Mirror, Mirror Memes (
mirrormirrormeme) wrote in
bakerstreet2024-03-14 07:39 am
Burn the world for them
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| Because is there anything better than a dangerous, potentially deadly stoic whose one weakness is their sweet, harmless object of affection? Especially if the latter has the former wrapped around their finger, knowingly or otherwise. To avoid tl;dr - suddenly, a wild bae approaches! Their attempt to turn you into a puddle of goo at the knees, whether purposeful or not, is very effective.
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Navia . Genshin Impact . OTA
Gale Dekarios | Baldur's Gate 3 | OTA
utahime iori, jjk.
aventurine, honkai star rail
Essek Thelyss | Critical Role | M/M
Maedhros | the Silmarillion | OTA
Jason Todd/Red Hood | Titans
Steve Rogers | MCU
kaedehara kazuha | genshin impact | m/m
caelus // trailblazer | honkai star rail | ota, but esp dan heng's <3
Levi Ackerman ( Attack on Titan )
Ikari Shinji | Neon Genesis Evangelion | OTA
Alexis Ness | Blue Lock | m/m
Driver | Drive | OTA
no subject
Still, it's a little bit of a surprise to see this guy at his diner. Well it's not his diner, he just goes here a lot. It's convenient.
Either way, he nods companionably and slides into the booth across from his -- what, coworker? Might as well.
no subject
Eventually,and only after the waitress comes back with their drinks does he speak.
"How old are you?"
He'd seen Baby around, sure. But this is a job, and this is business. He doesn't want to underestimate but he does want to be frank.
no subject
"Twenty-three." Old enough for a lot of things, but still pretty young to be in this business. Boosting the wrong car comes with consequences, as he's learned.
feel free to change anything
and honestly, she likes the job. she likes getting to talk to so many different people every night (because of course she had the night shift). there are a few regulars that she's gotten to know and she likes spending time with them. she likes talking to them. or sometimes not talking when it comes to one particular regular.
he reminds her a little of ken, just minus the whole corrupted by patriarchy and horses thing. he never says too much and she's okay with that, more than happy to fill the silence or just sit in it.
tonight has been a particularly long shift though and her normally cheery disposition is much less cheerful. but she brightens when she sees him come in and go to his regular booth. she immedietly grabs a mug and carafe of coffee. ]
I was hoping I'd see you tonight.
[ she puts the mug down and fills it with coffee. ]
How's your night?
hoots and hollers
He's here often.
There's a waitress he's noticed, too. Hard not to, with long blond hair and probably the most gorgeous blue eyes he's seen. They're in LA, land of the pretty people and curated aesthetics, but Driver thinks Barbara--that's on her name tag--stands out because her smile actually seems genuine.
The driver gives her full eye contact, even offering the tiniest smile. It's practically a micro expression, but it's there, causing him to look a little more boyish than his cold exterior really allows for. What he's not expecting is her own sunny disposition to be just a little off. It's enough for him to put the thought that she was looking forward to him in the back of his mind, if only temporarily. ]
Okay.
[ A little nod as he watches the blond pour his coffee, and he glances at her again. ]
You okay?
Let me know if it needs any changes!
So she fled. Left her brother a letter and just… disappeared into the night. Travelling aimlessly, but finally free in a way that she hadn’t been in… a very long time. Until she was half a world away from where she’d been. And she felt she could finally stop running.
Not put down roots, necessarily. But stay. For a time, at least. So she found a flat, and a job. Bartending was easy enough, and it let her meet people and make casual small talk without risking too much. There are a few regulars, of course, that she’s gotten to know since she started working at the little out of the way bar that had taken her in. She likes them. Feels more at ease with them, honestly, since she sees them often enough and regularly enough that they’re familiar. Comfortable company. And she sees them often enough that she’s learned their usual drink habits.
She’s behind the bar as usual tonight, long white-streaked dark curls pulled back in a haphazard braid as she works. She’s just finishing up making a drink and sliding it across the bartop when she sees him come in. Flashing him a warm smile, she’s already moving to start pouring his drink.
no subject
He's just got back from a run. There's adrenaline still singing in his bloodstream, ears still ringing, but he can't go home just yet. He ditches the car he's stolen for the job of course, pulls up in his usual gray one, slips into the place and makes his way to his usual corner of the bar.
That girl's there again, the one with the streak of white in her hair and a way of carrying herself that all but screams secret. That sort of shit comes a dime a dozen in this city, but like recognizes like and it's not like driver doesn't have skeletons in his closet. Or the trunk of his car, in this case.
He nods, accepting his drink--just a simple mid-shelf whisky on the rocks--with the flicker of a smile as way of saying thank you. He likes her: she's pretty. Nice. Probably doesn't deserve to be here, but she's with the dregs of humanity, but she's clearly making the best of it.
"Hey."
Fuck it. He can talk. He likes her. It's the smile, it reminds him of Irene's.
no subject
And she just likes him.
Her smile shifts, blossoms into a brilliant grin for a moment. He doesn’t talk much, usually. So when he does, well. She appreciates it. “Hi.” She leans on the bar, at ease, the ends of the scarf she wears twined around her neck fluttering as she moves. (It’s either something high necked, or scarves that she wears when she’s working. Easier to hide the scars on her neck that way.) Everyone’s been served, so she has a few moments to spare. And even if she didn’t, she would anyway. “How’s your night?”
no subject
Driver leans a little forward. Decides to offer her a drive after her shift when he's done his first drink of the night, if only because he's not a fan of her alone at night. He nods in a noncommittal way about his night--he can't sleep, what else is new--and his brows lift slightly.
"New scarf?"
He notices. He always notices.
no subject
Cassandra nods, fingertips absently fiddling with the silken hem of her scarf. “It is, yes.”
She’s not sure she’ll ever get used to that. Being noticed. Being seen. It doesn’t surprise her, though. He does that. Sees her. And she doesn’t mind. Which should alarm her. She’s been so careful, so guarded since leaving Whitestone. But it doesn’t. She’s safe with him. Oh, he’s dangerous, she’s certain of that, too. Everyone has a past and he’s no exception. It’s in the way he carries himself.
But that doesn’t make the fact that she’s safe with him any less true. After what she’s seen. What she’s lived through. Dangerous doesn’t bother her. Doesn’t scare her. And neither do troubled pasts. She’d be a hypocrite if they did.
no subject
He'll ask later. Maybe. If she wants him to. He lifts the glass as a silent thank you, taking his time and getting settled for a few hours of people watching in the corner of the bar where he can watch the entrance and exists.
Driver's picked up on her habits, not through osmosis--he's observant, always has been--and he knows she walks home alone. It doesn't sit right with him, not now, not when he's eyeing a particularly rowdy group of what he assumes is bikers getting a little too heated about the pool game they're having.
Driver tips and tips well, catching her eye when she knows her shift is about to let up.
"I can drive you home." It's open ended, but clearly an invitation: he doesn't want to assume. His gaze does flick over to the group to his left, though. A subtle indicator.
no subject
She grins a little as he lifts the glass in a silent thank you, nodding her head slightly in response, as she moves away from him to pour someone else a refill. She checks in with him off and on throughout the night, though.
There’s a group of bikers playing pool that have been getting progressively rowdier the longer the night has gone on and the more drinks they’ve gotten in them. They’ve been in before, and it always ends up… an eventful evening. So at least she’s prepared for it, but its never fun. And they always end up focusing far too much attention on her. Most of the time, at least, they leave before her shift is over, so she doesn’t have to deal with them on her way out.
Doesn’t look like she’s going to be quite that lucky, tonight.
Her shift is just about over, when he offers to drive her home. She can’t miss the way his gaze flicks over to the group of bikers she’s been wary of all night, so she’s fairly certain as to the reason for the offer, but he catches her by surprise all the same. Usually, she’d decline, to avoid both getting into a car alone with someone else and having them find out where she lives. A necessary caution, after everything, she thinks. With him, though… there’s no hesitation. No thought that she’d need to decline to ensure her own safety. The smile she gives him is fond. “I’d appreciate that.”
no subject
He nods instead, and waits for Cassandra to move first before he wordlessly heads for the door, making sure to block her from the bikers’ line of sight. The yellow scorpion embroidered on his jacket seems to be intimidating enough, as they don’t follow.
He tries not to think about the last girl he’d taken for a drive. Doesn’t seem fair to Cassandra. She's not Irene, and that’s a good thing. He's learned his lesson.
This is just a ride home for her safety. Nothing more. He has to keep reminding himself of that, even as when they arrive at the silver 1973 Chevy Malibu. This is nothing. This is a favour.
He does, however, open the passenger door for her. Tells himself that's just manners.
no subject
She’s not used to that. Not used to someone trying to protect her.
They walk unimpeded to his car, the bikers intimidated enough or drunk enough or a combination of the two, to leave them both be. He opens the door for her, and she smiles at him, fingertips brushing his arm briefly in thanks, before she’s slipping gracefully into the passenger seat.
no subject
Inside, it's a bar of the type scattered all across the American South: homey, no-nonsense. Booths and tables. A man in a plaid flannel shirt wiping the bar; a crossdresser in the kitchen singing Gospel hymns and rolling his hips in time with the words just to scandalize the prep cook. A handful of waitresses, bustling about.
Sookie makes her way briskly through it all, a tray balanced on her palm and her eyes kept stubbornly front, as voices swarm around her. Aloud, and... less so.
So the quiet out-of-towner in the corner is a relief in more ways than one. He's sitting in her section again, much to Dawn's annoyance; he's head and shoulders cuter than any other guy in the place tonight, but he's tucked into a corner booth in Sookie's section, and it's Sookie who brings him the same order of cold beer he'd requested the last few nights, setting it down in front of him with a smile that shifts a little more real, a little less strained, as she meets his eyes. "Back again? You must really have a hankerin' for something fried."
no subject
Driver likes cities and bright lights, but LA doesn't quite agree with him right now, not after Irene. Best to lay low, since he's got the money to do it. He'd driven for as long as he could given this wound, pulled over and slept, and repeated the process a few times until he winds up in a shitty little motel in a shitty little town called Bon Temps.
Doesn't take him long to find what feels like the only place open late at night. The first time he comes in the only person he really clocks beyond potential threats is a gorgeous girl with hair in a ponytail and a cheery customer service facade that seems almost genuine. He purposefully chooses the corner where he can see both entrances and exits, and he's pleased when it winds up being the section the girl with the ponytail--her nametag says Sookie--runs. She doesn't seem to mind that he says maybe three words total, either.
So of course he keeps coming back.
The driver does it partially because he never really sleeps, but he'd be lying if he didn't want to see her again. He keeps his distance, both because he's naturally stoic and quiet and because the last time he hadn't kept to himself people had died. But a beer won't hurt him, and that little genuine smile she gives him makes the world a little softer, so he finds himself answering with more than a few words.
"Cheeseburger this time," he says, and after a split second his gaze seems to slide back down, boyish, like he's forgotten how to talk to girls. The truth is he never really learned.
He speaks again only when he looks back up, and breaks the singular rule he has: keep to himself.
"How's your shift?"
no subject
He's different, her customer, from the clothes he wears to his accent -- what accent he has, when he seems to measure out every word, weighing it against whether or not it's worth saying. No bluster here, nowhere in sight, and she glances down when he does, her smile skewing a little shy. "Well, it's... it's improvin'."
--just look at her, the hussy, throwing herself at him, he ain't gonna get you out of this place miss so young and smiley so keep it in your pants--
--Lord I shouldn't be here, I know I oughta had stayed home but just one, just one drink's not gonna be the end of the world, I'll tell her it was lemonade--
--he's a goddamn cheater, I know it, I could kill the bastard--
Her smiles flickers, a little, and her lashes flutter as she blinks, trying to refocus as a hot embarrassed flush floods her cheeks, warms her face.
He's gonna think she's just as crazy as everyone in this town says she is, and there's nothing she can do about it. "I'll, um... I'll go put that cheeseburger in for you."
She licks at her lip, reaching for both hands for the familiar blanket of professionalism, even as she glances up at him and back down again. "You want anythin' else with that tonight?"
no subject
Something's wrong.
He normally doesn't ask. He shouldn't ask. It's foolish to, and he's made it a point not to make any ties stronger than a big tip in order to be left alone. Driver glances at Sookie, around the place again, and then decides to break one of his biggest rules.
"You OK?"
Quiet, succinct. Genuine, if the softness around his stoic features are anything to go by.
no subject
But then there's that softness to the way he looks at her, and those keen blue eyes of his sure are pretty when he asks if she's okay and means it. It flusters her all over again, in a different way, some of the plastic relaxing out of her smile. "Just... a little distracted, is all."
"Don't you mind Sookie none, mister." The jovial voice comes from behind her; a local boy grinning the grin of someone who's had a half pitcher too much of the Dixie draft at the man in the booth. "She's crazy as a bedbug. Everybody knows that."
Before she can move, or turn to him, he lifts a hand, smacks it against her bottom. Sookie jerks, half-skipping to the side, her cheeks burning with shame and embarrassment as he laughs. "Nice to look at, though. Aintcha, honey?"
no subject
“Get your hand off of her before I take it off for you,” he says, and his voice is as calm and quiet as it’s always been. He might as well have still been chatting with Sookie.
The man laughs.
“What, Sookie here? She’s–”
The driver stands up, jaw tight, blue eyes bright with rage. One hand moves to the drunk’s hand from Sookie’s wrist in a swift, calculated motion: he simply takes the other’s index finger and twists it as far back as it goes, forcing him away from the woman and causing the other’s knees to buckle as he pulls it back, back, back and crack goes the bone. The other’s scream is cut off by the fact that the Driver’s free hand now has a hold of the drunk’s scalp and in another swift motion he’s slamming the other’s head onto the corner of the table he’d just been sitting at. The driver aims with such precision that he gets the top part of the drunk’s mouth right at the edge of the wood, breaking teeth and God knows what else.
There's blood. It's over in about six seconds, total.
The driver says nothing. Instead he stares at the man howling in pain, blue eyes wild, chest heaving, physically blocking Sookie from the other’s eyesight in case he's stupid enough to go again. It seems unlikely given the state of the drunk and the broken upper half of his jaw.
He warned him.
no subject
"Hey! The hell is goin' on over here?" Sam's shouldering his way through the cloud of people who are standing, starting to drift closer, all of them peering with bright-eyed curiosity in a way that makes Sookie want to shrink even further behind the man who'd just committed an act of startling violence to keep her from being touched against her will.
Maybe she should be afraid of him, the way everyone else seems to be, now. But she isn't, and she turns to Sam, unconsciously putting herself between him and the customer the same way he'd put himself between her and that asshole. "Sam, that guy had his hands all over me, he was just standin' up for me. Don't make it worse, please."
Her boss gives her that helpless look he gets around her a lot, his hands going to his hips as he looks past her to the customer, then to the jerk getting to his feet with the help of his buddies. That, at least, is an easy decision, and Sam jerks a thumb over his shoulder. "Y'all better get out of here. Don't bother comin' back, not for beers or revenge or anything else. You hearin' me?"
no subject
That's fine. She's worth it, he thinks, and as they make eye contact for a brief moment he nods slightly. Better they learn a lesson than to learn they can touch her. She's one of the good ones, the bright ones, the ones that need to be as far away from sketchy places like this and seedy people like him but can't afford to for one reason or another.
He watches the men leave, taking in every detail he can: height. Build. Looks. Car type. License plate number. Files it in the back of his head for later, should they meet again. He doubts it. When they drive away, he turns to face her.
He keeps his voice calm, demeanor soft. Hands politely and pointedly at his sides, focused only on her.
"You okay?"
no subject
But she's not about to leave him out here, thrown to these wolves. When he turns back to her, she meets his eyes without flinching. She's still tense, arms crossed across herself, but she nods at his question. "I'm okay."
That hardly seems like enough for what he'd done for her, and after another second she drops her arms and steps forward, pushing up onto her toes. Her hand finds his shoulder for balance as she tips her face up to brush a kiss to his cheek, sweet and warm. "Thank you for helpin' me."
She settles back onto her heels, her cheeks flushing as she risks another glance at him. "I... better get back to work, now. But don't go just yet. I'll grab you a beer, okay? On me."
no subject
There's something about her, though, and it's not just the sweet accent honeying her words or her delicate, graceful frame that reminds him of Hollywood girls before the sleaze and gunk inevitably coat them and swallow them up. She looks him in the eye and driver's heart skips a beat, mouth suddenly dry, and he thinks he'll be alright if he has to skip town. He has this fleeting, aching moment he can cling to.
The kiss sends him into a tizzy, knocks his whole mind off course, and only reinforces that belief. There's a shiver down his spine, hopeful, calmed for the first time in a very, very long time. A beer.
"Okay."
A beer. He can have a beer. He can't stop staring at her beautiful heart shaped face.
"Let me drive you home after."
no subject
She has a car, of course; she'd driven herself here. There's no reason to accept a liftr from this intense young man who seems so concerned about her safety. Sookie has no reason to think those jerks might come back, pick up where they left off, but neither does she exactly want a few skimmed moments in an evening of work to be all she gets tonight of him.
It's a little scandalous. The town's gonna have enough to chew on for weeks if she says yes. She demurs just a moment more, her lashes lowering and her smile flickering shyly before she looks back up at him. "Okay. I'd like that."
She'd like that, and she likes him, and she likes the way he feels and sounds, how he watches her with those intent blue eyes. His thoughts flit just out of range, and she knows he's dangerous, too, but she doesn't think he'll hurt her. Maybe she's a romantic, after all.
Maybe she's just naive. She smiles, bright and sweet and just for him. "Let me get you that drink. Meet me outside after we close, okay?"
Ignacio Varga | Better Call Saul | OTA
Maddy Perez | Euphoria | F/M or gen
Balayna Ferasini | Star Trek: Discovery
Voicetesting.]
gokudera hayato | katekyo hitman reborn! | ota
tseng | final fantasy vii | ota
zell dincht | final fantasy viii | ota
legoshi | beastars | ota