When the Dawn Breaks [TBAU]

☆ Chapter 6 ☆

The door to Xisuma's lodge opened with a soft click. Impulse hummed quietly to himself as he slipped inside and shut it behind him.

His fingers drummed lightly against the doorframe, a quiet redirection of the caffeine he'd just had. He'd woken up early again that morning, so he'd decided to go down to Keralis' coffee place. And Impulse was not disappointed. The roasted bean juice was just as incredible as he'd remembered.

What Impulse had not remembered, however, was how being caffeinated made him feel. He was still as tired as he'd been before, but now he had energy. Lots of it. Maybe he should've started with one shot of espresso rather than five.

Eh. Back when he drank coffee all the time, he could have more than that, multiple times a day.

But at least the caffeine meant that now he felt like he could handle the day. Impulse peeked around the house for Xisuma, he had a few questions that he'd forgotten to ask the mayor yesterday.

"Impulse! I didn't hear you come in!"

Impulse spun around at the noise, finding Xisuma behind him. Impulse gave him a smile that was maybe a bit too wide, but if it was, it was just because of the caffeine.

"Hey Xisuma." Impulse tried to relax his stance a bit, but couldn't seem to stop fidgeting his hands around. "I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions, maybe?"

Xisuma's eyes seemed to light up, with what looked like amusement. "How funny! I had some questions for you as well!"

The mayor motioned for Impulse to follow him into the kitchen to sit down at the table. Impulse slid into the seat across from Xisuma. He started to place his hands up of the table, noticed how they were still jittering, and resorted to hiding them in his lap.

"You can go ahead Impulse. Hit me with it, I'm an open book." Xisuma smiled, waving a hand for him to start.

"Ah, okay." Impulse thought for a moment, picking which question to ask first. "First I guess is, well, why don't you ever take your helmet off? I haven't seen you without it."

Impulse realized he'd probably hit a sensitive topic as Xisuma sucked in a sharp breath. "Hah, I assumed you'd ask that at some point. It is, for the most part, for the aesthetic, but it does have a few filters inside that help me to breathe more easily." Xisuma tapped the bottom of the mask, where Impulse assumed the filters must be.

Before he could ask why Xisuma needed the filters, X continued. "I know the helmet can be a bit intimidating, so I'm sorry about that. Here."

Xisuma undid a few latches around the base of the helmet, and pressed a button. He pulled it off his head with a small hiss sound. Deep brown curls spilled out messily, falling down onto his shoulders. They framed his tan face, which had a large, 'X' shaped scar in the center. He had soft features, and his eyes were a shade of deep purple, wide and sparkly. Odd, shimmery freckles were sprinkled across his face too. Though Impulse had somewhat seen it through the green tinted visor before, it was still a shocking change.

"Surprised?" Xisuma asked, his voice airy and a bit raspy without the helmet. "Most people look at me like that when they see the scar." He traced a finger along the edge of the gash.

"I- uh..." Impulse subconsciously leaned closer, studying Xisuma's unique features. "You're not human, are you?"

Xisuma shook his head. He clicked his helmet back into place, letting out a small sigh as his filtered air returned. "No, I'm not human. I'm from the end. Cool, right?"

"Yeah, That is cool." Impulse felt his heart beat a little faster. Here was another occurrence of someone non-human being accepted into a community with no consequence... Impulse really wanted someone else to know about his secret other than Bdubs. He wanted to tell the whole town. But that would not end well and he knew it. They'd ask what he really was, and a demon is a whole lot less acceptable than an end being.