ArchivedLogs:Malign Intentions

Malign Intentions
Dramatis Personae Ivan, Rasa, Mal	2013-04-28 Ivan and Rasa decide to relax after the chaotic party. Alas, Mal is there. Ivan takes EXTREME MEASURES by KILLING him.
Location <WES> The Grindstone - Salem Center
Bright and cheery, this coffeeshop is Salem Center's social hub. Its black-and-white tiled floors are always kept spotless, and the deep wooden tables are polished smooth. Seating here is abundant, found in the clusters of large and social tables and tucked away at smaller booths, or along the stools at the window counters where the large windows make for ideal people-watching along the main street of Salem Center. With drama but half a day ago, what better way to try and relax than to take yourself /away/ from everything for a little bit? In an attempt to practise some of this 'spontaneity' he has been meaning to give into, Ivan's asked Rasa out. On a date? Maybe not quite so much as just /out/, as in outside of the school grounds. It is as such that they find themselves here, at The Grindstone, after having wandered around Salem Center for a while. Ivan's actually been somewhat chatty today, for his doing - asking whether Rasa wanted to go to any shops and offering to carry any bags for hir if ze so desired! Maybe... a little too overzealous at times. But well meant. Even now, perched atop a stool and peering blankly outward to other people as he waits for his ordered tea to cool, he ponders aloud, "It is strange being here, still." His tea gets a glance. "Some times I forget that I am not very close to home." His eyes lift to Rasa, then. "Do you?" "Ah, I think my problem is that I don't want to be home." Rasa replies, her gaze fixed down on her hot cocoa. Ze has hir hijab up around hir hair, leaving hir face exposed for the drinking of beverages. Ze looks up at Ivan, studying his expression. "You should tell me more about your home. It must be nice if you miss it so much." Ze smiles as ze folds her hand around the cup. Ze has been a little down all day, but is enjoying herself. Ze has not actually been buying anything as well, so there are no bags to hold. And then He enters. Dressed in a pair of worn down blue jeans, aged black leather shoes and a wrinkly navy-blue-and-white plaid dress shirt that has its sleeves rolled up to the elbows, Malcolm White strides into The Grindstone with serpentine confidence. His fluid motion might be attributed to an odd combination of laziness and finesse, or it could simply lie within the stout bottle of Jack Daniel's, the neck of which is clutched tightly in Mal's left hand. Wham! The bottom of the bottle descends with so much force against the counter that some of the whiskey inevitably bolts out of its prison and upwards, soaring for but a moment before it rains back down. Needless to say, this little display alone is enough to disgruntle the employee behind the counter. Still, however intoxicated he might be, he still knows where he keeps his money. In a pocket. In fact, he is even sober enough to know which one. The left hand clumsily digs into the pocket on the same side, summoning a crumpled ten dollar bill. It is slammed down on the counter. "Espresso", he mutters irksomely. "It is not /that/ nice," Ivan starts to answer Rasa, the smile appearing on his face twitching ever so briefly into something a little more bitter, "it is very small and very loud a lot of the time, but it is /home/. And it is wh--" In all of his Rasa-aimed staring, he seems to have either missed or chosing to ignore Mal entering the room, but the glass clank of the bottle sends him simultaneously shrinking back on the stool and back into quiet-mode, eyes darting to Mal's face and narrowing almost instantly. "But you mean loud in a good way, right?" Apparently, loud means something else entirely to Rasa. Ze jumps too when the glass bottle encounters the counter, hir skin swiftly changing pale, and then adding its metallic sheen. Ze glances quickly, then looks back at hir drink, tootally nonchalant, ze swears. Ze turns the ceramic cup slowly and looks up at Ivan. "What kind of family do you have? Lots of siblings? Aunts and uncles?" Ze is kind of forcing conversation now, eyes intent and serious. Draaag. The thick rimmed glass bottom of that Jack Daniel's loudly grinds against the counter until it lifts off the edge. The bottle momentarily swings downward, before Mal lifts the tip of the neck against his sneer and imbibes an amount sizeable enough to call forth a grimace that lasts a whole two seconds. Somewhat less thunderously, the bottle is set back on the counter. See, he can be nice. The change is engulfed by his palm and slid off the counter. He manages to get almost all of it, save for one coin that tumbles down and rides off, escaping the heinous man towards better people. Those people happen to be Ivan and Rasa. Although vaguely interested in the trajectory of that coin, Mal is entirely disinterested in claiming it, by the looks of it. Once he catches sight of the couple, however, the first thing to ensnare his attention is Ivan. Even a hint of a brief glance is enough to attract Mal; like a scorned medusa, his attention is now entirely on the pair, appraising and analysing every detail with a slackjawed expression. Distancing himself from the counter, he starts walking towards them. "Is that a burqa?" The question is accompanied by rude pointing at Rasa. A fraction of amusement can be found in his tone. It doesn't take a genius to notice Rasa is a mutant, so even someone like Mal notices it. "Jesus, why didn't you get the one that covers the entire face?" And then he looks to Ivan, as if he had the answer to that. Nnnnyes conversation. Ivan's head turns to Rasa again, his eyes scanning hir face and skin colour. Or colours. Hir questions are enough to bring him back to focus on hir, though he seems to have trouble switching back to talking mode, mouth opening without much coming out. He does his best to straighten, but doesn't quite manage until-- until Mal actually makes his way over, and fills the silence /for/ him. Instantly, Ivan's expression falls from to something that may not have been entirely unafraid to... something more neutral. A tense sort of /alert/, as he shifts his weight to stare past that pointing finger and directly at Mal's face. Unwavering, unblinking, and now /definitely/ unafraid. "It does cover my face." Rasa replies quietly, releasing hir cocoa cup and moving the bit around hir neck up over hir noses, disguising everything but the narrow inch around hir eyes. Hir head bows, eyes averted, but keeping the shadow of Mal in hir peripheral vision. Ze takes a deep breath and kicks at Ivan's feet under the table. Gloved hands slip into hir lap, perhaps snagging hir phone from hir pocket. A display like Mal's obviously gathers attention from other visitors. Some of them are predictably repulsed by Mal's behaviour, while others try to ignore the debacle, but no one bothers to interfere just yet. The employee behind the counter delivers the cup of coffee the man had ordered, hoping that that would suffice as motivation to come back. "Sir, your espresso? Now, please leave the couple alone." Despite the politeness in her voice, there is an underlying firmness to the words. And that is enough to grab Mal's attention, at least temporarily. "Yeah", he simply replies. And then he looks back to Rasa, watching hir cover hir face up. "See, much better!" Inevitably, his eyes wander down below, where good manners normally forbid to tread. And then Ivan gets the brunt of Mal's attention. "Is she like that /all over/? Man, that must be weird in the-- Couldn't you just get a vapid blonde or something? Keep the weird ones for when you have a midlife crisis." The stern voice from behind him repeats itself. "/Sir/. If you don't back off, I'll have to call the police." The kick under the table brings Ivan's eyes back to Rasa's face, but only after ze's covered most of it. This prompts a blink from him, and something a little... sad is added to his features. It's mostly just confusion at first, but it isn't long before - with a single shake of his head - his expression turns to disapproval instead. It is aimed decidedly at hir first, lingering for a few seconds, then somewhat more strongly at Mal. His shoulders roll back, and he presses a hand against the table to push himself off of the stool. Talk mode activate. "What is wrong with you?" He actually /genuinely/ sounds like he wants to know, and he's likely not going to stop glaring until he finds out. The fact that he's glaring /upward/ due to the age difference between him and Mal doesn't seem to be of great concern. This does not, however, look like something he is used to doing, and his somewhat shaky breathing gives away that much. A gnat has, at some point, managed to find itself into the store, it seems! Oh hey, a second one. And-- actually, there's about a dozen of the tiny little things around and behind Ivan now, having apparently escaped from his clothes? Flying in circles somewhat uselessly. Twitchily. "Ivan. Stop it. Just be quiet." Rasa coaxes hir person, eyes flicking from his eyes to the bugs that are escaping. Ze kicks him under the table again. Finally, ze rises, cell phone in hand. "We'll go. We're sorry." Ze moves over to Ivan's side and grabs at his arm, trying to pull him away. "Come on..." Ze tuuugs. Tug. Tug. Tug. Mal isn't too happy with being beckoned back to the counter, but he reluctantly submits, or so it seems. "Yeah, yeah, I'm /coming/." Yet he remains to stand in front of the couple, eyeing the teenager that rose up first. "I haven't had my coffee yet!" The explanation is delivered with plenty of gusto, as if this knowledge should have been obvious to Ivan. Noticing the gnats that begin to surround the smaller kid, Mal snorts. "Figures." When Rasa rises up, Mal dons a deceptively pleasant facade of politeness. "Oh, don't mind /me/. Just had a rough week." Finally, he begins to step away from the two. The pace is painstakingly slow. "But I gotta wonder how safe you feel around a guy whose only method of standing up for his woman is trying to scare the bully with flies, kid." Even though all of the tugging, Ivan seems reluctant to move. Or even to tear his eyes away from Mal's. "... But I am not sorry." The tone of his voice implies he doesn't quite seem to comprehend why he would be, in the first place. Regardless, after a few seconds-- the gnats around him start to fly lower and lower, until eventually most of them are back to clinging to Ivan's shoulders. And he, too, relents, inhaling deeply to let out a sigh as he turns to face Rasa, low-browed disapproval still obvious on his face. "But... we didn't even have our drinks." He's moving regardless, though. Apparently Rasa-wishes are more important than drinks, even if he does not look happy about it. "It's okay," Rasa nods to Mal as ze continues tugging Ivan out. Ze pointedly ignores the comments about Ivan's bugs and keeps tugging. Come closer, exit. You are too far away! Tuuuug. "We'll get more drinks at home. It will be fine. Please do not worry." Ze spares Mal another glance as ze tugs, a worried glance, one that is mindful and careful. Halfway back to the counter, Mal starts to turn away from Ivan and Rasa. But once he hears that Ivan is apparently not sorry, that is more than enough to restart the engine. Not that Malcolm shows it. Instead, he wanders back to the counter to his espresso and one annoyed looking employee. Subtly nodding to himself a few times as if agreeing to some unheard argument, he lifts up the cup to take a sip. Nope. Not good enough. The bottle of Jack is pointedly picked up again and poured some into the cup. Once the bottle of whiskey is placed back, Mal looks back to the imminent departure of the couple he harassed. Much to the dismay of those present, the delinquent has a final parting insult to share, spinning the espresso cup lazily with a sneer. "Make her wear a paper bag next time! Jesus, I can't even drink my coffee without thinking about that face." He just refuses to let it go. One of two things happens; Rasa will either find hirself dragged back /toward Mal/, or ze will have promptly lost hir grip on an Ivan arm. Because where Ivan once stood, slowly moving toward the door, is now nothing but a cloud of gnats released from his control as he has apparently chosen to storm off and /throw/ himself at Mal with what can only be assumed to be one of the worst Russian insults he can think of in the heat of the moment. Though he's quick, Ivan's tactics are /lacking/, unpractised. Should he manage to actually ram into Mal and possibly even manage to land both of them on the floor, the next thing on his list is to swing a fist /anywhere/ in the vicinity of Mal's face. He's not giving precision a hell of a lot of thought, here. "Ivan!" Rasa squeaks, trying to get a hold on him again, but it is difficult with only one hand, the other wrapped around hir cellphone. When Ivan lunges, Rasa tries to get that cellphoned hand around his waits and tug at him more with hir arms. "We do not fight. Come on." Lucky for Rasa, ze has put up the covering over hir mouth, otherwise, ze might be coughing and hacking at the sheer number of gnats around. Now hir breathing only sucks the little beasts against the fabric of hir hijab, not into hir nose or mouth. "Stop it!" Success! Mission accomplished. "Come on, Russian." The accent wasn't hard to guess, or at the very least assume its origins. Mal is now greatly amused by the fact he managed to goad Ivan, stepping aside from the counter to face the incoming pale kid and his army of gnats. Although he spreads his arms, it's not a hug that comes his way. Except it's not a hug. Mal is a little bit too big and too sturdy for Ivan to knock over, but the momentum is enough to force Malcolm back. The punch may not be terribly precise, but it lands - the target shows no intention of dodging it. It lands awkwardly against the cheekbone, and as a result Mal attempts to push Ivan away. They do not fight. Indeed. Probably for the best. The punch sends Mal stumbling further back, sputtering all the while. At first, it's easy to assume the gnats are getting into /his/ mouth and nostrils. But the man collapses right on his back, convulsing and shaking violently. He pales. A couple of cockroaches escape the confines of his mouth. A vacant stare hits the ceiling. Mal does not move. A good portion of visitors rise up in panic. The employee is speechless. Behind the impenetrable veil of the illusion, however, Mal is at the counter, lifting the espresso cup to his smug mug to steal a sip. A free hand rises up to brush softly against his cheek. Going to be a bruise, yep. It's not terribly hard to pull an Ivan off of something, given that he's fairly light and - at the moment - not terribly stable on his feet. With Rasa's help, he backs off of Mal just in time to see his 'victim' fall, and he seems almost ready to /shake/ Rasa off and go RIGHT BACK IN for some more. Until, that is... Mal does not get up. The gnats /freeze/ where they fly, their actions halted completely as they fall dazed to the floor. Asleep? The cockroaches are not quite so easily affected, however. "{What... what happened to...}" No insults this time, just confused muttering as Ivan's anger mixes with bewilderment. Now it's his turn to grab for Rasa's arm, backing slowly away and toward the exit as his gaze lifts from Mal's face to those of several other people around them. Then back to Mal. "{I didn't--} ... those are not... {mine}." "Go, Ivan. I'm calling 911." Rasa moves back with Ivan, staring at the man with the roaches coming out of his mouth. Hir phone is at hir ear as she leaves, giving details to whatever operator picks up as ze makes sure that Ivan leaves and heads back to the school. Then, she will call the school. This time there is not much hesitation in Ivan's actions-- Rasa's command is followed up on without question, and he tears his attention away from whatever is going on inside the cafe now to turn and flee in a rush, shoving past several people on his way out. Out and /away/. The time it takes for fake murder to become attempted fake murder is more or less the time it takes for Mal to enjoy a nice cup of espresso. When he sets the cup back down on its little plate, the skin on his illusory doppleganger appears healthier. Another cockroach is coughed out. By then, Rasa and Ivan are absent, and the only spectators are the horrified visitors and the barista. Mal gets up from the ground slowly, breathing heavily. "Well, that teaches me a valuable lesson", he lies to the public, groggily walking over to the precious bottle of Jack Daniel's. It is here that the imposter merges with its creator. The bottle is snatched up, another swig is taken, and then Mal heads for the exit. A dismissive wag of a hand is given. "Sorry for the trouble, guys!"