Cafe Pals [Hugo Strange, Open]

[Deleted]

Alison picked up a book from the shelf and looked it over, then compared it to another that she held in her other hand. She tucked in her bottom lip then pressed her lips together in a silent debate over which book was better to buy. She read the backs of both and flipped through the pages for pictures and after five minutes of careful study she replaced one of the books and kept the original one close to her heart as she skimmed for others that she might find interesting. When that was done, she moved onto purchasing the book then skipped over to the café area, slipping through the many tables and chairs in order to go up to the main counter and look over their menu items. Her eyes searched over the different food items available and knew precisely how much money she had within her purse to spend. So far everything did not look as good as she had hoped, for these were foods that Californians ate, not Montana folk. Her left cheek and upper lip drew into a disgruntled look of ‘why?’ as she read the ingredients to each sandwich.

Turkey and cheese chippotle Panini. Multigrain bagel. Grilled spinach and feta pretzel.

She exhaled through her nose and continued to search some more. Cinnamon scone, lemon sugar cookie… yeah that’s real healthy, although she did like scones on occasion. Minestrone soup? No, thank you! She had that at an Italian restaurant once and she remembered not caring for it. Her eyes started to drift past certain cakes, more pretzels and other desserts for she was hungry and needed food, not snacks. What on earth is potato and leek potage? She was not too certain if she liked the idea of potage but she knew what a potato was. Leek sounded like an onion to her but what did that taste like? She was not willing to spend a lot of money on something she may not like.

When a couple stepped up behind her, she moved aside and told them she was still deciding. Her smile faded once she concentrated on the menu once more. Her eyes grew wide when she saw a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Cookie and imagined the taste of sweet peanuts exciting her taste buds and making her smile, but no, she needed lunch. Think Alison, lunch! Chili? Good heavens no! Not this early in the day. Grilled cheese Panini sounds good but what is Panini? Chicken and dumpling sounds good. Maybe she could have that. Or what about the melted cheese? Which did she love more? Cheese definitely!

Sobe Lifewater Pacific coconut with coconut water hydration, regular Lean Sobe with green tea… oh for crying out loud why don’t they just have the regular kind? She shook her head and finally smiled when she found pina colada Sobe and plucked that out of the ice to set down on the counter. “One Sobe and a Grilled cheese Panini please.” She beamed as she had finally made up her mind, then fished around in her pocket for a twenty dollar bill and paid for both. She began to nod her head in time with the music over the speakers and even began to hum it when she realized it was Sting’s song called Bourbon Street being played in a classy jazz version.

“And you’ll only see me walking by the light of the moon, the brim of my hat hides the eye of a beast….” were the words that Alison heard and she looked up briefly at the speaker for when Sting changed his voice to sound like Louis Armstrong. She knew that Sting would sometimes sing in different voices and some where good while others were laughable, but she was not entirely certain if she liked this one or not. It could not get any more jazzed out unless he was actually there dressed all in black with rose colored glasses while seated on a high chair singing in front of a microphone. She was tempted to laugh as she pictured people snapping their fingers instead of clapping for him, but she could also see Sting getting into swing at some point, wearing a 1940’s zoot suit with the long loose jacket with padded shoulders and high-waisted tapering trousers, the exaggerated hat with the feather sticking out of it and spats. Sting could get away with that with his mullet. She toned down her grin when she received the change back for what she had paid and thanked the man behind the counter. Her food was brought out almost instantly so that she did not have to wait long and took her food to eat in. She found a clean table with a little straw wrapper near the chair and sat down. She pulled out her sandwich and bit the corner of it to taste. So far so good. She was pretty happy with her selection and glanced at those around her. Everyone seemed pretty normal and uninteresting until she spotted a man in the corner. He had round spectacles a bald head, a gray boxed beard with ears that stuck out at the ends. He looked like a college professor with his blue sweater on, and an intelligent one at that. What would he know? Geology? Science? History? She guessed he would be the quiet type who loved his work but had little interest in getting to know others unless they interested him, or was he the friendly uncle type?

Her thoughts changed suddenly when hot cheese dripped down her finger and she moved her hand away quickly, and placed her sandwich on a napkin. She sucked on the burned finger but knew it was no big deal. Sure it was hot but not as hot as a blistering sunburn. She picked up another napkin and wiped the grease off her hands. She needed to let her sandwich cool off and went for the Sobe. Oh how she loved the taste of pina colada! -Mostly because of the coconut taste.

She kept her face and body forward but watched the man out of the corner of her eye. He seemed rather fascinating for some strange reason, and she could never explain why she found certain people interesting more than others. Perhaps it was because she did not see their types very often or quite possibly because there was an interesting energy radiating off of the man? An aura, if you will. She thought about saying something to him but she did not want to disturb him. And not many people were open to discussion to a complete stranger either. Maybe if she asked him for the time or what brought him to this place? No. How about what he was doing? If he was reading a newspaper, a book, scribbling down notes or simply eating she could comment on any one of those topics.

She noted that his body language was very relaxed but completely still as older gentlemen tend to be. She wondered if maybe he had already seen her glancing at him and wondered what he would think of her if she said anything. She already knew she was too friendly for this city for there were not a whole lot of people that were as trusting as she was, but that was fine with her. Maybe if she did say hi to the man, she might brighten his day a little.

[hatter]

In his calm manner, Professor Hugo Strange sat in a chair in the corner of an average sized café of a bookstore, a place he was a regular in by now and had become accustomed to. He was looking the same as he usually did with his beard, round glasses, and bald head, and today he wore an outfit that was fairly simple though studious in appearance, consisting of a blue sweater along with some tan slacks and black dress shoes. One of his hands rested on the table top, next to a cup of coffee, a notebook, and a bowl of minestrone that he'd not touched since he'd gotten it. His other hand rested on his chin. He'd been writing in the notebook for a bit earlier, on some ideas he'd had while he was sitting there, but he'd stopped for a moment. Now he was just going over his thoughts in his head alone. He didn't come here to eat, he simply came here to think. The relatively calm air of these surroundings served to help with that. Besides that fact, the friendly people around, and the window to the side's view out on the parking lot, these places tended to have jazz music in the background, and this one was no exception. Moon over Bourbon Street was playing over the speakers, setting the mood of the place well. A solo song by Sting after his band the Police had been disbanded, it helped him properly form his thoughts on his current case he'd been thinking on for a while.

"To struggle with my instinct in the pale moonlight, how could I be this way when I pray to God above? I must love what I destroy and destroy the thing I love," the lyrics went at the part the song had reached.

He'd have preferred that he'd been able to glean some revealing evidence on the subject of his current case, the case of Victor Grant's possible second life as a werewolf, but thus far he hadn't gotten much from him or anyone else pointing to what he was wondering about. In almost equal terms he had his doubts on the possibility that Victor was what he thought he was, and he had his suspicious that pointed to the possibility being a reality. Strange's idea that this man was a real life werewolf slightly outweighed his doubts. He just needed more time to come to understand whether or not he could both disprove those doubts and prove that Grant's possible second state was in fact one of the 'meta-human' occurrences documented as existing in Gotham; furthermore, Strange needed to figure out a way to gain more clues on how this man's double life probably functioned.

Hugo Strange started on eating his soup after thinking that, taking up his spoon. He began to eat as he thought, for there was no reason to let a meal from here go to waste and become lukewarm.

Victor Grant, freelance photographer, professor, suspect, had been discovered in a ditch, and then he'd been brought to Arkham Asylum where he'd been interviewed by Dr. Iris Ledford. Professor Hugo Strange spent most of his time on research, research, and more research. The thing he was focusing now on was the sightings of a wolf like creature, one of which coincided with the time of Grant's strange actions. You could like at it and say he'd probably gotten intoxicated and simply ended up on the side of the road, or you could wonder if it held a strange connection with the creature sightings. Although it was a far-fetched idea, Strange had heard of a very similar sounding case that had involved a man slightly similar to Grant, and so after spending some thought on his suspicions without getting a self-dismissal of their truth, Strange had had the idea he was onto something.

After a few minutes Strange had finished his soup and set the bowl aside, away from his notebook and cup. Then he took up his pen off the cover of that notebook, flipped the book's cover to the side, went through a number of pages, and once he was settled on one clear of prior writing he began to jot down some more of the thoughts he was dwelling on. In his notations he went off of the subject of Grant for now, and onto the overlapping subject of the various near supernatural people that walked among both Gothamites and the people of the rest of the world. These various people whether they were on the good or bad sides of the law were remarkable indeed, and they deserved a great amount of study.

There were so many 'meta-humans' in existence by now, besides this possible werewolf. He'd heard the stories of some of the higher ranking ones such as the Superman and some of his peers, and then Strange had also seen some of the lower level ones going through the facility of Arkham. Namely Pamela Isley and Victor Fries, for example. The former was a pheromone infused botanist who was basically human poison, being a smart woman who could probably win over the likes of even Strange if she could get her hands on him. Though Strange had never been one for relationships, he was aware that biologically she could control him just as well as most of the other doctors, but he'd kept out of her way. Victor Fries, another Victor, he was another very intelligent man, an embodiment of the cold artificiality of cryogenically preserved life, possibly sparked by an incident in his early life. Now he was obsessed with curing his wife Nora, who apparently was incurable. It was odd, but to Strange most of these cases seemed to involve obsessions of some kind, going back to that figure, the Batman, whose identity hadn't ever been revealed. Jonathan Crane, another so called villain and past doctor, was obsessed with fear and wanted to embody it, whereas Victor and Isley seemed to be trying to respectively embody the frigid ice and the enveloping vines of nature themselves.

The extensive history of Gotham including the existence of these 'meta-humans' had fascinated Strange ever since he'd taken a closer look at it, and that was probably one of the reasons he'd stayed in Gotham for so long. He hadn't really lived anywhere else except here in fact, and could only think of a couple times when he'd been outside its limits.. but his thoughts were drifting off he realized, so he continued to try and focus on more proof to the possibility that Victor Grant was a werewolf.

[Deleted]

Alison restrained herself from laughing as the man before her was so into his work that he did not seem to notice anything or anyone else around him. It was fascinating that these types of men had no idea what was going on around them whereas she had been trained to listen to everything, see everything and be aware of the slightest change in environment in case something bad would happen. She was no expert at this by any means, for seven years of martial arts simply taught that one should be on their guard. How funny it was to know this and yet others were blissfully unaware of their surroundings and yet they also missed so much by not paying attention to anything in particular. And speaking of paying attention, she noticed Victor Grant’s name on the paper that the man was writing on. Now her curiosity had been turned on and it was racing through the many possibilities as to why this man would be writing about Victor. Where they friends? Co-workers? It must be co-workers. Relatives even? No, why would a relative write about their family in a café? And how could she bring up the subject without letting this man know she had glimpsed down at his paperwork? Oh I know….

Alison picked up her cousin’s cell phone and pretended to text while expressing her thoughts loud enough for her café neighbor to hear but no one else unless they were focused on her. “Call… me… Victor… Grant.” She smiled as if anticipating the future phone call before snapping the phone closed and placed it back into her brown purse with the leather tassels and intricate flower designs. “Knowing you, you’re probably still teaching.” She looked at the clock on the wall to see what time it was and replied with, “Yep.”

If that did not get the man’s attention, she did not know what would. She felt herself to be a fairly good actress and hoped that the man seated beside her did not see through her little pretense. And if he was smart enough to do just that, she hoped he would at least smile at her passable acting skills.

After having made the first move, she turned her attention back to her sandwich and pulled the two pieces of breed apart, allowing a large amount of steam to flow from the cheese and around the sides of bread. Once the main source of heat had been dealt with, she would be able to eat it without burning her tongue when reaching the center of her food. She picked it up and carefully nibbled at it, watching for any signs of dripping cheese that could harm her sensitive skin. She had always liked dipping her sandwiches into soup and smirked as she thought about asking the man next to her if she could use his to do just that. But then again, he was eating minestrone and she wasn’t too excited about that flavor, nor would she actually ask someone to have her food be dipped into theirs unless it was a friend’s lunch and she was curious about the flavor. And they would have to be a really close friend to forgive her bad manners she was fully aware of. Not that she had bad manners all the time, it was simply her curiosity out-weighing etiquette during certain moments and then satisfaction in knowing threw out any doubts that what she was doing was inappropriate according to the public’s eye. And in truth, little things like that did not bother her as long as she asked for other’s permission first, and they usually allowed her to sample their food and in return they get to see her strange habits that made her seem more like a teenager than an adult.

She turned her attention down at her purse as the cell phone’s ring tone went off. It was the violin version and them for the television series, “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” starring Jeremy Brett composed by Patrick Sowers. The song itself was called “221B Baker Street” referring to the London address where the fictional detective Mr. Holmes lived. The phone’s wall paper had a picture of a black background and a yellow canary centered in the middle. Alison was sorely tempted to change it to Jeremy Brett’s face but she knew that her cousin would find one more thing to shout about. And speak of the devil! Alison recognized the number from their flower shop, Petal Perfect instantly and flipped open the phone to receive the call. “Hello Dinah. I’m at the book and café eating lunch. No, why? Yeah right you miss him, don’t you?” Alison leaned back in her chair knowing her cousin better than she did. “Why would you miss that galoot? Because he’s handsome, charming, good with a bow… did I mention handsome?” She giggled and tried to keep her voice down so she would not disturb others around her.

“Really? What kind?” Her eyes drift back to the menu where she had recently bought her food from. “Turkey and cheese on chippotle but I wouldn’t recommend it to you since that’s cannibalism for one bird to eat another. Then there’s the soups and desserts… how about chicken dumpling? No? You’re more picky than I am Miss Lance.” Alison smiled then laughed when Dinah mentioned something about hating health-based foods. “Yes, so do I but what can you do other than order a pizza?”

Alison looked around her to make certain that no one was annoyed with her for chatting on the phone. She did not think it was inappropriate to do so in a public place and her voice was lowered. So far so good. As her cousin continued to talk on the phone, Alison nodded even though Dinah could not see her. “That sounds good, I’ll see you later.” She hung up and put the phone back into her purse while still grinning. She loved how her cousin pretended not to care much about anything when in reality, she did.

[hatter]

Strange almost would have jumped had he not been as stiffly set in complacency as he was, but nonetheless he was startled at the two words that had been spoken nearby in a woman's voice, as soon as he heard them. Did someone say Victor Grant? At those words Hugo took his sight off of the papers and looked up and around him, wondering who'd said that or if he'd maybe misheard. Grant was of course pretty important, and Strange still knew that he himself would need to figure out if there were any leads involving Grant so that he could thoroughly research these "werewolf" cases. Even if it didn't lead to anywhere, it was still something he might have to do to better understand the inner workings of a special group of Gotham's meta-human individuals, ones that may have even inspired the modern day works involving werewolves in the first place.

One person near him caught his eyesight, a woman that had just gotten off her phone, so he figured that she'd probably been the one to say Victor Grant unless he'd been imagining it. She was much younger, with straight blonde hair. She looked fairly merry and pleasant from what he could tell. She was probably someone from Grant's social circle, and if that was the case it would be interesting to hear from her on him if she mentioned anything about him. First, Strange would have to get to know her. The thought brought him to his own list of people he knew. Hugo didn't have too many that he actually could call friends, though he had known a lot of names and faces throughout his youth, career at Arkham, and as a product of some of the stuff that he'd published over time. But he had a tremendous list of acquaintances, and it seemed as if Grant's would get to go on that list along with Grant himself.

But it wasn't time to think about all that, it was time for him to talk. Strange always thought about what he'd do before he did anything, so he just needed to think about if this was right to try and make conversation, but then he just decided that if it didn't go anywhere it wouldn't matter too much. She'd just gotten done adjusting something or other with her purse he noticed, so he'd have to try and hold a conversation with her before she made her leave and the opportunity was blown.

He got out of his chair, and then stood up for a second, pushing the chair in under the table so that it wouldn't be out of place or anything like that, and besides that he wouldn't want to leave a mess, though he'd be leaving the food there for now. Afterwards he went over to her table and tried to stand next to an unoccupied chair by it, hopefully without looking odd, vaguely afraid that she'd take his presence with unease. Anyone that worked in an asylum, Arkham Asylum no less, would probably get that feeling of unease associated with them. At least that's what he expected.

"Hello. I am Professor Hugo Strange, from Arkham Asylum. I hope that you don't find my accosting you odd. I would just like to have a word with you if it's not a problem."

Hugo Strange wondered what she'd say and think in response, since he was probably a good bit odd to have to see. A Professor from Arkham wanting to have a word was an uncommon occurrence.

"May I sit here?" Hugo asked after that, meaning to indicate the chair in front of him.

[Deleted]

Alison lift her head when she saw the man get up and stand beside her in silence. So it had worked! How clever of her to get his attention by mentioning one name. Now to find out how he knew Victor. Was this the uncle Victor always spoke about? No, that can’t be right. That uncle passed away. Unless the man with the beard really was Victor’s uncle and has not informed him that he was still alive! The game to find out was so on! Alison turned her body toward the man to show that she was open to speaking with him and smiled kindly as he spoke in order to get her attention. His voice was smooth and deep, very soothing. Her ears picked up a slight accent, thrilling her over the idea that she did not know where he was from. Or was there an accent at all? He sounded like a Gothamite but with his deep tone it was hard to tell if he was… Ukrainian Perhaps? Her blue eyes sparkled with glee as he introduced himself.

“Strange, an interesting name and yet I can usually pick out interesting people with something fascinating to say. At least I will find them fascinating.” - Alison thought as she listened and repeated his name in her head a couple of times so that she would not forget it. She was right about him being a professor of sorts and relished the chance of being correct about his title for she loved to guess and it was a 50/50 percent chance that she was right. Dinah was better at this game, for she paid even closer attention to those she finds needing to be studied, but Alison tried this trick simply for fun. She had no reason to pay close attention to detail aside from while working at a particular job that called for such a skill, because she rarely got into trouble with the wrong types of people to where noticing such details would mean death when one failed to notice key dangers. And then the professor mentioned something that struck her inner alarm bells when he mentioned Arkham Asylum. Her brows show up in surprise although she quickly recovered her concern by looking interested in what he had to say all with the blink of an eye, for she was good at controlling her expressions and tone of voice to hide her real thoughts when she wanted to, and this was one of those moments where she needed more details about him before she could come to a decision on whether she could trust him or not.

He mentioned being a professor but what did that mean? Inmates in Arkham were not taught in class rooms, at least not that she knew of. He must be a professor of behavioral science or something… unless he was literally from Arkham in meaning he was an inmate. How silly was that speculation? Alison could have laughed for jumping to conclusions. This was further proof that her imagination was running away with her and she needed to be the one in control, not it.

He towered over her while she remained seated; her martial arts instincts were already assessing the situation and finding a solution for a way out in case he were to suddenly attack. Call it a moment of reading into the dangers of what could be and how to make an escape plan when needed, even though the situation may never call for one. It was another thing her cousin had taught her, be aware of your surroundings at all times and have a plan when things go wrong. She didn’t need to tell her this for throughout the training it just felt natural to be aware of everyone’s position, every sound, every movement, but this was also very distracting, especially when her eyes turned to see what something was while being in the middle of a conversation and the person she is speaking with will begin to wonder what’s going on and also look. Hopefully they were in a public enough area that nothing would go wrong. And even if it did, she trusted her cousin to save her if not fight her way to safety if it was necessary. On one hand, her self defense training made her fast to respond to any movement in case the man where to use his hands at her, and she knew how to instinctively block anything coming near her face or throat. This came as a problem when friends would simply raise their arm to tuck some hair behind their ears and Alison would react by flinching, testing her reflex before they could carry out their action and end up looking silly before a puzzled friend or acquaintance. She still had to learn how to control her reflexes; they were both a blessing and a curse.

Alison then really looked at him this time, giving his body language the once-over as she raised her eyes to his, then relaxed when she did not find him to be in any kind of fighting stance. At last she figured him to be harmless, for he seemed fairly well-composed and reminded her of a distant uncle she could get used to.

“No, not at all, please have a seat.” She pointed to the chair on the opposite side of the table she was sitting in. She moved her purse off to the side so that it would not get in the way of them talking and facing each other; then began to silently debate if she should place her purse on the floor by her feet instead. Which would be better? She’d have more luck seeing it off to the side and from the corner of her eyes than on the ground. Any movement near her feet and she would become suspicious that someone was tampering with her belongings, and therefore she would not be able to pay complete attention to the man in front of her.

Okay then, how about the lap? Place the purse on the lap and no more worries!

Alison did as her brain told her to and felt comfortable letting her leather purse rest near her belly for now. She looked down at her sandwich and glanced back at the cup he had left behind him. “I hope you do not find me rude eating in front of you? Would you like half of my sandwich?” She offered although she silently prayed he did not take her offer for she was rather hungry and could use a full sandwich to please at least a little of her stomach’s craving for food. "You mentioned being a professor. What particular topic have you become professor of?" She asked curiously.