Triple character post! (OTA, Nudge to whomever has not met them yet.)

[lightbulbtrix]

Bradley was in the rec room. He was back to his eternal struggle with improving the television, although at this point it might have made more sense just to build a new one. But this was now a matter of pride. He would best the foul beast, if it took him another month to do so. It had won several battles, but he was determined to win the war.

Comments

For Jack

[verysinister]

Sinister had missed lunch, not surprisingly. He'd been bent over the desk in the infirmary office and pouring over files for the team, putting together a history based on medical records. He'd lost all track of time until his stomach had reminded him.

He might not have been able to literally die of hunger, but it would still be unpleasant.

The door to the kitchen was pushed open. Sinister was dressed not in military dress but in grey slacks, a white button down shirt, and his white lab coat. He glanced at the man already occupying the space as he walked to the fridge.

Re: For Jack

[hunteroffreaks]

Jack's right eye flickered to the newcomer, taking in the white coat. Great. Another one. Honestly, how many doctors (and mutants, for that matter) did one camp need? Even if half the squad got caught in some dire explosion, he doubted this many would be required.

He didn't bother with a greeting, instead he merely continued oiling his blade, but while his hands continued their work automatically, his eye was now following Sinister's every move. One did not live this long by getting sloppy, and Jack had learned to treat every stranger as a possible threat.

Re: For Jack

[verysinister]

The 'possible threat' fixed himself a sandwich. Bread, turkey, lettuce and condiments, all in silence. He found himself an apple and a bottle of water and brought all of it to the table where the other man was and sat without asking. It was public domain, after all.

Sinister ate as silently as he'd made the food and while he did he wondered. The man was a good bit older than the median age of most of the others in the camp and Sinister glanced at him out of the corner of his eye as he placed the face to the bland files he'd been pouring over minutes before. Jack Hendley. Blind in one eye but otherwise phsyically sound.

Human.

[hunteroffreaks]

Jack's hand tightened slightly around the blade he was working on, but otherwise he gave no indication that he was annoyed by the man's presence intruding on what he considered to be his space. Jack was anti-social at the best of times.

The silent two would have made a great pair of poker players, the way they observed one another, not a flicker of emotion running over either face. Jack was sizing the man up. Either he didn't know who Jack was, or he didn't care. He highly doubted the former, the man already had his file. That left the fact he didn't care, and that intrigued Jack. He made no effort to disguise his hawk-like stare as he watched Sinister eat.

[verysinister]

The eagle eyes didn't seem to bother Sinister in the slightest. He made his way through his sandwich with a slow deliberation, washing every other bite down with drink of water. He seemed to enjoy the silence as much as Jack enjoyed trying to silently remind him that the table had been his before Sinister had sat.

When the sandwich had been tucked away and one more mouthful of water swallowed, Sinister picked up the apple and the edge of his jacket, shinning the fruit on the inside of one side. "I confess that I'm curious as to why a human joined a mutant detachment," he said, his English accent cultured and smooth.

The apple was given one last buff before Sinister settled his forearms on the edge of the table with the fruit held between his fingers. "I'm not working with them so much as on them. You, on the other hand..." He let the thought hang.

[hunteroffreaks]

Huh. He spoke, finally. Jack took as much time as Sinister had slowly eating lunch, and finished oiling his blade before he spoke, his voice a low, growling drawl. "I enjoy hunting."

He ran his thumb along the edge of the blade, continuing to appraise the man coolly, pointing the blade at him as an extension of his hand. "You have me at a disadvantage, doctor. You seem to know all about me, while I know nothing about you."

[verysinister]

Enjoyed hunting. My, that was vague. Still, Sinister didn't press the man for a more specific answer. Leaving the apple in his left hand and extended the right across the table, under the blade. "Nathan Milbury. I'm a surgeon and geneticist. An aries." His mouth curled into a dry smile. "Though I have never been fond of long walks on any beach."

[hunteroffreaks]

"I'm not your type," Jack said just as dryly, although there was a little less growl in his voice. He shifted the blade to his right hand as he shook with his left. "Jack Hendley. Mutant hunter, a Scorpio, and currently in the running with Stryker for the title of the most hated human in camp."

[verysinister]

Sinister shook the offered hand and didn't pull away any faster despite the words that passed between them. "My," he said, turning back to his apple, "I suppose that I really should leave in that case. I'd hate for your prized title to rub off on me by association and dim your own glow." Sinister rubbed a spot on the apple with his thumb before taking a crunching bite. He didn't move. Didn't look particularly insulted, impressed, or otherwise.

Mutant hunter. Mutant hunter. And old; Hendley's age pointed to a proficiency with the subject matter. Sinister assumed if otherwise were the case the man would have far more wrong with him than a single lame eye.

Survival of the fittest. Those that would make it past the culling would forge a stronger race.

[hunteroffreaks]

Well, this one was hard to read. His dry words would have enraged Jack had it been anyone else, but coming from this one, it was hard to tell how exactly how he was supposed to take that. Was it meant as an insult, a mockery, what exactly? Jack idly turned the knife over in his hand as he spoke. "Unless you start going around and shooting people in the head, I doubt it."

Nathan appeared to be playing his cards close to the chest. Jack knew there was no reason to be suspicious, but something about him was rubbing his hunting instincts the wrong way. Jack decided to settle it with a simple question. "Are you human, or a mutant?"

[verysinister]

Sinister chewed and swallowed, ignoring the restive knife in the man's hands. Necessarily he disliked people who would kill mutants--despite all reasons they may or may not have--but he was, after all this time, still Darwin's man through and through. Natural selection. Except that perhaps there was a twinge of annoyance for how the odds seemed to be stacked here.

Then again, the sheer temerity of a human who would come into a camp full of mutants and profess himself a hunter of them...

Maybe this was exactly the best place for him to be, in the end.

Sinister took a drink of water and shook his head. "Human. One of very few, if what I hear is to be believed." He inclined his head in Hendley's direction, a vague sort of acknowledgment of the most basic comradery.

[hunteroffreaks]

Jack relaxed just the tiniest bit. It wasn't that he trusted the man, it was the simple fact of being in the presence of someone who couldn't slice him in two with their fingernails, throw him across the room with a thought, or go into him mind and erase all his memories. Someone normal. Someone human.

"About time I got some real company. It's just been me and those M.P.'s, but those half-wits are scared shitless of the big, bad mutants." He snorted. Jack held those automatons more in contempt than he did some of the mutants in camp. Now they had been reduced even further with the rape of Olivia, from simple morons to spineless cowards.

[verysinister]

"Then I doubt they're doing their job very well," Sinister said, taking another bite of his apple and looking Hendley over again. Real company indeed. Though, again, to have made it this far without dying at the hands of some unstable mutant, to have placed himself in the middle of a mutant camp with no cares to hiding what he was...

Sinister had to give him a measure of respect for that. "Can I ask how a mutant hunter ends up working in the middle of a mutant group? That sounds like either a contridiction in terms or else a baited opportunity to me."

[hunteroffreaks]

"Their job is to be cannon fodder, which is about the only thing they are good at."

He put the knife down, lacing his fingers together. What was he supposed to say? That he had come because he'd rather die fighting the creatures he hated instead of slowly dying inch by inch back home at his ranch. That he wanted to prove to himself that he was still useful, instead of some old, outdated relic.

Instead, Jack merely asked, "Do you always ask this many questions, doctor? I came because the military requested a mutant hunter, and I was the only one with enough grit to walk straight into the lion's den."

[verysinister]

"I wasn't aware I was asking more than was polite." Sinister took another bite of his apple. Almost done. He swallowed. "I aplogize, in that case. I'm a doctor. I'm interested in the way people work and you, Mr Hendley, seem like an extraordinarily interesting man." The quiet smile he gave was cool but honest.

[hunteroffreaks]

Jack relaxed just a little more, giving a shrug as he picked his knife back up. "My general outlook on people is to be suspicious of them until they prove me otherwise." If he hadn't, Jack knew he would have been long dead by now. He nodded aa Sinister smiled.