5/13/08 - Elias, Jackson, Bahir, Vincent, Illyana, Mike
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=NYC= Purgatory - East Village - Manhattan
This not Dante's Purgatory, nor the Catholic. It is neither Heaven nor Hell. There are no fires, and no clouds. There is metal.
This is the purgatory of machines: metal twists around the table's edges and strikes down to meld into the floor, melting and flowing to rise again in the hard lines of railing and bars. There is one window, and it is fogged. The glass is reinforced, and then reinforced again. Warmth comes from lighting, which is ample but finely controlled; during the day, it is almost bright, and at night, the lights fall to a bare industrial gleam that pulses to the beat of music that originates from the raised platform to one side of the dance floor, on which the DJ sits enthroned. Booths and tables ring the walls, dancefloor sunken beneath the level of seats. There are softer chairs of cushions and metal, and couches too. The bar is a long and glossy, glassy thing. Bottles glitter. If it is alcoholic, they have it.
Outside, the intermittent flow of humanity (or mutantity, if you want to get cheeky) that approaches the unassuming door of Purgatory finds itself stalled, slowing. It is not so bad that much of a line has developed outside, but there is a moment's awkward vulnerability as each person who enters is vetted against some strange standard. Staff keeps a close eye on those outside. A handful of college kids stand a certain wary distance away, more bark than bite; they hurl slurs with a great deal of enthusiasm, if not much creativity. There are no windows for them to throw rocks in. Sad!
His back to the front wall, Bahir stands with one arm folded over his chest and the other holding a tall glass in a somewhat loose grip. It has an umbrella, and a straw. He's some distance from the door, but his expression is distracted. In communication with a tall, scrupulously polite man working the bouncer line, he says, << Not him, >> as an enterprising sneak worms away from his pals to try to sneak in. Luke turns toward his fellow-bouncer, Mike, and shakes his head at the young man in question, leaving it to him to shake the guy off with whatever excuse.
In respect for the fact that she is going to an establishment with security, Illyana has left her sword behind at Jason's for the evening, and is wearing her knives instead. The hurled words outside make her frown, and her hand hover at the small of her back where her main weapon is, but she leaves it hidden by the hem of her shirt for the moment. She's dressed like a cold-weather native, just her long sleeved peasant blouse style top and jeans, long blond hair loose and tumbled around her shoulders as she waits in line.
Mike holds out a hand, stopping the wormy little fellow. He shakes his head dourly, a frown on his stubbled face, brow knit. It has been a /very/ long shift. He's dressed rather nicely in a suit. Not a terribly expensive one, mind, but still, suit. He meets the sneak's eyes. "Back with the other troublemakers, you," he says, nodding towards the group the boy had snuck off from, letting the sneak come up with his own reasons for the incredibly observant bouncer. He glances towards Illyana, then glances towards Luke.
As his attention turns over others in the line, the slippery resistance of Illyana's thoughts causes Bahir to frown. Trouble? He hesitates a moment, but static is not the same as the dead silence of an inhibitor. He says nothing to the other Pawn supplementing Purgatory's staff, and silence is as good as a nod in this case. Luke waves Illyana in as Mr. Sneak skulks off. He glowers at those he passes on his return to his pals, perhaps looking for reason to cause more trouble.
Elias shuffles forward in line, doing his best to ignore the rowdy ones as he waits. He's dressed in an untucked button down over jeans and leather shoes. He might not attract attention normally, but he's with a pierced, tattooed and glowing young man and continues to engage him in conversation. "Well, it's up to you. We can go somewhere else, but I don't think we'll get much better of a welcome."
Illyana gets out of the way of those coming in behind her, and then just looks around, evaluating the situation and those around her with a guarded air that might catch the attention of other professionals in the form of the bouncers, if they haven't forgotten about her already in the stress of the hard night. Still, there's a healthy dose of curiosity to her expression.
Jackson has gotten well practiced by now at ignoring unfriendly jeers, but the collection of people outside the nightclub does put tension into his posture and the muted silvery-white glow around him flickers intermittently. He stands just a /little/ closer to Elias, one-eyed gaze sliding briefly to the cluster of students before he pulls it back to his companion. His attire is similar: black shirt buttoned and collared, jeans, though his canvas sneakers are leather-free. "Where else would we go?" he asks with a slight twitch of a smile. "I mean -- back home, I guess. But we're s'posed to be /celebrating/."
Plucking the lime green umbrella from the rim of his glass, Bahir pulls it closed with a slight gesture of two fingers. He lifts the glass to his lips and tips it back so that the last of a sweet and sticky alcohol drink slides onto his tongue, and down his throat. And then he needs another! He eyes the bar, contemplatively, and reaches out to try to find Listener. Never the most busy of bars, with its particular clientele, it is even quieter tonight as more than a few people have turned back at the door. She is easy to find.
Oh look. Reason to cause more trouble: "Fuck!" Eyes lighting on Jackson, the man denied entrance goes very still. His expression is clearly frightened, and then it switches all the quicker to anger. "It is a fucking mutant bar. Look at this!" he calls toward his friends, running rather hastily over to join them. Safety in numbers! "Think he's radioactive?" one can be heard asking in clear concern.
Luke, however, is not concerned. Having received no warning, Elias and Jackson are nodded in while he squints after the group outside. He seems mildly disgruntled with just letting them stand out there.
Mike gives a nod to Elias and Jackson as they enter, along with a brief, small smile before his disgruntled expression at the general situation returns. "Hey, they're not breaking any laws. Just being annoying," he asides to Luke. He goes back to screening the crowd, but not before a glance towards his watch, left elbow just a tad stiff in the movement.
Elias places a hand on Jackson's shoulder and nods to Luke and Mike before heading in, without giving the peanut gallery another glance. "Sometimes, Jackson, I think it'd be cool if you were radioactive." A smile tugs at his lips as he surveys the rest of the club. "Drinks first?"
Illyana's eyes find Bahir, and she smiles suddenly. "Adel," she says, in greeting, and starts working her way through the crowd towards him.
Jackson offers Mike a smile that is much brighter than the dimmed light around him. "If you get off soon you should come have drinks with us!" he says to his friend, before slipping inside along with Elias. "If I were radioactive," he answers Elias with a laugh, "it might not end so well for you, all the time y'spend with me. Unless cancer is fashionable this season?" He answers Elias's question in action rather than words, one hand slipping into Elias's as he nods towards the bar.
Wrong! Where Adel would use the moments before Illyana's arrival to shift his stance just a little bit in such a way that he would later adamantly deny ever being a /pose/, Bahir just eyes her. Glass lowered, he drops the umbrella back within and cocks an eyebrow. A vague distraction still fogs his gaze, three-way communication conducted between himself, Luke, and Listener with an impatience that barely makes it to his features.
"After this shift? I'm going to need it," Mike quips to Jackson at the offer.
Elias leads Jackson to the bar before sliding onto a seat. He waves a hand to the bartender and orders himself a cranberry juice. "Nah. Breast cancer is far more fashionable, but I don't think I have the physique to really sell it. I'll just have to be satisfied with the non-toxic, non-lethal you."
Illyana's face falls into a frown at the lack of response. She comes closer to Bahir. "We met with Emma, yes?"
"No." Bahir's expression is /designed/ to cause faces to fall; his tone is just /made/ to trigger frowns. He regards Illyana with a flat expression, before at long last relenting with a grumble: "It sounds as if you met my brother."
Illyana's eyes go wide for a moment with understanding. "Oh! I am sorry." It is a little sardonic rather than apologetic in response to his flatness, and then she fades off into the crowd.
Jackson is totally more adventurous than Eli: he orders a cranberry juice with /soda/, something of the 7-Up variety. His cranberry juice fizzes. "It isn't about the physique," he informs Elias, "it's about your attitude. Enough confidence and you can sell anything!" Drink in hand, now, his gaze flits around the club with idle interest.
"I suppose I could campaign for male breast cancer awareness, but I don't think it'd help sell my clothes to women. Maybe if I feel as they feel -" Eli draws in a deep breath as he forks over cash for the drinks before lifting his to his lips.
Bahir checks his watch, perhaps comparing the time it took to chase Illyana off against his current best. Almost! As he lowers his arm, a rolled shake of his hand twitches his sleeve back down to brush his wrists. Listener, passing by him on her way toward Luke, kicks at his foot in passing by way of greeting. Hello! He nods to her, watching as she drifts over to Luke and starts an easy, idle conversation. She nods to Mike, her smile brief but polite. Just a friend, here to nag a buddy at work! Pushing off the wall, Bahir stops trying to hold the building up as he straightens with a slight stretch.
Jackson's lips curl into a grin behind the rim of his glass. "I think that would be taking things to kind of an extreme for the sake of your work, though. Getting cancer just so you can play up the empathy thing? There must be better ways to sell." His gaze flicks back towards the exit, posture lax and languid now but a hint of worry lingering in his thoughts for the hecklers outside. Just a hint, though, as there are no hecklers to be found /inside/. He catches sight of Bahir, though, as his attention turns that way, and his brow creases in recognition that would be quicker, if not for the distance separating them. He nudges Eli with an elbow, and nods towards Bahir. "Hey -- is that --?"
Mike nods back to Listener, returning to his surveying of the crowd, keeping a careful eye on the troublemakers. His watch beeps, however, and his expression lightens. He looks around for his replacement, giving the other suited man just enough time to take his place before he makes a beeline for the bar. "Rum, now. Leave the bottle," he says, slapping some cash down on the counter as he loosens his tie with his good hand.
"If you play up empathy, people get tired of your cause after a while and sales go down. I'd have to have a new cause every week. And - that would become a cause people would get tired of." Elias finishes his thought as he looks where Jackson directs him, his brows rising as he takes in Bahir's presence. He straightens up a little and smiles to himself. "It's Bahir." He can tell the difference. Mike is nodded to when he gets to the bar.
Is that ... Grumpy? Perhaps! The expression is right, but Bahir lacks the snazzy cap and is a bit over regulation size. So maybe it isn't Grumpy; it's just Bahir. Elias is right. With a last glance over his shoulder toward the doorway and a brief, distracted frown, he verifies that, yes, the hecklers are still outside, but no, they aren't any rowdier than they were before. As he heads for the bar, he ditches his empty glass en route, setting it a table in passing without any concern for whether the woman sitting there minds. From her expression, she does. Oh well!
"Has all that been going on for long?" Jackson asks Mike with a wince, free hand waving towards the exit. His smile brightens at Elias's confirmation, and his gaze tracks Bahir's progress across the room. "Should I take off?" he wonders quietly to Elias, with teasing amusement. "I mean, I wouldn't want to get in between you an' those eyes."
"Long enough," Mike responds, drinking his first swig of rum straight from the bottle. "Evening, you two." It is evening. It is, however, not a very good one. After the first swig, he starts pouring.
Elias chokes when Jackson mentions Bahir's eyes, his ears growing red in embarrassment. It's lucky that his hair mostly covers them. He glances toward Mike briefly, addressing the question finally. "Only if you want to spend some time with Mike. I didn't bring you here to ditch you."
Scarcely seen around the bar scene lately, and even less frequently around Purgatory in particular, short, bald, grumpy, Vincent Lazzaro approaches the entrance with brows knit and his mouth turned down into a faint frown. The circles around his eyes are dark, while the stubble on the sides of his jaw is going a light grey. The overall effect is not particularly approachable, and it doesn't take him long to zero in on the hecklers.
"Wow. Gross," Bahir says, noting Mike and his bottle first. His nose wrinkles slightly, and then he leans forward to get the attention of the bartender. In his lean, his gaze slips past Mike to note Jackson and Elias on the bouncer's other side: a brief nod of recognition to the first becomes a slight widening and then narrowing of his eyes at Elias. Hmm. Oh well! He nods, but not without a moment's hesitation. Then he goes to hassle the bartender: "/Hey/. Down here. It can't take that long to open that bottle of beer. /There/ you go. Now--." Now the bartender turns away. Shocking, right? He looks annoyed.
"Been a /long/ night, alright?" Mike says, draining his glass now before pouring himself another. He watches as Bahir succeeds in annoying the bartender before looking to Jax and Elias. "So, what brings you two here?"
The hecklers zero in on Vincent in turn, happy for another sign of life after the brief rush of activity. "Hey, egg-head! Is the baldness natural, or part of being a mutie freak?" one calls. In another Disney moment, the one who attempted to sneak in calls, "Hey, Dopey! Where's the hat? Did you lose the other dwarves?" For all that, they seem rather intent on remaining a safe distance away. One never knows what dangerous mutants might do: tear off limbs, explode, etc.
"We're celebrating!" Jackson tells Mike, bright tone tempered by a note of uncertainty as he flicks a glance at the bottle of rum Mike drinks from. He returns Bahir's nod, his own accompanied by an entirely un-grumpy smile, coloured more heavily with amusement at Elias than simple friendliness towards Bahir. "Up to you!" he chirrups to his not-quite-date. "I mean, /I/ can hardly compare. He's got an advantage, y'know -- I only have the one left."
Elias greets Bahir's narrowed gaze with an innocent, questioning expression. What? The curiosity doesn't last long, a cringe accompanying Jackson's continued teasing. "I'm assuming you're not going to let up till I go over there and talk to him." He finishes off his juice and leaves the glass on the bar. "Keep'm company, Mike." And he steps away. Instead of bee-lining to Bahir, he heads for the bathroom.
Bahir drums his fingers on the bar with clear impatience. Hellooo. The bartender is not quick to turn back down toward his end, and when he finally does, he is met with a cocked-eyebrow expression of annoyance rather than any sweeter greeting. He draaags toward Bahir, who has eyes only for the promise of alcohol, missing the byplay between Elias and Jackson. At last, he orders, and then waits. It is a moderately involved concoction that involves several bottles and a tall glass. It is pink. This time, he gets neither straw nor umbrella. He pays, and does not tip.
"Fuck off," Vincent calls back, expression changing only to allow for a bristled flash of clenched teeth. There is nothing good-natured about him, or his tone when he tucks his hands into his pockets and decides to keep on moving -- dark eyes flicking only briefly to Listener from the dynamic duo.
Mike raises an eyebrow. "Celebrating what?" he wonders, taking another sip, glancing briefly to Grumpy the notdwarf.
Listener appears to be chatting with Luke, not working herself, but empathy takes in the crank of Vincent's mood while looking for malice. Failing to find it, she gives Luke a brief smile which leads to a nod from the other Pawn. In you go, baldie!
"Uh --" Jackson blushes and scuffs a hand sheepishly through his hair. "Not really anything /worth/ celebrating now that I think about it but -- " He takes a sip of his drink and turns his free (glowing!) hand up wards. "I totally managed to make this light thing less obnoxious the other day. And I almost actually made a picture. That's totally -- half a step back to normal! So -- celebrating. It's entirely possible Eli an' I just both wanted an excuse to go out." He half-turns on his barstool to look down towards Bahir, his greeting -- "Evenin'!" -- a brightly warm contrast to the lingering jangle of nerves underneath. It is rapidly fading, though, the longer they get away from the crowd outside.
Elias doesn't take long getting to the bathroom. The time within is the normal interval and soon he is out once more and heading back to the bar.
Bahir tips his pink and most likely fruity drink in Jackson's direction together with a cranky, but not /unfriendly/ greeting of, "Jackson." He watches the door, rather than the dance floor, with occasional, sidelong glances. Even if he's got a break, it's hard to settle.
"I think that's worth celebrating," Mike says with a grin, leaning on the bar. "Me, I'll be celebrating when the Campus Crusade for Paranoia out there gets bored and goes home." He pours himself another drink. "They have /not/ been making our jobs easy here." He glances to Elias, then back to Jackson before asking in a rather hushed voice, "Are you two..."
Vincent levels a look at Luke that isn't unlike the kind that badass little dogs give to bigger ones when they have some issues with self-perception. It is unimpressed, but accompanied, at least, by a forced half-smile before he steps in, leaving the crowd outside to heckle the concrete for having been walked on by mutants. Or whatever. The path he cuts for the bar is familiar and immediate, as is his order. Miller Lite. He looks sidelong at the others already there, one iris blotched darker than the other, and lets his gaze linger on Jackson for a few seconds before moving to reach for the beer planted lazily in front of him.
Jackson's eyebrows raise curiously at Mike's unfinished question. "-- Aliens?" he supplies in ending. "I can't speak for Elias, but I'm totally terrestrial." He gulps down the rest of his fizzy cranberry juice and leans back against the bar, facing out towards the rest of the club -- his gaze skitters at intervals back towards the door, too, though, less sidelong. "They've gotta give up eventually," he says, with more hope than conviction. Turning back to the others at the bar, his single eye lands on Vincent, and he blinks, brow creasing deeply and a host of exceedingly unpleasant memories abruptly surfacing, though he forces them back and only smiles all the brighter, outwardly. His fingers drum restlessly against his knee, and he shifts uncertainly where he sits.
Elias slides up to the bar once more next to Bahir, facing forward as he waves down the bartender and orders a Shirley Temple. It's manly. He can pull it off. Honest. "So, is this part of your distraction campaign?" Hi, Bahir.
"I like alcohol." Hi, Elias. A Shirley Temple is probably about as manly as whatever it is that Bahir is drinking, giving the luridly vibrant pink hue. He frowns at Vincent, as if trying to place him, while the older man eyes Jackson. "Thus, distraction."
Mike notices the look, glancing between Vincent and Jackson, then going back to his drink with a rather resigned look to him. Whee, rum!
The ring and pinky fingers of his left hand still bound by metal bracing that extends back across his wrist and up his sleeve, Vincent's grip on the bottle is a little awkward while he twists off the cap. He doesn't greet Jackson, but he doesn't slink off into the crowd either, hooking an ankle into a barstool to drag it up under himself instead.
Jackson orders himself another fizzy cranberry juice -- manly drinks all around, really! -- and this time he pays for his and Eli's drinks. "Distraction?" he wonders with a curious tilt of his head. He does offer Vincent greeting, albeit a sparse one, nodding to the older man.
Elias shakes his head as he stirs his drink with his straw. At least his drink doesn't come with an umbrella. He looks over at Jackson when he speaks up and shrugs, glancing over at Bahir. "Yes, but you could drink anywhere. Do the people help or are you a dancer?"
Hey, rum is manly! It's used to make Pina Coladas, and Daiquiris and... okay, maybe not so manly. Hey, Mike's drinking it straight, that counts for something, yes? Oh, and then there's the beer guy. Vincent gets a nod from Mike.
Staring at Vincent does not seem to be helping trigger any memories, so Bahir gives up on it for a lost cause and eyes Elias sidelong. "People are distracting," he says in a prickly, defensive tone. Grr.
Vincent doesn't sit as neatly as he might like. He misjudges the distance initially, and comes close to missing the stool entirely before he tries again -- this time with more success. Mike is given a hard look for his nod, and Jackson gets a wary one, along with a tip of his bottle neck.
Jackson's gaze drops to the bar's surface in response to Vincent's look, and he frowns down at his drink before taking a sip. "Not always in the good way," he tacks on to Bahir's sentiment, nose wrinkling as he half-turns to cast a brief glance back towards the door. His expression smooths back out into a smile shortly after, though. "Alcohol is totally pleasanter about it. At least -- while drinking it."
Mike rolls his eyes at Vincent's hard look. "Good evening all around, I see," he remarks. "And long as you don't overdo it, alcohol's not so bad," says the man sitting there with a increasingly less full bottle of rum.
Elias laughs warmly at Bahir's irritation and leans an elbow on the bar itself. "They have this habit of talking and interacting and never letting up. It's crazy." He takes a sip as he glances between Mike and Jackson, eventually shifting to take in Vincent's appearance. His expression is curious, open, but extremely brief. "How's Duha?"
"That makes them more distracting." Eyes Elias with a cranky wariness that would not at all be out of place on the very feline he asks after, Bahir takes a slow sip of his drink. Sweet though it may be, it makes him no sweeter! "She's fine."
Vincent is an odd mix of disheveled and straight-laced, with a brow lifted for Mike's observation while he rocks the butt of his bottle against the bar. "Could be worse."
"As long as you don't overdo it," Jackson agrees with a lopsided grin and a pointed look towards Mike's bottle. His fingers curl tighter around his quiet non-alcoholic drink, and he flicks a glance back towards Vincent. "It could always be worse."
Mike lifts his glass briefly. "To silver linings, tarnished though they may be." Sip. He considers the bottle, and recaps it. "Hangover and infants do not mix," he says gently.
"Oh, good." Eli settles onto a bar stool and relaxes. "So, with all these people here and distraction abounding, why do you seem so preoccupied? I'm beginning to doubt you picked a useful enough venue tonight."
Bahir does not relax. Leaning against the bar, he looks annoyed, and gives Elias an exasperated glance. "You're kind of obnoxious," he says with a brittle precision of pronunciation, and then gives Mike a briefly horrified look. Hangovers and infants.
"I can take her off your hands in the mornin'," Jackson offers to Mike, "if that rum catches up with you. Gotta work in the afternoon, though, so -- me?" His eye widens slightly at Vincent's remark, though, and then narrows in faint puzzlement. "-- Yes, sir," is his somewhat uncomfortable answer. "You know me."
"I know you," Vincent decides after a lengthy pause, beer half-empty by the time he glances from Jackson to Mike to Bahir. His eyes settle there a moment, one still off-color, and he looks back to his beer. Oook.
"It shouldn't," Mike says, stretching. "I've had more than this." He looks to Vincent as Jax gets uncomfortable, raising an eyebrow.
"Oh, thank god, I can stop worrying when you were going to figure that out." Eli rolls his eyes and follows Bahir's gaze before focusing on his drink. Vincent speaking up catches Eli's attention and he looks up again. When he determines it's not him, he looks around the club toward the dancers.
From Mike to Vincent, Bahir's eyes narrow: he eyes him a moment, earlier not-quite-recognition resurfacing. He arches an eyebrow at him over his drink, with no more than a grunt to answer Elias.
"I know I know you, asshole." Annoyance slivers into Vincent's voice and glare, and his grip tightens on the base of his beer. "Him. The other guy. You." There are a lot of raised brows, and he provides balance by lowering his back at Bahir.
Jackson, oddly, relaxes at this reply, uncomfortable posture easing as he turns back to his soda. His glance slides from Vincent to Bahir curiously.
Mike grabs his rum and pushes off from the counter. "Anyway~," he says. "I'm going to go call a cab and head out. See you tomorrow, Jax. If I wake up with a hangover, expect a visiting goddaughter."
Elias waves to Mike as he leaves, since Bahir is occupied.
"Great." Although Vincent might be right about knowing Jackson, clearly he is wrong in who he calls asshole: that would be Bahir. "Do you want a gold star?" His is not a witty, charming bitchery; it is a cranky, crabby grouchiness.
Jackson's relaxation is noted, and Vincent bristles. Outright anger lines in around his mouth, and he glares hard at the glowing mutant for some time before he switches the look back onto Bahir. Still angry.
And Mike leaves. Angry McAngryFace is not his problem, he's off!
"Visiting Maria almost makes me want to wish a hangover on you," Jackson replies lightly to Mike. "-- 'Night!" His cyclopean gaze narrows briefly on Vincent, and the silvery sheen around him darkens. His head shakes slightly as he looks back down at his drink.
Bahir returns Vincent's angry look with a growing contentment that expresses itself in bitchy smugness: misery loves company! He cocks his eyebrows at him again, thereby ensuring the karmic balance of frown and arch.
"Hi. I'm Elias." Eli slips in the middle of the angry, cranky glare-fest with a slightly exasperated expression. He does smile, it's just delightfully superficial. "Now we all know each other."
Illyana is still here! Imagine that. Having exhausted the entertainment possiblities of the rest of the crowd, she wanders back to eye Bahir from a distance. Eeeeeye. Then she wanders closer to eavesdrop too.
"You have some kind of problem?" Only a little confrontational, Vincent turns enough in his seat to eye Bahir more directly with his...non-blurred eye. Which then flickers back to Elias to take in his introduction. He is perhaps a little edgy, despite his beer.
A whisper of sharpness blades Bahir's voice as dark eyebrows fall and fold toward a faintly irritated frown. "I don't think that /I/ am the one with the problem," he says, pointed. Since he already knows everyone, no need to introduce himself along with Elias, right?
Jackson does not smile, but neither does he look cranky. Mostly just thoughtful, as he nurses a drink that really was not designed for nursing. "P'raps we should maybe have celebrated elsewhere," he says musingly to Elias.
If mutation is a qualification for entry, Rossi has a card that trumps it, though the badge is no longer in evidence past the entrance and the press of bodies outside it. Temper still glitters like a saw-toothed blade in his face, dragging the heavy brows flat over irritated green eyes. He is cop, and he is /here/, a presence -- if not the most spectacular or impressive one, to be sure. Without pausing at the threshold he pushes on, wading his way towards the back.
"You're doubting your decision now?" Eli's smile contains a little more life when directed at Jackson, a glance spared toward Bahir when he finishes. "but the company is so pleasant." He lifts his drink and skirts around to Bahir's other side, letting him glower while he picks up conversation with Jackson. "You haven't danced yet." You. Singular. Not we.
Illyana eyes the bar speculatively. Rossi might recognize that eye--it is that of a twenty-year-old looking at alcohol. Finally she sighs, and drifts even closer to Bahir's conversational sphere.
"Oh. So you're saying you think I have...uh." Uh, indeed. Vincent pauses, brows knit, loses a little steam, and eventually finds the right word. "Problem. At keast I'm not glowing." Less than one beer, and Lazzaro's already getting loud. A couple of heads turn.
Prepared to answer with further bitchiness, Vincent's response throws Bahir off-balance enough that he actually breathes out a soft laugh. It might not be the nicest of laughs, but there it is. He murmurs an acknowledging, "Least you have that going for you," and glances over in Jackson's direction with a faint, thoughtful frown as he takes another sip of his drink.
"I'm working on fixing that," Jackson says, with the careful patience of someone more than used to fielding remarks from curious to hostile. "And dancing is more fun with a partner."
"Glowing makes you target." Illyana is helpful!
A couple of heads turn. Like Rossi's. Which makes three. No beer. He starts out loud. "/Laz--/" he begins, finds himself too far away for conversation and changes direction to carve his way towards Vincent instead. "--fucking tribe of bobbleheads out there. /This/ is where you decide to drink? For Chrissakes." A sentiment that is repeated, with less exasperation and more vulgarity when Bahir's face becomes visible around the shoulder of a passing waiter.
"Oh, good fuck." Elias blurts out at Illyana's remark, but is instantly distracted by Rossi.
As Bahir's gaze turns toward Illyana, Rossi's voice snares his attention. He goes stiff, recognition coming quickly, even before he actually sees him. (It's the swearing that does it, you see.) He glances at Rossi with a bland flatness.
Illyana frowns at Elias. He seems familiar. "I not remember your name," she says a little more politely, and friendly.
"I'm working on," Jackson begins to repeat, before turning to look at the speaker, blinking slightly before offering Illyana a half-smile. "-- Oh. Illy. Hi. Trust me, I'm well aware." There is more blinking when he looks towards Rossi. "Huh."
At the laugh, Vincent is up out of his seat, beer thunked aggressively down onto the bar. Bahir is the target of his aggravation again, only for his intent to apply fist-to-face placed back on pause when Rossi materializes, and Lazzaro glowers at him instead. "Fuck you." Insult of the night, apparently.
"Of course you wouldn't." Eli rolls his head as he narrows his gaze on the blonde woman. "You're far too self-absorbed. Nothing else exists outside of your little world." Mood souring, he turns back toward the bar for a refill.
"You're in a fucking mood," Rossi diagnoses, with a glance at the beer and a less successfully bland look back at Bahir. It requires no telepathy for a flatscan to convey dislike. He has the accessories of /body language/ to communicate with. His speaks volumes. "Haven't seen you in a while, Ragu."
Illyana's face slams blank. "Hello, Jackson," she says with sharp, precise politeness. "How are you?" The pointed forgetting of Elias' existance seems to be aimed like a blow in a sparring match.
"Maybe you just don't remember," Bahir counters with distracted bitchiness, which really isn't funny at all. He keeps a wary eye on Vincent and Rossi both, with a bare flicker of a glance toward the interplay between the others.
"Eli!" Jackson's brow creases briefly, and there is more surprise than reprimand in his tone; he slants a puzzled glance between the two. "I'm -- uh." His eye wanders again, between Bahir and Rossi and Vincent, and he rubs at the back of his neck with one hand. "We were celebrating," he says wryly. "Had a good night before this! -- How've you been?"
"I'm fine." Vincent is not fine. He's puffed up like an angry toad. Or cat. "What the hell do you care? You know this guy?" The question borders on accusing when he lifts his chin at Bahir, and then looks past him, back to staring at Jackson once more.
Funny as a two-by-four applied to Bahir's right eye. There is a split second while Rossi's mind processes the telepath's comment, and then his thoughts flex abruptly violent. "You think that's funny, you fucking quiche?" As an insult, it lacks something of his customary flair. He makes up for it in the hasty step he takes towards the younger man, his hand reaching to grab his collar. Or maybe his ear. "You remember, Sabby. He was a--"
"What? She puts people in danger and then laughs when they can't defend themselves." Eli sounds droll as he responds to Jackson, his tone quite informational. "And she just called you a target. Quaint friend you have there."
Given something more than apparently baseless insults, Illyana's attention snaps back to Elias. "Who in danger? When?" Her English is getting more thickly accented.
"Oh, hey." Bahir's chin lifts just slightly as Rossi angles in, and he sets the drink down with care. It was expensive. He'd hate to drop it and waste it. "Police brutality!" He brings his arms up inside Rossi's to break his grip away with an irritated shake. "/Quiche/? Seriously?"
"The glowing /does/ make me a target," Jackson replies flatly. "And she -- what?" He scrubs his knuckles against his good eye, the crease in his brow reappearing and staying, now. There is more than a hint of alarm in his expression as he looks back to Rossi and Bahir, but it is Vincent that his gaze lingers on, meeting the stare with increased exasperation before turning away.
Vincent is jarred out of his end of the staring contest with Jackson by Rossi moving past to make a grab at Bahir, and he reaches to plant his braced left hand across the bigger man's shoulder. "/Hey/. What--"
"You teleport all over the city, in public, in front of people and when someone speaks up about it, your response? 'It's not my fault if you can't get away.'" Eli's argument loses its heat as cries of police brutality catches his attention. He turns around and gives Bahir and Rossi a most confused look.
"You want me to teleport you?" Illyana asks, wide-eyed and innocent, of Elias.
Rossi makes a sound not expressive of friendship and warm fuzzy feelings, but good judgment -- occasionally a very distant friend to the man, admittedly, but sometimes just within earshot -- takes a hasty seat on the throne of reason. He allows his hand to be swatted aside. "The camel-humper's a telepath," he reminds Vincent, and his mouth thins to a straight, harsh line before relaxing most reluctantly to a less severe set. "Watch yourself, you shithead. --How many beers you had, Lazzaro?"
Jackson's gaze darts to Rossi, and his fingertips rub at one temple as he curls his other hand tighter around his glass and stares down into it. It is very not alcoholic, but his expression suggests that perhaps he is wishing it were.
"You fucking /ass/," Bahir snaps into a hiss, cold anger glinting hard in his eyes. Self-control leashes the first lift of his hand as it snakes up in an aborted snap at Rossi's jaw. Instead, he shoves at his shoulder. PUSH. "Fucking ... /Goomba/." There are appallingly few slurs for those of Italian descent.
"One," comes the combative reply, and Vincent keeps that hand against Rossi's shoulder as if he's not quite sure whether or not he owes it to anyone present to get in the way of a brewing disagreement. "Here," is amended several seconds later. One beer at Purgatory. An unknown quantity of beers prior...to Purgatory. At the shove against Rossi, the ex-cop bows up in Bahir's face way too quickly for the sudden change in mood to be entirely natural. Particularly given how slowly he's following the actual conversation. "Try that again."
"You're a telepath?" Eli is stunned. Illyana is completely forgotten and even dismissed with a wave of his hand. He is completely fixed on Bahir now, even if he's utterly ignored.
Illyana makes as if to grab Elias' arm, watching for his reaction, and possibly Jackson's since both could know what that would mean. She doesn't teleport him, however. She just gives him an acid look on her way out. "Hello to brother," she tells Bahir, expression indicating that she knows perfectly well that he is going to pay no attention to her. Then she wanders out.
Jackson looks entirely unsurprised by this revelation, but his expression is touched with worry as he glances between Eli and Bahir.
The blow against his shoulder forces Rossi back a step, but only one. His retrieval of those inches, the beginning of a step forward again into Bahir's face, is preempted by Vincent's abrupt intercession. Ire, flaring bright in the detective's face, is abruptly redirected by a noseful of baldness and blinking surprise: as though he has found himself suddenly being defended by an angry goldfish. "What the--" he begins. It is a night for beginnings. Not so much for endings.
Bahir's gaze drops down, down, dooown to Vincent, and he angles his posture to maximize the effect of those inches he has on him, pushing right back at him. LOOM. Look, he can loom! He is taller! "Sure. Just stand still. Should go right over you, put a nice polish on your dome," he says, words spilling and running together in irritation so that he can get to the important bit: "You /shit/." That, to Rossi. The tight clench of his jaw (and his whole reaction thus far) is perhaps answer enough for Elias.
Elias' gears spin for a while as he examines Rossi, Vincent and then Bahir, each in turn. He's quiet throughout, rocking back on his feet, bumping into the stool he sat on previously. He frowns, lips sealing shut. Jackson is forgotten now.
For a minute, Vincent just stares stormily up at Bahir, mismatched eyes quietly furious in their upward assessment from beneath the hood of his brows. Then, with all the brusque utility of a man who's spent many years shoving his hands around in other people's pockets, Vincent jabs his good hand down past Hurka-Durka's belt line and claps out of existence in a snarl of black smoke. So do the pants.
The worry deepens in Jackson's expression, gaze still drifting between Elias and Bahir. His jaw tightens as it moves on to Rossi, eye narrowing. He stays silent, and takes another drink of his depressingly bland cranberry drink. A drink that he promptly chokes on as Vincent vanishes with Bahir's pants, his eye wide and alarmed. And watery, with his brief but sudden fit of coughing.
There is -- a moment when Rossi seems about to move, a heartbeat's span when thought, pragmatic, aggressive, but ultimately harmless (barring a little bruising) thought slashes through his mind. What act he is about to take is aborted in a mouthful of nothingness, and he is left, jaw dropped around a word, to step hastily back -- and then back yet again in shock and a jerking cough. "What the /fuck/--!"
Bahir stares just as stormily back! He's all glower and glare right up until the point Vincent goes for his pants. At that point, he pinwheels back, stumbling over the barstool just to his back -- and then his jeans are gone. And boxers or briefs, the world will never know, because he took them /too/. The shirt is long, but not quite long enough without a little help. HE TUGS. HE COVERS. HE /SWEARS/. "That little FUCKER, I'm going to beat the shit out of you BOTH as soon as I get my fucking hands on you--" Of course, his hands are busy protecting what is left of his dignity. A silent mental shout /yanks/ at Luke and Listener, the latter sent after his jacket from the back room.
Elias blinks. He stands stock still for another second or two before he slips off his shirt and hands it over to Bahir in silent offering, his gaze averted as he touches the wad of fabric to Bahir's elbow.
Rossi's hand, raised in unthinking defense against the unexpected, drops to reveal far too much of Bahir to his startled gaze. More of the man than he has dreamt of seeing. More than he had ever wanted to see. It would be unkind of him to laugh. Then again, it is widely acknowledged among his colleagues that he is an asshole. /He laughs/.
Vincent reappears some ten or fifteen feet away, streaming dark smoke with pants in hand. He doesn't laugh. He continues to glower, glare intense in the face of an ongoing stream of threats. "Next time it'll be your legs, asshole."
Jackson is politely not looking, either, as his coughing fit ends. He offers nothing, though his brow creases deeply in concentration. The light around him flickers briefly, but nothing more happens. Concentration is broken, anyway, by Rossi's laughter, and he looks up at the detective with a brief glitter of anger in his eye. It dies quickly. He scrubs a hand across his eyes, and tenses as Vincent reappears.
Cats who have been dumped into icy water have looked happier upon spluttering out than Bahir does as he glares at Rossi. A faint flush warms dusky skin, embarrassment mingling with an anger that rises awful sharply to fury at Vincent's reappearance. << Get. My. Pants, >> he tells Listener, Luke, not particularly picky about which one of them gets it as he strangles the urge to be VERY MEAN to Vincent. He gives Elias a bare glare, hardly gracious in the face of his offered help. He tugs the dangling tails of his shirt a little lower again, hands cupped over DIGNITY.
The reappearance of the teleporter within Purgatory's bounds brings a slight redirect to the path of the oncoming bouncer: tall, dirty-blond, well-muscled, painfully pleasant-natured. "Sir," says Luke to Vincent as he looms on approach, "I'm afraid that's not really appropriate behavior and we're going to have to ask you to leave." He is very earnest, too, as he holds out a hand for the appropriated clothing. How does he keep a straight face? Possibly it is a secondary mutant power, or just the fact that he completely avoids looking at the de-pantsed Pawn.
"Think we're not welcome here anymore, Lazzaro," Rossi manages through a choke of mirth, barely swallowed, that hulas its way through his baritone. He grins fiercely at Bahir one last time, and turns away towards the entrance with a jerk of the head for Vincent. "I'm getting the feeling. Sensitive to atmosphere that way. C'mon. I'll buy you another someplace where the guys staring at your junk aren't fans of track lighting."
Elias turns his head in the direction of the reappeared Vincent, brow furrowing. Eyes shift between him and Luke quickly before his gaze locks on the pants. There's a black waist band peeking out from the top of the jeans. It's hard to see at first, but the longer Eli stars at it, the further it wiggles out. A breath later, a pair of black, cotton boxer-briefs fly out of Vincent's grip, away from the pair of jeans and are caught by the young fashion designer. Eli sighs and hands them over to Bahir, again, not looking.
"Oh yeah?" Vincent says to both Luke and Rossi. Initially he looks like he might be about to start something with the former, but he's distracted by his stolen underpants literally flying out of the jeans. Flying out of the jeans. Flying. With one last irritable look cast at all parties present, he vanishes one last time, leaving one pant leg to fall limply to the floor in his wake. Just the one, with the edge it separated from hissing and smoking with a fringe of black ice.
There are flying underpants happening on Luke's watch. Luke's brow furrows in the quiet confusion of the simple confronted with the bizarre, as his glance slants towards Elias, and then back towards Vincent. Who is then gone. Luke looks down at the pant leg on the floor.
Snatching the underwear with a practically superhuman twitch of speed, Bahir levels a long look on those present which suggests death in a wide array of forms. And then he stalks behind the bar with the last tattered shreds of his dignity wrapped around him, presumably to put his /panties/ on. The bartender is not very gracious about sharing space. "What the /fuck/ did he just do to my jeans, now?" he snaps as Vincent pops off.
Poor Bahir. Rossi does not linger to watch. Vincent's second disappearance elicits little more than a small wince of surprise, and he ambles on in a leisurely fashion towards the exit, still grinning savagely.
Luke glances around the little knot of people remaining in the wake this fit of chaos, and, perhaps prudently, melts back towards his post to make a phone call about video evidence.
Elias grumbles quietly to himself as he rubs at his right eye. He turns his attention to the ground. Eventually, he moves away from the bar and heads toward a table as far away as humanly possible. Yeah, Jackson is draggled along with him.
"Teleported -- just half of them," Jackson says, his face paling slightly and the words spoken more to himself than anyone else. His fingers tighten around his glass and then the abandons the rest of it to slide off his stool, a brief backwards glance shot to Bahir before he is dragged off with Elias.
Thin shirt of finely woven linen suddenly /dreadfully/ inadequate cover when coupled with black boxer-briefs, Bahir stands behind the bar with his arms folded. He is not moving. The bartender glares, but he is /not moving/. Not until Listener returns with his leather jacket; not until his cell phone is out and he's called a cab; not until the cab is /here/ and /honking/. Nope. Standing right here.
Elias settles down in a chair and braces his elbows on the table surface, waiting only a few minutes before he's up again, shooting Jackson a quick look before heading for the exit. He slips back on his shirt as he heads out into the night.
Jackson doesn't even bother to settle; he sits perched on the edge of his chair, watching Elias and content to stay quiet. He follows the older man out of the club with -- maybe a very quick backwards glance to the bar. But just one.
=NYC= Purgatory - East Village - Manhattan
This not Dante's Purgatory, nor the Catholic. It is neither Heaven nor Hell. There are no fires, and no clouds. There is metal.
This is the purgatory of machines: metal twists around the table's edges and strikes down to meld into the floor, melting and flowing to rise again in the hard lines of railing and bars. There is one window, and it is fogged. The glass is reinforced, and then reinforced again. Warmth comes from lighting, which is ample but finely controlled; during the day, it is almost bright, and at night, the lights fall to a bare industrial gleam that pulses to the beat of music that originates from the raised platform to one side of the dance floor, on which the DJ sits enthroned. Booths and tables ring the walls, dancefloor sunken beneath the level of seats. There are softer chairs of cushions and metal, and couches too. The bar is a long and glossy, glassy thing. Bottles glitter. If it is alcoholic, they have it.
Outside, the intermittent flow of humanity (or mutantity, if you want to get cheeky) that approaches the unassuming door of Purgatory finds itself stalled, slowing. It is not so bad that much of a line has developed outside, but there is a moment's awkward vulnerability as each person who enters is vetted against some strange standard. Staff keeps a close eye on those outside. A handful of college kids stand a certain wary distance away, more bark than bite; they hurl slurs with a great deal of enthusiasm, if not much creativity. There are no windows for them to throw rocks in. Sad!
His back to the front wall, Bahir stands with one arm folded over his chest and the other holding a tall glass in a somewhat loose grip. It has an umbrella, and a straw. He's some distance from the door, but his expression is distracted. In communication with a tall, scrupulously polite man working the bouncer line, he says, << Not him, >> as an enterprising sneak worms away from his pals to try to sneak in. Luke turns toward his fellow-bouncer, Mike, and shakes his head at the young man in question, leaving it to him to shake the guy off with whatever excuse.
In respect for the fact that she is going to an establishment with security, Illyana has left her sword behind at Jason's for the evening, and is wearing her knives instead. The hurled words outside make her frown, and her hand hover at the small of her back where her main weapon is, but she leaves it hidden by the hem of her shirt for the moment. She's dressed like a cold-weather native, just her long sleeved peasant blouse style top and jeans, long blond hair loose and tumbled around her shoulders as she waits in line.
Mike holds out a hand, stopping the wormy little fellow. He shakes his head dourly, a frown on his stubbled face, brow knit. It has been a /very/ long shift. He's dressed rather nicely in a suit. Not a terribly expensive one, mind, but still, suit. He meets the sneak's eyes. "Back with the other troublemakers, you," he says, nodding towards the group the boy had snuck off from, letting the sneak come up with his own reasons for the incredibly observant bouncer. He glances towards Illyana, then glances towards Luke.
As his attention turns over others in the line, the slippery resistance of Illyana's thoughts causes Bahir to frown. Trouble? He hesitates a moment, but static is not the same as the dead silence of an inhibitor. He says nothing to the other Pawn supplementing Purgatory's staff, and silence is as good as a nod in this case. Luke waves Illyana in as Mr. Sneak skulks off. He glowers at those he passes on his return to his pals, perhaps looking for reason to cause more trouble.
Elias shuffles forward in line, doing his best to ignore the rowdy ones as he waits. He's dressed in an untucked button down over jeans and leather shoes. He might not attract attention normally, but he's with a pierced, tattooed and glowing young man and continues to engage him in conversation. "Well, it's up to you. We can go somewhere else, but I don't think we'll get much better of a welcome."
Illyana gets out of the way of those coming in behind her, and then just looks around, evaluating the situation and those around her with a guarded air that might catch the attention of other professionals in the form of the bouncers, if they haven't forgotten about her already in the stress of the hard night. Still, there's a healthy dose of curiosity to her expression.
Jackson has gotten well practiced by now at ignoring unfriendly jeers, but the collection of people outside the nightclub does put tension into his posture and the muted silvery-white glow around him flickers intermittently. He stands just a /little/ closer to Elias, one-eyed gaze sliding briefly to the cluster of students before he pulls it back to his companion. His attire is similar: black shirt buttoned and collared, jeans, though his canvas sneakers are leather-free. "Where else would we go?" he asks with a slight twitch of a smile. "I mean -- back home, I guess. But we're s'posed to be /celebrating/."
Plucking the lime green umbrella from the rim of his glass, Bahir pulls it closed with a slight gesture of two fingers. He lifts the glass to his lips and tips it back so that the last of a sweet and sticky alcohol drink slides onto his tongue, and down his throat. And then he needs another! He eyes the bar, contemplatively, and reaches out to try to find Listener. Never the most busy of bars, with its particular clientele, it is even quieter tonight as more than a few people have turned back at the door. She is easy to find.
Oh look. Reason to cause more trouble: "Fuck!" Eyes lighting on Jackson, the man denied entrance goes very still. His expression is clearly frightened, and then it switches all the quicker to anger. "It is a fucking mutant bar. Look at this!" he calls toward his friends, running rather hastily over to join them. Safety in numbers! "Think he's radioactive?" one can be heard asking in clear concern.
Luke, however, is not concerned. Having received no warning, Elias and Jackson are nodded in while he squints after the group outside. He seems mildly disgruntled with just letting them stand out there.
Mike gives a nod to Elias and Jackson as they enter, along with a brief, small smile before his disgruntled expression at the general situation returns. "Hey, they're not breaking any laws. Just being annoying," he asides to Luke. He goes back to screening the crowd, but not before a glance towards his watch, left elbow just a tad stiff in the movement.
Elias places a hand on Jackson's shoulder and nods to Luke and Mike before heading in, without giving the peanut gallery another glance. "Sometimes, Jackson, I think it'd be cool if you were radioactive." A smile tugs at his lips as he surveys the rest of the club. "Drinks first?"
Illyana's eyes find Bahir, and she smiles suddenly. "Adel," she says, in greeting, and starts working her way through the crowd towards him.
Jackson offers Mike a smile that is much brighter than the dimmed light around him. "If you get off soon you should come have drinks with us!" he says to his friend, before slipping inside along with Elias. "If I were radioactive," he answers Elias with a laugh, "it might not end so well for you, all the time y'spend with me. Unless cancer is fashionable this season?" He answers Elias's question in action rather than words, one hand slipping into Elias's as he nods towards the bar.
Wrong! Where Adel would use the moments before Illyana's arrival to shift his stance just a little bit in such a way that he would later adamantly deny ever being a /pose/, Bahir just eyes her. Glass lowered, he drops the umbrella back within and cocks an eyebrow. A vague distraction still fogs his gaze, three-way communication conducted between himself, Luke, and Listener with an impatience that barely makes it to his features.
"After this shift? I'm going to need it," Mike quips to Jackson at the offer.
Elias leads Jackson to the bar before sliding onto a seat. He waves a hand to the bartender and orders himself a cranberry juice. "Nah. Breast cancer is far more fashionable, but I don't think I have the physique to really sell it. I'll just have to be satisfied with the non-toxic, non-lethal you."
Illyana's face falls into a frown at the lack of response. She comes closer to Bahir. "We met with Emma, yes?"
"No." Bahir's expression is /designed/ to cause faces to fall; his tone is just /made/ to trigger frowns. He regards Illyana with a flat expression, before at long last relenting with a grumble: "It sounds as if you met my brother."
Illyana's eyes go wide for a moment with understanding. "Oh! I am sorry." It is a little sardonic rather than apologetic in response to his flatness, and then she fades off into the crowd.
Jackson is totally more adventurous than Eli: he orders a cranberry juice with /soda/, something of the 7-Up variety. His cranberry juice fizzes. "It isn't about the physique," he informs Elias, "it's about your attitude. Enough confidence and you can sell anything!" Drink in hand, now, his gaze flits around the club with idle interest.
"I suppose I could campaign for male breast cancer awareness, but I don't think it'd help sell my clothes to women. Maybe if I feel as they feel -" Eli draws in a deep breath as he forks over cash for the drinks before lifting his to his lips.
Bahir checks his watch, perhaps comparing the time it took to chase Illyana off against his current best. Almost! As he lowers his arm, a rolled shake of his hand twitches his sleeve back down to brush his wrists. Listener, passing by him on her way toward Luke, kicks at his foot in passing by way of greeting. Hello! He nods to her, watching as she drifts over to Luke and starts an easy, idle conversation. She nods to Mike, her smile brief but polite. Just a friend, here to nag a buddy at work! Pushing off the wall, Bahir stops trying to hold the building up as he straightens with a slight stretch.
Jackson's lips curl into a grin behind the rim of his glass. "I think that would be taking things to kind of an extreme for the sake of your work, though. Getting cancer just so you can play up the empathy thing? There must be better ways to sell." His gaze flicks back towards the exit, posture lax and languid now but a hint of worry lingering in his thoughts for the hecklers outside. Just a hint, though, as there are no hecklers to be found /inside/. He catches sight of Bahir, though, as his attention turns that way, and his brow creases in recognition that would be quicker, if not for the distance separating them. He nudges Eli with an elbow, and nods towards Bahir. "Hey -- is that --?"
Mike nods back to Listener, returning to his surveying of the crowd, keeping a careful eye on the troublemakers. His watch beeps, however, and his expression lightens. He looks around for his replacement, giving the other suited man just enough time to take his place before he makes a beeline for the bar. "Rum, now. Leave the bottle," he says, slapping some cash down on the counter as he loosens his tie with his good hand.
"If you play up empathy, people get tired of your cause after a while and sales go down. I'd have to have a new cause every week. And - that would become a cause people would get tired of." Elias finishes his thought as he looks where Jackson directs him, his brows rising as he takes in Bahir's presence. He straightens up a little and smiles to himself. "It's Bahir." He can tell the difference. Mike is nodded to when he gets to the bar.
Is that ... Grumpy? Perhaps! The expression is right, but Bahir lacks the snazzy cap and is a bit over regulation size. So maybe it isn't Grumpy; it's just Bahir. Elias is right. With a last glance over his shoulder toward the doorway and a brief, distracted frown, he verifies that, yes, the hecklers are still outside, but no, they aren't any rowdier than they were before. As he heads for the bar, he ditches his empty glass en route, setting it a table in passing without any concern for whether the woman sitting there minds. From her expression, she does. Oh well!
"Has all that been going on for long?" Jackson asks Mike with a wince, free hand waving towards the exit. His smile brightens at Elias's confirmation, and his gaze tracks Bahir's progress across the room. "Should I take off?" he wonders quietly to Elias, with teasing amusement. "I mean, I wouldn't want to get in between you an' those eyes."
"Long enough," Mike responds, drinking his first swig of rum straight from the bottle. "Evening, you two." It is evening. It is, however, not a very good one. After the first swig, he starts pouring.
Elias chokes when Jackson mentions Bahir's eyes, his ears growing red in embarrassment. It's lucky that his hair mostly covers them. He glances toward Mike briefly, addressing the question finally. "Only if you want to spend some time with Mike. I didn't bring you here to ditch you."
Scarcely seen around the bar scene lately, and even less frequently around Purgatory in particular, short, bald, grumpy, Vincent Lazzaro approaches the entrance with brows knit and his mouth turned down into a faint frown. The circles around his eyes are dark, while the stubble on the sides of his jaw is going a light grey. The overall effect is not particularly approachable, and it doesn't take him long to zero in on the hecklers.
"Wow. Gross," Bahir says, noting Mike and his bottle first. His nose wrinkles slightly, and then he leans forward to get the attention of the bartender. In his lean, his gaze slips past Mike to note Jackson and Elias on the bouncer's other side: a brief nod of recognition to the first becomes a slight widening and then narrowing of his eyes at Elias. Hmm. Oh well! He nods, but not without a moment's hesitation. Then he goes to hassle the bartender: "/Hey/. Down here. It can't take that long to open that bottle of beer. /There/ you go. Now--." Now the bartender turns away. Shocking, right? He looks annoyed.
"Been a /long/ night, alright?" Mike says, draining his glass now before pouring himself another. He watches as Bahir succeeds in annoying the bartender before looking to Jax and Elias. "So, what brings you two here?"
The hecklers zero in on Vincent in turn, happy for another sign of life after the brief rush of activity. "Hey, egg-head! Is the baldness natural, or part of being a mutie freak?" one calls. In another Disney moment, the one who attempted to sneak in calls, "Hey, Dopey! Where's the hat? Did you lose the other dwarves?" For all that, they seem rather intent on remaining a safe distance away. One never knows what dangerous mutants might do: tear off limbs, explode, etc.
"We're celebrating!" Jackson tells Mike, bright tone tempered by a note of uncertainty as he flicks a glance at the bottle of rum Mike drinks from. He returns Bahir's nod, his own accompanied by an entirely un-grumpy smile, coloured more heavily with amusement at Elias than simple friendliness towards Bahir. "Up to you!" he chirrups to his not-quite-date. "I mean, /I/ can hardly compare. He's got an advantage, y'know -- I only have the one left."
Elias greets Bahir's narrowed gaze with an innocent, questioning expression. What? The curiosity doesn't last long, a cringe accompanying Jackson's continued teasing. "I'm assuming you're not going to let up till I go over there and talk to him." He finishes off his juice and leaves the glass on the bar. "Keep'm company, Mike." And he steps away. Instead of bee-lining to Bahir, he heads for the bathroom.
Bahir drums his fingers on the bar with clear impatience. Hellooo. The bartender is not quick to turn back down toward his end, and when he finally does, he is met with a cocked-eyebrow expression of annoyance rather than any sweeter greeting. He draaags toward Bahir, who has eyes only for the promise of alcohol, missing the byplay between Elias and Jackson. At last, he orders, and then waits. It is a moderately involved concoction that involves several bottles and a tall glass. It is pink. This time, he gets neither straw nor umbrella. He pays, and does not tip.
"Fuck off," Vincent calls back, expression changing only to allow for a bristled flash of clenched teeth. There is nothing good-natured about him, or his tone when he tucks his hands into his pockets and decides to keep on moving -- dark eyes flicking only briefly to Listener from the dynamic duo.
Mike raises an eyebrow. "Celebrating what?" he wonders, taking another sip, glancing briefly to Grumpy the notdwarf.
Listener appears to be chatting with Luke, not working herself, but empathy takes in the crank of Vincent's mood while looking for malice. Failing to find it, she gives Luke a brief smile which leads to a nod from the other Pawn. In you go, baldie!
"Uh --" Jackson blushes and scuffs a hand sheepishly through his hair. "Not really anything /worth/ celebrating now that I think about it but -- " He takes a sip of his drink and turns his free (glowing!) hand up wards. "I totally managed to make this light thing less obnoxious the other day. And I almost actually made a picture. That's totally -- half a step back to normal! So -- celebrating. It's entirely possible Eli an' I just both wanted an excuse to go out." He half-turns on his barstool to look down towards Bahir, his greeting -- "Evenin'!" -- a brightly warm contrast to the lingering jangle of nerves underneath. It is rapidly fading, though, the longer they get away from the crowd outside.
Elias doesn't take long getting to the bathroom. The time within is the normal interval and soon he is out once more and heading back to the bar.
Bahir tips his pink and most likely fruity drink in Jackson's direction together with a cranky, but not /unfriendly/ greeting of, "Jackson." He watches the door, rather than the dance floor, with occasional, sidelong glances. Even if he's got a break, it's hard to settle.
"I think that's worth celebrating," Mike says with a grin, leaning on the bar. "Me, I'll be celebrating when the Campus Crusade for Paranoia out there gets bored and goes home." He pours himself another drink. "They have /not/ been making our jobs easy here." He glances to Elias, then back to Jackson before asking in a rather hushed voice, "Are you two..."
Vincent levels a look at Luke that isn't unlike the kind that badass little dogs give to bigger ones when they have some issues with self-perception. It is unimpressed, but accompanied, at least, by a forced half-smile before he steps in, leaving the crowd outside to heckle the concrete for having been walked on by mutants. Or whatever. The path he cuts for the bar is familiar and immediate, as is his order. Miller Lite. He looks sidelong at the others already there, one iris blotched darker than the other, and lets his gaze linger on Jackson for a few seconds before moving to reach for the beer planted lazily in front of him.
Jackson's eyebrows raise curiously at Mike's unfinished question. "-- Aliens?" he supplies in ending. "I can't speak for Elias, but I'm totally terrestrial." He gulps down the rest of his fizzy cranberry juice and leans back against the bar, facing out towards the rest of the club -- his gaze skitters at intervals back towards the door, too, though, less sidelong. "They've gotta give up eventually," he says, with more hope than conviction. Turning back to the others at the bar, his single eye lands on Vincent, and he blinks, brow creasing deeply and a host of exceedingly unpleasant memories abruptly surfacing, though he forces them back and only smiles all the brighter, outwardly. His fingers drum restlessly against his knee, and he shifts uncertainly where he sits.
Elias slides up to the bar once more next to Bahir, facing forward as he waves down the bartender and orders a Shirley Temple. It's manly. He can pull it off. Honest. "So, is this part of your distraction campaign?" Hi, Bahir.
"I like alcohol." Hi, Elias. A Shirley Temple is probably about as manly as whatever it is that Bahir is drinking, giving the luridly vibrant pink hue. He frowns at Vincent, as if trying to place him, while the older man eyes Jackson. "Thus, distraction."
Mike notices the look, glancing between Vincent and Jackson, then going back to his drink with a rather resigned look to him. Whee, rum!
The ring and pinky fingers of his left hand still bound by metal bracing that extends back across his wrist and up his sleeve, Vincent's grip on the bottle is a little awkward while he twists off the cap. He doesn't greet Jackson, but he doesn't slink off into the crowd either, hooking an ankle into a barstool to drag it up under himself instead.
Jackson orders himself another fizzy cranberry juice -- manly drinks all around, really! -- and this time he pays for his and Eli's drinks. "Distraction?" he wonders with a curious tilt of his head. He does offer Vincent greeting, albeit a sparse one, nodding to the older man.
Elias shakes his head as he stirs his drink with his straw. At least his drink doesn't come with an umbrella. He looks over at Jackson when he speaks up and shrugs, glancing over at Bahir. "Yes, but you could drink anywhere. Do the people help or are you a dancer?"
Hey, rum is manly! It's used to make Pina Coladas, and Daiquiris and... okay, maybe not so manly. Hey, Mike's drinking it straight, that counts for something, yes? Oh, and then there's the beer guy. Vincent gets a nod from Mike.
Staring at Vincent does not seem to be helping trigger any memories, so Bahir gives up on it for a lost cause and eyes Elias sidelong. "People are distracting," he says in a prickly, defensive tone. Grr.
Vincent doesn't sit as neatly as he might like. He misjudges the distance initially, and comes close to missing the stool entirely before he tries again -- this time with more success. Mike is given a hard look for his nod, and Jackson gets a wary one, along with a tip of his bottle neck.
Jackson's gaze drops to the bar's surface in response to Vincent's look, and he frowns down at his drink before taking a sip. "Not always in the good way," he tacks on to Bahir's sentiment, nose wrinkling as he half-turns to cast a brief glance back towards the door. His expression smooths back out into a smile shortly after, though. "Alcohol is totally pleasanter about it. At least -- while drinking it."
Mike rolls his eyes at Vincent's hard look. "Good evening all around, I see," he remarks. "And long as you don't overdo it, alcohol's not so bad," says the man sitting there with a increasingly less full bottle of rum.
Elias laughs warmly at Bahir's irritation and leans an elbow on the bar itself. "They have this habit of talking and interacting and never letting up. It's crazy." He takes a sip as he glances between Mike and Jackson, eventually shifting to take in Vincent's appearance. His expression is curious, open, but extremely brief. "How's Duha?"
"That makes them more distracting." Eyes Elias with a cranky wariness that would not at all be out of place on the very feline he asks after, Bahir takes a slow sip of his drink. Sweet though it may be, it makes him no sweeter! "She's fine."
Vincent is an odd mix of disheveled and straight-laced, with a brow lifted for Mike's observation while he rocks the butt of his bottle against the bar. "Could be worse."
"As long as you don't overdo it," Jackson agrees with a lopsided grin and a pointed look towards Mike's bottle. His fingers curl tighter around his quiet non-alcoholic drink, and he flicks a glance back towards Vincent. "It could always be worse."
Mike lifts his glass briefly. "To silver linings, tarnished though they may be." Sip. He considers the bottle, and recaps it. "Hangover and infants do not mix," he says gently.
"Oh, good." Eli settles onto a bar stool and relaxes. "So, with all these people here and distraction abounding, why do you seem so preoccupied? I'm beginning to doubt you picked a useful enough venue tonight."
Bahir does not relax. Leaning against the bar, he looks annoyed, and gives Elias an exasperated glance. "You're kind of obnoxious," he says with a brittle precision of pronunciation, and then gives Mike a briefly horrified look. Hangovers and infants.
"I can take her off your hands in the mornin'," Jackson offers to Mike, "if that rum catches up with you. Gotta work in the afternoon, though, so -- me?" His eye widens slightly at Vincent's remark, though, and then narrows in faint puzzlement. "-- Yes, sir," is his somewhat uncomfortable answer. "You know me."
"I know you," Vincent decides after a lengthy pause, beer half-empty by the time he glances from Jackson to Mike to Bahir. His eyes settle there a moment, one still off-color, and he looks back to his beer. Oook.
"It shouldn't," Mike says, stretching. "I've had more than this." He looks to Vincent as Jax gets uncomfortable, raising an eyebrow.
"Oh, thank god, I can stop worrying when you were going to figure that out." Eli rolls his eyes and follows Bahir's gaze before focusing on his drink. Vincent speaking up catches Eli's attention and he looks up again. When he determines it's not him, he looks around the club toward the dancers.
From Mike to Vincent, Bahir's eyes narrow: he eyes him a moment, earlier not-quite-recognition resurfacing. He arches an eyebrow at him over his drink, with no more than a grunt to answer Elias.
"I know I know you, asshole." Annoyance slivers into Vincent's voice and glare, and his grip tightens on the base of his beer. "Him. The other guy. You." There are a lot of raised brows, and he provides balance by lowering his back at Bahir.
Jackson, oddly, relaxes at this reply, uncomfortable posture easing as he turns back to his soda. His glance slides from Vincent to Bahir curiously.
Mike grabs his rum and pushes off from the counter. "Anyway~," he says. "I'm going to go call a cab and head out. See you tomorrow, Jax. If I wake up with a hangover, expect a visiting goddaughter."
Elias waves to Mike as he leaves, since Bahir is occupied.
"Great." Although Vincent might be right about knowing Jackson, clearly he is wrong in who he calls asshole: that would be Bahir. "Do you want a gold star?" His is not a witty, charming bitchery; it is a cranky, crabby grouchiness.
Jackson's relaxation is noted, and Vincent bristles. Outright anger lines in around his mouth, and he glares hard at the glowing mutant for some time before he switches the look back onto Bahir. Still angry.
And Mike leaves. Angry McAngryFace is not his problem, he's off!
"Visiting Maria almost makes me want to wish a hangover on you," Jackson replies lightly to Mike. "-- 'Night!" His cyclopean gaze narrows briefly on Vincent, and the silvery sheen around him darkens. His head shakes slightly as he looks back down at his drink.
Bahir returns Vincent's angry look with a growing contentment that expresses itself in bitchy smugness: misery loves company! He cocks his eyebrows at him again, thereby ensuring the karmic balance of frown and arch.
"Hi. I'm Elias." Eli slips in the middle of the angry, cranky glare-fest with a slightly exasperated expression. He does smile, it's just delightfully superficial. "Now we all know each other."
Illyana is still here! Imagine that. Having exhausted the entertainment possiblities of the rest of the crowd, she wanders back to eye Bahir from a distance. Eeeeeye. Then she wanders closer to eavesdrop too.
"You have some kind of problem?" Only a little confrontational, Vincent turns enough in his seat to eye Bahir more directly with his...non-blurred eye. Which then flickers back to Elias to take in his introduction. He is perhaps a little edgy, despite his beer.
A whisper of sharpness blades Bahir's voice as dark eyebrows fall and fold toward a faintly irritated frown. "I don't think that /I/ am the one with the problem," he says, pointed. Since he already knows everyone, no need to introduce himself along with Elias, right?
Jackson does not smile, but neither does he look cranky. Mostly just thoughtful, as he nurses a drink that really was not designed for nursing. "P'raps we should maybe have celebrated elsewhere," he says musingly to Elias.
If mutation is a qualification for entry, Rossi has a card that trumps it, though the badge is no longer in evidence past the entrance and the press of bodies outside it. Temper still glitters like a saw-toothed blade in his face, dragging the heavy brows flat over irritated green eyes. He is cop, and he is /here/, a presence -- if not the most spectacular or impressive one, to be sure. Without pausing at the threshold he pushes on, wading his way towards the back.
"You're doubting your decision now?" Eli's smile contains a little more life when directed at Jackson, a glance spared toward Bahir when he finishes. "but the company is so pleasant." He lifts his drink and skirts around to Bahir's other side, letting him glower while he picks up conversation with Jackson. "You haven't danced yet." You. Singular. Not we.
Illyana eyes the bar speculatively. Rossi might recognize that eye--it is that of a twenty-year-old looking at alcohol. Finally she sighs, and drifts even closer to Bahir's conversational sphere.
"Oh. So you're saying you think I have...uh." Uh, indeed. Vincent pauses, brows knit, loses a little steam, and eventually finds the right word. "Problem. At keast I'm not glowing." Less than one beer, and Lazzaro's already getting loud. A couple of heads turn.
Prepared to answer with further bitchiness, Vincent's response throws Bahir off-balance enough that he actually breathes out a soft laugh. It might not be the nicest of laughs, but there it is. He murmurs an acknowledging, "Least you have that going for you," and glances over in Jackson's direction with a faint, thoughtful frown as he takes another sip of his drink.
"I'm working on fixing that," Jackson says, with the careful patience of someone more than used to fielding remarks from curious to hostile. "And dancing is more fun with a partner."
"Glowing makes you target." Illyana is helpful!
A couple of heads turn. Like Rossi's. Which makes three. No beer. He starts out loud. "/Laz--/" he begins, finds himself too far away for conversation and changes direction to carve his way towards Vincent instead. "--fucking tribe of bobbleheads out there. /This/ is where you decide to drink? For Chrissakes." A sentiment that is repeated, with less exasperation and more vulgarity when Bahir's face becomes visible around the shoulder of a passing waiter.
"Oh, good fuck." Elias blurts out at Illyana's remark, but is instantly distracted by Rossi.
As Bahir's gaze turns toward Illyana, Rossi's voice snares his attention. He goes stiff, recognition coming quickly, even before he actually sees him. (It's the swearing that does it, you see.) He glances at Rossi with a bland flatness.
Illyana frowns at Elias. He seems familiar. "I not remember your name," she says a little more politely, and friendly.
"I'm working on," Jackson begins to repeat, before turning to look at the speaker, blinking slightly before offering Illyana a half-smile. "-- Oh. Illy. Hi. Trust me, I'm well aware." There is more blinking when he looks towards Rossi. "Huh."
At the laugh, Vincent is up out of his seat, beer thunked aggressively down onto the bar. Bahir is the target of his aggravation again, only for his intent to apply fist-to-face placed back on pause when Rossi materializes, and Lazzaro glowers at him instead. "Fuck you." Insult of the night, apparently.
"Of course you wouldn't." Eli rolls his head as he narrows his gaze on the blonde woman. "You're far too self-absorbed. Nothing else exists outside of your little world." Mood souring, he turns back toward the bar for a refill.
"You're in a fucking mood," Rossi diagnoses, with a glance at the beer and a less successfully bland look back at Bahir. It requires no telepathy for a flatscan to convey dislike. He has the accessories of /body language/ to communicate with. His speaks volumes. "Haven't seen you in a while, Ragu."
Illyana's face slams blank. "Hello, Jackson," she says with sharp, precise politeness. "How are you?" The pointed forgetting of Elias' existance seems to be aimed like a blow in a sparring match.
"Maybe you just don't remember," Bahir counters with distracted bitchiness, which really isn't funny at all. He keeps a wary eye on Vincent and Rossi both, with a bare flicker of a glance toward the interplay between the others.
"Eli!" Jackson's brow creases briefly, and there is more surprise than reprimand in his tone; he slants a puzzled glance between the two. "I'm -- uh." His eye wanders again, between Bahir and Rossi and Vincent, and he rubs at the back of his neck with one hand. "We were celebrating," he says wryly. "Had a good night before this! -- How've you been?"
"I'm fine." Vincent is not fine. He's puffed up like an angry toad. Or cat. "What the hell do you care? You know this guy?" The question borders on accusing when he lifts his chin at Bahir, and then looks past him, back to staring at Jackson once more.
Funny as a two-by-four applied to Bahir's right eye. There is a split second while Rossi's mind processes the telepath's comment, and then his thoughts flex abruptly violent. "You think that's funny, you fucking quiche?" As an insult, it lacks something of his customary flair. He makes up for it in the hasty step he takes towards the younger man, his hand reaching to grab his collar. Or maybe his ear. "You remember, Sabby. He was a--"
"What? She puts people in danger and then laughs when they can't defend themselves." Eli sounds droll as he responds to Jackson, his tone quite informational. "And she just called you a target. Quaint friend you have there."
Given something more than apparently baseless insults, Illyana's attention snaps back to Elias. "Who in danger? When?" Her English is getting more thickly accented.
"Oh, hey." Bahir's chin lifts just slightly as Rossi angles in, and he sets the drink down with care. It was expensive. He'd hate to drop it and waste it. "Police brutality!" He brings his arms up inside Rossi's to break his grip away with an irritated shake. "/Quiche/? Seriously?"
"The glowing /does/ make me a target," Jackson replies flatly. "And she -- what?" He scrubs his knuckles against his good eye, the crease in his brow reappearing and staying, now. There is more than a hint of alarm in his expression as he looks back to Rossi and Bahir, but it is Vincent that his gaze lingers on, meeting the stare with increased exasperation before turning away.
Vincent is jarred out of his end of the staring contest with Jackson by Rossi moving past to make a grab at Bahir, and he reaches to plant his braced left hand across the bigger man's shoulder. "/Hey/. What--"
"You teleport all over the city, in public, in front of people and when someone speaks up about it, your response? 'It's not my fault if you can't get away.'" Eli's argument loses its heat as cries of police brutality catches his attention. He turns around and gives Bahir and Rossi a most confused look.
"You want me to teleport you?" Illyana asks, wide-eyed and innocent, of Elias.
Rossi makes a sound not expressive of friendship and warm fuzzy feelings, but good judgment -- occasionally a very distant friend to the man, admittedly, but sometimes just within earshot -- takes a hasty seat on the throne of reason. He allows his hand to be swatted aside. "The camel-humper's a telepath," he reminds Vincent, and his mouth thins to a straight, harsh line before relaxing most reluctantly to a less severe set. "Watch yourself, you shithead. --How many beers you had, Lazzaro?"
Jackson's gaze darts to Rossi, and his fingertips rub at one temple as he curls his other hand tighter around his glass and stares down into it. It is very not alcoholic, but his expression suggests that perhaps he is wishing it were.
"You fucking /ass/," Bahir snaps into a hiss, cold anger glinting hard in his eyes. Self-control leashes the first lift of his hand as it snakes up in an aborted snap at Rossi's jaw. Instead, he shoves at his shoulder. PUSH. "Fucking ... /Goomba/." There are appallingly few slurs for those of Italian descent.
"One," comes the combative reply, and Vincent keeps that hand against Rossi's shoulder as if he's not quite sure whether or not he owes it to anyone present to get in the way of a brewing disagreement. "Here," is amended several seconds later. One beer at Purgatory. An unknown quantity of beers prior...to Purgatory. At the shove against Rossi, the ex-cop bows up in Bahir's face way too quickly for the sudden change in mood to be entirely natural. Particularly given how slowly he's following the actual conversation. "Try that again."
"You're a telepath?" Eli is stunned. Illyana is completely forgotten and even dismissed with a wave of his hand. He is completely fixed on Bahir now, even if he's utterly ignored.
Illyana makes as if to grab Elias' arm, watching for his reaction, and possibly Jackson's since both could know what that would mean. She doesn't teleport him, however. She just gives him an acid look on her way out. "Hello to brother," she tells Bahir, expression indicating that she knows perfectly well that he is going to pay no attention to her. Then she wanders out.
Jackson looks entirely unsurprised by this revelation, but his expression is touched with worry as he glances between Eli and Bahir.
The blow against his shoulder forces Rossi back a step, but only one. His retrieval of those inches, the beginning of a step forward again into Bahir's face, is preempted by Vincent's abrupt intercession. Ire, flaring bright in the detective's face, is abruptly redirected by a noseful of baldness and blinking surprise: as though he has found himself suddenly being defended by an angry goldfish. "What the--" he begins. It is a night for beginnings. Not so much for endings.
Bahir's gaze drops down, down, dooown to Vincent, and he angles his posture to maximize the effect of those inches he has on him, pushing right back at him. LOOM. Look, he can loom! He is taller! "Sure. Just stand still. Should go right over you, put a nice polish on your dome," he says, words spilling and running together in irritation so that he can get to the important bit: "You /shit/." That, to Rossi. The tight clench of his jaw (and his whole reaction thus far) is perhaps answer enough for Elias.
Elias' gears spin for a while as he examines Rossi, Vincent and then Bahir, each in turn. He's quiet throughout, rocking back on his feet, bumping into the stool he sat on previously. He frowns, lips sealing shut. Jackson is forgotten now.
For a minute, Vincent just stares stormily up at Bahir, mismatched eyes quietly furious in their upward assessment from beneath the hood of his brows. Then, with all the brusque utility of a man who's spent many years shoving his hands around in other people's pockets, Vincent jabs his good hand down past Hurka-Durka's belt line and claps out of existence in a snarl of black smoke. So do the pants.
The worry deepens in Jackson's expression, gaze still drifting between Elias and Bahir. His jaw tightens as it moves on to Rossi, eye narrowing. He stays silent, and takes another drink of his depressingly bland cranberry drink. A drink that he promptly chokes on as Vincent vanishes with Bahir's pants, his eye wide and alarmed. And watery, with his brief but sudden fit of coughing.
There is -- a moment when Rossi seems about to move, a heartbeat's span when thought, pragmatic, aggressive, but ultimately harmless (barring a little bruising) thought slashes through his mind. What act he is about to take is aborted in a mouthful of nothingness, and he is left, jaw dropped around a word, to step hastily back -- and then back yet again in shock and a jerking cough. "What the /fuck/--!"
Bahir stares just as stormily back! He's all glower and glare right up until the point Vincent goes for his pants. At that point, he pinwheels back, stumbling over the barstool just to his back -- and then his jeans are gone. And boxers or briefs, the world will never know, because he took them /too/. The shirt is long, but not quite long enough without a little help. HE TUGS. HE COVERS. HE /SWEARS/. "That little FUCKER, I'm going to beat the shit out of you BOTH as soon as I get my fucking hands on you--" Of course, his hands are busy protecting what is left of his dignity. A silent mental shout /yanks/ at Luke and Listener, the latter sent after his jacket from the back room.
Elias blinks. He stands stock still for another second or two before he slips off his shirt and hands it over to Bahir in silent offering, his gaze averted as he touches the wad of fabric to Bahir's elbow.
Rossi's hand, raised in unthinking defense against the unexpected, drops to reveal far too much of Bahir to his startled gaze. More of the man than he has dreamt of seeing. More than he had ever wanted to see. It would be unkind of him to laugh. Then again, it is widely acknowledged among his colleagues that he is an asshole. /He laughs/.
Vincent reappears some ten or fifteen feet away, streaming dark smoke with pants in hand. He doesn't laugh. He continues to glower, glare intense in the face of an ongoing stream of threats. "Next time it'll be your legs, asshole."
Jackson is politely not looking, either, as his coughing fit ends. He offers nothing, though his brow creases deeply in concentration. The light around him flickers briefly, but nothing more happens. Concentration is broken, anyway, by Rossi's laughter, and he looks up at the detective with a brief glitter of anger in his eye. It dies quickly. He scrubs a hand across his eyes, and tenses as Vincent reappears.
Cats who have been dumped into icy water have looked happier upon spluttering out than Bahir does as he glares at Rossi. A faint flush warms dusky skin, embarrassment mingling with an anger that rises awful sharply to fury at Vincent's reappearance. << Get. My. Pants, >> he tells Listener, Luke, not particularly picky about which one of them gets it as he strangles the urge to be VERY MEAN to Vincent. He gives Elias a bare glare, hardly gracious in the face of his offered help. He tugs the dangling tails of his shirt a little lower again, hands cupped over DIGNITY.
The reappearance of the teleporter within Purgatory's bounds brings a slight redirect to the path of the oncoming bouncer: tall, dirty-blond, well-muscled, painfully pleasant-natured. "Sir," says Luke to Vincent as he looms on approach, "I'm afraid that's not really appropriate behavior and we're going to have to ask you to leave." He is very earnest, too, as he holds out a hand for the appropriated clothing. How does he keep a straight face? Possibly it is a secondary mutant power, or just the fact that he completely avoids looking at the de-pantsed Pawn.
"Think we're not welcome here anymore, Lazzaro," Rossi manages through a choke of mirth, barely swallowed, that hulas its way through his baritone. He grins fiercely at Bahir one last time, and turns away towards the entrance with a jerk of the head for Vincent. "I'm getting the feeling. Sensitive to atmosphere that way. C'mon. I'll buy you another someplace where the guys staring at your junk aren't fans of track lighting."
Elias turns his head in the direction of the reappeared Vincent, brow furrowing. Eyes shift between him and Luke quickly before his gaze locks on the pants. There's a black waist band peeking out from the top of the jeans. It's hard to see at first, but the longer Eli stars at it, the further it wiggles out. A breath later, a pair of black, cotton boxer-briefs fly out of Vincent's grip, away from the pair of jeans and are caught by the young fashion designer. Eli sighs and hands them over to Bahir, again, not looking.
"Oh yeah?" Vincent says to both Luke and Rossi. Initially he looks like he might be about to start something with the former, but he's distracted by his stolen underpants literally flying out of the jeans. Flying out of the jeans. Flying. With one last irritable look cast at all parties present, he vanishes one last time, leaving one pant leg to fall limply to the floor in his wake. Just the one, with the edge it separated from hissing and smoking with a fringe of black ice.
There are flying underpants happening on Luke's watch. Luke's brow furrows in the quiet confusion of the simple confronted with the bizarre, as his glance slants towards Elias, and then back towards Vincent. Who is then gone. Luke looks down at the pant leg on the floor.
Snatching the underwear with a practically superhuman twitch of speed, Bahir levels a long look on those present which suggests death in a wide array of forms. And then he stalks behind the bar with the last tattered shreds of his dignity wrapped around him, presumably to put his /panties/ on. The bartender is not very gracious about sharing space. "What the /fuck/ did he just do to my jeans, now?" he snaps as Vincent pops off.
Poor Bahir. Rossi does not linger to watch. Vincent's second disappearance elicits little more than a small wince of surprise, and he ambles on in a leisurely fashion towards the exit, still grinning savagely.
Luke glances around the little knot of people remaining in the wake this fit of chaos, and, perhaps prudently, melts back towards his post to make a phone call about video evidence.
Elias grumbles quietly to himself as he rubs at his right eye. He turns his attention to the ground. Eventually, he moves away from the bar and heads toward a table as far away as humanly possible. Yeah, Jackson is draggled along with him.
"Teleported -- just half of them," Jackson says, his face paling slightly and the words spoken more to himself than anyone else. His fingers tighten around his glass and then the abandons the rest of it to slide off his stool, a brief backwards glance shot to Bahir before he is dragged off with Elias.
Thin shirt of finely woven linen suddenly /dreadfully/ inadequate cover when coupled with black boxer-briefs, Bahir stands behind the bar with his arms folded. He is not moving. The bartender glares, but he is /not moving/. Not until Listener returns with his leather jacket; not until his cell phone is out and he's called a cab; not until the cab is /here/ and /honking/. Nope. Standing right here.
Elias settles down in a chair and braces his elbows on the table surface, waiting only a few minutes before he's up again, shooting Jackson a quick look before heading for the exit. He slips back on his shirt as he heads out into the night.
Jackson doesn't even bother to settle; he sits perched on the edge of his chair, watching Elias and content to stay quiet. He follows the older man out of the club with -- maybe a very quick backwards glance to the bar. But just one.