2022-01-22 - The Hangover of a Dream

Una woke, cold.

It's still early, a bitterly cold morning in January, and it's a pretty unpleasant transition between the heat of the desert and... and this.

It takes several seconds to really come to terms with the difference in climate and state-of-reality; several more seconds to really reassure herself that, no, this is definitely the real world, unlike... that. Honestly, it's about as discombobulating as it gets, and that means one thing: pancakes.

To be honest, that's Una's response to a lot of things in life. Grandma died and left you a house? Pancakes. Move to a new town with no job? Pancakes. Ghost in the library? Pancakes. Ridiculous dream in which you were genuinely someone else and then people were shot and it was crazy?

Pancakes, damn it.

So that's where Una can be found, those early hours of the morning: eerily silent as she flips pancakes, expertly adding them to a stack that will shortly go into the pre-heated oven to be kept warm until there's someone else up and about to eat them.

A short stack in, creaking noises from the old timbers might reveal someone walking along the upstairs hallway, most likely the ghost extending its territory. Or Della, given the direction, and the not-uncharacteristic hour of the morning for her to be up.

Not that she comes down right away. Not with the shower and the steam to fog up the mirror with transient warmth, more than her usual share of hot water.

When she does emerge, she's a wraith, but one with neatly-combed hair (no wings) and a fresh face (or is that s a bit of liner still in her lashes). Her eyes are dark, and dark-ringed. Her hands are buried in her sleeves. "Una," Della says, almost questioningly. She had a hangover, once, where she looked like this; her feet take her now to where the little Keurig had appeared one day.

Una's equally wraith-like, the pink-undertone to her fair skin turned rather less warm, as she turns, brown eyes appraising Della with a silent question all of their own. "Della," however, is not a question: it's a statement of fact, of confirmation. Della-not-Cia. Una-not-Eva. "Pancakes, with your coffee?"

And, with almost-studious, deliberate indifference: "I had such strange dreams. That always makes me want to cook."

This may be true. On the other hand... there are few things in life that don't make Una Irving want to cook. Comfort food for life.

Her eyes flick wide, glancing back to Una, but at first all Della says is, "What doesn't make you want to cook?" She's smiling, but it's not entirely a joke. "Please. Pancakes... would be a miracle." By now, her long hands automatically select a mug (warm red this time), and spin the carousel of little pods. Wherever it stops...

Una opens her mouth, but nothing immediately springs to mind. Finally, she suggests: "Well, stomach flu, probably." The accompanying smile doesn't quite make it to her eyes.

The table's already set for breakfast, syrup and butter and plates at the ready. The redhead flips another pancake, but her usual cooking-cheer (sometimes she even hums!) is distinctly muted.

...Coconut. Della takes it without question, and starts up the machine. "Just as well," she supposes. She leans against the counter, not exactly watching Una, unfocused through all the noises. "It's anything but a full moon. Where is Mercury, anyway? My dreams were-- awful." But, "Coffee, with your pancakes?" Or a refill, at least.

"Coffee'd be great," says Una. She even smiles.

She's mostly inclined to set up the drip filter pot, drinking her coffee black and without sugar, sometimes even reheated in the microwave (though mostly she prefers fresh: she's not a complete heathen). But the k-cups never get dismissed entirely.

"Dreams suck. But at least there are pancakes, and coffee, and it even looks like the sun might come out, at least a little."

Coffee it is. Della starts up another, purposefully chosen this time and not just the luck of the spin, and then there's the clinking sound of sugar-stirring: hers, not Una's. "Does it? That makes a walk sound good, for later." And then she's sipping her coffee, which is not unusual, but without milk or cream or anything, which is. "Looks like retrograde's not until mid-month," she reports from her phone, "though things are already slowing down... not that I believe in that. Supposedly 'new ventures cannot do well in this period.' Here." She brings the second mug over, mentioning, "Raspberry."

Raspberry. Una manages not to make too much of a face (mostly), and instead smiles gamely. "Uh-- thanks."

To cover, she brings the plate of pancakes to the table, leaving her coffee next to the stovetop, and the still-sizzling frying pan. There are more pancakes to make, after all. "'New ventures cannot do well', huh. Well, as long as it's not 'beware your dreams, they're all coming true.' I can do without that."

Her distraction works, for now, drawing Della after the goods with a great-- and sincere!-- show of tantalized appreciation, as much widened eyes and indrawn breath as she has energy for; "What did you dream about?" only it's more like you. She settles in what's become her usual spot, where the sun can get to her-- when there is sun-- but where there's also a way out. "Thank you again, Our Lady of the Pancakes. These look amazing."

"'Our Lady of the Pancakes', I like that." Una's smug, and probably it's distracting her from her dreams. Or maybe it's that she's avoiding talking about those dreams, because she returns to the frying pan immediately, and busies herself with pouring more batter into the pain. It's serious business.

"I don't even know if I fully remember. What about yours?"

That makes Della smile, too. She takes only one pancake at a time, and she's careful about adding the buttery and sweet adornments, nothing slapdash for her flapjacks. Nothing extra, either. To them, "You know how people dream about going out without a shirt on, not on purpose I mean, or that they forgot to study for a test? This one's more about being young, extra-young and silly. Not in the good way." She hesitates. "Are you very religious?"

With the next pancakes still in their early cooking stage, Una can turn to give Della her full(er) attention, leaning against the countertop with spatula in hand. There's... something in her expression; something serious and thoughtful and somehow appraising, too, and it's there when she listens and when she nods in answer.

"Religious? No, not really. Mom tried. Christmas and Easter, though, mostly."

"Mine tried too, at least in front of my grandma." This smile's fainter, reflective; Della looks over her shoulder to the window... and then, whatever she sees out there, up and leaves the table with her pancakes half-eaten. All she does, though, is get a glass to fill from the sink. She lets the water run good and cold-- sorry, fish-- and downs it quickly; the second glass, too.

Una's smile is faint, too, and disappears entirely behind shadow when Della gets up: she strains to see out the window, just in case, and then abruptly turns back to her pancakes. They're not quite bubbling yet, but she hovers over them, poised and ready. "All right?" she wants to know, this time not even trying to look at the other woman.

Was there movement, there in the bushes? It's shadowed out there, too.

"Terribly thirsty." Della stares into her glass as though it could tell her something, but there are no tea leaves (or coffee grounds) here; she fills it again before returning to her seat, slow and careful as she sits. "At least there's not much of a commute." Only upstairs.

If there was movement, Una's missed it, and her gaze simply skims over the bushes.

It's as Della sits again that she picks up her mug, sniffing speculatively (cautiously, hesitantly) at the flavoured coffee. "Mm," she agrees, though whether it's for the thirst or the commute it's harder to pinpoint.

"I feel a bit like I didn't sleep at all, even though I did. Hopefully the coffee will help."

"Hopefully." Della picks at her food, and then resumes somewhat mechanically, interspersed with more water as though that could dilute the darkness about her eyes like so much black salt.

It's quiet.

No one barges in.

"Which is your favorite mug, so far?"

There's something in Una's expression, as she turns the gas off on the stove, having flipped one final pancake onto a plate. It's still there as she takes the plate to the table, bringing her coffee with her. It's like she's trying to study Della, or see straight into her soul.

Blankly: "Favourite mug?" She's supposed to have a favourite?!

Della sits back slightly. "Of your grandmother's," she says after a moment. She busies herself with her silverware. Her eyes stay cast down, mostly; the tilt of her knife might have served as a mirror, but it's too smudged, no longer clean. "I was going to say-- if you want company sometime, looking through boxes, let me know."

There's a crumb on her placemat; she picks it up and puts it on her plate for disposal. An invisible crumb.

Una's, "Oh!" suggests pretty clearly how not-quite-with-it she is, even now. "Is it weird that I... I don't really feel any connection to her. I mean, I know this was all her stuff, but... I keep hoping something will trigger something."

"I'd like that, actually. There's so much stuff... something," she gestures with her hands, and ends up knocking her mug straight off the edge of the table-- which breaks her off from the rest of her sentence.

The mug... it should fall to the floor. It should. But if Della's watching, maybe she'll see the way it falls, and then hovers, and then... Una grabs it, pink-cheeked, and puts it back onto the table. "Oh! Phew!"

Because that is 100% logistically possible. Yes.

"Oh! No. Not weird. Just, something that happened to be hers but that you'd like because you like it--"

And then there's the sound of impact and then Della's reaching even though it's out of reach and-- and--

Della blinks. Blink blink blink. "Well," she says, her voice a little tremulous. "If you didn't like the coffee, you could have just said so."

Una shoots Della a glance, wide-eyed and watchful, mug in her hand, coffee on the floor. "No, no," she says, hastily. "The coffee was fine. I'm just-- clumsy, and also have great reflexes."

She's not a great liar. Maybe that works in this instance.

"I should clean this up."

"Here, have my napkin," says Della, even as she folds it so the clean part is on the outside.

Only she's still wide-eyed too. "I... was going to get up anyway," and she can drop the napkin on the floor and get the paper towels and then swap for her dishes and while Una's handling the spill she can put her dishes away and all that's stretching out into the future, possibility, and what she really needs is, "Paracetamol."

"Thanks," says Una, dropping from her chair to the floor so that she can, indeed, handle the spill. At least it gives her something to focus her attention on that isn't Della, and maybe the hunch of her shoulders can serve as awkward embarrassment, too: butterfingers coffee-spiller with excellent reflexes, indeed.

"I think I just need some air. I'll do the dishes after I get back."

"Thanks again for breakfast," her boarder says, keeping the hem of her robe well clear as she puts possibility into action. Presumably paracetamol, or rather ibuprofen, will too. And then she whisks out.

But first: "Unflavored next time."