ArchivedLogs:Familly Time

Familly Time
Dramatis Personae Sarabeth, Shane, Spence, Steve
In Absentia	2016-05-16 "Of /course/ ain't none of you going to starve on my watch though skinny as this one's got I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't come up here."
Location <NYC> {Birdhaus} - Harbor Commons - Lower East Side
This house does not, perhaps, look much like what many people would think when they think of the home of a rock star. Modest and not flashy in a normal sense, it is nevertheless /eye/-catching -- huge tall ceilings, huge tall windows, wide open layout, a balcony from the second floor looking down on the first. Its walls have been studded with a number of long branch-like poles jutting out at angles; from the ceiling hang a few different trapeze-like swings. The furniture is minimalist, low-slung futons and a few overly enormous puffy beanbags, tables set low to the ground. The extravagant entertainment system is the one concession to ostentation. Most of the ground floor is open in layout, foyer opening up into a huge living room, kitchen and dining rooms adjoining it, a small sunny conservatory tucked to the other side of the living room that looks out over the river, a wide full bath off the conservatory. The three bedrooms off the balcony upstairs each have their own bathrooms. There's another full bath and separate smaller kitchen in the basement, together with two spare guest bedrooms and a somewhat cluttered soundproofed room full of musical equipment. It's a crisp, cool evening -- the kind that suggests a jacket but does not demand it. Many pedestrians have opted to go without, if only because the spring that came before has been so cold and rainy. Steve is among them, wearing a red t-shirt with a big yellow star on the chest and neat, well-fitting blue jeans as he returns to the Commons with his shield across his back and a canvas bag slung over one shoulder ('A New Leash on Life!' it reads above a ridiculously happy looking cartoon dog). He stops at the door to Birdhaus and knocks, his cargo redolent of pho and banh mi. The door slides open soon after Steve's knock; Obie is first to greet him, rearing up (though not very /high/ up) to plant paws against Steve's shins, tail wagging eagerly, perhaps at the familiar face or perhaps at the smell of food. Spence is not far behind -- he's /also/ got a red t-shirt with a yellow star on its chest, his nose wrinkling up in amusement at Steve's. "Nu-uh, you can't be Steven today, /I'm/ Steven." Inside, the house already smells of food -- a warm comforting baking smell underlying something more savoury on the stove. Shane -- more trimly dressed in neat dark slacks and a crisp black dress threaded through with very faintly shimmery stripes -- is slower to slip out of the kitchen -- he looks a little wide-eyed for a moment at seeing Steve, inner eyelids blinking shut. "Oh -- you. Have food. /Huh/. Uh -- We --" There's a hint of colour creeping into his cheeks as he glances back over his shoulder, peering towards the kitchen pantry. "Uhm, Ba --" Steve kneels and scritches under Obie's chin, suffering the pawing and licking this invites without complaint. He quirks a small smile at Spence's outfit. "Oops! But you know the thing is, I'm /always/ Steven. If it makes you feel better, though, I can be Steve 2 for the day." Straightening up, he scruffs gently at Spence's hair, lowering his voice just a touch conspiratorially. "As long as we don't fetch any more Stevens." He inhales deeply, smile growing softer, wistful. "Oh, that smells wonderful! Desole, I should have texted before I came, but I was stopping to pick up supper anyway and figured chances were good you'd need some. But it can always go in the refrigerator, and I certainly don't need to stay if it's a bad time --" He stops short, eyebrows lifting up. "Ba?" "/That's/ not true /you're/ just Steve. I took your n, you can have it back when I'm done. I don't think we want to go down the multiple Stevens route /that/ way just leads to disaster." Spence purses his lips thoughtfully as he crouches nearer to rub at Obie's ears. "And a pretty cool band, I guess. You should stay, there's /pie/." "Shane, honey, where did the oven mitts go? Is that Flicker, you should tell him and Hive that of /course/ they're welcome, those boys --" The woman emerging from the pantry is dressed far more plainly than Shane is -- a plain red corduroy button-down with sleeves rolled up past her elbows and a faded old pair of jeans both lightly speckled with flour, grey hair tied back in a loose French braid. Her words -- heavily coated with thick Southern drawl -- have cut off, dark eyes faintly widening as she looks at Steve. There's a moment where she blinks -- then with only a tiny shake of her head, a quicker brighter smile flits across her face. "/Well/ he weren't joking when he said you was big I guess it's good there's plenty -- Shane, pup, where /are/ the oven mitts?" Whoosh, back into the kitchen. "Oh -- no, it's not -- a bad time, I just -- forgot to tell you that --" Shane gestures, kind of helplessly, when his grandmother emerges from the kitchen. He slinks back inside, rummaging through the drawers -- and then another and then another before turning up the oven mitts to turn them over to her. "'pologies, Ba -- never, um. Uses them." He slips back out of the kitchen after this, kind of /corralling/ Steve closer to make proper introductions. "Um, Ba, this is -- Steve Rogers. Steve, my grandmother, Sarabeth Holland. And there's gonna be so much dinner but you know things around here, more never -- hurts." "That's alright, I wasn't /using/ my n, anyway. You can even keep it if you like, but I'll need it back when I get around to doing a /proper/ Steven costume." Steve considers both boy and beagle for a moment. "And I say we skip right to the awesome band /without/ messing with the timeline. Do you suppose Ryan has a /keytar/ lying around anywhere?" He leans on the name of the instrument, perhaps taking a particular pride in remembering it at all. "Oh, I'd love some pie, but who --" He question is answered before it's even half-way out of his mouth, which hangs slightly open for the duration of Mrs. Holland's brief foray out of the kitchen. He still hasn't quite gathered himself by the time Shane comes to collect him, and so he offers no resistance to being herded. "Pleasure to meet you, Ma'am," he bobs his head at the woman, smiling -- almost shyly. "Are you sure I'm not imposing on -- family time? I promise I won't starve." This last seems to be mostly directed at Shane, with a small, rueful quirk of his mouth. "/Probably/, Ryan's got /everything/. But Horus's probably stolen it... oh, uh oh /now/ you've said it." This last has kind of dropped into a stage-whisper from Spencer, maybe half-directed to Steve though it's kind of half tipped into Obie's fur. A little muffled. A little laughing. Sarabeth hasn't actually looked at Steve since disappearing back into the kitchen, not through Shane's introduction and not as she bustles about, adding seasoning to the pots and pans on the stove, pulling the pies from the oven to cool on the counter. She /does/ finally look up, though, sharply, at something in Steve's words, her eyes slightly wider. "Oh, /oh/, don't you talk such nonsense, there's plenty of food here and Jackson, /he/ told us, you got an appetite the size of our boys now don't you? Of /course/ ain't none of you going to starve on my watch though skinny as this one's got I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't come up here." Her stirring spoon is waving in Shane's general direction. Shane's cheeks flood darker, but he's relaxing, a crooked smile pulling at his mouth as he slips past his grandmother to get glasses for the table. "Probably would have wasted away and died," he says. Cheerfully. "Be all skin and bones but I don't even have /those/ so just. A terrible dried husk of skin. It'd be awful. And Steve eats /twice/ what I do." Steve has reprised that slightly bewildered look which he wore so often during his earlier days in the 21st century, but which had gradually faded as he acclimatized. But at Sarabeth's determination to feed him he smiles again -- a little uncertain, perhaps, but fond. "I appreciate it greatly, and...well, everything smells fantastic. He shrugs out of the harness for his shield and sets it aside, then picks his way to the refrigerator and stows the takeout containers from his canvas bag in a neat stack to one side. "I'd have wasted away myself months ago without --" It's only a brief hitch in his words, with a sidelong glance at Shane. "-- without a lot of folks around here, really. If you need an extra pair of hands, I stand ready to assist. Jax has trained me thoroughly." "It's been terrible," Spencer pipes up from the living room. "Not a single pie! How long can they keep him, this is a violation of /my/ rights." The small huff Sarabeth exhales is -- perhaps fond. But her brows have drawn inward, her shoulders slightly sagging as she turns the heat down under the food. "No, it's fine, I --" Her lips press together, eyes drifting to the shield and then up over to Steve. "They're good at that 'round here, I suppose. Taking care of folks. You've -- you've been. Settling in well, then? With -- all of them?" "S'been pretty dire," Shane agrees mildly, "Steve can't cook for sh --" He catches himself, glances over towards his grandmother, corrects: "can't cook worth anything. Ba hasn't trained him thoroughly /enough/, you ask me. Sure he will, in time." "It's completely unacceptable," Steve agrees with Spence, though somewhat more quietly. He removes himself from the kitchen and sinks sidewise into one of the dining room chairs, as if for all his strength and resilience he has grown too tired to remain standing. More likely, he is just trying to keep out of the way of food preparation. "There's a powerful culture of solidarity and mutual aid here. Saved my life, probably." He pauses, considering. "Found family here, when I thought I'd lost..." This trails off, and he lets it go. "Don't know if /everyone/ likes me as well as all that, but I think we're getting on well enough -- /despite/ my terrible cooking." Though here he looks up to study Sarabeth at work. "I hope your husband will manage alright while you are gone. I don't know the first thing about farming, but it seems very labor-intensive." "Oh, my James will be -- he'll be alright, he really. Wanted to get away, of course, we /both/ wanted to -- to come up an'. An' see him. See how he's... doing, but. But he'll hold things down till I get back, he always does." Sarabeth's brows draw together as she starts to transfer food to trivets on the table -- her lip catches momentarily between her teeth when she looks at Steve, breath pulling in, holding, then letting back out. "-- Spence, sweetie, dinner's -- oh, /could/ you go and fetch. Well, everybody." Spence leaves off where he's been wrestling Obie on the living room floor, vanishing from the house in a moment. Sarabeth tugs off the oven mitts, hanging them back up on the hook where they were /supposed/ to be originally. She tucks a wisp of hair behind her ear, studying the table and its now rather impressive spread of food with a concerned frown -- that she shortly turns on Steve. Her smile is tentative. "Yeah. Family. Guess you did, at that."