3930/Echoes of Glory

Echoes of Glory
Date of Scene:	25 October 2020
Location:	Washington Square Park
Synopsis:	Alexander and Johanna catch up after over a year apart.
Cast of Characters:	Alexander Aaron, Johanna Mitchell

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Alexander Aaron has posed:
    There is a dance that is enacted at the grand Skirball Theater, at times joined by the Kimmel Center each evening of the weekend in October. Nothing formal, mind, though expected by those who frequent the area and are witness to the evenings and their passing. It is a thing of timing and social structure, an execution of events one after the other and often leads to a curiousity of campus life. For on the Quad of ESU and NYU there in the middle of Manhattan, the Autumnal events let out their crowds at roughly the same time...
    And it is during that time when the two crowds part that disparate individuals meet. For some it is a moment of discomfort, subtle confusion. For out of the Skirball often comes those who seek art films, who indulge in certain experiences that one could consider Bohemian. From the Kimmel Center? An older crowd, storied and monied people emerging into the hint of chill in the night with their coats and their shawls, and suddenly being beset upon by... their opposite societal number.
    It is there that Alexander Aaron finds himself that night, settled on the park bench in the halo of lamplight from the streetpost so near. His rear is on the back of the bench, his white sneakers on the seat before him, and leaning forward his rests his elbows upon the knees of his jeans as he watches... and listens to that whisper of fear in his thoughts as he can feel it coming from all of those people as they realize they might be out of their element. It's enough to cause a wry half-smile on the youth's features even as he adjusts the leather jacket he wears against the bite of the evening's cold.
    Beside him and on the ground is his backpack, a pretense he had of perhaps studying, reading out in the evening? Not something entirely our of his wheelhouse. Yet no attempt had been done so, perhaps later. Right now it was enjoyable to people watch. Which he did while those two crowds filed out and even those who were not a God of Fear might well feel the tension in the air.

Johanna Mitchell has posed:
    Johanna Mitchell had woken up early that morning, up with the birds and awake with most of Manhattan. It'd only been a week since she arrived back in the city to claim her former residence, in an old basement suite to her parents' home. A good chunk of her day had been spent reacclimating herself to the city. She had a meager allowance, and so she floated throughout the city, unburdened by task or responsibility, and enjoyed the smaller things that there were to offer. At one point, it was a dipping dots stand (yum!). At another, it was savoring a hot dog (more yum!). Another time still, it was pigeons--delighting in their gentle cooing and awkward walking gaits as they scavenged among the parks for what they could.
    A teensy bit of the time might have also been spent by the idea of a looming job search. After a year of no experiencing, and at her mid-thirties, it was a silent shade that kept her company for the day's adventure. And by the end of the day, when the moon was still in its struggled climb to top the horizon of skyscrapers, billboards, and what-nots, it had materialized into action.
    Taking a path home through Washington Square Park, Johanna is separate from the dance. Removed. Detatched. She mills forward on well-paved paths surrounding the fountain with only a vague sense of navigation, for she is on her phone, using the Indeed job search app. The bright blue of the screen reflects and lights up the darkness of her face in a way that contradicts the flooding warmth of street lamps. Her feet move forward at a constant, and occasionally she is given to weaving between the stray couple, or needing to stand to the side altogether to allow a back-up of joggers and park-goers pass.
    But then fate plays its hand.
    A kid no older than 11 or 12 comes barreling down the same path she is on, hoisted on a skateboard, at the same time that she'd been just about to complete a thumb-typed application to one of thousands of retails hiring within the area. It's not exactly the type of job she'd prefer, but it made her feel better for having put in the minimal effort. And she was just about to hit submit when--
    "HEY, watch it, Lady!"
    Johanna jumps to the side--just in time! The kid skims by, full of youthful, unrepentant mirth--but rather than a quick recover, the woman loses her footing. She stumbles! Directly into a bench with an occupant in it, and it is a combination of surprise, sudden awareness that she's about to go in for a crash-landing against a pedestrian, and two shakes of bad luck that seals the deal: her phone goes flying out of her hand! as her hands slap down on the youth's shoulder to keep herself from -completely- tumbling, only to look down and to her surprise, shock and horror, recognize the face of her victim:
    Alexander Aaron!

Alexander Aaron has posed:
    There is a certain peace in understanding that the world is controlled at least in part by the Fates. Lachesis, Clotho, Atropos all have had their eyes upon the youth as life had carried him onward, ever onward. There had been times when they likely cackled around the spinning wheel, the threads of fate unwinding before them, bringing them together, shears at the ready for some act of petty revenge. Yet some strands were stronger than others, and carried more weight of destiny than those of the ones they cross. At times those threads would entwine, burn against each other as they unravel until one snaps...
    And often one life's fate was decided when touched by the strands of the gods. Another form of petty revenge by the fates.
    Yet when such beings take a hand in one's life, one becomes inured to surprise and coincidence and happenstance. So when abruptly there is that rush of movement, the raised voice, the shift and move of one staggering into another sends Johanna hurling toward Alexander...
    He takes it in stride.
    Though at first he does not see her. She fwumpfs forward hands on his shoulders as she catches herself, his attention suddenly instead on the hurtling phone. With a smoothness of motion and precision that one might be surprised at, his hand darts up rapidly to snare the phone out of the air, catch it, flip it around and then present it to her. All before recognition dawns.
    "Oh." Their eyes meet, those ghostly hazel irises rich with depth and those so deep golden rings only seen when one is this close. "Hello." He says with a small smile then offers the phone to her.

Johanna Mitchell has posed:
    The rich warmth of her eyes meet with his own hazel gaze. Even if it were not his face she'd recognized, perhaps it would be his eyes instead that would recall the memory, that would remind her of their last encounter. The thread of fear is felt within her being--she'd never expected to see this boy again.
    Quickly, it is confronted. Quickly, she swallows and quickly, she recovers. Chagrin and self-amusement combines. She has her hands on him for only a split second before those fingers curl warmly into his shoulders, and she doubles over, given to a fit of laughter at the idea of her being clumsy, of assaulting this boy, of the queerness of it all--"I'm -so- sorry, really, kids are little suicide bombers. All of them from the moment they are born." Steadied, she draws off of him slowly, reaching a curled finger beneath one of her eyes to swipe, and the other giving his firm shoulder a stray pat.
    Her hand reaches for the phone that he presents to her. Their fingers brush, and maybe slightly linger as she accepts her phone back from him. The screen is turned off as soon as she gets full control of it, flicking away the Indeed logo into a black sheet trapped in a pink cozy phone wrap. She inspects the sheen on the screen, as though half-expecting it to have cracked anyways--because that is the type of thing that would be in line with her luck. When she is satisfied, she pockets the item, stepping back and away onto the paved path once more.
    Her hands join the phone in her pockets as she quaintly offers, looking to him once more. Something must have passed through her mind, because she shakes her head to something unvoiced, sending fringe of her hair swinging against her brow--a thought that is definitively quashed she puts on an exuberant grin that causes her entire face to glow as bright as the lamp posts.
    She half murmurs, half breathes, and half-lies for that matter, "I can barely recognize you in streeth clothes. How have you been?"

Alexander Aaron has posed:
    There is something about the youth out here in the wild, amongst the small ebb and flow of New Yorkers, those diametrically opposed crowds behind them still counter-mingling as that feeling of tension remains. Yet it's not quite the match of the tension he reads in the woman's eyes as he watches her.
    So at ease, so calm, yet there's a warmth in his eyes as he watches her laugh or stifle one, then the warmth of her smile given back reminds him of the year and some ago in the past. Yet he seems to hold himself there, apart, yet not entirely so. Perhaps it is that flicker of fear in her mind's eye that he can sense, or its near kin anxiety.
    "I'm doing well." He tells her, keeping up that pretense of small talk as his eyes remain unblinking, though he does gesture with a small tilt of his head indicating the scholastic buildings not too terribly far off. "School days. I'm learning so much of late." Those last words are spoken through a half-smile, sarcasm evident.
    "And you?" He inquires even as he slips forward and off that bench, rising to his full height, perhaps an inch taller than she recalls him being. There is a hint of more fullness in his features, a masculine turn to his half-smile, a faintly more furrowed brow.
    "I always imagined you had taken up some glamorous life of travel and adventure, Johanna Mitchell, International Assassin."

Johanna Mitchell has posed:
    "You are? I'm glad. Really glad. It's so -good- to see you," and it is true, but she speaks with the earnestness of someone who'd been previously uncertain about it. Her eyes drift. To the trees. To the nearby fountain. To the exchange of crowds that must thread and fetter through each other to get where they are meant to be. Small talk is always awkward at first. There's no escaping it. One must simply barrel through it. Eventually she follows the way his head tilts, to the campus grounds that are just beyond. She recognizes them, and she asks, her dark brows raised high on her forehead, "College? What are you studying?" She gives all the indications of a person who is ready to settle into an interaction. Her hands remain stuffed in her pockets, but her shoulders are relaxed, narrow. And though her body holds its posture naturally just by sheer muscle tension, she stands with an easy nature, lips curved, and as her eyes meet his again, the smile reaches her own honeyed eyes.
    When he stands, she takes a step further back, giving the space--or keeping the space the same. It's a subtle difference but perhaps there's one distinctly being done here. As she shifts, her hand retreats out of her pocket, gently bringing the feather of her bangs to side, to tuck behind her ear--the universal sign of when a girl finds a man attractive. "Oh, you know. It goes. It goes... I'm back from abroad." Her lips quirk higher up at the corners. Her trip had been a good one. And then her smile turns into a gay thing as he suggests his own fantasy. "Me? An assassin?? God, I'd make the worst! Didn't you just see what happened when that kid try to do me in?"
    Her head tilts. "C'mon, Aaron. Walk with me. Are you hungry? We can go grab something to eat."

Alexander Aaron has posed:
    The chill in the air, the scent of the fallen leaves and the hint of a fire somewhere off in the distance burning them, it all lends itself to that tableau of life in the city during the Autumn. That lovely feeling of a chill that speaks of Winter coming, but not quite here. Not quite yet. Still time for people to gather and celebrate.
    Which strangely enough seems to be a shared feeling as those crowds around them, so often on edge with each other, they seem to ease, smiles abound from face to face while a street vendor is selling his wares which this time of night seems to be cocoa and coffee.
    It's with that in the background that Alexander's smile shifts a little wry as he reaches down and takes up his backpack, slinging it over his shoulder and slipping his hand beneath the strap. "You don't want to know what I'm studying."
    Those words have a hint of playfulness to them, teasing perhaps even as he starts forward. And just like that, they'll fall into step with such ease as he tilts his head to the side and tells her, "But. I am hungry. So you win this time, Johanna Mitchell."
    It is with that, that they begin to move into the crowd even as he tilts his head to the side as they walk. He tells her, "Indian food, or Brazilian BBQ?" He asks her, those pale eyes meeting her gaze and his lips twisting as if... this were a test!

Johanna Mitchell has posed:
    Even though the world is cast in moonlight and night shadows, the warm glow of the lamps reflect into the overhanging boughs, lighting up the orange leaves, making the lamp posts look more like swinging lanterns to the unfocused eye. Johanna waits for a park-goer, a portly man in a stiff over-coat, to pass them on the side-walk before she replies back, her grin rueful, "I'm not going to have a whipper-snapper tell me what I want and don't want to know. Out with it."
    And as they walk? She wrinkles her nose and sticks her tongue out at him before falling into a swift, long-footed stride. "I always win." Such cockiness! With the words being spoken she leans a playful bump into him, shoulder into shoulder.
    Then they continue walking. The question is heard about the food and she seems to give the offered test ample thought, only for her to furrow her brows together, say outloud a thinking, 'Hmmmm...' and then to question defiantly, "Okay. Why are those my only two options. And how does Brazilian BBQ even differ from other BBQs. Inquiring minds would like to know." A few seconds later (and just a slight nibbling of her bottom lip), "I -guess- if my option is between those, Indian? I do love me some naan bread."

Alexander Aaron has posed:
    With his gait knocked all askew by vicious shoulder-bumping! Alexander laughs a little, just a touch of levity that starts as an exhalation and ends with a snicker as he shakes his head while walking along with her. Moving from halo of light to halo of light, leaving the crowd behind, his stride resettles as he walks along and tells her wryly, "Alright, I'm studying Classical Literature, for now. And a whole mess of other classes. Started during the Summer so I'm /technically/ a sophomore." Technically.
    Then to resolve the mystery of the food choices he lifts his chin and gestures as they near that tall wrought-iron gate that leads out of the park and out of the college square. "Well, there's one of each nearby. And I like them both, and mmm naan bread."
    He slips his hands into his pockets as he strolls and reaches the gate then passes on through, "Next time you get to pick the options." Since assuredly there will be a next time. Yet then as they reach the stoplight, he pauses and nudges the signal button with an elbow, then turns back to face her and...
    Abruptly, perhaps misjudging the distance he's closer now, brow furrowed a little as their eyes meet and his lower lip drawn between his teeth. The toe of his shoe lightly touches hers even as he takes a breath, then murmurs. "I missed you."
    One of those rare shared moments in the city. When the streets see empty and the world seems focused on just that small measure of sidewalk. A brief instance of shared synergy...
    That disappears as the light changes. His smile returns, though gentle as he steps back... then into the intersection.

Johanna Mitchell has posed:
    "Why is that something you wouldn't want to tell me?!" She exclaims, bewildered and amused in the same key. She's all toothy grins from there on out, given to occasionally (and seemingly intentionally) scuffing the bottom of her sneakers into the sidewalk, as though she enjoyed either the sound or just the pressure of sure, grounded footing. "Do you think I'm going to start calling you a book nerd--Oh wait, I just might. Hmm."
    Her eyes glance up as the gestures the gate. Ah. A direction. Her foot twists on the path, and together they approach it, both with their hands in their pockets, both with a sense of ease, levity, and a touch of unspoken tension.
    "Well next time," she meanders verbally, walking up beside him as he twisted to reach the light button with his elbow, "Well just so you know--and I'm dead serious about this--I'm picking Mexican. Do you know how much I've missed a good taco. Like, crazy amounts. There's a huuuuuge shortage of that type of cuisine in--"
    With the toes of their shoes glancing together, it brings their bodies close. Intimately so. Johanna, however, doesn't move. Her eyes catch his, and in some sense their proximity excites her. Tantalizes. There's a knowledge that they shouldn't be this close and a realization that he isn't backing away just yet--when he very well should have. He should have apologized, and got the fuck out of her personal space, and instead he chooses the moment to tell her... that?
    Her eyes narrow and she leans toward him. "How? You barely know me."
     Just then, the walk-way light turns, and the little beeping CHIRP indicates for the visually impaired that it's time to cross in front of a line of halted taxi-cabs and expensive cars along the way. He'd been the first to step out, and she pulls her hands out of her pockets to hurry after him. When they get to the next side of the street, when they are in a more intimate equal footing against the backdrop of lined-up shops, she asks, grinning, "Did your father pluck you out of that dojo, yet?"

Alexander Aaron has posed:
    Sidelong, without looking at her, he murmurs, "I left that one not long after you bailed." His own shoes are quiet as he walks, sneakers silent as they often are, then he took the moment to look at her sidelong as he murmured, "You were the best person there, everything after seemed like..."
    Those pale hazel eyes distance, in the evening light of those lamp-posts they seem almost like the distant gaze of feral cats fleeing from the headlights of a car. His head cocks to the side, "When Dorothy gets to Oz but in reverse." A world drained of color.
    It doesn't take long, however, for them to reach the Indian restaurant down the block, past an electronics store, past a t-shirt emporium, to the stairwell that leads down to the basement of an old brownstone only this basement has been converted to a restaurant with perhaps four outdoor tables. Though those tables are empty considering the chill of the weather.
    Up to the door he walks and shoulders it open, "There are a lot of things I should tell you, but figure they can wait til later." Which... might be more true than she knows.

Johanna Mitchell has posed:
     Oh. Oh that doesn't feel good to hear. At least not the first part. Johanna's hand wrenches out of her pocket and snaps to the front of her bridled chest. Her fingers rub at the tan flesh that peeks above the collar line of her tank top, and just partially beneath, her pinky crazing somewhere at the top of her cleavage more likely. "You left?" And then she snaps a glance at him, frowning, until he's able to figure out exactly what he wants to compare the experience to. "Aaron," she says softly, but she adds nothing further.
    She's not about to tell someone else how they should feel about something.
     Down the steps they descend. A basement. With a stairwell leading down into it just like her own suite. He couldn't know that but the synchronicity makes her lips quirk upward, breaking up the shred of guilt that was trying to take root.
    The lights are dim within as they shoulder in. People are already harbored up to tables, some in families, some in intimate couples on small tables that hinge against the wall. Johanna stays close behind Alexander as he arranges for a table, and she people-watches for a moment until a waiter is available to take them to a seated aclove.
     "Do I get a preview of the things you want to tell me? Or are you going to try and douse me with with it like a bucket of cold ice water later."
    She slides in first against the green leather upholstered seat. It wheezes beneath her weight, but rather than letting him move to the other side in front of her, she pats the seat beside herself even while wobbling to cross her legs underneath the table.

Alexander Aaron has posed:
    Even as they're seated his lip remains this wry twist of a smile, a hint of an edge to it but there's a glimmer of amusement in the too pale eyes. Yet he doesn't answer immediately, instead he gives a nod to the waiter and shares a smile, perhaps the two knowing each other. Which, is likely true since the youth opposite her comes here rather often.
    "Mango lassi please, and some water." The waiter accepts the drink order and then waits for Johanna to offer her wishes before he smiles, leaves them with the menus, then departs for now.
    It's then that he turns to face her, leaning forward a little with his elbows upon the table and his shoulders hunched. "I figure will probably unload on you later. Right now, however, you need to tell me your story."
    The waiter returns in that instant with two glasses of water, then bustles off almost instantly. The youth doesn't open his menu, however, he just takes up his straw and tears off the wrapper, then slides it into his drink to swirl the ice around a few times. "What all happened since."

Johanna Mitchell has posed:
    "Coke. Pepsi. Whichever you have. And water, please." Anyone who doesn't order a soft drink when they're out for dine-ins is a heathen!!
    There's something vaguely electrifying about sitting in such close proximity together. The small dangers are what make it exciting. Like the fact that they might 'accidentally' brush thighs or shoulders as they get comfortable and situated. Or that inevitably one of them has to be trapped in against the wall--well. One of them being her. She's the one who chose it after all.

    "I need to?" She asks him wryly. Defiantly. As though she just might withold it for the sheer pleasure of knowing it's something he wants it. "Well. I mean. If I need to."
    She glances down toward the table as he messes with the wrapper to his straw. Underneath, her fingers twist together on the thick of her thighs, the movement of her elbow occasionally brushing him as she does.
    In the end, the hesitancy is more about trying to figure out where to begin rather than beginning at all. "When I -left-," she asserts, correcting his terminology from earlier, "... well, there's not much to actually say. What do you want to know? That I went to Tibet for a while?" She watches the ice clink in his water glass. "That I trained with my Master? That I got a wicked tan?" Her lips quirk playfully.

Alexander Aaron has posed:
    "All of the above," He says lightly, casually, at ease to be seated beside her and with the warmth of his leg settled against hers, as if it was the most natural thing. He does pull his water closer to him, taking a sip and then crunching on the tiny tiny ice crystals that are drawn up through the straw.
    The way he rests his weight partially on his arm so he can turn and speak with her quietly in the hustle and bustle of the room might make it seem all the smaller, more focused with it so clearly being the two of them there and then the rest of the world just as the 'other' or the 'beyond'.
    When she speaks his eyes lower slightly, head leaning forward a touch as he gauges her, much as he did some time ago, measuring her and considering her responses with that calm way he had about him that had at times caused the other students to feel uneasy around him.
    Then his lip twists upwards and he murmurs, "Mainly that you've been good. And that you're happy. That would be ideal to hear."

Johanna Mitchell has posed:
    She likes being like this with him. That's what he's able to gauge. She's a picture of a woman that is enjoying herself. Oh certainly, there is still the underlying discomfort of the whole situation between the both of them. A something that is left unsaid, and quite honestly, doesn't need to be said. But she is comfortable with his ease, comfortable enough to let her leg slide against his, to feel the warmth of it through her khakis. Human touch feels nice.
    She dismisses his murmurring, however, with up-tilted eyes and a slight purse of her lips that last seconds before her brown eyes drop back onto him, seizing. "That's bullshit type of stuff and you know it. You might as well be asking if the weather in Tibet is nice. I did that once, you know. Look in my eyes and then ask me the -real- question you want to ask: When am I going to get my ass back to work." There's a pause. Her arms lift up over the table's surface and she pulls her own drink to herself. She doesn't bother with the draw, but wraps her hand around the chilled glass and slams back a drink as though she were imbibing alcohol--and that's not quite meta because, seconds after she taps the glass back onto its corkboard coaster, she murmurs, "Gimme that menu over there. I wanna see the drinks. You don't have to be home anytime soon, do you? I've been lonely since I've gotten back."

    When she has it in her hands, she skims, leaning over it as it lays on the table in front of them so that they can both look. "I don't know to answer those questions, to be honest. I...I've spent the last year holding my breath, it feels like. And then, if you wait another minute, I'm going to tell you that I spent it releasing that breath. Right now?" Her eyes furtively skirt toward him. Her teeth press on her bottom lip again. "I would qualify myself as being in a pretty good place."

Alexander Aaron has posed:
    A short chuff of breath comes from him, something that might be a laugh if he gave it more life but instead he shakes his head and looks away, perhaps remembering the way she was before and being reminded of it now. Yet there's no resentment when he tilts his head back to peer at her sidelong, head tilted just so and to the side, no judgment. More curiosity, "I'd agree with that."
    That she's in a pretty good place.
    Turning in his seat, he rests fingertips upon her thigh, gently, just a small touch as if to see if there's that electrical jolt that might be felt between them. That shared echo of memory lancing back and forth. His eyes hood, gaze down, then lift to find her worrying at her lower lip.
    His nostrils flare faintly, then with no other word, no further hint of tension nor intention, he leans forward and brings his lips to hers. No hesitation, nor acknowledgment that this might be some break in decorum, some presumption, as if this was as it must be when their lips touch, part, tease with soft sounds, and then relax.
    Just a single shared moment in the dark of that restaurant that ends with his brow lightly touching hers, then his voice telling her quietly. "I just wanted to get that out of the way..." His lip twists up a little. "So you'd relax."

Johanna Mitchell has posed:
    Perhaps he feels it. Perhaps he doesn't. But Johanna? The mere touch of his fingertips to the top of her thigh, regardless if it's over the stiff fabric of khakis, brings a jolt of butterflies to her stomach, and it disarms her. The world momentarily ceases to exist outside the bubble of their nestled corner, and when he leans into kiss her, she sees it happening, and does naught but close her own eyes, and cant her head to better feel and appreciate the softness of his lips on hers. The kiss lingers for a few seconds, and she finds she has to will herself from chasing it back when drops his head so that their brows are touching.
    "So I'd relax?" Her voice is soft.
    As they remain with their forehead touching, their waiter is upon them. He drops off the drinks. The fizzy-soda, and the bright yellow lassi. Johanna keeps the boy leashed to her by refusing to turn her eyes away, not even for a moment. She does address the waiter, saying, "Thank you," as the drinks are slid in front of them, and she shifts in her seat, bringing her leg up into the cushion between them, but no, she doesn't let him go with her eyes.
    "Am I that obvious?" The words are whispered against him, and to his credit, there does seem to some measure of relaxation had, but it's difficult to tell in what ways. It's not like she'd been holding herself tense, and it's not like she hadn't been given into warmth and smiles. But there's a certain way in which she leans in toward him now, a poured sort of state of being..
    That's made rather evident when she has the audacity to reach, not for her drink, but for his! She picks it up and brings it between their lips, and off the side of the glass she sips the sweet yogurt drink, licking the residue off of her upper lip when she's done. "Mmmh. Mmmh. That's too good. I should have gotten one."

Alexander Aaron has posed:
    A wry smirk as he replies, "Yeah, you should have." As he eases back and to the side, smiling crookedly as that brief moment of so rude absconding of one's drink. Yet he seems to take no umbrage, and instead returns the favor by slipping his hand forward and seizing control of her own soda, and having the gall to even pull the wrapper off her already inserted straw and take a sip!
    The cad.
    Yet then he turns and smiles to the exceedingly patient waiter, "Hey, Bidhin. Umm, chicken tikka?"
    Which is all he needs to say which has the waiter accepting the blond youth's menu before he turns back to look at her. And should she have her order ready then the waiter will assuredly be off shortly thereafter, once again leaving them with their... relative privacy. Since some of the other couples might have noticed the shared kiss with how they're smiling and whispering to each other.
    "I'm still training," He tells her, perhaps opening up the discussion of times past with that, sharing of what he's been up to. "Fencing, kendo, some MMA." And a few other things, to be fair. "Family has been difficult at points." His head tilts to the side, "I've had some exciting adventures." His smirk flickers to life, "Dated somewhat. Your turn."

Johanna Mitchell has posed:
    Cad, indeed.
     Her eyes narrow on where his lips circle around -her- straw, and on the lowering level of -her- drink as he sips. Greedily, she squawks, "Hey. I didn't take that much out of yours!" And with both hands she grabs her drink back. Their fingers brush momentarily. The drink is pulled toward her chest, and she fixes the straw so as to claim her own sip against the fizzy beverage. One long draw and a swallow later, it is set back onto the table, their drinks now appropriately positioned in front of each other.
    She ends up ordering a goat biryani, but after Bidhin has walked away she turns back to Alex with a tight-drawn smile that is set more like a grimace. "I'm never going to be able to eat it all." But that's what take out is for.
    Relaxing into the seat, she pushes her elbow into the top portion of their back cushion, and extends her leg so that it flows over the top of his as he gives her a brief summary. There's something slightly possessive in the way she hooks her calf over the side of his legs. Warm light spills on top of them from over head from a red hanging lamp, coloring them both in ambient warmth.
    Even still with his sharing, she turns her head toward the seat, worrying again at her bottom lip, albeit this time with a grin as though amused by his persistence. "I went to Tibet. I spent an -awful- amount of time sweating inside of a tiny hostel. There's enough tourism in the area that I didn't even have to learn the local lannguage." Grins. All grins. Her smile is enchanting as she sees past him, and into her memories. "There's a master living there that I've brushed with before. He agreed to put up with me. I worked like a dog for him and in turn he trained me in his own style." Her eyes twinkle as she goads, her voice dropping low, almost to a sultry tone, "Oh what little wicked things I could do to you if I got my hands on you. Well. -If-, I could, I suppose. You might just be as slippery as a little fish these days. Your turn. Tell me about your family."

Alexander Aaron has posed:
    Those calm eyes blink slowly as he listens to her tale, following along and at times nodding when she offers him some insight that he didn't expect. If one were to tell him that what happened to Johanna Mitchell had her living in Tibet, well he wouldn't believe it easily. Still there in that alcove and with her leg curved over his, he rests his hand upon her knee gently as if returning that faint feeling of ownership, laying claim with that hint of body language between them.
    But of /course/ she asks about his family, which has him making a small face as he leeeeans to the side to reclaim his lassi and take a sip. Then another as he lets his thoughts churn. One hand pushes through his hair as he murmurs quietly, those golden locks just fwoompfing back in front of his eyes.
    "Trouble, I have a pair of uncles that were... just real assholes. And I had to deal with their mess and that... got me in trouble with my father." He takes a deep breath, eyes meeting hers as he murmurs, "Which in turn led me to having to get a sort of part-time job. Though... to be fair I kinda like it."
    Which working with SHIELD can be rather exciting.
    Another sip as he ponders, "I have my own place now." That was a nice step for him, though it's a touch small. He looks up toward the ceiling, "And a place where I train."

Johanna Mitchell has posed:
    Even Alex's hair is as stubbron as he is. Right back across his eyes the blond locks fall, and Johanna appreciates for a moment his youthful features. He's beautiful enough that it hurts, damn him. "Uncles are either glorious, bastards, or both, but they're never ever anything in between," she murmurs sagely, though her mirth nearly bubbleth over, until he mentions his father. At which point she 'tsks', and he can feel her leg squeeze against his. "You know, every time you've mentioned your father you've made him sound like some rich bugger with a stick up his ass. Which seems to be the perpetual state of all rich kids everywhere. I've -yet- to hear a single kid of a certain type of wealth tell me that their father is cuddle-bug, or loving."
    She doesn't actually expect him to answer that back.
    "You would have a job," she murmurs, and for a second she brings her thumbnail to her lips, choosing to worry on that instead of her tender inner mouth. She'd have to check if the thumb-written application she'd done up on her phone from earlier survived the toss. "That's what I have to work on. A year of living in mountain terrain and now I'm back here stuffed in my mum's basement. I am a right, and proper failure."
    Their food comes out one by one on platters. Tandoori blazed chicken, accompanying naan bread, and a humongous pile of rice on a plate that is multi-colored and would easily serve to feed four. Rather than turning and facing her plate, she reaches across the table and tears a piece of warm naan. She leans in and holds it to his mouth for him to take, before unceremoniously biting the bread herself, chewing with such a happy ecstatic little grin as to suggest this, -this- was the reason she'd been here all along.

Alexander Aaron has posed:
    That bread meets a grim fate, torn asunder by shared bites as he grins and then straightens up in his chair, turning to face their meals and deal with what has come. He squeezes her knee gently before he tells her, "You're not a failure, you just need to hunker down and find something you enjoy. I mean..." He lifts a hand to the back of his neck, "I know a few places that might be looking for an instructor."
    That said he smiles sidelong at her and then starts to divvy up the food right proper, "Now let's eat." Since some things are damn important.