8066/We're eatin heah

We're eatin heah
Date of Scene:	30 September 2021
Location:	Mel's Roadside Diner
Synopsis:	No description
Cast of Characters:	Dinah Lance, Negasonic

---

Dinah Lance has posed:
What sounds like a nut holding together a bike seat and a set of handlebars? Dinah Lance!

OK, maybe it's not so funny when worded that way, but it's still true. Dinah has been tuning her bike after a manual rebuild and as a result is out on the back roads opening the beast up full-throttle as she zips around the twists and turns of backwater ... Upstate... New York?

Whatever.

Dressed in her usual civvie garb, albeit grubbier than usual, and grease-stained (and having a fetching smear of grease under her right cheek, just below where the eye can catch it) Dinah, seeing the diner, downshifts to pop a wheelie as she kicks over into the off-ramp before zooming straight up to the diner, stopping on a dime right at its rightmost edge.

Settling the back wheel down again, kickstand activated, she gets off, takes off her helmut, shaking her head to make her tresses fly behind her, and strides into the diner.

"Who needs men when you've got one of those buzzing between your legs!" she says to nobody in particular as she comes in, taking a random booth near the window and slipping in, one booted foot on the seat opposite her, sprawling into place.

Negasonic has posed:
At this specific hour, it is a diner with limited population. Truckers running trucker stuff up to Maine, rovers, drovers, and the occational dreg. And one teenager in a black hoodie looking like that chick from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. She's stirring her coffee with one hand and fiddling with her phone in the other. Brushing her thumb across the screen as she searches twitter for her next victim.

This isn't serial killer talk.

She's going to roast them online.

It's her thing.

There is about forty or so open sugar packets and a castle of creamer cups littering her table, so she's either been here a while or is really into drinking milk that tastes like diabetes.

And Dinah's entrance only garners the briefest of black eyeliner glances before she's resumed staring at her screen and stirring her coffee.

Dinah Lance has posed:
Among Dinah's many, many, many faults is a gregarious nature that likely drives the more taciturn crazy. Having seen the usual boring suspects--not even a bunch of bikers to taunt into a fight with a girl--and one girl who looks so badly out of place she can't help but be intriguing, Dinah gets up from the booth she's slouched in and heads over to Dragon Tattoo Girl, slipping in across from her and lounging there instead.

"Mind if I sit here?" she asks after effecting the task. Her face looks exactly like someone's face who knows what they've done would look.

Negasonic has posed:
Ellie is a keep to herself kind of gal, as evidence by her keeping to herself and not acknowledging people aside from refills of coffee when offered. It's a dollar fifty for a bottomless cup. The fact that the night shift seems to know her, even calling her by name when walking to the table, is telling.

So it's kind of surprising when Dinah just sort of deposits herself right there across from her. Not surprising in that she shows anything other a mild annoyance, blue eyes flicking up over her screen to stare at Dinah, but annoyed in her outward aura of reeeeaaalllyyyyy.

Ellie sets down her phone, reaches over the table and lays her hand ontop of Dinah's, gently squeezing her fingers. "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought we were throwing out the rules of civility in favor of absolute societal anarchy." Her hand retracts, retakes her phone, and resumes staring at twitter. "I guess I don't care."

Dinah Lance has posed:
"I'm a big fan of anarchy," Dinah says. "As long as it's within rigidly circumscribed bounds. I'm glad you don't mind me sitting here. You're the only interesting-looking person in the diner."

Now Dinah does the same with the hands thing, reaching across to gently squeeze the phone hand. "I'm Dinah. And I'm guessing you're Ellie, given that the staff here keeps calling you that. I'm also starving. What's least likely to kill me here, food-wise? And is the pie any good?"

She, too, releases the hand, smiling in her disarming (and ever-so-slightly crazed) way.

"I'm a florist."

Says the woman dressed like a biker grease-monkey who just came in on a loud bike.

Negasonic has posed:
That was an interesting response, but not one that Ellie is unfamiliar with. People do often try to out anarchy her, but thus far, few have succeed. She glances up at Dinah when her hand is squeed, not so much a withering stare as a 16 year old version of one. Dinah's from Gotham, she's probably seen worse... maybe not many though. Ellie is very good at this stare.

"Hm." She guffs and sets her phone on the table, screen down.

"The pie is very good. So is the paddy melt. It might give you the rubber shits though, but it's worth it." The cook snorts at her. "Yes, I'm Ellie. I am a high school student." Which tracks, probably, and is sort of a career for a at least 9 or 10 years.

Her blue eyes scan across Dinah's attire, then back up to her super crazy grin, "Are you a serial killer? I figure you wont tell me, but you're definitely giving off vibes."

Dinah Lance has posed:
"Nah, I don't kill," Dinah says, waving dismissively. "What's the fun in that? Suffering ends with death."

She glances over to the server. "What she said. Paddy melt and pie, then. Whatever pie's freshest. Coffee. I'll supply my own enhancements to it, so just black."

Again her eyes fall on Ellie, thoughtfully. "Mine was Cradle of Filth," she says. "I was always a bit old-fashioned that way. Still am. I don't have one of those hellkits you've got there."

Any momentary confusion is cleared up when she points to the phone.

"What's the good stuff for the teenage hurting inside crowd these days? I've heard of Merciful Nuns and Golden Apes, but you know, I'm almost 25, so I've gotta be out of touch. What's the hot goth stuff these days?"

Is she taking the piss? Yes. Those eyes. She's taking the piss. She's got a huge bucket ready for the piss, in fact.

"These days I listen mostly to Power Metal, Thrash Metal, that kind of shit. Loud noise."

Negasonic has posed:
Ellie glances at her phone. The thing is not just state of the art, it's highly modifiable. Because only losers have Iphones.

Then back to Dinah, "Cradle of Filth is still good. Lebanon Hanover. Soft Kill." She slaps her hand down ontop of her spikey covered arm, cheeks puffing out slightly to blow air up at the single length of black hair hanging over her brow. It's getting long.

"I guess it depends on preference. I prefer not to have my ear drums blown out everytime I turn on spotify... you prefer to ask people talking to you conversationally if they can repeat themselves." Flicking her fingers back and forth between them.

"Preference."

"Yeah, you're practically on your death bed. Have you got a living will or power of atourney?"

Dinah Lance has posed:
"You know there's volume controls, right? Or do those hellbeasts not have those anymore?" Dinah looks suspiciously at the phone as if searching for something. Like a dial. For volume. "Probably not, all in the name of progress."

She cocks her head and grins that grin of hers again.

"Now of course at the concerts there's no volume control ... at least none that I'd have access to, but I don't recall the Filth being any quieter than the Archers in that regard. Everybody seems to turn the dial up to eleven these days." She taps her right ear. "So you'd better be careful yourself there. I don't go deaf. I cause it. Others aren't so lucky."

Given the way she came into the joint with that bike revved to the redline? Yeah, she probably causes deafness.

Negasonic has posed:
"Yes, there's volume control. You said you were twenty five right? Have you never seen a cellphone?" Ellie turns it over, if only to check the screen, then drops it back down on the table. "You're one of those retro weirdos? Use to be amish until you learned about torque and gave up the lord for horse power?" Squinting at Dinah, she sips her coffee rather conspiratorially.

"I like my music at a 5 so I can still listen to people." But not talk to them. This is an important distinction.

She also pointed out that she had seen Dinah show up, but that makes sense right? Look at her. "I don't like concerts. Too many people."

Dinah Lance has posed:
"Seen? I've got one!"

Dinah pulls out her phone from her jacket. A feature phone.

A. Flip. Phone.

"See? It does what I need: it lets me make calls. It lets me receive calls. I can even send and receive text things, but those are always advertisements so I actually turned that off."

She shrugs dismissively of the Amish charge. "I like things I can work with myself, my two hands, best. My bike is conventionally aspirated. I can take it apart and put it back together blindfolded. I know every piece of it and can tell by listening to it what's wrong and where. Modern bike with all the chip shit in it just bleats red lights at you and can't be upgraded or repaired without needing fifteen different university degrees. Then, just as the kicker, is less reliable."

She waggles her phone. "I can't fix this, naturally. It's chip-infested. But it's simple. Easy. Does one job and does that job well. The other job it does I don't care about so I turn it off."

A gesture to Ellie's phone. "I know people with those who have a thousand 'apps' in them ... and they don't know what most of them do. But every year it gets slower and slower so they buy a newer and newer one. I've had this one seven years and only thing I had to replace was a battery."

She guffaws then.

"Which the new phones won't even let you do!"

Then in a shift of topic that causes whiplash...

"So why does someone who hates being near people want to listen to them?"

Negasonic has posed:
Ellie stares at Dinah dubiously. Squinting as she explains her reasons for having an old analog flipper, "That's absurd, but whatever. Do you, blondie." She lifts her hands off the table in what amounts to a Negasonic Teenaged Shrug. "I know everything my phone does. I upgraded it... I put all the apps on it.. and I did it for a reason. They do something, for specific reason. It's a tool.." And her link to society.

"You sound so fucking old."

Whatever, she smirks and shakes her head. "Because music isn't people. It's music. Just because I don't want to be around a crowd, doesn't mean that I'm blind to the fact there are people who share common ideas with me. I don't fucking know anything about astrophysics, but it seems pretty god damned important for the ... whatever the fuck astrophysics is for." She genuinely doesn't know.

Or particularly care.

Sliding out of the booth, phone sliding into the pocket of her- nope, no leather coat. She goes for a pocket that's not there and then switches to one in her jeans. "Anyways. Enjoy your pie."

She turns and heads towards the door, waving to the cook, "Seeya tomorrow, Tom."