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Post by Bee on Sept 4, 2010 22:18:22 GMT -5
The cafe was stupidly busy at the moment and Vishne had reached the point where the only thing fighting off surly snapping was the sheer force of his (situationally) powerful will. Ordinarily he didn't like to work up front, but one of their employees had called in sick, though by "sick" Vishne had a sneaking suspicion he meant "hungover." Vishne had nothing against alcohol, except when idiots let it interfere with their ability to come to work. And force Vishne to take over. He hated people. He didn't like dealing with them for long stretches of time. Dealing with lots of them. Dealing with...strange ones? Someone odd-looking and vaguely familiar walked through the door. He was aware of it mostly because a lot of other people noticed it. Flames and iron rings around a very red bipedal were sort of difficult to miss. Vishne squinted at him. Morganberry flames... Ah ha! One of his half-siblings. He honestly wasn't sure which, though. He hardly ever saw any of them--partly as a consequence of avoiding his family generally--and thought of them more as a reddish-bluish blob than individual people. He remembered they all had stupid names, though.
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Post by seraaches on Sept 4, 2010 22:26:54 GMT -5
Vicious was out running errands. Again. Normally he hated being asked to do these lame tasks because they weren't normal errands. Was he asked to go to the store for milk and eggs? No, never. He had to go to the cloth store for some lace, or the toy store for a friggin' tea set for the flock of faeries floating frivolously around the house. No normal tasks for Vic, no, sir. Today, however, it was a relatively normal-ish task-- run to the bakery, would you, Vic honey, and get some sweets for the girls to eat-- and he had escaped a dress-up party. Normally he could get out of such things on the basis of his flames, but recently the little faeries had become enamored with hats, and frilly bonnets, when tied correctly, would not catch fire. No, Vic was quite happy to be out of the house today. He had come to the specified bakery for Iphis, and now stared at the insane lines. Of course his normal errand had to include a stupidly long line; he'd actually been semi-cheerful about coming here. Awesome, now his mood could be ruined, just like normal.
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Post by Bee on Sept 4, 2010 22:39:11 GMT -5
Vishne was trying to get people in and out as fast and politely as he possibly could, counting down the minutes until he could skip out to his long lunch break and maybe just skip town for a while. (That was a pleasant flight of fancy. Pack some bags, grab Senka, and ignore the rest of humanity for a while.) It was gratifying to know that the things he made were in such demand, but--he didn't need to see all the eager buyers face to face.
He had completely forgotten about having seen one of his errant half-siblings until the kid finally made it up to the counter, looking about as surly as Vishne felt.
"Hi," he said, with the we've-met! familiarity one uses with people they see once a week on the omnibus. He would've used a name, but...There was just a long list of negative adjectives and nouns to choose from. Ire? Pestilence? Damn it. "What can I get you?"
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Post by seraaches on Sept 4, 2010 22:46:20 GMT -5
The line moved surprisingly quickly for how busy the place was and he was at least relieved by that. He got to the counter, prepared to order, when the Card cut him off with a rather peppy 'Hi!'. The teen stared at the man for a moment, trying to decide if the other Card looked even vaguely familiar. He might have, but, then again, he might not. The tone, however, had thrown him off his stride and he realized abruptly that the man had asked what he wanted and that he'd been responding my just staring blankly.
"Oh, yeah," he finally said, having no idea this guy was a half-brother. He looked down at the paper crumpled in his fist. He unscrunched it as well as he could, then read off the list quickly. Oh, that might have been too fast. He glanced at the man to see if the cashier had caught everything. "I'd like to add a cinnamon bun to all of that," he also offered rather uneasily. If he went home without something for everyone, it would be a mess.
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Post by Bee on Sept 4, 2010 22:58:48 GMT -5
It was a long list of items, but Vishne had a lot of practice keeping people's extensive and sometimes ridiculous requests at the front of his mind. It was a small testament to his skill that he assembled all the goods while keeping most of his brain focused on trying to remember what the kid's fucking name was. It was becoming a point of pride. It was on the tip of his tongue. He was trying to separate him from the blob. This clearly wasn't the midget. That was...Zebele? The girls were only slightly more defined in his brain.
Something clicked as he handed over the boxes of goods.
"Are you the one that lives with Iphis?" he asked. He hardly ever saw Iphis, either, but if there was one thing his little sister-brother never shut up about, it was the kids, both the ones he had popped and the ones he had pseudo-adopted.
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Post by seraaches on Sept 4, 2010 23:06:30 GMT -5
Vic wasn't positive about the intelligence of this guy; while he seemed to be collecting the pastries and things without any real trouble, the Card also seemed just. . . a bit uncertain about something. Vic also felt like the canine was scrutinizing him a bit more than needed. Of course, he always felt like that, since he was getting stared at constantly by the moronic masses with nothing better to do with their time.
Vic accepted the boxes gratefully, dropping the required money on the counter to cover the food as well as the generous tip Iphis had made certain to make him include.
At the question, Vic sent the other Card an immediate, suspicious look. "Who wants to know?" he asked sharply as he picked up the boxes. On the surface it was a stupid question; obviously this guy wanted to know, but, well, Vic really just didn't recognize the canine and didn't want to just blurt out information about himself. That was something his Daddy Rai had taught them all: don't offer information.
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Post by Bee on Sept 4, 2010 23:22:57 GMT -5
Damn, that kid was defensive. Though he supposed he should be if he honestly had no idea who Vishne was. Still. It was odd behavior if--as he sort of suspected--the kid was being subjected to Iphis's influence, which was long on sunshine and courtesy and short on common sense and a basic sense of self-preservation.
"No one important," he said, with a small shrug. It was more or less true; he wasn't involved in any of their lives and didn't plan to be, so they really weren't all that important to one another. "I'm reasonably confident we both got half our genes from Rai and we're brothers. It's polite so say hi to family. So hi. It's Vishne. How's things? Iphis and the girls? You're growing up so fast. Soon you'll be charming all the girls."
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Post by seraaches on Sept 4, 2010 23:30:29 GMT -5
Vic's ears flattened back against his skull in surprise. It was odd enough to be living with Iphis; to meet any other member of his family was. . . well, rather shocking. Especially since he'd had strict orders to not mention to anyone here out of the Court of Clubs that Shinrai was alive and, well, if not well, he was still alive.
He twitched his tail carefully-- a very slight motion he'd learned young to keep from singing any more of his hairs off-- and debated on how to reply. "Uh, hi, then. I'm Vic." No use in mentioned his full name, especially since he was embarrassed by it. "Iphis, Zeev, and the girls are all fine." He wasn't positive about their relationship-- though he couldn't argue it-- but, now that he had another basis for reference, Vishne did look a bit like Iphis in the face.
Still. . . "You shouldn't lie," he said blatantly. "No girl will be charmed by me." He was, at the very least, pragmatic about the fact the he was covered in flames. "Are you older or younger than Iphis?" Even as he asked, though, he thought he knew.
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Post by Bee on Sept 4, 2010 23:40:59 GMT -5
Vishne gave another small shrug. He was holding up the line a bit, but at the moment it gave him a feeling of vindictive pleasure instead of guilt. He waved the one other employee over and made him take over--he looked extremely unhappy, which pleased Vishne further. "I thought the same thing. And arguably personality defects are a bigger hindrance than physical ones. Give it 20 years."
But he wasn't here to bolster the kid's confidence. He probably neither needed nor wanted it, and Vishne wasn't very good at giving it anyway.
"Older," he continued. "My twin and I are the middle siblings." Only Iphis and...Se...were younger, actually. "Eir and Helena are the oldest. Have you met them? You don't want to meet them. They're nuts." If you wanted to get charitable, Helena was a much more benign kind of nuts, but at the end of the day, nuts was nuts.
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Post by seraaches on Sept 4, 2010 23:47:10 GMT -5
The teen made a sound to indicate he heard and understood what the man had said, but he obviously didn't really believe it. He really didn't know what type of person would want to be around him for long periods of time. . . well, besides his siblings. . . his full siblings who were just as messed up as he was in their own special ways. Besides, there didn't seem to be anything wrong with the canine. Though he did seem to have some kind of weird. . . tattoo on his back. Maybe the Card used to be in a cult or gang or something. The Club found himself rather more interested in this half-brother.
Vic glanced behind him when Vishne motioned for someone to come take his place. He ducked his head apologetically, grabbing his boxes and scooting over to one side to get out of the way.
He followed Vishne a little further over and shook his head no at the question. "I've only met Iphis. And now you." Well, that was a lame-brained thing to point out. He grimaced to himself. "I heard that. . . Se. . . had died," he offered a bit awkwardly. "And I think Ira came to see Uncle El, once, but he got kicked out."
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