kismet_loop_logs | because this guy has a GREAT track record with fire...

because this guy has a GREAT track record with fire...

Who: Sam and Hiro
Where: Their hip happening bachelor(ette) pad
When: post-April-Fool's-effects (April 20th-ish)
What: COOKIES also Hiro clarifying a few things
Warnings: Excessive amounts of cookies and sad attempts at baking

Years of watching sitcoms about people in wacky roommate situations had not adequately prepared Hiro for the reality of living with someone. All right, yes, granted, he'd never so much "watched" them as "begged Aunt Cass to stop watching them and let him change to channel to something with monsters or robots", but still -- this never happened to people on TV.

"This" being a sad, well-meant but poorly executed attempt at baking. The butter was a solid lump in the middle of the mixing bowl, the vanilla smelled amazing but tasted nasty, and most of the flour was spread over the counters and in Hiro's hair, and he was way too young to rock the grey-haired look. He may have been a certified genius, but when it came to baking, he was absolutely hopeless.

"Stupid space cookies," he muttered, glaring at the congealed mess in the mixing bowl. That was a good plan, blame Haven for his mishaps, rather than taking responsibility. That miiiight not work too well once Sam returned home, however, especially not when Hiro took into account what Dirge had said.

A witch. Sam was a witch. A witch who could apparently curse people (though Hiro wasn't too sure how much faith he should put into a conversation had between talking about robotic tongues) if she was mad enough. Would the total destruction of her (their?) kitchen be enough to make her that mad?

Hiro exhaled slowly, wiping baking soda off his face. Well, that was that. He was going to spend the rest of his life as a newt. At least until Sam needed his eyes for some secret deadly potion. A dismal end to a dismal day.

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It was more of a reaction than Sam had expected, but she shrugged and answered as if it were all only a matter of fact---which it was, the way she saw it. "Yeah, for reals for-real, and for the most part help lost people find their people, or a way to get to wherever they were trying to go. But I started with working desk at Warm the Rocks, which is this fancier-but-still-fun party or I guess 'gala' the festival always opens with. I didn't mind desk. That was the summer after the spring I busted my leg, so it was probably the best place for me to be." She shrugged again, nodding as Hiro spoke.

"Yeah. It's..." She stopped herself from shrugging a third time, frowning in thought. "Like 'me, at potential'. It's what I have a hold on."

Ugh, desk jobs. Hiro frowns over this, kicking his heels again and wrinkling his nose in thought. Then, with an arched eyebrow -- "Were you also a bouncer? Did you ever throw anyone out for disorderly conduct?" Can you blame him for assuming the most dramatic thing, Sam? You did open with the riot/ski mask story.

That, on the other hand, gets a knowing nod. "I get it. You do stuff cause it's just what you do. Cause you can't not do it."

"No, why? Why bouncer? And no, but---" She broke off, laughing and turning her hands up as if to ask why me? or what's with this kid? "But I was a safety escort seeing people back to their cars or wherever so that they didn't get jumped or anything. And I have never yelled 'come at me bro' without the person I yelled at thinking better of it. Can that count for something?"

The oven chimed and Sam slid off the counter, turning to Hiro to answer since the topic seemed serious enough to call for face-to-face. "Pretty much. Can I give you the shape of it? No, but I have a hand on it to push or to pull, and it's in arm's reach, and there's no not knowing that." She turned away and opened the oven, setting the bowl with the butter inside.

"I can only hope that made sense. If this doesn't, be cool; I'm just melting the butter without resorting to the microwave, since you got some other stuff in it."

"Cause I could totally see you bouncing! Bouncering. Whatever." Hiro's eyes light up at that, and he manages to somehow bounce in place, while sitting on the counter. "Do you yell "come at me bro" at lots of people? Like, random hooligans and stuff?"

Oooo, wow, something neat is happening with that there butter, have Hiro hopping off the counter, still covered in flour, and hunch down to examine the bowl in the oven, expression dubious. "Are you talking metaphorically now? Or about the butter? Cause you could totally give me the shape of the butter: screwed up."

He straightens, sighing softly. "The butter is screwed up and whatever's in the microwave is probably alive. It was making noise, at least."

"Why's that? And the word you want is bouncing." Although the correction would probably help cement Hiro's idea that Sam was bouncer material, she didn't mind---much, or at all. It struck her as funny, for one; for another, fairly flattering. "A respectable number? If 'respectable' is the right term? Sort of a seasonal practice, though. Summertime stuff."

One spoon on the counter was still clean, save for a few flecks of flour; Sam picked it up, deemed it serviceable, and crouched in front of the oven to monitor the butter's melting. The action of crouching was slightly awkward, showing the stiffness in her off leg ('busted' wasn't an exaggeration; 'busted' it had been,) but after some six years, it didn't really register, with or without the issue of "Alive? What did you put in there?"

"Cause you look tough." It's said very matter-of-factly as Hiro meanders over to the dirty spoons (and forks and bowls and cups...) and starts clearing them away. Years of living in a cafe and busing tables has apparently stuck with him. But he offers a cheeky grin and amends, "Not mean-tough, just..."don't mess with me" tough. There was this girl I went to school with who was the same." Congrats, Sam, now you remind Hiro of Tadashi and Gogo.

Dirty dishes in the sink now (out of sight, out of mind), Hiro will do his part as a good roomie and slowly approach the vaguely-smoke-scented microwave. "Uhhh......powdery things and...I dunno, salt and gummy worms and lemons and stuff. Y'know, cooking things." Better arm himself with one of the less-sticky wooden spoons and jab at the microwave a couple times, to perhaps provoke it into attacking.

"Oh." She could've kept from chuckling, but it wasn't worth an effort---not with Hiro's it-just-is tone, not with his elaboration. "Thank you, and thank you for getting those. Maybe I'll look at that line of work if I end up on Earth again, and am not too too old."

Big 'if', she thought, and then set the thought aside. "It's still so weird to think that if there's a version of me on your Earth, I'm forty-two instead of twenty-two to your fourteen. Two decades... which would probably not be time enough to figure out where you were going with nuking powdery things, salt, gummy worms, lemons, and stuff and things, things and stuff." She shook her head, on the brink of laughing again, and stood to remove the butter bowl from the oven with a tea-towel to protect her hands from the heat.

"I wasn't wanting to nuke this on account of whatever you added, but... buddy, I'm afraid to ask. And aware I'm lucky I don't stock stuff like hen's teeth."

Hiro frowns a little, turning to watch Sam take the butter out of the oven -- which is very old-school and makes him feel like they're living in the ancient times. Hiro has no notion of what that entails, but he feels there should be more candles and "thy/thou/thee"s involved. "Can we end up back on Earth again? Is that even possible?" The question is posed softly, like he's trying not to sound too hopeful.

And then, making a face, Hiro turns back to jabbing the spoon handle at the microwave, this time popping it open and releasing a puff of acrid black smoke. He waves it away like it's no big deal, and grabs some tea towels of his own to pull the charred mess out. "I wouldn't have added anything that looked like teeth," he protests, dumping the bowl in the sink and turning the water on, to drown any potential life forms. A quick dust with his tea-towel, and he gestures proudly at the microwave, which is none the worse for wear.

...and while he's thinking of it: "Y'know, I could totally mess with the settings on this thing. Make it go faster..."

Stop him, Sam.

"I don't know for sure. I think so, but I don't know." The adept frowned over the butter, having answered without looking up from the bowl. "Sometimes, people just are absent, like they've dropped off the face of the planet. There was one lady who was here, and then gone, and then here again, and her whole 'gone' time was a blank to her... though, she did say the last thing she could remember was going off and exploring, so what exactly happened we've got to guess. And a while ago, a guy I know announced this other girl got sent home. I've been meaning to ask, but..."

Sam looked up and over, shrugging helplessly. "They were close, and it hit him hard, so I don't want to salt the wound any time soon, y'know? It's important information, but I can bide a bit." She quieted, thoughtful, and busied herself measuring out ingredients until Hiro spoke in his own defense.

"Hen's teeth don't look like teeth, just little flecks of white." Having provided her roomie with that profoundly impractical information, Sam resumed measuring and mixing until the words 'mess with the settings' hit her ears.

"No." She struck the countertop with both hands in emphasis, the measuring cup she still held clacking. "I've had to fight a blender, and watch my first toaster burn itself out as it bumped into the side of the sink again and again, just pitiful. If you want to modify the microwave just so that it's mobile and can maybe keep Blenderbot company when we're both out, we'll talk, but I don't care how hungry or impatient you are. The highest setting on the microwave is a hundred percent, and you better not take it apart to add power. This is not the Enterprise. And even if it were, I'd still pull seniority to stop you."

Have a dark frown, Sam. The temporal nature of life is something that Hiro's learned way too much about over the last several months, and the idea that it's the same here as on earth -- people can just leave and that's that -- isn't something he particularly enjoys. Then again, denial hasn't done too much for him in the past, either...

So, moving over to open random canisters and jars and examine the ingredients (because he can't go five seconds without touching everything), Hiro ventures, "Is there someone else you could ask? Like, someone who knows a lot about how things work here....?"

That explanation about the hens teeth is enough to have Hiro formulating a series of clarifying questions, but then Sam has that reaction to his innocent idea of modifying the microwave. He listens to the rant with a weary expression, rolling his eyes at the end of it and muttering, "That's the sorta close-mindedness that killed the dinosaurs, y'know."

Her admission was immediate: "Probably Wing. I kind of ask a lot of the guy, but he's gotta be one of the best to go to. As you probably noticed when you first met him, he's incredibly nice. Patience of a saint. Or, I guess, one of the Guardians. Irja's pretty approachable." Approachable, and adorable---the little flower-fairy was as chipper as a chickadee, at maybe half as heavy.

"It's not closed-mindededness, it's practicality. Given the precedents you've set? Perfectly practical. It's not like I told you the microwave is entirely off-limits. Pass me a pan?"

Edited 2015-05-06 05:34 (UTC)

"The Guardians?" Hiro is learning so much, and while he's normally totally into that, right now there are cookies potentially happening and his stomach is growling audibly, so while waiting for an answer he'll offer Sam the chocolate chips.

Then (before she can notice he's been sneaking handfuls of the aforementioned chocolate), he'll turn and start rummaging through the cupboards. Loudly, of course. "I'm not going to blow up the house! Radiation is a serious thing. No rockets or lasers or anything, I promise."

Here, have a pan and a disheveled small roommate reaching for the chocolate chips again.

"They're the people who do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to keeping Haven functional. There's the chief engineer, Wheeljack; Irja's the little fairy lady who handles the farm; the head medic, Paian... and some other pretty interesting individuals. Those three, though, so have my stamp of approval. Thank you." Sam took the chips readily, shook a portion into the bowl of what was now clearly cookie dough, considered, and added more. Pleasantly surprised by how quickly Hiro had started to clean up, she felt it was really only reasonable to humour his request for extra chocolate chips.

"I'm not expecting you to blow anything up indoors but I agree: radiation is a serious thing, so whatever you do to the microwave, you leave its power levels alone." A wet plap punctuated the assertion as Sam turned the first spoonful of dough onto the pan, though she passed Hiro the chocolate with her free hand. "What will you do to it, anyway?"

"We have a tiny fairy lady who has a farm?" Honestly, at this point, Hiro, why are you still surprised? And yet, he is, taking the bag of chips and resuming his spot on the counter to eat out of it.

"Just make it more efficient. Future-efficient." See, now he's gonna pull the future card all the time and be impossible to live with.

"It might be more accurate to say 'manages' because I think It's Haven that has the farm, but whatever. She's very sweet, very helpful, even if a person shows up out of the blue asking for strange stuff." Personal experience? Perhaps. One thing was certain, though; Sam had been serious saying "No."

She shook her head, looking up from the forming line of cookies. "No flying cars? Not really The Future, and even if that wasn't such concretely-established criteria, 'future!' isn't going to swing me on this subject. The microwave does not need to be more efficient. You leave its power levels alone. Start screwing around with them, and I'll never make these cookies again. That doesn't sound like much now, but you won't want to miss out."

"Are we talking like a normal-person-sized farm, here? Because...that's actually legitimately impressive, not gonna lie to you." Hiro wants to see the little tiny fairy lady taking care of big cows and stuff. Cows are cool, right? In theory.

Have an eyeroll. You and your flying cars, Sam. "Okay, fine. Cookie fascist." Then, after a pause: "What if I just make it so it senses when stuff is burning or about to explode and automatically turns off? That's handy, right?"

"Normal-person-sized, but big for it. This is the farm that handles all of the grocery stock. For organic stuff anyway. I'm not sure how energon is treated or processed or whatever, or anything but that there's regular and then there's high-grade." It was a subject to look into, sometime, and one easy to investigate; the Cybertronians she'd spoken to---even Dirge!---were generally willing to answer whatever questions she asked, even if they were occasionally surprised by being asked.

"Oh, that's harsh. Nixing one mod, when we've agreed radiation is not to be taken lightly, and making cookies conditional so you won't weasel and I'm a fascist?" Sam clicked her tongue, turning the cookie tray to finish filling it. "You might as well call me a wicked witch and have it out. Running out of room, here; you want to pass me another pan?"

Plap.

Plap.

With space for another six spoonfuls, Sam stopped long enough to look to Hiro and nod approvingly. "That would actually be pretty cool, and also encouraged."

Hiro nods slowly at this idea (already making plans to get to this farm, because: cows!), reaching out slowly to try and swipe some cookie dough. "It'd be cool to find out. I mean, do they actually eat the stuff? How come only Dirge eats anything else?"

Have a dramatic eyeroll, and Hiro obligingly hopping down to dig out another pan. "We're not putting any frog toes into the cookies, so you're not at wicked witch status. Yet. Also: how many of those are you gonna make, anyways?"

Was that a compliment for one of Hiro's ideas? Because it's getting a happy grin as if it were, so hopefully it was. "Yeah? Thanks. It'd help keep me from burning down the place, so I figured you'd dig it."

He didn't have to try too terribly hard, since Sam saw the reaching hand and slid the bowl over in invitation. "I've only ever seen them drink it, which has had me really wondering 'why do they have teeth?' Even the sort-of teeth. For Dirge it makes sense, but why he should be an exception like that is an excellent question."

As Hiro dug, his housemate slid the first sheet into the oven. She accepted the new pan upon pivoting to cross the two steps back to her workspace, and pretended not to notice how much dough had mysteriously vanished while her back was turned.

"Frog toes would be a terrible thing to do to cookies. Those tiny little toe-bones? Nah. Not a crunch I care for." The idea alone was distasteful; how distasteful, Sam suggested by blowing a brief (if not single-second) raspberry. "We should have something like four dozen? It's looking like a double batch to balance out all the butter you had."

The boy's grin got a grin in turn, as the compliment had been exactly that. "Oh, yeah! That aside, even, it's cool for its own sake---a smart microwave, I can definitely dig!---and it's neat that that's something you can just go 'that, I think I'm going to do.'"

Sam gets coolness points for not even mentioning salmonella. But she's also going to lose a good portion of the dough, because human garbage disposal, right there.

Still, with four dozen to pick at, there'll still be plenty of cookies. "Maybe they've got teeth for...crunching other stuff." Listen, if there are giant robots around and they don't bite off the heads of their enemies, then what is the point?

Have a side-eye, Sam, (how do you know frog toes are crunchy??) but then he'll start helping scoop up the dough with a mostly-clean spoon and plunk it onto the cookie sheet. Whether they all make it to the pan or not is another story, because Hiro has to chase away the mental image of eating frog toes somehow.

Then, slightly encouraged: "Generally I try to use my powers for good. Occasionally for morally sound, but practically ambiguous."

Fourteen is old enough for Hiro to decide when he wants to risk raw egg, and what for. It wasn't as if his housemate could claim high ground in an admonishment, after all; Sam's spoon rose and fell regularly, but twice it went without the plap of another cookie-to-be appearing.

"If I dare you to ask, will you do it?" She asked as if it were a wholly hypothetical answer, running her tongue over her own teeth and pointedly ignoring the side-eye. It was only logical that tiny little toe-bones would crunch, but Hiro could draw his own conclusions. As the boy began to help her scoop, she moved aside to make a little more room, and her grin grew. "I generally try to use my powers for good, too, and occasionally for things morally ambiguous but practically sound. The more I hear, the more I think: we are pretty well-matched, I've got a good roommate here."

"Of course I will." Hiro's a fourteen-year-old boy, Sam. If he's dared to do something risky and therefore exciting, he'll 100% do it. "I mean, with backup and stuff." But not right that second, because there's still plenty of dough to scoop and line up on the pan with methodical neatness. There will be no melting and morphing into one giant monster cookie, thank you very much. Those are way harder to sneak into pockets.

"I can deal with moral ambiguity," Hiro allows, reaching up to rub at an itch on his nose and unknowingly smearing cookie dough across his cheek. "I was a pretty infamous botfighter for a little bit after high school and all. That's not toooootally legal."

But then Sam calls him a good roommate and he goes from "hardened semi-criminal" to "goofily grinning kid" in ten seconds. "Yeah? I, uh...I think so too."

The adept's answer was immediate, and the dare itself delivered deadpan: "Then I triple-dog-dare you. Though it's at your leisure, of course." Grinning again at the amendment, Sam waffled briefly before taking the low road and swallowing whatever she might've said about the streak of dough her housemate wore. She'd just admitted to indulging in some moral ambiguity; it was only appropriate.

"Not totally legal, but endlessly entertaining. You know I'm gonna have to sit you down for more stories of Megabot and your magnificent misdirection, right? Way to work your master status." If the rundown he'd given her on his first night in Haven indicated anything, Hiro's exploitation of his age in the botfighting area rivaled anything she'd accomplished wearing a Label, which was impressive.

"Good! I'm glad." Saying so, Sam sounded it. "It's nice having you here."

Hiro blinks a few times, then sets his jaw, giving Sam his most serious, grim expression -- which is, of course, thoroughly ruined by the cookie dough smeared on his face. "Challenge accepted," he says solemnly, before turning his attention back to filling up the pan.

All right, now he's getting into smug, pleased-with-himself mode, tipping a few more chocolate chips into his hand to munch on. "The best time was when I took down a yakuza boss," he remarks, ever-so-casually, like that's something fourteen-year-olds do every day.

Not being one for emotional proclamations, Hiro doesn't have anything else to say in return for a moment, just ducking his head, cheeks pink with happiness. Finally he mumbles, "s'nice to be here," before hopping off the counter and hiding his bashfulness by checking on the cookies in the oven. "Are these done yet?"

Unable to help herself, Sam laughed---not at Hiro, but in delight. "Alright, alright! And if you don't ask Dirge, you shouldn't need back-up, but, y'know, whatever." If Hiro wanted back-up, he'd have it, and considering the conversations likely to come of the dare question? Sam couldn't complain.

"If we didn't have cookies and cleaning to finish, I'd sit you down now for the scoop on that story. Still, you should tell me everything, omit nothing." Dropping the final spoonful of dough onto the cookie sheet with an air of accomplishment, Sam settled back against the counter and answered. "They'll probably take another two or three minutes."

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told you I'd use it word for word

bless u

<3

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