2022-04-26 - Stress Waffles

Look. Sometimes after a traumatic incident, you just need some french toast.

It probably is not intentional that waffle houses don't have bars, that there's no alcohol to be had along with the fat, the sugar, and the carbs, but maybe that doesn't matter. The place specializes in breakfasts, pecan waffles, belgian waffles and other foods, hash browns, bacon, sausage links and patties, french toast and any number of things the imagination can think up and this time of day there are dinner specials such as meatloaf with sides, steak and steak fries... but Nicasia is here for the breakfast all day. It might help if the coffee were better - she had one sip of that and then looked terrifically disappointed, but beggars just cannot be choosers - but she has a stack of fluffy, sugar-dusted carb triangles, with satellite plates of crispy bacon, butter, and a syrup carafe that is a veritable choose your own adventure, for all that she is not adventurous and just drowned it all - even the bacon - in maple glaze.

If her mouth is full she can't talk.

If she can't talk then they don't have to talk about it.

If they don't talk about it then maybe it wasn't real.

Myles' chicken and waffles are sitting to the side. He took a single bite of his fried chicken before pushing it to the side. His sunglasses are shoved onto his face, he neglected to take them off when they came in. His hood is drawn up, his chin settled on the top of one forearm, his arms folded up on the table having him hunched over opposite of Nicasia.

It's not entirely clear if he's awake or not. He's just there. Wearing his glasses. Breathing, at least.

So far so good. Nikki goes after her food like it owes her money, carving the french toast triangles into smaller triangles, soaked in butter and sugar, sometimes paired with pieces of bacon speared on the fork; sometimes she just straight up bites that into pieces, tearing into it like Lady sometimes does with scraps of something. Bacon, the one thing she would never give up. Even for him.

It's maybe ten minutes before she's slowed down, done enough damage to her food to take the edge off, maybe eaten enough to be realizing she might regret it later but that's a very normal problem, poor decision-making a common issue. Eventually she sets down her fork and wipes her fingers off on a paper napkin.

Eventually she says, "Hey."

Her only response is a quiet grunt letting her know that he's still alive. He barely moves, just sits there. Chin propped up on his folded arms. Staring at her? Maybe? Or maybe his eyes are closed. It's incredibly hard to tell.

"Hey," she tries again, bowing her head like she could make eye contact with him, if his hood wasn't up and his shades weren't on and he weren't looking like some angsty teenage rebel. He was never the angsty teenage rebel.

But Nikki only tries that once more. Then she's quiet, watching him for a couple of moments before shaking her head. For once, there's no scrap in her, like that core component of her being is empty and needs to recharged. Like a battery, sapped by exposure to whateverthefuckthatwas.

The second hey at least gets a little more recognition. His head moves a little bit, looking in her direction theoretically. He grunts again. Before slowly pushing himself up into a seated position. He reaches up and takes off his sunglasses. His eyes are bleary. Tired. He may be at least a little tipsy. God knows he has his ways to consume alcohol when she thinks there isn't any around. And now he has powers.

His hand scrubs at his face. "Should we leave?" He asks, flatly. "Back to Vegas or..." He lets out a low grunt. "Some place cheaper to live. I don't fuckin' know. Kentucky?" Beat. "Wyoming?"

She ought to be mad that he's probably been drinking. At least that he's been drinking without her. But that way leads back to trouble and maybe she understands the need to take the edge off what is really a very inhospitable sort of reality.

For a long moment now she doesn't answer. Only watches him, studying that tiredness that lays on him like a blanket. "Fuck if I know," she murmurs. "I don't know if it will help, though." There's no elaboration. She pushes her plate to one side and ends up mirroring his posture, arms folding on the table so they can take her weight, so her head can bow now. "Doesn't seem right, running away from here twice. But that was some fucked up shit."

"What do you mean? We didn't deal with this shit before we came here." He retorts, brows knitting down into a near scowl. Doesn't seem right, running away twice.

"Nico." He starts, squinting at her as if amazed at what he's hearing.

"We ran to get away from your racist asshole of a dad, and my drunk asshole of a dad. If we stayed here-- Me as an eighteen year old? You know-- You know it only would've been a matter of time before he or one of his buddies found a way to 'fear for their safety' enough with me around." He looks over at her. "Or my dad would've--" He cuts himself off, choosing not to finish that one. "Is that even running? Or is that the correct normal person thing to do?"

He continues.

"We went into our fucking basement and we were in a twelve year olds nightmare being chased by little rednecks in a booze basement. And it all felt real." He shakes his head. "I don't think that's runnin'. It's the sane thing. Normal people don't stay around that."

"We ran, Myles," Nicasia murmurs. "We ran and we never looked back and if we'd gone any faster maybe we would've been able to fly." Instead of crashing and burning. He doesn't need to finish his sentence. She knows. "It wasn't the wrong thing to do. I've never regretted it, you know? We've made plenty of mistakes but that wasn't one of them."

But that's not the actual problem here. Now it's her turn to scrub her face. "It did seem pretty real. They warned us about it, though. Said it was gonna happen. Said it happens more often here."

Another tiny hesitation creeps in. She fills it by reaching for her coffee cup, but it's empty and the brew wasn't good enough to ask for a refill, but she tips it this way and that a couple of times just to have something to do with her hand. "The thing is..." Another beat of silence. "The thing, I think that's happened before. Not like that, exactly. But. You mean to tell me you've never had a nightmare that felt that real?" Her eyes finally hunt his again, gone to search them, to sort through whatever she can find for the truth. "Never had a day where things felt just a tiny bit off, like you were half a step out of synch? Like something was right behind you with big sharp pointy teeth and you couldn't turn around or it would bite you?" Real specific there, Nikki.

His glasses are pushed onto the bridge of his nose. Hiding his eyes when she starts speaking again. As she speaks he slowly reaches over towards the chicken and waffles. Picking up one piece of chicken, he dips in syrup and goes to take a bite. Slowly chewing as he seemingly looks over the table over to Nicasia. He chews rather than answer. Its placed back into the syrup. Another bite. He chews as he looks over to her.

He swallows. "You wanna stay? For real?" He tilts his head down. "I had to talk you into coming back here. But I was wrong. It's not better than it was. It's worse. But now you wanna stay? For real?"

Round and round the cup goes, back and forth and around and round.

"I don't know," she answers finally. "I don't..." She trails off, interrupting her own thought and looking at him again. "What do you want to do?" When in doubt, spin the question around.

"Move to Jamaica and become a fisherman or somethin." Myles grunts lowly back into his hands. "Maybe like a.. Tour boat guide or a farmer of..." His brows knit. Near scowl once more. "What do they grow in Jamaica?" He waves his hand dismissively. "Farm that." He lets out a long sigh, dropping his chicken into his syrup. There's just a slight curl of his lips perhaps the barest hint of amusement. "You wanna come?"

"You. A farmer." The amount of incredulity Nikki packs into this is not feigned; it is as full of absolute disbelief as she likely was of the existence of rivers of whiskey and redneck monster teenagers in dreamrealms accessible by taking a left around that stack of boxes in the basement. Not like anyone is ever going down there to check again. "You'd die of boredom, or in about two weeks you'd be picking fights with tourists." She shakes her head. "Forget it. It'd never work." Then, "Now, Cozumel on the other hand..."

"I'd seduce the tourists. And take their money." Myles grins a little as he picks up the second piece of chicken. "The farm is just a front." He takes a bite. Setting it down on the bed of waffles. He lets out a quiet laugh. "I don't speak enough Spanish." He grunts.

"Oh, so you want to be a ganja farmer. Don't gotta move to Jamaica to do that." Nikki might be feeling a little bit better; she's at least starting to poke back at him. To pick. Literally, because she reaches over to steal a piece of waffle, dips it in his syrup, and pops it into her mouth. "Neither do the tourists in Cozumel."

She picks a piece of waffle, he reaches over to swat at her hand weakly. Though it's not really intended to stop her. A minor attempt at playing. "Fine. As long as I can seduce tourists out of their money." He concedes to Cozumel. "We could rob people like in those movies." His smiles curl up just a touch before he's looking back down at his waffles.

He gets lost in the staring, Poking around his waffles. "We both have powers." He finally says, quietly.

The light swat doesn't even remotely stop her: in fact it makes her make a show out of swiping it in butter, in syrup, in biting into it like it was the most delicious thing on his plate and now it's hers. "Fine," Nikki agrees. "You seduce the tourists; I'll show up after you're finished and threaten them at gunpoint and we can split the booty." It was a vague lark-like fantasy once. A little bit Bonnie and Clyde, save that at the end of the day they are both too law-abiding to make that work.

Aaaand then he's lost in his dinner-breakfast and arrives at this observation and it robs her of what humor she'd accumulated. There wasn't much. It isn't hard. "We both have powers."

He takes another big bite of chicken. Swallowing it as he watches her for a few moments. He lets out a quiet grunt, letting the Bonnie and Clyde fantasy fade away focusing on this other assertion. We both have powers. "Mmhmm." He murmurs, soft back to her. He takes another bite. Watching her as he chews. "We both do." He repeats. He's getting at something, and it's clear he's trying to see if she's picking it up without him getting more blatant about it.

Under most other circumstances Nikki picks up what he puts down pretty easily. This is different. This is very different.

Her plate of bacon has become pretty interesting though. Maybe she fears another swat for going after his waffles,but she picks up another crispy strip and dunks it in the syrup and puts it in her mouth. "Maybe that's why I liked you so much. Couldn't get past the shine." Totally the wrong direction, but whether it's overtly willful or just defensive obtuseness is difficult to gauge.

Myles stares at her for a few moments. He frowns.

"Nico." He states, flatly.

"We both have powers." He tries again. Reaching out to take the water cup that he hasn't touched this entire time. He takes a sip. "And we have a child."

This isn't just a sore subject,this is a sucking gut wound that has not and will not ever heal. But he goes there and it hits her like a solid punch, causing her eyes to close as some of the color goes out of her. "Fuck you," is her default answer, defensive profanity like a little handful of sand picked up and thrown because she's on the ground and it's there and might make him back off.

But it's not really a fight, now, is it. Not yet. "So," she says then. "What. You think she has them too?" The implication train rolls right in behind that and sends her back into the bench seat, eyes closing. "Fuck. Myles..."

Fuck you

Myles lets out a hefty sigh. "I'm not tryna fight." He growls holding up one hand towards her, palm out. Usually that little girl definitely is a card he uses in a fight. A grudge he may never really forgive her for. Perhaps the major catalyst that has prevented them from ever getting back together properly. Whenever Myles blows shit up, whenever he ruins it, he invokes her. She's the motivating seed of anger every time he decides to do something just to piss Nicasia off. She's right to start defensively. Because usually she's only brought up when he's attacking.

"I'm just sayin'." He looks down at his plate. "Ava said its genetic. Someone who has two parents probably have powers, may not manifest but could." Beat. "She could be out there.. With this weird shit she has no idea what to do with. No one to talk to." He stares down at his waffles. "She could feel all alone."

It definitely opened up a rift that may not be mendable. It can't be undone. He wasn't even consulted - he wasn't even in the country when she made that decision and it is only by the grace of some well-meaning case worker that his name is even on the birth certificate. The sealed one, locked up behind stacks and stacks of adoption paperwork. Still, it's a fine card to play to piss Nicasia off, as is demonstrated here, when she feels the fight reflex reborn.

Then he says he's not trying to fight and she tries to settle down, tries to let it go. Tries. But he just keeps right on going, and even if it's not what he meant, the undertone is there. "Yeah, and it's my fault. I know." His anger. Her guilt, freshly watered by the baby at the hardware store, that innocuous, random little blob in pink that sent her mentally reeling. "You really think she'd be better off with us? We don't know what to do with this shit."

His eyes flick up to hers. His brows narrowing slowly. Anger. He takes in a deep breath. "I'm not---" He forces himself to school his reaction. His eyes close. "I'm not tryna say that, Nico. I'm just saying what she could be going through. She could be in a hard fuckin' time." He sucks in a breath. "No I'm not sayin' that either-- I'm just saying...."

He looks over to the water. To his empty coffee mug. Back to her.

"Even if she's doin' well. What if this shit ignites and she has to start dealin' with this shit. Even if her-- The people with her are the best there is, they aint gonna know how to deal with this shit." Calm. He's speaking to her calmly. "She's still ours." Is she? "In-- She's still ours in one way. And--"

"Can I get some fuckin' coffee? Jesus fucking christ." Myles loses the calm when he yells at whatever poor server has the unfortunate task of dealing with their table. At least he's been good up until this point.

"We should find her."

"She could be," Nic admits. "She could also be normal. As normal as any child of ours is capable of being." It would be easier if she could believe this were the case, if she hadn't overheard enough of that conversation in the hardware store to probably give her nightmares.

She's real interested in her empty cup again. Tilts it, tilts it... then he yells and it skips out of her fingers, rolls across the table and off the edge, clattering into a few shards on the ground. As before, so now; that sound makes her flinch and recoil like a bomb just went off. It's not going to help his presentation of this idea, but it does drag her gaze back to his, her eyes wide. Horrified? Hopeful? It's hard to tell.

"Find her," she repeats. "Find her... and do what? Make sure she's okay? Abandon this shithole and move to Chicago and make sure she stays okay? Kidnap her and - God forbid - bring her here?"

Immediately Myles has regrets. He looks down at the shattered mug. Up at the server still wide eyed.

He raises his hand, apologetically. "Sorry." Beat. "Sorry. Hard day. Take your time." He manages, looking back to Nicasia, then looking down at the table. But then his eyes flick back up, his brows narrowing. "Chicago?" He asks, looking at her pointedly. "Why did you say Chicago?"

That bit is more important than the rest of his plan.

This is fine. The server will get a big tip. Nikki will be irritated at herself later because she actually knows how to make french toast and it wouldn't have cost them $40. That part matters... less.

It's so terribly rare that she gets that I should not have said that look, and usually it's in context of something that tripped a trigger and either she didn't actively mean to fight, or didn't reckon on the escalation. That isn't so much the case here, perhaps, but the reaction is the same, the way her gaze skips away to someplace far, far away. Probably she wouldn't answer, but she can feel the intensity of his stare. "The Wards," she murmurs. "They were from Chicago."

The Wards. As in Mr. and Mrs.

Myles is very quiet. Very still.

"You said you didn't know where." He states. Flatly. Another few moments go by, silent. He moves to pull his wallet from his back pocket. Two twenties are placed on the table.

He does not actually say anything after that. Just starts pushing up from the table. He wants to go home.

There's maybe no more point in conversation, after that. Nikki closes her eyes when he responds, the fight gone again. For now. It'd barely roused, and he had to go and play that particular card, had to invoke their baby, and it's the winning hand. Always.

And it was going so well.