fandomtownies | Luke's, Wednesday

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Luke's, Wednesday

A cry of "HA!" echoed through the diner Wednesday, entirely unconnected to the killer clowns roving the streets. Regina rushed out of her office, holding a spellbook, a broad grin on her face.

"I finally found it! Where the curse went wrong! I can get out of here and find my son!"

". . . Cool?" the cook said. "But, uh. What should the specials be?"

"What?" Regina looked around the diner. "Oh hell, I should probably do something with this place before I leave, shouldn't I."

Today's specials
Something something whatever with apples

Luke's was open. And currently clown-free. . . .

[Regina is about to head out permanently! She was very fun while she lasted, but I have done nothing at all with her in ages, and I'm not good at leaving characters to fallow. . . .
Luke's management hand-off with Duke will be the last thread chronologically for Regina. Duke can still be found in the diner if you like.]

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"Oh, you must not have been on the island long," Kathy said with a nod. "Don't worry. You're going to be fine. Monsters like these get to be pretty easy after awhile."

She was a helper!

"Okay, again, you all keep saying this stuff like it makes it okay."

The clown burst through what turned out to be a double-hinged door, smacking Duke in the face.

"Ahh, hell!" Kathy yelped, blurring towards the clown that was already turning towards Duke.

She jumped up into the air, aiming a spinkick towards the clown's temple. She winced as the clown's upraised knife sliced into her calf, but her foot remained steady. Its skull wasn't any harder than an ex's, and her heel crunched the thinner bone there.

The clown slumped, vanishing before it hit the floor.

Duke would have been impressed to see all that, were it not for the small splatter of blood -- red this time, from Kathy, instead of clown-orange -- that hit his cheek as he dodged around the door.

The blood vanished, and his eyes turned bright silver.

Duke let out a small, shocked groan as the same wave of -- whatever -- from his argument with Nathan washed over him. He grabbed onto the edge of the door, the wood cracking and splintering under his grip.

"You okay?" Kathy asked. Shit, had the clown stabbed him before she'd gotten to it? Did it have two knives?

She laid a hand on his arm. "Duke, where does it hurt? There's a first aid kit in the--"

Edited 2019-10-30 23:19 (UTC)

People really needed to stop trying to touch Duke when this happened. He lashed out instinctively, shoving her away -- and all the way across the diner.

Kathy cried out, flying backwards with incredible force. She hit the wall with a crunch, but instead of falling down the wall...

She bounced. First down to the ground, then up to the ceiling. Then over to the other side. And then--

Look. There were gonna be some bruises.

"Holy shit." Duke pressed back against the wall, hands shaking even as the rush faded. "What the fuck was that?!"

Finally, Kathy crashed into a booth and clutched at the table to keep her from bouncing up again. "Owwwww," was her only real contribution to that.

"No kidding." Duke approached carefully, axe forgotten on the floor. "Do you -- do that a lot?"

"Usually more control," Kathy said, pushing herself up from the table and rolling over onto the booth. "Do you?"

"What, the throwing thing? That'd be my, uh, second time. Basically." He crouched down, pointing at her leg. "Let's get a bandage on that, huh? You're going to bleed all over my new diner's floor."

"That's a no-no for food safety," Kathy muttered, still a bit dizzy.

"And also just kind of gross," Duke said. He gently touched her leg to get a better look at the cut. "That's not too bad. Looks like he mostly grazed you." He pulled his hand back, idly looking at the small smear of blood on his finger.

And watching as his skin seemed to absorb it.

He was already scrambling backwards when the rush hit him this time. He'd seen that happen once before, on the boat in Haven with Nathan. Sure enough, a wave of power and aggression washed over him, his mind automatically cataloging six or seven different ways he could use that power to kill her.

He was just going to sit here, several feet away, and try to breathe through that urge until it passed, thanks.

Kathy very much appreciated him not acting on that murder impulse. Killing her in her dad's old diner was a little bit gauche, you know?

"What?" she asked as the busboy came out with some ice in a towel to put on her cheek so it didn't swell. "What just happened?"

She was not, it should be noted, going over to check on him. And was, in fact, waving the busboy back into the kitchen for safety. She'd learned her lesson about touching Duke, thank you very much.

Duke shook his head, wrapping his hands over the back of his neck and staring back at her, his silver eyes wide and startlingly visible, even from a distance.

"Don't know. Still figuring that part out."

He was definitely troubled. And said trouble definitely had to do with blood.

And apparently murder.

"Your eyes," Kathy said, looking at him. "They were brown before."

Duke gave her a horrified look, pressing his hand to his cheek. "What the hell color are they now?!"

Even as he spoke, the rush was fading again, and the silver faded away.

"They were silver, like old coins," Kathy said. "They're back to brown but they definitely weren't a second ago."

And now she was asking the question that had started the whole mess. "Are you okay?"

Duke rubbed his face with both hands, then dragged them up into his hair. "Not particularly, no." He took a deep breath. "Seems to be gone again though. For now. My eyes turned silver? Like, just now, after I touched your leg?"

"I guess so," Kathy said. "You wiped my leg, then you sprang back and kinda freaked out and when you looked up at me, your eyes were silver. They changed back right as you asked what color they were."

"It was, um." Duke looked at his hand. It was still shaking faintly. The full force of the rush was gone, but his body was still trying to process all the excess adrenaline. "Your blood, I guess. I got some on my hand and. . . ."

And it was clearly not on his hand anymore.

"I, like. Absorbed it or something."

"Absorbed it?" Kathy asked. "Are you some kind of meta, too?"

“No,” Duke said automatically. “Maybe? What’s a meta?”

"Mutant might be a term you're familiar with?" Kathy asked, looking at him to see if that term rang any bells. "People with special powers. They can do things other people can't. In some worlds, they're like...human plus. A little something extra in their biology. In other worlds, it's harder to figure out the whys and wherefores."

Raven was a mutant. Kathy was a meta.

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