Who: Alastair, Liam, and Alastair's moody son, Willard [NPC] What: Willard is visiting his father and life, she rolls on! Where: Alastair's house, NYC When: Wednesday, July 7th, morning
Liam, Alastair decided, could probably eat his way through an entire house made of pancakes. He was currently working his way through a stack of them. A stack Alastair had actually made for his son, though the sleeping seventeen-year-old had yet to show his face. Alastair's ex-wife, Marina, had sent Willard to him from their home in Seattle the previous day, and Will had arrived looking sullen and annoyed he had to be uprooted from his life to spend a few weeks with his father in New York City. This happened every summer, though Willard had never been quite so moody before. He had hardly said a word to Alastair when he arrived, and he had gone straight to bed after returning from the airport.
Alastair was currently pretending his heart wasn't threatening to break into several tiny and insignificant pieces if things between him and Will didn't improve. Watching a leprechaun inhale pancakes did help a little, he had to admit. "You might want to go easy on those," Alastair said, amused. "You're going to be high on maple syrup and who needs that?" Leprechauns tended to be high strung and full of energy without sugary help; or Liam did, anyway.
"I do!" Liam announced to the kitchen. "I'm starving."
"Oh, of course you are. If by 'starving', you mean that you are still hungry after all the pancakes, that three-course meal I served you last night, and the midnight snack of caramel corn I know you had."
"Are you stalking me?" Liam asked him, raising a wary eyebrow at his friend. "Are you stalking me in the kitchen?!"
"Yes, Liam. Your actions in the kitchen are of utmost importance to me. I do love a good baking. And oh don't even get me started on basting." Alastair crossed to his fridge to retrieve some eggs for his own breakfast. "I could smell your dastardly caramel corn and it made me pine. My window was open last night, and I'm guessing yours was too."
"It was hot and I was up watching late night re-runs of old television shows. I love Lucy Ricardo. I think we would have gotten along great," Liam said with a syrupy grin.
"Dear God, the world would implode," Alastair muttered. Liam would take an episode of I Love Lucy and up the ante a hundred times over. "It's probably best she's fictional. ...right?!" And with that, Alastair gave Liam a worried look.
"As far as I know she is a fictional character, yes! Alastair, are there more pancakes?"
"More!? You just ate fifteen!" When Liam's expression didn't change with the revelation that he had eaten nearly twenty pancakes, Alastair realised that Liam was not only serious, but he didn't find this strange at all. "I don't even understand where you put it all."
"Magical places," Liam said, wiggling his fingers gleefully. "Cake me!"
"I am supposed to be caking my son!" Alastair protested, though he was already in the process of making more pancakes for Liam. He was just like that. "My goodness did that sound wrong in many and varied ways... Will will need some kind of sustenance when he awakes."
"And yet the kraken sleeps," Liam said, sounding mysterious.
"Haha, kraken." And then Alastair turned to his friend, his eyes wide. "Oh my god, do you know a kraken?!"
"No. What I do know is that you're burning my pancake, crazy," Liam informed him.
"Oh, balls!" Alastair flipped the pancake over on the griddle and it was indeed done a little too well. Liam would live. "Distracted by sea monsters, what a shame."
"I know I am often distracted by sea mosters!" Liam stood, deciding that what would really help Alastair, was standing directly behind him while he made his food. He was not entirely correct, but Alastair put up with it. "It looks so delicious!"
"Go sit down, O'Lurky!" Alastair pointed at the chair with his spatula, and that was when Will wandered in from his bedroom, his hair mussed from sleep. He looked up at his father and at Liam and he grunted a hello.
"Good morning, Will!" Alastair said, his voice bright and hopeful. He received another grunt in return. "Uhm, I'm making you some pancakes! Are you hungry? You must be, with all the travel-"
"'m not hungry," Will mumbled. "Just want a coffee."
"Ah, sure thing!" Alastair flipped the finished pancake onto a plate for Liam, and then he retrieved a mug for Will. He filled it with coffee from the pot he had brewed not a half an hour ago, and then he presented it to his son with a smile on his face.
All Alastair received in thanks, was a nod, and then the sight of his son taking the mug back to his bedroom to drink it. Alastair stood in the hallway, watching Will go, his shoulders slumped and a terrible feeling in his belly.
His son hated him. Will didn't want to be anywhere near him. He had to fix this, though he had no idea if he even could. He had left the boy when he was five, and they had spent twelve years on opposite sides of the country. They just didn't know each other very well.
Alastair felt a hand on his shoulder and suddenly he was being steered into a chair at his own kitchen table. A mug of coffee was shoved into his hands and when he looked up, Liam was across the kitchen (he was very fast), cooking eggs. Liam was cooking Alastair eggs. Liam hardly ever cooked. Alastair watched him quietly and when the eggs were finished, Liam presented them to Alastair with a sad little smile. "Here, Al. Eat your breakfast."
"Thank you, Liam," Alastair whispered as Liam sat down beside him.
"Mmm." A few seconds of silence and then, "if I did meet a kraken, you'd be the first person I'd tell."
At that, Alastair grinned and he began to eat his breakfast.