All Arrangements Have Been Done (Bree & Sophia)
For once, Sophia was not in full control of herself. She'd been a nervous, self-conscious mess for the past several hours, all over an otherwise simple delivery she'd picked up from her apartment building's main office. She hadn't been home to answer the door, but luckily she wasn't out for very long, and the staff had had the good sense to keep the chocolate-covered treats refrigerated until she came to pick them up. Equally fortunate was that she had the presence of mind to put them in the fridge at home, even if the thought only occurred to her about ten minutes into the closest thing to full-blown panic that she could muster. After all, she was getting a gift on Valentine's Day? Her? And it was something that cost actual money, and not just a cheap courtesy gift like those tacky little candy hearts that tasted like they were made from chalk. That was arguably the one detail that threw her the most. Followed closely by the fact that Bree had provided her cell number and an offer to get drinks sometime afterward. Was she..."into" her? Or was it just an offer to hang out, with holiday-appropriate sweets attached as incentive?
Even by the time she was standing outside the Broken Shillelagh, she was still completely unsure of Bree's motives. Largely because she couldn't bring herself to ask her over the phone, once she got around to calling her and taking her up on the offer. She wound up making a last-minute dash to the closest mall just to be safe, picking up a fairly simple black dress to wear in case it was a little more than a casual invite. She had to perform some grade-A amateur work on it once she got home, just to make room for the cables and various bits of machinery sticking out of her.
While she could cover up her work well enough, it would clearly appear altered to any serious observation, but as Sophia didn't like the idea of just trying to squeeze all the extra machinery in underneath (or what it would look like if she tried), she didn't have much of a choice. The end result was a small boost to the cleavage rating, due to the need to trim it down a bit further to accommodate the cables and module embedded in her chest. The back had to undergo much more drastic alteration, as the bulk of her life support system was anchored to her spine, Â It also sported a long split down the sides, allowing the cables there to be attached to her while still remaining outside the dress.She had to fasten a few bits of fabric to the front and back pieces of the dress just to keep it snug against her though, in order to avoid providing a free show to anyone who happened to see her from the side. Luckily, the lower half of the dress didn't need to be altered too much, though it did need to be split from the bottom up a ways, just to make sure it had enough flexibility to fit over the frame on her left leg and the armored plating on her right. Not to mention, allow her to move around without the risk of tearing the dress outright.
She didn't put much more effort or money into the attempt though, largely because she was still trying to carefully limit how much money she was spending, and the dress was far from a planned expense to start with. Or a small one, at least when compared to her usual weekly budget. Which was just one item on a long list of worries causing her to unconsciously fidget outside while she waited for Bree to arrive, usually taking shape in the form of her constantly fiddling with the cellular device she'd embedded in her left arm. It was far less advanced than any of the phones even the high school kids in Gotham were running around with, sporting only a keypad and a small display to show what numbers had been pressed, but it was enough to let her make and receive calls. And at the moment, the only thing that was currently protecting Bree against a call every thirty seconds as she paced around the outside of the bar was what little remained of Sophia's self-control. Which, coincidentally, was fading fast.
