The restaurant was really just a clever ploy to squander some time, if Syn was perfectly honest with himself - there wasn't much to do around Sekhmet, other than play with the wi-fi and visit planets almost no-one had ever heard of. Or watch Calix pull wires out of their sockets so he had to spend another forty or so minutes pulling up the grates over the floor and reattaching them. It wasn't, however, turning out to be such a good idea - every few seconds there'd be a high, grating peal of laughter from the housewives across the room that made Syn's black biro skid over the lines of the sudoku box and make him lose track of the numbers. At first it had been a nuisance, now there were fine cracks running along the translucent plastic of his pen from where he'd gripped it in annoyance. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. They didn't, of course, and he couldn't make them in such a public place.

He'd watched the poor waitress go over once or twice now, and he almost pitied her - but then again, he mused bleakly, this was her career choice. From across the room, tucked as he was into the very far corner in a window booth with his cup of coffee [he'd been here since before her shift] he glanced up at her as the four ladies said that despite the 20 minutes they'd already spent with the menus, they still weren't ready to order. To take his mind off the sheer failure of the whole thing, Syn scratched a seven into one of his sudoku boxes - but before he could fill in the eight in the box diagonally upwards of it, they laughed again. Exhaling slowly through gritted teeth, actually hearing the waitress's irritation in his head. Because you've only been staring at your menus for the last twenty minutes.A slightly sardonic grin spread over his lips at that.

Well, her mind was more interesting than theirs.

Normally, if you had the ability to drop in through a self-created window in to someone else's mind, you'd have some kind of ethical issue with it - Syn, however, preferred to think of it simply as having extra keen hearing. The only person whose mind he actively tried to stay out of [since that night at the cave, where she'd started trying to keep him out and he'd conceded]was Mutt's, mostly because he'd hurt her feelings by hearing something he wasn't meant to. Partly because he felt bad and partly because he had a crush on her [it was complicated, kind of] he'd left her brain alone. Whatever. When he could stomach the sea gull shrieks of laughter no more he pulled out a five dollar note and slammed it down on the tablet, disappearing out the door in a flurry of black trench coat and annoyance.

Calix was on Sekhmet's ceiling.

He pulled a face at the tawny Abyssinian, scooping her up and pulling open his three quarter length coat so she slid into one of the bigger-on-the-inside pockets and settled there, her little frame vibrated softly against his ribs as she purred. Before he could slide into Sekhmet's cool, star-lit interior, he was distracted - someone at the other end of the alley was singing. Normally he would have been content to slam the door and vanish, but of late life had been fairly dull - he found himself shamefully wishing something need destroying or beating up just to alleviate the - shut up, Syn. Shutting the half open door he turned around ,looking down the alley - at the other end, he could see a girl. The waitress? Without really thinking he started walking towards her, just as she walked towards him, Calix shifting inside his pocket like a dragon in it's cave.

I do not have fangs.

He stopped about eighty centimetres from her, watching her with his strange green eyes. Despite that his expression wasn't angry or anything, they still looked dangerous - there was a kind of sharp edge to them, but he did nothing. When he spoke his voice was cool and fairly pleasant, studying her with his head tipped to one side. "Their laughter get to you too, huh?"

Sudoku, Syn's secret weakness. He tended to start one with the full intention of only doing it for about five minutes, until something else cropped up for him to do - but he generally ended up working over it for about 20 minutes until he'd done it, checked it, and cross-referenced his answers with the published one. Maybe there was some kind of association to cure those with unhealthy addictions to little boxes of numbers.. in the meantime, Syn was just going to have to try and find a suitable distraction. As it turned out, the shrill laughter of the coffee ladies was so much of a distraction that it drove him up the wall and caused him to stand up looking irritated, throw down the money, and leave the shop in a hurry to escape the dangerously high decibel count. Still, it seemed the waitress had the same idea - she was wandering up and down the alley singing.

.. As you do.

Nevertheless, he delayed his return to the chilled interior of his ship to make his way over to her, trying to ignore the muted sound he could still hear from the inside of the shop. Ugh.With a brief shake of his head, he repositioned Calix so she didn't either wander off or eat him, and met the girl in the middle of the anonymous alley. As he stopped in front of her, he didn't miss her raising her eye - and managed, just by the skin of his teeth, to resist smirking. No. Do not smirk. Calix slunk out of his pocket then, dragging herself up his coat lapels to his shoulder, where she scratched at the jacket for a minute before settling down, lashing her tail. Syn glowered at the cat and returned his attention to the waitress, just as she shoved her hands in her pockets and asked if she was that obvious. He gave her an innocent grin.

But then he pretended to look thoughtful for a minute, before settling on an answer. "Well, maybe not.. okay, yeah. But I think they were too busy to notice, so you're safe." Well, it was true - they were so loud and so absorbed in the latest celebrity scandal about.. whatever.. that they probably hadn't noticed the increasingly strained efforts of staff to take their orders. Oh well! Maybe they'd starve and die. Then it'd be much better. And then she went on about gossip and sunshine and Syn decided he liked this chicka already. She was amusing. "You forgot magical unicorns that spit rainbows down on everyone." he interjected calmly, totally deadpan.His ability to be sarcastic and yet look completely genuine was, to say the least, a little unnerving - but oh well. It was a talent - of some description, anyway.

Shush. It was true.

Before the two could trade any more bitter little comments about the nature of the housewives, she changed the subject - bluntly looking up to him and asking if there was legitimate reason for him, 'a good looking stranger', to be in this alleyway. Syn smirked and glanced at her. She wasn't so bad looking herself - dark hair, nice eyes, and stop being a manwhore, Syn. "Stop taking the words out of my mouth. I was about to ask the same of you. Legitimate.. probably not." He leaned in to whisper conspirationally in her ear. "I'm trying to escape their laugh. It's scarred me for life, but if I get away now I can attempt to slide back into normal everyday life." he leaned back, managing to hold onto his serious expression, studying her with his green 'run-away' eyes [and yeah, he'd picked that up too.]. Hmm. She looked totally unfazed, and she'd implied he was good looking - awesome.

So, they were discussing whether or not waitress-chicka here had lost her 'touch', a subject Syn wasn't really an expert in - but hey, he was still worryingly capable of playing along with the whole thing. She tipped her head to stare thoughtfully at a brick somewhere past his shoulder, and he briefly glanced over at it before looking back to her. "Well, if you dial 1800-SKILLS you can apply for a new one.." He replied with a shrug, tilting his head sideways to avoid Calix's paw, which she'd aimed at his face for no reason at all other than she could be a vindictive little cow when she wanted. Her magical skilled appearance provoked the waitress to ask just exactly how big were his pockets, anyway? Syn shoved his hands into them for a moment and looked thoughtful. "Well.. bigger on the inside." He finally summed them up with a shrug. "For my next trick.." he pulled out a fairly large stuffed whale, blinked at it, then passed it to Morgan with a shake of his head.

"Okay, even for me that's abnormal."

Haha.. who the hell was he to talk about normal everyday life? Syn's normal everyday life involved planets the human race had no idea existed, included people who had more than eleven legs - but despite that, he was still pretending that his everyday life bore a resemblance to hers. Oh, the epic failure of it all. She told him you slid back because you had no choice, and he narrowed his eyes and tilted his head back to study her through his eyelashes. "Oh, you always have a choice, but do you go for what's worthwhile or what's easiest?" That, he mused, was probably a defining question. Were you willing to spend time, happiness, and personal safety on something worthwhile in the long run, or did you look for the quick fix? Most people were one of the two, but Syn seemed to be complete fail - he tried to work for the first option, but it usually only ended in someone's pain and general unhappiness.

Well, he was a happy camper, wasn't he?

The door opening surprised him a little to, but he didn't jump - just looked over curiously, expecting it to be one of her co-workers or something. Unfortunately, she didn't look happy - causing Syn to poke her mind briefly and oh @#$%, Whitechapel. The suit called out that they just wanted to talk and Syn's hand flew to his belt, drawing his P226 and levelling it with the guy's neck. You set me up! Syn didn't look at her, refusing to take his eyes off the suit, but still answered through gritted teeth. "No. Stop jumping to conclusions." He lowered his voice so the suit wouldn't hear. "They want me dead, so I'm not exactly pleased to see them." He informed her, wondering why she thought a dagger would be useful - but whatever.

Ugh. He'd only wanted a coffee.

He didn't say anything to the suit, but nor did he take his eyes off him - his aim was unwavering, and he didn't look scared - just pissed off. Morgan moved away from him and he took his eyes off the suit for a second to watch where she was going, as she called out to the suit. "Well then you can talk now! What do you want to talk about?"