ArchivedLogs:Cool

Cool
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Chelsea
In Absentia	2013-12-06 '
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. The living room and kitchen both hold a rather inordinate number of lamps in addition to the ceiling lights; standing lamps, small lamps on each counter, large sunlights in the corner. More often than not, they're largely all turned on, too. 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. Settling into LightHaus has been a new kind of ordeal for Chelsea. She hasn't been around people for months, and the people she was with before then were frankly... pretty awful, if her reports are to be believed. After the hustle and bustle of getting everyone out of the house in the morning, Chelsea is left on the couch, watching TV, holding a half-finished bowl of all-natural, vegan cereal which she doesn't seem all that sure about. Much to her benefit however is her clean-up-edness. She's freshly showered, and wearing the clothes Jax lent her. The skirt is rolled up at the waist because it's much too long for the short, thin girl, but the halter top does a great job covering her, while allowing her extra arm to drape over the back of the couch. Some time shortly after everyone's bustled off to their day, there's a rattle of keys in the door. Dusk is already STRIPPING as he enters; he's peeled off his coat and his sweatshirt on the way up and is now going through the hassle of tugging his cumbersomely enormous wings stiffly out of his long-sleeved blue-and-black striped shirt. They move slowly, with the uncoordinated numbness born of way too long out in the freezing /cold/; he flexes them as much as the narrow entryway will allow as he attempts to restore their heat. He toes off his shoes at the door, closing the front door behind him with his shirt tugged up half over his head; it's only once he's pulled it off the rest of the way that he notices Chelsea there. "Woah hey." He doesn't seem /overly/ startled at the new face, nor particularly bashful about shirtlessness; he tugs his taloned wingtips through the shirt's back holes and hangs his jacket in the entryway closet. His eyes skim over the clothing, and it's apparently identification of the garments' usual owner that prompts his guess: "-- Friend of B's?" "Holy shit, what is it with this house and half-naked people..." Chelsea's tone is much less annoyed than her language. She sounds more exasperated than anything. "Uh, hey, hi," she says, standing up from the couch, eyes wide at Dusk's adjustment of /wings/. She backs up, unconsciously trying to buy herself some space, still clutching the bowl of cereal. "I dunno who 'B' is. Jim brought me here. I met Jax, and Shane and... uh, a shit-ton of people last night. Do you live here too?" She looks both nervous, and like someone who would like to hide the fact that she's so nervous. "Nope," Dusk answers the last question first, cheerfully. He gives Chelsea her space, skirting around the living room to the kitchen instead, his wings still slowly shifting and flexing at his back before finally curling in around him like a fuzzy dark cape. "I live one floor up. Heat's borked so they're letting me and my roommate crash." He opens the fridge, frowning at its innards and then closing it again untouched; instead, he gets a pot from a cabinet and fills it with some water. Then retrieves a container of oats. "Oatmeal? -- Oh, you got cereal. Oatmeal anyway?" He leans against the kitchen counter as he waits for the water to heat, peering over the half-wall towards the living room though he still keeps his distance. "They don't really design normal clothes with a lot of us in mind. The twins hate things chafing at their gills, I just get /annoyed/ trying to move my wings." He glances at Chelsea's third arm, and shrugs. His teeth flash, sharp and very fangy in a sudden grin. "Can't speak to the rest of them, but if they want to wander around shirtless too I won't complain." One long upper thumb-claw flicks over past Chelsea to the twins' bedroom door. "B's -- Shane's twin. Owns the clothes you're in. /Sweet/ kid. I'm Dusk. Got a name?" "Oh um, actually yeah, oatmeal thanks. This granola cereal they had is like eating shitty sawdust." She nods enthusiastically when Dusk starts talking about clothes. "Oh yeah, I haven't had proper clothes in ages. When it got cold, the Goodwills and stuff switched in their warm stuff, and nothing would fit. Not that they let me in there long enough... the fuckers." She blushes a little when Dusk talks about everyone walking around shirtless, but it's not a fierce blush, and might just be plain awkwardness at Dusk being so open rather than actual embarrassed feelings. "Whoa, twins... that's cool. Is he blue too?" Chelsea seems to have gotten over her initial worry about Dusk and comes into the kitchen with him to dump her cereal down the sink. "So weird to just throw out food again... Oh, and I'm Chelsea. Sor- {Sorry}," she says, switching to spanish at the end. "Yeeah, a lot of people are fuckers." Dusk's agreement with this is almost cheerful as well. "The trick with the granola is you have to put fruit and chocolate chips in it so you can pretend you're eating real food. Except I don't think there /is/ fruit or chocolate chips right now so -- oatmeal." He adds a little more water to the pot when Chelsea agrees. "Chelsea. Sweet. Where you from? You hanging here for a while, then? Good place for it. When I say a lot of people are fuckers, I am /so/ definitely not talking about Jax and Micah. They're pretty much way high up there topping the list of best people I know." Dusk's grin is still bright. "And I don't just say that because I get to steal their heat and their food." He watches the pot intently, as though that will help it along faster. "Yeah. Very blue. Shane and Bastian are -- I think even their own dads couldn't tell them apart sometimes until they start /talking/. /Then/ you just look for the one swearing up a storm. You need clothes? I just had to start adjusting my own. I'm pretty excellent with a sewing machine if you need stuff re-fit." Chelsea nods along with Dusk's assessment of People, and then hops up to sit on the counter across from the oatmeal prep. The movement gives her extra arm a sickening sway, almost like she's waving with it, but she doesn't have that kind of control over the dud limbs. She winces and frowns at it, her expression clearly worried about how she looks in front of this obviously Cool Older Kid. She tucks the extra right hand down with her proper right hand, and sets her bowl aside with her left. "Kind of from all over New York. Uh, East Harlem, I guess, originally, and then foster homes. Even had one up-state for a while..." she trails off for a moment, a dark expression crossing her face. The tween is definitely not practiced at masking her emotions. "Um, actually, maybe? I really miss wearing pants, and thought I couldn't again. But then some zombies tore off my extra legs, and I really miss pants." Again, she has the tone of a kid who knows she's saying something which is /not/ low key, but says it as if she's trying to pass it off as cool. Whatever, no big deal, zombies ate my legs... "Man, that's shit. I never dealt with the foster system, just kind of -- kicked around on the streets for a while but I have heard /stories/." Dusk's grimace implies these were not /cheerful/ stories. "Legs too -- oh." For a moment his eyes widen when she says zombies tore them off. "Uh -- is that -- shit. I mean clearly you're okay you're sitting here talking to me. But /ow/." His wings shiver at his back, still rippling slightly when he moves to tip oatmeal into the water and stir it. "Zombies tore the /hell/ out of these things but never tore one /off/, I think that's something I wouldn't have bounced back from." Chelsea shrugs in the manner of younger kids ever trying to seem cooler and more together than they are. "It was ok, I mean, it hurt a /little/ but not like... before." She shrugs, and the arm bounces again. She frowns at it, and then looks back to Dusk. "I never tried to get rid of them before, because I thought they'd grow back like everything else. But they don't!" This last, is pure, unadulterated pleasure - the happiness that her duds don't regenerate is plain and unfiltered by her coolness efforts. "Wait, like everything? So your -- your /arms/, the original ones, /they/ grow back?" Dusk's eyes are still wide, but this time it's more in amazement than in shock; he lifts his hand to make a gesture, one crooked finger turning like a key at the side of his mouth. "-- /Cool/," is his subsequent translation of this sign. "So you don't want them? I mean, you want that one gone, too?" His wing flicks towards the dangling third arm. Chelsea cocks her head for a moment at the sigh language lesson, and then her eyebrows pop up when she gets it. "Oh! Yeah, /cool/," she says, trying to mimic the gesture. Not bad for a first timer. Then she really soaks up the degree to which Dusk seems impressed. "Yeah, actually, the Z's got my real foot too, in all that mess, but it's fine now." She lifts her left foot up, bare, and wiggles her toes. Then she nods at the knife block on the counter and wiggles her pinky at Dusk. "You wanna see?" Unsupervised minors always make excellent decisions. "Hell yeah that's awesome," Dusk answers with another sharp-toothed smile. But then immediately afterwards: "Shit, no, I don't know if --" His teeth scrape against his lip. "We can't use any of their kitchen gear on meat or Spencer can't -- maaaan," for a moment he laughs, here, stirring the oatmeal with one hand and rubbing at his dark scruff of beard with the other. "I have never before had to stop and think about if lopping off a piece of /human/ makes something not Kosher anymore. How weird of a look do you think some rabbi would give me if I asked them that?" Chelsea actually laughs out loud, and then looks a little sheepish. "Shit, I'm glad you said something. I mean, I don't know shit about keeping kosher, but they've been so nice, letting me stay here... wow, that would have sucked." She lets her feet swing for a moment, sitting on the counter there, and finally asks, "So, were you born with..." her eyes flick to his wings, and then back to the oatmeal pot. "Um, the wings?" "I don't really know all the rules about it either? Like the twins eat meat and there's not /often/ dairy around here but they have whole separate -- I dunno I just don't really want to fuck it up either," Dusk admits sheepishly. "Though I've got plenty of knives up at my place --" His eyes flick towards the ceiling, but for the moment there is /oatmeal/ to tend. It's rapidly achieving cooked state; he leaves it for a moment to sneak a hand around past Chelsea so that he can retrieve a pair of bowls from the cabinet behind her. "Nope. Things just kinda grew in around -- end of middle school, start of high school. Was shitty as fuck for a while. Both wings and all the other shit. But then --" The wings stretch slightly, pulling back in soon because there is not much /room/ for them to expand all that much. "/Wings/. I mean, wings are cool can't really be down about that for long. The rest of the world doesn't think so but the rest of the world can blow me." His sharptoothed grin flashes again at Chelsea. "They're just jealous they can't fly and heal themselves up." Chelsea is openly impressed now, completely failing at her bid for 'playing cool'. Her eyes follow his to the ceiling, and that invitation is practically accepted. It just has to be made out loud. Then she's watching wide-eyed as he stretches again. "Damn... those are so cool. So you heal up like me, /and/ you can fly. That's really fucking cool..." "Nah, I don't heal up anything like you. I /wish/ I could, shit. Then I'd have it made. /I'm/ jealous," Dusk openly admits, "you lop off a piece of me and I'm boned." He pours out the oatmeal into two bowls, switching off the stove and then laughing: "Or de-boned, I guess. I just meant, all those fuckers out there who treat us like shit? They wish they could do half of what we can." He sticks a pair of spoons in the bowls. "You want -- uh. Hm. Sugar, maple syrup? Cinnamon? Something?" For his part he retrieves a small carton of coconut-milk creamer and a jug of maple syrup from the fridge, adding both to his bowl. "So you got a plan from here? Crashing for a bit and then --?" "Oh, oh yeah, I know what you mean, right? I figure that's why they're such assholes. Jealous." Chelsea accepts the new warm bowl with a grateful smile, and then she eyes the maple syrup with real hunger, like, vampiric hunger. "What... wait, whoa... I /forgot/ about maple syrup. It's... been that long. Whoa. Can... can I have some?" She holds her bowl out for Dusk to pour some in for her, but if he's waiting for her to say 'stop' he'll be emptying the bottle into it. "Around here you can never forget about maple syrup. Jax practically lives on the stuff, he's like a freaking junkie. Except sweeter." Dusk pours in a /generous/ amount of syrup and then puts the jug and the creamer away. He leans back against the counter with his bowl, stirring his own syrup in. "Literally sweeter, oh man, his blood is like candy. -- You in school? You heading for school?" Chelsea eyes the maple syrup going into her bowl and even sneaks her spoon under the pour at the last second before Dusk takes it away. The spoonful goes into her mouth and her eyes roll back with a low, quiet moan. She speaks around the sticky spoonful, "Oh my god... that's so good..." The next phrase is /probably/ thank you, but she's pretty tongue-tied at the moment. After a long moment she puts the spoon back in the bowl and nods. "Yeah, I mean... Jax was telling me about his school for freaks. I guess I might check that out." "S'a good place, I think. Twins go there. He went there. My roommates, Flicker and --" Dusk's face briefly clouds over, eyes lowering to his bowl. He shakes his head quickly, smile returning. "You probably met Flicker last night. Quiet. Smiles a lot. Anyway he went there too. Lotta my friends did, I guess. Not -- always many options out there so I guess it's good to have a /good/ one. You not feeling the whole school thing? You don't sound sure." "Oh yeah, I met Flicker." Chelsea spoons a big bite of oatmeal into her mouth and says, "Good name for him. I mean, I guess I like school. Is that weird? I missed all last year, and this year, now... And I kinda /do/ miss it, you know? That is weird, huh?" Chelsea looks down at her bowl guiltily. Now they're gonna take her probationary Cool Kid card back. "Not weird." Dusk shakes his head decisively. "I'd totally have finished school if I could. School is great. You learn tons of shit /and/ you don't have to deal with a billion responsibilities yet. It's pretty much like a free pass to enjoy life, meet friends, /and/ get better at stuff -- what's better than that?" Chelsea nods and eats more oatmeal, spooning in big bites, like maybe she's worried someone will take it away. Also, she's super thin, and if she's anything like all the other mutants who need extra calories, this could be some indication why she's so thin, doing all that healing without proper food. "Yeah, I guess that make sense. It would be nice to just... not get stared at." She nods at Dusk. "I bet you get that shit all the time." Her tone isn't to make fun, but commiserate with Dusk over their plight. "All the time," Dusk agrees, though there's a crooked smile on his face that prominently displays his fangs. "They think I'm a freak /and/ a monster who's going to drink their blood, it -- gets some pretty great reactions actually. And occasionally vampire fangirls. There's a kid at the school," he informs Chelsea, "with about seven million tentacles. Next to him, hardly any of us tend to be the weirdest person in a room." For some reason, the tentacles remark nearly gets a spit-take from Chelsea. Dusk was very nearly wearing some of her oatmeal, but she snorts, chokes, and swallows hard to clear the most of it before coughing and spluttering. Finally, eyes wide, she tries to asks but her voice locked in giggles. Then, in her own version of sign language, she pantomimes cupping her crotch, and tries to speak again, "Testa- oohhhh," her face was already beat red from trying to choke to death, but down a fresh, fully embarrassed blush flushes up her neck to meet her face. "Oh my god, kill me now, I did /not/ just ask that..." She slips down off the counter to sit on the kitchen floor, sets her bowl down and wraps her good arms over her head, apparently trying to melt away entirely. "Go away, Chelsea has left the building," and then it's just uncontrollable giggling again. "What the f--" But then Dusk breaks out into laughter, too, leaning down with his elbows on the counter. "/Tentacles/," he correts with one hand pressed against his face, "/Tentacles/ like an octopus -- though man, I mean, I haven't exactly spent a lot of time looking at him with his clothes off and he /is/ pretty ballsy. You never know." "Oh my god /stop/," Chelsea manages to squeeze out between giggle fits. Then, the worst happens. She snorts. Just when she was getting it under control, the girl snorts, and completely loses it again. Her head is still covered by her good arms, and she says, muffled down at the floor, "I intend to die right now. Tell no one of this day." Dusk's laughter subsides, mostly, though his fierce grin is still decidedly amused. He scoops the last of his oatmeal into his mouth, turning aside with another soft chuckle to wash his bowl out. "My lips, totally sealed. Though I hate to tell you about this, but he's also a telepath so whatever you do," he turns back to Chelsea with a sharply wicked smile, "the first time you meet him, /don't/ under any circumstance just keep thinking about this conversation and millions of testacles." "Well that decides it, I'm /not/ going to Xavier's..." Chelsea isn't really serious. Whether she decides or not isn't actually based on this horrific experience, but she does unfold, and then flop on her back on the kitchen floor. With the extra arm actually socketed into her shoulder, it's mobile enough to let her lie flat. She lets out a big sigh though and says, "God it's good to be rid of those extra legs. I bet those fuckers will grow back eventually, but at least it's not like these..." She wiggles her regular fingers and toes before looking up at Dusk from the floor. "Oh my god you're so funny... I can't believe you said that." "S'what I do. Make oatmeal, write code, crack wise. -- Shiiit." Dusk straightens, slipping back out of the kitchen to go plunk himself down in a beanbag and pull over a laptop he's left on the coffee table. "Speaking of which, I have /so/ much work to be doing. Sorry. Carry on with -- whatever, don't mind me." He's pulling on a pair of headphones, large and glowy, to retreat into his own little bubble of work now.