ArchivedLogs:Unfamiliar Turf

Unfamiliar Turf
Dramatis Personae Alexandrine, Dan, Hive
In Absentia	2013-02-12 Dan takes a wrong turn.
Location <NYC> Evolve Cafe - Lower East Side
Tucked down an alley, this out of the way coffeeshop 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 cosy 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. The sun is actually visible, holy of holies, and it continues to melt all the snow and ...ick. Alexandrine is deciding to fake it till it makes it, in a spring hued dress in pinks and greens and a hint of yellow with sheer stockings under her pea coat left open. Red curls are doing the bouncing, flowing thing like she's in a freaking shampoo commerical, and there are silver sparklies dangling from her ears. Bag over her shoulder, earbuds in, she's singing an old Nina Simone tune, about wanting some sugar in her bowl. But since she is heading to Evolve, she will totally settle for sugar in her coffee. Hive is decidedly grungy in opposition to Alexandrine, scuffed and slush-soaked jeans, a brown t-shirt with a bunch of hedgehogs on it (one has tipped over a can of blue paint onto himself), a thick grey sweatshirt, sneakers that might be more hole than sneaker. He's cheerful enough, though, his smile ticking a degree wider at Alexandrine's singing. "Heyyyy." He's arriving around the same time, pulling open the door to hold it for the woman. "Enjoying the warm?" Relative warm, at least. Ignore the lingering snow, that's /sun/ up there. The man following Alexandrine looks hung over. Probably because he is, with white light playing across the suface of his mind, obliterating memories of the night before in a storeroom, apparently close by. Dan is dressed in a rumpled-looking security guard uniform under a battered leather jacket, and black shoes that are salt-stained and scuffed. He yawns loudly, barely bringing his hand up to cover his mouth as he pauses, and looks up and down the street. Evolve is apparently his destination, too, as he beelines for the open door, pausing behind the redhead and giving both her and the man holding the door a bleary looking-over. Alexandrine has noticed the man behind her, but has clearly decided he's not a threat...just walking behind her. Her smile flashes bright for Hive, one eye winking. "Hello, dearling." She responds to him, clearly in a good mood as she shifts to singing 'Love me or Leave me' under her breath, feet keeping beat. "How're you, this morning? Needing that caffiene hit we all crave?" "Maaan, do I ever. I work best at nights, you know? Quieter." And prooobably the other telepath can guess that he isn't just talking about /noise/. "But that means by about now it's /definitely/ time for another hit. I'd ask how you're doing but I'm guessing it's cheery. What's up?" Hive jerks his chin upwards in a nod to the bleary looking man, too, encompassing him as well in his generic Greetings. He holds the door, for Dan as well. "Yooou look like you could use the hit just as bad." Dan's mouth twitches into a half-smile at the redhead's cheerfulness, and he decides to extend the good will, reaching over Hive's head to grab the edge of the door and motioning him to follow after the woman. He grunts something like a laugh at the assessment, and he bobs his head. "Yeah," he says in a voice that sounds simultaneously thick and dry. "Rough night." As in too many shots of whiskey, and no food. "Ah do understand that. Ah used to sleep after classes, back in school, then do my homework an' studyin' in the wee hours. Ah know /exactly/ what you mean." Blue eyes are bright, that lip glossed smile shifting to smirk territory a moment. "Nothin' new, jus' some sunshine and well... Fat Tuesday. Time to get my good time on before Lent starts tomorrow." Blue eyes trail over Dan. "Looks like ya started without me. Shame on you, not invitin' a lady along." She teasing, even as she moves to stand in line, foot tapping as music continues in her head. Hive would be getting a jazz mix. "Holy shit, is it Lent already?" Hive's eyes widen, brief, and he follows this up with a: "I gotta remember to bring Jax, like, ten pounds of sweets, he's going to be doing the Catholic thing soon. You, too?" He frowns in mild confusion when Dan reaches for the door he's already holding open for them, and there's one of those awkward shuffle-change moments as he continues holding the door, frowns, lets it go to weasel his way /around/ Dan so that he can get in. "Looooks like, dude, you might do with a triple shot. Natalie makes a pretty kickass cup, at least." Dan is a bit too hung over to handle the shuffle well, and he stumbles a bit when the smaller man slips around him. He grunts at the redhead's comment, and offers another tight half-grin. "Lady, you don't want to hang out in the places I drink," he rumbles, following after the pair and letting the door swing shut behind him. Hazy images of a shadowy pub, rough and not pleasant-looking, swim in his brain briefly before another white pulse of pain drives them away. Outwardly, he's nodding at Hive. "That sounds good," he says, suppressing a yawn as he looks around the interior of the shop. "I could..." he pauses as he takes in the morning crowd. "...use it," he finishes slowly, his sluggish brain working at providing the rest of the sentence. "Maybe two." "Ash Wednesday is tomorrow. " Alex confirms with a nod. "Ah even went to a private catholic school. Ah go to church of St. Joseph, like a good girl." The smirk that comes with the hint of the idea she might not always be a good girl and get to church. There's a chuckle at the rumble from mister bleary. "Sugar, where Ah come from, there's lots of rough an' tumble places to drink. Usually the best places." She sniffs at that glorious smell of coffee. "S'that the one down the -- uh, over in the Village? Big and white with that young priest with the wrist tattoo -- I didn't even know priests could /have/ tattoos, maybe s'a leftover from his nonpriest days. Jax took me a couple times but I'm afraid I'm kinda a heathen." Heathen, Buddhist, whichever. Hive is clearly a regular here; there's a skinny kid with red eyes (natural iris color, not hungover-red) wiping down tables who stops to give him a fist-bump, and he isn't even bothering to look at the menu. "Couldn't be much worse than the places I drink," Hive says, laughing, even through the faintest of winces at that spike in pain from the other man. "Shitholes but, hey, whatever's cheap, yeah?" Dan grunts. "St. Joe's is good, I hear," is his offering on the subject of churches. "I go to St. Boniface, in Brooklyn." When he remembers to go, that is. Shit. Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. Kathleen will expect him, and Colleen...there's a hazy image of amethyst skin that is obliterated not /by/ the pulse of pain by rather /with/ it, which corresponds to Dan's own wince. He fishes in his pocket, and extracts a bottle of extra-strength ibuprofen, and begins opening it. The kid with the red eyes gets a long, flat stare before he's pulling his gaze away to grunt at the man in front of him. The kid's not the most mutant-looking mutant, but there's still a bit of heightened awareness that cuts through the hang over haze. "Couple of rowdies, are ya?" he rumbles, allowing his mouth to pull into a tight, amiable-looking grin/grimace. A grinace. "Ah haven't gotten over to Brooklyn, heard they have some really pretty churches." Alex glances over to Hive at the image if purple skin, a flicker of a brow upwards as the guy then stares at the kid with red eyes. "Ah'm from the original party town. Nawlins knew how to party back when we were controlled by the French. Learned how to drink early." She's joking, even as she's fishing a little deeper. "But Ah can hold my own. " Not that she looks it, all pretty in spring colors and girlied up. "Not rowdy so much as fucking broke," Hive says wryly, "I drink when and where I can afford it." He's exchanging that glance with Alex, too, curious, but he doesn't pry deeper. Because with a dude already hungover, Hive-touch would be cruel and unusual punishment. On a weekday morning there's plenty of others in the cafe, and though the vast majority of them just /look/ ordinary-human, there's telltale signs. A girl working on an essay without actually bothering to touch her laptop, a man whose newspaper, every so often, turns its own pages. The chubby teenager waiting at the counter already by the time they make it there has a visible ripple of red-orange fur at the back of his neck and hands, and pale mask-like markings around his eyes. Hive is paying this little mind, fidgeting with his wallet and watching his companions thoughtfully. "N'Orleans? Man, yeah, you'll be /set/ for holding your liquor." "Well, the places I drink are cheap enough," Dan says, blinking slowly and pursing his lips at the various indicators of mutant ability. His brow furrows, and he pops a couple of pills before recapping the bottle. /This/ is the place Fred sends him to? What the fuck. "Don't..." He trails off as steps up dutifully as the pair in front of him does, and shoves the bottle back in his pocket, watching a newspaper turn with a wash of horror and/or revulsion at the blatant display. "What." That seems like a bad road to head down, given his situation, and his jaw tightens briefly before he speaks again. "St. Boniface is beautiful," he says, latching onto the safest topic at hand and shifting his gaze to the normal-seeming redhead and her friend. "How long have you lived in the city?" "Me? Moved here in May, last year." Alex says with a smile. "Friend of mine opened up a dance studio up here, offered me a position so Ah could come an' get my teachin' certification. So here Ah am." There's a shrug, money plucked neatly from her pocket as she orders a shot of espresso and some.. sweet, lighter coffee for actual drinking. "The St. Louis back home...now that is a gorgeous cathedral." Alex sighs, leaving money on the table. << You catchin' this? >> She silents at Hive. << Mutant coffee shop, and he's horrified by mutants. But Ah think it's not just...bigoty.>> "You a native?" She asks Dan. "You'll have to forgive my lapse of manners. New York has been a bad influence on me." A hand is offered over. "Alexandrine." "What what?" Hive asks, totally innocent, following the path of Dan's gaze though by the time he looks over it's just a businessman in a suit reading a newspaper. No pages turning. He looks back at Dan. "Me? Uh, since I graduated college upstate. Moved down here to civilization after. There's some gorgeous churches where I lived up north but back /home/ home Christians are like. Tiny tiny minority, churches aren't such a thing. /Pretty/ awesome temples, though, some of the architecture on those -- wow." He shakes his head, letting out a breath, and on his turn he orders a large triple espresso. Straight-up. << Yeah, I'm getting it, >> he answers back, as he orders, his mental voice typically bludgeon-hard. << Bigoty is bigoty, I don't care your reasons. I can say a black man killed my parents so I've got /trauma/ there but I'd still be a racist if I used that to hate all black people. And I sure as shit shouldn't go down to Jax's club and /huff/ if I got a hate-on for gay folks. >> "Born and raised," Dan says, looking past Alexandrine to watch the kid with the fur working the counter. His brow twitches, but he shifts his gaze back to the redhead. "I think there's a tour of the older churches in the city," he offers, clearing his throat and /blinking/ at the businessman's sudden normality. And there's the problem with mutants that don't look it. You can't trust them. Like little black-haired mutants who reach in and -- there's another quash that's a sharp slicing across his mental landscape. "I saw some interesting mosques overseas," he offers. "Those are some beautiful buildings." He offers a nod when Alexandrine introduces himself, and takes her hand, squeezing it once gently before releasing it. "Dan." "That might be nice. There's lots of tours of... oh about everythin', back home." There's that smile again, bright and warm, as if it was just for Dan. << No no, I know. I just mean it's complicated. As in, he might not be hopeless about it. >> Alex might be an optimist, just a flicker of lashes at that slicing across Dan's mental landscape. But she reaches for that memory, little black-haired mutants that what...? "Hive," Hive offers his own name without a handshake, given that both his hands are currently occupied paying for his drink and getting the change back. He tucks the bills back into his wallet, dumping the coins in his pocket. "Hey, Natalie," this is cheerful, for the purple-haired woman making the drinks. "You're my lifesaver." "You say that every day," Natalie shoots back, but it's with a smile, at least. Hive steps aside from the counter, leaning against the display case of pastries and pre-wrapped san"I dwiches and soups and salads, tucking a hand into his pocket. << Nobody's /completely/ hopeless, >> he allows, but it's /grudging/. Like maybe he thinks /most/ people are /mostly/ hopeless. "I mean, mosques are like churches. Some of them are gorgeous. Some of 'em are just any old boring-ass building. Malaysia, now, they've got some fantastic ones, though. But I've got a thing. For buildings." Dan steps up when it's his turn, and orders three triple shots to go, glancing back over his shoulder at the crowd. "There's plenty of tours around New York, too," he says, stepping back as the kid begins to make his coffee and watching the action carefully. Suspiciously. Maybe he's checking for loose fur, based on the anxiety that washes over his mind at the thought. "I've never made it that far east," he says to Hive with a tight pull of his mouth. "I had it on my wish list, but it didn't pan out." The memory Alex looks for isn't easy to find, and once she finds that little raven-haired girl, the images that come with it are bloody and violent, and oddly detached. Uniforms exploding with the impact of heavy fire. It's hard enough that it catches Dan off-guard to have it surface, and he actually pales, and looks as if he might collapse with the way his body begins to tremble. "You want to hurry the fuck up with those coffees?" he suddenly growls at the barrista, sweat beginning to bead on his upper lip. << Shit. >> It's Southern and distinct and an odd purpley-red for Hive to pick up. She realizes what she's done after the fact, a hand out to Dan's forearm. Despite the fact he's thinking less than positive things about mutants at the moment, she's truly concerned. Her fault, after all. Empathy is immediately deployed, comforting and gentle, trying to ease away that memory and restore him to at least cranky hangover. "You all right, sugar? You look like maybe you had a harder night than suspected. Why don't you have a seat, an' Ah'll get you some water to go with your coffee." "You wanna chill, dude," Hive says, lazy-languid tone the very picture of -- well, /chilling/. Dude. He doesn't share Alexandrine's concern, tipping his eyes up to the ceiling at the mental images that surface. "Customer service people are -- you know, /people/, not slaves for you to curse at." << You should spit in it. Bigot, >> he's saying, to the kid making Dan's coffee. (With /gloves/ on, over the fur.) Though, to telepathic senses, at least, it's clear they know each other well enough that this is read as a /joke/ and not an actual suggestion. "I'm making them as fast as coffee gets made, /sir/," the boy answers, calmly. The machine is doing its machine thing. It's not really a hurryable process. "'m fine," Dan grunts, reaching into another pocket and bringing out a bottle of prescription medication. He opens it with trembling hands, a driving desire to flee the coffee shop starting to override all his other thoughts. Shaking out two large-looking pills, he slaps his hand to his mouth and dry-swallows, exhaling heavily once they're down. "Just...need to get on with my day." It's clearly a lie, even without telepathic checking, and he shoves the bottle back into his pocket. Fucking /hell/. Why would he think of that /now/? His mouth pulls tight at Hive's reminder, and he digs out his wallet, dropping a ten in the tip jar. "Sorry," he grudges at the barrista. "Rough morning." Alexandrine gives Dan a look. "Ya clearly aren't okay." There's a wrinkle of her nose at the dry swallow of meds. Gack. "Just..take it easy, huh?" Blue eyes dart to Hive, her expression faintly guilty. She takes her shot of espresso, downing that first before picking up her cup of sweeter caffienated goodness. "Everyone has 'em," Hive says with a lazily rolled shrug of shoulder, straightening to swipe his own coffee. "S'what we got coffee for." Dan's is soon to follow. "You look like you need this," the kid says with a quick smile. Possibly a little wider than it would've been without the hefty tip. "With all due respect, though, you don't look like fine. Kinda more like shit, you know? You got work on, now? Might be Alex is right. Take it easy. Y'should get home and sleep more." Hive uncaps his coffee to blow against the top, slurping a first careful sip of hot beverage. "Think that storm had everyone a little out of sorts." "It's fine," Dan says, his tone clipped as he closes his eyes and waits for the medication to take effect. Anxiety begins to ebb slowly as they do, and he eventually stops his shaking though sweat remains beaded on his lip and at the fringes of his face. His need to flee is still dominant, although it's beginning to fuzz with the introduction of pharmeceuticals. "Just happens from time to time." He doesn't offer any more on his condition, scooping up the coffees with an actual, factual grateful look at the kid behind the counter. "Thanks," he manages to grind out, and takes a healthy swig of boiling hot coffee, wincing at the pain that flares in his mouth. "That storm was some shit," he agrees with Hive, moving to grab a carrier for his coffee cups. "We were seriously short-handed through it. Don't think I got a full night's sleep during the thing." He yawns, then, barely getting the back of his hand up in time to cover it. "Wish I /could/ go back and sleep. But, duty calls." He grimaces, and takes another swig of coffee as he moves on (fairly) steady legs towards the exit. "Nice to meet you." Alexandrine gives Dan a last pulse of comforting, warm and fuzzy feelings as she glances at Hive. "Have to run. More costume work ups for one of my classes. Little darling divas, all of them." She winks at Hive, doing her best to close off her mind (and all the guilt boiling up), before she's heading for the door. "Don't forget sweets for Jax before he goes for the Ashes!" "I will sweet him until all his teeth fall out," Hive promises. He lifts his cup to both of them, farewell, salute, whatever, and moves over to find a table of his own, pulling out his laptop to get to work.