DATE: August 3, a few hours before dawn LOCATION: a bodega in the Lower-Lower East Side
( @victorslade )
It felt more like late evening than the early morning. At least until the sun came up, Phoebe reasoned. So if the sun wasn’t really up yet, this still counted as being a competent, prepared, reasonable adult.
She scoffed at her own joke. Who am I kidding? Phoebe was clutching a bag of plantain chips and a Snickers ice cream bar for dear life, watching the store cat watch her out of the corner of her eye as she made her way through the shelves. She hadn’t slept, of course. Something about the way the energy of the latest Pantheon business had draped over the city, laying heavily over the way people talked to each other and even rode the subway, had felt like being smothered. It was too much all at once to rest easily.
But just like jet-lag or any hangover, the solution was obvious: lard or liquor. There was no such thing as “catching up” on sleep, and “hair of the dog” wasn’t ever really Phoebe’s style. Hangover food, though... that was nature’s real reset button. A greasy bacon egg and cheese on a roll, junk food to keep exhaustion at bay with blood sugar spikes, and strong, shitty coffee cut with Carnation for flavor, fat, and all of the above.
Except then, there was someone else standing in front of the condensed milk, already holding the last sad, dusty can by the time Phoebe reached for it. Not cool. “...Dude, come on.” She shrugged dramatically, too exhausted to register much besides the guy’s beard and glasses. “I’ll buy you a chop cheese and pay for the milk if you split it with me for breakfast?”
