Waffle House, Tuesday Morning

[deathsmajesty]

"Why won't they just leave?" Liliana demanded of the alien beside her as they hunkered down in a booth, trying to subtly keep an eye on the TV-headed creeps milling about outside the restaurant. They seemed loathe to actually come into the restaurant, quite likely due to the staff's absolute unwillingness to tolerate nonsense, but they weren't leaving, either. Just standing there, holding up various reward offers towards the glass like that might entice either person to come out.

Of all the places Liliana had intended to visit today, this Waffle Hut wasn't one of them, and of all the people she intended to see, Stark was most definitely not one, either. But they'd both ended up getting menaced by an ever-growing crowd of TV heads and had ducked into the one place that had offered sanctuary and, well...now here they were. Sharing a sticky booth, getting stared at by the crowd outside and utterly ignored by the staff within.

[For said glowy alien, please]

Comments

[stykera]

Stark hadn't attempted to murder anyone on the island, actually.

"I don't think I'm supposed to leave," he said, eyeing the server nervously, and then the cook behind the counter who had cleared their throat in a somehow menacing fashion. "Without ordering. And there isn't anyone out there to help!"

[deathsmajesty]

Not how the nearly-murdered woman remembered it, actually.

"Lucky for them," Liliana said. "They might survive this way."

She was just going to ignore the glaring server and throat-clearing cook. That would surely work out well for her.

[stykera]

Look, someone in this conversation had been deliberately harmed by the other and it wasn't Liliana...

"I don't know what you think happened but it wasn't what happened."

[deathsmajesty]

Well, you see, she'd been fighting for her life at the time...

Liliana just raised an eyebrow at him. "Oh?" she asked, voice frosty. "While I will admit that earlier parts of the evening were a blur, but I distinctly remember you coming in with an offer to help, but the help you were offering was to help me shuffle off this mortal coil!"

The server didn't blink at this accusation, but also moved onto clearing their throat. Impatiently.

[stykera]

"You were dying," Stark said incredulously. "Helping with that is what I'm for. You were be nearly dead already and there wasn't anything I could do to change that so I offered what I could!"

And then she'd basically tried to eat him which was very rude, tbqh.

[deathsmajesty]

This proving that he was wrong, there has very clearly been something he could do to change that.

"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard!" Liliana scoffed. "Helping doesn't mean strangling me into silence and dragging me into the void!"

"Mmm, ma'am, I'm gonna need for you to keep it down," the server said, sounding bored, "and y'all need to order something if you wanna stay. This ain't a bus stop for your free waiting convenience."

[stykera]

Having someone forcibly steal some of his own life away wasn't a thing he could have done by himself, Liliana! Now was it?

"Strangling you? I didn't do any strangling! Why would I have strangled you? Or dragged you anywhere? That's not what I do that isn't what I am that isn't who am! None of the strangling came from me!"

[deathsmajesty]

"Sir, I'm also gonna need you to chill out," they continued with a sigh. "Should I start with coffees then?"

"Fine!" Liliana snapped. "Coffees, fine!"

"Ma'am, you're gonna wanna check yourself," the server warned before heading off to get them coffees. Because adding caffeine to this could only be a great idea.

"You came into the apartment, soothed me with my moth--" Nope! "--and then kicked open a door and started to drag me through," she seethed.

[stykera]

"I don't drag people anywhere," Stark snapped.

This was quite the morning for people making assumptions about him and Stark was not here for it.

"And I don't kick down doors I'm there to guide and to ease the transition. That's what I exist to do!"

[deathsmajesty]

"Well that's sure not the fuck what happened!" Liliana snapped right back. "And what makes you think I wanted your help peacefully dying any more than I would want to be dragged into death? Who are you to decide that I should die?"

[stykera]

"You were already dying! I didn't do anything to change that. All I did was try to make that better for you. I didn't decide anything I just knew you were."

[deathsmajesty]

"There is no better in death," Liliana said tightly. "There is only the cold of the void and worse. There was pain and fear and - do you have any idea what it feels to be helplessly dragged to--!" Again she stops, vibrating in place with words she is not saying. "Have you considered it might be a better use of your time and energy to actually try to save, rather than strewing banana peels between them and their grave?"

[stykera]

"There is better," Stark insisted. "I know. I'm a Stykera and this is what I'm for."

"And...it isn't always cold. There isn't a void and people go to different places. I've seen it and I've felt it and I've..."

He'd spoken to people who had passed.

"You go where you're meant to but you weren't going where you were meant because something interfered!"

[deathsmajesty]

Liliana rocked backwards, shocked by what he said, her already pale complexion going the color of curdled milk. "J--" she said, then bit her lip hard enough that it turned white beneath her teeth. "You don't know where I am meant to go," she said, trying to sound bitter but her voice was just hoarse.

[stykera]

"I never do until the end," Stark said gently.

Well, he'd known where Zhaan would go. Zhaan had known where she would go.

"There are different destinations. But you weren't...it was all wrong. They were interfering and that isn't meant to happen!"

[deathsmajesty]

"Wait." Her head snapped up. "They? What they?"

She sounded very surprised by the plural.

[stykera]

"I don't know who they were. They were in your memories. Although...they weren't. They were...I don't know. I could feel them."

Stark's hand went to his throat involuntarily.

[deathsmajesty]

Liliana surged to her feet and the server, coming back with their drinks, glared at her. "You're gonna wanna sit back down, sugar," they said, setting the coffee down. "We don't play here."

Liliana sat, but only because she wanted to. Honest.

"What memories?" she demanded, very clearly rattled. "What do you mean you could feel them? What--what happened?"

[stykera]

Stark flinched when she stood, looking longingly at the door again.

"I...I see things. When I'm attending to the dying. Memories. And yours were...very vivid. He was hurting me. And he had hurt you? And there was so much pain and so much death and..."

He shivered a little, hunching his shoulders as he wrapped his hands around his coffee cup.

[deathsmajesty]

Liliana's hand jerked, knocking over her coffee. "What did you see?" She wanted to sound terrifying, furious, dangerous, but her voice betrayed her, leaving her sounding...small. Vulnerable.

Heartbroken.

[stykera]

Stark flinched again, jerking away from both Liliana and the rapidly spreading coffee.

"Nothing on purpose!"

He started blotting ineffectively at the spill with a handful of napkins before their server arrived with a long-suffering sigh, a towel, and a pot of coffee to refill the cup.

"I don't know what they were but they were all dying, horribly, and then there was a man and he was choking me and I couldn't breathe..."

[deathsmajesty]

What did it say that the 'they were all dying, horribly' honestly did nothing to narrow down what he might have seen? You know what, never mind, don't answer that. Listen, not all of those deaths were even hers, some massacres she just witnessed.

The choking...okay, it did narrow it down, but only to a handful of options, not a single one.

"Describe it," she said through clenched teeth. And then paused, breathing heavily, closing her eyes and counting backwards from ten. "I mean," she said speaking slowly and carefully, "I would greatly appreciate it if you'd tell me, in as much detail as possible, what it was you saw."

[stykera]

"Which thing?" Stark asked. "The man choking me? He was large and terrifying. The creatures dying? They were like nothing I'd ever seen and they were...ill. All of them. Struck down by something."

[deathsmajesty]

Yeah, that still was not narrowing anything down, Stark. Description was not your gift.

She just watched him for a moment with wide eyes that seemed almost bruised - emotionally, not physically. And then she sighed and sipped her coffee. "I honestly have no idea what you saw," she said.

[stykera]

"Neither do I!"

Stark sighed. He'd gone back to clutching his coffee cup like it was a talisman to protect him.

"Onakke," he said finally. "The ones who were dying."