2019-03-16 - Primum Non Nocere

The Grizzly Den Diner was a staple of Gray Harbor, mostly because it's been around forever and was the only twenty four hour place within the city limits. The food was a step above mediocre depending on who was on shift and was a place where teens and sawmill workers alike would frequent. Thus, there was both a small group of teens and a small group of sawmill workers within the restaurant today, along with an elderly couple and a few assorted townspeople - every single one of whom were opting for booths or tables on the other side of the diner from where Violet sat. Perhaps it was just coincidental, although the old woman mumbling about being sat 'as far away from that Whitehouse girl' probably wasn't. It didn't seem to bother her, though.

Violet sits in the far corner of the restaurant, tucked into a booth all by her lonesome. Her style of clothing today remains 'thrift store granny chic,' with a baggy pale pink cardigan over a silk white blouse and a mid-calf length loose skirt with pink roses. She takes up an entire bench, feet up and her back against the wall, a book leaning on her knees. As she reads, she occassionally nibbles on a club sandwich, or the fruit that she got with her order instead of fries.

Alex, not being up on all the local gossip, finds this arrangement odd, exhibiting as much when he lets himself in and sweeps a look around the seating arrangements - damn near the entire restaurant over here, and one seemingly harmless blond shopkeeper over there. It gives him a moment's pause, has him side-eye the entire restaurant while he lingers just inside, stowing his umbrella and unbuttoning his coat, making courteous noises at the hostess. He takes a risk on not taking the empty table where she's happy to seat him, instead works his way through the aisle of booths, feeling all those people looking at him when he stops at the empty seat at Violet's booth.

His, "Hello, Violet," conveys some measure of his bafflement about wtf is going on in this diner, specifically as it relates to Violet sitting entirely alone and people gawking at Alex for approaching like this is perfectly normal. The hostess's mouth hangs open and everything, moreso when he shrugs out of his coat - he's dressed from work, shirt with sleeves rolled to his elbows, loosened tie, slacks a little damp because dumbass rides his bike around in the rain but still kempt - like he's going to sit down with crazy and everything.

It was likely not very difficult to see that Violet was in her own little world, her lips baring the subtlest hints of a smile there at the corners as she flips a page in her book. Whatever it was she was reading was engrossing enough to not notice Alex's presence until he was practically already ontop of her, thus earning him several wide-eyed blinks from behind the oversized frames of her glasses when he speaks to her. "Oh," is her own salutation, hanging there in a measure of awkward silence with her lips hold an 'o' shape from the word. Then there's a twitch, and her back straightens against the wall like she may just attempt to crawl up it and disappear into the ceiling, before she remembers her manners. "Hello, Alex," she offers like a normal person would, casting a glance back down to her book before she lets it close around her hand. "How's your bicycle?"

Alex would like to see that. Not the him-on-top-of-Violet bit (though, y'know, let's not write that off); the bit about her crawling up to the ceiling, which notion he entertains with a quick climb of dark eyes that brighten amusedly on their way up from where she's slinking to the ceiling, then back down to her glasses and the eyes behind them, with a completely normal smile. Which is, of course, at odds with this entirely abnormal situation. The bicycle is "Happy, I think. Active." He glances back over his shoulder briefly, but the bike's not visible, chained up outside somewhere, so he turns back after a moment, shifting his coat so it hovers over the back of the booth in a wordless 'can he put it down here and thus also sit' inquiry. He wants to ask about the bizarreness, about the people peeking this way, but it seems like the kind of subject one doesn't broach until seated, you know? So he'll just have to actually ask, "May I?"

Alas, Violet does not creepily climb to the ceiling with her shoulder blades in spite of her desire to do so and his desire to see it happen, but she does briefly stay with her back firmly pressed to the wall as though someone's kept her there with invisible pins. It's doubtful she notices the stares from the other restaurant occupants, mostly because her stare has yet to focus anywhere other than Alex. At least she blinks a few times, so it's somewhat less disturbing a thing. "Oh," she says of the bicycle, not following his glance over his shoulder. "Someone bought the other one right after you. But not to ride, I don't think, she's an artist? She said she was going to use it in one of her pieces. Something about urban decay, it sounded very .." she trails off, wobbling her hand in the air in front of her. The rambling sentence remains incomplete, blinking again as he hovers his coat in her space and uses his manners. It's a request that clearly puts her off-guard. "You want to?" She cocks her head, scraping her teeth against the corner of her bottom lip, a furrow taking to her brow as though someone wishing to sit with her was some kind of alien concept. "I mean you can, yes, of course."

Alex says, "Hmmm," of the fate of that second bicycle, a very faint suggestion of disapproval in the sound. Or perhaps it's sadness, the poor skeleton of the other bike now on display for the whole world, v sad. Regardless, he drapes his coat over the back of the bench-seat, then scoots himself in after it, sliding across the seat with a swipe of his palm to tuck his tie. "Thank you. I have to ask - " About something that will have to get explained in a minute, since the skittish, weirded-out waitress (who is not the redhead from the B&B, she works breakfasts) comes over to look between these two like this is just the strangest fucking pairing she's ever walked up to in her whole life.

She takes Alex's order with Violet regarded in periphery. Egg salad on wheat, cottage cheese, coffee, his lunch sounds disgusting, and the waitress is obliged to ask if Violet needs anything else before she scampers off to fetch those things.

His eyes follow the waitress till she's put the order-slip up, then slide back over to Violet. "So." His hands fold on the table. His thumbs tap curiously. "Why are you persona non grata?" WHICH IS TOTALLY LATIN, yw for getting to use that useless language.

Despite having just said that he could join her, Violet still looks very confused when he actually settles into the bench, watching with eyes that were growing progressively wider as he drapes his jacket across the back of the seat and settles with a tuck of his tie. Maybe she assumed he was just being polite and would promptly skitter back to the other side of the restaurant where everybody else was once the invitation was extended - either way, she shifts on the bench with an air of bewilderment, uncomfortably pushing herself off the wall and giving off the distinct impression that she just doesn't know what to do from this point on. But he has to ask! Her brows go up with expectation for the question, which the waitress promptly interrupts.

Since she has nothing that she needs, Violet adjusts herself in the interim, lowering her feet to the floor and laying her book (cover down, spine turned away from him) on the table. "So.." she trails after him, laying her own hands on her lap, the totally Latin question earning an upward raise of her brows. "Oh, I.." She rolls her shoulders back, a quick shrug. "People think I'm weird." It's quiet acceptance of her fate. "We're not very well liked, my family. But it's all right. Every small town has to have one, right? Persona non grata." She even plasters on a half-smile. "What is it you do, Alex? I mean you don't dress like you're a professional bike rider."

A glance drops to the book, curious, but she seems to have gone to some trouble to keep that information from him; his notice of said efforts is conveyed in the changed rhythm of his thumb-tapping, from a nice little soundless taptaptap to a slow tapholdpart about the time Alex looks up from the mystery book to Violet again. The word 'interesting' is written all over his face, from the lifted brow to the twitch of his lips. Still, he doesn't ask after it, so his question is aimed at the reason her family's not well liked: "Why not? What did your family do? Or... not do?" Her return question actually catches him by surprise, like he can't slot it into the cogs of this conversation, hence the forward-lean, head cocked, huh? "Oh," did he seriously not bring this up? 'Cause wow, Alex, way to not play the coolest card ever; "I'm a doctor."

So it's okay if she swoons. He totally knows mouth-to-mouth.

The silent motion of his thumb-tapping catches Violet's brief attention, blue eyes cast down to watch the patter across the table. She moves a hand to lay it across her book, edging it further towards her until the spine was hanging off the table, and with her other hand? She fingers a piece of melon, nudging it along the plate. The follow-up questions to what her family did or did not do bring another uncomfortable roll of her shoulders, the answer still forming in her mind when he plays his card. A card that does not make her swoon - instead, it makes her shift backwards, leaning away from him, the corners of her eyes squinting with a flinch. "A doctor?" she rolls the word around like the piece of melon she's dragging across her plate, appearing steadily more uncomfortable. "Head or body?"

Well, at least her reaction gets a reaction. "A doctor." Alex registers her discomfort with that profession, and it's his turn to do things with his teeth, filing them briefly across the corner of his lower lip in a betrayal of his own surprised confusion. Violet being uncomfortable was probably way, way down toward the bottom of the pile of expected reactions. "Body?" He even sounds uncertain now, which is entirely outside his wheel-house, like he's not sure if that's the right answer or...? So he slips in quickly, "Emergency medicine," before the waitress comes to bail him the fuck out of this awkward turn of events by sliding his disgusting lunch on the table. She should have brought him his coffee a pose or two ago, but - since he's sitting with li'l Miss Crazy - she decided to just do it all in one fell swoop, thus minimizing her exposure.

There's a subtle crinkling of her nose as he repeats the words, Violet's legs lifting out from under the table to tuck underneath her body. It made her appear smaller than she was already, shrinking her into the booth, her hand falling off the melon so that she can dance her fingertips along the table's edge. At least the answer diminishes the growing tension in her shoulders, albeit the follow-up slips a frown onto her lips. "Like in the hospital?" she asks, canting a look out the window and watching his reflection in the glass, before she turns her focus onto him once more. She waits until the waitress comes and goes again before she's leaning towards the table, dropping her voice to a hush as the words rush out of her: "My sister doesn't really like doctors." The statement comes with a wince from behind the glasses, spoken in tones that make it sound like some kind of secret. "Do you take the oath seriously?" Maybe now he understands why all those other people are OVER THERE, considering she raises her hand, fingers pressed together. "Primum non nocere?"

Alex's starting to catch the drift, yeah, and briefly looks over there like maybe someone will throw him a life preserver? But all those people just leave him to drown, their only emissary the waitress, and she's gone now. Leaving him to arrange the dishes of his lunch, sip his coffee for some sort of conversational inspiration, and answer the hospital question with, "Mhm." While she's literally putting her feet under her, he's metaphorically getting his back under him as far as this conversation is concerned. He checks the state of his egg salad, peeking under the top piece of bread, then seems to decide it's safe to eat, lifts half the sandwich. Just before he takes a bite, without getting into the situation with her sister ('cause Alex is starting to pick up on that being a whole Thing), he shares, "Common misconception. That's not in the Hippocratic Oath." He shrugs one shoulder, sorry, Violet.

Violet catches the look over his shoulder, and she doesn't even have to take a skim from the surface to know what he was feeling in the moment. There's a passing look of disappointment though, a hint of sorrow that lingers in the blue of her eyes which she casts back down to her plate, her shoulders deflating. Yet in all of that emotion was a sense of understanding; she wasn't going to say anything. She was going to let him take up his plate and go over there, and leave her here with her book and her club sandwich and that lone piece of melon on her plate. "I'm sorry," she whispers, letting the apology linger, as she drops her hand and scrapes her nail along the spine of her book. He could take the apology as he will - perhaps she was sorry for misunderstanding the oath, as common as the misconception may be. Or perhaps she was apologizing for something unspoken.

The silence sticks for an uncomfortable moment, before she shares an olive branch - "I did tell her that they can't be all bad. Doctors, I mean." Pause. "You don't seem bad. You seem.." she presses the tip of her tongue to the roof of her mouth, considering. "Good and kind and very nice, Alex. That's how I know you're not from here."

Immediately after her I'm-sorry comes his, "It's okay." And seems to genuinely mean it. That before the long silence that wants to get awkward, that leaves Alex testing the egg salad with a contemplative chew-and-swallow routine, following it up with another sip of coffee. She gets through backpedaling, and he gets through a couple bites, looking at her steadily while she speaks - which may or may not be helpful in dredging this conversation from the uncomfortable waters into which it has floundered. He wipes fingers and mouth with his napkin before answer, "Thank you." Those were nice things she said, he acknowledges them accordingly.

And this is probably not the best way to try to salvage the conversation, but whatever; it may be kindest to just put it out of its misery now, so he pumps the shotgun. "Can I ask you an uncomfortable question?" (Yes, he just did that thing that's obnoxious: asking if he can ask. Deal with it.)

"Hmm," it's his turn-of-phrase, but it's on Violet's tongue now, humming over her lips at the quiet words of acknowledgement offered back to her. She doesn't untuck her feet from under her, but she stays leaning towards the table, her elbow now on her book to keep it in her possession. With her other hand, she scoops up what's left of her club sandwich to nibble on it, her eyes on his tie and the collar of his shirt, daring to peek up to his chin and his lips, but not daring to meet his eyes again. She meets the question about asking a question with uncomfortable, lingering silence, before she dares to crack a (very poor) joke: "Another one?" It comes with a quiet breath of laughter that's almost immediately swallowed away with another bite of her sandwich. "I'm pretty sure this entire conversation started with an uncomfortable question. So I guess we can keep it going."

Alex concedes the joke with a tilt of his head toward her, a sort of mute 'touche.' He's still got half a sandwich and some cottage cheese to get through, but those gross food-bits will wait, since he re-clasps his hands on the table in front of him, leaning toward her so that he can keep his voice appropriately low. Not that there's anyone anywhere nearby to overhear, but the conspiracy seems important to maintain. "Do you know that you were thinking about me very loudly when I left your shop the other day?" It's okay. She doesn't have to look at him. It doesn't change the fact that he's looking at her, with his doctory-expression in place; relax, it'll only hurt for a second.

At least she didn't expect a laugh, though the tilt of his head quirks a smile at the very corner of her mouth. It's brief, gone in the next instant, but her gaze lifts a little higher. Now her blue eyes are in line with his upper lip, watching the way it moves to form those words that he whispers across the table to her. The question makes her breath hitch, her pale face instantly breaking out with sudden splotches of red. "No," she shakes her head quickly, an errant lock of frizzy hair tumbling from the messy bun she's put it in with the vigorous motion of her head. Her voice trembles. "No.. no, that wasn't.." But perhaps she realizes finishing that sentence would make her sound (even more) insane. So instead, she catches her breath, and lifts her terrified eyes up to his own. "What did you hear?"

A shrug, so mysterious, and Alex eyes her fallen strands with a repressed finger-twitch - they move, want to move more, the almost uncomfortably intense urge to fix that for her leaving him scratching his thumbnail along the twitchy index finger, but he makes himself sorta answer her question instead of touch her hair. They don't know each other well enough for that yet. "It was," oh, what's the word, he casts around longer than is strictly necessary, dark eyes amusedly alight, "complimentary. There was giggling." He'll just go out on a ledge here and guess, "Was it your sister?"

Violet doesn't notice the hair that's run away from the bun; she wasn't yet close to panic, but there was certainly an edge there, her pulse quickening and making her breath feel shorter, more shallow. It wasn't intentional, what she was doing, but the level of uncomfortable she was feeling had hit an all time high - it funnels out of her in thick, almost palpable waves as she twitches and shifts on the bench seating, the emotion directing unto him. He may be able to resist it, but if he isn't? Her feelings would be his own soon enough, and right now all she felt was the desire to sink under the table and die. "Oh," her voice shakes, and she touches her hand to her neck. There were no splotches now, she was just red. "That's not how I.." she begins to say 'how she works' but the words die out because she knows it's not true. So instead, it's bashful admission. "Yes," her gaze lowers, lashes fanning over her cheeks. "She's... away." There was hesitance there. "Upstate. You weren't supposed to hear."

Is she drinking something? There's gotta be a water-glass or something on this table. Alex, WHO WARNED HER THAT HIS QUESTION WAS UNCOMFORTABLE, please let's don't forget that part, breaks that long-held eye contact of his to pick up the water glass and put it down on the table, where it's hopefully within her field of vision, even with the lowered eyes. His movements are conscientious, deliberate, the way a person might mind his gestures around some skittish animal being coaxed from its hidey-hole. "It's okay," he assures gently, though not without swallowing thickly, adjusting the knot of his tie against his neck like damn, when did this thing get so chokey?! And he kinda... gets... what she means about upstate, which just makes it worse, has him hooking his finger behind the tie-knot and really giving it a tug, leaning his head away from his hand and everything.

He even says, "Uhm," which is really super-uncool for Doctor Unflappable here. "My daughter's," he's not just being coy with the word-searching this time, breathing in while he thinks, "like you are. It's not the first time." Feel better? He dips his head toward the table, tries to put himself in her field of vision like he did the water glass a moment ago, looks very awkward while doing it.

There was in fact a glass of water on the table, though now it moves into her field of vision by the gentle urging of his hands. She strikes with her own, snatching the glass as though it were some kind of security blanket and pulling it towards her quickly, taking a thick swallow. It did nothing to combat her embarrassment, though, that discomfort that he was experiencing now, too. She feels a little bad about that, her bottom lip worried with a few quick nibbles as she tries to explain: "I just wanted to make her happy, you know. All the guys she sees anymore are.." Crazy. "And you were there and you were very.." She swallows, "Nice. Very very nice, and.." She would ramble on and on if left to her own devices. So it's a good thing he says that part about his daughter. It makes her shut up almost immediately.

"You have a daughter?" She blinks, and suddenly he's there and it's impossible not to look at him, when he's tilting his head towards the table like that. "Is she upstate, too?" she has to ask.

Alex could say something to try to defuse her further embarrassment, something like 'thank you' or he gets it or that's nice of her to look after her sister, but it turns out? Drowning in someone else's mortification makes it a little difficult to come up with exactly the right words at exactly this moment. So he just gives his tie one last pull, leaves it uncharacteristically askew, and then reaches abruptly across the table. "Can I...?" Whatever, he just swipes his hand quickly, catches the fallen lock of hair from before, draws it through his fingers, and tucks it deftly back into her bun for her. It was bugging the shit out of him.

"I do," he's happy to report, to move on out of the conversational hole that he dug them into. "Sophia, and no." He laughs carefully, a smile, an exhale through his nose, a little decorum recovered in paternal pride. "She's a sophomore at UW Seattle." He'll just pause there so Violet can do the math. Everyone always has to do the math.

Violet notes the tie with a quick flick of her glance, and if she had even half of her wits about her? She would've taken a mental picture of him in this uncharacteristic moment. But she only had a quarter wit at this point, not nearly enough to think ahead for later; and besides, he was reaching across the table to swipe her runaway hair back into her bun and taking what was left of her wits with him. "Oh," she takes a breath in through her nose, and now the tips of her ears were glowing along with her entire face, the red starting to spread down her neck as well. But she doesn't melt into a puddle underneath the table, or jerk back away from him. Instead? She hangs onto her glass of water, tightening her grip, and hides the shy smile on her lips with another long drink.

"Sophia," she repeats, and then does the mental math with quick efficiency. "You don't look that old," she says and then immediately blinks, a stutter of a laugh escaping her. "I mean, old enough to have a daughter in college. You just look very young, that's all that I meant." She inhales and takes another sip of water, trying to climb her way out of the hole she's buried herself in. "So.. that's why you're here. In Gray Harbor. With your.." she ventures a guess. "Wife, too?"

Wow, Violet. That was smooth as fuck. "I'm divorced," is the reward for that slick question, put with a light 'what're you gonna do' shrug. Since they seem to have survived Alex telling her she totally telepathied thinking he's fine and he just fixed her hair for her, bonus, he resumes the business of his egg salad sandwich. Dimly aware of the fact that no waitress has come over to refill his coffee or anything in all this time; maybe hanging out with crazy has perks, like not getting interrupted by pesky waitstaff when you kinda don't wanna be.

He chews, he swallows, and he nods again. "I spent a few years not really being a doctor," to answer why he's here. "When Sophia left for school, I started looking around for work out this way, and it all fell into place from there." Back-story in broad strokes complete, he circles back around to, "I can't do what you do. She says it's only emotions, not thoughts." It's a prompting comment; share, Violet, he's curious.

Violet's lips round into a little 'O' shape when he mentions his status, and she appropriately draws back into the bench, shoulders slumping. "I'm sorry," she murmurs, because it seems like the appropriate response in spite of his shrug. She was decidedly not thinking about that moment where she accidentally telepathied to him, and that was helping her escape the overwhelming embarrassment, straightening out her emotions. She was still awkward and uncomfortable, because that seems to be her natural state of being, but she wasn't 'melt into a puddle and disappear into the floor' level embarrassed anymore. She hardly notices that her glass was now half-empty and the waitress was nowhere to be seen; her focus was wholly on him, darting between his nose and his mouth, and occassionally peeking all the way up to his eyes.

"I graduated from UW Seattle," she tells him in a quiet voice. "I studied anthropology." A useless degree for an antique shop owner! But she digresses, "How do you spend years not really being a doctor?" It's a curious question, met with a tilt of her head, before he's prompting commentary from her and making her wrinkle her nose. "That's how it started for us, too. Emotions, and pictures. We were fourteen."

Enh, maybe she'll notice the quick-wink in between the upward peeks and maybe she won't. It exists, whether she sees it or not, when Alex answers her opening question, saying, "That's a story for another time." He's already spilled enough of his personal life for one egg salad sandwich, tyvm, and he's not even going to eat the cottage cheese. It's reached the point of being room temperature, and that's too revolting, even for him. "That's how it started," he repeats, threading his fingers together again, now lining up the edges of his thumbnails, filing them with a press of his thumbs into one another. "And from there?" He leans forward over the table again, over his hands and arms, intrigued. And maybe a liiiiittle wary, though there's a certain eagerness, too. "Can you," this sounds crazy, "read thoughts?"

The quick-wink was most certainly noted, which explains the re-splotchifying of her cheeks (is that even a word?) and the fact that she promptly lowers her attention back down to the safe zone between his nose and mouth. Except for the fact that her attention keeps drifting to his lips entirely, and that wasn't a very safe place to look either - she was growing increasingly uncomfortable again, shifting back and forth. "Mm," she nods her head as he repeats, and then draws in a quick breath when he leans forward - she instinctively draws back, putting the whole of him into her sights again. "No, no. No thoughts," she tries to reassure. "Just, you know. Words. That's how Alice and I talk," she extends a finger to quickly tap it against her temple. "We .. we can, kind of connect, I guess. I can with other people? But it's easiest with her, we've been doing it all our lives," her lashes flutter as she blinks in rapid succession. "But it's talk, not thoughts, I can't read thoughts. "

No lie, Alex is mildly relieved to learn that his entire inner dialogue isn't being overheard - even if there was that momentary eagerness there. The idea of it is objectively cool, after all. Hence the, "Hmm," while he nods and digests this, gives her something to look at while he files his teeth over the corner of his mouth for a second, mulling. "So you were talking to her," about how hot he was, mental happy-dance, "even though she's not proximate?" He slurs those last two words a little, sliding around the term 'upstate' at the last possible second. And he relaxes back into the bench-seat suddenly, a whole bunch of little tells suddenly making sense while he smiles across the table at Violet, replaying all her half-finished comments.

"Interesting." Alex inhales, eyes on the finger tapping her temple, held there, crinkling thoughtfully.

She unconsciously mirrors him, dragging her bottom lip back and forth across her teeth as she watches him worry at his own, swallowing hard when he brings up her speaking with her sister. "Ah.. yes," she admits, dropping her attention down to her book briefly, giving herself something else to look at that wasn't his mouth. Or his eyes. Or him in general. "She's been gone awhile. We were supposed to go to UW together," she explains in a whisper, sharing these parts of her slowly, hesitantly. "When I left I.. while I was in school, I wanted to forget. I wanted to be normal," there was something wistful in her tone, heavy too. "But after my sophmore year... she reached out. And I hadn't heard her voice in so long, she.." her hand twitches, lifting to press her palm to her heart as she swallows. "She's scared and alone up there. I can't not talk to her. But it's easier here, in town. Where I was, before.. the communication was there but.. fuzzy."

The words end with a long sigh, her gaze lifting from the book back up to him. And she regards him for a longer moment, tipping her head one way and then the other, as though changing the angle would somehow put him in a better perspective. "But you.. you can't do that. What I do. What your daughter does?" She asks cautiously. "Because you're .. you're like me. But.. less, I think. Sorry."

Alex's mental happy-dance gradually winds down while she speaks, ends with the authentic sympathy at the reminder that this person is a human being, who maybe hasn't enjoyed all the things that come along with being different. Like sisters that get shipped off to funny farms. Truly, quietly, "I'm sorry for you, Violet. And your sister." He inhales again, a longer breath this time, one that accompanies him answering her attempts to change her perspective by him finally acknowledging the mystery-book she's been hiding all this time, making sure she's looking at his eyes before he pointedly drops them to the words he hasn't been able to glimpse since he sat down. He's curious, he'd like to know, but he's pried a lot already, so it's up to her to share or not?

"No," he can't do that, what she does and his daughter does. So he shares with a small smile, with the shrug of someone that knows he's outclassed, "I can occasionally feel, hmm. What's wrong with someone. Physically. And occasionally," lots of stress on the adverb, "help them. It's not reliable." He just has all kinds of short-guy complexes, apparently. Fortunately, it does not extend as far as, say, being embarrassed about making an offer like, "But I can reliably pay for your lunch, if you'll let me. To thank you for talking to me."

"I'm sorry for you, too, Alex," she murmurs in reply, the words genuinely spoken even if they are said so very quietly. She does follow his gaze pointedly down to her book, her hand falling back atop it and her fingers clenching with a subtle hint of possessiveness. She doesn't immediately flip it over to show him what is on the cover, and instead blinks back up to him when he talks about what he can do. "That makes sense though. For a doctor," she offers the silver lining, her brows arching upward and staying aloft when he offers to buy her lunch. A scattered laugh escapes her, and for a very brief moment, her lips turn upward in a true smile. It's not fit to dazzle, but the dimples show in her cheeks. "All right," she allows, "But you don't need to, you know. You're.. nice to me, I should probably be buying you lunch." She scrapes her teeth against her lip, adding quietly, "They will talk. The people here. I'm sorry for that. It's not very nice."

Sweeping a look to those people that will talk, the not very nice ones, Alex shares secretively, "Or we could just slink out. I'm starting to get the impression that they're not going to bring me the check anyway." But he also fishes out his wallet at that point, looking at what's left of Violet's lunch and guesstimating how much the total for the two meals would come to. You know, if the waitress wasn't over there not serving Violet and whispering about wtf must be wrong with Alex if he's been sitting there across from her this whole time. "Don't be," sorry for that, while he adjusts the empty coffee cup to hold down the corner of the bills. "Let me walk you to your... car?" His uncertainty over that is coupled to a side-squint at her, like trying to wrap his mind around the idea of this endearingly strange person doing something normal like driving a car is worth a second thought. "And let them talk."

"That would be stealing," Violet frowns, and it's a stern one, though the expression rapidly relaxes when his wallet makes an appearance. She glances down to her plate, then over to his, rattling off quietly the total price of both meals. "She never brings me the check," she adds with a small, sad smile, in explanation as to how she knows what the price of the meals would be. But after it is said and done, she lifts her gaze over him and down to the waitress who was busy whispering away. There's the faintest crinkle to the corners of her eyes, giving her head a touch of a shake. "She's just .. anxious," she lets him know, "I don't make many people feel... at ease, you know? I don't blame them," and yet, she still seems so very sad about it. Regardless, she collects her book and hugs it to her chest, still hiding the cover as she gets out of her bench and uses her free hand to smooth out her skirt. "I don't own a car. But you can walk me back to the shop if you'd like. It isn't that far."

"Hmm-mm," is how Alex denies the very notion of diner theft. "The term is 'unsolicited gift.'" Catching his jacket, he slides out of his side of the table, straightening his long-crooked tie and re-fixing the knot of it once he finds his feet, doing all this by his reflection in the window. He's still using that reflection to follow Violet's attention to the anxious waitress, pairing the explanation - and her excusing of it - with a pull at the corner of his mouth, not quite a frown but headed in that direction. Waiting to see if she has a coat or anything? He then falls in a half-step behind her, not going so far as to put his hand on the small of her back or anything, but definitely making sure everyone in here gets the 'we are totally leaving together, quit being haters' vibe from the general proximity he keeps to her, right down to reaching around her to snag the door.

"I would like," to walk her to the shop. He just has to pause long enough to unlock his bike and is in the process of doing that when he adds, "What's with the book, Violet?" 'Cause letting it go wouldn't be as fun.

"The redhead that works here at breakfast is good. If you come back," Violet recommends, tilting her head to admire his reflection in the window as he works on adjusting his tie. It brings a softer smile to her lips, even as her cheeks become ugly-splotchy again; she doesn't look for long anyway, obviously more than a bit embarrassed at doing it in the first place. There is no coat for her, and there's a hurry to her step as she exits the diner, startled when he opens the door for her. "Oh," it's a quiet squeak, and she ducks her head as she leaves the restaurant quickly. "Thank you," she murmurs once they are out on the sidewalk, not noticing the elderly couple who are staring at the pair of them from the window as Alex unlocks his bike and Violet stands passively by.

"The.. what?" The question makes her blink, and she tucks her chin down to stare at the book she's currently hugging to her chest. "Oh, uh. It's just a book," she shrugs, "It's just not very.. uhm.. intelligent," she admits, taking in a breath and slowly exhaling it. There's a touch of hesitance, but well.. they've already shared so much at the diner, and so she warily flips the book around to show him the cover. 'Not very intelligent' is an accurate summation of the book that features a busty young blonde in an elegant green gown on the cover. 'The Governess' is the title, in loopy gold writing. "Alice likes romances. I like history. It's uhm.. a compromise?"

Alex is lucky he dresses for success, because a brown guy on the sidewalk in front of a diner, fucking with a locked bike? Is just asking to have the cops called on him by those old people.

He loops the bike chain across the handlebars, straightening in due time to look across the bike at the cover of the book that she's finally ready to share, and his eyes widen to accompany the backward lean from that classy cover-art. This time, his patented, "Hmm," accompanies a careful inward fold of his lips, and he lifts laughing eyes from the book-cover to Violet, back and forth a couple times, very clearly smothering a laugh inside his mouth. When he's sure that's under control, he adds, "That's very," nice word, what's a nice word, he needs a nice word, "generous of you." He walks with the bike between them, which is fittingly cute, considering he also watches her 'in the wild' along this drizzly walk.

Didn't he have an umbrella at the top of this scene? Oh well. It means he can really just go all-in here and, about a half-block into this walk, peel off his coat, switch the bike around, and put the coat on her shoulders without a word about it. There. (Listen, he hasn't been on a date in NINETEEN YEARS. He's gonna need a minute to work on his game.)

All things considered, it is a very brief glimpse that she gives him. As soon as she catches the faintest glint of those laughing eyes, she flips the book back around and plants the cover into her chest again. "Don't laugh," she warns, throwing on her best impression of someone who is very stern, but it wasn't very convincing considering the glint of amusement in her own blue eyes. "It is very generous, I agree," she says with a tip of her chin, and the barest hint of dimples in her cheeks as her lips turn upward in a smile. And then she turns on her heel with a flare of her skirt and starts to walk up the hill towards her shop with him there beside her.

The clumsy drizzle doesn't seem to bother her much, except for the annoying fog it's creating on her glasses, and she's quiet for the most part as she listens to the click-click-click of his bike tires while they go. But a half a block in, and suddenly his coat was around her shoulders, her eyes widening .. and when he (hopefully) isn't looking, she turns her head into the collar of the coat to give it a curious sniff, breathing in the scent of him. The fact that she does this at all makes her cheeks all ugly red again. "You're a very good person, Alex," she says quietly, after another few steps of silence. "I'll tell Alice," as though that were somehow important. "Maybe though.. when you're not around."

"I don't think I could ever be convinced to read historical romances to someone out of the kindness of my heart," is Alex's initial volley to answer for the goodness of his person, like she's set the bar awfully high with that particular bit of generosity. "But I'll admit that I have my moments." Like the one where he totally pretends not to notice Violet over there, taking a curious sniff. And isn't he glad he uses Dial, 'cause that coat smells good as fuck, as coats by preppie guys tend to do. Her little addendum, about telling Alice... when he's not around... gets him to contribute the laugh that he so conscientiously crushed to death behind his lips earlier. An actual funny! Not just a courtesy snicker.

About the time the shop resolves itself out of this fog, now that he's been unprettily rained on and is going to have to go change his clothes and probably ruined his tie, curses, he slides a side-look at her. "Make sure to tell her that you look really cute wearing my coat. And that you're going to look even cuter when you use my phone to call your phone." The phone's in the pocket of the coat she's wearing. That was smooth, right?!

"I mean it's not really out of the kindness of my heart, if I was doing it purely for that I'd be reading her what she wants to hear. But I couldn't even stomach the first few chapters of that Fifty sh..." Violet stutters to a stop, mostly because she realizes she's rambling again and about to say something potentially very stupid .. but also because he was laughing, a real laugh, and that is enough to stop her in her tracks to stare. His laughter was infectious enough to bring a quiet giggle out of her too, the dimples in either of her cheeks deepening with a tried and true smile that clearly hasn't surfaced in weeks or months or even longer by the way it so brightens her. Then she's back to skittering after him, until they've reached their destination and she stops beneath the awning.

She takes a longer look at him then through the fog of her glasses, as rain-soaked as she was, and feels her pulse quicken when he speaks, enough to make her feel a bit fluttery and faint. "Oh, umm.." she digs her teeth into her bottom lip, concern etching lines into her forehead. "Maybe I shouldn't.." she says of telling her sister that, casting a guilty look down to her shoes. But those thoughts would have to be shoved aside, because he's talking about his phone and calling her own, the confusion enough to lift her gaze and stare at him with uncertainty. "But my phone's just in the shop, on the desk, I don't usually take it with me when I go to eat.." she starts to explain, before realization dawns on her. "Oh," she blinks, and then carefully takes his phone out of the coat pocket. There's an air of hesitance, but she swipes the screen and taps her digits into it with a trembling thumb, and then quickly thrusts the phone directly at him as though it had transformed into a snake in that moment.

"There!" she squeaks, and then grabs the door to pull it open. "Uh, uhm. Hmm. Thanks for lunch!" she says, and then ducks into the shop immediately without giving chance for a proper goodbye. And she takes his jacket with her 😐

Like, getting the phone back is cool, he pockets that real quick, but "My badge - " Alas, the door doesn't seem to care about Alex's badge. For a second, he thinks about chasing after her, reaches out toward the door that doesn't care about the stuff in the pockets of the coat that Violet just robbed, but then folds his hand and tucks it against his abdomen, tapping the side of his very damp shirt. "This is going to be a problem," he tells the bicycle. Probably, he means the lack of his badge. Probably.

Could be thinking crazy is cute, though. Let's don't discount the possibility.

He pedals off through this clammy drizzle, jacket-less. Coupled to the 'voluntarily ate a meal with Violet Whitehouse' whispers, he should be socially ostracized by mid-week.