Participants:
| Scene Title | BFF (Badass Future Friends) |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Two semi-secret BFFs meet to mock movies, drink and talk about life, relationships, and avoiding complications. (Beware of Movie spoilers. Sort of.) |
| Date | April 4, 2019 |
Magnes' Studio Apartment
It's still quite early in the evening, the start of a long night of partying for some, prime time at home watching TV for others. Badass Future Magnes is the last of the two, sitting in his no-bedroom studio apartment, on his large black futon couch, that of course can fall back into a bed. He has two small glasses on his wooden coffee table, pouring some sort of red wine into them, then just sits back and turns on his rather large Super HDTV, because the future has Super HD, sitting in front of the tan curtains that cover his large apartment windows.
His apartment is still filled with leftovers from his early twenties, a few bookcases lined against the walls filled with graphic novels, some file cabinets of comics, but there are no posters to broadcast his former (Current?) nerdiness anymore. On the other side of the apartment, where the dark blue carpet ends, the marble-floored kitchen begins, though it's not very impressive, it just has the bare essentials, and for some reason a door to the pathroom next to the sink.
Future TV is just on commercials right now, inbetween a remake of Veronica Mars, where she's an all-grown-up detective. The TV grows dark and cryptic, it's a trailer with green scrolling characters, then it starts flashing images of what looks vaguely like The Matrix. "More than ten years ago, history was made… And now, we're making it better." Then, cue the fight scenes, with 2019 graphics and people flying around. A nerd would say 'The Matrix sucks now', because they apparently combined all three movies into one. "Milo Ventimiglia is Neo in… Matrix."
There's a groan from the gravity manipulator, who just says, "God, Gillian, hurry up and get here before I throw the TV out the window…"
A black car pulls up near the house, not to park, just to pause. The windows are darkly glazed over for privacy and protection from the sun. Not that that's needed at night. Mostly for privacy in this case. Not the most expensive car, but a really expensive one would stand out in this neighborhood.
The back passanger door opens, a pair of black shoes stepping out. Black slacks, dark purple top and coat, sunglasses… Leaning in, the woman says a few words to the driver of the car, before grabbing a canvas bag from the back seat and closing the door. The car drives off as she walks up to the door.
Gillian Petrelli often stops by here after work, the one place right now that she doesn't need to worry about the media eye. Of course if the media ever caught her going here, she'd probably have more than a few tabloid rumors that she doesn't want to handle. Her driver is paid exceptionally well to keep it from happening, and it isn't like it would be much a secret from her telepathic (and more) husband.
The guard at the main entrance gets a dimpled smile and lets her in. She visits enough she's known, though she hasn't had the need to pay him off yet. Once she reaches the door to the studio apartment, about the time the poor man is bemoaning the travesty of remakes, she reaches up to knock firmly on the door. Bracelets clang against each other on her wrist, and her wedding band and engagement ring are worn next to each other.
The remote is left floating in place, his coat laying on his dresser, which is randomly placed inbetween two bookcases, so now he's just dressed like an office man after work. Magnes walks to the door, looking out of the peep hole, then unlocks the chain and the other two locks he has on the door, opening it for her. "Hey, Gillian. Nice to see a face that hasn't pissed me off this week." he greets with a warm smile, something only Gillian gets to see these days.
"Well, week's not over yet," Gillian jokes with a raspy laugh as she moves inside the room, holding up the canvas bag. "Might piss you off before I leave. I brought some of that special Evolved aged beer. I'm not sure how they do it, but it tastes pretty good." Also not the cheapest stuff on the planet. "Also dug up an old classic for your TV, there. Figure anything's better than commercials and the shit they call good tv these days." Cursing is not something she does in public. It's one thing she can do around him that she can't do at work. A hand disappears into the bag as she moves further inside, producing a ten year old… well… not classic. But it's still damn funny to watch. Especially with a healthy sense of humor. "How you feel about mocking the rape of our childhood again?" What she produced is a SHD DVD copy of… Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
"I'd love to see you try." Magnes challenges the very idea of Gillian somehow pissing him off, then locks the door when she enters. "I already poured some of my cheap crap, but after we finish that, we can move on to your expensive stuff." he suggests, walking back to the couch and taking his seat. "Oh god, that movie. The last thing Indiana Jones needed was Shia LaBeouf in a pompadour, that guy just kills fandoms." The seat next to him is lightly pat, motioning for her to come over. "Pop it in and come over here."
The bag gets set by the couch first, before Gillian walks over to the television and opens the case to drop the SHD DVD into the drive. The tiny little disc could get lost easily enough, but it holds the movie, the special features, and even brand new features released ten years later. Lucas Films never fails to make money. "He's kinda cute, but the whole greaser thing didn't really work for me," she admits, as she walks the rest of the way over, letting him handle the remote as she plops down. The bracelets knock together loudly again and she reaches to pull them off, revealing the one visible tattoo she didn't get removed. A tribal yin/yang. "He sort of looks like you."
"Yeah right, if I look like Shia LaBeouf, then you're the girl from that Hitcher remake." Magnes casually dismisses, grabbing his glass of wine from the table to take a long sip. He appears to grow far less tense and uptight than usual, undoing his tie with one hand as he sits back with his glass. "So, anything new with you?"
The glass of wine is picked up, raises with a genuine, rather than faked, smile, and Gillian rasps out, "If I have to be compared to a horror movie character, I'd rather be the 'Last Woman Standing' than one of the victims. Especially since she got to have a shotgun by the end." A shotgun makes all movies a little better. The wine gets a generous drink, before she looks back over at him. "Just the same shit. Pinehearst projects, of all kinds. A lot of paper work. Most of it boring as hell. Everyone's really busy right now." There's a pause, "There's a fundraiser I'm supposed to go to. For the police, actually." This leads into the same question, "What about you? Besides everyone ever pissing you off."
Magnes just lets out a long sigh at her question, his expression almost becoming exhausted at the thought. "Chasing leads, busting crime lords, the occasional air battle with an Evolved who happens to fly. That's it, just work, lots of work. And I ran into Flint Deckard for the first time in a few years last night, I heard he knows Abby, so, yeah." That calls for a long chug of his glass, before sitting it on the table for a refill.
"I'm surprised there's still crime lords to bust," Gillian muses quietly over her glass of wine, until she quiets to let the two names process, and the mood that it helped bring up. Good ol Abigail. A topic they've mentioned before. "The name Deckard sounds familiar, but I don't think I know him," she admits, before she takes a generous drink again. Not needing a refill yet, but they haven't touched her sensetive topics yet. "Everyone involved in these messes seems connected eventually, though." There's a moment where she looks down into the wine, swirling around in her glass. "How about your partner? He managed to avoid bullets this week?"
"He's an asshole, just stay away from him. A ghoul that sucks the life out of everything he touches." Magnes shakes his head at the thought of Deckard, sipping and looking vaguely annoyed at the movie. "Gabriel's fine, keeps healing my liver whenever I alcohol binge, so I guess I'm an alcoholic without the side effects. I wouldn't worry about him getting hurt though. How's your exploding husband?" he asks, not fond of Peter, but not above giving Gillian a shoulder to vent on.
Ghoul that sucks the life out, huh? Gillian's carefully crafted eyebrows raise, and she finally reaches up to pull off the sunglasses that she'd actually forgotten about, and set them so they hang from the canvas bag. Gabriel's fine, seems to relieve her, but the mention of her exploding husband causes a twinge of tension around her eye for a moment. That topic gets pushed aside for a moment. "I think I've been drinking longer than you, so I seem to have the stomach for it— but I'm sure someone would heal me if it needed to be done." Pinehearst has doctors, and healers both. She finishes off her glass finally, before adding, "Peter's busy. He's working a lot right now." A hint of tension around her jaw, before she smiles, "But things will get better when he's finished with his current project load." She leans forward to get a refill. "It's interesting how few people know the truth. About what happened to Midtown."
"Peter blew up, Nathan covered it up and blamed it on Gabriel. Was never all that complicated to me." Magnes adds with a casual shrug, not seeming to care all that much about the Peter situation anymore, but he still seems to dislike Peter for whatever reason. "Projects, eh? What does he even do?" he wonders, having never actually cared enough to ask before, but he has his reasons.
This would be why Peter never remains a topic of discussion long. Probably for the better. "You know I can't talk about most of it," she says, kind of dismissing it in a way. "The same things as always. Trying to make the world a better place." The token line of Pinehearst in action. With her refilled glass of wine, she settles back and makes a gesture to the SHD TV. "Let's see Indy survive a close range nuclear blast again. You think they would have changed that scene after New York got blew up…" Thanks to said husband, and blamed on man's partner — and her ex boyfriend.
Already on his third glass, Magnes appears to be loosening up even more, quickly forgetting about the subject of Peter. "Getting married; I thought about it a lot when I was younger, you know, before I knew what being an adult was really like." he says in that cynical tone, completely dismissing the entire idea now. "Being a hero means I have the whole world to clean up, starting with this country. No time for relationships, even if all the good women weren't taken. Some asshole's gonna get me with a lucky shot one day anyway, I'd prefer I not have anyone to leave behind." he pessimistically explains, wine sipping, and looking over to see what she's doing.
"You are such a pessimist," Gillian says, shifting her wine glass a little closer so that she can cling the glass against his. It sloshes the wine around a bit before she drinks on it. "I was the exact opposite. I never thought of marriage. And I spent pretty much every few weeks expecting to get blown up or worse, watching people I cared about get locked up or killed trying to change the world. Leaving behind people they loved, who loved them…" There's a quiet moment, a glance into her glass. They're still not watching the stupid movie yet. She drinks a rather generous gulp before continuing. "And then I realized… I'd rather have someone love me while I'm here than love me when I'm not, you know?" She shrugs. "You're a good friend, Mags. One of the few people I can just be me around."
"I always wanted to be something, to try and change the world. Well, here I am, changing the world. I feel like I made some unspecified sacrifice." Magnes smiles at her words, moving his free hand to gently touch her cheek. "You keep me sane, and you remind me of what I'm fighting for, like Abby in the old days. I don't know what I'd do without someone to keep me feeling Human, like I have something that even resembles a personal life anymore."
The touch on the cheek makes Gillian pause a moment, and she shifts her glass holding hand to push his away. "I think you drank a little fast there, buddy." Flirting isn't uncommon, but she's the married one here. "I do like coming here. Really no one else I can just drink with, mock movies with— and you let me know what's going on with people I can't really talk to anymore." Gabriel, just as he often brings up Abby, he always gets brought up. Important people of the past are still important. Even if it's hard to talk to them. "This isn't the closest thing to a personal life you could have, you know. But why ruin what you got." Either way.
Magnes doesn't seem phased by her pushing his hand away, he almost expected it. Staring at her with slightly hazy eyes from the alcohol, he just smiles with that continued dismissive look. Any notion of him having a fulfilling personal life is just silly! "Too much time missed, I wouldn't even know where to start. I'm pretty sure I choked on my heart when I heard Abby was getting married, then after her, the cycle just continued. I either wanted a girl and couldn't tell her until it was too late, or I told her and she just wasn't interested because I kept stuttering or falling or doing all of that other shit I used to do. Now that I'm a cop, it's usually along the lines of 'I can't handle that kind of life'. So now I just say fuck it." He doesn't seem to care anymore, bitter as all hell, but he's still given up. Chugging his glass again, a fourth gets filled. "Fuck 'em all, you're just my friend and you're the best female relationship I've ever had, so who needs them."
"Marriage isn't for everyone," Gillian glances down at the engagement ring, the wedding band that sits next to it. They aren't connected, both loose from each other, but they do line up in a way. She'd not wanted them connected. For her own reasons. She doesn't seem to regret it, though. Especially since, "You're probably the best guy friend I've ever had that didn't lead to complications." And complications are broad. At least there haven't been any yet. "But keep this up and I'm going to fix you up with someone. You need to get laid sometimes too. I promise no hookers, I know you're a good cop, but there's a lot of girls who don't need to come with complications."
"There's something I could use; I thought we'd be sleeping together on the side by now, not that I'm wishing or anything." Magnes laughs, hunching over and looking around for that expensive beer she spoke of earlier. "If you wanna fix me up, I'm not gonna stop you; I trust you. Now, where the hell is that beer?"
"I'm married to a telepath— my father-in-law is a telepath— and my employeer— and they just happen to be two of the most powerful Evolved in the world," Gillian says with a hint of a grin, leaning over to grab the bottles of expensive beer from her bag. One of them is handed over to him, while the other is kept. "I love my husband, but even if I didn't— I don't think it would go over well if I did anything besides share a few beers and watch movies with a good friend of mine." Sex would complicate things. Quite a bit. "But we have beer and I know a couple lonely ladies that would probably find you very attractive. And I promise they're not fat."
"I could take Peter." Magnes decides, because that's the kind of guy he is. Sure, the guy can level a city, but well, Magnes has determination! Let's see Peter beat that. "I'd disagree with you, but I don't know if it'd be my brain or dick talking, so I'll just take your word for it. Set me up with those ladies, better than sitting alone getting drink all night when you're not here."
"I wouldn't want you to take him," Gillian says simply, but she has to smile at his determination, and his honestly with his brain and dick being at odds with each other. "Dicks always complicate things. Sometimes I wish they didn't exist." There's a joking smile as she opens her bottle of beer and samples a good taste of it. The good stuff. "Start up that movie now that we're buzzed enough to mock it properly. My ride home will be back in about three hours." More than enough time for a movie.
"You sure it's the dicks that complicate things, and not the brains?" Magnes snickers, his bottle cap automatically popping off, because showing off with gravity is just something he can't help. The movie is restarted, shoes kicked off, and he just sits back, sipping good beer with his Bad(Hot)ass Future Friend.
"Show off," Gillian calls him on it, but is smiling, enough that dimples show. As he leans back, she settles into the couch to drink her own beer. "Next time, I'll bring the real Matrix movies. Not this remake crap that they're coming out with. I don't care how much Neo looks like my husband, or if Keanu couldn't act either, it doesn't even have Laurence Fishburne in it, and that makes it shit." Badass Future (Just) Friend and drinking buddy.
 <date>: previous log |
 <date>: next log |