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It was a normal friday night for Jebediah at the club, he was working as usual. So far only one person had thrown up, two glasses had been broken and there was minimal spilled beer. So the night was going relatively well for Club Atomic's bus boy. He begs off for a breather though, a small break outside, a drink of water, taking in the sounds of Mutant Town, alive on a Friday night. He doesn't think that anything can spoil his mood tonight. Except, of course, seeing a familiar but not friendly face of one other sparky mutant approaching the club. "What are you doing here?" He all but growls when Elmo approaches as if the club were welcome to any mutant except specifically this one.
Elmo and Kai come along, through cold dark streets on a lively but chilly night. They've been working on Kai's exhibition and now it's time for Kai to drag Elmo out to socialize again. When isn't it that time? Elmo would rather work than play.
Elmo pauses when Jeb growls at him. He hikes his eyebrows, looks up at the Atomic sign. Hands in his pockets, he looks back at Jeb. "Free country, ain't it?"
Kai has been trying to get drunk since noon, and this meager Earth booze isn't doing it for him, so he smells like he's hit every bar between here and Harlem, and he's still bright-eyed and alert. "If this place doesn't do it for me, I'm breaking into Lambert's," he tells Elmo. Then there's someone growling at his sparky friend, and he peers at Jebediah. "Do I know you?"
Jeb lifts his chin at Kai. "This another one of your boyfriends? You've got like twenty of them now right? Jay know about this one? Have you finally learned how to care about someone with somethin' other'n your dick? Or you been too focused on serial cheatin' on my brother?" The words come out of Jebediah Guthrie like venom, spat out viciously at the other man, ignoring Kai entirely.
"He's Jay's little brother," Elmo says to Kai, just before a torrent of ANGERY rains down on him. He squints. He eyes Jeb. He gets out his cigarettes, shakes one out, offers one to Kai. Lights his own. "Maybe not," he says, blowing smoke out. "I mean, I was takin' care of your brother real good with my dick." Jeb has insulted his relationship with Lindon once, and now he's free to respond how he desperately, achingly wanted to.
Kai takes the offered cigarette and lights up. Jeb's tirade has him raising his eyebrows, and then he lets slip the gayest (in the happiest sense) little laugh. Joyful elf is joyful. "You really stepped in it now," he tells Elmo, showing just what kind of supportive friend he is.
Jebediah generally loses the ability to think at all if he gets angry enough and when Elmo says /that/, it tosses him right over the edge. One long blink, shaking his head with a small dark laugh and he opens his eyes wide, electric plasma shooting right from them and aimed towards Elmo's chest. He's considerate… in the sense that it's still gonna hurt but it /might/ not leave a scar.
Elmo's eyes go wide, too, sensing electrical buildup—and then POW! Bright plasma leaps into his chest. He staggers back, but the bolt has done nothing, on the surface. It's vanished into him like a snake disappearing into a tunnel. He doesn't say anything. He's stunned, staring at nothing. There's a quiet, low hum of electricity.
Kai tenses up, and since he's still disappointingly sober, he's got a fighter's precision as he drops into a stance that might or might not end with punching Jebediah through the bar. But then Elmo doesn't go down writhing and burning, so Kai eases back, glances at Elmo, and waits.
Well that was disappointing and because it was disappointing, all it does is increase the rage in Jebediah. "You.. You.. did you just.. what even.." He stammers, the voice still spat out like a dirty taste in his mouth. He pushes his sleeve up. "You know what, fine, we can do this the old fashioned way." He says and then reels back his arm and slams it into Elmo's cheek with all of the might of one Southern Scrappy Little Shit. (Say that three times fast).
The bolt of lightning combined with Jeb's fist to his face has an effect on Elmo like he was forced to shotgun ghost pepper juice and everclear. He goes down with a yelp and that's when he starts glowing. One hand clapped to where Jeb punched him, he manages to get out, "Oh no, oh no, DUCK!"
Lightning leaps from him to the nearest streetlight. CRASH! The bulb explodes in a spectacular spray of glittering glass and sparks. Then POP! POP! POP! All the way down the street, bulb explode, showering the entire block in shards. Elmo starts laughing helplessly as glass rains down and sparks fizz and hiss around him.
Kai doesn't even flinch when Jeb throws the punch. Humans fighting humans? Honestly, how serious could it be? Then Elmo starts to glow. He claps his hand over his mouth to almost muffle the, "Oh, shit." He starts to go to his friend, but then Elmo says to duck. Which he does! The bulbs explode, and he laughs. "What the hell?" Surprised giggles put a tremor in his voice. Part of him just loves the chaos, to be honest.
Jebediah is still breathing heavy and it gives him some kind of sick pride when Elmo goes down with a yelp. He nods seriously, like Jebediah Guthrie was just out here doing God's work but then Elmo tells him to duck. And Jeb, the person who literally just struck Elmo in the face so hard that he fell, quickly yanks his jacket off and tosses it /over/ Elmo protectively and then, demonstrating how much school learnin' really helped him… looks up towards the explosion, only to have glass and sparks rain down towards his exposed skin, cutting and burning bare arms now, and Jebediah prematurely gets down to protect himself.
"Ouch, damn it, Ebenezer, you didn't have to take out the whole street." Jeb chastises, pulling up his jacket to check on Elmo. To /check on him/. "You alright?"
Electricity is still crawling and snapping around Elmo. Jeb's jacket gets a couple holes seared in it. As the electricity fizzes and dies away, Elmo groans, a weirdly replete sound that would be appropriate after a different kind of discharge. "Oy vey, you dumkopf, Jeb…" He paws the jacket away from his face, but stays sprawled where he is. He's flushed and has a great developing shiner. Looking dazedly up at Jeb and Kai, "You, uh, you guys okay? …Sorry." How embarrassing.
Kai shakes his head, curls bobbing and tumbling, but he's lucked out; no glass has gotten on him. "I'm fine," he says. "That was groovy, mate. Can you do it on purpose?" He offers Elmo a hand up. "If you two weren't so busy fighting each other, imagine how you could mess up someone else."
Bleeding from little small cuts all over, glass still stuck in some places, Jeb's only concern is whether or not Elmo is alright. "Ah'm fine. Shit, though. That was kinda cool. We'd make a good team if Ah liked you." Jeb says, sinking down beside Elmo and putting a hand on his chest. "Could charge you up and you could take out a whole block, probably wouldn't have to punch you in the face every time. Could kick ya in the teeth instead next time." He doesn't sound serious now, he's completely teasing the man he'd just tried to punch the daylights out of.
Elmo grips Kai's hand and slowly hauls himself to his feet. He sways and leans his forehead against Kai's shoulder, panting. "Sure, I can do that on purpose," he says breathlessly, half laughing. "Better, too." He holds up a hand, but nothing happens, not even a single spark. "Ah, drek, I'm out." Lifting his head, he peers at Jeb, and frowns. "Yer all over glass. Jeb, did ya /hafta/."
Kai dusts Elmo off. He still has a lit cigarette dangling from between his lips. He takes a puff, then draws it away to exhale. "You two," is all he says, shaking his head. His expression is far too amused to be exasperated.
"Well, then it at least looks like you got a good shot back then, doesn't it? You want me to try punching you again? Your one eye isn't swollen. We could see if it sets you off again." Jeb offers looking down at his arms, the mess they are and shrugging. He frowns back. "Take back what you said bout my brother so Ah can worry about you."
Elmo suffers getting dusted off, smiling weakly at Kai. To Jeb, he shrugs and turns his hands over, spreading them. "Fine. I take it back. We haven't done it yet." A wicked glint and a lopsided smile, before he tries standing on his own. "Ow, my /eye/, fer Chrissakes. You Guthries, I swear ta God." Then he's pulling out a fresh hankerchief and attempting to daub at Jeb. "Jay's gonna kill me. I can't believe you."
"Man," Kai says, "I am going to give Jay such a ration next time I see him, You're both dropping ammunition at my feet." He sounds delighted, and that grin is a thousand Watts. "Let me get this straight, you're the brother defending his honor, and Elmo, you haven't even sealed the deal."
Jeb slaps Elmo's hand away when he goes to pat at his wounds and takes a step back. "Ah ain't going to tell Jay anythin' and you ain't neither so Jay ain't gonna kill nobody." He glares at Kai and his eyes spark dangerously. "He's my brother. No one can say anythin' bad about him. And /he/ is apparently datin' him but also datin' someone else. Maybe even datin' you, Ah don't know. It makes me not trust him much. And my brother deserves someone who's gonna be good to him. And it don't… It don't matter that they ain't.. did it.. don't pick on him. Ah'm only allowed to do that. We have a contract."
"I'm not dating Kai," Elmo says, completely exasperated. "Which I woulda /told you/ if you hadn't /punched me/…yeah, okay, agreed." Nobody is telling Jay anything. Except possibly Kai. There's no stopping the elf grapevine. "Can I go in now, for cryin out loud? You gotta wash up and I need ice." And the entire block is dark and covered in glass. He and Jeb are going to spend quite a while sweeping.
Kai turns to look at Jebediah, and he steps up to him, his voice getting dangerously low. "Are you accusing me of not being true to my dearest, most beloved?" His jaw tenses. Then the fight just goes out of him and he laughs lightly as he says, "Nah, I don't give a damn what you think of me. Jay's one of my best friends. So I guess come up with a bribe that would keep me from telling one of my best friends his brother and boyfriend are at each others' throats." He takes a drag off his cigarette, exhales, "Though, I'll level with you, I have been drinking all day and I forget things a lot."
"Ah'll let you in and all your drinks are on me all night if you don't breathe a word of this to Jay. If Ah find out you did though, you'll owe me all the money back." Jeb offers easily, Kai had said that he wanted to drink tonight as they were walking up. He glares at Elmo. "You can come in but no one is bringin' you any ice. You go ahead and wear that. You ain't think you deserve it after what you said 'bout my brother?"
Elmo slings an arm around Kai's shoulders. "You gotta drink more," he informs him. "You gotta drink a lot. And so do I." He gives Jeb an aggravated look. "Fine. Have it your way." Vitale will heal it off him, but Jeb doesn't need to know that! "Maybe you oughta not talk about my dick so much, then."
Elmo goes home.
Kai asides to Elmo, "I'll fix you later." He doesn't know Vitale's already beaten him to the, wait for it, punch. To Jeb, he says, "Sold." Sorry, Jay, the elf has his price, and that price is booze. Wherever Elmo wanders off to, Kai's staying to drink, and to drink a lot. In fact, the little guy puts away quite a bit of booze.
Jebediah's wallet will surely be hurting for the night but it's a price to pay for keeping his brother out of his hair. He cleans up in the bathroom, pulling the glass out and poking at the burns before hiding the evidence of most of it in his jacket. The cuts on his face he'll have to deal with later. He just has to make sure that neither Doug nor Sam nor Jay looks at him all night.