Eccentric and a Bit More Sonic

Participants:

magnes_icon.gif odessa4_icon.gif

Scene Title Eccentric and a Bit More Sonic
Synopsis Two people in a bar discover they have a lot more in common than they may have ever expected.
Date January 11, 2011

A bar on Roosevelt Island


Christ it's been another long day! But at around 5PM, things are winding down for Magnes who's been sitting in a fairly small local bar near the Octagon. Not seedy, but nothing special either. He had a bit of business for the Advocate today, so he's in an unbuttoned short black trenchcoat, with a buttoned up white shirt under it, a pair of blue jeans, and moderately expensive leather shoes.

He's hunched over a glass of Guinness, talking the bartender's ear off. "So then I tell this guy, 'God is real, unless proclaimed integer'." To which the bartender gives him a raised eyebrow and shakes his head.

It's always five o'clock somewhere. For Odessa Price, five o'clock actually started sometime around three. As such, she's had two hours to get her drink on. She is already well liquored up on her end of the bar, all shaggy white hair, which has since been released from its claw clip and shaken out a few times more than is absolutely necessary, fluffed and ruffled skirt, black brocade corset, white puff-sleeved top and silver sequins (purse, four inch platformed heels, and eye patch).

"This screwdriver could stand to be a bit more sonic," Odessa mutters to her glass, squinting at the spiked orange juice as though it has somehow offended her. "Bartender~" When she sing-songs, the man's attention turns to her and he looks almost as exasperated with Odessa as he did perplexed by Magnes. "A shot of Blue Curacao, good sir!" she crows, rocking slightly in her seat.

Christ, but she's drunk.

Recognition hasn't quite set in for Magnes, it's been quite a while and she seems a few levels more pimpin' than the last. But at her order, he holds up a finger, grinning. "Better make sure your glass isn't deadlocked." He motions over with his entire hand then, not in such a bad mood with his bit of alcohol. "Come over here, I'll buy you a drink."

Free booze? Odessa isn't hurting for cash, but… It's free. And free is better than well, I can totally afford this. She slips off her seat, grabbing her purse from a hook under the bar, and slides her glass along the polished top with her until she comes to sit next to Magnes. "Hey. Don't I know you?" she asks, leaning in to discern the lines of his face, as though closer proximity will make the necessary bells ring.

Magnes tilts his head at her, squinting. "Uh… oh yeah, you're that woman I kept trying to help. God, sorry about that. I can be really stupid sometimes." There's a light sigh and a long sip of his drink, his face going thoughtful for a moment. "I try too hard, it's a recent lesson I've learned. But I have a new start now."

Odessa appears dubious, but… he is apologising. And paying for her drink. And whatever slight he committed against her seems like a lifetime ago. In some ways, it was. "S'okay." She shrugs. The shot arrives in front of her, coupled with a funny look from the 'tender as she pours it into her drink and mixes it together with her straw. It turns a rather delightful and appropriate shade of green. "That's better," she declares.

"In a way I'm sad because I won't see a lot of my old friends anymore, but another part of me is excited because I'll have a lot of new experiences." Magnes watches her drink change color, tilting his head. "Now it's more like a Smith driver." But, moving on… "I've gotta go on a road trip to see my father, he's a high ranking official in the Commonwealth Institute. With the way he raised me, I'm going to try and do something with myself, finally pursue science. I was forced to skip my childhood and having friends so that my parents could smash science into my head. I don't want it all to be for nothing, y'know?"

There's a shake of his head and an apologetic smile, holding a hand up. "Sorry, the alcohol's put me into a weird sharing mood."

This is all way more than Odessa ever thought she needed to know about Magnes J. Varlane. But she listens, with some patience even. It helps that her lips are around her straw, and she's sucking down juice and alcohol. Her visible eye is still wide and fixed on Magnes, appearing curious enough about what he has to say.

When he finishes speaking, she comes up for air, and to respond. "The Institute? Who's yer dad?" Odessa queries with a bit of a curl to her lip. Not so much a sneer as it is a very exaggerated expression of confusion. "I… was never really a kid, either," she admits. The liquor also puts her in something of a talkative mood. "M'a doctor. Medicine. Forensics. Little bit'a genetics. Never was good at being a kid. Liked books better than people." Still does, in some respects.

"Peter Varlane is my father." Magnes answers with a slight wince, the alcohol already going to his head a bit. "I didn't really have a choice in the matter. My parents didn't allow me to see other kids because they didn't want them to influence me, they were raising me to be a physicist, but I'm more interested in molecular biology. I'm not even all that good at physics, though I am pretty good at most maths. I didn't even have real friends until about two years ago."

Well, shit. "Story of my fuckin' life. Were you raised in some shithole in Texas?" Odessa asks with a narrow-eyed expression. "I was. I don't recall seeing you there." She makes a show of tilting her head excessively to one side to peer at Magnes' hands. "I don't see your decoder ring, so you aren't part of the club."

"I was raised here in New York. It was mostly just a regular suburban house, so not exactly a shit hole. But I wasn't allowed to go anywhere. It was just me, my parents, and any tutors who'd be there." Magnes offers a sympathetic look, more than understanding what that's like. "I've never met anyone else with an upbringing like mine. I mean, even home school kids get to play with other kids."

"I didn't have parents, so you've got one up on me." Odessa sniffs, but the derision of it is directed inward, rather than reflected toward Magnes. "I watched the other kids play sometimes, but I had my books. And then I had my solitude." Especially after she manifested. "I had a run-in with a red-haired boy when I was seventeen. Something about those redheads that just…" Her lips twitch up in a little smirk and finally she giggles. "I didn't like 'em so much then, but I do now."

"I watched the kids through my window, but never really directly interacted. And I did manage to get some comic books, mostly gifts sent by other relatives that my parents actually let me keep, so they were nice entertainment when I wasn't reading about integers and lipids." Magnes is grinning a bit when she gets on her next subject, shaking his head. "Last year was, well, the year I kind of discovered why guys like girls so much myself, so I can't blame you."

"You're still lucky there," Odessa insists, somewhat glumly in contrast to her earlier wandering thoughts. "Parents and relatives who cared about your existence. I didn't have any of that. Just a nursemaid pissed that she got saddled with the odd duck child. And then handlers that… Some of them cared, but I was this little…" Her hand makes a sort of circular gesture, a roll of her wrist as though it's a way to conjure the right words. "I don't know. I was this thing to be treated as… Not fragile, but maybe almost dangerous? I'm not sure if I was really being protected from the outside world, like I was always told, or if the outside world was being protected from me."

Can't imagine why. Not like she's a malignant narcissist with sociopathic tendencies or anything.

"I don't know what goes through the minds of people who treat children like this. But the most we can do is make due with what we gained from screwed up childhoods." Magnes raises a glass to her, trying to offer a comforting smile. "You don't seem all that bad to me."

Odessa grins at that. Wryly, but it's still a grin. She raises her own glass and clinks it to his. "Cheers to that," she murmurs, before bringing the straw back to her lips to drink more. After a couple generous swallows, she shakes her head. "Fuck all that, though. Fuck it. I like me this way."

"I like me the way I am too, that's what I try to tell people who do nothing but try to change me. They don't understand that there's a difference between growing up, and changing who you are. No matter how mature I become, I'll still be me." Magnes downs the last bit of his guinness, sliding it forward for a refill. "What I want more than anything is for someone to appreciate who and what I am, I don't think that's a lot to ask, you know?"

"Damn fuckin' straight." Her head takes a little big longer than it should to pop back up again after she dips her chin toward her chest, but it's still a nod. An emphatic one at that. Odessa raises one hand, one finger extended, and makes a sort of sweeping gesture in front of herself as if to encompass the whole of the world. "Fuck all the fffffffffffucking haters out there. They're stupid. And they just don't understand us because we're fuckin' smarter than them, and it makes us eccentric."

"I only dress like this when I'm trying to be professional, I don't like being so boring, but people have a problem just because a guy wants to wear a Green Lantern shirt." Magnes turns around in his stool to face her when his refill comes, his cheeks flushed a bit due to the alcohol. "I don't know, maybe eccentrics should give everyone the finger and stick together?" he suggests with a bit of a lingering look.

Odessa catches that look, and returns it with a briefly assessing sweep of his form. "Maybe. Exactly what are you implying, Mister Varlane?" One corner of her scarred mouth ticks upward, a slanted grin. Dark blue eye sparkles with curiosity, and perhaps a touch of mischief.

"I think that's something you have to ask him, but I prefer to get by on my own merit." Magnes can't help but laugh at her show of indignation, grabbing the back of his stool after sitting his glass down. "I've never done anything crazy like sleep with a woman I barely know, but I feel like I know enough. Besides, I'm probably the least selfish lover you'll ever meet, though I guess that's not exactly something you can take someone's word for." There's a pause as he looks up, and he just starts laughing again. "This is the strangest discussion ever."

"Awful sure of yourself, aren't you?" White brows quirk up over eye and sparkly patch alike. If Magnes Varlane manages to nail Odessa, he will definitely be doing crazy. When he laughs, she does as well. "Yes, yes it is." The strangest discussion.

Her head turns away so she can scan the other side of the bar somewhat awkwardly. "It would never work between us," Odessa opines. "You're a do-gooder." She knows. She saw him dressed up like a hero or some shit. She turns back to him, smile kind, but declining. "You don't belong someplace like the Commonwealth Institute. You don't have to do things to appease your father. Get the fuck out of this city. Go somewhere else. Do something good for the people of Earth. Don't throw your life away with the Institute."

"The world isn't black and white, and I already saved it once." Magnes rolls around in his stool to rest his elbows on the counter, glass in hand again. "I'm not doing this for my father, and I've seen just how Umbrella Corp the Institute can get. Even so, I want to pursue this, I want to see the other side and truly give them a chance. It's… something I have to do, to understand some things about myself and the world." Though, back on the subject of herself, there's a softer smile. "I'm not asking you to be my girlfriend, at least not tonight. I was more asking for a celebration of just how awesome we are."

"Nothing says celebration like drunken fumbling, lost earrings, and unmemorable orgasms," Odessa replies sardonically. "Not an insult. I'm just… Really drunk. And kind of… Seeing someone? With some sense of regularity? Right now." It's a very generous way to describe the non-relationship she has with Calvin Rosen. There's nothing boyfriend-and-girlfriend about any of it, but it makes a very convenient excuse in a bar with a stranger who sometimes fancies himself a superhero.

"I'm flattered," she insists, "but I think I have to say no. I'm sure you'll find someone who appreciates every inch of you for you."

"It was worth a shot." Magnes downs the rest of his drink, then just allows his head to hang back to stare at the ceiling. "To be perfectly honest, I was swearing off women because of this very subject of me being me, but when we started talking I just decided that if I had to make an exception, you'd be one hell of one to make."

Odessa's head similarly tilts backward so she can stare at the same ceiling. "You're smooth, I'll give you that." She turns her own nearly empty glass (the straw would make those awful airy slurping sounds if she tried to use it to retrieve the last bit) in her hands, absently tapping her manicured nails against its surface. She makes a small face as she swallows, looking vaguely uncomfortable should one actually catch a look at her face. "Why aren't you with one of those… You know, underground groups?"

"You might be the only woman on the planet who'd use those words to describe me." Magnes' increasingly somber look just cracks into a wide smile all at once, lazily dangling his empty glass in between his fingers. "It's not as if I've never been associated with them, but I've never been someone who could take to extremes like terrorism. If I'm going to save the world, I'd be better off doing it with science."

"Mm," is Odessa's response. Perhaps she'd been hoping for an affiliation. Or perhaps she thought it would be an interesting topic. "I think you'll be miserable with the Institute. I really do. But it's your life. You need to do with it what seems best for you."

"Here's hoping I won't have to worry about that other guy too long, eh?" Magnes says rather playfully as he slips the napkin into his coat, then stands and begins buttoning it up. "I'm gonna leave on a high note. I'll call you when I'm not drunk."

The woman nods her head once, two fingers settle at her forehead and then come out again in a lazy salute. "Good luck, Varlane." Odessa may actually mean it, too.


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