ArchivedLogs:Ice Cream

Ice Cream
Dramatis Personae Micah, Jax, Billy
In Absentia	6 July 2014 Late night grocery run!
Location <NYC> Chinese Grocery - Lower East Side
Just outside of Chinatown, there is a Chinese grocery where one can get all of their Chinese cooking needs. The stuff here is cheap, yes, but it is all well known labels with translations provided, as opposed to the really authentic shops where those who cannot read Chinese characters would likely fail to understand what they are buying. The linoleum is white and gray, but has taken on a yellowish tinge, despite the scent of chlorine and frozen fish hanging around in some of the refrigerated food aisle. All manner of brightly colored packages of premade noodles draw the largest crowds, as well as the bulk prices on tofu and squid. It's late on a Sunday, but that doesn't stop the last-minute shoppers rushing through the grocery before it closes. The items are rather /picked over/ by this time of day, but that is mostly a problem for fresh produce and seafood. Micah's cart is full of an /odd/ assortment of things. A gigantic container of toilet paper, an assortment of feminine hygiene products (obtained after the fact...this is what happens when it's all men stocking for an influx of people), a container of gauze (who knew they even sold that here?), some specifically requested soaps and lotions and such, and various and sundry cans, bottles, and bags of edibles. Micah is dressed as he has been all day, weekend-casual in a Doctor Hooves T-shirt and faded bluejeans, sneakers on his feet, and an olive newsboy cap perched atop the tousled auburn hair on his head. "Okay, List Keeper. What else d'we need t'get before the folks here start givin' us the 'go check out' eye?" he calls over to Jax. "Headache pills," Jax answers, "/lots/. Um an' we don't /need/ no ice cream but the swing the weather's been takin' I can't imagine anyone'd say no." He is motoring along behind his husband in a mobility scooter, its wheels and sketched outline along its body glowing Tron-like in blue-green LED. /He/ looks kind of a little ragged, half his face swathed in bandaging and a rainbow tie-dye cast on one leg, a peppering of half-healed burns and scrapes sprinkled down his arm and good leg. In contrast to his usual flamboyant attire he's just in black cargo shorts, at the moment, paired with a red t-shirt that reads 'All My Heroes Have FBI Files' around a picture of a monkey wrench. Like any responsible twenty two year old, Billy Sharpe is out of food in the middle of the night, on a Sunday when all stores are about to close. He spent the day screwing around and got absolutely nothing done that he needed to. Behind the sling his right arm is in, he wears a white and silver-sleeved baseball tee and white straight-leg jeans, their cuffs rolled up neatly above his sneakers. He rushes through the automatic door. Perhaps the blonde was expecting some dramatic and finite bricking-over of the entrance to occur because by the look on his face, his entrance was a bit too anticlimactic. Awkwardly, he picks up a red shopping basket with his off-hand, clearing his throat and calming down as he cruises forward into the store. One of the baggers by the cash registers glares and scoffs at him, forcing a sorrowful pout to cross his face. He's going to need a gallon of something comforting. Shifting towards a legitimate aisle, Billy veers towards the freezer section with the ice cream only after he's out of the judgemental bagger's line of sight. "Prob'ly we should get a few dif'rent types an' let folks take their /pick/. Don't even wanna guess at the variety of head-hurts we've got hangin' about." Micah moves to the other side of the aisle that they're in, conveniently, selecting /several/ bottles to tumble into their cart. "S'a good thing I brought the insulated bags. Might-could-be we'll get the ice cream home without it meltin' entire." Taking the helm at the cart once again, he changes directions, eyeing the aisle labels as he moves into the frozen goods. "Hm. Prob'ly should get some regular kind an' some nondairy kind. What flavours d'you think? Could likely just get a /dozen/ boxes an' it wouldn't be too much." He gives his head a little shake at that. There doesn't seem to be enough of /any/ consumable good these days. "A dozen'd be gone in a day. Maybe two. M'fair sure some'a those kids ain't had ice cream since -- Billy!" Jax interrupts himself mid-sentence as he follows Micah into the ice cream aisle. His eye lights, a quick smile brightening his expression, though smaller than his usual with half his face bandaged up. "/Hey/. How's it goin', how's the arm? You been – aright?" Just then opening one of the glass doors to the cold storage with his back to the rest of the aisle, Billy quakes and hunches inward as his name is called. The door flaps closed on him, setting him off kilter briefly. "Oh, hey," he turns, laughing quietly at his own antics and bringing his hand up to run sheepishly through his hair. He doesn't seem surprised by Jackson's injuries, though his eyes do go all glassy and widen at seeing them up close. "You caught me," he thumbs towards the ice cream, paling in place of blushing. His attention darts only briefly to Micah, to whom he nods and mouths out a nice enough, if not shy greeting. "Since Billy?" Micah echoes back, confusion tugging one of his eyebrows upward. "'Fraid I ain't never heard that sayin' before." Not that he'd connect the calling out with the figure mostly hidden /in/ the freezer at the time. "Oh! Oh. Person." He nods in realisation. Clever detective work, really. "Evenin'," is offered with a little wave. Micah doesn't move any further toward the goal of ice cream in the freezers, kind of worried that any such motion will /spook/ the kid away like a rabbit. "Billy -- was in class with me in high school," Jax explains, rolling his scooter to a halt beside Micah. "Um -- 'pologies," /his/ blush is very red as it floods his cheeks, "didn't mean to -- do no /catchin'/, we're jus' kinda on a last-minute run. Billy, this is my husband Micah. Micah -- Billy. We ain't -- meanin' no interruption," he says apologetically, lifting a hand to run it lightly over his tattooed scalp. "S'good t'see you up an' -- aright, though." Blink. Blinkblink. Blinkblinkblink. Billy smiles, quite genuinely but only after a solid thirty seconds of being shocked and impressed. Micah doesn't look like Mr. Burns or that old guy from Best in Show like, at all! "Oh, hi! It's great to finally meet you!" He lets the freezer door close, slapping his left hand at his side before happily offering it up to Micah. "I forgot to go shopping and have like, no food in my house. So, naturally. I went for ice cream." Is he talking too much? He's definitely nodding too much. "Aha, that explains... Hi, nice t'meet you." Micah's cheeks are colouring faintly now, as well, for no other reason than /redhead/ and people /around/ him are blushing. It's contagious. He doesn't offer a hand until Billy does this first, again afraid of too-sudden movements with this kid. He extends the left one, for ease of left-handed shaking. "Hot as it's been t'day? Sure that'd be enough people's first pick. We're prob'ly gonna snag a fair dozen of the things, so y'might wanna pick your flavour 'fore we clean it out." This last comes with a chuckle and a nod back at the freezer. Jax's smile blossoms warm again at the /eventual/ appearance of Billy's smile. There's a touch of amusement to it, laughter buried warm in his voice. "You looked -- kinda. Shocked. I /told/ you I was married, didn't I? I coulda sworn I mentioned." His cheeks have darkened further, one hand lifting to rub at the back of his neck. "Oh, get some plain vanilla an' some plain chocolate an' then -- then it don't really matter, get a /variety/. An' some coconut or soy milk if they got it. Oooh get a green tea kind an' a ginger, lotsa other groceries don't even carry those. -- apologies," he adds again, though this time with a sheepish grin, "we /are/ kinda maybe gonna be emptyin' out a /lot/ of the shelves, s'kinda an ongoin' slumber party back home." "Yeah, you did," Billy confirms, too smiley to be lying, though it's mostly directed towards Micah. "I thought you married like, a really old man for some reason," the blonde shifts his eyes, grin widening uncontrollably. He giggles, side stepping towards the non-dairy selection before those two can clear it out. "I don't know, you have adult kids with restaurants and stuff!" He gestures wildly, giggling more. Since Billy is going for the nondairy, Micah digs into the regular-cream varieties first, fetching the vanilla and chocolate and strawberry and a few more creative flavours. These are zipped away into insulated grocery bags to help prevent /melt/ before they get home. "Well, won't go sayin' /adult/ as of yet. The twins're seventeen an' Spence is nine. Also, they're adopted. An' actually this one was fosterin' 'em 'fore I came around." Micah sounds rather tickled through all this, voice muffled now and then as he tends to the ice cream. "Though, t'ask Shane, I'm ancient, anyhow." Jax presses his fingers to his lips, stifling a giggle of his own, now. "Oh. Oh /gosh/, I /did/. Micah's pretty much /ancient/, jus' ask any'a our kids. He's like. S'gonna be /twenty-eight/ this year, practically in the grave already y'hear Shane tell." He drops his hand to his lap, mirth still lighting his expression. "But yeah the kids is all -- all adopted, ain't neither of us /quite/ really old enough for kids /we/ made t'be graduatin' high school. Ain't adults jus' yet, though, don't rush it none." He crinkles up his nose at Micah, giggles returning. "Don't /you/ rush it neither Spence'll be eight another month're two yet." Billy sets down his basket and holds the door open with his hip. He's getting pretty good at being one handed! "Still, that those are like, really old kids! I didn't want to ask, you know?!" He holds up said hand in mock-defense before using it to latch onto a pack of ice, which he'll be using to keep his ice cream cold. "That *is* a lot of mouths to feed. Do you guys do all the shopping for that whole group or just your little band?" "Alas for me. Lookin' on thirty some bare few years out." Micah mock-swoons, wrist to his forehead, /Southern/ played up in his accent more than it has any right to be. "Oh, Spence'll be nine soon enough, I was just bein' honest about it. T'tell the truth, I /could/ claim 'im as my own in the /traditional/ sense an' people wouldn't look at it too crooked. Since I'm ancient an' all. People do usually assume it when we're out." Another chuckle comes at the question of their shopping habits. "Usually, it's just shoppin' for us an' Spence. We're in a community with shared kitchens an' all, too, so I'll shop for that often enough, seein' as I got a vehicle t'haul the stuff in. But we got a passel of visitors on top of that right now." Zip-zip-zip, the ice cream is all tucked away safely. "Not t'worry, we ain't plannin' on eatin' all this ourselves." "Speak for yourself," Jax says cheerfully, "I'm layin' claim to like /five/ gallons'a the non-dairy stuff /jus'/ for me. I was only pretendin' it's for the community it was a sneaky ploy to get more sugar into myself." He leans back in his scooter, looking satisfied at the /haul/ of ice cream Micah is piling into the bags. "Kinda special times right about now. But honestly, we're Southern. I cook to feed an army even when I ain't /got/ an army, an' usually folks'll turn up. Most all m'friends know our door's always open if anyone wants t'stop in for a meal -- so we get a lot of people. Turnin' up. S'kinda nice, you should stop by. If y'ever want ice cream. Our community kitchens is real good about labeling everything too." Billy continues to smile, half-overwhelmed by the sheer Southernness, "Yeah, I was totally going to grab two for myself." He shifts his eyes, doing just that. "Well, I'd love to one of these nights! I'm allergic to like everything, though. He makes a show of scanning the ingredients of the carton he picks up. See?! Also, he's just picky and not allergic to half as many things as he says. "So, sometimes it's too much." The blonde gestures with the ice cream as he swan-dives to put it in his basket, "You guys are so conscientious! Let me know if you ever want a hand." "Like we don't have enough sugar sittin' 'round just in the lemonade an' sweet tea an' whatever y'baked that day. You give yourself a belly ache eatin' too much ice cream an' I don't wanna hear about it." Nevertheless, Micah shifts over to the non-dairy freezer once Billy has made his selections, grabbing green tea and /two/ gingers and a handful of other flavours. "Just let us know your allergy list when you're wantin' t'show an' we'll try t'accommodate the cookin' accordin'ly." The next batch of ice creams finds its way into insulated bags, zipped up all cozy. Micah shakes his hands out once all this is done, fingers gone /cold/ with all the handling of frozen goods. "Pssh as a bona-fide adult it is my God-given right to eat unhealthy amounts of ice cream as I like /and/ then pout when it comes back t'bite me." Jax is cheerful about this, rolling his scooter a little bit forward so he can reach over and take Micah's hands into his own, ferocious warmth counteracting the ice-cream cold. "Tuesdays is a good night for swingin' by, there's gamin' on even if y'ain't keen on dinner alone. -- Oh. Oh gosh." For a moment his teeth wiggle carefully at one lip ring, a thoughtful expression quieting his smile, though it doesn't fade altogether. "How're you in the kitchen we could use /so/ many hands these days, it's kinda a full-time job for a bit." "Really bad," Billy nods happily, "But I'm good at doing what I'm told?" He slips out of Micah's way, pushing the basket with his foot. "Oh, yeah. I've been invited to that before, Tuesdays, I mean." He grunts as he finally forces himself to lift the basket, flimsily swaying with its weight, "It's just kind of intimidating." "Maybe t'eat it, but I think y'lose the poutin' right along with gainin' the adult bonafides," Micah counters, though he sure isn't turning down the offer of warmth. At least for now...it'll be another story back out in the humid-heat. "Ohgoodness, sometimes I think he'll start conscriptin' folks off the street t'help with cookin'." His head shakes at this, though he still wears a lopsided grin. "I got one more day off t'morrow, sugar. Enough folks out on vacation that I wouldn't've had that many appointments /not/ related t'the most recent group comin' in at the Clinic anyhow. Gotta head back on Tuesday, though. I'll try t'build up the stock of casseroles an' whatnot in the fridges 'fore I go back." Once his hands are no longer frigid, he returns to man the well-laden cart. "No need t'be intimidated, if y'wanna come. Can always break folks in easy with a game of Dixit with me'n Spence. He loves that one. Usually start on those kinda games 'til his bedtime, anyhow." Micah starts the cart rolling down the aisle again. "We should get t'checkout 'fore we hold folks up on closin' an' gettin' home." "No way, you signed up for dealin' with poutin' when you put this ring on me. You get warmth t'thaw your ice cream hands in return," Jax informs Micah, words edged with laughter. "An' gosh, yeah, but extra hands choppin' an' mixin' is always nice -- well. I mean. Or any of the other million things that come along with a influx'a guests, but most people ain't /quite/ as keen volunteerin' for cleanin' an' laundry duty." Jax shrugs, giving Billy another quick smile. "Well, ain't quite so /lively/-social other days so you're welcome any time. But s'a kinda mellow group Tuesdays anyhow, so long as you don't try playin' no Smallworld with Flicker that gets cutthroat." He sits up a little straighter when Micah starts moving again. "Oh! Right. Right it's /night/ an' we're doin' /errands/ an' -- s'good to see you, Billy. Y'have a good night, yeah?" He pushes his scooter back into motion, whirring after Micah down the aisle. "Oh, right!" Billy looks around as well, somehow making direct eye contact with that grocery bagger and shuddering, "Well, I mean, I'll see you around. It was really nice meeting you!" He shifts his weight with the basket, relying mostly on his hip to carry it as he starts to waddle away. “Really? I don't remember nothin' 'bout poutin' in the vows...” Micah teases, clearly no real bite to his complaints. “Have a good night, Billy.” One of his hands lifts from the cart handle to wave as they make their way to the checkout.