“well uh, riddle me this first.”
he punches a hole in the first tag of the pile, pencil uncharacteristically perched on his right ear. he can’t be haughty if there’s no real reason to be, but his shoulders are fixed anyway, nose up if you ignore the fact that your glasses work best that way with the finer things. his tongue sticks out the corner of his mouth ever so slightly, professional nametag (huzzah!) a little something called uncooperative for all the best reasons one could possibly, strangely muster right now.
weird, perfect timing, 2017 being the mother of its subculture. supposedly.
“you see the little pin thingy hanging from my shirt?” kiel raises one brow, eyes and hands still fixed on the remaining tags stashed on the counter. only one elbow rises to point west (my left, your right). it points to nothing, clearly helping the stranger in finding what he doesn’t think he needs. it’s hard to tell whether he’s capable of that part anyway - thinking. wasn’t an expected situation ever, really. kind of the most exciting thing that’s happened in for-fucking-ever, which is tragic for a town that’s not even so small.
it’s simple human company. but something ~*~within~*~ tells him it’s beyond that. mad money goes straight to branding him an easily amused fool. and so wednesday goes.
finally, kiel places the tags down. salvages one that hasn’t been punched yet, offers it to the man across the counter without still sparing him a glance. the pencil’s next, glasses close to falling off his nose as he inhales sharply in a daze that he’d been convinced would bring up the pair. “technically you could have one too, but it seems we’re out so.” he fixes his specs properly, middle finger habitually on the bridge of the frame as he focuses his gaze on the recipient of some nonsense that never stops (you’ll get used to it). “this should do.” the corners of his lips quirk up by a millimeter, nostrils flaring in the midst of pausing for a well-needed second or two.
He’s caught somewhere between thought A and thought B when he comes up to the counter, only to encounter thought Y.
Thought A: There’s absolutely no way we’re making it out of whatever this is we’ve signed up for and making it across town to catch the movie. 52 miles between starting point and ending point, 1.2 miles walking to the nearest street, 16 minutes. Maybe 10 if paced correctly at a light jog. Cut through the graveyard field, cut another 2 minutes. Eight minutes to get to the nearest street. Another two waiting for the Uber to get around. The graveyard, huh.
Thought B: If someone’s buried alive, they’ve got maybe six hours before they start to asphyxiate. If they’re buried in a coffin, anyway. As long as they’re staying calm, anyway. Huh. Once the oxygen drops 10%, they’d go into a coma. Sudden death would occur somewhere between six and eight percent. But then you’ve got to look at the oxygen you’re replacing with carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide binding with blood better than oxygen being a problem, now maybe you’re looking at maybe 160, probably more so 150 minutes. Killing you a whole two hours before your coffin ran out of oxygen. Huh. Not to mention you’d probably be dead before anyway, in the way six feet of dirt’s about five hundred pounds, barely liftable by a normal human. Huh.
Thought Y, Part 1: Counterboy has better hair than me.
The thoughts cease for a moment, and he shuts up in his own head. Something about the moment is miraculous to a point, maybe even a little odd, and a whole lot unnerving. He looks over at the stranger, blinking exactly four and a quarter times before leaning a little closer.
Thought Y, Part 2: Counterboy’s kinda cute.
"Wait, I’m a little confused. Okay, a lot confused.” He gives a smile -- the signature one, that softened the sharp bits of his face and made most (most, related key words: not little, not few, but certainly not all) people a little more responsive, and a little less crude (crude, being subjective) to him. He’s thinking it’s working, until he sees the way the stranger’s face is pulled all taut in all the rightly wrong places, and not so seemingly ready to pull loose.
“I’m new. I don’t know how the system works. Or anything around here, for that matter.” Now he’s hoping for the other to make a dad joke. Or crack anything, for that matter.
