ArchivedLogs:Humanfriends!

Humanfriends!
With Coffee and Chocolate!
Dramatis Personae Melinda, Micah	2 April 2013 Mel and Micah finally get around to that coffee...tea...whatever. There may be some lampshade hanging.
Location <NYC> Evolve Cafe - Lower East Side
Tucked down an alley, this out of the way coffee shop is easy to miss if you don't know what you're looking for. Unassuming from the outside, its inside makes up for it -- spacious, with abundant seating and plenty of plush couches and cozy armchairs along the room's edges. The coffee is good, the prices are cheap, and there is a definitive alternative vibe to the room, from the music they play to the art that hangs on the walls. The real draw to this place, though, stems from its client base -- one of the very few businesses in the city that is welcoming to mutants, Evolve has become widely popular as a hangout with that crowd, and it is quite common to see them among clientele and employees both. At night, the thump of music can be heard from above, coming from the adjoining nightclub of the same name that sits over the coffeehouse. Tuesday night follows the weekend, which is when Melinda and Micah were meant to meet, but the weekend became too incredibly full of everything and business and concerts and explosions somewhere migraines that followed, that Melinda barely made it through her work days, let alone have time to meet up with her humanfriend. Finally, on Tuesday, her day off, Melinda is freeeee! And she's at Evolve, waiting at a table near the central walkway, nursing a large chai, filled with creamy milk and heavily spiced. She is regretting the skirt she wore today, but her leggings underneath are keeping her legs from freezing over in the face of this cold front moving in. She leans her elbow on the table and stirs a spoon through her tea as she waits, more headaches seemingly plaguing her. Micah wanders through the door a bit /shivery/, because he has stubbornly given up his winterwear for the season. He’s fully buttoned into an olive green, vaguely military-fashioned rough cotton jacket over his typical faded, patched jeans. His hands are jammed into his pockets and head ill-advisedly bare. Being indoors, he deems it safe enough for a hand to wander into the outside world to wave to Mel in greeting. He also shoots her a warm smile, but then points at the counter. Warm drinks are apparently a priority. Micah snags a mocha with whipped cream before plunking himself into the other chair at her table. “Hiiii, Mel! Man, the weather needs to decide what it’s doin’. I feel like I’m bein’ taunted. The sun’s all ‘Look at me, I’m gorgeous, it’s sunny out!’ and then the wind sneaks in and bleeeuuurgh.” He lets go of the lovely-warm cup long enough to waggle his hands about as aid to his sound effects. "Spring's being a bit of a tease..." Melinda agrees, a bit of gruffness to her tone, insinuating that she might have liked to say something more or different. Instead, she sticks with what she said. "Hey, Micah." Her winter coat is over the back of her chair, her hat stuffed in one pocket. She smiles at him as she studies his face and then exhales. "How are you? Aside from being chilled into a pate... Wow. Sadly, I couldn't come up with a better food related metaphor." She lets the spoon rest on the side of her mug and grips it with both hands and takes a sip. "Do you get the feeling we're all being ... depressed or something?" "Flirtatious little minx," Micah agrees with a smirk and a playful headshake. He is warming his hands around the cup while lapping at whipped cream with the tip of his tongue. Dignity is apparently for people who don't have whipped cream! "I'm good. Chilled...what's always served chilled? Wine, maybe? I'm not fancy enough for that." Surely no one had noticed. "Y'mean Headspace? Headspace has sounded confusin' and teenagery. I've been tunin' it out. Had more'n' my share of teenagery lately, for some reason." "All I can think of is 'revenge, best served cold' but ... that doesn't sound tasty at all. Sushi's pretty chill too." Melinda's mood may be dark on top of the teenager angst running in the background of her mind. "I'm sure you're just fine fancy enough for wine. They do make ten dollar bottles, you know, and twelve and fifteen dollar bottles. Not everything is the several hundred dollar bottles that certain people keep in their wine cellars." She doesn't mention Lucien, but she is thinking about it. "We could get some after this and booze it up. A bottle each. Do you have to work in the morning?" “Yeah, I think I embody vengeance even less than wine,” Micah says between ingesting tiny dollops whipped cream. Mel’s tone interrupts the next regularly scheduled creambit to bring a brow furrowing. “Are you okay, hon? You sound darker’n’ Headspace noise oughtta account for.” The recommendation of drinking doesn’t help his suspicions. “I kind of always have work, but I’m all in one hospital for most of the day on Wednesdays for an orthopaedics clinic. And mornin’s a long way off if you’re in need of a good drinkin’ buddy. Or ear. Or shoulder.” "Oh, I don't know if there's anything left to talk about. I'm just really tired." Melinda shrugs a bit and sits up a little straighter so she can drink down her chai in quiet sips. Her eyes are half lidded over the spiced brew and the tension starts to clear out of her senses. "I'm sorry. I really don't mean to be a curmudgeon. Just... MMnnngggh." She shakes her head and glances back at the display case. "Maybe I need chocolate." “Just an offer. Don’t gotta.” Micah shrugs and finally sips at the mocha, anticipating that it has cooled adequately. “Maybe an early night is a better idea if you’re tired? Or…ooo, chocolate is a good plan. I’d offer you mocha but I’ve already had my face in it.” He crinkles his nose at the cup. “Also, it is only sort of chocolate. You sound like you need /real/ chocolate. Like…brownies. Or cake.” He peers over at the temptations placed under glass at the counter. “I can get you somethin’? Baked goods from friends are magic. They have no calories.” Someone clearly spent way too much time with his mother and her friends as a kid. "Oh, good lord, I don't care about calories. Please. Thick brownie with chocolate icing would be amazing." Melinda leans back in her chair moodily before finally looking at Micah and admitting. "Okay, fine." Here it is. The words are dripping with finality - and a foreboding of what is to come next. "I think I want to get laid, but ... It's not happening." There. Disgruntled. Horny. Something. She picks up her tea and gulps more down, the heat burning the back of her throat. She's not looking directly at Micah. Instead, she's staring at the bathroom sign. Why? Because it's there. Another glance at the counter to confirm, and yes! “Oh, that I can certainly do.” Micah is just about to get up when Mel makes announcements…that cause his cheeks to bloom a pleasant, delicate pink. “Oh! That…I’m probably less help with. Unless, like, y’need help pickin’ someone up or somethin’… Different if it’s specific to an /individual/.” He musses at his hair. "Really? With all the headspace stuff, you don't know?" Melinda blinks at him and then turns her attention to the table, lips pursed, dejected. "Brownie. Please. It'll be okay." She melts into a weak smile and grabs her mug and drinks some down, again. "And maybe another chai. I've got some money. You don't have to pay," and then she's digging around in her pocketbook, trying to find her cash. “Well…I have some generalized suspicions. But everyone’s /stuff/ gets so mixed up in there that I try not to take it as gospel.” Micah is about to say more, but…chocolate is probably the fastest aid right now. He waves a dismissive hand in the direction of Mel’s purse when she produces it. “Nope. You’ve got sadfriend status right now. Sadfriend gets free treats.” He bounds over to the counter, conducting transactions for a chai and two brownies with plenty of smiling and pleasantries for the girl working the register. Because dessert is always better if someone else is eating, too. A bundle of plates, cups, forks, and napkins are plopped on the table moments later. It’s kind of a slow night at the coffee shop tonight, it seems! Micah settles back into his seat. “Have you told ‘em? Don’t ask an’ y’can’t have, y’know?” Melinda nods somberly as Micah dismisses her payment and watches with one hand on her chin, her elbow propping up her head. She's smiling a little, sheepishly, when Micah returns with things and bobs her head in gratitude. When everything's settled and she's pulled her brownie closer to her, she tries to get back into the conversation. "I open my mouth around one and all we do is fight. The other... he's gone and I don't know when he's coming back." She looks to her left and finishes off her first mug of tea. "I can't even tell if ... I don't know. Headspace makes everything more confusing." Melinda’s headbob of gratitude is answered with a welcoming smile. Micah is immediately stabbing teensy pieces of brownie on a fork, dipping them in his cup just long enough to pick up moisture, and then letting the result melt on his tongue. “Fightin’ can be kind of good. Yellin’s sometimes just a way to express other feelin’s of a passionate nature? As far as people bein’ gone…yeah, that makes it a little rough to be physical. Tried fightin’ about what you’re feelin’ with Person A?” "Well, it doesn't feel so great when he yells and leaves." Melinda grumps, using her fingers to break apart her brownie and chew it dry - at least drier than Micah's. She finishes chewing and swallows, starting the stirring process with her new mug of tea. "I... actually don't know. I don't want to be called an exwife again." She needs to chew some more. "I'm sorry. Why don't you tell me about your day? Tell me about what is going on with you? Ain't nothing going to fix this until it either breaks apart or gets better. Until then, there's chocolate." Micah winces at Mel’s descriptions. “Okay, yeah, that’s not so good. Withdrawin’ and name-callin’ aren’t good ways to start things. And chocolate /does/ help.” Spike. Dunk. Melt. “My day was mostly run of the mill. Fittings an’ things. One casting for a kid with serious sensory issues, where they didn’t warn me about the /fire drill/ that was scheduled.” He pushes up a sleeve to reveal a mess of dark blue crosshatching pattern over sickly green-purple bruise that takes up most of his forearm. “Turns out the fire alarm freaked him out some. And freaked out means kickin’. Who woulda thunk?” Micah’s tone implies someone /should/ have. Melinda cringes when things are mentioned about sensory issues and a fire drill, and then cringes further when she sees the bruise. "Ugh, that's horrible. But really, all they need to do to get doctors and nurses to start thinking about fire drills again is to have them sitting around in a paper johnny, naked as a new baby underneath, waiting. The longer the wait, especially in an unfamiliar office, the more I think about whether the fire alarm is going to go off soon or not." More brownie is scarfed down. "Kid did a number on you. I'm so sorry." Micah shoves the sleeve back down with a shrug, pausing to sip at his coffee. "It's mostly the administrators' issues. They should send out warnings in advance, when they can. They're the ones that don't /think/ most of the time." Another piece of brownie is speared and dunked...it falls off the fork. Oh, well. More chocolate slurry later! Micah stabs at the brownie again. "I'm pretty used to it. If I get through a week with no new bruises, scratches, or bites, it's a win!" He chuckles lightly at himself. "Worse for the poor /kid/, though. All that stress and of course, the casts we took were useless by the end of it. I'm gonna wait 'til Thursday to try again. Hopefully give 'im enough time to forget the Bad Man that puts uncomfortable things on his feet and makes the Loud Scary Noises happen." "I didn't realize that you had such a high impact job." Mel admits, a little bit of wonder in her tone. "How did you get into it? Did you go off to school and say 'this is what I want' or did it happen upon you some other way?" At this point, Melinda is mostly breaking apart her brownie and breaking it down into smaller pieces, her fingers getting a liberal coating of chocolate icing, which she sucks off at varied intervals. “Medical care for kids is rough…kids with special needs, even rougher. Add serious behavioural issues? Recipe for unpleasantness. Then I’m generally doin’ things that involve a fair amount of Uncomfortable and/or Scary.” Micah shrugs. “Oh, I been around this stuff for literally as long as I can remember. I got my first prosthesis when I was less than a year old. And I’m kind of mechanically minded. Grew up around m’dad’s auto shop. I like doin’ things with my hands. It’s sort of a natural fit.” He’s making pretty fast work of the brownie, despite taking tinytiny pieces, by sheer assembly line repetition. "OH. I didn't know." Melinda didn't ask. While they are talking, she starts rubbing at her temple, her nose wrinkling up uncomfortably. She starts eating the brownie again, chewing mechanically on the pieces and swallowing them down with small sips of her chai. "I guess that makes sense though - you pretty much know what a lot of them are going through, so they might be able to trust you better." Her eyes squint. "How do you tune this out?" "Ohgosh, sorry! All this mindmeldin’ that's been goin' on lately... I kinda forget that I haven't really known all you folks for that long and y'don't know everythin' yet. Oops." Micah offers a sheepish smile. Brainlink impropriety? Is there such a thing? "It is super-helpful to be your own demo model. Also, some of the kids like pretendin' I'm a robot. Which is fun." Micah pauses, lending an 'ear' to the ongoing brain-noise. "I'm so /used/ to loudness. I'm usually around heavy machinery or screamin' people or cryin' babies... I just...shove it back. Also, my head is pretty much always full of randomness and music. Y'can turn it up over the other noise like a teenager hidin' in his bedroom." Something makes him start to giggle. "Ohgosh, sorry if I've gotten /so many/ songs stuck in your head." "At this point, songs would be preferable." Melinda shakes her head. "I um, thanks for not listening, I guess. It is weird, to hear stuff I don't know about people and then find it coming up in conversation. Everyone else seems so used to it. I guess. I don't know. You're unmutant... like me, so maybe it was, you know, something we could talk about." She sighs and mooshes a couple bites together and stuffs them in her mouth. "Glad you have a fulfilling career." That might be muffled by food. “I still get snippets. Or, like…when people start shoutin’ or talkin’ to each other on purpose? But I mostly try not to be tunin’ in the radio on other folks.” Micah’s mouth takes a break from brownie nibbles to stretch into a broad smile. “Y’know, aside from work and people I knew before I moved here, you’re probably one of the only not-Genetically-Enhanced folks I’ve spent much time with? Isn’t that odd? Is that… Is it that way for you, too?” "Only recently, for me. I guess. Although, I can never be sure." Melinda makes sure her mouth is clear before speaking again. "I've been here for a long time and thought I knew a fair share from my time at the homeless shelter and the fact that they tend to end up there - what with society being what it is, but in the last few months, I feel like I hit some sort of trip wire and they all just started falling out of the woodwork around me." She smiles and the pauses. "Then again, Micah. Look at us." She sits up a little bit straighter and gestures around the room, brows rising. "We're in a local hot spot for the nonstandard people to hang out. It'd be like me, going to a gay bar and proclaiming, gee, I don't meet any straight men anymore. I wonder why." Several of Mel's comments induce more Micah-giggles. He is easily amused. "Funny thing is, though, I met /you/ here. And only, like...one 'nonstandard' person. I'm hittin' 50/50 for new people in this place. Everybody else is just out in the /world/. We must've tripped the same wire." He sips from his cup, then giggles. "I meet an awful lot of not-straight men, too. But that makes slightly more sense to me." Not that this was Mel's point, but...kind of funny. "Obviously, we should hang out more often and see how many other boring standards we can attract and form a club." Melinda shakes her head and gives up on her brownie, a third left on her plate. She's more focused on the chai now. "And yes. I think we did meet here. Wow. That feels like a long time ago. After seeing you in the lofts so often, I kind of forgot about it." "See, I think the opposite would happen over time. Both of us hangin' out /together/ would somehow create an irresistible meet-new-mutanttypes magnet." Micah is obviously having fun toying with the ridiculous. "It was a fair while back. And I was randomperson back then. Prob'ly not too memorable." He is also paying more attention to his coffee now, lest it get cold from sheer wear of entropy. "But wouldn't that be good? Get a bunch of new people to meet mutants and make it okay? Or are you just talking about mutants meeting each other?" Melinda lifts her mug and keeps it near her face, sipping frequently, but mostly enjoying the aroma. "I don't know. That makes me sound like I have an agenda. I just... like coffee and tea and sometimes meeting random people makes my day so much better." "I was mostly thinkin' the type of new people meetin' /us/. But...just goofin' around." Micah's shoulders rise and fall in a casual shrug. "Yeah, I can't say as I have a whole lot of /intentions/, either. I'm just here. Things happen." He's still all smiles interrupted by occasional sips of coffee or, less often, tinybites of brownie. "I hope not-random people are able to make your day better, too? I'd hate to think you'll leave here the same way you came in. I'm terrible at leavin' people to the whole /melancholy/ thing. I prob'ly would have destroyed the entire vibe of Victorian era, if it was anythin' like the novels." "I don't know, Micah. Sometimes. Not a lot lately." Melinda purses her lips and stares cross eyed at her tea. "Having coffee with you has been wonderful." A sprinkle of laughter meets Mel’s cross-eyed look. “Oh, good. Especially since you’re havin’ tea,” Micah teases. “But that means I won’t have to keep pesterin’ at you to try to make you feel less bad. Because peskiness always helps.” His chirpy tone implies that he knows well enough this is not the case. “I am learnin’ tea.” Like it’s a subject. Classes in Tea 101 at the local community college. “Turns out there’s a lot of it.” "You better believe it. If you ever need a hand - oh, well. You have Jax. You don't need a skilled barista when you have a Jackson Holland. I'm quite sure he could out tea me any day." Melinda smiles and sips. "And you know what I meant. Just because I'm drinking tea with you doesn't mean I'm not having coffee... as in getting together for hot beverages. You know." “Oh, sometimes I need a hand that is not a Jax hand. I had to get rescued by Lucien the other day. People rescue me a lot. Sometimes from things that aren’t that scary, actually.” Micah ducks his head, mock-abashedly. “And, yes, I know what you mean. I’m deliberately dense sometimes for entertainment purposes.” "Oh well, you have another excellent tutor in Lucien, if well, we're thinking of the same one." Melinda reconsiders her statement halfway through. "I have a friend named Lucien who is extremely well versed in teas. Perhaps all dashing men named Lucien are tea aficionados." It's possible. She finishes her tea. "I... Hate to sip and run, but you are probably right about the early night in... as I should probably sleep before my shift tomorrow. You can come to me to be schooled some time, so you're not actually being rescued, okay?" Micah might have given more detail to explain the person in question, but he has developed a fondness for the idea that all Luciens are tea experts. He decides to let the ambiguity stand. "I hate to stand between a body and much-needed rest. And you bein' in a better mood means I've no cause to detain you now. Thanks for the tea offers. I'll definitely take you up on it. Tea parties all around... I may be presentable in public soon if I keep this up!" His grin now is of a self-deprecating variety. "Have a good night. And sleep well!" Micah stands long enough to see her off, Southern manners still sunk-in adequately to demand he be on his feet if she is on hers. But he'll linger awhile to finish picking at the unfinished dessert and getting to the chocolaty-mess at the bottom of his cup, once she leaves.