This is no broken heart Who: Elaine and Layla Where: L'Attique When: Mid-afternoon
Elaine had liked the weather better when it was storming because it had fit how downhill her mood had gone after she left Natalisa's house. Now waking up to find herself in the angel's bed before going out and finding an entire breakfast laid out for her had been the best way possible to start a day. Except she had still been a little tired because her dreams made sleeping fitful and when she had been forced to leave by the tasks she needed to accomplish - like packing up her trailer so that she could ahead and get on with moving into Brodie's apartment - her mood had just gone all to hell. Nothing had seemed to go right and by the time the sun had set she had been prepared to just collapse in front of her TV with a pint of ice cream, a lapful of Cow and nothing on her mind. She had made it to the lapful of Cow part before she had fallen dead asleep. And her dreams had actually been a little better. Okay, they had not woken her up in a cold sweat wanting to throw up, but she felt like she had bathed in oil when she did open her eyes. Why the hell was she having dreams about Derrick that were nothing but good? Like, really good. Derrick had never been that nice of a guy when they were going out. Not even at the start, but every single one of her extremely vivid dreams had starred the man being spectacular. In everything. Elaine had gone through her usual mourning routine in a bit of a confused haze, even putting her shirt on backwards the first time. Then she had made it to the front door before realizing that she had forgotten her cellphone so she had gone back for that and then Cow had been whining to go out... Elaine had ended up taking him out the back to put into the run she had constructed in the backyard for nice days when she felt guilty leaving him cooped up in the house. Plenty of water was set out while she called Layla to let her know that she was running a little late... it was not Elaine's best morning ever and it only seemed that much worse when compared to the one before.
At least there was air conditioning at work. Elaine had slumped in and breathed an audible sigh of relief at the coolness that greeted her. Then she had given a hello to both Layla and Moonshine. It had not taken long for her to catch onto the fact that Moonshine did not appreciate being referred to second-hand and she got that. She also absolutely loved having a raptor bird in the shop with her. One that she could talk to. It was completely awesome. Would have been better had the osprey been a merlin, but pickers could not be choosers and Elaine made do. She also made sure to remember to bring the bird a treat in the shape of a crab-stick pretty much every day that she worked. No she was not sucking up to the bird, she just liked making her happy because hello, they were both birds of prey. Moonshine just happened to have her feathers all the time while Elaine was left with a flabby human skin-cover for most of it. One day she was going to have to bring up the idea to Layla that maybe she should be allowed to spend maybe an hour of her shift in merlin form to keep Moonshine company and see how the customers reacted. She was almost positive that she could train her talons into working the register so long as no one used coins or needed change. Talons tore through paper spectacularly well. And Derrick wouldn't - whoa! Elaine made a startled noise at herself and jerked upright from where she had been slumping a little behind the corner, eyes huge. Had she just thought about Derrick? Why had she just thought about Derrick? Derrick was no longer existent! His calls and texts went ignored because he was no longer a feature in her life. That meant he had no place in her thoughts - goddamn dreams. More like nightmares. The longer that she was awake the more she thought they were really just nightmares in disguise.
"Hey Layla," Elaine called as she caught sight of her boss. Fiddling with the earrings she had chosen, Elaine tried to look like she could care less about the answer to the question she was asking. "Ever broken up with someone and then had dreams about them? Like... good dreams even though they totally weren't the greatest person you've known?" I want my Tali dreams back. With a lot of bosses that Elaine had had at previous jobs she would have never dreamed of asking this question, but Layla was pretty cool and Elaine felt comfortable with her. That and there were no customers in the store so it was not like they could be bothered by anything they said. "And then you get this nagging feeling that they're making you have these dreams because they're that kind of psychic..." Which really, Layla could not look at her like she had a second head for that since she was a psychic. "Forgot the name for it. But yeah...ever dealt with it?"