A blind girl and a dude in a wheelchair walk - mostly - into a diner...

Who: Brett and Hannah
When: Afternoon
Where: Diner!

Hannah stormed into the diner still riding the edge of anger from her encounter with Everett; she was pissed that he'd pulled that crap on her and was seriously contemplating sending an emailed invitation to tea to Jason, Lina, and Dave. But first, her blood sugar was about to drop through the floor and she wanted her belated breakfast - which wasn't trouble-free, sadly. She first had to educate the wait staff as to the rules regarding service animals in establishments that might otherwise have no-animals rules, and then realized when she sat down that she'd forgotten her reader. Finally, however, she managed to put in an order by declaring she just wanted some goddamn pancakes and bacon and coffee, however the hell kind of meal or combo or ordering convention they had for that. Scowling down at the table, she realized she was doing it again, taking her irritation with Everett out on everyone around her, and made an effort to put a more neutral, if not friendly, expression on her face. And she even thanked the waitress when the coffee was brought out, much to what she was sure was everyone's surprise. Even her own.

Brett had been out since that morning, methodically working his way around town, marking streets, getting used to the layout. He'd always had a great sense of direction and being in the open air really helped, but being outdoors had its side effects - even with the sunglasses he'd been wearing all day, he was starting to get a really bad headache. he hated that - he hated the fact that he'd been a guy who spent most of his waking life outside and now he was reduced to a cripple who couldn't stand the sun. He became more and more of a joke every day.

He'd headed for the diner before it was the nearest place and because a cup of coffee might help, at least replace some of his fluids. Luckily for the staff, the door was negotiated without too much trouble, but the fucking waitress had been fussing on his way over, moving chairs out of the way from him and generally hovering in a way that just frustrated him and he viewed as people setting out to remind him that nobody thought he could do for himself anymore. "Just... I'm fine, good - look coffee, that's all I want. So - go, get that," he told her finally, snapping at her.

Hannah hadn't been paying much attention to any other diners; she'd been to preoccupied with fixing her coffee the way she liked it (just enough cream and sugar for taste, but still mostly black) and trying to focus on putting aside her irritation enough to get through her belated breakfast without making anyone cry. She was pulled away from her musings, however, when she heard the waitress fussing over some guy. She listened to him talk with a growing smile, culminating in a delighted little snicker at his frustration. From what she could tell, he'd been seated near her, and she turned her head in her best guess as to his direction. "Wish I got such personalized service," she said, amused as hell. Anubis ignored everything as was his usual style, relaxing under the table.

Brett looked across at the girl and raised an eyebrow. Honestly, could he not even get a moment's peace around here. "Yeah, well, obviously it's my stunning good looks, or maybe my charm and razorsharp wit - guess you're just lacking all of the above," he told her, dismissively, his tone dripping with sarcasm, as he wished he had a paper or something to read.

"Or maybe she's just afraid the bug up your ass will have little insectoid babies and infect her," Hannah retorted, rolling her eyes. She wasn't overly bothered; hell, she'd said as much or worse to plenty of people when first meeting them. Good news was that here was someone she could probably work out her irritation on without worrying about missing out on the Year's Best Friendship or some shit. "Seriously, I don't know who pissed in your cheerios, dude, but it was just a joke. Get over yourself."

"If I wanted your advice, I would have asked for it - I don't. I didn't. I came in here for a cup of coffee, would have stayed away if I'd known it was meant to be some kind of fucked up meet and greet. You on the town's welcoming committee or something? Cos, seriously - you suck at it," Brett retorted, ignoring the bug comment. If people wanted to bitch at him, it just meant they'd get sick of him all the sooner. That was fine by him.

"Do I look like a fucking welcome wagon?" Hannah asked, taking a sip of her coffee. "Because if so, you seriously need your eyes checked. You come in here bitching people out and expect no one to comment on it? Because I totally don't work that way. So kindly untwist your panties and either shut the hell up or take my initial comment as the joke it was meant to be."

"Actually, yeah - I expect people to just leave me the hell alone to drink my coffee in peace. If someone's got a problem with it, I'd prefer them to just come out and fucking say it to my face, instead of making inane fucking commentary and a 'tee hee, aren't I funny' kind of way. Because you know what, sweetheart? You're not - you're just getting on my nerves," Brett told her straight. And the coment itself had pissed him off straight away - she didn't want to go through what he'd done to get that level of personal fucking service. It wasn't worth the trade off.

"Okay, fine," Hannah said. "You're a total douchebag. Is that plain enough for you? Please, let me know if I can continue, because I've had a miserable fucking day so far and I would totally love to take it out on any other miserable bastard I encounter while waiting for my goddamn pancakes. So bring it on, princess, I can keep going all damn day. I've got my coffee."

"If you feel you must, get it out of your system - like it's gonna make the slightest bit of difference to me. I promise I'm not gonna lose any sleep over it," he retorted with a laugh.

"Seriously?" Hannah asked, feeling an edge of amusement creeping over her annoyance. "No lost sleep? Well, could you at least fake a few tears for me? I mean, it's just not worth it if no one cries."

"Oh, so now you're deaf as well as stupid. Yeah, seriously - give me your best shot. But I can't do the tears, I'm afraid." Maybe she could get it out of her system, then leave him alone. He didn't care - if she wanted to wax lyrical about the fact she didn't like him then - well, it was better that the usual pity party people threw for him. He preferred that.

"Ugh, fuck that, then," Hannah said, rolling her eyes again. "I'm going to wait until you're feeling vulnerable and then nail you with a good one, more fun that way." The waitress appeared then with what smelled like some fucking delicious pancakes. "Hah, saved by the breakfast," she said around a mouthful of bacon, which she found with some experimental poking at her plate, flipping the bird in his general direction. As per usual, she didn't hit quite the exact area where he was, but she was damn close for doing it on sound alone. "You got lucky, bitch."

"You'll be waiting a long time then," Brett retorted, watching her poke at her plate, a slight frown on his face as she seemed to guess at the general location of her food. The waitress set his coffee down in front of him and went off without a word.

"Maybe," Hannah said, sounding unperturbed as she started buttering her pancakes. "Maybe not. We're all fucked up here, it's just a matter of searching for cracks." She was pretty good at buttering and cutting without excessive groping of her food, but didn't it just figure that there were like, six different kinds of syrup to choose from and none of them conveniently Brailled. "Goddammit," she muttered to herself, sighing, fingers gliding lightly over the containers while she debated. Usually maple was one one end or the other, but it could also be something fucked up like boysenberry or butter pecan. A true dilemma.

That had Brett staring at her. "Cracks?" he asked, with a laugh that lacked anything vaguely resembling humour. "Right - you're just... waiting for them to appear, right? Not a clue about anything you could use to bitch about at all right now? No clearly apparent sensitivities. Or are you too busy being distracted by syrup - it's really not that interesting you know. I mean, wow, which one shall you choose? The maple? The chocolate? Oh my god, oh noes - it's a life altering choice! Unless - my god! Were you in an experiment where they totured you with a lack of syrup??? How ever did you get through it?" he asked her, sarcastically.

Ohh, she had him now. Or would, once she could cue the guilt trip most people felt when they insulted a blind person - which he obviously hadn't realized yet. She would take great pleasure in educating him. "I could theoretically bitch about nearly anything, but no, aside from your rather obvious status as biggest tool in the world, I don't have anything specific. Unless there was some kind of magical subtext to all our talk about you being a douchebag, me being deaf and stupid, coffee and pancakes? Because sorry professor, I left my colormarking skills back in fucking high school. As for the syrup, I'm trying to figure out which one is the fucking maple, so either help me out and let me know or shut the fuck up while I go through a very serious syrup-tasting ritual. Seriously, very important. The fate of the world hangs in the balance."

"It's that one," he said, pointing. At least, that one looked like maple. He couldn't read the label from where he was sitting, the way it was turned. And getting over there wasn't going to be happening - there wasn't enough room to manouver his wheelchair wihout having to move a couple of chairs out of the way first. "It probably has 'maple' written on it. Or do you not read?" he asked, scathingly.

"Don't be cute," Hannah said disgustedly. "Help if you want to, don't if you don't, but ditch the jokes, funny man. Chances are, I've heard them all already, and chances are even greater that they weren't any more hilarious the first time around." She grabbed one on the end, pouring a drop onto her fingertip and tasting it. Blueberry. Next. "And no, in case you really are that unbelievably thick, I don't read. At least, not the way you mean, because guess what, Sherlock? My eyes don't work. Either that or I just really like groping my breakfast like a drunken prom date, I'll let you decide whether it's disability or fetish." Raspberry. Crap. Next.

"Oh, fucking..." He pushed back from his own table, using an arm to scrape the first chair out of the way, not doing a particularly neat or quiet job of moving his wheelchair around. Another chair was scraped out of his path, toppling over onto its side as he reached forward and snagged the one he'd called as maple. He checked the label, then offered it out to her. "Here," he said. "This one's maple, to the left of your plate," he said, setting it down for her and relaxing back into his chair. He hadn't realised she was blind, but if she thought that was going to make him apologise for anything at all, she had another thing coming. Being blind didn't give her any right to special treatment.

"Christ, could you throw a bigger tantrum?" Hannah asked, torn between admiration and disdain at the way he was apparently throwing shit around. "I said you didn't have to help, you don't have to bang shit around." She felt for the container he'd set down and tested it to make sure he wasn't lying to her before pouring it over her pancakes and finally - FINALLY - getting to take a bite of delicious pancake-y goodness. "But thanks," she added once she'd swallowed enough to be able to speak again. "I'd offer you some bacon but I plan to eat it all."

"Not a tantrum, it's just the gap between the tables is too fucking narrow. And somehow I didn't think 'second one from the left was going to make the grade," he told her. "And don't put yourself out, I didn't want any of your bacon anyhow," he added, scowling to himself as he tried to back up and got a leg from the toppled chair stuck behind one wheel.

"'Second from the left' would've been fine," Hannah advised him, listening to the noise he was kicking up. "Anything specific enough that I could find it myself is fine." Not like he really needed a lesson on navigating for the blind or anything, she doubted they'd be hanging around much. "And too narrow for what?" she asked, a mystified expression crossing her face as she listened more closely to him, before sighing and giving up. Like she cared. "Jesus. Just fucking share this table already," she said, halfway exasperated. "We won't bite, and I'm gone as soon as I finish breakfast, anyway. God." She picked up a piece of bacon then. "You say you don't want it now," she said, straight-faced, "but it's delicious bacon. Mmm." Then took a huge bite.

Brett didn't answer straight away as he grunted slightly with the effort of pushing himself up on one hand and twisting his upper body to try and reach the chair behind him to unhook it. The waitress came hurrying over, going on about how she'd help and she had it until he glared at her and told her firmly that he could take care of himself and didn't need her help. He managed to reach the chair leg and pushed it back, sending the fallen chair crashing into the next table, which was thankfully empty. He collapsed back into the wheelchair with a sharp exhalation. "I'm fine over here," he told her, manoeuvring himself back to his original table. "And if you don't want the bacon, I suggest you just feed it to your dog," he added, spotting Anubis under the table. "Looks like he's fucking ready to kill as it is - you keep him hungry for a reason or something?"

"Fine," Hannah said lightly, "not like I mind listening to your struggle or anything. You're a veritable symphony of irritation, it's fabulous. Please tell me it's because your ass is like, too wide to fit between tables, the mental picture is way entertaining." Tact, Hannah didn't have it. Most of the time, anyway. "He's not hungry," she said, "he just likes killing." She fed Anubis a tiny piece of bacon - enough for a treat, since it was cruel to eat bacon in front of dogs and not give them some, but not too much. She didn't want him getting fat, after all, and it wasn't as if she could go running with him. "That's my good boy," she cooed down at the dog. "That's my precious little killing machine, he drinks the blood of douchebags for breakfast, doesn't he? Yes he does." Anubis ate his bacon, licked her hand, and went back to looking bored.

"Sorry I can't delight and amuse you, precious, but it's because my ass is, like, stuck in a wheelchair," he bit back at her, actually tempted to go with the too wide thing just so he didn't have to admit it to her as she fed her dog.

"It's okay," Hannah said, "a wheelchair has potential. I'll get back to you on that one." Just like she didn't expect any apologies for people who didn't know she was blind (though they were always hilarious), neither was she going to make one. After all, he'd chosen to force his way through the tables. "Though it does make what I assume was you throwing diner chairs around much funnier."

Brett downed the rest of his coffee, figuring he'd had about enough of this by now. "Laugh away, sweetheart. You and the rest of the fucking world," he said, pushing back from the table and turning himself round, trying to look for a way out that wasn't blocked by fallen chairs. He could feel the walls starting to press in on him again - everywhere was too small. He needed to get out.

"Oh, God," Hannah said, rolling her eyes and setting down her fork to take a swallow of coffee. "Please don't tell me you're into the pity party routine. Poor me, woe, all that crap." So what if she sometimes did that? Not to complete strangers, she didn't. "We're like the beginning of an off-color joke here. A blind girl and a dude in a wheelchair walk - mostly - into a diner... Got a punchline, Wheels?"

"No - I'm just a guy with no sense of humour, remember," Brett pointed out. "And I'm not out for your pity - yours or anyone else's. I just want to be left alone.. Enjoy your breakfast," he told her, picking a path and leaning forward to push a chair out of his way.

"That's cool," Hannah said, shrugging. "Think on the punchline for a little while, you can always get back to me on it." She grinned sharply. "I'm sure I'll see you around." Ha ha ha. He shouldn't have mentioned he wanted to be left alone, that was the quickest way to get the exact opposite of what he wanted. Besides, it helped to know someone who'd likely always be down for a little insult-trading now and again.

Brett looked back at her and bit back a comment, knowing it'd only give her ideas. Or scared it might. Since she didn't currently know his name and she couldn't see him coming, he could just leave and that would be it. "Yeah, well - don't hold your breath," he muttered in the end.

"Tsk," Hannah said. "You wound me." She ate another bite of pancakes, inexplicably finding herself in a better mood than when she'd started. "Anyway, weren't you leaving?" She waved. "Catch you later, Wheels."