(ToB) If You Go Out In The Woods Today..

[Star]

Coffee shops.

He wasn't a coffee fan, but he knew that coffee shops were A Thing. But he sure wasn't going to SeerBucks. This one? It was hipster haven for all the Sac-U students and interns from Sutter Memorial. Prime spot for contact making -- just make sure you go at off peak if you want privacy. Or a table.

Throttling his bike back to coast to a stop, he culled the urge to snicker at picking Nous up. Sure, totes could have used The Van, probably, but it seems So Wrong. After all, the cabal hadn't ridden in it yet. Just We. Besides, this? Nous riding 'bitch'? Kinda funny. A foot made a practiced motion to knock out the kick stand and he settled the bike into it's At Rest Gangster Lean. Pulling off the helmet freed The Mop and a hand finger combed it ineffectually.

"Thanks for coming!" Whoops. Little loud, without the roar of the motor.

Sincere, though. Because see why ay.

He popped open the saddle bag and grabbed the paper grocery bag, paper not plastic, that held the Adamantine Arrow's Teddy Bear. He folded his helmet under the arm holding the bag and offered Nous a hand. Gentleman, yo. Besides, she might fall getting off and knock his baby over.

[Ariadne]

Comfortable dress slacks and a half zipped black North Face jacket replace the normal suit. Under the jacket a faded red button down exists mutely. Taking of sip of a surprisingly good cup of coffee Ariadne takes in the room around her. It's comforting, except for the kids.

Well probably not kids, probably college grads. It's about the same though...maybe? "It's been a while." Is her quiet mutter answering an unspoken question.

[Jhet]

If the roar of the motorcycle hadn't deafened her just a little bit, Star definitely tries to. When she agreed to go somewhere with him, she just knew he would pick her up on that bike of his. She dug to the back of her closet, and that's where she found her black leather jacket. Don't ask why she has it, it's just appropriate to not getting entirely tore up from road rash. Skinny jeans and cowboy boots-yes, cowboy boots-round out her significantly biker outfit. It also has the added benefit of being able to conceal her sidearm

Riding on a bike is almost as fun as driving it. Just a little further away from the engine. She still felt ever bump on the way over. It's not always an unpleasant experience, but with Star driving it is just a little awkward. She can get on and off a bike without issue, but Star's actually being a gentleman, so she doesn't deny his manners and takes his 'help' to get off the motorcycle.

"You said there'd be coffee. So long as there's coffee, I'm happy to be here. That and we're visiting Ari, so I figured it was an important meeting."

She isn't entirely sure what's in the bag, but she figures it's the big bad thing that was picked up in that house full of abyssal shit storm.

"Should we go find her before or after the coffee?"

She makes it clear that she definitely still wants the coffee.

[Star]

His Motorcycle Outfit? Khakis. Tennies.

What are we gonna wear today!? The same thing we wear every day...

He still looked cool in his helmet, though. Except, now it was off and he had a mad case of hat-head. Fingers raked through the mess.

"Before. I think, right? Like, if you do it after, then we're just standing around drinking coffee. Do it before, then we're dialogueing over it. Right?" Besides. If Scelesti appeared to reclaim The Bear, they could throw hot coffee in their faces.

"Besides, uh, I'm just, like, getting a water." Bubbly, yo. "Lycus must have scored mad points with you, with the coffee at the thing?" he grinned. "But I'm not a coffee drinker. I knew this guy once, right, he and his wife were trying to have kids but they couldn't, anyway, when she started talking in vitro and dropping big bucks,..."

He opened the door and headed in.

"Anyway, he got kind of scared because they were broke, like, not super broke just, you know, regular people. I think you'd have to be pretty set to drop ten gees on that stuff, right? Anyway, he sold swimming pools, and it was his first winter. He thought he'd be raking it in like he did all summer, because he was on commission, right? Then winter hit."

He kept going while she ordered.

"And he hadn't really budged well. Oh. Right. Coffee. Anyway, oh, hey, one Perrier," he pointed to a bottle and called out to the barrista who was Totally Not a barrista for him, because water. "Yeah, so the coffee. Anyway, he was trying to figure out why it wasn't working, right? Because he knew it wasn't him because he'd gotten this chick pregnant, this other chick -- but that's a different story -- and so he was all double you tee eff. And the only thing that had changed was he was sitting around the office because he wasn't out on sites to build pools and drinking lots of coffee while he surfed porn. Well, he was working, but, really, he wasn't. Anyway. So he quit drinking coffee."

A finger shook and eyes bounced.

"You know the ending, right? Boom. Pregnant."

He waved at Ariadne.

True story, yo.

[Ariadne]

Ariadne raises her coffee in greeting to Star before taking another sip of it. Ok so maybe these sorts of place can actually make good coffee without feeling like it's made of smug. The Warlock points to the table she is sitting at with her other hand. No way she's going to give this table up, kids everywhere.

Who studies in a coffee shop? Leaving their things everywhere? Seriously.

[Jhet]

"So I'm not going to get pregnant because I drink coffee? I can think of worse fates... or better ones?"

She shrugs and rubs a fake baby belly. She would look hot pregnant, all filled out in all the right places. She's not so sure about the back pain, the foot pain, and the nearly ten months of internal parasitic relationship with a growing being. That's not true. Her face lies to herself and then she remembers that she gets to do nothing but lie to her child about who she really is for the entirety of his or her life. Her wistful smile is dashed into a million tiny pieces.

"Maybe you should start drinking coffee then. I can't imagine you chasing a little kid around."

"No. Wait. I can imagine it. You have paint all the walls and face. Maybe he should have stopped watching all the porn. I imagine his body couldn't keep up."

She greats the barista who hands her the coffee with a smile. It's not his fault that Star has connected inextricably coffee and child bearing.

She heads over to sit with Ari, setting down her coffee, pulling out the chair, and flopping into it. "You ever thought about having kids? He brought it up." She makes it clear she's pointing at Star.

[Star]

"Not because you don't, but, wait, what?"

Him? Kids? That wasn't the Moral of the Story. At. All. Like, for starters, you have to want them, right? And then there has to be...

Man. Don't even go there.

He sat, and set the bag gently on the table. Like it was a Thermal Detonator. "Hi. Ma'am. Uh, for starters, I brought it up, but not about you. Like, I wasn't wondering if you wanted kids. Obviously. You know, that it's none of my business. I was just saying that coffee, uh, well, wasn't conducive. To reproduction. Not with you, or I mean, with women, that is. All women. Just that it might be, with men. You know, your partner, if you wanted kids."

Unless...

"Unless that's not how you roll, and that's okay, no one's judging. And if that is how you roll then I'm totally sorry for assuming that you didn't... or if you don't, that you do. Roll. With. Uh. Life Partners." Finger quotes. "But if you and your partner wanted kids, at some point, that your, uh, 'donor' may or may not want to drink a lot of coffee. Like, you know, low caffeine donations."

He turned and looked around.

"Just saying. If you're trying to get pregnant, a coffee shop isn't where you should, you know. But I don't need to tell you that, right? I mean, you lived with three guys and one of them is a rock star. You totally know what's up. Probably. About donors."

What? None of that was a secret. Was Principal Ari trying to get pregnant? Who. Knows. Breakaway pant-suits, yo. No. He wasn't thinking about that.

"I mean, I'm not saying you are. You know, like, with all of them. Living in sin? Just that, you know, if you're trying to get pregnant, good luck."

A hand twisted the gold cap off of the green bottle with a pathetic shriek of cracking aluminum.

[Ariadne]

"I.." Ariadne head tilts to the side "maybe before.." Then Star gets to the table and promptly politically correctly dumps his mind everywhere. As he continues to talk her mouth falls open just a tad.

"Ow"

Her coffee cup raises tilted, with the last three fingers opened and facing Star. "Wow, wow, slow down."

"Yes I have thought of having kids in the past. That was before this however." She says to Nous, hand still up to possibly slow another river from Star.

"And no," Ariadne looks back at Star. "I have no intention of having children right now nor am I living in sin as you put it."

"A coffee shop might not be a bad place to go though, maybe." She shrugs. Not entirely sure if she could bring another soul into the Lie. Maybe someday. "Wait what does coffee have to do with that? Wait, no, what's the bag?"

[Jhet]

"We're all living in sin."

That's the whole damn point of their existence.

"It's the method to the madness. Gets me out of bed in the morning."

It also gets her company that she takes home once a quarter to blow off steam out of her bed the next morning. Preferably when she's done with them and there's no more steam to blow off.

"Granted, putting my alarm clock on the other side of the room also gets me out of bed in the morning. Could you imagine having a little one to bring around everywhere, suckling at your tit every other hour? Never get anything done. I had a cousin that had a kid. She nearly pulled all her hair out. Granted, it was all falling out because the pregnancy was over anyway, but it's hard to keep a weave awesome looking when all your hair is trying to fall out."

She paints a pretty picture with her words. Or a vivid picture maybe is a better way to put it. The picture of an exhausted woman trying to nurse her child with hair falling out all over the place is vivid, maybe pretty, but likely just pretty out of respect for the hard ass work the woman is doing.

It puts the little problems they have with screwy abyssal magic, banishers, and Seers into perspective. They were children once. They grew up. Everyone grows up and then they stop growing.

[Star]

"Oh, yeah, the hair thing."

The mop bobbed and shook as he nodded vigorously.

"That totally happens. Because the hormones and what-not. But you know what's really weird is sometimes, like, if your hair falls out, like chemo patients, or hormone things, or you shave your head? It can grow back a different color. Or texture." True story. Eyes raised to Ariadne 's red hair.

"Like, you could be a blonde. Or brunette. When, you know, you do that kid thing. I don't know about the rest of it, but, uh, yeah."

Nope. He wasn't picturing a kid latched on to Principal Ari's chest. Eyes up top. That just isn't right. On any level.

"Oh."

He slid the bag over.

"That's, uh, a souvenir. From that thing that I got asked to do. With the, you know, after prom clean up. So, yeah, that's done. But this? It's no bueno. Like, it needs to get locked up or burned, or something, I dunno." Fingers pointed at his eyes, then at the bag. Bad. Mojo. "We couldn't get a read, we, as in Lisa and I, she went with me. We did that thing. The clean up thing. Not the other thing. Lisa and I aren't doing that thing. But, anyway? I didn't want to leave that behind. Seemed like something we should hang onto instead of the archery club."

Words trailed off, and he took a drink. Plenty of time for Principal Ari to look at her new Teddy Bear. Kids. Teddy Bears. Just another conversation at the coffee shop after visiting the Build A Bear store, right? He glanced at Nous. Maybe she wanted to see the Bear.