ArchivedLogs:Yawning

Yawning
Needs more coffee
Dramatis Personae Ash, Kate	2014-04-16 Sleepy morning
Location <NYC> - Home
Nestled into the heart of the Village, Home is an unobtrusive place, with an unobtrusive name to match. A nondescript storefront opens up into an equally nondescript cafe, plain tiled floors, an assortment of veneered tables with plain wooden chairs or booths with cracking vinyl benches. What it /does/ have to recommend it is the food, hearty solid breakfast and brunch served twenty-four hours a day, with a wide variety of menu to cater to specialized diets as well. Well-known to locals and little frequented by tourists, its friendly serving staff tend to remember their regulars, giving the place a warm feel that lives up to its name. New York has apparently decided that winter isn't /quite/ over yet, and announced this with a light coating of frost for the morning commute. The sun is up, and beginning to thaw the unseasonable chill, though not entirely improving the moods of those citizens who had to dig winter clothes back out of mothballs. The chill weather has brought a good number of people in to Home in search of a warm and fortifying breakfast before facing the day. Kate is shuffling along towards Home, white sneakers scuffling on the pavement, intending to get a tasty meal before heading home proper. Looking a bit rumpled in a pair of pale pink scrub pants and the hem of a matching pink top peeking out from beneath her pink-purple ombre puffer jacket, Kate is almost certainly just getting off work. Her brown hair has started to curl and frizz despite the high ponytail that was intended to keep it from her eyes. A large travel mug of coffee is clutched in one hand, apparently fuel to get her from the hospital to the next source of caffeine. Yawning widely, she pushes through the door to the little diner with a hip, patiently waiting her turn for a table in the bustling little place. Occasionally, she sips heavily from her coffee cup while waiting her turn. Ash shuffles in behind Kate, yawning off the morning chill, but looking wholly like he just woke up. His hair, even as short as it is, looks tousled and unkempt, coated with frost drops and frozen sections where he headed outside before it was completely dry. His heavy winter coat looks rather clean, despite the fact that it is a typical construction worker's coat, complete with the Carhartt's label on the left breast. He stifles yet another yawn as he comes to a stop behind Kate, the sound becoming a bit of an apology in the end. "Oh man, the place looks crowded. Did they give you a wait time yet? I only got an hour, maybe an hour and half at the most." His third yawn he covers with his hand, tears blearing his vision afterwards. Kate glances over her shoulder as the door opens, huddling closer to her coffee cup as a swirl of chill air whistles in to the waiting area. She shrugs slightly at the apology, stifling a yawn of her own as she glances back at the newly arrived individual. "Eh," Kate mutters into her coffee cup, answering after another yawn, "Fifteen to thirty for a single seater when I signed in." She shakes her head, looking appraisingly over Ash, her sleepy voice having enough of a Midwestern accent to place her as 'not-from-around-here' when she speaks, "Probably about the same for two, if you don't mind sharing a table." The offer is offhand, a bit of a shrug to her narrow shoulders beneath the puffer jacket. Ash brightens a bit with Kate offers him a spot at her table, his expression still retaining a sleepy heaviness to it though. "Really? We don't even have to talk if you don't want to. I kind of stare off into space a lot at this hour. The coffee really has to sink in before I can ...you know, words." He blinks his attention drifting to the floor as he yawns again. "Dang. I apologize for all this yawning. I wish I could stop, but... well. It's kind of involuntary." He rubs his hands together to get some warmth into the skin and inhales deeply. "Thank you." Grinning, Kate nods again, hiding a yawn behind her coffee, "Sure - no sense in little ole' me taking up a whole table on my own." She chuckles and shakes her head, heading to the podium to add another person to her table request, which thankfully doesn't add any time. "It's early enough to be late for me - I just got off shift," she says, returning to stand by Ash, her hands in the pockets of her coat to protect from the chill, "Been a long few days. I can't guarantee any sort of great conversation, despite having already had a coffee." The apology gets another head shake, and a smile which quickly becomes a yawn of her own, "No worries at all. Apologies for yawning too - I'm afraid yawns are notoriously courageous, and I'm a bit susceptible to them." There's a brief pause before she smiles again, "I'm Kate, by the way." "Oh, a night shift person? I always thought that would be kind of cool, starting the day when everyone is going to bed and going to bed when everyone is starting their day, but I don't know if I would quite function that way." He is just a teensy bit unsteady on his feet, looking like a flag pole in the wind, swaying, but never falling over. "I mean, I could function, but I don't know if I'd go to bed right when I got home and then I'd always be sleeping when people are available to hang out." He gives a little shrug and rubs at his eye. "So, what do you do?" "Yeah. I'm the new girl, so I the shifts no one else wants," Kate laughs, shrugging in amusement, "I'm /supposed/ to go home and sleep. That would be the logical thing. Lately I've been filling up on caffeine and heading right on to a volunteer job." She yawns again, but doesn't seem to broken up about the lack of sleep, smoothing her hair back with a free hand, "It's not so bad when you don't know that many people to hang with. Just takes some getting used to." She finishes off her travel mug of coffee, glancing towards the podium to see when their table would be up, "I'm an ER Nurse, at least for now. You?" Watching him sway, her brow furrows gently in concern, "You okay? Or just still working on that whole waking up thing?" "M'fine," Ash replies sleepily. "Just, there's been a lot going on recently. Sleeping feels like a low priority when you're dealing with all that. Maybe I'll talk to my boss about working some night shifts." He exhales and smiles a little brighter as though forcing himself to wake up further. "Oh, I'm in construction. We're doing residential right now. It's pretty exciting. I got to be foreman of the escavation crew this job." Ash's youth shines through as he takes a certain amount of pride in his work. "What kind of volunteer work does an ER Nurse do? Emergency triage? or is it more mundane in your free time?" Kate lets out a quiet chuff of laughter, shaking her head, "Agreed - I always New York was a big, busy place, but I never quite expected it to be /this/ level of crazy busy. Sleep has been a distant third the last few weeks." When Ash explains what he does, Kate smiles cheerily, nodding, "Oh! Nice. Enjoying it? Always good to do something you enjoy. Can't say it sounds like something night shift would be great for - it seems like it would be awful hard to work in the dark." She bounces on the balls of her feet, trying to warm up as the door is opened again on the still chilly outside. "Even less mundane. I, ah," she pauses, considering how to phrase this carefully, "Sort of volunteer at a clinic in the area. Nothing official. A friend brought me in to help some, after the nasty explostion last month." "Bah. sometimes night time is the only time that construction can be done. We just have these huge flood lights we--" Ash pauses his head tilting to one side, eyes widening. "Wait. Mendel Clinic? Village Lofts explosion? That'd be a coincidence, but well, New York isn't that big and it is the only explosion I remember from last month. I could be wrong. This place is ... always busy." Just then the hostess walks up and directs them to a table that is hurriedly being cleaned before they sit; the surface of the table is still damp when the menus are laid on top. Ash waits for her to pick her seat before taking the other one. "True, hadn't thought of that. But yeah, I guess it's a lot easier to do stuff /without/ nosey people being pests and in the way," Kate muses, following the hostess to the still damp table. She blinks a few times, getting herself seated and gesturing for Ash to have a seat opposite her, before answering his question. "Yeah... yeah that one," she says, her voice a little hesitant, "Offered to help a guy study for EMT classes, and ended up being asked to help out when all that happened." Kate flicks open her menu, looking through the varied breakfast choices, "Glad I can be a help, but it's been non-stop the last month. Head's sort of spinning from it." Looking up at Ash for a moment, she tilts her head curiously, asking: "Coincidence, how?" "Oh. I just got myself wrapped up in that. My roommate was there and it was kind of crazy. He's been comatose ever since. I visit him all the time and take him potted plants." Ash gives a little shrug as he settles into his chair, picking up the menu and giving it a look over. "It feels like it's been one thing after another since then. I'm glad to know you've been helping. And thank you. Do you mind if I buy your breakfast? It's the least I can do." "Comatose?" Kate asks with concern, her brow furrowing, taking mental stock of the people she has helped, fingertips pressing against the laminated menu. "I am very sorry about your friend. I... I thought. Oh my. I hope he recovers, quickly," Kate offers quietly, looking down at the menu in front of her, mulling over the numerous choices. "Oh, thank you," Kate says with a blush, "I don't mind, but it's not necessary. I mean, I do what I do because I like helping people." She mulls over the menu, considering, "It has been, yeah. I mean, first there was all that craziness with snow-people, and colors. Then there were shootings, and explosions. And now." She pauses and shakes her head, shrugging out of her overly warm coat now, leaving her in a long-sleeve gray top underneath a baggy pink scrub top. When the waitress comes to take drink orders, she orders a caraffe of coffee, presumably to share. Looking back to Ash, she continues, "Now there's this talk of people being picked off the streets and cut on. And they keep using 'again' when talking about it, which doesn't give me warm fuzzies." "Yeah. That." Ash's visage turns stony as he stares down at his menu, his jaw set so strongly, the muscles in the corners of his jaw flex. He inhales sharply and orders a large orange juice as well, flashing the waitress a polite but distant smile. "Well, unfortunately, it happens a lot more often that people want to know. It's important for people to know though. Mutants get taken off the street ... a lot." Distinctly uncomfortable, he bows his head little further, eyeballing the menu until he finds something that he wants in particular. When he looks up he appears to have taken a deep breath and found inner peace - or at least a single happy thought. "I apologize. I was suppose to be a quiet breakfast companion, busily guzzling coffee and trying to stop yawning. Breakfast should be restful, no? I can do that, if it'd help unwind your day a little better." Kate shakes her head, "No, it's okay. I apologize for bringing up a difficult subject. I didn't mean to make breakfast awkward." She falls quiet, listening, and looking at her menu before picking out what she wants and closing it, daintily tracing her fingertips around the designs on the front. "Steer clear of the Sublime Centers," she says quietly after a moment of consideration, keeping her voice low, "They're apparently the ones responsible for the latest round. Connected to something called... Perfectus, I think. Some sort of cult." A frown creases her features, corners of her full lips tugged downward in distaste, "I'm starting to realize that, now. But it shouldn't, it really, really shouldn't." Kate shudders, closing her eyes for a moment as though fighting back nausea. "No rest for the weary, I suppose," she says quietly, shaking her head, "Sorry for being not the greatest conversation partner, unfortunately. I swear, I'm usually a lot more cheerful." "You're a nurse volunteering at the Mendel Clinic. You're going to run into a lot more of this stuff than your average person," Ash smiles gently as he peeks over at her, his brows climbing his forehead. "If you want to vent about it, you should get it off your shoulders. I'm a good listener and the carafe of coffee is endless." He only mentions this because he's watching the beauteous pitcher of black alertness arrive. He flips his cup over and grabs it, offering to pour for Kate, letting the waitress know that he's in the mood for the Eggs Benedict plate, heavy on the hash browns. "Of course, I don't blame you if you're not comfortable with someone you barely know - so... I'll offer details you can check out later. My name's Ash. My buddy Jax works at the Clinic. My roommate's name is Jim and he's been looked after by a great guy named Corey. Maybe you know him. So. yeah. Should be relatively safe information. And you can ask any of them about me... except maybe Corey, as well, he's not usually there when I am." He wrinkles his nose thoughtfully. "Um. And I'm on youtube. To protest when my bud Jax was in jail." "I'm starting to realize that," Kate agrees with a chuckle, "I'm an ER nurse - I see plenty'a horrible on a daily basis, but the things I've seen in the last few weeks." She shudders, and glances back at the approaching waitress and her glorious burden of fresh coffee, instinctively flipping her coffee cup over to accept the offering. Having to flip the menu back open to check what she actually wanted, Kate orders a plate of scrambled eggs and whole wheat toast, with a fruit plate on the side, before handing the menu back to the waitress. "Wait, you know Jax and Corey?" Kate finally asks, blinking a few times at Ash's statements, "Corey's the friend I'm supposed to be helping study for EMT classes. Lot of studying we've managed to do, admittedly. Jax is who I was asked to heal first - after the explosion. First of many, really." Kate pauses, realizing what she'd just potentially overshared. She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, "Small world." "Yeah... well, when it comes to mutants in Manhattan, the world feels microscopic." Ash pours himself a cup of coffee and warms his hands with it, his face looking infinitely sleepy again. "I've know Jax for a year or so now. Good guy. Probably works a little too hard for his own good, but what can you do. He's the one who hooked Jim up with Corey. Not sure he'd've been able to get better at all without his help. He's... sleeping it off now." It's pretty clear that Ash isn't giving all of the details, but he does his best to be clear. "Thanks for helping. Again. I know it's awkward to be thanked for what you love doing, but it is amazing. And m'grateful."