Piper couldn’t help but let out a small laugh. She understood how it was being worn out from work. Whenever she was exhausted from work she could get irritable.Feeling a bit bad now for interrupting his reading. “Don’t worry about it.” Giving the other a dimple filled smile. “I have pretty thick skin. It takes more than a person being a bit of an ass to get to me.”
The redhead gave a a small nod. “Sorry to bother you about this. I’m sure a student would most definitely enjoy.” Glad she was able to give the baked good away for someone would would actually need it. “I’m not heading back to the police station for awhile or I’d bring it with me. It would end up just sitting in my cruiser. I doubt my coworkers would want to eat it then.”
“A rare quality, it seems.” Many would have already stormed away after his words. He wouldn’t be altogether unhappy with that result, but that was a different matter. “I suppose the least I can do is offer you a seat, if you’re not leaving immediately.” He didn’t really want to have company at the moment (not that he ever did) but it did seem the least he could do after unnecessarily snapping.
“I hardly think you ought to be apologizing.” If she had been seeking medical advice, he wouldn’t have argued that. Still, even he wouldn’t have someone apologize for attempting to give him something. “Yes, I don’t think that would hold well. The weather’s been on the warm side lately, and it may just melt.”
All Locasta did was mind her own business when she heard the other speak. Frowning at his words, she tilted her head to the side and hummed. At this point, she didn’t really care all that much if the person speaking was having a bad day. “No need to talk to me in such a manner” she told him, cocking an eyebrow and crossing her arms over her chest. She wasn’t someone who took things personally and she wasn’t saying that his behavior was making her feel bad. She simply put didn’t care. But that didn’t mean that what he did was okay.
“There are very few things which truly need to be done, and yet we go on doing things all the same.” Jack went on, eyes remaining fixed on his book as he spoke. A less cross version of him might have been tempted to be a little kinder, possibly even regretful. At the moment though, he couldn’t bring himself to feel particularly sorry for what he had said.
Piper was on break after a morning full of running around. She had responded to a number of 911 calls. Nothing serious, a few noise complaints and a woman who though the devil was in her basement. It ended up just being her boiler was broken. As she ordered her food the girl behind the counter kept complimenting her. The girl kept mentioning how she liked the officer’s uniform. Piper just thanked the girl awkwardly not wanting to be rude.
After she got her food she noticed the girl slipped in something extra. There was a muffin in her bag that she didn’t order. As she turned around the girl behind the counter just winked at her. The redhead did not want to go back up there. She also couldn’t eat the muffin since it wasn’t gluten free. Other than that it was a perfectly good muffin. She decided to offer it to someone else. Looking around she noticed a man in scrubs near by. She made her way over, pausing when he began to talk. “Oh no, I’m not here to bug you. I just wanted to know if you wanted this muffin” She held out the muffin for him to see. “The girl behind the counter gave it to me for free, I just can’t eat because I have a gluten allergy.”
“Hmm?” It took Jack another moment to really drag his attention away from the book in his hand, having been rather firmly entrenched in the story. It was another moment before the woman’s words registered and his eyes landed on the muffin in her hands. “Well, it seems I’ve successfully made an ass of myself.” He admitted, realizing what exactly he’d done. That was the problem with lack of sleep; he lost what little filter he had to begin with. “Not that that would be any different than what is normal for me.”
Jack shut the book and allowed it to rest on the table, supposing the least he could do was give his full attention now. “I can’t say that I care much for muffins but if you’re simply looking to get rid of it, you’re welcome to leave it here. I’m sure there’s a poor student back at the hospital who would appreciate it should I choose to bring it back to work.”
[ colin o’donoghue, thirty-four, cis-male, he/him] ━ hey, I just saw [ jack connolly ] walking down the streets of crownsville. they’ve lived in town for [ four years ], and you can catch them around town working as a [ surgeon ]. I hear they’re known to be [ orderly & generous ] and [ cantankerous & tactlesst ]. if asked, they would say their aesthetic would be [ elbow patches, old books, scotch on the rocks ].
Okay so it has been A WHILE since I’ve done one of these, so bear with me and I will do my best. Some bullet points of what Jack comes from;
- Jack comes from a wealthy Irish family. His parents were never particularly close to him or his brother, but neither were they cruel. They could have been, especially considering the amount of trouble him and his younger brother got themselves into on a regular basis.
- From the very beginning, Jack was his brother’s keeper. He was the one in charge of James, the one told to keep him out of trouble, which was no easy feat when it came to James. As children, things were usually harmless pranks, getting into things they shouldn’t have. It was high school when the stakes began to rise.
- Jack and James were as different as could be. Jack, the studious rule followers, James just as determined to break any rules. And yet, they were inseparable. Best friends. Jack followed wherever James went, followed James’ irresistible charm and the responsibility he’d always felt towards his brother. It got them into bigger and bigger trouble as James’ antics took darker turns, falling in with the wrong crowd.
- Things took a bad turn when Jack chose to go to a university. James took it as a personal affront, as Jack abandoning him. He’d struck up friendship with people in a questionable political group and thought that Jack would follow him, as always. Jack did not.
- This was the beginning of the end. Their relationship became significantly more strained, though not for lack of trying on Jack’s part. He did what he could to convince James they were just growing up, taking different paths. It was Jack’s graduation when things came to a head.
- Jack still isn’t sure what the fight was really about. James was asking for money, something about getting in over his head and needing help. When Jack refused, things got heated. The fight turned physical and at the end of it, Jack felt he only had one option. He left.
- Taking up his residency in a town on the opposite side of Ireland, Jack worked on finding out who he was apart from his family, apart from James. He fell into routine and found some peace in his life for once. It was a good several years and he intended to live out the rest of his life there.
- Of course, James found him again. It wasn’t intentional, just a messy coincidence that ended in another fight and left Jack with the resolve that it was time to leave Ireland entirely. He never cared for conflict and there would be no placating James at this point. So he left. Leaving Europe behind entirely, he turned to America and found a hospital offering him a job.
- Feeling old beyond his years and more tired than he should have for a mere thirty years, Jack started a new chapter of his life in a new place. It didn’t take long to earn a reputation as skilled surgeon, albeit a difficult one. Still, he found a cottage on the outskirts of town and has carved himself out a very comfortable rut.
Personality:
Jack is an incredibly grumpy man who acts thirty years older than he already is. He doesn’t care for social things, drinks too much and is tired all the time. That being said, he’s also generous to a fault and still has very old, proper manners ingrained in him from being raised in a high society life. He prefers simple things and can spend hours at the bookstore going through old books and reading. Undoubtedly, he will come off as rude and abrasive, but he will never follow through with a single one of his threats and will bluster if you compliment him on anything.
Possible connections:
Someone he met at the hospital? Could be a coworker or a patient! Really open for opportunity.
Drinking buddy, he spends a lot of time in a very particular stool at his favorite bar.
Reading buddy? They sit silently and read together at the bookstore/library.
Overseas person? Could be a tourist, or they could have lived in Ireland for a while and known him in college or met him and James at some point.
Literally any random person he ran into and was rude to and now they hate him.
Liv could often be found tucked away in the corner of this particular restaurant. While the school year was going on, she would sit there and work on lesson plans, but now she was working on her PhD. This restaurant had good food and a friendly staff, so she loved spending time there. Because she was hard at work, Liv paid no mind to the man in scrubs. She wasn’t the type of person who stuck her nose in where it didn’t belong, either. All different types of people came in and out of this restaurant. Sipping a cup of tea, she flipped through the pages of one of her books, only looking up when an object on the floor caught her eye. Someone had dropped their wallet.
Standing up from her seat, Liv retrieved it and decided to go about finding the owner. She knew she would hate losing hers, and polite as she was, she didn’t even think to open it to see if there was a driver’s license photo to help identify who the wallet belonged to. Approaching the man wearing the scrubs, the petite blonde quirked a brow at his words. “Oh, no. I’m not here to ask for a consultation. I was just going to ask if this was yours,” she said, holding up the lost wallet.
“Ah,” it took only a glance for Jack to see the wallet was his, without reaching to feel his pockets. He wasn’t sure where or how it had fallen, but he supposed he ought to offer a little more decency to someone willing to return it, long shift or not. “Yes, that’ll be mine. I’m not sure how I managed to lose it.” Manners dictated that he set his book to the side and stand in order to reach a hand out for it, feeling as though the wind had been stolen from his sails.
“You’ll have to excuse my manners, I’m afraid fail when one has been awake for over two days.” It wasn’t much of an apology, but he imagined he could supplement it by letting his waitress know that he would cover her dinner. Anonymously, of course. It was always easier that way. “I much appreciate your returning it where many would simply pocket it.”
Athena had gone out to pick up some food on her break from work, having passing by a man as she waited for her order. “Uh, I definitely did not need a consultation for anything.” she laughed a little. “So sorry to disappoint you.”
“Yes, simply crushed,” Jack responded flatly, still hardly affording as much as a glance up. “Is there a purpose for your standing in front of my table, then?” He inquired further, eyebrow arching upwards as he finally decided to direct his attention towards the stranger.
What many people would be tempted to term a rut, Jack called a comfortable routine. He preferred the ease of knowing what to expect of things and was typically put in a particularly sour mood when anything happened to break his ‘routine’. A fact which had him intensely bothered at the moment, having had his shifts rearranged and skewing his entire week. He was accustomed to eating in the hospital cafeteria, but the poor mood had him seeking food elsewhere and he sat at one of the local restaurants, a book in one hand and a fork in the other, doing his best to appear unavailable.
He didn’t know why he expected it to work. He’d made the mistake of leaving the hospital still in his scrubs and they always managed to make him a target for people seeking medical advice. So as a shadow fell over him, Jack’s scowl deepened and he refused to look up. “If you want a consultation, the clinic is down the road. I’ve no interest in looking at your rash or bite or diagnosing whatever ailment it is you’ve convinced yourself you’ve got.”
“I know, I know. People usually say that playing games is useless.” She rolled her eyes to an adult that was looking at her with judging eyes. She was too tired to explain the benefits of games that she just preferred to go somewhere else. She was looking for an available bench, but mostly all of them were full. She finally found one and sat beside an unknown person. “I am sorry for interrupting you, but may I seat here?” She asked politely with her Switch on her hand.
There were times when Jack couldn’t make it all that far away from the hospital before sitting down for a spell. It wasn’t so much about being physically tired, though that was an aspect after a thirty six hour shift, it was more that the day had a way of catching up once he was out of the business of the hospital floor and he often found himself stopping at a park on the walk home to read or simply shut his eyes for a bit. He was sitting with his eyes shut and head tilted back when he felt someone approach and opened a single eye. “Are you intending to blast the volume of that thing right next to me?”
Dane had spent all morning taking pictures around the quaint little town. He had met so many people who were so kind and he couldnt imagine how such a small town in the south could be so insanely friendly. He looked at all of the gorgeous sights the place had to offer and let his shutter do the rest. He looked over to the main street and noticed a small sideway, it led to a small secret garden, he smiled and noticed someone amongst the flowers. “do you mind if I take your picture? the light is hitting you beautifully” he asked with a grin
“I beg your pardon?” Jack’s attention was drawn up from his book, expression drawn into a frown with the interruption. He’d discovered the little private park shortly after moving to Crownsville and grown to rely upon the privacy of it most days. It was a peaceful place when he left the hospital after a long shift, and the idea of having that peace interrupted set him in a particularly grouchy mood. Still, he folded his book shut and did his best to put on a civil face. “I’ve never cared much for pictures.”
