Darcy leaned closer to Jane and lowered her voice, but a smile played at the corners of her mouth. "You know, for a guy who stares too much, he's kind of handsome. In a weird way."
Jane glanced over her shoulder at Raj for just a second. Then she turned back and looked at Darcy. Her face did not change. It stayed the same flat expression she had worn since they sat down.
"Don't start, Darcy. We're not here for that."
She picked up the menu from the table and held it in front of her. Her eyes moved across the words but nothing really registered. She was looking without seeing.
"We've got work to do. Data to sort through. And him." She moved her head slightly toward Thor, who sat across from her still staring at the table like it held some kind of answer to a question he had not asked yet. "We still don't know who he really is or where he came from. That's what matters right now. That's what we should be thinking about."
She put the menu down and turned her head toward the window. The street outside was empty. Just dust and parked cars and heat rising from the ground.
"A guy sitting alone in a diner, staring at people. That's not worth our time."
The waiter came to their table. He had a small pad in his hand and a pen ready. His face was tired but polite.
"What can I get for you?"
Jane looked at the menu again, though she had already decided. "Coffee, black. And a salad. No dressing."
Darcy leaned forward like she had been waiting for this moment. "Burger. Fries. And a milkshake. Strawberry."
The older man, Erik, pushed his glasses up on his nose. He looked tired too, the kind of tired that came from carrying equipment and not sleeping enough. "Just coffee for me. And maybe a piece of pie if you have it."
The waiter wrote all of this down. Then he looked at Thor. Everyone looked at Thor.
Thor stared at the waiter. Then he looked at Jane. Then he looked at the menu on the table. He picked it up carefully, like it might break, and turned it over in his hands. He studied it like it was written in a language he had never seen. Because it was. Every word on that page was strange to him. Every item meant nothing.
Jane watched him struggle with it. She watched his eyes move across the letters without understanding. After a moment she sighed.
"Give him whatever you have on tap. Beer. And a burger. Cooked all the way through."
The waiter nodded and wrote it down. Then he turned and walked away toward the kitchen.
On the other side of the restaurant, Raj heard everything.
He had picked up his burger. The bread was soft in his hand, warm from the grill. He could smell the meat and the cheese and the pickles. He was about to take a bite when Jane's words reached him.
They were not loud. She had not raised her voice. But his ears caught them anyway. Every word. Every syllable. Clear as if she were sitting right next to him, speaking into his ear.
Don't start, Darcy. We're not here for that.
A guy sitting alone in a diner, staring at people. That's not worth our time.
He put the burger down.
The words sat in his chest. They were not heavy like stones. They were something else. Something uncomfortable that pressed against him from the inside. He had not meant to stare at them. It was not something he planned. They had walked in and his eyes had gone to them because he knew them. Because he had seen their faces on a screen in another life. Because for him, they were not strangers. They were characters who had lived in his imagination for years.
But they did not know that. To them, he was just some weird kid in a cap who did not know how to act around people. A creepy guy who stared too long and waved like an idiot.
He looked at the burger again. The fries beside it sat in their little paper basket, already going cold. The steam had stopped rising from them. He had been hungry. He still was. But the hunger felt different now. Smaller.
There was nothing he could do about it. That was the worst part. He could not go back and unfix the first impression. Could not walk over to their table and explain himself. Hey, I know you from a movie. I know your names and your stories and what's going to happen to you. I know that man with you is a god from another world. That would not help. That would make it worse.
So he picked the burger up again. He brought it to his mouth and bit into it. The taste was good. Simple and good.Cheese and bread. He chewed slowly and kept his eyes on his plate. Away from their table. Let them think what they wanted. Let Darcy think he was handsome. Let Jane think he was not worth her time. It did not matter. None of it mattered.
Five minutes passed.
The food came first. The waiter moved between tables with his tray, setting things down where they belonged. Coffee in white cups, steam rising from the dark liquid. Darcy's burger on a plate with fries spilling over the side. Erik's pie, a triangle of apple filling with a crust that looked golden and flaky. Jane's salad, mostly green with a few slices of tomato on top, no dressing.
Darcy picked up her burger and bit into it without waiting. Juice ran down her chin and she wiped it with the back of her hand. She was young and hungry and did not care who saw.
Erik poked at his pie with a fork. He was not really hungry. He was thinking about data and readings and the strange atmospheric patterns they had been tracking. Things that made sense. Things he could understand.
Jane drank her coffee and stared out the window. The street was still empty. She thought about her equipment back at the trailer. The numbers she had collected. The anomalies that did not fit any known pattern. That was real and worth her time.
Then there was Thor.
He got his beer.
The glass arrived in front of him. It was brown, the color of old wood, with white foam sitting on top like a small cloud. He looked at it without moving. Then he picked it up carefully, the way a man might pick up something he does not quite trust. He brought it to his nose and smelled it.
His face changed. Not much. Just a small shift around his eyes and mouth. Not disgust. More like surprise. Like he had expected one thing and found another.
Then he raised the glass and drank.
He did not sip. He did not taste. He drank the whole thing in one long pull. His throat moved as the liquid went down. The foam disappeared. The glass emptied.
For a moment he sat perfectly still. His eyes widened. The glass stayed in his hand, lifted partway to the ceiling. Then his mouth opened and a sound came out. It was not quite a word. It was something between a gasp and a laugh. A sound of discovery.
His hand tightened around the glass. And then, without thinking, without knowing it was wrong in this place, he slammed the glass down on the table.
No. Not on the table. On the floor.
The glass hit the ground and broke. Shards scattered across the floor in every direction. Small pieces of brown glass catching the light. Some skittered under the table. Some stopped near Erik's shoes.
The whole restaurant went quiet.
People turned to look. The old couple in the corner stopped eating and stared. The man at the counter put his coffee down and watched. Even the waiter, coming back from the kitchen, stopped where he stood.
Thor looked at the broken pieces in front of him. Then he looked at his empty hand. Then he looked at Jane. A wide smile spread across his face. It was open and honest and completely unaware of what he had done wrong. The smile of a man who had just discovered something wonderful.
"This drink," he said. His voice was full of wonder, loud enough for half the restaurant to hear. "It burns going down. Like liquid fire, but good. I have never tasted anything like it. In my hometown, our mead is sweet, heavy. This is different. This wakes a man up."
He looked around the table at their faces. Then toward the kitchen, where the waiter stood frozen.
"I want another one."
Jane stared at him. Her coffee cup was halfway to her mouth. It stayed there, not moving.
Darcy stared at him. Her burger was frozen halfway between the plate and her mouth. A small piece of lettuce hung from the bottom bun, dangling.
Erik stared at him. His fork had stopped in mid-air, a piece of pie balanced on the end, going nowhere.
The quiet stretched out. No one moved. No one spoke.
Then, from the other side of the room, a small sound broke the silence.
A laugh.
It was not loud. Just a puff of air. A little choke. The kind of laugh you try to hold in but cannot. The kind that escapes whether you want it to or not.
Raj had his hand over his mouth. His shoulders shook just a little. He was looking down at his plate, staring at the crumbs left from his burger, trying very hard not to look up. But the laugh kept coming. Small and helpless.
He knew he should not laugh. It was not funny, not really. A man broke a glass. That was all. But it was the way Thor did it. The way he sat there, proud and confused, happy about breaking something, asking for more of the drink that burned. Like a child who had just discovered fire. Like a god who did not know he was a god anymore. It was absurd and It was the funniest thing Raj had seen in a long time.
Across the room, Jane turned her head. Her eyes found him. Her gaze was sharp, narrow, like she was seeing him for the first time and trying to figure out what he was.
Raj felt her looking. He coughed into his hand, trying to cover the laugh. Then he picked up his cola and took a long drink, hiding his face behind the glass. The cola was warm now, flat. He did not care. He just needed something to put between him and those eyes.
The waiter came over to Thor's table. He had a broom and a dustpan in his hands. He looked at the broken glass on the floor. Then he looked at Thor. Then he looked at Jane, like she might explain what kind of person she was sitting with.
Jane said nothing. She just pressed her lips together and looked away.
The waiter bent down and started sweeping. The sound of glass scraping against the floor filled the quiet. When he was done, he stood up straight.
"I'll bring another one," he said. His voice was flat, professional. "But maybe drink it slower this time."
Thor nodded. His face became serious again, like a student receiving instruction. "Yes. Slower. I will try."
The waiter walked away with the dustpan full of broken glass.
Jane put her face in her hands. She pressed her palms against her eyes for a second, hard, like she was trying to push something away. Then she pulled her hair back from her forehead and looked at Thor.
"Why did you break the glass?"
Thor looked at the spot on the floor where the pieces had been. Then at her. His face was open, honest. He truly did not understand the question.
"I liked it. So I did it."
Darcy's mouth fell open. She forgot about her burger entirely. It sat on the plate, getting cold.
Erik took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He rubbed them slowly, thoroughly, like he hoped the world would look different when he put them back on. He put them back on. The world looked the same.
Jane stared at Thor. Her voice came out slower now, careful and patient. The voice you use when you explain something to a child who should already know but does not.
"You don't have to break the glass to ask for another drink. You just... you just tell the waiter. You say, 'Another one, please.' That's all. No breaking."
Thor thought about this. His brow furrowed. The idea was new to him, strange, like a custom from a foreign land.
"In our home," he said, "when a man finishes his cup, he throws it into the ground. It is a custom. It shows he is ready for more."
Jane blinked at him. The words settled into her mind and sat there. In our home. He said it so naturally. So certainly. Like there was a home somewhere else, a place with different rules, different customs. She had seen him fall from the sky. She had seen the patterns in her equipment that made no sense. She knew, somewhere deep, that there was more to this world than she understood. More to the universe.
Erik put his glasses back on. He had cleaned them but they looked the same as before. He looked at Thor with something between exhaustion and exasperation.
"We're not in your home, man."
Thor looked around the restaurant. At the quiet people in their booths. At the plastic seats and the faded signs. At the waiter wiping down the counter. At the small television in the corner showing pictures of things he did not recognize. People talking. Cars driving. Buildings he had never seen.
"No," he said. His voice was quieter now. Something passed across his face, fast and hard to read. Like a cloud moving in front of the sun. A moment of recognition. A moment of loss. Then it was gone, and his face was still again. "We are not."
The waiter came back. He set another glass of beer on the table, carefully, away from Thor's hand. Away from where he might reach for it without thinking. Then he left without saying anything.
Thor looked at the glass. The brown liquid. The foam on top. He did not pick it up right away. He just looked at it, like it held something he was trying to understand.
Raj wiped his mouth with the paper napkin and pushed his plate away. The burger was gone. The fries were gone. Only a few crumbs remained on the plate, scattered across the surface like small pieces of nothing. The cola in his glass sat half empty, no longer cold. The ice had melted completely, leaving the drink flat and warm. He did not want it anymore.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out some money.He looked at the bills in his hand, then at the check on the table. He did not know exactly how much to leave. In restaurants back home, his father always handled the money. Raj just ate and waited. Now he had to figure it out himself.
He counted the bills again. Then he put them on the table, more than the check asked for. Better to leave too much than too little. That way no one would come after him, no one would think he had stolen anything.
He stood up. The vinyl seat made a small sound as he slid out, a soft squeak that disappeared into the air. For a moment he stood there, looking across the room at their table. Jane still had her back to him. He could see the shape of her shoulders, the way her hair fell against her shirt. Darcy was leaning in close, whispering something that made her smile. Erik poked at his pie with his fork, moving the crust around without eating it. Thor sat very still, staring at the full glass in front of him like it held something important.
None of them looked at him.
Raj turned away. He walked to the door, his shoes making soft sounds on the floor. His hand pushed against the glass. The bell chimed above his head, the same small sound it had made when he entered. Then the door closed behind him and he was outside.
The heat hit him again, heavy and dry. The sun was higher now, white in the sky. The street was mostly empty.The same dog still slept under the same car, in the same patch of shade.
Raj started walking toward his hotel. He would pack his things. There was not much. Just the bag and the clothes.Then he would leave. Head out toward the place where the hammer had fallen.
....
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