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Elmo knocks on Jay's door. He's got a cardboard box under one arm and a big woolen peacoat over the other, in lieu of his long blue coat—it's cold out there. But he's still sunnily dressed in vivid blues and yellows. "Hey," he calls through the door. "Delivery!"
The building is nice. Ridiculously nice. And when the doorman hears Jay's name, his attitude is that of dim dismissal when he gives Elmo the apartment number and points him toward the elevator.
Luckily, not everyone is quite so, um, enthusiastic as the doorman, and once Elmo knocks on the indicated door, there seems to be music dimly coming from just inside, and Jay's voice ringing beyond it in his southern lean. "A minute!" It's far less than a minute when the lock is thrown and the red-head pulls the door open wide. Dressed for roaming around the house, he's wearing a sweater in holiday red-and-gold, brows already lofted upward and serene smile fixed in place. "Elmo, hey, man." Jay extends a hand, then remembers himself and halts, wagging a finger at the repair man, smiling. "Ahhah. Ah forgot. C'mon in." Stepping aside to give the man a wide berth.
The house smells like chocolate and there /is/ music playing from one of the rooms. The Zombies. The record isn't released in the US yet, so it's generally unfamiliar. There's a line up of long, multi-colored tube stockings on the counter in a pile. The top of the pile stuck with a needle trailing white yarn. Was Jay sewing?
Elmo grins half a long grin at Jay, coming in. "You remembered. That counts as remembering. Smells great in here, you baking?" He looks at the counter, and hefts the box. "Where can I unpack your fella?"
Swinging the door shut behind Elmo, Jay catches up in a stride or two, sliding a sidelong smile Elmo's way, "Well, thank you for the kindness. Ah appreciate it. Oh! Right. The lil' guy can come this way." Jerking his head to the side and a gentle fwip of his wings, Jay leads the way into the livingroom and around toward the kitchen. There are a couple cooling racks with cookies on them, but they seem cool and not necessarily the source of the aggressively chocolate smell. The pot on the stove seems to be the culpret.
"Nah, Ah'm not the big baker around here, that's more or less Vic's bag. Those are his work." Upnodding toward the cookies while he clears off a spot on the counter for the coffee maker of destruction. "Ah was makin' some hot chocolate. That's more mah speed." Moving the pot off the hot burner and turning it off before turning back to Elmo, planting a hand on his hip while he stirs the chocolate around. "The little monster give ya any more grief?"
"Plenty," Elmo says with a grimace. "Gonna be real honest here, couldn't do much with your pal's work. Didn't wanna touch it. So I rerouted a bunch of stuff, switched around this, rewired that and hey, it makes coffee again." While he's talking, he unboxes the coffee maker, pulling it out and setting it on the counter. He finds an outlet without searching, like he just knows it's there, and plugs the machine in. The light on the front comes on and nothing explodes. Elmo relaxes a little, admitting, "Wasn't a hunnerd percent sure it'd be ok on a different outlet. Hadda be here to do it." He leans on the counter, eyes tracking Jay's wings.
Jay's definitely a little trepidatious when Elmo explains the jimmy rigging job he had to do and goes to plug the coffee maker in. A ripple of uncertainty comes through him, enough so that there's an abortive reach of his hand out to Elmo while his feathers all slowly begin to rise up, fluffing, like hairs on the back of one's neck. "Maybe let me plug it—"
Phew. Nothing explodes. Just a tiny light flashes to light. The musician sags slightly and blows a stream of air out between his lips. "Man…" His hand drops and swings to his side, exchanging a look with Elmo while his feathers decide if they're going to calm down or not. "That was a little tense. Good job, Elmo. Yer a miracle worker. You want some celebratory hot cocoa while Ah see if we can get this puppy fired up?"
Elmo lofts his eyebrows at Jay, again with that half a grin. "I'm the electrician, I take the risks. Just, yanno. Don't let anybody open it or mess with it. I think it might get upset." He doesn't seem to be joking. "Yeah, please!" he says in response to hot cocoa. "It'll freeze the balls off a brass monkey out there."
"Heh, well, Ah'll try not to let mah brother touch it either, if that's the case," Jay jokes while he holds on lightly to Elmo's attention, as if it were lighter than air. Mild mannered, perhaps, but he didn't possess much social unease in his bones. With a nod which seems faintly cheered, Jay breaks eye-contact and slides past Elmo to make for a cupboard and retrieve a mug. A hint of sly amusement over that bawdy little joke, the red-head glances sidelong to Elmo to retort, "Colder than a witch's tit in a brass bra?" A quick flash of a crooked grin while he pours from the pot into the mug, busying himself around the kitchen smoothly.
Elmo tips an acknowledging finger. "You got it." He watches Jay, or maybe Jay's wings, or both, really, while the winged man moves about. Those brilliant colors that make his vibrant clothes look dim—he's fascinated with them. "This place is pretty swank. Doorman didn't think much of you. Didn't think much of /me/, not that it matters." He leans on the counter. "So we know what I do for a living, how about you?"
Wings, feathers; both are tattle tales as they slick back down and together into their normal streamlined twin paths down his back, following the backs of his legs. Jay seems used to the looks. Looks of all sorts, reallyranging from disgust to morbid curiosity and occasionally awehe gets them all and endures in usually one piece. Here, in his own home, he seems unbothered entirely as he moves around the kitchen, fetching a fat marshmallow from a bag and tossing it on top of the hot cocoa to melt, sliding the mug across the counter in front of Elmo.
"Oh, yeah. He doesn't care fer me /at all/," agreeing with a serene expression, faintly amused as he goes to fetch water for the coffee machine. Jay helpfully thumbs back toward the looming red shadows over his shoulders. "Filthy mutie, yaknow. If he only knew we're a whole household of all kinds of sin, his head might just pop like an overly-fat tick." A flash of a warm smile from him over the irony.
"Fer a livin'? Fer money you mean?" An enigmatic little smile of amusement while he fills the coffee machine with water, giving it a suspicious glance. "Ah work at a couple different, not real interestin' places in M.T. Community center, grocer, a bar mah friend is startin' up. But, Ah'm a musician by trade," saying with a telling warmth in his tone and a shining glance over to Elmo. "Gettin' gigs is hard when ya look like Ah do, but Ah can mostly hide 'em when Ah need to." He pauses, pulling down a tin of coffee grounds and fixing Elmo with a curious look. "Wait. Why didn't the doorman like you much? You look like a perfectly snazzy-dressed fellow."
Elmo takes the mug. "Thanks, buddy." He shrugs. "Long hair, I dunno. Can't handle great colors? Maybe just that I was comin' to see you. Mutant by association." He's listening to Jay when he takes a sip and gets distracted by how good it is, eyes going half-closed. "You make a mean hot cocoa, Jay. You're a musician? I woulda thought everybody wants a musician who looks like you." Alert again, he's looking at Jay with frank interest. "I mean, you look amazing."
"Genetic envy," Jay shakes his head softly of the doorman while the scent of coffee co-mingles with the chocolate thick in the air. "That's what Ah try to tell all mah siblin's back home; it's genetic envy, that's all. Helps when yer a freshman worried about a million other things aside from if yer gonna start spittin' lightnin' out yer ass every time y'sneeze or something." He exhales a breath likely first meant to be a chuckle, but not enough voice behind it. "Funny world when people are jus' as disgusted by how long yer hair is as they are if ya can throw fire balls, huh? Fer what it's worth, the long hair suits ya. Or maybe Ah'm biased."
The angel-imposter looks pleased as he flicks the coffee machine closed to do it's magic, leaning his hip against the counter to watch Elmo's eyes flicker with pleasure. "Ah'm glad. Trick is ya put a half spoon of vanilla in there when yer mixin' the chocolate, sugar an' milk together. Momma's trick." Casting a casual wink off the cuff back to Elmo before melting into another sugar-sweet breath of near laughter. Jay scoops a hand through his hair and glances away modestly in the face of the compliment. Bracing a hand on the counter he leans against, there's a gentle shrug and gentle ripple of motion through his feathers. "Yer too kind. Ah am pretty dang lucky in that respect. But you'd be surprised how many folks don't take too kindly to it. Ah got away with it fer a while when Ah was doin' shows, folks thinkin' it was a stage effect. Ah think some of it's the color puts people off." He wrinkles his nose up to Elmo, mentioning conspiratorially.
Elmo laughs, hiding it behind the mug. "I know whatcha mean. Jews get somethin' like the same." He's delighted by Jay and is doing a not-so-great job of concealing it. "We've been in show business for a hundred years, but don't tell nobody. People might get upset if they knew James Dean was a nice Jewish boy. I'd think that's where a mutant with wings like yours could do well. Sad that people dunno what's beautiful right in front of 'em." Is he calling Jay beautiful? It's hard to tell. Is he being flirtatious? Also hard to tell. It's clear he's charmed, at least. "I know not everybody who's a mutant gets to be so pretty."
The conversation continues and Jay's brows perk upward slightly when Elmo says the word 'Jew'. Surprise, but he doesn't seem to carry any negative connotations with it considering the minute curve of his smile upward by the corners. The mention of James Dean is downright surprise, however. Jay's mouth drops open, then curves into a smile. "Yer /kiddin'/ me. Is he? Oh man." Lifting his head up with a 'huh' sort of expression, inputting this new information is fantastic. "Huh. Neat. Ah had no idea. Ah mean, about James Dean, but you, either. But Ah also met all of two Jews in mah life before Ah moved here an' don't much go 'round askin' folks. Though…ohhhh…that was some of those tricky words you were usin' when we were in yer shop, huh?"
Delight may be too strong a word for it, but Jay is enjoying the exchange and doesn't seem the least bit put off or immediately repulsed by the complimentary nature of some of Elmo's words. The general assessment seems to be 'modest gratitude' and 'flattered', though his wings seem to ripple again and fluff up largely against his back, nearly like a strut while they try to make him seem slightly larger in profile. 'Beautiful'? Oh my. 'So pretty'? Why I do declare. Jay slides Elmo a goober of a smile, full of honey and 'aw shucks'. "Yer raght. A goodly amount of folks look like ordinary people—everyone else in mah family does. An' then there are those souls who got it real hard. Ah honestly got no raght to complain, all things considered. An' that isn't jus' mutants, either, around here. One of mah good friends has hooves an' a tail, an' floppy ears. They're charmin' on him, but not exactly easy to get around with. Ah'm real lucky that my physical mutations are the 'pretty' ones." Jay dips his head and seems a little guilty for that fact, glancing back toward the coffee maker.