2019-07-14 - Baseball Bat vs Knife

Genevieve makes her way down to the shop, moving to check the locks. She's tipsy, probably a little stoned, and if her twitchy movements are any indication -- she's got some anxiety for whatever reason. She pulls at the door, unlocks it and pulls at it again, letting it shut slowly. A dark look is aimed up at the bell that rang when she pulled the door open, turning to make her way to the corner of the shop. Fingers run through her hair as she turns off the electric kettle, pouring what hot water remains into a bowl-like mug. She dips a teabag in and empties the rest of the kettle.

She leans against the glass counter, dipping her teabag up and down in an attempt to get the tea to brew faster. The summer weather has her in a long black maxi dress, thin spaghetti straps at the shoulders. She's barefoot, this is her shop after all, with a thin ankle bracelet around her left ankle. She looks rumpled, perhaps she just woke up from a nap. She certainly isn't expecting any other customers tonight.

Blake wanders down the street looking at his phone and then up repeatedly, as if he's trying to find something. Whether the shop is it or not is unclear, but when he wanders past, he looks back and then comes back to try the door. Open sesame. The young man is a little hunched over to bear the weight of his backpack and he hooks his thumbs at the straps as he shifts his stance. Then he walks right up to the glass counter without saying anything, simply watching Genevieve, eyes slipping across her form like someone taking inventory.

That fucking bell.

Genevieve turns her head when the door opens, looking surprised, didn't she lock that fucking thing? She's about to open her mouth to say that they're closed, but the backpack looks heavy. "You want some tea?" She stands up straight, pulling the teabag from the mug, squeezing the last of the moisture out of it with her hand. She tosses the teabag toward the trash and slips around Blake, heading behind the counter. She fetches the sugar, dumping a goodly bit in and stirring it.

"We're closed, but since my stupid ass didn't lock the door, you're in luck. What can I get you, besides the tea if you actually want that?"

"You got any concentrates...or...anything stronger? What's in the tea?" Blake turns when Genevieve tries to slip around him. Piercing blue eyes squint down at the display, hopping from one thing to the next as if he can't seem to really focus on any one given thing. "You live upstairs or in the back or something?" And he still hasn't asked her what her name is. He idly fiddles with the edge of his backpack strap with his thumb.

"I have concentrate, but I usually don't sell it. I have a few strains of my own which I feel are stronger, again.. special customer list?" Genevieve glances toward Blake as he fidgets, moves and speaks, her expression calm. "The tea is ginger, so there are tea leaves and ginger in it. I have bags and infusers, just depends how strong you want it." She picks up her tea, taking a sip as she walks to the kettle. If he actually wants tea, she's going to have to refill it.

"I live upstairs. I have a baseball bat." She flits a glance at him, eyebrows raised slightly. Her expression shifts to wordlessly imply -- I'll fucking use it too.

Blake's eyebrows arch slightly at the same time as Genevieve's. "Okay. Good for playing baseball I guess," he remarks with mild confusion as if not sure how he triggered that reaction. "But uh...do you have-never mind. I just got into town and I...accidentally...left some stuff behind. I'll take whatever strongest concentrate you have if you'll sell it to me or flower if you won't...You are lucky I came in here and not someone else. Do locks become unlocked often?" he asks as he looks over his shoulder to take stock of any current security measures.

"I don't really play baseball." Genevieve admits, filling the kettle with water. "You know, with recent murders and other odd stuff going on, just feel like when someone asks me where I live, I should mention that I'm armed." She folds her arms over her chest, drifting away from the electric kettle toward Blake. She pulls a ring of keys from the back counter and unlocks a cupboard near the register.

"Identification please?" She taps something into the register and sets a bottle of concentrate on the counter. "I suppose I am lucky." She runs a hand over her face and sighs, her blue eyes focusing on the man. "I came down to make sure the door was locked, I think I unlocked it then, and.. no, not often." That question earns Blake another narrow eyed look.

"Murders?...Should I carry a knife?" Blake actually walks back toward the door while Genevieve continues to talk and locks it. On his way back, he digs his hand into his back pocket, pulling his id out of his wallet and puts it on the counter. It's a New York drivers license. He hands it over. "I could set you up with a sensor that lets you know if it's locked on your phone, so you wouldn't have to come down if you wanted. How much? For two?" Grams, even though she's only put out one. He lowers his head as he fans through his bills.

Genevieve tilts her head, watching Blake make his way to the door, eyebrow quirked when he turns the lock. "You could, but.." She stops speaking abruptly, her lips pressed together as she turns back to the kettle. It hasn't been long enough for the water to get hot, but checking it gives her a moment to smooth out her expression.

She turns her head when he speaks, making her way back over to pick up the ID and scan it in the register. She studies it, turning it to look at the back. "A sensor? Sounds expensive."

Her eyes flit back up to him when he asks for two grams, grimacing before she pulls another from the cupboard. She names a price, an arch look on her face that offers the faintest bit of challenge.

"Actually dirt cheap. Sensor is a few dollars, module is probably 5 more. I already made an app that can receive signals like this which I put out for free. I could add encryption for a few bucks...so maybe...thirty or something total to cover the shipping?" Blake's obviously not factoring in labor. "Would take me like 10 minutes at home to prep and probably thirty minutes max to install and test. So, if you're willing to pay with an eighth of flower, that would cover the whole thing." He puts a hundred dollar bill on the counter. "Keep the change."

Genevieve glances from the bill to Blake, and back again. "Yeah. You could be an agent. I give you flower for a job and then my license is gone." She picks up the bill, checks it with a pen and then she cashes him out. "Let me think about it."

" So why are you all the way across the country? Here to stay?" She stares at him a little too long, but her eyes aren't fixed on his features, they shift from his face to his hands, and then back again.

"You want that tea or not?"

"Oh, money works too. I just figured product would be cheaper for you," Blake shrugs. "I mean, I could pay you for the flower and then you could pay me the same amount of money for the job."

"I came to Washington for a job. Recently decided to, eh, freelance? It's cheaper to live here than Seattle." Blake offers a smile like he just sent a command to his own body. Grin. It feels more disjointed because his tone was rather flat prior to it, plus the slight delay after he finishes talking. His hands don't look rough or dry. "If I can find a cheap enough place and not burn through all of my savings before I get on my feet. Yeah. I'll stay...You from here?"

"Oh yeah. Tea. Yes. I'll have some." Blake slips one of the little jars of concentrate into some side pocket of his backpack without taking it off, but keeps the other jar in his free hand.

"It is, but there are pretty strict rules, and the one time you bend them because it seems like a good idea? Someone sets down a badge and you're fucked." Genevieve gets his product while he tells her a story, glancing up at him when he explains why he's in Grey Harbor. "Makes sense, and you could always put out a want ad, see if you can find a roomie." The grin makes her raise a brow, but she's done staring for now.

She turns and pours hot water into a second mug, adding a tea bag and moving back to set it down on the counter, placing sugar and creamer near it. "I'm not from here, I'm from the east coast." She nods toward his backpack. "So you do freelance sensor .. work?" Her eyes keep getting drawn to his face, maybe he has a smudge on it or something.

"Well, I don't care how I'm paid. Just feel like people shouldn't have to pay through the nose for basic niceties and security these days." Blake doesn't seem too bent out of shape about it, like someone who just offered to share their morning muffin.

"I'm an engineer. Specialize in security in all sorts of stuff. Putting together hardware like that isn't really my professional gig. I help people secure networks, websites, games, software, or physical sites, but the only building of physical devices for my job that I've done was to use equipment to test a vulnerability. I do a lot more device stuff and repair at home. Keep my equipment good." He shrugs. "You own this place? Where from on the east coast?" Blake doesn't say anything about her gaze shifting back to his face more and more. He simply averts his eyes periodically.

"Shouldn't have to, but do." Genevieve and Blake can agree on that, picking up her tea to drink from it. She listens as he details the kind of jobs he does, most of it not really making much sense to her. Eventually she realizes that they're just standing there, a rumble of thunder reminding her that life is still moving along.

"Care to sit?" She gestures to a small seating area, stepping from behind the counter. She sets his other purchase down near his teacup. "The change will cover most of this, I'll pay you for any sensor work you do here." She makes her way to a beanbag chair and sinks into it, reclining back, her mug in her hands. "I'm from Georgia, Savannah." Her slight accent doesn't seem Southern Belle, it seems more Belle from Beauty and the Beast, a tinge of French that plays peekaboo as she speaks. "When I decided to stay here, I figured I'd give this a try. So far it's working for me. I can grow pot in my greenhouse, and also grow a few things that I just like for myself."

"I talked too much didn't I," Blake observes aloud when he detects Genevieve's reaction. "Oh." He gathers up his stuff from the counter and follows the woman over to the seating area. "Can I uh partake here? Or will that get you in trouble too?" He sits down with his backpack on, goods and mug in his hands. Glancing left, then right, he awkwardly pushes up into a squatting position so he can ease the backpack down to the ground from his shoulders. "Georgia isn't the east coast. That's the south." Spoken like a true New Yorker, but at least he only sounds factual instead of superior about it all. "That's cool. You like growing then?" He's trying, and he sounds natural, but he's sitting like a robot that is out of place, as if his heuristics might be struggling with what is the most comfortable way to sit in a beanbag.

"You can't use in public, and since we're closed and locked, it's not public. Go ahead." Genevieve laughs softly, her hair falling over her shoulders when she shakes her head. "You didn't talk too much, it's just that most of that? I have no clue. I'm sure it's exciting to you, but it's like when my boyfriend starts to talk in Russian. I check out, it means something and some of the words sound familiar but.." She twiddles her fingers away from her temple, rolling her eyes.

"I am most comfortable in the quiet, on my roof, hands in the dirt." She glances toward the door, frowning. "Too bad someone ruined my peace up there." She blinks, glancing back at Blake, forcing a smile on her face. "I'm not going to argue semantics, I just know what time zone I'm dealing with when my mother calls me at five in the morning." She settles, sipping her tea.

"No. It's boring. 98% of the time you run into people making the same mistakes over and over again. Doesn't matter what it is. Not very challenging." Blake shrugs and pulls his backpack closer, unrolling the top and pulling out a thick pen-like device with a mouthpiece on one end. He removes caps from both ends, but there's still some kind of sheathe to the device which he shifts away from the tip to dip it into the concentrate. He lifts it to his lips to inhale, holding the vapor in a little before letting it go. "Oh. Yeah. That's a good way to remember," he admits as readily as he was to correct her. Knowledge is not about ego.

..."I feel that way...just words. A lot of the time when other people talk about dumb news people think is news but isn't. What do I call you?" he asks out of nowhere.

"I think you just described life. People doing the same stuff over and over again, expecting different results." Genevieve rolls her eyes, watching Blake with a slight smile on her face, turning her head when he uses his vape. When she looks back, her blue eyes settle on his face again for a moment and she blows out a sigh, frowning.

"You can call me Genevieve, or Eve. It's nice to meet you, Blake." Her hands are occupied with her tea, so she doesn't offer him one to shake. She just smiles politely, sip.

When Blake exhales, he has enough drug-manners to at least try and blow it up out of the way of Genevieve. "Yeah. If all life is is other people." As the weed starts to hit him, the immediate jitteriness, the tiny fidgets seem to ebb and he relaxes back into the beanbag. "Eve. Nice name. Genevieve...Your boyfriend isn't going to come down and beat the shit out of me while shouting Russian is he?"

"Funnily enough, his name is Eli Blake." Genevieve aims a look at Blake, amused as all fuck. She takes a sip from her tea before she tries to reassure him. "No, Eli is not the violent type. He's a linguist, and a sweetheart."

She is comfortable on her beanbag, the rumble of thunder outside growing louder. A flash of lightning lights up the shop a little more, and then rain starts. "Ah there it is.. get used to that." She jerks a thumb toward the window, shrugging.

"I am. Seattle weather isn't too different from here and New York weather is like Seattle sometimes but cold enough to snow too much." Blake grins just slightly and takes another hit off of his odd device. "I bet that's not his real name, unless he's half Russian," but he doesn't sound worried, like someone recognizing a foreign national's choice to choose a more anglo name when coming to the States.

He looks out the window and sighs, vapor trailing out from his lips. "Fuck. I'll have to pay for a cab. You know any cheap places to stay around here?"

"I like the rain, so this place has suited me just fine. The thunder storm when I'm having a bad dream? Yeah, I could probably do without those." Genevieve shakes her head at Blake, a low laugh escaping her lips. "He's a polyglot, he knows a lot of languages, and I think he's just regular run of the mill..American? He was born here, at least."

"There are a few little inns and stuff, but it's getting late. You can crash here tonight if you want to.. unless.." She squints over at him, there is something there still, but it doesn't cause her to stare anymore. ".. you're not a thief are you?" He probably is.

"Oh. Got it...I like the storms and the rain. I just can't risk my equipment getting wet. I don't have my pack kitted out for that." Blake reaches up to push his fingers through his hair to get the tips out of his eyes.

"If I was a thief, I wouldn't tell you, but you can keep my id till morning. You don't sell stolen ids to kids or criminals do you?" Blake grins, his eyes squinching up into little piercing half moons in the dim light. Suddenly, "Is there something wrong with my face?" he asks point blank.

"Better get it kitted out for that, fuck if it doesn't ever stop raining around here." Genevieve tries not to laugh when he turns the thief question around on her, trying to look mysterious, but she's pretty transparent at the best of times. "Nah, I keep them for myself, you know, badges of victory or honor or some crap?" She laughs, setting her mug on the table.

The laughter dies though when he asks if there is something wrong with his face. She watches him for a few beats before she shrugs. "You uh, used to weird stuff? Ever have anything weird happen around you?" She's taking the circumspect route, instead of being blunt in return.

"Yeah. Especially since I don't have a car." Still, Blake pulls out his ID and leans forward to pass it off. "For the sixteen year olds." Humor never really seems to reach to laughter, but it does reach his eyes when he smiles. He sips on his tea and reloads his pen with a dip into his concentrate, but at Eve's question, his smile fades and he grows still.

"Weird like what?" he asks, obviously guarded. Blake looks over to something over Genevieve's shoulder and then back.

Genevieve reaches out, taking his identification, sliding it into her dress. Yes, cleavage.

The smile fades, he goes still, and that in itself is a tell. She doesn't need Glimmer to know that she hit at something. "Weird like.." She rolls her eyes, thinking. "..like they might throw you somewhere dark and scary if you talked about it weird?" She'll let him offer his idea of weird, instead of laying hers out to be judged.

"No judgement, if it makes you feel any better at all, I've seen weird?" She reaches out for her tea. Sip.

"...sometimes I can't remember people's...names." Yeah. The answer sounds stilted and every little bit evasive as it seems. "Everyone has some kind of weird...right?" he swallows mechanically. He pays no mind to the fact that his id ends up nestled into it's 'safe spot.'

"Sometimes...I lose time. Like I can't remember what I did," he admits, but this is one stranger talking to another. Could something so disconcerting be the tip of his iceberg? Or is this just another way of answering without answering? "Why?"

Genevieve gets to her feet, snorting softly as Blake admits to having a bad memory. She sees the evasion for what it is, and she's not going to push. No, she'll be perfectly agreeable. "Everyone does have their own weird. I have my own, I just keep it close to the vest."

His admission prompts a look in his direction. Whatever emotions flits over her face, it's there and gone before she nods. "Sometimes the shadows try to eat me." She doesn't sound completely serious, the delivery of that statement made with the straightest of faces. She gestures to the door at the rear of the shop. "C'mon up stairs, I'll get you a blanket for the couch."

Blake watches Genevieve more closely since the conversation has turned, as if maybe searching for some indication of how Genevieve is personally interpreting what he just admitted. "Right," he finally mumbles, pressing his lips together with a crease of concern at his forehead as if lost in thought. He pockets the small jar as he struggles up to his feet. Beanbags. "Thanks." As for shadows having an appetite for Eve, he says nothing and trails behind her upstairs.

"Eli might wake up before I do, just tell him that you come in peace and that your ID is in the place i keep the keys, he'll be able to let you out." Genevieve moves to the linen closet once they climbed to the first landing, pulling out covers and two pillows before she leads him to her couch. "If you can't wait for Eli, go to the roof, the fire escape is quite sturdy." She looks amused, plopping the covers and pillow down on the couch.

She makes her way to the loft, open to the rest of the apartment. "Sleep well Blake. Don't steal anything or I'll hunt you down. It won't be pretty." Is she serious?

Blake looks around as he's led about and then sits on the couch. "Yeah. I won't get the baseball bat," not that he knows where it is. "If...I see him," the joke-non-joke seems to land for himself as poorly as it sounds coming out. He shrugs and then gets to work setting out the pillow and the blanket. "Sure, but I might have a knife. Which one wins in a street fight?" he wonders aloud like someone asking themselves the rules to rock-paper-scissors drug-wars style. "Night. No nightmares." He pulls off his shirt and works on taking off his shoes before curling up under the blanket on his side where he'll likely be awake for some time yet.