Someone New

Who: Brian and Sean
Where: The diner
When: Afternoon

Cleaning up after the midday rush had started becoming something of a routine, after a few days of working afternoon to closing. Brian and the waiter or waitress and busboy on schedule-- they still hadn't replaced the dishwasher-- had it down to a schedule. Or, well, Brian did, and he had to instruct the waiter or waitress and busboy on said schedule.... He had yet to work with the same people twice. He would be much happier once everything settled, they'd replaced all the missing pieces from their staff, and he knew what to expect every day.

Right then, he'd been coming to expect a lull from about three to four, before the supper crowd started trickling in. He sat behind the bar, not much to do besides maybe work on inventory-- and he didn't feel comfortable doing that with only one waiter on call; the second one didn't show until five. So there he sat, absently wiping down a couple particularly scruffy-looking places on the counter-top and waiting for a new customer. Pete had the current two tables covered.

Sean and Joshua were currently living off a fairly narrow selection of take out, given that Sean's cooking 'skills' hadn't actually got any more skillful. And today was about trying to add a bit of variety to their menu. So he wasn't exactly looking for service as he walked in, but rather to find out if they did take out. He headed over to the bar and the guy standing behind it. "Hi," he said, trying to attract his attention.

Getting Brian's attention was easy; he looked up at the sound of the bell that sounded with the door opening, and grinned amiably at what he hoped was a new customer. Or, hey, someone to talk to. That'd be a good thing, too. It'd be a pleasure to listen to that accent for a while, anyway. "Hey, welcome to Mya's Diner." He headed over to the little holder for menus, waving a hand at him, assuming he was here for food. "Take a seat anywhere, we're not terribly busy right now."

Sean waved them away. "Actually, I was just calling in to see whether you did take out or not," he asked instead, giving him a friendly-type smile and leaning forward a little against the bar, relaxing.

For a second, Brian looked disappointed, as he dropped his hand from the menus and headed back in the newcomer's direction. Well, he was disappointed for more than a second-- customer meant order which meant getting to actually cook instead of clean things that didn't really need cleaning-- but hey, business was business, and you presented potential customers a smile. And maybe if he said "yes" the guy would stick around long enough to order something. "With most of the menu, yeah. Some of the items don't take well to travel and eating later, so we don't recommend those, but most things we can make to go, yeah."

"Well, that works then - do you have a paper copy I could keep or anything?" Sean asked him. "Or anything you'd particularly recommend?" he added, hoping that their prices weren't too bad - having to eat from take out so much was really eating into their budget at the moment. But it was either that or starve.

"Let me check, here." Paper menu. Paper menu. Did they have paper menus? They hadn't when Brian had left, but the takeout requests seemed to be on the rise lately, so maybe they'd gotten some? "The sandwiches are always good," Brian answered while he poked around behind the counter in search of menus for people to take home. "Our breakfast options are all fantastic, if I do say so myself. The meatloaf and hamburgers aren't bad, but I do better on the bigger meats, steak and turkey and ham and whatever." Those were more fun, sadly.

Sean looked a little surprised at the phrasing there. "You the chef?" he asked, sounding a little impressed. He hadn't figured he's be talking to the guy who actually made all the food, but the way he'd been talking definitely suggested that.

"Head cook and half-owner, but right now it's all me on duty, yep," Brian answered with a wry grin, straightening and putting all his attention back on the potential customer as he gave up the search. "And for all that, I can't get you a to-go menu." He held up his hands in a playful show of helplessness. "You can go ahead and take one of the real ones, though. We're due for a reprint soon, anyway, there's a new dish I wanna add that we have available."

Sean looked even more impressed as he took the menu and realised it was too big to slip into his pocket. Right, he thought holding it in one hand instead. "Thanks for that. And looks like a nice place you have here - been open long? I'm fairly new to town, so... Yeah."

"Figured you must be if you hadn't been here yet," Brian chuckled. "And I know most of the faces around here, anyway, and haven't seen yours yet." Lot of new people lately... It was kind of weird, but not unpleasant. "Mya's has been open for four years now, though some of the folks in town still seem to think we're new, too. Where you from? How long you been in town?" He was guessing Ireland or Scotland-- he didn't know enough people from either one to tell them apart by accent-- and not long, himself.

"I'm from Ireland," Sean confirmed, not bothering with being any more specific than that since he doubted the guy would have heard of the place. "And got here... few weeks ago now? But with everything that's been going on... Not that much time for socialising, y'know?"

"Definitely hear that," Brian agreed, though he'd managed a bit of socializing, himself. Of course, he already had established friends, safe places, and people that needed checking up on, so that was a very different situation. "What a time to move to Marquette. You and yours came out of everything all right, I hope?" So many hadn't-- too many. He had heard some horrible stories, most almost as bad as his own, a couple worse.

"Ahh, yeah, we're all good - my boy had a bit of an accident, got himself an injured shoulder, but nothing too serious, thankfully," Sean told him, easily. "We kinda holed up with some friends and waited it out." Which was downplaying what had happened massively, but then Sean was used to that - when you protected a group of people under a curse, downplaying things became second nature, after all. "Yours?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, we're all alive," Brian shrugged with a small grin. "Friend lost her brother and a lot of her innocence. One of my employees one got her neck torn open, though it got stitched pretty quick so she's okay." As far as he knew, anyway. "Another one got his back pretty torn up. And we lost a good third of the staff to people moving out of town-- not that I blame them. At least nobody on the staff died." It was just kind of depressing. He wished things would just stop being shitty. "And that's probably TMI to be sharing with a stranger. Sorry, man."

Sean was, in fact, surprised by that rather conscience run down - that wasn't the kind of thing you generally expected from random conversation, but then you didn't really expect to be attacked by a band of marauding vampires either. Life was weird like that. "Well.. That's good then. I generally think a lack of death is a good thing, don't you?" he asked. So, they'd had a death, but the girl had already died once and she'd come back the next day. It didn't count other than being really fucking creepy, incredibly unnatural and had Sean thanking whoever was out there that his charge was well away from that one. he felt so much more comfortable knowing that they were out of there and hopefully Joshua would stew and brood, decide she was a heartless bitch and never want to see her again! Yes, that would be so very sweet...

Brian chuckled. "Yeah, lack of death is a good thing...." Would've been even better if it'd been a total lack of death, up to and including vampire deaths, but that was definitely not something he was about to get into. "So you interested in anything to go, now? Or a snack, or whatever?" he asked. Subject change to something a little less touchy was probably a good idea, he figured. Something that was less likely to get him that blank, definitely-too-much-info look again.

"Nah, I really shouldn't," Sean told him, indicating randomly with the menu. "Got a budget to stretch and a teenager - and do you know how much they eat?" He rolled his eyes. "Oh - I'm Sean by the way," he said, giving the guy a smile. He liked to know who he was talking to and seemed the best way to accomplish that was to start the introductions.

"Never had to worry about teenagers, myself, but according to my brother, like horses. Or like pigs. Or like starving wolves. Depends on what animal is in the least amount of grace at any given time." Grinning, Brian offered his hand at the introduction. "Brian. Nice to meet you, Sean." Somebody in town with a halfway-normal name, wonderful. He could say Sean without even trying to think about it.

Sean chuckled at that. "See, now I have a mental image of a horse-pig-wolf creature. I'm sure Joshua will be not very impressed if I related such a thing to him - guess I better keep schtum on that one for my own good. The guy's had a hard time of it lately - just got dumped by his girl, poor thing. that on top of getting hurt with everything that was going on."

Though the first bit had Brian chuckling, too, it turned into a sympathetic expression at the last. "Yeah, that's gotta be tough." He wondered how much, if any, Domino had considered it a "hard time" when he'd let him go. He liked to think at least a little. Brian offered Sean a slightly lop-sided grin. "Even worse for you, who's gotta deal with it, right?" So he didn't have a lot of experience with teenagers, but he knew even twenty-somethings could be over-dramatic, so teenagers were probably worse.

"Yeah, well I think he's best off out of there - she was no good for him," Sean opined. "Course, there's no telling the boy that, y'know. But he's young - hopefully someone else'll catch his eye soon enough and he'll forget all about her. And he'll be less of a miserable bastard round the place," Sean joked. "But yeah, he's being hard to live with right now."

"Ah, he's young and male, he'll move on quick enough," Brian said, waving that concern aside. "Especially if she wasn't any good; I'm sure he knew that deep down. He'll mope for a week or two, then find somebody else." He never knew an active, hormonal teenage boy who could really wait that long between relationships, no matter how bad the breakup. "Until then, I wish you luck dealing with him. I'd probably wind up avoiding a mopey kid, if I had the choice."

"Unfortunately, I don't have the choice," Sean shrugged. He wasn't just Joshua's guardian in the legal sense of the word, but in every sense of the word and he had to be there for him. Joshua was Sean's sole reason for being here, after all, he didn't even really know anyone else in town, aside from the people he'd met because of Joshua and even there, those ties had been cut when the boy had broken up with Lullaby. The lot there hadn't been bad, but Sean had happily dropped them one and all to maximise the separation between his charge and the undead girl.

"Glad it's you and not me, man," Brian chuckled, trying to make his tease obvious so Sean hopefully wouldn't take offense. He didn't seem a bad sort, really, for all he looked young to have a teenage kid-- couldn't be more than thirty, could he? Thirty-five, at most. People were starting younger and younger, seemed like. Brian could hardly imagine having a teenager. "Take heart in the teenage boy thing, then. At least you can be pretty sure it won't last long."

Sean, thankfully, wasn't the kind to take offence at anything, unless it related to his charge, of course - then all bets were off. Generally though he was relaxed and easy going enough to be practically horizontal at times. "I shall - I'll do that," he confirmed with a grin. "But, I should be getting back - you'll see me again though," he told the guy, indicating the menu. "Probably often unless a miracle happens and I learn to cook," he joked.

"Normally I'd launch into my schpiel about how cooking's only as hard as following directions," Brian grinned, back. "But I have to admit, I'm selfish; new, friendly customers are more important than my favorite soapbox. You take care, Sean. We'll look forward to seeing you back." Hopefully with something to make him, next time.

"Well, I wouldn't go asking you to do yourself out of custom - that would hardly be fair now, would it. But, truly, I can burn water, so I don't think you have anything to worry about there," Sean joked. "I'll be seeing you soon, Brian," he said, turning to head out.

Chuckling and shaking his head a bit, Brian waved after Sean before getting back to needlessly polishing the counter. At least one of the current customers looked like they were ready to order, the waiter already heading over. Something to do at last! Beyond chatting with Irishmen with nice accents and teenage boys, anyway.

-ready to post up! : )