2020-02-15 - Winter Warlock Waffles

Snow is falling, steadily and silently on a quiet Saturday afternoon. Elias is sprawled in a booth, his back to the window and one leg stretched out along the seat, the other foot on the floor. There's a cup of coffee in front of him that he's been nursing while he waits for Sparrow to turn up. He had texted her and told her he was on his way out for Winter Warlock Waffles, and that she, as a fellow Warlock, should join him, despite the snow.

The snow slows Sparrow down, but not as much as the need to get dressed and ready to go out into the world a teensy bit earlier than expected does. She provides a fairly accurate ETA, at least, arriving only about six minutes after that set expectation. And that is probably because of this regrettable weather. So much snow this year! Some of which is caught in her pale hair, one might guess, given how she gives her tresses a bit of a ruffle upon entering the diner before smoothing it all back. She's in warlock purple today, her hooded sweatshirt bearing a tri-peaked symbol in yellow across the chest. Jeans, boots, purple laces, muted make-up with just a touch of neon-touched violet to make it all pop. Her nails haven't been redone, though, currently a matte black that only matches her boots. After a quick perusal of the place, she moves toward Elias' chosen table and slides in across from him with a more low-key, "Hey, gorgeous," than she might usually manage.

Elias has never really been one to be a stickler on punctuality. People would turn up when they turned up, and he had coffee and a warm spot to lounge in, and that seemed like enough to satisfy him for the time being. He's in a pair of his usual skinny jeans, black, with black boots laced up his calves, and a dark blue turtleneck that hugs his slim frame. A black woolen pea coat and a dark red scarf are hung near the door for when it is time to leave. His hair is a little damp in places where the snow that had fallen on it had melted, but otherwise frames his face in loose waves per usual. There are a couple of silver rings on the fingers of each hand, and he occasionally clicks one against the side of his mug absently. He gives her a smile as she slides into the booth and says, "Agent P."

Sparrow looks like she might set right on into conversation, but the midafternoon hour on a snowy day assures staff isn't too busy to pay a prompt visit as soon as someone new shows up. For now, it's just to offer coffee and a menu, warming Elias' cup as well before offering to give the pair a minute and continuing on her coffee rounds. The former redhead doctors her coffee with cream and a little bit of sugar while she talks, as she wonders, "Is there some particular bit of warlockery to get up to today or did you just need some waffles and a bit of distance from your present situation, too?"

"I just thought the alliteration was funny," Elias admits with a little flicker of a smile and a shrug of his shoulders. "Mostly I just wanted waffles, and then when I was thinking of how to frame the invitation, it came to me." He lifts his freshened mug and adds just a bit of cream to it, no sugar, before taking a sip. "There's little distance that I need. I have a whole empty house to linger in if I don't feel like dealing with any present situations. Daniel's gone for a week with his girlfriend, so he won't even be stopping by the house." His cousin, who goes to school in Hoquiam and spends only part of his time in the house to begin with.

Sparrow sinks forward onto her elbows, into a comfortable slouch with one hand wrapped about her coffee mug, two fingers slipped through the handle. "It's magnificent alliteration," she agrees as if this were some sort of official declaration, her stamp of approval offered. "My date tonight is also explicitly alliterative. Scotch and, mm. Scallops, probably. Or scampi? Squash?" Eyes widening a little, she adds, "Squab? Probably not squid. Maybe scones? Hm. I've still gotta go shopping." Her smile flashes faintly apologetic for that tangent before moving right on. "My house seems both overfull and oddly haunted. Not with ghosts, but with people I never see. Lots of people having a rough go of it lately."

"My vote is for scallops, scampi, or scones, maybe all three, but I'm going to go with no on the squab," Elias says, lips ticking into an amused little smile. "Not that I have any say at all on what you have for your date." He takes a sip from his mug and then sets it down again, nodding a little bit at that. "I know that feeling.. about the house." Not so much about the people having a rough go of it, but then, he's been somewhat lost in his own business of late, between the shop and finishing up a book that he promised to get done before the spring -- with spring only about a month away.

"We'll be cooking on a houseboat," Sparrow notes of this impending culinary adventure. "I don't know if he has a proper oven for scones. Or squab?" Her eyes narrow faintly as she gives all of a second and a half of thought to how one actually cooks squab. She's not worrying over it. Whatever's weighing on her, which seems to sink in as she tries to find something more to say on the subject of the current state of affairs at her house, is almost certainly more troublesome than picking out dinner. "Does it ever get hard? The days when it feels like you're just haunting each other's lives and never really connect?"

"Houseboats usually have actual kitchens," Elias says, "Or at least, all the ones that I have seen have, but I'll admit that's only a total of three. But they're not big kitchens, because boat. Though pan searing some scallops and doing a scampi should be easily doable. You could get scones from Patisserie Vydal." Though he can see that something /is/ weighing on her and he falls quiet to give her time to mull it over and decide if she wants to talk about it or not. Dark eyes study her features from across the table. He considers the question, thinking about it seriously. "With Daniel, sometimes. We've been very close throughout our lives. We grew up together. Sometimes it's strange to not be as close as we once were, or to see one another only in passing. My parent? Not as much, but then, everything with them has been very easy and comfortable. And my older sister and I were never very close, so her being gone again is.. kind of what I'm accustomed to."

Sparrow signals the number of houseboats she's been in with one hand, shaping an 'o' to indicate zero. As such, there's a very good chance she's going to defer to Elias' expertise on the matter. Particularly when the possibility of professionally made scones is brought up. A fine back-up plan should the cooking go awry! She sips at her coffee as he fields that odd question, one little snag in a great big tangle inside of her head. "Corey and I have always been close, obviously. Always will be. I don't... worry about that. I just." She falls quiet, providing an opportunity for the server to swoop in and ask for orders, even if the blonde hasn't plucked up her menu yet. She doesn't need to, promptly ordering waffles with banana slices and whipped cream.

Once both orders have been placed and they're alone again, Sparrow doesn't quite pick up where she left off, instead explaining, "It's not like my house is particularly empty right now. Have a friend staying for a bit to try to get some sound sleep. Another visited for a day or two after her dreams went bad. And AJ's still there, of course. And Corey and Monica. And we've got plenty of space for everyone." The 'and yet' can be heard even without being spoken, a heaviness to the sentiment even as she pushes up a small smile. "You're always welcome, too. If your place gets too quiet. If you need new lives to haunt."

Elias orders his own waffles with strawberries, whipped cream, and a drizzle of chocolate sauce as well as a glass of orange juice to go along with his coffee. When the server departs again, his attention refocuses on Sparrow and the conversation at hand. There's a small nod as she lists off the people who are still in the house and describes the space. His lips tick at the corner, a little bit of a wry smile as he says, "Perhaps I will stop by and take you up on that if the house gets too quiet." He seems to mull that over a bit and then asks, "What about all the people from the Halloween party? All your friends from school?"

"I mean," Sparrow begins as she sinks back against the booth. "Bax and Gigi are the bad dream crew, though only Bax made it to the Halloween Party. Haven't seen Legs since before Christmas. Or, really, any of 'em over there. Except Jens." Which gets a faint smile, skewing crooked, as she notes, "Who wasn't at the party either. Garrett's been busy. Gabe's doing alright, I guess?" She's clearly running through that drunken night to try to remember who else was there, which brings her hand up to her fair hair as she notes, "And Nicole's amazing, obviously. Always. Hoping she's wearing the pants I bought her next time I see her which, yes, I get makes it sound like I have an odd hobby of buying clothes for other people just to indulge my voyeuristic tendencies, but." Where she ought to protest, offer some assurance that this isn't the case, she instead says, "There are worse things," with a little bit of her usual humor bubbling up.

Elias draws his knee up, and rests his elbow on it, listening as she runs down some of those that he'd met at the Halloween Party and some that he hadn't. He nods a little bit at the various names and their whereabouts and goings on. He can't help but laugh a little bit when she mentions buying pants for Nicole and wanting to see her in them. "There are indeed far worse things," he agrees. He looks thoughtful then and idly stirs his coffee with a teaspoon that had been resting on his napkin. "The truth is, for living here my whole life, there are relatively few people that I'm close to in town. Oh, I recognize most people simply due to being here forever, but it was Dante seeming to want to meet my friends that made me realize just how few I actually have." He smiles an odd little smile and then lets one shoulder rise and fall. "I suppose I've always been accustomed to being wrapped up in my own research, writing, and business, that I never really got close enough to people to notice their absence until recently."

Sparrow can't help the quiet laugh which answers Elias' thoughts on how few people he really knows particularly well, some grim humor found there. Her gaze skirts toward the window, to the snowy parking lot outside as she takes a moment to consider her words. "I've been wondering if I know too many people, keep too many close. Want too much. Take too much." With a scrunch of her nose, she looks back to the warlock across from her and promises, "I know how awful that is. All this self-pity for having too much. I'm just. I dunno. Worried it's all gonna fall apart if I can't keep up. Which." She makes a face, lips shifting left in a shallow grimace, there and gone in an instant. "I could make some introductions. If you'd like. Drag you out more? Though I do like Dante. A lot. We ran into each other at the library a few days back, and." She gives her head a little shake, not quite of a mindset yet to breach all that they discussed, settling instead on, "He's really fantastic."

Elias regards her across the table, his elbow still balanced on his knee. He lifts his coffee with the other hand and takes a swallow from it. Though his smile ticks a little bit wry between her worries about having too much, and the self-pity for having it. "Can you really keep too many people close, if you truly want to be close to them, and they truly want to be close to you? I don't know if I have an answer for you. Do you feel like you can't keep up with what you have?" He shakes his head a little though. It's not really a question that he expects her to answer for him. Instead he says, "I suppose it depends on if you find that anything is suffering in your life for the choices that you've made. But only you can know the answer to that one." At the offer of making introductions, Elias smiles and lifts his mug, taking another sip before saying, "I always enjoy meeting people. Closeness, though, isn't always guaranteed. Closeness takes time, and energy, and investment. But I certainly don't mind the idea of being dragged out more." When she mentions having run into Dante, he nods his head a bit and studies the snow falling outside. "He is," he agrees, and his smile skews fonder, a little softer.

"That's the trouble," Sparrow murmurs quietly. "Time and energy and investment." Before she can elaborate any further, the server approaches with a couple of plates, and the blonde draws her coffee aside to make way for waffles. She chirps a quiet, "Thank you," to the waitress, and promptly sets to pouring syrup right over everything, dousing waffles and whipped cream and bananas alike. "Usually," she picks up, "I have an excess. Plenty. Enough to fall in love a dozen times over and keep up with everyone I'm already in love with. And a few people I just, ya know, like." She flashes a little grin at that, a genuine spark of humor despite her otherwise mopey mood. "But right now? I kinda just wanna stay in bed and, like... not. And." Lips part and then close, nose crinkling at whatever was about to come out. "What kinda people do you like? Beside fellow warlocks and nerdy brits?"

Elias flashes the waitress one of his charming smiles that crinkle up his eyes at the corners, broad and white, as his waffles are set down in front of him. "Thank you!" He then digs in immediately, fork plunging into the crispy waffle and gathering up some strawberry, whipped cream, and chocolate all into one bite which promptly goes right into his mouth, drawing forth a contented sigh. That was what he needed. But he hasn't forgotten the conversation, and he's still paying attention to every word that she says, considering it, and chuckling just a little bit at that spark of humor in her mood. "You know it's also okay, in the midst of all the people you love and like and are spending time and energy on, to take a break every once in a while and just take care of yourself -- to curl up in a warm bed and just enjoy it, and just be, and just take care of you, pretty bird. Yes, all these loves need to be maintained, but they won't all fall apart to nothing if you take a little time, and let people know that you need a little time." He swirls his fork in the air a little bit, as though to punctuate the point. Though his smile flickers a little amused when she asks what kind of people he likes, "Just like? In general? Or like in a more specific way?"

Sparrow takes to her own waffles a bit more slowly, though she's just as meticulous about getting a little bit of everything witch each bite. She eyes Elias skeptically at his advice, like she's looking for the part she can hook into and buy without ever finding it. Even when she nods, it doesn't look like she's wholly sold on this idea of taking time to herself, like there might be a whole slew of follow-up questions that she's not gonna bother to ask. Except one: "What if I just hibernate until summer?" It might be rhetorical. His answer to her question, though, has an impish glint flashing in her eyes as she asks, "Do you like me in a more specific way, Warlock?" before clarifying, "I just meant in general. The kind of people you wanna spend time with."

Elias smiles as he watches her mulling over what he said, watches as he knows that look in her eyes is skeptical, and that she's not really going with him on this one. "Either that, or you are just in love with way too many high maintenance people at once, if they can't survive you taking a break for yourself once in a while." Which, for all he knows, may be the case. He chuckles at her question, but must sense it is likely rhetorical, because he doesn't answer it. One brow arches a little at her, but he just smiles, and then says, "People that I can talk to. That's it. If I can't talk to them, then I can't think of much reason to spend time with them. Beyond that, no, no particular types."

Sparrow flashes a half-convincing smile at that counterargument, one that doesn't quite hide the complexity of the objections she still wants to raise. Whatever's going on in her head right now, it's not precisely the fun sort of Not Quiet that she's used to. Blame the unending winter, maybe, with all it greyness and gloom. She makes a face around a mouthful of waffle, not quite rising to the level of a proper smirk while she's still chewing. "Yeah, but," she starts, but it takes her a few seconds to finish, to sort her thoughts into something useful. "I have a hard time imagining someone you can't talk to. How's that go? What are those people like?"

Elias's bites aren't particularly large, but they do make sure to gather a bit of all the flavors in each one. No syrup on his, but that's because the chocolate sauce serves as syrup for his purposes. He doesn't pursue the topic of self-care with her, at least for the time being, letting it fall when she doesn't continue the topic herself. "There are people that I have a hard time talking to." He considers and says, "I'd be hard pressed to say exactly what those people are like in a general sense. It comes down to individuals. Most of the time, it's people who just don't have much of anything to say, or who are grating and entirely unfriendly, or are unintelligent to the point that I can't find a way to politely continue a conversation. I have a hard time sometimes dealing with people who constantly put themselves down, as well. I have someone that I care for, but he constantly, constantly puts himself down and it's deeply frustrating."

"Worried I mighta picked one of those up myself," Sparrow mutters on that final point. "Obviously fantastic company, if I'm keeping it, but he thinks he's tricked me." There might've been more to that thought, but it ends with a quiet little heh as something seems to occur. "Which is the bullshit my brain's pushing on me right now, so. Guess I can't judge too harshly." Her free hand comes up, palm out, in a gesture meant to ask him to hold or to offer assurance. "I know it's bullshit. Chemical. It'll pass. But!" She points her fork in Elias' direction before stabbing it back down into her waffles as she goes on. "I don't keep the company of people who are boring or dull or generally unfun, so. We'll see what we can do, yeah? Can't promise it'll all be spin the bottle right out the gates, but." To judge by her smile, she might be thinking about how to make that happen all the same.

"He seems to think that he's all brawn and no brains," Elias says with a faintly frustrated sigh. "And that's not true. If he didn't have something between his ears, no matter how beautiful I think his body is, I wouldn't be drawn to him at all. And he doesn't get why it frustrates me when he does it." He shrugs his shoulders slightly. "Some days, though, he is wonderful. And some days things just come out of his mouth that..." Elias baffles and shakes his head. "That I don't even know how to react to.. and I'm not someone who is often at a loss." He chuckles, and then takes another bite of his waffles. Though one brow lofts a little and he says, "I'm really not looking for spin the bottle type introductions, to be honest. I just like meeting people. That party was actually.. kind of an anomaly for me, to have kissed quite so many people in a single evening."

Sparrow can't help the way she stares as Elias describes this guy, how her dark brows pitch worriedly toward her pale hair. "Wonder if we're seeing the same guy," comes dryly enough to suggest she doesn't actually think that's the case despite the seeming similarity. "Thinks he's a bad person who's done bad things and doesn't deserve a bit of good in his life no matter what good he's doing for you?" She manages not to eyeroll, but only barely, and only maybe because she has waffles to focus on. "I like kissing people," she informs him, though she's probably teasing when she follows that up with, "If you want to introduce me to anyone lips-first, just know that I'm totally okay with it."

Elias chuckles a little at Sparrow's dry comment, popping a strawberry in his mouth. Then he considers and says, "He did ask me once -- didn't people like him become villains in stories, when I told him that I had a character inspired by him in a story that I was writing, when I told him the character was a good guy who was struggling a bit with the fact that he had a beast inside of him. But honestly, I don't know of a single bad thing /he/ has ever done to anyone. He's a firefighter, after all. He rescues people for a living." He smiles faintly. He laughs a little and says, "Yes, well, I like kissing people as well. But you made it sound as though I'd be deeply disappointed if future meetings did not involve kissing straight from the get go."

Sparrow looks, for a moment, like she might be ready to venture a guess at just who Elias might be describing. But then he says firefighter, and surprise replaces any suggestion of certainty which had begun to creep in. "Pretty sure mine's not a firefighter," she murmurs. "Not really sure what he does do which--yeah." A touch of color comes to her cheeks at that realization, but the smile which comes with it suggests that embarrassment isn't exactly rooted in any sort of shame. "Sorry," comes a bit more clearly on his last point. "I should clarify. I might be deeply disappointed if future meetings don't involve kissing from the get go. I like kissing. I like watching kissing. I like the very idea of kissing." Her gaze goes unfocused for a second like she might just be dwelling on the concept in the most abstract way, given some direction when she comes back to the present and flicks a look to his lips before refocusing her attention on her waffle. "But I take your point. I mean. I guess talking's alright, too." Teasing, to be sure. Intentional understatement.

Elias raises a brow just a little when Sparrow admits that she doesn't know what hers does, but it only makes him smile a little bit more in amusement. "Look, something to talk about later, it seems!" He can't help the little chuckle. His coffee is drained and he sets the cup near the edge of the table to make it easy for a passing warm-up when next their waitress passes down the row of booths. "Ah, I see, well then, that's quite alright. If I think of anyone to introduce you to lips-first, I will be certain to let you know. Though at this point I don't think I know many people that you don't already know." He grins at her sidelong at the teasing about talking, and then chooses that moment to fall silent for a while, so that they can both eat their waffles.