Pork is Good for Making Friends

Who: Reiz and Pandect
Where: Marquette proper
When: breakfast time

Unfortunately, Reiz went a little overboard in the consumption of his favorite drug last night. Fortunately, he passed out so hard he didn't have any nightmares! Unfortunately, he woke up with a headache. And he still needed a drink.

So instead of laying in bed with a pillow over his head, and just listening to the throbbing in his skull, he decided to take a walk. Get some fresh air. Maybe get some lunch meat to nom on. (He would rather have something that bled, but he imagined eating a piece of bleeding meat in public would not go over so well.)

He dragged his feet on the sidewalk, making a trail if there was some left over snow, and plopped down on the side, lazily chewing some ham. One hand was for food, and the other had his drink, which he realized was a dumb thing to consume if he was feeling hung over. But damn it, it made life easier.

...His head hurt. Reiz closed his eyes, and set his drink down, massaging his head, as if he could rub out the pain.

Pandect was in a Not Happy Place, his bad mood seemed to even breach the pleasant cloud of something that was probably sleep deprivation that surrounded Jamie the baker. He had walked into town with his sweater pulled up almost to his ears as if that could keep in (or maybe keep out) the last tendrils of ill intent that Rey inspired in him. Physical exercise was usually the best way for him to work out his anger and it was really only a couple of miles to the bakery. And to make his morning better, the proverbial cherry on top, his throat was so scratchy from the stink of demons he didn't notice he had accidentally put on his sweater from last night, that still had the demon stink on it. He had been sneezing periodically all morning. It was ridiculous to hold onto his wounded pride in this manner, he wasn't an infant any more, but he just kept nursing at it.

He held onto the white paper bakery box, even as he tripped over a sprawled leg and almost faceplanted in the snowy sidewalk. With a sternness that Pandect usually reserved for Delacourts, he snapped sternly at the man (drinking at this hour, and with his own hangover it looked like) he tripped on, "Move your legs before you kill someone."

When Reiz felt the force against his legs, he had the fleeting thought that it was a car, until he heard a voice. Which gave him a moment of relief... but crippling himself seemed like a better alternative to inconveniencing another.

He felt a bit of panic rise up inside of him, as he held out his hands, as if trying to help the stranger get back on his feet if need be, but... brain... slowing... urgh... He withdrew his legs before saying anything, because the words were very, very slowly crawling over from his brain to his mouth, and his legs would move faster than that.

"I. Um. ...Sorry..." Reiz mumbled, looking down at the ground.

The man's face shuttered pitifully, his legs drawing up like he was a puppy that had been kicked (well, he had been, but that was an accident). Pandect set his jaw and sneezed, he wasn't going to...

That was he...

His mood was...

He every right to...

It was too late, there went his grumpy, taking the fast train out of Marquette. "Its alright," he said gently. "It was an honest mistake, I'm not at the best of my game this morning." He sighed, looked around awkwardly and patted the man twice on the top of his head. The man was sitting on the sidewalk eating ham, Pandect barely controlled the urge to roll his eyes. Instead he reached in the box and pull out a cookie (giraffe shaped this time, Jamie had muttered something about a sky chair, and that giraffes were awesome. Pandect took his word on that) and held it out to the ham man.

Reiz closed his eyes as he received the pat on the head obediently. Which probably didn't do much for his hangover... or brain cells... Oh well. He didn't really need the latter, he supposed. And despite that fact, he still enjoyed the contact. It was always a good feeling to know that people weren't afraid to touch you.

He glanced up, and saw that the man was holding out an animal... cookie? Reiz looked up at the man, and back down at the cookie, before he meekly pulled it out of his grip. Didn't smell like meat... didn't feel like meat... chances are, it was not a meat cookie, and he didn't want to subject himself to another bad taste in his mouth, but even so, he was happy for it.

"...thanks."

Pandect's eyebrows came together over his nose (sneeze he was going to burn this sweater when he got back to the motel), the man looked pleased enough my the cookie, but didn't seem to know what to do with it. Maybe he was diabetic or something. "Have you had breakfast yet?" he looked the ham man up and down, he was clean enough, if a little rough around the edges. Acceptable.

Reiz ran his thumb over the surface of the cookie. It had... well, it looked like a side view, so it had two legs... and... a really long neck... It was a... giraffe?

"...um. Yeah." Granted, his breakfasts usually consisted of... beer. And more ham. Actually, that was really all he ate. Except sometimes the ham was chicken. Or a cow. He liked to have varied meats.

Well, the man was hardly homeless, he was far too well kept for that, Pandect used the force of his grumpiness (which, granted was now domesticated and curled up on a rug somewhere instead of out growling at people) to steer a couple of punk kids around the two of them. Maybe the ham man only ate ham. he was studying the cookie like it was some sort of never before seen creature discovered on some deep jungle expedition. "You have enough room for something from the diner," Pandect said, nodding toward the diner in question. "I need to get some coffee in me. Either way, you probably shouldn't be sitting on the sidewalk.

"Um..." Reiz thought for a moment, trying to recall the last time he'd been to a diner. He usually stumbled into grocery stores, raided the lunch meat section, and moseyed along his merry way. But... there was something nice about sitting down to eat if there was another person, which he hadn't done in a few years...

"...I. Could, yeah."

Pandect reached out a hand to help the man up. "Okay then. Let's get you up."

Reiz looked at the hand for a moment, (his hand was kinda... ham-y. It smelled like ham, anyway. He kind of wanted to nom on it.) before he tentatively placed his in it and stood up. "...thanks."

Raising one eyebrow at the funny look Pandect pulled the man up easily (he knew he was skinny, but he had spent most of the last two hundred years doing manual labor) and resisted the urge to put his arm around the man's shoulder. He had just met the man, and besides puppy dog eyes aside, for all he knew the man was a drunk, or a criminal, or someone equally unsavory. He seemed kind of spacey as Pandect led him toward the diner, still holding his uneaten cookie.

For a moment Reiz worried about the hammy hand being noticed by the stranger, maybe he didn't like to smell like ham? He knew there were people who didn't like to touch dirty hands, which Reiz kinda sorta had at the moment... So he held the can of beer in his hand, hoping the very slight condensation might 'wash' it, as he followed the man into the diner.

"You might want to toss that," Pandect nodded toward the beer can. "Most places don't like outside food or drink." As much as Pandect tried not to judge, he knew there were far too many variables to judge someone fairly (great philosophy for an angel of karma to have, he knew, it was just another way life decided to make his life interesting), but he wasn't going to enable.

...Awrh. Reiz nodded, and looked down at the can for a moment, swishing around the little liquid left... and downed it before he tossed it. He wasn't rolling in cash, he didn't want to waste any alcohol.

Pandect smiled and nodded at the waiter, making vague, distant morning greetings with his white box of baked goods held protectively at his side. He had never actually been in the diner before, but all diners every where (except maybe Utah) had coffee. He handed the waiter back his menu, "One coffee please, black, for me and... do you want a couple minutes to decide?" he said and sneezed into his sleeve.

Reiz wanted to order a drink, but he didn't think alcohol got served in diners... So he just shook his head, "Just some sausage." It wasn't hard to place an order when there was only one thing you ate.

"Sausage it is," Pandect smiled. "Full order please." That almost got him a look from the waiter, but Pandect turned on his I Had A Bad Night And Am Still Mostly Grumpy face and the waiter just nodded and went to go yell at the cook. "My name's Garnier," he said holding out his hand for the ham man to shake.

Before touching the man's hand, Reiz took a moment to wipe off his palm on his jeans for less ham-age when they shook. "Reiz."

"Nice to meet you Reiz, what do you do? Besides sit on the sidewalk?"

Reiz smiled meekly at the sidewalk comment. To be honest, there wasn't much he did... He liked to read though. And of course there was the whole traveling / running away thing... But officially, he supposed he could answer: "I uh. Work as a janitor for a bar in town."

"Good work," Pandect said, smiling slightly, just so his dimple barely appeared, as his coffee arrived. His hand went automatically over his smile so that for the brief moment it showed it was covered. "I've done enough clean up in my day to appreciate that," he made a quick face between sips of coffee. "Although I remember the bathrooms weren't too delightful." He waved at the waiter to come refill his cup, the best treatment for a grumpy morning was coffee, as black as he could get it. Not that this was particularly good coffee, hopefully his mood would start feeling better out of sympathy for his stomach.

Reiz had done a lot of crappy jobs (a couple could be applied literally, he definitely got the 'bathroom' part) in his time. And Babylon was a nice place, so... he definitely wasn't complaining. He merely nodded.

Pandect looked at Reiz over the top of his coffee cup, he was certainly a quiet man. Not that Pandect had much to complain about himself, he made it a point not to speak too much on himself as well. "Will you be alright with the sausage then, you don't need anything else?"

"Yeah. I don't really eat much." Reiz offered as a piece of himself to the man who was kind enough to give him a cookie (which he'd pocketed.) and bring him inside.

Pandect shrugged and nodded a quick thanks at the waiter who brought the sausage, "You know yourself better than I do." He glanced at the clock, there was no way he was getting back on the roof yet, Mr. Andrew was just going to have to deal with the whole black plastic and wafers look while Pandect fiddled with the plumbing. But he needed to be in at nine, to get things rolling. Goodness knows the way Mr. Andrew runs away from paying customers, or actual work, someone had to hold down the fort. He still had have an hour or so and the walk was only a couple of miles. "Check please," he told the waiter, only feeling slightly less like he was about to snap at someone anytime soon, and then sneezed. He thought his nose was probably getting tired.

Reiz picked up a piece of sausage with his fingers, which only weighed on his conscience a little bit. He knew there was some kinda... eating utensil rule, but no one he was ever around really enforced it. He sort of grew up with messy eating... (Understatement?) So he just nom'd it.

Pandect really had no right too... he took Reiz fork and poked him gently with the handle of it while saying the basic, yes, hello, thank you, if just keep my coffee cup filled you'll get an extra big tip with the waiter before reaching for his wallet.

"Sorry." With an embarrassed smile, Reiz (unwillingly) took the fork, and poked at the sausage meat. He couldn't understand why... hands worked as well as forks. Not as poke-y, but they could pick stuff up easily enough.

Pandect suddenly realized what he had done and flustered a little, "No, its fine, sorry for the fork poke." He counted out his crisp bills quickly and placed them on top of the check.

He shook his head, "S'okay." If someone was going to pay for his food, then they were allowed to force whatever they wanted on Reiz. "Thanks." He said gratefully.

"Not at all, its been a pleasure," Pandect sneezed one last time and reached across to shake Reiz's hand. "If you don't mind I should probably head off to work, I walked into town. But anytime you want breakfast, I'll probably be stopping at Jamie's bakery a couple times a week."

"Bless you." Kind of odd words coming from a demon's mouth... Especially one who didn't have any magic ability whatsoever, but that's what people said when people sneezed, right? And this guy had sneezed a coupla times already. He nodded, though, he wasn't sure which bakery was 'Jamie's,' but he didn't want to bug Garnier anymore, and said nothing. "Okay. Thanks."

Pandect laughed at the irony of that, bless him indeed, he needed that. "I wouldn't want to upset your schedule," Pandect said still smiling, his hand moved automatically and unconsciously to cover the smile, "But since the bakery's just across the street any time you feel like meeting me for breakfast." He shrugged, he didn't mean to seem forward or pushy. Not that he had anyone to be pushy towards in a while, but the man, Reiz had seemed kind of out of place. Like he was used to being kicked a little. "I'll see you around then?"

Across the street. Reiz would definitely keep that in mind, it'd be nice to have someone to talk to, and maybe there could be a way for him to pay back Garnier. Never leave a debt unpaid, that's what he'd been taught.

"Yeah."

Pandect nodded, face carefully composed again and headed out of the diner. The way things were he hadn't even checked Reiz's aura. Would it be ironic if Reiz was some sort of supernatural being as well?