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Cast:
X-Ternals: Elmo, JP, Sev, Vitale
Team Angelis: Lucian, Michael, Suriel
Purpose:
In tonight's episode of someone done messed up, A-Aron, it was revealed through use of Michael's true name unspoken to mortals that there's a problem. Chiefly that a mortal (see JP on that one) was able to jut stumble across this knowledge now forcibly etched into his brain.
Michael traded JP atonement for his part in trying to steal Raziel's Book of Names for his & the X-ternals help in going BACK to New Orleans to recover it and also find out:
- Why is the book on Earth?
- Where is Raziel that the book is not with him?
- Who HAS possession of this book?
- Who hired JP and his late associates that wants it & what is their intent?
- What is a beignet?
This and much more is being discovered as the team of 7 starts heading towards the Big Easy in what is bound to be a very long and very odd road trip.
___
The Scooby Gang(tm) was on the road like Jack Kerouac for the last 11 hours. 4 Mutants and 3 Angels driving through listening to the greats Johnny Cash and occasionally others. There was a long way to go, but between the 2 vehicles they got some decent mileage, but they needed to stop. The mortals were requiring food at the very least. So they stopped with the thought of crashing for a few hours nearby before hitting that road early to finish the push through to New Orleans.
At least they made it as far as Oak Ridge Tennessee… whooooo-eee. Welcome to Mountain country. The time was rolling on 10:15 pm and finding any place that had food was going to be a challenge. Wisely they were following the trucker routes. A turn signal lit on the black GTO, Jeanne d'Arc, and JP was pulling off to a diner truckstop called Mama Dean's.
Tires crunched on gravel and the motorhead announced, "E'reyone out. Stretch you' legs, take a piss, let's get some grub." Getting out of the driver's seat he took his wallet back from the small 3-eyed doll that was buckled in and hanging onto it in the front seat. He looked around and squint in the cold dark. "How we doin over there?"
Michael has never ridden in a car before. This is an amazing novelty, and sometimes he sticks his head out of the window like a celesial Golden Retriever. Including catching and eating an occasional bug. At one point, he insisted on riding on *top*, wings spread, letting the car's speed lift him up….whereupon he'd dive back down on it, playfully. Not hard enough to dent it, at least. Now, though, he's sitting sedately in the back, before all but tumbling out to examine the diner, head cocked.
Does it need to be said Lucifer sits beside Michael, separated from everyone else by that golden retriever of an angel shoving his body across the archangel to reach for a window? Yes. At times, the flinty, burning gaze through his mirrored sunglasses is a palpable thing. He says nothing, however, about thieving a convertible and running for the sunset. Neither does he sing, for which all can be grateful: it would be better they did not end up wrapped around a tree, limbs scattered along a fifty yard track of pavement and melted rubber. The Firstborn, even in their mundane forms, can be distracting. He at least pets the GTO in silent appreciation. Yes, you are a good car. Sorry for all one must do to you.
"Not the least uncomfortable contraption I have been in." Of course, it's easy to say that looking as though he just stepped out of a very important business meeting. Creased pants? Never. Unkempt? Michael wishes. Arrogant bastard.
Severin spent most of the trip curled up in Vitale's lap as a cat, a large dark haired cat, because honestly he takes up less space that way, making more room in the car for whoever else was riding with them. That does mean, however, that when they reach the truck stop, that when he shifts back, he's naked and has to do a bit of a shimmy to tug on jeans and a shirt after everyone else gets out of the car before putting on his socks and pulling on his boots, hopping a bit on one foot and then the other as he finishes tying up the laces.
Elmo pulls up behind Jeanne, in his sunny yellow pickup named Daisy. Getting out, he stretches and yawns hugely, then slumps against Daisy's side. "I can't see a thing," he says—kvetches, really. "Where's all the streetlights?" True darkness is something you just don't get in Manhattan. In contrast to Lucifer, and just like his fellow mutants, he's rumpled and tired.
Vitale hasn't been on a road trip before, surprisingly or unsurprisingly so he was far more excited about this than he maybe should be given the circumstances. Occasionally their father took them out on his yacht, but they had never ever driven quite so far, and certainly not in a truck which is what led him to sit with Elmo in the first place. He copied Michael a little here in his excitement, rolling his hand out the window occasionally, making startled, excited noises whenever the truck hit a bump and exclaiming to Elmo often how much fun he was having between occasional long moments of calm where he stroked fingers through Severin's fur, scratching behind his ears, under his chin. He gets out, stretching. "You know, I definitely hadn't been expecting there to be so much entertainment on this trip." He says smiling over to Michael. Can angels be defined as 'cute'? Is that allowed? He blocks the door a little so Severin can get changed, offering him an arm to steady him as he hops into his boots.
He smiles at Severin, hand giving Severin's hip a squeeze. "How are you feeling, tiger?" He can't imagine that being cooped up in a truck for hours and hours was easy on his wild shifter.
Suriel's brought his motorcycle along, and drives tirelessly behind the group, hair wild in the wind as he's forsaken his helmet today, bike leathers more comfortable for this trip than the moddish attire of New York. Michael's antics atop the vehicle are carefully watched, for he somewhat considers himself his brothers' keeper, whether they might like it or not.
When they pull up, so does he, rolling to a halt and parking close by. He stretches luxuriously when he slides off, rolling his shoulders, arms up. Even his wings get a good shake before they're hidden discreetly away again.
JP would argue when a angel-retriever shakes you like a ragdoll and has your heels off the pavement? Cute might not be the most employable word. Curiously Jeanne d'Arc never needed to fuel up when they stopped for gas. Someone was a cheaty cheater what cheats. That same someone? Looked a bit run ragged. There were large 18 wheeler trucks all pulled up in a row taking up several longer spots reserved for the transportation industry's ardent and indefatigable patrons. He stopped to give his brother a grunt in greeting. He had what he needed. Cool. Looking back to Lucian and Michael he paused. Shit, Michael was having a blast, but he asked the Morningstar anyways, "Y'alright?" Elmo got a snort, "Damn you look how I feel. Let's go grab some grub." Suriel was a new addition. Was JP looking at the wings? Yes and no. That bike had a good amount of his attentionand he confided, 'That thing's pretty, man."
*
Heavy tired boots carried the weary soul into Mama Dean's diner. OH those New York boys were about to have a shock, welcome to Hank Williams Jr. singing on the juke box. This was not rock and roll. This was a haven for country style cookin and more wood paneling than one could shake a stick at. Behold the power of denim and corduroy, where hashbrowns and hush puppies were king. Oh truck stops with all the amenities, how we missed you.
Michael is adorable, assuming a thing that has existed for almost untold aeons and laid waste to entire galaxies when given the order can be adorable. He lacks Lucian's cut-glass beauty and the aura of nearly unruffleable cool. As usual, he's dressed simply in t-shirt, fatigue pants, jump boots, and old army jacket. He's even got a jeep cap tucked into one pocket of the jacket, though they hardly need it as they head into the warmer South…..and how much cold do angels feel, anyhow? The little caravan is all assembled here. "I'm going to get a malt, if they have one," Mike declares, with cheerful anticipation. "And if they don't, coffee. Caffeine is delicious." …..what?
"Just ducky."
If anyone ever expected Lucifer Morningstar to say that in their lifetime, go buy a lottery ticket. His sardonic English accent holds next to nothing of amusement, and he proceeds towards the diner. A truckstop, not the worst outpost of humanity this side of the black iron gates imploring guests to work to set themselves free. He nonetheless eyes up his surroundings, calculations spinning behind those glasses soon pocketed. There are limits to his pretensions, even so. Country music, no worse than others. Pushing open the door, he makes his way inside and waits on the others. They can all line up along a sticky counter, perhaps, guided there by a tired but golden-hearted waitress named Louise or Greta. Life's mysteries work onwards as he almost leans near whatever counts as a lovely pie case, thumbing over a menu with that most deadly, dazzling of smiles.
Severin appreciates the arm to lean on as he manages to get himself in order then combs fingers through his hair, pushing it back and out of his eyes. He flashes a grin at Vitale and says, "Slept like a kitten," in that Louisiana drawl. He sort of fits in at the truck stop, at least a little more than most do. He's not quite Tennessee but he's not New York, either. As they make their way in, he glances over at the Angel contingent, studying them curiously, but studying the menu and looking for coffee and maybe some particular special that catches his eye — something fried, probably.
Elmo socks JP on the shoulder. "Same to you, ya jerk." It's love. Inside the diner, though—he gets nervy. The things said about long-haired men in these parts, he hasn't heard them personally, but he's heard a lot about them. Hands in pockets, he sticks close to his team, like their general air of masculinity might cloak him. To be fair, the country atmosphere isn't the only thing making him nervy. Lucifer and his diamond smiles. Michael and his exuberance. Suriel and his bad boy from Heaven vibe. Angels, it turns out, aren't just a fancy breed of mutant. Now angels in a run-down road diner? Combined with a long drive and too little sleep, it's making him question if this is real life.
Vitale throws an arm over Elmo's shoulder, pulling him close protectively. His hip bumping Severin's as they make their way into the restaurant. Half this menu he can't define. What in the world is a hushpuppy? A hashbrown, that one he can define at least. When it comes down to it, he's going to just live dangerously and order exactly what Severin does and maybe something that JP does as well, allow his taste buds to get a professional's opinion on what's best to eat here.
Suriel's black-and-chrome ride, heavy but sleek, is definitely pretty, and the angel beams at JP. "She's taken me pretty far." His wings, though, that's questionable: they'd been bright and shining gold and ruby once, but now, they're parchment-pale and the red is that of blackened blood.
He's been to diners like these quite a lot; they're a lot more 'home' than New York has been. "Get both," he suggests to Michael.
JP squint at Elmo and didn't so much as retort to being called a jerk so much as he shrugged. Well, well that was true. There was a faint upnod of agreement as he wandered in and dropped down into a seat. Usually he's more jovial than this but it felt a mite bit like a road trip with one's parole officer, which was to a point true. He had to agree with Suriel though, "Yeah, we don' do a lotta no either-or. Usually just and, and that, and also that." He, like Sev, was keeping tabs on the New York arm of their team knowing in general where they were and if there was a problem but rightly? Foooood. He looked up to the waitress, this one was a Bonnie! And on warmed that bullshit bayou charm of his ordering up am omelette, and as much tobasco as one can pack in there. He added, "Hell, light the damn thing right on fire if you can get it any hotter than that or blow a kiss at it or somethin. ."
*
It was around this time where drinks were being brought back that a few things happened. Not the least ironic was the arrival of 5 more motorcycles that pulled up outside as Hell's Angels members stopped to check out Suriel's bike outside without laying hands on it. And from he side where there were longer tables and the small general store packed in around the partition was the call "Number 14 y'all's shower is ready." Showers? Apparently they had all sorts of niche accommodations for the driving community.
A large man in blue denim overalls got up from his meal to make his way back before there was someone else in a heavy flannel shirt and a stocking cap and jeans making his way back first. "HEY!" the pair of overhauls "Clovis, don't you go skunkin my shower!" The other man held up a ticket, "I gotta ticket, y'all can wait your turn." Said the first gent back "That ain't no 4 it's a 9!" This is what we call 'a point of escalation' as the two men stepped dangerously close, and not far from Severin or the other pie case. C'mon, not the pie, guys!
"I'll just do both anyway," Michael agrees,sunnily. He's not terribly impressive when he's not in full threat display, as it were. He settles at the counter, looks at the menu, waits his turn for the no-doubt harried waitress to get to him.
Then the humans are disputing, and he's looking over curiously. "Why do they have showers?" he asks, the question addressed to no one in particular.
"Imagine sitting in place for too long. They begin to sweat, and stink," Lucian answers his brother, off the cuff more than pointedly factual. After giving the once-over of a menu stained by previous encounters with syrup, he drifts onto a stool. Deliberate claim of territory is safe, certain. He shall await the waitress — Bonnie — before asking for coffee. As you do. Pie may or may not be on his mind, but he waits on the other. Excitement of the men fighting over a shower waits in the background, watched from the corner of his eye. So much for the big bad Devil.
Once inside, Severin makes his way over to a menu and starts looking over the offerings. He glances at Vitale and grins, noticing his dismay over some of the items on the menu. "Bacon and eggs is always good with coffe," he suggests, keeping it pretty simple. Then there's a scuffle going on next to him as one guy tries to snag the other guy's ticket and they start hollering about showers and who gets to get one first. Severin glances at the oncoming brawl, glances at the pie case, and says, "Aw c'mon Clovis, you know he needs that shower more'n you do. I can smell his stink from over here. Don' be standin' so near the pie, eh?" He looks over at JP with a sly grin.
Do they actually let you have eggs without bacon, deep in goyishe territory? Oh, there goes Sev, following his Bonaventure genes. Elmo mutters something despairing in Yiddish and tries not to shrink into Vitale too much. For one thing, Sev. For another thing, /that's/ not going to do him any favors, either. Maybe at this point he's wishing he actually had a shirt in some normal, boring color. Or maybe he's wishing harder that Bonaventures wouldn't be so damn Bonaventurey.
Vitale tenses when Severin goads the scuffle on. Not because he's upset with Severin, no, but because he's gearing for a fight if there is one, and there probably will be one because the Bonaventures are trouble magnets. "I know the difference between a four and a nine is real hard, but Sev here is right. The flowers wilted on his way in here." Vitale goads as well because Vitale isn't afraid of anything. Though his knee bumps Severin under the table in chastisement.
Suriel's Harley-Davidson is respectable by biker standards, a little road-worn but meticulously maintained. Its owner is clearly the angel in the leather jacket and jeans and moto boots, absurdly pretty but in legitimately broken-in clothes. He calls over, voice easy and pitched to soothe, "It's too late for that, come on. Whoever goes second, I'll buy you dinner," to try to defuse the tension. It's not a flirtatious offer, either, just one long-hauler to another.
T"Humans are of the earth," he adds to Michael, lower, "And my teachings about hygiene have not always been remembered." And to Elmo, approvingly, "Well, yours have." In Yiddish, just so the goyim don't feel too bad.
|ROLL| JP +rolls 1d20 for: 4
Those bikers were coming in when Eugene, the man in the overalls whipped his head to Severin making it rather easy to snag the ticket, "Look fella-"but the hand went wide and there was pie and pancakes and mashed potatoes and gravy and turkey and cranberry sauce on a tray… a tray that hand knocked into causing it to fly from Linda's hand onto the bikers…and this is when Gene was picked up by the man wearing most of the cranberry sauce and shoved him into Clovis and the side of Severin. On the upshot pie and malts arrived at the other end in front of Michael.
*
As truckers were taking exception to bikers laying hands on one of theirs (regardless of who started it) and cranberry covered beardy bikers were taking exception to the carelessness? Everyone was on their feet. There was something about the energy in the room ramping up, and the smack of the first punch being thrown, or perhaps because they were now involving Severin in collateral damage that without thinking- awww shit, of course JP was up on his feet. Was there ever a fight in the world he wasn't a part of? This was so much better than coffee. "You boys pickin' the wrong night t'throw hands, mon ami."
"I'm not doing this," Mike asides to Lucian, serenely, as he reaches for a fork and tries the first bite of pecan pie. "I promise," he adds, as he chews. These things….he does tend to spur them, being what he is. He hunches his shoulders a little, mantling over his food like a hawk. "You shouldn't get involved," he adds to JP, but without any real force. Humans gonna human, they've been doing it for millennia.
Could be worse, much worse, than meets the eye. Lucian isn't going to argue with Michael about his own purview, after all. His cup of coffee works just fine, served in a speckled mug the same at every diner from here to Portland and points north to the Canadian border. One sip goes to another. "Enjoy your pie, and make sure you pay the waitress. None of this is her fault, of course."
Driving up in a rather nice-looking car, Roberto da Costa arrives at this humble area, looking at JP and Severin. "Oh, I see I've missed something. Do I get to cast lots?" he tilts his head softly as he gets out of the car…..then he has a coughing fit where he sounds like he's hacking up his lung. Smaching his chest a few times, he composes himself. "sorry."
He wears a simple brown jacket with a dark blue longsleeve shirt underneath. blue jeans, boots. He crosses his arms then, seeing some Xternals getting into a fight. "So….I call you once, tell ya I'm on the way, and you're here throwin' hands?" he asks JP even as the man should be focusing. "well….alright."
That escalated quickly. Probably the sub-title to Severin's life. But let's face it. That brawl was coming. All he did was hasten its arrival. Now, the passing tray, that wasn't quite planned for, but one works with what one has, and what Severin currently has is a piece of pie that he caught that was sliding off that tray. He holds the pie up over his head so that when he gets bumped into, it doesn't end up on the floor. Then he just lets the bikers and the two guys go at it, taking a bite out of the slice of pie and overing it in Vitale's direction. "Sch'good," he manages around a mouth full of it. Totally unapologetic.
Elmo's considerably startled by Yiddish coming at him from—Suriel? The most nonJewish looking person in the room, and there's some tough contenders. "Well, we try," he replies in the same language, with customary irony. Then there are plates and food and dudes flying absolutely everywhere and, "Oy vey," he mutters, sinking down in the booth next to Vitale. "Why are they like this?" he grouses to V, although he knows the answer.
Because Humans gonna human. The angel wasn't wrong.
|ROLL| JP +rolls 1d20 for: 17
Vitale is mentally pinching the bridge of his nose but outwardly he smiles over at Severin when he offers him pie that he's saved from a smashed fate upon the floor. "You're trouble, Severin Bonaventure." He says, but it hardly sounds like chastisement when it's chased by a laugh of the craziness of the event. He picks up a napkin and wipes some errant cranberry sauce off of Severin's shoulder before he takes a bite of that pie while it sits in Severin's hand still. He can't prevent another laugh when Elmo grouses at him. "They were born with mischief in their blood."
Suriel just stays well out of range of any fighting, listening to his companions and looking on in silence.
Michael is frankly wolfing down his pie. Humans tend to destroy things, and the first that goes, inevitably, is the food. He gives the other angels each a look and a shrug. "I promise it isn't me," he reiterates. "The last time I got involved directly was Stalingrad, and even that one I had to slip past Dad. He was really adamant that we not take a hand in it," he says, wiping his lips with a paper napkin. "Something about them all saying they were atheists really pissed Him off."
JP was tired and that wasn't keeping him from being right up front. It was, perhaps, weirdly, some sense of superstition, self-preservation, or even more unlikely just good ol' common sense perhaps? Whatever it was JP looked to Roberto and wanted so badly to say YAAAAAS we fite! however that Angel of War? You know the one with the pie that he was sort of in the back pocket of right now? Yeah that suggestion, subtle as it was to let him do as he will with seemed to be enough of a tug on JP's proverbial leash there to get him to at least consider the situation. The jacket slid off and got dropped on Elmo: now part electrician/part coat rack. but it'd help him fade in view too (here hold that). JP in neutral turf colours in the white tee ducked through the fight and walked off…when did he get Clovis' ticket!? Was… he was heading to the shower. Someone should be. They cranked up the hot water. Be a shame to waste it. Look Michael, he listened! Miracles still happen.
*
The brawl raged on until a stout brunette in her Mid 50's came out to chide them both. "Well ain't you the sorriest bunch of asses this family reunion turned up. You two are payin for the meals for those two gentlemen and if you wanna push me I'll have ya both eatin outside in the snow with the dogs." She looked at the bikers and said louder, "HEY! I SAID. … these two assholes are payin for yer meals. You can take that and the shower, or you can get out of my diner… I'll have the gals bring coffee around for y'all."
Because no one wants to tell Mama Dean no.