Welcome to Gaia! ::

"S'okay, yeah." He smiled, though it had a hint of self-effacement, and scratched under his cap. "M'not 'zactly a complicated guy anyway. Really m'just a big ol' weenie who likes t'eat, heh." He wasn't entirely sure he was ready for Deus to change that. A few spars couldn't prepare him for the real deal, where all he saw himself doing was cowering behind his shield while people yelled around him. Actually, he wasn't even prepared for normal conversations like this and was running out of interesting things to say, to his dismay.

"You comfy?" he asked. Dawson was anything but while on the rubble, but he'd sit still and be the rock itself if it made a girl happy—even if it meant a delay to getting food, which was usually his number one priority.

"Well, m'hopin' s'not the case," Dawson said earnestly as he got up carefully. "I don' wanna confuse m'self anymore, yeah? Wanna keep things simple n' nice n' easy." Deus was already getting more complicated than what he first thought; he really didn't want to start that sort of fight on the inside too.

Hands lifted for balance, he carefully picked his way down, for a moment a little concerned Chel was going to fall but assuaged once they were both down safely. "Here, I gotcha, darlin'." Fixing his hat, Dawson offered his arm for her to take for the way back. "Y'mean fatten up more fer me, though, heh; Thanksgiving turkey's not gonna have nuthin' on me s'far as stuffin'. So we got a shield even if'n we're not inna fight?" he asked curiously. "S'it stop us from, uh, like gettin' burns n' scrapes n' stuff too?"

He found it a little funny that Chel hesitated when she had been nothing but touchy ever since he came over, but he kept that to himself; better to focus on the praise Syn gave him for being more comfortable and confident enough to offer at all. "That doesn't sound so bad," Dawson said. "Mean, if it didn' hurt, it'd be too weird, yeah? I'll take it f'it means shorter stays in the hospital..."

But he did agree about the stairs; that was yet another issue of living in the basement as well. Huffing, he scaled them with her and tried to not doing that Loud Breathing Thing once they hit the top. "My job's t'make sure people like ya don' get hurt anyway, so...uh...I'll do my best," Dawson promised with a little smile and a glance. Well, at least when he wasn't busy trying not to s**t himself on the battlefield. "That sound good t'you?"

Blinking several times, Dawson sputtered a little before chuckling; he was an easy one to fluster for sure. He would have said something clever like "we haven't even had a date yet, so let's fix that first," but that required quick thinking that was beyond him; later it would occur to him and he would slap his head and sigh. "W-Well, I liketa make sure," he insisted. "Don' wanna see a pretty lady get banged up more than she oughta."

Pausing so that Chel could fix her hair, he got the door for them and took a deep breath. Almost immediately afterwards his stomach rumbled. Them hush puppies smelled good. "Well lookit that," Dawson said with a laugh as he tugged them to the kitchenette. "Nothin' burned after all!" He extricated himself from her grasp so they could both have free hands to eat, going for the napkins to pluck several of them up at once.

"Syn? Oh she a shield," he told her as he checked the temperature and, satisfied, began to dig in with a loud hum of satisfaction.

Dawson bobbed his head a little, though his eyes were fixed to the hush puppies. He easily devoured the few he had grabbed and had a second handful snatched into his napkin-plate when he remembered the meal was for two. Like the boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar, he slowly returned one and nibbled on the other sheepishly.

"Kinda wish I had a bow," he said wistfully. "Or a gun. I know my way 'round those. Shield's like...I dunno. N-Not that I don't like it," he said quickly with a look to the air, indicative that Syn wasn't of the same mind, "I-I do, she's a beaut, really. N' she took care've me in my first fight real good. Just--it ain't--I dunno..." Dawson shrugged helplessly, then cringed like he was being reprimanded for daring to doubt his weapon. He fell back to just finishing his hush puppy and dusting his growing beard for a few moments, cowed.

"But, uh...y'got blades, y'said?" He whistled. "Damn, son, wish I could see."

Thankfully he didn't catch the innuendo, or else Chel would have had to deal with a choking trainee.

The problem was that "eat what ya need to" to him was an invitation to eat it all, which was what his gut was telling him. It wasn't like how they made it back home, yeah, but it was heaploads better than what he had been eating since he got to the island. His stomach was used to the comfort of a lot of good food, and it didn't show more than when real food was presented. Dawson still remained conflicted, though, because Chel had done most of the work, so eating it all would be rude. But not eating it was also rude. Hrrmmm.

"Naw, don' be, I like it! I think y'did a good job fer a first try," Dawson said bracingly, patting her back. "S'an old recipe anyway. Next time, we can try somethin' else n' Chris'll get dish cleanin' duty." And then, deciding to prove they were indeed edible for the cause, he plucked up a smaller one and popped it into his mouth, giving her a thumbs up as he chewed happily. "Betcha we could make n' awesome Thanksgiving dinner fer some folks if we practiced."

Well, if she insisted...

It was the perfect setup for when Chel started questioning him about Chris. Whereas one opportunity for a choking trainee was missed, this one was capitalized on. Dawson sputtered and coughed on the last few hush puppies, and he ended up having to thump his chest several times and wheeze before he could say a word.

"I-I don'--wha--why'd ya--?" He turned a bewildered look to her, now red as an apple thanks to his near-miss with the food. "Chris's my bro, man, it ain't like that." A pause. "Wait, s'he...s'he like that? 'Cause I don' wanna do nuthin' weird er t'upset him or nuthin'. We friends, man."

He coughed a little more and rubbed at his chest with a wince, though the doting helped. To be honest, Dawson had never really considered things like that. Things had been pretty homogenized at home, most certainly at the private schools his parents had sent him to; nor had he been allowed the college experience that would have broadened his horizons. He was a little at a loss as far was what his opinion was on the matter and it showed; she might as well have spoken Chinese to him.

"S'okay," he eventually managed after a breath. "Ain't nuthin' wrong with askin'...S'my fault fer makin' a fuss. Sawry." Wiping the grease off his fingers into his shirt, Dawson draped his arm around Chel again to comfort her in return. "Yer, uh...just lookin' out fer him, yeah? S'what family does. Y'ain't in any trouble, darlin', don'tcha go whinin'."