yogen | [CLOSED] Good or bad, you only have a limited time to spend time together.

[The good news is someone probably told Noah what happened in the mission, that or he figured it out secondhand from snooping in people's conversations like a little gremlin child. Letting Clamor sleep for once is a good thing! Even if sleep comes from... you know, suffering.

He's not expecting to see Clamor up and moving around when he pokes his head into the kitchen, though, and when he catches sight of the clearly sleep-deprived half-elf bumbling around, the first thing out of Noah's mouth is a very wry,]

Is that toast going to become something else?

[He does not trust your eating habits, dad.]

...how are you feeling anyway? [A little warmer this time.] Um... I can make you pancakes, if you want. Sidney taught me how a while back.

[His eating habits are fine!! When they're not rationing food, anyway... his cooking skills aren't that bad. Today, though, uhh. might be warranted. He gives Noah a blank stare while his sleep-addled brain tries to come up with an answer better than "it's going to become........... toast."

not anymore, I guess. pancakes sound better.]

I feel fine! Really. [he probably had to tell that to Lucifer like twelve times before he was allowed to go sleep in his homeroom] Pancakes would be fantastic. I'll give you a hand with it.

[Pancakes are always better anyhow. Especially ones with chocolate chips! Of which the kitchen should now have in abundance, so get ready, Clamor, we're having breakfast at fuckall in the afternoon. Noah makes his way to the stove, which he kind of knows how to use now, and starts pulling stuff out from the cabinets overhead... he's tiny, though, so he climbs onto the countertop nearby to do it.

No, he's not accepting help, thanks.]

...okay. I was going to make chocolate chip ones, [the best ones, and the only ones Noah knows how to make,] if you want to find the chocolate chips in the other cabinets. ...unless you don't want chocolate, and then, um...

[Can you like... put strawberries in pancake mix? Is that allowed? Or like, blueberries...]

[why is he climbing onto the counter—] Be careful, Noah! At least use a chair!

[SIGHING. HE'S TOO TIRED TO WRANGLE HIS SON HELP he's just gonna... stand close by and pray Noah doesn't slip and hurt himself, please, you're making brunchpper so much more stressful than it needs to be. how is he supposed to find chocolate chips when he has to be on standby to save Noah from cracking his head open on the countertop??]

... You can put chocolate chips in yours. Just don't overdue it, too much chocolate is bad for you. [he's already going for the fruit... also it somehow just occurred to me that you could put nuts in pancakes if you really wanted to?? what the fuck you can put ANYTHING in pankcakes, insane

maybe not strawberries, though, because... red sure is a colour he can still remember vividly. he pauses at those before putting them away again. blueberries are the superior pancake additive anyway.]

[HE IS VERY SMALL CLAMOR HE CANNOT REACH THE TOP CABINET SHELF :(]

Don't need a chair. There's a perfectly good countertop right here.

[With ingredients successfully claimed from the precarious reaches of the top shelves, Noah jumps down from the counters with a dull thud of shoes landing on tile, arms full of bags of pancake stuff. You sure can put anything in pancakes, which is Noah's reaction when Clamor goes for the healthy option of blueberries. What if they mixed blueberries and chocolate chips, would that slap or what...]

I know too much chocolate is bad for you. [Kind of not listening because the second he has his little goblin hands on the bag of chocolate chips, he's shoveling a handful into his mouth and just eating them like that.] I'm not going to add that much.

[And, you know, Noah's new to this chef thing so when he goes to dump flour into the bowl to make pancake mix, he 100% gets smacked in the face with a massive puff of flour dust from pouring it too fast and flinches away from said cloud with both eyes closed. What the fuck, rude.]

[THE COUNTERTOP IS NOT FOR STANDING— NOAAAAHH—

Clamor is just gonna snatch that bag of chocolate chips back after Noah gets his mouthful... please, he is going to be measuring those for you, thanks. Noah is getting one (1) small cup of chocolate chips in his pancake mix as any sensible recipe would recommend.

... and then Clamor is going to sneak a couple for himself, because pancakes aren't vegan anyway so it's fine for him to have a bit of chocolate. rip his diet.]

You're supposed to put it in slowly... honestly, Noah, you'd make a terrible alchemist. That's how you get a lab explosion. [considering like 50% of all alchemy uses whole grain flour for some reason, and also fun fact: flour is highly flammable while airborne. he waves some of the dust away with a hand, though, and he'll grab a small towel for Noah if he needs it.]

Edited (chocolate cups) 2021-09-09 09:34 (UTC)

[What the fuck dad his chocolate fuckin' chippies!!! He sees you eating those!!]

Well, it didn't explode. It's just flour.

[Sir. But anyway, he's clearly listening a little bit, since he pours in the sugar a lot more slowly and actually bothers to measure it out too, before he realises he's being offered a towel and takes it to pat the flour off of his cheeks. It's not like the flour makes him look any paler than he already is.]

Oh, we need a...

...what're they called...

...

A whipper.

[A WHISK?]

This thing. [He adds, after he pulls said whisk out of a nearby drawer and sets it next to the bowl. Still need to add eggs... wait. Looks at Clamor.] ...Milk and eggs are supposed to go in pancakes, but you can't eat those, right? What do we add instead?

[A whipper......... well, he's not a chef either so he's not gonna correct it. It's a whipper for today.

He was just gonna let Noah ruin his diet, honestly, but oh... if he's going to ask anyway, sure, they're vegan pancakes now.] I think we just need some baking soda and vegetable oil... and there should be soy milk in the fridge. I haven't made them before, but I asked Lucifer about it last time he made breakfast.

[except it's baking powder, not soda, but like how different could those two things be?? he also doesn't know the measurements. but there's no way this could go wrong, right, even vegan pancakes are super simple...

too hungry to consider his hubris. and he hasn't seen Sidney since he woke up and Lucifer can't exist in the same room as Noah, so...]

Hmm... maybe we should make a small test batch first? Just to be sure they turn out okay.

[Noah Knows the dietary restrictions, and he cares enough about Clamor to suffer through vegan pancakes. Well... he's not actually that picky, and he's pretty sure they'll taste the same, but... "suffer". He's "suffering".

Absolutely no way this could go wrong though, yeah. Noah's already fishing out the soy milk (how do you milk a soy), vegetable oil, and baking soda.]

Good idea.

[Measurements are... uh... well, he put two eggs in the mix last time, so they need enough oil to account for two eggs, right... and then like a cup of milk and baking soda. Yeah. That's how cooking works (someone call Sidney).

Midway through mixing, Noah looks up at Clamor as he's having the realisation that the batter is a little too slimy, thanks oil, and...]

...hey, uh? Did something happen? You didn't always have that many tallies, did you...?

[Clamor who did you kill.]

[Hmmmmm... this doesn't look like normal pancake batter... is vegan supposed to be slimier?? He reaches over for the container of mix.] Did you put in enough dry ingredients? Maybe we should add more...

[... except then Noah catches sight of his tallies, and. yeah. Actually, Clamor hasn't thought to check those yet either, not really expecting anything to be different... but lo and behold, he has a new one. He pauses, staring at his wrist.]

Huh.

[and then after a moment he gently slides his sleeve back down.] That's weird! Wonder how that got there.

[it's fine

don't ask any questions just accept that this is fine and nothing bad happened and clamor didn't technically die the other day

dwbi]

[stares

at

him

and then unceremoniously adds an extra cup of dry ingredients to the mix without breaking eye contact]

...Clamor.

[Noah reaches out with his slightly flour-y little hands to try and pull that sleeve back up, sir, you are not escaping. He's not insane, right, there's an extra tally there? He only knows that tallies are gained from killing, and then thinks he's gone a little insane — there's absolutely no way that Clamor has killed anybody, it's Clamor and his death count legally is in Noah's hands (kind of literally?) save for the fact that he's got legs now and isn't being swung around by a reckless child.

...maybe when they were first discussing tallies which is just a thing I'm going to assume happened, they miscounted the first time...

...

In a low whisper, he hisses:]

...who did you kill? And why are you trying to hide it from me? Aren't we partners? Do you not trust me anymore?

[Clamor doesn't put up a fight, even though there's flour all over his sleeve now... but that's a thought far from his mind right now. He sighs, his smile dropping.]

Noah... no, I'm sorry, that wasn't fair of me. [trying to sweep something like this under the rug, like they don't know all about that night Noah woke up clawing tallies into his wrist. it isn't something he should be lying about.] I don't think I did... and there were only eight last week, I'm sure of it. I really don't know where this one came from.

[... but

but he can guess. what might be related to it.]

... Nao had only one tally, didn't she? [one tally, and one death. haha.]

Uh... I don't know, I think so, but I only ever said "hi" to her and then walked away.

[Like, literally, he walked up to her, said hi, got too shy to exist and then went and sat in a corner for the rest of the family meeting. He's avoided her like the plague ever since.]

What does Nao have to do with this anyway? She didn't do anything to you, did she?

No, no, it's not like that. [please, do not run out of this room seeking vengeance on Nao—] It's just... well, she was "dead" once, wasn't she? Before she was put in that display case...

[and... maybe he also "died" the other day. he just got better after. he thinks.]

... A-anyway, we don't know anything for sure. There could be lots of reasons for tally marks besides the ones we know about.

[You know him so well, because he was absolutely about to. Noah squints and connects some dots, but none of that makes sense. Nao was dead and got a tally, he guesses? But Clamor getting an extra doesn't make sense because he's right fucking here.

~~sighs sadly, knowingly~~]

...yeah, maybe. You're not... implying something bad happened to you, are you?

[S t a r e s]

Nothing serious! Well, uh, nothing... permanent... [ahaha... please don't be mad at him for this]

We ended up in the void when we were talking with gardener, and then a fight broke out. While everyone else was busy with that, I saw Amami fall unconscious, and when I tried to get to him I also fell unconscious. [said in a slightly embarrassed tone because damn, he sure didn't help with that one huh. he rubs the back of his neck sheepishly.]

After I passed out... apparently, we both started to dissolve? Lucifer did something to stop it, but he said he thought I was dead until we all suddenly appeared somewhere else. [just........ casually leaves out every gory detail, its fine,] Sorry, I know that's probably hard to follow and I'm not sure of all the details myself, but that's the only thing I can think of.

But everything turned out fine, so you don't have to worry about that part at all, really!

[NOTHING PERMANENT...]

You started to dissolve?! [Hello?!] Why did you start to dissolve?! What?! What do you mean it "turned out fine", did you get healed or something?!

[Where's the healer, hello? Noah needs to speak to them immediately. Now his floury little hands are pulling up Clamor's sleeves further like he's going to see some scars from dissolving or something. Does dissolving scar?

Clamor are you good?!]

Noah, I'm fine. I promise. [please, you're getting him all flour-y...]

I don't know. Whatever happened... undid itself? I think it was because of the tree... [which is. something he needs to discuss with Nene, meanwhile, but that's for another thread] I feel fine, and I'm not injured, so let's leave it at that for now, okay? Acting without knowing the full picture won't do us any favours.

[and besides... he hasn't eaten in over a day? hello?? please he just wants these pancake to exist in an edible state, he's going to try stirring the mix some more and hoping the extra dry stuff is enough to balance the rest out.]

[Mii music playing in Noah's brain...]

...okay. S...sorry.

[One last little squint, though, and then Noah finally moves his floury l'il hands away and goes back to trying to help Clamor out... which, because Clamor's taken the mix now, is really just Noah standing there for emotional support. When he thinks Clamor isn't looking, he wanders to go sneak another bite of chocolate chips... do not perceive him.

Anyway, the dry stuff seems to make their disastrous pancake mix less ?? slimy ?? so that's good at least; there's a pan on the stovetop (not hot yet) awaiting Cursed Pancakes. Noah flips the burner on as Sidney showed him that day when they first made pancakes together. That's probably the one part of this he hasn't majorly fucked up so far.]

[He is perceiving... but he doesn't say anything this time, because maybe Noah deserves another handful of emotional support chips after all that.

i dont know what this monstrosity of a recipe would actually look like short of concocting it myself, so let's just assume they get it to a ???normal??? consistency. which is probably still a generous statement, but whatever, it's fine, it'll probably be mostly edible. now its waiting for the burner to heat up time...]

... You don't have to apologize for anything. I was... being reckless, I suppose.

[looking back, he did a lot of reckless things. he knows he's not a combat mage, even his one attempt at going on the offensive only ended up putting everyone in danger... and if Kazuki hadn't been the person he was deep down, it all could've ended disastrously. would they have been able to win, exhausted as they were, if Kazuki had gone all-out?

but he wanted to do something. he couldn't just stand by and let others deal with these problems for him. everyone else has been working so hard... what has he been doing, really?]

I'm sorry, Noah. I didn't mean to make you worry... I just wanted to help.

No, I-I know you did.

[Please, now he feels guilty for being worried. Clamor's always so earnest, always wants the best for people, so who is Noah to get all concerned anyway? He tells himself that Clamor probably knows what he's doing and not to fret, but...]

I think you were probably more helpful than you think. You're a spirit mage, and Kazuki is a... spirit of a type, right? [Something something Noah's only heard passing rumours about the guy.] I doubt Amami and whoever else went with you has much expertise in that area, so don't look so sad, okay?

[He goes to pat Clamor on the shoulder and then remembers his floury little hands and decides against it, and then decides that maybe he should wash them off? How did he make this much of a mess in the first place, what was wrong with the Noah of 5 minutes ago... the burner is probably heated up a bit by now at least.]

[Ah yes, their classic feedback loop. Clamor's attempt to apologize and make Noah feel better only makes Noah feel bad and want to apologize so Clamor feels better...

Obviously, this only makes Clamor feel bad for making Noah feel bad again, so now—]

It's fine, I know I did my best. I am a spirit mage... but I know when I've gone in over my head. I mean, I work with artificial spirits, so I can't say I've ever had to soothe a rampaging one before....

[he may have exaggerated his talents on the interview, just a tad.]

It was my mistake, and you were right to be upset about it. I'd be upset, too, if you went and got yourself hurt without telling me about it.

[CLOSED] Good or bad, you only have a limited time to spend time together.

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inflicts psychic damage on myself with this tag

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