Two Queers And A Dark Prophesy

Participants:

bolivar2_icon.gif raquelle_icon.gif

Also featuring:
The little girls
.

Scene Title Two Queers And A Dark Prophesy
Synopsis In which Bolivar bullies himself to the heart of the matter and Raquelle delivers beautiful hair in gratitude, or vice versa. Give-take is what A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP is about. +/- murder for whoever hurts this family because seriously. Wankers.
Date August 28, 2009

Brooklyn — The Cambria Household

Apartment!


For lack of an actually seat at the Cambria Salon and Day Spa, Bolivar is visiting the Cambria household. He is not entirely sure whether his boy's professional place of work looks fancier or whether the living room does, today. Apparently Princess Diana had taken it upon herself to make an occasion of this occasion.

There is an inexplicable clump of miscellaneous vegetation poking out of a plot that he's pretty sure used to hold toys in the corner of the room, a gauzy drape over the lamp that's soaked the walls into an infernal blood crimson, the television on but forcibly hauled around and jammed up in a corner where he can't see the screen, leaving him with what one might suppose was intended to be 'ambient music' between episodes of Punk'd and E! interviews. Another great dervish of fabric is spread out over the sofa that he had been instructed to sit on— and he's pretty sure it's going to cling to his pant leg and drag his trousers down when he eventually does stand up. He is drinking tea.

Moreover, he had been instructed not to bring his dogs. Bolivar Rodriguez-Smith suspects that what awaits him in the bathroom is not a barber's setup, but a guillotine.

Running a salon is turning out to be more stressful than Raquelle had planned. It isn't even officially technically open yet, just certain customers allowed to come and go and so on. So he has the bathroom all organized and set up to do a simple wash, cut, and blow (mind out of gutter people) - (or maybe put the mind back in the gutter, this is Raquelle)

His house, however, is a mess and he let Diana do whatever she wanted to do because she is a princess and she is adorable and he spoils her. Also, he wanted to keep her out of the bathroom. She does flutter about in her pink fairy princess costume though, hair all French braided and tiara in place and she may or may not have stolen a few compacts of glittery foundation or eyeshadow from her father's closet but that's a secret that only her and the people (person) at her Tea know.

"FROD-" He cuts himself off. "MI AMOR!" He calls out from the bathroom, black jeans, black t-shirt, bare feet and hair tousled…he's not wearing make-up today. "You do NOT want highlights do you?!"

"I would look like a retard with highlights!" comes the response, possibly not quite loud enough, given Bolivar is trying not to arouse the attention of the fairy hostess flitting to and fro amid the Hellish Kool-Aid glow of ambience. "'M not exactly James f—

"James Iha." He is probably distracted or else, doubtless, he would have noticed the nickname that the other man had aborted out of just then. Noticing a nearing twitch of the girl's dainty profile, he hastens to swallow a mouthful of tea. Retroactively, he recalls what Raquelle had near~ly called and an ounce goes down the wrong pipe; he wheezes briefly, hammers himself on the chest with the end of his fist. "Hey," he says in sudden inspiration, gesturing with the plastic eggshell that serves him as drinky receptacle. "Next time you want something from your daddy-poo, you know what you should do?"

"You would not…" Raquelle chuckles though as he calls back at half-volume, rolling his eyes and selecting a few towels before calling out. "Do you want to do it standing up, on your knees or sitting down?" It really IS an innocent question, amazingly innocent. He's talking about washing hair! He only face palms after realizing how it came out.

"NOT one word." He sing songs before his daughter works on trying to refill Werewolf man's tea cup, giggling and twirling around. What's this? Plans for asking daddy for things…it requires more attention and leaning closer and possibly spilling 'tea' on the genius.

Thankfully, Raquelle's other daughter is busy at a friend's house. "When you are ready though Honey Bunches of -" He tries to think of a nickname that isn't dirty, he tries hard. "…oh my, is that the soap…" He coughs and finishes setting up.

Really, Raquelle Cambria's vocabulary is eighty times the masterpiece that Bolivar's capacity to curse the fiberglass off boat hulls. Different sorts of scandalization. Popular consensus is that the younger man does it better. "You should tell him I'm sad," he answers, scrolling his eyes sideways through the recesses of the family home, like a suspicious ninja. The glitter on her eyelashes squeaks in his peripheral. "And after he asks why, you tell him I'm sad 'cause he didn't give you permission to do the thing. Especially if it's a cookie."

Spilled tea dots his sleeve cuff, but he refrains from windmilling in favor of furtive drama. After a moment, he decides to stop shifting his eyes around: there are still shapes in the carpet where clutter was moved, but he can not for the life of him imagine where it was hidden; he suspects that if he opened a closet, a titanic avalanche would occur, and thinking about that is making him nervous. "All right," he says, downing the rest of the tea like it's a shot. "Wish me luck."

Happy squeal and insistent promises that she will and then bouncing around and spilling more tea on the carpet and then for some reason trying to do cartwheels and flips, Diana is obviously pleased, and wishing luck at the top of her lungs.

Raquelle cringes and sticks a hand out of the bathroom to beckon to his victim-that is, his 'client'. "Got a new Shampoo to try out, it is a new and improved Scent ala hair of Bast-special person, but really it just has herbs and other good things in it." He grins and shakes out a towel, swaying a bit in his barely contained excitement. He's gooooing to do haaaaair.

"You didn't put on make-up." This is the first thing that Bolivar says, evidence first of why he wouldn't get along with most women, and why he doesn't get along with most people, probably. By now, Raquelle probably knows him well enough, though, to take that as a manifestion of concern. Bolivar is squinting at him from through the rectangle of the bathroom doorway, studying Raquelle Cambria when he's decided to neither accentuate nor conceal. What does it mean? What does it mean?

Is Raquelle comfortable? Exhausted? Disinterested in doing Bolivar's hair? Brow in a knit, he drops down on the chair, checks under both wrists, scarred and otherwise, for manacles. "I think Diana's going to give herself a fucking hernia," he footnotes, for humor's sake.

Raquelle's brow creases before a hand flutters up to smooth out the impending frown with a soft chuckle. "Yes, alas, my freckles…they show." He fakes a pout before draping a towel around Bolivar's shoulders and sighing. "Have you seen my living room? Have you? And then while Princess Dee is working on her kingdom tea parties, BJ I /think/ is starting to notice boys and she is going back to school soon and - I just haven't had time, but next time you come to visit I shall put on some lip gloss…" He drawls as he adjusts the hose connected to the sink and tests the water.

"I think her mother was part rubber, she'll be fine…and thank you for not bringing the dogs. I love your girls but if mine start up with 'Daddy can we have a dog, can we have a dog, can we have a dog'." He shudders and cringes. "Tilt your head back hon." He instructs. "They beg worse than I do after wait-nevermind, they just are very good at begging."

It's some kind of separate superpower, that Raquelle says these things, one after another, without even having to pause for choreography. It comes to him as naturally as being pretty, honestly, even the makeup aside, and that isn't even Bolivar's bias, according to the legions of straight women who semi-regularly attempt to seduce him out of his barber shop with ludicrous tips. Just imagine what the half-Mexican dwarf would be carrying on like, snarling and vitriol, if Rachelle wasn't constantly combating him with… with…

Ehhh, he's just going to put his head back now. Circumscribing the Raquelle's conversational eloquence with words is like trying to leash fire with string. He accepts the bit about the girls, the begging, and half of Raquelle's genes being from a woman physically constructed out of rubber without blinking more than is strictly necessary. "So," he says, instead, peering at the ceiling. "Who was that you God blessed while we were fucking the other night?"

Choosing the right amount of shampoo, making sure hair is very wet and the like. The shampoo kinda smells like tea tree and something tropical. Raquelle takes his time, fingers gripping a bit tightly in Bolivar's hair as he freezes up a bit at the question he should've been expecting. "Ah…my pastor actually." He blurts out.

Then he sighs and shakes his head starting to get to work on the actually washing of the hair. "He uh, he was going through some really really bad stuff and then he needed help and I need a new cell phone." Hair is rinsed before another wash is started. "You ever been involved in shit and didn't want to be?"

"Yeah. I'm a cop." Switch those two sentences around and instead the answer comes a little sardonically dry, but in that order, Bolivar is almost gentle in his commiseration. Which may well mean he's up to something, all things being equal, but by now they've established a few Boundaries. The fact that there are two illegally unregistered mutants under this roof, persisting despite that, you know, the self-acknowledged ~cop~ is perfectly aware of all this. It's in Raquelle's hands. It'll stay in Raquelle's hands, until it can't.

That day does seem to loom over New York City, soon. Unease manifests in the flit of Bolivar's eyes, scrolling back at Kelly despite the incipient threat of stinging shampoo in his eye. He likes the smell, but he doesn't talk about the smell. "I'll get you a cellphone. Are you in trouble?"

"A fact that I am very very thankful for in ways I can never tell my pastor." Raquelle drawls as he massages Bolivar's scalp and worries his bottom lip as he stares off at nothing in particular, nails occasionally scraping when he's not paying attention. Being troubled and fabulous at the same time is very hard after all. He rinses out the shampoo after a while though, being thorough and unnaturally quiet.

"Thanks and uh Trouble? - Do you want just a regular conditioner or a deep conditioner hon? - Aha, trouble…you know what I really really hate about all this Evolved bs? That Trouble is never simple." He grumbles, setting down a bottle of conditioner a little too hard and shrugging a shoulder. "Don't worry your pretty little head about it though. /If/ something happens, the girls know to call you if that's okay."

What does that mean? Bolivar's eyebrows almost shoot into the recesses of foam and finger-tangled hair (he didn't wince earlier; he is too much man for that, also, this is nothing compared to—) and erupt off the top of his head. Incredulity. If something happens?? Why do the girls know about this contingency plan before him??? What is going on???? It is as if Raquelle is not aware that he has a legally badged and sanctioned murderer at his beck and necessity, or— or—

"Okay," he says, after a stiffly bristling moment, mollified only a fraction of a Newton of force by the soothing friction of fingers on his scalp. "Okay. This isn't some cunning poisonous bitch ploy to get me to do the thing with the vertical surfaces, I'm gonna assume, so… so— what do I have to do to get you to talk to me?" This is maybe a disjointedly solemn conversation to be having while inside a tiny blue-tiled bathroom with rather self-conscioussness inducing bug-eyed puppies printed on the shower curtain and the whole place smelling of clean herbs and recent detergent, but, but. It's come up. "I'm not talking about the fuckin' God thing, either," he adds, after a moment, clarifying. It's been established, after all: Bolivar is a non-believer.

Conditioner is worked through Bolivar's hair with professional ease as Raquelle closes his eyes, that vision flashing through his head from time to time as he shivers and then he continues working on Bolivar's hair. "If I tell you that somebody gave me a vision of something creepy as hell, you'll think I'm crazy and you won't let me use the handcuffs again."

Raquelle rinses out the conditioner and finds a towel to start drying the hair as he shrugs his shoulders. "I'm scared ya know, just scared and freaked out and weirded out. And we're not doing highlights…right?"

"You can make me peroxide fucking blond if you need some kind of animal sacrifice before our Greek tragic reenactment finally culminates in you telling me the Hell is going on." That sounds kind of pushy, Bolivar realizes, but it has to be out there, exhumed like so many other negative sentiments and complaints, except that this one of course cannily conceals something of somewhat sweeter disposition, under it all. Kinda. Sorta. Maybe. He's schooling his scar-rimmed scowl back into something that threatens concern over frustration, then frustration over concern, and.

He studies himself in the mirror after a moment. His hair is softer now than it was three minutes ago, smooth strands reflecting the light from the ceiling in sleek bands between the furrows left by Raquelle's fingers, before the terrycloth rub-a-dub sends it up in fluff and spikes. His dormant inner-bigot seesaws, frets its claws on the edge of the carpet, its tail puffed up to bottle-brush size. "Popular theory in here is, somebody got into my head, once, once, creepy as Hell and scared me shitless, and I did a lot worse than go back to washing out sippy cups and cutting people's hair. Try me."

Raquelle continues to towel off the hair and he rolls his eyes at the statement of sacrifice. "I'd kill you if you went peroxide blond, it would be a reflex." He's honest if nothing else as he lowers those baby blues and finds a comb to start running through Bolivar's hair quickly with a soft grunt.

"Yes, but you didn't see your daughters looking half dead and then feel like you saw your own death but not death and everything being fucking weird and you not knowing if you were just spooked or if you really saw the future." He grumbles. "Last time I saw something like that, it actually happened. And I'm not scared for /me/ - I am scared for my girls." He starts to get to work with a razor.

There's a half-beat's silence, which stretches into a full before Bolivar breathes in, a jolt of air through his lungs that makes an almost-noise, but not quite. This implies, correctly, that Officer Rodriguez-Smith is actually hesitating and thinking before speaking. Dozens of complaints, a few reports of menacing, and sharp words from decades' worth of superiors haven't been able to condition the halfbreed to doing that, so that's gotta be something. Visions.

Prophetic visions. Sure, he's heard of it, you can't turn on the TV without hearing of it— and he watches a lot of TV, being profoundly dyslexic, but there is still that faint edge of real-world disbelief blocking his vision of the situation's reality. It takes him two, three more seconds to put one and one together, even as the razor flashes and blurs in the periphery of his sight. His eyes look dark in this light. Other times, they're less so. "Sumter, eh?

"When you told me you were taking the girls there, I pulled his file— don't 'tisk,'" he says, pre-empting a half-hearted scolding that he doesn't honestly expect to happen. "Barely a parking ticket, from back when he owned a car. Years ago. No ability-related accidents. I don't know if that means what you saw was a favor or not."

Raquelle leans forward a bit to peer at Bolivar's face at that half-beat of silence, arching an eyebrow before he continues his razor manipulated trim and just shudders again. Then he blinks as he hears that familiar last name.

"Ahh, you're sneaky and naughty and oh my god…you actually /do/ give a damn!" Raquelle is a bit of a jackass at times, faking a gasp before smirking and kissing the top of Bolivar's head. "I'm not tisking but, I didn't expect you to ya know. Pull a file." Then he nods slowly. "Favor maybe, who knows. Just fucking /scared/. I don't know how many different ways to say that. I have to bullshit myself that everything will be okay." He circles half way the cop before running fingers through his hair and then combing things in place. "Is that short enough?"

It is, but Bolivar doesn't say so immeeediately because it is nice to have the small, neatly hedged stones of the younger man's fingernails moving over his scalp. Feels nice. Not quite nice enough to offset PROPHETIC VISIONS OF DYING CAMBRIA FAAAAMILY but it feels more constructive, at least for the moment, than falling to one's knees and grabbing and ripping out all of Raquelle's beautifully-fashioned work from the roof of his head anyway. Counter-intuitive.

The file had an address for the Guiding Light Church, too, coincidentally.

"I'm not going to let anything h—" Bolivar stops before finishing, as if startled and disconcerted by his own sentimentality. It isn't anything quite so stupid and facetiously macho as that, though. No, he stops because that is a ridiculous thing to promise, and if anyone could see through it, he figures Raquelle would. He's scowling again, his brows dug down and mouth in a line that threatens his duskier complexion with white. After a long moment, he heaves out a sigh that stops just short of splintering the mirror.

"One: it's not bullshit. Two: I like my hair. Three: anybody touches you and I will have this huge libidinal urge to tattoo the letter of the law upside their cervix with sniper fire and— shit." He fades out, flustered by his annoyance, rubbing a short forefinger and thumb up the V of his jaw as he glares at himself in the mirror.

Raquelle smirks and reaches out to smooth out Bolivar's eyebrows before patting his cheek and doing finishing touches on the hair with product and combing and the like, stepping back to stare are his handiwork and he nods firmly to himself. He does smile a bit though at the start of the macho sentimentality. It is touching really.

"…that is the sweetest and scariest thing I have heard in a very very long time." He begins brushing hair off of the man and narrows his eyes. "But thank you…I'm glad your hair works and I-I think I am just over reacting, we'll see okay? We'll, uh, we'll be okay." He swallows and nods to himself.

You know what! Maybe Bolivar was trying to be genuine, not bluster-y, but— but. :( This is inevitable, he supposes, and now he is all preoccupied by paranoia proportionate to that which is gnawing on the insides of Raquelle's pretty head, so he foregoes the urge to make scathing exposition about his feelings, or whatever. Not that he'dve used that word in the end anyway. 'Feelings.' Whipped out accusation: you're not listening to what I'm saying, so on and so forth, despite that Raquelle obviously, obviously is.

Insofar that there's not much that Bolivar can fucking say. Finally, he twists the corners of his mouth into a different configuration than a frown, reaches up to free his neck of the apron that he was set up with, tugging strings loose, folding it up in a loose, wobbly package that hopefully spares the floor too much stray chaff of hair. It's only a short sidling over to the trashcan, before he can empty out his refuse into it, cleaning up after himself out of some automatic sense of responsibility for the state of Raquelle's home.

And then there's a kiss poked up on the younger man's chin. "I'm taking you all out to dinner tonight," he says, with great machining of Eyebrows that challenge disagreement. "Someplace with fish tanks and a dress code sharp enough Deedee can freak out about lineless underwear and Beej will maybe finally fix her fuckin' posture and stand up straight to blend with the grown-ups. Yes?"


Obviously the answer is Yes.


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