(no subject)
WHO: Gabe Coolidge (CHESHIRE CAT) and Ryoko Hashioka (QUEEN OF HEARTS)
WHEN: Backdated to Sunday, March 2nd. Around noontime.
WHERE: Gabe's house.
RATING: R for language and innuendo.
Gabe: The house was quiet. Too quiet. With just Gabe there (plus the gaggle of animals, of course, but they didn't make much noise apart from kitten-paws pitter-pattering across the floor and the occasional honk from the upstairs bathroom), there was hardly any sound at all. Usually, Harrison made some amount of noise - whether it be conversation, or if he was playing music, or they'd be playing Rock Band. With him in New Zealand, though, Gabe's house had a strangely muffled quality to it. He'd been expecting Ryoko that day, so he'd cleaned up a bit that morning, took care of the cats and changed the goose water. He couldn't wait until she could get out of the bathroom and into the back yard. Soon as all the snow melted he was going to start her pond.
He poured himself a drink while he waited, and heard the tell-tale sound of a car door shutting. He peeked out the window - his house was in much better condition than it was a year ago, shingles redone, thing repainted, crown molding up and everything. There was new carpet and tile, too. He was doing a good job of it, even though it was slow. Since he'd quit his job (and had quite a bit more money laying around for improvements) he'd been working on it more and more.
There was Ryoko, in the cab. He opened his door, waved, and nudged a kitten back from the doorway. "No daring escapes today," he told the kitten, with a little grin.
Ryoko: Public transportation is nothing new, though Ryoko feels a little twinge at the loss of uniformed cab drivers with white gloves and automatic doors. The more reasonable fairs, however, more than make up for it. She pays her driver - tip and all - and slides out of the cab, shutting the door behind her and walking at a brisk clip up the drive. She has a dress on, despite the cold, and heels, despite the ice, and a large purse that puts her a little off-center, but she manages without so much of a slip. Modeling was good for something, even if it was only dressing badly for the season and being able to pull it off.
"Hello Gabe," she says, though she's looking at the kitten by his feet. "Doesn't having two levels of the food chain in the house cause problems?" Far be it from her to comment on normal, polite things, like what a lovely neighborhood, what a nice house, etc etc. Inter-house ecology is much more interesting - especially with rare species of goose in the bathroom.
Gabe: "Hi, Ryoko," Gabe said, leaning against the doorway while he watched her make her way up the driveway, absolutely impressed. How did women do that? It wasn't natural, he was pretty sure. "The kittens aren't allowed in the bathroom where the goose is," he told her, smiling a bit; he bent and picked up the kitten, gave it a few pets before he backed up in the doorway to let Ryoko in, and set it down on the floor. "Besides, Gwendolyn could take them all. She's fierce." His goose went through a number of different names on a daily basis. One day he was going to run out of ones that started with 'G'.
"Come in. You look pretty today," he reported, with a smile.
Ryoko: "Gwendolyn?" she repeats, stepping inside. She pauses a moment to step out of her shoes, turning them around so the heel is away from the door and lining them up neatly, out of the way. When she stands up straight again, she passes Gabe her bag. "Of course I do. And you still need to shave your beard. At least trim it."
Ryoko surveys what she can see from the foyer, hand momentarily to her chin. "Not bad," she says at last, before walking further inside. "But then you probably swept up all the empty bottles and pizza boxes before I came. Maybe tossed them out. At least stuffed them in a closet somewhere." She eyes the kitten still meandering about their feet. "こんにちは、ねこちゃん。名前は？" Then to Gabe, in English, "Who's this?" A pause, as she rolls back through what he said earlier. "There's more than one? A kitten herd?"
Gabe: "That's the goose's name today," he informed her with another grin, his typical 'aren't we all so delightfully mad?' grin. He watched her fuss with her shoes, remembering something about that, vaguely, from the last time. Taking her bag, he looked at it for a second, and then moved further into the house to set it on top of the couch. "I don't want to shave," he half-whined, scratching at his beard for a moment. It was getting really, really impressive, he thought. Pretty soon he could call it 'bushy' and not be exaggerating.
"That one's Digby," he told her, with a nod. "Yeah, there's a kitty herd. We have," he tried to count on his fingers. "At least five," he said, with a fair amount of certainty. He couldn't even believe that, a few months ago, he didn't have any pets at all. It seemed impossible. "Want a drink? A tour, maybe?"
Ryoko: "Today," Ryoko repeats, but shrugs. "You know, there's a Dahl story about a man with a horrible beard. Whenever he ate food got caught in it so sometimes he'd just have to dig around inside to find a meal." She makes a face, and appropriately so. "I think he tactfully edited out realities like bacteria and decay. It was for kids after all. But anyway."
After her scare tactics are deployed on the beard situation, she smirks, very faintly, at the kitten, but makes no move to pet it. She just says, "Both. The drink'll salvage your tour if it turns out your house is painfully suburban and boring." She considers as she follows him into the living room, then says, "No beer. Unless that's all you have."
Gabe: Making a face back at her, Gabe stuck his tongue out. "My beard is not a pantry. All my food goes into my mouth, and I do bathe." He sniffed, pretending to be all snobby and rich about it, nose up in the air on his way to the kitchen to pour her a drink. Sometimes, Gabe had surprises up his sleeves - not all the time, just when it came to preparing drinks. He tended to have a lot of liquor laying around, and a lot of free time on his hands. He fixed them both a martini, carrying hers back with a triumphant, self-proud, and somewhat-charming smile.
"Shaken, not stirred," he informed her. He filed it away in his mind that he was going to have to dress as James Bond one day (possibly Halloween, maybe for a costume party, or just some day in general) and reached for her arm. "Allow me to escort you to the Game Room."
Ryoko: "Fine. Personal hygiene. Well done. You're still not getting your mouth anywhere near me until there's a visible chin under that disaster." The way she says it, this is cruel if not uncalled for punishment that she expects to make him buckle within a matter of moments. But then there are martinis, and her mind flits to the next thing. She takes hers with something like a gracious nod, or at least as close as she'll ever get.
"What does that even mean?" But Ryoko takes a sip. Her lips thin a little as she considers, then pronounces, "Good. Your ridiculous free time is paying off. You can study back massage next. My shoulders are fucking killing me." Drink in hand, the level quickly lowered - so as not to spill, of course - she takes his arm. The Game Room gets an eyebrow quirk, but nothing else. This is, after all, a bachelor pad filled with kittens, plus one goose. She's not sure she can expect the typical pool table, card table, XBox setup of a guy game room.
Gabe: Gabe pouted, certainly, upon getting that proclamation. Putting his mouth near Ryoko was definitely one of his favorite pasttimes. He took a sip of his own drink, and took a deep breath to launch into the lengthy explanation of "James Bond, world-renowned spy and lover of women, has made the shaken, not stirred, martini a classic." What man didn't want to be James Bond? The answer was, no man Gabe ever wanted to meet.
"Back massage next," he agreed, with a bright smile, taking her arm and leading her off toward the game room. There was a Rock Band set up, in something that looked like a little stage area. The TV was ridiculously-sized, taking up most of a wall. And there were board games lining shelves in a corner. Gabe loved his board games. Seating looked incredibly comfortable. He was proud of his game room. "Game room," he announced, sipping his martini.
Ryoko: "I know James Bond," comes her indignant reply. "I mean what's the difference between shaking or stirring it." Her irritation fades rapidly, however, when she takes another sip, and says after careful thought, "I'll just have to try another the other way and see if there's any difference." Given she weighs as much as the average preteen and has an empty stomach most of the day, that will probably also be enough to leave her completely drunk. Then again, a diet of lemon juice with cayenne, salad leaves and alcohol may give one an extraordinary tolerance. Studies need to be done.
Ryoko pats Gabe on the arm. "I have you trained so well." Almost affectionate. She looks over the game room as she has other parts of the house, and she doesn't seem especially impressed - until her brain processes that yes, that is some kind of instrumental setup over there. "まじで！ You've got Guitar Hero? Or - what is that? Rock Band? Yes!"
Gabe: "Oh. I have no idea. James Bond likes them shaken," Gabe reasoned. "So they must be better." He grinned at her when she said she'd have another martini - one of his favorite Ryokos was drunk Ryoko - and watched her look around the room. He was a little bit surprised when she recognized Rock Band and sounded happy. He didn't know Ryoko liked video games. He nodded, quickly. "Both, actually! On the Playstation 3."
He could only wait a second or two before asking her, "you play Guitar Hero?" He was impressed. He loved it when girls liked video games. They were either adorable to watch, or they beat him into a pulp, and he could never decide which one he liked more.
Ryoko: "Whatever. I'm sure if they didn't keep swapping out Bonds he'd be a disease bag of STDs by now. So how am I supposed to trust his drink preference?" Then again, her martini glass is nearing empty, so James Bond seems to have done all right. She takes one last sip and sets her empty glass on a side table.
"My sister and I've played it. They've got it in the arcades in Akiba - Akihabara. Electric Town. Whatever you call it here. There's also two other games like it - one where you have to hit these two drums. I don't know what you call them. And the other one you play the shamisen. It's like - I don't know what it's like. A harp and a guitar together maybe? Anyway, Guitar Hero is the best. But I've never done this one." She makes a vague gesture at the setup, her hand now free - though she finds the need to keep her other arm looped with Gabe's, the floor a little unsteady now. "I'll have to see about beating your ass after you finish the tour."
Gabe: "Bond always wears a raincoat," Gabe proclaimed, taking a long drink of his martini, too. He watched her finish hers off, laughing a little bit. "You're going to get drunk," he told her, taking another drink of his own and listening, nodding. "Shamisen?" he echoed, tilting his head thoughtfully. A hartar. Or guarp. Harp and guitar, put together. He'd never heard of it before, but it sounded interesting.
"Rock Band. You can sing, play guitar, drums, or bass," he told her, with a nod. "Oh, really? You're going to kick my ass?" he asked her, finished his own martini off and set the glass down as well. "Through the kitchen for another drink before we head upstairs?" he asked her.
Ryoko: "But he traveled to exotic locations. Who knows what kind of rare things he encountered. Besides, isn't he the definition of the kind of guy who would bitch about a condom because it "feels different" or some bullshit? He's an asshole deep down. You know it." Ryoko nods, once, to punctuate her sound pronouncement on the character and conduct of James Bond.
Rock Band gets a look that may or may not be impressed from Ryoko, though she saves any such comments until she sees it in action. It's all about the interface - and whether or not she can understand the slang the game announcer uses. She definitely never knew what Dance Dance Revolution was saying to her half the time, and that was in her own language. "Yes really," she says. "Especially if we do karaoke. But I'll be generous, and spare you that humiliation by just.. playing an instrument instead." She smirks a little, as if impressed with her own kindness.
"I'll save my second until this one's settled. And there's no more stair-climbing required. And when you're not obviously trying to get me drunk just so you can take video game advantage of me."
Gabe: Gabe bit his lip against confiding in Ryoko that it did feel different - it did, but that didn't mean he was going to bitch about it. "Maybe deep down we're all assholes," he said, pseudo-intellectually, then laughed a little bit. "Instruments it is. I call drums. I'm awesome on the drums." He was the drummer in the band he had with Harrison. And he'd been practicing a lot lately, in his free time. Basically all of his time was free, though.
"For the record, video game advantage isn't the only kind I'm trying to take," he said, grinning a little bit and guiding her around to the hallway, stopping to pull open a closet door. "Here's Egg Drop Point number two," he announced. "First one's upstairs, but it got full." He had a nice start to an egg collection - at least the ones from the past three or four days, fifteen or twenty fist-sized eggs in a plastic bag. He showed them off in a 'look, it's my gold' kind of way.
Ryoko: For all Gabe's discretion, it didn't do him much good. Ryoko is a little tipsy, but she's too well-versed in the language of men to miss that one. "What? So you think it feels different too?" There's the tonal quality of an eye roll in her voice. "Fine, then under 'shave beard' add 'get STD test' to your to-do list. Maybe if you'd been monogamous like I am you could've skipped all the paperwork, but. You behave yourself and come back with a clean bill of health I'll see what I can do." 'Behave yourself' being, of course, Ryoko code for 'do exactly what I want'. But surely Gabe has caught on to such subtleties by now.
An actual eye-roll answers his next comment. "Yes, yes, you want to have sex with me, I can't blame you, story of my life. But just because I'm easy for you doesn't mean I'm cheap - now focus. Tour." She didn't really mean the reminder of the fact she was an expensive/demanding date to coincide with the great golden egg reveal. Honestly she half expected it to be a joke, and if any sort of eggs were presented they'd be of the plastic yellow Easter variety, or maybe some kind of gold foil wrapped chocolate things. But no - when Gabe opens the closet door the eggs sitting inside seem a little beyond Walmart quality. Her arm slackens in his.
"..." Ryoko reaches out to touch one, then pick it up. It's heavy, heavier than she'd thought it would be, and she turns it over in her hands. After examining it for a few seconds, she decides, "Jesus. You were serious." Then also, "Western fairy tales are fucking bizarre. I mean a goose? That seriously lays golden eggs? What the fuck." She seems reluctant to put the egg down, but eventually does, putting it neatly back on top of the others.
Gabe: "It does," he defended, shrugging his shoulders. "That doesn't mean I won't use one or that I'm going to bitch about it. It's just a fact that it does feel different." Wasn't a huge deal or anything, just a fact of nature. He stuck his tongue out at her a little. "Of course I want to have sex with you," he smiled his best smile, and watched her pick up the egg, leaning against the closet door a little bit. "Hey, of course I was serious. And don't make fun of Gwendolyn. She's sensitive about it. Seriously. Thank god for Jack and the Beanstalk."
He closed the closet door after she was finished, leading her on to the staircase. The upstairs was much of the same - two guest bedrooms, Harrison's room, and Gabe's. A bathroom with a goose in it and a closet full of golden eggs. Full of. Then again, he'd had the thing for months.
Ryoko: Ryoko waves her hand dismissively. "Sure sure. I've had one too many condoms come off without the guy noticing to believe that. But fine, you have a closet full of golden eggs, I guess I can suspend my disbelief. Just for you. Anyway I'm on the pill - actually I'm not sure I've had a period since before I started modeling, anyway, not to mention I hate children - so you don't have to bitch. You just have to play nice and get a clean bill of health. Like I said. I'm very generous." She pats him on the arm, before linking hers with his again. That mood may have emerged, or at least been further encouraged, by the same thing that suspended her disbelief. Amazing what a closet full of gold can do.
"Gwendolyn is a duck. Goose. Anyway she doesn't speak - anything except 'goose'. I'll talk shit about her in a language she doesn't understand. Just like I do tourists on the Tokyo subway. You should try it sometime." She makes it upstairs, with Gabe's help, her balance and verbal filter faltering a little where her vocabulary and grammar are staying in tact. Those'll probably take a dive after martini #2, though.
"Shit," she says, when presented with the second closet of eggs, more impressive than the first. "I mean - shit." She just sort of stands there for a minute, then lifts her free hand to rub her temple a bit, attempts to think combined with alcohol proving more difficult than usual. "Okay. So I'll give some people a call. This'll involve some fancy international shipping but I've got the feeling you'll make back what you spend." Pause. "..how the fuck does gold come out of a goose? Just - no. I'm not even going to try. Let's get me another drink."
Gabe: Laughing a little bit, Gabe just nodded in agreement, taking her arm once again and helping her up the stairs. "Hey, she's a gold-laying goose. She's defying physics already. At least if you talk shit to her face, do it in a happy voice so she thinks you're being nice to her." He showed her around, through the bedrooms and pausing by the closet, obviously gold hiding place number one because it was right next to the bathroom.
"I have no idea," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "She's a magic goose. Who even knows? Don't look a gift-goose in the mouth. Or the gold." He nodded a bit, grinning. "Another drink. All right, then, your highness." He opened the bathroom door before they went back down, though, peeking in on Gwendolyn. She honked in approval of the attention and flapped her wings with either excitement or aggression, depending on how you looked at it. "Hi, Gwen!" Bathtub filled with water, goose food in a bowl on top of the toilet seat. They couldn't use that bathroom, but it was worth it.
"This is Ryoko," he introduced her. "Ryoko, this is Gwendolyn Goose. Gwen, we're going to go back downstairs now," he informed her.
Ryoko: "That's more like it. You know that cunt Jake... however you say his name, the King of Hearts, told me to kiss his ring? Bullshit. Everyone knows I had him fucking castrated in Wonderland, but we roll over into a new lifetime and suddenly he's got a pair? He's the one who should be on his knees and'll be lucky if I even let him kiss my - oh hello, goose." Ryoko inclines her head slightly. Despite the fragrant smell of "bird" within a contained area, she only wrinkles her nose, refraining from any sort of disparaging remarks in a nice voice or otherwise.
"I take it you have another bathroom somewhere," she says, after introductions are handled. "Since you were so... what's the word? ... since you said you paid attention to not having a food beard."
Gabe: "He told you to kiss his ring and he's still breathing?" he half-teased, half-asked for serious, blinking at her innocently and listening to her go off about Jake. It was kind of cute, as long as he wasn't on the other side of it. If he was the one she was angry about, he didn't think it was all that cute. "Bye, Gwennie," he told her, wiggling his fingers in a wave and closing the door.
"Downstairs," he told her. "I can't wait until the snow melts and she can go in the back yard. It's chilly out for geese. She couldn't migrate like the other ones." He grinned and winked to her. "Hygienic. The word you're searching for is hygienic. Come on, let's get you another drink." He led the way back to the stairs and then down them, despite Dumbledore's every attempt to trip Gabe and break his neck.
"Stirred, this time?" he asked her.
Ryoko: "It was in the Compendium! If he was in reach I would've strangled the sonofabitch, but no- bye, goose." Ryoko follows Gabe back downstairs, again a look of indignation flashing across her face. "I know hygienic. I was trying to think of something else. But - now I forget. Nevermind. Yes! Stirred. Wonderful. Hello, cat." With Gabe there to provide a cushion should they take a dive down the stairs, she is fully confident she'll make it to the landing alive - and look, so it is.
"Why do you have such a big house?" she asks, when her mind can successfully be put to tasks other than descending stairs. She doesn't follow the question up with any sort of explanation - given where she comes from, where every inch of space is economized, it seems a perfectly legitimate thing to ask in and of itself.
Gabe: "Oh, I see. You just haven't had the time to cut his head off yet," Gabe said, chuckling a little and helping Ryoko make it down without falling, between the cat and her (he felt) ridiculous shoes. Her question made him stop and think, on the way to the kitchen. "I don't really know. It was in my price range, and I liked it a lot, even though it was kind of a dive when I first got here. I wanted something I could work on."
He'd grown up in a house something like his, actually, born into the life of suburban soccer moms and things like that. It was just what he knew. He went about making their drinks when he got to the kitchen, stirring them both and pouring them into the glasses. "One martini, stirred, for the lady," he announced, handing her the glass. "Want to sit down somewhere?"
Ryoko: "Exactly. Or rather, had time to have someone else cut off his head. It's a really tiring process, or so the Yakuza tell me. Not at all a practical way to kill someone unless you can outsource." She explains these intricacies of decapitation with a perfectly straight face. The seriousness, or faux-seriousness, fades when Gabe goes about making her drink, and she watches with mild interest.
"Is that so," is given in response to the house business, and she rests her elbows on the counter with her chin in her hands. "Whatever keeps you busy. Madness from boredom isn't exactly the good kind. Keep that in mind, unemployed bum." And she means 'unemployed bum' in the best possible way. "How do you spend your time anyway? Or is that why I'm here?" She takes her drink. "Sitting. Yes. Lead the way."
Gabe: Chuckling as she described the details of getting someone decapitated, he shook his head and made the drink, and then put his arm around her when he led her off toward the living room. "What have I been doing. Well, lots of fixing up the house. Taking care of the animals. Playing video games. I've spent a couple of days completely drunk the whole way through, and that was fun." He'd been doing what any guy would do, given the choice. Absolutely nothing.
"That's also why you're here," he confessed, ruefully. "But boredom has very little to do with wanting to see you. Even when I have lots to do, I still like seeing you." Gabe was pretty sure that was a compliment. Or at least, he'd intended it as one. He sat on the couch, leaning back with martini glass in hand. It was a good way to start an afternoon together, he thought.
Ryoko: Describing the rigors of decapitation, albeit not in graphic detail, didn't usually get a laugh from anybody - so clearly Ryoko is in good company. She doesn't say anything like that, of course. But she puts a little gold star next to Gabe's name and sips her drink. "So essentially," she says, "you've been a guy." No condescension - just translation, really. "Not that I mind. I do keep you around because you're so good at that 'man' thing." That might be a little sarcastic. It's hard to tell, particularly when she follows it up with another drink.
Sitting on the couch, she pulled up her bare feet and leaned sideways to put her weight on Gabe. One of his many functions was, of course, personal pillow. Though this occasionally came in conflict with his duty as personal servant, it'd do for now. "Aren't you sweet. It's good to know I'm not just a fall back when your schedule empties out." Sip. "Good for your continued health and well-being, that i- hey, there's a cut on your lip." Though she's at a difficult angle, the sheer height difference does help her get a somewhat upside-down look at his face. A hand goes to his beard to tug it a little bit lower. "What'd you do?" She suspects drumming for Rock Band got out of control, but spares him that barb until he admits it himself.
Gabe: "Basically," he agreed, cheerfully, with a big smile and an equally big drink of his martini. He winked at her - it was always good to hear that he excelled at being a man. It was good for the ego. He let his arm stay around her even on the couch, which helped when she leaned on him. He didn't mind being used for a pillow, mostly because Ryoko weighed at least a hundred pounds less than he did.
"Mmhm," he agreed, though frowned when she saw his lip and asked about it. He tipped his head forward a little so she could see, giving her a sullen look. "Kilroy punched me. I didn't even do anything." He'd been whining about it for a good day or so, now, since it'd happened. It still hurt, though. If his chin wasn't so fuzzy, it would be horrible to look at. "May was flirting with me and then he just punched me." There was a pout, here, his lower lip stuck out a little bit.
Ryoko: Ryoko was a little pointy, but as long as she didn't make special effort to push her joints into anything she was generally not a painful person to touch. Well, and as long as she wasn't grabbing one's hair, either - but Gabe is spared that, too, by leaning forward a little. She doesn't pull on his beard quite so much. "He punched you?" she repeats, squinting at the cut, though keeping careful balance in her martini in the other hand. The rest of the information doesn't get a response from her right away, but when she's satisfied, she lets his chin go. "He should know better than to break things that don't belong to him." She sits back. "I'll handle it." Sip. Ominous sip.
Gabe: Once released, Gabe tilted his head back a little, resting it on the back of the couch. "What are you going to do?" he asked her, carefully, reaching over to smooth out her hair a little. He took a drink of his martini, too, though not as ominously as Ryoko had. "That would probably ruin your mysteriousness, if you told me," he added, grinning a bit and taking another drink. "Don't like... fuck him up or anything," he added, with a nervous sort of laugh. He was pretty sure Ryoko wouldn't really behead their friend Kilroy, but you never knew.
Ryoko: "It would. Also, I haven't decided yet." She ponders the surface of her drink. "I'll think of something. But I promise he'll still be in tact. Kilroy is useful, it'd be stupid to permanently damage him or something." Ryoko makes a quiet scoffing sound in the back of her throat, however, and adds, "He just needs to be put in his place." Knowing Ryoko, "that place" is somewhere in the vicinity under her heel.
She takes another sip, then - "Son of a bitch, you planned this. I'm too drunk for Rock Band. Don't think you're getting out of it! Just-" she closes her eyes, briefly pinching the bridge of her nose. "Nothing that requires flashing lights on a screen right now. Later."
Gabe: Giving his best innocent look, he bit his lip to keep from laughing, which hurt because it was cut, so he pouted a little. "Ow. I didn't plan it!" he batted his eyes at her a little. "Honest! How was I going to know you'd get drunk after a martini or two." He didn't mean to mock her, it just sort of happened. "I'll beat you at it later. What do you feel like doing now?" he played with her hair a bit more, contently, taking the occasional drink of martini. Of course, just because he was mocking her didn't mean that he wasn't also a little bit tipsy. Because he definitely, definitely was.
"You have nice hair," he mused. "Shiny."
Ryoko: "I'm still lucid. I just can't handle that hand-eye coordination... thing. You've got no excuse for talking about my hair, lightweight." A pause. "Unless you mixed yours stronger than mine." Which she doesn't get on his case about, because really, it was the smart thing to do. She doesn't bat his hand away from her hair, either, though with fewer drinks in her it might recall the way he treats his cats. But he's safe, and she has a near-empty glass in hand. She finishes the rest, and passes it to him to set on the end table. "I'm the guest. You're supposed to be entertaining me. But if you insist - then I want you to trim your fucking beard." She pats him on the leg. "I'll let you have sex with me after. And possibly even throw a game of Rock Band. Much better than just having me cut it in your sleep, with no reward at all."
Gabe: His innocent look turned more into the cheshire grin, and he laughed a little bit, shaking his head. "Me? Mix mine stronger than yours? I would never." His mouth said 'no', but his grin and stifled giggling and nodding said 'yes'. He set the empty glass on the end table, and then finished his own drink, leaning his head back against the couch. "But that would be selling out," he said, petulantly. "The boys would all call me pussy-whipped if I cut my beard for a woman." Not that he wouldn't do it, of course, he was just concerned about the boys and all.
Ryoko: Somehow, Gabe is not so good about hiding things, particularly not with that smile of his. She just sort of gives him a look, then makes a very put-upon sigh. "Just as long as you're not too drunk. You know how I feel about useless people. And useless people with beards - well, you'd be fucked." Pause. "And in the bad way. If I said screwed - no, that still doesn't work. I need better verbs." Rather than make a mental note, which, at this stage, would vanish in about two minutes, she leans away from Gabe and to her purse, still sitting where he left it when she first came in. Digging around for a moment, she pulls out a notepad and pencil, and scribbles something quickly, serious face all the while. One would assume it's along the lines of 'better verbs'. She tosses it and the pencil back where they came from.
The reprieve was brief. She pokes Gabe in the side. "I'm the fucking Queen. Of course you're whipped. Now cut your beard. Trim? At least trim." A concession, from the fucking Queen? As before, there may well be some golden egg influence in this. All the better for Gabe, really.
Gabe: "We don't really have that many verbs that mean that without also meaning sex," Gabe mused, thoughtfully. He watched her write something, still trying to think of one. "Some weird English thing." He had to wince when he got poked, squirming a bit. "Right, right! Sorry!" he said quickly, shielding himself slightly from any further poking. "Okay, okay, I'll trim it. A little. As much as I have to." Damn it, he was going to miss his beard.
He stroked it a little, thoughtfully. "Okay, we'll trim my beard. And then comes the sex, right?" He grinned at her a bit.
Ryoko: Ryoko might be a little disgusted with how easily their whole relationship works, if she thought of it as a 'relationship' more than a mutual exchange and if she had the ability to be disgusted with herself. But she doesn't, so she isn't, and as Gabe is proving useless on the vocabulary front she nudges him again. "Get to it then. I'll be here, entertaining your cats. And don't even think about coming back with some half-assed trim, or I'm just shaving the whole thing off whether you like it or not."
Gabe: Sighing, Gabe nodded and moved a few moments after being nudged. "Okay, here I go," he said, picking up their glasses to put in the kitchen on his way back to the bathroom. He hummed a good funeral march under his breath, reaching for the clippers. He'd become oddly attached to that beard. It was a guy thing that Ryoko wouldn't have understood, but at least he didn't have to shave it all off. Instead, he gave it a neat trim, working at it for nearly half an hour, making it even and to his liking.
When he finally emerged from the bathroom, he'd pulled his shirt off (it was covered in hair) and peeked into the living room on his way to get a new one. "Trim enough?"
Ryoko: When Gabe returns, Ryoko has somehow acquired four kittens. It's probably a frightening sight, at first, given her volatile manner with people - but as she told Harmony, animals are infinitely more tolerable than human beings. She's leaning back, two kittens in her lap, one more snuggled in the crease between her and the couch cushion, and the last absently pawing at the hem of her dress. She looks up, and regards the newly-trimmed beard with a critical eye.
"That's fine," she decides at last, carefully extracting the kittens from their various places on the couch and setting them on the floor.
Gabe: Laughing a little bit, Gabe just watched her wrangle all those kittens, tilting his head a little bit. "They sure like you," he said, smirking a little bit and moving across the room to the couch next to her, making sure no kittens were harmed in the process. He leaned over, finally claiming the kiss he'd been waiting for, but had previously been too shaggy to be allowed.
WHEN: Backdated to Sunday, March 2nd. Around noontime.
WHERE: Gabe's house.
RATING: R for language and innuendo.
Gabe: The house was quiet. Too quiet. With just Gabe there (plus the gaggle of animals, of course, but they didn't make much noise apart from kitten-paws pitter-pattering across the floor and the occasional honk from the upstairs bathroom), there was hardly any sound at all. Usually, Harrison made some amount of noise - whether it be conversation, or if he was playing music, or they'd be playing Rock Band. With him in New Zealand, though, Gabe's house had a strangely muffled quality to it. He'd been expecting Ryoko that day, so he'd cleaned up a bit that morning, took care of the cats and changed the goose water. He couldn't wait until she could get out of the bathroom and into the back yard. Soon as all the snow melted he was going to start her pond.
He poured himself a drink while he waited, and heard the tell-tale sound of a car door shutting. He peeked out the window - his house was in much better condition than it was a year ago, shingles redone, thing repainted, crown molding up and everything. There was new carpet and tile, too. He was doing a good job of it, even though it was slow. Since he'd quit his job (and had quite a bit more money laying around for improvements) he'd been working on it more and more.
There was Ryoko, in the cab. He opened his door, waved, and nudged a kitten back from the doorway. "No daring escapes today," he told the kitten, with a little grin.
Ryoko: Public transportation is nothing new, though Ryoko feels a little twinge at the loss of uniformed cab drivers with white gloves and automatic doors. The more reasonable fairs, however, more than make up for it. She pays her driver - tip and all - and slides out of the cab, shutting the door behind her and walking at a brisk clip up the drive. She has a dress on, despite the cold, and heels, despite the ice, and a large purse that puts her a little off-center, but she manages without so much of a slip. Modeling was good for something, even if it was only dressing badly for the season and being able to pull it off.
"Hello Gabe," she says, though she's looking at the kitten by his feet. "Doesn't having two levels of the food chain in the house cause problems?" Far be it from her to comment on normal, polite things, like what a lovely neighborhood, what a nice house, etc etc. Inter-house ecology is much more interesting - especially with rare species of goose in the bathroom.
Gabe: "Hi, Ryoko," Gabe said, leaning against the doorway while he watched her make her way up the driveway, absolutely impressed. How did women do that? It wasn't natural, he was pretty sure. "The kittens aren't allowed in the bathroom where the goose is," he told her, smiling a bit; he bent and picked up the kitten, gave it a few pets before he backed up in the doorway to let Ryoko in, and set it down on the floor. "Besides, Gwendolyn could take them all. She's fierce." His goose went through a number of different names on a daily basis. One day he was going to run out of ones that started with 'G'.
"Come in. You look pretty today," he reported, with a smile.
Ryoko: "Gwendolyn?" she repeats, stepping inside. She pauses a moment to step out of her shoes, turning them around so the heel is away from the door and lining them up neatly, out of the way. When she stands up straight again, she passes Gabe her bag. "Of course I do. And you still need to shave your beard. At least trim it."
Ryoko surveys what she can see from the foyer, hand momentarily to her chin. "Not bad," she says at last, before walking further inside. "But then you probably swept up all the empty bottles and pizza boxes before I came. Maybe tossed them out. At least stuffed them in a closet somewhere." She eyes the kitten still meandering about their feet. "こんにちは、ねこちゃん。名前は？" Then to Gabe, in English, "Who's this?" A pause, as she rolls back through what he said earlier. "There's more than one? A kitten herd?"
Gabe: "That's the goose's name today," he informed her with another grin, his typical 'aren't we all so delightfully mad?' grin. He watched her fuss with her shoes, remembering something about that, vaguely, from the last time. Taking her bag, he looked at it for a second, and then moved further into the house to set it on top of the couch. "I don't want to shave," he half-whined, scratching at his beard for a moment. It was getting really, really impressive, he thought. Pretty soon he could call it 'bushy' and not be exaggerating.
"That one's Digby," he told her, with a nod. "Yeah, there's a kitty herd. We have," he tried to count on his fingers. "At least five," he said, with a fair amount of certainty. He couldn't even believe that, a few months ago, he didn't have any pets at all. It seemed impossible. "Want a drink? A tour, maybe?"
Ryoko: "Today," Ryoko repeats, but shrugs. "You know, there's a Dahl story about a man with a horrible beard. Whenever he ate food got caught in it so sometimes he'd just have to dig around inside to find a meal." She makes a face, and appropriately so. "I think he tactfully edited out realities like bacteria and decay. It was for kids after all. But anyway."
After her scare tactics are deployed on the beard situation, she smirks, very faintly, at the kitten, but makes no move to pet it. She just says, "Both. The drink'll salvage your tour if it turns out your house is painfully suburban and boring." She considers as she follows him into the living room, then says, "No beer. Unless that's all you have."
Gabe: Making a face back at her, Gabe stuck his tongue out. "My beard is not a pantry. All my food goes into my mouth, and I do bathe." He sniffed, pretending to be all snobby and rich about it, nose up in the air on his way to the kitchen to pour her a drink. Sometimes, Gabe had surprises up his sleeves - not all the time, just when it came to preparing drinks. He tended to have a lot of liquor laying around, and a lot of free time on his hands. He fixed them both a martini, carrying hers back with a triumphant, self-proud, and somewhat-charming smile.
"Shaken, not stirred," he informed her. He filed it away in his mind that he was going to have to dress as James Bond one day (possibly Halloween, maybe for a costume party, or just some day in general) and reached for her arm. "Allow me to escort you to the Game Room."
Ryoko: "Fine. Personal hygiene. Well done. You're still not getting your mouth anywhere near me until there's a visible chin under that disaster." The way she says it, this is cruel if not uncalled for punishment that she expects to make him buckle within a matter of moments. But then there are martinis, and her mind flits to the next thing. She takes hers with something like a gracious nod, or at least as close as she'll ever get.
"What does that even mean?" But Ryoko takes a sip. Her lips thin a little as she considers, then pronounces, "Good. Your ridiculous free time is paying off. You can study back massage next. My shoulders are fucking killing me." Drink in hand, the level quickly lowered - so as not to spill, of course - she takes his arm. The Game Room gets an eyebrow quirk, but nothing else. This is, after all, a bachelor pad filled with kittens, plus one goose. She's not sure she can expect the typical pool table, card table, XBox setup of a guy game room.
Gabe: Gabe pouted, certainly, upon getting that proclamation. Putting his mouth near Ryoko was definitely one of his favorite pasttimes. He took a sip of his own drink, and took a deep breath to launch into the lengthy explanation of "James Bond, world-renowned spy and lover of women, has made the shaken, not stirred, martini a classic." What man didn't want to be James Bond? The answer was, no man Gabe ever wanted to meet.
"Back massage next," he agreed, with a bright smile, taking her arm and leading her off toward the game room. There was a Rock Band set up, in something that looked like a little stage area. The TV was ridiculously-sized, taking up most of a wall. And there were board games lining shelves in a corner. Gabe loved his board games. Seating looked incredibly comfortable. He was proud of his game room. "Game room," he announced, sipping his martini.
Ryoko: "I know James Bond," comes her indignant reply. "I mean what's the difference between shaking or stirring it." Her irritation fades rapidly, however, when she takes another sip, and says after careful thought, "I'll just have to try another the other way and see if there's any difference." Given she weighs as much as the average preteen and has an empty stomach most of the day, that will probably also be enough to leave her completely drunk. Then again, a diet of lemon juice with cayenne, salad leaves and alcohol may give one an extraordinary tolerance. Studies need to be done.
Ryoko pats Gabe on the arm. "I have you trained so well." Almost affectionate. She looks over the game room as she has other parts of the house, and she doesn't seem especially impressed - until her brain processes that yes, that is some kind of instrumental setup over there. "まじで！ You've got Guitar Hero? Or - what is that? Rock Band? Yes!"
Gabe: "Oh. I have no idea. James Bond likes them shaken," Gabe reasoned. "So they must be better." He grinned at her when she said she'd have another martini - one of his favorite Ryokos was drunk Ryoko - and watched her look around the room. He was a little bit surprised when she recognized Rock Band and sounded happy. He didn't know Ryoko liked video games. He nodded, quickly. "Both, actually! On the Playstation 3."
He could only wait a second or two before asking her, "you play Guitar Hero?" He was impressed. He loved it when girls liked video games. They were either adorable to watch, or they beat him into a pulp, and he could never decide which one he liked more.
Ryoko: "Whatever. I'm sure if they didn't keep swapping out Bonds he'd be a disease bag of STDs by now. So how am I supposed to trust his drink preference?" Then again, her martini glass is nearing empty, so James Bond seems to have done all right. She takes one last sip and sets her empty glass on a side table.
"My sister and I've played it. They've got it in the arcades in Akiba - Akihabara. Electric Town. Whatever you call it here. There's also two other games like it - one where you have to hit these two drums. I don't know what you call them. And the other one you play the shamisen. It's like - I don't know what it's like. A harp and a guitar together maybe? Anyway, Guitar Hero is the best. But I've never done this one." She makes a vague gesture at the setup, her hand now free - though she finds the need to keep her other arm looped with Gabe's, the floor a little unsteady now. "I'll have to see about beating your ass after you finish the tour."
Gabe: "Bond always wears a raincoat," Gabe proclaimed, taking a long drink of his martini, too. He watched her finish hers off, laughing a little bit. "You're going to get drunk," he told her, taking another drink of his own and listening, nodding. "Shamisen?" he echoed, tilting his head thoughtfully. A hartar. Or guarp. Harp and guitar, put together. He'd never heard of it before, but it sounded interesting.
"Rock Band. You can sing, play guitar, drums, or bass," he told her, with a nod. "Oh, really? You're going to kick my ass?" he asked her, finished his own martini off and set the glass down as well. "Through the kitchen for another drink before we head upstairs?" he asked her.
Ryoko: "But he traveled to exotic locations. Who knows what kind of rare things he encountered. Besides, isn't he the definition of the kind of guy who would bitch about a condom because it "feels different" or some bullshit? He's an asshole deep down. You know it." Ryoko nods, once, to punctuate her sound pronouncement on the character and conduct of James Bond.
Rock Band gets a look that may or may not be impressed from Ryoko, though she saves any such comments until she sees it in action. It's all about the interface - and whether or not she can understand the slang the game announcer uses. She definitely never knew what Dance Dance Revolution was saying to her half the time, and that was in her own language. "Yes really," she says. "Especially if we do karaoke. But I'll be generous, and spare you that humiliation by just.. playing an instrument instead." She smirks a little, as if impressed with her own kindness.
"I'll save my second until this one's settled. And there's no more stair-climbing required. And when you're not obviously trying to get me drunk just so you can take video game advantage of me."
Gabe: Gabe bit his lip against confiding in Ryoko that it did feel different - it did, but that didn't mean he was going to bitch about it. "Maybe deep down we're all assholes," he said, pseudo-intellectually, then laughed a little bit. "Instruments it is. I call drums. I'm awesome on the drums." He was the drummer in the band he had with Harrison. And he'd been practicing a lot lately, in his free time. Basically all of his time was free, though.
"For the record, video game advantage isn't the only kind I'm trying to take," he said, grinning a little bit and guiding her around to the hallway, stopping to pull open a closet door. "Here's Egg Drop Point number two," he announced. "First one's upstairs, but it got full." He had a nice start to an egg collection - at least the ones from the past three or four days, fifteen or twenty fist-sized eggs in a plastic bag. He showed them off in a 'look, it's my gold' kind of way.
Ryoko: For all Gabe's discretion, it didn't do him much good. Ryoko is a little tipsy, but she's too well-versed in the language of men to miss that one. "What? So you think it feels different too?" There's the tonal quality of an eye roll in her voice. "Fine, then under 'shave beard' add 'get STD test' to your to-do list. Maybe if you'd been monogamous like I am you could've skipped all the paperwork, but. You behave yourself and come back with a clean bill of health I'll see what I can do." 'Behave yourself' being, of course, Ryoko code for 'do exactly what I want'. But surely Gabe has caught on to such subtleties by now.
An actual eye-roll answers his next comment. "Yes, yes, you want to have sex with me, I can't blame you, story of my life. But just because I'm easy for you doesn't mean I'm cheap - now focus. Tour." She didn't really mean the reminder of the fact she was an expensive/demanding date to coincide with the great golden egg reveal. Honestly she half expected it to be a joke, and if any sort of eggs were presented they'd be of the plastic yellow Easter variety, or maybe some kind of gold foil wrapped chocolate things. But no - when Gabe opens the closet door the eggs sitting inside seem a little beyond Walmart quality. Her arm slackens in his.
"..." Ryoko reaches out to touch one, then pick it up. It's heavy, heavier than she'd thought it would be, and she turns it over in her hands. After examining it for a few seconds, she decides, "Jesus. You were serious." Then also, "Western fairy tales are fucking bizarre. I mean a goose? That seriously lays golden eggs? What the fuck." She seems reluctant to put the egg down, but eventually does, putting it neatly back on top of the others.
Gabe: "It does," he defended, shrugging his shoulders. "That doesn't mean I won't use one or that I'm going to bitch about it. It's just a fact that it does feel different." Wasn't a huge deal or anything, just a fact of nature. He stuck his tongue out at her a little. "Of course I want to have sex with you," he smiled his best smile, and watched her pick up the egg, leaning against the closet door a little bit. "Hey, of course I was serious. And don't make fun of Gwendolyn. She's sensitive about it. Seriously. Thank god for Jack and the Beanstalk."
He closed the closet door after she was finished, leading her on to the staircase. The upstairs was much of the same - two guest bedrooms, Harrison's room, and Gabe's. A bathroom with a goose in it and a closet full of golden eggs. Full of. Then again, he'd had the thing for months.
Ryoko: Ryoko waves her hand dismissively. "Sure sure. I've had one too many condoms come off without the guy noticing to believe that. But fine, you have a closet full of golden eggs, I guess I can suspend my disbelief. Just for you. Anyway I'm on the pill - actually I'm not sure I've had a period since before I started modeling, anyway, not to mention I hate children - so you don't have to bitch. You just have to play nice and get a clean bill of health. Like I said. I'm very generous." She pats him on the arm, before linking hers with his again. That mood may have emerged, or at least been further encouraged, by the same thing that suspended her disbelief. Amazing what a closet full of gold can do.
"Gwendolyn is a duck. Goose. Anyway she doesn't speak - anything except 'goose'. I'll talk shit about her in a language she doesn't understand. Just like I do tourists on the Tokyo subway. You should try it sometime." She makes it upstairs, with Gabe's help, her balance and verbal filter faltering a little where her vocabulary and grammar are staying in tact. Those'll probably take a dive after martini #2, though.
"Shit," she says, when presented with the second closet of eggs, more impressive than the first. "I mean - shit." She just sort of stands there for a minute, then lifts her free hand to rub her temple a bit, attempts to think combined with alcohol proving more difficult than usual. "Okay. So I'll give some people a call. This'll involve some fancy international shipping but I've got the feeling you'll make back what you spend." Pause. "..how the fuck does gold come out of a goose? Just - no. I'm not even going to try. Let's get me another drink."
Gabe: Laughing a little bit, Gabe just nodded in agreement, taking her arm once again and helping her up the stairs. "Hey, she's a gold-laying goose. She's defying physics already. At least if you talk shit to her face, do it in a happy voice so she thinks you're being nice to her." He showed her around, through the bedrooms and pausing by the closet, obviously gold hiding place number one because it was right next to the bathroom.
"I have no idea," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "She's a magic goose. Who even knows? Don't look a gift-goose in the mouth. Or the gold." He nodded a bit, grinning. "Another drink. All right, then, your highness." He opened the bathroom door before they went back down, though, peeking in on Gwendolyn. She honked in approval of the attention and flapped her wings with either excitement or aggression, depending on how you looked at it. "Hi, Gwen!" Bathtub filled with water, goose food in a bowl on top of the toilet seat. They couldn't use that bathroom, but it was worth it.
"This is Ryoko," he introduced her. "Ryoko, this is Gwendolyn Goose. Gwen, we're going to go back downstairs now," he informed her.
Ryoko: "That's more like it. You know that cunt Jake... however you say his name, the King of Hearts, told me to kiss his ring? Bullshit. Everyone knows I had him fucking castrated in Wonderland, but we roll over into a new lifetime and suddenly he's got a pair? He's the one who should be on his knees and'll be lucky if I even let him kiss my - oh hello, goose." Ryoko inclines her head slightly. Despite the fragrant smell of "bird" within a contained area, she only wrinkles her nose, refraining from any sort of disparaging remarks in a nice voice or otherwise.
"I take it you have another bathroom somewhere," she says, after introductions are handled. "Since you were so... what's the word? ... since you said you paid attention to not having a food beard."
Gabe: "He told you to kiss his ring and he's still breathing?" he half-teased, half-asked for serious, blinking at her innocently and listening to her go off about Jake. It was kind of cute, as long as he wasn't on the other side of it. If he was the one she was angry about, he didn't think it was all that cute. "Bye, Gwennie," he told her, wiggling his fingers in a wave and closing the door.
"Downstairs," he told her. "I can't wait until the snow melts and she can go in the back yard. It's chilly out for geese. She couldn't migrate like the other ones." He grinned and winked to her. "Hygienic. The word you're searching for is hygienic. Come on, let's get you another drink." He led the way back to the stairs and then down them, despite Dumbledore's every attempt to trip Gabe and break his neck.
"Stirred, this time?" he asked her.
Ryoko: "It was in the Compendium! If he was in reach I would've strangled the sonofabitch, but no- bye, goose." Ryoko follows Gabe back downstairs, again a look of indignation flashing across her face. "I know hygienic. I was trying to think of something else. But - now I forget. Nevermind. Yes! Stirred. Wonderful. Hello, cat." With Gabe there to provide a cushion should they take a dive down the stairs, she is fully confident she'll make it to the landing alive - and look, so it is.
"Why do you have such a big house?" she asks, when her mind can successfully be put to tasks other than descending stairs. She doesn't follow the question up with any sort of explanation - given where she comes from, where every inch of space is economized, it seems a perfectly legitimate thing to ask in and of itself.
Gabe: "Oh, I see. You just haven't had the time to cut his head off yet," Gabe said, chuckling a little and helping Ryoko make it down without falling, between the cat and her (he felt) ridiculous shoes. Her question made him stop and think, on the way to the kitchen. "I don't really know. It was in my price range, and I liked it a lot, even though it was kind of a dive when I first got here. I wanted something I could work on."
He'd grown up in a house something like his, actually, born into the life of suburban soccer moms and things like that. It was just what he knew. He went about making their drinks when he got to the kitchen, stirring them both and pouring them into the glasses. "One martini, stirred, for the lady," he announced, handing her the glass. "Want to sit down somewhere?"
Ryoko: "Exactly. Or rather, had time to have someone else cut off his head. It's a really tiring process, or so the Yakuza tell me. Not at all a practical way to kill someone unless you can outsource." She explains these intricacies of decapitation with a perfectly straight face. The seriousness, or faux-seriousness, fades when Gabe goes about making her drink, and she watches with mild interest.
"Is that so," is given in response to the house business, and she rests her elbows on the counter with her chin in her hands. "Whatever keeps you busy. Madness from boredom isn't exactly the good kind. Keep that in mind, unemployed bum." And she means 'unemployed bum' in the best possible way. "How do you spend your time anyway? Or is that why I'm here?" She takes her drink. "Sitting. Yes. Lead the way."
Gabe: Chuckling as she described the details of getting someone decapitated, he shook his head and made the drink, and then put his arm around her when he led her off toward the living room. "What have I been doing. Well, lots of fixing up the house. Taking care of the animals. Playing video games. I've spent a couple of days completely drunk the whole way through, and that was fun." He'd been doing what any guy would do, given the choice. Absolutely nothing.
"That's also why you're here," he confessed, ruefully. "But boredom has very little to do with wanting to see you. Even when I have lots to do, I still like seeing you." Gabe was pretty sure that was a compliment. Or at least, he'd intended it as one. He sat on the couch, leaning back with martini glass in hand. It was a good way to start an afternoon together, he thought.
Ryoko: Describing the rigors of decapitation, albeit not in graphic detail, didn't usually get a laugh from anybody - so clearly Ryoko is in good company. She doesn't say anything like that, of course. But she puts a little gold star next to Gabe's name and sips her drink. "So essentially," she says, "you've been a guy." No condescension - just translation, really. "Not that I mind. I do keep you around because you're so good at that 'man' thing." That might be a little sarcastic. It's hard to tell, particularly when she follows it up with another drink.
Sitting on the couch, she pulled up her bare feet and leaned sideways to put her weight on Gabe. One of his many functions was, of course, personal pillow. Though this occasionally came in conflict with his duty as personal servant, it'd do for now. "Aren't you sweet. It's good to know I'm not just a fall back when your schedule empties out." Sip. "Good for your continued health and well-being, that i- hey, there's a cut on your lip." Though she's at a difficult angle, the sheer height difference does help her get a somewhat upside-down look at his face. A hand goes to his beard to tug it a little bit lower. "What'd you do?" She suspects drumming for Rock Band got out of control, but spares him that barb until he admits it himself.
Gabe: "Basically," he agreed, cheerfully, with a big smile and an equally big drink of his martini. He winked at her - it was always good to hear that he excelled at being a man. It was good for the ego. He let his arm stay around her even on the couch, which helped when she leaned on him. He didn't mind being used for a pillow, mostly because Ryoko weighed at least a hundred pounds less than he did.
"Mmhm," he agreed, though frowned when she saw his lip and asked about it. He tipped his head forward a little so she could see, giving her a sullen look. "Kilroy punched me. I didn't even do anything." He'd been whining about it for a good day or so, now, since it'd happened. It still hurt, though. If his chin wasn't so fuzzy, it would be horrible to look at. "May was flirting with me and then he just punched me." There was a pout, here, his lower lip stuck out a little bit.
Ryoko: Ryoko was a little pointy, but as long as she didn't make special effort to push her joints into anything she was generally not a painful person to touch. Well, and as long as she wasn't grabbing one's hair, either - but Gabe is spared that, too, by leaning forward a little. She doesn't pull on his beard quite so much. "He punched you?" she repeats, squinting at the cut, though keeping careful balance in her martini in the other hand. The rest of the information doesn't get a response from her right away, but when she's satisfied, she lets his chin go. "He should know better than to break things that don't belong to him." She sits back. "I'll handle it." Sip. Ominous sip.
Gabe: Once released, Gabe tilted his head back a little, resting it on the back of the couch. "What are you going to do?" he asked her, carefully, reaching over to smooth out her hair a little. He took a drink of his martini, too, though not as ominously as Ryoko had. "That would probably ruin your mysteriousness, if you told me," he added, grinning a bit and taking another drink. "Don't like... fuck him up or anything," he added, with a nervous sort of laugh. He was pretty sure Ryoko wouldn't really behead their friend Kilroy, but you never knew.
Ryoko: "It would. Also, I haven't decided yet." She ponders the surface of her drink. "I'll think of something. But I promise he'll still be in tact. Kilroy is useful, it'd be stupid to permanently damage him or something." Ryoko makes a quiet scoffing sound in the back of her throat, however, and adds, "He just needs to be put in his place." Knowing Ryoko, "that place" is somewhere in the vicinity under her heel.
She takes another sip, then - "Son of a bitch, you planned this. I'm too drunk for Rock Band. Don't think you're getting out of it! Just-" she closes her eyes, briefly pinching the bridge of her nose. "Nothing that requires flashing lights on a screen right now. Later."
Gabe: Giving his best innocent look, he bit his lip to keep from laughing, which hurt because it was cut, so he pouted a little. "Ow. I didn't plan it!" he batted his eyes at her a little. "Honest! How was I going to know you'd get drunk after a martini or two." He didn't mean to mock her, it just sort of happened. "I'll beat you at it later. What do you feel like doing now?" he played with her hair a bit more, contently, taking the occasional drink of martini. Of course, just because he was mocking her didn't mean that he wasn't also a little bit tipsy. Because he definitely, definitely was.
"You have nice hair," he mused. "Shiny."
Ryoko: "I'm still lucid. I just can't handle that hand-eye coordination... thing. You've got no excuse for talking about my hair, lightweight." A pause. "Unless you mixed yours stronger than mine." Which she doesn't get on his case about, because really, it was the smart thing to do. She doesn't bat his hand away from her hair, either, though with fewer drinks in her it might recall the way he treats his cats. But he's safe, and she has a near-empty glass in hand. She finishes the rest, and passes it to him to set on the end table. "I'm the guest. You're supposed to be entertaining me. But if you insist - then I want you to trim your fucking beard." She pats him on the leg. "I'll let you have sex with me after. And possibly even throw a game of Rock Band. Much better than just having me cut it in your sleep, with no reward at all."
Gabe: His innocent look turned more into the cheshire grin, and he laughed a little bit, shaking his head. "Me? Mix mine stronger than yours? I would never." His mouth said 'no', but his grin and stifled giggling and nodding said 'yes'. He set the empty glass on the end table, and then finished his own drink, leaning his head back against the couch. "But that would be selling out," he said, petulantly. "The boys would all call me pussy-whipped if I cut my beard for a woman." Not that he wouldn't do it, of course, he was just concerned about the boys and all.
Ryoko: Somehow, Gabe is not so good about hiding things, particularly not with that smile of his. She just sort of gives him a look, then makes a very put-upon sigh. "Just as long as you're not too drunk. You know how I feel about useless people. And useless people with beards - well, you'd be fucked." Pause. "And in the bad way. If I said screwed - no, that still doesn't work. I need better verbs." Rather than make a mental note, which, at this stage, would vanish in about two minutes, she leans away from Gabe and to her purse, still sitting where he left it when she first came in. Digging around for a moment, she pulls out a notepad and pencil, and scribbles something quickly, serious face all the while. One would assume it's along the lines of 'better verbs'. She tosses it and the pencil back where they came from.
The reprieve was brief. She pokes Gabe in the side. "I'm the fucking Queen. Of course you're whipped. Now cut your beard. Trim? At least trim." A concession, from the fucking Queen? As before, there may well be some golden egg influence in this. All the better for Gabe, really.
Gabe: "We don't really have that many verbs that mean that without also meaning sex," Gabe mused, thoughtfully. He watched her write something, still trying to think of one. "Some weird English thing." He had to wince when he got poked, squirming a bit. "Right, right! Sorry!" he said quickly, shielding himself slightly from any further poking. "Okay, okay, I'll trim it. A little. As much as I have to." Damn it, he was going to miss his beard.
He stroked it a little, thoughtfully. "Okay, we'll trim my beard. And then comes the sex, right?" He grinned at her a bit.
Ryoko: Ryoko might be a little disgusted with how easily their whole relationship works, if she thought of it as a 'relationship' more than a mutual exchange and if she had the ability to be disgusted with herself. But she doesn't, so she isn't, and as Gabe is proving useless on the vocabulary front she nudges him again. "Get to it then. I'll be here, entertaining your cats. And don't even think about coming back with some half-assed trim, or I'm just shaving the whole thing off whether you like it or not."
Gabe: Sighing, Gabe nodded and moved a few moments after being nudged. "Okay, here I go," he said, picking up their glasses to put in the kitchen on his way back to the bathroom. He hummed a good funeral march under his breath, reaching for the clippers. He'd become oddly attached to that beard. It was a guy thing that Ryoko wouldn't have understood, but at least he didn't have to shave it all off. Instead, he gave it a neat trim, working at it for nearly half an hour, making it even and to his liking.
When he finally emerged from the bathroom, he'd pulled his shirt off (it was covered in hair) and peeked into the living room on his way to get a new one. "Trim enough?"
Ryoko: When Gabe returns, Ryoko has somehow acquired four kittens. It's probably a frightening sight, at first, given her volatile manner with people - but as she told Harmony, animals are infinitely more tolerable than human beings. She's leaning back, two kittens in her lap, one more snuggled in the crease between her and the couch cushion, and the last absently pawing at the hem of her dress. She looks up, and regards the newly-trimmed beard with a critical eye.
"That's fine," she decides at last, carefully extracting the kittens from their various places on the couch and setting them on the floor.
Gabe: Laughing a little bit, Gabe just watched her wrangle all those kittens, tilting his head a little bit. "They sure like you," he said, smirking a little bit and moving across the room to the couch next to her, making sure no kittens were harmed in the process. He leaned over, finally claiming the kiss he'd been waiting for, but had previously been too shaggy to be allowed.