ArchivedLogs:Praise the Pesto

Praise the Pesto
Dramatis Personae Jim, Lucien, Shelby, NPC-Lily, NPC-Matthieu
In Absentia	28 January, 2013 Lucien's house is apparently the happening place to be. Whether he wants it to be or not.
Location <NYC> Tessier Residence - Greenwich Village
Understated opulence claims this spacious and well-kept townhome, the decor throughout the whole of it of the highest quality and carefully chosen. The front door opens onto the entrance hall, a closet close at hand to receive coats and shoes -- the pale hardwood floors gleam underfoot, unsullied by tracked-in mess from outside. The living room beyond the entrance is all dark woods and pale earth tones, comfortable couches and armchairs and a thick soft rug laid down beneath. Two large and painstakingly aquascaped aquariums flank the entrance to the dining room, with several brightly coloured species of fish within. Most of the rest of the wall space, notably, is taken up with shelves -- shelves crammed with books of every subject and genre. Through a doorway lies the kitchen which, in contrast, is sleek and modern and well-appointed, stocked by someone who takes their cooking seriously. And takes their alcohol equally seriously -- to one side of the kitchen there is a fully-stocked bar. The back door to the kitchen looks out on a small well-kept garden. Outside the world is grey but growing whiter; misty rain has recently turned to snow, and where the ground is not ice-slicked or slushy it is growing a light dusting of snow. Inside Lucien's house, it is warm, at least. There's music playing, from somewhere, Mendelssohn quietly filling the downstairs with violin music. Lucien's brother is curled up in an armchair in the living room, tucked snug into a nest of blankets and dozing with Octavia Butler's /Kindred/ still open in one hand. In the kitchen, Lucien is /fretting/. At least, his brow is furrowed as he pokes at one of the many windowboxes of herbs, the cilantro wilting and the basil, although doing /better/, somewhat sad and stripped of much of its leaves. He has a black apron on over his clothes -- green v-neck tee shirt, neatly tailored jeans -- and his hands contain a good helping of flour dusted onto them. The counter contains a good number of small ridged balls of dough on a tray, though a large bowl beside it has more dough yet un-gnocchi'd. DING DONG DING DONG DINGDONGDINGDONG* That's Shelby at the front door, leaning on the doorbell. She's bundled up against the cold and wet, but with plain (and ratty) sneakers on her feet, there are parts of her that are cold. She wants in, damn it! She also wants to escape the gimlet stare of the cabbie standing several paces behind her, his arms folded and his expression grim--and easily decipherable. -Someone- told him that the occupants of -this- house would be paying him. Better hurry, the meter's still running. Soft slush washes up onto the curb as a second cab pulls up behind Shelby's. Emergent: a plaid fedora with a black band that is only /just/ beginning to tatty. Thrift store fare, but worn dapper and cocked forward over Jim's stubbly-graying face. "-yeah yeah, /gimme/ a minute, christ," he's snipping at the driver, who is turned around in the front seat and very /rapidly/ telling him things in Sudanese. He has his jacket slung over a forearm, exposing an equally thirftstore-find argyle sweatervest, and he's jogging around the side of the cab towards Lucien's doorstep -- NO, he does not even pause, jogging right up the steps like a bull, "Get outta here, kid, 'fore someone calls you in for squatting. Don't you got someone to accuse of hitting on you somewhere?" It's a minute before Lucien washes his hands, dries them off -- he doesn't remove the apron, though, padding barefoot to the door to open it and gesture inside. Somewhat, perhaps, fretting still, his words spill out in French and English nearly in equal parts, mostly due to the overuse of cursing sprinkled in them; "Jim, {thank God}, my {fucking} basil -- it takes so {gods damned} /much/ to make pesto and Matt -- Shelby." There's a brief frown, and then he shakes his head, gesturing them /both/ in. "Goodness, it's terrible out. Shoes, please." He waves to the hall closet, which evidently collects shoes and coats to leave the /rest/ of the floor gleaming. "Hey!" Shelby's complaint is high and sharp--she doesn't like bulls, apparently. "Fuck off, I got -invited-! He said he's cooking!" she goes on to claim, just as the door swings open and Lucien is there chattering at them. Them? No, at -Jim-, which leaves the teenager decidedly out of sorts. Also, her feet are frozen and -wet-. "Oh hey, hot stuff! What's putain de mean?" The question is innocent; the finger she swings back to jab at the cabbie less so. "That dude says I owe him like twenty-five bucks, you got it? Thanks." Not that she's waiting for an answer. Before Jim can get past her, Shelby elbows by him and sweeps into the front hall--where she promptly lets her jaw go slack as any yokel. "Holy -fuck-, man..." Jim's got his face a little better, but he's not doing anything to hide the high-eyed sweep of the entryway he takes in as he steps up through the door, "Uh, dude, you're barely speaking English. No parley... hablo, man. The cabby outside's like having kittens or something, /as we speak/. Think you might wanna throw money at him, he seems like he might put a tire iron through the window." All called conversationally while pulling off his shoes, exposing damp socks with a hole in the big toe. He's /grinning/ now, AT Shelby, at the rooms he's sort of ambling through like a stray dog, seeming absurdly delighted by the angryFrenching, or maybe just the bizarreness of being here, /gloriously/ shabby. "So where's my patient, huh?" Lucien stays by the door. Rubbing at his eyes with his fingertips, eyeing the slushy grey world beyond. With its impatient cabbies. "Ah --" This is all the answer /either/ of them get, at first. Lucien is slipping back into the hall, opening a door -- it opens into a study with /even more/ books surrounding the futon and computer desk, though these are walled away behind glass -- and moving to the desk to nab his wallet. The others are left to roam, for a short while. He is shoving on his shoes so he can go outside and tend to the taxis. In the living room, Matt stirs on the couch but doesn't wake. His book slides down to the floor. "Thanks, man!" Shelby calls after the poor departing Lucien. She is untroubled by his troubles and deeply distracted by peeling off her sneakers, and the three pairs of gross socks that cover her feet. After that, her coat, a hoodie, a sweatshirt and a sweater leave her in a long underwear shirt and jeans to tag along after Jim--scowling, for effect. "What, you're a doctor now--oh fuck." Guess who just spotted Sleeping Beauty on the couch? The volume of her voice snaps down into a whisper immediately afterward, proving she isn't heartless. "...whoa, hey, who's that? He looks, uh." Kinda sick, which makes her rethink her question to the private dick. "S'old Luci's brother, Matt," Jim stands for a moment looking at the sleeping young man, his mouth compressed, and then casually stoops over to pick up the book, mark the page by folding down its corner and sets it on whatever surface is nearby. "He is." Jim doesn't read minds; he just has the air of a man that's been here before, even if he hasn't been here-here before. And then roam he /does/, looking down at the lush rug passing under his holey socks and then gravitating to the fishtanks, to SQUINT at the fishies inside, mouth-breathing. There are many fishes. One tank has freshwater. The other, more colorful, has saltwater. A small black seahorse pokes its snout up against the glass. Lucien returns shortly, a little bit damper, dropping his wallet down onto the coffeetable beside Matt's book. "Glad you could make it." He could be speaking to either of them. The quiet pleasantry is rather dry in inflection. He continues on through to the kitchen, turning on the sink to wash his hands. "Jim, can you revive my basil? I got nearly a cup off of it but I am worried if I take more I will kill the thing. The cilantro is not looking too great, either. It has been so cloudy. What happened to /your/ doctor, Shelby?" Or maybe she is heartless. "Is it contagious?" Shelby whisper-asks, already putting some distance between herself and the young man on the couch. Her destination is not the fish tanks but rather the bookshelves, which she studies with interest--but no touching because her current sponsor has taught her well and put the fear of God into her regarding books on shelves. She even tucks her hands behind her back, crossed at the wrist, the fingers of the right idly plucking at a band-aid decorating her left palm. "Damn, he's got more books than the doc...uh?" She whips around with a preemptively guilty look splashed across her face. "My...he's cool, I guess? Working lots. I haven't been back in a little while," the girl goes on as she falls into Lucien's wake, "but last time I checked holyfucklookitthisplacejesus." "What doctor's this?" Jim ambles in along in Lucien's jet stream after giving the glass a little /tap/ to match the seahorse - he probably left a fingerprint, tried to wipe it with a rumpled handkerchief, left a /smear/, and then quickly shuffled away. He stands in front of the plants with his hands still crammed in his pockets, "Uh. So. Which one's basil? I can perk these bad boys right up," he pokes the cilantro, "but y'know they're gonna get /bigger/. I've split a few pots." The /idea/ of all that dirt spreading makes him wince guiltily. "I saw him the other day. In the park. He looked busy." Lucien dries his hands on a towel, slinging the towel over his shoulder afterwards. Jim's question earns a blink, puzzled. "The basil is --" He pauses, drifting over towards the /many/ herbs in window boxes and tapping at the basil leaves. "Should I get a new pot. I have new pots. Outside." He gestures vaguely towards the back door, which, presumably, leads Out. It certainly looks like an Outside Door. "What did you do to your hands?" He's not, in fact, asking this with what seems like a good deal of /concern/. At least not for Shelby's hands. He's eying the plucking and eying his rather spotless kitchen, considering both of these things with a frown. In a blink of an eye, a slight blonde girl in a black hoodie steps backwards into the parlour. With the exception of a flicker of movement in the corner of Lucien's vision, there's no one to see her arrival, as she steps precisely into the a wedge of unobserved living room. Adjusting her bag with her eyes closed, the girl prepares to step forwards once more and vanish from the home as if she were never there...until Shelby, freaking Shelby, whips around and catches a glimpse of her in the reflection of the fishtank. The plane of unexpected perception hitting in her in mid-Step sends the girl off balance, her arms pinwheeling as she stumbling into full view, staggering as she tries to regain her balance. "Welp!" "The guy I'm staying with. Kinda staying with. He's -always- busy. I'm like, trying to hook him up with someone and all he said was, "Oh god, Shelby," like it's some big fucking thing to -not- work," Shelby says. She is Very Interested in what Jim intends to do with the plants and not above inserting herself into the physical space the men are occupying in order to get a better look. In the process of doing so, she has to step around--and that chance glance off to the side spies her a blonde. The teenager isn't alarmed, per se, mostly because this isn't her house and god only knows who and what Lucien has tucked into this palace, but she does look puzzled. And puzzlement takes precedence to answering the question about her hands: "Okay, so we got a Matt...who's that, then?" "Uuuuuh," Jim doesn't sound... really gleeful at the idea of going through all the effort of repotting right here in the kitchen, "Tell you what -- oh, hey. A girl." No, he doesn't know the new girl either, but he is /properly identifying/ what she is at a passing glance. "I'm gonna take this?" He reaches up over the counter to just manhandle down the entire box of herbs, "And I'm gonna take it outside and make a /monster/ of it. Send out whatever else you want grown." He nods to Shelby, who by nature of her status is nominated as The Help that will /bring/ said plants outside. He then hoists up the box in either hand and marches off with it. 'Scuse me, important plant business. No MEATBAGS allowed. He makes his way into the back garden, where he'll be visible from inside, turning little scrawny basil plants and cilantro plants into flourishing monsters. "Ah --" This is Lucien's default reply, tonight, it seems. He stares at the Sudden Girl with stark bafflement, a little bemused as he moves from kitchen to living room doorway. "-- How -- where did you --" These questions are soon overtaken by an /even more/ puzzled: "I know you." His basil is momentarily forgotten. Because, intruder. He should probably be alarmed. He looks mostly confused. "Oh drat, sorry. This is embarassing." Lily dusts herself off, and looks quickly from one observer to the next, confusedly raising a hand to wave goodbye to Jim as he passes and stomps outside, looking back to Shelby as he exits. "Just a victim of a teleportation mishap, I'm afraid. I'm /terribly/ sorry to bother you, if you could all just look at the distraction over /there,/" She points, helpfully, "I can be on my--hold on." She blinks across at Lucien, squinting slightly under the scrutiny. "Oh, Lucy, right? From the library? Small world." Shelby hardly notices that Jim has gone--which is a miracle in and of itself, considering. But Lily has stolen the show and with Lucien joining her in the puzzled-fest, the girl has grown more interesting. She eases up to stand at the man's elbow, peering around him and using him kind of like a shield. Okay, no, -exactly- like a shield, even as she indulges her curiosity. Notably, she is not fooled by the pointing, though ginger eyebrows are raised at the other girl. "You know her?" she asks of Lucien. "Like, should I be not blinking or something? Is she gonna eat us?" Lucien frowns deeper, first at Lily and then downwards. "Shoes," he grumbles, like this is the /most/ aggravating part of the night. "You had best not be dripping onto my floor." He flicks a sidelong glance to Shelby. "If she were a weeping angel, she would be still right now. You can probably blink. -- /Why/ are you in my house?" Lily indignantly crosses her arms over her chest, giving Lucien a /look./ "I was in enough of a hurry to take a shortcut. I was /not/ in enough of a hurry not to take the the bare seconds required to wipe my feet." A puff of breath blows a stray curl of hair out of her eyes, turning her look to Shelby. She's clearly agitated, both by the embarrassing mishap and from the continued scrutiny: she has the expression of one staring into bright lights. "And I'm in /far/ too much of a hurry to eat you. Marinating takes time." With a toss of her head, she sighs and rests her hands on her hips, lowering her eyes and resigning herself to having to give the full spiel. "You know that thing villains do in movies, where you turn your back on them for a second and they're gone? Or you turn around and they're right there? I do that. Yes it's a mutation, and no, it's harmless. I was in a rush because I'm supposed to meet my sister because she apparently got into some sort of fight, so I started skipping through houses but then /you,/" She sighs and nods apologetically towards Shelby, "Saw my reflection and now I can't leave until you all stop looking at me." Pause. "Well. I could run away, but that seems rude, I showed up in your house uninvited and you deserve an explanation. Once again, I'm /terribly/ sorry." Amusement begins to drift lazily from Shelby--if Lily is getting in trouble for wearing shoes in the house, then Shelby can't be getting in trouble for having dirty bare feet. Also, the other girl is just plain funny, between the indignation and the manners. "That's pretty cool," she opines, "I wish I could do that. Sorry about looking. I got this thing." Her hand lifts, the one with the band-aid, and she wiggles it at roughly the height needed to be in her periphery. "People sneaking. Y'know. You'd be a fucking -amazing- ninja." Oh wait, she said her sister got into a fight. That implies a certain amount of urgency. Full of self-importance, she tells Lucien, "We shouldn't look," and then follows her own advice by turning her back. Then immediately peeking over her shoulder, because. "Oh. Dear." Lucien sounds dry as he sinks slightly sideways, resting a shoulder up against the living room doorway. "What is with this city and freaks. Can't turn my back for two seconds and someone is jumping into my -- peripheral vision. That might be the most intruguing power I have encountered yet." He's not taking his eyes off of Lily. He's watching her with blunt curiosity. "Your sister. The nerd. Is she in trouble?" He briefly flicks a glance back to Shelby, and her bandaid. "Is this a week for trouble?" Lily smiles at Shelby, opening her mouth to thank her, but quiets as she gives Lucien a cool look as he speaks. Naturally, she's still there when Shelby peeks. "She's fine. She can handle trouble. But she was spooked enough to talk to the police: apparently the guy she scrapped was some kind of big deal? Something about fake terrorists and enlarging leeches and cartoon bombs." "The week for trouble was -last- week," Shelby says, making another attempt to play lookyloo in the other direction. It is a short-lived attempt. Lucien's fault, mostly, but then there's talk of enlarging leeches and the girl comes back around, startled. A genuine pulse of fear hits her, strong enough that she curls both hands against her chest--either to keep her heart behind the breastbone or to shield her hands, either or. "What, the lawyer dude? She ran into the guy who can grow animals?" And then a huge shrubbery walks in from the outside garden. PRESUMABLY someone is carrying it, but it is massive and obstructing its carrier and smelling green and resplendent of BASIL. "Hey, this enough?" It asks. Like it can get bigger? In his armchair, Matt stirs, finally, at all this Talking. Or maybe the delicious smell of basil. His fingers grasp for the book no longer there, and then he opens his eyes blearily in a squint. At homeless girl. Pixie ninja. Walking shrubbery. "What." That's all he manages to croak. "Close your eyes," Lucien advises him, a little dryly. "You are hallucinating." This might be wishful thinking on his part. He has finally turned from Lily, to eye the shrubbery with eyebrows hiking upwards. "That." He scuffs knuckles against his cheek. "Is. A lot of basil. Ah. I do not suppose you could do the cilantro, too. Maybe -- a little smaller. I hope you all like pesto." So Lucien turns away, but now the guy on the couch is waking up and Shelby's looking her. And now there's a walking shrub. Welp. Lily's irritation vanishes at the sight of Shelby's discontentment, though, and she gives the girl a wide, reassuring smile. "That sounds like him! He thought throwing a giant leech at a Sewer Knight would be a great idea. Turns out it isn't." The pride in her voice is obvious, as she talks about her sister, the hero. You can practically /hear/ the capital letters on that title. Her cheerfulnes abates as she gives Matt a worried look, however, raising her hand and waving to the man. Jeeze, he looks like he's under the weather. "The fuck," Shelby supplies for Matt. Maybe she was wrong about last week being trouble? Or it could be that this one's meant for weirdness. The shrub with Jim's voice is given the dirtiest of looks for not doing a damned thing to settle her nerves. "If y'all keep this up, I swear to god, I'm gonna have to pee," she threatens. "And I fucking -hate- peeing in strange bathrooms so knock it off, okay?" That matter settled, she folds her arms and fixes Lily with A Look, the reprieve only a brief one. "Sewer Knight? Wait, you're tentacle girl's sister?" "Kid, I gotta think the bathroom's here would be a palace against the shitters you been frequenting," the JimShrub opines blandly, wading through all this craziness like it was normal, to deliver the newly potted basil plant in the kitchen. "Yeah," he calls out to Lucien, though to himself he mouths the word 'cilantro?', scanning a critical eye along any other plants present in the kitchen with his hands fisted on his hips. And, idly, he calls out, "Hey, Matt. S'up. I'm in your house, growin' your plants." He doesn't actually know this is a meme; he doesn't know what internet memes ARE, "Who's the chick?" He decides not to bother asking Lucien what specifically cilantro looks like, and instead just wanders along the row, running his hands over the stems of all the growing herbs, spices and otherwise, each dosed with its own hearty boost, whistling off key. "Tentacle girl?" Matt frowns in confusion at this, looking at the others around like maybe? Maybe he /is/ hallucinating. He sinks back down into his nest of blankets a little further, which doesn't, really, make him look any /less/ thin and pale. "Sewer Knight? Um. What's. A Sewer Knight?" He at least inflects this with the /appropriate/ capital letters. "I do not know the chick." Lucien tells Jim this wearily. A little resigned. He's washing his hands /again/. Returning to his bowl of gnocchi, to form new balls, press them lightly with fork tines, dust them lightly with flour. He does all this quick and efficient and very much like he is now trying to ignore the /weirdness/ in his living room. Except to note: "My bathrooms are quite clean." "A Sewer Knight is a knight who lives in the sewers and fights sewer monsters. 'Tentacle Girl' is my sister, who's a metamorph and apparently knows /everybody?/" Lily sighs and shakes out her hair, adjusting her messenger bag and letting a little bit of Tatters-esque grumble creep into her voice. "You wouldn't think this city had eight million people in it. Anyways! It was nice meeting you all, but I do need to be going. I'm sure I'll run into you all later." With a wave and smiles all around, Lily turns and steps around the couch to wander back out into the hallway, hopefully vanishing from sight. "I didn't say clean bathrooms, I said -strange- bathrooms. When you don't know 'em, it's like trying to take a pee with someone watching." What? Shelby thinks this makes perfect sense. Now that Matt has roused himself, she decides to amble on into the living room--coincidentally putting room between herself and the whistling Jim, who earns a suspicious look for his cheerfulness--and take a seat on the couch beside his blanketed feet. Because every invalid needs to bask in the smell of unwashed teenager, right? Her instinct is to return Lily's wave but she manages to keep her eyes averted, instead just calling out, "Tell her I'm sorry for ditching her when the cop showed up!" What times two? Meanwhile, she's checking out Matt with guileless curiosity. "Yeah, cause a /public/ toilet stall is way more private," Jim flourishes up some downtrodden winter rosemary, "Weird fucking thing to be picky on. /I'm/ gonna use the can before I leave this place." He says it like it'll be the exciting highlight of the night, rubbing his hands together like he has PLANS. "Does this city really got like - sewer monsters? I thought that was just some urban legend you city people liked to spoonfeed tourists. Boy, wouldn't /that/ be a sweet set of photos. I've got my eye on this new high speed camera that's got 'sewer monster' written all over it." "Sewer monster?" Matt repeats this a little wide-eyed; he might be horrified or he might be /intrigued/. "What's /in/ the sewers, I never saw anything down there but rats!" He squints at Shelby as she nears, a little uncertain. "-- Hi," is polite enough, though, his smile as warm as badly chapped lips and unhealthy pallor can make it. "Is there a party?" "There's pesto," Lucien answers from the kitchen with his gnocchi, also ignoring Lily's exit. "-- Cops?" He does not ignore that part. Lily's step around the corner is the last she's seen in that home that night, but a few minutes later a note appears unobtrusively in Shelby's back pocket, written in an elegant cursive script and clearly drawn with some manner of expensive art-pen. "Sorry, I completely forgot to introduce myself! My name's Lily." "And I'm a FANTASTIC, ninja, thank you -- when I don't screw up. :P" Shelby is studiously avoiding looking into the kitchen but it doesn't take a psychic to know whom she's addressing when she says, "Man, just when I think you can't get any weirder." Then, "And what the fuck is pesto? I thought I was getting steak or something, c'mon, dudes." It is a hard life and she expresses this via a sigh, sinking back into the plush cushions. Okay...maybe not that hard at the moment. Jitters are rapidly being replaced by the same comfort level of a cat soaking in sunshine--if only she were sharp enough to realize something was being slipped into her pocket. "You were down there?" she asks Matt, curiosity rising. "Huh. Yeah, Sewer Lady said she fights monsters down there. Dunno if it's bullshit but she was pretty damn convincing. She, uh, sprouted tentacles to show me what they looked like." Cops are not mentioned again because Shelby is conversing with Matt and therefore not rude enough to shout into the kitchen. Also she is pretending she didn't hear the question. "What cops?" Jim'll shout from the kitchen; that's how /he/ makes himself at home. That, and the leafiness; the give and take of plantlife has put a nice healthy /green/ to him, with the coarsening of his hands and the sides of his face, with an oddly fragrant herb scent, eyes lively and curious with the little new bud shoots of green rising up from the current pot. "Not much. Sometimes. I mean, you gotta sleep /somewhere/, you know? There's all /kinds/ of shit down there, maybe there's monsters. Never met a kid with tentacles, though." Matt is wriggling himself upright, frowning over towards the kitchen. "Hey, he really /did/ come for the plants." He pushes his blankets down, slightly, attempting to extricate his legs from the tangle. "Hi. I'm Matt. You Luci's friend?" "{Friend.}" Lucien echoes this in French with a healthy dose of skepticism laced into the word. He's moved away from the gnocchi-balls. It is time to strip leaves from his flourishing new herbs. "You know her?" That comes with a nod tipped back towards the kitchen. "Are things always this strange around her?" Because clearly, this is Shelby's fault. Louder, towards the living room: "If you do not like it," he says, blandly and with no trace of /joking/,blandly and with no trace of /joking/"you can get out of my house." Guess who is also ignored? That's right, Jim! Since he is also in the kitchen and Shelby is being -polite-. In her own way. "Hey, we're -talking- here!" she yells back before returning back to Matt. Help is provided by her leaning over to grab at the enfolding blankets, pinning them while he squirms free. "He keeps feeding me, I dunno if that means I'm his friend or his pet," she remarks with good cheer. "I'm Shelby. You're his brother, huh? You're pretty skinny, dude. Is it 'cause of this pesto stuff he feeds you? What is it?" It's harder to ignore Jim considering his role in the plantlife of the townhouse but she puts her best towards it. Cue a more whispery tone of voice. "Is he always this cranky? He was kind of an ass last time I saw him too. Didn't think he'd be all, 'oh yay do come over, Shelby, it would be a pleasure to have you for dinner'." Surprisingly, she does an amazing Lucien impression--even though he never said that. "First time I was around her, I got shot." Jim comments blandly, "And ended up getting the bullet carved out in a hospital morgue under the table by some mutey-lover doctor trying to start up some clinic for freaks. It got weirder from there." "Does /everyone/ know Iolaus?" Lucien's eyebrows hike upwards, like this is the surprising part of the story and not the getting shot. "I'd thank her not to attract any bullets into /here/." He's dropping the leaves he collects into a food processor, joining the basil already there. And other things. Cilantro. Olive oil. Lemon juice. Fresh-grated cheese. Garlic. "Pesto is /delicious/ is what it is." Matt grins in agreement with /this/, at least. "Pesto's great. It's -- tasty. Uh." That's not very much description, but it's what Shelby gets. From the kitchen there is now the noise of Food Processor, so he doesn't even have to whisper to speak under it. His answer of, "Cancer," is contrastingly nonchalant, as is, "he's a little stressed. But, uh, yeah. Usually an ass," which, rather than nonchalant, is quite fond. So long as someone is vouching for the stuff, Shelby's willing to try it--the muscle jumping in her jaw has nothing to do with the prospect of strange new food at all. While still ostensibly ignoring the kitchen duo, she mutters, "That wasn't my fault," before trying to concentrate on Matt. He -does- make it easy with the Big C pronouncement. "Whoa, shit, really?" Her eyes widen after a startled blink and he's given a good looking over. "Wow." She pauses. "You look pretty good for someone who's got cancer. I guess that'd stress me the fuck out too. So you like, live here with him and stuff? Even when he's hooking?" "Can't say he's not putting his money where his mouth is," Jim allows blandly, zero admiration displayed for it. Just a grimace. "Why, who else knows him? He gets word out, that's for damn sure. I'd wanna say you wouldn't catch me within ten city blocks of that bomb-site he's building, but I guess if I get /shot/ again --," did he turn his eyes - their faded blue /extremely/ stark against his leafy pigmentation - meaningfully towards Shelby? "-- I'm not exactly bringin' this to a people Hospital." "He's got a lot of passion." Lucien says this, too, bland and unadmiring. "Shelby is living with him. Because starting a mutant clinic is not /enough/ of a trouble-magnet without inviting --" He waves a hand towards the living room as he switches the food processor off. Sets some water on the stove to boil. Checks on a pan already on the stove. "These things barely take any time to cook," he calls, towards the living room. "If you want something to drink with your meal, you might want to get in here." "Heh, thanks," Matt grins a little, at Shelby's pronouncement. "Yeah. Lymphoma. I live here. Weird, huh. I used to look after /him/." Because Lucien's the Little Brother, even if he's taller. Matt slowly pulls aside his blankets when Lucien calls out, pushing himself carefully to his feet. "You live with the mutant-doctor?" La la la, ignoring! Shelby's gone all gallant and offered her arm in exaggerated lady-like fashion to Matt. Beneath it is an earnest impulse--dude is so skinny! Moves like he's made of glass. What in the hell is lymphoma, anyway? Thank god cancer isn't contagious. "What'd you do, keep folks from smacking him upside the head for being an ass?" The inquiry is a cheerful one but rhetorical in nature. "Yeah, the doc kinda found me freezing my ass off with my guitar and let me stay for awhile. He's not a mutant though. Are you?" She adjusts her pace for Matt's speed, and is a fairly steady escort--until she startles upon glancing over and spying Jim. "You think he'll let me have a bee--whoa! You've gone like, totally hippy!" "Just call me Cilantro," Jim does not miss a beat to make this dreary comment, "My grass-eater folks'd be so proud. You got ginger ale? Sorry to tell you, this night hasn't been enough yet to shove me off the wagon." He stretches out his fingers, closes them, the roughened bark of his hands eases, softens, begins to break up as he starts helping himself to the contents of Lucien's cabinets - looking for glasses, possibly. Or MONEY. "Got passion, yeah. Though I guess drawing lines at who you'd take in at the start's gotta be the definition of failing some kinda HUMANITY test, clinic-wise." "It must be. And yet." Lucien's lips thin, slightly. He's dropping the gnocchi into the water in handfuls. Watching it instead of anyone else. "Hooked," Matt says, bland and unweighted. "But that was when I was pretty." He does kind of move like he's made of glass, careful steps as he leans his insignificant weight against Shelby's arm. Until she startles. He stops, twitching a smile up at Matt. "You do kind of look like a hippie, man. Wood nymph." "Dryad," Lucien says. "And you're still pretty. You can't have beer. I have ginger ale." Gnocchi boiling, he moves to extract a glass bottle from the fridge. It looks kind of like beer! Except it's ginger ale, made from fresh-grated ginger. "What's one beer gonna hurt?" Matt says. "I mean, she can crash upstairs if she drinks too /much/." "Because drunk teenagers are really what we've been lacking around here," Lucien protests, but without as much /firmness/ to Matt as he'd had with Shelby. "Cilantro. That figures. Shit tastes like soap." Shelby recovers from her startle, grimacing and stabilizing her arm for Matt. "Jesus. Someone told me New York was all about the hookers and blow but I didn't believe 'em. And you -are- still pretty. It's all in the eyes, man," she adds for his benefit--something which she probably also tells herself, when staring in the mirror. More grimacing ensues when ginger ale is produced. "Gawd, you guys act like I'm some lightweight...awww. Hey Lucien, your brother is like....-so- much nicer than you are. What's a gnocchi?" Jim uncomfortably open and closes his hands, not entirely comfortable but apparently game to muscle through it, trial-by-fire smirking, "Don't really go green around people a lot." He is setting out glasses - even if he /did/ find them almost immediately and then go on to poking through the rest of the cabinets out of mindless curiosity first - and then reaching out to take the bottle from Lucien. He pours like a professional bartender, with hip cocked against the counter, eyes flicking idly from face to face of the people present, and seeming very little attention on the actual act of pouring. "But I guess I don't usually hang out with other freaks either." "Pasta, made out of potato," Lucien answers. "With grilled chicken and pesto, tonight." Hence his basil /emergency/ that dragged Jim out here. "It is a good look for you. You could use a skirt, though. Leafy. You are surrounded by freaks, now. Is it strange?" "You'd fit in in the garden. You should come back when it's not frozen over." Matt flashes Shelby a grateful smile, maybe for the arm or maybe for the comment, making his -- their -- way to the kitchen table to sit down. "Luci's got good beers. Good ginger ale, too, though. I never liked the stuff till I tried that." Lucien is grimacing. But he gets out a beer from the fridge, a dark chocolate stout, and cracks it open before offering it to Shelby. "My brother is far nicer than I am." "Liiiike you weren't drinking when you were way younger than her." Matt doesn't stick his tongue out at Lucien, but his tone kind of /implies/ it. And then they ate, and Shelby horrified with her table manners...but praised the pesto.