Rough Morning

[Clairice-Sarah]

When Angel got back into town that morning, she was exhausted. But the last thing she wanted to do was go home. So dropping her Liliya off at home, she drove off to find something to do. Anything to do. If it weren't cold she'd consider sleeping in her truck.

One thing was clear. If her parents ever left for a vacation when Liliya had a recital again, Angeline absolutely refused to drive her in their stead.

She pulled into a local diner parking lot and pressed her head against the steering wheel. Breakfast. Breakfast was good after a five hour drive. She grabbed her bag from the passenger seat and dropped out of the vehicle, looking funny at her five-foot-three next to it.

Inside the diner she was greeted by first name and she managed a tired but practiced smile. Moving to a dark seat in the corner, Angel sat by herself and flipped through her sparse cell phone contacts. She didn't know why she bothered.

She didn't even like most of these people, anyway.

"I can't wait to get into a big art school somewhere else," she groaned, and put her head down on the table.

[KB]

She was beginning to rethink her job.

Zelia gingerly dumped the wrinkled, soiled cab fare that smelled faintly of body odor and spoiled mayonnaise into the plastic Neapolitan ice cream container she used to collect her earnings each day. Her hand made a stop at the hand sanitizer she had taped to the dashboard, and she caught the wheel with her knee to steer momentarily and rub the liquid into her skin.

Her personal preference to not discriminate on her passengers was beginning to wear thin on her nerves. The guy she'd just dropped off - three blocks down, mind you; just three blocks - looked as if he'd collected the money he'd paid her with over a week's time via the trash, the sewers, and probably a less-than-sanitary stripper's g-string. The girl was close to sanitizing again for good measure.

Not like it'd do you any good, the same cold, mocking voice clipped in her mind, and she became painfully aware of her ever-present companion. It was always a blessing when he left her alone and gave her an opportunity to almost forget he existed. Tobias' laughter filled her head. Love you too, mother.

Zelia sighed, her only response being the same old thoughts that skittered through her mind: the past she'd taken for granted, the husband she'd loved too much to recognize his faults, the hell she'd been going through ever since. It put a knot in her stomach and more cold laughter in her head.

"I have to get something to eat," she mumbled dryly as she tried to ignore the immediate wordless threat her son gave her every time she mentioned sustaining herself. She knew, she knew; he could take over at the drop of a hat, he could have her kill anyone he wanted, she should be worried about his hunger more than her own, blah blah blah. "God, I wish I smoked." It looked like it helped other people who were stressed out, maybe it'd relax her some too.

When Zelia pulled the faded yellow Crown Victoria into the parking lot of the next diner she came across, Tobias scoffed. Please tell me you're not going to shovel more roadside slop into you. The girl's lip curled slightly at his opinion of diner food, but she ignored him and smoothed out the light pink floral-print dress she wore, then buttoned the maroon sweater she'd donned over it, hopefully making her baby bump a little less noticeable as she headed inside.

[Clairice-Sarah]

"What can I get you?"

"Just a coffee for now," Angel mumbled to the waitress that came to where she was sitting. She was hungry, but, had no idea what she wanted to eat. Everything seemed too sweet or too heavy or too...something.

She glanced up as a familiar mess of curls walked in through the doors.

It cheered her up considerably and Angel stood up to meet her. Of course, she could have easily shouted from her corner and no one would have cared, but she wasn't loud by any means. The only people she shouted at were her mother and Liliya. And she never won those matches.

"Hey! Are you off work?" she asked Zelia, with a small smile. "I've got a table in the quiet corner..."

Angel didn't feel exactly all unicorns and rainbows and BFFL about Zelia, she still barely knew her, but she was one person who she could talk to about how much life sucked in terms of the supernatural.

[StantonBros]

The diner was a usual hot spot for Paste, being one of rare few places in Bridgeport that had an espresso machine and knew how to use it. He had been sitting at his usual spot for some time now, glancing at the people who entered the diner, wondering who his next client might be. Paste glanced up when someone called Angel's name.

"Sounds like a cute kid" he muttered to himself as he watched the blue eyed blond woman walk to her seat, "wish I could look that young." He then took note of the other woman that entered, her eyes deep with a parasitic pain that Paste knew a little too well in his early years of being possessed. She was pregnant it seemed.

"Was she raped?" Paste mumbled out loud before taking a sip of his bitter brew. That was when he saw his shadow flutter in the opposite direction of both women, like a black flag in a gentle breeze. There was something about one or both of those women.

[KB]

Zelia spared a quick glance around the diner as she entered, making sure she wouldn't have any unwanted company. When her gray-brown, jaundiced gaze caught sight of Angel she brightened a surprising amount, and actually managed to not react to Tobias' disgust.

"Hey," she said in a voice that sounded weighed down by years of death and bad feelings, a slightly scratchy voice that held potential that would never be reached. "Yeah, I'm taking a break for a while; I've been at it just about all night," she explained, smiling wryly. "Sure, I don't mind the company if you don't."

Zelia faltered as she'd been about to join her friend at her table, having absently heard a word she'd almost been trained to recognize. People didn't say that randomly, at least not that she'd seen, and not when she was around. Her eyes flicked across the other customers quickly, her thin lips turned down in a scowl. "Did someone say what I think they said?" She barely whispered to Angel, her voice distinctly lower with irritation. Perhaps she'd just heard wrong. What rhymed with raped? Taped? Scraped?

You heard right, her son mocked. Another speculating twit well within his rights. You look like a victim, like some used rag.

"Whatever.." The girl took a breath, ignoring Tobias as well as herself and preparing to just let it go.

_{((EDIT: Lolwhat, abortion? No no no, that's not right. ._. Fixed it.))}

[Clairice-Sarah]

"I just got back in town," Angel replied with a weak laugh. "I really wanted to just leave Liliya behind this time." Angel frowned as Zelia's expression darkened, she hadn't heard whatever had been said but she disliked it nonetheless.

Angel took her arm and began pulling her toward the table. "Doesn't matter, it's Bridgeport. People are always talking here...nothing else to do." She tried to give a comforting smile, realizing again that she really didn't know how.

Her right wrist very suddenly began to ache, and she had no idea why. She dropped Zelia's arm and tried to massage it discreetly. So far she'd been able to blame the loads of bandaids and gauze on the cat and her kitty, and passed the constant ache of the tattoo as tendinitis. The aching, though, was uncomfortable and every time it happened she ended up painting something later. It had once been caused by Zelia but since then, it hadn't.

"I hope Liliya remembers to feed the--" she began to continue the conversation, when her cell phone began buzzing in her pocket. Angel glanced once at the name. "Speak of the devil," she muttered, somewhat awkwardly. She nearly always expected the thing that changed her to show up every time she said that.

"...I'm not answering her."

[StantonBros]

Paste could only glance at the two women when they mumbled at each other. He could only wonder what they were talking about and was able to hear a tiny bit of 'did someone say what I think they said' and couldn't help but curse at himself. If he said what he was thinking out loud on the job he would be gutted alive in court.

When 'Angel's' phone buzzed and when she checked it saying 'speak of the devil', Paste instinctively took out his phone and checked it. Every time he did he hoped to see his brother's name on the phone, signifying that this whole 'two people in one body' existence was just some elaborate and complicated nightmare. Still, the shaky shadow was a constant reminder of that, and the chance that one or both of the women near him was not fully human.

When he saw their waitress come by he silently stopped her and said pointing to the two women, "put those lady's meals on my tab, alright." It was the least he could do for accidentally sticking his foot in his mouth earlier.

[KB]

"Yeah, right.." Zelia let her friend lead her towards the table, following her on her own after Angel let her go. She frowned some, taking a seat and motioning to her wrist. "Again?"

She wasn't really educated on what exactly Angel's tattoo did and why, just that she made things that, in a weird way, helped Zelia. The blood tastes like shit, though, Tobias eloquently added, and his mother sighed, muttering under her breath, "You can't even taste."

Her expression once again lifted some, looking a bit light-hearted as she grinned like someone let her in on a joke. "Oh, why not? I'm sure it's something extremely important," she teased, leaning back in her seat and trying not to rest her hands on the bulge of her stomach. "Where'd you go?"

Zelia's gaze once more flitted through the restaurant as she adjusted herself, still trying to somehow figure out who'd vocalized the question that almost everyone else was probably thinking. She caught sight of a man and waitress gesturing and/or looking in her direction, and her eyes narrowed some. Was it them? Were they chatting about what could have happened to her?

"Oh yeah, this town's bad enough; she's probably just another stupid girl who was too hot in the ass and got what she deserved," her son vocalized without hesitation, exaggerating of course but the remarks hit home nevertheless. He always knew how to push her buttons. Hell, he could see all of her thoughts; he knew her inside and out. His mocking laughter drifted through her mind. I don't know why you bother going into public anymore, you just embarrass yourself.

[Clairice-Sarah]

"Y-yeah...it's been a while though..." Even since she had painted for Zelia, it had been some time. "It'll probably go away in a while...I can't what--oh." She was talking to the...baby-thing.

She frowned as Zelia teased her about her sister. "I had to drive her to another stupid recital. Five hours each way." Just thinking about the gruesome trip she had to spend with her sister alone made her mad all over again. "Two days of whining and complaining..." She shook her head and was going to rant more when she caught Zelia's stare.

Shyly Angeline glanced over her shoulder to see the waitress and the man talking and gesturing. She turned back around and sighed. "Well I guess between you and me we do probably look a little out of the norm, for this stupid city anyway." Angeline wasn't a fan of Bridgeport. She wanted to be somewhere bigger, even though her social skills were far from perfect.

"They don't get it, and there's nothing we can really do about it." Well, maybe not, but she didn't voice that. Her curse had been born out of the frustration of wanting to do something about it and now she was, in some way, a public threat herself.

[StantonBros]

Paste went back to his cup of bubbling black bitterness as the waitress walked back to the other women.

"Looks like someone likes one of you two" the waitress said, "because that man over there told me to put your meals on his tab. I suggest you splurge a little, he looks a bit wealthy."

Paste overheard this and cringed, he wanted to stay anonymous, and did he look wealthy. Of course he wore his suit all the time and made sure it was pressed and cleaned. That, and he might have a forty dollar haircut, but that didn't mean he was rich, heck he searches for coupons in the newspaper every sunday. After thinking about this he came to the conclusion that he did look a little too well to do and probably needed to 'cheapen up' his wardrobe later. But his wardrobe now was him, he was dedicated and clean, almost a perfectionist, he had to look sharp because he was sharp.

Well, not that sharp as he though when he remembered that he accidentally said that 'rape' comment out loud.

[KB]

Zelia nodded, acknowledging that there wasn't anything they could do about other people. She knew, there would always be someone who would make some remark or another. But it didn't stop it from hurting or annoying her. She'd been about to comment on the subject of her sister, to change the topic a bit, when the waitress came up.

"Oh, what?" Zelia looked surprised, then glanced from the waitress to Angel, then to the man in question. "No, no, no; tell him we said thank you but no thanks." Her gaze went back to the waitress as she said, with as little bite as possible, "He's very kind, but we are more than capable of paying for ourselves."

She didn't care what he said, or what income he had; she would never accept something like that. There was a reason she made her own money. On that note, she gave one last look at the man - who she presumed had heard her just as well as she had heard him and was doing something to make himself feel better, she guessed - before turning to the menu and ordering something to drink. She wasn't certain what she wanted to eat, if she even had an appetite anymore.

You're going to give up a free meal? What, trying to be noble and not look like you're egging for a handout? Good luck with that.

[Clairice-Sarah]

"Yes, we'll pass," Angel agreed with her friend, though in a much quieter tone. She shifted uncomfortably at this. She'd always been raised to be suspicious of older men doing good deeds and considering all the missing people in Bridgeport, whether it was a supernatural cause or not...she wasn't quite sure a random favour was something she wanted to indulge in.

Angel stirred cream and sugar into her coffee absently, still not having decided what she wanted to eat, either. Really she was just avoiding the house, and subsequently, her sister, for as long as humanly possible. Her wrist cramped up violently and she dropped the spoon with a loud clatter. Her fingers curled, too, and for a moment she had absolutely no control over the limb. She held it and her breath very still, trying to ignore the attention the fumble brought.

Angel gave a very rehearsed blanket smile to the people that turned. "Tendinitis, from drawing so much. Bad posture, and all that." She drew her hand back and rested it at her side, opting to use her left now instead. She sucked air between her teeth in a small hiss of pain, why wouldn't it stop?

[StantonBros]

Paste was surprised that the women refused, but at least he tried. Though, his mood began to sour as he saw 'Angel' drop her spoon and began to his in pain. Usually when people acted that way around Bridgeport it usually ends up in some kind of transformation or mutilation of some sort.

Though he turned to his own problems when his shadow began to flutter more violently. Getting up from his booth he quickly slipped into another booth with less light for people to notice the man's shaking shadow. Unfortunately this brought him closer to the women than he hoped for, he knew one of them was causing this, but who, and how can it be stopped.

[KB]

Zelia scowled slightly at those who had looked her way before her expression turned concerned when she returned her attention to Angel. "Are you okay?" She asked quietly, ignoring the way her son writhed in her stomach at the thought of a possible meal. It hadn't been a week, they had a deal. She was not going to eat anything, even if it was a monster. "What's... Er.. What's it doing?"

She accepted the drink, a soda, that the waitress quickly brought her, and noted that the man moved as she did so. Closer to them. Invite him to the table, entertain his curiosity. Hell, give him a cab ride and I'll deal with him for you, Tobias suggested slyly.

The girl's breath hitched at the thought and the mental images her son gave her. The idea that he could do just that and she wouldn't be able to stop him sent a tremble through her for a moment, before she steeled herself against his remarks and mumbled, "The end of the week, you promised."

[Clairice-Sarah]

"...yeah. Sometimes it just...cramps up." Angel tried to explain as plainly as possible. "Maybe because I haven't worked on one of my big projects in a while...sometimes it just does and I don't know why...kinda did when we met."

Angel followed Zelia's eyes but didn't turn around. She was beginning to feel paranoid. While she had whole heartedly always thought monsters existed, it wasn't until she was cursed and then met Zelia that she believed they lived nearby, as well. Perhaps not monsters quite like Cthluhu, but...

"End of the week?" Oh, she was talking to... "Uh...yeah we can get together then." She didn't want to paint, she hated seeing blood and was scared that she couldn't control it, but other than ink stains in her clothes or on the pavement, Zelia - and Tobias - didn't leave much of the monsters left. As a plus note, it did help her to work with what was a very dry medium and doing it on her own seemed to keep her from losing control over her hands...

She shook the thoughts from her head and gave a shy wave to the waitress.

"I think I want pancakes," she informed Zelia, with a slight nod.