2019-07-08 - What's Passed Down

Lilith is up early after sleeping through like a rock. Nothing in his room moves or breaks. Nothing attacks her. If she's checked on, she's often out right as tucked in, but at some point, she starts to twist and turn and wad herself up in sheets and covers. But it doesn't seem as if she's moving significantly any time during that slumber, not even to go to the bathroom. When she's awake early considering how early she passed out (she got a good twelve hours in), she does hit the bathroom with her bag of clothing and phone and there's the dull sound through the door not only of shower water, but music she's singing right along to. She keeps it from being too loud, though, in the name of being considerate, but some things are just habit.

When she comes out with wet hair, she's in bare feet wearing a robe she packed and she goes straight to the kitchen after hanging over the back of the couch to look at Michael sleeping with a tiny twitch of her lips. She makes coffee, gets briefly paranoid, nothing weird happens. But in the middle of making coffee, she finds a bakery box to peek into that wasn't there the night before. And it has a pretty cupcake in it. D'aw.

She holds off on eating it after finger swiping the icing to ruin the edge and waits on the coffee before bringing it in black to put on the coffeetable for Michael to rouse to before she goes for the replaced plush chair he moved around for her the night before to curl up in her robe with her phone and own coffee to occupy.

Periodically, Michael had checked on Lilith, and though he saw her tossing and turning a bit, he had the feeling it was just regular tossing and turning, so didn't bother to wake her up. He might regret that later, but come morning she'd find him asleep on that plush couch wearing dark blue boxer briefs and nothing else. A fleece blanket is draped over his legs, but the rest of him is largely on display. Not like he's doing it on purpose, however, because there is also the faint hint of drool at the corner of his mouth and he's clearly asleep.

When some part of his primitive brain finally smells the coffee, combined with the sound of the shower, is enough to rouse him, he sits up slowly, looks around with sleep-face and picks up the coffee. No questions asked.

Rubbing at his eyes and the side of his face a little, he glances down at himself and pulls the blanket across his lap a bit more. "Hey," he says, sleepy.

"Hey. You're cute when you sleep. What time do you go to work? And did you magic up the cupcake? I didn't know if you used creamer, but I imagined it was just excess calories you might not want to burn off later." Lilith looks pretty good sitting there with drying hair in her robe. Her brow is still busted and healing, sure, but the shadows aren't under her eyes with drain fatigue, her eyes are lively and alert, and there's almost stupid amounts of pretty flush color naturally in her lips and cheeks when compared to how she's been seen any other time by him. It's almost like giving her meals and sleep and protection kickstarted or amended her in some way.

"I drove down to the bakery when it opened," Mike explains and reaches across the padded coffee table to grab his watch, he turns it around and checks the time. His voice is heavy and sleep laden, and picking up his coffee, he sips at it and says, "You're not so bad when you sleep either. I go to work at three," he answers, still having some time. Getting up from his spot on the couch, he leaves the blanket behind, and walks past the chair she's in to the kitchen. That underwear leaving little to the imagination, a fact his sleep deprived brain is apparently making him forget. "Have you eaten?" he asks from the kitchen and starts pawing at the cupboards and fridge.

"No. But I can boil an egg if you want to sit down and let me have a turn." Is Lilith offering to play with fire now after avoiding the stove and general sharp corners? She sure is. Some of the anxiety appears to be gone too in the face of nothing happening. In fact, a lot of it seems to be gone because her very posture has changed. She sideeyes Michael walking around, though, in those boxer briefs and puts her phone aside onto the arm of the chair before rising up into a stand to follow after him, "Thanks for the cupcake. I was going to eat it, but decided coffee first."

"Thanks for bringing me here. I feel... lighter, somehow since waking up. I don't know. It's kind of nice. And I was apparently worn the hell out from not sleeping right." Lilith carries on while following, raking fingers through her hair with manipulation to assist while drying.

When she comes into the kitchen with him, he turns towards her and puts an arm around her waist in a sort of embrace. "I don't want a boiled egg though. I was thinking I'd make waffles, and chicken, because I need my protein, mostly chicken for me," he tells her and starts to pull out the ingredients, putting stuff on the counters. "You're welcome, and I'm glad you feel better. I bet you just needed food and a night's sleep without anxiety," he reasons, smiling aside at her for a moment. Pulling out the chocolate milk, he adds some protein powder to it in a glass, and starts drinking that while he gets the food going. Pulling a waffle iron out of a cabinet.

"I don't have any fancy ingredients to put on them, but I do have syrup," he mentions as he gets things ready.

It's entirely possible that's all Lilith needed and she was shifting her own luck to degrees. Other things are entirely possible too, terrible things aside. Like Michael being a good charm. He has an Irish last name, guy might be a leprechaun, he's from the Irish Boston Mecca. It makes sense, right? Hell, why not. She looks a lot better after about a week of not looking so very hot at all, but he doesn't know that extent, really. He just sees she's looking better and claims to be feeling better, which does kind of paint some things as maybe being anxiety or pieces of fear from inside her head.

Lilith leans into the arm wrap of embrace and pets a hand over the side of his bare ribcage before Michael goes to get things out to prep for cooking, "I can do more than boil an egg, but honestly, I'm not going to argue with that because it sounds amazing and seeing you cook in your man panties is pretty prime stuff." She downright finds a free counter to hitch herself onto, even, battered or not. She feels it, sure, but she doesn't groan or make wince or anything, "Are you religious?"

"Oh, then stir this," Mike tells her and has her help with prep. Starting up the iron he applies some no-stick spray and glances down when she mentions his man-panties and makes a little face, but doesn't go to change. "So, besides boiling eggs, what do you make well?" he asks as he gets the chicken going. And .. cooking happens.

"We've done the kids talk, now it's religion, next is politics?" he clarifies, seeing as they're already going to the heavy questions this morning. After a pause to think, he explains, "I'm an atheist, but my parents still think I'm a practicing Catholic, so you'll need to play along with that for me, and not contradict me if I pay lip service when they're around," he begins. "And I'm liberal, and believe in stronger gun control, but not perhaps as strong as some of my fellow liberals."

He knocks the two out with one punch. "And you?"

"I don't really know what I am politically. I know normal people don't need over a certain amount of ammo, weaponry, or bump stocks, though. People can't even manage traffic on a highway to merge properly as a collective." A pause to consider, "Maybe Libertarian-ish, as far as certain hands off goes among certain liberties and rights, but still conservative enough to believe that we are fiscally a disaster and our whole political system is a rigged shit show." Lilith explains to Michael, dropping down from her perch to help and stir and do whatever else as directed while she listens and talks in turns with answering.

"I mostly asked about the religion because I was thinking about your last name and how you Might Be a Lucky Charm. Then I realized a lot of Boston Irish are probably leaning Catholic." There's a deliberate and solid nod of her head in understanding with the parental bit, and given her cue-in, she might kind of be expecting that his parents are something along the lines of religious.

There's a bit of a glance that Mike gives her when she starts talking about politics, but he doesn't delve too deeply, he can save that for later. When he has had plenty to drink. "But I was raised Catholic, yes," he confirms as the smell of the chicken starts to fill the kitchen in a pleasant way. Pausing to finish off the rest of his drink in a single gulp, he rinses that out in the sink and finally gets the waffles themselves started. Cooking follows. "I've just seen too much to believe that there is some cosmic being behind something, maybe a bit spiritual though, my grandmother was a psychic," he mentions, being totally serious and not saying it like she was a charlatan.

Handing her a plate with food on it, he serves himself up a plate as well. Giving them roughly equal portions, he carries his food over to the kitchen table then goes back for another glass full of chocolate milk. "What can I get you to drink this morning?" he asks.

There's a vague lift of Lilith's brows when Michael mentions his grandmother was a psychic and while he's moving around at kitchen-underwear bustle, she kind of turns to look directly at him for a moment where her focus is a touch different. It's not over obvious, though, and she's not being quietly judging, nor does she seem thrown or weirded out by that fact. It's just... interesting. And maybe even a little explanation on one front or another, for her, at least as far as connecting certain dots and assuming goes.

"I'm good with more coffee. I need to actually get things done around the shop later today and it's motivating me, I should keep with trend." Taking the plate of food, she gestures to where her coffee cup is lower level with gradual draining while cooking, letting him refill and bring it with his plate as she gets settled and decides visibly that while she feels better, getting right back up after settling down seems ugh, "Was she a psychic for profession or show, or was it just one of those things? And was she good at it?"

Seeing the raise of her eyebrows, Mike turns his head slightly and glances at Lilith to say, "I'm serious, she really was, she knew things," assuming automatically that he's a crazy person. That done, he refills her coffee cup from the coffee maker, assuming she'd set it to brew enough for multiple fills and then walks with her to the table.

Seated, he starts to eat, quickly, apparently quite hungry in the morning. "Good, text me as your day goes?" he suggests with a smile.

Back to the topic of his grandmother, he answers, "Profession, and yes, very," he reiterates. "So, before I drop you off, do you want to do some stretches and exercise with me?" he asks. "No pressure, but some light stretching and some exercise would be good for you," he mentions.

To be fair, Lilith has already shown Michael her Jim Morrison branded Dreamcatcher of sorts, so maybe the little nod that comes with his answering on his grandmother as to how talented she was in psychic practice... it's more solid than most people might give nods to such things. It's totally accepting and if she has more nosy questions about it, she's holding them. Instead, she tells him with a smile while eating perfectly happily and busily between sips of coffee, "I will. I'm glad you said it, I felt like bothering a cop during a shift might be a bit bad tact, but I was still going to."

She agrees to the stretching and exercise with Michael's guidance before the ride home and though she -is- still battered, she's moving better all around too, as if the malaise that was on her was really half the damn battle. But it's gone now. Funny, that. Everything is going absolutely fine.

"Text, don't call, you call, I'll assume it's an emergency. Don't call during work. If you need to get a hold of me, and it's an emergency and I'm not answering the phone? Call the station," Mike is explaining, oblivious to her thinking about his grandmother more than him right now. The rules might say he should handle it a bit different, but he's keen enough to have moved past those rules they had strictly for covering their own ass. "How's your food?" he asks, pointing at the waffles in particular, since they were the tough part of the recipe.

After they finish eating, they exercise, vigorously, he showers, and finally he takes her back to her shop.

Lilith is more than pleased with the food and general treatment, it seems, even though she's claimed it's a bit of a new thing all around for her. Because when Michael asks about the food, she makes a noise in her throat, rises up some and leans to put a kiss in press against his cheek with lingering to murmur, "Cooking it in your underwear made it pretty magic."

They workout. She goes home. She works. It's all good. Maybe. Seems that way, anyway.