EXO 729

1600-2000

Empowered with the success of Tobiah Reed's agreement, Joan took to her evening with an electric energy in every limb. The garage door was wide open and letting in a cool breeze behind her, she was lying down on a padded creeper, and a Quarterhorse XV repulsor bike was hanging from the garage's ceiling above her. Music blasted out of crackling speakers and the power tool in her hand screamed as she cut off a rusty piece of piping. An open bottle of Brownblood Umber beer sat within arm's reach. Padded ear covers muffled every sound, her bandanna up over her nose, and the yellow-tinted glasses she wore blinded her to anything except the bike overhead. She was close to its completed refurbishment and was getting antsy to finish with every passing day due to the chilling of the air and eventual season's change. Riding a bike exposed on a GI0054 winter's day was brutal so she was told. She was caught in the zen of progress when a shadow covered her work.

She sighed, scooting the creeper back a few inches and throwing her head back to see who or what was interrupting. She squinted at the silhouette of an average-sized man with a short ponytail, well-dressed and potentially moving his jaw, it was hard to tell at her angle. Joan lowered the padded ear covers to be around her neck. "-oan! Hi! Hello!" he was in the middle of yelling. The voice, unaccustomed to yelling, she immediately recognized as belonging to Evan Whittaker.

"Oh, hi!" She twisted around carefully to sit on the creeper without falling off of it, shading her eyes but still squinting up at him. She lowered her bandanna. "Whatcha doing here?"

"Oh, don't you remember? I also AIM'd you earlier?" He stepped in farther, slowly becoming front-lit by her garage lights. He held two bags of things in his arms, his calico glasses pushed up on top of his head. "We talked about having a little celebration for your birthday just the other day."

"Scorch and Fume," she cursed under her breath, pushing back the creeper to slide gracefully over to the workbench on the left-hand wall. Joan reached up for her AIM device, seeing the message she hadn't bothered to look at on her drive home. FROM; EVAN WHITTAKER. AIM; B-DAY DINNER 2 NITE? "Shit, I'm sorry Evan. I just about forgot."

"No, no it's fine! I can go if you don't actually want to." He began to step back out, shifting the bags upwards as they slowly drifted down.

"No, c'mon in! You're sweet, I'm an asshole." She got up and took one of the brown bags from him, looking down to see it contained chocolate chips, a bottle of syrup, and a carton of eggs. Evan stepped in, Joan closing the garage door behind him, the sight of wavering cornfields in the background slowly being closed off. She grabbed her already open beer off the ground.

"I wasn't sure how much stuff you had or didn't have, so I bought a bit of everything." Evan had clearly just came from work, his shirt still tucked in and sweater vest still on. She chuckled, seeing that despite all that he had instantly abandoned his dress shoes for loafers instead.

"Aw, Evan, I have eggs." She pushed open the inside door to the house with her shoulder. "I think."

"Aaaand that's why I bought them," he said with a shy chuckle. Joan barked in laughter, thumping up the wood-panel stairs to the second floor. "Do you have a waffle maker?"

Joan had to think long and hard about it. "Uh, I should, yeah." Regretfully she crossed the living room carpet in her dusty work boots, plopping all the stuff down on her kitchen table and directing Evan to do the same. "What do we need a, uh, oh yeah, I wanted breakfast for my birthday dinner, that's what I said."

"Are you okay? I swear you didn't drink that much when we went out the other day." Evan regarded her with a concerned expression. She gave a dry chuckle as she rooted through her faux wood cupboards for the waffle maker.

"It's been a," she sighed, "it's been a real stressful two days." She hated to sound like she was back in therapy, or like every other work-tired adult, but she had to give herself credit where it was due. Not everyone had to deal with massive monster chases in their normal workday.

"You wanna talk about it?" Evan was already gathering and mixing ingredients as if it was his own kitchen. Joan chose to stay by his side, but slightly out of the way, finding a perfect foot of counter space that he didn't need regularly to lean against with her beer in hand.

"I mean, you're off the clock, I don't wanna vent at you."

"I ask," he paused as he scoured the drawers for a spoon. "Not because I'm getting paid for it, but because I care about you, Joan." She couldn't resist a smile and took a swig of her Brownblood. "You would like Umber, wouldn't you?" he teased.

"I've other flavors, if you care for one." She tilted the bottle towards her fridge. He didn't look as he was carefully pouring chocolate chip waffle mix into the now-heated maker. She watched him, impressed, she could never care to be that precise.

"The thing about Brownblood is it has that weird texture, y'know, how it like coats your throat? Add that with that dark brew taste and it's just too much for me." He nodded his head at her Umber. "I'll take a Sepia if you have one, though." She acquiesced, pulling one out of the dedicated beer drawer in her fridge and opening it with the pommel of her knife. "So what's got you stressed?"

"Yesterday when we were out at a site we ran into a fifty-foot-long monster of a thing. Gave us a helluva chase, too. Couldn't finish the site study and Pamela made us come back today."

"A thing?" He took a sip of the Brownblood Sepia and thinly suppressed a look of distaste as he swallowed. She realized he looked yellow and sickly, until she remembered that he was so pale his skin would adopt whatever color the ambient light was, and her kitchen overheads were little better than candles.

"Yeah, I'm not sure what it was, looked like some kinda mix of a bird and a dinosaur and a bat or I don't know, something else ugly." He set down a package of bacon by Joan and she got the message, warming up a skillet.

"Oh! Oh my god! Like, an actual monster?" She nodded, throwing a few pieces in the pan and stepping back to let it spit and sizzle. "Sweet Scorch, no wonder your brain's done a hard reset. I don't blame you one bit. I guess I forget how lucky I am to work within the walls, I couldn't imagine." She shrugged, not wanting to bluster about her heroism or worry him further about the ship malfunctioning.

"Me and everybody's in one piece, that's all I can ask for. Despite being all keyed up Desmond and Faye still got me birthday gifts, can you believe it?" She pointed to the hat hanging from her chair at the table, the only one that generally got used.

"Well, from what I've heard, they sound like real nice folks. And wow, that's a nice hat. Very you." The plate of completed waffles slowly grew in height. Joan shook her head.

"That's exactly what Desmond said." There was a pause in conversation as they finished their respective cooking endeavors, putting everything on the table and sitting down. Joan, as always, sat at the chair at the end of the table with her back to the window, which now had her hat dangling from the posts that made up the backrest. Evan sat to her right at the small oval table. "How's work been for you?" she said between bites.

He rolled his eyes. "I don't know how bored you wanna be." She waved her hand for him to continue, and he nodded with a hesitant laugh. "It's um, it's a lotta paperwork. Apparently Geier System's been coming under fire for 'poor enactment of the law,' so they're enforcing some kind of rules overhaul." He took a bite and looked lost for a second. "There's a lot of legality issues in treating mental illness, so it's-it's, there's a lot of reworking and confusion going on."

"Poor enactment of the law?" she repeated, having seen him do one-handed air quotes as he said it. He shrugged.

"I don't exactly know what they mean, or how far up or down the pipe it goes, but apparently Geier System has had enough legal discrepancies to attract the attention of the feds. The OSC's sending someone out here, at some point, I guess." She smiled, finding herself enjoying the boringly domestic nature of their conversation, the unintentionally dim lighting, and the melty sweetness of a chocolate chip waffle. "But, anyway, nothing near as much of a doozy as your day."

She shrugged, and tapped his shoe with her boot. "It's been a good doozy, thank you for that."