ArchivedLogs:No Mistletoe Needed

No Mistletoe Needed
Dramatis Personae Jax, Steve	2017-12-09 "Maybe more of a fruit highwayman."
Location <NYC> {Lighthaus} - Harbor Commons - Lower East Side
The right side of the second storey is not quite as open in design as the left, but it is more plentiful in natural light, especially where it fetches up against the glass side of the conservatory. Towards the rear of the house is a modestly sized bedroom with wide glass double doors leading onto a balcony that connects to the conservatory, and thence to the Geekhaus balcony on the other side. The room itself is homey and comfortable, a queen size bed well-supplied with pillows and Care Bears, a drafting table beneath a window, a vanity stocked with a vast array of colorful and glittery makeup, and brightly painted bookshelves heavy in cookbooks and young adult fantasy. The room beside it, though similar in size and shape, is almost completely bare and, despite excellent ventilation, always smells of paint fumes. Its only visible permanent features are the small, unobtrusive surround-sound speakers, in addition to which it usually contains only an easel, a stool, and a small table. Hidden behind blank white wall panels, however, are cabinets full of paints, pigments, brushes, and a vast array of other artist's tools, as well as a fold-out computer workstation. Across the hall are two other bedrooms, a bathroom in between. One is decorated in rustic fashion, right down to the mission style furniture and handmade quilt. The other is quite a bit more eclectic, and prone to changing decor on a regular basis. At the moment, the walls, ceiling, and floor are painted up like a starfield, with a startling illusion of depth that makes the room look uncannily large. The loft bed is shaped and painted like a sleek spacecraft resting on its docking platform, while the beanbag chair beneath it is pattern like an asteroid dotted with innumerable craters. The desk looks like /and actually is/ an exceedingly advanced computer console, equipped with configurable touch surfaces and interactive holoprojectors. A corner of the room is given over to colorful interlocking foam play mats, more often than not home to half-completed LEGO or K'NEX projects. At the end of the hall, tucked beside the emergency stairwell back down to the ground floor, is a whimsical spiral stairway leading /up/ into a cozy attic room. A slouchy sofa takes up most of one wall and a long, low bookshelf most of the opposite one. A cushy armchair sits under the octagonal window, and several floor lamps provide adjustable angles, levels, and temperatures of illumination. The inside wall of the room has a door leading to a storage crawlspace, and a trapdoor nearby leads down to Spencer's bedroom. It's not very late, but certainly well past suppertime. The footsteps coming up the stairs are slow, heavy. Steve's dark blue coat is unbuttoned, pink dress shirt underneath rumpled, likewise his gray slacks. He looks a bit roughed up all over, bits of road grime clinging to his Sunday best, a ragged scrape on the back of his right hand oozing slightly. His shield is slung over one shoulder, the star at its center modified to an eight-pointed Star of Bethlehem for the season. There's a slightly crumpled paper bag in one hand as he lifts the other to knock, very softly, at Jax's door, even as he sags against it wearily. There's a significant delay before the door opens. Jax is dressed plainly; black skinny jeans and a soft red-and-black ombre sweater, jet black hair falling floppy over his forehead, current pallor given a faint blush of vigor with a dusting of glimmery red makeup. His eye flicks up from the paper back to Steve's clothes -- to his hand -- then up to his face, his brow creasing. Then a faint twitch at the corner of his mouth. "Don't tell me you tried a hoverbike again." Steve eases his weight off the door as it opens, shifting his hand to the doorframe. "Just the regular bike," he promises, holding up the paper bag and shaking it. "I was up Chinatown, got you some lychees." He lifts his hand from the doorframe to touch Jax's chin, fingertips gentle though his skin is rough. Presses a kiss to the other man's cheek. "Just...had a bit of a tussle between there and here." He slips inside and shrugs out of shield harness and coat. Jax's eye flutters closed, momentarily; beneath Steve's fingers his skin is cool. "Oh! Lychee!" The brightening in the air around him is extremely faint, and fades quickly. His smile lasts longer, as he swipes the bag from Steve. His gaze drifts a little bit longer over the other man. "Hard-earned treats, then." The levity in his tone doesn't quiet match the crease in his forehead. "Who was it this time?" "I could have kept going. It wasn't exactly...people waylaying me for fruit." Steve sits down on the side of the bed, rolling one shoulder gingerly, though the smile he turns up at Jax is undimmed by pain. "Can't tell who started it or how organized it was, but there was a small mob at Benito's, on Delancey. Talked some of them down, but a few were itching for a fight." He shrugs, one shoulder hitching slightly higher than the other. "Figured it was better they take it out on me, and besides..." Crooks a lopsided smile. "...I had the same itch. I sent them packing." "/I'd/ waylay you for your fruit." Jax moves over to the drafting table, spinning his chair out around from it to plop down into it and pull a fruit out from the bag. The trace of the pad of his thumb across the top of the knobbly fruit /shouldn't/ leave the skin split open and yet in the wake of this small gesture he peels back a flap of the rough skin, peeling the rest of it off neatly. Leaning forward, he offers the first fruit out to Steve. "They been getting bolder." "Maybe I should not have given them up so easily, then." Steve raises his eyebrows high. "I would relish the challenge of facing the infamous Fruit Bandit." Pause. Thoughtful frown. "Or are you more of a Fruit /Pirate/? Though I'm not sure you're very clear on the concept of banditry if you're giving me back the fruit." He accepts the lychee all the same, popping it into his mouth and savoring it with a contented hum before spitting out the pit, looking down at it. "Yeah. And more organized -- a lot of these mobs just don't look spontaneous." "Maybe more of a fruit highwayman. An' I'm a /communist/ bandit, I'm jus' redistributing more fairly." 'More fairly' in this case evidently being more fruit for himself; Jax happily munches down three lychees before deigning to offer Steve another. "Y'hear people all the time talkin' about how folks is organizing to --" His brows crease, head shaking again. "-- it'd be nice to dismiss it as paranoia but. You're far from the first who's said it looks planned." "You would," Steve muses, "look particularly dashing with a rapier and a flintlock, astride your giant dragonfly steed..." If he has any objection to Jax's model of fruit redistribution, he does not show it, accepts his next share of the spoils without complaint. "It might well be paranoia in some cases, but surely not all. With the kind of technology available, it be hard to prove even if anyone /were/ seriously investigating them." His brows crinkle thoughtfully. "That might not be a bad idea, if someone isn't already doing it." Just done peeling another fruit for himself, Jackson flashes Steve a crooked smile. He lifts a hand, an ornately-hilted rapier materializing in it. He affixes the lychee to its point with a deliberate care, bends the sword toward Steve with a slight grit in his teeth, a hard flex in his sword-arm, the light touch of makeup fading away to leave only pallor behind. "M'sure B or Dusk could manage -- some kinda wizardry." His nose wrinkles up. "Or Hive." "Merci, Comrade." Steve leans forward, plucking the lychee from the illusory sword tip with his teeth. He watches his partner while he eats the fruit, his steady gaze equal parts appreciative and concerned. "Mm, all that technology cuts both ways, I guess...and, right, Hive. I'll talk to them about it -- probably the wizards, first. I would be happy to find out I was just paranoid." Looks down at the scrape on the back of his hand. "Well. Not /that/ happy." The sword fades away as soon as Steve slides the lychee off it; Jax exhales a heavy breath, relaxing back into his chair as it vanishes. He pulls out another fruit, but doesn't peel it, just turning it over in his hand. "M'sure there'll still be plenty'a bigots for you to wrassle whether they're organized ones or no," Jax reassures him. /Exceedingly/ conciliatory. "I'm not actually that concerned about there being a /shortage,/" Steve allows. "If it were possible at all, I'd rather there weren't /any/ bigots attacking people, no matter how disorganized. I don't think that's really in the cards, though." He studies Jax a moment. "We should have a fight. /With/ lasers." A smile tugs at one corner of his mouth. "I might stand a chance against you, in winter." "It's wintertime," Jax points out, "there mighta been a scarcity. Maybe they go dormant." He shrugs, eye closing as he leans his chair back against the table. "You serious? Now till March, you'll wipe the floor with me." He sounds amused rather than put off by the idea, for all that. "I don't think bigots /hibernate/." Steve frowns slightly, considering. "Though some /do/ fly south for the winter, I suppose? Anyway..." He rolls his shoulders back, as if contemplating throwing down /right then/. "...I wouldn't sell you quite so short, but I will happily mop the floor with you. Some other night, perhaps." He raises both eyebrows slightly. "There's mistletoe up in the gym, you know..." "In the gym?" Jax's nose crinkles up, his head tilting to the side. "For getting snuggly over -- weight lifting? Anyway, if /that's/ the kinda tusslin' you want," his smile is quick; he sets the bag of fruit aside to get up, join Steve on the bed, "we don't gotta go to the gym for it." Steve shakes his head. "It's /special/ mistletoe with /special/ rules./" He flashes a mysterious smile. "But I would be glad for this kind of tusslin'." He curls an arm around Jax's shoulder, drawing him near, smile gentler now, and more lopsided. Bends his head to the other man's, pressing a soft kiss to his lips. "No mistletoe needed.”