ArchivedLogs:Vitamin C

Vitamin C
Dramatis Personae Chelsea, Sebastian, Shane, Cage
In Absentia	2014-03-16 '
Location <NYC> PowerHaus - East Harlem
It's the middle of Sunday morning when Luke responds to Shane and Sebastian's texts when Chelsea continues to ignore them. Luke gives the boys the 'OK' and tidies up the small house while Chelsea is upstairs, stowed away in her room. The door to the house opens on a long hallway. To the left is a dining room and it looks like the kitchen is through a door on the far side. On the right is the entrance to a wide living room. Further back on the right is the entrance to the laundry room. All the bedrooms must be upstairs. Knock knock knock! There is a pair of sharktwins at Cage's door, arriving in pretty much the expected time to get from the East Village to Harlem. At least, there's /one/ sharktwin (dapper-dressed in pinstriped vest, dark slacks, bowtie, dress shirt, neat peacoat over top, black scarf, pinstripe-banded black top-hat) and one /Chelsea/-twin, taller and browner and clothed in chunky ankle boots studded in silver, long grey skirt with thick tights, soft pink sweater over a grey turtleneck, black peacoat as well. Sebastian is much more fidgety than his brother, restless on the doorstep. His arms wrap tight around himself, hands pressing in hard against his sides. Shane just takes off his tophat while he waits, twirling it in a spinny circle around his hand. Luke opens the door wearing jeans and a Mets t-shirt, but he's barefoot. He's also holding a pile of magazines he picked up from somewhere, probably to put Somewhere Else. "Oh, hey guys," he says smiling, and then half-frowning, perhaps worried about whether 'guys' is the right way to go. He shrugs it off and backs away from the door. "Come on in! Thanks for coming. Chels is upstairs. We've talked a lot this week, but she's still... she feels really bad about what happened." Shane catches his hat mid-spin, twirl-flipping it up to sit atop his head with a practiced smoothness (-- no, seriously, he was in front of the mirror working at it for /hours/ when the snowmen finally went inert.) His grin spreads toothy-bright across his face, and he slips inside, pausing inside the entry hall out of habit to slip out of his shoes. "Yeah, she -- seemed reeeally fucking broken up that day but, uh. It wasn't her /fault/ she shouldn't have to feel like --" "-- we're not mad at her," Bastian cuts in over Shane, following his brother inside and also crouching to remove his stompy boots. His voice sounds a little strained, though. Kind of hoarse, kind of cracking. "Just -- just wanted to check in and --" "Talk," Shane finishes. "Can we go up?" Luke nods as the boys explain, and shuts the door behind them. "No, I get it. I just... thanks for coming over. I know we haven't always... Well anyway. Yeah. She's upstairs. Go on up. First door on the right." Upstairs, Luke's description is hardly necessary considering their is only one door covered in 'Do Not Enter' signs. The door is unlocked though, and opening it reveals the girl in question sitting on the floor, leaning against her bed, rocking out to something playing through the black, over-ear, expensive-looking headphones. "We haven't always, have we," Shane agrees with a sudden /sharper/ grin, "-- Do you have coffee? You could make it up to me with some coffee." And with this bit of impertinence Shane takes the stairs two at a time, bounding up towards Chelsea's room to rap fists against the doorframe. Behind him, Sebastian blushes deep. "Oh -- oh, gosh, sir, you don't, um, really need to. Get him -- oh. {/Sorry/,} he offers in quick Spanish, "for -- him." His head bows as he scurries much more slowly up the stairs after Shane. He lingers behind his brother, peeking in at Chelsea from over Shane's shoulder with wide eyes. Shane doesn't linger in the doorway long. Just barges in, crouching down in front of Chelsea. "Boo." Luke stares and actually quirks half a bemused grin when Shane makes his request. But the big man balks slightly when Sebastian speaks directly to him, left alone for a brief moment with the boy who looks so much like his daughter. "Oh, that's ok. B. I'll make some for everyone." And Luke takes his stack of magazines toward the kitchen. Upstairs, Chelsea literally jumps up when Shane comes in, wide-eyed. Her headphones come off, spilling Jay-Z for Shane's sensitive ears. Also, she smells kind of... stale. Like she hasn't been outside in a while. "What the fucking shit, asshole?!" Chelsea's speed-Spanish doesn't actually carry any heat or anger. She's just /very/ surprised, and that's pretty much her favorite vocabulary. She takes a deep breath, and then steps back to sit on her bed. "Jesus, who let /you/ in?" She's wearing fleece PJ pants with pink and purple hearts on them, and a t-shirt with Beyonce's logo on it, under a zip-up hoodie which is definitely too big for her, but looks comfy and sports Jack Skellington's skull-face split by the zipper. "{What the fucking shit to you, too,}" Shane answers Chelsea, in glib Spanish as well with an equivalent lack of heat. "You didn't answer /any/ of my damn texts." "Your dad let us in." Sebastian hangs back near the doorway, wide-eyed, apologetic. "I'm -- {sorry, should we go?}" Unlike Shane his Spanish is not glib, halting-slow and awkwardly accented. "Are you just going to hide in your room /all/ break because that," Shane tells Chelsea, "is the /boringest/ fucking spring break. Jay-Z or no Jay-Z." Sebastian shrings back just a little bit further, one hand reaching to grip fingers against the doorframe. "We just -- wanted to -- check in on --" His brow furrows. "-- also something's happening." "What was I supposed to say, Shane?" Chelsea asks, pulls her legs up to sit crosslegged. There's a chair at her desk by the window, but there isn't anywhere else but the bed to sit. "I totally jacked up B's life, and there's nothing I can do. I'm sorry." It seemed like she was starting out with a mind to be on the defensive, but seeing Shane and B concerned for her changes her approach half-way through, leaving her more unsure of what she thought. She blinks at B's final comment, turning on the bed to face him in the door. "Wait, what? What's wrong now? Are you ok?" She swallows hard, watching him closely. "M'not sure you jacked up his life. Think you may have made it better, kinda." Shane shrugs a shoulder, rocking back to sit down on the floor across from Chelsea. He pulls his own knees up towards his chest, arms curling loosely around them. "Are /you/ okay?" Sebastian's eyes flick over Chelsea, his teeth digging down against his lip. "We're not mad. I'm not mad. I didn't want an apology just -- just to. Talk to you." His brow furrows at the question, hand lifting to rub uncomfortably at the side of his neck. Then, slowly, peel down the fabric of his turtleneck to reveal a line of slitted flaps growing in against the side of his neck. "I don't -- I don't know. I thought I was. And now --" "I mean, yeah," Chelsea says, not sure how to answer the question about her health. She holds her hands out as if to demonstrate how 'ok' she is. "I guess? I feel fine, anyway. I just feel /bad/. About what happened." She bites her lip when Sebastian says he isn't mad, and it looks like she's about to say something when he reveals the gills coming back in. "Oh shit..." She bounces off the bed to go to Sebastian, dragging him into the room so she can close the door on the three of them. "But like, that's /good/, right?" She turns and looks at Shane on the floor, and then takes B's hand to drag him across the room so the three can all sit on the floor together. "Yeah, I know. It was fucked up as hell. But it wasn't your /fault/ it was just -- jesus Christ, X-gene, what have you been smoking." Shane leans back as Sebastian is dragged over, palms bracing against the floor behind himself. Sebastian dips his head, letting himself be dragged into the room and settling down on the floor, half-sitting half-kneeling with his legs folded in beneath him. "I don't know," he admits softly. "I mean yes. I mean --" His eyes fix downwards, fingers picking at the hem of his soft sweater. "It hurts a lot. But -- but also I kind of liked --" His cheeks flush deeply darker, eyes locking on the floor. "It was just nice to be able to -- felt almost normal for once. And --" His lips press together thinly. Chelsea sighs at Shane. "Jesus, /right/? Our bodies are so fucked up." She folds her feet under her to kneel on the floor, and listens while B explains. "Yeah, I never really thought about it before this week. You guys must get shit for being... /you/, like just, everywhere, right? Sorry, I'm not saying this right. Do you know what I mean?" There's a soft knock at the door before the knob turns and Luke appears holding a tray of three coffees with a diner-style glass sugar shaker, and a small carton of 2 percent milk. "Hey," he says softly, looking at the three on the floor, before just nodding and setting the tray on the desk. "Lemme know if you need anything." He offers a hesitant smile, and ducks back out. "Woah hey thanks that /worked/." Shane's eyes open wide; he's clearly surprised (and pleased!) by the delivery of the coffee after his blunt-impolite demand for it. "Thanks!" He flashes Luke a quick grin as he reaches for one of the cups. "Oh -- gosh, sir, thank you," Sebastian adds more timidly, not actually reaching for one until Luke has gone. He doctors it heavily with sugar, leaving the milk. "And yeah pretty much walking out of the fucking house is like invitation to shit all over us," Shane agrees, though his tone sounds blase about this. "I can't actually imagine what it's /like/ to just --" He waves a hand towards B. "Be able to walk the hell out and /not/ --" He shrugs a shoulder. Sebastian looks down into his coffee as he stirs it. "It's. Nice. But it's more than just the -- being normal, it was nice to be --" His cheeks stay dark-flushed, and he lifts a hand from his mug to scratch hard at the side of his neck. "... but it's hard too, it was -- maybe it's better changing back." He doesn't sound very /convinced/ of this, except when he adds softly firm: "... when I'm like this I can't swim with him." Chelsea looks at Shane, a little confused by his commentary, but gets up to doctor her own, lots of sugar AND lots of milk. She has to drink some of the coffee off so she can add more milk. "Fuck, I can't even imagine what you guys get. I mean, dad kinda gets some of that but..." She shrugs and sits back down on the thin carpet. "Well it's really not the same. He can put on a hat and a-" she trails off, suddenly aware that she probably doesn't need to explain the whole thing. "Waitwait," she says quietly when B's describing his experience in her skin. "What were you gonna say just then. 'Not normal, but'. But what?" Shane actually stays quiet, here. He doesn't add anything in answer to Chelsea's question, just sips at his coffee and turns his eyes towards Sebastian. "I -- just." Sebastian looks down at himself, hands brushing against his skirt. "Just --" Softer still, almost a whisper: "... pretty." Chelsea waits a long beat before saying anything after that. She holds her mug up, sort of in front of her face to look at B over the top of it, and then slides her eyes to look at Shane, suddenly /quiet/. Her blush matches B's, and she squirms, obviously uncomfortable. "I don't know what to say," she says. A tiny smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. "I'll take that as a compliment. But I mean. You were pretty before. I always wanted to steal your clothes..." A tiny hint of possible understanding begins to glint in her eye, at her brow, the lift of an eyebrow, but she hasn't really connected all of the dots yet. "You've always been pretty," Shane agrees this with a kind of /cocky/ grin that fades into a more serious expression: "... but being comfortable in your own skin's important, too." Sebastian picks unhappily at his skirt. "I just never have been, before. I don't -- I don't really like --" He scratches his hand against his neck again, nails scraping hard against the newly developing gills. "It was nicer. Being. Being a." He swallows, eyes still fixed downward. "... but I don't want to stop being your brother, either," spills out in a sudden abjectly /guilty/ rush. "... dude." Shane's ridged brows raise. "You're /always/ going to be my other half." Chelsea sips at her coffee, watching Shane and B go back and forth. "Well I hope I look that good when I'm your-" Chelsea's mouth drops open as something occurs to her. Luckily she doesn't stop to think before she blurts it out, or she might never have. "Wait B... do you mean you don't like being a /boy/?" Equally sudden, Chelsea closes her eyes, very embarrassed at her own question. "Ah fuck, I don't even- god. Please just throw a blanket over me and make me disappear." Sebastian fidgets uncomfortably, not looking up. His fingers tighten around his coffee, his others still pressing against the gills at his neck. "Yeah," he finally says, soft. "I don't think I -- like being a boy." "You know, just because you have a /dick/ doesn't mean you /have/ to be. If you want to be something else just -- be that instead," Shane says it like yeah, it's Just That Simple. Sebastian's brows pull together deeply. "But I don't want to be -- /not/ like you either," he says unhappily. "Our whole /lives/ you've always been like -- like looking in a mirror. And like this I can't -- I can't go to all our /places/ if you go off to the ocean I have to stay /behind/. And we don't even look anything /like/ twins anymore and I -- don't want to --" He frowns, shoulders tightening. "Maybe I just want everything." Chelsea bites her lip and slouches back a bit, setting her coffee safely aside on the floor. "This is really fucking complicated," she says. Her tone isn't complaining, so much as contemplative. "Well I mean... I'm pretty sure I could go SCUBA diving. But B... if you wanna be a girl. And it wears off after a while anyway. Maybe you /can/ have both. Everything." Chelsea chews the inside of her lip for a long moment and rocks forward, up slightly on her knees, holding her wrist out and pointing at it with her other hand. "I mean, I know where to get some Be A Girl potion. You could both try it if you wanna look alike." "Oh my /god/ can I be Chelsea /too/ I would look so fucking /banging/ in your clothes, B." Shane actually looks positively gleeful at this idea. "If you want to be something else," Sebastian echoes Shane's earlier words wryly, "just be that instead." But his wry joking soon fades into a wide-eyed uncertainty. "Wait -- wait you mean." He swallows, looking at Chelsea's wrist. "You would really -- I mean. This is all kind of. You don't -- think I'm a -- freak?" "Of /course/ you're a freak," Shane preemptively answers. "But so is /every/ goddamn person I love." Chelsea laughs out loud at Shane's enthusiasm, much of the tension leaving her body. "Shit, I don't even know what a freak /is/ anymore. You know? All I know is that our bodies are fucking weird. And whatever happened is wearing off, so maybe it just is something you can try on for a while." She clears her throat and picks up her coffee again, staring down into before she continues. "But um... we should probably get our dads in on it first. And Dr. McCoy." "Could try smaller doses. Or bigger ones. Maybe? If you want it to last less -- or more." Shane shrugs a shoulder uncertainly. "Maybe. If it even works like that who the hell knows -- oh my /god/ Chelsea could you /market/ yourself as a magic gender-swap drug?" Now his eyes have lit again. Sebastian buries his face in his hands. "{Oh my god.}" It's in Vietnamese that time. Still muffled behind his palms, he continues: "... I still get to be your twin even if I'm. Like. This?" Shane doesn't dignify this with an /answer/, just scoots over to scoop Sebastian into his arms and squeeze tight. Sebastian sinks into the hug. His only next question: "Do you think our dads will be mad?"