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"When she said she'd leave you with me sometime, I honestly didn't think she was bein' serious," Nicholas explained to the baby that he was, almost reluctantly, holding, who just stared up at him with one of, if not the blankest expression he had ever seen and it bothered him a lot; it made him wonder what exactly this kid had done to make its mom freak out so much. "Alright, if you wanna hang around me today, you're gonna have to stop doing that, 'cause that's kind of creepy."

"Douche!"

"I'll take that as an, 'okay,' then," he decided. It would be less awkward, he thought, if they ran into some other freak with something growing out of their head that wasn't just hair so he could pawn the kid off, maybe, but he often got his hopes up too far. Of course, wandering the streets aimlessly always turned up some sort of result, so he had learned from his previous travels, and something had to happen eventually, he was sure.

As he had thought, wandering the streets yielded all answers to boredom.

"They have pills for that, I think," Nicholas pointed out, in the spirit of giving, or of getting that kid to shut up because his thinking process had been interrupted completely, not that he had had much of a process going in the first place, just a baby tugging on his already messed up hair, though he didn't really mind.

"For the anger issues, at least, or that's what I've heard. If anything, you could ship the kid off for therapy and be done with it," he suggested, but he wasn't the least bit serious, "not to mention alcohol works wonders, too, as long as you don't give 'em too much." He didn't have any experience in such things, though, because Ore was a surprisingly mild-mannered child, if not frightening at times.

"Whatever floats your boat," Nicholas said, shrugging.

With his free arm, he managed to return the gesture and shook the stranger's hand, "If I had a little food in my system I'd be a hell of a lot better, I'll say that much, and that's normal for her, I think, I wouldn't know, I'm just playing watchdog today," he said, glancing down at the baby who finally blinked, and continued to stare at the newcomer and the other baby, wordlessly. Hell, if she was dead, Helen would probably kill him to return the favor.

"Alright, sounds like a nice kid," except not really, since she screams like a banshee and is probably demonic in behavior otherwise, "this one's named Orenda, and I'm Nick, nice to meet you."

Orenda continued to stare in greeting.

Nicholas usually preferred his dining facilities with a rat free history, but, hey, he couldn't be too picky about what and where he ate, since he could barely afford it in the first place. "Cool, cool. What's this place called? Might have to stop by some time, when I'm free," which wasn't very often.

"Pbbt," Orenda chose to pipe up, without her usual selection to boot, sparing a glance at Katya, who looked rather upset. In an attempt to cheer her up, or, just for the hell of it, she stuck out her tongue and made a few other faces; that's what her caretaker did sometimes to get a reaction out of her, though it didn't really work. Nick chose not to share his opinion about how dumb the kid looked right now, since she was a baby, and probably didn't care anyway.

If that wasn't a typical name for dining establishment, he didn't know what was. Despite the fact that he didn't really want to spend much more time with the freak show, he hung around them too much as it was, he trudged along behind Darry, though didn't try too hard to keep up an interesting conversation. "They could've spiced up the name a little, at least," he muttered.

Ah, just as planned, just as planned, the baby thought to herself, seeing that her assortment of faces managed to get a pleasing reaction out of the banshee-like child. It would probably be better left at that, really, since she was no longer crying and screaming, but, rather than remain quiet, Orenda felt like inciting another incident.

"Douche?"

"If she starts to cry or anything, I'm going to drop you."

"Hey, don't look at me, I wasn't the one who taught it to her," which was true and he wasn't exactly clear on the details himself, he just had to endure the whining of his friend about the whole thing; it was funny as hell, though, to see the other kid mimic Ore.

"Dooooouche," she repeated, trying to help Katya along.

When they arrived at the diner, which surprised Nicholas because, really, he wasn't expecting to actually go anywhere, the mention of police tape and dangerous cooks put him off a little; just a little. He muttered a quick thanks and entered the facility, glancing around a bit, saying, "Not as bad as I thought it'd be," and he could only imagine how much Helen would be freaking out right about now, spouting off things about second hand smoke and all that jazz.

Well, damn, they sure had some friendly people at this place; if it had been him talking, he would've told her off, but, since it wasn't, and since he didn't particularly feel like being a hero today, he didn't. Besides, what if she had poisoned his food or something afterwards? Nicholas didn't feel like dying today, if he could help it.

He was about to take back his earlier comment about this place being not so horrible, since the waitress just ruined that entire thought, but decided against it, seeing as it would do him no good to complain at this point. Reluctantly, he took a seat at the booth as well, and thought about sitting the mushroom child next to him, give himself some space, you see, but decided against that, too, thinking that the mushroom cap might cause her to tip over or something ridiculous like that; the heaviest part of a baby was its head, he had heard, and that cap didn't exactly help matters.

"Pepper, huh," he said, off in his own little world for a moment or two before asking, "hey, wait, what's wrong with the sausage? It's not poisonous, is it," going back to his earlier thought. "They don't make it out of actual people, do they, because I saw that in a movie one time, y'know? It was actually pretty funny, though, considering what was going on," and he snickered to himself at the thought of it.

"Fffun," Orenda piped up, mimicking her substitute caretaker, peering over at Katya and her new toy, or so she thought, reaching out towards it in the hopes that the other would be nice and let her see it, just for a few seconds.