Reticulated

Warm Shadow

Warm shadow,

Won't you cast yourself on me?

What you got in store for me?

Keep those, eyes closed, next to me.

And I don't want another day to break,

Take our, steal our night away.

- Warm Shadow (Dactyl Remix), Fink

Tim stays to work two more days, making it a week that he's been in the same town. It's a record.

He spends his mornings at the diner, his days at the dock, and on the day that marks off the week he has shrimp etouffee with Jack and Ray. Mercifully their children are with friends that night. Sitting in their normal house, with home-cooked food from their normal kitchen, upsets him and it's all he can do to not let it show. He appreciates the sentiment; their openness and willingness to share their home and their food with him are extraordinary, and Ray turns out to be just as warm as her husband, but his brain screams at him the entire time about how wrong this is, how dangerous it is, and he spends the whole time over-analyzing every little movement, every little word, every little breath he takes while there. When he finally returns to his hotel room he is exhausted and more than looking forward to his morning cup of coffee in an empty diner.

Allie's smoking outside the door as he arrives just after dawn. She looks irritable and tense. Her eyes dart from side to side, glaring at the empty street. Tim raises his eyebrows at her, but she says nothing as she turns to stub out her cigarette so that she can head back inside.

Tim waves her off, indicating that she should finish her smoke. "It's a bit chilly out here," he remarks idly, hunching into his coat. She shrugs at him, avoiding his eyes. Tim chances a glance inside, wondering if the men who'd hassled her his second morning there had returned. He sees no one.

Not that that ever means anything.

"One of those mornings?"

"Something like that." They sit for a moment more, before she rises. "Come on, I'll get you some coffee."

She's restless. After she pours his coffee she sets about cleaning while waiting for his breakfast to be done. All of the tables are wiped down and spotless, the countertop of the bar likewise. She even goes so far as to wipe down all of the chairs and seats, though they'd probably been cleaned the night before. After Tim's breakfast is served, she begins washing the windows, digging into the crevices of the sills.

When he'd first started eating at the diner, she'd spend most of her time not waiting on Tim in the back room with the cook. In the following days, she'd occasionally sit up front near him, making small talk until another customer would wander in. This current flurry of movement is unusual to his experience. Even the cook is perturbed – before now Tim has never seen him, but he's popped his head out of the door to the back room three times this morning. The fourth time he finally demands her attention, and speaks up.

"Girl, what the hell has gotten into you?"

"Go back to your kitchen, Lafayette," she snaps irritably.

"Excuse me." Allie sighs as he saunters away.

"I'll have to apologize later," she says to herself, frowning.

Tim grimaces in sympathy before digging his pack out of his pocket and offering it to her.

Jay's tired voice is echoing in his ears. "Is smoking your answer to everything?"
He catches her eyes as he tells her something Brian always used to tell him with that wry, knowing, grin he had once had. "It's a wonder you have any friends at all with an attitude like that." She fixes him a look that makes him wonder if he had made it clear that he was joking.