2019-08-31 - Sweet And Sour Conversations

It's evening, so what better time to go out for something sweet? Corey has dragged Sparrow along to Sweet Retreat, so he can browse the vast selection of snacks and concoctions, all in the name of research. His current favourite is waffles with chocolate icecream and bacon bits, which he orders, and adds, "Plus whatever she wants." A nod to his sister, apparently this trip out is his treat.

Dragged. Right. Like it was a struggle to coax Sparrow out in pursuit of junk food. Poor girl probably protested the whole way. Such torture! When given leave to get whatever she wants, she starts with, "Chili cheese fries with pickled jalepenos, a large black cherry milkshake and..." She scans the menu as if in search of the perfect accompaniment to this already mismatched meal, tacking on, "A little bit of that almond fudge, thanks." Someone's definitely going to have a tummy ache later.

Torment of the highest order, clearly. And speaking of orders, Corey slides a couple bills over after adding, "Nutella and raspberry milkshake," to his order. This placed and paid for, he meanders to a table via the little counter with the cutlery and condiments on, sliding onto the red vinyl seat with a little squeak. "Chair," he calls, because he definitely did not make that noise.

"Uh huh," Sparrow offers in feigned skepticism as she plops down opposite her brother. It's been a little while since they've spent more than a few minutes together in passing. First, there was the roadtrip with Alfie. Then she ran off again for another couple of days. And then she spent nearly a whole week doing damned near nothing but painting or practicing drums. And then she got her hair dyed, all ridiculously red again. It's been difficult to get a full meal or conversation in with her as she tries to cram as much activity as she can into the last days of summer before classes start. This week. Classes start this week. Ugh. Plunking her elbows down on the table as she slouches forward, she asks, "How's the joooooob?"

"Yeah, it's good," Corey confirms, sticking his tongue out at Sparrow when she makes that faux-sceptical noise, settling back and into his usual comfortable slouch. He's been busy too, between work, getting ready for classes and doing research for a project, not to mention making new friends. "I haven't been fired yet, and I'm learning plenty." He sounds content. "Happier in red, Mena? Thought it'd been a while since you last dyed up."

Sparrow scrunches her nose as she shrugs, casting a glance aside toward the windows at the front of the shop. "Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes, it's good to play to the audience, to give 'em what they expect." When she looks back to Corey, her gaze is thoughtful, like there's something more to the sentiment that goes unsaid as she moves on. "Ran into Rink while I was getting it done. Kinda both exactly who he was in high school and not at all." Beat. "Which I guess goes for most of us."

"Oh yeah, I saw him in the park. Dude is crazy good with a pencil," Corey comments with a nod, looking up to thank the waitress when milkshakes are delivered, stirring his with the straw before slurping. Yum. "Still with the not talking much thing, but. He was friendly enough," he adds, likewise looking thoughtful. "How was your trip with Alfie?"

Sparrow chirps a cheerful, "Thank you!" as she snags her milkshake and pretty much directly mirrors Corey's stir-and-slurp. "Way chattier in text," she says of Rink before taking another sip. So good! Maybe her smile is about the milkshake. Her uncharacteristic, "Good," about the first roadtrip might imply otherwise. She studies her brother for a moment as if to gauge which version of the story he wants before she just starts babbling. "We played at being pirates for a while, connected on a spiritual level with a spotted seal, crashed go-carts, ate way too much cheese, rode a corndog, fucked under the stars, made friends with some dinosaurs and hung out with a cougar. And some peacocks. And a porcupine! Holy hell do porcupines smell weird."

Sipping milkshake and listening to the list of things Sparrow got up to, Corey's brows lift slightly once or twice. "More detail on the spotted seal and the porcupine," he requests, the rest getting tucked away - aside from the under the stars bit, because he does not need to have that in his brain. "Sounds like you guys had a good time though. Glad of that."

"I dunno what else there is to say about the porcupine," Sparrow replies matter-of-factly, like Corey should already understand this. "It was adorable but stinky. I might be petitioning for a pet porcupine if they didn't smell so bad, but the people at the big cat place said that was pretty typical." Shrug. She casts a look around the place as she takes another sip of her milkshake, her voice a little lower when she explains, "Alfie totally, like, communed with this seal. Talked to it? Shared with it the smell and color and feeling of the beach we'd been at the day before." Her eyes are only slightly wide, just the barest evidence that she's aware she sounds crazy.

There's a slow-blink from Corey at the notion of Alfie communing with a seal. Not just staring at it, but apparently sharing beach stuff. "..come again?" he prompts, brows furrowing a little bit. He seems uneasy, though only in a way that someone who knows him super-well would recognise, just a slight shift in angle from his usual relaxed slouch.

Sparrow lifts one hand up toward her forehead to wiggle her fingers in Corey's direction, a gestural representation of psychic communication. "We had a long talk about it after. Under the stars. He, uh." She stops short, looks down at the table, a couple seconds spent thinking before she looks up toward her twin again. "Haven't you... I dunno. Done anything with your... stuff... since the egg incident?"

"...some," Corey confirms after a moment, tilting his head slightly, attention fully on his twin. "Not much. But it's there." He seems reluctant to talk about it, which makes it one of the very few things he's not open and indeed garrulous about. "Found someone who reckons they're the same though."

"Then why's it weird that Alfie speaks seal?" Sparrow asks, quiet and casual, as if it were perfectly normal in the context of other experiences. Her muted smile, somewhat sympathetic, assures she's aware it's not really that easy. "Wondering if I should even bother to tell you what happened last time I visited the Kellys." Sluuuuuurp.

"There's a difference between telekinesis and animal communication," Corey asserts quietly. "Just because one exists, doesn't mean the other does." Yes, he's using proper words, even if they're the wrong ones. He's watched the X-Men animated series, he knows this shit. "Tell me," he then requests, falling quiet as the waitress comes back over with their food; chili cheese fries for Sparrow (yes, with jalapenos), a waffle for him. "Thanks babe," he murmurs as she departs, taking up his fork to begin breaking the waffle and icecream and bacon bits up into bite-sized chunks.

"Yeah, but the existence of one should make the other more plausible, right?" Sparrow counters, her forehead furrowed a bit beneath her bright red bangs. She smiles bright for the pile of cheese fries and starts in on them before bothering to go into her story, the need to nom that cheesy, spicy, gooey goodness easily winning out over this kinda difficult discussion. "So," starts while her mouth's still full, just before she swallows. "I went over to spend some time with Jaime, talk about the band, whatever. Except he and Joey were hovering over the cellar door when I got there like they were afraid of some spider. But it wasn't a spider. I swear to gods, Corey, this thing..." Her eyes go wide as she straightens a little. "I had to take it apart with a screwdriver while Joey held it still. It was like the junk in their basement had come alive, alright? And once I got its legs off, it just... fell apart." Beat. "And the fog dissipated." Is she looking a little pale? Maybe. Just a teensy bit. She flashes her brother a look that makes plain she's not fucking with him before focusing on something easier again: fries.

There's a so-so gesture from Corey. He's unconvinced about the correlation between the two, but doesn't outright dispute it. Instead, he noms on waffley-icecreamy-bacony goodness. After that first spoonful and a sip of milkshake he listens, eyes widening slightly. "Holy shit. You're all okay though, right?" He doesn't seem to have any problem with believing in junk monsters, it seems. Maybe it's her pallor and the shared look; he knows when she's bullshitting, mostly, and this isn't it.

"Yeah," Sparrow breathes, slowing in her nomming for a moment. "Joey came away with a few scratches. I... might've walloped Jaime with a croquet mallet on accident." That gets a quiet snort, her smile coming back. "Fell fucking flat on my ass when I kicked the thing in its... uh... face? It was like... a table? With a set of old school antennae from like the fifties or something. I dunno. It was weird, Corey. Really, really weird."

"Shiiit," Corey sighs, eating more of his waffle as he contemplates what Sparrow has said. "Is it the first time they've had that kinda thing happen?" he then wonders, sipping shake and setting his spoon down so he can focus on his twin, looking somewhere between thoughtful and concerned.

"I didn't even think to ask," Sparrow admits, her smile skewing faintly sheepish for a second. "After it was all done, I didn't want to think too hard about it. Or think about it at all. And it feels a little weird saying all of it out loud." But something else occurs to her, something which has her fry-holding hand hovering over her plate instead of shoveling food into her mouth. "Someone said something to me the other day. Kinda off-handed. About dreams being weird." With a little knit of her brow, she wonders, "Yours get any weirder after the egg incident? Like..." Her gaze shifts to the side, thoughtful, like she's trying to find the right words. "More vivid. More real." There seems to be more to the thought, but she leaves it there and looks back to Corey.

"..a bit," Corey acknowledges quietly. "Though not while I was in Canada. Slept like a baby up there, no dreams to speak of. They started again when I moved back." He resumes eating, but slowly, thoughtfully, blue eyes focused on the distance rather than on his twin. "Related, you think?" he then asks, returning his attention to the red-haired hellion across from him.

Sparrow's quiet, "Yeah," might echo a similar sentiment regarding her time away, on the road. She mutters a, "Seems like it," around another mouthful of chili fries. The sniffle and nose-swipe after she swallows says more about the heat of the jalepenos than anything else in her expression, but that's pretty much par for the course with her and spicy food. "I dunno what it means or if it matters or..." Shrug. "Some kinda sometimes smart guy once told me not to overthink things, so..."

"The chick from the pawn shop, Lilith. She tried talking to me about stuff," Corey allows, his voice remaining quiet enough for his words not to carry beyond the table. "I pretended I had no idea what she was talking about, mostly because if she figures I've got it, she'll know you've got it." Whatever 'it' is. "I can keep doing that, or if you're okay with it, I'll talk to her." Yes, Corey is protective of his twin, even if he is technically the younger one.

Sparrow smiles warmly across the table at that protectiveness and admits, "I didn't tell Alfie about you either. But you might wanna." Like he said, it's pretty obvious that there'd be some connection. "Though, nn. I dunno if you can feel it like I do? But you and I aren't quite the same. Feels different. Hard to articulate." And probably best not to try here. "But yeah, that's alright. If you wanna talk to her." With a little cant of her head, she wonders, "How'd dinner go?" Back into vaguely safer territory.

"Feels different," Corey confirms with a nod, finishing off his waffles before speaking again. "Dinner went well," he then responds, his shit-eating grin proof enough that dinner was not all that occurred, that his pick-up line still works to a degree. Not that he goes into any details, because discussing that kind of thing with his sister.. eww. "She seems pretty cool to be honest. Good conversationalist." Which, for him, is important.

Sparrow rolls her eyes at that grin, but she's still smiling. "I dunno how that shit still works for you," doesn't sound like she's looking for an actual explanation. "Though I am told that you're cute," she informs him without providing any insight into the source of that rumor. "I've been having some good conversations, too." Her smile flattens out a little bit there as she fusses with her straw. "Kinda feel like I go all stupid sometimes? Like all the useful thoughts in my head just spill out my ear and I'm just suddenly the least interesting girl in the world? But I'm trying not to think about that either."

"I am the cutest," Corey agrees with Sparrow's information. "Whoever told you that is a good source." Yes, he's fishing just a little bit, though he's got a guess or two in the back of his mind. "You could never be stupid, Phil. You're always interesting." That, from someone who isn't trying to get into her pants, so it must be true. Of course he's not biased because they're related. "What's got you thinking otherwise?" A hint of mild menace there, as if he's making a list of people that he needs to wedgie, if they've been telling Sparrow she's boring.

"Second cutest," Sparrow gently corrects. There's an order to these things, obviously. "But I'll let Jaime know you appreciate the sentiment." Her smile goes impishly wide for a second, dimming a bit when Corey asks after these weird self-doubting thoughts she's having. Her face scrunches a little as she sinks back in her seat, her slouch directed a little farther from her twin. Like she might be the target of that potential wedgie after she says what she's gonna say next. "It's no one's fault. Just some beautiful boy who turns all my thoughts to jello when he looks at me. And I hate it. And I fucking love it. And it's dumb. Boys are dumb, Corey. Be glad you don't like 'em like I do."

Second cutest? Okay, Corey can live with that, not arguing the point. Though he probably will argue it later, when his sister isn't feeling wobbly. "Girls are dumb too. You know that as well as I do," he points out quietly a moment later, though his grin suggests he's okay with that. "I literally forget how to talk like a sensible human being sometimes."

"Girls are so not dumb," Sparrow objects, refusing to be classified that way despite her admission of spontaneous wobble-brain just a moment ago. "Girls are a little crazy sometimes and more high-maintenance than I can manage most days..." But not dumb. She gives the remnants of her milkshake a sad stir, debating whether or not she wants to fish out the last cherry pieces with her spoon. "I can't remember the last time I met a girl who really did it for me. Hope I'm not going straight..."

There's a dismissive gesture from the boytwin. "Girls are dumb," he reiterates, sticking to his guns on that one. "Beautiful, incredible, sexy, challenging, unbelievably frustrating sometimes, but definitely dumb." Because yes, he's communicating as both an adult and a 12 year old, on the subject of the fairer sex. "Eh, there's plenty of cute ones around, though not sure how many of 'em swing the other or multiple ways."

Sparrow snorts a laugh at the prompt retort from her twin. This time, she doesn't push back, but she does crinkle her nose at his last assertion, giving all that bright red hair of hers a shake. "Cute and into it isn't all I'm looking for in a girl, Corey." Teasingly pointed, as if to suggest that's all he needs, even if they've already covered today how that's not the case. "Some of us like good conversationalists, ya know." She flashes an innocent smile, wide and sweet, then tries, uselessly, to sip more milkshake.

A casual bird is flipped across the table, and Corey sips his milkshake, his glass still just under half full. He eventually offers it over, offers to let her dip her straw in to share, though his nutella-and-raspberry combo lacks cherries, and if she tries to drop any in there will doubtless be war. "Fine. Cute and into it and the same size as you so you can share clothes," he teases, as if those really are her criteria.

Sparrow laughs, bright and easy, when her brother flips her off, her smile damned near proud. She happily dips her straw into his milkshake when it's offered over, eyes going a little weird when that strange and magical combination hits her. Clearly, she's never tried this before. A little, "Whoa," precedes the, "Yeah, see? You get it. Like Bikini Kill says." No, she's not going to explain the reference, but she's more than happy to babble about boys and girls and art and classes and all the superficial nonsense they can for a little while longer. The supernatural talk? Well, maybe she'll get around to bringing that up again later in a less public forum.