strangetrip | [GP/EP] Check-in Day

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[GP/EP] Check-in Day

It was a musical day at the Madonna Inn, both inside and out. Curnen had taken her usual place up on the roof and was singing charms to the sky to keep any wanderers from getting lost (though that part of it was not immediately obvious). Unrelated to that, Sunny was on the dance floor in the bar, summoning songs of her own with her knife to keep her moving before she went to do her shift at the library later. It was one of those days where if she thought about it too hard she’d start thinking about that empty bed in her shitty room and the person she most wanted to be there.

This of course eventually seeped into her magic. She knew better. Maybe she’d even wanted that to happen.

Because just once, between different pop hits and dance beats came a rather unexpected French love song. She sighed and rolled her eyes, but the exasperation didn’t last. Before the lyrics started up she was waltzing. By herself and not caring how it might have looked. And for those three and a half minutes, she dared let herself hope for the slimmest chance that Orlu might come through that door.

She didn’t let herself hope too hard, though. There was admitting to feeling things and there was setting yourself up for certain disappointment. She’d lived too long with disappointment to do that to herself.

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"Asking! Ha!" Rocket shook his head, but slid out of the cabinet with the jar of brown stuff. Asking. When did that ever work? "You're funny."

"Not generally." Yes, that was Emma making a joke, but she made it sound earnest enough most people might not hear it. It amused her anyway.

"But I do a lot of the cooking around here, for people who ask." She nodded toward the jar he held. "You could even ask where to find the bread and jam or honey if you're wanting a sandwich. I don't think we have any marshmallow fluff, though. Or if you didn't want a sandwich, an apple or celery maybe - those are also good with peanut butter." Helpful suggestions, and talking about food was easier when it was someone she didn't know. Including a talking raccoon rummaging through her kitchen.

"I actually don't even know what this stuff is," Rocket admitted almost cheerfully, turning the jar around and investigating it. "I figured I'd just eat some and see if I die."

Was he joking? Emma hoped he was. On the other hand, raccoon. "Maybe start with something else then? Fatal peanut allergies aren't uncommon among humans, which doesn't necessarily mean anything for you, but still. I don't want anybody dying here.

"That said, it's called peanut butter. Roasted peanuts, which are really a form of pea, not a nut at all, are ground to a paste, sometimes with a little salt or sweetening added for flavor, or something to smooth it out and keep it from separating. People spread it on lots of things, or use it as an ingredient in sauces and stews, baked goods, that kind of thing.

"Yeah, no, I can pretty much eat whatever I want." And, sometimes, things he didn't want. Life was like that. And the labs had been thorough with his digestive system. "It's probably okay. So I'll just take this and see how it goes."

Whenever the carnival set up for more than a couple of days, and it was rarely worth a stop that didn't last at least a few days, raccoons would show up after hours, and help themselves to all kinds of food that had fallen to the ground or been tossed in the garbage. But that was about as much as Emma knew about their diets. She hadn't really needed to know more.

"Okay, but at least use a plate or a bowl." Especially since he didn't know if he would like it or not. No sense ruining an entire jar of peanut butter if he didn't.

"And if there's something specific you want to eat, if I can make it, I will." She grinned pointedly. "All you have to do is ask. You can ask Kahni too, but he'll just make you chicken."

Rocket's ears flattened briefly. "If I don't hafta let someone else touch my food, I'm not gonna." Poison tasted awful, and he was trying - for now - to avoid killing sprees. The Guardians rotating cooking duty was one thing, random humies in a place he hadn't even been in a day was completely different. "It's better that way."

But in the spirit of trying - for now - to get along, he set his jar to one side and started investigating drawers. "Remind me, humies know what spoons are, right?"

Emma had almost offered a spoon, which would be fine, if he was limiting himself to one spoonful or if he was going to use the offered dish as well. But she didn't say any of that. She smoothly grabbed a spoon from the appropriate drawer and offered it to him. "See how much easier it is when you ask?"

She had some ideas what could make someone so careful about who touched their food, and none of them were ideas she liked. "There are people who cook for themselves here. You're welcome to do the same. It works okay, as long as things stay where they're supposed to be. Maybe not quite as important now Ignis is gone, but it's still the only way having a bunch of different people using one kitchen really works."

"I didn't ask for proof," Rocket sniped, but took the spoon and sniffed it. Smelled normal, just metal and no additives. Except, like, soap or whatever dishes got cleaned with. "And, see, you're not makin' any sense. Stuff stayin' in the same place, sure, fine, whatever, but I gotta learn where the fuckin' places are, don't I? Which means I gotta look."

Dani would be so much better at this. But Dani wasn't here, and Emma was. "Okay, look around. Enjoy the peanut butter. I'm Emma. I'll be here, getting on with what I was doing," maybe Vex would show up and know better how to deal with a curious raccoon, "and seriously, if you have any questions or don't recognize something, just ask. I'd rather help than not."

"Yeah, I'm prob'ly not gonna recognize most of this shit." Rocket flicked an ear, annoyed not with the woman but with the fact that while he had years of Earth experience by now, almost none of it was normal or usable Earth experience. Anything that wasn't local to or easy to grow/raise in Gotham was out, unless by some chance it could be traded from some dinky island not entirely coated in parasite.

And it wasn't like Earth cuisine was real big in the wider universe, either. "I'm just lookin' around to see what's what."

Emma nodded at that as she began putting together the salads, the process simple enough to still pay attention to the raccoon. "A lot of people come from places that aren't much like this one, and it takes a while to learn what's here. And what isn't that you're used to. I was lucky. From an Earth about twenty years in the future from this one seems to be." So she could probably explain the things he didn't recognize, at least in the kitchen, as she'd offered, and she didn't think anything less of anyone who didn't know what should be simple to her.

"I spent about two years on an Earth mostly fulla sentience eatin' parasites. In a fuckin' quarantine zone kinda hole, so if it's not a thing on the east side'a the North American continent, I don't know it." Fish. Rice. Some fruits and vegetables. Deer. Rabbit. Chicken. "If I don't gotta stay on that diet, I don't wanna, but it's gonna be interesting figuring shit out."

Yeah, he could ask Quill, but that invited the guy getting all 'I know something you don't know' cutesy-poo. Which fuck no.

That sounded like a horrible world. "We have more variety than that, although nobody has any idea how we get a lot of it. All of it is from Earth, though, that I've seen." Except anything people brought back from Asphodel, but that was gone by now.

"A couple of people do a lot of hunting, so we do get a good bit of venison and rabbit. And there's an orchard and vegetable garden we supplement with, but most of our food appears the same was as everything else here. It's enough for all of us, so nobody goes hungry unless they want to, but there's not so much it goes bad." It was still weird, and Emma mostly didn't think about it too much.

Rocket mentally added ‘hunting’ to the list of things he could do to make nice when it was called for. Rabbit and deer skin would come in handy for other stuff too. (Were people keeping those things already? Could be good to know.) “Yeah, I figured there had t’be a trade off. Smaller cage, better food. They wait t’squeeze you ‘til you’re used to things.”

Probably worrying about food wasn’t necessary. Whatever had been done to his guts, nothing he’d ever eaten had made him sick, to Rocket’s knowledge. Even poison just pissed him off, in the past. “So I guess recommend somethin’ an’ I’ll try it. Might as well start somewhere.”

The east coast of North America as Emma knew it included places like New York City and New Orleans and port cities all along the coast. The food options could be global. But she imagined a quarantine zone with sentience eating parasites probably had to be more self-sufficient. Then there was the part where he didn't want anyone else to have made his food, although maybe he'd relax that some if she ate a bite first or he watched her make it.

Maybe a peach, she thought, as she cut one up to put in the salads, although if he'd been in one of the southern states, he might be sick of peaches. "Maybe an avocado? The ones here are really good." Better than any she'd had anywhere else.

"They're in the fridge," she added, waving toward the walk-in she'd been in when he came into the kitchen. "About so big," she used her hands to show the rough size and shape, "dark green," were raccoons color blind? she had no idea, "third shelf from the bottom, on the left side as you go in. If you bring two, I'll show you the best way to cut and peel it."

Well, he'd wanted to figure out the food situation, and a little fetching and carrying was a small enough price. Rocket headed into the fridge and the shelf the female had described, and sure enough there were some weird dark green oblong things. He grabbed one and sniffed it (didn't set off any warnings, also not bad), then took another and went back into the main are of the kitchen.

It was easy to climb back onto a counter with one hand while the other held the avocados, which meant he could also keep enough distance to roll the fruit/vegetables towards the woman. "Got'em. Ugly bastards, huh?"

Eyes studiously on the salads she was finishing and then looking for lids to cover the plates, Emma grinned to herself. "The word avocado comes from Spanish, but it's based on an Aztec word that meant 'testicle'." She wasn't quite sure why she said it, especially not to someone she didn't know, but she had.

With Vex's food ready for her to pick up, Emma grabbed a chef's knife and one of the avocados. "They have a big pit inside you want to work around," she explained as she cut into the fruit, stopping when she felt the blade hit the pit, and following all the way around. Setting the knife down, she gave the two halves a twist along the cut, showing him how they pulled apart and the large seed inside.

Rocket laughed despite having no idea what 'Aztec' was. Whoever they'd been, they knew their shit. "It does look like one! A super unhealthy fuckin' testicle. That's great." Honestly, he'd probably randomly laugh about that for at least a few hours.

Still chuckling a little, he watched her cut the misshapen ball and made no effort to consider whether the same technique would work on an actual testicle. (New life goal!) Once she was done, he retrieved a knife of his own and sliced open the other avocado. It was pretty easy; he'd always been good at picking up things that could be used in anti-social situations. "I'm guessin' the rind shit don't get eaten."

"No, but it's easy to get rid of." She whacked the knife into the pit and gave her wrist a slight turn to pop the seed free, then cut a quick cross-hatch pattern to make the flesh easy to scoop out.

"Like that. Or, if you're careful and have the right spoon," or blunt knife, but spoons were usually easier for her in this case, "you can scoop the whole thing out at once." Something else she demonstrated, after moving the diced fruit to a small plate.

It was automatic to grab a lemon left from making salad dressing earlier, cut it in half, and squeeze the juice over the cut avocado. "It turns brown pretty quickly after you cut it, and that isn't as good to eat. But citric acid stops that from happening for awhile," she explained.

"Chemistry I'm actually pretty fuckin' good at." Good enough to know that citric acid was a decent food preservation thing, though that kind of fruit had been rare enough in Gotham that he hadn't gotten enough experience to firmly identify it.

Once again he copied the motion to scoop out the green testicular stuff, then diced it with a few quick motions that made it clear he was also pretty good with knives. And that made it easier to pop a small piece into his mouth. "Not bad."

"I like them, but don't cook with them often, mostly because I've never really lived anywhere before where it was easy to get good ones, but they're good on salads or sandwiches, or even just toast. And they're the main ingredient in a dip called guacamole." Avocados weren't exactly a staple in French, Creole, Cajun, or Italian cooking, with good reason.

She ate one piece of the avocado she'd cut up in demonstration, and decided to whip up some guac with the rest. If he wanted, he could try it, or the other ingredients as she put it together. And if not, somebody in the bar would eat it, she was sure.

"You didn't say. What should I call you?" she asked as she went to gather the rest of the ingredients for guacamole. She'd introduced herself earlier, skipping as usual the long explanation behind how she got to the nickname most people here used.

"Rocket." It was a little thing, but Rocket appreciated the precision of 'what do I call you' over 'what's your name'. The answer was the same either way, of course, but the first one acknowledged that some people had shit names they didn't want to use. "Just Rocket. Nicknames an' me don't fuckin' get along." They were more miss than hit, and he accepted them without grudge from only a few.

He followed her on her ingredient search, watching where things were and what they were, seemingly content now to learn where things were kept rather than continuing his own disruptive search as a you're-not-the-boss-of-me statement.

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[GP/EP] Check-in Day

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