(no subject)
5 May 2007:
While people trundling down the hallway laden down with bulky bags of groceries are not precisely uncommon, there is a particular look to one who is planning to have several people show up in their home relatively soon. Elliott, hauling several bags of various sorts of chip, several varieties of soft drink, and what (to the curious, at least) would appear to be baking supplies and fixings for dip, has that look about her. She is humming cheerfully, and if it is very definitely off key and does not seem to be so much sticking to one song as jumping around a playlist, well. At least it's cheerful?
Having just eaten the last dinner-ish food in his apartment, Andre is on the other end of that grocery store journey, the epic hero having only just taken the sword and having not yet crossed the threshold on the grand quest for breakfast cereal. In fact, he's only just exiting the safe confines of his empty fort, cane clutched loosely in one hand, tapping the hallway in a rhythm somewhat contrary to his step as he aims for the elevator. But the groceries coming toward him and the small woman behind them do call for attention, all the more so with the humming. "Heya Elliott," Andre recognizes, cheerful himself. "Need help with any of those?" Cane be darned.
Elliott, just now pausing to wonder precisely how she will manage to excavate her keys (let alone corral a large, exuberant dog) while still managing a small mountain's worth of supplies is relieved at the offer. She grins, though it is as much native good humour as anything else. "Probably. Otherwise the hallway might be smothered in potato chips and confectioner's sugar - they don't go well together," she confides, with the air of one sharing great wisdom. "I'll give you a cookie! Err, when they're made. They aren't yet."
"Cookies, huh?" If Andre himself were a large exuberant dog, the spoken text would undeniably be accompanied by pricked ears. His eyebrows raise high instead as he extends his free arm to accept a few bags. "The fact that they're not made yet means they're going to be even better for being fresh and stuff." He nods, a sage of cookie expertise. "But chips too? Having another zombie party?"
"Nope," Elliott replies. And then pauses to consider before ammending, "Well, maybe. In the sense that we might all become zombies by the end of it. Of the caffeine-seeking sort instead of the brain seeking sort. Probably." Another pause. She grins. "If I try and gnaw on your head, feel free to hit me with something pointy. But first, I have to make cookies."
As his right arm is now laden with grocery bags, Andre lifts his left arm, cane handle still looped over his ring finger and pinky and stick pointing out to the side, and protectively hovers his other three fingers over his head. "Cookies should prevent gnawing!" he protests teasingly. "But if they don't, does the object have to be pointy?" He stands relatively steady with groceries and no cane, but as he says this, he wiggles the cane in the air before setting the one end back on the ground. "What's the occasion?"
Elliott laughs and shakes her head. "Nah, pointy just seems to work well on zombies." After two attempts, Elliott manages to unhook her keyring from her belt. Smurfette waves, the keys jingling merrily as she sorts through them to find the one that fits her aparment door. There is a bare moment of hesitation before she explains. "Research party. Well, research and drafting of formal papers, which I am not so great at. So I'm calling in backup. Unfortunately, backup tends to eat a lot. Mostly junk food."
Andre stands there with the cargo of groceries, patient for the opening of the door, laughing quietly and shaking his head as Elliott describes the call for cookies. "So, grad school, yeah?" he assumes. "That sounds like pretty much every last-second paper-panic in the music department. What're you researching?"
Elliott blinks once, then grins. "Oh, no, I've been out of school for a few years now. Have a career and everything. Why, if I don't watch it, I might end up becoming respectable one fine day, and /then/ what would I do?" The keys jingle once more as she unearths the correct one. The lock squeaks as it turns, warning that it will soon have to undergo maintainence. On the other side of the door, Schrodinger barks a cheery hello. There are people coming!
"Though usually our cookies just came from a box," Andre appends, an afterthought. For the first second of Schroedinger's greeting, Andre stiffens with surprise at the noise, though this expression quickly slides back to a fond smile. "I think," he considers, "You'd probably have to go back to school. Lose the respectability and get another degree as a bonus point!"
"That would," Elliott allows, "be infinitely preferable to allowing myself to be caught hacking a government database just to maintain my counterculture street cred. --Prepare for Doberman missile." This warning is offered directly before the door is pushed open. On the other side sits a dog, sporting a canine grin and a wagging tail. The dog is not sitting for long, deciding instead to inspect the humans. And the bags - bags, after all, often contain food. "Schrodinger, /sit/."
While Andre is taller than Elliott, he is still not particularly tall in the grand scheme of things, and dangling grocery bags from his hand are at a decidedly dog-friendly level. "Gahh, hey, Schroedinger!" he greets as he pulls the bags up to a level more awkward for holding but less likely to be invaded. The cane comes in handy now, supporting the adjustment to his center of balance. "So you're 'researching' government databases, then?" Andre smirks as he questions. He has no free hands to do air quotes around the word researching, but he makes them audible.
Elliott sighs, muttering something under her breath about demon dogs. The doberman utters another cheerful hello bark, and begins investigating Andre for interesting pockets, now that the bags are out of easy nosing level. Elliott leads the way inside, the small apartment littered with colourful pillows, sheafs of papers, and an unholy number of candles. "Nope. Researching zoning laws and petition procedures today. Which is - boring. Really boring, actually. Have I mentioned I hate legalese? I really, really do." She grins. "Government databases are /next/ weekend, but I didn't tell you that."
Andre's packets do not contain anything edible, unless Schroedinger has a gourmet's affinity for ballpoint pens and old ATM receipts. If the doberman enjoys metal canes, though, he's also very much in luck. Andre continues to hold the bags up high and rely on that cane to bring himself into the apartment after Elliott. "Zoning laws? No wonder you need the caffeine! What for? And where should I put these?" He shakes the bags in the air.
"Kitchen's right in there," Elliott replies, pointing one bag-laden hand in the proper direction - the direction she herself is heading in, as a matter of fact. "Just leave them on the counter and I'll sort through them. Thanks a lot for your help, by the way." Schrodinger sniffs at the cane curiously. It does not seem particularly edible, however. Alas. The dog cocks his head and whines curiously. "Just a project I'm kinda-sorta working on. In the very early stages, which is mostly planning. And wanting to throw things at the walls. I'm hoping to convince the city to do something with the site of the Sanctuary - where the firebombing took place a couple months ago?"
"No problem," Andre responds as he continues to follow Elliott into the kitchen. Once in that room, he slides the bags off his arm and then presses them as far back on the counter as they will go, hopefully out of snout range from dogs on their hind paws. As soon as his hand is freed up, he extends it toward Schroedinger to be sniffed. "Dang, that was a couple /months/ ago already?" Andre's gut reaction to talk of the Sanctuary sounds shocked and appalled. After the words are given a few seconds to hover in the air, his expression becomes more intrigued. "What sort of something? And if you want to throw stuff, my ceiling is an open target if my upstairs neighbor keeps being loud."
"It's been exactly two months. Hard to believe, isn't it? It feels like just yesterday. Or forever ago, sometimes." There is a cold doggy nose snuffling against Andre's hand in short order. Schrodinger is nothing if not a curious creature. Elliott smiles slightly, then turns to sort through the bags. First order of business: dig out cookie ingredients. "A public garden. Sort of a symbolic thing. And I think the fourth floor attracts loud people. I think the couple above me actually /broke/ their bed the other night."
Andre shakes his head slowly, the first wider motion causing some smaller rebounds in his neck. "Really hard," he concurs, speaking more quietly than before. "Though I guess that's the way memory works with all kinds of big bad events." For a moment, he screws his eyes tightly shut, but the feeling of that cold wet nose in his hand brings his eyes open again. His hand shifts to scritch behind a doggy ear as he continues, "Garden? That'd be really nice, all the more so with all the concrete. They're putting some sort of garden stuff as part of the Towers site too, I think?" While he sounds warm to the idea, the description of the upstairs people gets a brief disapproving grimace.
Dogs are therapeutic like that. Schrodinger's head shifts so he can lick the hand petting him. Elliott nods slightly. "It's sort of a thing, I think - human nature. Finding some way to coax life out of destruction. Gardens," she notes with a wry grin cast over her shoulder, the expression ever so slightly strained, "are probably more healthy than random sex with strangers. Which is popular."
Andre ceases the ear scratching as Schroedinger chooses to retaliate slimily, though he holds his hand in place rather than withdrawing. He does not have to touch cookie ingredients with that hand, at least not yet! "I don't think there were gardens when my neighbor destroyed the Death Star," Andre muses, eyes bright. That twinkle diffuses to something more earnest as he returns to the real world matter. "Do you know if there's already some sort of plan for the place. You definitely already have a good case for garden."
"I haven't heard anything, though that doesn't mean no one has plans for it. It can't hurt to try." She pauses in sorting the bags long enough to move over to the coffee maker. "Coffee? --I'd hazard a guess that it's too soon after for any major projects to be planned, though. I think a lot of people have kinda a superstitious thing going on around places that've been the center of some sort of violence. Like it'll spread. Sorta the way it's harder to find a renter for an apartment someone's been killed in, you know?"
"If you're making coffee anyway, sure," Andre takes the easier question first. "Yeah, living in an apartment where someone was killed...I don't think I could do that, and I don't think there's logic in it. Mental image of the blood, or the idea that some really bad guy knows where you live." Someone is unaware of certain masters of magnetism visiting next door! "But gardens? Well, most of the world's bad battlefields have plants on them now, yeah? The plants certainly don't mind."
"Blood makes the grass grow," Elliott quotes, a flash of gallows humour surfacing beneath her perpetual cheer. Schrodinger wanders over to the counter, nose snuffling in the direction of grocery bags that lie just out of reach. Woe. "Besides, it's sort of a way to make sure hatred and prejudice don't win, you know? Put in something that grows, replace it with a nurturing environment rather than ignoring it or wallowing, and you weaken the ideology. And, well," she pauses, smiling briefly - a touch nervously. "It might prove to a few people that not all mutants are destructive and frightening. I mean, a garden. Plants. Oooh, scary!"
Andre flexes his sufficiently slimed fingers in the air, then rubs the tips against his palm. "Aww, so no carnivorous plants intended to snatch up tourists, then?" He clicks his tongue against his front teeth, though once again the joke segues into a less certain expression. "I...think that's a really good point," he's slow to say, though he nods as he finishes the sentence. "Of course, it would be even better if they could take for granted that most aren't, since not every mutant they meet has breaking stuff in the genes, but a simple visual example's definitely powerful stuff."
"There were going to be, but Audrey II was busy," Elliott replies with a grin. Which quickly becomes nervous and strained around the edges. "Yeah. Or that even those who do have breaking stuff in their genes won't all actually do it. I mean, just 'cause you /can/ do something doesn't mean you /will/. And besides, normal humans with weapons or explosives are just as dangerous. Maybe more, 'cause those take premeditation, instead of just an accident of genetics."
Andre most likely does not help the level of strain in the room by making the rather immediate comparison, "Definitely humans in Virginia." As soon as he says it, though, he winces and shakes his head. His lips remain pulled back apologetically as he looks back up at Elliott, and he takes his time to continue, "Being able to and decidedly not doing so is an even clearer point than the ones who can't break stuff."
Elliott winces a little herself, and busies herself pouring coffee as the machine burbles to a halt. "Cream? Sugar?" she asks, distracted, before picking up the conversation. The words come a little too quickly for any illusion of ease. "Unfortunately, ability means intent in a lot of people's minds. And it doesn't help that mutants with destructive powers - we /can/ lose control, especially if we're inexperienced either with the ability or the situation." A moment later, her mind catches up with her tongue, and she winces again. "Um."
"Urm..." Andre's brain must be cleared of newsworthy horrors before he can again consider the issue of coffee. "A little bit of both?" He takes a deep breath and exhales slowly, the air rushing audibly past his teeth. "Natural ability means intent, learned and practiced ability does not. Greeeat." At Elliott's choice of first person article, Andre's eyes do widen and his brows do raise, but he does not speak on it. He instead tilts his head slightly toward her, his only press for explanation.
Elliott, in contrast, seems very interested in the coffee. Getting out the cream and sugar is apparently very important. If not done just right, they may explode, after all. She /certainly/ isn't trying to avoid potentially uncomfortable topics, newsworthy and otherwise. She doctors her own coffee, then steps aside. "Um. There. Make it how you like it - I promise the dog hasn't been into the sugar. Well, this time."
Andre's hand has dried after its doggy-provided washing, but he brushes the palm and then the back against his knee before requesting the service of that VIP sugar and cream for his lowly coffee. "Thanks," he offers, chancing a small smile. "So, urm. You...going to need help with the garden stuff?"
"Probably," Elliott replies, offering a (rather weak) smile of her own in turn. "I mean, there's the proposal, of course. And then there's actually the trying to convince people. And then there's the fundraising, which I'm not sure how I'm going to do yet - maybe try and round up some local performers or something? Of course, that's only if the whole thing's approved. But it's pretty much going to be life-eating, I think. Not that I /have/ much of a life - there's my dog, and a few friends, and my brother's coming to visit this summer, but that's about it. But you know. Life-eating."
"The orchestra's last concert's next weekend, and after that my summer's pretty clear. That's life waiting to be eaten, and all the more so if Beckah's working part of that time anyway," Andre has been spooning sugar into his cup as he speaks, and it is at this point that he realizes the amount he's transferred from sugarbowl to drink. The tip of his tongue sticks out, but he stirs the coffee anyway. "But she performs too. I could see if she'd want to do something, and I know my bad band's good for mutant stuff."
Elliott's smile brightens a little. "That'd be great! It might be neat to try and showcase some mutant talent - I know there are a few underground performers around, and a couple more well-known ones. But that might be too - you know. 'Come look at the freaks' kinda thing. Even if it's not actually especially freakish. If that makes any sense." She pauses a moment, and blinks once. "That's a lot of sugar."
Andre's tongue sticks out further. "That's about as much sugar as I'd normally use for a whole /pot/ of coffee, not just one cup." He shrugs at the futility of fixing the sugar to coffee ratio now. "Maybe if you could get some acts who weren't mutants, but who were still supportive of rights and commemoration and stuff, it could temper the impression of it being a freak show, and also make a point that not all humans hate mutants?" He tilts his mug slightly to the side, though not so far that anything spills, at the concept of tempering potent things.
"That could work. That could work really well, actually." Her smile broadens into a grin, faintly mischievious. "And it'd irritate the heck out of extremists on both sides, I think. Which is - well, it /could/ be bad, but probably there'd mostly be just a lot of ranting." The smile falters a little, and she sighs. "I just hope I don't lose too many of my human friends when I come out..."
"I should /hope/ that people who liked you already wouldn't suddenly decide to stop liking you for something that has nothing to do with personality." Andre's tone grows firmer as he speaks. He lifts the mug, then takes a small sip after finishing his sentence. He puckers almost as if the drink were sour instead of sweet. "Woosh, sugar. Garh. Um. People in California seemed pretty good about that in general, though I can't say so much about New York yet. But the ones who want to rant, that's what the internet is for. If they only take it out on their keyboards, you're in good shape."
Elliott utters a brief laugh at that. "Oh, don't I know it! The internet is where /all/ the crazies come out and play." She ponders for a moment, peering into her coffee mug speculatively before raising it to her lips to take a sip. "I'd like to think they wouldn't - that they'd realize that even though they haven't always known I'm a mutant, I've still always been one. That I'm still the same person I was before. And I figure most of them will be okay, after they get over the whole 'you can do /what/?' stage. But I've got to accept that I might lose a few people, you know? That way if I do, well, it'll still hurt, but it won't hurt quite as much." Another moment's thought, and she adds, "It'd probably be easier if I just - I don't know, had an extra pair of eyelids or something. As it is, my mutation's scary, even if I'm not. --I'm a pyrokinetic," she adds by way of explanation, in a rush. Her gaze seeks out the doberman, curled half-asleep beneath the kitchen table now that it is certain scraps are not forthcoming.
"Pyrokinetic?" Andre repeats, eyebrows raising quite high. His tone swings upward with surprise, though there is no unease or disapproval in any aspect of his presentation. "Um. I guess that is a /totally/ different league from telling people you can stop stuff from vibrating. But." He flashes Elliott a smile intended to be encouraging. "Exactly what you said. Sensible people should realize you're still you, and that you have the control to have not accidentally outed yourself."
Elliott grimaces slightly. "The luck, mostly. I mean, my control isn't /that/ bad, I'm not going to torch a building if I have a bad day, or light my bed on fire if I have a nightmare, anything like that. But it's not what it could be. It's not the safest power to practice with," she admits with a wince. "Playing with fire and all that. And it's not like I could just advertise to find a more experienced person to teach me. Or, well, find any help at all until recently. --So, cookies?"
"But you found some recently?" Andre latches on to the most positive point of Elliott's explanation. "I think people could fault you even less for that!" As he finishes this sentence, he moves toward the sink and runs his dog-slobbered hand under a small trickle of water. "I am also a big supporter of cookies and helping with them."
"More was found by, I think," Elliott replies, smiling faintly. "All right then, I'll get out the mixing bowl. And then there shall be cookies!"
Elliott brings Andre in on her plan to petition the city to put a memorial garden in the place of the Sanctuary building.
6 May 2007:
Having failed in last night's mission to get to the grocery store, Andre is out on the streets of Manhattan relatively early this Sunday. It's still a time of day when students are holed up with papers, Monday to Friday workers are sleeping in, and churchgoers are just trickling out of their respective services, so the streets are not as busy as they are at most other times. Andre walks at an easy pace, cane still in his left hand, though its base touching the ground in a pattern that's irregular compared to his actual gait. He's humming something under his breath, and the fingers on the cane handle tap more in time with that rhythm.
Natalie, blissfully, done with papers and grading and anything else academic - for the moment. She's far more interested in the glossy brochure in her hand, pages caught a bit by the breeze, and as she steps out of the travel office, she's paying more attention to it than to where she's going - sadly for Andre.
The swinging shut of the travel office door produces an unoiled creak and a metallic click shut - not a particularly loud sound, but enough to pull attention away from purely internal thoughts for the sake of some attention to the environment. But considering that Andre is moving toward that door and Natalie away, the Californian's coming to attention happens about two seconds shy of impact. "Gah!" is his assessment of near collision, and he presses the cane down harder to aid in stepping to the side to allow passage. "You might want to be careful-" as he cautions, recognition happens, "-Natalie? Got something other than math?"
Natalie staggers backwards, gaze whipping up in instant apology that never quite manages vocalization given recognition. "Andre? What-- hey. Hi. I haven't seen you in--" There is a brief pause as her gaze drops to the cane and then whips up again. "Forever."
"Hi!" Andre repeats, prompted into a more proper greeting by Natalie's use of the word. "Guess we've probably both been busy enough to stave off coincidences?" He shrugs easily, time also serving to diminish much awkwardness, and his grip on the cane loosens. "How are things?"
"Oh-- oh! They're good!" Natalie answers with a sudden grin. She extends a brochure, emblazoned with the Sydney Opera House, and waves it toward Andre. "I'm going to Sydney in a few weeks!"
Andre accepts the brochure, his eyes widening with intrigue at said Opera House, not to mention the other images on the glossy paper. "Sydney? That's /awesome/! Just for the heck of it? Seems like the kind of place that'd be cool to go to without any /particular/ reason other than just seeing it."
"Ha!" Natalie states, head shaking instantly. "No such luck. No, actually, I'm presenting at a conference there. It's kind of last minute."
Andre lifts his free hand to the side of his head, fingers spread in an imitation of a cell phone, "Yeah, hi, can you drop everything you're doing and fly halfway across the world tomorrow? Great, thanks!" He gives a brief laugh, then shakes his own head. "Still, Sydney. Can't exactly say they picked a bad location for it! And I guess the research is going better if they're asking you to present?"
"Pretty much," Natalie answers with a grin. "But it's kind of a big deal to be asked, so--" She hitches her shoulders up and then extends her hand to retrieve the brochure. "Yeah, yeah. Had my defense last month. We're just now getting set up to-- hey!" Her eyes brighten abruptly. "Would you be interested in sitting for an MRI?"
Andre folds the brochure and hands it back, then briefly stretches his arms out behind him, cane entirely leaving the ground for these purposes. "Then congratulations on the research and the conference! But--an MRI?" He squints in confusion and turns his head slightly to the side on the last question, inquisitive though not worried. "What for?"
"Er--" Natalie glances down the street and then shuffles a bit closer to Andre. "It has to do with the research we're doing. I'm doing. There's this program and brain waves and-- look, I'm actually in a bit of a rush, but maybe I can steal your number and give you a call about it? "
Andre lowers his voice as Natalie moves in closer. "I've never heard of MRIs for the sake of math, but definitely count me intrigued. I'd be glad to help, providing you don't need me to do complicated equations /correctly/!" He rummages in the pocket of his jeans for a scrap of paper and a pen for the purpose of number writing.
Natalie grins and shakes her head swiftly. "Nah, I'm the one doing the math. I've been working on this program, it compares brain scans to a template-- we'll go out for coffee sometime or something, I'll explain it."
Andre manages to produce a ballpoint and a receipt from the last time he went for coffee, and scrawls his number - barely legible - on the back before handing it to Natalie. "Sounds neat! Not going to keep you now, though. If it doesn't happen before Sydney, then have a good time, and good luck!"
"Yeah, sure." Natalie lifts the receipt in a mock toast and then grins before turning away. "Catch you later!"
Andre lifts his cane in response to said toast, tilts his head, and then continues on his way to the significantly less exciting world of the grocery store.
Andre and Natalie very nearly literally run into each other on the street. He envies her trip to Sydney, and she requests to literally pick his brain.
While people trundling down the hallway laden down with bulky bags of groceries are not precisely uncommon, there is a particular look to one who is planning to have several people show up in their home relatively soon. Elliott, hauling several bags of various sorts of chip, several varieties of soft drink, and what (to the curious, at least) would appear to be baking supplies and fixings for dip, has that look about her. She is humming cheerfully, and if it is very definitely off key and does not seem to be so much sticking to one song as jumping around a playlist, well. At least it's cheerful?
Having just eaten the last dinner-ish food in his apartment, Andre is on the other end of that grocery store journey, the epic hero having only just taken the sword and having not yet crossed the threshold on the grand quest for breakfast cereal. In fact, he's only just exiting the safe confines of his empty fort, cane clutched loosely in one hand, tapping the hallway in a rhythm somewhat contrary to his step as he aims for the elevator. But the groceries coming toward him and the small woman behind them do call for attention, all the more so with the humming. "Heya Elliott," Andre recognizes, cheerful himself. "Need help with any of those?" Cane be darned.
Elliott, just now pausing to wonder precisely how she will manage to excavate her keys (let alone corral a large, exuberant dog) while still managing a small mountain's worth of supplies is relieved at the offer. She grins, though it is as much native good humour as anything else. "Probably. Otherwise the hallway might be smothered in potato chips and confectioner's sugar - they don't go well together," she confides, with the air of one sharing great wisdom. "I'll give you a cookie! Err, when they're made. They aren't yet."
"Cookies, huh?" If Andre himself were a large exuberant dog, the spoken text would undeniably be accompanied by pricked ears. His eyebrows raise high instead as he extends his free arm to accept a few bags. "The fact that they're not made yet means they're going to be even better for being fresh and stuff." He nods, a sage of cookie expertise. "But chips too? Having another zombie party?"
"Nope," Elliott replies. And then pauses to consider before ammending, "Well, maybe. In the sense that we might all become zombies by the end of it. Of the caffeine-seeking sort instead of the brain seeking sort. Probably." Another pause. She grins. "If I try and gnaw on your head, feel free to hit me with something pointy. But first, I have to make cookies."
As his right arm is now laden with grocery bags, Andre lifts his left arm, cane handle still looped over his ring finger and pinky and stick pointing out to the side, and protectively hovers his other three fingers over his head. "Cookies should prevent gnawing!" he protests teasingly. "But if they don't, does the object have to be pointy?" He stands relatively steady with groceries and no cane, but as he says this, he wiggles the cane in the air before setting the one end back on the ground. "What's the occasion?"
Elliott laughs and shakes her head. "Nah, pointy just seems to work well on zombies." After two attempts, Elliott manages to unhook her keyring from her belt. Smurfette waves, the keys jingling merrily as she sorts through them to find the one that fits her aparment door. There is a bare moment of hesitation before she explains. "Research party. Well, research and drafting of formal papers, which I am not so great at. So I'm calling in backup. Unfortunately, backup tends to eat a lot. Mostly junk food."
Andre stands there with the cargo of groceries, patient for the opening of the door, laughing quietly and shaking his head as Elliott describes the call for cookies. "So, grad school, yeah?" he assumes. "That sounds like pretty much every last-second paper-panic in the music department. What're you researching?"
Elliott blinks once, then grins. "Oh, no, I've been out of school for a few years now. Have a career and everything. Why, if I don't watch it, I might end up becoming respectable one fine day, and /then/ what would I do?" The keys jingle once more as she unearths the correct one. The lock squeaks as it turns, warning that it will soon have to undergo maintainence. On the other side of the door, Schrodinger barks a cheery hello. There are people coming!
"Though usually our cookies just came from a box," Andre appends, an afterthought. For the first second of Schroedinger's greeting, Andre stiffens with surprise at the noise, though this expression quickly slides back to a fond smile. "I think," he considers, "You'd probably have to go back to school. Lose the respectability and get another degree as a bonus point!"
"That would," Elliott allows, "be infinitely preferable to allowing myself to be caught hacking a government database just to maintain my counterculture street cred. --Prepare for Doberman missile." This warning is offered directly before the door is pushed open. On the other side sits a dog, sporting a canine grin and a wagging tail. The dog is not sitting for long, deciding instead to inspect the humans. And the bags - bags, after all, often contain food. "Schrodinger, /sit/."
While Andre is taller than Elliott, he is still not particularly tall in the grand scheme of things, and dangling grocery bags from his hand are at a decidedly dog-friendly level. "Gahh, hey, Schroedinger!" he greets as he pulls the bags up to a level more awkward for holding but less likely to be invaded. The cane comes in handy now, supporting the adjustment to his center of balance. "So you're 'researching' government databases, then?" Andre smirks as he questions. He has no free hands to do air quotes around the word researching, but he makes them audible.
Elliott sighs, muttering something under her breath about demon dogs. The doberman utters another cheerful hello bark, and begins investigating Andre for interesting pockets, now that the bags are out of easy nosing level. Elliott leads the way inside, the small apartment littered with colourful pillows, sheafs of papers, and an unholy number of candles. "Nope. Researching zoning laws and petition procedures today. Which is - boring. Really boring, actually. Have I mentioned I hate legalese? I really, really do." She grins. "Government databases are /next/ weekend, but I didn't tell you that."
Andre's packets do not contain anything edible, unless Schroedinger has a gourmet's affinity for ballpoint pens and old ATM receipts. If the doberman enjoys metal canes, though, he's also very much in luck. Andre continues to hold the bags up high and rely on that cane to bring himself into the apartment after Elliott. "Zoning laws? No wonder you need the caffeine! What for? And where should I put these?" He shakes the bags in the air.
"Kitchen's right in there," Elliott replies, pointing one bag-laden hand in the proper direction - the direction she herself is heading in, as a matter of fact. "Just leave them on the counter and I'll sort through them. Thanks a lot for your help, by the way." Schrodinger sniffs at the cane curiously. It does not seem particularly edible, however. Alas. The dog cocks his head and whines curiously. "Just a project I'm kinda-sorta working on. In the very early stages, which is mostly planning. And wanting to throw things at the walls. I'm hoping to convince the city to do something with the site of the Sanctuary - where the firebombing took place a couple months ago?"
"No problem," Andre responds as he continues to follow Elliott into the kitchen. Once in that room, he slides the bags off his arm and then presses them as far back on the counter as they will go, hopefully out of snout range from dogs on their hind paws. As soon as his hand is freed up, he extends it toward Schroedinger to be sniffed. "Dang, that was a couple /months/ ago already?" Andre's gut reaction to talk of the Sanctuary sounds shocked and appalled. After the words are given a few seconds to hover in the air, his expression becomes more intrigued. "What sort of something? And if you want to throw stuff, my ceiling is an open target if my upstairs neighbor keeps being loud."
"It's been exactly two months. Hard to believe, isn't it? It feels like just yesterday. Or forever ago, sometimes." There is a cold doggy nose snuffling against Andre's hand in short order. Schrodinger is nothing if not a curious creature. Elliott smiles slightly, then turns to sort through the bags. First order of business: dig out cookie ingredients. "A public garden. Sort of a symbolic thing. And I think the fourth floor attracts loud people. I think the couple above me actually /broke/ their bed the other night."
Andre shakes his head slowly, the first wider motion causing some smaller rebounds in his neck. "Really hard," he concurs, speaking more quietly than before. "Though I guess that's the way memory works with all kinds of big bad events." For a moment, he screws his eyes tightly shut, but the feeling of that cold wet nose in his hand brings his eyes open again. His hand shifts to scritch behind a doggy ear as he continues, "Garden? That'd be really nice, all the more so with all the concrete. They're putting some sort of garden stuff as part of the Towers site too, I think?" While he sounds warm to the idea, the description of the upstairs people gets a brief disapproving grimace.
Dogs are therapeutic like that. Schrodinger's head shifts so he can lick the hand petting him. Elliott nods slightly. "It's sort of a thing, I think - human nature. Finding some way to coax life out of destruction. Gardens," she notes with a wry grin cast over her shoulder, the expression ever so slightly strained, "are probably more healthy than random sex with strangers. Which is popular."
Andre ceases the ear scratching as Schroedinger chooses to retaliate slimily, though he holds his hand in place rather than withdrawing. He does not have to touch cookie ingredients with that hand, at least not yet! "I don't think there were gardens when my neighbor destroyed the Death Star," Andre muses, eyes bright. That twinkle diffuses to something more earnest as he returns to the real world matter. "Do you know if there's already some sort of plan for the place. You definitely already have a good case for garden."
"I haven't heard anything, though that doesn't mean no one has plans for it. It can't hurt to try." She pauses in sorting the bags long enough to move over to the coffee maker. "Coffee? --I'd hazard a guess that it's too soon after for any major projects to be planned, though. I think a lot of people have kinda a superstitious thing going on around places that've been the center of some sort of violence. Like it'll spread. Sorta the way it's harder to find a renter for an apartment someone's been killed in, you know?"
"If you're making coffee anyway, sure," Andre takes the easier question first. "Yeah, living in an apartment where someone was killed...I don't think I could do that, and I don't think there's logic in it. Mental image of the blood, or the idea that some really bad guy knows where you live." Someone is unaware of certain masters of magnetism visiting next door! "But gardens? Well, most of the world's bad battlefields have plants on them now, yeah? The plants certainly don't mind."
"Blood makes the grass grow," Elliott quotes, a flash of gallows humour surfacing beneath her perpetual cheer. Schrodinger wanders over to the counter, nose snuffling in the direction of grocery bags that lie just out of reach. Woe. "Besides, it's sort of a way to make sure hatred and prejudice don't win, you know? Put in something that grows, replace it with a nurturing environment rather than ignoring it or wallowing, and you weaken the ideology. And, well," she pauses, smiling briefly - a touch nervously. "It might prove to a few people that not all mutants are destructive and frightening. I mean, a garden. Plants. Oooh, scary!"
Andre flexes his sufficiently slimed fingers in the air, then rubs the tips against his palm. "Aww, so no carnivorous plants intended to snatch up tourists, then?" He clicks his tongue against his front teeth, though once again the joke segues into a less certain expression. "I...think that's a really good point," he's slow to say, though he nods as he finishes the sentence. "Of course, it would be even better if they could take for granted that most aren't, since not every mutant they meet has breaking stuff in the genes, but a simple visual example's definitely powerful stuff."
"There were going to be, but Audrey II was busy," Elliott replies with a grin. Which quickly becomes nervous and strained around the edges. "Yeah. Or that even those who do have breaking stuff in their genes won't all actually do it. I mean, just 'cause you /can/ do something doesn't mean you /will/. And besides, normal humans with weapons or explosives are just as dangerous. Maybe more, 'cause those take premeditation, instead of just an accident of genetics."
Andre most likely does not help the level of strain in the room by making the rather immediate comparison, "Definitely humans in Virginia." As soon as he says it, though, he winces and shakes his head. His lips remain pulled back apologetically as he looks back up at Elliott, and he takes his time to continue, "Being able to and decidedly not doing so is an even clearer point than the ones who can't break stuff."
Elliott winces a little herself, and busies herself pouring coffee as the machine burbles to a halt. "Cream? Sugar?" she asks, distracted, before picking up the conversation. The words come a little too quickly for any illusion of ease. "Unfortunately, ability means intent in a lot of people's minds. And it doesn't help that mutants with destructive powers - we /can/ lose control, especially if we're inexperienced either with the ability or the situation." A moment later, her mind catches up with her tongue, and she winces again. "Um."
"Urm..." Andre's brain must be cleared of newsworthy horrors before he can again consider the issue of coffee. "A little bit of both?" He takes a deep breath and exhales slowly, the air rushing audibly past his teeth. "Natural ability means intent, learned and practiced ability does not. Greeeat." At Elliott's choice of first person article, Andre's eyes do widen and his brows do raise, but he does not speak on it. He instead tilts his head slightly toward her, his only press for explanation.
Elliott, in contrast, seems very interested in the coffee. Getting out the cream and sugar is apparently very important. If not done just right, they may explode, after all. She /certainly/ isn't trying to avoid potentially uncomfortable topics, newsworthy and otherwise. She doctors her own coffee, then steps aside. "Um. There. Make it how you like it - I promise the dog hasn't been into the sugar. Well, this time."
Andre's hand has dried after its doggy-provided washing, but he brushes the palm and then the back against his knee before requesting the service of that VIP sugar and cream for his lowly coffee. "Thanks," he offers, chancing a small smile. "So, urm. You...going to need help with the garden stuff?"
"Probably," Elliott replies, offering a (rather weak) smile of her own in turn. "I mean, there's the proposal, of course. And then there's actually the trying to convince people. And then there's the fundraising, which I'm not sure how I'm going to do yet - maybe try and round up some local performers or something? Of course, that's only if the whole thing's approved. But it's pretty much going to be life-eating, I think. Not that I /have/ much of a life - there's my dog, and a few friends, and my brother's coming to visit this summer, but that's about it. But you know. Life-eating."
"The orchestra's last concert's next weekend, and after that my summer's pretty clear. That's life waiting to be eaten, and all the more so if Beckah's working part of that time anyway," Andre has been spooning sugar into his cup as he speaks, and it is at this point that he realizes the amount he's transferred from sugarbowl to drink. The tip of his tongue sticks out, but he stirs the coffee anyway. "But she performs too. I could see if she'd want to do something, and I know my bad band's good for mutant stuff."
Elliott's smile brightens a little. "That'd be great! It might be neat to try and showcase some mutant talent - I know there are a few underground performers around, and a couple more well-known ones. But that might be too - you know. 'Come look at the freaks' kinda thing. Even if it's not actually especially freakish. If that makes any sense." She pauses a moment, and blinks once. "That's a lot of sugar."
Andre's tongue sticks out further. "That's about as much sugar as I'd normally use for a whole /pot/ of coffee, not just one cup." He shrugs at the futility of fixing the sugar to coffee ratio now. "Maybe if you could get some acts who weren't mutants, but who were still supportive of rights and commemoration and stuff, it could temper the impression of it being a freak show, and also make a point that not all humans hate mutants?" He tilts his mug slightly to the side, though not so far that anything spills, at the concept of tempering potent things.
"That could work. That could work really well, actually." Her smile broadens into a grin, faintly mischievious. "And it'd irritate the heck out of extremists on both sides, I think. Which is - well, it /could/ be bad, but probably there'd mostly be just a lot of ranting." The smile falters a little, and she sighs. "I just hope I don't lose too many of my human friends when I come out..."
"I should /hope/ that people who liked you already wouldn't suddenly decide to stop liking you for something that has nothing to do with personality." Andre's tone grows firmer as he speaks. He lifts the mug, then takes a small sip after finishing his sentence. He puckers almost as if the drink were sour instead of sweet. "Woosh, sugar. Garh. Um. People in California seemed pretty good about that in general, though I can't say so much about New York yet. But the ones who want to rant, that's what the internet is for. If they only take it out on their keyboards, you're in good shape."
Elliott utters a brief laugh at that. "Oh, don't I know it! The internet is where /all/ the crazies come out and play." She ponders for a moment, peering into her coffee mug speculatively before raising it to her lips to take a sip. "I'd like to think they wouldn't - that they'd realize that even though they haven't always known I'm a mutant, I've still always been one. That I'm still the same person I was before. And I figure most of them will be okay, after they get over the whole 'you can do /what/?' stage. But I've got to accept that I might lose a few people, you know? That way if I do, well, it'll still hurt, but it won't hurt quite as much." Another moment's thought, and she adds, "It'd probably be easier if I just - I don't know, had an extra pair of eyelids or something. As it is, my mutation's scary, even if I'm not. --I'm a pyrokinetic," she adds by way of explanation, in a rush. Her gaze seeks out the doberman, curled half-asleep beneath the kitchen table now that it is certain scraps are not forthcoming.
"Pyrokinetic?" Andre repeats, eyebrows raising quite high. His tone swings upward with surprise, though there is no unease or disapproval in any aspect of his presentation. "Um. I guess that is a /totally/ different league from telling people you can stop stuff from vibrating. But." He flashes Elliott a smile intended to be encouraging. "Exactly what you said. Sensible people should realize you're still you, and that you have the control to have not accidentally outed yourself."
Elliott grimaces slightly. "The luck, mostly. I mean, my control isn't /that/ bad, I'm not going to torch a building if I have a bad day, or light my bed on fire if I have a nightmare, anything like that. But it's not what it could be. It's not the safest power to practice with," she admits with a wince. "Playing with fire and all that. And it's not like I could just advertise to find a more experienced person to teach me. Or, well, find any help at all until recently. --So, cookies?"
"But you found some recently?" Andre latches on to the most positive point of Elliott's explanation. "I think people could fault you even less for that!" As he finishes this sentence, he moves toward the sink and runs his dog-slobbered hand under a small trickle of water. "I am also a big supporter of cookies and helping with them."
"More was found by, I think," Elliott replies, smiling faintly. "All right then, I'll get out the mixing bowl. And then there shall be cookies!"
Elliott brings Andre in on her plan to petition the city to put a memorial garden in the place of the Sanctuary building.
6 May 2007:
Having failed in last night's mission to get to the grocery store, Andre is out on the streets of Manhattan relatively early this Sunday. It's still a time of day when students are holed up with papers, Monday to Friday workers are sleeping in, and churchgoers are just trickling out of their respective services, so the streets are not as busy as they are at most other times. Andre walks at an easy pace, cane still in his left hand, though its base touching the ground in a pattern that's irregular compared to his actual gait. He's humming something under his breath, and the fingers on the cane handle tap more in time with that rhythm.
Natalie, blissfully, done with papers and grading and anything else academic - for the moment. She's far more interested in the glossy brochure in her hand, pages caught a bit by the breeze, and as she steps out of the travel office, she's paying more attention to it than to where she's going - sadly for Andre.
The swinging shut of the travel office door produces an unoiled creak and a metallic click shut - not a particularly loud sound, but enough to pull attention away from purely internal thoughts for the sake of some attention to the environment. But considering that Andre is moving toward that door and Natalie away, the Californian's coming to attention happens about two seconds shy of impact. "Gah!" is his assessment of near collision, and he presses the cane down harder to aid in stepping to the side to allow passage. "You might want to be careful-" as he cautions, recognition happens, "-Natalie? Got something other than math?"
Natalie staggers backwards, gaze whipping up in instant apology that never quite manages vocalization given recognition. "Andre? What-- hey. Hi. I haven't seen you in--" There is a brief pause as her gaze drops to the cane and then whips up again. "Forever."
"Hi!" Andre repeats, prompted into a more proper greeting by Natalie's use of the word. "Guess we've probably both been busy enough to stave off coincidences?" He shrugs easily, time also serving to diminish much awkwardness, and his grip on the cane loosens. "How are things?"
"Oh-- oh! They're good!" Natalie answers with a sudden grin. She extends a brochure, emblazoned with the Sydney Opera House, and waves it toward Andre. "I'm going to Sydney in a few weeks!"
Andre accepts the brochure, his eyes widening with intrigue at said Opera House, not to mention the other images on the glossy paper. "Sydney? That's /awesome/! Just for the heck of it? Seems like the kind of place that'd be cool to go to without any /particular/ reason other than just seeing it."
"Ha!" Natalie states, head shaking instantly. "No such luck. No, actually, I'm presenting at a conference there. It's kind of last minute."
Andre lifts his free hand to the side of his head, fingers spread in an imitation of a cell phone, "Yeah, hi, can you drop everything you're doing and fly halfway across the world tomorrow? Great, thanks!" He gives a brief laugh, then shakes his own head. "Still, Sydney. Can't exactly say they picked a bad location for it! And I guess the research is going better if they're asking you to present?"
"Pretty much," Natalie answers with a grin. "But it's kind of a big deal to be asked, so--" She hitches her shoulders up and then extends her hand to retrieve the brochure. "Yeah, yeah. Had my defense last month. We're just now getting set up to-- hey!" Her eyes brighten abruptly. "Would you be interested in sitting for an MRI?"
Andre folds the brochure and hands it back, then briefly stretches his arms out behind him, cane entirely leaving the ground for these purposes. "Then congratulations on the research and the conference! But--an MRI?" He squints in confusion and turns his head slightly to the side on the last question, inquisitive though not worried. "What for?"
"Er--" Natalie glances down the street and then shuffles a bit closer to Andre. "It has to do with the research we're doing. I'm doing. There's this program and brain waves and-- look, I'm actually in a bit of a rush, but maybe I can steal your number and give you a call about it? "
Andre lowers his voice as Natalie moves in closer. "I've never heard of MRIs for the sake of math, but definitely count me intrigued. I'd be glad to help, providing you don't need me to do complicated equations /correctly/!" He rummages in the pocket of his jeans for a scrap of paper and a pen for the purpose of number writing.
Natalie grins and shakes her head swiftly. "Nah, I'm the one doing the math. I've been working on this program, it compares brain scans to a template-- we'll go out for coffee sometime or something, I'll explain it."
Andre manages to produce a ballpoint and a receipt from the last time he went for coffee, and scrawls his number - barely legible - on the back before handing it to Natalie. "Sounds neat! Not going to keep you now, though. If it doesn't happen before Sydney, then have a good time, and good luck!"
"Yeah, sure." Natalie lifts the receipt in a mock toast and then grins before turning away. "Catch you later!"
Andre lifts his cane in response to said toast, tilts his head, and then continues on his way to the significantly less exciting world of the grocery store.
Andre and Natalie very nearly literally run into each other on the street. He envies her trip to Sydney, and she requests to literally pick his brain.