you know that you came at the perfect time

[leaguer]

CHARACTERS: sara lance & other people.
LOCATIONS: dinah's, lucky lanes, the park, the women's building? cadelle.
WARNINGS: none yet, will warn if so.
SUMMARY: sara lance goes on many dates. also maybe teaches self-defense classes. stuff. things. closed starters in the comments, but for an open cr opportunity, please check out her open network post and maybe volunteer with her, or learn self-defense! feel free to also hmu at frickin / canary#4628 and i'd be happy to write something up for us!

ha ha you thought there was gonna be something behind this cut didn't you???

Comments

[leaguer]

( there's a breath of laughter at his complete and utter dismissal of the menu, but sure, she'll close hers as well, considering she almost always orders the same exact thing from dinah's, even when she's getting take-out. she reaches to grab his menu and stacks it on top of hers, sliding them over to the edge of the table to hopefully signal to a waitress that they're ready. )

Well, ( sara starts, an amused eyebrow lifted in his general direction. ) You seem to have a handle on the whole okCuddle thing already, or we wouldn't be here right now. So there goes my first tip.

( not that her #1 tip has any real intention other than busting his chops, considering she can't really imagine rip casually swiping right on some hotties looking for just one casual night full of —

nope, nope, abort mission. there are more important things to talk and think about. ) Wait, serious question. Crunchy fries or squishy fries? This is important.

[directed]

[Give him time, Sara. Besides, given that the diner they're in practically screams Americana, Rip doesn't truly expect he'll find a proper shepard's pie or fish and chips on the menu—and he suspects he'd be subjected to some rather unnecessary commentary should he order something sickly sweet paired with a bottle of rum, which has comprised most of his recent meals.

(Perhaps the only good aspect of Gideon not being there is that she cannot inform Sara of how poor his nutrition choices have been as of late.)

Instead the conversation can move forward, straight into talk of that ridiculous app. Rip frowns at the mention, even if he'd already made use of it in a way.]

Yes, that. [Her mind might go straight towards mockery and averted paths, but Rip doesn't truly see the point of it. He would expand on that topic as well, questioning why such a thing was apparently so popular, but instead she brings the topic back to food.

A generally safe subject, although Rip didn't realize they weren't quite done with it.]

Crisp on the outside, soft within of course. [Never mind that she had said fries instead of chips; Rip can guess at what she meant.] Though all your praise aside, I'll be surprised if this place can do them up properly.

[Not like a true chippy would.]

[leaguer]

( sara's eyes narrow, her brow most definitely furrowed at that response. listen, sara was wary of the hype when she first got here, too, thinking it couldn't possibly be as good of a diner as she and laurel's favorite joint back in star city, but still. at least she thought they'd do it right, considering diners are universally good. probably multiversally good. )

Well, prepare to have your world rocked, buddy. ( it kind of maybe sounds like a threat. at least it's a delicious threat. ) They advertise the buckets as having the perfect crispy-to-squishy ratio and of all the times I've had them, they haven't steered me wrong yet.

( luckily for them, a waitress appears before sara can shoot more metaphorical lasers out of her eyes at rip and his disdain at american fries and she sits up a little straighter, shows an overbright smile to said waitress as she orders: ) Two Dinah's Standards, a bucket of fries, and two milkshakes. First one's a black and white, second's ...

( an important look as she metaphorically throws the question over to rip. ) What'll it be, Captain?

( she's not above captain references. )

[directed]

[Skepticism posed, skepticism answered. It's the sort of easy challenge Rip had come to expect with nearly every choice he'd made during his tenure as captain, from the serious to the trivial. Truly he'd never thought he'd come to miss it--and in fact, coming from almost anyone else, he likely wouldn't.

But Sara has often proven herself exceptional.

Not that he reveals any of this; oh no, that would be far too generous. Instead he merely raises his eyebrows at her assertion, that patented "we'll see" expression there and gone thanks to the waitress's timely arrival. Seems it's truly to be a meal of indulgence, and when prompted, Rip turns his head towards the woman taking their order.]

Malted chocolate, if you would please.

['Captain', she calls him, and Rip waits until their company has left before giving answer.] I believe we're both past the point where that title applies to me, Sara.

[It's not an easy thing to say, even assuming she'd offered up the title in jest. So many months later, and it remains a sore spot for him--but perhaps that's fitting, given that the position he'd been in has hardly given him opportunity to move on from it.]

[leaguer]

( there's certainly a pointed silence between them until their waitress is well out of earshot, but that doesn't stop the amused smile that plays at the corners of her mouth at the notion that the two of them are about to have what's probably going to be a serious talk over milkshakes and a bucket of fries. said smile persists, even, when he rebukes her offhanded remark.

he's serious about it, too. )

Chronologically speaking, maybe. But you're always gonna be as much the Captain of that ship as I am.

( sara lance can also be serious, especially when it comes to the waverider and all that it entails. rip never actually willingly stepped down from his post — well, not as far as he is in their shared timeline — he'd simply time scattered them all to save them all (even if sara begrudged his decision to do so at the time, without even asking their permission, having undergone the stresses of making the tough decisions as captain has made her sympathetic). he'd simply become helpless phil the film student, simply been mind controlled by the legion of doom.

they'd stepped on each other's toes when they'd rescued him from the prison of his own mind, yeah, but that was to be expected, wasn't it? she wouldn't step down as captain just because he'd returned, no — she'd done a damn good job for someone with a crew like hers and with the bumps in her own road she'd had to figure out — but she'd always thought that they'd figure it out in time. stupid time. )

There's still a place for you, Rip.

( maybe she's just projecting, though, knowing that he'll soon leave them behind. maybe there's a selfish part of sara that thinks that she'll be able to change his mind, influence him in some way before they go back to their world. )

[directed]

[He's had far more serious conversations over far more frivolous meals--assuming, of course, that one counts cake and rum as a meal. Gideon typically hadn't.

But she is persistent as always; Sara Lance, a woman who more often than once has told Rip exactly where he can shove it when she disagrees with his decisions. Not always in such rude terms, of course, but the words "go to hell" have certainly left her lips more than once.

Usually with justification for them.

His fingers find the wrapped silverware that had been placed at the table before their arrival. Something to toy with, and he turns the napkin-covered length in his fingers almost without thought. No, his mind is rather focused on her reassurances, that promise that he still has a place among the team, even as a captain of it.

She means well, he knows. But it hardly seems a fair assertion, after their mission to the moon and all that followed. He doesn't begrudge her that position of leadership, but she is from a point past his, and feels the need to offer this reassurance in particular. As a man who so often considers the future, who examines his place in it--why would she suddenly feel the need to tell him of his place on the team?

A question of the future--and one, in turn, that needs go unasked.]

I do appreciate that, Sara. [So instead he offers what honesty he can; it's true enough, that gratitude he feels. But for now, they should consider the present, and with that in mind? Rip glances about the diner.] As such, I feel I should ask which members of the team are also present in Cadelle. To get an overview of the situation, as it were.

[leaguer]

( if there's one thing that rip is good at, it's his uncompromising stubbornness. yes, he thanks her for her sentiments, and sara can tell that he means it, sure. that much is genuine — as genuine as her own statement was, her innate desire for him to stick around. selfish, perhaps, considering he leaves of his own accord, surely to figure things out for himself.

he'd said that he'd taught them all he could, but sara still kind of thinks that the two of them could learn from each other in equal amounts.

nevertheless, he's keen to change the subject, so sure, she'll oblige him, even if it's with a small sigh. )

Well, Kendra is here, but she doesn't know about what we did to Vandal Savage — even though I'm sure us being here is a big enough clue that things go smoothly. Mick's from the same point in time as me, so don't try getting anything else out of him. Jax is from a little earlier than the two of us, but not by much. ( each one gets ticked off on her fingers, like she's counting chickens in a coop. in a way, she kind of is. )

Leonard's — well, I'm sure you know. He's from the Vanishing Point — The Oculus.

( right after he'd made her turn tail and drag mick out of there. right after the big ol' boom. talk about things that are sigh-worthy. )

Quite a crew.

[directed]

[Her estimation of him isn't wrong, at least so far as his stubbornness is concerned. But she's equally surmised that he means to move on, and would continue to push to that end; his place on the team, on the Legends, is for the time being a closed matter in Rip's eyes.

Fortunate that she seems to agree, if only for the moment.

He listens to the rundown closely, some names far more welcome than others as she runs through them all. His grip on the silverware tightens at Mick's name in particular, again at Leonard's. To say that they had not been on good terms at their last meeting would be underselling it a bit.]

And does Leonard know what part he's played in the affair with Eobard Thawne? [He has patience enough to ask that much, at least. Although for Rip and Sara those events happened after Leonard's death, Leonard's personal timeline would run differently. The question is merely if his history has been altered yet, or if somehow he'd been brought here from a point before Eobard went back into the past.]

[leaguer]

No. ( a hasty response — and a little premature. ) I mean — I haven't said anything to him. ( there's a displeased hum as she considers this. ) Guess I can't speak for Mick, but I'm pretty sure that he'd rather keep all that in the past.

( as would she. sure, she understands why mick would do what he did — "i miss him, too," sara had said, and her own relationship with leonard in their world paled in comparison to the bond between the two criminals. her own experiences with the spear's temptations, her sister, really made her realize how difficult it must have been.

he'd betrayed them, and sara's anger had come from the captain side of her, but her empathy still runs deep. besides, as far as sara's concerned, they've got a lot bigger, dinosaur-shaped things to worry about. )

You have a right to be mad at them, but don't be surprised when Leonard's clueless. ( especially because they'd wiped his mind after all of that happened, men in black-style. )