|
     |
A bright, muggy, warm day in New York City. Washington Square Park has sprung up with an artistic community this afternoon, which is not unusual for this ironic nonconformist mecca. A gaggle of singers and drummers with a couple guitar players huddle under the shade of a copse of trees, a bunch of protestors are actively making signs rather merrily right now around the fountain, and of course there are the couple necking in secluded benches and a few macrame hippies selling hanging plant holders and charms and beaded necklaces on blankets that they're also half laying on while they make daisy chains. It's Washington Square Park, man.
And by merit of its location, well, it's hard to completely avoid if you're going from place to place. Not that Jay needs an excuse to be here. With an accoustic guitar slung over his shoulder and hanging down his back, the strap tight across his chest and a hand to guard the neck as he strolls, aside from the feathers stuck out the bottom of his shirt and the hump on his back, he…actually sort of seems like he fits there. He's meandering on the outskirts for now. Unfamiliar to most of these folks, but trying to pick out artists and get a feel for the protesting groups. Awkward, but trying to explore the city.
A young woman stepped along the path with a look that stated, very clearly, that she knew where she was going and was using the park as a short cut around traffic. She was wearing a simple teal colored sun dress, belted at the waist with a bright, neon pink belt and matching flip flops. Her green hair was cut in a stylish bob, and a head band tucked a bump of her bangs out of her features.
Any calls by others sitting in the shade were rejected with a sheepish smile and a wave of her hand. A few protestors that she'd helped out with before recognizing the very bright green of her hair first and foremost.
Vic stands out in a couple ways. First, he's a baby-faced pretty boy. Second, he's dressed like a total conformist in jeans, a white t-shirt, and military-issue boots. He's clean cut, fresh-faced, and he walks among the sites to see with a look of wonder and pleasure. When he spies Jay, he wanders over. Sure, he's just another musician, but that humpback makes him stand out. A woman walking by with one of those big, chewy pretzels distracts him, though, and he ends up running into Jay literally. He's a solid youth, too. Much muscle.
Another youth making his way into Washington Square is young Peter Parker. The late teen is dressed casually in a pair of jeans and a simple T-shirt, his hands stuffed into his pockets. He seems to not have much of a care in the world, eyes drifting toward the musicians and his feet eventually carrying him in their direction.
Kaleb was behind Vic. he wasn't looking at the people though, he was sketching in a small book. "You're going to… nevermind." Did Jay invite them to stay? No. Kaleb was the sort to make his own invitations and in much a way looked well too button-up dressed for this place. Still with the cress shirt rolled to the elbow, and vest, but no tie and the collar was at least unbuttoned. He lowrred the book and looked to Vic blinking, and then to Jay with a furrow of his brow, maybe even nearly a faint scowl, but asked in earnest, "Hey you're the guy from the other night. You okay?" Did Echo just ask how someone was doing? People might want to get their hearing checked.
Convergence happens in all sorts of ways. Sometimes literally in the physical sense while Jay has stopped in the middle of a grassy patch between paths, watching a young man stretched out on his stomach while he sketches in his book. A woman napping beside him, perpendicular, with her head resting on his lower back. With a lack of situational awareness present, Jay is bumped into with his defenses down and wavers a little on his feet, though not so much as to stumble, as one might expect him to.
Immediately, Jay's hand goes for his guitar's neck, protectively, immediately murmuring in low, southern leaning words, "Sorry 'bout that." And immediately pivoting around to get out of the way before even looking up and over at the clean-cut fellow. Verdant eyes flicker up quickly to Vic with an apologetic smile, fluttering away the very next moment to let the guy get on his way when Kaleb speaks up and Jay's attention flickers a couple times to him and away, double-taking and recognizing him. "Oh. Yeah, you were th' sharp-dressed fellah from—" Cutting off abruptly, a rush of color stains Jay's fair cheeks red, embarrassed. "Ah'm cool, man. Ah should ask the same of you, Ah didn't see you come up with yer brother after. Y'allraght?" Notes of genuine concern, as easy as breathing for him.
His gaze flickers out over the park once more, catching sight of Lorna. He knows her, only vaguely by reputation and sight from around campus. The green hair stands out. If he catches eyes with her, the blushing young man nods politely. Peter, he doesn't seem to notice just yet.
The collision drew Lorna's gaze as much as anything else in the park. Promptly making her do a double take and change her course around toward Vic and company. "Vic!" She beamed, and if she missed Jay's attempts to catch her eye, it was only by the presence of her newest nephew.
"Oh my gosh. Do you know if your mom is home? I was just on my way to try to talk to her. I have some questions that are kinda important and I wanted to see if she could help out with something." She glanced briefly toward the others and offered a wiggle of her fingers in a wave.
Vic reflexively steadies Jay with a hand on his elbow, and he smiles rather sweetly as he says, "You all right? No need to say sorry. I'm the one who bumped into you." Then he spies Kaleb and he only pauses for a moment before he says, "Hey there, Kaleb." Yeah, he can tell them apart. Most of the time. He's about to shove his hands in his pockets when Lorna approaches, his smile broadens and he goes to give her a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. "I haven't been by their place today, so I couldn't say."
Rather gently, Jay removes his elbow from Vic's grasp, reaching to pat his shoulder with a free hand in reassurance that he's just fine. The hump on his back rises, then falls again, compressing tight against his back once more, making the guitar slung over his back do the same. "It's somethin' of an automatic thang," Jay explains of his apology softly. A polite, mute nod of Jay's head in Lorna's direction as she entered into that circle of conversation. The young man remains there, awkwardly for a second, then tries to slide a foot back and pivot halfway away, leaving them to their conversation.
Lorna returned the hug with an easy movement, a gentle squeeze and a sigh as she pulled back with a smile. "Darn. Most of the time I try to get a hold of her.. well, you know what she's like. Always off doing some daring do." Her smile widened into a grin and she glanced toward the departing Jay.
"Hey! Sorry for just uhm.. breaking into the conversation like that." She smiled sheepishly and ran her hand over the back of her hair.
Kaleb watched Jay curious relly though he did take the compliment, "Well I try to be." He looked down finishing the sketch of an arch in a doorway in his notepad and tucked the pencil behind his ear. At the question of his well being his brow furrowed a bit and he shrugged. "Might have over extended a bit. I'm fine. Now." And by overextended he meant taken out every window in the immediate area for one block. Yeah whoops. He shrugged and watched Lorna and Vic oddly. He'd never actually seen green hair up close before and opted, for once, to keep his yap shut. He looked back to the musician withthe hump on his back trying to be discrete and asked still, being of a family with a million questions for all things, "That guy shoot you? Did you get bitten? What's the guitar for?" If Jay was trying to get away there was a Kaleb curious about the answer, though he stopped and watched peripherally at best.
"Yeah, I get that," Vic tells Jay. "Hey, you don't have to go. My name's Vic. This is my Aunt Lorna." Never mind that Lorna looks to be his age. Hey, it happens. To Lorna, he says, "It took me awhile to catch her at home, but I finally did." He asides, quieter, "I brought baklava from work. It was a good choice." Which reminds him! He perks up and adds, "I got a job at that Greek place, Saganaki. The food is so good. I'm more or less eating my paycheck." To Kaleb, he says, "What happened?"
Jay tries to be as smooth as he can be to leave Lorna and Vic to their conversation, politely removing himself from the equation so they can converse in peace. The green-haired-gal's sudden apology makes that a little more difficult as Jay is pulled back in half the way, and, a little offcenter, he passes another polite little smile in her direction. Modestly bobbing his head. "It's really okay. We weren't talkin', Ah just got in the way. Yer ahl raght, Miss." Jay's southern. Aunts and nephews being the same age happens ALL THE TIME. Vic introduces himself and Lorna, Jay nods his head once again and scoops his hair out of his face with a shove of one pale hand. "Jay Guthrie," introducing himself in kind, there's no mention he knows of Lorna because at least someone was able to teach him how to keep his mouth shut somewhere. He tries to slip away again a bit when he hears the restaurant's name and brows loft upward in recognition.
The cross conversation from Kaleb is a little more comfortable, only because he's less of an interloper on family business. "Yeah…you were doin' a lot. Ah think. The, uh…" Jay lifts a hand up and discretely touches the shell of his ear, as if itching something, but not quite. "…was you, yeah?" The million questions don't seem to put Jay off at all, actually. He answers them all, with the patience of a man who's grown up perpetually surrounded by five-year olds. "Ah didn't get shot this time. Or bit. It tried, but that lady kept him down, hard. Tried to grab me, but Ah shook it. Th' car got closer t'hittin' me than anythin'." A pale hand reaches back to touch the neck of his guitar. "Fer playin'. What'd the sketchbook fer? You draw much?"
Lorna tilted her head as she glanced between Kaleb, to Vic and to Jay as questions passed between them. "Wait, bitten? What?" She blinked repeatedly, and then cut off further questions as Vic started to introduce them. She beamed instead.
"Lorna Dane, Aunt Lorna to this kid." She reached up to ruffle at Vic's hair cheerfully. A glance toward Kaleb followed, then toward Vic. "Is this the guy you were telling me about, Vic?" And she nodded toward Kaleb in question.
"Soo.. hate to be the wet blanket and all here, but what are you guys talking about? Bitten, or hit by cars and what not?" She quirked an eyebrow upwards, a hand settling on her hip.
When asked if that was him that ya know, broke all the glass and woke the whole damn neighbourhood Kaleb shifted his weight uneasily. He was a sharp dressed kid, if only he had a gcharming demeanor to go with it, but wrong twin. He nodded not overly proud of the fact. To Vic he flicked a finger and said with a faintly annoyed sigh, "Some stupid woman tried leaping out of a window after a hot dog making it our problem and all literal hell broke loose. Then some very rude cat tried to his Jay with a car and started shooting like a maniac. As if people don't walk there." Seriously rude. He paused looked to Jay and then Lorna, "Kaleb. Kaleb Miller." On what he was drawing he just handed the book to Jay rather than answer him out loud.
Vic shakes his head and says, "That's insane. Is she okay? The woman who jumped? He looks at Jay again as if to make sure he's intact and did not in fact get hit by a car. "I'm sorry I wasn't there for hot dogs. I had to work." He lays a hand to his flat belly. Missed hotdogtunities are to be mourned. hotdog. To Lorna, he says, "This is Kellan's brother. They're twins, so that's pretty much what Kellan looks like." He looks between Jay and Kaleb. "So what did you guys do about it?"
Jay scoops a hand through his hair again, ruffling bits of red around to frame his face when the other two who weren't there ask for details. A hint uncomfortable, though not for what happened during the weirdness, exactly, the guitar against his back shifts again as the hump on his back swells, then flattens. He murmurs, quietly to Kaleb, "Some woman jumped out a window? Ah missed that. Ah was busy dealin' with the guy with the gun an' the folks in th' car." He takes the book in hand and flips back and forth a page or two, a tiny, appreciative smile curving his mouth, though it manages to look a little saddened as he hands the book back. "You got a gift, man. An' lots of subjects in this city."
Back to the subject of the other night, though, Jay glances back and forth between Lorna and Vic, wetting his lower lip in a habitual gesture. "He wasn't shootin' at me, Ah don't think. If he were, he would'a got me, since Ah weren't movin'. He was shootin' at someone else, so Ah walked up at him and told him t'hit the bricks. Ah suppose, Ah ain't all that imposin', but it didn't matter a whole lot." No pride, no malice, Jay responds completely factually with a modest lean. As if he just yells at shooters all the time and it's not a big deal. "Someone in a car didn't see me or somethin' an' almost hit me, but a lady stopped th'car. There was just…a lotta screamin' an' then the shooter turned into—" Jay stops and purses his lips together, frowning deeply as he looks over at Kaleb and flushes deep with color. Talking just a little too much and leaving that cliffhanger there.
A grimace pulled at Lorna's lips, "Geeze. That sounds terrible! Weird, but terrible as far as the gun and shooting and almost getting hit goes. Glad you guys are alright." She wrinkled her nose and glanced toward Vic as he introduced her to Kaleb. "Hey, nice to meet you." She offered a wave and then glanced back to Vic, leaning in to mock whisper.
"Well since they're identical twins, then I approve." She winked at Vic and settled beside her nephew as she turned her gaze back to Jay.
"Hey, it takes some serious guts to face down a guy with a gun." Not for her, she could deflect the bullets or dismantel the gun with a thought, but most people weren't her. She smiled instead. "Don't sell yourself short on that imposing part. Anyone who has a gun most certainly would be surprised to find many people stepping up at all."
Kalebtook the book back biting him lip murmuring a, "Hey, thanks. " the sketchbook was folded under wrong and something odd happened where the sound was actually louder where they stood, and inaudible outside of their loose circle. Jay might recognize the same tension in his hand when he food that'd the other night. Echo was bending sid to make it travel up, not out, to keep the conversation very private. His words were tense and a bit more than irritable, "no, those 'sleepers' were gathering and planning a witch hunt too 'kill the muties' and kidnap Billy. I think 'terrible' kinda under sells it."
Vic grins bashfully at Lorna when she voices her approval of He Who Looks Like Kaleb. "Thanks," he says. The tale of what happened is taken in with general interest, and Vic's attention lingers on Jay as he speaks. But then Kaleb mentions Billy, and that gets Vic's attention. "Is Billy all right?" he asks, and the smiling bashful boy suddenly becomes very serious.
Jay seems just a touch relieved when Kaleb explains the rest, which means he's off the hook. The odd quality to the sound makes him glance outward oddly, his head tilting to the side in a birdlike 'listening' gesture, before he looks back across the way to Kaleb, then to the rest of the group. He gives Lorna a maudlin little smile and nods. "It wasn't the best of nights." No mention of what happened afterward. He simply shrugs and nods. "He was fine when Ah left. Kaleb crashed raght after, but everyone was okay when Ah left. Even the folks who got…changed or whatever."
The mood changed abruptly on Lorna's expression, she frowned, brows furrowing as she looked sharply at Kaleb. "What? Kidnap Billy?!" She hissed, her eyebrow lurching upwards.
"Who was it? What are sleepers? Where's Billy now? How do you know they were after him? How'd anyone know he was .. was.." She swallowed hard and yanked at her hair.
"I'm obviously a mutant or someone who makes poor life choices. But why Billy?!" Her voice was low as she glanced betweeen those gathered.
Kaleb looked, frankly, pissed, but at least calm about it. He took a deep breath and looked to Vic with an ood patience, "Our brothers are fine." ANd maybe that's what it was. He shook his head answering Lorna, "They almost hit Jay here with a car, that scary-groovy old lady punched the car in question and made it stop. It was… marvelous really." He boggled genuinly in awe of Karnak's display of sheer might and tenacity, but continued, "Billy's fine though. Weirdly I htink I'm the only one that got hurt. But Billy made like he knew something to ou'd have to ask him. I passed out before I could." He paused and lamented, "I never got to eat my hot dog." Awww, sadness.
Vic looks to Lorna, then back to Jay and Kaleb. "Yeah, what she said." With a sigh, he admits, "We could ask him what's up, sure." Then Kaleb mentions that their brothers are fine, susses it out, and scrubs his face with one downward sweep of a hand. "Kellan was there, too? I should've been there." He takes a deep breath, lets it out. Kaleb has said Kellan's fine. That he's the only one who got hurt, so Vic lifts his gaze to Kaleb and asks, "What happened? Are you doing okay?" Then he grimaces and adds, "Ugh, don't mention food. I'm starving." Quelle surprise.
Jay shrugs and shakes his head, unknowingly of the details. "There was a lotta weird goin' round. Ah don't know anythin' about anythin' trying to take anyone, though. All Ah saw was a lotta aggression an' confusion, an' he called it a transdimensional dream-monster—whatever that is." Jay holds up one lily-white hand in innocence. He takes another half step backwards from the group, looking toward Kaleb. "He just over did it a little. Nobody got injured 'cause of someone's attack. Well…" He lifts his brows to Kaleb. "Cept that Cranston fellah. Mister Cranston was all kinds of not-good. Ah had to extract him from the situation."
Kaleb looked to Jay and said simply, "Whatever that was made me do it, almost hurt my brother, shot at you guys, and that guy." He looked to Vic, and Kaleb had feelings on this not one for generally liking people, so he protests, but all the same reiterated, "It made us hurt a guy to make them stop. It's like they're deliberatly goading us to… do… something so they can hunt us all down like animals. No thanks. SOME of us still want to go to school."
"Transdimensional dream monsters?" Vic pulls a face. "Weird. I've never heard of those." In his defense, he's a week old. There's a lot he doesn't know. "Well, I'm glad everyone's okay, more or less. I hope this Cranston fellow feels better. Does anyone know how to find him? So they can check up on him and make sure he's okay?" He purses his lips and gives Kaleb a squeeze on the arm. "What you did was good, Kale." Sure, rub it in.
Jay remains queit for the most part, watching the conversation between the two, trying to collect clues as to what the hell is going on since apparently this goes a lot deeper than he initially thought. He shrugs gently toward Vic. "Me neither. But there's a lotta stuff Ah don't know. Ah haven't been here long an Ah've been, uh…distracted." Scrubbing a hand through his hair once more and shifting his weight from side to side. He shifts backward another half step, gaze traveling between Kaleb and Vic. Mention of Lamont, Jay murmurs softly. "He knows Billy's daddy. Billy knows him."
Lorna frowned, "Wait, what?" She crossed her arms and shook her head. "Who knows Billy and Vic's dad?" she pursed her lips, shifting her weight upon her toes.
"That.. that is actually terrible. Mind control? It made you do stuff? Geeze.." She bit her lower lip and then glanced toward Vic. "We are so gonna have a chat with your dad, or mom. I don't care. They need to know this is their stuff." She paused and glanced around at the group.
"Uhm. There's also a vampire running around." Another pause. "And giant spiders. So uhh be careful around Central Park yeah?"
Kaleb sighed and clarified, "Creating a situation that forces our hand is no different. Just as bad." His face lit up a bit, "Yeaah Billy mentioned the spiders. I wanna see those." Though afer the admission of what he did to all those windows? One can guess why. It did catch him off guard though, something was out of place. He squint an accusing look over hi shoulder, "Are you insinuating you're runing around inthe ," He didn't know how to say that and the jid in the snappy business casual gestured at the park and avoided using the term 'unwashed masses/ out loud, "open on your own or something?"
Vic says, "Oh! If he knows Dad, I can just ask him to look in on him. Cranston, was it?" To Lorna, he says, "There was a guy named Cranston there, and he got hurt or something. Dad knows him, so checking up on him won't be too hard." Because Vic is a freakin' boy scout, and checking up on a total stranger to make sure he's all right is totally Vic's jam. To Kaleb, he says, "I'm going to ask for some evenings off when my boss gets back from wherever he went. Unless we want to do our thing Sunday or Monday nights." He grins as he says it, though. Hee, he got a job.
The inclusion of Vic in 'Billy and Vic's dad' makes Jay glance to the fellow that bumped into him earlier and take a few steps off to one side, away from Vic. His wings twitch and guitar bobbles around slightly, but the red-head simply answers the question, "Mister Cranston. He knows them. Lamont Cranston. He was sucked under by the thing that took over the man who shot at him. Made him just…" Jay frowns gently and shakes his head, at a loss for words and perplexed. "He just wasn't there. Behind his eyes, when Ah looked at him, he weren't there any more. So Ah extracted him an' Kaleb here took care of the rest. He seemed okay when he left. Just shook."
The word 'vampire' marks a confused look on Jay's face. "Ah knew about th' spiders…vampires are real?"
A long look once again at Vic when he mentions his boss and being gone. Jay's bare feet flex in his sandals, toes trying to dig into the grass as he adopts a worriedly distracted look and dips his head again quietly, rocking forward on his feet.
Lorna grimaced, wringing her hands. "I want to check in with your dad," She murmured to Vic, "And then to Billy's. If something is targeting him specifically then we need to be worried." She murmured and then glanced back to Kaleb.
"Okay, so not actual mind control. Cool. I can work with that then." She grinned sharply and it wasn't particularly nice. It was most assuredly, her father's smile. "As far as vampires?" Her green eyebrow lofted upwards. "Yeah they're real."
"My half brother Pietro got turned into one at one point and bit me. He's better now though, promise. It was his," A nod to Vic, "Mom's fault. But she fixed it." A shrug as she waved away how utterly freaked out she'd been and scared of vampires she was.
"The one in the park didn't attack me though. He took off running when I flipped a car and ripped up some sewer pipes."
Kaleb was pretty certain having a 'job' made Vic more mutant than the rest of them including Lorna's green hair, Jay's flappy wings, or his own amazing taste in shoes. Vic got blinked at. Right-o. He looked to Jay and oddly one could reasonably expect that prim Miller to get high and mighty on that one. He instead took a half step back from Lorna, you know, in case. He looked around and then down at the half-schematic drawn of one of the local buildings he was apparently doing something with. "We might just want to go indoors somewhere. This is starting to demand coffee." He eyed Jay and then the two relations and back in thesame irritated tone, "Jay, seriously, You're new. If these people are serious do you have a plan? People? Staff or…something?" Not family, but staff? Sure everyone had that right?
Vic's brow furrows when Jay sidles away from him. Billy's little brother doesn't understand. "Thanks," he tells the winged one, when he confirms Lamont's identity. "I'm sure he's okay, but it never hurts to check in." He pauses, then asks, "Is everything okay? Did I do or say something?" He rubs the back of his neck and he glances to Lorna and Kaleb. Surely they'd tell him if he gaffed, right?
He nods to Lorna as he says, "Yeah, I think Dad needs to hear about this. Transdimensional dream monsters doesn't sound good." He frowns. "I am worried," he admits. "He's capable and all, but these guys seem like heavy hitters."
At Kaleb's suggestion, he says, "Let's go find somewhere to eat. That has coffee, like a diner or something. I could just kill a pie."
Jay smiles sheepishly toward Lorna, "Ah'd probably run, too, in that case. If Ah thought it was me you were mad at."
Jay blinks a couple times, owlishly at Kaleb, then touches his own chest as if to say 'who, me?' as if he hadn't realized that the hauty young man were addressing him in the first place. The choice of words is weird, but he understands the jist. The soft whisper of feathers rubbing against one another resonates around him as the poorly hidden appendages shiver up a bit. "Staff? Ah mean…Ah got a couple friends? Sort of. Mah brother was supposed to stay with me while Ah got settled in, but…" Jay just drifts off and rubs the back of his neck as he trails off, glancing over at Lorna, then away. "Mah roommate's sort of dead raght now, Ah think that's probably where yer boss went…" Jay sort of mumbles abashedly his way through it, realizing how awkward he sounds over it all when Vic asks if everything's okay.
"Yeah, Ah'm fahne. Ah just, uh," A glance around at the group of connected people. "Yer kin…don't really like me much. Ah probably shouldn't, you know, hang around." A small flick of a polite smile, Jay at least has the good nature to look pretty sheepish and apologetic about the whole thing. The rest deciding on coffee, Jay's feet don't move.
Lorna settled her hands on her hips, hooking an eyebrow upward as Kaleb took half a step back. "I don't mind." She muttered ahd huffed, toss a hand up in the air as she glanced between them. "Coffee? Ew. Soda? Sure. But either way off the street is nice. Vic, think your dad's home. Why don't we go there? Might be worth the time." She then glanced back to Jay and grinned.
"Hey, come with us. Whatever you think, or rather whoever you think in my family doesn't really like you, it's cool. You've got me and Vic here." She reached out to grab her nephew's arm. And her expression sobered. "Besides, there's too much going on in the world right now for anyone to go out alone. It's better to stay together, yeah?"
Kaleb blinked. There were so so soooo many wrong things said in that statement. Haughty? Yes. Demanding? Absolutely. "Jay, you're coming with us, his daddy be damned right now. Right now I need an espresso and you need to not be milling about inthe park like the other pigeons." Kaleb looked at the bird-man as if it made sense. But really h was pretty good at bossing people around and seemed to do it naturally; not nicely, but he might mean well. There was a gesture for them all to carry. "Vic, use your stomach as a compass would you?"
Vic mumbles under his breath, "Let's not damn my dad." What. He's got some family loyalty. Though maybe not absolute, because on hearing that his family doesn't like Jay, Vic just regards the winged man and says, "You've never done me a bad turn. I like you just fine." He nods along with what Lorna says, and he loops his arm around hers. "You've got us. Whatever's up, it can be worked out. Over lunch." At Kaleb's bidding, he looks around. "There is a diner that way," he nods toward one of the streets not far from where they're standing.
The awkwardness of Jay mentioning that Vic and Lorna's kin don't really care for Jay holds on to the young man rather palpably while the both of them both tell him to brush it off and offer up some supportive words. Looking back and forth between the lady with the green hair and the smiley fellow beside her, Jay's mouth tentatively curves a small smile in return. A quick triplicate blinking of his eyes as they get just a little bit glossy, willing it away with every remaining nuance of masculinity he has, Jay bobs his head a couple of times and looks down. "That's…mighty kind of you both to say. Thank you." Of course, to play the counter balance to them, Kaleb straightforwardly bosses Jay around to come with, the young man's brow loft upward slightly in vague surprise, though he doesn't seem to take the pigeon comment to heart. "Uh. Okay, yeah, sure." He agrees much quicker that time. Without reservations. "Ah need to get mah dog." Jay thumbs over his shoulder. "We were walkin' an' he flopped down in a sun spot, refused t'move. Some hippy chickie offered to watch him fer me." Jay, you big idiot. "Ah'll catch up?"
A shrug and Lorna glanced between the other two boys, a brow shooting upwards. "Kaleb, I so want to hear you say that to his face. Just for amusement's sake." She murmured, in regards to not giving a damn about Strange. Her smile quirked upwards and she shrugged.
"Okay. So, I think there's a cafe around the corner from here. Been there before, they have nice hot chocolate." She shrugged and, keeping her arm looped through with Vic's offered a nod to Jay.
"Alright, well, I dunno if they'll want a dog in the cafe, but I bet they have outside seating. It is summer after all."
Kaleb sighed and waved Jay off to get the dog. He was allergic to waiting but wait they did. He blinked at Lorna clueless, "Yeah, ok?" This kid had zero concept of authority figures apparently. In all honesty, Lorna might be onto something there. He put his sunglasses on and went back to being preoccupied with finishing his sketch as they waited. To be fair he worked on letting some of his anger and irritation abate. Finally, without looking to her he commented simply, "So, you too then, Lorna?"
"It's a nice day, we should sit outside," Vic says. "Besides, I think I like dogs. Only one way to find out." He watches Jay go, and he seems to have the patience of a saint when it comes to waiting. Though his stomach does audibly grumble, and he glances toward that cafe more than a little longingly. He pricks an ear to listen to Kaleb and Lorna converse, on standby for cafe-going.
Jay nodded and turned to walk off into the park. He's still within eyeline when he stops in front of a blanket where a young woman looks like she's macrameing some sandal straps with an enormous white sheepdog asleep next to her. Dear god let that thing not be it. Jay waves and reaches behind the lump of sheepdog to pick up a tiny, ugly, skinny, yawning mutt with a collar and leash still dangling off him. Kevin sneezes a half dozen times, violently, then licks his face and promptly falls back asleep, tucked up under Jay's arm like a furry football. Jay jogs back, holding on to his guitar so it doesn't bounce too much. "Sorry. Y'all didn't have to wait fer me raght here, Ah knew where you were off to."
Lorna blinked, glancing toward Kaleb. "I'm not leaving my nephew alone out there, if that's what you're talking about. So yeah I'm coming with you. At least until we get things hammered out. I don't have class or extra work to do today. And my father is out so I don't have to worry about him." She sighed and glanced toward Vic, a silent plea in that gaze in regards to who her father was.
"Well that's everything yeah? C'mon. Lets go." She tugged at Vic, making to head toward the cafe.
Kaleb just stared as Jay jogged back over. He was likely blinking but remained patiently indifferen. He boggled to Lorna, "God no. Shouldn't be leaving anyone out there right now. I mean you too. Like…" He trailed off and blinked at Vic. yeah he couldn't reconsile his phisology so he subtly nodded to Jay with dog and back to her. Ah, mutant. He muttered, "Please don't make me say it. Let's just go." It's not that he was critizing her he just seemed to be wanting for people skills, though he still waited. He let Vic lead because it was his stomach playing compass.
Vic is tugged, and off they go toward the cafe, but his attention is on Jay and that… dog? That he's carrying. "Where's the rest of it," he says. Then, "He's awfully…" Cute? No. Hrm. "Interesting. Is he nice?" When he can find it in himself to look away, he glances to Kaleb and gives him a sympathetic look. There, there. "I'm pretty sure I'd be okay," he tells Lorna, "but if you prefer I not go it alone, it's no trouble to hang around."
Jay glances to each of the trio as they press onward, flashing a small smile at Vic and ruffling Kevin's head with his free hand. "Ah asked the same thing. He's part rat, part sloth, Ah think." Kevin, still half asleep, sneezed again and licked at the whiskers coming out of his face lazily. "He's uglier than sin and sweeter than bee spit," Jay ammends to Vic and follows along mutely, listening to the conversation flow around the trio.
Lorna shrugged lightly, "What? A freak?" She dragged a hand through her hair. "The green is only secondary, but I've had it since I was born. As far as what I can do?" She tilted her head as she walked and smirked.
"I'm not as impressive as say, Billy, but if anyone comes at you with a gun or bullets it won't be an issue. Promise." She sighed softly and looked back to the hound, dog… pupper?
"Are you sure he's a dog?"
Kaleb was dressed up sharp like the haughty young man at large he seemed to enjoy spending his time as. Sunglasses stayed on as he was not really interested in letting the world seen the bloodshot still in his eyes from the previous day's escapade. The dog got an indiscernable look but there was no comment to follow but to Lorna comisserating, "That's a bummer." Says the only one of the three mutants who could pass without a second glance, but hey it was sincere. For Kaleb in any case. On the dog he finally said drily with a sigh, "I don't care if it's not a dog so long as it's not terrestrial ot going to spontaniously melt." He drew the line at melting rat-dog-things.
"Aw," Vic says when Jay declares the dog sweet, and he holds out fingers to be sniffed and — if he passes muster — to pet with. His stomach rumbles again, and he ducks his head sheepishly. "Sorry," he says. To Lorna, he says, "I think it's pretty impressive, what you can do." He gives her arm a gentle squeeze in response to that plaintive look regarding her father. His grandpa. "I'm going to get the biggest stack of pancakes they have," he says out of the blue. Important information, here.
"You know terrestrial means of the earth, versus extra-terrestrial being outside of the earth. Pretty sure the dog is about as terrestrial as it gets at the moment," Kellan comments to his twin as he wanders on up, looking like a prep school student without the jacket. He gives Kaleb a nudge with one elbow and then he wanders over toward Vic, pulling a package of peanut butter crackers out of his pocket and handing it over as he gets close. "Hey," he says, and then offers a grin to Jay who is familiar and a wave to Lorna as well.
Jay shrugs mildly to the question of if Kevin's a dog or not. "Ah've been feedin' him dog food, so Ah sure hope he is. Dog-adjacent?" Looking up to Kaleb, Jay smiles smally and shakes his head. "No meltin'. Just sheddin'." He juts his chin out of the park for the rest to lead the way. "Though Vic maght just eat him if we don't get movin'." He remains mute on Lorna and her appearance and powers. He has absolutely no room to comment on any of that, and any of what he knows is hearsay anyway. Kellan's approach marked with an awkward moment to searching around him which subsides a moment later with a nod and polite smile in return.
Kevin blinks both of his eyes tiredly, independently of one another as he's confronted with an unfamiliar smell, sniffing at Vic's fingers, Kevin grunts a little bit, lazily licking all over them before yawning and stretching out, trying to figure out where he is. A lazy look up at Jay. Nope, doesn't matter where he is. Squirming under the flier's arm, his tail wags back and forth over pets. Whore for pets.
Lorna blinked, "I didn't actually mean to ask if he was of this world or not. But honestly, even if he wasn't.. still looks weird." She murmured, and she had met aliens. Or part aliens. She wrinkled her nose and shrugged, "So long as he's nice who cares." A glance was spared toward Vic and she grinned. "Well thanks, but you're a bias source since you're family and all." She reached up to pat at Vic's shoulder.
Then of course up came Kellan and he earned a blink of her eyes and another grin. "I like him Vic." She then nodded toward Kellan. "Hey, I'm Lorna Dane. Vic's aunt. He's told me about you already."
Kaleb swiveled his head to Kellan and waved off the faux pas. "Well whatever. I was a math major, not an English major." As if that excused anythin. Ever. Sorry, Kaleb, Kellen has ya on this one. His head turned to Lorna and then just shook saying in a dry tone, "Kellan, Jay. Lorna. Vic." Yes Kellan knew Vic but he was on a roll here. "Kellan, we're grabbing lunch." That wasn't informative, nor an invite. It was declaration to which was expected his twin would now be involved with naturally.
Vic murmurs, "Yeah, you're a good boy," to Kevin as he gives him petting. Then Kellan walks up, and he has peanut butter crackers? It's not fair that Vic can't tell him what he wants to, i.e. I love you. He takes the offered snack and tells him, "You're a godsend. I'd die of starvation without you." Not entirely untrue. The youth dips into the crackers, never mind they're going to go get lunch even now. Munch munch. He glances to Lorna. What did he tell ya? Kellan's a keeper. He feeds Vic.
Kellan notices Jay looking around him and he says, "Billy's not with me." Yep, he has a pretty good idea what that glance was for. Then he grins over at Lorna and both brows go up when she says she likes him, and that she's Vic's aunt. Then he remembers Vic's complicated family and he says, "Oh, hey. Nice to meet you." He glances at Vic, perhaps wondering what he's told her, but not seeming overly concerned either way. When Kaleb mentions that lunch is to be had, he says, "Do you guys mind if I join you?" He gives Vic a little bit of a shoulder bump and a grin, saying, "Who's got your back?"
Jay nods to Lorna and shrugs. "His owner ain't, but he's about as 'from earth' as ya can get. Unless there's somethin' Ah don't know about him an' one day Ah'm gonna catch him contactin' the mother ship in the livin' room or something." Jay's fingers lodged under Kevin's chest wriggle around to pet his chest. A light lift of his free hand in some non-committal gesture toward Kellan, "Yeah. Ah, um, remember. Sorry fer last naght." He casts a grateful and slightly embarrassed smile his way when the guy guesses what he was looking around for. A quick, habitual lick of his lips, Jay glances aside and then shoves forward a few steps to try to separate himself from whatever happened that he was apologizing for, wings trembling beneath his guitar, making the instrument shift and the long, streamlined feathers held in two tails behind his legs vibrate with it. "Yeah, it's just up here. Vic's stomach said so." Trying to bolster the gathering to movement.
Lorna offered a wave toward Kellan, her gaze swinging toward Kaleb briefly. "One more won't hurt. Though we had better tip the cafe pretty well." She murmured, shrugging as she ran her fingers through green hair again as the wind upset it and tossed it into her features.
"I dunno about all of you, but I am dying for a good iced tea or something." She made her way toward the cafe with a slightly quicker step as if to demonstrate this and came around the corner to it. Her hand grasping the door knob and opening it, propping it open with her elbow for whoever came up behind her.
Kaleb looked…irritated? No. It was just his face. There was a thoughtful expressionand he turned to the man withthe rat-dog, Codename: Kevin, and waved a hand vaguely in a circle, slapped him in the shoulder once and caught up to duck inside, "Lorna, that actually sounds pretty swell. Have them throw a lime in it, even better."
Vic grins at Kellan and says, "You do." Yeah, someone is going to have to take him aside and show him not to wear his emotions clear on his face, because the look he gives Kellan is hopelessly puppyish. He nods to Jay's words, and he heads toward the cafe, polishing off the peanut butter crackers as he goes. This may well save Kevin's life. The dog it pretty bite-sized. He heads into the cafe and looks around. He ducks inside the cafe as well, and he gazes upon the pie display with nothing short of lust in his eyes.
.~{:--------------:}~.
Jay exchanges a long glance with Kaleb's mean case of RBF, curiously. Red brows lifting very slightly to mark a quizzical air, then a mild smile when he's slapped on the shoulder. Whatever quickly transpired there, the winged young man seems a hint more relaxed for it; bolstered. The quick sound of Jay's flip-flops come up behind Lorna, gripping the door and holding it open for the group one by one. "Sweet tea," Jay murmurs wistfully as he props the door open with one foot and carefully buttons Kevin up inside his open denim button down, holding an arm folded casually under the small gremlin, buttons halfway undone still. He's not fooling anyone, but he's also not fooling anyone with the lump on his back, either. Playful growling and a 'harumph' comes from his belly lump as they step inside. "/Real/ sweet tea."
A whole gaggle of young people are converging on the little shop at the moment. Lorna with her striking green hair, Jay with the hump on his back and long feathers down the backs of his legs, Kaleb in his sharp attire and his prep-school mirror image, Kellan, and Vic, who is about to make sweet, sweet mouth-love to a whole pie.
Lorna flashed Kaleb a smile as they entered the cafe. "Lemon would be better," She had been to Mrs O'Riley's before, with Strange and Crystal. Since then? She'd come in whenever she could. She waved to the sweet old woman as she approached the counter and ordered a regular, unsweetened, ice tea, and a plate of several chocolate chip cookies. She paid, and made her way over to a corner table that had plenty of seating.
"Why would you want sweet tea?" She arched a brow as she settled and glanced back to Jay.
"I think it's a Southern thing," Vic says to Lorna, and he flashes Jay a smile. See, he's got your back, winged-guy. And yes, those pastries are eyed with deep, personal need. "I'm just gonna get a big plate of those scones for the table," he says. In fact, without further ado, he makes his way to the counter, taking his wallet out of his pocket. Finally, money he earned all on his own to buy three peoples' worth of food. And some tea, because sure why not.
Kellan grins and watches Vic's affair with the pastry case with some degree of amusement, lingering behind to wait for everyone to find a table. He gets himself a glass of water and a coke to go with whatever other things that they end up ordering before sliding in next to Vic. He grins a little at Lorna's question about the tea. "It's more sugar than tea. I can't do it, but I hear a lot of people love it that way."
Kaleb was somehow a voice of confidence? What the hell did he say to the winged one who really knows. The haughty teen ordered his tea with a lime and cracke an actual grin to Kellan, "Yeah I can't either. I prefer my drinks to be as bitter as I am." Says he with a wry grin. At least he didn't take himself tootoo seriously. Still he managed to passivly try to keep the sound at the table. He had a thing about privacy and they were not presently the most discrete bunch but they worked with what they had. "So. Things at hand. Kellan, how are you?"
Jay gives Lorna the most heartbroken of looks when she asks why anyone would ever want sweet tea, green eyes going wide until his head drops backward and that pained look shifts to bliss. "Because it's the /best thing/ on a hot day…" Joining Vic's club of those who lust over food items. Sighing, he slides his feet to a halt, beside Kaleb while he nods to Vic and Kellan. "That's really about it, too. It's just about all Ah drink in the summer." He tries to barter for one and finds he's out of luck, so he gets a regular iced tea and /ruins/ it with a million spoonfuls of sugar when he gets to the table and slides into a seat beside Kaleb. It's a little awkward, getting the glass down, guitar down, balancing Kevin, and carefully sitting down with a shift of his wings, but he manages it. No food. Just sugar water for him. "Bitter? Heh…" All he says with a shake of his head toward the haughty twin.
Lorna huffed and rolled her eyes, "Ew. You're ruining the tea." She muttered lightly enough and leaned back in her seat, her gaze swinging toward Kaleb and she flashed him a grin. "I like sweet things, but they should be things meant to be sweet. Like cookies." As if to demonstrate her point she picked one up and nibbled at it.
"Vic, you may have one of my cookies." She offered graciously, and then glanced around at the table, before falling silent.
"You're good to me," Vic tells Lorna with a boyish grin. He orders a plate of scones. With jam. He's young enough to give off a 'growing boy' vibe which might just score him an extra scone. When his order is up, he takes the plate and brings it to their table. He sets it in the center of the table under the guise of sharing it with everyone else. He also has his tea, just a normal black Ceylon. Without wasting time, he slathers jam on a scone and puts it in his face. Which turns blissful, eyes gazing to the heavens as if to give thanks. Yesss. Baked goods.
Kellan reaches over and nabs one of the scones from the plate and nibbles on it without jam, just a bite at a time, careful not to get crumbs everywhere. He's neat and practiced. There's a bit of a grin shot in Kaleb's direction and he says, "I'm fine. Everything's alright. You? How's your head?" He glances over at Kaleb and studies him for a moment or two, then, determining that he seems whole, goes back to nibbling on his scone as he glances over toward Vic.
Kaleb had a tea and a cucumber sandwich and sat. He paused as 'Kevin' appeared nearby which got scrutinized for proximity, but he said nothing on any of these things. He nodded with his hands floating to either side as Lorna said it, not him, in a gesture of 'thaaaaank you'. He picke dup his sandwisha nd shrugged to Kellan, "Headache's mostly gone really. So long as an ambulance doesn't park right outside right now I'm fine. Nap helped. So are we ever going to talk about what all the heck happened or we just going to call this the new normal?" Eloquent as a hammer through a church window.
Casting a bashful smile across to Lorna as she huffed at him, Jay's smile grows into an equally bashful grin for a split second before it fades back again, stirring his iced tea. "Ah'm really not, Miss Lorna." Jay doesn't so much chuckle as he exhales a soft, staccato breath meant to be quiet and mirthful. All the goodies on the table and Jay seems content with his ruined tea and watching Vic decimate what's in front of him. "Ah've pretty much accepted whatever crazy out of this world jazz happens is the new normal." Jay murmurs to Kaleb as he keeps an arm under the small dog buttoned up in his undershirt, sleeping in his lap. "The crazier it sound, probably the more truth is in it. Vampires? Sure." He nods toward Lorna and the new revelation he had today. "Why not? Though…what makes ya think they're after Billy? Ah missed somethin' there."
Lorna rolled her eyes as she nibbled on her cookie, though she smiled at Jay and Kaleb none the less. "Oh geeze louise. You think that this is crazy? Please." She shook her head. "If I told you even a quarter of the stuff I've seen in the last year, you'd run screaming. Trust me. This? This we can totally handle. It's practically mundane by comparison." She glanced around at the table.
"If they're after Billy, they're not getting far. If not? Then what do you think they were trying to do? Inter-dimensional beings, at least those that I've run into.. Typically aren't here for tea and cookies."
"Does Billy know they're after him?" Vic says. Crumbs on his lips are licked off delicately, and then he takes another bite of scone. Mmm, more food for the face. He doesn't eat rudely per se. He's got decent table manners. He just eats a lot. He glances to Kaleb, then to the others. "I'm glad you're all okay." He glances to Kellan and smiles, giving him a shoulder-nudge. "There's a lot of weird stuff out there," he says. "Heck, if you think about it, all of us are part of it. We're not normal, are we."
Kellan glances over toward Kaleb and says, "I.. well.. I dont know. I mean.. I'm still kind of processing everything that happened. I figured.. let's start simple. Scones. Water. This I can handle this morning." He glances over at Lorna and says, "Well up until last week … I hadn't really experienced anything outside of my own abilities. This is all kind of new." He shrugs slightly at her scoffing and goes back to focusing on his scone. He takes the nudging from Vic and then nods slightly, "No.. no we aren't."
Kaleb almost gave Vic a dirty look for pointing it out but he wasn't wrong and ended up receiving a nod from Kaleb. "I haven't reallyspoken to him since I woke up so maybe yes maybe no." He shrugged eating his sandwich deciding how to answer that and finally said simply, "I heard them say itIt started off with 'we should kill them' and then it became 'kill all of them. Kill the…well you know. And distinctly someone said capture the mystic. I can only assume they meant the only one floating like a parade balloon." Stood to reason. "Honestly before then I never really ran into anyone else like …us directly." He paused "Except for when I was in Pairs. This invisible girl nicked my wallet. I amde her give it back." Back to sammich.
Guileless, Jay's verdant gaze lifts to Lorna, and without a fragment of irony or humor in his tone, the young man murmurs, seriously, "Ah have absolutely no doubt you got some stories that would make me run screamin', Miss Lorna." His attention lingers, then flicks back down to his glass again, waiting for sugar to disolve with the soft 'tink, tink' of the spoon he stirs against the sides of the glass.
Looking back up to Kellan, there's a small smile of kinship understanding from Jay. He mentions, quietly, from across the table. "Two months. Ah been here two months. B'fore that, Ah lived in a tiny town in th' middle of nowhere, where the weirdest ones were m'siblin's an' me, one by one. It's…overwhelmin'." The young man nods his head in agreement, but he doesn't seem completely brought down by that reality right now. He quiets down as Kaleb explains, not so much frowning as his smile vanishes for a moment. "Well. Billy or Lamont. Lamont said he had magic, too, just different from Billy's dad. Though, they did try to /shoot/ Lamont. So…probably Billy, yeah." Jay talks himself through it, rubbing the Kevin-lump under his shirt in his lap. Which probably looks a little questionable to anyone who doesn't know he has a dog under there.
Lorna offered a short, apologetic look in the table's direction. "Right. Sorry. I forget how it is at the start. I mean I've only been here a year. Before that I was in Upstate in the middle of no where. I dyed my hair and pretended I wasn't what I was. It sucked. I'm sorry." She sighed and sipped at her ice tea and glanced back at Kaleb and then Jay in turn as each speaks.
"Billy isn't what most consider a mystic. He doesn't really do things like usual people with magic do. I guess. It's what he says all the time. I don't get it. It makes my head hurt in all honesty. But if by process of elimination you mean Billy? Then we've got a lot of issues. His dad has to be told. As soon as possible. There are a lot of reasons why someone might want my nephew and none of them are good." A wince.
"He's gonna hate it, but I'm really gonna push that he moves in with his dad till it's figured out."
"Maybe there was another mystic there," Vic says with amiable cluelessness. Kaleb's dirty look just gets a guileless one from the youth. He takes another bite of scone, licks jam from his lips, and washes it down with a sip of tea. Then he says, "Up til about a week ago, I wasn't aware of anything. Everything seems kind of new and strange." He hrms, then asks quietly, "I don't know how weird it was, though. I wasn't there. I'm just grasping at ideas here."
"Who do you think the mystic might have been if it wasn't Billy?" Kellan asks, though he seems to be more into his scone than anything else. "Unless maybe they were after Lamont?" He then nods to Jay a little bit with a grin when he seems to get it, the newness of it all. Then he smiles a little bit to Lorna as well when she seems to understand. "I'm not real sure what to make of it all, to be honest. He fiddles a bit more with his scone, looking thoughtful. "It was pretty weird. Dream monsters with black tendrils.."
Kaleb ate quietly looking from Jay to Lorna to Vic, and finally his brother in turn. It's not that he was disinterested but a lot if the information was vage to him at best. He polled the table, "Soooo what's-" He cut off and then rubbed a small spot on his foreheas, adjustedto keeping the soundaround them 'orderly' so it wouldn't travel too far, and continued, "What's mystic mean anyways?" Kellan got a look at the tentacle things were brought up again and chuckled, "The new normal has a lot to be desired if that's part of it."
The mild, southern man across the table only smiles at Lorna when she apologizes. Hopelessly, helplessly forgiving. "It's good that you've more experience with this stuff, Miss Lorna. We need someone t'help us figgur out which way is up, otherwise we ain't gonna be able to tell our elbows from our" FULL STOP. "knees." He finishes lamely. "But…" He pauses and taps his tongue against his lower lip habitually. "…it's nice t'hear that apology. Thank you. It gets hard to always hear what an…amateur or idiot y'ar when yer new an' makin' a lot of mistakes." Which, apparently, is Jay's experience so far. A likewise silent glance of solidarity toward Kellan, a tiny flick of a smile punted his way, lingering for a solid beat before he looks back to his tea. "Could be Lamont, but we got a lotta question marks. Of the folk what were there, Ah know Ah don't qualify as any sort of mystic. Ah'm mutant through an' through. None of mah weird quirks qualify as 'mystical', really." Jay doesn't think at least.
Lorna sipped at her tea. "I don't know. I'm not a magic user. My roommate last year was for a while. She was apprenticed to Billy and Vic's Dad, Doctor Strange. My sister, Wanda, is like Billy. But way more powerful and older obviously, considering she's his mom and all." She heaved a sigh. "No don't try to figure it out, it's messy and makes no sense and it'll make your head hurt. But we should tell his folks regardless. They'll know more." She wiggled forward and grabbed another cookie.
"I'm just a mutant." She said the word lowly, "But I've had to deal with Interdimensional beings kidnapping my family and friends before. It was decidedly a more flashy one before. I mean, I got kidnapped for a while trying to save my other nephew Tommy once." She wrinkled her nose, nibbling on the cookie. "So that's my experience. Like I said. They don't come over for tea and cookies."
"Everyone is new at some point," Vic tells Jay fixing him with those big, soulful eyes. "I'm new, too. I mostly follow Billy's lead." He shakes his head. "I wouldn't even begin to know what to do about transdimensional dream things." Another scone disappears. That's three. "This might require the big guns. Dad'll know what to do." He says this with conviction and a firm nod. Utter faith in his parents, in his family at large. He is new.
"So…next step is talkin' to Strange. Which…Billy said he was gonna do, but he don't know what Kaleb knows," Jay murmurs and nods to those at the tables. "Doesn't hurt t'follow up." The young man murmurs, nursing his ruined iced tea and sleeping dead-elf's dog. Action identified.