milliways_bar | (no subject)

If Goldilocks knew Harper was in some discomfort, she might have taken pity on him. Doubtful actually, though it may have drawn her in for inquisitive fun poking. As it is, the blonde has agendas that include him anyway. Without waiting for an invite, she drops into a chair at the same table and proceeds to smile slyly at him.

"Gave you a taste for our kind, did I?"

"Whatzahoozit?" he said, looking up, confused.

"Evening, Harper," she says with a broader, smugger grin. The kind of grin that one should fear, really.

Harper did not fear it as he'd been the perpetrator of broader, smugger grins than that himself.

He was confused though.

"Hey, gorgeous," he said. He looked slightly self-conscious, most likely because of his new little "enhancement." He had to resist brushing his fingers against his new eye self-consciously.

"I haven't seen you in a while. Missed me?"

"I'd be lying if I said I had."

It is rude to stare at physical disabilities or deficiencies, which is why Goldy has no qualms in giving his cybernetic optical replacement a good eyeing, if you'll excuse the pun. She makes an ouchie face to go with it.

"Looks like somebody else didn't miss you either."

Harper tensed just a little bit.

"Ran into some Uber slavers and apparently not only is there a huge bounty on my head--that requires me to be alive, but not intact--the captain had a brother in the Boston garrison, who got killed when me and my cousin raised the city against the Nietzscheans. Go figure. Anyway, he wasn't too happy to me, and yet I think he kinda enjoyed it, if you catch my drift," Harper said, briefly raising his eyebrows, as if to say "C'est la vie."

"Just got the replacement yesterday."

She pouts her bottom lip appraisingly. "It's quite... grotesque, in a stylish futuristic kind of way."

"I suppose that negates my how have you been question. Oh well." And then more off-handedly, "what does Rose think of it?"

At that, his face fell, just a little. It was easy to spit in the faces of big, burly Ubers that said you were an ugly, little, weak, inbred bastard, but a lot harder to brush it off when a gorgeous woman said it.

"Ah, I dunno. I mean, I don't think it bothered her too much..."

His fingers did go to brush against it now...

She rests her chin in her hands, not quite apologetically.

"Only playing, sweetie. It's very hunky."

His hand dropped away and he shrugged. "I've got depth perception again at least. And the uber got disintegrated in a fiery ball of death, so, eh, I'm happy."

He started looking at the flexi again.

The truth was, as hot as Goldy was, in a way, he felt as if she could see all of his dirty laundry, and it made him uncomfortably. It was as if she somehow knew that while he'd been gone, that at one point, he'd been in the throes of passion with a hooker, pretending she was his wife or something like some pathetic loser. Even if she didn't know the details, he still felt like she knew it somehow or could figure out he was that kind of person at least, and it unnerved him a little.

It's a knack to be able to read someone that accurately, but even when you can't, making them think that you can is the next best thing. She watches him quietly, feigning a vague interest in the object of his attention.

"What's that?" she says with her eyes on the flexi.

"Plans for a different types of power cells. A friend of mine, Ray, knows this kid with ghost superpowers that went whack-a-doodle-doo or something, and he wanted me to help reconfigure the shields he has up around him so that the kid doesn't kill us all," Harper said cheerfully, sliding them over to her.

She gives them a somewhat blank once over and slides them right back. She's not afraid of technology as it applies to her life and work, but anything beyond that—anything that could be deemed to be solely in the realm of geeks and science freaks—is of little interest. She's not even going to pretend in this case.

"Fabulous."

"Can I get you a drink?" she asks a little more hospitably, for one must sometimes give a little to take a little. Of coruse, with Harper she thinks she could probably get whatever she wanted, given his apparent love for his own voice.

"Sure. Single-Malt Whiskey?" he said hopefully.

"Coming right up."

She hails an actual waitress, (because, though they don't always have entrance posts, there are surely some working the busiest times of the evening anyway), and the order is taken. If he was expecting her to actually go to the bar; well, try again—at least she's paying.

"So, how is it going with you and Rosey?"

He blushed a little, and that was funny as he never really blushed unless he was completely thrown off balance.

"Uh. Well, she's my friend and all," he said, oh-so articulately. "And we have this...thing." He tried to articulate with his hands, but that didn't really help convey it any better.

She tries really hard not to smirk or chuckle. What she actually manages to do is affect a delighted grin instead. The more she thinks about it, the more they make an adorably weird couple—Beauty and the Geek, if you will... kind of. Except with hotness rather than beauty.

"A friend thing. That's nice. I have a few of those." She accepts the drinks as they are brought to the table and hands his over, keeping the rum and coke for herself. "I've always imagined that she is pretty great in the sack."

He made vague shruggy motions that probably made it inadvertantly clear that he had no idea.

"Aw. Poor Seamus. I just thought I'd been missing the bed springs from next door because your room is nicer." Wrinkly nose. "Or something."

"Ah, well it's not really, ahm." He shut his mouth, turning a faint shade of pink again.

"Give it time? Uh, I hope?"

And maybe I'll get pity-sex? That's probably the best I'd ever get, said a little traitorous voice in the back of his head.

Shut up, me.

There's nothing wrong with pity sex, and Goldy is not averse to offering it at times. Just ask Cypher, though he might not confirm at as such. He was very drunk though. It's not always that way, admittedly.

"How curious. She seems like such a motivated girl. I wouldn't have thought she was one to take it slow, especially if the mood took her." She offers a rueful smile. "Hang in there. I think she likes you."

"Really?" It was asked very, very hopefully, and Harper didn't even chime in with some smartass arrogant comment. "Did she...eh, did she...y'know, say somethin'?"

He sounded all the world like some very hopeful high school geek being told that the Head Cheerleader knew he existed.

"Maybe," she replies mysteriously, still smiling with all the sweetness in the world.

"Maybe always means 'yes,'" he said smugly.

"I would hate to say anything that would alter the snail-like pace of this blooming romance," she says, blatantly lying, and showing as much in her mischievous expression.

"You're an evil, evil woman," Harper informed her, knowing full well that she knew this fact. "Very naughty."

She lets out a suitably evil and knowing chuckle as confirmation.

"It plays into your favor as well though. Us corrupted ones are not unbribeable."

"Oh yeah?" Harper raised his eyebrows. "Name your demands."

She eyes the flexi again. "You can make pretty much anything, right genius?"

"Yeah. Makin' machinse, makin' babies--or not, with the right protection--I'm multitalented," he bragged.

"I could use a night vision scope for my rifle," she mentions off-handedly. "3X-9 or better, to fit a standard Remington 710."

"Want it to see through solid objects? Go microscopic? Or just your standard, highest-quality, night vision scope?" Harper asked her, putting it on his mental to-do list.

Her eyes widen slightly. "The X-ray might be useful, even if the bullets can't penetrate that far. How about thermal imaging?"

"Piece of cake," he said. "Infrared it is. Now fess up--what'd Red say about me?"

He sounded both hopeful and nervous.

She sits back smugly, apparently very pleased with the trade. Even if her part of it may be a bit lame, she builds it with a nicely suspenseful delay.

"Well, you lucky boy you, our Rosey is definitely 'crushing' on you." She fingerquotes the word from the metaphorical horse's mouth.

Before he could help himself, there was fist-pumping and then a dorky: "YES!"

Then he managed to calm down a little, cleared his throat and continued.

"She say anything else?"

She rolls her eyes at his exuberance, though she had predicated nothing less. "If she did, I couldn't hear through my laughter," she confesses dryly. "But still. I think you're in."

"Laughter? At her having a hankering for some boy genius?" Harper asked, gesturing to himself and looking astonished. "Who wouldn't?" He added quickly, "Besides you?"

She holds up her palms in mock surrender. "Just because I didn't sleep with you the first night we met, doesn't mean I wouldn't want to see if hyper-intelligence is the limit of your talents."

The fact that Rose has a healthy interest has piqued her curiosity about him. At least mildly. She has typically good taste on most matters.

Harper preened a little bit. "It isn't, just for your information." He paused. "But, uh, if Rose really is that interested, I'm thinkin' she's the only one I'm gonna let find that out first-hand."

If he got lucky enough to win her over, he sure as hell wasn't gonna sleep with somebody and potentially screw it up.

"I know. I'm just saying."

She doesn't look overly disappointed to be fair.

"So, you can forge ahead with your new found hope now, and I can expect my new toy when...?"

"Gimme a day or two, and it's yours," he informed her. "Then you can go in the dark and shoot your stags or bears or ex-boyfriends or whatever."

"Much obliged," she says happily. "You're a star, and I shall make a point of telling Rose that."

"And it will be bunnies most likely, though I have a rescue mission pending that it may prove useful in."

When he thought she was out of range, although she probably still was, there was another pumping of the fist and another: "YES! Thankyouthankyouthankyou!" directed skywards.

Ray hurried up towards the chair. "Hey! Harper! There you are..."

"Hey. Need my squishy grey matter now?" he asked, half-rising from his chair, ready to go.

"As soon as possible," Ray said. "Egon's come off shift. I've got nearly everything ready..."

"Lead the way," he said, standing all the way and following Ray to go off and see a real live (dead? live? half-alive?) ghost.

And so, Ray did.