The Perk, Sunday afternoon

[brainfreediet.livejournal.com]

Flash had just arrived in town a little bit ago and he already seemed a little annoyed about something. "Kiernan warns me about weird stuff, but not about stairs. That's helpful," he muttered as he rolled up to the counter to order a coffee.

Once he got past his grumbling, he had to admit that Fandom seemed nice. Quiet, so far. Smaller than he expected, though. Not that it was a complaint. That meant that if everything went FUBAR, at least it would probably be manageable.

After the barista handed his coffee over, Flash rolled to a table and looked out the window to people-watch while he went over his game plan:

Find a place to stay for a few days. Figure out who knows something about powerful magic. See if they can find and perform some kind of spell to remove a Hellmark placed on him by one of the most powerful devils around.

Simple, right? Sure it was! At least that's what Flash was going to keep telling himself. And hey, this coffee was pretty good. Things were looking up at the moment!

[OOC: New guy in town! Post is open, naturally.]

Comments

[throughaphase]

Kitty had been out running some errands, and her last stop before going home was the Perk. Because sometimes you needed a reward for not having a lazy Sunday. And noticing the new guy, she gave him a friendly wave as she waited for her order to come up.

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"Hey," Flash said. "Another person. I was beginning to think no one around here actually drank coffee." He was a little too used to New York, where the coffee shops were always packed, and the people in them were ignoring you unless you were directly in the path between them and coffee. So this was a change of pace.

[throughaphase]

"Oh, pretty much everyone here drinks coffee. It's just that in small towns they don't all drink it at once," Kitty smiled. "You just get here?"

[brainfreediet.livejournal.com]

"See, that's the problem. I've always been a big city guy up till about thirty minutes ago when I got here," Flash said. "Here meaning the town. I've only been drinking coffee for like five."

[throughaphase]

"I totally get that," she assured him, taking her drink and coming over to his table. "I'm Kitty, by the way."

[brainfreediet.livejournal.com]

"I'm Flash. You've been here a while?" Flash checked.

[throughaphase]

"Yeah. About- oh god two and a half years," Kitty said with a sigh. No wonder she wanted to throttle this place lately. "Where'd you come from?"

[brainfreediet.livejournal.com]

"New York, New York, born and bred," Flash said. "But I've been needing a change of pace recently. It seemed like this was about as different a pace as I could find."

[throughaphase]

"Oh, you don't know the half of it," she said. "But I think most people here show up for that reason, pretty much."

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"What, the fact that it's tiny, has no cars, and people pace out their coffee runs isn't enough of a difference?" Flash asked.

Okay, he knew that things got weird, but he had zero specifics. It couldn't hurt to poke at that a little.

[throughaphase]

"Apparently not. The town itself has to be totally abnormal, so you really feel the culture shock," she said.

[brainfreediet.livejournal.com]

"That's nice and ominous," Flash said. "So what else am I getting myself into exactly?"

[1stinkinpercent.livejournal.com]

Well, Riley wasn't any kind of magician but he was feeling the need for some serious caffeine after getting back from Horizon. If he hadn't been a wuss, he might have gone for the harder stuff but...

He was a wuss, yeah. So, he made sure to order the biggest coffee that was possible and then started dumping as much sugar as he could into it. That'd be a good shock to the system, right?

The unfamiliar guy got a nod of greeting but only after Riley had his coffee prepared how it needed to be prepared. Priorities and all.

[brainfreediet.livejournal.com]

Flash couldn't help but watch these preparations. There was no way all that sugar dissolved in the coffee, was there?

"Hey," Flash said. "Was that enough sugar or did you just run out? I could spare a packet or twelve if it'll help."

[1stinkinpercent.livejournal.com]

"Long night," he said, taking a sip of the coffee and immediately regretting all of his life decisions. "Oh my god, that's horrible."

So yeah, maybe not a good choice but he was going to keep drinking it.

"Figured this might help." Or give him cardiac arrest.

[brainfreediet.livejournal.com]

"I'm just curious if it's going to be the caffeine or a sugar high that helps more," Flash said.

[1stinkinpercent.livejournal.com]

"I'll take either at this point," Riley admitted, taking another sip. He was pretty sure he was giving himself instant cavities. "I don't recognize you. New around town?"

[brainfreediet.livejournal.com]

"So new I don't even have found the hotel yet," Flash said. "Flash Thompson. Nice to meet you."

[1stinkinpercent.livejournal.com]

"Riley Poole," he said, raising his drink in greeting to Flash. "Good to meet you. Hotel's not...too far away, I don't think. But I haven't ever stayed there before. You visiting someone?"

That's what he associated hotels with, at least.

[brainfreediet.livejournal.com]

"No, I'm probably going to stick around for a little bit," Flash said. "But I've got to sleep somewhere until I find a real place to crash."

[brainfreediet.livejournal.com]

"No, I'm probably going to stick around for a little bit," Flash said. "But I've got to sleep somewhere until I find a real place to crash."

[1stinkinpercent.livejournal.com]

"This isn't bad place to crash for awhile," Riley said, nodding. "I'm kinda doing the same thing and I'm going on...like half a year here now. It's small but not boring."

[brainfreediet.livejournal.com]

"A year and a half?" Flash asked. "How did you manage that?"

[1stinkinpercent.livejournal.com]

"I teach and they let me teach whatever I want," Riley said, shrugging. "It's kind of easy to stick around a place that gives you the option to play video games and get paid for it."

[brainfreediet.livejournal.com]

"Wait, you're telling me you teach a class about video games?" Flash asked. "Why didn't I know about this place back when I was in high school?"