(no subject)
21 January 2007:
New York is a city of many cultures, jammed not-so-neatly into tall and narrow brick and concrete buildings, many countries capable of coexisting on a single stretch of street. Whereas the average Bavarian town is low and spread-out, many similar warmly-painted buildings spread over the Alpine foothills. And yet the Marienplatz Brauhaus purports to combine the two. This self-purported slice of Munich is actually jammed into Greenwich Village, and while it is calm compared to Oktoberfest season, it still does a decent business. The interior is decorated with woodcuts and folk paintings, but there is no other forced Germanness for the time being. Just good food and good beer. Andre Harrison sits on a stool at a tabletop that's perched on a large barrel, contemplating the curved glass of wheat beer in front of him.
The slender brunette who enters this decor looks somewhat out of place. Her dress is nothing of note - dark jeans and a v-necked sweater of deep wine - but the glance she gives around the bar is a touch lost, as if baffled by the Geramn theme of her surroundings. She halts in the door, hands lifted to work at the buttons of her dark grey pea coat, and stares at the occupants within.
A waitress wastes no time in approaching the brunette at the door. Her uniform polo shirt has the Brauhaus name and the outline of the two-towered Munich Frauenkirche embroidered where a pocket might be, but at least it's not a dirndl, and her gait and inflection of speech are all very American. She asks the brunette how many are in her party and if she'd like a seat at the bar or a table. The cold rush of air from the opening of the door catches Andre's side and he looks over in mid-sip, idly people-watching.
The brunette replies in German ("Ein), and there's a dull gleam in blue eyes as she watches the waitress and slides her coat from her shoulders with a graceful shrug. In the same language, she requests the bar, and she does not wait to be shown toward it before she steps forward, boot heels clicking quietly against the floor."
The waitress appears quite taken aback by the brunette's response. She raises one finger in comprehension of the first word, but red still floods across her face at the rest of the statement. "Ma'am, I'm not actually German," she points out, tone fringed with embarrassment. "I just play one at work!" The waitress exhales in relief as the brunette clarifies the second part of her phrase with her actions, though, and she trails her over to the bar. The brief verbal exchange is enough to pull in Andre's more active attention. Brows raise and lips curl upward as his eyes track the two across the room.
The brunette is dismissive of the waitress, fingers flicking haughtily after her in reply while she moves toward the bar with elegant carriage. She slips atop a stool and settles her coat on the one adjacent and then turns, crossing her legs, to fold her hands on the bartop.
The waitress mentions something to the extent of how she'll be back regarding a food order in a second, then skitters to Andre's table, food order question already at hand in his case. "Pretzel, please," he requests, soft laughter tinging his voice. "And even those of us who are part German don't necessarily remember those high school language classes." The waitress merely jots down the order, despite Andre's attempt at reassurance. After she has left, the Californian looks back at the brunette, the amusement on his face easy to read at the distance between them.
When the bartender approaches, the brunnete fixes him with a careful study, blue eyes weighing him before she even speaks. He shifts uncomfortably under her gaze, and when she requests something in German, his expression goes blank and nervous. A stammered apology is met with irritation, clearly expressed by the stiffening of her spine and the flat press of her palms against the bar's counter.
Andre presses his hands against the edge of his own table, pushing off and allowing the stool's swiveling seat to angle him more toward the bar himself, and therefore also toward the brunette. His right leg swings lightly, while the left stays still. "Vielleicht--" he begins, though the badly-accented word dies on his lips. He shakes his head, brow furrowing. "Maybe," he corrects quietly, "though, people who are going to work in theme places like this should pay more attention in class than I did."
"The education is horrible these days," the brunette agrees, accent thick with German influences as she stares at Andre in the mirror that backs the bar.
Andre turns his head slightly to the side at the unusual manner of address, his eyes flicking toward the mirror as well. "I really should have done that study abroad thing when I had the chance. There were all these posters about overseas music programs and stuff, so that was just me ignoring them." He reaches back for his glass and takes a sip.
Blue eyes hold Andre's in the mirror for a long moment, quiet and clouded, before she lowers her chin in something like a nod and turns away to raise her voice toward the bartender in request. Vodka, Russian, strong and neat.
The bartender sets to making the drink, though not without a nervous attempt at a thrown-off comment about how speaking German and then asking for something Russian was not quite what he expected. Andre, at least, is amused, and his exhaled laugh - more through his nose than his mouth - ripples the surface of his beer as he lifts it.
The bartender's comment is met with a disapproving gaze, quiet and dark despite the light glow of her eyes. The brunette replies with a murmur about assumptions and, upon the delivery of her drink, sips with a judgemental air.
Andre's sipping is slow, and the angle of his head and the position of his brows relative to his forehead indicate far more amused intrigue in those sips than judgement. Brown eyes flick from the brunette to the bartender for a little while, only to be intercepted by the waitress, returning with a very large pretzel on a plate. It is deposited on Andre's table, and he thanks her softly before she approaches the brunette again with some trepidation.
The brunette's hand is lifted in dismissal before the waitress comes within several feet of her. A short shake of her head emphasizes the gesture. Dark wisps of hair curl at the nape of her neck, fallen free from the loose knot that pulls it back, and the brunette bends her head to consider the curve of her glass in silence.
Andre swivels back around, exchanging beer glass for pretzel. He pulls it apart from the center joint, little bits of salt scattering on the plate and table. He liberates one curve of the pretzel and considers it, then swivels the stool again. "I guess I shouldn't expect authenticity on this thing either, huh?" The remark is aimed at the food, but he looks up toward the mirror after speaking.
The flicker of the glance catches the woman's attention, and blue eyes again meet Andre's in the stillness of that reflection. Her voice is quiet and clear despite its accent. "There is little in this world that is truly authentic."
Andre lifts the pretzel slightly, an angle that allows him to consider both it and the reflection in one thoughtful gaze. He frowns in contemplation, brown irises focusing on reflected blue when he speaks. "You've got a point," he allows, words slower than before. "Guess that's why they teach intercultures to all the music students that /don't/ study abroad." And he finally takes a bite of that pretzel.
"In order to better feign authenticity?" Irony twists the smooth alto into something mocking.
Andre increases the speed of his chewing in order to be able to respond faster. "In order to point out that nothing is." Something tightens in his normally easy tenor. Pretzel is again exchanged for beer.
"That seems rather backward."
Andre's fingers tap the surface of his glass after he finishes speaking. "It was a class about exchange. everything's exchanging influence with everything else, that's less authentic, I guess."
"I think you misunderstand the meaning of authentic." There is no amusement in the alto voice, merely contemplation, though, made heavier by the weight of the German accent.
Andre presses the edge of his glass against his lower lip, both hands now wrapped around the curved surface. His eyes squint down, but only briefly. His tenor is lightened by uncertainty. "...it's possible."
"Ja," the brunette confirms, and then her gaze lifts sharply to seek out the bartender, fingers sliding together in a demanding snap.
The bartender heeds the snap briskly, drying an empty glass with a towel as he approaches. Andre leans a little forward, both hands still on his own glass. "How do /you/ define it?" There is genuine inquisitiveness, not challenge, in the manner the question is posed.
"Another," she orders, gaze already moving from the bartender to Andre's reflect. She considers him in silence for some time, lips pressed into a quiet line and breathing slow and even. Eventually she answers, "I will not have a conversation with a reflection."
The bartender has, at least, learned some of that German efficiency in the way he makes drinks. He provides as ordered, with easy practiced fluidity. The same cannot be said for Andre's motion. His reflection can be seen to open its mouth, move it in a manner that produces the sound, "Point," and bend stiffly in his seat to reach for a pair of crutches leaning against the table.
Her gaze shifts to the crutches, noting without apparent reaction or comment, and the brunette's gaze drops to the surface of her drink as she waits with drawn-out patience.
Andre hoists himself out of his seat, left crutch held steadily in his hand, right one pinned under his arm to his side, allowing his right hand to move beer glass to pretzel plate and precariously lift both at once. He slowly kathunks his way from his current table to another located directly next to the bar. Food is deposited, and he maneuvers himself back onto a stool, putting his crutches back in the same alignment they had at the first table.
At the bar itself, the brunette gives no sign that she is interested in - or in fact even watching - this process. Her attention rests on her drink, disturbed only by an occasional sip. Once Andre is settled, however, she speaks without looking toward him. "What have you done to your leg?"
Andre tilts forward in his new seat, aiming for visual contact without the aid of mirrors. "Run in with the wrong kind of people," he explains. The tone comes off as simple, practiced, and not thrilled.
"Elaborate." The single word carries a command, an assurance of being answered, confidence and expectation all in the simple syllables.
One of Andre's eyebrows raises higher than the other, his upper lip paralleling the motion as he processes the order as such. "Big guy in an alley. Enemy of a friend, I guess." Some of the lower tones of Andre's natural speaking voice go missing in his response.
"Your friend has powerful enemies." Observation lilts into a question at the last, and her lips curl just slightly at the corners as she finally turns to study Andre. "A mutant?"
Andre's lips press inward, mouth growing narrower compared to the rest of his face. His other eyebrow quirks up to meet the first. "I...guess he has to have been," Andre begins slowly, "based on sheer size, if nothing else," and he speeds up through the last few words.
"Ah." There is a wealth of understanding in that softly-breathed syllable, judgement and sympathy in the gaze that rests on Andre. She lifts her glass to her lips and sips.
Andre sips his beer as well, the level of amber liquid in the glass decreasing quite slowly, considering the length of time he's had the glass. The tension in his face, however, decreases more swiftly, though does not entirely drain away. "But it's the kind of thing, I think, that happens just because someone's mean in general. Not because someone's a mutant."
"Did he beat you with a bat?" the woman wonders slowly, blue eyes lighting on Andre over the curve of her glass. "A crowbar?"
Andre's facial features continue to turn downward quickly, lips now arcing in a frown, brows low and furrowed over his eyes. "He just...hit me." His voice has gone down in volume, too. And he takes another sip of beer that effects the level in the glass more than any sip so far.
"And your leg?"
"That's what he hit."
Patiently, the woman clarifies, "What is wrong with it?"
Andre's eyes lid partway, and the hand not holding his beer aims absently toward his crutches. "It's broken. But they're upgrading me to a cane pretty soon."
"That is not the sort of thing," the woman replies in a murmur directed toward her glass, "That 'just happens'"
"I guess it's not," Andre considers, voice quavering on the last word, brown eyes now considering the vast interesting territory that is the floor. "But whatever the reasons, aside from knowing the same one guy, I don't know why."
"You misunderstand," the brunette informs Andre patiently. "You claim that such thing was not because he was a mutant."
This is enough to pull Andre's eyes back toward the brunette. "Well, I don't /know/, but just being a mutant in itself doesn't seem cause enough to go breaking legs. Not in my mind." His words are measured by thought, not defensiveness.
Her gaze narrows, and exasperation makes its first appearance of the evening. "Are you perhaps intentionally dense?" she wonders in serious tones, heavily accented.
Andre clearly has no idea what to make of this. "If I am dense, I come by it honestly."
"It must be a difficulty of your gender," the woman replies, and exasperation leads neatly to disdain, marked clearly in the dismissive glance of blue eyes before they move forward to her drink.
Surprised-blank shifts to a more straight-lines kind of blank at this remark. Andre takes the opportunity to take another sip of beer.
Silence remains between them, spread heavy and thick in the wake of her comment, and she makes no move to break it. Alcohol trickles a burn down her throat.
Andre does not move to break it yet either, though his breath becomes heavier, as if more oxygen is required in this dense atmosphere. Even after he's sipped and swallowed, the glass remains pressed to his lips, and he looks sidelong through it, the woman's form distorted by the curvature.
The last of her alcohol is downed with a single, sharp toss of her head, and the woman shifts on her stool, leaning sideways to collect her coat and readying to stand.
Minimally alcoholic though weissbier might be, Andre seems to have had enough to dull his ability for responses that are both prompt and thoughtful. He lowers his glass slowly; the hand not holding it moves to rest on his afflicted leg. As the woman stands, he inclines his head toward her.
The woman does not inclined her head toward him. She simply rises, smooth and graceful despite the drinks, and slips into her coat. As easily as that, she exits the bar.
Andre runs into German!Mystique at a fake German bar. They discuss authenticity and why he has crutches.
New York is a city of many cultures, jammed not-so-neatly into tall and narrow brick and concrete buildings, many countries capable of coexisting on a single stretch of street. Whereas the average Bavarian town is low and spread-out, many similar warmly-painted buildings spread over the Alpine foothills. And yet the Marienplatz Brauhaus purports to combine the two. This self-purported slice of Munich is actually jammed into Greenwich Village, and while it is calm compared to Oktoberfest season, it still does a decent business. The interior is decorated with woodcuts and folk paintings, but there is no other forced Germanness for the time being. Just good food and good beer. Andre Harrison sits on a stool at a tabletop that's perched on a large barrel, contemplating the curved glass of wheat beer in front of him.
The slender brunette who enters this decor looks somewhat out of place. Her dress is nothing of note - dark jeans and a v-necked sweater of deep wine - but the glance she gives around the bar is a touch lost, as if baffled by the Geramn theme of her surroundings. She halts in the door, hands lifted to work at the buttons of her dark grey pea coat, and stares at the occupants within.
A waitress wastes no time in approaching the brunette at the door. Her uniform polo shirt has the Brauhaus name and the outline of the two-towered Munich Frauenkirche embroidered where a pocket might be, but at least it's not a dirndl, and her gait and inflection of speech are all very American. She asks the brunette how many are in her party and if she'd like a seat at the bar or a table. The cold rush of air from the opening of the door catches Andre's side and he looks over in mid-sip, idly people-watching.
The brunette replies in German ("Ein), and there's a dull gleam in blue eyes as she watches the waitress and slides her coat from her shoulders with a graceful shrug. In the same language, she requests the bar, and she does not wait to be shown toward it before she steps forward, boot heels clicking quietly against the floor."
The waitress appears quite taken aback by the brunette's response. She raises one finger in comprehension of the first word, but red still floods across her face at the rest of the statement. "Ma'am, I'm not actually German," she points out, tone fringed with embarrassment. "I just play one at work!" The waitress exhales in relief as the brunette clarifies the second part of her phrase with her actions, though, and she trails her over to the bar. The brief verbal exchange is enough to pull in Andre's more active attention. Brows raise and lips curl upward as his eyes track the two across the room.
The brunette is dismissive of the waitress, fingers flicking haughtily after her in reply while she moves toward the bar with elegant carriage. She slips atop a stool and settles her coat on the one adjacent and then turns, crossing her legs, to fold her hands on the bartop.
The waitress mentions something to the extent of how she'll be back regarding a food order in a second, then skitters to Andre's table, food order question already at hand in his case. "Pretzel, please," he requests, soft laughter tinging his voice. "And even those of us who are part German don't necessarily remember those high school language classes." The waitress merely jots down the order, despite Andre's attempt at reassurance. After she has left, the Californian looks back at the brunette, the amusement on his face easy to read at the distance between them.
When the bartender approaches, the brunnete fixes him with a careful study, blue eyes weighing him before she even speaks. He shifts uncomfortably under her gaze, and when she requests something in German, his expression goes blank and nervous. A stammered apology is met with irritation, clearly expressed by the stiffening of her spine and the flat press of her palms against the bar's counter.
Andre presses his hands against the edge of his own table, pushing off and allowing the stool's swiveling seat to angle him more toward the bar himself, and therefore also toward the brunette. His right leg swings lightly, while the left stays still. "Vielleicht--" he begins, though the badly-accented word dies on his lips. He shakes his head, brow furrowing. "Maybe," he corrects quietly, "though, people who are going to work in theme places like this should pay more attention in class than I did."
"The education is horrible these days," the brunette agrees, accent thick with German influences as she stares at Andre in the mirror that backs the bar.
Andre turns his head slightly to the side at the unusual manner of address, his eyes flicking toward the mirror as well. "I really should have done that study abroad thing when I had the chance. There were all these posters about overseas music programs and stuff, so that was just me ignoring them." He reaches back for his glass and takes a sip.
Blue eyes hold Andre's in the mirror for a long moment, quiet and clouded, before she lowers her chin in something like a nod and turns away to raise her voice toward the bartender in request. Vodka, Russian, strong and neat.
The bartender sets to making the drink, though not without a nervous attempt at a thrown-off comment about how speaking German and then asking for something Russian was not quite what he expected. Andre, at least, is amused, and his exhaled laugh - more through his nose than his mouth - ripples the surface of his beer as he lifts it.
The bartender's comment is met with a disapproving gaze, quiet and dark despite the light glow of her eyes. The brunette replies with a murmur about assumptions and, upon the delivery of her drink, sips with a judgemental air.
Andre's sipping is slow, and the angle of his head and the position of his brows relative to his forehead indicate far more amused intrigue in those sips than judgement. Brown eyes flick from the brunette to the bartender for a little while, only to be intercepted by the waitress, returning with a very large pretzel on a plate. It is deposited on Andre's table, and he thanks her softly before she approaches the brunette again with some trepidation.
The brunette's hand is lifted in dismissal before the waitress comes within several feet of her. A short shake of her head emphasizes the gesture. Dark wisps of hair curl at the nape of her neck, fallen free from the loose knot that pulls it back, and the brunette bends her head to consider the curve of her glass in silence.
Andre swivels back around, exchanging beer glass for pretzel. He pulls it apart from the center joint, little bits of salt scattering on the plate and table. He liberates one curve of the pretzel and considers it, then swivels the stool again. "I guess I shouldn't expect authenticity on this thing either, huh?" The remark is aimed at the food, but he looks up toward the mirror after speaking.
The flicker of the glance catches the woman's attention, and blue eyes again meet Andre's in the stillness of that reflection. Her voice is quiet and clear despite its accent. "There is little in this world that is truly authentic."
Andre lifts the pretzel slightly, an angle that allows him to consider both it and the reflection in one thoughtful gaze. He frowns in contemplation, brown irises focusing on reflected blue when he speaks. "You've got a point," he allows, words slower than before. "Guess that's why they teach intercultures to all the music students that /don't/ study abroad." And he finally takes a bite of that pretzel.
"In order to better feign authenticity?" Irony twists the smooth alto into something mocking.
Andre increases the speed of his chewing in order to be able to respond faster. "In order to point out that nothing is." Something tightens in his normally easy tenor. Pretzel is again exchanged for beer.
"That seems rather backward."
Andre's fingers tap the surface of his glass after he finishes speaking. "It was a class about exchange. everything's exchanging influence with everything else, that's less authentic, I guess."
"I think you misunderstand the meaning of authentic." There is no amusement in the alto voice, merely contemplation, though, made heavier by the weight of the German accent.
Andre presses the edge of his glass against his lower lip, both hands now wrapped around the curved surface. His eyes squint down, but only briefly. His tenor is lightened by uncertainty. "...it's possible."
"Ja," the brunette confirms, and then her gaze lifts sharply to seek out the bartender, fingers sliding together in a demanding snap.
The bartender heeds the snap briskly, drying an empty glass with a towel as he approaches. Andre leans a little forward, both hands still on his own glass. "How do /you/ define it?" There is genuine inquisitiveness, not challenge, in the manner the question is posed.
"Another," she orders, gaze already moving from the bartender to Andre's reflect. She considers him in silence for some time, lips pressed into a quiet line and breathing slow and even. Eventually she answers, "I will not have a conversation with a reflection."
The bartender has, at least, learned some of that German efficiency in the way he makes drinks. He provides as ordered, with easy practiced fluidity. The same cannot be said for Andre's motion. His reflection can be seen to open its mouth, move it in a manner that produces the sound, "Point," and bend stiffly in his seat to reach for a pair of crutches leaning against the table.
Her gaze shifts to the crutches, noting without apparent reaction or comment, and the brunette's gaze drops to the surface of her drink as she waits with drawn-out patience.
Andre hoists himself out of his seat, left crutch held steadily in his hand, right one pinned under his arm to his side, allowing his right hand to move beer glass to pretzel plate and precariously lift both at once. He slowly kathunks his way from his current table to another located directly next to the bar. Food is deposited, and he maneuvers himself back onto a stool, putting his crutches back in the same alignment they had at the first table.
At the bar itself, the brunette gives no sign that she is interested in - or in fact even watching - this process. Her attention rests on her drink, disturbed only by an occasional sip. Once Andre is settled, however, she speaks without looking toward him. "What have you done to your leg?"
Andre tilts forward in his new seat, aiming for visual contact without the aid of mirrors. "Run in with the wrong kind of people," he explains. The tone comes off as simple, practiced, and not thrilled.
"Elaborate." The single word carries a command, an assurance of being answered, confidence and expectation all in the simple syllables.
One of Andre's eyebrows raises higher than the other, his upper lip paralleling the motion as he processes the order as such. "Big guy in an alley. Enemy of a friend, I guess." Some of the lower tones of Andre's natural speaking voice go missing in his response.
"Your friend has powerful enemies." Observation lilts into a question at the last, and her lips curl just slightly at the corners as she finally turns to study Andre. "A mutant?"
Andre's lips press inward, mouth growing narrower compared to the rest of his face. His other eyebrow quirks up to meet the first. "I...guess he has to have been," Andre begins slowly, "based on sheer size, if nothing else," and he speeds up through the last few words.
"Ah." There is a wealth of understanding in that softly-breathed syllable, judgement and sympathy in the gaze that rests on Andre. She lifts her glass to her lips and sips.
Andre sips his beer as well, the level of amber liquid in the glass decreasing quite slowly, considering the length of time he's had the glass. The tension in his face, however, decreases more swiftly, though does not entirely drain away. "But it's the kind of thing, I think, that happens just because someone's mean in general. Not because someone's a mutant."
"Did he beat you with a bat?" the woman wonders slowly, blue eyes lighting on Andre over the curve of her glass. "A crowbar?"
Andre's facial features continue to turn downward quickly, lips now arcing in a frown, brows low and furrowed over his eyes. "He just...hit me." His voice has gone down in volume, too. And he takes another sip of beer that effects the level in the glass more than any sip so far.
"And your leg?"
"That's what he hit."
Patiently, the woman clarifies, "What is wrong with it?"
Andre's eyes lid partway, and the hand not holding his beer aims absently toward his crutches. "It's broken. But they're upgrading me to a cane pretty soon."
"That is not the sort of thing," the woman replies in a murmur directed toward her glass, "That 'just happens'"
"I guess it's not," Andre considers, voice quavering on the last word, brown eyes now considering the vast interesting territory that is the floor. "But whatever the reasons, aside from knowing the same one guy, I don't know why."
"You misunderstand," the brunette informs Andre patiently. "You claim that such thing was not because he was a mutant."
This is enough to pull Andre's eyes back toward the brunette. "Well, I don't /know/, but just being a mutant in itself doesn't seem cause enough to go breaking legs. Not in my mind." His words are measured by thought, not defensiveness.
Her gaze narrows, and exasperation makes its first appearance of the evening. "Are you perhaps intentionally dense?" she wonders in serious tones, heavily accented.
Andre clearly has no idea what to make of this. "If I am dense, I come by it honestly."
"It must be a difficulty of your gender," the woman replies, and exasperation leads neatly to disdain, marked clearly in the dismissive glance of blue eyes before they move forward to her drink.
Surprised-blank shifts to a more straight-lines kind of blank at this remark. Andre takes the opportunity to take another sip of beer.
Silence remains between them, spread heavy and thick in the wake of her comment, and she makes no move to break it. Alcohol trickles a burn down her throat.
Andre does not move to break it yet either, though his breath becomes heavier, as if more oxygen is required in this dense atmosphere. Even after he's sipped and swallowed, the glass remains pressed to his lips, and he looks sidelong through it, the woman's form distorted by the curvature.
The last of her alcohol is downed with a single, sharp toss of her head, and the woman shifts on her stool, leaning sideways to collect her coat and readying to stand.
Minimally alcoholic though weissbier might be, Andre seems to have had enough to dull his ability for responses that are both prompt and thoughtful. He lowers his glass slowly; the hand not holding it moves to rest on his afflicted leg. As the woman stands, he inclines his head toward her.
The woman does not inclined her head toward him. She simply rises, smooth and graceful despite the drinks, and slips into her coat. As easily as that, she exits the bar.
Andre runs into German!Mystique at a fake German bar. They discuss authenticity and why he has crutches.