fandomtownies | Luke's Diner, January 10 (Monday)

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Luke's Diner, January 10 (Monday)

Don't ask why Lacey had taken a wild notion to thoroughly clean the cash register, right down to every little crevice between the keys. (In reality, she'd had a fairly vivid nightmare that involved adorable yet bitey plush bacteria squirming out from between the keys in giggling, gleeful hordes, and had woken up shrieking, then run straight for the disinfectant in her kitchen. She was not sharing this information with anyone, thank you.)

But that, at almost any point in the day you might choose to peek in, was exactly what she was doing in between serving customers and arguing with the kitchen staff that just because you had an allergy to shellfish it did not mean you were from Venus.

Yes, all day. Anything to purge the horrifying dream imagery from her brain, okay?

Today's Specials
Roasted Chicken with Artichokes and Olives
Roasted Tomato Soup
Potato and Kale Cakes

NOW HIRING - See Manager for Details
Thursday and Weekend Shifts Available

Luke's is open, and no, this doesn't count as money laundering. At all.

[OOC: OCD-free, and I blame

divinesurfchick. For the shellfish thing anyway.]

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"Cleaning day?" asked Angua as she came into the diner, trying her best not to wince. If there was anything that could easily kill an appetite, it was the horrible stingingly bright hues of cleaning products. But with her extended holiday in Ankh-Morpork, she would have to suffer through the astringency to make up for not having stopped in for a while.

Lacey had tried to go for the eco-friendly cleaning products, and mostly she succeeded at that, but some days there was nothing that worked quite like Lysol to ease a paranoidly germ-phobic mind. Sorry, Angua.

"Just the cash register," she replied. "It needed it. All those little crevices . . . it's like a set of bacterial catacombs. Just harboring all kinds of ick. I probably shouldn't have left it so long."

She surveyed the grime-covered cotton swab she'd been poking between the keys. "Euuuuuugh."

Psst, Lacey, that might be unappetizing. Hurriedly she tossed the swab into the trash and switched right into perky-customer-service mode.

"Angua, hi! How have you been?"

Pine-fresh scent, her ass. Angua knew pine trees, she'd marked pine trees, but not even marking them was nearly as offensive as suggesting that's what they smelled like.

Of course, she was probably just a little more sensitive to that sort of thing.

The cotton swab managed to get a little bit a twist of Angua's nose, too, though that was mostly from thinking on how, back home, that'd be tossed into the stew, not in the trash.

And that was where she wanted to return. Go figure.

"Same as usual, really," she admitted as she slipped onto her usual stool. "You? How're the new bunch of teachers and students?"

Besides smelly. She was still not pleased with the increase of bloodsucker in the air.

"They seem all right so far. I don't know; I'm taking some time off from the radio station this term," Lacey admitted.

. . . no cotton swab, new or used, would be going anywhere near her stew, thank you very much.

"Though from what I hear from John, the sex ed class is an interesting one," she went on. "And by interesting, we mean slightly traumatizing."

"John....Watson?" Angua guessed, after a moment to try to remember any or all of the Johns around this place. "Is that what he's teaching? I don't know whether to pity, admire, or commit anyone who'd want to teach that to teenagers..."

"And I'll miss you on the radio," she added with a faint smile.

"That's him," Lacey confirmed cheerfully. "Poor him, he looked like he was in horrible shape after last Monday's class."

Though the next bit had her perking up. "You will? Aw, really? I just needed some time off from the squirrels." Translation: she wanted a break from being an acorn target, and the squirrels (she thought) were tired of her suggestions. "I'll probably go back to it. I like being a useful part of the information chain."

"I can definitely understand needing a break from the squirrels," Angua said with a faint smirk. "Especially if you've got something else to spend your time on."

Which segued nicely into her inquiry of, "Did he stop in for a bite, then?"

Lacey's grin took a distinct turn toward the gossipy.

"Uh huh. After class, and since tea wasn't enough to cope with the trauma, we went to Caritas afterward."

Nice trap you set up there, Angua. She walked riiiiiiiight into it whistling.

. . . not literally.

Yeah, Angua had kind of set it up that way.

She was, after all, a hunter.

"And after that?" she prompted.

And Lacey was easy.

. . . prey, that is.

"After what?" Lacey badly failed at that 'aw, shucks' look. "It was a perfectly nice ~~if handwavey~~ time. That's all. Don't try and 'and then' me, Sergeant."

Honestly, Lacey. Fourteen-year-olds have more composure.

"Uh-huh." Angua kind of loved how, true, she could smell everything off of Lacey, but she really didn't have to. "Think there'll be another perfectly nice time in the near future?"

It was Lacey's way of being considerate and letting your olfactory senses take a break, Angua. Really!

"I don't know," she said, lying only to herself about how cagey she was being. "We'll see about that when class lets out, huh?"

"I'll have to listen to whichever radio broadcaster is taking your place to see how it goes, then."

". . . oh, gosh."

Lacey hadn't thought about that part; she couldn't spin her own activities if she wasn't on the air, could she? (Never mind all her lectures to the squirrels about responsible journalism -- she'd do that for her own purposes without a thought.)

She laughed, a little hysterically. "I'm sure they'll do just fine with the reporting."

. . . oh, gosh.

Oh, Lacey. How Angua would miss those awful, grating, Oh-So-Believable laughs of yours...

"Not nearly as well as you, I'm sure," Angua offered kindly.

It was later into the afternoon, it was a Monday, and so John thought it was a perfectly fine idea to make the long jog up to Luke's Diner from the school. It was certainly a far sight better than dealing with Sherlock right now - he was still a bit angry over that whole argument back in class. ~~Lacey was lucky they hadn't moved to the 'crashing on her sofa' argument coping strategy yet~~.

"Good afternoon," he called upon entry. Look, he was smiling already.

"Is it a better one than last Monday?" And there went Lacey, abandoning her cleaning attempts and going over hurriedly to wash her hands. "Or am I going to regret not filing for a liquor license?"

"Marginally," John sighed, "Just Sherlock being an absolute contrarian. I think your strongest tea will do, or at least I can pretend."

"If this keeps up all semester, I might just have to start meeting you at the bar after class," Lacey teased, oh so very look-what-she-did-there subtly, no, really, but at least she had the teapot and basket of teas out already? "The students must feel like they're watching a ping-pong game."

John pulled a face. "Dear lord, I hope it doesn't amuse them," he said (futilly). "I wouldn't be opposed to making Mondays Pub Night, though. I have a feeling I'm going to be needing a few strong pints and good company every now and then."

"And luckily Caritas is a step up from the Dog River Hotel." Even if it had a band that was long past any hope of resurrecting its career. "You know, I hate to tell you this, but they probably are amused. They're teenagers, and it's more interesting than actually learning."

"That really makes me feel more confident," John muttered, but he dropped himself down into one of the seats anyway. Lacey always was a good, nice, settling drop of normality in his otherwise insane days, and he wasn't about to give that up. "I don't know why Sherlock ever thought teaching teenagers was a good idea."

"Oh, I'm sure you're doing fine," Lacey insisted, patting the table in front of him as she set out the tea and mugs. (One for herself. What?) "They're just kids, that's all. There's only so much you can do; they'll always think they know better than us about something."

"Can you even remember being that age?" he asked, picking up his mug and smelling his tea for a moment. (Don't you judge him.) "Christ, the hormones."

Lacey wasn't judging him! Unless he thought the tea was inferior. Okay, not even then; she'd just judge her own . . . lack of tea-quality-judging.

Lacey slid into the opposite seat and folded her hands neatly on the table. "I like to think that's a time of my life I've completely blocked from my memory."

She liked to think it. She hadn't even remotely succeeded.

John chuckled, and took a sip of his tea. "I think we all try to do that," he said, "But looking at them now, I don't think they quite realise they'll be doing that later on in life."

"You know." Lacey took a few moments to select a teabag for herself (peppermint) and dunk it delicately into her mug of hot water. "I'd wonder if that would be worth teaching a class on, but I don't really think they'd think they needed it, either. Although the gremlins might be practice for future."

"'How to Do Things And Regret Them Later'?" he asked. "Might indeed just send a whole flock of gremlins after the lot and keep the footage."

A beat.

"But that would be cruel."

"And not very ethical for a teacher," Lacey agreed, but she couldn't quite suppress a giggle. "But I bet it's tempting sometimes."

"Oh, you have no idea," John sighed, and took another sip of his tea. "Surely you must have had customers like that, too."

"Uuuuuugh." It was a very eloquently spoken non-word, really; Lacey gave him a knowingly exasperated, slightly pouty look. "When I first moved to Dog River and took over my aunt's diner, everything I did was a scandal. I changed the curtains and the paint; they thought I was turning it into a gay bar. I changed a few things on the menu; you'd have thought I raised taxes all across Canada. I had one guy marching outside with a picket sign . . . but I'm terrified of the thought of what would happen if he ever got bitten by a gremlin."

John hid a smile behind his tea cup. "It might have at least livened up the area," he said. "See, things like that is why I miss London. You could do anything there, and no one would care."

"I've always wanted to visit London," Lacey admitted. "I've never had a chance to go. Or I've never gotten around to it."

She fiddled with the empty tea packet and smiled. "I miss Toronto that way, too. Compared to some of the things that went on there, nothing I did was adventurous at all."

"Why did you leave Toronto, then?" he asked, shooting her an inquisitive look. "Did something drive you off?"

"Oh, no. It wasn't anything like that," Lacey assured him. "I mentioned my diner in Dog River -- it was my aunt Ruby's, and when she passed away I went to go run it instead. I thought it'd be a nice change of pace for me . . . it was, actually. Even if it was frustrating."

She tilted her head slightly, looking at him. "So why did you leave London, then?"

"Sherlock," John said, truthfully, shrugging a bit. "I didn't have much left back in London after I came back from the war. My sister's been more than intolerable since she divorced her wife. He wanted to come here, and given the choice between moving back to a bedsit and staring at the walls all day, or coming here to make sure no one tried to kill him..."

"That's really sweet of you," Lacey said, genuinely. "Not to mention generous. Is he really that difficult all the time?"

John laughed, a little. "He is-- fairly difficult, yes," he said, "But truthfully, I don't mind it as much. How did you come to Fandom from Dog River?"

"You're a good friend, John -- me? Oh, well . . . I won a vacation here," she said sheepishly. "The manager here before me wasn't doing such a great job with the place, and I kept wandering in to give suggestions, and the next thing I knew he'd disappeared and left the place on my hands."

"So what did you do with the other diner?" John asked, smiling. "Pass it on to someone else? Or are you starting a franchise?"

. . . don't ever mention franchising to her, John. Lacey didn't need those kinds of ideas!

"Oh, it's still mine," she said, winding the string of the teabag around her finger absently. "A friend -- her son runs the gas station next door to the Ruby -- is running it for me, though."

Why not? She seemed to be doing all right...

"So you're the owner of two diners," he mused. "Sounds like you're doing well for yourself."

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Luke's Diner, January 10 (Monday)

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