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Jebediah was doing his usual Jebediah routine around the club. Though, with renewed vigor, Doug had hinted at going away for a weekend and letting Jeb be in charge, so he was trying to make a point about how responsible he was by making the floor shine and the glasses sparkle. You'd be able to see your reflection in this whole place if Jebediah had any say in it. All in all, the perky little puppy of a man was in a great mood, seemingly nothing could get him down. Seemingly.
He wanders over to his oldest brother, tending the bar. "Do you think you could teach me to make one of those?" He asks Sam, nodding to whatever mixed froo-froo drink the pretty mutant in front of Sam had just ordered.
"Yep." Sam answered with an upbeat tone, then he grins with dimples at his cheeks as he looks up at his kid brother. "But my consulting fee is $5." He winks, teasing.
JP turned up like a vice with restraint in tow. The pair of mechanics, JP and Elmo apparently had strict rules about working Friday nights. Some things were sacrosanct. In a clear lack of understanding of what the word 'sacrosanct' means the bayou badass cruised by the juke mchine first to lay hands on it and, yeah, pretty much arrest productivity of that thing for the forseeable future. "Woooo, cowboy don' go swingin at me t'night I ain't yet do nothin." Really someone PLEASE explain double negatives to the Cajun.
Elmo drifts in behind JP, always a little hestitant to go into Atomic. Not at all because he got punched here, or anything. "Yeah, please let's have a minimum of punching," he suggests helpfully to Sam and Jeb.
"I can give ya -bout as much promise as a hog can get in ta church." Sam grins broadly, though, a twinkle in his eyes. "Which means maybe on Easter." A wink follows. "What can I get fer ya fellas?"
"Five dollars? Ain't you got no favorite brother discount? Ah am yer favorite right?" Jeb whines playfully at Sam and then gives the newcomers a confused look, well, a confused one to JP, who he ain't never seen before except maybe in passing, and a narrowed one to Elmo. "Ah definitely ain't gonna punch you never again, you ain't got to worry about that. Sammy, did you hit this guy? Ain't mama tell you that's not how to properly make friends?" Jeb chastises lightly, bumping his brother's hip with his own.
Back up the stairs from the basement storage, Jay takes them two at a time, toting a box of napkins under one arm and another mismatched case of liquors to restock what's been used thusfar, playing a little bit of barback tonight before it gets late enough for his sets.
"Ah thought Ah was yer favorite, Sammy," Jay pipes up with one corner of his mouth lifted higher than the other, flashing a wink in Jeb's direction as he tries to hand off the box of napkins to his younger sibling. "You really think you got any room to be tellin' people how to not punch people to make friends, Sprout?" His eyes dance with humor as they peek around to the collection at the bar. His attention stills on Elmo for a good long moment while he maneuvers behind the bar on autopilot; Jay's expression pretty finely managed, but feathers fluff up slightly.
JP laughed at Jeb, that pretty mug splitting into a wry grin, all trouble. "You kiddin he clear dove right over the bar. Cleared it bout two feet. Hit like a loggin truck too. Was tres bien, mon ami." Only JP and few others got excited about getting into a beat down. He side glanced to Elmo and shrugged, "George paid up." Which was clearance for they had spending money in the tank to grab a couple. "Oui, beer f'me, Sam." Looking over to Jay he upnodded and had to agree back to Jeb. "Bird got a point."
"That's great, Jeb. If I knew what that meant, I'd be so reassured." Elmo sounds a little cranky. Which lifts when he sees Jay come up, his shoulders relaxing. "Hey there." He glances back at JP, shrugs back at him with just a tiny hint of a smile. "Whiskey sour, please," he says to Sam.
Cannonball lifts up a hand in surrender briefly, then starts serving out the drinks to those that want them. He goes slower when he makes the mixed drink, sort of showing Jeb without being too obvious that he's giving an instructional. "It was a fight, but for nothin'. Just misunderstandin's as usual."
Jeb blushes when Jay calls him out on not being one to talk about hitting people and making friends of it. "Hey, that was only once and that was Ray Jr. And no one here said that Ah was real good at listenin' to mama. Ah'm pretty sure y'all know Ah was an expert at not hearin' nothing she said." Jeb grumbles at Jay, tucking a little closer to Sam for a second. He watches Jay's feathers ruffle when he looks at Elmo and it succeeds in making him feel a little bad for irritating Elmo already. A little bad, not a lot.
"Jus' means that Ah ain't gonna punch you again. Ain't Ah said it slow enough for you?" A very, very, very little bad, clearly as Jeb sasses the other man before he casts a quick look at Jay and then he gives Sam his undivided attention, quick, like a child about to be caught picking on one of his siblings.
Jay only gives Jeb a knowing smile in weighty silence, allowing his younger brother to slink away and watch Sam make the cocktail without further harassment. He stares a moment longer at Elmo, then blinks and offers a small smile that lingers, then is cut off as he turns to set the heavy box down on the floor and restock the liquor bottles.
"A fight ain't no thing t'worry overmuch about, at least back home," that is to fully admit that their attitude ain't of the citified variety he's found. "There's more reasons t'fight than jus' bein' pissed and wantin' someone's face punched in. Sometimes man jus' has t'brawl a bit." Jay leans back and peers at Jeb. "Don't tell Doug Ah said that."
JP lived to make the day better, and by better he meant more fun, and more fun too often meant Elmo swearing in Yiddish. He took his beer from Sam, and knowing better, put the cash on the counter now. The jukebox got a wink as if she were the girl across the room, and as if hearing him flipped records over to 'Proud Mary'. Of course he knew the dance and while he grooved in place doing a damn fine Tina Turner he paused to ask the Guthrie's who seemed to occupy the professional space, "No one lef' any messages for me did they?" JP was recieving messages at random clubs now!? Never you mind it was a very, very specific one, but that's not the point. He only moved in two months ago! God he really was the worst at laying low.
Elmo slumps down on the bar, one hand over his eyes like he's about to have a massive headache when JP starts dancing. "I'm gonna short out that fershtunken jukebox," he mutters to himself. With all these stupid sexy Southerners around, how is a New York Jew supposed to cope? It's not the jukebox that's going to short out, at this rate.
Cannonball nods. "Yeah…it needs some Hank Williams pretty fierce.." Sam admits in regards to the juke box. "Didja get some sort a weird message, JP? I didn't send ya any."
Jebediah was admittedly a little disappointed that Elmo doesn't retaliate with some of his own sass back at the youngest Guthrie. Jebediah isn't always looking for a fight, except when Elmo was around. While, clearly he and Jay had made up, Jeb was still fussed about it, not ready to make nice but he can't say nothing mean when Elmo isn't! That would just make him a bully and Guthries weren't bullies.
So instead, he ignores Elmo entirely with the beginnings of a pout forming on his face. "Ah won't tell Doug on you, Jay. Scouts honor." He winks at his brother and presses up on his toes to watch JP dance, a smile growing quickly on his face. "Hey! That was neat, did you make the jukebox change songs by winking at it? What you say yer name was? Yer cool."
'Proud Mary' starts in, nice and slow as it does before it kicks it into high gear. Jay's murmuring the lyrics under his breath, not really giving them any voice at the moment while he takes down old bottles that have hardly anything in them and pulls them forward, lining up new bottles behind them. The slow rolling of the song still has him bobbing slightly to the beat, moving with it like a lazy raft on a river. When it kicks it up to full crank, he's mouthing along, bopping his head a bit more as he packs up bottles and the box to take it around again. Turning about, he catches JP's dance and it surprises a quick, silent laugh out of him which shivers all the way through his wings.
Whistling sharply in encouragement, Jay walks around to toss the box into the back room. "Hit that beat, Bonaventure." Whispering a breathy chuckle, he's still shaking his head as he comes back and hangs on the outside of the bar this time, hooking a foot in the rest, leaning on the bar itself, his gaze flickering back and forth between JP and Elmo. It seems to stick a little more on the crabby young man. "Messages?"
Cannonball watches the musical brother mouth along to the words. "Ya know you should just sing…we all know ya have a good voice." Guthrie smiles, then looks over to Jeb, demonstrating the drink again, then says, "Now make yerself one, but you gota drink it, whatever it turns out ta be." He sips on the one he just made with gusto.
JP was good at a few things among which: telling any building 'let me in', cars, finding trouble, instigating a beating, and have a damn good time. Hit a beat? He snappointed to the birdman and carried on meeping up, though it was imperfect as he wasn't parting with his beer. This was the variant version, but hey them hips and feet kept up as requested. At the question of messages he took a swig and shruggd pointing to Sam answering Jay. "His buddy leave any messages for rabbits, or someone wit' a blue hand?" To Jeb he nodded him over. "C'mere, I teach you. We'll look riduclous. It' be a blast. As Elmo."
"I am not responsible for whatever he does to you," Elmo tells Jeb promptly. "Punch him, not me." Jeb just told him he wasn't going to, but maybe Elmo doesn't quite believe that. Then he adds, "That's JP. He's my partner. So's you know who to punch." 'Partner' doesn't have the same connotation as it will several decades off; he means business partner, or possibly partner in crime. Or both. Both is good. He can't resist smiling at Jay, when Sam says Jay should sing. "You could sing, if you want, Jayl."
"You'll teach me to dance? Or you'll teach me how to make the jukebox switch like that? Ah think only you can do that. Ah could pump it full 'a plasma and then Doug kick my ass after Jay kick it and Ah don't want no trouble. Though, if Ah blow up the jukebox, then Jay gotta sing and he sings really, really well. Did you ever hear him sing, Mister um…" He looks over at Jay, because he'd said the last name hadn't he? "Bond.. Adventure? If he ain't heard you sing, then you need to sing, Jay. Everybody loves when you sing."
He hadn't been paying enough attention to how Sam had made that whisky sour and he bites his lower lip. "But what if Ah make it too strong?" He asks, looking every bit like a nervous student. He wants to impress Sam, because of course he does. He does a somewhat decent recreation of the drink, but makes it too weak, probably because he was worrying about it being too strong. He tilts it up to his lips. "Not bad.. not strong though. Ah'll need to try again." And then, surprising probably everyone at this bar, he nods to Elmo. "You've got good taste. Ah'm not gonna hit nobody tonight, 'Mo. Quit worryin'."
|ROLL| JP +rolls 1d20 for: 5
Jay flashes a crooked smile at Sam, tipping his chin down slightly into what seems like a faintly bashful angle, but he still meets his true blue older brother's eyes straight on. "Y'all just love it when Ah sing duets with th' raght voices." Smiling all sunshine and sweet tea after the fact while he leaves those who haven't heard him wonder if he can really sing a spot on Ike and Tina Turner. Whitest little ginger southerner out there angles a softer version of that smile in Elmo's direction just down the bar.
"You encouragin' him, El?" Teasing him lightly, though the context seems to be a much older joke. Because we can all imagine Elizabeth begging Jay constantly to sing 'I Want to be Wanted' like an idiot in Brenda Lee's voice. Then Jeb kicks in his opinion as well and Jay hangs his head forward and smiles like the sun on a warm July day, shaking his head as he lifts it up, scooping his hair out of his face with a hand. "Yer all gonn' get it soon enough. Go learn yerself a dance and a cocktail, Sprout." Encouraging his younger sibling to do as he likes.
He shakes his head over a message for JP, then pauses and thinks on it a moment. "…Ah got a weird piece of paper in mah tip jar a couple nights ago?'
"Who's teaching who ta dance? Not me right?" Sam grins and nods at Jeb to try it again after he finishes the first one. "Its sorta like a competition. If ya don't get it by the 3rd one, you'll be too drunk ta know if you got it right or not." He chuckles and leans on the bar. "Don't be modest Jay. You have a talent and a gift for it, and you know it." GRIN.
JP paused as Jeb slaughtered his name. He shifted a look to Elmo. Uh…oh. There was that spark in his eye and he responded with a sober 'truth' to Jeb, "Oui, je m'appelle James. Last name? Bond-Aventure." He winked to Jeb putting his best undercover spy grin on. Really though there was an answer to the weird question about Sam's pals? Really? The mechanic immediately walked over to Jay, jukebox pausing for a minute. Did it even have a pause feature? "Donnez-moi. Gimme gimme, mon ami." Suuuure now Jay was his friend. Again, like someone fired up teh can opener and the stray cat's attention was arrested. "Sprout-man, this wait a moment."
"Jeb, don't call me that, for God's sake," Elmo groans. "But…thanks. I guess." Picking up his drink, he looks over at JP, who is going over to Jay, because….of a message. His mouth twists. He looks away again and pulls something out of a pocket, a little configuration of gears and wire that he starts tinkering with.
Jeb is blushing. Blushing because JP points out that he'd slaughtered his name, blushing because Elmo is groaning over his attempt to be nice. "Sorry." He looks down at the next empty glass and takes Sam's advice to make another whisky sour. "Ah'm not supposed to be getting drunk on the job, Sam. Doug would be mad." He complains, quietly. His vibrating energy tamed for the time being, while his cheeks were bright red. "He paused the jukebox for you to sing, Jay."
Jay remains leaning on the bar, smiling gently at his surroundings while the people around him seem far more interested in being bodies in motion, he's more content to perch and watch it all unfold with a certain level of amused contentedness about him.
Yaknow, until JP stops the jukebox cols and Jay whips his head around to look at the machine oddly, then back at JP. Straightening up, he blinks owlishly, just a little more alert for the eagerness. "Uhhh, okay? Ah mean, it was a few nights ago, so Ah gotta go get it. Ah think Ah set it aside upstairs…" He drifts off, thumbing over his shoulder. His eyes flash in Elmo's direction, then back to JP. "Ah'll be raght back, lemme—Uh, heh no, Ah don't think that's quite right, Sprout. Uh, try a glass a water first, or a straight up beer before you drain another glass of that." He gives a long look at Sam that seems to read 'are you gonna hold him over the toilet or am I?' as he turns to make his way up the stairs to the apartment.
JP was finding a new found amusement for coming out tonight. The call at 5pm went great. That was… something. It was only five minutes long but that went well. He and Elmo got the shop cleaned and a transmission repaired, and now? Scavenger hunt stab in the dark yeild results! He had no honest idea what it was but it seemed to be enough all the same. That wily Cajun was grinning. The empty bottle was set down and he looked to Sam, "7&7, hold the punches, two lime?" And an eyebrow waggle apparently. And with that the jukebox changed 45's and started in with some Smokey Robinson.
Elmo gives JP a sideways glance when Smokey Robinson comes on. "I liked the other one better," he says, kvetching because he can, basically. He's disassembled the gizmo and laid its gears out in ascending order on the bar, and now starts reassembling it in a different configuration, in between watching for Jay to come back.
Jeb has temporarily abandoned his drink making process to watch whatever the hell Elmo is doing on the bar, or well, he's certainly pretending like he's still making drinks, but he's been pouring whisky on the bar, while watching Elmo tinker with gears out of the corner of his eye. It's when he gets it on his shoe that he curses and brings notice to himself again. "Don't tell mama Ah said that," He grumbles to either brother within hearing distance. Then he looks at Elmo, and trying not to sound too interested asks, "What are you doin' with those?"
Jay reappears shortly after he vanishes, a folded piece of paper rolled up and in his palm. It's not a neat looking thing, and looks like it was torn off of the back of something from the bulletin board, probably. He winged musician holds it out to JP with a smile and a shrug. "Found it. Still on the dresser. Sometimes Ah get notes in mah tip jar, but they're usually phone numbers," chuckling helplessly with a light bashful rosiness coming to his cheek. "This one struck me as weird since, well," he cuts off and gestures without finishing his phrase.
JP grinned waiting for drink #2, "Grab one an' fin'on out, Jeb. Is neat." He went to take another sip when his eyebrows arched and he added with ashrug, "Ce n'est pas un probleme. Jusqu'a ce que vous vous reveilliez." The grin warmed and Jeb got a wink out of him. The man could sell toast to teh fasting, truly. Nimble thieves' fingers snapped up the memo on teh handoff, "Well because it weren't f'you." His foot tapped Elmo's chair and he asked letting his eyes scan the paper. THis… could go one of two directions here. Reading was not the man's strong suit. Here's to hoping it was at least written in French maybe? He unrolled it looking it over murmuring, "Sparkplug we drinkin or playin darts t'night. We promis' Doug we won' combine those two in here again."
Elmo scootches the collection of gears away from the puddle of whiskey. "I dunno yet," he replies a little absently to Jeb. "Maybe part of a controller for somethin' I'm kinda working on. See, where you put energy into the big gears, you can transfer it to the little gears. Goes backwards, too." When Jay says he gets phone numbers tucked in his tip jar, Elmo glances up at him with a genuine warm smile. He doesn't seem to need to look at what he's doing with the parts; his hands keep on assembling and tweaking without his direct attention. "Well, we're already drinking," he says to JP, and tries to catch a glimpse of the paper.
|ROLL| JP +rolls 1d20 for: 3
Jebediah is completely baffled by Elmo's reaction to hearing that Jay gets numbers, clearly it's not surprising to anyone here that the pretty bird gets plenty of numbers, he's Jay. That's what happens when you're Jay but Jebediah had honestly expected jealousy to waft it's way onto Elmo's features but there isn't any, but Jeb was done trying to make sense of Jay's relationships. As long as Elmo wasn't saying nasty things about his brother and Jay appeared to be happy, everything was fine. "That's neat." Jeb adds and then steps back from the bar to clean it up. He could tell when someone wasn't interested in his company. "Just don't hit nobody with the darts and I won't tell Doug."
Jay's fingers are in danger of being snapped off at the first knuckle, but he whispers a bemused sound good naturedly anyway as he slides his hand back into his pocket. "Yeah, Ah sorta figured." Leaving JP to his scavenger hunt as he rounds the bar to come up on Elmo's other side casually and taking a seat under the pretense of watching Jeb. "You holdin' steady, Bean?" Yet another adorable brotherly nickname.
Speaking of adorable nicknames, Jay smiles slowly, turning his head toward Elmo. His eyes dancing. "Sparkplug?" Practically whispering the name with all the excitement of a chittering gossip.
JP considered the scrap that he's got and then… rotated it 90* like one does asking curiously, "This all of it?" He squint a look to Elmo complaining about the music and the Smokey Robinson stopped on the Juke box and it was… silent. St the question of the name JP tilted his head squinting one eye thinkin on whatever it was, "Hey guys, you got this city on a grid. The 600 block of 7th street in Queens or Brooklyn?" Elmo might be grumpy with him bbut even so the bitterness was like coffee: Kinda kept the world running. There was a smug grin on hsi face answering to no one, "Il commence toujours quelque chose…always startin' somethin, nes pas?"
Elmo laughs, glancing at Jay shyly. "Yeah. Sparkplug. My team name." He turns a little red. "You like it?" He answers JP, less cranky, but resigned, "Brooklyn. Nice area. Lotta Jews." Of course there are, it's Brooklyn.
"Ah'm alright, Ah just spilled something back here." He doesn't want to say it's alcohol because he doesn't want anyone to tell Doug and then Doug thinks he can't go away on vacation with Jay and.. oh, does Jay know about that yet? It seemed really hush hush.
Jay smiles at Elmo, his shoulder just barely hovering off of the electician's as he rests both his forearms on the bar. "You got a codename? Yeah. Ah sorta do." His attention lingers on Elmo for a long moment, then breaks to look up at Jebediah. "We been tellin' Sprout he should come up with his own mutant name, but nothin's stuck so far. Did Momma tell you that Mel came up with hers finally?" Switching seamlessly between talking to Elmo and dragging Jeb back into the conversation.
Jay's's head comes back up when the juke box stops, his brows raised slightly, face in a complete signal of innocence as he breaks away from talking with Elmo to look up at JP. He's already climbing off his stool and walking around the bar. "Ah still don't know where half the stuff is around here. But we got a phone book with a map in it behind the bar here. We can take a look at what's round there." Always with a helpful answer, he comes back with a phone book and drops it in front of JP, opening to the maps.
JP warmed a grin to the three chattin it up, offering to Jeb, "Eh, eventually people get tired a' yellin y'own name at you an start yellin somethin else. Hell is how I got mine. What you' sister callin herself now?" He went to say something else but bit his tongue on that one. Fingers curled into a fist. NOPE! He was bein good. For him. Ish. Looking back to Elmo he shook his head with an affectionate grin amusing himself with conversation, "Je ne savais pas que d'autres personnes l'utiliseraient. Six-thirty… six-thirty…" He frowned, "There don' look like there's no 630 on 7th. It goin from 656 to 632… Elmo, how come your state can't count?"
JP stood up, slightly irked and took teh map with him. Looking to Jeb he pointed, "When I get back, I show you how t'dance, Sprout-man." That was a promise. Aw lawdy.
"It's folded," Elmo says to JP, joking only a little. "Some a the streets get tucked away, only unfold when you walk on 'em. Fifth-dimensional." He probably read that in one of those science fiction books. "See you later."
"Well, that's because we all know that gals are smarter'n guys. Ah ain't very bright and Ah don't know what to call myself. You'n Sam picked really cool ones! What is she callin' herself, now, Jay?" Mentioning Melody makes something in Jeb's chest ache and he frowns a little to himself more than anything, homesickness creeping up in his chest. "Ah don't know… Shocky… guy? That's about all Ah've come up with so far."
"She goin' with 'Aero'," Jay reports of their sister with an angled smile toward Jebediah. "Not like 'A-R-R-O-W', but momma said she looked it up and it's the root word for air or flyin'." He shrugs a shoulder and explains to Elmo softly. "She can float on the wind currents. Like a feather."
"Aw, Sprout. The right one will come to ya. Yer powers are amazin', an' you've really carved out a skill with 'em that ain't like nothin' Ah've seen." Effortlessly consoling in a genuine fashion, nothing he says is an empty platitude, he shifts back to Elmo. "You seen the guitar Ah use on stage? With all the birds in flight burned into the surface? Jebediah did that with his plasma. Which, heh, yer intimately familiar with." If you can't bring up former fights once they're over and laugh about them, then what's the point?
Looking up again when JP declares that New York can't count and he stands up, there's a helpless shrug and Jay turns the map around to look at it, himself. "He sure got wound up quick, didn't he? Hope he finds whatever he's lookin' fer. It looked like a time t'me. 6:30PM with a 7 sorta just danglin' there after."
"To be fair, I couldn't in a million years come up with my own code name," Elmo admits. "JP gave me Sparkplug." He looks curiously at Jay, while he describes his guitar, then looks back at Jeb, eyebrows up. "No kiddin'! I didn't know you were an artist. That's real well done, Jeb." He shrugs wryly, about JP, and sips his drink. "…Wait. That paper had a time on it? Not an address?" Now his face goes back in his hands. "Oy gevalt, JP. Well, what do I know, maybe he knows better'n me. Maybe it is an address." But his expression says he doubts it.
"Well, you know what El…" Jeb rears up before he realizes that Elmo's complimenting him and then he flushes. "Thank you. Ah worked real hard on that guitar for him, burned myself a lot, Ah still do. Ah've been learning though, set a lot of 'em on fire in the beginning, but Ah have this big project for my friend, Morbi..Uh… my friend. And then, Ah met that guy you done told me about, Jay, Mister Lambert? And he gave me a project for his restaurant too." He drops Morbius' name before he can finish it, avoiding looking at Elmo at all when Jay had said intimately familiar with and he remembers the noise that Elmo made and he has to swallow hard and he could probably fry an egg on his cheeks.
"Ah don't know," Jay shrugs at Elmo over the debate on what the heck was on the paper. "It looked like a time t'me, but if he thinks he knows, Ah'm not gonna tell him different." Jay offers and smiles lightly at Elmo. "He named ya, huh? That's still cool. So long as you like it and all. Ah know a lot of people kinda get their names from their team mates or their mentors. Kale got his because he had to keep repeatin' himself around freakin' Billy." Jay rolls his eyes and forces a smile and downcast of his eyes as he mentally berates himself for having unkind thoughts.
Looking up at Jeb and mention of his big project, he shakes his head gently in amusement and shuts the phone book, putting it back behind the bar and sitting back down on the seat beside Elmo. His smile turns just a little bit brittle on mention of Lambert and the project for his restaurant, but those wings shiver and fluff out bigger than life. "That's amazin', Sprout. See? Ah told ya that folks are gonna love what you do and gonna want yer work everywhere."
Elmo doesn't seem to share Jay's reaction to Lambert, or notice it, and instead tells Jeb enthusiastically, "Great, I can't wait to see it. Speakin' of code names, Jay, I don't know yours, what is it?" He's reassembled the array of gears into something that can't easily be told apart from how it was in the first place, but he looks it over, turning it like a jewel in the light.
Jeb notices Jay's smile and it makes him frown. He'll have to ask Jay later, if he doesn't want Jeb to associate with Lambert for any reason, then he won't. He doesn't want to upset his brother at all, but Jay had said he would like him, mostly because Jeb likes Morbius because Morbius looks like… Morbius. He likes drawing Jay because he has big wings, he likes drawing Morbius because he's a vampire, of course he'd love Lambert. He scrapes his shoe along the floor, still watching Elmo fiddling with the gears with thinly veiled fascination. "Ah do it all for free, Ah like that people like what Ah do… Like that it makes em happy." He says quietly.
"You do it all fer free because it's what you love," Jay murmurs in a loud hush over the bartop—his voice doesn't audibly change in any real way, but somehow it seems to cut through the air even as a whisper to be clearly heard. "An' one day someone's gonna love it enough and see the value in it to wanna give you money fer it. An' you'll say no, an' they'll insist, an' that's how yer gonna get yer first sell, Jeb. Ah can see it." Jay insists gently, optimistically. "An' getting a piece up at Lambert's place is a great move fer that." Even if Jay currently wants to thrust-kick the satyr's plush stomach.
Jay's wings shiver out and slick back down securely, turning his attention back to Elmo. His smile expands, eyes turning into bright green crescent moons as his cheeks round. A little bashful, he murmurs quietly, "Icarus."
"Sure they will. People will pay ya for it," Elmo says, "and they oughta. How many other artists can make art with lightning from their eyes, huh? You got a gift." He really is impressed, even though he's watching his little gizmo, not Jeb. But when Jay tells him his code name, he looks at him, eyebrows cocked up in a surprised, worried way. "Icarus," he repeats, not quite a question. Then he decides, firmly, "I like it," and leans his shoulder against Jay's.
"Makes me plenty nervous that he picked that name because he's the guy wo flew too close to the sun and Ah don't want him to fly too close to anything that's fiery because he's extra flamable now and yeah." Jeb frowns, even if Elmo isn't listening, he goes on his little tirade anyway about how he's eternally worried about Jay. He looks up at Elmo leaning against Jay and smiles softly. He can hardly be angry with Elmo when he makes Jay's wings fluff up and shiver. He mops the counter up and then silently starts to slink away, busying himself with cleaning up behind the bar like he's supposed to be doing.
Jay's used to that look. That's the 'Are you okay?' look. That's the 'Wow, what a downer' look. He understands. His smile has a serenity to it, quiet and level as he glances away, tilting his head mildly. "It seemed t'fit." Flew too high, fell so far. So goes Jay Guthrie and his roller coaster life.
He smiles at Jebediah, shaking his head with heartfelt amusement when Jeb's take away is 'Jay + Fire equals NO'. "It's okay Jeb. Ah got no plans that involve open flames. We'll find yer name soon enough, Sprout. Or you will. You'll know it when you hear it. Maybe you should ask Dougie. Who better to help ya find a name than the man who knows every name an' word?"
Talking about Doug while he slides a hand under the bartop to touch the top of Elmo's thigh, talk about flying too close to the sun. Jeb slinks away a little bit and Jay steals a moment to smile softly at Elmo, stealing a moment of exchange. "Hey."
.~{:--------------:}~.