Logs:Sound and Furry

Sound and Furry
Dramatis Personae Fury, Jax
In Absentia	2022-06-01 "Guess I shouldn't knock it til I try it, but I'm not gonna try it."
Location <NYC> Detention Facility - Jax's Suite - S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ - Times Square
A bit larger than the other detainee's rooms, this one has been converted from a small corner lounge for the guest rooms. Tall windows with a southern exposure let in copious sunlight if the unnecessarily high-tech curtains are drawn. The sitting area is small but comfortable and the sleeping area beyond it is screened off with interior partitions. There's a bulky desk in one corner with a computer rigged up nicely for video calls and a kitchenette tucked into another. A video comm panel by the front door allows for quick communication with both in-person visitors just outside the door or the security staff down the hall. There's been some small effort in here to make this room homier -- a scattering of cards with messages of encouragement taped up around the desk, a number of sketches (the pups teaching Spencer to ride a motorcycle, Lucien and Matt sitting opposite each other at a chess table whose game has been fully disrupted by Flèche flopping herself onto the table and scattering the pieces, Ryan with his guitar passing a joint across the Chimaera firepit to Taylor, Hive belaying Dawson up a craggy cliffside) tacked up around the walls. The curtains today have seemingly been replaced with a hanging canopy of vines blossoming with unearthly flowers, the floor overgrown with clover through which tiny bee-like fairies flit. Jackson himself, in rainbow tie-dyed shortalls strapped over only one shoulder and a pink tee shirt beneath reading 'ALL MY HEROES HAVE FBI FILES' around a screenprint of a monkey wrench, is tucked at the desk with sketchpad in his lap. The half-finished drawing there -- Steve using his iconic shield as a serving tray to offer a group of protesters small cups of water -- has for the moment been abandoned. His computer has several tabs open -- twitter, email, the wikipedia article for the Thermidorian Reaction, the Stardew Valley subreddit -- but it's currently open to a Crowley/Aziraphale fanfic which has fully pulled Jax's attention away from his drawing. Nick Fury passes through the layers of security, flanked by two agents, though he waves for them to wait out in the hallway as he activate the intercom function on the panel beside Jax's door. He's in a black button-down shirt, black slacks, black boots, with a lightweight black duster that, considering the the season and the fact he is indoors anyway, must be for the aesthetic. He carries a medium sized package with postage labels and "Block Art Materials" printed on the sides, though the comm panel inside the room only shows the deeply unimpressed look on his face. "A word with you, Mister Holland?" his voice says over the intercom. It takes a moment, a blush, a hasty reshuffling of browser windows, before there's answer. Jax has swiveled his chair away from the desk, sketchpad on his lap now and pencil spinning restlessly between his fingers. A cheerful storefront-style sign appears hanging on the doorknob: Sorry, we're CLOSED 😦 it reads for just a moment before flipping itself: Come in! We're open! 🌞 Fury raises his right eyebrow at the illusory sign and huffs a breath before letting himself in. << Illusionists. >> He looks around and approaches the inmate of this admittedly cushy prison. << Well, they weren't kidding, it sure is bright (is it bright enough?) >> "Good afternoon. I believe this is yours." He sets the box down on an empty wing of the desk. "Mail room thought it was a bomb and went through it with a fine-tooth comb." The grave expression of the agent who had briefed Fury on the package flashes through his mind, but his poker face does not waver when he adds, "You spelled my name wrong." Fury's black-on-black outfit shifts smoothly as he enters Jax's cheerful prison -- the small buzzing fairies flit over in a cloud of glittering pollen that leaves bright flowers sprouting over the suit wherever they touch. "Oh, art can sure be a weapon but I don't hardly think it means like that. -- thank you, I weren't full sure this would come." Jax's expression lights at the sight of the box, and he spins his chair back towards it. "Did I?" He's glancing to the label on the box, glancing back up at Fury. "Not that this Man in Black thing ain't working for you, cuz it does have a certain kinda flair to it, but I feel like you could really pull off this alter ego. And trust me, I know from furries, a lot of them would go wild for the tall dark and -- coplike." He's flipping through his sketchpad as he speaks -- past several more images of friends, of the view from his window, of the other inmates here at SHIELD with him -- to stop on a picture of a buff anthropomorphic silver fox in a pure black suit, an eyepatch over one eye, sitting behind a desk emblazoned with... not quite the SHIELD logo. The eagle has been exchanged for a silhouette of a sheep, the words emblazoned around it reading: Skullduggery! Hullabaloo! Endangerment! EARTH POLICE! Across the desk, an Irish Wolfhound wearing a star-emblazoned shield on its back has planted his hands firmly on the desk, leaning over it with teeth bared. The black-clad fox looks Very Unimpressed with this. Fury only spares a glance at his flowering raiment before leveling a flat gaze at Jax. << Boy having too much fun. >> He crosses his arms over his chest. "Do I look like I'm interested in putting on a fur suit and larping? Because I ain't." The drawing does momentarily bring him up short, and his single eye narrows as he studies it. << (gotdamn kids)(can save they own damn asses next time)(not how it works, old timer)(Jesus, leave the man have his fun) >> "Guess I kind of figured Rogers for some sort of bull dog, but unlike you I don't know from furries." He shakes his head. "Anyhow, figured I ought to talk to you about orderin' shit off the Internet." << Seeing as we ain't cover that from the start on account of we making shit up as we go why the fuck did I do this. >> "The team monitoring your network traffic will flag any purchases you make for review. We'll get a more comprehensive list of contraband to y'all soon, but in the meantime try not to buy any weapons or illicit substances, aight?" << Like he needs weapons... >> "Do you?" Jax is giving Fury the kind of thorough looking-over that suggests he is probably trying to picture the man larping in a fursuit. "I don't like to make assumptions, it's so hard to tell by lookin' at a man what he might have tucked up in his head." Jax is swiveling his chair idly back and forth, pausing when that last line puts a crooked smile on his face. "So I'd best cancel that crate of guns I got coming in? Shucks, and me a home-grown Georgia boy, you know we can't even sleep without a rifle under the pillow. Guess I'll manage somehow." He bites down at his lip ring, tipping his head up towards Fury. "I ain't tryna be a difficult prisoner, it just kinda comes natural to me," he informs the older man earnestly. "Speaking of -- is food contraband?" "Guess I shouldn't knock it til I try it," Fury allows, "but I'm not gonna try it." << Though I don't look half bad as a fox. >> He sighs and uncrosses his arms. "I wouldn't even know what a 'good' prisoner was, being as I never had any before, but since I done turned jailer anyhow, I'd settle for nobody gettin' killed on my watch." He sounds vaguely fatalistic and feels it much more clearly. "If being difficult helps you get through your day, I don't reckon I got a lot of ground arguing. But food isn't contraband. What you got in mind?" "In my experience, sir," there's something just a little bit tighter in Jax's smile, though his tone is still warm and easy, "when death comes visitin' a jail it ain't usually the prisoners doin' the knockin'." Around them the flowers are withering and receding, the room (and Fury's suit) growing a lot less colorful as the illusion fades. "Just a bit of grocery shopping, that's all. Got a bit of skills in the kitchen and I thought it might keep folks' spirits up a bit if the food felt more -- homey. Some of these men ain't had a proper comfort meal in years." Fury's flat and peevish expression remains firmly in place. << You done upset him. Well, the whole being locked up business probably don't help. >> "That's as it may be, but at the end of the day these agents answer to me, and they being watched, too." The furrow of his brows is asymmetrical, and makes him look automatically skeptical or disapproving or both. "Guess that begs the age old question who's watching me, don't it?" He does not look at Jax's sketch pad, but his mind flashes to Steve leaning over his desk, mid-tirade. He is not an anthro Irish Wolfhound. Not at first. << (never gon' unsee that) >> He rubs one temple idly. "Look. This a raw deal, I know that, and I ain't tryna be a difficult jailer, neither." << Ain't really the same, is it? >> His eye ticks over to the suite's kitchenette. "I reckon you could order groceries delivered direct, but I can also delegate someone to shop for the kitchen out there, on Uncle Sam's dime." He gives a small shrug. << Guess that could be a plus or a minus. >> "They paying us to feed you either way, and the vittles you been gettin's just what we eat. Which..." << What I get for hiring a cracker to manage the mess... >> It's hard to say whether scrunching his left eye, or whatever remains of it beneath the eyepatch, indicates stronger distaste then the right, but the effect is certainly more dramatic where it pulls on his scars. "They tell me it's 'nutritionally complete', whatever the hell that actually means." "Who is watchin' you?" Jax does look to his sketchpad, then back up at Fury with a small crinkle of his nose, a squinch of his missing eye that, in him, looks less dramatic and more simply comical. "All y'all eat that, too? Gosh, I'm sorry." This sounds entirely earnest as he rubs at the back of his neck. "You know, been some pretty solid studies done say our bodies absorb nutrients better when the food actually, ah -- tastes good. Anyway, if Uncle Sam can afford it I sure won't say no to letting y'all pick up the grocery tab. Probably gonna be a fair few spices on the list, startin' out." He bites down at his lip ring again, hesitates before asking hopefully: "Don't suppose I'd be pushing my luck getting a couple plants up in here? All this light in here I could make some fresh herbs thrive. You get a taste of my hoppin' john, you won't regret it neither." Fury gives a truncated bark of a laugh. "Several UN bodies, Amnesty International, and, hilariously, the Department of Homeland Security." But it's Steve he's thinking of again, then Clint (fully human) in a bedraggled suit staring blankly into a glass of whisky, then Lucien (also human, to him at any rate), gripping a dish towel much too tight in an unfamiliar kitchen. A wash of uneasy affection and desire comes with this last memory, followed by an intrigue that's equal parts admiration and suspicion. He crosses his arms again and banishes all of his watchers. "Well, I'll be. My mama, God rest her soul, would approve of that science, and your ambitions." << Oh hell no, he is not winning me over. But what's the harm? >> His previously ignored hunger is making itself known now, and he's considering the cafeteria offerings without enthusiasm or dismay. "You can grow your herbs. We're fixing up the roof so y'all can go up there. You want to plant something -- well, you figure it out with the science folks, they got a whole 'green roof' goin' on." Something brightly surprised flutters in Jax's expression, widens his eye. There's a bright curiosity in his expression that, with a shake of his head, dissolves into a brighter smile. "I do surely appreciate it, sir. Kinda always figure when life gives you --" His eye is ticking briefly around the comfortable "cell". "-- lemons, s'a good time to bake up a whole batch'a lemon tarts. -- your science folks good gardeners? I be real excited to see what's up there." He plucks up his sketchpad, carefully tearing the Nick Furry drawing free. "Now, I know it ain't much of a thanks, but I think you should find a home for this." "They sure put a lot of plants up yonder, but me n' my black thumb can't tell you how sophisticated it all is. I'll send someone down, they got planters, dirt, all that jazz, but --" << Jesus H, Fitzsimmons gon' lose they whole mind >> "-- if they start tryna rope you into any science, that ain't allowed and you go right on ahead and tell me or Coulson." He blinks, and is slow if not obviously reluctant to accept the drawing. << (is he mocking me)(art's good though)(where the hell would I even put this) >> "Don't see that you got a whole lot to thank me for, but you work on your grocery list -- all y'alls, if anyone else interested -- Coulson'll be by to make it happen." << Maybe I am goin' soft, but there's plenty worse things to be. >> He looks down at the drawing in his hands and casually salutes Jax with it. "I'll see you around." Then, after an extremely short hesitation but before he turns to go, "Thank you."