log:nick/frank
The flowers didn't worry Frank. He had other things on his mind, and besides - who could really believe that flowers were fucking with people, anyway? Unless a terrorist organization had up and decided to attack the American people with the weirdest biological weapon anybody every thought of, he wasn't buying it.
He bought coffee. Coffee, he bought. He went to the diner after a few days in town, long enough for bruises to have healed, not long enough for any sleep to have accrued. He didn't like sleeping, didn't find it easy. His head got twitchy when he tried to put it down, didn't know how to shut off anymore. On tour, he could sleep, sleep like a fuckin rock and then wake up the second somebody asked for a bullet. Back here, now, maybe it was the bullet he took, maybe not, but sleep was a million miles off. Everything was too edgy, to bright and loud and immediate. Coffee, weirdly, went some way to helping that - not with the sleep, but with blunting the bright and the loud, bringing a little clarity to the mess of physical stimuli. So did going out nights and doing his work. That helped too.
He had a habit of being a stormcloud when he walked in anywhere. Much as he tried to blend in, baseball cap and hoodie and all, he was big, tall, and carried himself like he'd served, probably always would. Usually that was enough to tell people to fuck off, even when he didn't have livid bruises lining the edge of his face. They were fading now, more green, less colorful and intense. It seemed safe enough to get a fuckin cup of coffee, even if the mission was all about surveillance and keeping his head down anywhere close to base.
No worries about drawing attention in this diner - place was fuckin deserted. True it was late afternoon on a weekday, but still. Everybody so scared of goddamn flowers they stayed home? He hardly cared, the air was swimming a little. Work last night got messy, but not in a way that showed on his face.
If he hadn't spotted that the guy behind the counter was in a chair, he would have picked a corner booth and kept his eyes glued on the window. Last thing he needed was a Yes officer he came in for coffee just last night if - when - they tracked him back to this town. More likely, he didn't need the Russians or the Yakuza kicking this guy's door in because he served some moron coffee.
But sitting in the far corner didn't feel right, considering. He took a spot at the end of the counter instead, kept his hat on, kept his head down. "Here you go the best coffee in town," he said, flipped over a thick ceramic mug, and pointed into its emptiness.