ArchivedLogs:Second Breakfast

Second Breakfast
Dramatis Personae Savannah, Steve	2016-05-07 "I don't sleep. What's your excuse?"
Location <NYC> Firehaus - Harbor Commons - Lower East Side
The sunset ombre walls are the most striking part of the Firehaus common room. A deep, dark purple - almost blue - starts at the ceiling and devolves in even, shaded spreads into a healthy violet, a spunky pink, a sunny yellow, a warm orange, and finally to the namesake: a firehouse red. Otherwise, the spacious common area is quite bare for the time being. An antique maple-wood coffee table sits squarely in the center of the room, enshrined by two armchairs made solely from packing boxes and reinforced with a slew of duct tape. Their ability to actually hold bodies seems dubious, particularly since the "seat" of the armchair to the right has a hole in it. A large packing box sits to the side of the room as a faux-dining table surrounded on each side by smaller boxes of various sizes. Lamps are sprinkled throughout the room on various surfaces. Though still overcast, the morning breaks a little brighter than the days that have come before, with the promise of something more springlike to come. Steve is up and showered and dressed already -- bright yellow t-shirt with a skeletal T-rex dancing above the word 'FOSSIL' spelled out of bones, crisp blue jeans, white socks with heather gray toes and heels. Bustling about the kitchen, he looks very serious about the business to making breakfast, though upon closer examination business is not particularly /good/. The oatmeal in the saucepan on a backburner has gone from gooey to chewy, the tempeh strips in the frying pan are blackened, and the hash browns have congealed into a single mass with the skillet. Savannah pokes her head out from her room and sniffs the air a few times. A smile crosses her face. "Something smells -" Quickly, she takes a few steps into the common area, only to pause with a sudden start. The smile becomes a frown in the space of a microsecond. "- burnt." She slides over to the kitchenette and grabs some fresh orange juice and a glass, slinking around Steve as he works. "Good morning?" She sets down the items at hand on the counter to peer over at the coagulating, congealing, once-foods. An eyebrow quirk ensues. "Are you, uhm, going to eat that?" "Oh, good morning." Steve looks up from the recipe at which he had been frowning. "I hope I didn't wake you with all this rattling around. And charring..." He begins trying to disengage the hash browns from the pan. "I'd offer you some, but I'm sure it's quite awful. /I/ will eat it, though." He scrapes the tempeh strips onto his plate next, along with quite a good deal of greasy carbon. "I'm certain I've had worse." Savannah shakes her head. "No, you’re good. I wasn’t sleeping." Arms crossed, she gives Steve a /look/. "And you should /not/ eat that. There’s no way that can be good for you." She glances at her wrist, only to realize there’s no watch, further deepening the frown. "Can you wait like, twenty minutes? I can make something." Steve looks up from his plate, which looks admittedly pretty unappetizing. "I've survived C-rations, so I doubt this stuff will hurt. Even so..." He bows his head sheepishly. "I'm sure I'd /enjoy/ your cooking better, though..." One hand waves at the spread on front of him. "...that isn't, perhaps, saying a whole lot." Stepping aside, he starts clearing the used pots and pans from the stove. "I don't get the impression that you sleep very much. Admittedly, neither do I." Savannah gives a slight shrug and returns to the juice on the counter, pouring a near full to the brim dosage. "Not sure what a C-ration is, but if it's worse than that, maybe I don't want to know." A usual, perkier smile returns. Juice temporarily abandoned, she reaches into the fridge, pulls out a honeycrisp apple, and slips around Steve once more in search of a knife. "I don't sleep," she says neutrally while rooting about in a drawer. "What's your excuse?" "I'm not sure /anyone/ really knows what went into C-rations, but they were what the troops received to eat in the field during the Second World War." Steve scrubs the frying pan vigorously. "Most of them were just this side of tolerable, but the one called 'ham and lima beans' was truly horrendous." He pauses in his task and glances sidelong at Savannah. "Huh. You don't sleep -- ever? Is it unpleasant?" The scrubbing resumes. "Me, I do /sleep/, just...maybe not as much as I ought. Not sure there's any one reason why. Combat fatigue, maybe? I think that's the same as what you call PTSD, now." "Ugh - ham and lima beans sounds like a gross combination as is." Knife finally located, she starts to peel the apple with careful, methodical turns. Her eyes are fully focused on the palm-sized universe. "Well, I used to, just not anymore. And unpleasant is a nice way of putting it. Not sleeping has its advantages, but on the whole, it's lonely - alienating almost. The rest of the world gets to stop and you're left spinning your wheels." She finally pauses and looks up. "Do you see anyone for your PTSD? There's no cure, I don't think, but there are therapists and psychologists and such out there who can help with that." After a moment, "Or well, you being /you/ I'm sure, or I hope, your doctor has already told you this." Steve's mouth tugs to one side when he glances at Savannah this time, but he holds his reply until he's finished rinsing the pan. "I was thinking more of the physiological side of it, but I guess your brand of not-sleeping isn't the quite the same as needing sleep and not being able to? But -- well, the loneliness is about the same regardless." Pulling a dish towel from the handle of a drawer, he dries off the pan with probably more care than is necessary. "A lot of insomniacs around here. If you go to the Commonhaus in the small hours, you've pretty decent odds of running into someone else doing chores or working out or somesuch." He puts the pan away and starts on the next one, which he had left soaking. "I see a therapist once a week, but we both agree it's not much help. My volunteering with New Leash on Life is better therapy by far, speaking of which..." He blushes ever so slightly. "How do you feel about dog?" "Oh! Yes, it's somewhat apples and oranges, like recharging a battery with a hand-crank instead of a wall outlet." At the mention of a dog, her eyes light up. "I've never lived with one or had pets, but dogs seem great - plus, I've seen your Twitter. Some of them are super adorable." She finishes peeling and flicks the spiral into an open trash can. "Are you thinking of adopting one?" Steve winces. "Cranking all night -- sounds exhausting. But yes, I'd like to foster a dog, at least. If you don't mind, of course." He finishes up with the second pan much more rapidly and eyes Savannah's work. "I can lend a hand with prep, if there's anything needs doing that I won't screw up?" "As long as they're friendly, I'm completely fine with it. Housetrained would be a nice plus too, but I don't really know if that's feasible for fosters." She nods over to the empty stovetop, "Would you mind putting a pot of water to boil? Also, do you have any dietary restrictions? If not, I was thinking maybe apple baked oatmeal." Her eyes wander over to the burnt tempeh. "The ones I have in mind are friendly enough, and housetrained. I know I don't have the time and flexibility to look after a puppy, so it'll be an adult." Steve fills a middle-sized sauce pan, sets it on the stove and clicks the fire on beneath it. "Probably a high-energy one, though. I'd like some company for jogging. I'm still steering clear of animal products, but apple baked oatmeal sounds fantastic." "Great. Probably going to throw some pecans and walnuts in there too. Would you feel comfortable chopping up some nuts? How long have you been avoiding animal products? Is it an ethics thing or a taste thing?" Savannah pulls out a cutting board, nabs two more apples from the fridge, and goes to town on more peeling. "A jogging buddy sounds nice," she adds. "I can chop, certainly!" Steve sounds perhaps unduly proud of this. "Oh, a few months -- since Lent. I haven't kept to it perfectly, but I'm doing my best. It's...ethics, mostly." He opens the cupboard and pulls out a tub of walnuts and another of pecans. "You jog a lot, too, right? I figure a buddy with four legs would have an easier time keeping up with me than one with only two. Though..." He grins. "...Around here, that's not necessarily the case. Flicker and Julie can both run circles around me." Savannah chuckles at his eagerness. She pauses on the apples to fiddle with the oven. A quick tap-tap-tap and she's back to peeling. "That's very... compassionate of you. I doubt I could go full vegetarian for more than a day, but it's probably healthier for you." Peeling gives way to slicing and dicing. "I do - though I'm glad to hear there are people who can run circles around /you/ - it gives me and this potential four-legged friend a chance. Speaking of Flicker, any update on the furniture?" She tilts her head and nods towards the still, cardboard living room. "Not sure how much healthier it is, especially not with the way my body's been modified. It was a big adjustment, to be sure, but easier when Jax was...around." Steve pulls out another, smaller cutting board, one with a raised edge, and spreads a handful of walnuts on it. "Compassion," he echoes, mulling it over. "I try, but..." His head shakes as he selects a knife and starts dicing the nuts, somewhat inexpertly. "Well. Have to start somewhere." Now he grins sideways at Savannah. "I can just go /real slow/ if you ever want my company on a jog." He stops, rattles the nuts around on the board, and starts again. "Haven't, but I'll ask when I see him next. Though...that might be at a protest, so we'll see." Savannah keeps her eyes on the knife and her fingers, but does dice slower at the mention of Jax’s name. She seems at a loss for a comforting thing to say and instead, busies herself with pulling ingredients and other items from nearby cupboards: cinnamon, maple syrup, brown sugar, oatmeal, a large mixing bowl, and a glass baking dish. "You may want to reconsider the offer. I may take you up on it, and jog even slower just to see how long your patience can keep up at a snail’s pace." Tossing a carefully measured amount of oats into the bowl, she pulls the boiling water off the stove, mixes it in with the oats, and covers the steaming concoction. "This just has to steep for ten minutes, then we can throw everything else in, and throw all of /that/ into the oven." She glances at Steve for a beat before returning to further dice the apples obsessively. "Part of me hopes you’ll stay out of trouble, but most of me is glad you’re out there. At least there will be more attention given to…" She waves her hand in the air nebulously and leaves it at that. Steve pushes the chopped walnuts off into a bowl and dumps some pecans out onto the cutting board. "I might just have to /literally/ run circles around you to keep myself occupied, then." He chuckles. "I'm sure it will be very amusing to the on-lookers and very confusing to the dog." His eyes skip over toward the gathered ingredients when he sees the maple syrup, his smile warm but maybe a bit wistful. "Getting into trouble is a particular talent of mine." His knife comes down harder on the pecans than really necessary. "If that can help a good cause? Keep people from looking away or forgetting quite as easily as they might like? I'll exercise that talent."