Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This particular night at the McDonalds started off no different from any other; minimum wage employees behind the counter and customers coming in to order food on occasion. Part of the latter was made up of other adults unfortunate enough to be working boring night shift jobs in order to get by, and most others were tired college students with horrifying sleep schedules. A few were just random people who would likely most never be seen again once they’d left. Others were regular nighttime customers who, more often than not, found themselves dying inside with the McDonalds employees at 1am.

This normal didn’t last for particularly long, however, for at 10:37pm, someone apparently quite strange walked in through the door. The only ones who noticed him right away were the people sitting facing the door and the one employee waiting at the counter. Someone nudged the person sitting beside them, possibly their friend, and pointed. They could have been weirded out, maybe, but then again, this is New York. Perhaps they were tourists of some kind.

The man who’d just entered wasn’t wearing normal clothes, by any standard. He had what the people in the McDonalds could only describe as some sort of long skirt on his bottom half. He had something with long sleeves, and also something else with golden and... some sort of blue pieces. Neither of them covered his stomach. On his head, there was some sort of weird headpiece that hid his hair with something resembling a snake on the front, and the top of it was another story altogether. To top it off, there was a cape of some sort, long enough to touch the floor but not so long that it was really trailing behind him. The whole outfit was made up of primarily warmer tones, however. They couldn’t really tell where he was from in a glance, either. He didn’t appear to be white and that was as close as they could get.

At first, nobody really cared (aside from the two people mentioned earlier). The man had a single five dollar note in one hand. He approached the counter relatively slowly, as he was instead looking at the menu displayed above with some confusion on his face. Speaking of which, his eyes stood out quite a bit on his face. If he widened them, he could probably earn the nickname of bug-eyed.

After a few long moments, he stopped looking at the menu to walk up to the counter. The woman waiting there met him with “Hi sir, what can I get you?”

Pointing at the image of a cheeseburger on the middle screen, he said, “Hello, may I ask what that up there is?” At the sound of his voice, the employee’s eyebrows shot up, surprised. Noticing her reaction, he frowned slightly in confusion. “Is there a problem?”

“Oh- no, no, there’s not”, she replied. “Just... I did not expect that voice.” While it was a little deeper than she felt matched his face, the accent itself was even more off. It was British, but she knew plenty of British people and had watched a few shows with a lot of British actors and his didn’t really match. It sounded a fair bit outdated, like it was from sometime earlier on in the 20^th century- which wasn’t wrong. She looked up to where he had been pointing before looking back. “That’s a cheeseburger.”

The man looked back up to the image of the cheeseburger. “I suppose I will get one of those.”

The employee rested one of her hands on the cash register. “Alright then, that’ll be two dollars and ninety nine cents.”

He looked down at the five dollar note before holding it out to the cashier. “I hope this will be enough?”

The cashier frowned, confused, but opened the cash register and put the note inside anyway. “This is a five dollar note, of course it’s enough.” She then got out the total of the man’s change before closing the register. “Basic maths. Anyway, your change.” She handed it to him.

As he took it, he replied “I’m perfectly capable of doing mathematics, thank you.”

“Alright,” she said, putting the order through. While doing so, she muttered “Mathematics, what the hell, who says mathematics?” under her breath. She then looked back up at him. “Your number is 82, it shouldn’t be long.”

He smiled. “Thank you.” He then realised that there was a gap to the kitchen and began watching the activity inside, curious.

“You gonna move, dude?” The cashier asked as the door opened again and someone else walked inside.

He gave a short “Oh,” looking to the side (the one the kitchen is on) before moving over. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all good, man,” she replied, before giving her attention to the person who’d just entered. It was one of the regulars, a sophomore college student.

“Hi Kelly,” he said.

“Hi Mark, how was your day?”

“Pretty shitty, to be honest,” was his reply. There were circles under his eyes- not particularly dark, but certainly noticable. He wore dark jeans, plain sneakers and a hoodie with a pleasant earthy tone. He also wore circle shaped glasses. “I mean, not as shitty as it’s been so far this week so that’s nice, but still shitty.”

The cashier huffed out a laugh. “Isn’t it always?"

“It is,” Mark groaned. “Uhhh, I’ll have a Big Mac, medium fries and a large Coca Cola.”

The guy with the old British accent and weird clothing just continued to watch the activity in the kitchen as Kelly and Mark interacted. He noted that they seemed to know each other, although that was just because the night shift employees and McDonalds night shift regulars seemed to have a community of sorts.

Mark paid for his order, received his number and moved off to the side to wait, joining the odd man who’d come in before him. He followed his gaze into the kitchen, before speaking.

“You, ah, finding the kitchen entertaining?”

To his credit, the man did not jump or appear surprised, given the intent and focus he appeared to have looking at what was going on inside. He didn’t look away.

“Yes, it is quite interesting,” was his reply. He then looked over to the other man. “You’re Mark?”

“Yeah, that’s my name.”

The odd man smiled. “Pleased to meet you, Mark.”

Before any more conversation could occur, one of the cooks in the kitchen walked out to the counter with a single, small bag and handed it to Kelly. “Number eighty two,” he said before walking back into the kitchen, though not before seeing Mark. “Hey, Mark,” he called back.

“Hi Derek!” Mark replied. They didn’t say anything more to each other, but it was clear they knew each other as well. Kelly walked down the counter and handed the man his order.

“Here you are, number eighty two,” she said, before going back to the register.

“You seem like you know these people,” the odd guy remarked, holding the bag in one hand and his change in the other.

“Of course,” Mark laughed. “We’re part of the McDonalds Night Cult!” He continued laughing softly for a few more moments. By the way Kelly laughed from the cashier and a few people clustered around some tables nearby also laughed (and one said ‘all hail the glowing M!’), the odd man seemed to catch on to the fact that this was some sort of joke between them, but he wasn’t sure what it meant. Mark seemed to catch on to his confusion by his lack of reaction and curious stare.

“Oh, it’s just that, like, uh...” He paused. “I come in here a lot at night, and so do those guys over there-” he guestured in the direction of the cluster of people that had laughed at the McDonalds Night Cult comment “-so we know each other pretty well, and the people who work here... so we just called ourselves the McDonalds Night Cult as a joke.”

The guy gave a single, slow nod. “I see.” He still didn’t quite understand the cult part of it.

Derek walked out of the kitchen again with Mark’s order and gave it to Kelly. She walked down the counter again to give it to Mark. “One hundred and fourty,” she said. She gave him a large sized cup, a lid and a straw.

“Thanks,” Mark said, heading further down the counter to where the drinks machine was. He filled it up with Coca Cola. He looked to the side while it was filling up, seeing the odd guy looking at it, fascinated.

“What is that?” He asked.

“The drink or the machine?”

“Both, I suppose.”

Mark flashed his eyebrows up for a split second. “Well, I mean... this is just Coca Cola. You know, the drink.” The odd man didn’t know, but decided against saying so. “And the machine, man I’m not studying anything to do with mechanics or anything. I don’t know anything other than that you put the cup under and it fills it up.” The machine finished pouring in the drink, and Mark moved it back onto the counter to put the lid on. “Anyway, you wanna sit with us or do you have to go?”

The man smiled at the invitation. “I’ll sit with you and your friends if you’ll have me.”

“Come on, then,” Mark said, picking his drink and bag back up and heading over to the cluster of tables the McDonalds Night Cult had claimed for that night. The odd guy followed him.

They reached the cluster and sat down at a table with a few spaces free.

“Eyy, Mark’s brought someone new!” Someone from the next table over exclaimed.

“Shut up, Stan, you straight fuck,” the girl sitting across from said newbie laughed. Stan didn’t seem offended, but instead laughed with her.

“Fuck you too, Sal!” He shot back at her.

The odd (and now McDonalds Night Cult newbie) guy’s eyes were slightly widened with a raised eyebrow. He then frowned in confusion. “His posture is nowhere near straight,” he said. This earned a few laughs and confused looks.

“Not like that, dumbass!” Someone else laughed, amused.

Someone else at Stan’s table leaned forwards, looking at new guy’s outfit. “What kind of cosplay is that, dude?” He asked.

Now the odd man frowned. “Sorry. Cosplay?”

“There’s no way that’s your regular clothing, man. You stayed late at some kind of cosplay convention or something?”

Someone else at the same table (who’d dyed the ends of their hair cyan) kicked him under the table. “There’s no cosplay conventions in the state until, like, 3 months from now!”

“Oh, I’m sorry I’m not a cosplay nerd like you!” He shot back. “Were you at a costume party, then?”

“No, I’m afraid not,” the odd guy replied.

“Well fuck, I don’t know what else you could have been doing, man,” he said.

“Of course you don’t, Aaron,” cyan hair ends exclaimed. “You don’t care to know shit about anything except fucking plants!”

“Plants are worth knowing shit about!”

“Why!?”

Kelly suddenly appeared at the edge of the table. “Are you two seriously arguing over whether or not it’s worth knowing things about plants again?”

“Well why should I know about cosplay?”

“What is with you two!?” Another girl sitting next to the girl Stan had called Sal laughed. “Also, Kelly, shouldn’t you be staying at the counter? Mary’s in tonight!”

“Eh, she barely comes out anyway, I’ll be fine,” Kelly replied.

The odd guy, who’d been silent with slightly wide eyes, possibly a little overwhelmed with his first experience with the McDonalds Night Cult friendship dynamic, finally spoke up again. “Mary?”

“Yeah,” Kelly said. “My manager.”

Odd guy frowned. “And she... manages you, I’m assuming?”

Kelly shrugged, finding the fact he wasn’t sure what a manager was a little odd, but just ignoring it. “Yeah. I mean, it’s in the name. Kind of.” She paused. “Is it just me or has it gotten colder?"

“Nope,” Aaron said. “Not just you.”

“I’m fucking freezing,” another man in a singlet said.

“Well that’s what you get when you wear a fucking singlet when we’re heading into Winter!” someone else shot at him (a curly brown haired guy who looked around college freshmen/junior age). He then turned to the odd guy. “Speaking of which, why are you wearing that? It looks kinda thin, and I mean, uh...” he guestured at where his outfit exposed his stomach. “Why’d you wear that?”

“True,” Mark said. “Aren’t you a bit cold?”

“I will admit that the temperature isn’t... extremely comfortable,” he said in reply.

“Hey!” The guy wearing a singlet exclaimed. “Let’s commit arson, that’ll warm us up.”

A few people chuckled.

“Or,” the odd guy began, “You could always just set yourself on fire. Nice and toasty, you’ll be warm for the rest of your life.”

A few people choked out a laugh. “Oh my god,” someone wheezed out from the table on the other side.

“Damn,” someone else said.

Odd guy frowned. He looked a little confused, like he felt he wasn’t even using relatively dark humour. “Too dark?”

“Not at all!” One of the people who laughed called out. “Finally, someone else with some dark humour!”

Less uncomfortable, he smiled. “I can get much, much darker if you would like.”

Before anyone could reply, someone walked through the door into the McDonalds.

“Ah, shit,” Kelly muttered. She waved to the others in the McDonalds Night Cult and headed back behind the counter to take the order. Unfortunately for her, a few more customers started trickling in as she was taking their order, keeping her away.

“You two gonna eat?” someone with a pixie cut asked. “Your shit will be starting to go cold by now, wont it?”

“Oh shit,” Mark said, pulling out his burger and fries. After a moment, odd guy did the same with his own burger. He picked at the wrapping until he got it open. Someone else at the other end of the table took a bite out of their own burger, and he copied, staying silent as he thought to himself about the flavour. Mark took a few bites out of his burger and then had some fries.

Odd guy swallowed his bite of cheeseburger and pointed at the fries. “What are those?” he asked.

“Fries,” Mark replied following with “You ever had them?” despite the fact he hadn’t known what they were. When he received a shake of the head as a response, he pulled out a few out of the packet and handed them to the other. “Here, try them.”

Odd guy quickly set the cheeseburger back down on the wrapping to take the fries, before taking a bite.

“What do you think?” Mark asked. Odd guy nodded.

“It’s interesting, I suppose. A bit salty?”

Mark laughed as odd guy ate the rest of what he’d been given before returning to his burger. He hung around for some time afterwards, chatting with the McDonalds Night Cult and eating the rest of his cheeseburger. People trickled in and out, and Kelly came over to chat to the rest of them a few times.

After some time, however, the odd guy stood up. “I suppose I should be heading off,” he said. “Where should I put this?” he continued, picking up the back and cheeseburger wrapping.

Cyan hair pointed at some sort of can. “There’s the trash. You can put it there.”

“Thank you,” odd guy said, doing so before turning back. “It was a pleasure meeting you all. Good night.”

He received a range of responses from ‘later, weirdo’ to ‘have a good night’ as he headed towards the door. He pulled it open, stepped into the night air and began walking. Then he was gone.

“What the fuck was that,” one of them laughed.

Chapter Text

Nobody knew what to think during the weeks that followed.

The various nighttime McDonalds goers who had been present that night (and many more who hadn’t been there, having been filled in by those who were) didn’t know what to make of the odd guy and the time he’d spent among the McDonalds Night Cult Crew. There was no guarantee that they’d ever even see him again. And, if he did return, what would he do? What other things could possibly increase his weirdness level even further after their first encounter?

They could speculate all they wanted, but it was of no use if Odd Guy never came back. Once the first week had passed, the McDonalds Night Cult Crew had begun to feel convinced that it was a one time thing.

Another week passed. Then another. As time stretched on, the McDonalds Night Cult let it be, allowing each other to ponder over the strange man in their own heads.

And then Odd Guy returned.

His second venture into the glowing M's domain began much like the first. With a small amount of money in hand, he took a quick glance around the shop as he stepped in through the door, before his eyes finally wandered up to the menu displayed above the counter in search of something new to try. Nobody paid him much attention.

Kelly was stationed behind the counter again, taking a small group's order. He could hear the ever-present beeping of machines from the kitchen, the muted hum of nighttime traffic from the street outside, voices from within the McDonalds as those in groups carried out various conversations over their meals.

For a few moments, Odd Guy was just another random soul coming to McDonalds for some shitty food in the middle of the night.

Then, the group at the counter finished their order. One of them turned, revealing himself to be Mark.

Mark did a double take upon registering the odd guy's presence, and his eyes widened.

"Holy shit he's back," Mark blurted out. Odd Guy looked away from the menu to smile at Mark. He heard the attending McDonalds Night Cult Crew members abruptly cut off their conversations as they all whipped around to look at him. Behind Mark, Kelly looked up from her cashier duties and the other two people Mark had been placing an order with turned around as well, twin grins appearing on their faces. They were Sal and Stan.

Derek even poked his head out of the kitchen to take a peek at Odd Guy's return.

"EYYYYY!" A loud exclamation came from somewhere within the cluster of tables claimed by the Night Cult Crew. Immediately, the dam burst, and suddenly everyone was talking again. Some of the other McDonalds patrons glanced up at the commotion, but they were all ignored in favour of greeting Odd Guy.

"Welcome back, my man!" Mark said, leaning back against the counter.

Odd Guy appeared to focus on the slightly more familiar face out of the crowd. He waved in the direction of the Cult's claimed tables and flashed a smile before making his way to the counter.

"Thank you for the welcome," Odd Guy said in reply to Mark. "It is nice to be back. This place is very interesting."

Mark grinned in response. Sal started cackling, and Stan huffed out a 'you can say that again' under his breath. Stan then gestured towards Kelly, who stood behind her till with a wry smile on her face, one eyebrow arched impressively high.

"Ah, yes," Odd Guy murmured, recognising it as a prompt to order. "I will do that now," he spoke up a little louder.

The trio shuffled off to the side to allow the weird man to walk up to the counter.

His eyes darted back up to the menu, scanning the many options as fast as he could. Though he remained calm and collected externally, internally his mind began to scream at the ridiculously large amount of options he needed to choose from. Why were there so many?

Just as he was about to go with the familiarity of the cheeseburger since he knew what to expect with it, he saw something called a 'double cheeseburger.' He was intrigued. From the name, it didn't sound like it would stray too far from the familiar territory of the cheeseburger, just... twice the cheeseburger. How odd.

His mind made up, he looked back down at Kelly.

"So," she said, interpreting his returned attention as readiness, "what can I get for you this time?"

"I would like one double cheeseburger, please," Odd Guy replied.

"One double cheeseburger..." Kelly repeated under her breath as she entered it into the system.

"And," Odd Guy started again after a brief moment of hesitation, "a Coca Cola, please." He was curious about the drinks he'd seen people order during his first visit.

"Would you like that as a small, medium, or large?" Kelly automatically replied.

"Small, please." Curious as he was, he also felt a little apprehensive about the unfamiliar beverage. Well. That, and also the size of the larger cups he'd seen previously were insane. Surely nobody actually needed that much.

Once Kelly had put that into the system as well, she told him the amount of money he owed. While he only had bank notes, restricting him to only paying in whole dollars rather than these 'cents,' this time he was confident in the amount of money he handed over. Not a single whole dollar over or under what was necessary for payment. After the first McDonalds visit, he'd taken some time to look deeper into how modern currency worked.

Not that the rest of the McDonalds Night Cult Crew knew this, but his memories from back home regarding the trade of goods was trade in the literal sense. Coins and paper money didn't exist. Things were bought and people paid using goods such as grain, oil, and beer instead, in what the modern day had apparently named a 'bartering system.' Although, from his reading, he'd discovered that the later eras of Ancient Egypt had actually begun to adopt coins as well, which he found rather interesting.

"Order 98," a new voice called out, catching his attention. He looked over to see someone emerging from the kitchen area. The worker appeared a little stressed out and fairly young, their uniform hat perched haphazardly on dark, tight curls. Probably new to the job.

Mark, Sal, and Stan collected their order and moved off to join the Night Cult Crew.

Eventually, Odd Guy's own order number was called. He collected his food and drink cup, then moved over to the drinks machine. Quickly, he copied what he'd watched Mark do during his first visit and filled up his cup. Finally, once everything was ready, he also headed over to join the Night Cult Crew at their claimed tables.

"Hello again, everyone," Odd Guy greeted as he sat down. Another round of greetings began, far tamer than when Mark had first alerted everyone to his presence.

"Good to see we didn't scare you off!" Someone laughed out from the other end of the gathering. Odd Guy looked over to see who'd said it. It was cyan hair, whose cyan colour looked far more vibrant than it had three weeks ago.

The weird man gave a laugh of his own in return. "You certainly didn't—I'm here now, am I not?"

The conversation at the McDonalds Night Cult Crew's nightly gathering was quick to settle back into something reminiscent of what it had been during Odd Guy's first visit, and he began to eat his food. As it turned out, he hadn't been wrong about his assumptions regarding the double cheeseburger—it was just a cheeseburger that was more cheeseburger.

Odd Guy hadn't been sure what to expect with the drink. When he took his first sip, his face scrunched up a little at the odd sensation.

"You good?" An accented voice across from him asked, having noticed his reaction.

It took a moment to get the drink down (and the feeling of that was another experience of its own) but Odd Guy set down the cup and gave a reassuring smile in her direction. She had dark, shoulder length hair and bangs that were kept brushed to the side, which left her concerned expression on full display. Odd Guy was pretty sure that she hadn't been there during his first visit.

"I'm quite alright, thank you," he said. "It was a feeling that I'm not used to, nothing more."

At this, her concern gave way to amusement with a knowing smirk. "Never had it before, have you." Her question was said as a statement.

"No, I have not," Odd Guy confirmed.

"You'll get used to it," the woman replied. "I'm Sofia, by the way."

"Pleased to meet you," Odd Guy replied with another smile. Before he could think to give his own, however, a commotion in the middle of the group took their attention, and nobody thought to ask his name afterwards.

When the strange man eventually took his leave once more, the McDonalds Night Cult had some confidence that he would eventually return again.

They were correct, for two weeks later, Odd Guy entered the McDonalds for a third time.

Then five days after that.

Another two week gap.

A month.

Four days.

One week.

Six days.

Three weeks again.

By the time winter ended, Odd Guy was firmly cemented as an occasional presence in the McDonalds. It was eventually accepted that he would come at least once a month, usually more. Once, he was even there twice in the same week!

As time went on, Odd Guy's friendships within the Night Cult Crew were established. He also learned more about each individual.

Sal and Stan, as it turned out, were childhood best friends. While their friendship with Odd Guy still included their trademark abrasiveness and teasing, the harshest of their joke-insults were exclusively between each other.

The jokes about Aaron being obsessed with plants were not exaggerated at all. The man loved plants, and was studying Botany in college. Aaron gifted everyone an adorable little succulent for Christmas. Odd Guy treasured his. Unbeknownst to them, he kept it hidden in a small crevice in a corner of his exhibit hidden by its other features, left unnoticed and forgotten as a result. The tiny potted cactus had joined his growing collection of odd trinkets, and the money he used at the McDonalds, made up entirely of small notes—and eventually coins—that had escaped the bags and wallets of the museum's visitors during the day and hadn't been noticed by sunset.

Cyan hair's name was Gemma. She also worked a night shift job, and started work at midnight. The McDonalds was a near nightly stop on her way to work in order to see her friends in the Night Cult Crew. Odd Guy typically came early into the night as well, so they saw each other frequently. Gemma loved cosplay and would often show everyone her progress on various cosplays. Odd Guy was fascinated.

She often marvelled over Odd Guy's outfit in turn. It had to be a costume or a cosplay of some sort of pharaoh—what else could it possibly be? But no matter how hard she looked, no character came anywhere near matching what Odd Guy wore. Her questions about whether he was an 'original character' got an incredibly confused expression, so that was out of the question too. While generic pharaoh costume should have been the obvious answer by process of elimination, the offended look Odd Guy gave her when she asked about that had Gemma second guessing herself yet again.

Whenever Odd Guy came to the McDonalds, Mark would usually arrive around the same time. More often than not, one would walk in the door while the other was ordering. Waiting for their orders together gave them plenty of time to talk, and they'd often end up sitting together at the Night Cult's claimed tables to continue their conversations.

Sofia was an Italian exchange student with a keen interest in linguistics.

Farrah was in the depths of Architecture Degree Purgatory.

Mary was majoring in English, and took all the jokes about it in stride.

Kelly and Derek were both working in order to pay their bills during college.

Poppy was a dark humour connoisseur. More than once, Odd Guy's time with the McDonalds Night Cult Crew had turned into a competition between the two, each trying to out-dark humour the other for anywhere between a few minutes to half an hour. It was quite entertaining for the others. There were a few other dark humour enjoyers in the Night Cult Crew, but none felt quite brave enough to take either of them on in dark humour battles. Odd Guy's dark humour was absurdly dark, and Poppy had a massive competitive streak.

Niamh, Gary, and Harneet loved puns. Where Odd Guy and Poppy would battle over their dark humour, the three of them competed for the title of Worst, Most Absolutely Abhorrent and Horrible Groan-Worthy Pun Maker. They swore the title hadn't been that long originally.

Odd Guy seemed to love the puns, though. He'd even giggled at a few particularly bad ones. Duality of man.

Lucas, the one who'd worn a singlet during Odd Guy's first visit, put off wearing winter-appropriate clothing for as long as he possibly could. Ahmed just about lost his mind every time Lucas came into the McDonalds with insanely few layers for such cold weather, even though he was pretty sure Lucas did it just to annoy him.

Li was another linguistics enthusiast. Sofia, who he'd befriended at Linguistics lectures in college, had dragged him to the McDonalds Night Cult several months ago. The rest was history.

Li was particularly fascinated with the evolution of languages, their dialects and accents. Odd Guy was extra weird (yet intriguing) to Li. While most of the other Night Cult Crew members thought his accent was kind of weird, shrugged it off, and moved on, Li was keenly aware of how out-of-place it was. Well, actually, maybe he should call it out-of-time. 'Seriously,' he and Sofia would say to each other, 'how'd that guy end up with an accent that sounds straight out of mid-20th century England?'

He didn't even look 20! How did Odd Guy pick up that accent when he looked like he'd definitely get ID'd if he so much as glanced at a bottle of alcohol?

Wait, actually... speaking of which-

"How old are you, by the way?"

Odd Guy looked up from where Gemma had been showing him her latest cosplay progress pictures as he ate his McCrispy. (He'd taken to trying something different every time after his first few times, having decided that he wanted to try absolutely everything on the menu.)

Li's question had caught the attention of several other Night Cult Crew members as well, and the group suddenly fell silent.

"I just realised we never actually asked that." Along with his name, now that he thought about it. Everyone had started calling him Odd Guy, and nobody ever questioned it. Not even the man himself.

The strange man paused for a moment, almost like he was thinking something over in his head.

"I am almost 18," Odd Guy settled on after a moment.

Everyone blanched at that.

"Almost 18!?" Someone exclaimed, incredulous.

"Alex!" someone hissed at him in reprimand. Nobody paid any attention.

"Is that a problem?" Odd Guy asked, his head cocked to the side.

"Why are you out here so late if you're not even 18 yet?" Mark asked. Not that he had much room to talk, since he'd not long turned 19 himself, but he was surprised that Odd Guy didn't seem to have a curfew given his apparent age.

"Well," Odd Guy began, "I cannot be out once the sun rises."

And if that wasn't even more confusing. But hey, whatever. Maybe the guy had that one condition with the long name where the sun was Really, Really Bad. 'The sun is a deadly laser' but without the following 'not anymore, there's a blanket.' Vanessa was probably going to start calling him a vampire, though. That sounded like something she'd do.

But all that aside... mid 20th century English accent and Odd Guy wasn't even 18 years old?

Scratch that, his perpetual bafflement at anything modern despite still being a teenager was weird. Everything about the weird guy was weird.

Slowly but surely, conversation picked back up again.

Eventually, after Odd Guy bid everyone farewell and walked back out the door, Li had the sudden thought that he had forgotten about the mystery of the guy's name after the whole 'how old are you' thing.

Oh well. Odd Guy didn't seem fussed.