2019-09-09 - Breakfast Wars

Despite previous evidence suggesting otherwise, Hailey's schedule just isn't friendly, and we can assume Harvey has more to do than just go fishing. Thus, it takes more than a week to connect at any time that isn't three-fifteen in the morning. Seven-thirty in the evening is a much more appropriate time to eat waffles, so that's the time that this date is set to happen.

While she could just go inside and get a booth or something, Hailey elects to wait out in front of the restaurant for Harvey's arrival. It's a nice enough evening, and it beats making small-talk with the hostess. Like every human, she passes time by doing things on her phone, looking up intermittently for Harvey's arrival. Which isn't the most exciting set ever written, but gotta get these parts out of the way, y'know?

It would be cool if Harvey rolled up on a Harley or made some sort of other flashy entrance. Instead, it's a very standard Toyota Corolla that rolls up, slides into a spot crooked, backs up and re-parks straight between the lines. At least that means he's conscientious and doesn't purposefully park like a douche? Anyway, out comes Harvey, the transition lenses of his awesome black-framed glasses dark on account of the sun, so Hailey likely doesn't see the squint that goes across the building before finally settling on her. But she'll get to see the smile and the dimples, so yay!

"Hey," he hooks a thumb into the pocket of his nicely fitted khakis, brows climbing over the tops of his glasses. "I went ahead and confirmed again on the way that they had enough batter, so I think we should be good. I mean we might ruin it for the next people, but there'll be more than enough waffles for us." And that's all that matters.

Harvey riding a Harley to his date with Hailey would be too much. This way is better.

This compliment might be tongue-in-cheek. It's hard to tell, since she moves on from it quickly after saying it: "Nice parking job. And thank you. I tried to call, but I just kept getting a busy-signal. Which I guess makes sense now." If Harvey was on the phone with them. Anyway, she smiles because he went to all that trouble, then she leans into the door so it swings open, gesturing with a sweep of her hand for Harvey to precede her into the Waffle Shoppe.

Not that it's the Waffle Shoppe on the inside. But it's not an easy step - not just walking through a door from the Real World into the Veil. It's that bigger slide sideways, a blur when they shift from reality, leaving behind the interior of this off-brand IHOP for a nighttime exterior scene. The surrounding landscape is thickly shadowed, and smells an awful lot like burnt bacon. They'll have to get their bearings in a minute, though, once they get over that "ripped from reality" disorientation; for now, it's enough to know that they're on a path in a forest in the dark.

Harvey bites the tip of his tongue to keep his response about his parking job on the inside, which makes his smile look just a touch strained. But hey, this is a date. The joke of 'it was a tight fit but I made it work' is probably not the best material he could use in the moment. But dear God did it take everything he had in him to hold that one back. "Well I'm trusting you to use my intel to good use and eating them out of all the batter they've got left. Thanks," that last part is for the door, and he thankfully doesn't get into the argument of 'no you first'. He just steps right through..

And into that feeling of disorientation, the slip-sliding through reality and into something ... not. His stomach lurches when the world stops spinning, thankfully not upchucking right there on the bacon-smelling forest floor. But it's gonna take him a hot second to realize what has happened .. and where they are. "Oh, fuck me," he utters aloud. Too bad, Harvey, that's definitely not gonna happen now 🙁

This tree is the perfect thing for Hailey to grab with one hand and lean against, pressing the other hand into her ear, like that will stop the dizziness. It doesn't, but a few deep breaths go a long way, so her eyes refocus right about the time Harvey's being all profane, which she politely ignores in favor of asking the simplest question: "Are you okay?"

Not that there's a lot of time to find out the answer. Almost the second the question leaves her, the thump-thump-thump of a bunch of heavy-footed marchers fills the night air, along with the pleasant aroma of perfectly cooked waffles. It would be awesome, were it not for the fact that the half-dozen anthropomorphic waffles looking at them from the edges of the path - they have little legs and arms that stick out of their square bodies and everything - don't see one hundred percent friendly. "Where are they?" asks what must be their leader. He grabs Harvey by the front of his shirt without further ado, shaking him importantly. "Where are they?!"

Harvey's done his fair share of digging to understand what people like them are capable of doing, but he didn't exactly have an extensive amount of knowledge about the Dreamscape. Which is probably why he looks up when he hears Hailey's voice, the surprise manifesting along with the look that he's probably maybe gonna be sick, while he stumbles forward to grasp the tree that she's holding onto, too. "What the - how are you.." he starts, not at all answering her question, but it didn't matter. He barely gets his own words to fumble out before the heavy marching starts, and the anthropomorphic waffles come into view.

Was the leader wearing a beret that looks exactly like a pad of melted butter? No, that seems impossible, and yet that's exactly what Harvey focuses on as the Waffle-Leader grabs him by the collar and starts to vigorously shake him. Which.. wasn't a good idea, all things considered. That lunch Harvey thought he was gonna be able to hold onto decides it's now time to come up - at least he's able to jerk himself back before it all comes forward onto the Waffle-leader's feet. Hopefully he's wearing tiny shoes.

"That's not them!" The head waffle straightens his butter-beret and looks down at the soupy mess trying to mess up his combat boots. (One of the other waffles is wearing super-cute Mary Janes, but all the others have on their boots.) Anyway, the waffle commander scrapes some of that barf onto the grass, really double-checking before he confirms, "That's not them, you damn dirty bastard! Where are they!"

It must be his second-in-command that intervenes with a softer touch. "Did you see them at least? Are they safe? Was the butter cache there?!"

All this transpires very quickly. Hailey has time to put a very cold hand on the back of Harvey's neck while he's spewing, unfazed by the actual barf - 'cause doctor - but duly concerned by all these waffles barking at them. "Who?"

Her one question makes all the waffles collectively groan.

It was undignified really. In the back of his head, as Harvey's lunch gets inspected by the Waffle-Lead, he thinks to himself that he's definitely not going to make that fitting-into-tight-places thing a reality now, not after he threw up on their first date. But at least he feels better, that swimmy-sort of feeling gone away, and hey! Hailey put her hand on his neck so maybe all hope was not lost.

"What the hell are you talking about?" he spits the funk from his mouth and realizes that he's got a convenient tissue in his pocket that he vigorously scrubs his lips with before he straightens up. He'll just pretend the whole pukey thing didn't happen, balling up the tissue in one hand and silently taking Hailey's very cold hand with the other. "We just got here. Who are you looking for? The butter cache?" There's eyebrows to Hailey before he looks to the second-in-command. "We don't know anything about the butter cache. We just got here," a beat. "We're from the Maple Brigade. You know, collecting the syrup." It was a joke, because this was a joke, and he'll be damned if he lets some walking Waffles torture the fuck out of him on his date.

That collective groan turns into a sudden gasp of dismay, and a murmur goes among the waffles, something about the syrup and how that joke isn't funny! "I don't think they - " But Hailey just never finishes her thought. Her very cold hand stays in Harvey's, but she takes a couple steps backward when the number one waffle comes over to get all up in their space, poking Harvey in the chest with his finger (and leaving a greasy smear on Harvey's shirt, so hopefully it's not his very super best one).

"You think this is some kinda joke, clown? Is that what you think! Well, those're MY WAFFLES out there, and I'm not leaving them for those dirty pancake bastards! You march right back over there and free those waffles, or we'll put you in the toaster oven, and then we'll see how funny you are!" The finger that had been poking Harvey in the chest points down the path, like that should clarify everything.

Once the yelling stops, the more helpful waffle explains, "You're gonna have to cross Grape Jelly Ravine and sneak into the pancake camp. Our intel says they're holding the waffles in the aluminum foil tent next to the big pile of stock-piled butter. Free the waffles, destroy the butter, and get back here in one piece."

"Look, I was just.." Harvey starts out, but the Waffle jabs his greasy finger into his chest. He's not a wimp, but that Waffle packs a pretty powerful prod; he grimaces, perhaps inwardly thankful that Hailey chooses then to take a few steps backwards so that maybe she's not at a good angle to see his face. "All right all right! I get it," he insists, even if he doesn't get it at all. At least the 2nd was a little more helpful, even if the 'Grape Jelly Ravine' makes his brows climb.

Harvey takes a few steps back to fall in line with Hailey and get away from Waffle McPointy finger, a glance down his now-smeared shirt leaving him with a frown. It wasn't his best one, but it was definitely one of the better. There's a glance to the woman beside him before he shoots a look back to the more reasonable second in command. "Fine, we'll do this, I mean how hard can it be, right?" Famous last words.

This is where some grizzled veteran should appear and give them some equipment. Instead, all that happens is that the group of waffles converges into a more tightly knit package, talking among themselves - and obviously having some doubts about the likely success of this mission, with frequent looks tossed to barfy Harvey and 'still hasn't got her head around this' Hailey. "Well?!" asks the head waffle, all impatient, waving his hands down the path, like 'get a move on.'

That gesture lights the fire under Hailey's feet, and she drags on Harvey's hand to start him moving down this close-grown wooden path. It's dark, there's almost definitely going to be crap to trip over, so she'll be doing that pretty reliably from here until they stop. She's righting herself from one of those stumbles when she asks, "Is this your fault or mine?"

Excuse you, it's barf-ly* Harvey.

Anyway, Harvey was only standing around because he expected to be given something. Armor, bottles of syrup to use as weapons, anything! Instead, all they get is stern looks and impatient handwaving and then Harvey's being jerked towards the close-grown wooden path. His stomach gives another lurch, but he successfully holds down what remains of his lunch, and stumbles forward while he scrambles to keep up with her.

"Wait, what? How could any of this be either of our faults?" Poor, clueless Harvey. He stays close, because it was dark and apparently he needs to keep her upright, considering all that stumbling she was doing. "I don't even really get how you're here, or why we're not being tormented. None of my Dreams have exactly been.. pleasant," not that this was pleasant, but it wasn't torture-porn either.

No convenient NPC turns up to be like 'it's dangerous to go alone, take this,' sorry. All Harvey gets on this adventure is a trembly stomach and a doctor that gives him a confused side-eye when he doesn't seem to immediately grasp her question. Slowly, "Ahhm, then I'm gonna guess it's mine." Hailey takes a big breath of bacon-crispy air (How's the stomach, Harv?), kicks whatever it is that tried to trip her (Thankfully, it's non-sentient.), and keeps pulling on Harvey's hand importantly. "We should keep moving."

To keep ahead of the torture-porn.

And also so they can reach the Grape Jelly Ravine. It's NOT a giant crevasse filled with grape jelly. Instead, it's more like an arroyo skirted by thick shrubs. The berries of these shrubs are those little packets of grape jelly that sit on diner tables, complete with little foil peel-away lids and everything. This side of the ravine has a cliff about sixteen feet tall, leading down to the narrow rivulet of coffee-colored stream-water, then a slope up the other side.

Beyond, lit by a few campfires, is a cluster of tin-foil tents all grouped together, with a couple of pancake-patrols snoozing on the job.

Hailey's not the only one doing the confused side-eye think, though Harvey one-ups with a confused brow furrow as well. "When we make it out of this, you're gonna have to explain to me what you think you did," he decides, if only because she's right - the torture porn could be right behind them. Moving on ahead was a good idea. And then there they were, at the Grape Jelly Not-Ravine, with the packets of grape jelly hanging from the bushes. Since curiosity only kills cats, Harvey reaches out to pluck one of the packets off the bush, eyeballing it before he looks over the 'ravine'.

"You think we could jump without breaking something?" It was doubtful, but he trusts her - she's a doctor. "'Cause if not, we're gonna have to find a way down. And then figure out some kinda distraction," he looks back to her with a frown. "I could probably get into the camp. I can be pretty quiet. How fast can you run?"

They're perfectly normal jelly-packets. The one Harvey picked might be a little overripe, because the little plasticky foil lid is overly squish, and his thumb pokes through into the gooshy jelly. But it won't hurt him if he eats it; in fact, with a name like Smucker's, it has to be good.

"No, but I think you could give me a hand down there, and then I'll - " Hailey surveys the drop, looks Harvey over. " - catch you?" This is a good plan. She's ready to execute it, and sits down on the edge of the cliff so as to make it easier to give her that hand down. As for how fast she can run, she looks up with a dubious frown before deciding, "At least as fast as a waffle-person? I'll find the missing waffles, and you can deal with the butter." There's a momentary pause before she smiles grimly; "I'm never getting waffles, Harvey." Then she sticks her hand up to him; make with the helping her down the cliff, plz.

Harvey makes a face when his finger goes smoosh into he jelly packet, but he proves he's not exactly a Wits 4 character over here when he lifts his thumb to his mouth for just a quick lick. "Oh, wow, that's sweet," he sounds surprised, a little taken aback, and then wipes the rest of the jelly on his already ruined shirt, down by the hip. The packet is tossed to the bush just as Hailey announces her master plan. That involves her catching him. "Uh, I think it'd be easier if I got down there and caught you instead? Not that I don't think you're perfectly capable or anything.." he leeeans over the ravine, assessing the drop down, and then flops on the edge of the cliff beside her. "But I easily got fifty pounds on you and I think it'd be a bad way to start our first date with me squishing you into a .. is that a river of coffee?"

Then, with a shake of his head, he looks back to her and frowns at her grim smile. Here, he'll take her cheek into his hand briefly, look her right in the eyes, and say: "Hailey, I'm gonna make it my life's goal to make sure you get some goddamn waffles." Pause. "Even if I have to make them myself." And then, she's either gonna have to prove she's faster than him or they're both just gonna take the plunge, 'cuz he shifts himself to the edge and starts to make his way down this sixteen foot drop.

You know what seems relevant right now?

Here, to be fair, before I finish writing all this...

Hailey's getting down there first, for the record. Sure, she melts as much as the butter is gonna while he's all touching her cheeks, eyes hanging from Harvey for a moment - but there's not even time to say anything before she remembers he totally tried to MANSPLAIN climbing down a cliff at her. She's already sitting down, so it's easy enough to just scoot forward, reeeeeeeach down with her toes, and then just slide-scrape her butt right off the edge of the cliff. A short drop later, and she hits the ground next to the coffee creek with a small, "Oof." Followed by a little flurry of activity, as she seems to have disturbed a sleeping family of sugar packets, who flutter away into the night-sky, squawking unhappily.

"At this point," while she dusts herself off and offers Harvey a hand in case his landing was less graceful because he's not as awesome as she is. "I may just have to swear off breakfast entirely. How do you feel about club sandwiches?"

There's not even enough time to suggest 'WAIT!' before Hailey's butt-scooting down the cliff along with him. Sixteen feet is actually kind of a lot of distance, and Harvey's not exactly the kind of guy that's super efficient at rock climbing. His descent is not nearly as graceful as hers; he slips while there's still about three feet to go and tumbles the rest of the way into the dirt, just sort of dunking head-first into coffee creek. "Ow," he utters, having absolutely ruined his not-best-but-still-great shirt. And there's a rip in his nice khakis now, too. Guess that's what he gets for MANSPLAINING.

This time, he doesn't argue - he takes her hand and lets her help him to his feet, rabble-rabbling under his breath as he comes up. At least her point about the club sandwiches earns her a huff of a laugh. "Maybe we should skip eating altogether and find something else to do together instead," he suggests, giving her fingers a squeeze before he looks out over the creek and to the slope they saw earlier.

"All right. We can sneak around the back of the tents and find the waffles. You do the rescuing, and I'll .. how the fuck am I gonna get rid of a pile of butter? It's not like I can melt it down with my brain."

But what could they do together instead? "Like taking walks?" You know, the thing Hailey kept suggesting they do instead of having lunch or dinner, gdi. Howcome he's always trying to override all her - "Oh. Right. You can't." Melt things with his brain. "Sorry."

They better be quiet now, because the pancake guards - although snoring - exist, and they have better gear than the waffles did, with big ol' forks leaning next to where the pair of them doze off while standing up. The rest of the pancake camp seems pretty quiet, everyone must be asleep, so Hailey points with their hands that apparently are just attached forever now to the tent next to the big pile of butter, kind of near the middle of the camp.

Revised plan: "I'll melt the butter. You save the waffles."

"Something like that, sure," Harvey replies with a dimpled grin before he nods a firm nod at her revised plan. But while he might not be able to melt the butter with his brain? He can totally swipe one of those forks from where it leans on the tent. He doesn't even have to disconnect from her - he just grabs the fork with his free hand when it comes flying through the camp and straight up to them. His grin gets a little bigger, the dimples a little more obvious, as he grips his new weapon.

"Easy peasy. I'll see you in a second, hot stuff," he wags his brows, 'cuz it's funny, you know, that she's hot on account of her being able to use her brain to set fire to things. Then he finally separates their joined hands and starts to the slope, with every intention of climbing up behind the tent where the guards are asleep. Let's see if it works.

It's a close call, but he slips behind the tents without alarming the guards, and disappears into the camp. Let's hope he finds the waffles.

"Okay. Try not to fork this up." Hailey dithers for a second, not her best showing, then lingers juuuuust long enough to make sure he doesn't wind up getting immediately captures by a pancake before she's off for the time-being. Melting butter.

Leaving Harvey to find his way to the tent where the waffles are being held. One of the pancakes (the one that is now forkless) snorts a little in his slip, shifts, then nods back off, his upper half folded forward so it slopes over his lower half while he snoozes. The first tent is full of nothing but sleeping pancakes (on paper plates on the ground). The second tent, though!

The waffles are stuck to the paper plates beneath them by oversized versions of toothpicks with colorful plastic at the ends, poking through their corners. Two of them are pinned to the ground, one sleeping fitfully. The other sees Harvey and starts squirming, "No, please no! Don't fork me! I got a wife, man! We got batter in preschool!" He's not being quiet. 🙁

It was a far better showing than his 'hot stuff' thing. GG, Hailey, she gets a grin before Harvey's off. He's no SEAL SWAT Team Six or whatever, so at the moment he's just trying not to fall over his shoelaces or randomly bump into something that'll make noise, poking his head in through the first tent and immediately doubling back when he sees the pancakes-on-plates. He's going to have a hard time processing this later - right now he's mission-centered, ducking into the next tent where his prize is..

.. talking TOO FUCKING LOUD. "Shh!" he puts his finger to his lips to hush the waffle, hissing under his breath. "I'm not here to fork you, I'm here to save you. The only thing I wanna fork is outside melting the butter right now," there's that patented smile from him, so disarming!

See???

PAPER plates. At home, they sleep on porcelain, but this is war, man!

The blubbering waffle doesn't get the joke. "Oh god oh god oh god, this is exactly how my grandpastry said I was gonna go out," he sobs, only managing to sniffle himself into a quieter state after the disarming smile - or maybe it's because the word save just penetrated its brain.

Assuming anthropomorphic waffles have brains.

The other waffle wakes up about now, trying to sit up, but pinned by the toothpicks. It's the first waffle, whose voice is thick with choked tears, that says, "Let us up, friend, okay? Free me and you can have all my syrup, his too."

"We're all gonna die if you don't nut up, soldier," I've decided that Harvey watches a lot of old movies, including old war movies. 'Nut up, solider,' is surely something he heard on one of those flicks and decided now was the appropriate time to use it. Surely there's a pecan joke waiting. "We gotta get up and move before the pancakes figure out I'm here! Or we'll all be sent to the toaster," he says this gravely, keeping his voice low, as the other waffle awakens.

Maybe it's the promise of syrup - hopefully it's bosenberry! - or perhaps it's the threat of the pancakes outside.Either way, Harvey scrambles into action, grabbing hold of the first toothpick and attempting to yank it out of the waffle's corner.

This is gonna hurt. 'Cuz Harvey's not exactly Mr. Brawn. He gets the toothpick out .. but only because he tears it up through the Waffle's corner rather than pulling it out. Whoops.

"But I'm certified peanut-free!" Ba dum.

It's soon to be followed by a screamed, "OH MY GOD YOU MONSTER!" when the toothpick tears off a chunk of the waffle's body.

Which is soon to be followed by Hailey sticking her head in the tent, eyes enormous. "We should run."

Which is soon to be followed by all kinds of sounds as the encampment comes to life. "Check on the prisoners!" "Where's your fork, soldier?!" "THE BUTTER IS ON FIRE!" "Get General Flapjack on the phone! Call in the croissants! This is a clear violation of the Sunday Brunch Treaty!"

The other waffle is dumbstruck right now and of no use.

Harvey himself would look horrified, but in the struggle to get the toothpick out? He rips off the waffle's chunk and jerks his hand back and smacks the colorfully crinkly-plastic-end right into his eye. "OW! FUCK!" he wasn't the only one screaming, at least.

And then the camp comes to life. Harvey's gonna get a black eye, the waffle is clearly leaking batter and the pancakes are on high alert. "Shit. Shitshitshitshit. Can you heal him?!" he throws his hands helplessly at the batter-bleeding waffle while he tries to get the other toothpicks out in a quick manner. No worries, Useless Waffle, he's coming for your picks too. Let's hope he does a better job....

Look, listen, these toothpicks are really in there. At least Useless Waffle only gets a small tear?

Dammit, Harvey, she's a doctor, not a line-cook! "I don't think so. He's a waffle." In case he hadn't noticed. Hailey comes over to help the damaged breakfast to his feet, at least, making shushing noises at him. He keeps sobbing but accepts the help, leaning on her heavily while his batter leaks out everywhere.

The other waffle takes it a lot better, but getting to his feet is horribly awkward as he bends and flails, finally managing to spring upright, oozing a bit of grease from his tidy wound.

And that's when the pancakes burst through the tent-flap, armed with forks. Time to bolt or become casualties of breakfast wars!

Harvey looks briefly horrified at Hailey when she says she can't fix the batter-bleeding waffle. He was totally never having waffles for breakfast again. But it was too late to debate! The pancakes are coming, THE PANCAKES ARE COMING!! Harvey throws his arm around the less-maimed Waffle and makes a run for it - to the BACK of the tent. With his fork-hand, he points it at the foil and smacks it through, breaking a hole through the foil and letting them out.

But here. Harvey's going to prove that this whole thing is his fault. Without thinking? He tosses the fork back once he made the hole, and sends it flying through the air like a trident, aiming for the lead pancake with every intention of skewering him.

So from Hailey's perspective, it just looks like Harvey threw his fork on the ground in front of the pancakes. Hence the beginning of a baffled question, "Why would you - "

But the universe provides! He may have failed to skewer the pancakes, but they definitely trip and fall over that fork, tumbling forward one after another until they're a stack on the ground right outside the tent. The puddle of melting butter starts to ooze in their direction, and the injured waffle bursts out with a triumphant, "HAH! Take that, you damn round-shaped bastards!" There's a lot of animosity between waffles and pancakes.

In the interests of time, the montage of their escape includes the comic difficulty of lifting two injured waffles up the fifteen foot cliff, then running them along the path, tripping and fumbling and...

...stumbling out of the woods and into the parking lot of the Waffle Shoppe. It's abandoned now, just a couple cars parked over where the overnight employees prefer to park. There's a sheen over everything of pre-dawn dew. The chill in the air and the darkness and the abandoned parking lot and that heavy dew suggest some number of hours have passed. And these two standing on front of the nearly empty restaurant, looking tore up from the floor up.

Hailey, very seriously: "First dates are always so awkward."

Don't forget the comedic mishap of Harvey running through a puddle of syrup and losing his shoe to the sticky mess, which means he was half barefoot when they run out of the woods and into the abandoned parking lot. But at least they were alive. Hopefully the same can be said for the waffles, wherever they may be~.

To her point: "Yeah. But I can safely say I've never had a first date like this before." He manages a smile and musters up some dimples for her, too. "Next time? We do something normal. No waffling, okay?"

And with a promise of next time, the date comes to a close.

Someone inside the restaurant tapes a sign to the door:
WE ARE HAVING PANCAKE DIFFICULTIES
NO PANCAKES RIGHT NOW
SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE
~ MANAGEMENT