[ all of these ghost towns I keep traveling through ] [ OPEN log ]

[ohgollygeewhiz]

WHO: Tom Raymond and you
WHAT: Tom. Coffee. Be his friend?
WHERE: A scuzzy diner in TorC
WHEN: ANY MORNING THIS WEEK
WARNINGS: uh. tl;dr?

Comments

[knowsallaboutit]

If the various doctors and nurses who Death occasionally remembered to go see ever knew the exact ratio of sleep verses coffee intake Death indulged in, she suspected they would have had her committed on the spot. Or did they still do that?

Insomnia was a relatively new and interesting thing, honestly, fraying the edges of her conscious mind and rearranging details of the past that had gone from sharp and clear to hazy and vague. For the months that she had been alive, Death still hadn't quite gotten the art of going to sleep down quite right. Her usual method of doing things until she fell, exhausted, into bed was turning out to be a bit hit-and-miss. She had a tendency to wander on the miss days.

This was one of those days, pushing through the diner door in search of a little food, a little drink and somewhere to rest for a bit. Tea, maybe, instead of coffee. And maybe she could stumble her way back to the Boot and sleep for a bit. That sounded good. She smiled and offered a "Good morning" to the diner in general.

The scent of fresh tobacco smoke tripped her up for a moment, (she was in the 21st century, right?) before she caught sight of the man near the back. "Oh, hey, Tom."

[ohgollygeewhiz]

Tom always read the whole paper, even if many of the issues and articles went over his head. It was the principle of the thing, the further expression of ritual and habit. He was just the type to finish things. It would have been wasteful to buy the paper and the only read half of it.

He looked up at his name, folding over the unfinished paper with care. Didi was a plain kind of girl, but she stood out in a crowd. He couldn't put his thumb on why she was so different, since most of it was dug down deep in his gut, but she just seemed to...float. It wasn't the type of floating that came from a bubbly personality or too much energy; she just seemed to drift just outside of normality, enigmatic.

Tom didn't try to figure her out. He simply enjoyed her company and accepted her smiles that reflected meanings he would never ever get.

"'Morning, Didi," he said warmly, sipping his coffee. "You're up with the birds."

[knowsallaboutit]

"It depends on your birds," she told him, almost flopping down into the seat across from him with a soft "oomph." Normally, she'd ask or wait for an invitation, but she was a little too tired to be perfectly proper. "I think I beat the early bird, today. I may have even beaten the worm!"

She rested her elbow on the table, leaning her cheek against her palm. "I'm trying to decide if I like dawn or early morning better. I can't make up my mind yet. You're up pretty early too."