Petting Zoo

Participants:

abby4_icon.gif magnes_icon.gif sasha2_icon.gif

Scene Title Petting Zoo
Synopsis Magnes takes "Alexander Suvorov" up on his offer and brings Abigail along for the ride.
Date June 14, 2010

Speakeasy Hotel and Casino: Sasha's Room


Arriving at the Speakeasy at around noon with Abigail Beauchamp, Magnes shows up at Sasha's door wearing a large black backpack with a mini fire extinguisher and a number of other things stuffed into it. He's wearing a long-sleeved dark-blue shirt with a red X-Men X on the chest, black jeans, and black sneakers. "So, here goes nothing." He knocks on the door a few times, then says, "It's the masked guy from the fight!" He intended to wear a mask here, but he can't have Abby put in danger, and certainly doesn't expect to get her into a mask too.

No. Mask. For. Abby. No way in hell would she have worn it, and anyone who tried to touch her here would find themselves likely on the wrong end of a benevolent crime syndicate.

Not to mention crispy fried far more than a piece of the colonel's 12 piece bucket. Behind him, Pink hair up in a ponytail, tank top and jeans, boots, dressed for a day of not work, and running errands, Abigail stands, hands in pockets and waiting. As magnes says, the pepper potts to his tony stark. Only with less money and not so blonde. "If he's not here, we're not breaking in Magnes, this place is crawling with… all.. sorts of stuff" How many roach colonies would be in the walls? Too many to count.

Roaches are probably the least of the Speakeasy's problems. Between the baseboards and the antiquated crown molding, a small brown shape with buttons of licorice for eyes and a earthworm for tail squiggles its way down the hall, anxious not to be caught out in the open. Fortunately, the rat is one of very few; if any good has come of the cold snap, it's the drastic reduction of city vermin, including rodents, most insects and New York's excess of pigeons.

The individual that opens the door to the suite is too short, too curvy and too female to be the Russian Magnes met at Center Stage, but there's no mistake. This is Room 202. Pale body swaddled in cotton bed sheets that reek of cheap beer and cigarettes, the young woman runs her tongue across her front teeth, likely in an attempt to dislodge some of the deep red lipstick stuck to them, and tangles a diminutive hand in her ratty blonde hair.

"You looking for someone, kiddos?" she asks.

"I'm looking for Alexander Suvorov, big Russian guy." Magnes looks to Abby, then to the woman as a number of things run through his mind. Just last year, he might have asked something along the lines of 'Are you a prostitute?', but has a better sense of what will and won't get him slapped in the face these days.

"Juuuust Looking for his friend, that's all" Southern, sweet, really out of place in such a setting. Magnes, that is a rat. That is a rat. Sure, she's seen them outside the bar before, making a pass at the dumpster, but it's inside a building and not fleeing like hell, just.. just… "Lord"

The woman tilts a look over her shoulder in the direction of the bathroom and, brows furrowed, seems to be deliberating the pros and cons of inviting the pair inside. It doesn't take her very long to arrive at her decision. "He's in the shower," she says, making room for Magnes and Abigail in the doorway. "Won't take too long. Come on."

"What's your name, ma'am?" Magnes asks as he gives the rat a quick glance, then enters the apartment. He stares at the floor with a slight shiver, then looks over at Abby. "You don't wanna know what's under there." He's great at keeping Abby's creeped out levels down!

"You are not Flint with your x-ray vision Magnes, don't tell me what's down there" Abigail hisses, though her eye's drift down. Sure, she's had a crappy apartment when she first came here, but it wasn't like this place. Maybe one or two steps up. Definitely had mice. Cockroaches. Wasn't great. But the man of the place is in the shower and the woman is wearing nothing but a bedsheet and instead of giving the woman any weapon to use that is her modesty, Abby keeps her eyes on the floor. "Thank you for letting us in. Your hospitality is apprecaited"

"Y'welcome," the woman says, painted lips peeling back around a toothy smile. Magnes' request for a name is met with a low huff of laughter blown through petite nostrils and little else. Despite calling them both kiddos, she's probably not much older than they are, and when she turns away to retrieve her clothes from the chair over which they're draped, a tattoo of a unicorn entwined with a dragon is briefly visible between her shoulder blades where the sheets are sagging. "What do you want 'xander for, anyway?"

"Business." Magnes answers simply, staring down at various seats as he tries to find a place to sit, then just stands. His eyes pop a bit when the sheets sag, then he shakes his head and averts it to the floor. "So, how long's he been in there? And, uh, are you his wife?" 'Are you a hooker' just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Is that his wife. Abby has ten bucks riding, that she's a flipskirt, oh yes she is. Abigail's not taking a seat. No, No, if Magnes is going to take lessons from this guy, it will be some place better than here. "It's all him, I'm just here as a friend" A friend who's hand rests on her own bag, ready to make for the tazer inside. Be it to protect from the occupants from the room or the rodents.

"Right, well— " The woman keeps her back to the pair as she wriggles into a pair of panties and low rise jeans, but does not discard the sheets until she's groping around for her brassiere, a black lacy thing with a mangled clasp. One of the straps appears to have been cut and hastily knotted back together. "Don't expect too much. He spent most of the morning hunched over the shitter and moanin' into the bowl, but if you need him to fuck off— all you gotta do is clap your hands."

Over her tattoo and bra, she pulls on some sort of sweater woven from a cheap red material that could be wool but doesn't look dense enough after a closer inspection. "I'm just company," she tells Magnes. "A friend, I guess." But even as she speaks, she's locating another pair of jeans much too large for her petite frame and fishing a wallet out of the back pocket. "Be gentle with him, okay? He's a big puppy."

"So you are a… friend." Magnes coughs a little awkwardly, cheeks red as he gives her a few polite nods. "Mister Suvorov!" he calls out finally, so they know someone new is in the apartment. He's never heard the gravity manipulator's real voice, but here's hoping he doesn't shower with guns.

Okay, now Abby looks, watching the woman work the wallet out of the denim, more so she can keep an eye on it and that the woman is only taking money - and how much. "Thank you for letting us know, I'll make sure that he's okay, I'm an EMT." Living in this place, it could be a great many things. Food poisoning, water, rat shit, who knows. If they were evolved, could be the evolved flu, the list could go on. Mental notes that she'll have to have magnes run to a corner store and get get pedialyte and gatorade. "You have a great day, god bless you, I'm fairly sure that we'll be gentle with him"

The woman pockets a wad of cash that's difficult to count unless you're someone like Odessa Knutson and can stop the world from spinning. She transfers the money from the wallet to the tight clasp of her fingers too quick to guess, then folds it over before she tucks it inside her sweater, trusting her bra to hold it in place. Whatever she might have been about to say next is cut off by the sound of a squeaking faucet. The patter of water splashing against the shower's basin behind the bathroom door trickles to a leaky halt in the moments that follow, and with another broad smile she wordlessly lets herself out of the suite.

When the door opens, steam comes rushing out and obscures the face of the man in the process of buttoning his jeans, towel hung around a muscular neck, broad shoulders. One large hand with strong fingers curls around the doorframe for support. "What?" demands a voice that's familiar to Abigail but impossible for her to place with just one gruff syllable.

"I'm the masked fighter from the cage, you said you could teach me to fight without my ability." Magnes hooks his thumbs around the straps of his backpack, looking back at Abby for a moment, then to the Russian. She shouldn't be seeing steamy Russian chest! But there's not much he can do about it.

Something niggles, wiggles and tickles in the back of her head. But she remains silent on the matter of the woman taking the wad of cash and the man half naked in steam in the bathroom. It could be worse. Could be just a towel around his lower self.

Button secure, the hand that had been working his pants lifts and fans at the air in front of his face. When this doesn't clear it, he takes the first step out into full view, and although his sopping feet leave tracks across the carpet like a wolf leaves tracks in the snow, that's not what Abigail notices first. It's the fact that Magnes' Alexander Suvorov is none other than Alexandr 'Sasha' Kozlow, and he looks just as surprised to see her as she probably is to see him.

"Ah," he says. Ah.

"I was going to wear a mask, but I figured I couldn't get her to wear one, and who'd wanna cover that face anyway?" Magnes laughs, apparently not quite seeing the weight of the situation. It should be clear to both of them that he's completely oblivious of any connection. "So, that offer still open?"

"You have got to be kidding me" One hand digs into her bag, hand firmly around the taser now. A sick and weak, injured and evo-flu riddled Kozlow is one thing. A porcelain praying non-evo-flu succumbing Russian who was healthy enough to fight in a fight ring, is dangerous.

"Magnes, I'm going to kill you. Really, seriously, you are as bad as me at collecting killers for friends and acquaintances" There's a incline of her head to the Russian, and the heat again starts to climb, emanating from her gently with a promise of more. "Kozlow"

"Suvarov," Sasha corrects Abigail sharply, but he's making no moves to suggest that the taser is going to be necessary. Water runs off his hair, down his neck and long arms, and ultimately gathers at the tips of his fingers, which he wipes off on the worn material of his jeans. "Sasha Kozlow is dead. Important that your government believes it."

He gives both Magnes and his companion a wide berth as he crosses the room to the window where an open bottle of vodka stands on the sill, suffused with the afternoon sunlight, and rather than go looking for its cap, he stretches out an arm to snag a glass off the adjacent table. "The offer is open," he confirms. "You did not tell me you were friends with Abigail." Abby-gayle.

"You know Abby?" Magnes looks back at her, eyebrow raised. "You know him?" Well, her first reaction should have been a clue, and he refocuses on the toned Russian. "I'll ignore the killer stuff, I probably know worse people. Whatever knowledge you have to give me is probably much more valuable than me having ethical issues with your lifestyle."

"You liked Kazimir when he resided in Peter, then you'll love Koz- " she cuts herself off as she turns away, try and get things under control, keeping Magnes between her and the Russian. "Alexander. He was part of the Russian Vanguard. He's a doctor far as I know and he's wanted by the American Government. They know you're alive Kozlow, and you're going to have to move, out of here, within the next day or two because I'm going to have to tell Agent Parkman where you are"

Breath in through the nose, out through the mouth. rinse, repeat. Rinse, repeat. "Get the extinguisher will you?" This to magnes. "Just in case. He can teach you. He was Skoll, he puts Ethan to shame apparently"

Clear liquid spills from the neck of the bottle into the bottom of the glass and fills it a quarter inch before Sasha is tipping it back again and discarding it on the sill. "Do you tell Agent Parkman where Ruskin and Raith are hiding, I wonder?" he asks, careful to keep his tone as level as possible. He has other questions, like how Abigail managed to survive being trapped in a burning building, but the threat of a fire extinguisher ultimately tells him everything he needs to know.

A snort. "She does not like me," he explains to Magnes, "because I am a good wolf in sheep's skin and she is soft for little lambs."

"Vanguard, eh? Well, I guess as long as you're redeeming yourself. Of course I'd have thrown you out of the window if she said Madagascar Vanguard." Magnes points this out casually, removing his backpack and sitting it on the floor, then unzips it and pulls out the small extinguisher.

"I don't know what that means, but don't go insulting Abby or we might have a bit of a problem." Magnes says a bit seriously, keeping the extinguisher on hand. "Keep in mind I did break your nose, twice. So, how are we gonna start this?"

He's got a point. She never turned over Eileen, and she never met raith till much later. She gave the avian telepathist a key to her own home. The look on her face is a clear indication that he's caught her up in a moral murky ground which isn't helping her keep control. Not that they can see her face.

"I called Homeland after I turned you loose, it cost me a pretty penny to do so. But I heard that you helped at the bar so for that I am grateful and appreciative." Steer away from talk of soft little lambs vrs good wolves, why she never turned Eileen over.

"She said you were sick, the hooker, do need any medication or is the Alcohol to kill whatever's mulitplying in your gut? I can send Magnes to get some things from a drug store." The pin is pulled from the extinguisher, save the others time if she can't reign it in. "Magnes, enough with the White Knight shit, when it comes to me and others. He won't hurt me. He has a thing for me, and he owes me" Milenky goes unsaid but the very word has sat between them before. "He has a pretty good idea I think of what would happen if he touched me"

"You did break my nose once in two places." Not the first correction Sasha has made during the course of this conversation, and probably not the last. He tosses back to the contents of his glass — a little hair of the dog — and then tucks his chin against his collarbone, looking down at the sheen left behind by the vodka as if expecting to find a glimmer of his reflection there. The bathroom mirror was too clouded.

"First lesson," he says. "Costumes are for the circus." When he lifts his eyes, his gaze is accompanied by his free hand, and when he waves it in front of his nose this time it's not in a feeble attempt to brush away steam — it's to draw attention to his face. "This. Best mask you will ever wear."

"Second lesson—" This, he directs at Abigail. Makes a claw of his hand. "Wolves are not for petting. We bite." The tips of his fingers come down together twice in quick succession, a pair of snapping jaws. "Also, our teeth are very sharp. I am fine."

"Stop having a thing for Abby." Magnes casually demands, sitting the extinguisher on the floor so he can zip his backpack again. "Alright, all the martial arts discipline stuff aside, how am I gonna learn to fight without my ability? I barely have any balance without my ability, I still haven't figured out why. It feels like someone suddenly cut the ropes and I'm on my own."

"For once, we are of the same mind, about the mask Alexzander" Muttered, Abby's hand folding into a fist and coming down hard on Magnes's shoulder. "Are you my boyfriend? No. So stop it, I'm serious or I'll stop being your pepper potts. Save it for your girlfriend. I'm going to use teh bathroom, if there's smoke, you know what to do" The latter obviously for either of them as she makes her way to the aforementioned bathroom. Hopefully, it won't be that horrid. worst case, she'll dig out a pill but is loathe to do such.

Sasha sets the glass down on the table and watches Abigail retreat into the humid bathroom, tile floor slick with tepid water. Unsurprisingly, she finds the Russian's pistol in its holster hanging off the hook on the back of the door. Whoever the mystery woman was, he trusted her enough to leave his wallet alone with her but not his gun.

"It is because you have become complacent," he says. "Once, in Mexico, Kazimir sends me to a hunt a man who disappears. He thinks if other people cannot see, they do not know he is there. So," and he sounds like he could be talking about the weather, "I kick down the door. He is expecting me to look in the closet, I think. Under the bed. What do I do?"

Pop quiz!

"Sorry, Abby, instinct. I'll cut it out or she might punch me in the stomach again." Magnes crosses his arms when Abby heads into the bathroom, not commenting on his mask. He listens… and figures this is possibly some sort of test. "If there's dust on the floor, you see how freshly it's shifted, and if you're going into it knowing you're fighting an invisible man, you bring powder."

"No," Sasha says, balling his hand into a tight fist all tendon and white knuckles. He shows it to Magnes, mimes pulling a pin and makes a gesture like someone lightly lobbing a baseball. "You explode him."

"Oh…" Magnes stands there a bit dumbfounded for a moment, then quickly shakes his head. "I'll say this much. I'm here to learn to fight, but I'm not someone who sees murder as a first or even second resort, it's an absolute last resort to me. I don't want to compromise my soul to do good. I hope that's alright, though I would like to know everything you do know about killing people, since it will help."

From the bathroom, a soft "Fuck", thump of presumably her bag being tossed to the floor soon followed by the sounds of the water being turned in the shower.

"Murder is not the point." Sasha flexes his fingers. "Point: You do not want to be the disappearing man. If you are like a baby deer bleating and wobbling around the forest without your ability, then close your mouth. Learn how to walk, then how to run."

The thump from the bathroom draws his attention, but not for long. The corners of his mouth crease into an expression that could probably pass for concern, but that is all. "I will teach you how to fight with your hands and with knives. If you are friendly with Jensen Raith, ask him to show you rifles."

"I know Raith. I know sniper rifle and assault rifle basics, but just enough to point, shoot, and clean. I'll talk to him." Magnes winces when he hears her swear, a little surprised, but he puts it to the back of his mind and focuses on Sasha. "So, you're saying… I need to learn to shut my ability off so I can learn to function without it?"

"Da. This is what I am saying." Sasha scrubs the back of his hand along his jaw. "You know Fresh Kills Harbor on the island?" There are lots of island that he could be talking about, but Magnes' first guess is probably the correct one. It's also the biggest. "There is a warehouse. We will meet there on your Tuesdays. What do you think?"

"I uh, yeah, I know where that is. I should be fine for Tuesdays depending on the time. My work with Miss Strauss tends to be erratic, but I'm confident." Magnes smiles and nods firmly, offering a hand. "Though the idea of turning my ability off is still a strange thought. It's even on when I'm not conscious."

"That I cannot help you with," Sasha says, a note of apology in his otherwise brusque tone even as he takes Magnes' hand and gives it a firm squeeze. "I suggest you seek someone who can. Someone who knows abilities like Abigail knows kindness." If such a person even exists. He sounds dubious, but speaking of Abigail— "Little rabbit? Are you well?"

"I'll figure it out, somehow. Too bad Kazimir isn't around, he'd know what to do." Magnes looks to the bathroom as well, heading to the door to knock a few times. "Can I do anything? You need water?"

The door is opened, Abby's hair wet, drops of it on her lashes, cheek and the dip above her upper lip, peering out between the crack of door and lintel. "I'm okay. I think I got it. I'll take a stiff drink of whatever you were drinking in a clean cup please" The door closed again softly in their faces. "Please, don't let me be interrupting!"

Sasha hasn't got a clean cup. He looks at the glass on the table, then to Magnes before his attention eventually drifts to a wifebeater near the foot of the bed, which he uses to wipe it off both inside and out. It's probably a good thing that the door is shut. "Kazimir is dead," he reminds Magnes.

"Abby's not drinking that." Magnes is quick to say when he sees how it's cleaned, then nods to the bottle. "Just pour it out, I'll catch it." Though at the mention of Kazimir being dead, there's a look in his eyes, as if he knows something he shouldn't say. "Yeah, he is."

She's getting ready to come out, shower turned off, a few more soft thumps and the pink haired woman's exiting the bathroom, All of her dry save for her head, little bit of her shoulders. There's a distinct lack of heat, same as every other person in this room as she closes the door behind her. "Sorry about that. Just giving myself a migraine. Have you both figured out your thing? What you're going to do?"

Sasha looks a little aghast at the idea of pouring the vodka into the open air. "Complacency," he reminds Magnes. "Do not use your ability when there is a straighter solution." He almost undoubtedly means a more straightforward solution, but they'll have to forgive him. English is not his first language, and he's hungover. Wordlessly, he pours the vodka into the glass and leaves it on the table for Abigail to take. Or not.

Whether or not they've figured out their thing — whatever it is, even Sasha isn't really sure — he leaves to Magnes.

"He cleaned the glass with that." Magnes points to the wifebeater with a sigh and a shake of his head, then gives that question some thought himself. "Wait, I know exactly who can teach me to stop my ability, if I can keep him from getting too tempted by it. Then again, I'm supposed to be helping him teach someone else to use their ability… But yeah, we're good for Tuesdays."

tattle tale. Abigail doesn't say it out loud, but she takes the glass, sniffing to smell something other than the non-existent scent of vodka - no surprise there - and just shoves a look towards Magnes before throwing it back with a sputter and choke. Run a bar she may, doesn't mean she drinks the profits much or often.

Choking might have to do with she knows who Magnes is talking about and what he just said makes blue eye's go owl round and look to Sasha.

Sasha folds his arms across the barrel of his chest, hooks fingers around his elbows and leans a hip against the table. He shows his teeth in a smile at Abigail, genuinely impressed if not by her willingness to consume the alcohol, then by her ability to consume it.

Magnes had his attention at the word tempted, however. "Who's this?"

"Gabriel Grey. I need to speak with him anyway, so I'll kill two birds with one stone." Magnes winces a little when Abby actually drinks it, then shakes his head. "Swearing, drinking out of a dirty glass." is all he says, without adding much to it.

The back of her palm pressed to her mouth, arched back as the vodka burns it's way down. "You shouldn't have told him that and Yes, Magnes, I occasionally swear and I'm no Virgin Mary, I owned a bar where women danced on the top and customers buy me shots. It's impolite to not drink what you're bought" Just what you're given when it's free and can be politely refused. She puts the glass down, palm going from mouth to rub at temple. "We should go Magnes. If you're done here. Before you tell him more than you should and he will get stuff from you. He did it for a living"

"You will have to introduce us sometime," is all Sasha has to say on the subject of Gabriel. "Odessa Knutson thinks very highly of him, and I am interested to see what company my old friends have chosen over me. Tell them hello from Skoll. He misses beating Vithar and Munin at cards. Maybe Nidhogg will come play, too."

It's almost certainly a threat. Or a warning. It's also impossible to tell which; Abigail and Magnes lack the knowledge to decipher it. "As your little Italian with the funny mouth would say: ciao."

"I don't wanna know anything about you not being a Virgin Mary!" Magnes raises his hands as if going to plug his ears, but instead goes to slip the extinguisher into the backpack again, and slide the backpack on. "Let's go before my brain starts bleeding and the ability to hear words is permanently ruined for me."

"I am not playing messenger again, for anyone. You want to tell them that, try showing up wherever they live because I don't know where they are. Sorry Sasha." Her bag tight against herm shifting her head side to side as if trying to crack her neck and loosen a vertebrae or too as she heads for the door. No other words of parting, just a deep desire to get away from the room and away from there before she really does go up in flame.


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