ArchivedLogs:Ninjabread

Ninjabread
Dramatis Personae Tag, Micah
In Absentia	28 December 2014 '
Location <NYC> {Funhaus} - Harbor Commons - Lower East Side
The house might have started out looking capacious and respectable, but it has since moved through various incarnations, always colorful, but never colorful the same way for longer than a few days. There is little in the way of what most people would call furniture: a sectional couch buried in fluffy cushions, three bean bags of varying sizes, a scattering of bookshelves, what looks like a human-scale cat tree in one corner, and a low, square table surrounded by zafus. The floor plan is largely open, criss-crossed by rope bridges linking small elevated platforms to the landing of the second storey, beyond which lie the bedrooms. The kitchen is separated from the living room only by a long counter, lined with stools. Even the appliances are decked out in unexpected hues, edged with designs that change on a daily basis. A row of tins and jars runs the length of the breakfast counter, none of which match and all of which bear brightly colored text describing their contents: teas, coffees, mates, and various herbal blends. "This used to be a Funhouse," Tag is singing quietly to himself while he cleans, "but now it's full of evil clowns..." The sweeps of his broom are timed to the beats of the song, and gather up more than just dirt and dust along the way. The very color of the floor changes beneath their bristles, going from blue-white geometric patterns to a tangle green vines dotted with flowers and fruits of every description. "It's time to start a countdown..." The walls, too are overgrown with two-dimensional flora, some identifiable as Terran life and others quite outlandish. The vines part to frame the furniture, platforms, and pieces of non-Tag art. "I'm gonna burn it down, down, down..." He twirls around and snatches the dustpan and sweep his findings in. "I'm gonna burn it down!" Knock-knock-knock three sharp raps announce Micah's presence at the front door to Funhouse. He has three cookie tins piled in one arm and a Bladerunner-style light-up umbrella in the other hand, though this latter has been closed and doused now that he's under the cover of the porch. He's mildly layered for the short outdoor walks he's been going on, newsboy cap on his head, olive jacket layered over a blue and green flannel, Totoro face tee, navy henley, and bluejeans. "Please don't burn anythin' down," he informs the closed door. Setting aside broom and dustpan, Tag vaults over the couch, dive-rolls across a somewhat flattened beanbag colored like a giant peppermint candy, and races to open the door. He wears a black t-shirt with a giant red Rebel Alliance symbol on the chest, and jeans that clearly show long red-black striped socks through the gaping tears at the knees. His hair is currently a rainbow gradient, red at the roots and violet at the tips, messy and falling willy-nilly across his face. "Hey! Come on in." He sweeps a bow and steps aside, flashing a quick, guilty smile. "I wasn't gonna actually burn anything down," he assures Micah, "it's just the house theme song, you know? Can I get you A Beverage, perhaps of the warm variety?" Micah's head cants to one side at the sound of all the...activity it seems to be taking to reach the door. "Hello! I come bearin' entirely too many holiday sweet food projects." He holds out the tins on that note. "Was lookin' for things t'keep Spence occupied, so we got...ninjabread men an' chocolate covered peppermint sticks for puttin' in cocoa an' every kind of decorated sugar cookie spaceship. S'all vegan an' kosher, just. Hope y'like /crazy/ amounts of frostin' an' sugar. Also, I did none of the actual bakin' so they're safe t'eat." Once his hands are free, he removes his boots and tucks his hat and gloves into his jacket pockets. "Warm drinks sound nice. This was m'last stop. Was kinda hopin' I might also run into Joshua, if he's awake?" "Oh, man!" Taking the containers from Micah with visible glee, Tag piles them on the counter beside a couple of red tins covered with Chinese text. "Thank you thank you! I didn't know how badly I needed sugar cookie spaceships in my life, and now I'm not sure how I will go on without them." He washes his hands at the sink and dries them on a towel hanging from the refrigerator door. The the brief contact with his hands changes the towel from sunny yellow to some kind of pink-heavy tie-dye. "Our beverage selection has expanded yet further. My sister keeps throwing more tea at us. Got a new chai blend that's pretty good, lots of cinnamon." Picking up the tin, he holds it up for inspection in Link-acquiring-item fashion. The label is orange, the lettering on it reads 'The Spice Must Flow (Masala Chai).' "Joshua's out, didn't say where...he might be back for dinner?" Tag shrugs philosophically. Such is the way of teleporting housemates. “Well, if y'all run out, there's a matchin' pile in pretty much /ev'ry/ house in the Commons, /plus/ the kitchens. We might've gone a little overboard. Some of the spaceships might be aliens, too. M'not sure. S'a lotta nine-year-old imagination in those cookies, so y'can prob'ly make it up as y'go along.” Micah chuckles both at the presentation of the tea and the label. “Ohgosh. I pretty much /have/ t'have Dune-tea. S'it make your eyes glow Fremen blue?” Quit of his outdoor wear, he wanders into the kitchen after Tag. “Ah, s'okay. Just owe 'im dinner. 'least one. Though I think when I told 'im as much he might've thought I was jokin'. Now I just gotta track 'im /down/ t'feed 'im ever.” "Hopefully it's not going to come to raiding other kitchens for more cookies, but we will do what we must for the glory of the Cookie Space Imperium." Tag pries open the tin and scoops some of its contents into a glossy ceramic teapot presently colored in a sort of smoky blue swirl. "Nah, it won't make your eyes blue, though /I/ could do that if you like." He fills the teapot with steaming water from the always-ready electric kettle. "But yeah, I'll let him know, or you can text, email, write a note, or leave a cryptic message encoded in patterns of cookie crumbs or whatever. I've been meaning to actually, corner him for a meal, myself. He's been quiet since Christmas." Tag hops up to sit on the counter, frowning lightly. "Guess a lotta folks have been. Not your usual holiday blues, though it beat the heck outta last year." When he turns back to Micah, his eyes are Spice-blue from irises all the way out through sclerae. "How're you doin'? See you all the time, but we haven't sat down and talked in ages." "Wouldn't need t'be a raid. Imagine most folks'll have 'em t'/spare/." Micah chuckles at that, leaning back on against a counter to watch Tag go about his tea preparations. "Prob'ly for the best I don't. All likelihood I'd /forget/ that it was done an' go freak people out at work t'morrow." His lips curl into a slightly lopsided grin. "Yeah, I text at 'im. Try not t'do it too much 'cause y'never know when he's on some ridiculous 48 hour work shift or somethin', though. Don't wanna be a pest when I'm /tryin'/ t'be nice." The grin falters at the mention of Christmas. "He's...usually a little on the terse side. With me, at least. But I think a lotta folks've been... 'Tween Dusk gettin' taken back t'prison an' these future dreams gettin' more an' more horrible, folks ain't been in the jolliest of moods. There was a future-Christmas raid on a mutant internment camp. Lots of death an' gore an' unpleasantness." His head shakes as if to remove the thought from his mind. "Other'n that? Not terrible. You?" "Yeah sometimes I wander into work with crazy colored eyes and boss yells at me the take out the contacts. The hair they don't mind, it's what I'm there to do anyhow." Tag kicks his red-black striped feet back and forth like a child sitting on a riverbank. "I haven't been getting so many terrible future dreams, but I've heard. Nightmares aren't anything the sneeze at, though. Enough nights of not sleeping right, and it cascades into all kinda stuff." He hops down from the counter and wraps Micah in a tight hug. "Me, I'm okay. I've managed to hold onto a day job for almost six months, my business is doing great, and I don't have any holiday birth family obligations." "Seems like they shouldn't be fussin' at you for /whatever/ crazy fashion-things y'come up with. S'what people expect of their artists, ain't it?" Micah nods a little solemnly at the nightmare talk. "Yeah, it ain't even... After havin' too many of these future ones. An' each one seems /worse'n/ the last, y'know? M'brain starts takin' over an' makin' up its own horrible. Ain't slept well in a good while. I'm tryin' not t'focus on it too much, though. We're doin' what we can t'stop those things from happenin'. Meanwhile, ain't no point in dwellin' like they've happened already. So...sugar. Lots of it." His smile returns at the hug, arms curling around the smaller man and squeezing back. "Six months is a good run! Y'still enjoyin' it?" "Yeah, well, the clientele is mostly middle-aged Chinese ladies. They prefer their artists to look kinda...respectable, I guess?" Tag turns his eyes back to their natural dark brown. "I don't mind, though, they're mostly real nice and they tip well. It's kinda boring sometimes, but I enjoy it, yeah. As for the future...I can't imagine what I could do to help, but you know where to find me if there is." He glances at the clock, which looks like a sunflower the moment. "Tea time!" Fetching two barrel-shaped mugs from the cabinet, he decants the tea. The outside of each mug changes to match the teapot as he pours. Leaving both on the counter, he brings over a bamboo tray laden with half a dozen different sweeteners: cane sugar, cane syrup, agave nectar, maple syrup, honey, and some sort of coconut sugar. "You're not picky about your milks, are you? We got coconut, almond, and hemp." "Hm, I could see how that'd get a little dull day-in, day-out. Imagine y'get some folks lookin' for more creativity from time t'time. An' /especially/ for your side job. Isra always looks some new kinda fabulous these days." Micah lets his smile linger, leaving off the more difficult topics of conversation. "An' the Egg was lookin' downright Eastery. No one needs t'tell it it's off-season. Don't know that it'll still be an /egg/ by that point. Get your Easter Egg on while y'can." His eyes follow Tag through all of his enthusiastic bustle, made all the more interesting by all the colour changing going on. "Not excessively. Hemp's a little weird in some things, though. Almond usually goes nice with chai. An' I started usin' agave since I moved in with Jax. Don't keep honey 'round no more." "I only recently started getting any creative requests at the salon, but it's still mostly either blonde highlights or covering up gray." Tag darts to the refrigerator and returns with a carton of almond milk. "'Course, folks coming to my business are /mostly/ looking for creative stuff, so that makes up for it." He lightens his own tea and hands the carton to Micah. "You think the egg's gonna hatch before spring time? Isra said the doctors didn't know much for sure, but that was a while ago." A spoonful of cane sugar goes into his mug, too, and he slides the agave syrup toward Micah. "You guys ready? As ready as you can ever be, I mean." "Mmn. Gotta convince more folks they need anime hair. Or...pop star hair. S'kinda the same thing depending what part of Asia you look at these days." Micah's lips twitch in an almost-laugh at this. "Though I s'pose that's less likely in the middle-aged lady crowd, either way." Taking the milk, he adds enough to cool his tea off to a drinkable temperature before returning it to Tag. His head just shakes at the Egg talk. "I really...have no idea. Ain't been able t'prepare for it the usual way, y'know? No idea when it'll get here. Or even what /shape/ it'll be. Can't make or buy baby furniture, really. No point t'makin' or buyin' baby clothes. Don't know what kinda diet the little one'll need. S'all just up in the air s'far as practical things're concerned." He starts to chew on his lip but catches himself at this and puts the tea cup in his face for sipping instead. "S'far as mental preparation, I've hardly... I keep wantin' t'get excited? But I feel like I can't too much. Or shouldn't...show it. Ev'rybody's been so /upset/ over the whole thing. It's been a mess for Dusk an' Isra. I can only imagine for Isra now Dusk's in jail again. An' the pups're.../not/ happy. I feel like if I get the regular kind of new-baby excited, it's steppin' on the toes of all the stress ev'ryone else is under. So it just...sits. In this surreal place. Like it ain't really happenin'." "Oh man, if only!" Tag stirs his tea probably more vigorously than he needs to. "I'm hoping to get more convention-related commissions once the weather warms up. Maybe even /go/ to a a con and just. Have a makeup booth?" He actually sits down on a stool beside Micah now, popping open one of the cookie tins. "Ooh! Ninjabread person!" The ninja promptly loses an arm, dipped into tea and then bitten off. "That's...gotta be stressful, I can't even imagine. Well, if you have need later on, the offer to babysit is open, at least. I helped raised my siblings, and am really good at making distractions." "We usually pile all on Dragon*Con every year. I'm s'posed t'do some lectures for this one comin'. Dunno...how old the baby'll be by then. May change plans for /me/, but y'should still go. Think people'd die t'have their cosplay colours done in a snap." Micah giggles at Tag's reaction to the cookies being /so/ similar to Spencer's. "S'hard. I mean...I'm plannin' t'take off work when it gets here. I'm already lookin' into a second person t'hire on part time, take care of everyone but my Mendel patients when I need t'be home more. Not take on any /new/ clients as ain't through the Clinic. But it's hard not bein' able t'know /when/. An' tryin' t'plan gettin' this research started on the tentacle prosthesis. Everythin's just more up in the air than usual." Lifting his tea cup again, he watches the steam swirling off of the surface before taking another sip. "Not even sure if or who t'talk about /names/ with. Or...when is it okay t'tell m'momma? She's gonna go nuts. The second I tell 'er. So I've been afraid that no one else is ready for that." "Oh man, DragonCon. Haven't been since I lived in Atlanta. It'll be the first time since then I haven't been broke." Tag gulps down a large swallow of tea and shakes his head. "So yeah, provided I don't get fired in the next few months, I'll be heading down." The ninja loses its head, too. "Man, you are hella busy, but what awesome stuff you're up to! " He puts a stretched out a hand, nails all glittery ice blue, to rest on Micah's shoulder. "It's gonna be a /year./" “It does help t'have money for cons, ohgosh. For sure.” Micah's head just shakes at that. “S'a good plan. Maybe can have y'go with Jax if I hafta stay back with the little one or somethin'. He don't like goin' alone t'that kinda...” His head shakes again, this time to /stop/ himself. “There I go makin' plans that can't be made yet. M'always kinda a planner. Just gotta get used t'the idea that things're gonna get thrown at me from here on out, I guess. No plans t'be rightly made.” His hand pats lightly over Tag's. “That at least, I think we can say for sure.”