Participants:
| Scene Title | Slice of Heaven |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Elaine and Sable meet and, with two girls and pizza to keep him company, Magnes seems to have discovered a rough approximation of paradise. |
| Date | May 1, 2010 |
Magnes' apartment.
So, like, apparently Sable needs to get a job. She's also been told she may have to move out. Both of these things are, in her mind, manifest bullshit. Well, okay, maybe the job thing is reasonable, but it's /so/ not rock and roll. The fact remains, though, that this lends a single silver lining to the crippling weather and continual blackouts - things as they are, Sable doesn't have to go anywhere or do anything!
The upshot of which is that she's almost always somewhere around the house, her unruly hair framed by large headphones as she air-plucks along with the music she hears. Sometimes she does this in her room, alone, where she can be a total weirdo in relative privacy. But other times she camps out in the living room, heedless of what it might look like to see someone air guitaring and mouthing along to songs no one else can hear.
This is one of those latter times, and worse than usual, because she's actually singing (low, at least) along with the music. "Said the straight man to the late man/Where have you been/I've been here and I've been there/And I've been in between…" At least she's not toneless, the last and most fatal embarrassment.
Sable's not the only jobless person who's stuck in the apartment for the moment. Elaine, who was holed up in Magnes' room with one of his Spider-Man Loves Mary-Jane comics, emerges, eyes on the comic as she heads to the kitchen to find something to drink. She would have walked just right past except for the fact that her ears pick up the singing of the air-guitaring musician. She pauses, finger holding her spot in the comic book while she stands there, simply watching until she's noticed.
As soon as Elaine enters Sable's peripheral vision, the yellow eyed girl's attention slides over to her. Her expression is one of momentary surprise, replaced by a wide grin as she tugs the headphones down from her ears, to hand around her neck. "Well hello there," she says, "You'd best be Elaine, or Magnes'll be in deep shit for f'rgetting your name so quick."
"Yeah, I'm Elaine." She pauses, heading over towards Sable to offer a hand. "I'd be a little pissed if he forgot my name already, though. I was hoping I'd made a bit of an impression. You must be Sable."
Sable gets to her feet and sticks out her hand and takes Elaine's in a firm shake, "Yeah, but our boy ain't like that. He seems pretty fuckin' thrilled 'bout you, so yeah, I'd say you made that impression. Uh… yeah, and I'm Sable, that's true," she grins, crookedly, "Shit… this is kinda hard. Normally I'd try 'n' be charming or the like, but that'd be outside the, like, proper fuckin' territory. Nice to meet you, though. Magnes wasn't lyin', either, you're a true Scottish rose, huh?"
Elaine grins at the mention that he's thrilled. "Well, nice to see I made an impact, cause he's stuck with me for a bit." She shrugs her shoulders, looking over at her. "Ah, don't worry about it. I'll try not to be awkward." She chuckles. "The Scottish thing's actually a couple generations back… I just picked up the accent visiting Scotland before the Bomb. Kinda kept it since. I'm pretty good with accents, though. Switching them up is kinda fun."
"Dunno if Magnes asked you yet, but any chance d'you play an instrument?" Sable says, leaping immediately to one of the foremost subjects on her mind, "One that ain't lead guitar or vocals, mind you…" she thumbs at herself, "Cuz that's my bag. We kinda need, like, maybe rhythm guitar and, of fuckin' course, a drummer," her smile is comically hopeful, "You don't just happen t'be a drummer, do you?" What, no bagpipe joke?
Yawning and scratching his head, Magnes walks out in a white vintage Super Friends shirt and blue jeans, staring at his two roommates. "Oh, hey, nice to see you're not killing eachother." He walks through the living room and right into the kitchen, starting to look through the fridge. "I think I'm gonna make a homemade pizza today."
"I used to play the violin a bit when I was little. Parents got me lessons. I wasn't great, but.." Elaine chuckles. "Somehow I don't think that's an awesome band instrument, unless you really want that sort of sound." She looks up as Magnes heads out, offering him a nod. "Yup, we're just fine. I usually don't try to kill anyone first meeting. Or ever, for that matter, so I think we're good." She perks at the sound of pizza. "Ooh.. please do."
Sable squints at Magnes, poking her thumb in Elaine's direction this time, "She ain't much like me, I don't think. What didja figure made us alike, huh?" This is in reference to a previous comment, and Sable has the presence of mind to clarify in a aside to Elaine, "He said you were like me, but since y'don't play guitar 'r' nothin' I'm really not sure what the fuck he's on about," she turns her head, and her voice, to Magnes again, "She played violin as a kid. Figure you can keep ahold of her 'til we cut a record," and in another aside to Elaine, "Man, if classic strings 'r' good enough for George Martin, it sure as fuck is good enough fer us."
"You played violin? I play piano. I'm only just learning bass, but piano's what I'm best at." Magnes seems to be hard at work with making his dough, mixing things in a large clear plastic bowl. What he's doing doesn't even remotely resemble a pizza, further proving just how home made this is going to be. "I don't know, you both have that kind of… attitude. She reminded me of you."
Elaine glances between the two, giving a bit of a nod. "Haven't played since I was a kid, but I'm more than willing to pick it up again. It'd be nice to be able to actually worry about something other than just staying alive." She looks back to Magnes. "Well, I guess that's a compliment. She seems like she's got an awesome enough attitude."
"Oh no," Sable says, squinting at Elaine, "She's layin' on the compliments. This one's a real operator," she crosses her fingers in a warding gesture. Back witch! "Don't you fuckin' dare be too nice t' me. I'm in a, like, delicate fuckin' emotional state!" An odd statement for a supposedly sensitive soul to make.
"Stop being cute, she might fall for you and then I'll be sleeping by myself again." Magnes teases Sable, lightly putting powder on a wooden board, then rolls his fat piece of dough into it. "Maybe you'll be the next Emilie Autumn, but with less depression."
"Ooh, you're gonna hate me then. I'm a classic nice girl." Elaine grins, looking back towards Sable. "I promise I won't try and mess with your emotions, though. I'm nice, and not intentionally harmful." She glances towards Magnes. "I'll try to be a bitch and not charming, then?"
"Be nice to /him/," Sable says, pointing at Magnes because, y'know, the clarification is totally necessary, "And a bitch to /me/. That'll work out best, I figure. And hey," she turns to Magnes, "I ain't tryin' to, like, pull any devious shit here. But if my, like, enormous personal magnetism proves too much," she spreads her hands, "I can't be fuckin' blamed, can I?"
"Yeah, be nice to me, I like nice girls, well, in personality anyway." Magnes leaves what that implies up in the air, along with the dough that he's tossing up, expertly spinning it just like in a pizza shop to get it nice and flat. "Is Guinness Irish or Scottish? I can't remember and it's my favorite drink."
Elaine rolls her eyes playfully. "Alright. Nice to him, bitchy to you. I think I got that straight." She winks at Sable. "Well, we'll just have to see about that, huh?" She peeks over at Magnes. "It's Irish. But I can do an Irish accent just as easily."
"Oh, fuck /no/!" Sable says, her eyes squeezing shut right after the wink. She then frantically pulling her earphones back into place so as to drown Elaine's words out. These hysterics, meant in no real seriousness, end as quickly as they begin. Within seconds one of her eyes cracks open, and she lifts her headset off of one ear, so as not to miss anything.
"Let's stick with Scottish for now, I'm, uh, used to it." Magnes awkwardly clears his throat, then lays the dough down on the tray to sit. Now he's getting a pot and starts chopping tomatos, apparently going to cook the sauce up. "So, hey, since we already basically skipped everything that normally comes before jumping into bed, any chance you wanna go on a date?"
Chuckling at Sable's "violent" reaction to her wink, Elaine turns back to Magnes and his pizza making. "Scottish is fine. It's my roots and.. well, it was kind of the last place I was, before the Bomb and everything. So I'm partial." She does grin, slightly, after his mention of a date. "Yeah. Actually, I'd like that a lot. You know, it's kinda a weird way to do it, but.. I suppose some of the awkwardness is off because of it."
Sable rolls her eyes, the kind of thing a ten year old would do, allowing her headset to snap back into place. She hops up onto the back of the couch, legs kicking, heels striking the fabric stretched taut over the frame.
"You girls wanna join me in the kitchen and help?" Magnes offers, grabbing a bowl, a crater and a block of cheese for one part of the counter, then a knife and a log of pepperoni next to it. "Sable can cut the pepperoni, you can grate the cheese into the bowl."
Elaine doesn't catch Sable's eyeroll, due to looking away at the time. She moves into the kitchen, grabbing the block of cheese and proceeding to start grating away. "I could get used to this whole, guy knowing how to cook thing. Seriously, I'm getting spoiled here."
Thank God Elaine didn't see that. She might get the crazy notion that Sable is immature and needlessly theatrical, and uh… oh, right. The sound from her headphones blocks out Magnes' suggestion that she lend a hand, but as Elaine departs for the kitchen, leaving Sable (gasp!) alone, the yellow eyed girl pulls down her headphones once again. "Hey! What's goin' on? Uh…" she cranes her neck, trying to get a better look into the kitchen, a futile effort, "Um… is whatever's goin' on in there, like, private? Cuz, I, uh, can chill out here if that's what needs to happen. I guess."
"I just told you both to come in here. Chop this pepperoni, Sable. You get to use a knife." Magnes drops some herbs into the sauce, a scent that's starting to fill the entire apartment. He dips the wooden spoon in, then holds it over to Elaine so she can taste it, keeping a hand under to make sure nothing drips to the floor. "How's that taste?"
Elaine gets an evil grin on her face, peeking out towards Sable in the living room. "He wants you to /cut/ the /pepperoni/." She turns back towards where she's grating cheese before she looks over towards Magnes, taking a moment to taste the sauce. "Mm.. actually, that's really good." She resumes grating the cheese.
Sable quirks her lips to one side, "Like… does that mean… what does that mean? Am I supposed t' dice his dick?" She dispenses with her earphones entirely, tossing them back onto the couch with the mp3 player they're attached to, and pads into the kitchen. Spotting the pepperoni, she sidles up and snags a knife. Her tongue sticks out of one corner of her mouth as she concentrates on getting the slices just the right thickness.
"No one's dicing any penises while I'm in here." Magnes is quick to add, then while the sauce is on the stove he grabs a bell pepper and holds it up. "You allergic to anything? I should have asked that first, it's good to know. The sauce is basically ready, so it's almost time to put everything together."
Elaine makes a face. "Yeah, lets not do that." She looks back to Magnes. "Nah, thank goodness I'm not allergic to anything. I'd be pissed if there was food I couldn't eat. I'm kinda a fan of too many things. Sucks for people who are allergic to strawberries."
This pepperoni is going to be one thoroughly diced em effer if Sable has anything to do with it. And, oh snap, she does! The knife strokes up and down in careful motions as Sable cuts thin slices of the tender sausage. Her reasoning goes like this: Magnes is such a solid friggin' chef, she doesn't want her contribution to the process to look too intensely crappy next to his masterful handiwork. In short, this is a matter of pride.
"I'm allergic to hair metal," Sable interjects, her tone quite serious, though it might just be runoff from the gravity of her culinary task, "Unless it's /good/ hair metal."
"I wonder if I have an ability weakness, like, if there's an ability that actually makes mine less useful." Magnes suddenly wonders, but then after chopping the peppers up, he starts quickly spreading the sauce across the flattened dough, doing it quite neatly and with great ease. He motions for Elaine to sprinkle her cheese on, then Sable the sausage, and finally he puts his peppers on and pops the pizza into the oven. "Now, we just wait. Let's go watch Return of the Joker!" he announces, then heads into the living room. And that's what they'll do, watch a Batman Beyond movie, and eat pizza for the rest of the morning!