2023-10-17: Straight Guys, Burgers, And Fries
- Log: Straight Guys, Burgers, And Fries
- Cast: Parminder Chaudhri, Shari Loom
- Where: Burger Fiend, Pendragon
- Date: 2023-10-17
- Summary: Shari talks to the worst man in the world about sex, relationships, and the eldritch horror looming over them all. While they're eating burgers!
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Burger Fiend is... well, not hoppin'. The atmosphere is far too chill to be described in any upbeat way. (Why, it's positively quiet, even with the families dining here! Somehow, despite its popularity, it never gets very loud.) But it's a good place to get a bite to eat, here in the heart of Pendragon...
... or, if you're Parminder Chaudhri, an extremely funny place to get a bite to eat.
"C'mon. Horror Aunt didn't start this shit just for you to go hungry. It's probably not even poisoned!" He encourages the girl with him, as he walks inside. "Like, I'm more of a fries guy myself, but ain't like I've ever met a burger I don't like."
Of course, they have to order their food at the counter like peasants, but whatever. Picking up the tray, Parminder finds an empty booth and slides it onto the table. "All right, time to restore some fucking HP," he declares, grabbing a burger and taking a bite.
Nomph.
<Pose Tracker> Shari Loom has posed.
Shari of course is not 'officially' in Pendragon. Obviously. That would be hard to explain! ...But she does need to eat.
"Yeah," Shari says, "It's not the kind of beef I think of you being into," she quips, before she makes an order of her own--burger, fries. She's reasonably sure it's not poisoned or anything either. And she moves down to the booth too. She has a shake which she tries first. "Not bad," Shari comments.
"Restore some HP, though? What, are you a big gamer or something?"
...Nomph.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
'Officially', the man eating a burger here in Burger Fiend is called Hugo Badcock, an extremely Britannian man who definitely exists. The fact that Parminder is clever enough to forge his own fake papers is the greatest crime this planet has ever known.
It is, TECHNICALLY, a name which could exist out here.
He snorts, with a wide grin. "Beef? Not quite, but lemme tell you, you can't eat bear meat. Trust me on this one. You get stranded out in the woods and you have to shoot a bear? Do NOT eat the bear."
Yuliana totally ate the bear.
She had, shall we say, one or two regrets.
"Hell, who isn't?" He asks, between bites of burger. "Even soccer moms play farm games on their phones. 'Sides, I gotta have something going on the side when I'm monitoring systems. It's not like it's ALWAYS exciting. If I just have to stare at shit until something happens, I totally just fall asleep. Come on, don't you have like ten things going on at once to keep you interested too?"
<Pose Tracker> Shari Loom has posed.
That of course makes Shari Maggie Badcock. She isn't entirely thrilled with this.
"I'll... keep that in mind," Shari says with a laugh. She is imagining it, now. Luckily her imagination isn't all that wild about this kind of thing. No blood on the bear's teeth.
"I guess," Shari allows. "Yeah that's true. It's kinda boring otherwise..." Beat, "But I happen to be an athlete, you know. I get out there! I touch grass!"
She doesn't actually deny his statement, though at this point, her phone beeps a message tone. "Oh, forgot to silence that..."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
She should be thrilled. The Badcock line is a proud family!
"Man, what's grass ever done for me?" Parminder complains, as he chomps a burger which was definitely fed by it. (And grain. And a ridiculous amount of antibiotics.) "If it's so desperate to be touched, it should get on the dating apps like everyone else."
Beep! "Oh, yeah, speakin' of," Parminder grins. "How's your hookup?"
<Pose Tracker> Shari Loom has posed.
"Grass is great! It's soft and bouncy. You like soft and bouncy, right?" She eats a few fries. "Heh. I guess that's--"
Pause. "Eeeh?" Shari answers, and blinks wildly. "What--I mean--"
...She glances to the side, and then flushes red. Then, she smiles, without stopping from blushing. "...Pretty great," Shari allows. "Was I that obvious? I thought I'd been covering my tracks pretty well..."
She did avoid sending unencrypted data on unsecure lines. What she didn't avoid was grinning at her phone like an idiot.
"Well, a little hookup's fine, right? I'm old enough."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Okay, like, point one? You're encrypting all your comms. You know that's just as obvious, right?" Monch. "But TBH," he does, in fact, say tee-bee-aytch, "ain't no reason to go that far, anyway."
He picks up a fry, and points it at Shari's face. "You're as fucking lovestruck as the Captain, which is saying something, because I once saw that bint walk right into a telephone pole 'cuz she was too busy goggling at her wife."
And so, he eats the fry. "But yeah, true 'nuff. Just remember to go get tested if your snatch starts itching. They teach you that shit in schools around here?" Munch, munch. "You can just, like, get a fingerprick test and send it off to check for HIV and hep C, BTW. Don't gotta look no one in the eye for that. You got a doctor? Like, aside from her Witchiness, I'm sayin'."
<Pose Tracker> Shari Loom has posed.
"Oh." Shari tilts her head. "I guess it would be, huh...?" Shari has learned something today. And she has also seen Parminder say 'TBH'. That's happened. "Yeah?"
Point. "...Ahahah..." Lovestruck. "Wait really? She did that?" Shari doesn't use names, of course. She knows better. "I haven't done that," she says. But she has...
"Okay," Shari allows after a moment, and sips her shake. "They don't," she says. "But I've got some info from other sources." Pause. "Oh, that's handy." She pauses. "Um..."
"Yeah," Shari says. "I decided--not to bug her with my medical stuff." That's one way to put it. She thinks about it. She debates.
"OK cool. I don't mind talking about it or anything, I just don't want to get him involved in..." She gestures. "All this stuff. Hearing about my weird aunts would scare away most guys."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Parminder is a very helpful sysadmin. Except when he's off duty. He can be off duty, these days, because he has a team of sysadmins to keep the Silent Castle's communications running. Sweet deal, gives him so much more time to bum around with the kids.
He laughs, thinking of Yuliana all lovestruck. "Chyeah. On multiple occasions, even. You never seen her just deadass walk into a door 'cuz she's too busy staring at her Witchiness? If that chick weren't quick on the draw steering her free, the Captain'd have so many black eyes." Parminder laughs, to himself. "Oh, man, but that'd be fuckin' hilarious. Imagine her sayin' she fell down some stairs. Classic."
Just because he sees the unhealthy aspects of their marriage doesn't mean he's going to do anything about it. It's very funny.
Munch, munch. She might be uncomfortable, but that's not his problem. "Good call," he says, on not 'bugging' Elisa. "Like, she'd totally hold it over ya. Not that she's not gonna hold you having your own shit goin' on over your head too, but at least this way she's gotta ask creeps like me to pull your medical data to figure out if you got knocked up about it."
He chomps another chip. "Let's be honest with ourselves, if he ain't just a sweet cock he'd survive hearing about it," he says. "The real deal is he'd dive right into fixing you up an exit plan, and that's when he'd catch Zaftran window disease. That or he'd get involved, and, like, you really wanna roll the dice on him gettin' some sweet green eyes? That's why you wanna ice him out."
<Pose Tracker> Shari Loom has posed.
"Yikes," Shari says. "That's dark." Shari has to be the one to say this because she's the teenager here, and she's the one who can more appropriately give the yikes. But, "I think they'd make it our problem anyway..."
Of course Parminder can do that much. He can probably pull more than just her medical data, for that matter. She's aware of what he can do as a sysadmin, and more. "Yeah I definitely don't want that happening," she says of getting knocked up about it.
Shari chomps into her burger, and thinks about what Parminder says--it makes her a little moody. "I mean, we're just having fun," she says. "It's not like I'd ask him to get involved anyway." Pause. "...But I guess he might decide to, if I didn't."
She shakes her head. "Anyway you're right! That's a lot of reasons not to want him involved. I keep my friends and stuff out of things like this. But She hasn't given me shit just for texting a guy yet, so I figure as long as I don't slack on the stuff I have to do, it's fine."
"Any more tips on keeping him out?" she wonders. "...I mean, I know you'll check in as much as it's funny, but all you'll get if you break my encryption is some tit pics. But like, advice on keeping it away from the mission and all?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"That's a PDA on the PDA," Parminder says, pauses, and doubles back: "You know. 'Pretty Damn Accurate'." No one knew that, Parminder. You just made that up for the joke.
"Sure don't," he adds, on the spectre of teen pregnancy. "Besides, you hear the news? Captain's barren as an empty kegger at a frat house. She'd straight-up poach your kid if you didn't flush it."
Parminder sips his soda. "Relax, short stuff," he says, waving a hand. "If I wanted to see a teenager's tits, I'd be an entirely different breed of asshole. I ain't fussed about your escapades. Don't reckon She'd be, either -- She's not into men, remember? Whatever the fuck She is, I doubt it's something with room to worry about random dudes. Like, She ain't even worried about me, and I'm right next to Her favourite fuckin' chewtoy." Is he talking about Shari?
Well, that's one interpretation.
"But if you wanna keep it light and breezy, think of a boring excuse for getting into this shit, and stick to it. Like, boring and believable, I mean. If you go 'oh no, I have to go iron my cat', like, obviously something's goin' on. But, like, 'oh, I have to go do my taxes'?" He pauses for a moment. He looks at Shari. "Hang on. Back up. 'Oh, I have to go do my homework'? Yeah, that's the ticket. Shit like that. People don't question stuff that's normal. Make it normal, and it ain't no thang."
<Pose Tracker> Shari Loom has posed.
"I didn't know," Shari says back. She's pretty sure he did just make it up.
But, "Oh yikes," Shari says with a grimace, and puts up both hands, waving them around as if to ward it off. "Didn't hear, don't want. I do enough for those two, I'm not adding 'teenage surrogate' to the list."
But Parminder sips his soda and reassures(?) her. "...Guess that's true," Shari says. She is exactly self-absorbed enough to think he's being literal about being right next to Shari herself, of course. It's definitely one interpretation!
"Hmmm..." She nods. "Don't wanna iron my cat, but I do have a lot of homework. And like, I do stuff for the cross-school stuff now. So that's a lot to keep busy about..."
"OK, cool. Thanks." Pause.
"...Got any other tips with boys?" she wonders. She'll take what she can get. "I mean, it's not the same as your kinda guy, but..."
But she'd rather talk about boys than talk about how Leina said Parminder used to kill girls 'like them' all the time for his work.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Parminder might have just made it up.
"Yeah," he agrees, on the idea of being a teenage surrogate, "gross." Would the Kafims actually ask that of Shari, or is Parminder deliberately stirring shit?
Okay, no, he's absolutely stirring shit, which is why it's so funny Shari decides he's being literal.
Be fair, though -- Parminder didn't just kill little girls. He also killed sweet old ladies and men two days away from retirement with big, happy families all ready to mourn.
And a couple of people who arguably deserved it, too, probably.
Instead of that, though: boys. "Let's see, out in Britannia... aight, remember that you wanna wear your kerchief on the left if you're a top, right if you're a bottom. Colours mean shit, and, like, literally too? So you make sure to look that up before you go visit. Bath houses are pretty safe bets if you're looking for a place to pash, and, like, there are bars out there, you just gotta..."
Parminder deliberately trails off, tilting his soda towards Shari. "... y'know, thinking about it, I'm not super sure all these skills are transferrable. How about you just work on kissing the dude? Pretty sure even straight guys are into that. Might even be a nice change of pace from girls thinkin' they gotta go straight downstairs on account of how the porn goes." A beat: "Oh, yeah, sex is nothing like porn. Just FYI, since I bet Ashford ain't teaching that either. It's fucking funny, you're gonna laugh about it, that's normal, chill."
<Pose Tracker> Shari Loom has posed.
Shari shudders again. No thanks!!!
But rather than thinking about the people who have been killed, Shari just listens to... "I thought we decided I wasn't gonna try to be a dude to jump Her notice," Shari says wryly. "Man though. Gay guys have it so complicated. Not that I'm that good at it with straight guys yet either..."
But Parminder trails off, and Shari tilts her head. She listens to the more sincere seeming advice. "Oh," she says. "Yeah, I've watched some porn and they get to it pretty fast... that sounds nice. I can do kissing."
"But funny, huh...?" She thinks about that. "I guess!"
It is supposed to be 'fun' after all.
"...Thanks. I'll keep that stuff in mind. But uh, maybe don't mention it to them, if they don't bring it up? I know they'll figure it out as soon as they feel like it, but..."
"I don't want the stress of explaining to more than just you."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Yeah, that's why we had to figure out the fingerprick tests," Parminder grins. "Too many fuckers dying on the streets because they couldn't go in to the doctor and answer all those questions. Ah, well... it's not always that bad, these days. Depends where you are." And who you are, but that's honestly some 401 level shit and the kid's already reeling enough.
He has to laugh, though, when Shari asks him to keep a secret. "Dumbass," he grins again. "If you wanted someone to guard your secrets with their life or whatever the fuck, you shoulda asked Wendy to get a bite. I'm definitely gonna tell 'em the moment it's funnier than not." Siiiip. "... OTOH, it's pretty funny if they're in the dark, too. And, like, the humour value of teasing kids is honestly pretty shallow compared to picking on literal immortal lichwomen. So I wouldn't sweat too hard about it, LMAO."
He still just says those out loud like they're actual words. Even if he wasn't a literal murderer, he's still murdering the English language.
<Pose Tracker> Shari Loom has posed.
"Oh," Shari says. "That makes sense." She shakes her head. "All this stuff is so complicated. I wish it were easier."
She's reeling a lot! And she siiiiighs when he calls her a dumbass. "Ugh." Then she shakes her head. "No way." Wendy creeps her out. She's so... nice. But, "...Huh. Thanks, I think?"
She stops again. "...You're pretty online, huh?"
She goes back to her burger. "Oh well. I'm just gonna not think about it."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Ain't that the truth," Parminder shrugs.
He laughs again, when she thanks him -- and declares that he's online. "Born and bred," he agrees, cheerfully. Chomp. Munch, munch. "You're totally gonna think about it," he points out, "but if you're half as smart as her Witchiness props you up to be, you'll figure out who to talk to about it all."
Chomp, chomp. "... just don't ask your aunts. They are so not your speed, even with this whole trying not to give them too much leverage bit you got goin' on."
See? He can be nice and give good advice. Sometimes. If it's funny and he gets to bag on his BFF while doing so.
<Pose Tracker> Shari Loom has posed.
"Hmmm..." She probably is going to think about it. But the right person to talk to? Shari has some thoughts about that. There are people who've proven okay for it--as long as they are what they say they are.
Is Leina really going to keep her word about all this?
"...Yeah," Shari answers. "Not them." She can easily agree with that much. And, well...
"...Anyway," she says, "You're totally paying. I'm just a teenager."
But Shari's going to end up brooding about it for a while, just like Parminder said.