2019-06-24 - Post-Hospital Coffee & Tea

Lilith is seated inside the coffee shop watching the steady rain out of a window instead of doing so from the inside of her shop during the day for a change this summer day. Her hair is up in a ponytail away from her face and she's wearing fitted yoga pants with pink and black tennis shoes and a gym shirt from a FL gym that's white and a bit cropped with the purple letters reading, "Smash Something" on the front of it. On the back there's small print about the location in Miami. She's either been to or is planning on catching a workout of some kind, but given the stray strands of hair falling from ponytail all over and some active coloring of residual adrenaline on her unmadeup face, it's possible she's already had at things.

She has a giant cappuccino cup she's nursing with a croissant to pick at while reading half-ass through a book. It's not real clear what it is at first, but if anyone gets to looking, it's an owner manual for a Nissan of some sort. Odd luxury reading with coffee, maybe.

"I'm fine, I promise. I just want a real lunch," Violet can be heard murmuring as she shuffles into the coffee shop, in front of Alex who presumably has the umbrella. She's slow-going, wearing an overtly loose and long tee over a pair of leggings, her frizzy hair tucked back into a ponytail. It's doubtful this is her usual 'gear'; anybody that knows Violet (and most townies know Violet) know that she tends towards librarian-chic in her outfits of choice - this was clearly an outfit with comfort in mind, considering she's favoring her one side. There's a small bandage on her head, and she's lost whatever color she had left, but she's alive! "Maybe we can do a puzzle," she flashes a smile behind her to Alex, before she goes to step in line.

Alex is dressed like Alex is always dressed: shirt, tie, slacks. He manages the door for the invalid with him, watching her with the tolerance commonly found in those who disagree with someone, but who are resigned to no longer arguing about it. So when Violet says she just wants a real lunch, he only says, "Mhm," with that aforementioned resignation. "Why don't you sit, at least, and let me manage the lunch." It's not really a question, and he couples it to a point at the table next to the manual-reader, a good place to sit! The puzzle and the smile have the intended effect of softening his grumpy-bear expression, leaving him with a smile cracked at what's left of Violet; "And I'll find a puzzle. Please sit, though."

Lilith isn't too invested in what she's reading about some internal Nissan vehicle workings because when Alex and Violet come in, she takes a moment to side-eye the condition of the latter with surreptitious nosiness. Especially once she realizes the person looks familiar, but then again, that's just how coming back around in a small town kind of works. Everyone looks familiar from somewhere. After sipping long from her cappuccino mug and blowing down into it as idle cooling distraction, she turns in her chair a bit and waits for them to get out a puzzle, since she's kind of doing nothing and eavesdropping.

Then she eventually pipes up to the pair, deciding to be forward instead of nosy and waiting for a more backhanded, polite wiggle toward invitation, "I will entirely be your best friend for the day if I can get in on some puzzle action. I haven't thought about doing a puzzle since... I don't even know when. And suddenly it sounds terribly exciting. Which probably like... explains how much I have going on in my life and day at the moment."

At least Violet doesn't argue back with Alex. Maybe she doesn't have the strength! Instead, she touches a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth in hopes of turning his crooked smile straight. "Thank you," she murmurs with great appreciation. "But not the Snoopy." And then shuffle she does, to the table beside Lilith's own, a glance cast down to the empty chair with some hesitation. It's while she's still standing, pondering how much it'll hurt to sit, that Lilith catches her attention. The invitation makes her blink a few times behind the thick rims of her glasses. It takes a moment for the recognition to click.

"Oh. I know you," Violet says with an undertone of awkwardness. "You run the pawn shop. I like going in there sometimes." She pulls the chair out from the table and sits with a tense grimace, hand pressing into her side. "I wouldn't mind the help. We can do a bigger puzzle if there are three of us."

"Not Snoopy," Alex promises gravely, chasing the quick kiss with a follow-up to Violet's temple - on the side where she's not wearing a bandage. Then he's waiting in line to get 'a real lunch' at a coffee shop, interacting with the barista in a pleasant but wholly transactional way. He is not going to make small-talk with her, just point to the sandwiches he wants and explain the tea and coffee, please and thank you. Here, he puts a tip in her stupid tip cup. Lingering, he waits for the order to be prepared, turning enough to keep an eye on Violet - and apparently the woman that runs the pawn shop. His brows climb at the 'i know you, you run the pawn shop,' and he shakes his head quietly. This town, man.

"It's definitely a time eater, running things around there. But I figured I needed a couple of days of fresh air and I could threaten Daddy Hank into behaving if I let him back behind the counter a little bit. Plus I have cameras everywhere now and he has no clue. So that'll be exciting to watch and yell about later." Lilith makes dry and drably humored joke out of what hands she's put the shop into while out for the time being, eyes briefly rolling upward before she pushes up into a stand with her coffee cup. She leaves the Nissan book behind with the half-eaten croissant and yanks her chair over to where Violet has physically braved a seat at the next table, taking a moment to look the other female over more closely when she's recognized, herself.

"Oh. Violet, right? Yeah, I remember you entirely from through school. You know. From the years before I went and painted and holed myself up to put on emo blinders. I remember seeing the antique store and meant to come in when I was setting up my place for some decor, but it's still just... ugh, plain because I never got around to it. Neat place to end up. I bet you get pieces with much better history stories than the lies I tend to get." She sounds like she means it too with the job and store compliment, affinity for 'things' and their preserved states apparent. But she was always a tinkerer, pawn aside, one of those girls that took shop and not because it was full of boys.

After the brunette takes a helpless lingering of study with Violet's current state, she blinks a couple of times to look at Alex with a general unfamiliarity and a tiny shake of her head, "Don't recognize you no matter how I poke my brain, sorry. I'm Lilith Winslow that runs the pawn, though, yes." There's a vague slant of smile for the pair, "Obligatory adult introduction out of the way."

"At least you have somebody to help you," Violet says of Hank being behind the counter, in a tone that is perhaps awkwardly overly polite. "When I'm not there to run the shop, I just have to keep it closed. Not that I get that many customers all things considered. Just people that want to look." Her lips press into a small frown, though she dismisses it with a shake of her head. "You can come when you'd like. I have a few interesting pieces, though to be honest with you, even the things with history tend to tell a lot of lies." She cants a look over her shoulder and back to Alex, flashing him a soft and endearing sort of smile.

In the way of fake coffee shops everywhere, this one is particularly speedy about putting together that order. So it's not long after the introduction that Alex is able to buzz the table, putting down sandwiches and cups with tea or coffee in them. This is all conveniently timed so he can offer a handshake to Lilith after she introduces herself, returning the favor with a polite, "It's nice to meet you, Miss Winslow." There are some people that just skew formal, and he's one of them. It plays a little stuffily, true, but that just seems to be his schtick. "I'm Alex Reyes. Three for the puzzle, hm?" Assuming that handshake is over, he'll just mosey over to the shelf with all the puzzles on it. Decisions, decisions.

Here. They are going to do Ninja Turtles today.

"Mm. It's something, I guess." Lilith says in regards to having 'help' given Hank's the damn reason she's back and the shop owes criminals with her playing cleanup and apologies! But she doesn't say that, of course, and she's always relieved when people are polite enough/in the dark about the very nature of her relation to that man and the shop given small towns talk. After her dry verbal supposing, she reaches to take the shake of hand from Alex with quick flash of natural smile and quick reply of 'charmed' in response before she takes to eyeing the brought over puzzle.

While he's bringing it over, she wonders of Violet with a vague tilt of her head, inquiry laced with that kind of kinship in professional woes humor and exasperation, "What's the best lie you've ever heard over a shop piece?"

Lilith might be unnaturally good at puzzling pieces together but apparently she's going to pretend otherwise and isn't complaining about what shows up with plans to pace herself, "... turtles. You brought that 'cause I said I'm all green and rusty about them, didn't you?" She's probably not serious.

"Alex is a doctor at the hospital. He works in the emergency room," Violet adds to the introduction as though the conversation was missing an important piece, a quiet word of thanks passed onto Alex as he sets the tea in front of her. She shifts with a pained flinch towards the edge of her chair, likely trying to seat herself comfortably, but there's no real relief that follows in her expression.

"Oh, um.." she takes a moment to think on Lilith's question, scraping her teeth across the corner of her bottom lip as she adds some cream to her tea. "Usually it's just people who don't know what they are talking about? So they think it's an original, when really it's a reproduction. Or they get the time period completely wrong, and you know, it's actually really important to get the period right. Twenty years can actually make a lot of difference," she rushes through the response, brows twitching into a furrow. It was probably not the sort of answer that Lilith was expecting, and she just goes on as Alex brings the puzzle over, "What is the most irritating is the people who claim they have Tiffany lamps but it's just a Tiffany style lamp, and.." she takes a deep breath, and clams up with her sudden righteous indignation about people who label lamps wrong. "Sorry."

Scooting himself into a chair without all the pain it took Violet to accomplish the same thing - just a little bit of gingerness when he lowers to the seat - Alex puts the puzzle to the middle of the table, tilting his head uncertainly at Lilith's opening comment. "Hmmmno," comes out as all one sound. "We've already done the Disney princess puzzle, and I'm still steering wide of the Smurfs." For REASONS. He gets that out before Violet does all her talking about Tiffany lamps and Tiffany style lamps, and yes, his eyes are definitely bright with amusement, even though he keeps them schooled on the puzzle pieces that he's starting to lay out on the table next to his sandwich and his coffee.

"Heathens," he says under his breath, like he's just so 100% on-board with her righteousness. BURN THEM ALL.

Lilith just plain chuckles despite Violet coming off finicky-ish instead of funny with her story. But her eyes go a bit distracted at the tail end of that humored bout as the blonde goes shifting around to get comfortable. For some inexplicable reasons, she honestly looks a little twitchy or guilty about the stiffness of that movement, despite obviously having no part in it.

Once it's explained that Alex is a doctor, though, some of that is alleviated, backhanded as it all is, and she stills to drink her coffee before divulging, "My least favorite customers are the ones that come in with toys out of boxes, all played with and dirty and broken telling me how collectible the thing is, and that it's surely worth thousands because they saw one on Ebay listed for that much. And people with oh-so-collectible Beanie Babies are pretty choke-worthy." She makes a 'tch' sound with her tongue, then puts her coffee down in favor of free hands to play with puzzle pieces when they're dumped free, immediately taking to sorting and arranging into piles based on 'edge' and 'corner' and 'center' bits to start.

After flitting her eyes up from work to look at Alex's reasoning dubiously for a non-serious beat, she gestures in brief around the table and comments, "Three of us here, of a certain age, odds are one of us has caught a rogue turtle and given it a rightful Ninja name." A pause, then her own fess up, "Mine from pondside was Donatello because I felt like he didn't get enough street cred and attention and I liked purple. Hank put a bunch of beer in the tank I made one night, though. Said he got sick of drinking alone or something ridiculous. Didn't bring anything else alive home afterwards on general principle." She makes a dry huff of exasperated noise about it, but doesn't actually seem fussed so much as matter of fact level accepting about the screwy kid moment.

"It really is a problem," Violet says quietly but insistently, tipping her head in a nod of agreement at Alex's 'heathens' comment. BURN THEM ALL, indeed! "I've gone to so many estate sales where they put 'Tiffany lamps' on their advertisement, and it is very disappointing. But I can't imagine the difficulties of having a pawn business. You must get some terribly sad stories to go along with what they are trying to sell," and this makes Violet frown as she takes a small sip of her tea, using her free hand to start organizing the pieces. Edges over here, inside pieces over there.

As for turtles? "I didn't have a turtle," she shrugs her shoulders, starting to work on one side of the puzzle's outside frame. There's a peek over to Lilith when she talks of her father and the beer in the turtle tank, her expression sobering. "I'm sorry to hear about yours, though. My father isn't very good with living things either," she murmurs to the woman.

Alex can share in the 'fathers who do bad things to animals,' though his story is probably far less drunk than theirs. "My brothers and I found a snapping turtle one summer and tried to keep it." He clips two pieces of Leonardo's head together, looking up from that to Lilith and Violet in turn. "My father cooked it." He stops doing things with the puzzle and takes a bite of his sandwich, like the memory necessitates a little lunch to go with it. At least he chews with what seems to be a general contentment, so it must not be a terrible memory for him. Here, he adds a couple pieces to the edge-pile that Violet is working on.

Upon swallowing, in case anyone hadn't figured it out by his unfettered tone while telling that story, Alex finishes, "It was delicious."

"Eh, Dads happen, no matter how old we are. At least someone got a delicious bellyfull out of this round of story sharing." Lilith hitches her shoulders up with a vague shrug of dismissal like she just doesn't want to deal or dwell in the name of keeping it light, lips twitching with a semblance of smile as she turns eyes to Alex. Then while making edge chains with Violet, the brunette downright wonders aloud, deciding to cut to the chase because it's there and she apparently can't leave it be despite trying to play it off...

"Are you alright? What happened and left you so knocked around and uncomfortable?" It's not quite that Lilith is being nosy for the sake of nosy, she seems mildly concerned and a little apologetic about asking despite the forward approach.

"Oh," Violet says in a startled sort of manner when Alex gets to the 'my father cooked it' portion of the story, her expression uncertain as she watches Alex's own. Like, should she frown? Should she laugh? Was this going to make him cry? She reaches hesitantly across the table to settle her hand atop his own, probably the one not holding the sandwich, and gives his fingers a gentle squeeze in case he needs reassurance. And then he finishes up, and she finds a small smile from somewhere. "Well. Uhm." She clears her throat, and nods over in agreement to Lilith. "Your dad sounds.. like a very good cook!" she adds enthusiastically, trying to find some kind of silver lining that goes around this snapping turtle's cloud who is now up there in Heaven.

The smile fades though at Lilith's question, and she gives a faint nod as she takes another sip of her tea. "I was in the hospital for a few days. But they don't treat you very badly if you're quiet and don't say anything strange," she says, pushing another piece into place. "It helps that Alex made sure I got the nice nurse. I got out today."

Dads happen. Alex rests a quiet look upon Lilith during that comment and leaves it at, "Indeed." He draws his hands away from the puzzle for the moment, since they seem to have the edge-work under control, and he has this sandwich to work through. It's not a turtle sandwich, but he seems to be enjoying it enough that he's quiet while he eats. And while Violet says things about being in the hospital. It's after her comments that he explains, "Some candles got left burning on the night of the storm. To make a long story short, we wound up getting burned."

He wipes his fingers on a little paper napkin, smiling as if to apologize for their collective stupidity. "Flashlights are the way to go next time the power goes out, hm?"

"Mm. Fell in the sewer the night of the storm with some floodwater, myself, so. Bit of why I was curious, I guess, what might have been done all around." Lilith says after a look at Violet then a pointed look and grab for her cappuccino all cooled and ready to drain, speaking more to Alex's bit. Leaning back with reach, she sets the emptied cup by her discarded croissant on the other table, then reaches both arms into a full bodied, arching chair stretch before limbs drop to settle back to busywork task.

She takes a moment in quiet while tinkering with pieces and looks momentarily apt to cheat in some way after trying two different pieces with no-fit. But it's hard to cheat at a puzzle, isn't it! So she doesn't, she just makes a noise in her throat, then tells Violet after some delay, "Sorry for being nosy. I just..." She thinks with a sudden creep of difficulty how to phrase while lifting eyes to look between the pair with a different kind of study that seems to go beyond physical given the mien of her eyes for a few heartbeats, "Felt like I should offer something akin to comfort or help. But you -do- have doctor company, so that also seems overbearing." She pauses and sets the tip of her tongue to her line of teeth with hard press before head shaking and swapping subject, "If you were ever curious, our sewer system is disgusting. Surprising, I know."

"Yes," Violet agrees quietly, casting her eyes to the puzzle. "Candles are very dangerous." She keeps her attention there, putting pieces where they should be, though at some point she reaches across the table to hook her fingers around Alex's own. But when Lilith says she's sorry, Violet shakes her pale blonde head and offers Lilith a small smile. "It's all right, you have nothing to apologize for. I'm.. fine. The burn on my stomach was the worst of it, and I shouldn't have a very bad scar. I don't like much storms though," she sighs, her brows climbing at the talk of being in the sewers. "I'm sorry to hear that. That sounds terrible. But.." It hangs there, for just a moment, as she picks up her sandwich. "At least you got out. That's what matters, in the end."

Alex's mouth opens at the apology, but whatever he was going to say? Gets tucked away instead of uttered, folded behind his polite, puzzle-building smile. Look at them, being all cooperative and making Ninja Turtles come together in the coffee shop. In the interests of full disclosure, he tells Lilith, "I cannot honestly say that I've spent a great deal of time pondering the disgustingness," stfu, if it's not a word, it should be, English is stupid, "of the city sewers. But I'm curious. You fell," weird verb, he squints at Lilith, "in the sewer? As in, you were in the sewers and you fell? Or you fell in to the sewers?"

SEE? THIS LANGUAGE IS STUPID.

"I... got nosy about the storm, then I had to yell at some people, then... I fell into flood waters and I was sucked into a very unwilling sewer dive. I wasn't just... down there tripping around for kicks, ew." Lilith blinks and is pretty quick to clarify for Alex that she wasn't in the sewers willingly on some mission after a small sidelong smile of muted genuine nature over at Violet. She sits up straighter and shakes her hand out at the left side like she's bodily working out a shudder from mere recollection firsthand when she says 'ew' too, or flinging invisible muck away on mention. After screwing her little nose her head shakes some, tone of voice flat, "Absolute shit for luck situation." Seriously, guys, but no one wants to say the specifics, okay, let alone over people's sandwiches.

"Other people got swept down too after, though, and we helped each other out. Wasn't pleasant, others were hurt, but... yeah, I didn't want any ending other than 'out' so that's one blind fish wish granted in the end." Really, Lilith just downplays falling into the sewer during a flood like it's a thing that happens and fuck Mother Nature, eh? She's good at keeping that tone without saying things, handwaving a tiny bit as she goes back to the puzzle, "And I'm perfectly fine, so that's that. I'm not entirely surprised you're wanting up and out somewhere normal after downtime, burn or no burn. But I'm realizing the more I talk?" The brunette half-laughs with a quiet exhale of air and admits with wryly accepting self-deprecation there for a beat, "I'm hardly relaxing the situation. Feel free to change the subject at any time."

There's a faint wrinkling of Violet's nose as Lilith talks about her adventures in Sewer-land, her half-eaten sandwich set aside. It's okay, she wasn't that hungry anyway. She opts to take another slow sip of her tea, watching Lilith from over the rim of the cup and then Alex, taking a moment to watch his expression. "Mm," she nods as she sets her teacup back down, and clicks another puzzle piece into place. "That sounds horrifying. But this place always gets... very bad, when the storms come." Her slim shoulders roll back into a shrug.

"It's honestly all right," Violet replies to Lilith's later point, offering her a faint smile. "I'm just happy to be out of the hospital and around pleasant company. Besides, I think this is about as normal as any of us can hope to achieve," she finishes off Leonardo's face, her own smile rueful.

It's fine. Alex already ate his sandwich, and he doesn't seem to be bothered by the conversation enough to let it put him off his coffee. He takes a sip in the middle of Lilith's explanation. Mmm. "You got sucked down into the sewers?" is what he's really stuck on. Then he looks aside at Violet, with her burns that totally came from a candle and definitely didn't have anything to do with the devil, and smooths a hand down his tie, and winds up just sort of nodding like okay, he's willing to accept this at face value.

With a little smile between the two of them, he shares pleasantly, "Things like this seem to happen more often than not in this particular town. I never," pieces fit together, yay! "Met anyone that got sucked into the sewers. Before today. Have you ever?" He turns the question to Violet, though whether he means 'has she ever been sucked into the sewers' or 'has she ever met someone who has' is sorta vague; feel free to interpret it however.

"If we were not very mature adults... I'd be worried about catching a nickname from this conversation. And I'm so damn adult, I'm not even going to imagine the real good ones less mature creatures could come up with." Lilith just kind of sits doing puzzle pieces for a lingering moment after shrugging her small accepting agreement to the way things happen during storms. After a vague smile over Violet's way, she eases up out of whatever awkward was creeping up on her there for a while with subject changes to cast a dubious look at Alex. Then she's up and speaking with a dry and drawn out cadence to her voice with humor.

"Anyway, since I've went and outed my strange tidbit for the day, I'd really like to know what you have against Smurfs."

"Mm? No, not recently. Not since the last big storm. I try to avoid Elm Street when it rains," Violet replies to Alex, her eyes on his for a tick in time. "People get swept down into those sewers and they don't ever come back." It's a grim statement, yet Violet says it all as though she were talking of the weather. She looks back to Lilith after. "So it's a good thing you came back." And she punctuates that statement with the click of another puzzle piece, her brow furrowing at Lilith's talk of nicknames. "I don't call people names," is all she has to say about that, "Ever." The Smurfs thing is all on Alex, she's said enough.

Yes. The very mature adults are doing their Ninja Turtles puzzle, and Alex - the maturest of these adults - asks with what seems like honest confusion, "What nickname?" He glances at Violet for some sort of clue, but she's being Violety so there's no help there, hmm. Her comments about getting swept in the sewers FOREVER leave him blinkety blinking, like - somehow, somewhere deep inside him - there's still room in Alex for there to be any surprise left at the fucking bizarre things that happen in this town. "What happens when people go to find them?"

Poor, naive Alex.

He eases off his frown for a second, looking back to Lilith with a head-tilt. "Nothing." Against Smurfs. "Do you have something against them?"

"I'm not sure. I've never seen one. I might." Lilith nods small and serious to Violet's claim and then... she has to pretty much consider that question from Alex twice over which kills some of the wit-sound to carry the reply. Because she's also being perfectly honest, she could see a murder Smurf at this point in her life, right? Plus she has no clue about the sewers deep history and can only speculate on further nightmare fodder, thankfully, so she just has to suddenly consider the possibility of whether or not she's anti-Smurf.

Secretly she decides she is, just in case, but that's neither here nor there.

Suddenly, Lilith's phone starts to go off and she rises up halfway with bending lean from her chair to look at the screen. Then she answers with wary readiness for the other end, "... what, Hank?" A pause, "... you're not allowed to get into the... why do you even need..." Another pause, her posture straightening with an apologetic hand at Violet and Alex as she listens to the other end where someone is trying pretty hard to talk her into something, "Mhm. You can't handle that much cash. Nor does that collateral even sound -close- to what-- what janky ass friend are you-- shut it down. I'm coming right now and he better be cleared out."

She hangs up and seems pretty peeved about being pulled away from the very mature Ninja Turtle formation the trio has made. Reaching for her bag to shoulder and dig keys from, she mutters, "Work. Thanks for letting me be awkward and play. Number and place is easy to find if you needs or wants. Feel better, Violet. Nice meeting you, Alex." Then she hurries out before more stupid is made at the damn shop just because she turned her back.

The sudden phone call from Lilith catches Violet off-guard, and her reply about the sewers sort of gets lost in the noise. She pretends not to eavesdrop, and is politely quiet as she pieces together another turtle, offering a light smile in the direction of the pawn brokeress as she makes her apologies and takes her leave. "Hmm," she waits until the coffee shop door swings shut, and the pair are alone again, before she reaches over to steal Alex's hand in her own. "Aside from the sewer talk, that was about as close to normal as I think I've had in awhile," she seems happy about that, evident by the dimples that dig into her cheeks when she smiles. "Thank you for taking me here. I know you wanted me in bed."

Alex watches Lilith depart with the sort of passive interest that he's paid to her through this whole scene. "Hmm," he agrees quietly, sharing that profound thought with his coffee cup. He settles his fingers neatly around Violet's, folding her hand beneath his, a careful squeeze, like her poor little hand might not be able to bear anything more. "That's an awful lot to try to discount, though. What do you suppose happened to them in the sewers?" And he unspoken: does she think it was better or worse than what happened to them in the, uh, bathtub? What he says to her thanks is a perfectly polite, "You're welcome."

But also: http://i.lvme.me/6vtbqn5.jpg

Violet meant what she said. Phrasing and all.

The gentle squeeze that he applies to her fingers is returned with some firmness before she settles, the puzzle forgotten for a time. Instead, she strokes her thumb against the back of his hand, and thinks through the question of the sewers while she drops her attention to the inside of her teacup. "Nothing," she answers after a moment, a furrow etched to her brow. "Mostly because they weren't really there. In the sewers, I mean. Anymore than we were really in the bathtub. I assume they were Dreaming," she nibbles on her bottom lip. "That's why they don't find anything when other people disappear down there. No people. No bodies. No evidence," she shrugs.

Slowly, in that 'picking his words' way of his, Alex asks, "If I hadn't gotten to you, and you never came back," from the bathtub, "what would have happened?" No, that's not exactly what he means, and he eases back in his chair a moment with a small headshake to suggest she not answer that particular flavor of the question. He takes her hand with him during that sitting back, holding it tucked against his torso. "If someone disappears like that, do the police do anything? Do they investigate? Are there just countless unsolved missing persons cases?" This conversation is awful; they should go back to the puzzle!

This is the kind of conversation that can lead to Violet crying, Alex. Does he want Violet to cry?? She swallows heavily at his question, but the answer is dismissed with his head shake, leaving her scraping her teeth against her bottom lip as she casts a longing look back to the puzzle. "I.." she starts and then stops, taking in a breath and steadily exhaling it again. It's a shallow breath, if only because anything else would hurt at the moment. "I haven't really known too many people who disappeared and there wasn't some kind of story behind it. It's like there's always some kind of excuse. Some kind of rationalization," she plucks a puzzle piece with the edge of her thumbnail.

And she draws back afterward, to look across at him, her hand still in his. "And sometimes, I guess, people just... forget. I wonder sometimes if this town just.. changes your memories," and she realizes that sounds crazy, which is perhaps why her brow furrows. "But when I was away at school? It was like.. like some of the things that happened got rewritten. To make sense of them. And I didn't remember what really happened until I came back here."

Are there conversations that don't lead to Violet crying?

You know what Alex doesn't do? He doesn't look at her like she's crazy when she sounds crazy. So at least he's got that part figured out, just listens quietly with his whole attention settled on her. But what he hasn't learned yet is that he's not right about all the things all the time, and so he says with stubborn certainty, "I wouldn't forget. If you disappeared, I wouldn't just," shaking his head, "let it go." Too bad they have the Ninja Turtle puzzle and not the Disney princess one so he could tap his finger on Elsa instead of Donatello. "But I will steer wide of Elm Street. I've lost more than my fair share of perfectly good ties in the past few weeks."

"Alex.." Violet defies meta by not even tearing up at his promise not to forget about her, and even though it hurts to do so? She shifts to the edge of her seat so that she can lean into him, using her free hand to touch his cheek. "Thank you." It's quiet, but there's so much weight of emotion to those two simple words, and she leans in to press her lips to his own. And when she's done, she drops her hand, and smooths her palm down his tie, giving the tip of it a faint tug. "I will get you some new ties. It's the least I can do."

Aw, Alex smiles all smittenly after that kiss, having leaned his cheek into her palm and all. His chuckle is subdued when he assures, "No no no," about the ties. "I'm quite capable of picking up a few more for myself. Besides, only one of them - " He pulls his lips askew, displeased with this turn of phrase but it'll do. " - had anything to do with you. I used the other one during the thing with the axe murderers."

No one in this coffee shop is listening to this conversation, right? Or is this how they all finally decide they were RIGHT all along, and he's obviously crazy if he's dating Violet Whitehouse?

But seriously: "We need to take you home now. I know you feel better, but," he shakes his head because no, she's not better.

"Mmm. Are you afraid I'll pick out something weird?" comes Violet's response, words quiet but the tone of them teasing, until he brings up the axe murderers and her expression falls, sobering. "Okay," she nudges another kiss there against the corner of his mouth, "Maybe we could just go shopping together. You could try on ties and I'll.. find some new cardigans," which doesn't sound sexy at all.

But seriously. She looks back to the puzzle and breathes out a sigh, but she gets herself to her feet. "But.." she trails after him, trying to muster up some playfulness. "You want me in bed," she finishes his thought for him, with a quirk of a grin.

"Mhm," is Alex's agreeable answer to his being afraid of what weird thing she might pick. Though, really? No, he's not. Violet is a quirky little weirdo, but - accepting the penchant for kitschy shit - she seems to generally respect his whole I LIKE MY SHIT THE WAY I LIKE IT OK?! thing. And that's why he tips his nose against hers momentarily after the follow-up kiss, then decides to just leave the pieces of the puzzle on the table. There are minions paid to clean up things like this, right?

There's another, "Mhm," about the whole bed thing. "Wait, was I supposed to be coy about that?" He clears his throat and says all seriously and straight-faced, "Not at all, I'm just concerned about your well-being and want to be sure you are following your doctor's orders to rest and take it easy, et cetera." He must have brought his car (since the bike would be real awkward for the burn victim), so he gets his keys and holds the door open for her. "So straight to bed withyou."