Night Out Chapter Five - Preview (Patreon)

Sadie had been gone for some time by the time the excitable waiter returned with their food.

Lars watched as, with a flair and a swing that made him somewhat afraid he’d drop all the good, he laid out the food in front of each chair, offering his well-wishes to each patron. To Lars, he handed a bowl of fries - the pirate wasn’t really hungry for much more. He noticed the waiter grimace, ever so slightly, before putting down Sadie’s food in front of her empty chair.

Lars narrowed his eyes. Probably wanted to hit on her or something.

“Anyone seen Sadie?” he asked as the waiter left. “She’s been gone a while.”

“No,” replied Kiki. “I can go check if you…”

“Sorry I took a while.”

Sadie walked up to the table, slipping back into her seat. She offered everyone a smile, but something looks slightly wrong to Lars.

“There was a line, had to wait, y’know?”

Lars leaned slightly closer, studying Sadie’s face. She turned to him, raising a puzzled eyebrow.

“What?”

Her eyes. They were slightly red.

Lars sat back. “Nothing,” he said, shrugging. “Just thought I saw, like, a fly or something.”

Don’t press, his mind told him. Nothing good ever came from that.

He mentally shrugged and looked down at his food, taking one of the fries in his fingers and slipping it into his mouth. He briefly explored the texture, soft and salty, before slowly chewing and swallowing.

He had an odd relationship with food these days. He’d never been a big eater (or a healthy one, for that matter), but before he’d… gone to Homeworld, he’d certainly liked eating food, particularly the baked goods he made in secret. After his resurrection, his appetite had declined; at first, though he was never hungry, he ate to feel human. At some points in his long journey home, he’d go days without a meal before Steven checked in, and yearn for old flavours.

Then he’d actually made it home. Suddenly he was surrounded by all the foodstuffs he could ever want, and slowly and surely he found out that he didn’t really want any of it anymore. He couldn’t tell why, but things he’d once liked, like ice-cream and donuts and soda, now felt almost unpleasant in his mouth. Sweet things were now too sweet. Dry foods often felt bland. As for meat - well, now that he had died and returned, eating food from animals made him feel rather uneasy.

He still ate socially, so as not to stick out too much (even if he already stuck out like a pastel pink sore thumb.) But if you told him he’d never eat again, he probably wouldn’t really react too badly to it.

Was that wrong? Did it make him less human?

Lars didn’t know. In fact, he didn’t really know what he still had in common with them.