Tipping off
So maybe this whole fame thing is working out. Got a tip on a little freaky-deaky nookie between Jean Grey and a terrorist from, of all people, Sebastian Shaw. Who was, of all places, at the bar where I stopped to wet my beak before the train ride home. And who was not at all what I expected in person, either. Crude, simplistic, smarmy - so much better on TV, unlike some of us.
And you know, why not him and why not there? And why not some serendipity for me? After all the crap that's been flying at me lately, I do deserve at least one break, and if this lead pans out . . . if he shows up with more evidence (I lost the photo somewhere outside the bar, but videotapes! My God, I could retire off that) . . . why not, indeed?
I knew she couldn't be as pure and noble as she seemed to be. No one is. No one at all.
11/28/2005
Logfile from Leah of X-Men MUCK.
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A midtown bar on Monday evening, and Leah Canto is sucking at a domestic beer with her eyes pasted to the muted TV over the counter and the racks of bottles and glasses behind it. Brightly colored little people in the magic box are telling her (silently but patiently!) about the latest news from South Korea and Pakistan and other faraway places that ... are not what she wants to see, by the irked line between her brows. "Where's the game?" she demands of the barkeep on his towel-wiping way past. "Steelers-Colts, c'mon. It'll be on in a half-hour." A couple other patrons on the stools alongside her echo muttery agreement, but she finds few very vocal takers in the sparsely populated room, and the 'keep just shrugs, smiles emptily, and continues down the line to refill someone's whiskey sour. The woman scowls at the TV and has a larger swallow.
The door opens with dignity and menace -- and not particularly quietly. Yet, the thump of door against the wall is a controlled one. Just enough of a thump to draw notice, but not enough to give the impression of some idiot swagger making his way through the town like a cowboy. Sebastian Shaw moves dark eyes over the bar and smirks a casual smirk before coming in all the way and letting the door swing shut after him.
An impatient shoulder roll shrugging at her denim jacket, Leah keeps her attention on the TV (oh, look! India now! Pinko effete BBC--) while she divests herself of the covering and slings it over her jeaned thighs. Then she sighs back down into elbow-braced rest over the counter and pushes at her beer bottle. The barkeep coasts by again. She eyes him malevolently.
Those dark eyes fall critically (on the way from barstool to barstool to -- woman. /That/ woman) on Leah's shoulders, back, thighs, rear. Hmm. Elbows. "Having difficulty getting a drink, Ms. Canto?" Shaw calls with dry and happily unwarrented familiarity.
"--Shit," says Ms. Canto to the sound of familiar voice, the sight of familiar face. Happily, reporter's cruelly honed instincts take over in the next second, before an actual gape forms, and instead her eyes and mouth both narrow in a smiling sort of wariness. "No, I'm good, thanks." She plinks her fingernail against the bottle's side. "Just trying to get this damn channel changed to something worth watching. Monday Night Football, man."
Shaw lets his face into a half smile meant to be worn by the higher devils and proceeds to take the stool next to Canto, uninvited. "I think we may have a goal in common. Excuse me," he pitches his voice to carry, "but I will put down fifty dollars to insist that there are more important things than brown savages playing at suits on tonight. Football." He pulls out a wallet. "Please."
While Leah tries to conceal a twitch at that assumed seat (so large, and so near), the barkeep boggles at his newest patron. "Uh," quoth he, intelligently. "Sure, dude. Sure. Fifty? Dude. Dude?" He appeals to Leah, who bares a thin smile and suggests with gentle compassion, "Just change the fucking channel." And so he does, and backs away from the pair of them with his hands wringing his towel and his frat-boy eyes still rolling back in his head. (/Dude./)
With a wiggle of his fingers, Shaw digs into the wallet and lays a crisp fresh fifty on the counter. As soon as it is out of his hands, it is beneath his concern. "And a whiskey, thank you," he adds, and turns his attention to Leah. "There. I have accomplished it for you -- hey, the Steelers. Fancy that."
Leah folds /her/ hands around her beer. Doesn't even so much as glance at that lonely fifty so near, so needing a home-- Eyes firmly on him, she drops her smile in favor of tight-eyed examination. "Yeah, I remember reading somewhere that you're a big homer for those guys. And the Pens, right?"
"Pens, Pens, sure. Has less of a ring to it." Shaw makes the judgement dismissively. His eyes are all for the television now. Let Leah examine. "Steelers. Pens. Which makes better newsprint?"
Baffled silence. "Well, since Crosby's on the team now," Leah finally puts out there, relying on Brooklyn brass to keep her going, "I guess the Penguins, even though their record's not as good at the Steelers', of course." She pauses, glances away. Drinks. And then snorts half a chuckle. "Not that you probably care about any of that. You make your own news, huh?"
"I could buy both the Pens and the Steelers without blinking an eye or lifting the special flap on my wallet." Shaw drums a hand behind him, relatively close to Leah. "But I do care about the Steelers. It's like caring about the Royal Family. Has no bearing whatsoever on reality, but it's comforting in some inane and illogical way."
Leah smiles around the mouth of her beer. "Kinda like you and Sabitha Melcross?"
Grin. Oh, Leah has made Shaw such a /happy/ devil. He could almost clap. "Apt, Ms. Canto. Were we that well known?"
"Well," says a modest Leah, "I /am/ a reporter. And you're both public figures -- or she has been, anyway. Not quite the spotlight hog as some people in this bar are."
"Hah." Shaw succeeds this with a pleased snort. "I wish I could give to Sabitha particular status, but she is but one of many. Don't make too much of a story of it."
Leah turns attention up to the TV. Oh, look. Football. She swigs. She scowls. "I don't put my friends in the news, Mr. Shaw, not unless I have to. Even if I'm no longer--" Stop. Recovery: "--on that beat, I'd still have better things to write about than what bigoted tycoon is buggering which starry-eyed senator's aide."
"Of course. Of course, as a bigoted tycoon with my connections, I could give you," Shaw deigns to glance at her, "much better stories than that. Ah, but she's a friend of yours?"
Leah meets the glance with a fencer's casual expertise, backed by the slight quirk of her smile. "What's it to you? If you want to shop a story around, do tell on, but I'm not selling out my people. Even you must understand that." Faint but clear scorn there: a plebe's forelock-tugging contempt of her betters.
"Oh, come now." The whiskey slides over the bar. Shaw ignores it, despite its insistent position near his elbow. "Selling out is so much fun. Watch. I have no such convictions." He pauses. "How familiar are you with Jean Grey? I'd assume you'd be /passing/ familiar, seeing as you wrote that piece on her papa."
"Your drink's here," Leah helps out like a good little girl and then shoots back, "Some things money can't buy. You might not believe me, but I assure you, it's true. Although Dr. Grey..." She takes a tactical retreat into a swallow, a glance at the game. Her eyes slide back to him, thoughtful and canny. "That's an easier price to meet than Sabitha Melcross."
Shaw tosses a neutral glance over his shoulder. Ah. Whiskey. He turns in his stool to hook a hand around it, holding a pinky out as if he were about to sip tea. His eyes, of course, are tight and amused. "Isn't the good doctor maddening? The way she prances into a room, a presidential memorial speech, even, and beaming angelic will, appeals to the heart-tuggers of the populace."
"Must really stick in your craw," Leah counter sympathetically, looking nothing like, "when you have to deal with her. At that jazz club downtown, say. Word has it you two were pretty chummy, though, so maybe the meeting of minds wasn't so bad?"
Another pleased snort. "I was trying to get her in the sack. Us bigoted tycoons, we /love/ to sully the media angels."
Leah clicks her tongue. Oh, sympathy, indeed. "Yeah, I can imagine. Well, good thing you got all that money, huh? Lets you buy plenty of companionship, whenever you want."
"There's no challenge in compansionship you can buy," Shaw scoffs. "Or value. Could I buy you, for example?"
Leah smiles sweetly. "You can try."
"It's the trying that's entertaining. Sadly, Angelic Grey is out of my league." A sigh. A whiskey sip. "And you, fair reporter of light and truth," Shaw gets just the slyest hint of a glint in his eyes, "are likely as well."
A rude noise. "Try that again," Leah suggests with a mocking lilt to her native alto. "You didn't quite hit the black, Mr. Shaw. I did think you'd be more charming in person. You come across so well on TV, after all -- or maybe it's just easier to wow the folks at The Today Show and the like?"
Shaw turns deep and serious eyes on Leah, one hand still against the glass, the other poised just aft of her shoulder. "Could I pinch your rear?"
Leah glances down at her shoulder. "That's not my rear. Do you need glasses as well as a refresher course at charm school?"
"Yes. But can I?"
"For the right price," Leah reminds him, easing back on her elbow as she twists to face him on her stool. She resettles her jacket across her legs and eyes hard, bright innocence at him. "'Rear' is such a delicate word for the likes of you. Not at all what I expected, truly."
Shaw lowers his hand and tests, "Patootie?"
Leah snorts. "What in God's name did Sabby /ever/ see in you?" She rakes a frank assessment up and down his form, cataloguing with a New York woman's mercenary acuity. "You must be hot shit in bed. That's the only thing I can come up with, unless she's got diamonds and furs and Ferraris squirreled away as morning-after presents."
"Both," Shaw purrs. It is the sort of panther purr that makes startled capybaras run into tree trunks, consumed by blind terror. Certainly. He leans himself back, enough to make assessment that much easier. "I occasionally bribe women to get them into bed, but I have to bribe /all/ of 'em to get them out again. And at an inflated price."
"Do you know Ray Hubbard?" Leah asks abruptly.
"Only his mother." Shaw raises a finger.
Leah twists her lips. "Yeah, cute." She eyes the finger, gaze travelling up its length slowly, languidly, suggestively, and then leaping back to his with sardonic punch over wariness still. "Use that on her?"
Shaw waggles the finger. "Yes." His eyes are momentarily hot. "The fox has a thousand tricks, but turns neurotic and indecisive when he has to make a choice of how to act. I, like the cat, have a single trick. But it's remarkably effective."
An answering, matching flare in leaf-pale brown, but Leah looks sharply away. Football! Yay! She studies the TV, and her voice drifts lightly casual back to him: "Well, lucky women, all of yours, aren't they? But my price is probably too high for that, sorry. Jean Grey I'd sell you, but my dignity, and the ability to think about you without needing to scrub myself in the shower for thirty minutes, cost a little more than one mutie do-gooder."
Shaw is deeply hurt. He folds the finger into a broad, flat hand and lays it on his chest. "Few are so daring as to strike so directly at my person. I'm so very impressed. For that, Ms. Canto, I'll give you Dr. Grey with no obligation on your part. No catch. Will you hear me out? One bigot to another."
"Asshole," Leah tells him without heat: it has the ring of familiarity, hardly more of an insult than his own name would be (and is). She doesn't move her gaze from the game. But she's listening, by the cock of head and tensed shoulder.
"Believe it," Shaw says gently, with an equally gentle smile, and proceeds. "Dr. Grey did refuse my advances. With more poise and diplomacy than you, of course, but being the good vengeful bigot I am, I did some research. This necessarily involved surveillance, bugging, etc. Dr. Grey is not an easy activist to catch getting dirty in public. But my effort had its reward. I found out that Jean was not quite as open about her sexuality as she is about her powers."
Snorting, Leah turns back to him with a roll of her eyes. "/Outing/ someone is so twentieth-century. Are you kidding me? Jean Grey in the sexuality closet isn't a story, not unless live goats or dead bodies are involved."
"Better. Please, don't accuse me of spinning you something so Entertainment Tonight as that." Shaw flicks his fingers. "I trust, as a reporter, you have some familiarity with Magneto's coterie?"
Leah jokes, hard and shiny again, "I've even met him, sure. Nice guy. Fabulous fashion sense. You want to talk about someone in the closet--"
"Likely." Hand flick again. "However, the member of his coterie I am speaking of is, at least presumably, female." Shaw glances at the television. "And blue."
Leah twitches an irritated glance at the damn flicking hand, and shifts a little on her stool. But her spine's straight, and her stare's level. "Blue. A blue female mutant? Belonging to Erik Lensherr ... and involved with Jean Grey?"
"Yes." Shaw kindly sets his hand on the counter. Inert. "Commonly known as Mystique." His eyelids dip regretfully.
"Holy shit," Leah says then, over the bells of memory undoubtedly ringing in her busy, whirling head. "/Her/?"
"Yes. If you're unconvinced, I can provide you with photos, video tape . . . " Shaw leads, unconcerned with reaction.
Leah all but lunges back with, "Yes. Please. Corroboration -- I'm not a tabloid reporter, dammit."
"Of course not," Shaw soothes. "I'd have to give them to you in person. Not the sort of thing I want intercepted in the mail."
Leah scoffs, "You can pay for a courier. And guards on it. The /mail./ You're Sebastian fucking Shaw, in case you forgot."
"I admit," Shaw lifts his chin, tone heightening, "I take such /delight/ in personal visits. Guarded mail is so impersonal."
Unimpressed, Leah says, "You're just a drama queen."
"That, too." Shaw's shoulders pull in in defeat. Then they brighten again. "Do you want a sample? I forgot, I have one photo on my person." He reaches into his jacket.
Leah does not lunge for it. No. She sits demurely, in a fit of politesse that would put the Duchess of Cornwall to gently weeping shame, and awaits the photo with -- all right - rabidly eager eyes.
Slowly (but surely not dramatically!), Shaw draws the photo out and lays it between them on the bar. The resolution is fair -- and it is fairly obvious that the two (well documented) figures in it are kissing and, one would think, enjoying themselves.
Slowly, as if it might vanish like a mirage, Leah puts out her first two fingers to draw the photograph to her. "I see," she says, doing a decent job of suppressing excitement. "And you have more along these lines?"
"Many, many more. Of better quality," Shaw says, the amusement returning to his voice. He lets her get that closer look with magnanimous remove. Save for that tricky amusement. "I thought about publishing it myself, but . . . that might look bitter. And/or hateful." He frowns.
Leah mutters, "Like that's ever stopped you before. You want them all herded into camps and branded like cattle." Has the ring of a direct quote, that, but she doesn't make much of it, no more than she did of the earlier 'asshole.' She's too busy scrutinizing the photo for authenticity and so on. "I'll take this with me, thanks. A few folks at the Post would definitely want a shot at this kind of story, especially around the holidays. Slow news cycles."
"Well, yes," Shaw accedes lightly. "But, sorry, I have to say it." He pauses. Clears his throat. "It's nothing /personal/." Then, he settles, and, again magnimously, lets her examine. "If you want it, you're welcome to it. But if you want more, it'll take some arranging."
A cynical grin, peeled back from her lips like flensed skin. "You don't offend /me,/" Leah tells him. "I'm the mouthpiece of the Friends of Humanity, remember? The voice of the Friends, that's what CNN's calling me these days. How nice." She takes the picture and tucks it in her jacket's folds on her lap. Straightens and looks frankly at him. "Arranging. Fine. What works for you?"
"Oh, right. Bigot to bigot." Shaw shakes his head. "I plumb forgot." And he takes a sip of whiskey. Belated. It's sat there quite a while, poor neglected thing. Oh, right, Leah. "Arranging. Suppose I meet you back here in a week. Same time? Or do you want it sooner?"
"Sooner," Leah says firmly, still staring at him. "You can make it happen; don't tell me you can't. Don't /yank/ my chain, Shaw. Pen's mightier than the sword or the dollar, remember."
"Of course. And I would," Shaw raises his eyebrows, "so hate to fall under your pen." He pulls himself off the stool langorously. "How's Thursday?"
Leah flicks her hand now. "Fine. Here, Thursday, eight o'clock." She pauses after such dictation, though, lapsing back into uneasiness. "If that suits you, of course. I know you must be terribly busy."
"It suits me." He plucks at his jacket. "Hah. I will see you then." Leaving whiskey and fifty on the counter, he begins his stride for the door.
Leah keeps her eyes on him until she can't anymore, and it's thoughtful, and it's greedy, and then she smiles and whispers, "Ass/hole,/" to herself before hopping off the stool and heading straight to the pay phone in the corner by the restrooms. Her jacket swings in one clenched hand, and the photograph -- of course, of course it does! -- swings along with it. (...Doesn't it?)
Well. Perhaps not. A half block after "Shaw" has left the bar, he magically transforms into a skinny kid in a sweater. /That/ can't be good. (But perhaps, like Peter Parker, he takes great photos!)
[Log ends.]
And you know, why not him and why not there? And why not some serendipity for me? After all the crap that's been flying at me lately, I do deserve at least one break, and if this lead pans out . . . if he shows up with more evidence (I lost the photo somewhere outside the bar, but videotapes! My God, I could retire off that) . . . why not, indeed?
I knew she couldn't be as pure and noble as she seemed to be. No one is. No one at all.
11/28/2005
Logfile from Leah of X-Men MUCK.
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A midtown bar on Monday evening, and Leah Canto is sucking at a domestic beer with her eyes pasted to the muted TV over the counter and the racks of bottles and glasses behind it. Brightly colored little people in the magic box are telling her (silently but patiently!) about the latest news from South Korea and Pakistan and other faraway places that ... are not what she wants to see, by the irked line between her brows. "Where's the game?" she demands of the barkeep on his towel-wiping way past. "Steelers-Colts, c'mon. It'll be on in a half-hour." A couple other patrons on the stools alongside her echo muttery agreement, but she finds few very vocal takers in the sparsely populated room, and the 'keep just shrugs, smiles emptily, and continues down the line to refill someone's whiskey sour. The woman scowls at the TV and has a larger swallow.
The door opens with dignity and menace -- and not particularly quietly. Yet, the thump of door against the wall is a controlled one. Just enough of a thump to draw notice, but not enough to give the impression of some idiot swagger making his way through the town like a cowboy. Sebastian Shaw moves dark eyes over the bar and smirks a casual smirk before coming in all the way and letting the door swing shut after him.
An impatient shoulder roll shrugging at her denim jacket, Leah keeps her attention on the TV (oh, look! India now! Pinko effete BBC--) while she divests herself of the covering and slings it over her jeaned thighs. Then she sighs back down into elbow-braced rest over the counter and pushes at her beer bottle. The barkeep coasts by again. She eyes him malevolently.
Those dark eyes fall critically (on the way from barstool to barstool to -- woman. /That/ woman) on Leah's shoulders, back, thighs, rear. Hmm. Elbows. "Having difficulty getting a drink, Ms. Canto?" Shaw calls with dry and happily unwarrented familiarity.
"--Shit," says Ms. Canto to the sound of familiar voice, the sight of familiar face. Happily, reporter's cruelly honed instincts take over in the next second, before an actual gape forms, and instead her eyes and mouth both narrow in a smiling sort of wariness. "No, I'm good, thanks." She plinks her fingernail against the bottle's side. "Just trying to get this damn channel changed to something worth watching. Monday Night Football, man."
Shaw lets his face into a half smile meant to be worn by the higher devils and proceeds to take the stool next to Canto, uninvited. "I think we may have a goal in common. Excuse me," he pitches his voice to carry, "but I will put down fifty dollars to insist that there are more important things than brown savages playing at suits on tonight. Football." He pulls out a wallet. "Please."
While Leah tries to conceal a twitch at that assumed seat (so large, and so near), the barkeep boggles at his newest patron. "Uh," quoth he, intelligently. "Sure, dude. Sure. Fifty? Dude. Dude?" He appeals to Leah, who bares a thin smile and suggests with gentle compassion, "Just change the fucking channel." And so he does, and backs away from the pair of them with his hands wringing his towel and his frat-boy eyes still rolling back in his head. (/Dude./)
With a wiggle of his fingers, Shaw digs into the wallet and lays a crisp fresh fifty on the counter. As soon as it is out of his hands, it is beneath his concern. "And a whiskey, thank you," he adds, and turns his attention to Leah. "There. I have accomplished it for you -- hey, the Steelers. Fancy that."
Leah folds /her/ hands around her beer. Doesn't even so much as glance at that lonely fifty so near, so needing a home-- Eyes firmly on him, she drops her smile in favor of tight-eyed examination. "Yeah, I remember reading somewhere that you're a big homer for those guys. And the Pens, right?"
"Pens, Pens, sure. Has less of a ring to it." Shaw makes the judgement dismissively. His eyes are all for the television now. Let Leah examine. "Steelers. Pens. Which makes better newsprint?"
Baffled silence. "Well, since Crosby's on the team now," Leah finally puts out there, relying on Brooklyn brass to keep her going, "I guess the Penguins, even though their record's not as good at the Steelers', of course." She pauses, glances away. Drinks. And then snorts half a chuckle. "Not that you probably care about any of that. You make your own news, huh?"
"I could buy both the Pens and the Steelers without blinking an eye or lifting the special flap on my wallet." Shaw drums a hand behind him, relatively close to Leah. "But I do care about the Steelers. It's like caring about the Royal Family. Has no bearing whatsoever on reality, but it's comforting in some inane and illogical way."
Leah smiles around the mouth of her beer. "Kinda like you and Sabitha Melcross?"
Grin. Oh, Leah has made Shaw such a /happy/ devil. He could almost clap. "Apt, Ms. Canto. Were we that well known?"
"Well," says a modest Leah, "I /am/ a reporter. And you're both public figures -- or she has been, anyway. Not quite the spotlight hog as some people in this bar are."
"Hah." Shaw succeeds this with a pleased snort. "I wish I could give to Sabitha particular status, but she is but one of many. Don't make too much of a story of it."
Leah turns attention up to the TV. Oh, look. Football. She swigs. She scowls. "I don't put my friends in the news, Mr. Shaw, not unless I have to. Even if I'm no longer--" Stop. Recovery: "--on that beat, I'd still have better things to write about than what bigoted tycoon is buggering which starry-eyed senator's aide."
"Of course. Of course, as a bigoted tycoon with my connections, I could give you," Shaw deigns to glance at her, "much better stories than that. Ah, but she's a friend of yours?"
Leah meets the glance with a fencer's casual expertise, backed by the slight quirk of her smile. "What's it to you? If you want to shop a story around, do tell on, but I'm not selling out my people. Even you must understand that." Faint but clear scorn there: a plebe's forelock-tugging contempt of her betters.
"Oh, come now." The whiskey slides over the bar. Shaw ignores it, despite its insistent position near his elbow. "Selling out is so much fun. Watch. I have no such convictions." He pauses. "How familiar are you with Jean Grey? I'd assume you'd be /passing/ familiar, seeing as you wrote that piece on her papa."
"Your drink's here," Leah helps out like a good little girl and then shoots back, "Some things money can't buy. You might not believe me, but I assure you, it's true. Although Dr. Grey..." She takes a tactical retreat into a swallow, a glance at the game. Her eyes slide back to him, thoughtful and canny. "That's an easier price to meet than Sabitha Melcross."
Shaw tosses a neutral glance over his shoulder. Ah. Whiskey. He turns in his stool to hook a hand around it, holding a pinky out as if he were about to sip tea. His eyes, of course, are tight and amused. "Isn't the good doctor maddening? The way she prances into a room, a presidential memorial speech, even, and beaming angelic will, appeals to the heart-tuggers of the populace."
"Must really stick in your craw," Leah counter sympathetically, looking nothing like, "when you have to deal with her. At that jazz club downtown, say. Word has it you two were pretty chummy, though, so maybe the meeting of minds wasn't so bad?"
Another pleased snort. "I was trying to get her in the sack. Us bigoted tycoons, we /love/ to sully the media angels."
Leah clicks her tongue. Oh, sympathy, indeed. "Yeah, I can imagine. Well, good thing you got all that money, huh? Lets you buy plenty of companionship, whenever you want."
"There's no challenge in compansionship you can buy," Shaw scoffs. "Or value. Could I buy you, for example?"
Leah smiles sweetly. "You can try."
"It's the trying that's entertaining. Sadly, Angelic Grey is out of my league." A sigh. A whiskey sip. "And you, fair reporter of light and truth," Shaw gets just the slyest hint of a glint in his eyes, "are likely as well."
A rude noise. "Try that again," Leah suggests with a mocking lilt to her native alto. "You didn't quite hit the black, Mr. Shaw. I did think you'd be more charming in person. You come across so well on TV, after all -- or maybe it's just easier to wow the folks at The Today Show and the like?"
Shaw turns deep and serious eyes on Leah, one hand still against the glass, the other poised just aft of her shoulder. "Could I pinch your rear?"
Leah glances down at her shoulder. "That's not my rear. Do you need glasses as well as a refresher course at charm school?"
"Yes. But can I?"
"For the right price," Leah reminds him, easing back on her elbow as she twists to face him on her stool. She resettles her jacket across her legs and eyes hard, bright innocence at him. "'Rear' is such a delicate word for the likes of you. Not at all what I expected, truly."
Shaw lowers his hand and tests, "Patootie?"
Leah snorts. "What in God's name did Sabby /ever/ see in you?" She rakes a frank assessment up and down his form, cataloguing with a New York woman's mercenary acuity. "You must be hot shit in bed. That's the only thing I can come up with, unless she's got diamonds and furs and Ferraris squirreled away as morning-after presents."
"Both," Shaw purrs. It is the sort of panther purr that makes startled capybaras run into tree trunks, consumed by blind terror. Certainly. He leans himself back, enough to make assessment that much easier. "I occasionally bribe women to get them into bed, but I have to bribe /all/ of 'em to get them out again. And at an inflated price."
"Do you know Ray Hubbard?" Leah asks abruptly.
"Only his mother." Shaw raises a finger.
Leah twists her lips. "Yeah, cute." She eyes the finger, gaze travelling up its length slowly, languidly, suggestively, and then leaping back to his with sardonic punch over wariness still. "Use that on her?"
Shaw waggles the finger. "Yes." His eyes are momentarily hot. "The fox has a thousand tricks, but turns neurotic and indecisive when he has to make a choice of how to act. I, like the cat, have a single trick. But it's remarkably effective."
An answering, matching flare in leaf-pale brown, but Leah looks sharply away. Football! Yay! She studies the TV, and her voice drifts lightly casual back to him: "Well, lucky women, all of yours, aren't they? But my price is probably too high for that, sorry. Jean Grey I'd sell you, but my dignity, and the ability to think about you without needing to scrub myself in the shower for thirty minutes, cost a little more than one mutie do-gooder."
Shaw is deeply hurt. He folds the finger into a broad, flat hand and lays it on his chest. "Few are so daring as to strike so directly at my person. I'm so very impressed. For that, Ms. Canto, I'll give you Dr. Grey with no obligation on your part. No catch. Will you hear me out? One bigot to another."
"Asshole," Leah tells him without heat: it has the ring of familiarity, hardly more of an insult than his own name would be (and is). She doesn't move her gaze from the game. But she's listening, by the cock of head and tensed shoulder.
"Believe it," Shaw says gently, with an equally gentle smile, and proceeds. "Dr. Grey did refuse my advances. With more poise and diplomacy than you, of course, but being the good vengeful bigot I am, I did some research. This necessarily involved surveillance, bugging, etc. Dr. Grey is not an easy activist to catch getting dirty in public. But my effort had its reward. I found out that Jean was not quite as open about her sexuality as she is about her powers."
Snorting, Leah turns back to him with a roll of her eyes. "/Outing/ someone is so twentieth-century. Are you kidding me? Jean Grey in the sexuality closet isn't a story, not unless live goats or dead bodies are involved."
"Better. Please, don't accuse me of spinning you something so Entertainment Tonight as that." Shaw flicks his fingers. "I trust, as a reporter, you have some familiarity with Magneto's coterie?"
Leah jokes, hard and shiny again, "I've even met him, sure. Nice guy. Fabulous fashion sense. You want to talk about someone in the closet--"
"Likely." Hand flick again. "However, the member of his coterie I am speaking of is, at least presumably, female." Shaw glances at the television. "And blue."
Leah twitches an irritated glance at the damn flicking hand, and shifts a little on her stool. But her spine's straight, and her stare's level. "Blue. A blue female mutant? Belonging to Erik Lensherr ... and involved with Jean Grey?"
"Yes." Shaw kindly sets his hand on the counter. Inert. "Commonly known as Mystique." His eyelids dip regretfully.
"Holy shit," Leah says then, over the bells of memory undoubtedly ringing in her busy, whirling head. "/Her/?"
"Yes. If you're unconvinced, I can provide you with photos, video tape . . . " Shaw leads, unconcerned with reaction.
Leah all but lunges back with, "Yes. Please. Corroboration -- I'm not a tabloid reporter, dammit."
"Of course not," Shaw soothes. "I'd have to give them to you in person. Not the sort of thing I want intercepted in the mail."
Leah scoffs, "You can pay for a courier. And guards on it. The /mail./ You're Sebastian fucking Shaw, in case you forgot."
"I admit," Shaw lifts his chin, tone heightening, "I take such /delight/ in personal visits. Guarded mail is so impersonal."
Unimpressed, Leah says, "You're just a drama queen."
"That, too." Shaw's shoulders pull in in defeat. Then they brighten again. "Do you want a sample? I forgot, I have one photo on my person." He reaches into his jacket.
Leah does not lunge for it. No. She sits demurely, in a fit of politesse that would put the Duchess of Cornwall to gently weeping shame, and awaits the photo with -- all right - rabidly eager eyes.
Slowly (but surely not dramatically!), Shaw draws the photo out and lays it between them on the bar. The resolution is fair -- and it is fairly obvious that the two (well documented) figures in it are kissing and, one would think, enjoying themselves.
Slowly, as if it might vanish like a mirage, Leah puts out her first two fingers to draw the photograph to her. "I see," she says, doing a decent job of suppressing excitement. "And you have more along these lines?"
"Many, many more. Of better quality," Shaw says, the amusement returning to his voice. He lets her get that closer look with magnanimous remove. Save for that tricky amusement. "I thought about publishing it myself, but . . . that might look bitter. And/or hateful." He frowns.
Leah mutters, "Like that's ever stopped you before. You want them all herded into camps and branded like cattle." Has the ring of a direct quote, that, but she doesn't make much of it, no more than she did of the earlier 'asshole.' She's too busy scrutinizing the photo for authenticity and so on. "I'll take this with me, thanks. A few folks at the Post would definitely want a shot at this kind of story, especially around the holidays. Slow news cycles."
"Well, yes," Shaw accedes lightly. "But, sorry, I have to say it." He pauses. Clears his throat. "It's nothing /personal/." Then, he settles, and, again magnimously, lets her examine. "If you want it, you're welcome to it. But if you want more, it'll take some arranging."
A cynical grin, peeled back from her lips like flensed skin. "You don't offend /me,/" Leah tells him. "I'm the mouthpiece of the Friends of Humanity, remember? The voice of the Friends, that's what CNN's calling me these days. How nice." She takes the picture and tucks it in her jacket's folds on her lap. Straightens and looks frankly at him. "Arranging. Fine. What works for you?"
"Oh, right. Bigot to bigot." Shaw shakes his head. "I plumb forgot." And he takes a sip of whiskey. Belated. It's sat there quite a while, poor neglected thing. Oh, right, Leah. "Arranging. Suppose I meet you back here in a week. Same time? Or do you want it sooner?"
"Sooner," Leah says firmly, still staring at him. "You can make it happen; don't tell me you can't. Don't /yank/ my chain, Shaw. Pen's mightier than the sword or the dollar, remember."
"Of course. And I would," Shaw raises his eyebrows, "so hate to fall under your pen." He pulls himself off the stool langorously. "How's Thursday?"
Leah flicks her hand now. "Fine. Here, Thursday, eight o'clock." She pauses after such dictation, though, lapsing back into uneasiness. "If that suits you, of course. I know you must be terribly busy."
"It suits me." He plucks at his jacket. "Hah. I will see you then." Leaving whiskey and fifty on the counter, he begins his stride for the door.
Leah keeps her eyes on him until she can't anymore, and it's thoughtful, and it's greedy, and then she smiles and whispers, "Ass/hole,/" to herself before hopping off the stool and heading straight to the pay phone in the corner by the restrooms. Her jacket swings in one clenched hand, and the photograph -- of course, of course it does! -- swings along with it. (...Doesn't it?)
Well. Perhaps not. A half block after "Shaw" has left the bar, he magically transforms into a skinny kid in a sweater. /That/ can't be good. (But perhaps, like Peter Parker, he takes great photos!)
[Log ends.]