Momoko's place, El Paso, Texas, late Monday night

[lovemykilt]

Priestly tended to go a little extra scruffy in times of emotional stress. Especially ones like now, where he decided a good way to deal with it was to spend a long weekend out in a national park living in a tent and "communing with nature".

It seemed like a Trucker-y thing to do, okay? And when he tried to kill his best friend, following the presumed example of a former assassin turned hippie-peacenik seemed like a good plan.

Alas, he did not find peace in the desert. He found sunburn and a lot of sand and some spiny lizards and what he was reasonably certain was an old coyote campsite and very, very little water. Which, okay, yeah, desert, but. California had deserts, too! Admittedly, not very near to the coast, where he spent 98.763% of his time. There'd been a school trip to the desert once in middle school.

He hadn't much liked it then, either.

"Momo!" He called, hanging out in the doorway as he tried in vain to get a little more of the dust and sand out of his boots. "I'm back!"

[ooc: mainly for one, but also open to phone calls/emails/etc.]

Comments

[heromaniac]

Yes. Remember how the fridge had been so full of boxes from her cafe job when you arrived, Priestly? Mrs Wilson did the cooking unless Momoko was really trying.

"Uhm. I don't think it has a name. I just threw some things together because Jaime was coming over. It totally took forever to make, though?"

The fettuccine was cold so she'd warmed that up, not even thinking what to do with it. Then she'd found the hamburger and decided to add that, so she'd needed to brown the meat. And then she wanted to put onions in for flavour but the pan was dirty from the meat, so that meant she needed to use another pan. And then the tomatoes, because everything Mrs Reyes made with tomatoes was tasty! But they needed a pot. And then there was the bowl to mix it all, except she'd overflowed the first one and had to pour it into a second one (she'd cleaned up the floor, don't worry!) and then mix it all up... but it didn't look right and she'd finally decided to bake it in a casserole dish!

Ah!

"It was a casserole, though!"

[lovemykilt]

Well, that was technically accurate. Any food made in a casserole dish was a casserole. Much like how any mix of food with a sauce could technically be called a salad.

Priestly gaped at the kitchen. "Did you use every dish you own?" His tone was more sort of baffled and vaguely awe-struck than judgey. He kept to a very strict stance of non-judgement. Just -- how many pans did she need?

"I'm sure Jaime loved it?"

[heromaniac]

"Well, he ate it? But it's totally hard to tell since we'd had a fight and were trying to fix it." She looked over the kitchen. "Well, I had to do a lot of cooking in a short amount of time! The test site was only half an hour away, so I had to hurry!"

"It looks much better now that I've put all the dishes in the sink and scrubbed the counters down."

She was going to have to buy more cleanser when she went shopping.

[lovemykilt]

It was a little bit frightening that this was better. Priestly moved automatically to start washing up some of the dishes. Kitchens were meant to be organized, Momo! Clean and organized.

He wasn't too busy to shoot her a concerned look, though. "What'd you fight about?"

Focussing on Momo: way easier than dealing with any of his own shit.

[heromaniac]

And used by other people!

"Eh! What are you doing?" Not that she minded the help, of course, but she had to make some sort of protest... as she picked up the towel to dry. (Yay, help!!!)

"I made him go take his DATs while I went and saved some hostages on my own. He wanted to put them off and go help, too."

[lovemykilt]

Priestly just snorted a little at her token protest. He knew you better than that, Momo. He finished the first pot and handed it to her. "The old crime-fighting versus school thing, huh." He grimaced. "You guys work things out?"

If they hadn't, he had a feeling the kitchen would be a way bigger mess. Along with the rest of the apartment. And hopefully someone would have called him home from the desert to help. Did Mrs. Wilson have his number?

[heromaniac]

"Crime-fighting versus his dream and our future." She ran the cloth over the pan, her own face a grimace. "We did, but I was totally scared for a while there. Jaime doesn't like to confront people when he's mad."

[lovemykilt]

"Sounds like he didn't run away, though," Priestly said. He had done his fair share of storming off and running away when he got pissed off. Though he usually yelled a lot, first. "You guys had a home cooked meal and everything."

Okay, was this onion fused to the pan?

[heromaniac]

Either onion or noodle! oh! Maybe it was from when she tried to make croutons?

...

Don't ask what had happened to the "croutons". Just remind her that they were out of bread when she next went shopping.

"He didn't!" and her smile showed how very happy she was about that!! "But I was afraid he would. We're trying to work on our communication because we've had so many problems in the past about it and we don't want to mess up things this time, but I was totally sure he was too mad at me."

[lovemykilt]

"Sometimes it takes a little while to cool down," Priestly noted. "Get some space so you can come back and face it all with a clearer head." You know, exactly like he was doing here. "If he hadn't come back to try and talk it out I totally would have completely failed to kick his ass for you, though."

[heromaniac]

"That's what he says," Momoko giggled. "Both things, actually. That walking away gives him time to clear his head and that you would win in a fight. He thinks everyone can beat him in a fight, too."

She shrugged. "I like to get everything out in the open when I'm mad. When people walk away from me, it makes me feel like they don't think what I have to say is important. That makes me madder. Or sad, when it comes to him. So I don't really calm down."

[lovemykilt]

"Yeah, there is no way I could beat him in a fight. At best I could --" Priestly's eyes went wide as his brain caught up with his mouth, and he scrubbed a little harder than necessary at the pan he was washing. "So that's a tough one, yeah. Hard to balance the two. Would writing it down help? So he could still do his storming off for space thing but you could get some of it out, too, so you don't implode while you wait for him to come back?"

[heromaniac]

Momoko raised an eyebrow at him. "Now I want to see you two in a fight."

"I don't know if I could do that. Writing it down, I mean. I can try? But writing totally isn't the same as yelling. It doesn't feel as good."

[lovemykilt]

"Yeah, you know I don't know how to fight, right? Occasional punches at dinosaurs aside." Dinah tried, but Priestly honestly didn't really want to be the kind of guy who knew how to throw down. It wasn't his style. "And yelling feels good to the person yelling. Not so much the one getting yelled at."

[heromaniac]

"Yelling feels good because it gets everything in the open, not just because I'm yelling. I don't understand how that can be bad, I guess."

"And you totally know how to fight, Priestly. It's a natural reflex when you're threatened." She paused a moment, looking up at him as something occurred to her. "Hmm. Unless... Maybe not. Maybe for you and Jaime, it's only natural when someone else is threatened?"

[lovemykilt]

That was, in fact, an extremely accurate assessment of Priestly's lack of fighting instincts, yes.

"Except when you yell, the other person just gets defensive. They're not going to really listen to you properly. That's why space can be good. You can calm down and figure out what you actually need to say, not just what you want to say in the moment." Priestly shrugged. "I know how to run away. I'm getting pretty good at that." In no small part because Dinah kept insisting on him going running.

[heromaniac]

Momoko was going to have to think about that. "I don't know how I can do that, but I'm going to try. I want to try anything that can help make 'us' work."

She reached for another dish to dry. "You do know that the only reason I ask you to you run away when something attacks is because I know you'll come running back when you can, right? I mean, it's to keep you safe, sure, but it's not because I think you're a weak link or not important or anything. If you were, I'd totally make sure you weren't there in the first place." Or fly him out.

[lovemykilt]

"Don't worry," Priestly said. "My manly pride can absolutely handle having to run away while the superpowered people do the fighting."

[heromaniac]

Momoko bumped him with her shoulder. "Silly. Even if I didn't have powers, I'd be a hero. That's how I got my powers, trying to save someone. That's just who I am."

"You're a steady hero. Like a paramedic instead of a policeman. You rush in when you know you can help and you stay away until then." Momoko smiled to herself. "And you help everyone. Even those of us too stupid to run."

[lovemykilt]

"If I ran in before then, I'd get killed," Priestly pointed out. "Which Dinah has informed me in no uncertain terms I'm not allowed to do any more."

[heromaniac]

"Oooh! I'm totally seconding that," Momoko nodded. "It's totally traumatic to go through, you know!"

[lovemykilt]

"It's not exactly buckets of fun on my end, either."

[heromaniac]

"You don't have to keep feeling it." Momoko pouted slightly. "And you don't have to try to convince yourself it's not your fault."

[lovemykilt]

Priestly actually laughed at that. "The ones I remember? I definitely do."

[heromaniac]

"What?" Momoko stared at him. "What do you mean?"