A bulletin of the University's curriculum is open across his forearms, pages folded back and dogeared as he rifles through them. He's stooped over, shuffling through pamphlets and fliers with his other hand, bookmarking pages, eyes squinting as the sun shines down on the amassed literature. Distracted. Unhinged. Trying to piece the puzzle's bits together, but forgetting the edge and colors of one just as he notices the next.
Stiil, something shimmers beneath his being. An agency, far from passive, when it comes to reality, his mind seeming to leak out his very ears and eyes, the windows to an addled soul, and managing to play with the world. Twist it like the tumbling glass of a kaleidoscope. This parlay of confusion and creation is governed by an unyielding mindfulness that is startling, because despite it all, he does not seem to flinch at the avalanche of sensations and possibilities.
Instead, he basks in them. Again,mindful of the moment, which is probably why he stops following the shadows of the students that had lead him from the registrar's office, through one campus, down one street, and now in front of the coffee shop.
He halts. His nose twitches at first, not noticing any of the customers, but instead closing his eyes and taking a deep breath of the aroma of fresh brewed beans and steamed milk that wafts from the open-closed-open-closed front door as patrons shuffle in and out.
His chest deflates as he turns toward Kaladi. He shuts the coursebook, its menu of knowledge again hidden away, one hunger forgotten in exchange for thirst.

Sid Rhodes
Sid becomes aware of it before the students are completely upon her, before she slides her feet out of their way.  The man trailing in their wake is distracted, addled, too focused on the papers in his arms to notice the tingle of a desperate euphoria in the air around the woman on the bench.
She notices him, though.  As soon as she feels it she stills, waiting, the calm before a storm of panic.  Maybe he won't notice her, maybe he'll keep going, maybe maybe maybe
He stops, practically in front of her but more in front of the door, and Sid?  She doesn't move, at least not in any exaggerated way.  Her shoulders tighten, though, and her body angles away as though he - still several feet away - is encroaching on a physical personal bubble and is now gently pushing her back.  Chin tucked, reddish brows tightened above large-ish dark-rimmed glasses - the kind he's likely seen on dozens of faces already today, if he's been paying attention, the hipster sytle is alive and well in Denver - she watches him with large dark eyes.  Tense.  Nervous.  Wary.

Jim Thompson
It's hard to notice someone trying to fold herself away into herself and out of the world around her. Especially when one is so distracted by that...
Fucking...
Smell...
That divine aroma.
And without much of a line standing between him and the closest barista. Jim visibly smiles to himself, the first of many little and pleasing things laid out before him as paths to be taken. Discovery. Acquisition. Consumption. The jolt of a bean, plant fermented and roasted and ground, unparched into another thing altogether, coursing through his own Pattern.
Jim is dressed plainly. A simple collared shirt, sleeves loosely rolled up to his elbows, and a brown leather jacket draped over the same crooked arm he now stashes the folded bulletin under. His pants are crisp Levi's jeans, raw denim in a deep blue that just break over plain Clark desert boots. And assembly of staples. He looks like he cares just enough about the way he dressed to be put together. To fit into this situation or that one. To drift through life without the hassle of wondering if he's prepared for it.
Except for those sunglasses hanging from the second button of his shirt. They're the sunglasses of a hustler. Gold detailing on name brand Ray-Bans. Sleek. Classic  design. A dash of flare to his otherwise uneventful wardrobe. He slips them on, strangely enough, as he walks out of the sunshine and into the coffee shop to make his order.
He emerges a minute or two later a few dollars poorer, but also richer one iced red eye, spiked strongly with the coffee house's espresso.

Sid Rhodes
He does pass by, and Sid relaxes, if only a little.  She watches him go from the corner of her eye, the mouse trying to determine at a glance the level of this particular threat.  He looks like he belongs in this area, like he's a little upscale but not trying too hard.  Putting on Ray-Bans to go inside...that's a little strange, but then it's been her experience that the awakened are eccentric, some more than others.
There's a blast of warm coffee smell as he opens the door, and then he's inside.  Sid is all alone, almost.  There are still people walking along the broad sidewalk, still cars zipping along the road.  The world spins madly on.
One hand holding her notebook in place, the other moving to grip the back of the bench, she turns to watch the man.  She watches him until it looks like he's about to turn and notice her watching him.  Twisting back around quickly, she sits perfectly still, heart hammering in her chest.  When he steps outside she's (almost) exactly where she was when he went in.  Reaching up, she tucks her hair behind her ear.
[dex+stealth:  I am totally not watching you, +1 diff for lack of actual stealth skillz]
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (2, 4, 10) ( success x 1 )

Jim Thompson
[ Perception + Alertness. Hey, you checkin' me out? ]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 9, 10) ( success x 1 )

Shoshannah Mitchell
[awareness, just cos]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

Shoshannah Mitchell
"I'm getting coffee."  Only a certain breed of teenager can make three words sound this way - dripping with attitude, sullen, screaming both LEAVE ME ALONE and PAY ATTENTION TO ME at the same time - and Shoshannah is well in control of this particular ability, this tone.  Why she's in such a mood is only known to the Priest beside her, driving the truck.  "Screw Starbucks.  There."
There's quiet, and for a moment it seems like she might leave it at that (and anyone with sense would consider the good priest well within his rights to say 'fuck no', all things considered), but then there's a smaller, quieter voice, one that isn't nearly so familiar.  "Please."  She's trying, after all, and not just in the ways that may gray Pan's hair if he doesn't rip it out from having to deal with her first.
One can assume that, perhaps, it's the please that does it - but regardless, the truck is pulling into a spot and the (out of this world) pretty [beautiful, really, in a frightening way] young woman is climbing out, heading into the store, with a, "You want something?" tossed over her shoulder as if she isn't pissed off, as if she hasn't been throwing fits since Saturday night.

Jim Thompson
Despite his erratic and short-lived attention span, or perhaps because of it, Jim does notice eyes glancing his way. Looking him over. He glances toward Sid, not hiding the fact he's cognizant of her attention as he posts up a few steps from the entrance to the cafe.
As he's looking at her, Jim's head cranes forward and he wraps his lips around the straw protruding from the clear plastic cup that holds his drink. It's an awkward gesture, lips pursed. He stops checking her out when he takes the sip, his instant reaction to the cool and flavorful blast over his palette a contented smile. Lowering the drink a moment later so that his fingers are clawing around the top of the cup, it dangles forgotten at his side.
She might hope that's all he'll do, recognize her and regard her, then move along through the world with his coffee. Pretty lady forgotten. But, and sadly, some hopes don't get to blossom.
"Beautiful day for people watching, isn't it?" He says it to himself, aloud, with a bit of calm and collected umph to his voice. And it might be another of those idiosyncratic things that people with his kind of resonance - magickal balances warring happily in his very Pattern - do. Until he looks at Sid, one eyebrow raised like he expects an answer to his question.
His question is interrupted by a youthful voice - youthful in its demands, its entitlement, its own umph - and the arrival of the truck that serves to deliver it. "It certainly is," answering himself, instead. Watching the girl go after what she wants.

Pan Echeverría
Which is how the aging red truck comes to occupy a space near the independent coffeehouse. Its brakes whine about the weather as it slows and stops, and the engine grumbles as it's asked to idle, but until the passenger door opens and a skinny sullen teenager makes her escape nothing about the vehicle presents anything worthy of attention to the world. There are probably thousands of similar trucks in the area. It wears a Colorado license plate but no bumper stickers, nothing but a trailer hitch to suggest it's used for anything other than lugging people around.
The driver stays put while the girl makes her way inside. Only moves when she tosses the question behind her, to turn his head and say "No, thank you," like she hasn't been throwing fits since Saturday night.
He waits until she's gone inside to kill the engine and step out of the cab, black cowboy boots hitting the pavement without much noise. He doesn't follow her in. The door claps shut and he reaches into the pocket of his work shirt.
[what the heck, awareness roll time]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )

Jim Thompson
[ Joining the club. Awareness. ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7) ( success x 3 )

Sid Rhodes
He notices her noticing him.  Sid sits there momentarily frozen, shoulders tense, hair tucked behind her ear revealing half of her fair face.  He checks her out and she can practically feel his eyes roam over her.  The sensation makes her skin crawl, makes her curl a little further into herself, angling her body slightly away.
He speaks aloud into the air, to himself and to whomever happens to be nearby.  That person happens to be Sid, seated all alone on a bench just in front of the coffee house.  She's clearly uncomfortable, but when has anyone seen her otherwise?  When he turns to look at her directly, expectation of some form of social engagement clear upon his face, Sid startles.  She slaps her notebook closed, pinning it to the tops of her thighs with one hand while the other clutches the pouch of her bag.  Then she rises.
And as she rises, a truck pulls into one of the spaces along the road.  One might think the appearance of the surly teen would be a relief to Sid, but all it does is give her pause.
"Ah-uh," she stammers, her attention flicking back to and staying on the stranger.  Her eyes squeeze shut and she gives a quick jerk of her head to the side.  "I guess," she concedes quietly.

Shoshannah Mitchell
Inside, it's not the counter that Shoshannah heads for, not immediately, or even the door.  Instead, she stops just outside the door, her head turning towards a familiar (in that it's been around a couple times now, not that they're friends) presence nearby.  Pale blue eyes freeze people in their spots for a moment and, as is usually the case when the Dreamspeaker comes into a scene, ripples of discomfort (and people) spread outward.  Some suddenly remember a class, an appointment, an overdue library book, some (those stronger few) just decide that maybe that spot, there, as far from her as possible is more comfortable.
She pretends to ignore this, and is very good at it - it's one of the few deceptions she's [almost] mastered, pretending that people's need to be away from her doesn't hurt.
The strange man with unfamiliar gets a passing (flaying to the bone, the soul) glance before Shoshannah's gaze falls on Sid, just as intense despite a rare attempt to cloak it a bit.  Maybe there's a connection, or maybe Shoshannah has decided, in this moment, that taking her sweet ass time is the best way to irritate Pan as much as she herself has been irritated.
"Hey, Sid.  Everything alright?"
She doesn't move closer, or do anything to cause any more discomfort than she does naturally - unless one considers the atypical consideration such a thing.

Jim Thompson
"A guess is better than nothing," and he genuinely sounds pleased with the answer she gives, even nodding as he speaks. Like a beggar happy for any coin, regardless of its monetary value.
Soshannah, and all that hangs around her person and being, pushing away and parting humanity, interjects herself into the interaction. In doing so the teenager gives Sid a name and asks Sid a question.
Jim's eyebrow isn't raised so high anymore, but he does turn toward Sid when she's asked, and therefore again seems curious for an answer. Is everything alright? He seems to hope so, to those able to understand body language and the intricacies of the human face.

Pan Echeverría
Lingering by the truck though he is, the priest isn't invisible. His height eclipses that of the truck if only by a few inches. He takes a small metal Zippo from his pocket and lights a cigarette with it. Stands and watches a moment while he takes a drag. He can't hear the question or the response and he doesn't move to come any closer.
Those whose senses are open to the things beyond can feel and almost hear the light come from him, a bright loud thing like the clouds opening up after folks have grown used to the rain.
It may be some consolation to Shoshannah to know he's still there, or it may rekindle the aggravation that drove her out the cab in the first place. He stays where he is for now either way.

Sid Rhodes
The Dreamspeaker stops, and suddenly there's a cold spot in the middle of the warm early summer morning.  It spreads out, leeching the heat right out of the sunlight flooding the pavement, bringing with it a sense of darkness, of cold dead things from beyond the beyond.  The stronger-willed endure, the weaker decide to cross the street to Starbucks today, instead.  Sid is neither of these types of people.  She endures because her wariness is already ratched up to eleven.  A little cold and clammy atmosphere can't do much to top it.
Pan has been noticed, of course, there's no ignoring his illuminating presence, spreading out from him like a revelation.  Of what, Sid doesn't know, but with the stranger nearer, his attention square and intent upon her, she has no more room for acknowledging the presence of a man who is only slightly less of a stranger.
"Nnh," is the response, which is neither negative nor positive, but merely a sound of deep discomfort.  One shoulder lifts a little higher than the other, and she takes a step to the side, moving away.  "Stop...stop staring at me."

Shoshannah Mitchell
"..........right."  There's no anger or upset in the word itself, though the already tall (nearer to six feet than five, well above average) young woman stands a little straighter, even as her eyes skate away to land on a wall, a window, a particularly interesting crack in the sidewalk, anything.  (It's unlikely that she'll admit aloud anytime soon how much it means to her that no matter what she's said or done the past few days, Padre has been there for her, has never backed away even when her temper and eerieness were at their worst.  "Just . . . thought I'd check.  Coffee."
It's been this way everywhere she's been in her life - and, considering that she's only nearing nineteen, that's a terrible lot of places - for the first few weeks, maybe month or two, Shoshannah attempts to forge not friendships, but casual, relatively comfortable acquaintanceship with at least a person or two.   It's usually a relief for all involved when she stops; the effort exhausts her and by the time she gives up, she's as flayed as she tends to make others feel.  "If you want something, let me know."
Dark, curlywavy hair loosely ponytailed swishes behind her as she turns, giving Jim (a stranger, though now the fact that he hasn't backed off, and is the unfamiliar presence she'd felt, settles in) another glance that may well scan as 'be nice and don't fuck with her or else' with reasonable accuracy as she goes.  It won't take her long to return with whatever she orders, but it gives the other three a break, a few moments to catch breath, to catch up if they'd like.

Jim Thompson
Jim's hands come up to his sunglasses, grabbing them by the frames and taking them off. He complies with Sid's request as he reveals his eyes, though, breaking his gaze from her to instead looking down at the Ray Bans. Bony and knob-knuckled fingers carefully fold them and again hang them from the V of his shirt's unbuttoned collar. When he's finished tending to them, he thoughtfully looks down at the condensation forming on the disposable cup of iced coffee before taking a sip.
He's still looking down at the cup when Soshannah shoots daggers his way, so it's hard for him to catch or meet the look, but he can certainly feel what radiates off of her brush against him. It gives him a moment's pause. He shuts his eyes, waits for it to pass (for her to leave), then opens them again. When he does he resumes looking at the droplets of water on the cup.
He looks at everything like it means something. Or more aptly like he's mining for some truth. It's a decidedly intense facet of his personality. Contemplative. Mindful. Very much a part of the moment, though seemingly perceiving it in a way that is different - not better, but unigue - in comparison to others.
He can feel the cacophony of resonances as they wash over him, discordant, yes, and a growing in their multitude. Some clash outright with his own, others weave in and out of harmony. With so little going on around him - a man lighting a cigarette, the swish of cars passing, the door opening and closing - it's evident he's sensing and feeling something. Basking in it. He closes his eyes again.
Another sip. A breath. An exhalation.
"It's good to have friends," to the cup, but not really. A moment later he looks at the bench where Sid had been sitting. His nose twitches, nostrils flaring, as a wisp of the holy man's smoke drifts by. "I'm Jim." Another sip, and, pleased with it, he smiles and again the cup is lowered to rest by his hip.

Pan Echeverría
He smokes fast and pockets what he doesn't finish, pinching off the ember and dropping the butt not on the ground but in the first trash receptacle he finds on his way from the parking space to the front door. As he comes closer details avail themselves to the two seated, one of whom met him briefly in a dim yet overstimulating bar, the other never having laid eyes on him before.
All in black again despite the heat, blazer abandoned to reveal a short-sleeved button-down shirt, 6'2" at least and built solid like a guy who spent the first half of his life performing manual labor and hasn't gone completely soft yet. He has dark hair, swarthy skin, green eyes. Lifts a hand to wave to Sid on his way in.
"Morning," he says, though he doesn't stop to chat. Gives Jim the old once-over before he hauls open the door.
A moment later he joins Shoshannah in line, clearing his throat to announce his presence but otherwise silent.

Sid Rhodes
Sid gives a slight shake of her head to Shoshannah's offer of getting something, so the girl slips inside, giving them respite from her presence.  But Sid does not relax.  She does not take a breather.  Jim's sunglasses come off, revealing eyes that are looking decidedly away from her, and only then does her shoulder come down.  She angles her head in his direction, still keeping her chin tucked, still not looking up at him directly.  Still wary and cautious, despite the name given in greeting.
Friends, he says, and she winces as though the word stings.
"Sid," she says, that part's easy, and not just because Shoshannah already named her in front of this man.  It's a name, one syllable, three letters, nothing more.  She catches the movement of Pan as he heads toward the door.  Her face still aimed vaguely in Jim's direction, her eyes track the older man's progress.  She answers his Morning with the barest of nods before her gaze snaps back to the newcomer.
"I should," she says, lifting her hand to point with her thumb back and over her shoulder, back in a way that won't take her past him.  Whether that's where she actually needs to go is anyone's guess.  Sliding her foot behind her, she eases her weight back onto it, quite reluctant to turn her back on the man.

Shoshannah Mitchell
To Shoshannah's defense, there'd been no special animosity in the look she'd given Jim; she doesn't know him, but she's met Sid a couple times.  She has no idea what's made the girl so uncomfortable but hasn't yet reached the 'that's just Sid' stage of knowing what's going on, so she offers a protective (or defensive, depending on how one chooses to look at it) shield.  Or has, the last two times they've seen each other.  The Dreamspeaker knows she can take what people throw at her, both literally and figuratively, so she draws the fire whenever she thinks it may be wanted, or needed.
Inside, the line thins with remarkable quickness upon Shoshannah's entry; it's not enough to make her thankful for the disturbing aura she holds, but it does make it a little more convenient.  Sometimes.  It's to the girl's credit that only once (that anyone here knows of) has she taken advantage of the fear she instills in people, and that had been for something more entertaining than coffee.  She waits her turn in what little line there is, orders herself a small coffee (black, no room for cream) before acknowledging Padre's presence beside her.  "Sure you don't want anything?"  It's the least venomous anything she's said to him since Saturday has been (though, to be fair, a good portion of the time they'd had together Sunday had been silent treatment).  And, as pride and self-sufficiency dictate, she already has money in hand in the form of a dirty, crumpled mess of singles and fives.

Jim Thompson
"Good morning," is Jim's polite response to the man in black, whether the salutation was meant for him, Sid, or both of them.
"If you must," an inflection that questions the way she'd posed her rationale for a hasty retreat from his presence. Should? His head cants to the side, should she look up to notice.
Well, if you must. It says. But if you mustn't? It also hints. Well, then... Don't. A careful suggestion in the tone.
Because I wish you wouldn't. A hopeful and discreet challenge.
As he says it, he looks closer to her. Not at her. Toward his own feet, then toward her own, like she's trying to find what the very withdrawn and introverted woman is looking at on the ground in the space between them. What she's so scared of. Curiosity.
The bench isn't taken, and he watches that same stretch of ground as he takes a seat on it where she had been watching him from moments before. He adjusts the papers folded and stacked beneath his arm and places them on his lap, his jacket folded over them, looking up at as he awaits her decision, or the return of the two from the Big Red Truck.
Whichever comes next.

Sid Rhodes
[empathy-awareness!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 10) ( success x 1 ) Re-rolls: 1

Pan Echeverría
They haven't seen much of each other since Saturday night when he all but kicked her out of the bar. Other than meeting her outside the church and showing her the mess in the basement that would serve as her project this week, she did not see him again until nightfall yesterday.
If she's done any snooping around the place she would find that the church holds Mass three times a day every day except for Saturday, when they have an evening vigil an hour earlier, and confession is offered twice a day every day except for Sunday, when it's only available during the evening service. To say he's busy is an understatement.
She asks if he's sure he doesn't want anything. For a moment he's silent, thinking, and then he gives the employee behind the register a smile like he's trying to apologize for the fact that the teenager is scaring the shit out of everyone in the place.
And then he orders a cup of decaf. Does not let Shoshannah pay for it, even if the only reason he pulls that off is because the register person would rather take cash from the tall dark warm-looking guy than the shiver-inducing girl stood in his shadow. He has a longer reach besides.

Sid Rhodes
She isn't exactly watching the ground, not really.  Sid's head is angled just so in order to make better use of her peripheral.  She may not look at Jim directly, but she is watchful of him, wary, even as she is wary of another group of young people headed down the street, of the new car that's pulled up along the curb, of the handful of people who rush out of the coffee house, escaping the terrible presence of the youngest patron.
Watching her surroundings as she does, she still hears a bit of that inflection.  Those questions, that little touch of imploring that the man does.  That's not what keeps her rooted in place, however.
What keeps her in place is that when he moves to close the distance, he doesn't close it completely but stops part way.  He settles himself on the bench instead of approaching her.  He skirts her like she's a stray animal, lost to the streets for so long she's forgotten how to be around people.  Frowning and far, far from trusting he has no ulterior motives, no unpleasant plans up his sleeve for her despite his seemingly genial nature, Sid lifts her chin a little, focuses a little more of her attention on him instead of her surroundings.
She is hesitant, but she does not bolt.  Her arm moves as though she might reach up and fuss with her hair, but there's a notebook in it still, and a bag still clutched in the other.  Awkwardly, Sid lowers her arm back to her side, her mouth pressed into a firm line.  From this angle he can see her figure a little better.  Tallish, just a little under the height of the scary girl who went inside, and with an obvious curves despite somewhat baggy clothing.  Her age is a bit difficult to pinpoint; out of the mid-twenties, maybe very early thirties.
"What do you...what do you want?" she asks, and she can't quite keep the suspicion from her voice.

Shoshannah Mitchell
Oh, Shoshannah knows priests are busy; growing up Jewish in the family she had may not have given her much experience with Catholicism (or Christianity in general, beyond where it intersects with Judaism , but had introduced her to many holy men of the church (and synagogue) at varying levels.  It may only have been morning and late evening, but the time had been filled with . . . well, a sullen, angry teenager who was full of either icy silence or sharp, venomous jabs by turns.
It had also been full of a basement getting progressively neater, more in hand, more quickly than expected.  For whatever reason, the girl had taken to the job better than anyone could have expected.
".....I can take care of myself, you know," she says after he's paid for their coffee; even as dripping with irritation as it is, the, "Thanks, though," is more deeply genuine than most things she says, as much so as the 'please' she'd added as an afterthought before they'd stopped.  Sure, it bugs her a bit that he hadn't let her pay; whether she thinks she owes him or just wants to assert her independence doesn't really matter.
She adds nothing to her coffee, drinks it straight and bitter, dark as sin.  "You want to go back out?"

Jim Thompson
"To be around... That," honesty, if she's still paying attention to it, in his wording. He might have said it in a nicer way if he were being less than genuine.
And he begins to understand why, now, almost as the words leave his scruff and dirty-blonde-moustachioed lips. His brow relaxes at the brush of epiphany, then flexes like he's trying to grasp it, but then he seems to force it away again. Relaxes. Realizing like a feather drifting on the wind, to swat at it with grabbing hands might cause it to flit away. Cause her to threaten to run off again, like when he'd focused his gaze on her.
It was a feeling of the periphery. Another dragon to chase, if smaller, possibly no less dangerous. He skirts it, like he does her.
"Elation." He can feel it drifting from her, and when she finally directs words at him it's like it has been injected directly into his veins. "You," correcting his earlier 'that'. The euphoria that permeates her own Pattern.
He's sitting, and has yet to stand straight in her presence, but in comparison to the priest that had walked by Jim is decidedly more slight, more insignificant, more average, if not any shorter if he cared enough to right his posture. In his late 20s and marked by hard living around the eyes and in the luster of his complexion.

Pan Echeverría
He thanks the kid behind the counter and puts the paper change from the transaction into whatever tip jar presents itself before moving down the line. Doesn't have anything to say about whether or not he knows Shoshannah can take care of herself. He doesn't doctor up his drink either, but he does wander around the place a bit. This is his first time in here and it isn't a Starbucks.
For a moment he appears more interested in the decor than anything she might have to say. Or maybe he's giving silent thanks to the poor bastards who picked the beans to make the coffee he's about to drink. He does that just about every time he ingests something, she's starting to learn, even lectured her about the cost of gasoline being more than some glowing red numbers on a sign through the passenger window when he stopped to fill up the tank this morning. That was at the start of their little errand. They hadn't made it to the lumberyard before she decided she needed to get out the truck right-the-hell-now.
Thanks, though.
The humanness in her voice brings him back from whatever lofty ancient place his brain goes to when he's not paying attention to his surroundings.
"Well," he says, "thanks for hauling all that junk out of the basement."
It's a parry, like he thinks he's being funny. Don't do anything that might make the teenager think you're being nice to her, oh no, that would be the actual worst.
Do you want to go back out?
"Whenever you're ready."

Sid Rhodes
[WP]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

Sid Rhodes
A look of utter confusion claims her face, stealing away its simple, unadorned (except for the glasses) beauty.  What? that look asks, and then morphs into something else as comprehension dawns.
And then he clarifies himself.  You, he says.  Sid's eyes widen slightly and her chest constricts.  The hands that hold her things clutch them a little tighter.  Not enough for the knuckles to turn white, signaling extreme panic, but the shift is noticeable.
Still, she holds her ground.  Something keeps her held in place.  Perhaps its him, his too-close Pattern addling her own, swirling through the desperation and the euphoria, the elation as he called it, and mixing it all up.
Slowly she takes a deep breath, willing her muscles to loosen and relax, for her heartbeat to slow just a little.
"Why?"

Shoshannah Mitchell
I lived in Israel and Texas, had been her scathing retort when he'd begun the lecture about what the price of gasoline and, by extent, oil meant.  If you think I don't know what those dollars and cents mean, you're sadly mistaken.  Of course, just living in either of those places doesn't guarantee the knowledge she'd professed, and it's easy to take anything people under a certain age say with little more than a grain of salt.
Now, though, they're in a different place and for all that Shoshannah's temper is a living, often nearly violent thing, it's at a low ebb right now (and seems to flare and bank with amazing quickness).  Any aggravation she's suffering over the indignity of her assigned job, a curfew, being shooed from someplace interesting, is set aside in favor of the novelty of someone who will has stayed beside her thus far, from when she'd met him to the present.  It makes it easier to ignore things like Rosa crossing herself when she thinks Shoshannah isn't paying attention.
"It's a bit easier outside," she says so quietly he might not catch it, and then turns her head away to examine something innocuous as if it's the most interesting thing she's ever seen before turning back with a real answer.  "Whatever.  We've got stuff to get done, yeah?"  Of course they do.  No point in lingering.

Pan Echeverría
And he doesn't catch it. He sees Shoshannah's lips move and then he sees her glance away and speak up louder and more dismissive than before, that moment of reprieve from sulking over. Pan manages not to laugh but he ends up coughing into the back of his wrist for a few seconds as punishment.
"Thanks for reminding me," he says, light, as close to sarcastic as he ever gets, and pulls his truck keys out of the pocket of his jeans.

Jim Thompson
A need - an imperative - had cut through her. But she remains.
His voice is quiet, but it's not soft. He speaks clearly. Loud enough for her to hear him. But it's not assertive.
"I enjoy it. And maybe if I am around you long enough you will want to be around me. And then I'll be able to enjoy it indefinitely," her 'Why?' answered, Jim settles into the bench. He's actually yet to look at her again. Especially not in that expectant manner he'd regarded her with twice before. Respecting her wishes thus far.
"Do you go to school around here?" His hand pulls the thick book of classes, major requirements and enrollment information, laced with pamphlets and pages with notes taken on them, from underneath the jacket. "I'm thinking about taking some classes."
He sips his coffee idly, taking a moment to glance over his own shoulder, not hiding his curiosity and giving it a target other than Sid, due to her shyness. The glance is into the coffee shop, though its large pane glass window, and at Pan and Shoshannah where they are inside. Wondering if they'll return.

Shoshannah Mitchell
Jim can see Pan and Shoshannah fairly clearly, moving closer to the door they'd entered; of course they'll return.  It's difficult to imagine anyone tolerating the girl's presence for long at all, let alone in such close quarters as provided by the confines of the coffee shop.  The roll of her eyes at Pan's forray into near-sarcasm is nearly palpable even when they're separated from each other.
"Go ahead, I'll be right out," she says with a nod towards the restroom.

(Shit, lost track of time, have to go for dance!  Back when it's done.