I'm gonna pop some tags

[beneathbluerafters]

WHO: Klarion and Dorian
WHERE: shopping mall somewhere in Maurtia Falls!
WHEN: the weekend!
WHAT: Dorian takes Klarion shopping for fancy clothes. It goes as well as you'd expect.
WARNINGS: jerks being jerks, probably lots of bickering!



Klarion had come to two conclusions this afternoon:

1) Hovercars were neat, and
2) Shopping was suffering.

If his powers worked properly, he wouldn't have to bother with malls, he'd just be able to zap his clothing into whatever form he liked and the stupid clothes would stay that way. Here, his transformation magicks had a time limit, which meant that every time he zapped his clothes into something different, they'd flicker back to normal within the hour. Like it or not, he needed some more real clothing, and Dorian had seemed eager for a shopping trip.

... A little too eager in retrospect, the man took to high-end clothing stores like a duck to water. Klarion had no idea how long they'd been in the mall, let alone in this particular store, but it felt like weeks. He was about a shirt and a half away from just teleporting back home to Teekl.

"... Dorian, they all look the same." he groaned, "Let's go already!"

Comments

[brushoff]

Dorian had forced Klarion to try on multiple pairs of slacks and multiple tops. Had they been there for a few hours? Yup. Was Dorian still ready and raring to go? Yup as well. He's still raring and willing to go, grinning like a maniac as he holds up a different shirt to Klarion, sizing it against him, before practically pushing the shirt in Klarion's arms.

"One of them is white while the other's beige. And yes, they look the same, but you'll need a cotton blend as well as a silk shirt. If we've got a fancy swear-in dinner, there's no way in hell I'm letting you wear a cotton blend."

[beneathbluerafters]

Ok, scratch that - Klarion was half a shirt away from turning Dorian into something horrible and then teleporting back home. He scowled, and held the shirt out by the edges like it was a wet dishrag. Sure enough, it looked just like every other shirt they'd been through this afternoon.

"You cannot imagine how little I care about the difference between the two." he said drily. "I can't imagine anyone else caring, either, let alone noticing." A beat. "And you're not 'letting me' do anything, I don't need your permission!"

[brushoff]

"Of course people are going to notice! I'm going to notice!" In his mind, Dorian counts as people. And hey, if he cares then somebody else is going to care, right? Right!

"Look, I'm buying you some of these clothes. And I certainly know more about fashion than you do. So I say you need a cotton blend for lazing around the house and a silk shirt for special events!"

[beneathbluerafters]

"Then let's just grab one of each and go, we've been here for days!" He snatched up another shirt out of the pile they'd accumulated and held both of them up to Dorian's eye level. Look! Two shirts! Mission accomplished!

"I can't tell the difference, anyway, and no-one cares about fashion apart from you!"

[brushoff]

"We've only been here for a few hours," Dorian retorts, absolutely unaware that a few hours is living hell for most people to begin with. As Klarion holds up the shirts, Dorian pauses...frowns...and then sighs.

"You've got to try them on, you know. I think that one in your left hand might be a bit too loose in the shoulder."

[beneathbluerafters]

Klarion glares at the left shirt like it's personally betrayed him (in a sense it has, it's dragging this whole affair on even longer!) and shrugs it on over his tshirt. He doesn't do the buttons up or anything, just lets it hang loose. The look on his face clearly says that he's tired, cranky, and just 200% done with this whole thing.

"There. It's too big. How sad, we'll have to grab one of the other shirts that I've already tried on and that fit, and then we can actually leave."

[brushoff]

"All the ones you tried on were a cotton blend. We've yet to find you a halfway decent silk shirt."

They are going to be here forever, especially since it just isn't going through Dorian's head that Klarion finds the whole experience tedious. Why would he? This was fun!

[beneathbluerafters]

Just like that, Klarion sees the next forty years of his life sprawling out ahead of him: Teekl withering away in their apartment, himself as an adult trying on even more clothes because the ones from several decades ago no longer fit, and Dorian still shopping. He was immortal, of course time felt like nothing to him!

So Klarion does what he should have done hours ago. He turns to Dorian, says "No. I'm done here," and steps through a glowing portal in the middle of the shop.

... And just for the sake of being a shit, Klarion leans back in through the portal a few seconds later, clutching a handful of plain white tshirts from the mall's equivalent of K-mart. None of them have been paid for, and they still have the security tabs hanging from the sleeves. Even he can tell that they're cheap and badly made, which makes them perfect for trolling.

"See, this method of shopping is much more efficient!"

[brushoff]

Dorian runs through a gamut of emotions in a few minutes: annoyed that Klarion left him, confused at Klarion's return, horrified at the plain white t-shirts. It's not the fact that they're plain white t-shirts. It's not the fact that they still have the tags on them. It's the fact that they are undoubtedly of terrible quality, a fact that Dorian discovers when he idly rubs one between his thumb and pointer and then drops the fabric like it stung him.

"You could at least get something a little bit better than that!"

[beneathbluerafters]

"I could. But it wouldn't be nearly as much fun." That is definitely an evil, evil grin on his face, because Dorian's sheer revulsion was almost worth the shopping trip.

... Almost.

"Besides, that's an entire shopping trip done in a minute. Much more efficient than your method!" Maybe he can turn Dorian's wardrobe into horrible cheap polyester the next time he gets on his nerves...

[brushoff]

"But it misses the point of shopping," Dorian grumbles, with an over-dramatic siiiigh. "The point of this thing is to try on clothes and find one that fits you perfectly."

[beneathbluerafters]

"Dorian, as foreign a concept as this may be to you, I don't like shopping. Especially not for this long." He says it slowly and flatly, since whining about shopping for several hours straight hadn't gotten his point across.

"Look, I'll offer a compromise. Two shirts, ones that I've tried on already, and I'll turn them into... silk or whatever it is on special occasions. Otherwise I'm taking these," he waggles the horrible, horrible tshirts in Dorian's face, "... and putting them all in your closet."

... It's possible that he's mixed up 'compromising' with 'threatening'; he has more experience with the latter.

[brushoff]

Yeah, that's not compromise. Dorian realizes that much with a little frown on his face.

"How on earth is that a compromise?" He doesn't get anything out of it!

[beneathbluerafters]

"It's a compromise because I'm still getting shirts instead of just leaving!" That is not how compromising works, Klarion. That is not even remotely how compromising works.

... Also, mall security is starting to roam around outside the store, whoops.

[brushoff]

"Yes, but I'm not getting anything out of the equation. A compromise implies that both of us get something out of the compromise, even if it's not entirely what we want."

Dorian just explains this as calm as possible, trying to explain to Klarion what a compromise is in baby steps...and just kind of unknowingly ignores the mall security, one of whom is currently radioing in the fact that Klarion's got stolen shirts.

[beneathbluerafters]

"You already got to shop for hours and hours!" Klarion protests. "I don't--"

At that point, Klarion notices the security guards outside, and his eyes go wide. He isn't sure if shoplifting would be enough to get him arrested again, but like hell is he going to take that chance!

"... Quickly, grab some of the good shirts!" Without giving Dorian much time to respond (or protest!), Klarion throws the crappy tshirts into the store, grabs him by the arm, and yanks him through the portal into J-Mart. Or, well, he tries to anyway. Kid's got noodles for arms, so it's anyone's guess whether he succeeds or not.

[brushoff]

Dorian complies, grabbing some shirts. He's about to ask Klarion what's going on (he still hasn't noticed the security guards) before Klarion yanks him through a portal to J-Mart. Dorian gets a glimpse of the security guards on the way out and just kind of winces. Well that's a store he can't go back to again.

"Thanks for not letting us get arrested," he admitted, with a frown.

[beneathbluerafters]

"I'm not going to jail for something like this!" Klarion says indignantly, dusting himself off. They're in the discount section, where he grabbed the horrible tshirts. They're surrounded by them now, it's like a forest of cheap polyester.

"I've already been on probation once, there's no way I'm going through that stupidity again!"

[brushoff]

Dorian can't help but scowl though as he looks at the forest of cheap polyester. Well...at least he managed to get a few nice shirts for Klarion, even if Dorian has a sinking feeling that the remainder of the boy's new clothes were going to be polyester.

Ew.

"You can magic the security devices off the shirts we stole, right?"

[beneathbluerafters]

If it helps any, Klarion isn't attached to the polyester - he mostly just grabbed the shirts because they were the cheapest ones on the rack, and he knew it would annoy the hell out of Dorian.

"Probably," he shrugs. "I actually paid for them the last time I went shopping, but I don't see why it wouldn't work." He'd gone shopping with Jaime, who had a functioning moral compass, sad puppydog eyes, and a Disapproving Stare that was worse than kryptonite. Klarion takes the shirts from Dorian, squints a bit, and zaps the security tags into a couple of buzzing flies.

"There, that should do it. By the time they change back, they'll be some distance away."

[brushoff]

Jaime is the Shoulder Angel, Dorian is the Shoulder Devil. As such, Dorian can't help but grin as the security tags turn into flies.

"Marvelous," Dorian responds with a little grin. "Those shirts are yours now, by the way." It would have been a bit better if Dorian actually bought the shirts because he kind of liked that store but hey, beggars can't be choosers—and now he's a hundred or so dollars so riches than he was planning to be so no big.

[beneathbluerafters]

Look at it this way, now Dorian has a hundred extra dollars to spend on himself!

Klarion grins right back at him. Score ten points for the Shoulder Devil (not that he has much opposition, since Klarion kinda leans that way anyway, and Jaime is nowhere in sight!)

"Excellent! And since we can't go back there, I'd say that we're probably done, yes?"

[brushoff]

"It seems we are," Dorian remarks with a little siiiiiigh. Though, there's another option they have.

"Do you want any food, by the way? Since we've got time to kill, that is."

[beneathbluerafters]

Klarion brightens up instantly, it's like somebody flicked on a light switch. They've been shopping for hours, and he is hungry as hell... which probably didn't help his mood back in the fancy store, in retrospect.

"Well, we were in that shop for roughly a fortnight, so yes, I am hungry, as it happens."

[brushoff]

"Fortunately, I know a lovely little place—" that Klarion probably won't like, this is Klarion remember, any sort of attempt of class would be lost on him.

"...that we won't be going to because I imagine you won't like salmon. There's a pizza restaurant not too far from here if you want to go there. Something cheese, I don't think I've ever been."

Because let's be real, if anyone was going to miss the memo about what exactly Chuck E. Cheese entailed, it's going to be Dorian.