ArchivedLogs:Slow Learners

Slow Learners
Dramatis Personae Jax, Steve
In Absentia	2018-03-13 "We're by-appointment only." CW: Violence.
Location <NYC> Inkline Studios - Lower East Side
The front room of Inkline Studio is small, and does not, particularly, look like a tattoo parlor at all. Framed surrealist oil paintings line the walls instead of the typical flash ink, although interspersed are a handful of tasteful, artistic photographs of various people displaying their tattoos that might give away the nature of this business. Black leather armchairs cluster around a low glass coffee table; large black binders that sit on the table contain portfolios of the past work done in the studio. A glass counter stretches along the length of one wall, a plethora of various body jewelry on display; the 'front desk' sits at the far end of the counter, computer and cash register and large file cabinet making up the work space. The piercing and tattoo rooms are in the back, brightly lit and sterile, with doors closeable for privacy. It's still snowing outside, and though the stuff is only accumulating in gray, slushy heaps by the side of the road, there's almost an inch of it on the mailboxes and rows of trash bags lining the sidewalk. Life goes on despite the damp and cold, there's more restless anxiety than usual in the bustle of the evening commute. Inside Inkline, though, it's warm and dry. Steve is wearing just charcoal slacks, topless, straddling a chair backward, chin resting on one folded arm to look back over his shoulder, pale eyes keen with interest. There are faint bruises on his upper arm which the observant can note have faded just in the course of the last hour. Jackson is half seated beside Steve, one knee resting on his stool and one foot on the floor. He's currently dressed in mostly black -- skinny jeans and knee-high stompy boots and a ribbed tank top with red accent on the trim. Black nitrile gloves, too. His inky black hair is tipped with metallic red, and a glittery antifascist flag unfurls in the center of his eyepatch. He's currently holding a warm damp towel gently to Steve's side, his hand radiating it's own heat even through the cloth. "You want a picture?" He's looking at Steve's face rather than his handiwork as he moves the towel away. "Oh, yes, por favor." Even so, Steve cranes his neck for a glimpse of the new ink, no easy feat given the bulk of his shoulder muscles. "Not sure if this is going on Twitter -- now or /ever/ -- but I want to send it to Gabe and the others. I'm a bit late to the party, as usual, but I promised." His smile is a touch wistful, but warms when his eyes lift back up to Jax's face. "Gracias." Outside, there's a roar of motorcycle engines on the wind that whips the snow into crazy eddies. "In fairness, you did have a pretty solid excuse for your tardiness." Jax holds a smaller hand mirror up, angling it for a moment to give Steve a better view of the fresh ink there, bright and bold now: a grey wolf with large feathered wings sprouting from its back, crushing a thick chain between its jaws. "Now stop twisting around." He sheds his gloves, picks up first a Canon DSLR and then his phone, snapping a few photos of the new tattoo with each. "You put this on Twitter," he says wryly, "and we'll be booked solid through the next two years at least." Steve's email pings -- the message from Jax has no subject, just two clear shots of the artwork attached, and one larger one that actually includes Steve's face in it. He washes his hands, dons a fresh pair of gloves before setting to dressing the tattoo with ointment and a clear wrap bandage. Steve guffaws. "/Frozen/ solid." His smile goes wider with a kind of boyish wonder as he studies the wolf in the mirror. "I know this wasn't any sort of challenge to your skills, but that looks spectacular." He obediently straightens and puts on a different smile -- much brighter, more cavalier -- for the photos. "You mean you're not /already/ booked two years out?" His tone is faintly teasing, but there's a touch of real incredulity in the lift of his eyebrows. More soberly, as he look over the photographs, nodding, "Do you /want/ the exposure? I needn't exaggerate to write you a good review." The motorcycles have dopplered closer, their stuttering rumble abruptly louder as they turn the corner. Six of them, different makes and models but all black and chrome, their riders wearing identical black leather cuts emblazoned with stark white crosses. Steve produces a small stack of crisp bills from his wallet to press at Jax once the bandaging is done. "Mongrels?" he asks, casual and a bit hopeful as he pulls his light blue dress shirt back on and buttons it up, eyes straying toward the storefront though he cannot himself see the bikes yet. "Only about nine months," Jax admits with a quick laugh. He hesitates, teeth briefly worrying at a lip ring before he rubs at the back of his neck and answers, "I wouldn't say no." He cleans up his station as he talks, a methodical efficiency to the task. "I mean, s'always nice when I don't have to worry about --" His head cocks, shakes. "I only just been done needling Ion, he shouldn't be back for new ink a week at least." Light, amused, at least until he glances out the window as he stops by the trash can. There's a momentary flicker across his features -- no change of expression but a snap-second vanishing of his dusting of makeup, leaving pale-pale skin and dark shadowed eye visible for an instant before colour returns to his face. His brows dip slightly closer together, and he pauses only briefly before going to poke his head out the door of his small studio, his words audible to Steve even if the reply from the young man working the front desk is not. "Can you take a break? -- Yeah. You should take Ray, too, if she's --" A hesitation. "Even if she's not done." "Well, then, Twitter it is." Steve buttons his cuffs and straightens his collar. "I'm ready to yell at people who are wrong about tattoos on the Internet." He picks up on Jax's shift in demeanor immediately and goes to the window, shrugging on his navy peacoat. Inkline's receptionist nods far too many times as he scrambles to follow Jax's advice. Outside, the already hustling pedestrians vacate the street even more precipitously. The Purifiers pull up in front, fanning out so as to block half of the street. Two of their number dismount -- one now hefting a crowbar and the other a baseball bat -- while the rest gun their engines and egg them on with barely coherent encouragements heavy in profanity. By comparison, Steve's "Marde" sounds pretty sedate. He straps his shield to his forearm. "I can handle them if you'd like," he says evenly, cupping Jax's cheek with his free hand before pulling on his gloves. "You don't have to stay..." Jax's eye flutters briefly closed, his head turning into Steve's touch. "I'm fine. What I done heard from the pups about these folk --" One bare shoulder lifts in a small shrug. "Was bound to run into 'em sooner or later." He seems heedless of the falling snow as he heads for the door, not bothering with a jacket over his plain tank top. "'pologies," he's saying, bright and clear as he steps out onto the sidewalk. "We're by-appointment only." Steve follows Jax and steps out onto his left side once they're on the sidewalk. He carries his shield in an easy, relaxed way, as though it were just a jacket slung over his arm. "Shit, boys," says a middle aged man still straddling his motorcycle, "we got ourselves two fags for the price of one! The freak and the freak-lover." "Fuckin' traitor!" cries a younger Purifier from further back. "We're not here for your stupid ink," says the one with the baseball bat. "Just giving you some free renovation." He punctuates this by swinging the bat at the nearest pane of glass on the storefront. Steve sidesteps, not even bothering with his weapon -- just grabs the bat mid-swing and yanks it from the Purifier's hand, throwing it down the sidewalk where it rolls away with a surprisingly musical series of tinkles. The wielder overbalances and stumbles, cursing loudly. Outraged, the other Purifiers hurl abuses, and climb off of their bikes, pulling out knives, brass knuckles, and clubs of various descripts. Crowbar, already standing and already armed, takes an overhand swing at Jax. Jax takes only a small step back during this exchange, hands folding behind his back as he stands in the studio's doorway. His brows pinch at the taunting, though the tilt of his head tells more of bemusement than ire. "You gotta know this is a little pointless, y'all." He glances toward the storefront window, if only briefly; seems entirely unsurprised when the bat is intercepted and flung away. /He/ doesn't move again when the crowbar swings. Just raises his eyebrows, the length of metal clanging down a half foot away from his head when it thwacks instead into a wall, thin and iridescent like a soap bubble but far more solid. The small quirk of his lips as he eyes the other man through the shield is Not Impressed. "Motherfucker!" Crowbar is very eloquent, clutching the hand that had been holding the crowbar. "How long can you keep that thing up, huh?" He picks his crowbar back up and waves it. "You gonna stand here all night?" Lifting the tool high, he hurls it end over end in an arc over Jax's head. Baseball Bat rights himself and seems to briefly consider chasing after his weapon before just yelling. "Get this cuck! /His/ shield's just the normal kind." Steve has just long enough to raise an eyebrow and mouth the word 'normal kind' before four angry Purifiers descend on him. He deflects a brass knuckle with his shield and pivots to kick a knife out of someone's hand. Another baseball bat catches him in the right arm, but he doesn't even flinch, just punches its wielder square in the jaw. The last of them is hanging back, trying to find a good angle with a heavy steel baton, eyeing Jax sidelong as if consider whether it might be worth switching targets. Meanwhile, Baseball Bat (#1) has gone back to his motorcycle and opened up his saddle bag, looking up at the increasingly chaotic scene. "I got stamina enough for you, sugar." The shield has shifted, grown; stretching back and higher in a curving slide that intercepts the crowbar, lets it tumble back down to rest in a cradle just in front of Jax. There's a flicker -- the shield vanishing; Jax catches the crowbar out of its sudden drop toward the ground. His hands are glowing, as they hold it, a fierce dry heat coming off of them. The look he tosses to Steve is brief -- as his boyfriend is mouthing, 'normal kind', he is mouthing, 'cuck' with a barely contained incredulousness. He's not, though, looking to retaliate against the man in front of him. Instead he considers the bikes in the background. The next shield that shimmers to existence wraps itself neatly around Baseball Bat's motorcycle -- bisecting an upper segment of the saddlebag and slicing it off. "One of those yours?" The crowbar in his hands is glowing now, too, as he gestures with it back toward the bikes. Crowbar's eyes widen with alarm when Jax's shield extends up far enough to deflect his projectile, and flinches away, expecting it to fall back down on him. When the crowbar ends up in his opponent's hands, his fear turns to anger. Then to horrified disgust at Jax's words. "/I/ ain't a fucking /fag,/" he blurts. Glances back at one of the motorcycles somewhat involuntarily, looking mightily as though he'd rather be on it and away. Baton circles around Steve while he's tangling with two of the Purifiers still standing (Baseball Bat #2 is reeling and clutching his jaw), then rushes him from his left flank. Steve turns very slightly, winds his left arm back and blocks the baton, then unwinds the arm to punch Brass Knuckles, bloodying his nose instantly. Pivoting on the moment of that blow, he grasps Knife by the front of his leather cut and bodily /swings/ him at Baton. They collapse to the slushy sidewalk in a tangled heap. Steve, standing in the midst of four groaning opponents, isn't even breathing hard. Baseball Bat yelps in somewhat undignified surprise when the shield walls him off from his bike, but he's already rooted out what he wanted: a heavy black tactical holster. He fumbles a pristine Glock 21 from it and thumbs the safety off -- a bit of a process as he clearly does not handle the weapon very often and his hands are shaking violently. Crowbar's eyes go even wider when he sees this. "What the /fuck/ Nathan?!" "Y'all just don't learn, do you?" Jax doesn't look surprised to see the gun. Nor particularly alarmed. He is twisting the glowing crowbar into a pretzel, now, dropping it to the sidewalk. /He/ is glowing, too, a faint but noticeable luminescence in the slushy grey afternoon. He leans back, one hand resting against the building as his eye closes. There's a bright glow over by the man with the Glock, a fierce shock of searing heat burning in his hand as brilliant lines of laser light rip through his weapon -- vertically through the grip and firing pin, horizontally through the barrel. There's a brighter glow coming from within the shield that had covered the motorcycle. Jax's fingers press harder against the wall of the building. "Might want to collect your boy, he's gonna need a ride home." Baseball Bat (or Glock, briefly) looses a blood-curdling scream and drops his ruined weapon, clutching his scortched hand. Meanwhile, inside the bubble beside him, his bike can vaguely be seen to deform, parts of it (most spectacularly the gas tank) bursting into flames rapidly quenched as the whole collapses into a glowing mound of slag. Crowbar backs away from Jax with his hands up. Baton, after shoving Knife off of him, staggers to his feet and barks, "We're leaving!" The others follow suit in various states of injury, bundling Baseball Glock (still crying) onto the back of the largest chopper and fleeing in five fantails of dirty slush. Steve stares at the still-melting motorcycle. Whistles appreciatively. Unstraps his shield and takes off his coat, offering the latter -- and his arm -- to Jax. "Are you alright?" Jax accepts the coat gratefully, leans into Steve's arm, his shivering evident to the touch even if -- until the bikes are well out out sight -- it can't be seen. His first answer is just a harsh breath, a chatter of teeth. "Gosh but it was a poor choice to rush out without my coat, don't let me do that again." His words are muffled as he half buries his face against Steve's side. The shield disappears as the flames on the melting bike die out. "Only but there's just so much our insurance'll cover and windows ain't cheap. You good?" "I'm good." Steve wraps both arms around Jax, enveloping the smaller man in his warmth -- mundane, but still considerable. "Hopefully they'll think twice about coming back here, but they are neither original nor unique in their choice of targets. I'll chase after you with a jacket, next time." He presses a firm kiss to Jax's head and steers them back inside. "Let's get you warm and figure who's going to dispose of /that./" Gestures vaguely at the remains of the bike. "Oh, and put my ink up on Twitter."