Nghhhhhh he loves his brother :(

He is often pretty great! Though of course when she and Zash are mind cuddling like this he can feel the various caveats that thought has, which are many. But. Without those (many) caveats that she's not engaging with because she's trying to give Zash time to relax, Nai (and not Knives) is often great and she does see why he loves him.

Would Zash perhaps like more pets? She can provide more pets. A blank brain is not something she can provide, though. Sorry.

That's why he loves her. Being petted and mind cuddled is nice even when he's having complicated feelings about his mass murderer twin and he's glad that she's the sort of person who won't just pretend his twin isn't a mass murderer for his comfort. It feels...

...this might need some thinking...

...it feels much more solid and real that she's not excusing Nai and she's seeing all of him and she still sees someone worthy of love there. Most people would either just hate him or try to pretend the bad things didn't happen and it's more complicated than that and Yvette understands that and so her feelings and thoughts feel more stable and grounded and not like a whiff of reality is going to send them crumbling, in either direction.

She feels it's inaccurate to point at one singular thing and go 'yes, this, this is why I love this person,' because love and thought and especially people are complicated and more nuanced than that. But she acknowledges that her unwillingness to not admit to herself when she's dumbing down the world for her own convenience and therefore unwillingness to let herself get away with it is a rather major trait of hers, so. As Nai would (apparently, to her delight!) say: legit.

Anyway, she's glad he finds her being a pedantic stickler for details charming instead of insufferable.

Ugh he's not sure there's any point in hiding anymore, he's well and truly awake and apparently hellbent on upsetting himself on his own here.

Hmmmmm, you know what this seems to call for? Breakfast. Maintaining their vaguely mortal seeming forms. Because she's a bit hungry, so she bets he is too. That gives them an actually acceptable thing to sort out that definitely isn't procrastinating at all! Isn't being human-alike sometimes convenient?

...he really loves her. Yes, let's go get breakfast.

Breakfast! Since Yvette hasn't had to eat in days, there's actual novelty to making food, instead of it being a horrible annoying chore she has to do several times a day. She will go fancy and make pancakes!

Zash literally does not remember the last time he had pancakes. Has he ever had pancakes? He must have. At some point. Probably.

Anyway does she want help? He can probably help.

Not really. They're like, three ingredients and then flipping them at the appropriate time, something that can be a bit tricky. He can flip his own pancakes if he really wants? But not hers, because she's pretty sure he's going to mess up his first pancake flip. That is how that works. Either way, he can pick out what kind of things he wants to go in his pancakes. If he wants any at all, that is. (She likes adding the little red synthfruit cubes, personally.)

Uhhhhh. Can. Can he opt out of having preferences actually? He'll just have whatever she's having.

She snorts. Sure, he can opt out of having preferences. But that sounds like she should do a couple with different toppings and see if he has a preference.

... Though, if she's going through all of the trouble of making pancakes at all, and getting out all of the ingredients to properly help people new to pancakes figure out preferences...

"Do you want pancakes, Zazi?" she asks the air.

Nai gets a similar offer, though his is over the psychic plant network. [I'm making pancakes, do you want any?]

The air buzzes with amusement and a couple of flying worms make their way into the kitchen (more visibly than the ones hidden away everywhere).

Does he want... what?

"New plan Zash, you do get to help!" she laughs. "Fetch the various colors of synthfruit and get them hydrated and chopped, I am now running a large scale taste test for all of the strange inhuman people capable of eating.”

[It is a type of food. I'll just go with yes, and leave you a variety plate outside the kitchen, how about.]

Okay?

You know what that's great actually he likes feeling useful he'll help with that.

There are many colors of synthfruit to chop! An entire rainbow. Pink, red, dark red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, and white. She needs them hydrated and at about this size, please and thank you. Keep them separated, she will not be party to a monstrosity of dumping them all in one pancake unless someone really, really wants her to. ... Zazi's going to want her to, aren't they. Sigh. Fine. She'll do one, but it'll pain her.

"If Morgan's out and about and retrievable she can have some too, and I bet she already has preferences. If you tell her pancakes are on offer we might even get into a stupid food argument that you can watch, Zazi."

She's going to need to make a lot of pancake batter for this (especially if Morgan shows up), but it's not like the ingredients are complicated. The chopping is the most tedious part, and that's been handed off to Zash.

Morgan does indeed show up. Her favorite flavor of synthfruit is brown, which is objectively the best flavor, thank you, and she will take a dozen pancakes.

Everyone else can try various types of pancake, though. One pancake per flavor, sliced into thirds for each person who needs to form pancake opinions. Yvette will make more as preferences make themselves apparent. Nai's plate of flavor tests will be politely deposited outside of the kitchen for retrieval at his leisure, because she's pretty sure they'll all be happier that way.

(A part of her notes that quartering the pancakes would have been easier, and that Elendira would have been an excellent fourth inhuman person to be introduced to pancakes, but. … well. That’s not really actionable, is it.)

"This body doesn't have taste receptors, you know," Zazi says conversationally, having brought their body to the kitchen at some point.

"And yet you're here."

"We have antennae!"

"So why bring that up?"

"To let you know there'll be bugs rolling around in food."