(no subject)

[donkeyballs]

WHO: Alex, Danger, Cayde, Ashley and if MF 002 wants to photobomb this thread just pm me
WHERE: MF #002
WHEN: Nowish
WHAT: Alex and Cayde decide to embark on a gastronomical adventure and decide to bring some ladies but it is definitely not a double date don't look at him like that
WARNINGS: Robots

Alex had spent the better part of a week preparing for this. Reading through recipe books (Books!! Real printed paper ones!!), grocery shopping, grocery shopping again, trying out things, testing and tasting - he'd been at it for days. His job was boring but at least it paid enough to give him a little extra spending money, and right now? He was spending it all on food. Probably... probably way too much food. Way too much food. He had an entire rack of lamb marinating, some pork ribs, a flank of beef... He may have overdone it? He definitely overdid it. They could feed the whole street, this way. But he was determined to try as many dishes as possible.

Plus it was something to focus on that wasn't himself and wasn't his (lack of) crew and wasn't the Roci.

And it definitely didn't have anything to do with Danger saying that she would come equipped with a digestive system. (He was still wrapping his head around that.)

So he was already in an apron (that appropriately said 'Kiss the Cook' on it) when his guests started arriving. He greeted each of them at the door with a wide smile and a "Come on in, come on in," given in that deep Texan drawl of his, before he led them into the kitchen. It was actually very tidy, considering the chaos inflicted on it. He had dishes half in preparation everywhere around the kitchen, but each one was kept surprisingly orderly individually. As if he expected any or all of them to suddenly start moving on their own.

Comments

[lootsnshoots]

Cayde can smell sizzling meat before he even gets the door, which he takes as a good sign. It reminds him fondly of the bazaars of the City, with their little food stalls. He greets Alex with the broadest grin an Exo can manage.

"Hey bud! Crossin' a lot off you're bucket list I take it," he says. He holds up a drawstring sack with one hand and adds: "Brought fresh eggs."

He'd taken a chicken as a pet mostly as a joke. He never expected to come round to making use of their intended purpose.

[donkeyballs]

“Couldn’t decide what t’ do first, so I just kept addin’ things,” he replied warmly, reaching out to take the bag before leading Cayde toward the kitchen.

“I sure hope you’re hungry. These’ll be great. You have any idea how many Earth recipes ask for eggs? Feels like everythin’ has eggs in ‘em.”

[lootsnshoots]

"Colonel II is happy to be of service," he chuckles, and follows Alex to the kitchen. He takes stock of all the dishes in progress, impressed by the sheer amount of work he's committed to.

"Man, good thing I'm hungry enough to eat a horse. ... Is any of this horse? Do people actually eat that? I don't know," he rambles.

[donkeyballs]

Alex paused, brow furrowing.

"... No, I'm pretty sure I ain't got any horse," he decided before heading to the fridge. "Honestly, I haven't the faintest whether they eat horse or not. I guess they probably do? They eat just 'bout everythin' else that moves."

He opens the fridge up.

"Thirsty?"

[lootsnshoots]

"Always," Cayde says, grinning. And, glancing around, continues: "so what is on the menu today?"

oh my god he actually has a chicken

[donkeyballs]

"Little bit of just about everythin' I could get my hands on," He admits with a rueful smile, holding out a beer for Cayde.

"Usually I'd do y'all up some Martian cuisine, but the whole point of this little venture is to figure out some new stuff. So I've pulled a buncha Indian dishes and some from Texas - since that's where alotta what I think of Martian came from originally. There's some chinese in there too but I figured I'd start slow. Hope you like butter chicken."

WARNING ROBOTSLkjdalkf DANGER / OTA

[mortalweapon]

Danger doesn't get invited to dinner much. Mostly because she doesn't usually eat. Also because she has a funny way about her - which probably to do with the fact that she's still a machine, despite the fleshy body she's currently wearing in order to facilitate the whole "eating" thing, and as a machine, it wasn't as if she'd had much by the way of normal socializing.

Over the course of the evening, Danger might be found in a few places.

If anybody at the table is watching her actually having a go at the food - well, it'll be obvious that digestion as a whole is a thing she generally avoids. She starts by cutting her food into very small, very precise pieces - each cube almost exactly the same size - then slowly, with her eyebrows slightly furrowed, she'll put a single piece into her mouth. Chew it almost too thoroughly. And then laboriously swallow - like it takes a significant conscious effort to do so. Organic bodies are honestly terrible. Just one big tube that things go in and out of.

Otherwise, she might be sitting very still on the couch, blatantly watching everyone else interact with that white-eyed stare of hers. Because that's how you interact with people normally at a dinner party. You watch them. Intensely.

🤖🤝🤖

[lootsnshoots]

Cayde has wanders out of the kitchen, beer in hand, and catches sight of the woman on the couch. She's familiar, but he can't quite place the face, which is maddening because while he can be bad with names, faces he knows.

"Heyyy there! Can I, uh, grab ya a beer?"

🤖👋

[mortalweapon]

On the other hand, even without her computer brain, Danger would recognize Cayde just about anywhere. He has a most distinctive chassis - and appearances aside, that personality isn't one easily forgotten. Her attention almost tangibly focuses in on him when he speaks to her. She probably should have said something to him right off the bat (even if they weren't that well acquainted, they were, at least, more friendly than not), but social norms have never been Danger's strong point.

"Hello, Cayde," she greets him promptly, at long last. "I am pleased to see you again."

No answer either way on the beer, apparently.

[lootsnshoots]

Well shit, this is awkward. She knows him and he still can't place her. Now, the sensible thing would be to own up to his confusion and ask. But since when has Cayde-6 been a reasonable person?

"Yeah, great to see you too," he says. It's more than likely true, as the list of people he wouldn't want to see is actually pretty short.

"So what brings you 'round to these parts?"

[mortalweapon]

Awkwardness. Now there's one of her strong points.

"I was invited." A very matter-of-fact answer. She's still scrutinizing him too, watching him with the same heavy, blatant stare that robo-Danger often employs. "Alex said that he did not wish to be a 'third wheel.'"

Danger's going to out her boy Alex just like that, apparently.

[lootsnshoots]

"Third wheel? But this is his hou—ohhhh right, right, Ash is dropping by," he says. It really didn't occur to him that Alex would feel that way. It's just that hey, his girlfriend's a decent cook and she's also from space, so it seemed like a good idea. But he found someone else to come along so no harm no foul, right?

"So, uh, are you two ...? Y'know?" he asks, one browplate raised.

rolls up late

[cannotrest]

Ashley had come last, and as such her first real interaction with this mystery woman is indeed at the table, where Ashley's A) eating like a normal human and B) clearly very close with Cayde, from the way she looks at him and the way her personal space simply melts into his when needed.

"Damn," she says, as impressed as she is confused by the woman's rather unique eating style. "Sure could have used your knife skills on all those recipes that call for cubing something - my sisters used to mock my 'cubes' until they tried it themselves."

HELLO :V

[mortalweapon]

The body language of romance is one that Danger is still learning, though she has made certain strides since she first arrived here, many years ago. It was different, she knew, between machines and humans as compared to machines with each other, and it was always interesting to her, getting to watch the phenomenon in real time. She was pleased for Cayde, truthfully. Sometimes organics weren't so accepting of machines - let alone willing to consider them equal enough to love.

Maybe it helped that Cayde was more human that most machines. His was a personality that was difficult to forget.

"I fail to see how it genuinely matters," Danger answered promptly, glancing up from where she had been poking at said cubes of meat. "It will all be chewed into a mush, then disintegrated in your gut before the remnants are expelled. To that end, the precision with which the meat is aesthetically prepared hardly seems relevant. If the opportunity ever arises, you may tell your sisters I said so."

HI HI

[cannotrest]

It might also help that Ashley's more machine than most humans, with the green light that traces through the circuits in her skin and eyes regrettably only in a few of her icons and her mind scanning somewhat similarly to an AI, a synthesis of organic and synthetic life.

She laughs, cutting herself a (larger) bite of her own food. "Oh, yeah, that'll be the first thing I tell them if they ever Port in," she says. It's a bittersweet thought: She misses her sisters every day, but at the same time, wouldn't wish this world on them. They've survived enough. "I dunno, though, some dishes taste better if they look nice too. Just not usually at the cube level of detail."

[mortalweapon]

No doubt Danger would have been keen to metaphorically (or literally?) pick this tech-enhanced human apart if she'd been in her own mechanical body. But all she has in as far as instruments go in this flesh is... Well. Hands. And the few sensory organs contained in the head. But she knows enough about human social behavior to understand that Ashley probably wouldn't appreciate having a stranger's hands curiously prodding at her. So, there's just the heavy weight of Danger's attentive stare, watching her eat.

Maybe that's not actually that much better.

"Yes. I suppose humans do sometimes like to make an experience out of their food," she acknowledged, though much in the way of a scientist acknowledging how monkeys sometimes like to throw their own poo. "Though however it appears going in, it more or less looks the same coming out, which seems to somewhat negate the effort."

Speaking of poo - hasn't anyone told Danger you can't talk about that at the table?

CLOSED TO ONE NERVOUS SPACE COWBOY

[mortalweapon]

She's early.

Very early.

Who can say why, exactly. Maybe she's just like that. She's been known to come and go as she pleases, with little regard for the comfort of other people or any sort of social norms. Then again, maybe she was trying to be polite. Though her politeness always seems to be mildly threatening and never entirely sincere - so on second thought, maybe not. Maybe she just thought it might be a bit amusing to show up before she's expected - just to see if she can get Alex to be flustered by her presence. Robot humor, or something.

Really, showing up early probably wasn't necessary for that either way. First of all, because a slightly stiff breeze could probably get Alex flustered, and secondly - well. She doesn't probably look the way he's used to. Still tall. Still reasonably blue. But now there's skin. Everywhere. She's... Almost human. Except those blank white eyes. And the Shi'ar markings down her cheeks. The vibrant color of her hair. All of it, familiar and alien at once.

That is what's waiting on Alex's porch when he comes to open the door.

Re: CLOSED TO ONE NERVOUS SPACE COWBOY

[donkeyballs]

She had told him, once, that she could turn human. But he had put it so quickly out of mind that when she said she could attend the dinner with a digestive system, this hadn’t been what had occurred to him at all. So when he opened the door, already wearing his apron but far further behind in his meal preparations, he didn’t recognize her at all. He blinked at the strange tall woman - vaguely familiar, even though he couldn’t place it- and caught sight of her unnerving blank eyes. He swallowed.

“Uh, can I help ya, darlin’?”

[mortalweapon]

THe strange tall woman blinks back at him, something vaguely curious in her scrutiny as she looks him blatantly up and down. She lets his question hang in the air between them, pointedly untouched, instead focusing her attention on the words printed across his apron. Her head tilts slightly to one side. Then the other. Finally, she looks back up at him, her attention so heavy it seems like she could break the pavement just by staring at it.

"Yes."

Obligingly, she leans in closer and just - presses her mouth to his, brief and precise, fulfilling the command emblazoned on his apron. Without missing a beat, and maybe just a little bit wryly:

"You invited me. Perhaps you could let me in."

[donkeyballs]

It’s the weight of her stare, more than anything, that makes the gears start turning in the right direction. He was about to speak when suddenly a kiss is being pressed to his lips. He doesn’t kiss back - too brief, too surprised - and when she pulls away he is staring at her, wide-eyed and a darker shade than he had been a second ago.

“... Danger?” He finally asks, but his voice cracks, too high. He coughs, clearing it. “That - That you? You, uh— you look different—“

[mortalweapon]

If it fazes her at all, what she did - well, it doesn't show on her face. In fact, her expression hardly changes at all. Even though his surprise is more than obvious. Maybe she's just used to seeing him stare and blush by now?

"Yes." Yes, she's Danger. And yes, she looks different. "I did warn you that I would bring my digestive system."

Along with... Well. Her whole organic body, of course.

"Are you dissatisfied with my appearance?"

strolls in late with Starbucks

[cannotrest]

Ashley's the last to arrive, the additional responsibilities that come with her Commander off dealing with politicians keeping her at Helix Station late. It makes her extra grateful when she can smell the food cooking as she comes in - sure smells better than what she makes.

"Sorry I'm late, way to make a first in-person impression," she says to Alex. She holds up a bottle of wine in offering. "But I grabbed this on the way."

Thank you, teleportation power to places she's been before, even if she startled the hell out of a fellow shopper.

[donkeyballs]

"Dinner still ain't ready, so you aren't late," He says warmly, and then chuckles. "'Specially not if you brought wine. That'll go real nice."

He closed the door behind her and then gestured for her to follow him into the house.

"Ashley, right? It's good to meet you in person. I'm Alex."

The way he walked was a little strange. His feet certainly hit the floor, but they didn't seem to be as heavy as they should be - he almost gave the impression that he was walking on air.

"Cayde's in the dining room with Danger - you met her, yet? Let's get that wine into the kitchen and then I can introduce ya, if you like."

[cannotrest]

Ashley nods to his doublechecking her name, only a little distracted by his walking: it reminds her of some planets she's worked and lived on. Give her a moment to remember that's not an Earth thing.

"I think Cayde's mentioned her but I haven't met her," she says. She's curious - what a cool name. "An introduction would be great."

Ah, there it goes.

"Hang on, are you less affected by Earth's gravity or something?" Is this a Martian thing that she didn't know about because her only experience there was almost dying?

[donkeyballs]

"I am at the moment," he admitted with a chuckle as he walked.

"I ain't use to Earth gravity, and I got given gravity-alterin' powers when I came here. So instead of suffer all the time, I adjust my own gravity to a gentle .3 gee. That's what it is on Mars, and that's what we usually run the ship under." Course, that was assuming they were going somewhere far enough that accelerating and decelerating could be done safely at that speed. But they tended to work far out in the system anyway. The last journey they'd taken - to the ring - had taken months.

"So, I 'spose I'm actually affected more by Earth's gravity, I just got my ways of managing it." He grinned at her. "You wanna try it? I could adjust yours, if you like."