washing machine heart

“That wound be me.” With his family being as prominent as it is around the island, he’s not entirely unfamiliar with people recognizing him, but it doesn’t mean he likes that people feel comfortable enough chatting with him on the street. “I’m sorry, do I know you?” he adds with narrowed eyes as he takes a better look at the other man, wondering if perhaps he is supposed to know who he is. But after a few moments of being unable to place him Hans shrugs, giving up on that quickly. “It’s going just great, thanks.” Internally cursing his desire to be seen as kind and likable by even the most worthless of people. “I hope your day is going great too… uh.” He pauses for a moment. “Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

Dimitri of course already knew it was Hans, he just needed to make him introduce himself. “Oh, no we haven’t met before,” he shook his head playfully and then smiled wide as Hans said he was doing well “Thats good, wonderful! And oh, I completely forgot, sorry about that—my names Dimitri, it’s wonderful to meet you,” he added as he bowed just a bit for a little extra flair. “Off to do anything fun today? Or do you have royal business to attend to?” He chuckled a little bit at his words, looking around them, “I hope it’s exciting.”

Velma watched his movements. And they hate themself for not being able to tell if this is an act or if he’s really just this way. Seemed like an act, especially when he checked to make sure he has his own wallet. “Uh, huh,” they nodded, noting how he didn’t consider stealing an option that some people might do. So he’s either really trying to play this up or he’s genuinely just an idiot and the cynical part of Velma says it’s the former. “I mean, I’ve definitely had better days. Almost lost my wallet, you know? And my name is Velma, but I’m sure you already knew that because like you said, the streets are pretty busy today, so I’d assume you peeked inside the wallet to make sure the ID matched the person you were returning it to.” They said, almost like they were bored of the conversation. They think about leaving it at that, but they don’t. “What an odd send off,” they look at him, “You know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you know something I don’t. Like that there’s some dastardly pick pocket out there ruining people’s day.” Velma looks at him pointedly. “Because like, you said I dropped my wallet, but just because I’m clumsy doesn’t mean your wallet’s in danger too. But you seemed pretty relieved to find that it was still in your pocket. Which is a weird thing to be so worried about when you seem so confident that people would do the right thing and return it to either it’s owner or to the police station for them to return it. And you looked around so shiftily, it’s like you’re worried someone’s watching you so either you’re a bigger conspiracy theorist than all my friends, or you know that someone’s around here pick pocketing or something. And I would assume that it’s either you or a friend of yours seeing as you’re just warning me and not looking for some authority figure to tell.” Was their accusation wild and in a court of law would it be seen as circumstantial evidence rather than anything with facts to back it up? Yes. But either they were right in their accusation or their tangent would be weird enough to get this guy to be annoyed with them and see that they wouldn’t make a great hostage and walk away, so really it felt like a win/win either way.  

Toulouse nodded. “Yeah, I do teach there. That makes sense.” he agreed and smiled some to himself, looking down at the wallet in his hands again. He pushed his wallet back in his pocket and looked back up at Dimitri. “I did think you looked familiar. Can I get you a cup of coffee as a thanks?” he offered, gesturing towards the coffeeshop they were passing.

Dimitri let his smile relax even more, completely content with how he was playing with the professor. “Yeah, that makes a lot of sense then, glad I could familiarize your face,” he chuckled and put his hand to his chest as he heard him offer him a cup of coffee, “Oh you don’t have to, but yes that’d be absolutely lovely!” He stepped closer to him and looked around them, “Is there a coffee place nearby?”

Turning around with an eyebrow raised as he notices someone trying to get his attention, Hans can’t believe the audacity of poor people. Just talking to him out of nowhere? Disgraceful. Not that he knows anything about the boy, but looking him up and down, he has a good enough eye to make an assumption. Hans wants to tell him to keep it, having no interest in taking back anything this boy’s grubby little peasant hands have touched. But he knows better than to let that side of him show to someone that isn’t a part of his most intimate group of friends, valuing his appearance and good reputation too much. “Thank you,” he says instead, plastering a fake smile on his face as he pockets the wallet. He’ll throw it out and get a new one later. “Can’t imagine what I’d do if I lost it.”

Dimitri had spent plenty of times sneaking around the palace invisible to notice a royals behavior when around them. Especially knowing it was Hans after looking at his identification made him smirk. He almost pocketed the wallet completely, but he’d figure he’d shoot his shot. “No problem at all, oh wait, I recognize you—are you Hans Isles?” He grinned wide and stood up a little taller, reaching his hand out to see if Hans would shake it—he almost doubted if he would or not, “I hope your day is going lovely, Hans.” He grinned a bit mischievously.

Velma turned when they heard someone call out. They looked over, brow furrowed. “Oh, weird,” they said, not really sure how their wallet could’ve fallen out of their pocket. Velma took a step closer, taking the wallet back. “Um, thanks. Yeah, it’d suck to lose my wallet. Got all my important stuff in here.” Clearly he was trying at something with that smile and the hand going through his hair, but Velma… wasn’t buying into it. Because this felt like something out of one of the true crimes podcasts they listened to where there’s a really charming and charismatic guy who’s just trying to be helpful and then maybe that leads to talking and then next thing you know you’re trapped in a basement. But that was so cynical and they could almost hear their friends rolling their eyes at them. “Nice of you to return it; not a lot of people would do that.”

Not expecting to be stopped Alex automatically reached out for her wallet. With her mind so focused on lunch it must of dropped as she crossed the street. “Thank, thank you. I would have never noticed.”

Dimitri grinned wide and handed the wallet back to Alex, “Hey, it’s problem at all, just looking out for one another, right?” His Russian accent wasn’t very thick, but definitely noticeable, "I hope you have a lovely day, what are you up to?”

hearing someone call out to him, zander paused in his walk towards the coffee shop and turned to see who it could have been or what he could have dropped. he was a bit of a simple man and didn’t really carry much with him, the only thing really being his wallet - which was currently in the boy’s hand. taking it back, he offers a small smile and a nod. “thanks.”

dimitri smiled brightly at zander tarr before running his fingers through his locks of brown hair, “oh it’s no problem, anything i can do to help someone out, you know?” he winked and then casually looked him up and down, “i super love your style, man, where do you get your clothes?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

Toulouse was probably the king of not paying attention to his surroundings. When he wasn’t driving he usually walked around with his nose in his phone, or making sure his dog didn’t wander into the road when there was a car driving by. Toulouse only looked up from the device that was slowly becoming his whole world when he heard a voice that was only vaguely familiar. “Huh?” he instinctively checked his pockets - that were pretty deep… or so he thought anyway - before reaching out for his wallet from the other male, checking to see if it was really his. Seeing his ID he nodded. “Oh, thank you. Yeah, I’ll be more careful. I thought it was secure…” He laughed lightly. “Thanks, anyway. Do I know you from somewhere?”

Dimitri couldn’t take the charming smile off of his face—it was his winning feature after all, wasn’t it? He chuckled and shrugged his shoulders casually. “Oh, it’s no problem at all, man, don’t worry about it,” he let out a little hummed and pursed his lips as he studied Toulouse Chat’s face, “you do look familiar,” he nodded his head, and then had an ‘aha!’ moment, “oh yeah, I’ve seen you around campus! Does that sound about right? You teach there or something?”