ArchivedLogs:The Freaky Shit

The Freaky Shit
Dramatis Personae Iolaus, Lucien, Shelby, Daniel
In Absentia	2013-05-29 '
Location <NYC> Iolaus's Apartment - East Harlem
Down a hallway and overlooking a open air market in El Barrio, Iolaus' apartment is not particularly a large one. It is three rooms - the main room shaped like an L with kitchen at one end, a small bedroom large enough for a full bed and a dresser, and a bathroom barely large enough to fit the bath inside it. The walls are a light yellow in the main room, with a large bookcase sitting against one wall and occupying much of the space, stuffed with books as it is. Two couches sit across from it, pressed up against the corner of the L shaped room. The kitchen is separated only by the transition from wood floor to grey tile and is sparsely filled with food and cookware both, and the bathroom is equally sparse of accouterments. In fact, were it not for the full bookcase and the clothing hanging in the closet, it would look almost as if the occupant had moved out and left some few things behind in a hurry. It hasn't even been a full week but already the freshly vacationed Shelby is ducking away from school. Again. And why not, right? It's been /forever/ since she's seen her Doc. So she's taken over the living room with signs of her being in house: skateboard and sneakers by the door, backpack on the couch, coffee table littered with books and papers. The girl herself is stretched on her stomach on the living room floor, looking especially trashy in a pair of black leggings, and a black and grey camo tank top. She's kicking her heels up into the air as she taptaptaps on her SUPER slow laptop augh it's so old but hey it was free. "So like, I have to go to this super fancy show tomorrow but get this, I'm a /finalist/. I mean, okay, maybe me and the teacher are finalists but he totally wouldn't've been a finalist without me and I could win, like...five grand," she says without looking at the screen. The light it casts has blanched all color from her face, even erasing the extra freckles she came back from Georgia with. "Oh yeah?" Iolaus seems somewhat distracted, glancing down at the time on his computer more than should strictly be necessary. "That's quite an honor, even if your teacher is taking part - and five grand is quite a lot of money!" He chuckles, glancing over at Shelby to give her a flashing, wide grin. "Maybe I'll be hitting you up for clinic donations soon," he teases. The doctor pauses for a second and then glances towards the door. "Hey, Shelby... listen. Uh..." his cheeks burn a little bit. "Lucien will be here, soon, so... I may end up going out with him for a bit." He taps on the keyboard, but not hard enough to actually press any of the keys down - a nervous little flitter of action. Oh look! Speak of the devil and he shall ring your buzzer. Bzzzz. The video intercom shows one (1) Lucien standing outside Iolaus's building. White button-down with a mandarin collar, dark jeans. Hands folding neatly behind his back. Waiting. "Maybe /after/ I buy a car," Shelby huffs, hiding her own grin behind the screen. Alas, it is a short-lived moment of harmony between the pair, her moment of glory /ruined/. The name alone is enough to set her up on her elbows and wipe that grin away. Her eyes have narrowed. See what you did, Iolaus? See?! "What the fuck? What happened to Doctor Hot Black Dude? You're not..." The buzzer interrupts her tirade. It is not a welcome instrusion. "Son of a /bitch/. You haven't seen me in like a week and you're gonna go /fuck/ him?" "Well, you won't put out." Iolaus says, standing up and looking towards the door nervously. Daniel, too, stands up and glances for the door, walking towards it. He hits the buzzer and waits patiently at the door, even as Iolaus walks into the kitchen to look through the fridge. "And Doctor... Rasheed is /buying/. You think I can afford Lucien to visit anymore?" he points out. Shelby's voice flattens. "He's. Buying you. A hooker. Instead of like. Sending flowers." No telepath is needed to translate the sentiment therein: gay male dating rituals are beyond her. She swings around on her hip and settles cross-legged on the floor. This positions her conveniently to glare daggers at both the front door and the parts of Iolaus visible around the door of the fridge. "Why are you acting like it's a real date? All jittery? You're not...like...oh my god. Tell me you aren't playing Richard Gere." Iolaus removes a cooled off pitcher of lemonade (hand-squeezed!) from the fridge and pours himself a glass. "Yes, he's buying me some of Lucien's time. And I'm not jittery." He takes a long sip of his drink and gives Shelby a flat look over the rim of the cup. Not nervous at all. Then he blinks a few times and lowers the glass. "'Playing Richard Gere'?" he asks, quizzically. There's a knock on the door. Knock knock knock! Brisk and quick. Lucien is standing outside, looking nothing like Julia Roberts. "Seriously? /Seriously/? You're /falling/ for the /hooker/," Shelby says, redoubling her glaring effort. "You're living /a bad movie/." "Bullshit." Iolaus says, setting the glass down on the counter as he looks towards the door. "I'm not falling for anyone." he says, a tad defensively. Falling or not, he does smile warmly as Daniel opens the door to let Lucien into the apartment and step around the counter to approach Lucien. "Hello, Lucien. Long time no see." he says, voice softened. "Daniel." Lucien's voice is warm, and the tip of his head in greeting polite. He slips in past the bodyguard, smile warming as well. "Io. It's good to see you again." He greets Iolaus with a kiss on the cheek; it comes with a flutter of warmth, spreading soft and happy through the other man. His eyebrows lift when he pulls back, though, glancing over towards the floor. "Shelby." It's not noticeably less warm. "I wasn't aware we'd have company." Shelby draws her knees up to her chest and presses her face against them while the door is opened. This leaves her eyes still visible. They have /not/ softened. Someone is feeling neglected. "You're not, he's ditching me to hang out with /you/. If you guys wanna stay in and use the fun drawer, I can take off," she says, gaze cutting towards the doc. Notably, she makes no effort to actually move. Daniel acknowledges the other man with a gruff grunt, then closes the door behind him, locking it securely before he returns to one edge of the couch and his book. "I was going to cook dinner, right now, actually." Iolaus says, turning his head to press lips gently to Lucien's cheek. "Unless you would prefer to leave? I will not be offended." This piece, at least, is murmured into Lucien's ear in a low tone. Diplomacy. "Or we can go out to eat." Back to full volume, as he pulls away from the other man and glances at Shelby bemusedly. "It is a thick door." He gives her a smile, though, as he flicks his eyes back over to Lucien. "The fun drawer. Is there only one?" The note of happiness increases at Iolaus's kiss, warmth spreading with Lucien's slightly wider smile. "Dinner sounds delightful. Can I help at all? I am pretty handy." His hand drops, the backs of his knuckles brushing against Iolaus's. "In the kitchen. Was this your time to, ah, hang out? I did not mean to interrupt. It /has/ been a long week. It seemed like a good time for Iolaus to relax." Shelby twists around to flop onto her belly again as kissing happens. Please ignore the sound of huffy exhalations in the background. She is, apparently, all of six years old and firmly in the "ewww" phase. A few desultory taps of the laptop keyboard follow. "Whatever," she mumbles--lacking a better comeback to the point about Iolaus needing relaxation. You can't fight the truth! But she can still grumble about it. "Just don't be gross where I can see? Seriously. I can't fucking believe he didn't send flowers instead. Jesus Christ." "Please. I'd appreciate the help." Iolaus says, letting his hand trail down Lucien's arm as he slips away into the kitchen to begin to pull out ingredients. Shelby's comment earns her a brief glare, peering over the edge of the refrigerator door like a colder version of Wilson Wilson. "I was thinking of trying to make this recipe a friend of mine gave me," he says, gesturing to an index card resting on the counter. 'Sole aux chou', it says, and proceeds to list ingredients and steps in a graceful hand far too neat to be Iolaus'. "Do flowers help /you/ --" Lucien pauses a beat, glancing over Iolaus. "-- unwind?" he wants to know, lightly, as he follows Iolaus towards the kitchen. "I mean, everyone has their own preferences. I do not judge. I knew a man who was very intensely into pink saran wrap. I think Iolaus's tastes are not so esoteric, though." He plucks up the recipe, letting his eyes drift over it slowly before he starts to help collect ingredients. True story: Shelby's secondary mutation is glare immunity. She tilts a brief but guileless look towards the doctor's frowny face before returning to browsing the internet. "I'm just sayin'." La la la, nothing to see here--until she gives an involuntary snort of laughter at Lucien's sordid sex story. Quite against her will, she finds herself remarking, "I bet you've seen some seriously screwed up shit from people." 'Pink saran wrap?' Iolaus mouths, giving Lucien a strange look. He blinks several times then grins, shaking his head. "Did he want to be wrapped in it, or you to be? Or... was he just aroused by the sight of it in general?" He shakes his head bemusedly as he unwraps the sole fillets, then sets about removing pots and pans. Specifically, one large pot and one cast iron skillet. The pot he fills with water and salt, and puts it up to boil. "I hear some of it, but I bet not nearly as much as you do, Lucien." "He wanted to be wrapped up in it. Saran wrap and duct tape. But they both had to be pink. He was very specific. He would bring his own." Lucien washes a lemon. Starts zesting it into a small bowl. Chkchkchk. His smile does not fade but something in it tightens; it's there just as much as before but there's no more warmth in his bright green eyes. "Oh," he says, light and with a lilting note of laughter in his voice, "it is hard to be in this line of work as long as I have and /not/ see some seriously screwed up shit from people. But for the most part it is just --" His head shakes. "People's fetishes are what they are. If what really gets you off is being used as a coffeetable or inserting steel rods into your urethra -- well. It does not hurt anyone." His lips twitch. "Except perhaps you." Shelby has no interest in being fair or openminded. If she is going to tolerate Lucien's presence in the apartment, then there will be more salacious details, damn it. She rolls onto her side and props her head up in one hand. "Seriously? Being used as a coffeetable? Is saran wrap dude the freakiest thing you ever had to do? C'mon. You can tell us," she wheedles. "And Doc can share some of his, right?" See? That's being fair. Or as fair as she's inclined to get. "Well, god forbid it would be /red/. I mean, why would you be attracted to /red/ saran wrap?" Iolaus shakes his head bemusedly as he looks over Lucien's face from the counter beside him. "I didn't do much work in the emergency room, where you see the worst of it. Though you would be shocked just how many people came into the ER during my residency saying that they 'fell' on something that was stuck up their ass." He pauses as he returns to the refrigerator to begin measuring out some of the liquid ingredients. "I don't know why they all independently thought that we wouldn't see through that, but, there you go. The people who were honest about it were the ones who we remembered the least, in all honesty." "There is nothing attractive about red saran wrap," Lucien agrees, quite seriously. "-- Coffeetable, footstool --" His hand turns upwards, for a moment, zester still clutched in his thumb before he retuns to zesting the lemon. "They liked to be furniture. Did not even want me to pay attention to them, really. Just be part of the scenery. -- Freakiest, well." His eyes drop back to his task. He wipes his thumb along the lemon rind, brushing small pieces of zest free. "That depends entirely on your standards of freaky. What do you find shocking?" His lips twitch at Iolaus's stories. "People have remarkable hangups about sex. Is it surprising they would worry about being judged?" This is rapidly becoming more comfortable territory. "What is it with guys and wanting to fill holes," Shelby chortles on the background. "I dunno...I mean, my freaky's probably really...hell, you see everything out on the streets too." She levers herself up, hesitates--and then gives in. /Fine/. She'll come join in on the cooking party in the kitchen. Though rather than lending a hand, she folds her arms and leans against the doorway. "The folks I know, I guess boring regular sex is the freaky shit," she muses. "Hive says it's different though. When it, like. Matters. Can love be a fetish?" Check out how she's eyeballing Iolaus while asking this. "How much you charge for that, Lucien?" "Instinct, I imagine." Iolaus comments, with a little shrug of his shoulders. His cheeks flush slightly and he gives Shelby a flat glare at this last question, beating the cream together with the sour cream and zest with perhaps a little bit more force than necessary. Beat, after all, is such a relative word. "A poor sort of fetish, really, since it encompasses so much and so little. You can be in love with the person who wraps you in saran wrap, after all." "Not sure it is a guy thing," Lucien muses, "only, we just have the one and it is less tolerant of strange insertions. I know people of all genders rather fond of filling holes, though." Rinsing his hands clean of zest, he moves on to the fish while Iolaus prepares the sauce. Whisking together sour cream and eggs to batter it. "I imagine love could be as much a fetish as everything else. And I charge," he answers Shelby lightly, "by the hour, not by the activity." Shelby gives Iolaus a highly practiced 'What?' look. She's just asking. "Maybe saran wrap feels different too, if you're not just paying for it." Even the tone she uses is calculated as an excuse--you see, she is but a novice in these arts! Teacher her, o master! Satisfy her curiosity! "Seriously though, dude, you don't charge more for the crazy or dangerous shit? I think I'm seeing a flaw in your whatchacallit. Business model." Iolaus narrows his eyes at Shelby before turning back to his cooking. Out of the corner of his eyes, though, he watches Lucien and Shelby interact with the detached eye of a researcher, mentally cataloging information as he would changing colors in a chemical reaction. It's never a good idea to look away from a volatile mixture. "Makes the billing easier, though." "I wouldn't know," Lucien answers, "I have never been mummified in saran wrap. Nor have I ever paid for my liaisons." Whisk whisk whisk. Lucien lifts the whisk out of the mixture, watching it drip back down off the metal tines with distracted interest. Apparently done enough, because he sets it back down. "-- Crazy or dangerous shit." His eyebrows raise. "I do not know what you imagine my clients /do/ with me." There's a faint twitch of his lips. "I will make note, though, of your business advice." Shelby opens her mouth--glances at Iolaus--thinks better of it--closes her mouth and just shrugs. She pushes off of the doorframe to amble back into the living room, to retrieve her laptop. "Gotta practice my snob manners for the art show tomorrow," she announces, "try not to have crazy monkey sex on the counters, huh? That's just...yuck." As she passes Daniel, he is offered up the most sympathetic of looks before she disappears--on purpose, no doubt--into the bedroom. Iolaus gives Shelby a bemused look as she vanishes, opening his mouth to make a comment that does not come out in time for Shelby to be in the audience. Giving up on this and closing his mouth with a soft click, he turns and gives Lucien a little smile. "No promises."