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Arlo has cleaned up to come to the bar, though it wouldn't be hard to clean up given what he was in before. Tonight, it's newish jeans and a button shirt with the sleeves rolled up at the elbow, no tie, the top button undone. He sits at the bar with a glass of beer, checking out some women about his age who are standing at the end of the bar, clustered together, with no one standing out to break off from the herd. Damn it! They do this on purpose.
Elmo hasn't been at Atomic for a while, having gotten a black eye the last time he was here. He'd also shattered the street lights of the entire block, on accident. It was super embarrassing and took a long damn time to sweep up and replace all those light bulbs. So when he comes in, the first thing he does is scan for Jeb. But it seems like Jeb's not here, so his hunched-up shoulders drop and he mutters something relieved under his breath.
Arlo's gaze skims the club once one of the women looks his way. Nope, he's not scoping anyone out. Nope, nope, nope, why look at this interesting front door. Wait, is that the little guy from the garage? That's actually interesting. He waves an arm. Over here! "If he doesn't remember me, I'm going to look like such an asshole," he mutters into his beer. Then he flashes Elmo a grin.
JP got attacked by the bartender and wrestled to the ground last time he was here. This place has everything! What was it about the bayou badass that let him roll up like he was the terf lord of mutant Town? Who really knew but he was bundled up in the same jeans one would expect to find him in, and the same jacket like he had one look and just got really super good at it. Those dark eyes squint and scoped the place out. What he was searching for he did not find but there was his partner in crime. A sharp shrill whistle went up that was undoubtedly his giving Elmo an upnod and pointed vaguely off to one side like I find you in a second. First thing was first, the scrappy fucker was boostin the juke. His hand went in one pass over the Wurlitzer and decided what he wanted before willing it to shift 45's to his mood. Today it was the Pixies Three '442 Glenwood Avenue'. Next? The bar.
Elmo gives Arlo a puzzled look, but then seems to recognize him and comes over. "Hey," he says. "You got the bug with the timing belt problem. How's she running?" Because that's his first concern, is the car. When JP whistles, he glances over sharply, then upnods back, imitating him with amusement.
"That chick looked at it and I don't know what she did, man. It's working. It's not working great, but it runs. I mean I can't expect miracles." He smiles wryly. "That poor bug's been through some shit. I wish I could talk to machines, get its life story." He glances over at the whistle, too. "Oh, hey. That's the guy who was at the shop with you." He takes a drink of his beer and misses some of the girls at the bar checking him out. He's cute, he's got that going for him, but even cleaned up, he doesn't look all that well-to-do. It's an uphill struggle.
|ROLL| JP +rolls 1d20 for: 19
JP was a ham, through and through and actually was, every bit the rakish conman one would expect of him. That smile was just fucking infectious and fave the floating raven-haired cutie that was floating a spin singing withthe tiny melodic voice coming from teh jukebox. And… that scamp completely swiped a sip of her drink and stole a kiss to her cheek with a wink and somehow didn't get slapped. Some people found a way to skate through life for free, or seemingly so. That accomplished he snagged his drink and handed the other to Elmo. Peace offering apparently. That wry cocky grin didn't cease as he crooned to Arlo, "Naaaaah ya don't. They jes' bitch about milage a whole lot."
"If you want a car miracle, Dizzy's your girl," Elmo says, leaning on the bar. "And JP here's your guy." He accepts the drink from JP with a flicker of a smile in thanks. "Forgot your name," he adds to Arlo, a little sheepishly. "This's JP. Don't call him his full name or he'll sock ya." His eyebrows go up, noticing the girl and her friend returning Arlo's interest when he's not looking. "That girl's got eyes for you."
"Arlo," says the youth, and he glances to JP before telling Elmo, "I was going to buy you a drink. You're a popular guy." He takes a swig of his own, then adds quickly, "Just to say thanks for being cool at the garage the other night." He shifts another glance toward the ladies at the end of the bar. Except when he notices the one flashing him a smile, he looks away. Grinning stupidly. "Arlo Avery. It's nice to meet you JP, never tell me your full name." He rakes a hand through his hair and mumbles, "Is she still looking?" She is, alas, giggling with her friends.
JP grinned like a sated cat looking toward the gaggle of giggling girls, "Ooooh yeah she lookin." He took a drink and asked Elmo, "You' my spokesman now?" Still though he tilted his head like Alright I suppose that's a thing then. The French on that accent was thick ehough to powder frost a beignet with man. "C'mon Arlo. Stay a while. Have a drink. And yeah Dizzy's good people. That car be runnin better than she got any right to. Shit, Diz helped me patch up Jeanne d'Arc when someone try 'rough er up. This town man…"
Elmo grins more openly at JP. "Ain't I? Yer so shy and retiring." When Arlo calls him a popular guy, he gets a little flustered, shaking his head to deny it. His own accent is very local, with that unique New York Jew cadence. "Nah," he protests. The girls giggling over Arlo, and probably JP, make him sink down further over the bar.
Arlo glances over, then away. Oh no, they're giggling. Why? What's so funny!? Arlo sighs, and he shakes his head. Women. "Yeah, okay, but maybe none of us are so popular," he says. Jerking a thumb to JP, he says, 'Except Mr. Personality here." He swishes his beer in the glass, watching the bubbles rise up. Then he takes another drink. Licking his lips, he tells Elmo, "I just wanted to buy an angry mutie Jew a drink." To JP, he says, "Hey, I think your numbers guy tried to hire me. You need someone to sweep up the shop?"
JP chuckled with a grin like the happy tomcat he was preening just a bit, "Man, I' everybody's bes' frien'. It's why they lemme borrow things." He paused. Numbers guy? He looked to Elmo and arched an eyebrow, "Sparkplug?" Said in that undertone of I need be feedin some guy his teeth for talkin shit about you? but holding because he really didn't exactly understand all the nuiance of New York dialect yet. Calling Vitale his number's guy confused him. He boggled, "Vitale? My numbers guy?" It wasn't a bad thought. He shrugged and said to Elmo though he wasn't liable to understand, "Pourquoi pas? Fais-le. Nous allons juste le payer, chere." He shrugged apparently being amicable to teh idea of putting VItale on payroll and said to Arlo, "Maybe." He was waiting to see what Elmo had to say about how he was addressed first.
Elmo drops his head, laughing under his breath when he's called an angry mutie Jew. "*Zenen ir idishe?*" he asks Arlo. Are you Jewish? He gives JP the pat of it's-ok on the bicep, flicking him a fond glance. Although he doesn't speak a lick of French, the 'chere' on the end he understands, and that flusters him, too. "Yeah, he did wanna hire you, didn't he?" he says to Arlo. "More like practically demanded it. I dunno, do you /wanna/ sweep the shop? Don't remember him actually asking you."
One of the girls saunters over. Her mutation is very subtle, making her look like she's got glittery metallic makeup on, adding a sheen to her skin that no human makeup artist can accomplish. "My friend thinks you're cute," she announces, saucily, while her friend goes 'nooo' and covers her face in the background.
Arlo regards Elmo oddly for a moment, listening. Thinking, Then nodding slowly. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, heh only my grandma speaks Yiddish, even though Ma told her not to do it around the kids." Then he nods. "Sure, yeah, I want a real job. What I got going on now, I'd rather cut back to part time. Getting a little burned out on it, and sweeping floor's good, honest work."
Then the girl shows up, and Arlo slowly turns to look at her, suddenly sitting up straighter. Then he glances at the woman covering her face, and he grins. "Tell your friend she's pretty cute, herself."
JP seemed to play things cool and hold his fist in reservation letting Elmo let him know what's gonna cause them to take someone from drinking buddy to taking them downtown feet first to kiss some pavement. Apparently it was cool and he stayed pretty chilled out accordingly. He considered this and asked, "How you at followin rules?" JP and all of his fucking rules. One could hear Tybalt bemoaning them while still adhering to them somewhere. he took a drink and let the conversation drop eyeing the lady all shy and shiny, and then Arlo grinning a bit and back. Looking to Elmo he murmured something about posting them somewhere.
That statement about Arlo's family and their lack of Yiddish makes Elmo thoughtful. "Huh," he says. He takes a drink, giving himself time to work on it. "Guess you aren't from the Lower East side. Well, English it is then, yeah?" No judgement! Well, okay, a little judgement, but that isn't Arlo's fault. Then the girl is flirting with Arlo-and-maybe-JP-and-definitely-not-him and he gets hunched down lower. Maybe if he melds with the bar, he can escape the situation.
The girl winks boldly and sways her way back to her friend, announcing loudly, "He thinks you're cute!" inspiring a squealed "Oh my God!" and a whole raft of giggling from the several girls. Mutants have mating rituals just like humans.
Arlo shakes his head and says, "Nah, Ma was but married all the way up to the Upper West Side." His headshake is a little dismissive of Dear Old Mom and her life choices. Oh, there is judgment. Still, he doesn't dress like he's from the Upper West Side. He fits in way more with this neighborhood. He gives Elmo a crooked smile. "Shalom," he says. He looks to JP and says, "Man, if I'm working, I turn up to work. I got nothing to prove to the boss man. Tell me what to do and I'll do it."
Whatever manful thing he was going to follow that up with, instead he just grins, eyes twinkling, as the girl's friend embarrasses her. He knocks back the last of his beer like he's got nothing but cool nerves, and he sets it on the bar, not ready to leave yet by far.
JP was more than amused reitering Arlo's words to himself, "Vous n'avez rien %<224> prouver au patron?!" That easy grin went from ear to ear with all the Southern charm his mama could stuff into any one kid. "You have everythin' t'prove t' the boss man, mon ami. I am that boss man and that shop's me keepin m'self and my people above water." It was what it was. The crazy Cajun shrugged and looked to Elmo trying to disappear which merited a tap of Elmo's shoe with his boot before looking abck to Arlo, "Tu Mutant?" He arched an eyebrow at Arlo.
Elmo tips his head towards JP, backing up his 'boss man' claims. "Shop's got a lotta work needs done. Lotta messy work. We could use the help. V said he can pay ya, you want to do it, so, you got my vote." For a change, he lets Arlo tell JP about himself. He already knows he's a mutant, and actually keeps quiet about it for once. The girls are distracting him, maybe. One of them actually seems to be looking at him, discussing his merits with her friends, and it's a good thing he hasn't noticed.
"What I mean," Arlo says, "is I'm not going to challenge your rules like I got a chip on my shoulder. I'll show you I can do the work." Of this he seems confident, though it falters, and he says, "Except sometimes I get these bad headaches, but not very often. It's just, when I do, they're really bad and I can't do much til they pass." He grimaces. This has cost him many a job before. At the question of being a mutant, he says, "Yeah. I am." He lifts his chin a little, in case JP maybe wants to make something of it.
He nods to Elmo, more relaxed. Being one of the People apparently wins Elmo some privileges. "I'll help out however I can," he tells him, and he preens just a little knowing one of those girls thinks he's cute.
JP listened through the colloquial barrier there and seemed… satisfied. "Good. Regular folk can fin' work anywhere. More intersted in keepin t'our own." he looked to Elmo in silent conference with a shrug. Was his next statement abou t hiring Arlo? No. That would be too easy. No, he had to bring up what Elmo didn't want oto hear, "I think she checkin our your ass, Elmo" And then just took a drink from his beer grinning through Elmo's inevitable meltdown of embarassment. Turning to the ladies he greeted likethe showman he was, eeeeveryone's best friend when he wanted something. Today it was soliciting colleagues, "You got 'name, chere? Cause our frien' Arlo here was sayin he miiiight really dig gettin t'dance wit' you." His fingers snapped and the Jukebox changed. His skill was niche but he could sell the shit out of it.
Elmo doesn't disappoint. He groans something in Yiddish and, folding his arms on the bar, stuffs his flaming red face into them. "JP!" he complains, muffled. "She is /not/!" A little static crackles around him, causing long strands of his hair to lift.
The girl admiring Arlo isn't quite as shy as Elmo, but she's trying to hide before her bolder friend. Who says with a smirk to JP, "Her name's Hattie. Go on, Hattie!" Like a good friend, she grabs Hattie and gently pushes her forward, despite her frantic headshaking.
Arlo laughs quietly, ducking his head as his shoulders shake. Poor Elmo. At least it isn't a humiliating guffaw. He turns to look at the women, Hattie in particular, and he may not have JP's oozing charisma, but he's quirky-cute and has himself a set of do-me eyes when he wants to. "Hattie," he says, and he hops off his barstool so he can offer her his hand. "It's nice to meet you." Elmo's response has bread confidence in him. Elmo's a true pal.
JP gave Elmo a hip bump. Nooooope, not lettin that one die. He was more like a cat that got its own turkey dinner than one that got a single canary. He mused in the way that he could keep himself entertained for hours and hours at the expense of other people's creature comforts, "Ahhh cherie tu me fais rireeee." He snickered and tried to behave. Mostly…. for JP anyways. The metric for behaving was by no means extensive.
"You're such a prick," Elmo says into the bar top. Almost all that can be seen of his face are his ears, and those are radiating enough heat to warm Mutant Town.
The girl Hattie is seriously cute, brunette, girl-next-door, with beautiful green eyes. Her skin is textured with tiny, tiny barbs like a shark's skin, invisible at a distance, but coming into focus as Arlo approaches her. She shakes his hand, saying awkwardly, "Hi." Her palm isn't scaled, but Arlo's finger pads get a little scoured as they wrap around her hand. "Um, I'm sorry, my…my mutation. Do you really want to dance?" She's so hopeful, looking at him.
Arlo lifts her hand to his lips, brushing them over her ever-so-slightly barbed skin. Inwardly, he gives thanks he can control his sharpened senses. That skin on his would be murder. Just taking her hand would be too much. He's coping, though, doing quite fine so far. "You have nothing to apologize for," he tells her with a twinkling-eyed smile. "I'd love to dance." So smooth. Watch and learn, Sparky.
JP was too smug for his own good retorting to Elmo, "Best one in four counties I hear." It was hard to keep a good mutant down it seemed. That man's pride was getting diminished not at all soon. The grin stayed on that smug mug of his as he played his very favourite game show: see how long Elmo can endure being around JP being… JP. It was one of those wars of attrition and really stress is muscle building! That made it healthy. Someday when your dignity can benchpress a schoolbus, Elmo you will taknk him. For real. To shark-girl's friend he offered his honest to goodness opinion, "They pretty damn cute, I won' lie."
Elmo turns his head enough to hit JP with a baleful glare, one eye peeking out of his defensive bunker. It's not bad enough JP is embarrassing him over girls, now he has to do it over his, uh, self, too. "Why do you DO this to me," he moans, and sinks back down. A couple of the girls are talking about him and giggling, tickled by his hiding.
Hattie's a good dancer and takes to the floor with Arlo, full of enthusiasm. One gets the impression she doesn't get asked to dance much.
JP was about to sign his death warrent moving to muss up Elmo's hair once which, he knew on launch his hand wouldn't land before being swated at like a bug harassing a cat. He could seriously set his watch by that reaction each. and. every. time. At the question he shrugged simply and and asked back, "I 'unno. Why you let me?" He winked to his partner in crime and looked around and said simply, "You ain' gonna dance with me and judgin by the way you pourin dirt d'er you'self and plaintin daisies," Just… dying notably, "I'm a go start some trouble, Sparkplug. Cause there some people in here need some distinct cheerin up. Fun t'be had and they ain' yet havin it." Jean-Pierre Bonaventure: Herald of fun and complete and utter humiliation…for your won good, Elmo. For your own good.
"/Let/ him, he says," Elmo mutters. But…JP wants to dance with him? That's something that absolutely did not occur to him in any way. He lifts his head to look at his teammate, eyebrows quizzical.
JP seemed to wield charisma like a horseshoe magnet through a hardware store. It was dangerous and haphazard as was his approach to nearly everything and somehow always narrowly avoided being pummeled to smitherens. He looked to Arlo and Hattie having a good time and a few others bopin to their crodocile rock and back. Let him say he. He shrugged and finished his beer. How does that summovabitch make everything look and sound so damn simmple was anyone's guess. Maybe that was his mutant ability and also sometimes machines. How do you say 'you smirking bag of weasels' in French? It might need to be his new codename.
Arlo isn't a bad dancer himself, and it might say something about what kind of employee he'll be, to see that when he does something, he's all in. He's dancing now, and so he is dancing. Cutting a rug, having a blast on the floor with Hattie. When the dance is over, he thanks her, and he tells her he'll be wanting another one of those in a little bit, and he goes to check in with his maybe-friends. "She's cute," he reports. "I don't think she realizes it."
Elmo slides off the stool, eyes narrow. He's pissed off and it's pretty obvious. Grabbing JP by the shirt, he yanks him over. "Nu shoyen?" he demands, Yiddish for something like 'We're doing this and you can go to hell'. "Get on that damn dance floor before I change my mind."
JP laughs, taking Elmo's hand. "All you had t'do is ask, chere," he purrs in that damnably sexy accent. Sexy in New York, anyway. In New Orleans he sounds like a guy who was raised by mud and crawdads. He ducks his head to murmur something to Elmo, who scowls at him, which makes him laugh. Nothing doesn't amuse JP, it seems! So they have a dance too, and Elmo's surprisingly graceful. The shimmery mutant girl then comically asks Elmo if she can cut in, and claims a dance with JP.
Elmo slinks back to the bar, flushed, like he doesn't quite believe he did that. "What're you having?" he asks Arlo. "Round's on me."
Arlo grins at Elmo. Just grins. "Beer," he says, casual, with a dozen questions and comments left unsaid, but his body language is easeful. Whatever he just saw, it doesn't bug him. "No wonder you blushed when those girls were checking you out," he says.
Elmo hmphs, but returns Arlo's grin, lopsided. He gets the bartender to send them another couple of beers and takes a pull off his, trying to cool his still-red face down. "Whaddaya mean?" he asks, only kind of defensive.
Arlo nods off toward where JP has gone off to be JP. "You play for the other team." He shrugs a shoulder. "I figure it's like being a mutant or born Jewish. It's just who you are, you know? And I'll fight anyone who has a problem." He glances sidelong at the ladies and says, "Is she talking about me? I want to check, but it's kinda loud in here."
Elmo hitches his shoulders up, tips a hand back and forth. "Yeah, I mean…yeah." He doesn't know how to explain anything. His relationship with JP, that he actually quite likes girls, none of it. "A lot of us are like that around here. How about you?" He presses the cold glass of the beer mug to his forehead, just blisteringly red in the face.
"I like ladies," Arlo says with a glance toward the women, and he grins at them. Looking back to Elmo, he says, "Yeah, she's talking about me." He toys with the empty glass he left on the bar earlier. "I don't know, though, I mean I'm not really into having relationships with anyone right now."
Hattie's friends seem to be thrilled that she danced with Arlo. So does she, bouncing on her heels, hands to her mouth.
Elmo follows Arlo's glance. "She /is/ cute," he says, agreeing with his earlier assessment, with some embarrassment but overall it's like he just did the most embarrassing thing possible so all bets are off. "Might as well take her out, you don't gotta marry her."
"That's what I'm thinking," Arlo says. "I like that she's got a visible mutation. Is that weird? Am I weird for liking that? It's like fuck you, I want to be seen with a nice mutant girl, who wants to make something of it?"
Elmo laughs into the beer. "Maybe it's weird to normies. Hell with 'em, right? We don't gotta care what they think." The shimmer girl and JP are having a grand time, dancing and daring each other to get ever more outrageous. Elmo glances at them, smiling with a wistful expression. "He kinda taught me that. I didn't wanna admit I was a mutant, for a long time."
Arlo tosses Hattie a wink as his glance strays her way. Then he looks to his beer, and to Elmo. "Yeah, to hell with normies. We gotta let our mutant sisters know they're beautiful." He takes a long drink, then wipes foam from his lips and regards Elmo thoughtfully. "That's maybe not such a bad thing," he says. "To wait til you're on your own and don't need anyone's help."
"Eh," Elmo says. "I'd still be waiting if it weren't for some of my friends like JP. Got on my own kinda early, but that wasn't why." He rethinks that. "It is why, actually. Listen," he leans a little closer to Arlo, "not everybody would be okay with me, bein' queer, even mutants. I appreciate that. If you're gonna work around the shop, you're gonna find this out sooner or later, so may as well tell you now. Are you gonna be okay if I tell you I've been in prison, too?"
Arlo nods. "Sure," he says. "I've been nabbed for pickpocketing, spent time in juvie. That's where I learned to get really good at picking pockets." He takes another drink of beer, not going easy on it. "Why, what'd you get in for?"
Elmo sighs, taking a drink. "Assault. This kid used to torment me, and…well, it's a long story, you don't wanna hear the whole thing. Point is, I built something that was supposed to be a tool, and he did something got me real, real mad and I used it on him." There's only an undertone of regret there. Mostly, he relishes this memory.
"He was fucking with you," Arlo says. "So you took care of business." He shrugs a shoulder. "Seems justified to me. You can't let people shit on you, you know what I'm saying? If they get away with it, they'll never stop." Not just acceptance here, but approval.
"They look at me," Elmo says, with an edge to his voice, "an' they think I'm weak. Then I teach 'em better." He grimaces, then, and looks away. "Gave the guy a seizure disorder. Messed up somethin' in his brain. That's why they sent me to juvie. Excessive, the court said. I can't say different, yannow? It was excessive. I didn't know how to control it, then."
"Don't mess with baby snakes," Arlo says. "The rattlesnakes that just hatched? They don't know how to regulate how much venom they put in you, so they go overboard. I mean it's too bad for the guy, but he didn't have to mess with you. He chose to." He takes another drink, then asks, "Can you control it now?"
Elmo huhs. "That so? Makes sense." Interesting! He looks at his hand, makes sparks crackle to life at his fingertips. "Mostly I can control it. Sometimes…sometimes I'm not so sure. So I only shock someone if I know I'm not gonna lose it." He raises his eyebrows at Arlo. "So enough about me, huh? Whaddabout you?"
"That's just such a handy skill," Arlo says, watching the spark with interest. Then he shrugs and says, "I dunno, what about me? I feel things. It just started one day. I was doing my homework and the letters started singing to me. Stuff like that kept happening, or like the seams on my clothes made my skin feel like it was on fire. I thought I was sick with some brain thing."
"You know what's crazy? I've felt that, with the seams, too." Elmo's impressed, in a backwards kind of way, with how messed up he and Arlo are. "My sister, she's in neuroscience, says some people are just like that. Sorta like a mutation, but yours is a real mutation, yeah?"
"Yeah," Arlo says. He smiles crookedly at Elmo. Their mutual messed-upness has him relaxing quite a bit. The beer can't be hurting. "We didn't figure it out til I started projecting sensations onto people. Like my brother punched me and he felt the pain of it, not me." He confides in a lower tone, "That was intentional." With a wave of his hand, he sa ys, "Anway, we eventually figured out I was a Mutant."
Elmo snickers. "Serves 'im right." JP, across the club, is getting other wallflowers who aren't as stubborn as Elmo to come out and dance. JP's general philosophy is that if someone wanted to be left alone, they wouldn't be in a club, and he pursues it with diligence. Elmo watches him for a moment before getting secondhand cringe and looking back at Arlo. "Can you believe that guy? Yeah, so you figured it out, your folks okay with that?"
Arlo grins as he watches JP work his magic. The grin fades though as he says, "Nah, they kicked me out." He shrugs. What can ya do? "Mom said she'd worked too hard to make a perfect family to have its reputation stained with something like this. I don't know what she told people. Like I ran away or something. Whatever would get her the most sympathy." Oh how he judges. Judges so hard.
Elmo winces in sympathy. "Oy Gevalt, yer kiddin? They just turned ya out? Jews?" Gentiles he could understand doing something so barbaric, is the implication. "…Then again, my parents don't know nothin about me, and I keep it that way." He shrugs, too. "I could hide it, so I did. You didn't get the luck for that."
Arlo glances down at his beer, and he shrugs. "Yeah, I don't know. If you can keep it from your parents… I don't know, man. I don't want you to mess up your life, but part of me is, like, everyone should just come out and see where they really rank. But at the same time if I could go back and hide it, I would."
Elmo pulls a face. "Fair enough, right? Guess I don't feel I'd rate so high. Mutant, ex-con, queer? Dunno what balances it out." He orders a couple more beers. "…Not gonna have a choice, soon enough," he says dolefully. "This friend a' mine, Kai, he's doing an art exhibition about us. About mutants. And I'm in it because he wouldn't let me get away. Had something similar to say about how I got lucky and some people like Hattie over there ain't so lucky. Someone in my family's gonna see it, or someone who knows someone, and…it's gonna be the end of hiding that."
Arlo says fiercely, "You got nothing to balance out. They're the ones who got it wrong, don't ever forget that." He shakes his head. "You'll kill yourself worrying about what you did wrong, when the fact is you didn't." He glances toward Hattie again. Soon it'll be time to dance again, but not while his new buddy and he are bonding. "I heard something about that exhibition. I'm going to go see it. Just. Look." He regards Elmo seriously. "Whatever happens, you got family. You got people."
"Yeah," Elmo says, almost too quiet to be heard by non-enhanced ears. "I do. I got good people." His gaze lifts to look over the club, full of mutants. Many of whom are queer, and some of whom are Jewish. He grins that long one-sided grin at Arlo. "You'll get to see a huge photo of me givin' Kai a dirty look."
"I came here to be around my people," Arlo tells Elmo. "I tried the normie world. Don't care much for it." Hattie casts him a hopeful look, and he says, "I'd better take that girl back out on the floor before someone else gets to her, but hey, you're pretty cool. For real."