Participants:
| Scene Title | A Questionable Visitor |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Jane Pak receives a terrorist into her kitchen. |
| Date | June 7, 2011 |
Jane's Home
Sometimes it's nice to live alone. No one leaves the toilet seat up, there's no snoring, and when Jane Pak gets home from her very professional, federal job, there's no one to look at her funny for getting into some pajamas, fuzzy slippers, putting on some Creedence and dancing around while eating some ice cream. It's fudge ripple and Down On the Corner at the moment.
Her blazer and crisp black shoes have been discarded over and under the coffee table and in the kitchen, there's evidence of a very classy microwave dinner. But other than those details, the apartment is neat and clean and nicely decorated in a somewhat boring beige theme. Which, anyone who knows her can probably tell wasn't her pick. But given that she's often at the office and tends to get home and crash onto one of many available soft surfaces, interior decorating hasn't ever been a priority.
Rockefeller has looked at you.
There are fairy god mothers who appear gradually in shimmering drifts of wishes and glitter and then there is Vincent Lazzaro, who appears in Jane Pak's kitchen abruptly and in a churn of greasy black smoke. As uninvited as he is unmistakable for anyone with an interest in Evolved Affairs — brow hooded, balding skull shaved and beard sanded down to a stately minimum. Lately his healthier(?) living arrangements have allowed for the luxury of time spent in front of a mirror.
They have also allowed for him to do laundry: the brackish cling of his hoodie is clean for all that the fabric has thinned somewhat over a grey t-shirt and his dark jeans are in decent shape. So are his running shoes. Which — he may need, should she gas him like a spider and call the police.
For as long as she's able to keep dancing around without noticing him, he's able to watch on in resigned silence.
Luckily, it isn't too long. But rather than keen spatial awareness or intuition warning her, it's a well placed spin that let's her catch the fact that there's someone in here that isn't supposed to be. She's also a fair distance from her gun, which is in the bedroom, so she scoops up a chair on the way to the kitchen.
"Hey," is her first, sharp, less than friendly greeting. And if might have been followed by a rough who the fuck are you or what the hell are you doing here, but instead there's a blink and a beat before she sets the chair back on the floor. "Lazzaro. You are the exact last person I expected to break into my kitchen," she says, dryly. At least she doesn't seem to be in an arresting mood?
"Hi."
Says Vincent.
Maybe anticlimactically after the necessary pause being threatened with a chair precipitates.
No judgment, though. Boot black eyes follow weaponized furniture until it's set aside, then return to their intended, fuzzily pajama'd target. "If it's of any consolation, I am also the last person I would expect to break into your kitchen." He tries to smile.
Doesn't get far.
Out of practice, maybe.
"Nice pajamas."
"Thanks. Picked them out myself." Jane leaves one hand on the chair, but the other props on her hip. "I hope you're not here to steal my food. I'm very attached to it." She's a lot better at the smiling, although her is just half, a bit crooked, and slightly amused.
"Assuming you're not here to get yourself arrested, what the hell are you doing here?" It's a lot more friendly than it would have come out from just any intruder.
"Oh, no. No." An exaggerated tip of his brows dismisses the possibility as preposterous, humor lined in grave around his mouth for all that his glare is a little too intent and a little too unwavering. He knows of her. He's just never actually known. Her. "No petty theft for me. Felonies only. Treason… obstruction of justice. And — now trespassing, I guess."
He reaches to touch her kitchen counter by way of example.
Touch.
"Technically."
Also by way of procrastination, which is the only thing keeping him from actually answering her (decidedly fair) question, now. What the hell is he doing in Jane Pak's kitchen? "It's come to my attention," via prophetic dream, "that you're not an idiot. By which I mean," he pauses a beat, muscle curved stiff over a renewed brace of his right hand against the kitchen counter, "you're accumulating evidence that suggests the government is aligning itself with terrorist interest groups."
"Well. Go big or go home, as they say," Jane says, and she watches him a little. Decidedly curious. "Technically, but once you've got treason on the list, trespassing seems so petty."
As he stalls, she waits. She can be patient, sometimes. Especially when there's a mysterious figure about. As he starts, she chuckles briefly. "Thanks for that," is slipped in with a smirk, but otherwise, she's all ears. And at the end there, it's her turn to be silent for a moment, an eyebrow lifted just slightly. "You could say… I have had reason to suspect there may be some less than altruistic minds dipping into the think tank and I'm not too keen on that idea."
"Okay," says Vincent.
"Well." That's a start.
He's quiet again, though, distraction over his own careful choice of words tracking his eyes off sideways and slightly upward. Towards the ceiling. There's a very good chance that this is the first time he has ever shown up out've the blue to speak with someone because of a dream that he had.
"You should know that The Institute came for me," is what he opts to say instead, steady through eye contact turned blackly back onto her person, "after I called attention to some of the think tank's prior indiscretions."
Jane's eyes narrow through that quiet time, not out of suspicion, but puzzlement. "You're not too good at the socializing, are you? Sometimes I think I'm the only agent there with proper socialization."
She turns the chair around, straddling the back instead of sitting forward like a normal person. "Did they? I've seen how they like to come grab people. Heard stories. I'm more convinced that they're complete bastards than I am that we are, but one mountain a day." Which is to say… she has plans. Big ones. No wonder she's killed in the future.
…What?
Feathers lift, ruffle and resettle back again in a distinctly visible tilt at Vincent's poise, exactly the kind of unspoken, flatly affected ha ha one would (and should) expect from a life-long flat-foot in a suit. Usually in a suit, anyway, bristly chin lifted and regard heavy-lidded in the absence of one. "I'm out of practice," is allowed conversationally (sociably) with a touch of unconscious, grating bite. "Probably all the living in exile."
Moving on.
"You know. Because they chased me out of a window."
Kind of moving on. He has to force himself to shake it off with a stout sigh, blowing off hot air like the black stove top he occasionally resembles.
"Look, sister, I'm here because I'm sitting on information that could keep you from being the next one out that window. I need to know that you're serious about this. And," he looks her over, openly, intensely incredulous for the first time, "unless you're hiding a pair of sizable fairy wings under those pajamas, I hope that you are."
"You mean besides giving me the advice to move my office to the ground floor, I hope." Jane looks over at him, taking in that intense look while she decides how to answer.
"I don't want to sound crazy, but I don't suppose you're the friend who had a dream? I was tipped I might get a questionable visitor or two, although I wasn't excepting any of them to suddenly appear in my home."
She opts to stand up there, looking serious despite the fuzzy slippers and silly pajamas. "I'm serious about this. I'm in it until it's over, one way or the other. I'm risking just about everything on the idea that the people the government is calling terrorists right now might not be totally in the wrong here. Not to mention, I joined the DoEA because I happen to believe in equality across the board, not to use it as a clever front for black bagging the Evo's and dragging them off to my lair. You know. Unless they're into that."
"Probably not a bad idea," says Vincent re: a ground floor office, brows tipped up again in slightly better humor until she gets to the part about sounding crazy and dreams and his jaw slide-locks into a jut.
"I don't have any friends," is one way to lie. By omission, that is. His limited social life doesn't need fabricating. If he forgets to look at her like she is crazy, it's only because he's busy wondering how the fuck she already knows.
"Terrorists are always in the wrong, Ms. Pak. You have the capacity to make things happen correctly, legally and without hurting people in the process. Which is why I joined the Department." Also because he was offered a sweet raise, but he doesn't have much to show for that little detail now.
"Anyway." He looks her over. Again. Still not sure of whatever he's trying to be sure of. "Unless that was a proposition I should go."
"Friend in a very loose sense of the word, then," Jane says with a chuckle. That lack of odd looks gives her enough of an answer, apparently, because she doesn't reiterate her question. "Going at this legally is the general idea. I'm keeping it clean, as much as I can, and walking softly. So to speak. And you don't have to use the 'Ms'. Pak. Jane. Hey you. I'm not into formalities unless I'm arresting someone.
"I suppose that means you're going to keep sitting on whatever it is you're sitting on," she adds, as he preps for an exit. "You all have a way of making a gal feel like she's taking a final exam all the time." No word on the proposition, though, just a sly, crooked smile.
"Jane, then. And yes." He is. "For now. Just know that some are acting in collusion with our common enemy under duress, rather than any dishonest intent of their own. …And that I trained Sebastian." Who will destroy you if she catches wind so be extra careful or something, is the implication. Somehow.
"I have research to do." On you. Lazzaro mirrors her smile, just so. Hardly there at all. "We'll speak again."
There, rather than wait for acceptance, protest or any further lines of questioning, he churns into a column of pitchy vapor and vanishes as inexorably as he originally appeared.
All she manages to get out is a lift of her eyebrow again, on the notion that he'll be looking into her. But she's not looking worried about it, at least. There's a step backward for the churning, but she doesn't totally flee the room, at least not until that vapor seems to be totally gone.
But when it is, she hmphs a little, then picks up her dessert, using her spoon to test how melty it is. And that spoon is left in the little tub as she slides it back into the freezer. "Next time, you better bring dinner," she mutters to the now absent fellow, but with a jovial smirk.