ArchivedLogs:Ain't a Date

Ain't a Date
Dramatis Personae Josiah, Telford, Trib
In Absentia	2014-03-22 It /ain't/.
Location <NYC> Baohaus - Chinatown
Despite its unlikely name, this restaurant dishes up some of the best hot pot in Chinatown. A great place to go with friends, come pick a broth, pick ingredients, and enjoy the Chinese version of fondue, cooking meals yourself in the steaming soup. And, of course, don't miss the signature buns the place is named for! TXT (Josiah ----> Trib): Place is pretty full. Grabbing a table. See you soon! Just moments before Josiah is escorted to a table for two, that message got fired off from his cell phone to Trib's, assuming, of course, that Trib can recieve text messages (Josiah does assume this). The table is smaller than the rest, but still big enough to hold plenty of food in addition to the hot pot in the center of it all. Josiah sits facing the door, thanking the hostess, who runs off to answer the phone. With a brief look at the menu, Josiah settles back into his chair and then turns to survey the room. It is busy tonight, even at this hour. The food is just that good, popular with the late night crowd as much as any other. Josiah looks down his phone, still in his hand, and fiddles with it while he waits. Trib can receive texts, although he does not /answer/ them. So whether or not he's even coming is a mystery until he appears at the entrance. He looks actually presentable, in that his jeans and button-down blue plaid shirt are clean and not rumpled. He's even left behind the battered army jacket, favoring instead a utilitarian-like grey jacket. A few quiet words at the entrance, and he's being directed to the table where Josiah sits. He grunts something appreciative at the diminuitive hostess, and waits for her to disappear before he narrows his eyes at Josiah suspiciously. "Is this a fuckin' /date/?" Which is probably the best he can muster in the way of a greeting. "Is that what they call two guys going out for food? Don't be such a dweeb." Josiah tosses out a wink and sets his phone on the table, leaving things ambiguous. His dress, a pair of dark blue jeans and a red-and-green plaid shirt, sleeves rolled up, doesn't scream date, either, but who knows? He motions to the chair across from him and asks, "Have you had this before? Shit is good, and they have this spicy broth that'll light your tonsils on fire. Do you still have yours?" "Just checkin'," Trib says, shrugging out of his jacket and hanging it over the back of his chair. "I mean, you're a hell of a lot of fun, but I ain't lookin' to date you." This is said matter-of-factly, although Trib looks a little contrite about it as he settles himself. "I come here pretty often," he says, bobbing his head as he picks up a menu and studies it. "I like that broth -- I can actually fuckin' /taste/ it." His eyes crinkle at the sudden question, and he snorts a quiet laugh. "My tonsils? Nah. Had 'em out when I was five. Had an infection or some shit." His eyes scan the menu before he brings them up to study Josiah. "I guess you still got yours." "Noted," Josiah says in response, though it would be a stretch to say he looks pleased about it. Still, he straightens up a bit in his chair, and leans in a bit, gently touching his neck. "Yep, they're still there. Us Brinks don't go under the knife unless we absolutely have to, though my grandmother did push for the surgery when I was young. As a precaution, she said, though she was always a bit nutty. In a really good way." A light chuckle escapes him as he glances down to the menu once more. "You know, the food is great and I say we just order a bunch of shit and dig in, but I did sort of want to talk about last night. As in, what we talked about with my buddy, Dusk." It's been, lets just say, a bad week for Vanisher. He moved all of his stuff into an apartment building on the same night it exploded. Getting people out of the building was no easy feat even for him as much of an inferno as it was and well, he's not exactly the kind who can hang around at hospitals for a lot of follow up questions so he's not had the best of medical care after the fire. Wearing a home made eye patch made out of bandaged and medical tape over his infected eye he walks in from the street, slumped over a little having not been able to get good sleep for days. The man in the trench coat is hard to miss. He wears a wide brim hat over a plane black T-shirt and a set of women's jeans he 'found' in an unattended drier that fits him well enough. Walking in he keeps his head low and doesn't take off his coat as he walks in. After a coughing fit he tells the waiter it's just him in a horse voice and goes about the business of getting some grub for his stomach like any other normal person dressed in a trench coat and wearing a hat at night. Not at all hiding who he is, nope! Not him! Not him at all! (Only he totally is). Trib's brow twitches at the subtle shift in Josiah's demeanor, and his eyes narrow briefly before he looks back down at his menu. Comments on grandmothers gets a sympathetic sort of chuckle. "My dad's mom was kind of a nut," he rumbles, putting the menu down with a nod at Josiah's suggested plan. "Her sister -- my Aunt Sonia -- she's fuckin' batshit." He leans back in his chair then, resting his hands on the table in front of him as he glances around the restaurant. The kid with the patch gets a long look before the boxer is turning his attention back to his table mate. "Last night?" he echoes, brow furrowing. "You mean, about whoever blew that fuckin' buildin' up?" Subtlety is clearly not his area of expertise. Talk of crazy kin is one of Josiah's favorite ways to swap stories, but tonight there is something he wants to talk more about, and it's not Trib's wacky Aunt Sonia. "Yeah, man. That, and the fact that you seemed extra worked up over the whole thing. Not that you shouldn't be worked up, but," he pauses a moment to eye the newcomer somewhat suspiciously, though this is New York and not the place one does that for more than a second. Turning back to Trib, he says, "Did you know anyone in that building?" Having some minor experience with these kind of places and knowing it is considered staggeringly rude to cough or sneeze in the cooking area, Telford asks one of the wait staff to stir for him, his voice raw from all the coughing he's been doing. He has a list of ingredients already written out and when the man agrees to cook for him the man in the duster gives him the list and thanks him and asks for water, no ice, to drink as he sits down carefully making small sounds like bending down to sit in the chair is painful. He sits stiffly in the chair not letting his back touch the back of the chair and a quick man might notice that he is only using one hand for everything, his left hand, and it isn't the hand he naturally favors so it's making things awkward for him. His right hand stays in the pocket of his trench at all times. Trib frowns at the observation, and he purses his lips, screwing his mouth to one side in a mildly irritated expression. "Fuckin' cowards," he rumbles, confirming his 'worked up' status. "Blowin' up a buildin' with kids in it. /Kids/." He clenches a fist, and uses it to thump against the table in punctuation. His expression darkens into something remotely guilty as he bobs his head in answer to the question. "Yeah, I got a friend...him an' his husband live in that buildin' with their kids." He frowns. "I ain't heard what happened to 'em, though, so I don't know how they came out of it." This seems to bother him, and he shifts his weight, turning to watch the guy bumble with his off hand and frowning at his pained movements. "Hang in there, man," he says, holding up his half-hand in solidarity. "You'll get the fuckin' hang of it." Josiah nods in response to Trib, though his face scrunches up a bit in...sympathy? Yes. His attention follows Trib's to Telford, but is soon taken away by the arrival of the waitress. He orders a bunch of meat and veggies, in addition to the spicy broth that was spoken of earlier. "I'm sorry to hear that," he tells Trib, once everything is taken care of food-wise. "Have you come up with anything? You know, I'm assuming you guys are working it? To be honest I don't knw much of what you do." Normally Vanisher would arch an eyebrow at the half-handed man but with his infected eye he can't so he raises his bandaged mitten off a hand instead giving a friendly if awkward, wave. When he looks up to wave he ends up looking directly over at Trib and under the hat it might at first appear that his face is cast in deep shadow but after a moment Trib might notice that the shadows are too perfect, it's a black band across his face and black shapes like tattoos pointing down from under his hat. The side of his face which took the brunt of the heat has more blackness on it almost making him look like one of those black and white guys from the original Star Trek. No, no, not that one, the one with the black on the other side. Yeah, that one! Now you're getting it. Trib studies the tattoo on the other man's face, and there's a small jerk of his head that might be surprise -- or it could be approval. Trib's face gives nothing away as he looks back at Josiah. "Local an' feds are all over it right now," he says. "So I ain't sure if we're workin' it /officially/. I still got to talk to Cage about it." His jaw sets, and his gaze hardens just a bit. "But I hope he says we are, 'cause I'm sure as fuck goin' to find out who it was, one way or another." He looks back at the tattooed man, and wrinkles his nose. "The fuck happen to you?" Josiah contemplates Trib's words and glances over at Telford once more, looking curiously at the man in a way that echoes Trib's question. This may be New York City, but even this man can draw up questions like that, and JOsiah seems interested in the answer. Telford says, "I lived in that building for about three hours." because that is his kind of luck. He leaves out the part where he got injured teleporting people out of the upper floors because no one likes a bragger. He says, "Some mutant with wings saved a lot of people but I don't know what started it. Just boom and the building was a blaze." then he thinks back about it and says, "Seemed more home made explosives than C4. It didn't blow out the walls, the building took a while to collapse, I'd say bathtub napalm on a timer." just you know, because people know that kind of thing by sound, right? Like everyone knows that. Trib's eyebrows hike into his hairline at the revelation from the newcomer, and he leans forward in his seat to stare intently at the other man. "No shit?" he says, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he considers this. "You know a lot about blowin' shit up?" he asks, after the assessment. "'Cause my boss is a P.I., an' he'd probably like to fuckin' talk to someone who knows their shit." And just as things start to get interesting, Josiah's phone start's ring - because that's his kind of luck. He looks down to see who's calling and mutters under his breath. Picking the phone up, he glances to the other two, who are intent on their conversation, and quietly speaks to whoever is on th other end. "Do you see what fucking time it is? Are we serious here?" He listens a bit, grumbles, and says. "Yeah, alright, sir. Put on a pot of your strongest." He hangs up and leans across the table to Trib. "Hey, sorry to interrupt. And, sorry to do this, but that was my editor. There's some big problem at work. Of all the times, right? Dinner's on me." He smiles and fishes out some money, looking a little embarassed as he does. Telford says, "In my youth I had some friends who made some poor choices in life." he's like 19 or 20 at the oldest and he says that like it's ancient history. The tattooed man's water arrives and he thanks the waiter before looking back at Josh and Trib, "I'll answer any questions he has, I'll even help him investigate for a small fee." he says always the opportunist, "I wouldn't mind finding out who blew up everything I own. " he says as he looks over at Trib, "Do you have a card? " then he realizes he doesn't technically own a phone any more.. "How about tomorrow? While it's fresh in my mind?" he offers. Trib's expression darkens when Josiah's phone rings, and there's a definite air of disappointment when the older man makes his apologies. "You ain't got to pay," he rumbles, waving off the produced wallet. "But you can call me later, if you get off early enough." He grins a bit, showing a hint of teeth. "Maybe we can grab a late-night snack, like last time." He settles back in his seat, and digs for his own wallet when the guy seems willing to help out. "I got a card," he says. "An' I'm sure Cage'll come up with somethin' to say thanks for the help." He seems fairly confident in his ability to convince Cage to accept the case. "An' tomorrow's good for me. Most of my days lately are spent in trainin', so I got time." "Yeah," Josiah says. "I mean, don't count on it, since we're about to print, but if a miracle happens you'll be the first to know." He still drops the cash on the table as he stands. Turning to Telford, he says, "Sorry that happened, man. I know it doesn't sound like much since I'm out the door, but..." He shrugs and offers the both a wave. "Gotta jet!" And he's off, tossing out a goodbye to the hostess before heading out the door.