[Guest starring borrowyourcoat, who is from the same canon as Alex and also is the same player.]
There's a moderately clean Denny's a five minute's drive up the road, which means the truck stop's little greasy spoon goes mostly overlooked by anyone who isn't a trucker or aficionado of classic American diner fare. Alex and his companion don't look like either, but they seem comfortable there nonetheless. His family's been stopping here on road trips for years, and Rose has been dropping in for even longer. Not that it looks like it, since by all appearances, the girl sitting across from Alex in the roomy vinyl-benched booth doesn't look a day over seventeen, if that. She's wearing one of his old tweed jackets, sleeves rolled up around wrists that suggest meals like the one she's devouring are few and far between. She doesn't look up from her double-patty cheeseburger when John comes in, but Alex does, because of course he's picked the one seat in the dining area with a view of every exit. He raises a hand in a casual wave.
You want anything while she's eating her way through half the menu?
[ The girl shovels a fry into her mouth with one hand, and gives Alex the finger with the other. She's been a teenager for over sixty years, and has perfected the attitude that comes with that. ]
awwww yesss!!!!! 8D!! I love Denny's prompts, nice call!
( Johnโs eyes take in the restaurant, and he finds Alex with the casual wave of recognition. The British man steps through, navigating sticky floors and parrying around a waitress before he makes it to the table. Alexโs comment brought Johnโs brows up in shock. Must not be an intimate sort of relationship - or if it were, he may not be getting any tonight for that remark. ) Ouch, mate. ( He eyes his seating option and takes whatever is plausible, or gestured for him to take. Be it a table and chairs, or a booth - he sits himself down and looks at the girlโs meal.
Canโt say he expected any less from Americaโs #1 Diner. This is the place that loved to put bacon on everything, right? )
Whatever sheโs having, Iโll have. ( Half the menu sounds about right. Heโll need to be nice and plump to sleep right tonight. Jet lag comes without mercy. )
I'm sorry, my modern manners are getting on Rose's nerves. John, this is Rose Marshall. [ The thing about the Prices collecting extended family members from across the supernatural spectrum is that the only time you can trust anyone's relative ages to probably be in the realm of normal are siblings. ] She'll be dropping in on the safehouse to check in. She's a hitchhiking ghost.
[ Rose smirks over her malted milkshake, amused by the sight of a man she'd normally judge to be a routewitch with her largely upstanding young nephew. Unlike him, she's all too familiar with the kinds of assumptions people make about her. And poking fun at his discomfort about those assumptions is one of the few power trips a dead teenage octegenarian gets to have. That, and the dents in the family credit cards. ]
I think on this stretch of highway, I'm still the Phantom Prom Date. [ She somehow manages to sound both like a teenager annoyed by a nickname, and an old woman happy to be remembered, even by the kids these days. Even if it's as the ghost story they share at slumber parties. ] I'll drop in there time to time, especially if the local ghosts say something is up. And I won't lie, it might come in handy to know it's here if I need it. The fries are good enough to haunt a place every so often, anyway.
[ Places that cut the potatoes themselves instead of the frozen and shipped kind are fewer and far between. Maybe she can get them some dedicated traffic to keep that up. The loopholes a hitchhiking ghost uses to negotiate their temporary time among the living have their limits, food is only worth going near if it's freely given. Compared to vampires and other nastier things, merely mooching off the living is one of the easier (and more easily tolerated) ways to go about it. ]
And the dive bar down the road is shady enough I'll probably be able to actually get a drink. And, y'know, tip you off if I see anything you might care about. So, cults, serial killers, clutches of endangered turtles.
[ Alex would feign a wounded look, if he wouldn't actually appreciate being told about exotic animal smuggling. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Late Night Diner, following up text thread if you're interested
There's a moderately clean Denny's a five minute's drive up the road, which means the truck stop's little greasy spoon goes mostly overlooked by anyone who isn't a trucker or aficionado of classic American diner fare. Alex and his companion don't look like either, but they seem comfortable there nonetheless. His family's been stopping here on road trips for years, and Rose has been dropping in for even longer. Not that it looks like it, since by all appearances, the girl sitting across from Alex in the roomy vinyl-benched booth doesn't look a day over seventeen, if that. She's wearing one of his old tweed jackets, sleeves rolled up around wrists that suggest meals like the one she's devouring are few and far between. She doesn't look up from her double-patty cheeseburger when John comes in, but Alex does, because of course he's picked the one seat in the dining area with a view of every exit. He raises a hand in a casual wave.
You want anything while she's eating her way through half the menu?
[ The girl shovels a fry into her mouth with one hand, and gives Alex the finger with the other. She's been a teenager for over sixty years, and has perfected the attitude that comes with that. ]
awwww yesss!!!!! 8D!! I love Denny's prompts, nice call!
Canโt say he expected any less from Americaโs #1 Diner. This is the place that loved to put bacon on everything, right? )
Whatever sheโs having, Iโll have. ( Half the menu sounds about right. Heโll need to be nice and plump to sleep right tonight. Jet lag comes without mercy. )
no subject
[ Rose smirks over her malted milkshake, amused by the sight of a man she'd normally judge to be a routewitch with her largely upstanding young nephew. Unlike him, she's all too familiar with the kinds of assumptions people make about her. And poking fun at his discomfort about those assumptions is one of the few power trips a dead teenage octegenarian gets to have. That, and the dents in the family credit cards. ]
I think on this stretch of highway, I'm still the Phantom Prom Date. [ She somehow manages to sound both like a teenager annoyed by a nickname, and an old woman happy to be remembered, even by the kids these days. Even if it's as the ghost story they share at slumber parties. ] I'll drop in there time to time, especially if the local ghosts say something is up. And I won't lie, it might come in handy to know it's here if I need it. The fries are good enough to haunt a place every so often, anyway.
[ Places that cut the potatoes themselves instead of the frozen and shipped kind are fewer and far between. Maybe she can get them some dedicated traffic to keep that up. The loopholes a hitchhiking ghost uses to negotiate their temporary time among the living have their limits, food is only worth going near if it's freely given. Compared to vampires and other nastier things, merely mooching off the living is one of the easier (and more easily tolerated) ways to go about it. ]
And the dive bar down the road is shady enough I'll probably be able to actually get a drink. And, y'know, tip you off if I see anything you might care about. So, cults, serial killers, clutches of endangered turtles.
[ Alex would feign a wounded look, if he wouldn't actually appreciate being told about exotic animal smuggling. ]