just killing time -- NEM

[Logan Charles Patterson]

It felt strange, having so much free time these days. Since he had stopped working for Alfie, he had definitely had a lot more… but then he had also had Alexis to help keep him preoccupied, but she had gotten a better job away from Addison so had moved, a few months ago now, and even though he had considered going with her, for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to move away from Addison. Not that there was much here for him now, but maybe the thought of moving away from the few people he actually knew in America had stopped him, and Lucy…

Thinking of his deceased sister always sobered his thoughts, even though it had been a while now. He had tried to help her clean up when she had come to America to find him, but apparently she had been too far gone by then, and all of his attempts had been in vain. He’d had to bury his sister alone, their parents hadn’t been able to come over for the funeral, and somehow sending her back to Wales to be buried hadn’t seemed right for any of them. They hadn’t even spoken to her for years, approaching Logan had been the first thing she’d had to do with her family since she had left school, so here was where they had buried her.

Sighing inaudibly, he reached out, picking up the coffee cup sitting in front of him… realising that it was pretty much empty now… draining the rest of the contents in one mouthful, considering getting up to order another. However, that would make it his third since he had walked in here, and if he had any more in this state he would probably end up jittery and all over the place before long. Perhaps when he had been working, and had somewhere to use the extra energy the caffeine gave him it wouldn’t be so bad, but right now, sitting in a coffee shop with no other plans for the day, it probably would be far from helpful.

tagged nem
words 346
muse bones
notes merh it will get better xD

[leilani shamrock mckenna]

YOU CAN FEEL THE POUNDING WRAPPED AROUND YOUR CHEST
LEILANIMCKENNA

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NOTHING'S TOO EXCESSIVE WHEN YOU'VE GOT NOTHING LEFT
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Lucky wasn’t a massive fan of noise, so she wasn’t really sure why she was in the Vintage Brew right now. Only, her new house was getting boring and she still hadn’t managed to get in touch with Cato yet, so she had found herself wandering around town instead. Winter had set in a few weeks ago, but the chill didn’t much bother the redhead as she followed the enticing smell of coffee into the café. She’d always been one for cold weather over hot, knowing full well how easily she burned in the latter. Really, her next focus should be to find herself a new job, but that required going to interviews and talking to a lot of strangers. It also meant she’d inevitably have to let some more persistent ones know about her stay at the institution as a kid – something which, unsurprisingly, made it considerably more difficult to get yourself hired; and in such a small town Leilani didn’t really want to become known as the town crazy.

Stepping up to the counter and ordering herself an espresso in her typically quiet manner, she moved off to the side a little to wait as it joined the queue of other orders to be made. The Irish girl tended to be pretty patient, so even the long wait didn’t bother her unduly. What did was how much busier it was than outside – and there was no way to get away from the constant roar of people talking, laptop keys tapping and music playing. It was at times like this where she really did wonder if she had a screw loose, being so unable to deal with normal aspects of life like the rest of her family, both extended and close…anyway. She brought herself back into reality with a slight shake of her head, pushing thoughts like that away. It may have been seven years since she’d left that awful place, but the woman still worried that she’d be sent back if she showed signs of a ‘relapse’…a relapse of what, she had no idea given that there wasn’t meant to be anything wrong with her in the first place – although she still wasn’t entirely sure her parents believed that even now.

Even though she’d left home, got a doctorate and was doing just fine in the real world all on her own. Well…just about, anyway. Finally picking up her order, the next question was whether she could bear the bustling atmosphere long enough to drink her coffee in relative peace, or head for the door like a shot. Supposing she may as well try integrating, as the doctors had called it, Leilani scanned the room as she started to make her way between tables. There was a guy standing up next to one that he’d quite obviously been occupying until recently, if the small cluster of coffee cups on it was anything to go by. Of course, she could wait until he left to take it, but there were several other people eyeing the same seat too. Sighing, Lucky supposed she’d have to actually talk for once.

”I hate to sound rude,” she started quietly, ”but are you still using this table?”

WE'RE ALL HERE CAUSE WE LOST CONTROL WE'RE ALL HERE CAUSE[/font][/size]
WELOSTCONTROL[/size]
WE'RE ALL HERE CAUSE WE LOST CONTROL WE'RE ALL HERE CAUSE[/center]

•tags• Logan\Ish
•status• Finished!
•comments• ...I'm awful xD
•word count• Something pitifully small xD
•lyrics• DIE TONIGHT, LIVE FOREVER by InnerPartySystem
•credit• AMANDA THE PIRATE * @ CAUTION !

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[Logan Charles Patterson]

He probably needed to find himself a new job soon. He had a surprising amount of savings, but then again he hadn’t been on a bad wage and it wasn’t like a lot of his money had been taken up by living expenses, since he had been living with Alfie since he had started working for him… it was different now of course, now that he was living by himself but even that still hadn’t made a huge dent in his bank account balance. He would need to find a new income eventually, he guessed, but every time he had thought about it since he had quit, something in him had baulked at the idea. Of course, he knew that he probably wouldn’t be working for Alfie forever but something just told him to hold out, wait a bit longer. What it was, he couldn’t say, but he was content to listen to it for the moment.

Sighing slightly to himself, he started to stand up, debating internally whether or not he should leave now, or have another cup of coffee. The shop was a lot more crowded now than it had been when he had first arrived, and in hindsight he had been sitting at that table for a long while now, and he probably ought to leave so someone else could have it… not that the people who worked here would have a problem with him taking up the table for so long, obviously, considering he had already bought several coffees already, so as long as he was paying they wouldn’t care.

The sound of an Irish accent was almost like a song to his ears when a voice piped up near him, turning his head to look at the redheaded woman who had spoken to him. He had been stuck in a world of American accents recently, he had spoken to Beth a few times since he had stopped working for Alfie but even then that had been only sparingly and he hadn’t spoken to her in a while. He didn’t mind so much but hearing something even slightly familiar, although he was Welsh himself, was nice.

“You don’t sound rude at all,” he assured her, grinning down at her. “It’s probably about time I lay off the coffee anyway,” he said, glancing slightly regretfully at the pile of coffee cups already sitting on the table that he had been sitting at… he really probably had drunk far too much of the stuff.

tagged nem
words 416
muse endlessly - the cab
notes *rolls*

[leilani shamrock mckenna]

YOU CAN FEEL THE POUNDING WRAPPED AROUND YOUR CHEST
LEILANIMCKENNA

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NOTHING'S TOO EXCESSIVE WHEN YOU'VE GOT NOTHING LEFT
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Coffee was something Lucky drank a lot of on a regular basis. Most people ended up jittery on it, but it was a habit from when she’d been in the institution. Of course, back then the caffeine had been laced with various drugs that she hadn’t meant to know they were giving her, even though the drink did little to mask their bitter taste. By now the rush people usually got from drinking it had long since worn off on the redhead, and so it became the norm to give in to her caffeine cravings if it meant avoiding the splitting headaches she got when she tried to stay away from the stuff.

Now, she was well aware she was addicted to it, but it was a habit she could live with. Never having been particularly nutty about health, given how she tended to avoid doctors like the plague, the idea didn’t bother her because she didn’t want to think about what the insane amounts of caffeine might actually be doing to her. She tried to follow these thoughts, but the background noise made concentrating too difficult and eventually, Leilani gave up on it. Unless she was somewhere properly quiet, thinking would really be an option for her when there were so many distractions.

Not that she should really be trying to track down her thoughts because she should be listening for an answer from the guy she’d just spoken to, and he might find it a bit weird if she started conversation and then randomly zoned out…Lucky would know, because it had happened before. The Irish woman looked up as he grinned, smiling back a little. At least he was one of the friendly ones...plenty of people weren’t, which was the main reason she was always so shy. Skittish, everyone had called it back home. Skittish and delicate, that was Lucky all over. Even though most of the time she was fine on her own, it was just other people that put her off-beat because she had to be…normal. Leilani just had to be, or she may as well check herself back into the mental hospital right now before her parents got around to it. It wasn’t like her stay there had bothered Cato the first time, who had just adopted Inez as his new sister and settled down perfectly well in England instead.

On the other hand, this guy…well, he wasn’t bad looking. Not that she really paid much attention, because she didn’t even know his name and it was weird when people did that. Fancy that, her talking about what was weird and what wasn’t. Back on point, it was even worse when you beat someone about the head with a metaphorical sign saying ‘Town Crazy’ on it in massive red letters when they were even vaguely attractive.

Thoughts disrupted once more as the guy responded to her question, she cocked her head to the side as she listened. “You’re Welsh!”

[/b] Wow. Captain Obvious had quite clearly just landed in the room. Lucky stopped, considering what she’d just said with a shake of her head. Honestly, sometimes it was no wonder she’d ended up as an in-patient at a loony bin with some of the things she came out with. Why couldn’t socialising just be like physics was? Easy, once you learned the formulas. “But I’m sure I didn’t have to tell you what country you’re from.”[/b] Why had she even bothered leaving the mental institution again? She was fairly sure it wasn’t so she could make a total moron of herself in front of a stranger in five seconds flat. “Apparently you’re not the only one who needs to lay off the coffee,”[/b] she muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose between two fingers. Big, red-lettered signs? Oh yes, she could see them all over the place right now.


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WE'RE ALL HERE CAUSE WE LOST CONTROL WE'RE ALL HERE CAUSE[/font][/size]
WELOSTCONTROL[/size]
WE'RE ALL HERE CAUSE WE LOST CONTROL WE'RE ALL HERE CAUSE[/center]

•tags• Logan\Ish
•status• Finished!
•comments• Oh Lucky dear you are so socially inept.
•word count• Something pitifully small xD
•lyrics• DIE TONIGHT, LIVE FOREVER by InnerPartySystem
•credit• AMANDA THE PIRATE * @ CAUTION !

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[Logan Charles Patterson]

“Yes, I am very much Welsh,” Logan answered, chuckling slightly at the exclamation, reaching a hand up to run through his hair… which he could let grow out these days without having Alfie there telling him to go and get a haircut before he fired him or something, although he still hadn’t been letting it get as long as he could have, for some reason. He wasn’t too shocked over how surprised she sounded to find another Brit in Texas, it didn’t seem to happen all that often… or he just hadn’t been hanging around the places where they all were hiding, possibly… therefore he was as equally surprised to hear an Irish accent.

He grinned down at the redhead, realising that she seemed to be feeling a little flustered now, but he really didn’t mind, it was something that he never really experienced himself, but then again, he had always been a fairly relaxed sort of person and hadn’t had problems confidence wise either. “No, it’s good to be reminded sometimes… stay away from it for long enough and you start to forget a bit,” he replied.

He had considered, briefly, going back to Wales to visit his parents, after Alexis had moved on, but he hadn’t… he didn’t know why, maybe in case things between himself and Alfie sorted themselves out, and he knew that if he went back and they found out what happened they would try and convince him not to come back… and he would probably end up staying over there. Maybe it would happen one day, but maybe he also needed to spend a bit of time by himself anyway, get out of the pattern of being with Alfie all the time, live his own life for a while… he had been trying to do that with Alexis but with Lucy around it didn’t really feel like it was working so well. And he didn’t have that now… even if the circumstances as to why that had happened weren’t any good.

“I’m Logan, by the way,” he said, realising that maybe he should introduce himself… well, it wouldn’t hurt to get to know more people, right?... offering a hand to her to shake, if she wanted.

tagged nem
words 372
notes *rolls*

[leilani shamrock mckenna]

At least this guy seemed like the nice sort, who didn’t particularly mind that Lucky didn’t really have much in the way of social skills. A lot of people would find it amusing or weird, but it was refreshing at least to run into somebody who didn’t seem to care either way really. She looked up at him amusedly as he mentioned something about forgetting where you were from. It was interesting to hear other peoples’ perspective on it, and his was certainly different to the usual ones you might hear. Still though…”If you need someone to remind you where you’re from, I don’t think it’s just the coffee you should be laying off,” Leilani replied lightly. She wasn’t being rude, and the humour in her voice was perfectly clear. She loved sarcasm, but she tended not to be quite as dry as some of her other family members when it came down to it. And that was good, because that led to a lot less misunderstandings, generally speaking.

She supposed it was probably one of those pot-meet-kettle situations, but her family was entirely nuts; Cato perhaps being the exception. Not that she’d seen much of Inez recently, but apparently she was turning into a bit of a wildcard, although she was fairly certain that had been pretty obvious from the day her cousin had been born. Turning her attention back to the current situation again – and she wasn’t being rude because it wasn’t the person she was talking to’s fault, she just had a short attention span – the woman smiled over at – Logan? Absent-mindedly she wondered what had brought him all the way over to America, before suddenly realising that she should probably introduce herself too…idiot. ”I’m Lucky,” she replied with a friendly grin not unlike her brother’s. Now she was settling down into this whole ‘socialising’ thing, the redhead wasn’t finding it too bad to deal with.

(I'm sorry it's so short and not templated xD)

[Logan Charles Patterson]

He chuckled again, a wide grin spreading across his face. “Or maybe it’s just a sign that I need to get out more, instead of just to the coffee shop,” he answered. Of course, he definitely understood the humour in what she was saying… he hadn’t worked with Alfie for as long as he had without having picked up the innate ability to tell whether someone was joking or whether they were being serious. If he hadn’t, he would have probably quit even sooner, because he would have taken half of what he said to him in completely the wrong way. Then again, he tended to be the same way, but generally a lot nicer and good humoured when it came to most people… unless their surname happened to be Uppingham, of course. He could definitely draw the line at being nice for Theo.

“It’s nice to meet you, Lucky,” Logan answered, giving her another quick grin. Well, it was nice to meet her… it was hard to meet people who weren’t obnoxious or rude or didn’t want to make him bash his head against the wall these days, and to top it off, she was Irish. Not that he disliked Americans, of course, he’d met plenty of pleasant ones, but the fact that she was from close to home was a giant bonus.

Realising that he had started to let his mind wander off again, he pulled his attention back to the redhead in front of him, shifting his weight a little more comfortably between his feet. “What brings you to this side of the pond? If you don’t mind me asking, that is,” he asked, his tones implying in no way that he was prying, just curious. He wasn’t much for getting into other people’s business, especially if it was private… the only time being when it involved something business related of Alfie’s, and rarely ever personal for him, even though he had lived with him for so long. But right now, it seemed to be in the spirit of the conversation to ask, even if she didn’t want to answer it.

tagged nem
words 354
notes *rolls*

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[leilani shamrock mckenna]

Lucky smiled back at Logan, chuckling slightly to herself. She had to say - that was pretty impressive. Being so quiet and withdrawn a lot of the time, laughing of her own accord was something highly unusual for the redhead. It wasn't like she was miserable or anything, Leilani was just a very serious person that didn't spend enough time around people to warrant them knowing her well enough to understand her sense of humour. "Or that perhaps," she replied amiably.

Lucky sipped her coffee, musing over this new-fangled friendliness idea. It wasn't turning out to be as bad as she'd thought it was going to be, talking to a stranger for once. The twenty-five year old could barely remember the last time she'd had a proper conversation with someone not related to her, and yet here she was managing to hold a perfectly normal one with someone she'd only just met. Of course, most people branded her as a lunatic and walked off, which didn't help much. Lucky grinned at him over her coffee, blue eyes flicking up to his own momentarily. "It's nice to meet you too..." she trailed off as she considered his next question, her gaze moving from his face to the shop window. That was a funny one really, because Lucky didn't exactly know herself.

Eventually, she shrugged and spread her hands a little. Bullshit excuses weren't really her thing; clinically a little psycho she may be, but the Irish girl never lied unless it was strictly necessary, not even to total strangers. It just wasn't in her nature to do so. "I'll be honest with you, I don't really know. I have family here and I didn't want to go back to Ireland so...I guess I thought I'd mend some fences." Perhaps 'mending fences' wasn't the right phrase, given that she hadn't exactly ever fallen out with Cato, but they weren't close siblings and they would always have their differences. And...Inez, of course. Inez was always an issue between the pair of them. However, Lucky knew social parameters well enough to know not to start explaining her complex family relationships to someone she'd only just met. "What about you, then?"

(OOC: I'm a terrible person, I know. :/)

[Logan Charles Patterson]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: 101010; border: #262626 solid 10px; width: 515px; padding: 5 5 5 5px;] “It’s probably the most likely reason,” Logan answered, chuckling again. He hadn’t spoken to anyone like this in a long time, and it felt good. Even though he had only just met her, really, it just felt good to be having a normal conversation with someone. Well, he’d spoken to Beth occasionally, when he had been over to the barn, or run into her in the town, but otherwise he’d kept mostly to himself over the last couple of months, since Alexis had moved away for work anyway. He had never really been antisocial but he wasn’t used to being extremely social these days either, he’d spent so much time with Alfie over the years that was all he really had been able to do, so making new friends hadn’t happened a whole lot. He nodded, understanding when she said talked about family. “That’s fair enough.” In hindsight, he probably ought to go back to Wales at some point, fix things with his parents… there wasn’t much to fix there, really, but they weren’t exactly thrilled about his employment with Alfie and the fact it interfered with them seeing their son, and even more the fact it had dragged him all the way to America. He might not have exactly told them yet that he wasn’t working for him anymore, he had carefully avoided that fact whenever he had spoken to them lately. And, well, he’d had Lucy to talk to them about mostly lately, so that wasn’t a problem he had wanted to bring up with them, all things considering. “I came over for work, actually… although I find myself lacking employment now so now it’s more a matter of sticking around here until I’ve figured out what I want to do next. So nothing really interesting,” he said, figuring that that was a simple enough answer without having to go into all of the details, because that was something he’d rather not do… and who dumped their woes on someone they just met anyway? - - - - - - - - - - i wish you were a stranger i could disengage, say that we agree and then never change, soften a bit until we all just get along, but that's disregard, find another friend and you discard, as you lose the argument in a cable car, hanging above as the canyon comes between, everyone knows i'm in over my head

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nem | 336 | outfit | whee

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[leilani shamrock mckenna]

Lucky had grown used to the American way of doing things, seeing as moving to Addison had been more of an internal change than anything else. She’d attended university here, stayed in the country when she’d had no idea where else to go. Now it just so happened that practically all of her extended family, and her brother, had ended up in this tiny one-horse town, all of their own accord. Where Inez and Cato had always been family orientated, Leilani always felt on the outside looking in, which kind of contradicted her reasons for moving here when the fact she hated family reunions was considered. That said, anything had been better than going back to Ireland and surrounding herself once more with people who’d always treat her like the town lunatic because of the stay in the institution as a teenager. Even as callous as Inez was sometimes, her little cousin was mostly better than that.

Lucky pondered what Logan had said for a moment, nodding her head slightly in agreement. It sounded as though he understood the familial part of it, although she did wonder how. Regardless, that was hardly for the redhead to ask five minutes after meeting someone. It was strange though, when one considered how often people understood what you meant even if you didn’t outwardly say it…even though Lucky knew people had to be good at that to have the slightest understanding of her at all, beyond the quiet exterior. Most people only had to hear that she’d studied at Yale to realise she was clever; they didn’t even have to know that she’d done her PhD in physics to make that assumption. Of course, with understanding of implicit meaning always came a certain amount of assumption, which was something the twenty-five year old didn’t much like. Assumptions got you into trouble eventually.

”Sounds like you have a charming employer,” Lucky muttered disdainfully into her coffee. Seriously though, who did that? Dragged somebody halfway across the world to come and work for them, and then randomly kicked them out and left them to sort themselves out once they were done? That was another thing she hated – the way people seemed to have no regard for morals these days. She might be wrong, of course, and Logan could have done something to get himself fired (there was that assumption thing again) but she supposed she may as well give him the benefit of the doubt because…well, she didn’t really know why. She always liked to try and see the best in people, no matter how difficult it was sometimes. ”So why not just move back to Wales, then?”

[Logan Charles Patterson]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: 101010; border: #262626 solid 10px; width: 515px; padding: 5 5 5 5px;] “He has his… moments,” Logan answered, chuckling slightly. No, he wouldn’t say that Alfie was the most pleasant person to be around half of the time but he did know the other man a lot better than he had since he had started working for him, and despite it all they were friends, although neither of them would admit it out loud. Or at least, they had been, up until now. He still wasn’t sure what had brought it on, exactly, he knew how Alfie could be but he still hadn’t expected him to react quite that way. Which made him think that there was more to the story but… obviously, Alfie wasn’t his problem right now so he wasn’t going to find out any time soon. “But I could probably name a few other people I’ve encountered who would be worse to work for so I wasn’t complaining too much.” He did have to consider why he hadn’t just gone back to Wales as soon as he and Alfie had parted ways… well, first he had been in a relationship with Alexis at the time, and it was long before she had decided to take that job offer, and he hadn’t wanted to stop that. And then there had been Lucy to look after here, and he hadn’t just wanted to leave his sister… although she really wasn’t a reason to stay anymore. And then after that he had just been kind of lost, in a way, it was kind of hard to get out of the routine you had been in for years now and just change completely. “I don’t know, just giving myself a bit of a break, I guess. Sort of an extended holiday… I’ve been doing my job for a good nine years or so now so I didn’t see the harm in taking a break,” he answered. It was the best way he could explain it, really. To himself, and to everyone else, for now. - - - - - - - - - - i wish you were a stranger i could disengage, say that we agree and then never change, soften a bit until we all just get along, but that's disregard, find another friend and you discard, as you lose the argument in a cable car, hanging above as the canyon comes between, everyone knows i'm in over my head

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nem | 331 | outfit | whee

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