The Perk, Saturday Morning

[stykera]

The morning had started off well enough. There had been company and a distinct lack of a yesterday's capes.

Then the voices had started. Quiet enough that they couldn't always be heard but loud enough to be disturbing. There wouldn't be anyone else in his apartment, Stark knew that. There was certainly nobody in the apartment next door. But that didn't make the voices stop. Looking around his apartment didn't make them stop. There was nobody there but there were voices and that had Stark on edge. He didn't like hearing things that weren't there. It worried him.

So he opted to go somewhere where there would be voices that belonged to people he could see instead of only voices that didn't seem to belong to anyone.

That was why Stark was now seated in the Perk with a very large sugary coffee and an extremely chocolatey breakfast pastry in front him. Hopefully other voices here would drown out the ones that weren't really there.


[Open coffee shop is very open and the alien would love some company]

Comments

[hasaknightjob]

Hearing things had not been great for Steven. So when the sounds started up not long after Watts had left Marc swapped in pretty quickly.

Marc knew what the voices in his head sounded like, after all. Anything else was just noise.

He was in the mood for coffee and a breakfast sandwich though, so hitting up the Perk was a natural stop.

[stykera]

Stark nodded in his direction.

"Hello, Marc."

The lack of greeting had given it away.

[hasaknightjob]

If not that then waiting until he'd ordered a coffee with real milk and a sandwich with real egg would've sealed the deal.

"Stark," Marc said. "Nice to see I'm not the only person who isn't scared of mornings."

He didn't ask about the voices since at that point he assumed he and Steven were the only ones hearing them.

[stykera]

"I don't usually sleep late." Because he often didn't sleep well.

"Not scared of mornings. Usually they're peaceful."

Less so when there were creepy voices coming from nowhere.

[hasaknightjob]

Okay that and the way the barista was twitching around the same time Marc heard something was enough of a clue to make him ask, "Are you hearing this shit too?"

[stykera]

Stark grimaced and nodded.

"I thought it was only me, at first. But then it wasn't. But it still won't stop. I thought it would be better to be somewhere with more voices so I could hear ones I knew were real."

[two_idiots_one_body]

John let Arthur know that Marc was here, so after making his way to a chair, Arthur nodded in his direction. "Marc. Good morning."

[hasaknightjob]

"Hey," Marc replied. He actually did remember what Arthur's name was. Helped that he shared it with yet another guy Konshu warned him about who had involvement with cults. But that didn't mean Marc was going to use it or anything. "Still hobbling around, huh?"

[two_idiots_one_body]

Arthur sighed. "At least another week or two, I think. I shouldn't complain; at least I'm mobile. Still, it's annoying." And it itched sometimes.

The voices started up again, and John growled at them. It was oddly reassuring that at least he could hear them, too, but Arthur's expression tightened anyway.

[hasaknightjob]

"You're not the only one hearing them," Marc said, since he'd learned from Stark people could use confirmation about that.

[chef_chocobro]

A man and a goose walk into a coffee shop...

(Stop me if you've heard this one before...)

And the man just needed to stop for a moment, a few steps into the door, to take a deep breath and just appreciate the wall of scents that hit him as soon as he did. There had been coffee, of course, back on Eos, but over the years, it became a rarity, it was hardly so fresh and aromatic, and it was almost all Ignis could do to keep himself from letting out a soft sound of appreciation, not only for the promise of actual fresh, good coffee again, but also just the sounds of a coffee shop. There had been those whispers all day, underneath all of it, but he could easily hear past those to those little things that most people took for granted: jokes that the baristas bandied back and forth behind the counter, the hiss of the steamwand before it was muffled as it submerged into foaming milk, the clatter of a cup on a saucer, a puck of espresso extracted from the head, snippets of conversation...

...interrupted, eventually, by a couple honks as Shane helpfully led him to the counter, so that he could follow the sound over and put in his order. Just a simple black coffee, perhaps something a little more, like a latte, on his way out. But for now? Following Shane over to a table, feeling around for a chair before pulling it out and having a seat, just to listen some more and to think, with the goose at his feet occasionally throwing out a few more honks before remembering that he was a goose right now, therefor making conversation a bit difficult, and settling down with quite possibly the sulkiest expression to ever be held by a waterfowl.

[stykera]

"You have a goose," Stark said. "Do you usually have a goose?"

Someone had missed radio this morning.

[chef_chocobro]

Ignis' head shifted in the direction of Stark's voice, with maybe the faint beginning of a wry expression.

"He's not usually a goose," he offered, by way of...strained explanation, "although that is what most people call him. It's Shane. Gooseman."

While Ignis took a sip of his coffee that turned into much more than a sip, because, good gods, how could he ever bring himself to call the swill he'd been drinking lately coffee?, Goose the goose let out a honk of confirmation.

"It happened yesterday," Ignis added.

[stykera]

"Oh. Goose is a goose? That's...I'm sorry." It was unclear, even to Stark, whether that was directed at Ignis or the goose.

"I hope it doesn't last long. I was a koala for a week, this summer."

[chef_chocobro]

Ignis grimaced, slightly, at the idea of having to deal with this for an entire week, while Goose seemed to express his own discontentment with such a prospect with a remarkably sad-sounding honk, although Ignis supposed a week wouldn't be too bad, considering...

"The last time I had to deal with a transformation like this," he noted, almost as if to remind himself that this wasn't really at that bad...yet, "it last just north of two months, so I suppose I'll be lucky if it's only a week."

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

Jon at least Knew that the voices weren't real. That didn't necessarily make them any less annoying, though. So he was scowling a bit even as he tried to be polite to the barista while he ordered his tea.

[stykera]

"Are they bothering you too?"

It helped Stark knowing it wasn't all in his head. Maybe it would help Jon as well?

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

Jon grimaced. "It's annoying. If they were intelligible, it might not be as bad, but. Well, maybe not. But after the rest of this week, hopefully it'll be only one day. I hope you're holding up."

[stykera]

"It should only be one day. Everything else has been, so far. I liked the cats best."

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

Jon actually smiled at that. "I loved the cats. Issa wasn't so sure about them, but they were lovely. The red stains were a little annoying. I suppose it'll all end at Halloween, given the theme."

[two_idiots_one_body]

Arthur didn't trust the voices. John didn't know what they were, either, and the last time he'd heard something other than John, it hadn't gone well.

"I still hear them, Arthur."

"So do I," Arthur murmured to him. "I don't trust this."

He ordered tea at the counter and hobbled his way over to sit.

[stykera]

"Doing alright?" Stark asked. "Is the leg any better?"

He wasn't going to jump right into 'are you hearing voices.' Not immediately.

[two_idiots_one_body]

"Oh! Yes, thank you."

"It's Stark," John informed him in case he wasn't sure, and Arthur nodded.

"Yes, I'm itching to get the cast off now. Pun fully intended, I suppose."

[stykera]

"It should be soon, I think?" Stark said, frowning a little. "Shouldn't it? What did Will say?"

[two_idiots_one_body]

"I'm to check back...next week, I think it was. Hopefully soon." Arthur grimaced. "The stairs aren't fun. How have you been?"