If I Feel Tomorrow Like I Feel Today

Participants:

bolivar_icon.gif raquelle_icon.gif

Scene Title If I Feel Tomorrow Like I Feel Today
Synopsis On Bolivar's first date with Raquelle, his first mistake is to let his two mild-mannered, fuzzy plot devices to trot off with the children. More mistakes happen after that. Fortunately, raising two hyperactive little girls has given Raquelle considerable reservoirs of patience, tolerance, and diplomatic charm.
Date April 25, 2009

Lower East Side — Raquelle's Place

No sippy cups tonight.


Phonecall made a couple of hours ago and arrangements made. When inviting somebody over, Raquelle takes special care to make sure there aren't little girl panties thrown on the floor or sippy cups in the wrong places and such. He's more simply dressed then when he goes out, but still fashionable, hair done with emo fringe and small black and silver studs in his ears but he wears a simple fitted black t-shirt with solid sleeves yet the rest of the shirt is meshed, exposing piercings and faint outlines of tattoos. A pair of fitted black jeans riding low on his hips and his feet are bare…and yes his toenails are shiny black just like his nails. Less make-up so his freckles show a bit, but he still rocks the guy-liner even as he's setting the table. The apartment is a simple 2 bedroom, one bathroom set up, small kitchen and livingroom/dining area and lots of asian and glam based musicalish decorations, musical instruments like guitars and keyboards and the girls are…probably in their room by now and Raquelle waits, pacing a bit.

Knock, knock.

The incredulity hasn't really worn off ever since Jason Bolivar Rodriguez-Smith accepted this completely bizarre invitation. He's in the hallway outside the door with two dogs to his right and his feet planted slightly closer to the left than normal people situate themselves when approaching a door, as if he measures his physical width and actual center with the inclusion of his canine companions instead of from one shoulder to the other.

Logan Rose is the Welsh spaniel, her ears like curly pigtails on either side of her head; Nina Lou is the massive Shepherd, black saddle thick as bear's fur across her back, her snout lupine in length but broader than the bite of a wolf. The two ladies' temperaments are as obvious as their species, the sweet girl, and the career patrol dog who refuses, as yet, to concede to early retirement. If you were making a bad joke, you could say their master is sort of like a middle size between the two. Small for a man, taller than Nina's withers.

He fails entirely to understand what he's doing here.

Knock, knock. Three is for luck; four is a bad number in lots of religions, so Bolivar goes irreverently with that. He is dressed in black trousers, an intrepid explorer's squint, and a button-down shirt that is a few shades darker than champaigne because his wife used to announce about how dog hair stands out less on that and how the color is the closest match to his eyes, variable though that is.

"You leave that bedroom before putting on your pants and I swear I'll put the rat on top of the dresser for a week!" Raquelle calls out as his 4 year old starts running of her bedroom just wearing her princess shirt and her tiara with wet hair just from her bath and she runs back rather quickly as her father gives a tiny sashay to the door where the shoes are, apparently some Japanese customs stick hard.

Door swings open and he stands there in all his 6'2 of fireless flameing goth single fatherly glory and he looks down - aha! Houseguest. "Ooooooooh, don't you all just look /gorgeous/ thank goodness vampires ain't real or I'd feel horrible for saying, come in, come in, goodness please come in you handsome little bugger." He opens to door a little wider before waggling fingers to the doggies. "You two as well, lovely ladies…they are both girls, right? I don't see anything hanging…" He tilts his head to the side and squints just in case he missed something.

There is nothing hanging. In other news, Raquelle's shirt is kind of see-through and there are itty bitty shoes everywhere. Bolivar would probably be staring if there weren't so many absurdities in all these different directions and his eyeballs were too small to catch and track them all even if he had no eyelids at all. And that would be disgusting.

"Little bugger?" he selects the phrase out of Raquelle's bristling array of fighting words with characteristic waspishness, tramples in through the doorway. Instantly recognizing the scent of the 6'2" fireless flaming Goth single father in all his glory, Logan Rose tilts her nose up, skims its black velvet blot past his knee as she flounces by on a skittering of toenails. "It's good to see your fucking manners haven't improved.

"Where are your trolls?" That is a euphemism for 'children,' if the direction of his eyes through the home is any indication. He looks toward the blocky row of bedroom doors and the itty bitty shoesies standing guard on either side. Recognizing her master's use of 'sniper eyes,' Nina Lou turns her great imperious head to look that way too.

Raquelle has to pause for a moment. "I'm sorry twinkletoes, I'm sure your nightstick makes up for it all…" The crude compliment is accompanied with a waggle of his eyebrows and a lick of his lips as he winks and chuckles, quietly shutting the door behind him with a roll of his eyes. "Watch your fucking language if the midgets come out honeybuns." His head tilts to the side as he watches the man from behind and coughs softly.

Then he looks a bit uncertain, house guests don't come over often as he looks towards the kitchen. "The troll-oh my daughters? They are in their room." He waggles fingers to the dogs again. "I have uh, these things called kongs? Then have treats inside and uh there's a big one and the smaller one and they are supposed to be okay for dogs and stuff cuz uh, well." Long pause. "You look nice honey, really nice."

"It does," Bolivar replies, unclipping the leashes from around his dogs' necks. He doesn't have to actually turn around and see to know that Raquelle is spreading saliva over his lips and moving his beautifully sculpted eyebrows up and down and then, exasperated as only a true patriarch of household can be, rolllling his eyes. Raquelle manages to be remarkably expressive with voice alone. If Bolivar knew how expressive, he— probably wouldn't be here, but since he does, he merely unclips his dogs.

Who proceed very amiably into the house. The smaller dog takes up residence underneath the coffee table whereas the larger strides around the room without touching anything, like a bank inspector or a private eye or Jason Bourne or somebody else in a cold profession like that. Her ears go up, before swiveling around in an 'all-clear' sign. She can't smell anything but puke, excitement, and lots and lots of perfume; the detergent sort, drysheets, cologne, lipstick, all that. It's safe!

By then, however, Bolivar is no longer really paying attention to the dogs, which is sort of amazing and rare like a comet passing by Earth close enough to see.

As such, he misses the 'all-clear' sign, which is just as well: it probably isn't safe, just not on terms that Nina Lou can understand. "I don't know if you're indiscriminate or weird, but both are okay with me." There's a smirk, about as benign as flesh-eating bacteria, while he goes about the business of taking off his shoes. "Bring out the Kongs. I'll watch my damn language," he promises, a wave of his hand.

Raquelle thumbs the side of his nose, grinning to himself as those baby blues/pale greys follow the dogs warily and he looks back to Bolivar with a thoughtful hmmm. With a sashay, he picks up the remote to turn on the radio with a flick of his wrist so that the remote can be tossed back onto the couch. "Your girls are beautiful." He offers softly, mostly because he's trying to be 'good' for a moment, retrieving the red and blue special dog toys stuffed with treats and offering them to Bolivar.

"Here you go luffmuffin, I'll go make sure the deep fryer is plugged up - you don't have even allergies do you?" Raquelle glances towards the bedrooms when there is a THUD and a 'The COMB doesn't GO THERE Deedee!' a pause and he quickly shakes his head. "Or do you want something to drink or something?"

And here Bolivar had been beginning to wonder if the other man wasn't actually interested in feeding him anything you could find on a grocery shelf anyway. Filthy vocabulary. Bolivar isn't one to talk, but that isn't what stops him. 'Luffmuffin.' He accepts the dog toys and squats to roll them across the floor, small one for the spaniel, the large one for Lou. The small one, naturally, pics that precise moment to pop out from under the coffee table and intercept the larger.

They're supposed to be well-disciplined in addition to beautiful. "Something contagious about this place," he observes. At the sound of small people falling over and making disasters with tools that apes could have made equal mayhem with, he winces slightly.

"I think you owe the world list of nicknames you hate," he says. His socked feet do not make much noise as he follows the other man into the kitchen, hands in his pockets, dark-haired head canted. When the light shifts from living room incandescence to culinary fluorescence, his irises click-shift dark to pale. "Vodka? Whiskey? Horse tranquilizers?"

The girls do creep out after a few moments, only to run out to see the dogs. The little blond princess and the caramel cutie, all bathed and fresh smelling as they go awwwww and questions about 'daddy why can't we-' which Raquelle tunes out with well placed grunts and mmhms, oh and of course the shhhs. "I hope it is a cheerful and happy contagion." He has supplies laid out on the counter, along with safety goggles and there are a couple of aprons. "Girls! Don't play rough."

"Okay, I have hamburgers…twinkies…hot dogs…" Raquelle lists things as he points them out and picks up his own apron, offering the other to Bolivar. "And now here." He tugs a dining room chair into the kitchen, setting it out of splatter range. "Have a seat and you tell me what you were in the mood for, and the best I got is some Sake for now, that'll do?" He hmms thoughtfully. "Oh yeah, also have some other sweet things here too but we'll get to that." He tries not to use a nickname, he really does but it slips out. "Toniiight is your night sweet potato pie." Oh doh. There he goes.

The girls— there are four of them now— seem perfectly capable of entertaining themselves for now! Which means, no doubt, that things are going to devolve into howls of agony and screams of accusation, pulled hair and fur rubbed the wrong way sent up in flames of self-immolating female hormones.

In the meantime, the gay men will be over here. In their aprons, with the goggles, inadequate protection against the cheerful and happy contagion; with the fatal food nicknames and the effort required not to attach a swear word to every other noun that happens to trip past Bolivar's lips. "Sake's fine." He's sitting on the chair, watching the girls as if there is a magical rabbit hole between here and there.

It doesn't seem real. If he actually believed in a just universe, he'd allow for the probability that it wasn't. The ruined edge of his profile shows keloid-ridged and oddly reptilian at Raquelle for a moment, until he turns his head to look at the other man. "You're good at gratitude," he observes, abruptly. "I could use some advice."

"Don't take her toy stupid." - "Don't call me supid, is bad word! I tell daddy!" - "Oh stop being a baby." - This is part of the conversation in between the female interaction.

Meanwhile, in the gay man corner, Raquelle is putting on his goggles, letting them rest in his hair for now as he washes his hands and then moves to start putting together a cheeseburger and then carefully rolling it in panko crumbs as he lets the oil heat up. Hands are wiped off on his apron as he moves to get out the sake and little glasses, almost shot glass like in their design and he pours a couple of glasses with a raise of a slender eyebrow. "Hmmm, this ain't gratitude sugarlips. Even if I am thankful to ya."

He lifts a shoulder in a shrug, picking up a glass to offer to Bolivar as the other he picks up and throws back like a pro. "I'm good with advice!" He chirps, eyes studying that keloid-ridge curiously before he just nods slowly to himself. "Ask away."

The hand that accepts the glass is also a mess of scar texture. Fingers rough both inside and out to the knuckles, the subtle line of metacarpals buried in distorted grain that vanishes up the cuff of his shirt and presumably troops all the way up his arm to where it emerges out of Bolivar's collar. He would probably be bristling at the study, but he's too busy squinting at Nina Lou's babysitting attitude. She's doing remarkably well for now, but that is probably because nobody has tried riding her yet.

He finishes his sake also, before drinking, and quite possibly because of manners. "For about two and a half years, my health was shit.

"Then I shot a kid, and somebody shot me for being an asshole, which made sense— only this bitch who normally hates me happened to be there and took all my…" Bolivar's lips thin, his eyes flat as mirrors. The girls, furred and otherwise, are reflected in miniature across the medium hue of his eyewater. "Gunshots, brittle bones, immune deps— all of it, onto herself.

"Too bad for her, she happened to have her moment of moral retardation the same night some HomeSec dillweeds were there. She's been locked up fuck knows where, no key. But I know how to get in touch with one of the agents, and I think she'd let me pa…" Bolivar made the mistake of clicking his gaze over to where Raquelle is right now.

He blinks. "You look like you fell out of the costume trunk of a very cheap porn production company."

Thankfully the girls are in the living room getting their doggy time on, so they can't hear the profanity and start demanding dollars for the swear jar. Diana may or may not be trying to coax the 'pony' into letting her put the tiara on her head, while BJ is busy studying how the smaller pup is playing with her toy. Science you see.

Raquelle seems to not care about Bolivar's language at this point, getting used to it and his wallet is safe as long as his girls are out of earshot, so he just listens. He does gesture towards the safety goggles, offering the spare pair to Bolivar before pulling his own on making his eyes looks momentarily huge. There's a sympathetic if not surprised sucking of his two front teeth at the mention of shitty health as his hands stay busy dipping the next made cheeseburger in the egg wash and panko crumbs. As the story continues and burgers are actually put in the deep fryer component that allows him to lower them into the oil, his well groomed brows knit and one eyebrow moves independently of the other to raise questioningly.

"…but he still doesn't respond yet. He's used to working with his hands so he's quickly moved on to peeling a few potatos as the burgers fry and he pushes up his goggles to peer curiously at Bolivar now. Took all his…what? Lately he's been submerged in a tank of weird shit happening that has his head spinning and he just looks taken aback at the comment on his outfit as he looks down his body before looking back up and smirking at Bolivar. "Aww…am I making you think naughty things baby?" He asks, his gift coloring the teasingly lowered pitch of his voice with splashes of seduction but he quickly winks and rolls his eyes. "Bah, my ass isn't out sweetie. Now. What type of advice are you looking for? Obviously this um, special chick cared about something in you to take away all the bad stuff but you can't leave me hanging like this! Think she'd let you pa-what?" Back to his potatoes.

That register in Raquelle's voice threatens to send the trajectory of Bolivar's thoughts off into a completely irrelevant direction. Winking and eye-rolling takes a fraction of a second to make its way through the layered distractions of his thoughts, but when it does, there's a wry half a grin. Not quite bitter. The elastic bands at the edges of his own pair of goggles creaks slightly as he pulls on it without any apparent intent to put them onto his head.

Admittedly, as a younger man, he'd found Bill Nye kind of hot. "Pa-what," he repeats drolly, settling back against the chair. "Pass along a message. Something… I don't know. They could have her strapped down under surgical knives or drugged up so bad she can't even hold a fucking yogurt spoon." Apparently Bolivar does not have an exceptionally idealistic impression of Homeland Security or his government's attitude toward the Evolved. "She barely knew me.

"I don't think she cared: she was just stupid. Figure I still owe her that much though, eh?" Lifting the goggles up in front of himself, Bolivar squints through the lenses at the crowning of Princess Lou.

Chopchopchopchop, not lines but little circle shaped slices of potato before he sprinkles the bits with salt and peers at the burgers thoughtfully where they are frying, filling the home with that delicious fried foods smell. That grin makes him smile though, chuckling softly and he moves over to push his goggles back in place, picking up a pair of tong thingies to help with getting them out. He puts some paper towel on a plate for grease draining.

"Well if you feel that passing along a message is a good thing, then go right ahead. Follow your heart and all that sentimental bullshit." He uses tongs to get the burgers out and onto the prepared plates. "And…if all else fails, send her a card or something 'thanks for being a little stupid' or something, what do you /really/ want to do, hm? Why does it have you so thoughtful?"

'Thanks for being a little stupid.' Short. Eloquent. Possibly interpretable as vicious sarcasm which will make an already terrified and suffering woman hate him even more, but hey. Bolivar writes that down in his mind, since he hates writing down anything he'll have to actually read, and lowers his eyewear. It had been doing nothing but disrupting his otherwise flawless vision, anyway.

The flash of stainless blade out of the corner of his eye draws a look, black brows inclining. Man knows his way around a knife.

"Well, I did shoot an Evolved kid at the riot the other month. Twice?" Way to go with the getting into Raquelle's pants, Bolivar. Talk about murdering tender little mutant babies while one's massive patrol dog is looming over his tender little babies, one of whom was mutant spawn, if the abrupt combustion of her mother was any indication. "I thought my fanclub would be smaller and less proactive."

"However there is always the chance that the wrong person will get the card and some anorexia covered half-deaf little person who can vomit molten laval gets the cards and escapes to stalk your shapely little ass thinking you're her true love." Raquelle points out as he gets the potato slices in the appropriate basket to get them to frying, hand picking up that knife again and spinning it in a sort of figure eight as he ponders.

He opens his mouth to continue before there's that mention of shooting kids that comes up and his eyebrows shoot up and he regards the officer from behind those goggles, lips pursing and he turns to carefully cut a piece out of the freshly fried cheeseburger, gooey cheese, crunchy on the outside, nummy goodness and he hmms. Knife is set aside and he picks the piece of cheeseburger (bun, cheese, burger, some lettuce and etc all in tact some how under that fried exterior), holding it delicate between two fingers before blowing on it to cool it off as he just approaches Bolivar. "Open." He holds out the piece of burger about mouth level.

"And…that bothers you or do you wear it as a mark of pride?" He asks softly. Still offering fried goodness.

Can't eat and answer at the same time. Which is maybe why Bolivar eats before answering, lest the tidbit be retracted and his ass summarily booted out on the street hungry. His teeth, neatly white and surprisingly even thanks to the necessity of a Bomb invalid's obsessively clean lifestyle, close on the cross section of burger with the delicacy of recent domestication.

Lost the next instant, when Bolivar summarily chomps down with an airy crash of molars, a thumb smearing residue past his lips after he seals them.

"It wasn't exactly a tricky shot," he answers, dryly as well as irrelevantly, glancing at the floor for some stupid reason. There's nothing interesting about the floor, besides, possibly, that Raquelle's feet are on it. "Kid came head-on, I was facing him. He was like four yards away. Easy as candy from a baby, or some other saying that's… probably as screwed up saying. Nothing to be proud about."

That would have been Raquelle's point, of course. How difficult hitting the mark would have been, rather than the moral quandary of snuffing out a life that had barely embarked on its optimistic new beginnings, even if the child had had the misfortune of trying its thing in the concrete and iron Gehenna that is modern Manhattan.

Raquelle's toes wiggle a bit as he smirks and raises an eyebrow at the same time, expression wry though somber as he waits for Boli's response. Retracting his fingers after tapping Bolivar's chin with a pointer and he makes a show of pretending to count his fingers to make sure they are all there. Yet he manages to avoid a 'witty' remark

"So it eats you up inside, perhaps even maybe haunts your dreams when you least expect it and there is no part of your actions that you really can take pride in." Raquelle ventures, checking on the fries and tilting his head to the side to make sure his girls aren't calling him. (They are very occupied playing with the dogs)Another piece of burger is cut off as he shrugs his shoulders. "But you're too much of a job hardened badass to be all emo about overtly, people die, so what, work's work…but yet while you don't look exactly for atonement, hmm, maybe you're looking for ah-what's the word…"

He takes time to ponder, his voice staying soft…soothing almost, he tries to keep things calm when he can. "Ah yes, maybe admonishment and I way to forgive cuz you won't forget?" He slips into Spanish smoothly, natural accent betraying that…he probably learned Spanish before he learned English. "It isn't what's in your head and what you see, it's what's in your heart and only you, my little sweet, can decide what to do hm? Helping the girl who helped you will be a step perhaps, but is it a step you want to take?" He holds up that piece of burger once more. "Open."

This time, Bolivar doesn't eat out of the younger man's hand immediately and it is not entirely evident whether or not he is going to change his mind about doing that anytime soon. He is frowning the way Kermit does. Mouth a straight line, drawn inward at the corners, difficult to distinguish from a smile although it probably isn't one.

"I'm not being eaten," he replies, acidly. "And I can't help her.

"All I can do is try and find out how bad it is for her out in there, and send her some stupid fucking, trite line of garbage. Christ." You shouldn't take His name in vain, which is probably exactly why Bolivar does it. He reaches out with his scarred hand, the aggravated ruin of skin texture in poignant contrast to the slender, black-varnished fingers that Raquelle is holding out the hamburger piece with.

"What have you been doing with your time?"

"Then splendid! You've got it all together." Raquelle replies as he has to offer with a quirk of an eyebrow. "Do that then, my advice is to try as hard as you can and then do what you can. I have a feelin' Jesus has very little to do with this." Then he spins around quickly to get the fries once the burger has been taken, hips swaying a bit before he chuckles to himself.

"One day, I'm going to hold your hand." He states out of the blue before draining the fries. "What have I been doing…raising two little girls, doing people's hair, occasionally singing in coffee shops but pretty much rarely and then lately I gave a bummy looking scruffy guy 200 dollars to get on his way, saw some spooky Homeland Security scene play out with catching some pretty amazingly scary people who can do weird stuff, evolution for the win and then just…seeing this amazingly adorably good looking guy who insults me like whoa and inviting him over for a date that he probably doesn't realize is a date." He starts arranging fries and burgers on plates.

Time to bring out the food. Bolivar gets up because he isn't a completely hopeless guest. Or at least he used to be married. Takes one plate as soon as its been fully furnished with portions of food, and then another plate, as if he is actually going to help with this whole enterprise of Setting The Table.

Raquelle is going to hold his hand. Sure. He's also been raising two girls, doing people's hair, occasionally singing in coffee shops, and giving a bummy-looking scruffy guy two-hundred dollars, as well as playing witness to Homeland Security clusterfucks. "Really?" he asks, kneeing the chair out of the way. It would be bad for them to trip over it and kill all the food that Raquelle had gotten goggled for. "That sounds like you need to make some life changes.

"The guy sounds like a moron, if he can't figure that out, but hey: the cute ones u sually are. And if that's all you want in a guy, I'm not about to judge." Except he sounds like he is, judge, judge, judging away with callus bemusement.

Though, the heat's dissipated from his voice by now, as if Raquelle had never been the target of it at all. It's possible. Of all the various and sundry elements in Bolivar's life, he's the least visibly culpable for the enraging helplessness that has characterized him as of late. "The bum probably blew it on drugs." All bums waste charity on drugs, and he is in a position of some authority to make this specification.

Though less knowledgable on other subjects, which arrives on a tone that might pass for gentler. Bolivar puts the plates down on the table and keeps his language clean enough to say: "I didn't know you sing."

Raquelle pushes his goggles up and wipes off his hands as he finishes the second plate and he actually has something a little less greasy, hot dogs for the girls and such on the other plates with fries, handing plates to Bolivar when he can. "Yeah. Dunno if if I have to change my life or just watch where I'm walking." Then he regards Bolivar with faint amusement as the hidden compliment flies right over the man's head.

"Mmm, not a moron, he has an amazing as-err…assets. I met him in a grocery store out of all places!" He pours some juice into pink glasses and chuckles to himself as he follows Bolivar with his eyes before following him physically. "Maybe, we'll see what the bum did. I don't think he was a bum though, just shi-uh badly out of any type of luck."

Question of his singing has to wait for a moment as he whistles sharply. "Girls, go wash your hands." And off they zoom before he just turns to stare at Bolivar. "Oh honey, I sing." A slow nod.

Zoooom. The dogs actually patter off in the little girls' wake, leaving Bolivar to stare after them with one eyebrow slightly arched. Contagion, he'd said before. Happy, possibly, but he'll have to hope that it cedes his girls back their brain matter after they get out of here or else all hope for his return to the Force is gone, like that.

By the time he looks back at Raquelle, he's being subject to a stare, which he returns somewhat less confrontationally than some might have expected him to. He can't believe the glasses are pink! Or— okay. That is entirely too easy to believe, that the glasses would be pink. "Maybe you're the moron," he suggests after a moment, the corner of his mouth tipping upward. "Or blind."

Or a liar, but Bolivar doesn't mind that enough to say it out loud. "I guess you could just be 'artistic.'" By the sound of it, that adjective is not necessarily a good thing. "Other people video plastic bags blowing around in parking lots. He trots about below the height of Raquelle's shoulder to help with cutlery, idly straining his ear to check if his girls and Raquelle's girls aren't eating soap or something.

"What kind of music?"

"Wash wash wash your hands…get the doggies hands too." And a brief argument about whether dog's hands need to be washed or not from where the girls are getting washed up.

Raquelle on the other end is making sure the glasses are in the right places before turning to face Bolivar, slipping off his goggles and untying his apron to tilt his head to the side and let his eyes sweep up and down the man's body with a small smile. "Or maybe I'm the genius and he's still in denial?" A cheeky grin and he shrugs his shoulder. "Artistic, hah! Oh sweetiehoneybunchesofoatiefruitypebbles." He might've just used all the cutesywutesy names JUST because of previous remarks about his normal usage of nicknames.

He starts to hand Bolivar a knife…pauses and hands him a fork instead. Still dangerous perhaps but not a knife at least. But fingers reach out to gently snag the other man by his shirt. "What kind of music do you like?" Is asked testingly almost…but sincerely, cheerful sarcasm replaced by that calm and serious soberness as he just stares intently at the man, fingers twist and toy with material idly. He probably should ask 'are you straight? How about married? Seeing anybody? A monk? What about a eunuch? Do you possess a working penis that is either detachable or permanently affixed?' or something but ya know. Priorities.

Ahhhh nicknames. Bolivar looks anything but sweetie honey bunches of oatie what et cetera cereal? things when the fork arrives in his hand, and is eyed with all of the curiosity of a man who realizes he was about to have been handed a knife.

It doesn't apparently startle him when he's taken by the shirt, though in a moment of astonishingly out-of-character social awareness, he actually glances off down the hallway where the girls and other girls are exclaiming about the water. Nobody's about to walk in on him being snagged by the shirt by an asphyxiatingly gorgeous other guy.

"Blues," Bolivar replies genially. Peculiarly enough, the sobriety in Raquelle's eyes invites a belated gleam of kinder humor in his. In this light, his eyes appear the shade of hazel but without any of the green. "Surprising, huh? I'm full of… sweetie honey what okay I'm not even going to fucking try." His shirt fabric is crisp and clean, bends easily, keeps no creases despite the pressure of perfectly lacquered fingers.

Raquelle mmhms distractedly as his eyes flick towards the hallway before flicking back to Bolivar, taking note of his eyes, the material of his shirt. He's good with paying attention to details. Blues? Well that is surprising but it seems to make the hairdresser look a bit intrigued as he hmms softly to himself.

But he can't help but laugh softly at the words 'sweetie' and 'honey'. "Give it up honeybuns, give it up. Not surprising though. It's cute."

Then without any warning he hums softly. "How bluesy we talking here? Like?" He bites his bottom lip before singing softly…

'I hate the evening sun go down, Iii hate, the evening sun go down…' - The St Louis Blues, old blues classic and hella old song really but he sings it softly with a hint of blues and his natural ability adding a pouty and forlorn 'oh dear lord, I'm blue' quality to his words as he taps into the feeling of the song. - 'Cause my lovin' baby done left this town..'

Bolivar likes blues the way he likes plain speech— probably because one often feels contiguous of the next. One of the few things worth elevating to art, or else, one of the few principles on which art worth subscribing to is worth having. He likes that one, and it's apparent when he abruptly shuts up to listen, blinking oddly in the fluorescent light from the kitchen, intent and curious.

These songs are sad. Fucking depressing, more accurately. He isn't full of sweet honey whatever, is what he'd meant: he likes things that are this important kind of depressing. Pouty is a good word for it. Forlorn. There's a certain absence of ridiculous screaming or wall-smashing cymbals which seem to characterize the unhappy expressions of later generations or other genres of music. Still, he's never been entirely sure why they seem to have that painfully poignant verisimilitude on the one hand and still make a man want to move his feet, bob one's fire-scarred head, smile, clap along.

Maybe because it's beautiful. Or else, because it's comforting.

Before Raquelle can get around to the part where the songster lyrically beseeches at some irrelevant God about stuff— you know, 'Lord, Lord,' 'My man,' something something— there's a tiny Mexican propping himself about as far up on the balls of his feet as he can go to deliver a kiss at the corner of his mouth.

Raquelle smiles slowly as he sings, lashes lowering as he watches Bolivar intently as he sings. But as he has to trail off because Bolivar is tip-toeing and are those lips? - Somewhere a tiny angel/devil combo that sits on his shoulders are serving as newscasters for this scene speaking in tiny Japanese voices about going down the field, approaching the goal and it switches to Spanish, 'GOOOOOOOOOOAL!' before 'Oh wait, no - LIFT OFF!' and so on. - But in reality Raquelle dares to lower his head/bend over a bit to return the kiss softly, but he doesn't aim for the corner as he pulls back some.

"Got it…Bessie Smith gets your motor running." He offers in that lowered tone of voice, ability rippling around the edges before he pulls that back slowly but surely and right at that moment he glances towards the hallway and then looks back to Bolivar. "Blue. Dabadee indeed."

Well, it's not like Bolivar is going to move his feet, nod along, smile, or clap along. He had to do something, and he'll be the first to admit that there's just that for now. Dinner's ready, and it takes him abouuut seven or eight seconds to stop staring at Raquelle after the fashion of a minotaur having caught glimpse of a nice young thing wandering by on the bend of the labyrinth ahead. What.

Oh, he's hungry. Right. "Lou. Rose. Get out here," he calls out.

There's a low, breathing whoof of the shepherd's reply, and mere seconds before she appears with her large, caramel-colored head butting the miniature women ahead of her, and Logan Rose tumbling about in insensate excitement around the bigger dog's sturdy, marching legs like a plastic bag caught up between the churning wheels of an automobile.

Bapped around, despite only accidentally, the little curly spaniel quickly launches herself out of the fray, disgruntled. She winds in underneath the dining table then out the other side, lifts her nose to sniff at the scent of food trailing down over the varnished edge. Very slowly, very cunningly, her eyes in shining saucers of varnished gemstone hope, she turns her head toward Raquelle in all his aproned glory.

Raquelle bites his bottom lip in a small grin as his nose wrinkles almost a cutesy awwww did I do that face but he has to swallow and nod slowly, echoing Bolivar after clearing his throat. "Diana, Billy Jean! It doesn't take that long to wash hands, if you don't get out here your food's going to get up and run away!" And the girls come running out from the back not long after the dogs and it is perhaps best not to ask how they got or even WHY they are wearing towels like capes.

Raquelle eyes his daughters for a few moments before shaking his head and looking down at the dogs as he smiles again. "I've got these uh, look the pet store is confusing but they have these pre-made meals for dogs, let me get them set up and uh, you can help the girls get situated."

"I'll do the dog food," Bolivar volunteers instantly, viewing the small people with as much suspicion as the caped offspring of a combusting woman warrants. Or else, just small, squeaky, excited people. "You can do the trolls. Less chance either of us will fuck up and kill each others' girls, right?" In light of the overshare regarding that boy at the riot, that might have been the wrong joke to make, but it's done in the spirit of helpfulness.

Which is something. Possibly even something good. Bolivar doesn't know anything about capes except that they are associated with flight, and he is sure he doesn't want to be responsible at failed attempts thereat. Pulling the apron over his head and off himself, he marches determinedly back into the kitchen and makes a study of the locale for probable canine food hiding spots.

Logan Rose, in the meantime, plants her warm bottom on Raquelle's left foot and whimpers in the direction of the people food.

"It is in the cabinet closest to the fridge honey." Raquelle has to offer with an amused sparkle in those baby blues, attention goes to his girls to get them situated in seats, rubberband coming from a pocket to pull their hair back in pony-tails reflexively as he goes from one head to the next. He hangs his apron on the back of a chair.

"And you can use the individual container things it comes in or put it all in a new bowl if you like." Then he pulls out a chair for Bolivar in time to look down at Logan Rose, eyebrows shooting up as he hunkers down a bit to tentatively pet the pretty puppy. "Hey precious, you gotta put in a good word to your daddy for me, okay? And I'll get you a pretty little…something or another." - Tonight's going to be interesting.

Tonight already is interesting. Bolivar thuds the cabinet open, reaches high with one small, scarred hand in order to extricate the individual container things. He rattles the boxes, one in each hand, studying the brand and then the ingredients, which may seem a little gift-horse, mouth, when he steps into view with his eyes still pointed downward to read.

On the upside, Bolivar apparently likes what he sees. Either that, or Raquelle's gift is doing its work: one would hope, only a mix of the two. He stoops down to greet Nina Lou and finagles the food open, watches the kibble tumble and rattle around before her dense muzzle chomps shut on the first mouthful. "She's just trying to get some of your dinner," he warns Raquelle, sidelong. "Don't listen to her."

Pops his head above the level of the kitchen, and gives the daughters one hairy eyeball each, also. "I can smell your good intentions all the way from over here," he tells them.

"Yep." BJ states from where she sits as she starts to poke the hot dog with a fork before looking to DeeDee. "He's a werewolf." That's her summation of Bolivar when he states he can smell things.

…this just makes Raquelle quirk an eyebrow and blurt out in Spanish. "Well one can hope he likes doing it doggie style…" Then he coughs and skritches behind the puppy's ears and winks to the dog. "Maybe next time sugar, next time." He straightens up and gestures towards a seat. "You're the guest, settle down, have a seat, I'll get you a napkin." He winks and then snatches up the remote to turn the radio on, singing along softly to the song that plays…which happens to be. 'Oooh baby give me one more chance' awww, Michael Jackson was adorable as chocolate little boy in the Jackson 5. Not all change is good yo.

On the other hand, change is imminent and inexorable, and sometimes you have to do the best you can with it. Or so goes garden variety common sense. Bolivar can't boast having a lot of that, generally, but basic survival seems to require him to plant his ass, get over the disconcertment that there are children here, facing him at all, and accept his napkin when it's placed in front of him.

"I'm not a werewolf. I'm a cop." Believe it and be terrified.

Despite having been deprived of one potential meals of deliciousness, Logan Rose accepts her defeat with reasonable grace. As if having understood the meaning that Raquelle had been trying to impart to her in conspiratorial whispers, she ignores her share of dog food and moseys up to her master's foot and rears up to place her pink-toed forepaws on his leg, then calls out salutation when the younger man takes his seat nearby. This one, she asserts, is A Keeper. Bolivar rests a hand on her head. Despite that he's aware that his girl like most little girls is easily bought, he accepts this basic counsel.

Faded.


I hate's to see dat ev'nin' sun go down
Hate's to see dat ev'nin' sun go down
Cause ma baby, she done lef' dis town
If I feel tomorrow lak ah feel today
Feel tomorrow lak ah feel today
I'll pack up my trunk, and make ma git away
.

Louis Armstrong et al., "St. Louis Blues"


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