Okay, so maybe Marty waited a little too long to get a job. Oh well. Now she was paying for her laziness by working late. Working late equals more money. More money equals not moving back to Mommy dearest's house.

And so she's still here. Half asleep and bored as heck, but still here.

She's surprised when the bell chimes over the door. Well, mildly surprised. It's a little to late to be very surprised. She gives the co-worker she was chatting with a raised-eyebrow look, grabs her notebook and walks over to take him order.

Marty pastes her smile on and hovers near his table. Notepad out, pen poised, plastic smile. Her reflection in the window almost surprises her.

"Hello. I'm Marty-" As if her could read her nametag, "-and I'll be your waitress this evening." Evening? Ha. " Do you know what you'd like to order?" Pasty smile, chipper voice, as if she wasn't half asleep.

2:34 in the morning, and Monroe's is still open.

It's empty of diners when Jonathon Oneiros wanders in off the street. This makes it easy to find himself a seat-- he chooses a booth by the window, one without too many rips in the vinyl seats.

Outside, snow is still falling out of the dark nighttime sky. Cars tear by, breaking the silence of late night. Cities never sleep. They just close one eye.

Jon brushes a bit of snow off of the shoulders of his rough brown seude coat and then takes the thing off entirely, setting it on the seat beside him. He's wearing a dove-grey knitted sweater and brownish corduroys, both heavy to protect against the wind coming off the river and off the lake. His skin is light brown with just a hint of copper, and his hair is brown-black, thickly curled. His eyebrows are dark and heavy, his lips red-brown and full. His eyes should be brown, like melted chocolate, but they aren't. Behind the caging frames of glasses, his eyes are ice-white.

He fiddles with a menu, waiting to be served.

The guy glances up with his shock-white eyes and offers a warm smile that is in direct conrast to the innate iciness of his gaze.

"Hi Marty, I'm Jon, I'll be your customer this... morning?" His voice is friendly.

He flaps open the menu and scans it quickly. "What are you guys up to making, this late at night? Or early in the morning, if you prefer."

She laughs and relaxes. Good. Someone friendly and sane. She glances down, taking her first real good look at him.

Oh my. Those eyes. She has a hard time trying not to gape. Ice-cold white eyes, like death. Not everyone has eyes like that.

She gives herself a mental shake. Man, those must be some popular contacts.

"Well... The soups good. I suggest the cream of mushroom, myself. But anything's fine." She smiles again, more real, this time.

(Gag. Mushrooms >.< I couldn't think of anything else to say. I dont' go to restraunts enough)

He blinks and nods. His lashes are dark and thick, like his hair, but only serve to emphasize the whiteness of his irises.

"Cream of mushroom sounds great, thanks. How much is it?" Easier to ask than to scan the menu again.

"Two twenty five. Would you like anything else? Toast? Sandwich?" She wrote the first part of his order down, mostly as an excuse to avoid his eyes.

"And what would you like to drink?"

"That's not too bad a price. And, just water, thanks. The soups rich enough for me." He offers the waitress another smile, this one seeming slightly discouraged by the fact that she's not looking.

The soup's rich enough for him? No wonder he's slim.

Slim? No kidding. Compared to her-

She stopped her thoughts in their tracks.

"Alright then" She writes this down as well, smiles down at him, as says, "I'll just be a moment" and walks off.

Marty enters the kitchen and hands the slip of paper to the chef. Then she turned to the rack just inside the kitchen door, and feigned searching through her bookbag that was hanging there. As her hands idly shuffled through the familiar items, she closed her eyes and sighed. Dang eyes. He would even be attractive if it wasn't for those eyes. They looked just like his. That freakish goth at the mall. It wasn't even just the look. It was the feel. The way they made her cold from the inside out, as if she was looking at a corpse.

Marty, you're being crazy. Their just contacts! Their just contacts.

The darkly handsom young man is lounging in his seat, tracing patterns on the tabletop with a finger that is long but neither bony nor white. Once in a while, he reaches up to push his dark curls out of his face.

He seems bored, with nothing to eat and no one to entertain.

Marty returns, smiling again, with his dinner... or midnight snack? She sets the bowl of steamy, creamy soup, and a tall cold glass of water on the table. Pulling silverware wrapped in a napkin out of her apron pocket, she set these down as well. Grinning down at him she asks, "Anything else I can get for ya?"

She hoped there was, because that would mean she would have something to do, other than going back to jabber away with that snot that was her co-worker.

"Nah, this is good," he replies, unrolling his silverware.

Before she can move away, however, he asks, "So, is it boring, working late?" Ah, a conversation starter. He glances up at her, obviously looking to chat.

From this position, the dark eyelashes shade his eyes and one can almost pretend they're properly dark.

Marty laughs lightly.

"You bet. As dull as a doorknob. Not many people want to eat at-" She checked her watch, "three in the morning. Any reason for your little late night rendezvous?" She shifted her larger-than-normal weight and wondered if it would be appropriate to sit. She didn't want to obtrude.

In response to her shift, Jon gestures at the seat across from him in an invitation to sit.

"I'm a night owl," he says, responding to her actual words. He lifts the spoon and stirs the soup in front of him, almost pensively.

"When night owls get hungry, they eat, just like everyone else."

She grins and sits.

"Yes, I suppose even owls need to eat. I'm an afternoon, evening sort of person. No mornings, no nights. I need my sleep." She smiles (she sure was smiley tonight, no?) and watches him stir his soup.

"Don't worry, it really isn't that bad." She lowers her voice, "Not as good as some I've had, but edible." Her eyes fly to the back room door, as if afraid her boss is listening and will immediately throw her out for insulting his restaurant.

A grin. The special kind of playful, amused grin that has more to do with humour than happiness.

"It's fine. I'm just letting it cool down a bit." He continues to stir.

"What's an afternoon, evening sort of person doing working late?"

Her grin turned sheepish.

"Well... I'm kind of... sort of... in debt. My landlady's was getting a bit angry at me. So I figured if I worked late a few nights, I'll be able to pay it off." She shrugs.

"What do you do?" Smooth she congratulated herself. Lead the conversation away from her laziness.

"I'm sort of a freelance bum. That translates to 'university student' in normal-speak." He grins again, and then takes a sip of his soup. He rolls it around in his mouth, either savouring the flavour or thinking of what to say next.

His white eyes glances off into the distance.

She laughs, light and carefree.

"Yeah, I use to be one of those. What're you majoring?" She leaned forward slightly, this person was interesting.

(Haha for you if you don't know what he's studying ^-^)

He swallows the soup.

"Art. Visual art, BFA. What did you go for?" He dips the spoon back into the soup.

"And where?"

He takes another sip.

"Oh, that's cool. I went to Reinhard Community College for computer programming. It's a little college near my hometown, you probably haven't heard of it." She watched the creamy liquid dissappear behind his awaiting lips.

"Soup good?" She didn't really care about what he thought of the soup, she didn't make it.

(Heehee, came up with that college name out of the blue ^-^)

He nods, swallowing. His Adam's apple bobs.

"Very good, thanks." The spoon dips back into it-- a slow, repetitive motion.

"I'm goin to Keaton U, up by the river. I you hadn't guessed." A quick smile, his teeth very white against his red lips and brown skin. Very white like his eyes, which are now focused on Marty.

She watches his teeth, before returning to his eyes. She likes white teeth.

"Yeah, I figured you were. I hear it's a pretty good school. No doubt better than RCC." She rolls her eyes to emphesize her point.

"So, have you learned anything interesting yet?" Her dismal conversational skills were coming back to bite her in the butt. What kind of question was that?

Another sip of soup. Slurp, savour, swallow.

"Well, I've learned that you can never say out too late to make an eight-thirty class..." he says. "And that, no matter the time, someone is always willing to go drinking. And that it doesn't matter what you do, your roommate will always snore."

He grins playfully. "Oh, wait... did you mean in class?"

Her laughter is rings out agianst the silent walls.

"No, no. That' pretty much all I ever learned too." Merriment twinkled in her green eyes, as she looked back into his white ones.

(Short post. Boring too.)

The warmth, live and friendliness seems to live in his face alone. His eyes are cold, as though no number of jokes will ever warm them up. Cold and hard and impassable, a shield of ice through which nothing can pass. Icy-cold, emotionless, inhuman.

And yet he's still smiling warmly, if one draws back from those eyes to look at the rest of his expression.

Grinning, even. "Yeah, that's the basic university/college experience, isn't it? Who needs classes... it's all about the social life."

She nods, still grinning, watching his mouth, his cheeks, his chin. Imagining what he would look like without those awful contacts.

Part of her knew they couldn't possibly be contacts.

"Yeah... It's all about the social life..." Oooh smooth. Maybe if you just repeat everything he says, he'll think he's having a real conversation! she berated herself.

The spoon dips into the soup again. It seems to be getting low.

"'Course, I probably spend more time out than I do in the studio, and eventually that will get me in trouble."

His brown cheeks dimple when he grins. They dimple a lot.

Oooh... Dimples. She smiles at them.

"That's not good. Forgive me, I don't know much about art, what kind of things do you draw..." She paused, considering. "... or.. paint?"

Her cheeks turn a deeper hue of pink. She really didn't know anything about art. Sure, it was pretty to look at, but that was about it.

"Well, we're working conceptually in most of my classes right now... paying attention to the textuality and hypertextuality of a piece, and... um," he glances at Marty.

"We're drawing stuff," he says, simplifying it a bit. "When I'm not in class, I like to paint."

The spoon scrapes bottom on the bowl and he glances down, seeming to realise for the first time that the soup's almost done.

She stares blankly as he rambles on. Her stare turns to recognision at the word 'drawing', however. She smiles.

"Oh. That must be fun..." I guess... She looks down at his bowl, also noticing for the first time that is was getting low. "Would you like some more? Or something else perhaps?" She looks willing enough to get him whatever he wanted. She was suppose to be waitressing, not chatting, after all.

"No, this was enough to fill me up." He spoons the last few bits out of the bowl and takes a long drink from his glass of water.

"How much do I owe you?"

"Alright. Just two forty, including tax." She stands, preparing to clear his table.

"I'd give it to you one the house, but I might get fired..." She grins at her own lame joke.

(Pooey shortness. Oh well.)

He half-rises from his seat, digging in a back pocket for a wallet. Taking it out, he slaps a five down on the table and returns his wallet to its customary spot.

He then produces a pen and piece of paper and procees to write on it.

"Here... this is my number. Feel free to call if you're bored some time." The paper with the number goes on top of the five-dollar bill.

Her eyebrows raise at the five. "That's some tip. Sure ya wanna give me that much?"

She pick up the slip of paper and looks at it. She smiles in thanks and it dissappears into her apron pocket. "Thanks, will do."

Again she leans over and this time lifts the bowl and glass, to take back to the kitchens.

"For service plus entertainment? Sure. It's only two fifty or so, in the end."

He stands and scooches out of the booth, grabbing his coat and shrugging it one.

"Now to face the cold winter night... have a good rest-of-shift." He raises a foot, and then pauses.

"Oh, how stupid am I? We were never even introduced. Jonathon Oneiros. Jon." He holds out a hand.

She shrugs and the five dissappears within the pocket as well.

"Ah, but we were. Not properly, I suppose." She sets down the glass and takes his hand. "Marty Merriweather. Just Marty." She smiled, and hoped he would smile back, so that she could see his dimples one more time.

She shakes his hand and says, "Would you like the complimentary Monroe farewell?" Her grin turns playful.

His fingers are warm.

He does, indeed, smile, and shrugs. "Well, then I forgot-- and that won't do. Complimentary farewell? How's that go?"

The pasty smile that she had greeted him with returns, and she says in a fake-cheerful voice, "Thank you for eating at Monroe's Family Diner. We hope you enjoyed your meal. Please stop by again. Good night, sir!"

After smiling one last too-wide smile, she drops the act. Picking up the glass once more, she grins at him, almost sheepishly. "Mr Monroe wants everyone to feel welcome, I personaly, think it scares them off."

Jon recoils in mock terror.

"Well, it's certainly scared me off. Good... morning, Marty." With a wave, he spins and is out the door and walking down the street.

She laughs and replies. "Yes, good morning." Still smiling happily to herself, she turns and wanders back into the kitchen.