Who: Alak Tarr alak What: Grocery Shopping When: Recently Where: Miller's Meats Rating: General Audiences Warnings: None the author can think of other than hey, I wrote this. Status: Complete Upon Posting
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After the first two weeks? Picking up weird packages at a butcher shop didn't feel strange anymore. Alak Tarr had gotten to the stage where he had no problem putting his headphones on, cranking up the volume, and taking public transit to the shop where he had found someone willing to let him slide on by with his freaky alien dietary needs. He had worn makeup for a while. There were some things he had to take his time adapting to and walking outside while looking like a space albino?
Alak hadn't been ready for that for a while.
His mother had been the one to offer suggestions for wigs, concealer, contacts even, while Alak tried to get used to the reflection looking back at him from his mirror. Alak didn't want to think about her. Stahma had done this -become Casti- on her own. All her talents, all her fierceness, all her pride aside, Stahma was still only a woman at heart which made his heart hurt in turn to imagine her suffering alone through the change.
A metamorphosis the likes of theirs wasn't natural in any sense of the word.
Alak wondered why he felt normal walking into the shop to pick up his packages without any make-up at all. He had only spoken with the shop owner on the phone. Her name was Heather. She'd been nice on the phone. Kind in a way he didn't deserve considering. The first time he'd picked things up, they'd made arrangements to where he came in without making eye contact. He had been able to leave without saying much of anything other than thanks. Nothing to it. A guy picking up some unusual groceries.
Cooking wasn't something a person picked up overnight and Alak didn't learn how in his Dreams.
Apparently he came from a misogynistic race of aliens since Casti men did no cooking and Alak only knew how the foods of his people were supposed to taste. He tried the recipes he found online as well as the ones Heather offered him. She was a lot more pleasant to deal with than any standard grocer which was likely why she was able to keep a shop like hers going with all the competition from the big chain stores. There was something to be said for literally knowing where one's meat came from as well as how it got into one's refrigerator.
Raw turned out to be better than cooked which was a secret Alak wouldn't be sharing with anyone soon.
Work was steady at The Need/Want. He spun at his table for hours upon hours, whatever he felt like, some nights playing what it felt as if the crowd needed to hear, other nights putting up for them things they didn't know they wanted to hear until they were hearing it. Alak could feel the pulse of the music in his feet. There was a rhythmn in his chest which had nothing to do with his heartbeat or the fact the heart beating in his chest was Castithan instead of human now.
White hair hung from his head, smooth as silk, as perfectly white as the clouds in California's perfect sky. Alak didn't bother wearing contacts to hide his alien eyes as he smirked his alien smirk. There was no artifice in his choice of clothing. He'd switched up his usual rocker gear for the same only in varying shades of pale to better please his new eyesight. Alak didn't worry about saying a hello to the shopkeeper when he picked up this week's order. Heather was nice. She'd been nice. He didn't have to worry about what she'd think if she met his eyes.
Normal was in the eye of the beholder after all and who on Valarnet was really normal outside it?