ArchivedLogs:Guess Who's Coming To Dinner

Guess Who's Coming To Dinner
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Hive, Isra, Jax, Shane, Steve
In Absentia	2015-11-09 "{Take care of him, okay, he's kind of like a goddamn /puppy/.}" (Part of Flu Season TP.)
Location <NYC> {Lighthaus} - Harbor Commons - Lower East Side
Bright and sunny-light, this house lives up to its name. With a plethora of enormous windows flooding the place with light and an open layout, the ground floor feels more spacious than it is. The small entryway has a closet space for shoes and coats, and doors at either side leading to the neighboring apartments. Past this it opens straight into the living room, a wide expanse of space bordered on one side by a curved set of stairs leading up (with colourful glass tiling on the risers between each stair) and next to these, the half-wall into the kitchen. Cool pale tile underfoot and many dark cabinets with a small walk-in pantry, plentiful custom granite countertops, black and speckled faintly with rainbowy flecks, lots of hanging space overhead for cookware, a large double-oven. There's a strip of rather detailed mosaic-work in the kitchen backsplash, colourful glass tiling depicting strange fantastical herbs and small faeries and firelizards darting among them. In back of the kitchen, a door opens up to a small sunroom, wide and two-stories high with a balcony overlook from the second floor; two of the windows here have cushioned windowseats, and there's a wealth of herbs growing in hanging pots and small window-boxes. The back wall of the living room is nearly entirely dominated by windows, huge and allowing a view of the river beyond with bench windowseats lining the sills. There are plentiful paintings on the wall, surreal and fantasy-inspired, mostly in shades of blacks greys with bright bursts of colour that are mirrored in the decor -- monochrome upholstery on the couch and armchair but colourful throw-pillows, black and white huge corduroy beanbags (and one large red doggie-bed,) soft throw rugs also in mostly black and white with splashes of rainbow woven in. The hand-built furniture -- tall chairs by the kitchen/living room counter, dining table and chairs in the kitchen, low coffeetable in the living room -- has been hand-painted as well, black with bursts of colourful abstract designs. Along the living room's other wall, doors branch off to a full bathroom -- in white and deep blue with one wall of the shower done in colourful intricate mosaic too, an underwater scene full of strange mythical water-creatures; tiny water-sprites have been interspersed at random points in the rest of the wall tiles, as well. There's a small studio space beside the bathroom, large windows as well and a gratuitous amount of shelving and cabinets along the walls; this room has very /little/ colour in it, just white walls and black furnishing. Tonight Lighthaus is bright. Bright, bright, /bright/, lights all switched on and warm and full of music -- Rebel Diaz's "Otro Guerrillero" segueing into Evan Greer's "Ya Basta!" into Ryan Black's "Brighter"; it's evidently a night for protest music. Jax is singing along, cheerful if not always on-key, where he stands in the kitchen, tending a pan of fried green tomatoes. There's a pan of cornbread on the stove beside it, a large pot of black-eyed peas and mustard greens on a third burner; the kitchen is warm from the heat of the cooking food as well as the pair of ovens, both currently set to bake as well. Jax is, today, brightly colourful; rainbowy armwarmers (striped on one side, paint-splattery on the other) are scrunched up on his forearms; a black mesh tank is layered over a pink and purple one, together with black capri jeans that have been embroidered with silver and blue vines all up their sides. The tattoos on his biceps and legs are faintly glowing, and not quite staying settled in /place/, rustling or moving or changing along with the music. His enormous mirrored sunglasses are still in place, despite being indoors. Over in the living room, there's a chorus of growling and rumbling. On the floor, Obie is tugging FEROCIOUSLY at the end of a knotted up rope, much abused and very ragged. Dusk is at the other end of the rope, draped sprawled across one of the enormous poof-beanbags, growling right /back/ at the beagle as he wrestles the rope side-to-side with lazy flicks of his wrist. His wings today have reverted to their usual deep dark black fuzz -- almost. Over top of the velvety black there is a dusting of glimmering white, swirling downward like fallen snow, gathering in 'drifts' along the ribs of his fingerbones and accumulated deeper at the bottom edges. He is dressed only in black jeans, currently. His teeth bare towards Obie. Grrrr. Though perhaps disconcertingly this comes with a much stronger surge of the hunger lacing his mind, a rather keen awareness of the little dog's heartbeat, a sudden impulse -- His eyes close. His fingers grip down on the rope. Grrrrrrrrrrr, Obie grrs back even more fiercely. Dusk tugs lazily at the rope again, pulling his wings closer around him like a blanket and shivering. Curled at one end of the couch with a laptop open and a tablet tucked into the crook of one arm, Isra has not moved in some time. Indeed, at a casual glance she looks frozen in place, for her skin, a very pale blue, has shimmering highlights that calls to mind a fresh rime of frost in the morning sunlight. Her wings, loosely folded where they hang off over the arm of the couch, look like living, flexible sheafs of white ice, dusted with glittering snow along the edges that matches the white of her horns and talons. She wears a simple white himation that, all in all, makes her look like she has just stepped out of a fantasy novel or roleplaying game. Her thoughts are preoccupied with writing a review of the astrophysics article before her. When she finally does stir, it is to look over at Dusk, a haze of concern overshadowing her work, and then to extend one wing--easily bridging the distance between them--to rub at his back. On the opposite end of Isra's couch where he is currently tucked with his laptop, Hive's eyes shift over to Dusk. Then back to his work. His lips compress. In comparison to the others, he's positively nondescript; denim shirt worn open over a plain white undershirt, plain blue jeans, socked feet, shaggy dark hair falling down around his ears. Dark eyes very fixated on the holographic model in front of him. Toootally not fixated on Dusk and the dog he's not eating. There's a rattle of keys in the lock, one very loudfierce mind outside the door, one tiny blue sharkboy bounding in (though he stops just inside to shed his Oxfords at the door.) Shane is slightly damp from the light drizzle of rain outside, a glittering sheen of water droplets collected on his peacoat -- which he's also shedding, trotting over to drape the coat on one of Isra's horns. The other one he leans in to chew on. In GREETING. Beneath the coat he has a crisp silver-trimmed blue tunic, paired with dark slacks. "{Heyyyyy.}" 'HI. Sup. I could smell dinner like a mile off, this smells fantastic. It smells like there's enough for company, RIGHT?' And again in Spanish: "{This totally smells good enough to share, huh?}" And over his shoulder, now in French: "{Come inside, meet everyone. This is my house. No not my house. My dad. House. Close enough. Mine next door. All the same house really. Everyone's house.}" Steve does not bound quite so much. His thoughts are a jumble of things he should get started on tomorrow, all of it somewhat muted for his rather prodigious hunger. He hesitates at the threshold, shaking water from the round metal shield he had been using as an umbrella before following Shane in from the rain. He's dressed in a brown leather jacket, a plaid flannel shirt of green, purple and white, and dark blue jeans. He kneels and removes his brown boots, arranging them carefully beside Shane's shoes. Closing the door behind him, he doesn't seem to quite know what to do with himself or his shield (its smooth dome decorated with a single white star at the center in a blue circle, surrounded by three concentric bands of red and white). His eyes skip between the inhabitants of the living room, lingering long on Dusk and Even longer on Isra. << Wings! I wonder if they can fly. But dear God, those horns and claws and doesn't that /hurt/? >> The last bit is prompted by Shane's CHOMPING of the horn. Finally, he sheds his jacket to hang by the door and sets the shield against the wall beneath it. Moving into the living room, he spots Jax in the kitchen. "{Good evening, and thank you for having me,}" he says, his French coming out rustic but easy. "{The food smells absolutely wonderful. Can I lend I hand...with place settings and such?}" "{Oh! Shane, sweetie. I thought you were at cafe tonight. Didn't expect you until later.}" The bright smile that lights Jax's face implies no small measure of happiness at seeing his often way-too-busy son more often than expected. "{Yes of course there's plenty who you --}" And here his words cut off, when Steve comes into sight. What flashes through his mind is a burst of memory; the flash of Steve's shield thrown with surprising accuracy to cleave a zombie by him, Steve's voice: << {The 'mutants' they want me to fight...is it these? ... or you?} >>, a flurry of recent headlines and soundbytes about Captain America returning to protect the country. His first instinct is to move towards the kitchen's exit, keep Shane in his line of sight, his muscles protectively tensing as he shifts closer to the doorway. "... what." Despite the wary-angry-/baffled/ tumult in his mind, when this comes /out/ it only manages a startled confusion. Dusk presses back up into Isra's touch, though this only comes with a brief redirection of the hunger in his mind, thoughts flashing over towards her instead. He lets go of the rope, flopping back into the beanbag. Until the door opens, and he looks up with a swift (very /fangy/) flash of grin. He returns Shane's salute of greeting. One wing curls out, wrapping around Shane in a small squeeze. Very brief. The throb in his head spikes. He rolls up very abruptly to his feet, drawing in a sudden breath. 'How gross is it out there? I was thinking of --' Whatever he was going to say cuts off when Steve walks in. Obie /does/ bound, over to the newcomer with a furious wagging, rearing up to plant paws on Steve's leg, sniff at him eagerly. Dusk only studies the other man briefly, eyes skipping from Steve's face to his neck to muscles and -- away. Quickly stifles the growl that is threatening to surface; he presses one hand to his temple as if this can quiet the flood eclipsing his thoughts there. << -- {/just/ fucking ate} -- >> Not that this is helping things. His chin lifts to the newcomer, in greeting. Silently, a query to Hive. Wordless, really, but in meaning: Problem? Isra looks up when Shane enters, and smiles a sharp smile. 'Good to see you back. Will you be staying for supper?' she signs, not paying much mind to the stray he has brought in with him. Happens all the time, after all. A slight nod, eye contact--just enough to be polite--though her gaze lingers briefly on the shield. She leans back into Shane's gnashing teeth slightly, one wing shifting to scritch at the shark boy's spiny head and the other to unhook the coat from her horn and stretching out out out to hang it on the actual coat rack. At Jax's reaction, however, she sits upright, her body going quite still but for the tip of her twitching tail. Her mind has gone abruptly alert and quiet with the keenness of a master hunter. 'Who is this?' she signs, the movements of her hands small and quick. The flash of memory through Jax's mind is relayed to Dusk and Isra, impersonally, Hive's own mental annotation contextualizing this not as /confirmation/ of a problem but as context for Jax's tension. He has tension of his own -- but he's looking at Dusk. Not Steve. << {That man,} >> the gruff Spanish in his mind is directed at Dusk and Isra, << {is not the danger right now.} >> He leans forward, tapping at his model to save it, freeze the small house in place. A few taps of his keyboard bring up an article about Captain America saving the victims at the homeless shelter. "{Jax doesn't speak French. Would you like to speak Spanish, instead?}" His voice is gruff, his own French fluid and easy and Quebecois-flavored. "{Everyone else does, be easier.}" "{It calls itself 'The Steven',}" Shane answers brightly, in Spanish. A quiet purring sounds in his throat as he leans up into Isra's scritching. Then trots away to the kitchen to plant a kiss on Jax's cheek. "{Pa, chill. Like you've never made any bad calls in your life he was awake for like /two days/. He's still learning. I told him I'd help introduce him to people who could give the world some --}" Shane spreads his hands wide. "{Context.}" He leans over the counter, stretching a hand out to nab a tomato from the pan, tossing it from hand to hand to cool it before nibbling at it. "{Anyway I /do/ have to get to the cafe. Take care of him, okay, he's kind of like a goddamn /puppy/.}" He switches to French after this: "{I have to get to work. They all know how to get in touch with me if you need me. Pa's an excellent cook, he'll take good care of you.}" He claps Steve on the back as he trots out towards his own house, chewing on his tomato as he leaves. Steve kneels to accept Obie's greetings, cooing soft words of affectionate nonsense in childish French (probably incomprehensible to most humans more than a few paces away). When he stands, he nods to Dusk, expression unchanged but thoughts wary of the winged people's body language. << Maybe they just...always look like they want to eat people? >> Distracted, he finally looks past them to see Jax's reaction, and turns to Shane with a perplexed lift of his brows. "{You didn't tell him...?}" Not accusatory so much as embarrassed. "Lo siento," he pronounces the apology as though it were Italian, then, in French again, "{I do not know very much more Spanish than that.}" << And I owe him a bigger apology than for not knowing Spanish. >> More abstractly, he doesn't seem to think of the language mismatch as a particularly difficult problem in itself. << Though, under the circumstance, awkward, >> he thinks as he digs pencil and notebook from the rear pocket of his jeans. He's in the process of opening the pad to write when Shane breezes past him on his way out. He stands there for a moment, jaw slack and eyes wide. << Oh. No, /this/. /This/ is awkward. >> "{Have a good evening,} he offers weakly to the departing shark pup. "{Shane, what --}" The anger and wariness in Jax's mind is ebbing away at Shane's kiss, but the confusion has remained. He drifts slowly back towards his food. Slowly. "{Puppy.}" Deeefinitely still bemused. His gaze is /maybe/ also lingering on Steve's muscles for just a moment longer than strictly necessary; by the time he looks back to the pan it's with a flush of pink dusting his cheeks. Cartoon-like, a speech bubble pops into place over his head. 'Sorry, took me a little by surprise. Not exactly who I expected to show up in my house.' Though the slant of his smile is a little crooked. 'Though I guess that's silly, huh? When the government hires folks to hunt down mutants we're probably top of the list. Guess I should say not exactly who I expected Shane to bring home for dinner. His dates are usually a little --' He shakes his head, spilling rainbowy hair down over his forehead. 'Can I ask why you're here? Aside from dinner?' Dusk shivers, pulling his wings in tight behind himself. His eyes return to Steve; there's a distinctly mingled feel to the hunger in his mind, strong and overpowering. It takes a more concerted effort for him to pull his gaze away; his thoughts are lingering, though. Hazy, red, cluttered with the rich tang of blood, the warm feel of skin, the throb of the pulses of those around in the room. "... I --" He doesn't say anything more. Just shakes his head, his wings flexing slightly outward and then pulling back in. He departs, too, the opposite way from Shane, hurrying out towards Geekhaus and (rather uncharacteristically) shutting the dividing door behind him. Isra rises to her full height which, even discounting horns, puts her a few inches taller than Steve. She does not take her eyes off of the newcomer, and at Hive's relaying of Jax's memory, her ears press back and her brow ridges lift up. << Feeding Dusk and getting rid of this...what, mutant-hunter? Two birds with one stone. >> This she specifically thinks in Hive's direction, and he can easily enough discern that she has no intention of allowing such a thing. At least not here and now. /She/ feels perfectly ready to kill Steve if necessary, though not more than any other stranger who poses a threat to her people. When Dusk flees, she fights the impulse to follow him. << He needs to be alone, >> this as much to herself, now, as Hive. But she heads toward the kitchen, hovers near the end of the counter where Jax can see her. "{I /can/ still get rid of him." Her Spanish sounds rather a lot like Ion's, though nowhere near as fluent, and her faint smile exposes long, sharp canines. "{Without violence, even. You needn't put up if he bothers you.}" There are other snippets of information that drift through Isra's mind, not in words but in concept. Captain America as a World War II hero, the legend of him being a supersoldier, the story of his death, the vague references in the current-day stories to him being 'revived'. << {Doesn't feel quite on the hunt now. Not sure he has a whole lot of context for --} >> A faint mental shrug. << {Anything.} >> Something squeezes in, uncomfortable, tight, mental fingers closing in a vicelike grip at Steve's mind. << {Your dinner} >> In Isra and Jax's mind Hive's voice is in Spanish, though in Steve's it sounds in French, << {/is/ pretty fucking great, in fairness.} >> Steve blinks when Dusk leaves, waving though the other man cannot have seen. << I swear I bathed before I left... >> Then he blinks again, and yet again, as Isra stands up straight. He walks through the now much emptier living room, hovers at the edge of the dining room and reads Jax's speech bubble. << They didn't hire me. They just /inherited/-- wait, dates? Dates like--I'm not his date. Oh, dear... >> He starts scribbling on his tiny pocket notebook (<< Sorry, I thought that Shane would have asked your permission before inviting me for supper. I also wanted to offer my apologies for my rudeness the other-- >>), until he suddenly clutches his head, digging knuckles into his left temple. Looking up, he turns to Hive as he speaks. Or...doesn't speak. Has that overwhelmed look on his face again. "{I'm not sure...oh.}" << Telepath? Another one? >> Jax starts to shut off the burners under the stoves, moving aside to the oven to switch the light on and check on what's inside. He shuts the oven lights back off, opening the doors up to reach inside (no potholders at all) and pull out four pies to set them on the countertop. 'Shane brings home a lot of strays,' his cartoon speech bubble finally replies. 'Your situation is just a little bit unusual is all. Please, sit. I didn't mean to' There's a pause, a hitch in his writing. 'Can I get you something to drink? I can't even imagine. This has probably all been. A lot. For you.' "{I've seen the posters.}" Isra studies Steve's face and physique. Not particularly impressed. "{Not sure I see the resemblance.}" She has started swiping on her tablet with a stylus, and, this finished, turns the screen to face Steve. 'Who are you working for, exactly?' Hive's mental grip tightens further, curling in and clenching. There's a moment of sharper pain that fades quickly into a brief disorientation. Then a strange mental clutter, another stream of thoughts overlapping his -- though these fade, too, into a quiet background murmur. When Hive speaks again -- aloud, now -- it is Spanish, though this time Steve understands it. Not with any of the odd dissonance there was in the library; this time it feels natural, a knowledge gleaned through the overlap of conjoined minds. "{There are a lot of us. Not in an absolute sense, I guess, but as a proportion -- when people freak the fuck out because they're worried mutants might be in their heads, it's not an off-base worry.}" He straightens, slowly uncurling from his chair to move over to the counter and lean against it. "{Why /are/ you here? I can't imagine your bosses are thrilled with that.}" "Gracias." Steve slumps into the chair nearest where he stands, still rubbing the side of his head. Sucks in a sharp breath. Holds onto the edge of the table. Opens his eyes again to stare at Hive. Shakes his head, not in a negating way, but to clear it. He's still confused, but mostly happy the headache didn't last. << This brain thing probably should be bothering me more than it does. Perhaps I have finally reached some kind of limit to being surprised. >> But he still writes out his replies. To Jax: 'It has been, and I'd love something warm to drink, please. Coffee or tea? I'm not picky, and thank you.' Then, turning the next page, he writes the same reply to Isra and Hive: 'I worked for the Strategic Science Reserve during the war, and then after they revived me. Until I quit today. They were not thrilled about that, either.' Then, with a rueful smile, 'I'm here because Shane invited me. I wanted the other side of the story about mutants.' Jax nods, setting a kettle on the stove to heat. He starts to put plates on the table, transferring the food there, too, while he waits for the water to boil. Hive gets a confused glance when he addresses Steve in Spanish -- but a kind of /resigned/ understanding when Steve answers it. << Really gotta stop just /eating/ people, >> isn't so much /directed/ at Hive as just -- fret. '{What was their side?}' He sounds a little cautious in his Spanish, not /entirely/ sure if Steve will understand it. Isra arches one bare eyebrow ridge at Steve's writing, but does not reply at once. << I'm not sure he has any concept of just how much story there is. >> She retrieves her own mug of coffee from the living room and brings over a chair designed to accommodate her wings and tail. Once she has seated herself, she gives Hive a sidelong glance and then addresses Steve, in awkward and unwieldy Argentine Spanish, "{I think, once you make Shane's acquaintance, you know some of our story already. Why did you quit?}" "{You can just speak,}" Hive suggests. "{In Spanish. Quicker. And Shane does that. He's very --}" His lips twist. Up, into a kind of smirk. "Shane. {So what the fuck are you going to do now?}" Steve gives Hive an exceptionally skeptical look, eyebrows scrunched low and together. "{But I told you I don't speak--}" He blinks. The words had come out, after all, in Spanish. << Well. That's handy. During the war that would've... >> His own words just fade from his mind as he recalls Shane's voice, << "{They thought we might be the key to creating new super soldiers.}" >> Grits his teeth. Nods. "{Thank you. Their side was that mutants are dangerous wild cards who must be monitored and controlled.}" He still has his little notebook open in front of him, and the hand holding the pencil has started sketching idly while he speaks. "{I had my reservations about that anyway, but since they've let me out of the facility, I've come to see that there's a great deal they hadn't told me.}" He looks up at Isra as steadily as he can, though his mind is having trouble processing her very alien appearance. "{I could go on and on about why I quit, but the short of it is I don't want to be a party to the kind of oppression they sought to justify with national security. I love this country, but it has gone astray.}" He runs a hand through his short blond hair, just a touch spikey since drying from the rain. "{Now I find a job, earn a living, learn about this strange new world, and see about setting things right.}" << Probably this is where someone is going to start laughing. >> Jax is still bustling. Maybe a little bit slower, now, grinding coffee, getting it started brewing. There's a bright flare of anger in his mind -- un/surprised/ but still very present -- at Steve's initial answer. A flutter of light around him, his tattoos glowing brighter. He leans forward against the counter, pressing his palms down against its edge. There /is/ a laugh that comes out of him, but it's soft and not unkind. "{Oh. Is that all? In that case you're probably in good company for it. But.}" He turns his hand out towards the table. "{Not before dinner. And pie for after. We have /priorities/, around here.}"