2019-07-05 - Cats and Dawgs

It's late, and there's a chill in the summer night air, but Kevin bursts into the Grizzly Den in a hoodie zipped up over a t-shirt, pajama pants, and sneakers with no socks. His hair isn't perfectly bedraggled, it's just bedraggled, and his glasses are askew. He stops two steps into the door, looking around wildly and the seeming to realize exactly what a spectacle he is. Clearing his throat, he starts to turn back to the door, rubbing a hand through his spiky hair, then stops his turn, reverses it, and looks back to the bar, "Ah... coffee? Um, no, decaff please." The waitress puts out a cup and pours from the orange-topped carafe, but declines any sort of banter, clearly just too tired to deal with anything.

Kevin gets half-way through his cup of decaf before Magnolia comes in with a far more cool, casual air. She's got Batgirl PJ pants on-- all purple and yellow and black-- and a pair of Birkenstocks; her large hoodie sports HUSKY PROUD in big bold white letters. Her hair is tousled, up in a bun, but man she totally rocks that look-- PJ chic. She saunters up to the bar, and sinks down into a stool beside Kevin. She turns over a coffee cup, gives it a little rattle, and then she looks at Kevin. Her gray-blue eyes skim him over. "Well, that was pleasant."

Kevin looks up when his fellow pajama diner arrives. "Well shit. I was really hoping that was just some really bad pizza." He's not going to be able to use that excuse much longer, if he even still can now. He opens his mouth to say something more, but then the waitress is back, and he shuts up while she fills Magnolia's cup. Once she's wandered off to poke at her phone again, Kevin looks back to Magnolia, "I was also gonna be kind of upset not to be the hero in my own dream. But, I mean, if it's a shared dream..." because that's totally a thing. Burying his face in his coffee mug for a moment, he considers, "What's the guy version of a femme fatale, anyhow?"

"Um. I've learned real fast the difference between 'really bad pizza' dreams and 'I might die here' dreams. Lemme guess, you don't often get dragged into dreams?" Then Magnolia empties one of those little containers of creamer into her coffee-- then another, then another. Only once her coffee is pale and warm does she look back toward Kevin with a quirk of her smile. "Um. I was the hero of my dream, so obviously-- we can't both be the hero." She takes a sip of her coffee and then she folds her arms in front of her, leaning into her elbows. "I don't know. Maybe you were in my dream reality... because that was definitely a PI thing."

"Nooooope," Kevin responds to the question about often getting dragged into dreams. He watches the creamer-lanche, shaking his head, "You know what's in those, right?" There's a pause before he asks, "Do you want to know what's in those?" He takes a sip of his coffee and carefully tucks his sock-less shoes under his stool, "So what you're saying is that you think you were dreaming about me. And it didn't have anything to do with the fact that I watched The Big Sleep last night?" He shrugs a little helplessly, "If that's the way you want to play it. I wouldn't expect anything less from a Husky."

"Delicious, delicious chemicals," Magnolia replies before she takes a more dramatic sip, narrowing her eyes over her cup at Kevin. With an overeager, "Ahhh," she sets down her cup. "Alright. Here's the skinny. You dream, but sometimes you Dream. Capital 'D.' And when you Dream, it's real... it's weird as fuck, but it's real. You die there, you die here. It literally encapsulates the whole 'die in your dreams, die in the real world.'" Then she takes another sip, and when the waitress comes by she smiles that brilliant, know-you-off-your-feet smile. "Hi. Eggs? Over-easy, and toast. Wheat? Also, a piece of pie. Do you have chocolate cream? Great." Then she turns back to Kevin. "I don't know. Maybe. Could have been two smushed idea-- what the fuck does that mean! Go Dawgs." She narrows her eyes. "Ugh. You're a Cougar aren't you? Fucking WAZOO."

"Formald -- " Kevin cuts himself off right there, smiling too-brightly and letting her enjoy the coffee and creamer-ish. The too-bright smile gets too-brittle first, and then cracks away entirely, "So if that dude shot one of us, or if the Zombunnies had exploded one of us," different 'us,' clearly, unless he was dreaming something radically different. "That's really freaky." Freaky enough that he just shakes off the idea of food, although the idea of chocolate cream pie has him immediately and clearly regretting that decision. Too late! She narrows her eyes, and his grin returns. Setting down the coffee cup, he flashes a 'W' with his fingers, then a 'V,' "Wazoo-Vee, baby. All day, every day, best way to be." He pauses from his patently preposterous pajama-clad posturing, considering for a moment, "So this has something to do with all the..." looking both ways rapidly, he leans forward and looks intently at her cup. After a moment, it slides smoothly over to one side about four inches. "...stuff? IS there really a government program for dream tracking and the paranormal in town?"

"Zombunnies?" Magnolia narrows her eyes. "You dreamed of zombie bunnies?" But before Kevin can even answer, she's holding up a hand. "Nope, nope. I don't need to know." Then she takes another sip of her coffee before she glances up toward the clock, and then back to Kevin. When he confirms that he's from WSU, she makes a face. "Ugh. You just lost a point. You had a good five points for being cute, but now you're down to four. Maybe three. I haven't decided." Her pie is dropped off, and she grabs a fork. "I have no clue. I'm just a PI. I'm not actually like... into the government conspiracy stuff. What I do know is this has been going on for a long ass time."

"I mean, not just me," Kevin protests to the idea about dreaming of zombie bunnies, "It was an Easter thing anyhow." The introduction of a point scale draws his brows up sharply behind his glasses, "We're objectifying now? I mean, being cute should be worth way more than five points." He takes another sip of his decaff, grimacing and reaching past her for the sugar packets. Two at a time, he adds six of them to his cup of coffee. "Besides, it's not cute anymore, it's geek chic." Pointing to his glasses, he adds, "Don't even need these," he totally does, "I got lasik like five years ago," he didn't, "but it fits, you know, the look." There's a beat pause, and he adds, "I can't believe you didn't bring my hat with you though." He's probably teasing, for all that he's handling the long-ass-time-of-Dreams-that-can-kill-you pretty well, "I think that drops you a point, which counters the green pumps, but the," he makes a swirly gesture near his ears and then primps at long hair he doesn't have, "curl-things were worth at least five. Just about counter-acts the Huskiness." His eyes widen suddenly as he realizes what he just said, "I mean the whole Dawg thing. Ack! That's just as bad. The UW thing!"

"Easter thing," Magnolia repeats in that flat tone. Then she rolls her eyes dramatically. Her pie is delivered, she rips off the little paper around her utensils, and then she's tugging out the fork. She starts in solely on the whipped cream and chocolate, ignoring the crust. "Geek chic." Then she levels a look at him. "Your hat? That fedora?" It's all she can do for now to be amused instead of actually worried. "Too late. You called me husky. Now we go to battle."

"Resurrecting Easter Bunnies, exploding eggs, creepy little girls. Ugh, the less said the better," says Kevin, going on at some length about the topic. "And yes. That was a cool fedora. Not like some stupid-ass incel trilby." The protest is weak, however, as he's already being accused of calling her fat. "Hey! That's not what I meant, and you know it." Subsiding a little, he grumbles, "Besides, we can't go to battle, you're some badass PI, and you're probably carrying in that dirty Dawg hoodie pocket." There's a beat pause as he notices the pajama pants, and he laughs, "Niiiiice. Or maybe you've got a utility belt under there and then I'm in real trouble." His grin spreads broadly, "Exceeeeept..." he reaches up, unzipping his hoodie to show the dark blue t-shirt with a red hammer-and-sickle-ized 'S' of Red Son Superman, "Boom!"

Magnolia actually chokes a bit on a bite of pie at the 'incel trilby' comment. She casts a glance at him, gauging Kevin in a whole new light. Then she takes another bite of pie, this time more thoughtful with a slight narrowing of her eyes. "Yeah, sure. I know it." When he notices her PJ pants, a little glimmer of a grin slides into place before she sobers up and hits him with a glare. "Look." Then he's going all NERD on her, and she rolls her eyes. "Great. Communist Superman." She points a fork at him before she asks. "That case though... about your dad. Legit?"

"Yeah... I saw that grin," Kevin grins back at her, pointing and waggling his eyebrows like, 'aaaah, aaaaaah.' "Come on, that shit is awesome, but mostly for Soviet Batman and Wonder Woman and Lex being a good guy." The question about the case has him shrugging, "I mean... my dad's not missing. Still holding down a buncha jobs to make ends meet. And sometimes he talks about how he had this dirt on one of the big corporations, but I think that was mostly BS so I would think there was a way out. So there might be some files somewhere, but I haven't found them. He doesn't like to talk about them anymore."

Again, Magnolia rolls her eyes slightly before she settles into that full grin. "Yeah, okay." Then she folds her arms in front of her as she listens to the actual details. Her head tips slightly, lips set together in a thoughtful line. "Hm." Then she squints thoughtfully. "But something about it makes you all wigged out or you wouldn't dream about coming to me with that info."

"Hell, I'm always wigged out about something," Kevin deflects. Looking back to his sugared-up coffee, he tries another sip and then makes a grimace of disgust. It's not the Grizzly Den's fault. It's Kevin's unsettled stomach. Setting the cup down, he scrubs at his scalp, "But I don't know. Do you dream about being Humphretta Bogart a lot? I mean, it's a good look, but I don't think many people think of it." He pauses, squinting his eyes closed, "Wait, you're not one of those people who dreams about being at work, and the whole case and noir thing was me... right?"

Now Magnolia quirks a little smile at him, and this time it has some genuine warmth to it. "Well, then you're a pretty healthy, normal person." She then sighs out a slight exhale, and his question catches her somewhat off-guard. "Um. No." She blinks. "Not often. To be honest? I try to find ways to keep me from dreaming most of the time. I even tried hypnosis." She flexes her fingers slightly before she levels another smirk at him. "You into noir?"

Cracking up probably isn't the desired response to telling someone that they're healthy and normal, but that's what Kevin does, pulling off his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose as he does. It takes him a moment to recover, and then he slips his glasses back on, shoots her a single finger-gun, and then shakes his head. Her response to his teasing, however, causes his mirth to fade, and he frowns, "Really? All that to try to avoid sleeping? You have a lot of these dreams then? Um, Dreams, I guess? And I don't know, is anyone healthy and normal really into noir? I mean, I like the good stuff, but I don't like it enough to watch the bad stuff."

The laughter does not grossly impact Magnolia's smirk. She maintains it-- that lopsided half-curl that almost wrinkles up her nose. Then she shrugs her shoulders slightly. "I'm a Dream Magnet, baby." Then she takes a sip of her coffee, shrugging again. "Maybe. I don't know. I was always more of the buddy cop girl." Then she is delivered her eggs, and she pushes aside her unfinished pie toward Kevin in some sacred sharing of calories. She licks her lips from the last residue of whipped cream, shamelessly scarfing the eggs. "Well," she starts, mouth still half-full. "Look. It's either I avoid sleeping or I get eaten. I mean, sometimes the dreams aren't all bad, but sometimes they're literal fucking nightmares."

Kevin opens his mouth to comment on her initial claim, then shakes his head, "Nope. Not going to give you the satisfaction. Just not going to do it. Way too easy." 'Buddy cop' gets a considered nod, "Opiate of the masses. I can respect that though. Everybody needs a good laugh now and then..." ooh, there's pie in front of him. He glances up and down the counter, then reaches out to a cup on the other side of the bar to snag a wrapped set of silverware, popping out a spoon and starting in on it, "So what you're telling me is that you're going to stay up the rest of the night, and I get to feel bad for dragging you out here at oh-dark-thirty -- no!" A wonderful thought has apparently sprung to his mind, and he points the back of the spoon toward Magnolia, "you suggested the diner, so it's totally your fault that you're out and about and flaunting your horrible purple and gold." Because right now, he's not going to touch that 'nightmares' thing with a 39 1/2 foot pole.

Magnolia just smirks. "Too bad. You had a prime opportunity to offer me up some serious compliments, and you just let that sail on by." She takes another sip of coffee before she grabs a bottle of ketchup to shake-smack out some of that red goodness all over them. She then lets him start in on the pie without interruption while she starts in on the eggs, and she looks up over at him as she chews through her bite of eggs and ketchup. She casts a quick smile and then she shrugs. "I did. It was a test to see if you were actually there, too, you know. I could have been dreaming about you and you weren't really there. But you show up at the diner? Good proof."

"I mean, you could probably read something into the fact that I wasn't particularly surprised to see you on the desk," Kevin's eyes widen slightly, and his next words come out very quickly indeed, "But that's probably not the sort of thing you need to think about." He shoves pie in his mouth, chewing mousse, whipped cream, and crust alike. Around the mouthful, he adds, "'it. 'ouldn't have take' a bite afte' I said 'at." Swallowing, he points the spoon at her, "Ooooh, so you thought you might just be dreaming about me showing up at your door in man-fatale pants then? Hmmmm..." Yes, distract, distract!

"You weren't particularly surprised?" Then Magnolia shakes her head with a little wry smile. "You really do know how to make a girl feel wanted." Another few bites of eggs go by before she looks toward him again. "I have no clue. You looked super excited to see me at the newspaper, so you were nagging my mind before I went to bed, so maybe I shoved you into the Dream because you were bugging the shit out of me."

"Hey... last time I saw you, I think you were scoffing while your boyfriend shoved me in a locker." Kevin shrugs helplessly, poking and prodding at the remnants of the pie, "I mean, at least you were scoffing, but, um... I kind of try to forget pretty much everything that happened before college." He hurriedly verbally backpedals, holding up his hands in front of him as he does, "It's not that I'm not happy to catch up with someone from high school, it's just that usually turns into 'oh you were such a nerd back then' or 'you were so skinny' or 'Kevin who?'" He makes an exasperated sound, "And that was from Betsy Waker, who was always right next to me alphabetically."

"Look, Mark and I broke up when I was a Junior, and most of it was because he was a giant asshole and I got wise to not dating jerks. So, I'm sorry I didn't figure that out before he shoved you in a locker." Magnolia takes another few bites of eggs. Then she looks at him with a slightly exasperated expression. "Dude, I'm a divorcee with a kindergartener at home who is currently being babysat by the gal who works graveyards down at the gas station, so on her nights off, she can watch my kid. How the fuck do you think it goes when I run into people from high school?"

Kevin starts to nod at Magnolia's explanation, even as he's starting to wave it off. Then he blinks owlishly behind his glasses, "You've got a kid?" He sits up straighter on the stool, gathering his feet under him, "Dude, that's awesome. I mean, from the outside it is, at least. Boy or a girl? I'm looking for a new local soccer team to follow." Suddenly realizing how creepy that is, he shakes his head, "I mean, I follow rec league stuff because pretty much anything bigger than that is all totally corporate. Like, the pros? Bought and sold. It's all fixed. So there's no point in cheering for that stuff. But kids' sports? That's pure." Whoops, ranting. He stops and shifts on his stool to face her, "So you want to talk about anything but high school, and I want to talk about anything but high school. So what do you want to talk about?"

Magnolia just stares at Kevin for a long, silent moment. "Girl." Then she narrows her eyes. "She doesn't play soccer because Momma can't afford that. You know how much cash you need to get soccer gear? And do you know how much my office's rent is?" Money is tight, man. Then she sighs out a breath at his question, and she pushes around her eggs now. "I don't know. We ended up in the same dream, you sounded like you had a case, so I thought I'd reach out, tell you to meet me somewhere."

"Dang... does she want to play soccer? Because I'm sure we could take a whip-around at the Gazette. Kids should be able to play sports." Kevin sounds... remarkably earnest. "Especially if there are t-shirts involved. I love team t-shirts." Says the guy wearing a Red Son Superman t-shirt. "And I don't know, maybe there actually is something. I've dug around. I mean, online and stuff, talked to people too. Nobody knows that Dad's got, if he's got anything." Tapping the bowl of the spoon against the crust of the pie, he considers a moment, then breaks off some of it, "Sorry to give you a bum rap though. I got to do the You're My Only Hope speech, and you didn't get anything out of it. Least I can do is buy your breakfast, or whatever meal this is."

Once again, Magnolia kind of stares at Kevin like he just said something absolutely weird. But then he's earnest, and so that kind of disarms here. She looks confused at first, shaking her head slightly. "Um. No, I mean... you can, but I can't really ask you to do that." Then she clears her throat, looking down at her plate as she takes another small bite of eggs. "Sure, um. I won't say no to that."

"What?" Kevin looks behind him, then down at his shirt, then grabs up a napkin and dabs at his mouth, "Do I have something on me?" Shrugging a little helplessly, he adds, "What? No, I know you didn't ask me. If you'd asked me, I'd totally say no. I'd have to, right?" He's probably joking -- his grin certainly says that he is. He pats down his pockets, finally finding his wallet in a hoodie pocket and digging out some small bills, "You won't say no to what, by the way? Are we talking about paying for the meal, or does your daughter want to play soccer and I should start looking for scholarship donors?"

"I don't know if she wants to play. It's never really been something either of us thought was possible. I mean, she's pretty smart for a kindergartener. She gets it." There's more there, but Magnolia moves on. "Um, you can take the bill. I'll get you next time." Then she's hauling herself up out of the stool. "I should get back. I don't like leaving her at home very long at night."

"Pretty sure the season's already started, so maybe not this year." Kevin shrugs a little helplessly, "And are you really surprised that the PI's kid's a smart cookie?" He puts the bills on the counter, turning in his seat back toward Magnolia as she stands up, "Yeah, I get that. Must make it hard to have a night life. Hope you're one of those stay-at-home types anyhow." He cuts off the oncoming ramble, then nods, "Yeah. I need to crash anyhow. Almost deadline time." Leaning forward, he reaches out carefully to chuck Magnolia's chin -- pausing a heartbeat before he actually makes that gentle contact so that she can pull back if she wants, "Here's lookin' at you, kid." His Bogart impression is... passable at best. "Ugh," he groans and head-counters, prying his head up again to remark, "I need more sleep. That was pitiful." And so he's up and gesturing for Magnolia to precede him out the door, "Promise I won't go the same way as you, I'm going thataway," he points in the direction of his house, just to be clear.