Perfect Strangers[M]{Damonique&Natora}
Rated M for the possibility of everything. Coarse language, sexual themes and content, physical and emotional violence, drug and alcohol use...honestly, I'm not expecting 2/3 of those, but it's better to be free to choose.
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It was cold a cold January morning. No snow, but there was the sparkle of frost on the hard ground and the bare trees swayed back and forth in a wind the cut to the bone. The run-down transit terminal wasn't much warmer than it was outside, the ancient central heat having long since given up. The only warmth came from steaming breath of the people, mostly families returning home after the holidays, huddled on the benches, clutching their tickets waiting for the next bus. It was already ten minutes late.
Jan didn't sit with them though, nor did he mind the delay, just glad to the be on solid ground for the first time in nearly six hours, and was reclining on a bench by the window, ink-pen in hand, sketchpad propped up on his knees, drawing a bird pecking at a discarded packet of chips in the parking lot, scarfing down crumbs. He might be upset by the careless littering, but at least the bird was getting a meal out of it.
Once the sketch was fleshed out enough that he could finish it on the ride, the blonde youth turning his attention to his own prospects for a meal, setting aside the pad and opening his wallet. He only had $31 in crumpled ones and fives left after buying his one-way ticket west, and decided that food could wait until the next stop. Didn't feel like he could hold anything down anyway.
Finally, there was some commotion as the trundling roar of an aging diesel engine and a thankful commotion from the the waiting passengers as a massive passenger Greyhound bus finally came into view in the distance, in people started collecting their things and stretching their legs, heading for the departure line, where a glassy-eyed and clearly hungover older woman was checking tickets.
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