(no subject)
The goths are gone, but the emo remains -- in the shape of bohemian rhapsody, classical style. Concerts are out, and the small, popular coffee shop of Bad Ass is near to overflowing by (again) figures in black. Classic, elegant black, in this case, mismatched but more practical than the stuff worn by teenagers the night before. The noise is oppressive; the crowding, likewise, and for Det. Rossi (on leave) enough is enough. Brows pressed low in sure signs of annoyance, he forces his way through a pack of gabbling musicians, the coffee in one hand held high overhead, the blunt baritone cutting unheard through conversation. "Sorry. Excuse me. Hey-- /watch it/, fella. I may not have kids yet, but that don't mean I might not want some in the future, capiche?"
Musician though he may be, Andre hasn't been a performer in any of this evening's various shows, and he isn't inclined to wear concert black as an audience member. The percussionist - in dark brown khakis and a light blue button down shirt - sits along the bar table at the back of the room, on the fringe of musical discussion, yet barely participating. Indeed, much of his visual attention focuses into the depths of his white chocolate mocha rather than through the crowd. Certain voices are more cutting and prominent than those of violinists discussing the triumphant mastering of difficult passages, even if those violinists don't notice that certain voice. Andre, for one, looks up and in the direction from which the sound came.
"/Christ/," ejaculates that certain voice, and its owner explodes out of the herded bodies, face flushed with heat and temper. The lurch of the crowd has sent him backwards: towards the rear rather than towards the door, so it is against the bar table that he comes up short, and next to Andre's seat that he stops to swear and looks down with bright, hard eyes. Recognition is slow in coming, but when it does come, it does so with a visible change of expression. "Hey. It's the crip. What's your name? An--Andre. Beckah's boy."
Andre smiles in response to the recognition, but the width of the initial greeting quickly diminishes to a wavery mouth with corners forced slightly upward and a sheepish slant to his eyebrows. "And you're Chris, right?" His question is dull in tone, even as it's higher than usual volume to compensate for the bustling occupying the room. "I wouldn't say I'm Beckah's any more, though." He looks into his coffee again, breathes deeply, then focuses back on Rossi. "I messed that up pretty well. Awkward situation, I waited for her to make the next move, and just found myself waiting too long."
Rossi's eyes burn a sharp, vivid green. Exasperation twists his mouth into a slanted grimace. "What are you, a woman?" There is no malice in the flat-palmed slap he aims towards the back of Andre's head, but it is sharp enough to sting and ruffle the other man's hair. "Wait for her to make the next move. Jesus Christ. Your balls are the size of peanuts. --Fuck," he adds, spotting an opening in the crowd. Without preamble, he forges back into the crowd and knifes towards the exit with a hasty stride. Gangway. Coming through.
Andre's hair remains ruffled, made only worse by his own hand rubbing idly at the spot of impact. "Probably smaller," he admits, resigned rather than malicious, as Rossi heads off. "Probably should've worn that dress like you suggested whenever ago it was." The attempt at humor comes with an altogether failed smile, and it comes too late for Rossi's ears; the violinists, however, cast him a bemused look before continuing their own conversation.
As coincidences go, Rebecca Reed walking up to the door of Bad Ass Coffee at this moment isn't too far fetched. After all, it used to be her favorite hang out before she was spooked by the bombing of the Sanctuary and then caught up in the development of Purgatory. She is dressed in her usual sort of fashions now that she no longer habitually hides herself -- a black tanktop with, of all things, a picture of a chicken wearing a necktie on the front and a pair of jeans that look as though they pissed Logan off at some point in their denim lifespan. Her tattooed upper arms are exposed, dancing with numerous little images and words. Her lower arms are crossed over her tummy. She pushes the door open to head inside and into the crowd.
The body that explodes out of the gathering pressed around the counter is rumpled and wearing civilian clothing, but it is cursing, it is irritated, it is tall and it is broad: four familiar elements. Unwary collision pending, Rossi catches hold of the unexpected body with his free hand, coffee splashing over the fingers of the other hand, held high to avoid disaster. Another curse. And then: "Becks. --Ow. /Shit/, that's hot." He brings the injured member to his mouth to suck at the digits. "You here to meet Andre?"
Having the NYPD's most illustrious member of their elite squad of detecties assigned to take ass-beatings from Magneto leap out of the crowd at her catches Beckah off guard. The many-limbed DJ hops backwards, hazel eyes going a little wide. "Oh, shit. Hey Chris. How're you?" It takes her a second to actually process his question. "What? No? I haven't talked to Andre in a couple months, man. Did you see him in there? Shit."
"You're as bad as he is," Rossi concludes. He has improved in health since the last time Beckah has seen him; the vigor that burns behind the frowning face is a close sibling to his usual self; the bruises visible in the shadow under his jaw are only smudges, more visibly yellow and green where light hits his skin directly. "Jesus. I'll never understand you people. If you had two heads you'd still turn them every way but straight ahead. Gonna give yourself a cramp trying to run backwards, kiddo."
With a crooked little grin, Beckah displays a new behavior. She has not done this one before and perhaps it is a sign of her social situation having changed. At Rossi's rant, she leans forward and gives him a peck on the cheek. "Good to see you're feeling better, Chris." Maybe she was just trying to throw him off, considering the Cheshire sort of a grin on her red-lined lips once she leans back. "I was just asking and I wasn't really expecting some big teary scene. I just wanted a dose of caffeine. I'm not going to turn tail and run home to hide or something."
Pale eyes open marginally wider, showing white around the green. The cop is taken aback, if only for a second. His brows angle low once more. "The fuck," he says flatly, and wipes a suspicious hand across his cheek before checking his fingers. No dye. "I don't interfere with relationships," he adds self-righteously, "so forget it. You do your thing. I got to get back." He hitches his coffee again and grimaces, already pushing out past her. "Stay out too long, and Papa Chuck'll turn me into a pumpki--" The bell over the entrance tinkles; the door slams shut.
In the back of the room, one dejected percussionist drains the last of one white mocha that has failed to be as comforting as usual. Andre holds the cup one-handed, with the other hand still rubbing lightly at the back of his head. He slides off his stool, a little unevenly on his feet, but his hands don't need to leave their posts in order for him to maintain balance. Focusing on the path of his own feet more than the bodies to either side of him, he doesn't even seek a trash can for his empty cup as he presses his way toward the door.
With Rossi having departed, Rebecca pushes her way into Bad Ass. She holds for a moment at the doorway, looking around and refamiliarizing herself with the place she used to waste hours sitting and sipping coffee. She's never been in the building without her coat on. The usual glances and stares come, people realizing she is a mutant, pointing her out to their friends and the like, but nothing ugly, nothing crude. She stands out, to say the least, between the red dreadlocks and the be-tied hen on her shirt and the tattoos and the arms. The best path between the back of the room and the door, at the moment, heads right toward the cause for the back of Andre's hair being mussed up.
The focus of Andre's eyes begin to drift upward as he gets closer to the door - it would, after all, be awkward to walk into the wall for lack of proper direction. Yet that kind of awkwardness would really be favorable to the type that hits him like a ship slamming an iceberg as the trajectory of his vision lands upon hands lower than they ought to be, then travels up to a second pair, to be finally pulled in by bright red above. His jaw catches with a click from the back of his throat, his eyebrows fly upward, and his eyes screw shut for a moment. His forward motion, however, has stopped, and with a swallow, he opens his eyes again and allows his mouth to pry back open with the soft words, "My fault. Wrong to stick my nose in, and wrong to not talk at all to avoid doing it again."
The tall woman gives Andre a look at the fact that he looks as if he had just walked into some sort of a forcefield around her. Beck's smile is awkward and strained, not at all the comfortable grin that she was pointing at Rossi only moments before. She shifts her lower pair of arms at her middle, as if trying to reapply the positioning they are already in. The fragmented and quiet words escaping from Andre's mouth soften her expression just slightly. Instead of addressing it though, she goes for something a little less uncomfortable. "Hi to you too, Andre."
As he is given greetings, strained though they may be, rather than admonitions, Andre's jaw resumes its natural position, no longer gaping nor locked, and his brows come down slightly from their lift, no longer threatening to disappear entirely behind the fringe of his bangs. The awkwardness is hardly gone, however, still evident in the specific focus of his wide eyes and the bobbing of his adam's apple as he quavers a belated, "Hi." He lowers the hand from the back of his head and passes his empty coffee cup into it, weighted slow motions. "I, uh. I'm finished my coffee and you don't have yours yet. Can we, uhm, talk not here but soon?" Long swallow. "It's...ok if we can't."
"You know where I live. And where I work. And my phone number. And my e-mail. And my AIM. And my cell." Beckah's list is evidently meant to illustrate how easy she is to get ahold of. The four-armed woman slips to Andre's side so that she can move past him, doing her best at imparting that along with the message that he probably should have spoken to her weeks earlier, but without it being a complete condemnation. Instead, she heads to the counter in search of the coffee that she came here to get in the first place. It is not an easy yes, but it is not, either, a no.
A triptych of sixes in a crowded coffeeshop.