7345/Sake--No Thanks, I'm Soba

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Sake--No Thanks, I'm Soba
Date of Scene: 12 August 2021
Location: A restaurant in Downtown Gotham
Synopsis: Red Robin promised Balm (or threatened her with?) a Talk. Instead, Tim Drake and Phoebe Beacon meet up for a little bit of emotional support between friends and a lot of emotional eating.
Cast of Characters: Tim Drake, Phoebe Beacon




Tim Drake has posed:
    Umami is less a traditional izakaya and more a trendy downtown bar, but given its proximity to the Financial District it still sees a lot of traffic from the 9-to-5 crowd in their suits and ties. They mostly congregate at the bar where they indulge in beer and sake and skewers of yakitori that they can watch the staff pull straight off the grill, and though it's an hour into the dinner rush, a line well out the door, there's a booth reserved in the back corner where Tim seats himself when he arrives. Evening classes are a pain, they really are, and it's not like his schedule is generally accomodating of a social life normally anyway.

    Occasionally though you just gotta make the time, and today counts. But Tim is still Tim, so while he waits his attention remains on a tablet he props against the edge of the table, shielding its screen from anyone who might want to snoop. Of course he has a PDF of one of his textbooks ready to tab over to in a hurry, but actually he's currently diving through some financial information for a case.

    There's a glass of water in front of him on the table, his GothamU hoodie folded on the booth seat next to him, and occasionally he glances up to assess the crowd. Even now with a famous last name, he's never really been the type to stand out. There are a lot more interesting people with the name Wayne for the gossip blogs to talk about, so meeting out in public isn't that big a deal.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe's arrival is heralded first with the odd sense of serenity that accompanies her, with the general good feeling of her ambient healing. She really, really cannot turn it off, and then the heralding is followed by the school PA announcement of the sound of someone exhaustedly sitting in the booth accross from the middle Wayne. Phoebe was in the process of taking off her motorcycle jacket with its happy yellow stripe accross the top of her shoulders, setting her phone with its cracked screen down on the table.

    "... how are you doing after last night?" she questions, giving a gentle smile over to Tim as she leans back, though it's clear she's nervous. Her shoulders are tight. HEr fingers are pressing a little hard against the tabletop before she reaches for a menu, and begins to scan it, her eyes darting to prices.

    "How's class?"

Tim Drake has posed:
    There's no doubt that Tim clocks Phoebe as soon as she steps inside. He probably would even if her aura didn't announce her presence for her like a herald at a royal ball, at least for those in the know. And Tim might repress way more than is healthy, but he is at least aware enough of his emotional state to feel the cloud cover over his thoughts break just enough to let in a peek of sunlight.

    It's maybe an overextended analogy, but nonetheless, Tim feels the slight shift of his mood, and he's smiling as he looks up at his friend.

    "Hey Pheebs," he says, once she's sat down and close enough that he doesn't have to raise his voice to be heard over the typical bar crowd background noise. "I'm okay. Not the weirdest night I've had, but kind of up there." His thumb hits the power button on the side of his tablet and he sets it aside, on the folded pile of his hoodie, before he leans forward. Elbows against the table top, and then he rests his chin against his hands. "How about you?" he asks, eyebrows drawn together in concern.

    The question about his classes only has him shrugging. "Same old same old. Set theory's fun, I guess, but my professor sounds like he's as bored of lecturing us as we are listening to him."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe mirrors Tim, a couple of her braids swinging forwards as she gives a small shrug.

    "Been a busy week for me. Been traveling between Gotham, New York and Metropolis. It's a bit harranguing, but I'm getting used to the bike, y'know. It's not as scary as I thought it would be." she states casually, as if she didn't just have an incredibly hectic week. She raises her eyebrows a moment, dropping one hand and slooowly drawing back the phone with the broken screen to flip it over, to hide its brokenness.

    Her shoulders shake. She's not used to lying to Tim. Little white lies to others to protect identities, to protect others from hurt or worrying about her, sure.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Phones with broken screens aren't really news to Tim, even if he himself is obnoxiously careful with his own tech. Plenty of them to be found with his classmates. His eyes glance over it and make note, sure, but he doesn't comment. Neither does he comment on whatever he's reading of Phoebe's body language, especially not when a server passes by to set down a glass of water in front of Phoebe and promise that someone will be by soon to take their order.

    "They're fun to ride," he admits, sounding guilty, as if it's scandalous for Tim Drake to show even the slightest hint of thrill-seeking behavior. The persona he presents in his personal life, to outsiders, is curated to be extremely boring. "...Maybe not in the rain, though."

    He takes a sip of water and then sets the glass back down, hands rubbing together after until the slight friction has whisked away the condensation. "I." He stops, sighs, and flashes a self-depreciating little half smile across the table. "I'm maybe not great at this sort of thing but I want you to know I'm here if you need someone to talk to, Phoebe. Okay? I meant it last night when I said I was worried about you. If there's something I can do to help, I want to."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe stiffens a moment as he looks over, but she pauses, giving a smile to the waitress as she gives her a water, and she fiddles with the edge of the glass, looking over the menu again. She marks the cheapest options. Plain rice. A couple skewers of vegetables. Should be enough.

    And when Tim speaks, she raises her dark eyes to him and... she smiles. Just, gently.

    "I know, Tim. You're pretty much my best friend, but there's still stuff even We-" the whole group We "... don't tell one another because... we'd be worried." she pauses, and her gaze drops.

    "... I served my mom Emancipation papers and formally dropped out of school. She was horrified, but I... she still has all those burns..."

Tim Drake has posed:
    The way Phoebe's posture changes when he looks her over feels like a pretty big red flag. Tim isn't trying to make it obvious that he's... well, it's not that he's suspicious. She's right, after all. The team keeps things from each other because that's what their lifestyles require, and he himself is probably the worst offender.

    So he can't be suspicious. He's not a hypocrite. However, Tim can certainly be concerned.

    "I'm sorry," he says after a moment, and something shutters in his expression just before he shakes his head. "And I know saying that is useless. After the--the, uh, when my dad was hurt, seeing him in the wheelchair... it was hard. I felt--."

    Though he's obviously having trouble putting his thoughts into words, there isn't much emotion in them once he manages to get them out. Tim pulls back to put his hands in his lap and he looks down at them, and at the same time he's pulled back from his feelings. Turning the memory of the home invasion that killed his mother and paralyzed his father over in his head like it's just another bit of Gotham violence that he's examining in relation to a case. Probably the only way he can talk about it at all, really. He hasn't much, otherwise. Even less so now that his dad isn't around anymore.

    "...powerless." He's not looking at Phoebe when he says it, and he swallows once, before he makes himself turn and address her face-to-face. Except--

    His face smooths into placid nonchalance just before one of the servers approaches. "I spoke with Mr. Nishimoto about a special order for the table," Tim tells her, after she's given the standard spiel about the menu. He sounds like all he's done this entire time is talk about motorcycles and the weather, like there's just a switch in his head he's flipped.

    "Phoebe, was there anything on the menu in particular you wanted?" Tim hands his own menu off and then folds his arms against the edge of the table.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    The admission hurt. Tim was the only one, so far, that she told. Her eyes water, and she rubs at them with the palm of her hand. Might as well looked like it was a couple breaking up. She doesn't look at Tim as he speaks, she looks past him, but once the waitress walks over, she pulls her own familiar cloak over herself. She sniffles, and says something about allergies. She then feels her cheeks and ears get warm as she looks down at the menu and states quietly "Ah, just an order of rice, and a couple of the grilled vegetable yakitori, please." she gives a bright smile to the waitress. A whole bill of seven bucks. Her fingers twitch.

    She envied Tim's way of being clinical about Crime. About everything around them.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim watches the waitress until she's across the room, entering Phoebe's small order into the point-of-sale register, and only after sweeping a glance to make sure they haven't attracted much attention does he look back.

    Well, one or two people look their way, but he's clocked them now.

    He lifts up a hand and rests his chin in it. "It sucks, having to make those sorts of decisions that you know are going to hurt you even if it's..." The pause lingers, and Tim's mouth twists into a faint grimace. "I was going to say 'for the best' but that isn't-- it. It's just what has to be done." This time around the pause is for Tim to take a breath, steady himself. "Gosh, Pheebs, I'm so sorry."

    Even though he's already said that apologies are useless, and it makes him wince. Well, he's human, and far from perfect. He hates that he doesn't know what to say.

    "Maybe the reality is that there's never going to be the right thing to say. Sometimes life just... sucks, and words aren't going to make anything better."

    The fingers of his free hand twitch against the tabletop, and then he extends it, palm up, towards her. "I asked them to make vegetarian dashi broth," he says, eventually.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Sometimes, you don't have to say anything.

    Phoebe reaches out her hand, and her dark fingers, in spite of her life sans scars or even a scratch, curl against Tim's as she draws her dark eyes back up to the Outsider Leader, and she gives a smile. Her touch is warm, and tingling. It's easy to see "No," she replies softly, her head tilting a little.

    "... but sometimes, having the friends you can count on, even in the weird situations, is so much better than words."

    She then blinks, and she gives a laugh, bringing her free hand politely over her mouth.

    "Vegeta... that's... Tim, dashi?" she gives a bright grin at him, and her spirit lightens.

    "I'm willing to compromise a little for bonito broth. I just... got used to eating vegetarian. My mom decided it was the way to go after Dad passed. Kindness to animals and all, but don't wanna walk about the fight we had about quinoa."

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim locks his fingers around Phoebe's and squeezes, light and careful. Not quite in the way that implies he thinks she's delicate, moreso that he's uncertain. She's his friend and he wants to be there for her, though he's struggling to figure out exactly how.

    It's almost funny. He thought he knew what he wanted people to do, to say to him, after. But sitting here, none of those memories come back to him. He's not even sure he really knew at all.

    "I can handle weird. I might not be all that useful when it comes down to it, but I'll stick around anyway."

    Because the only way he knows how to deal with weird is throw explosives at it, if last night was anything to go by.

    He gives Pheobe's hand one more squeeze before he pulls back. "Well, I wasn't sure. And Mr. Nishimoto owns a shabu-shabu place around the corner from the WayneTech building, we give them a lot of business. He was happy to accomodate," he says.

    His head tilts to one side. "You kind of got me hooked on Onion Maiden, you know. I eat there a couple of times a week minimum. It's the only thing that keeps me going to my awful 4-hour daily lectures." He mutters something about summer classes.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe's fingers just briefly lace with Tim's. She smiles. "Weird is as weird does. This week has been very, very weird." she admits, and she releases Tim's hand as he pulls back.

    "I mean, you can make dashi without fish, too. I buy it from San-San's on the edge of China Basin. It's very... mushroomy." she states, and then she sighs, and leans her head in her palm before she switches to Japanese, in spite of the fact that she speaks it with such a rural accent.

    <Honestly I think the thing I miss most about life before was hanging with my aikido sensei. Did I ever tell you that while I was suspended, she taught me bonsai? And pretty much drilled me for hours a day in staff kata.> she states, tilting her head back a moment. "Onion Maiden is a pretty awesome thing to get hooked on. I found a place nearby in Hell's Kitchen called See Yew Soon. They have some veggie-friendly Thai food."

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim nods in mute acknowledgment as he thinks back over his past week. Well, his trip to New York is certainly the weird highlight of it, even if he was there originally to do some very boring corporate espionage revolving around a current investigation. He'd drove back to Gotham in the middle of a thunderstorm with the files he was after and the acid-singed remains of his cape.

    All in a night's work, he suppose.

    "Yeah, I mean, it feels appropriate." He points upwards and circles his finger around. "You know. Because we're at Umami." The corner of his mouth twitches at his terrible joke and he turns his head away.

    His own Japanese accent is flawless, the kind of practiced perfection of the news anchors on NHK. "<No, but that sounds like a very peaceful hobby. Meditative, right? I didn't learn how to meditate properly until I trained in Japan.> He tucks the lower half of his face against his balled-up fist as he looks around the bar. Their server is headed in their direction with a tray, so he looks back over at Phoebe and says, <You'll have to show me your moves sometime.>

    And then he drops back into English. "My next cheat day, I'm getting the General Ngo's tots," he says with a distracted sigh, as if he's imagining that meal right in front of him. Carbs. Fried food. Everything he wants in life.

    For now, though, there's edamame and goma-ae and agedashi dofu on the table. He slides his chopsticks out from where they're folded into his napkin and looks down at the food expectantly. "You know what else helps? Eating your feelings." Tim grins.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Don't talk to me about eating my feelings, after a session with Terry, I ate a whole birthday cake and then passed out on the couch for an hour. I'm beginning to get just senses of people as hankerings for junkfood after sessions." Phoebe gives a small smile, slipping her chopsticks out and she draws up a piece of tofu, drawing her gaze over at Tim, and she states in a light voice: "I'll show you my moves whenever you want, but you're not allowed to hold back." she teases lightly.

    "And I had nothing but junk food and crackers in the apartment in New York for a bit before I could stop off at a grocery. My roommates don't spend a lot of time in the apartment."

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim can't help but laugh at that, rocking back against the booth seat as he does so. His eyes scrunch shut and he rubs the heel of his palm against his eye. "Oh man, that's great. This year on my birthday I ordered my favorite pizza and ate the thing in one sitting and then I was so sick I had to call out of work." Even if he doesn't put any kind of inflection on that last word, Phoebe probably still knows what kind of 'work' he means.

    His smile is bittersweet as he thinks back to that memory, and then there's food, and while Phoebe goes for the tofu, Tim goes for the vegetables. "I ate my weight in senbei when I was in Japan, I think. The kind with the Hokkaido cream icing on top," he says. "Those are the best." For a little while he's quiet as they have their first few bites, but then Tim looks up. "So... these roommates of yours. Trenchcoat and cabbie?" The way his eyebrows go up is a solid attempt at appearing innocent, but the gleam in Tim's eyes gives him away.

    Yeah, yeah, he's nosy. He wants to know!

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "oh man, now I'm jealous! My last birthday --" she pauses a moment, the thought folding over in her head "-- my least birthday meal I pretty much just ate popcorn and watched period horror movies for an afternoon. I was definitely not good for my job that night." she gives a smile, giving a smile, "It's hard to think of you calling out of work. You seem pretty well focused on it."

    And she noms the tofu, omnom nom.


    "Yeah. I live over the bar they run at the moment." Phoebe replies breezily, and she looks to Tim. "Cabbie is the solid member of the two, the calmer one but he's knowledgeable about the matter at hand. And then the other one... is sometimes a manic jerk. But..." she pauses, and she gives a smile. The way that she hugged Chas the night before, and the amount of trust she's had to put into the skinny one with the trenchcoat.

    "... I've learned more about myself, and my power, in the last two weeks than I had in the last two years. We've gone to London, Paris..." she trails off, and then she breathes out. "... he's intent on catching the one behind my dog problem, so I'm helping him with a couple of things."

Tim Drake has posed:
    "I'm assuming by 'period dramas' you mean Downton Abbey." Tim might be doing a bit of emotional eating himself tonight, for whatever reason, given that he's not really moderating his food intake, here. This isn't the Tim that orders a salad and stares it down like he's interrogating it instead of eating it.

    Probably because it's good food, and not totally terrible for him. He can feel guilty about it tomorrow. Tonight it's about spending time with his friend.

    He works a few edamame free of their shells. "Focused is a nice way of putting it," he says in-between bites, and the look he shoots Phoebe across the table is a wry one. While she talks, Tim takes a break to sip at his water and glance around the bar again in his usual habit of unnerring situational awareness. But he dedicates a solid amount of his focus to listening. "I'm glad you found people who can help you, Phoebe. I know that's not something easily come by in Gotham, not with..." One of his shoulders bounces up and down.

    "Well, you know. And if you need backup, just give me a call."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "... I have the distinct feeling your boss /intended/ for me to work with a different local. Had a run-in with some Mayan jewelery." she explains in a quiet tone, and Phoebe breaks up the tofu into two pieces, grabbing one and noshing it quickly, and she is keeping herself busy, dark eyes perring curiously about the bar, taking it all in.

    "He's actually a nice guy beneath all that holery. Otherwise he wouldn't help." Phoebe explains. "He speaks every language he's used so far pretty fluently. He tried his best to protect me in Paris, but I ended up kinda falling in and... busting up a three-headed skeletalsnake?" She purses her lips, and then straightens slightly.

    "Pretty sure I rolled a natural 20 on that one."

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim's boss isn't someone he talks about much, and even at mention of him, his eyes skim away. For a second or two he's looking off into the middle-distance, but then he only tips his head to the side. "This is your home just as much as anyone else," is all he says.

    And then he swipes the other piece of tofu, the whole thing popped into his mouth in one quick motion. He lifts his eyebrows up at Phoebe with a grin, hand pressed to his lips as he chews.

    "That... sounds dangerous." Tim blinks once, and then sets his chopsticks aside. "You know I'm not going to tell you what you can and cannot do. But if it ever gets to be too much, just remember you can always come hang out with us, okay? We need to get the whole group together, do something fun... I don't know." He looks around like he's visually scrambling for what constitutes 'fun'.

    Not exactly his strong suit, though he's loosened up a bit since his teen years. "We could do karaoke or something?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe's eyes narrow at Tim as he snipes piece of Tofu, and she tries to look stern, but instead she reaches over to snap some of his veggies up.

    "Oh. It was /extremely/ dangerous. Literal God of Death was in the catacombs, fighting off the urge to sleep among the bones..." Phoebe recounts quietly, and she looks over to Tim.

    She leans forward a moment. "OK, truth -- what song do you think Laura would do?" she asks with wild curiosity brightening her dark eyes.

Tim Drake has posed:
    The waitress appears with more food; Phoebe's ordered vegetable skewers and rice, platters of yakisoba and tamagoyaki, and little bowls of pickled vegetables. It's a fine spread, and enough that Phoebe will probably get sent home with a box or two full of leftovers. For a long moment Tim stares across the smorgasbord at her, and then he just wordlessly shakes his head and pops an entire slice of rolled omelette into his mouth.

    "I don't know why," he says a few moments later, "But I feel like she'd probably do something by Halsey."