ArchivedLogs:Keeping Score

Keeping Score
Dramatis Personae Jackson, Parley
In Absentia	2013-07-12 '
Location <NYC> 303 {Lighthaus} - Village Lofts - East Village
This apartment is cheerful, in its way -- bright and airy, its floor plan open and a plethora of windows providing it with an abundance of light. The tiny entrance hall opens into a living room, small, though its sparse furniture and lack of clutter give it a more open feel. The decor is subdued and minimalist; black and white is the dominant theme, with occasional splashes of deep crimson to offset the monochrome, though of late myriad bright-coloured dragonflies swarm across the living room wall. The couch and armchair are upholstered in black corduroy, the low wide coffee table central is black wood and glass-topped, and a few large pillowy beanbags provide additional seating by the large windows that dominate the back wall. Towards the back, a couple of doors lead off into bedrooms and bathroom, and to the right, the kitchen's tile is separated from the living room's dark hardwood floors by black countertops. Above the bedroom to one side, there is higher space; a ladder climbs up to a lofted area looking down on the living room. Standing in front of the partition between living and cooking area is a large fish tank: one lone Betta, blood-red, swims regally among several species of black and silver fish. A hallway beyond the kitchen leads further into the apartment. Another bathroom stands just into the hall and the farthest door leads to the apartment's final bedroom, the door usually kept shut to hold in the acrid fumes of turpentine and paints from within. Nok-nok. Nok. After a while, you sort of get to recognize the different knocking styles of your neighbors, don't you. Parley's tend to sound like he's never entirely sure how many to use. ...nok? With the kids already /at/ Xavier's for the night, Jackson has one bit less wrangling to do in the morning. He's still got /some/; there is Spencer to prepare for daycamp, and so his morning is spend preparing breakfast (grits!) and ushering SmallChild through all the appropriate rituals of eating and dressing and washing up. Spencer is, at the moment, tucked in to the kitchen table, focused more on trying to get Jerusalem to pick up his spoon. Jerusalem, having no thumbs or even fingers of any sort, is entirely ill-equipped for this task. What he /does/ have is /webshooters/, and so Spencer's spoon has become a very sticky /mess/. Jackson is in the middle of getting dressed, himself, when the knock comes. It's Spencer who opens it, therefore, /thrusting/ his large robot spider (with sticky-gooped spoon droopily /attached/) at Parley. "I got the spoon!" Spencer informs Parley /happily/. "... he doesn't have a mouth though." Jackson, tugging a ice-blue tank top on to go with black silver-edged capri pants, is hastening back out of the bedroom. "Spence, who're y -- hey, Parley!" He is also fiddling with /makeup/, at the moment; fiddling, for him, involves less of a mirror and more just his nails and eyeshadow running through a /variety/ of shades until one /feels/ like it matches his clothing well enough. "I think /he's/ got the spoon," dressed in usual work wear, a cotton lightweight gray shirt with mandarin collar, black slacks, black belt and shoes, Parley stands upright when the door opens, head turned at a bird-like angle to look down at Spencer from the corner of one eye. A bemused, teasing-/peek/ glance. He reaches out out to tweak the spoon at the end of Jerusalem's spiderleg in a modified mini-handshake. "What are you eating?" He could be asking either boy or /spider/ this question. Less characteristic with adults, his features ease, opening his arms to lightly shepherd Spencer back towards the table. "Jackson-san." He shoots Jackson a mild raise of brows, nodding his head back towards the illusionist's bedroom as he does - He can handle kidWrangling for a moment, while the other man is getting ready. He goes to retrieve a second spoon to replace the thoroughly /spider'd/ one. "It's been quieter in the complex." Since the /teens/ went away. "I'm eating grits," Spencer says, "but he took my spoon." Tugtug? Tug? He might be reconsidering this webshooting option now that he tries to dislodge the spoon from Jerusalem's (not!)MAW. Jerusalem's leg shakes in Parley's smallgrip, a little up-down of articulated spiderleg. "Did you know," he says this to Parley like it's a seeeeecret, "Bastian's going to teach him to /fly/." "You remember what'll get that out, yeah, honey-honey?" Jackson shoots Parley a brief grateful smile -- "I'll just be a sec!", and disappears back into his bedroom. "Oh!" Spencer brightens. "Vinegar!" He beckons Parley to follow even /as/ he is shepherded! /Also/ like he's going to show him a SECRET. He has to clamber up onto the counter to retrieve vinegar. And then it's like a /magic trick/, sprinkling some to make the glue dissolve. And the counter smell sort of vinegary. Along for the ride, Parley is leaning an elbow on the counter, ankles crossed, and - watching the instant effects of the vinegar very closely. "Incredible," he murmurs, making a mental note. Wheels are turning. "-But. You need to eat." He'll let Spencer take his distracted-child time working his way back to the table... As long as he /is/ heading that way, anyway. Parley lurks behind to make sure the vinegar is put away and any droplets have been mopped up. "I didn't know that," solemnly admitted. "Flying would be a superb ability for a spider." He adds, over his shoulder with a little sharp grin. "/Drop/ attacks." "He's a /spy/-der," Spencer informs Parley seriously, "his eyes have cameras. He peeps." He holds his hands up to his eyes, binocular-like, to demonstrate this. Now armed with /two/ spoons, one that Parley retrieved and one damp and vinegary, he seats himself at the table again. Attacking his grits /double-fisted/. "I don't think he'll fly very /stealthy/ though. That's just for fun." Jackson returns in short order, a lightweight silvery button-down shirt layered over his tank top and brightly-coloured mismatched socks on his feet. Makeup settled into a faintly glimmering dusting of pale ice-blue. He pours a small glass of orange juice for Spencer, holding up the carton in offering to Parley. "/Does/ he?" Parley raises his brows at Spencer, moving his sights with more interest back to the spider. "Does he just record through his cameras, or do you have live-feed? - your children are remarkable." He's saying this as Jackson returns, though he doesn't lift his sort of wondering gaze from the spider. He needn't look up to feel the offer of juice, nodding his head, "Yes, please." He's heading to wherever paper towels or napkins are located, to play damage control with whatever chaos might come of a child DOUBLEFISTING(spooning) grits, "...I'm sorry to show up early. I know you have work." One such papertowel or napkin are laid across Spencer's lap. "But there's something I wanted to tell you. That the school should probably be prepared for." "He streams live to Bastian's server at school," Spencer tells Parley, "/He/ captures the video. Bastian. Not Jerusalem. He'd have to be bigger I think if we wanted to store much memory /on/ him." Jackson blushes, his smile the odd parent-proud that -- well, /he/ didn't do the work but he's going to be proud of it /anyway/. He pours /three/ glasses of orange juice, setting two down on the counter and bringing the third to set it in front of Spencer. "Yeah, they kinda are. Did B tell you he got /hired/ at Stark? Like they're payin' half his tuition and everything." He spoons grits into a bowl for himself, and the same offer comes -- "Y'have breakfast? Y'want breakfast?" He's dosing his /liberally/ with maple syrup. "S'alright, we like t'take time with breakfast 'round here anyhow. Did y'need --" but this trails off at Parley's conclusion, brief curiosity warring with a brief /unsettlement/ that somehow harkens back to an earlier memory than what Parley just said. "Oh -- oh. OK. Did you want to --" He glances to Spencer, and then back to Parley, uncertain. "Jerusalem would be excellent for spider reality television." Parley murmurs, dead serious, into his orange juice. The eyes jump back to Jackson, smiling, "I'd heard. It's incredible. And a little humbling - I had to write novels worth of papers to even gain an internship at a lab half as prestigious, years ago. And even then, I was older than he is. You should be very proud. Starks interest in your family has been incredibly advantageous." He follows the indicated glance to Spencer, face set mild. And then nods his head slightly towards the bedroom area, tipping up his juice for a sip. And begins walking in that direction. "Oh man! We could give him a spider youtube channel!" Spencer bounces in his seat, suddenly excited by this idea. "He didn't even /have/ an interest, he actually -- stumbled in," Jackson has a kind of amused twitch to his lips, "drunk, looking for a tattoo. Bastian sort of /cornered/ him when he came back to hound him about --" Jax shakes his head, taking his juice and his grits to start towards the bedroom. "Bastian hounded him before Stark knew he was my kid. I dunno. He's got a lotta chutzpah when there's things he cares about. He's --" His eyes lower as he starts back towards the bedroom, and he doesn't finish the sentence, but the /pride/ is clear all the same. He takes a seat on the edge of his bed, once he's in the bedroom, so that he can rest his bowl on his lap. Drink a large gulp of his orange juice before starting in on his grits. "What -- what's up with the school?" "It may be nothing that really involves the school," Parley rolls his juice glass, watching the liquid inside shift to balance. He's remaining in the doorway with a light open channel towards the lively young mind seated at the table, in case Spencer might come up with any sort of wild mischief outside of supervision. "But. Mn. You should still know." He tucks a bit of hair back out of his eyes. "Oscorp is just now finalizing a variety of anti-telepathy technology that will be putting the company back on the map." Jackson, oddly, does not have so much as a flicker of surprise at this information. Not in his expression, for sure, but in /that/ the illusionist is generally rather /controlled/; but not in his mind either. Just a quiet consideration of Parley before: "I know." Just that, simply. "Told your employer last night was a good time t'buy stock in Oscorp." "Claire?" Parley seems mildly surprised. By much of Jackson's reaction, actually, his brows raising - he looks impressed, if anything. Amused by this turn. "How did you find out so quickly?" "Ms. Basil, yes," Jackson agrees, "she's been holdin' the funds for the -- that was took from the police -- um. It seemed like an investment right about now might be a good way to /increase/ those funds. Give back a bit more to --" His hand skims over the top of his head, his smile a little wry, "-- I might be pickin' up some Oscorp stock /personally/ too though." He stirs at his grits, the smile fading; a faint discomfited flicker of tension in his mind before that fades, too, back into the same pensiveness. "Got a tip." Parley nods, approval rather simple for the choice, "I knew that she was holding it." This is one of those times where even if he weren't meaning to, he would be listening intently to every surface-fragment hint that might dwell in the tension woven through Jackson's mind. The amusement is fading down to something only pensive. Watching Jackson. His head tips on side, brows pulling uncertainly together. "...are you saying you have an informant placed at Oscorp?" "Oh gosh," Jackson says with a startled flare of amusement, an oddly almost /guilty/ twinge in the bright-coloured scape of his mind, "oh, gosh, no. Um. No I -- no. I don't --" He ducks his head into a swallow of grits, focusing for a moment just on the maple-syrup sweetness. "Do /you/ have an informant placed at Oscorp?" he's asking with a sudden spike of puzzled curiosity; and then with greater amusement: "... does this /make/ you my informant at Oscorp?" "I could be." Parley's eyebrow twitches at Jackson's amusement. "You do realize Oscorp will likely be using this success to reconcile with the government laboratories. They can't conduct further studies without access to a large number of telepathic test subjects for their research. And that the success of Oscorp will come directly from exploitation of those subjects." He doesn't sound horrified - almost fascinated, eyes riveted on the illusionist. "I'm not going to tell you what you should or shouldn't do. It's a rare opportunity to make a great deal of money - money that you could very much use. But you should be aware of where this money will be coming from." "Parley --" Whatever Jackson was going to say next is cut back, tamped /down/ beneath a heavy layer of very /careful/ calm. "Oscorp's going to be doing that with or without a few extra shares of their stock bought," is all he says, a mild tone mirrored by the mild calm of his expression. "Do you think I'm --" He doesn't finish /that/, either. Takes another bite of his grits, another sip of juice. "Thank you," is what he says instead, "for the caution." "I don't think anything, really." Parley answers, absently, looking out towards the living area again. "I don't know your full situation, and it's not my place." He looks back around, suddenly seeming entirely bemused again, "--it wasn't /Norman Osborn/ that told you, was it?" "I find that hard to believe," Jackson sounds more amused than anything else, eyes turning back down to his breakfast and the steady calm continuing in his mind. "Why does it matter?" "I would have thought it was obvious," Parley admits, finishing off his juice. "Oscorp is..." he rotates his glass, brows hiking up. "A hinge. In so many things. And Norman Osborn the pin, at the very center. I've been watching him and his company for a while now. I know he knows about Xaviers." Jackson may have lowered his attention back to his food, but Parley is watching him eat. Maybe he wants to see if the other man chews with his /mouth/ open. "And I know he's called you before." "Y'know an awful lot," Jackson says this almost distractedly; he's fishing a pocket of unmixed maple syrup out of his grits to just EAT the spoonful almost straight. With relish. Yum. (He does not chew with his mouth open, for the record.) "That man's taken an almost unhealthy interest in my family," is also mildly distracted, "I don't know what I have to thank for bringing me t'his attention in the first place. I ain't really made'a the kinda stuff that --" He pauses, more for a sip of juice than anything else, "-- moves his kinda mountains." "His eyes are attracted to a spotlight," Parley says, and it's phrased with a touch of gentleness, head tipping to the side to /watch/ him take that syrup shot nearly straight. Maybe he wants to be horrified but - also, kind of, yum. His tone isn't affected, still calm, quieter, "And yours is very bright, Jackson Holland. It's not what you want, but it's what you have. He's knuckled in and /fought/ to build up every deliberate brick of his public image. I would imagine, to /him/," he runs at thoughtful gaze up and down Jackson's figure, "You make it look effortless, by comparison." Jackson exhales a laugh, it's a little shaky, a little wry, his knuckles lifting to scrub against his one good eye. "Yeah," he agrees, with a small twitch of lips, "I suppose from the outside it would. I still ain't really sure what I have to offer him. He doooon't strike me as the sorta man to just -- do things. Out of the /kindness/ of his heart. Without wantin' something back." "That is the thing, isn't it." Parley isn't laughing. At least not on the outside. His lower eyelids are pushing upwards in thought. "And part of why I keep asking if your information is from him or one of your /own/ contacts. His game changes based on what's available. He wants allies. You're his closest connection to Xavier's - and you're an 'in' with the mutant community. If he's able to push through with this mutant school idea of his, he would do well to have both of those things at his back." He shrugs, "It's not likely much of a comfort. But, as you invest in Oscorp - Oscorp is investing in you." He smiles, hard and thin. "Welcome to the game." There's something harder, brighter, crystalizing light a brief prism of light around Jax's always-colourful mindscape with that last sentence of Parley's. "Mmnh," is his noncommital answer, << (funny) >> reflected entirely unhumoured in his mind, though /what/ is funny is not explicated upon. He scrapes the last of his grits out of his bowl, licking his spoon clean of syrup. "And what are you to him, then?" "Hm," Parley reaching out a hand to take Jackson's bowl and spoon. "To Norman Osborn, you could say I am..." A bur slips undertone to his quiet voice, sharp, ambiguous. "...Parley." "Yeah." Jackson holds his bowl and spoon a little closer, less reluctant and more utterly /puzzled/: this is /his/ house /why/ is Parley doing his dishes he is perfectly capable of doing his own dishes. He swallows his juice down in one quick swallow, exhaling heavy through his nose at Parley's answers. "-- s'pose you are," is what he says, standing (with all his dishes very much in hand), starting towards the door. "I gotta get Spence to camp." And himself to work, no doubt. Parley isn't really the sort to /roll his eyes/, but he does exhale through his nose. Stubborn bastard omg, it's dishes. This sort of exchange has probably happened /many times/ by now. He somewhat nods, in that he lowers his head and politely steps out of the doorway so Jackson doesn't have to bodycheck his way to freedom, falling in behind the much brighter shine of the other man, a slinking thing following the light. ... to the kitchen. "--if he contacts you again?" In the kitchen, Spencer has already done his own dishes! Although Jerusalem has webbed one of his spoons again. But the other and the bowl are tucked neatly into the drying rack. Jackson shrugs a shoulder as he washes his own breakfast-dishes. "He's got my number. I'm sure enough he will," is also rather noncommital. "...Could you let me know?" Parley asks, behind him. Gripping his juice glass like he'll BITE if Jackson tries to take it from him without seeming aware of it. "Won't he," Jackson answers mildly. "Possibly," Parley confirms. "It's more when he /doesn't/, that you will probably be in the most danger." "Danger that I wouldn't be in if --" Jackson lowers his eyes to his dishes, rinses them off and tucks them away. "Thank you," he says lightly, "for your concern." "--if?" Parley presses, stepping up to the sink to rinse his own glass. Jackson just shakes his head, drying his hands on a dishtowel and glancing towards the closed bathroom door; there are industrious sounds of toothbrushing coming from behind it. "I gotta get to work. Thanks for --" His lips twitch, not quite a smile, really, "the heads-up." Parley remains at the sink, watching Jackson over his shoulder as he puts his glass away. Slowly, his eyelids are lowering to a more neutral position, "...of course." He straightens the front of his shirt, where a few droplets of water have spattered from the sink. A dish towel resolves it. "Thank you for the juice. I hope I didn't waste too much of your time." As he heads for the door, he pauses at the exit, "If you do take out stock with Oscorp, could you do something for me?" "Didn't /waste/ any," Jackson answers easily, one shoulder hitching up in a shrug. He moves to knock on the bathroom door: "Spence, two minutes, honey-honey," and then shifts his gaze to the man at the door. "What's that, Parley?" "No, I suppose it wasn't." Parley strolls his eyes along the ceiling when he says it, then drops his eyes back to Jackson. "Don't put it under your name? If there's an expose on Oscorp in the years to come," he opens the door, slipping through, "it could make things complicated." Jackson considers this, and doesn't give answer, although he /does/ wonder with a trace of puzzlement: "How is that doin' somethin' for /you/?" Parley pauses, just shy of closing the door. And pokes his head back in through the crack, eyebrows raised way up, "If I answer that, would you actually answer one of my own questions?" This /does/ earn a laugh, a sudden bright flare of amusement that quickly dies back down to level. "Can't really answer that without knowin' the question." "You don't trust me." It's more a thoughtful statement, Parley's face curious-distant. "You never have. Why is that?" "Should I?" Jackson asks with eyebrows raised. "I don't trust most people until they've given me reason /to/, not the other way ‘round." "I knew you would say something like that." Parley taps his fingers on the doorframe in some thought. "And you're probably right to not. Still," he smiles, tipping down his head, "That's not really an answer, is it. And this exchange had already been almost embarrassingly lopsided in your favor. I'm going to make you late." The door closes. "I'll talk to you later." "Not the answer you /think/ I should give don't mean it ain't an answer," Jackson says with a sort of bland resignation, eyes lowering as the door closes. There's a wash of weary puzzlement in his mind for Parley's parting words: "Has it? /I'm/ not," he turns aside from the door with a careful reapplication of /smile/ for his seven-year-old, "-- keeping /score/." Parley offers a soft laugh in return, rippling across the mind and then gone.