🍒 i'm the cherry on top

so when the stranger spoke to dallas, he had to fight every urge to say oh a journalist is a forkin' hero? what, were you giving cpr to forking diary entries? (dallas didn't entirely know or understand what journalists exactly did.)

"guess that's why they call it the after life," he said, putting on his best fake smile. "you never know what you're going to get." yeah, try not to act like a fucking robot, dallas. nobody talks like that. "journalism sounds [ beat ] interesting. what type of journals did you write?"

then, when things couldn't worse, they looked at him and said how about you. and this was a question dallas was well-versed in lying about. when he was talking to someone to pick pocket, he'd say he was a waiter or cashier, and name a local shop. that way, if they caught him, the first place they would go is there, and dallas would have time to not be there. when he was talking to someone who he was forced to speak with, he'd say he was a graduate student, so he could have an excuse to info-dump on ancient history. sometimes, his brother and he liked to screw the other one over and say, yeah my brother's in med school just to watch the other stumble. but his brother wasn't here. and he was not trying to rob this person. and he supposed he couldn't exactly lie when there was some big cosmic switch-up that had him as someone he distinctly was not.

"i covered a lot of important news stuff," eli said. they would take the man's apparent obliviousness to what journalists did in good faith. after all, the united states was a fairly confusing place. many people acted like great britain technically being both one country and three countries at the same time was confusing, and yet, the u.s. was composed of 50+ or so whole states with their own quirks and governments. maybe journalist in this guy's state meant someone who literally wrote journals.

" ah ... sorry. " thumb rapidly taps the volume down for the little speaker. he'd asked janet for the closest thing to concert grade speakers for this mini-party at the front of his house. partially for the sake of having some fun, mostly to drown the awful acoustics of the last new song from jason aldean he'd heard. the moment he hears the country bleeding into the bass, he chills. it takes him a moment to recover, but once he does he claps his hands. " i like it loud. besides, gotta set the vibe, right? i'd play myself, but why not kick my feet up? splurge a little? " he gives a little laugh, passing a beverage over to the 'guest'. " how've you kicked off your happy-death-day so far? " grin and bear it, bright. despite the note crumbled in your pocket and the grating noise of the gutair, everything is fine! perfect!

gabriel  had  met  a  lot  of  people  in  his  life  (and  afterlife),  and  he  could  always  tell  when  someone  was  being  nice  for  the  sake  of  it.

this  one?  yeah.  they  had  an  agenda.

he  took  another  slow  sip  of  his  bland,  offensively  mediocre  coffee,  blinking  at  them  over  the  rim  of  the  cup.

“oh,  yeah?”  he  said,  tone  light,  almost  amused.  “you  got  a  direct  line  to  management?  impressive.”

he  swirled  the  coffee  in  his  cup,  pretending  to  consider their  offer.

“see,  i  appreciate  the  enthusiasm,  really,  but  i  feel  like  management  and  i  aren’t  exactly  on  great  terms.”  he  shrugged,  grinning  like  that  was  somehow  a  personal  achievement.  “something  tells  me  i  might  not be  their  favorite  resident.”

his  gaze  flicked  over  them,  catching  the  almost-too-sweet  expression.

"no, i'm just saying that i can find a way. because that's what i do." their words came out sounding more serious than they intended, and their cheeks warmed. more than anything, eli hated feeling emotionally vulnerable. it was probably painfully obvious now how much eli cared about this kind of thing.

"Well, these days, there are so many ways that people can get their information. Actually, I posted my work on social media apps like Instagram and TikTok. People really appreciate getting honest journalism from an unbiased source like myself. The rules that traditional news sources needed to adhere to didn't apply to me, you know?" They added, "The Cut did a feature celebrating my work fairly recently."

where:  neighborhood  cafe

gabriel  had  never  been  a  man  burdened  by  deep  philosophical  questions.

he  didn’t  waste  time  wondering  if  he  deserved  to  be  here,  didn’t  sit  around  contemplating  the  cosmic  significance  of  his  existence.  that  was  a  waste  of  a  perfectly  good  eternity.

so  while  everyone  else  seemed  deeply  concerned  with  why  they  were  here,  gabriel  had  skipped  straight  to  acceptance—and  more  importantly,  opportunity.

at  the  moment,  he  was  loitering  outside  one  of  the  quaint  little  cafés,  sipping  on  a  drink  he’d  absolutely  not  paid  for  (who  was  gonna  stop  him?)  and  watching  people  freak  out  over  their  new  reality  like  it  was  a  spectator  sport.

“i  gotta  say,”  he  mused  aloud,  lifting  his  cup  slightly,  speaking  to  no  one  in  particular  but  loud  enough  that  someone  would  eventually  take  the  bait,  “for  a  place  that’s  supposed  to  be,  y’know—perfect—the  coffee’s  kinda  ass.”

he  took  another  sip  anyway,  grimaced,  and  then  let  out  a  deep,  exaggerated  sigh,  shaking  his  head  like  he  was  deeply  disappointed  in  the  divine  beverage  selection.

“i  mean,  really?  eternity,  and  this  is  what  we’re  working  with?  no  cuban  coffee?  no  espresso  that  makes  you  question  your  own  mortality?  just  this—”  he  swirled  the  liquid  around,  unimpressed,  “beige  sadness  in  a  cup?”

he  leaned  back  against  the  wall,  eyes  scanning  the  street,  looking  for  someone  who  looked  bored  enough,  curious  enough,  or  just  dumb  enough  to  engage  with  him.

"my coffee is perfectly lovely," said eli. a part of them wondered if the quality of the coffee was based on the rankings. ever since they laid eyes on their house, they hadn't been able to get the rankings out of their mind. eli was ranked higher than this guy, right? surely they had to be. the man didn't seem very pleasant.