2007-02-20: Uninvited

Starring:

Identity_icon.gif Max_icon.gif

Summary: After a lunch 'date', Max sneaky-follows Identity home to her apartment in the Lower East Side. She is not amused. And then they argue.

Date It Happened: February 20th, 2007

Log Title: Uninvited


Downtown, NYC - 404 - East Centennial Apts.

Some time after the end of the lunch, once she's had a curiosity-browse through the apothecary next to the little restaurant, Identity returns home via a short cab ride to the Lower East Side. The E.C.A. building is her destination. She makes a few calls in the cab on the way, and another once she's exited the cab, and paid the driver, just as she steps into her building. It seems fairly involved, because she doesn't even bother doing a thorough check for anyone acting funny and/or watching her. Or, you know, Max.

Up the stairs she goes, rattling a set of keys out of her pocket, she fishes through them, and talks into her phone, "… No. Shouldn't be a problem. Sure." Pause. "No. No." Pause. "Good." Click. She doesn't even say goodbye.

Pressed tightly into the shadow of a doorway far down the hall, Max licks his lips in anticipation. Id was good, to be sure, but not good enough to lose him on her way home. However, he now has a new appreciation for just how preposterous 'Follow that cab,' scenes actually are. Max could've called and asked directions, but where's the fun in that? He watches Id as she approaches, fumbles with her keys, and talks on her cellular phone. With a quick fingersnap, he unlocks the door to the apartment from a distance. The crisp sound of metal on metal is impossible to miss in the quiet hallway.

Identity comes to a full and immediate stop. Boy, it's like somebody pressed the button on the amusement park ride. The left hand is under her jacket and the gun is out before you can say 'not in the face'. She hugs the wall, an slides her phone into her pocket, and moves down the hall. Paranoid? What? No! Her keys only jingle very slightly as they shoved into her pocket, too.

Max's entire body shakes with silent, suppressed laughter at Id's response. He steps out into the light with his open hands spread wide and unassuming. "What's a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?" he inquires sweetly.

Her finger begins to squeeze the trigger, but relaxes a split second before enough pressure is applied to fire. Identity doesn't want to shoot at people in her hallway. It leads to questions. But she is not happy. The gun is lowered, and she stalks toward Max. There's violence in her eyes.

Max grins cheekily, obvious amused by his own antics. Slowly, he lowers his hands to his sides and meets Id halfway across the hall. "Aren't you going to invite me in?"

Identity's answer is a right hook. It's not telegraphed, but she did look a little pissed, so one could assume something was coming. "Don't. Ever. Do that." Lucky for Max, she's not right hand dominant, so she doesn't his him as hard as she otherwise could have.

The blow snaps Max's head to the side. Slowly, he bring his eyes back to bear on Id's face. He studies her for a long moment, then squirts a spat of fresh blood from between his lips and onto the floor. When he finally responds, he does it with a hard, straight shot to the body.

She knew it was coming. Really, she did. Identity doubles over with the force of the punch, grunting loudly. She remains doubled over, hand on her knee, her other hand on her gun on her knee, hair in her eyes, just trying to breathe. Max does not pull those punches.

And it'd be an insult if he did. Max wiggles his jaw experimentally, then swears under his breath. "And it'd just stopped popping.." he grumbles. Reaching down, he offers one hand to Id. "Gonna let me in now?"

Identity straightens, and shoves her gun into his gut. "You are so lucky I don't want my neighbors calling the cops." She reaches behind her, with her other hand, to pull open the already unlocked door. Note to self, see about installing different locks.

Max waves dismissively. He doesn't seem afraid of the firearm. Far from it, in fact, as he leans in until it presses hard against his abdomen. "I'm flattered that you care," he murmurs. "But I'm here for the set of stitches you owe me."

"Stop flirting with my gun. She's taken." Id replies with a snort before she waves him into her apartment. "Go." She reaches back to shove the gun back into the holster at her waistband, before she moves to go into the apartment.

Lower East Side - Apartment 404 - East Centennial Apts.
The expanse of this loft apartment is wide and open, the majority of its spaces are nooks in a large room, with huge outward opening industrial windows. The originals have been left in, and are slatted, large paned affairs which allow a good deal of moonlight or sunlight in, depending on the hour. The floor has been finished with hard wood, running the length of the space, a dark earthen tone, the polish fairly worn but intact. A kitchen area is to the right, and is really more a wall of appliances with a buffer of an open breakfast bar separating that from the 'living room' which consists of a pair of overstuffed, mocha colored couches and a matching loveseat. A flat screen television has been suspended from the ceiling with steel cables, the power cord also running up. The rest of the space is left open, with a desk against the very far wall, a bookshelf against another wall, and a few large potted plants. Around the corner from the kitchen, a small hallway has been built. There are three rooms off of it—a bedroom, a guest bedroom, and a bathroom, all of them fairly small, particularly when compared with the space available in the vastly larger room. The interior walls of this apartment are painted a cheerful lightly toasted sandy brown.

Id pulls the door closed behind her, and flips the deadbolt, and the security catch. It's a nice space, if sparse. But she's worked on it a lot, without the permission of the landlord, who probably doesn't give a shit anyway. "I like the space." There's hardly anything in here, in terms of personal items. Just the couple of plants.

"It speaks so much of your personality,' Max comments sarcastically. He pads over and drops down onto the couch with a lazy, protesting groan. "Gotta love that leather furniture," he rumbles, pleased.

"Leather's easy to clean," Identity replies, without much interest in the statement. She makes her way over toward the kitchen, and removes her jacket, tossing it on the counter. The gun and holster are pulled, and tossed into the drawer on the island there. She slides the little kit out of the pocket of her jacket, and turns. "Take off your shirt." Ziiip.

Max lets out a low chuckle and quickly strips down the buttons of his shirt, then shrugs it off. The wound in his shoulder seems to have survived relatively unscatched, but the stitches along his bicep have burst in two places, leaving the wound to gape raggedly.

Id shakes her head and picks up a remote from the coffee table, she aims it at the television, and turns on the radio side, flicking it to vocal jazz. The remote is tossed, and she looks down at Max, eyes studying his arm. "That's attractive." She slides a knee onto the couch, sitting on it straddling his legs, and opens the kit, then sets it aside, and unwraps a couple of individually packaged gauzes.

Max's free hand slides up to rest lightly on Id's hip. "It's going to make for a beautiful scar," he comments thoughtfully as he peers at the cuts.

Id tosses little wrapper bits aside, without bothering to be tidy about it. A small bottle of antiseptic spray is removed. A few spritzes of that is cold, one, and it burns like hell after a moment of tingly action. "I do my best." A pair of tweezers are used to pull out the old stitches. She frowns slightly. "Are you that blind? These are completely crooked." Yes. She's criticizing his ability to stitch up his own wounds—wounds she inflicted.

"Oh, I beg pardon for not properly stitching myself in the mirror," Max retorts. Then he doesn't have the desire to do much but wince. Between the splash of antiseptic and the yank of thread from his freshly re-opened slash, it's not unreasonable.

"You're bitchy when you're in pain." Identity seems to think this is the best time to push his buttons. She only removes the royally screwed stitches, then slides the tweezer into the case, and pulls out a pre-threaded needle. Someone's been raiding medical supplies. But it's a fruity purple, not a respectable black color. "Hold still." The little curved needle pierces his skin.

Max rolls his eyes at Id's comments, then braces himself as surgical steel weaves in and out of his flesh. "Aww, purple?" he complains. "How'm I supposed to look manly with purple thread in my arm?"

The filament burns a little when it's pulled through his skin, and there are a series of gentle tugs as she ties up each stitch individually. It's a little slow going, as if she hasn't done it in a while. Or she's doing that on purpose. "How're you supposed to look manly?"

Max growls and leans forward to snap his teeth a fraction away from Id's eyes. "You're making me regret not having killed you already," he rumbles. Even so, his arm curls around her waist and snugs her closely to his lower torse.

Id's dark eyes flick to Max's face. "Look." She pokes him with the sharp little needle, to emphasize her point. "Stop." Poke. "Distracting." Poke. "Me."

Max hisses as Id perforates him further. "You bitch," he growls. "Just sew the damn thing up so I can punch you around the kitchen like we both love."

"Don't get bossy. This is my house," Identity replies with a grunt, reaching over to finish up the last couple of stitches. She snips off the last bit, and winds the leftover to stuff it in the little gauze packet before she tapes the gauze down to his arm, ripping the tape with her teeth. Good luck getting that off.

Max inspects Id's handiwork critically, then gives his arm a shimmy. "Well, that seems sound enough. Thanks." Genuine gratitue? No.

Id closes up the little kit, and tosses it aside, along with the medical waste, to the coffee table. "Don't mention it. Ever." She smiles.

Max reaches up to snag his good hand in Id's hair and pulls her down for a brief, hard kiss, then nips her lower lip and pushes her back.

Identity reaches down, and takes his jaw in hand, pushing up as she leans down to kiss him again. It lasts slightly longer than the first, and then she pushes away from him, and moves to stand. "Behave."

Max watches Identity as she slides off of his lap. The curve of her hips. The blush in her cheeks. Her dark, wild hair and eyes. "If you insist," he replies teasingly. "God forbid I upset your plants."

"I read somewhere that plants are very sensitive. They've lived this long by sheer force of will, and the fact that I'm almost never here." Id picks up the stuff to throw out, and makes her way toward the kitchen. She pulls open the fridge, and removes a brown glass bottle of beer, before she turns to kick it closed with her foot. The bottle is cracked open. She takes a sip. "You sneak up on me for surgery?"

"No," Max responds. "Though I am grateful." He reaches into his back pocket and slips out a slim flask that's wrapped with a band of dark leather. It seems he's come prepared with drink of his own.

Id returns to the area in the main room where the furniture is set up. She wears an ensemble similar to the other day, composed of black jeans and a black silk tank. She must have multiples, because the other was certainly trashed. She steps over to drop to the couch beside him, then leans forward to unlace and remove her boots. You guessed it. Black socks! "I'm really too sore, everywhere, to beat the shit out of you. So just try not to make me hit you."

Max slides his injured arm around Id's shoulders gingerly. "I prefer not to be beaten for at least thirty minutes after being stitched," he purrs as he leans against the firm, supple contours of her muscular body.

Id removes her socks, and draws her feet up to turn slightly on the couch, leaning against Max. "If you rip those out again, I'll just stab you in the other arm. You get immobile enough, eventually you'll heal."

Max chuckles softly, his fingertips trailing lightly over the bare skin of Id's shoulder. "You sound so distraught at the possibility of having to skewer me again."

"You think you're better than me because you can fuck around with metal with your brain, or whatever. Sometimes you gotta be reminded that ain't so." You can take the girl out of Podunk, Indiana, but sometimes those patterns of speech just seep right back out. Id snorts. "You're going down eventually. It's just a question of when, and who."

Max shakes his head slowly. "You don't get it, do you? Your people haven't been able to stop me in ten years, and /now/ I've decided to start fighting back." He leans in closer to drag his teeth along Id's neck at the base of her ear.

"No, I don't get it. I don't. This isn't fighting back. You're making out with the enemy. What the hell is wrong with you?" Identity snarks, just a little.

Max reaches up to strike Id across the face with an open hand. However, instead of being menacing, the gesture is almost affectionate. "Don't complain. You're getting something out of the arrangement, aren't you?"

"Funny looks at work." She grunts, "Enough with the face." Id jabs him hard, with her elbow, right in the gut. "If we're going to keep seeing each other, there are some ground rules. If you fuck with me while I'm working, I will hurt you." She turns to slide down the couch, stretching out, to rest her head on his thigh. Her hair spills over his slacks, and she makes herself comfortable. "You're too damn old for me. You learn slow."

Max strokes Id's hair and a soft, thoughtful rumble issues from deep in his throat. "And you're too young," he counters. "Especially to be sleeping with men you're supposed to be killing."

"Too young for what? My job?" Id doesn't seem concerned so much with the implication as she is with disproving his silly ideas. "I haven't been tasked to kill you." She glances up at him as he strokes his fingers through her hair. "You can tell. You're breathing."

"Your posturing is both undeserved and ill-advised," Max comments. He tweaks a lock of Id's hair playfully. "I liked you more in mid-coitus. At least then you knew your place."

This is the part where she should shoot him. This is the part where he'd have been shot were he not a frickin' magnetic controller. It's so disappointing when your favorite weapon and favorite bullets just wont do the trick. "You only think it's posturing because I kissed you at the bar."

Max tugs sharply at Id's hair now. "Admit it. You wouldn't want to kill me, even if you were supposed to." His blue eyes bore into hers and the scar at his lip twitches.

Identity looks up at him, with a silent, unreadable sort of look. "If I ever think you might go lethal on me, all bets are off. I will put you down first." Or die trying. Because it would probably come to that. And even if Max doesn't believe that she could get the drop on him, he might just realize this. Her eyes remain on his for only a moment after she says that, then her gaze flicks away. She closes her eyes, and breathes out a question, to subtly, like a brick to the face, change the subject. "What's with the scar twitching?"

"Can't help it. It happens when I'm thinking sometimes, or angry." Left to mull over Id's not-so-implied death threat, Max is a bit more pensive than he was previously. "Why don't you quit the company and come work for me? Then we'll be able to fight over pleasure instead of buisness." Both his voice and his expression show that his suggestion is only half-jest.

"Right." Identity shakes her head. "You don't understand what we do. Why it's important. You don't understand how dangerous people are, how much they use these…" It's the slight curl of her lip that hints at her distaste for the mutated freaks. "Mutations are going to kill so many people if there isn't someone to keep them in check."

Max shakes his head woefully. "It must be nice, being so naieve." He leans closer, face-to-face with Id now. "You don't get it. We are the future, not you. Evolution knows no limits, no boundaries. And the Evolved? I'm sad to say we're going to crush every last one of you normals."

Identity's expression changes slightly—just a moment where her lips part, and little frown lines appear between her brows as they draw together slightly with a frown. She goes cold, those words eliciting a physical response. If he weren't looking right at her, he surely would have missed it. "You need to leave."

Max pushes Id off of his lap roughly. He stands, grabs his shirt, and swings it around his shoulders. "Don't blame me, blame God. And blame your parents' inferior genes." Making no move to conceal his displeasure, Max quickly buttons his shirt and tucks in the tails.

Identity half-slides onto the floor, though she's already getting up so she gets to her feet with only a brief pause to drop a hand to the coffee table. "God didn't make you this way. Some little screwed up blip in your DNA went off wrong." Her tone is cold. He had to mention parents. "God has nothing to do with you."

"Your ignorance is almost endearing. Go brush up on your genetics." Despite the conflict, Max has yet to storm off as the situation so richly begs. "The intricate dance of chromosomes that creates us all is no accident. You just ended up on the losing side of the equasion."

That just really pisses her off. Nevermind she never went to college. Her brain says he just called her stupid. And that is something that tweaks a big red button. "If I'm on the losing side, why the fuck do you run? You're a cockroach scurrying out of the light when Daddy comes home. You are a real persistent infestation. That's it."

Max's voice drops to a low, menacing hiss. "I've run in the past because I didn't want to let people like you turn me into a killer. Push harder, and you'll find I've lost my reluctance." He holds one hand up, palm-out. Every micron of ferrous metal in the apartment begins to vibrate, from the windowsills to the component deep inside the television. "And if you think fear has had anything to do with my past, you may find yourself surprised."

That demonstration of power is somewhat creepifying. Identity straightens, and she advances on him, steps deliberately slow. "I think fear has everything to do with it."
Max smirks. He doesn't need the validation of a low-budget Company trollop to validate himself, and he says so. "I don't need validation from a low-budget Company trollop. I'll call you in a few days. Maybe by then you'll have a firmer grasp on the world around you."

"Lose my number, you self righteous ass." Id steps in closer, to give him a shove toward the door. Yep, she's mad. "And get out." She shoves him again. "Get out. You're just a petty thief with a half assed ability to bend spoons. Go noble on somebody else."

Max turns back to Id and strikes her across the face once again, only now his open-handed slap carries only disappointment and disdain. With one final headshake, he turns the doorknob and steps into the hall. He pauses just long enough to murmur, "I wonder what Bishop will do to you when he finds out that you've slept with the enemy?" And then he's gone.

"Fuck." Eloquence escapes her for the moment. Than again, that one word pretty much sums it up. "Fuck, fuck." She gives the door a half shove closed. Then kicks it the rest of the way. Of course she isn't wearing her boots, and that doesn't exactly feel good. She turns from the door as it thud shut, and wings her beer across the room. It shatters with an impressive spray, raining glass all over the kitchen. And beer. She has anger management issues.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License