ArchivedLogs:To Life

To Life
Dramatis Personae Jax, Lucien, Steve
In Absentia	2017-03-13 "We are not celebrating your untimely demise."
Location <NYC> {Workhaus} - Harbor Commons - Lower East Side
The wide entryway leads into a semicircular sitting area with plush modular chairs, sofas, and huge beanbags arranged around two low tables. The bright, open expanse of the house fans back and out from here, executed in stunning industrial style with extremely conservative usage of rough stone walls. Through a door on the right is a library boasting an eclectic but extensive collection of books, a cozy reading nook, as well as a state-of-the-art computer work station. Opposite this is a media room with a projector mounted overhead and a formidable sound system on all sides, the windows still admitting plenty of light when the blackout curtains are pulled back. Beyond the sitting area, toward the back of the house and separated from adjacent areas only by plentiful black granite counters, are a pair of kitchens, each stocked with their own appliances, cookware, servingware, and utensils. Adjoining the (vegan and kosher) kitchen on the right is a simple dining room with a long oval table and chairs designed to accommodate a range of body shapes. On the other side, tucked between the general-purpose kitchen and the media center, is a guest room and a full bath. At the center of the entire house is a cylindrical elevator shaft of steel and glass with two floating stairways coiled around it like an immense double helix. Both elevator and stairs lead down out of sight and up to a circular landing joined to the second storey wings by walkways that leave the space above the sitting area open. Above the kitchens is a sun-drenched split-level recess, the lower half a conservatory enclosed by glass and the upper half a rooftop garden. The whole is walled with glass and lets in copious quantities of natural light softened by lush greenery. It's around dinnertime, and the city is bustling quietly. Zenobia is loping around the living room with a rope toy dangling from her mouth, shaking it every so often as if to /flaunt/ her prize. Tucked into an armchair in the library, Steve has a book open in his lap but isn't really attending much to it. He wears a purple-and-black plaid flannel shirt and well-worn blue jeans, his socks mismatched (light blue heel and toe caps on one and pale pink on the other), his shield leaning against the side of his chair. Obie is chasing after Zenobia, paws skidding on the floor as he scrambles -- after? Past? the larger dog. Maybe he is trying to get the rope toy. It's hard to tell. He's very worked up, at least, yipping at her eagerly as he zooms past and then turns around to slide right beneath her legs and crash into the side of a poof. In the kitchen, Jax is going about his evening far more sedately. In pale purple skinny jeans and a black tee dotted with silver stars, he is stirring at a large pot of stew, thick with seitan and mushrooms and potatoes and barley. His shaggy mop of hair falls bright around his face in ombre waves of blues and whites. A visitor to the house is heralded by the door -- chime, such as it were; Leonard Cohen's somber voice singing "'Welcome, welcome', cries a voice, 'Let all my guests come in'." Obie's eager path is quickly rerouted; the dog scampers eagerly over to the front door, tail wagging furiously as he licks at it. Zenobia abandons the rope toy and bounds to the door, easily overtaking Obie, then drops down into a perfectly poised sit, tail whipping fast and ears perked most of the way up. Steve rises, trading the book for his shield, and follows the dogs. He pulls the door open and scoops up Obie before he can leap on the visitor, digging in his pockets for treats. "Oh, honey-honey, can you get the -- gracias." Jax doesn't look up from his cooking. He's sniffing at his stew, adding more beer to it. Lucien is on the doorstep, crisply dressed in the chill evening. Neatly pressed emerald-green button-down, a slim-fitting grey vest and slacks. He's holding large red pastry box in one hand by its handle; a slim black bag about the right size for a liquor bottle in the other hand. "Ah. Obie. Zenobia." He transfers the bag from one hand to the other -- procuring treats from his /own/ pocket for the pups as he steps inside. "{How delightful.} Jackson, that smells delicious." He's toeing off his shoes by the door -- offering Steve a small nod. "Your puppy is wriggling." "{Good evening.}" Steve breaks into a wide smile and, closing the door behind Lucien, sets Obie down again. "I had noticed. He's very excited -- that can be general statement about him, really. Can I get you something to drink?" Zenobia's tail only wags /faster/, and she shifts her weight back and forth between her front paws without rearing up, though it is clearly consuming a great deal of willpower. She /does/ finally lift both paws off the floor, if only by a couple of centimeters, when she stretches out her huge, blunt muzzle to take the treat from Lucien's hand. "Luci!" Jax's chirrup from the kitchen is bright and cheerful. "I thought you'd be later ain't you supposed to be off in fairyland right about now? I mean no matter we got plenty food." Obie's wriggling only increases with the arrival of /treats/, which he slurps happily from Lucien's hand before frisking around their visitor's ankles, turning big hopeful eyes up toward Lucien. "C'mon c'mon you can set down your things -- Obie don't be such a begger he /jus'/ ate ignore him." "Are you certain? He looks rather as though he's never had food in his life." Lucien skirts past the dogs (after administering a few pats to each) to set his box and bag both down on the counter. "Just some water, s'il te plaît. And I have left fairyland in quite capable hands. I had business to attend to elsewhere." Turning, he leans back against the counter, weight settling there in a prop of one elbow, a quiet rustle of the crisp fabric of his dress shirt. "How are your evenings going?" "Obie's memory is on the short side, so from his perspective..." Steve also slips both dogs some treats, releasing Zenobia from her sit before following Lucien across the living room. He goes around the long kitchen counter and hangs his shield on the back of a dining room chair, then pours Lucien a glass of water. Brings it back around to him and sits down on a nearby stool. "Mine? Fragrant, uneventful, and much improved by your company. And yours?" "Full'a stew. Or will be soon enough, anyway." Jax's nose wrinkles up, one shoulder hitching in a shrug. "Been like two days an' I already /want/ an understudy. More tired than I thought I'd be trying to get back in the swing of teaching. I don't think I barely /done/ any teaching anyhow the kids got so many -- questions." His head shakes. "Am I allowed to come see your show yet?" "I have no doubt you will find your stride soon enough. And no." Lucien accepts the glass with a small nod. "Merci. Much improved? Already? And here it's only been a minute. I've not even had the chance to give you your gifts." Steve inclines his head and allows a small chuckle. "I just hadn't been expecting you. Though apparently /someone else/ had..." He narrows his eyes at Jax slightly, then glances over at the items Lucien had brought. "Gifts? What for?" Jax just turns his hands up, eye widening innocently. "Ain't I allowed some secrets?" He turns the flame under his stew down to low, stretches up onto his toes to lean against the counter. Peeeer across it at the others. "{For you, of course. A celebration, of sorts.}" From the bag Lucien extracts a bottle -- a Teeling 13-year whiskey. "Or perhaps," just a touch softer and more pensive, though there's a slight upward tug at the corner of his lips, "to life." He unclasps the lid of the red carrying container, carefully lifting it off. Underneath is a sheet of icy frozen ocean -- or, well, a cake, glazed in icing that has been decorated with the shifting blues and whites to give it an illusion of icy depths. A chunk of the arctic sea -- and half sunk into the frosted waves, the /Valkyrie/, making its descent into the ice. Icing. Lucien's expression of innocence is not nearly so wide-eyed as Jackson's. He lifts his glass for a small sip. "Or are you telling me you had no plans to celebrate?" Steve blinks at Lucien. Blinks at the whiskey. Stares at the cake, eyes going slightly wide. "Oh! Wow, did you -- make that?" He tilts his head slightly and looks at the model of the gigantic plane. "Its very. Accurate. I hadn't really planned anything, though." Then he blushes. "I mean to say -- merci." Nodding at the cake again. "Is it /all/ cake?" 'He's lying,' Jax mouths to Lucien. "We'd planned quiet dinner an' some moping time. An' yeah he brewed the whiskey his own self." "I'm quite sure we can still leave time for that." Lucien's eyes drop to the elaborately decorated cake. "It was a group effort. I baked and iced it. Tag did the colouration. Jackson crafted the Valkyrie and some of the waves and ice bites. It is all edible. Marzipan, for the decorations. The cake itself is chocolate and orange and almond." "That's not /celebrating,/" Steve murmurs, only a little defensively. "It just...doesn't seem like much to celebrate -- /or/ mope about." He's staring at the /Valkyrie/. "Well. If there's going to be a Nazi superweapon on my cake, I prefer that it be one I brought down." He smiles sheepishly. "All the better if I can eat it." "A /delicious/ Nazi superweapon," Jax emphasizes. "You can destroy it all over again only this time nice an' cozy warm an' surrounded by puppies. Who -- no doubt," he's glancing down to Zenobia at this, "would be only too glad to help." "We are not celebrating your untimely demise. Not really," Lucien demurs, settling down onto a bar stool. "Only your -- equally untimely life. And for all its challenges," his hand tips outward toward Steve, "I, at least, find you worth celebrating." "Being warm and cozy and surrounded by puppies is massively underrated. I appreciate this, though, I really do. It's hard, thinking about that last mission." Steve sucks in a slow breath. There's the hint of a shiver in it. "But /life/," he echoes. "That /is/ worth celebrating. {Thank you,} really. Dinner first, though?" Jax leans across the counter, pressing a light kiss to Steve's cheek. "An' I'm glad we're here to -- celebrate it with you." Then turns, skirting around the hopeful dogs tagging at his heels in order to retrieve a trio of bowls. "Dinner and puppies and all."