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Tweak says, "Thank God I'm Pretty."

Rogue (whatintarnation) wrote in dunwichgame,
@ 2025-03-08 22:46:00

Entry tags:

!log/thread/narrative, banana fish: ash lynx, marvel (tv/film): rogue

Rogue & Ash

Today | G

bouncing

Thigs were normally pretty easy going around Bon Temps, to the point that Rogue very rarely had to throw her weight around for anything at all. But then that was just part of the atmosphere Remy seemed to be able to create with ease wherever he went. People were happy and had fun and when they stopped having fun then Rogue was there to put a stop to it.

Of course not all things were a matter of folks getting rowdy. Sometimes it was someone who was likely not supposed to be where they were doing their best to look like they were.

And while Rogue wasn't about to cause a scene for a little sneaking, she was going to be making certain things were on the up and up. "Hey there, you're new 'round here aren't you?"

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ashlynx
2025-03-09 05:10 am UTC (link)

Ash didn't really think he was trying to pretend at anything -- he'd never needed to before. If he wanted to be at a bar, he went. Who was going to stop him?

Then again, the bars Ash went to were often very different than this. Either seedier by miles or classier -- also by miles.

It didn't matter much, he supposed. He liked the vibe of this place. Like it was trying its hardest to elevate the space, the street it was on. Maybe even the town. He liked the way everything felt like it was bathed in dark and magenta.

"Few weeks now," Ash agreed easy as anything, hand at the back of his neck while he took this woman in. He hadn't seen her around, that he recalled. But he was new. And -- well. He hadn't done much in the way of exploring, not yet.

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whatintarnation
2025-03-09 05:28 am UTC (link)

"I thought so," Rogue nodded, "After you've been here a little while you start to recognize the familiar faces and all that." She drawled a little, just a touch chatty as she got the lay of the land.

It was easy to do this sort of thing, almost like this was exactly the sort of thing she might have tried doing if she hadn't been an X-Man, or maybe not. It was hard to say really, when her path had put her so very firmly where she'd been. "I'm Rogue," she introduced herself with an outstretched gloved hand, because that was just the way you did things, all polite like. At least for now. She'd wait and see how things developed before she was anything else.

"How are you liking our little establishment so far?" She went on.

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ashlynx
2025-03-09 05:57 am UTC (link)

Ash's path never would have lead him here. Not to hanging out or working in bars like this. But then, Ash's path lead nowhere at all. Or shouldn't have, if he hadn't landed in this place without anything in the way of warning. It was something he'd been thinking on a lot.

He still had manners though, even when it was obvious he was being sized up. "Ash," he introduced himself and shook hands, brief but firm, the way he'd been taught, somewhere along the way. "It's a nice place," he said, head tipping to the side as he eyed up the lights, the bar. "Nearly beats out some clubs in New York. And definitely beats out the four walls of my Pickman place. You the owner?"

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whatintarnation
2025-03-09 06:24 am UTC (link)

He had a good handshake, the kind that wasn't trying to posture or assert anything other than that he was taking her seriously. Which was all she could ask for really. She smiled when he complimented the bar, smiling like he'd said the same about her. "It is, isn't it?" Remy had done such a nice job with it, and she was glad that others saw that too.

"Spend a lot of time in clubs in New York?" She asked, she'd seen plenty though mostly they were outside the city and thought that this place was far better. "I'm close with the owner," She said with an easy smile, "I'll make sure he knows that you appreciate what he's done with the place. It took a little work after he took it over." She explained.

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ashlynx
2025-03-09 06:34 am UTC (link)

"I lived there, until now, so yeah, I've seen my fair share," Ash said with a one shouldered shrug, expression a little rueful. But it was true. He'd been in and around clubs since he'd hit double digits. Not for decent reasons and not at decent clubs, but that wasn't the point.

Whether or not the club was hers didn't especially seem to matter. Rogue seemed proud all the same. She was an interesting woman. Friendly, but -- something else too, Ash thought. But couldn't really get an idea of what. Not yet.

"I've been hearing that a lot, feels like," he said of her being close to the owner. "The guy who got me my key at Pickman said the same thing. Pickman's not as exciting, though."

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whatintarnation
2025-03-09 07:03 am UTC (link)

"Yeah? We were living in upstate New York before we ended up here." She told him, this place made it easy to be honest in a way that she wasn't always free to do back home. She didn't take as much care to hide herself here. Oh she didn't touch people still, and she didn't make a habit of flying around town all the time, but she didn't feel like she needed to pretend she wasn't a mutant if it ever came up either.

She laughed when he told her that she'd had a similar conversation before but back at Pickman, "I guess that's bound to happen, even in a place like this you can't stop people cozying up to one a'nother." She and Remy had been close long before they'd ended up here, but being here just made being together easier for them in more ways than she could count.

"You're right though, this place is much more exciting than Pickman -" She agreed, "Not that it's not nice 'n all, but it's not really - this." She shrugged like that much was obvious.

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ashlynx
2025-03-09 05:13 pm UTC (link)

"I hear the trees are pretty up there in the fall," Ash said. He supposed it was true, even if that wasn't really the sort of thing he'd ever had the time or disposition to actually care about. Even if he wished he had.

"Yeah? I don't know about that," he said about cozying up. Because he was unlikely to do any such thing with anyone, even if he made a few passes at the idea of making friends. But then, that was nothing new. A foggy and mysterious location in a fake city in Massachusetts wasn't going to make his life magically better. "But I'm happy for you. Seems like it suits you." At least, he thought it did, from the way her eyes went soft when she talked about whoever it was she was close to.

But then took a bit of a sharp turn in the conversation -- maybe he was mercurial, like Stan had accused. "You gonna stop me?" he asked, expression going curious, but not cautious. "I'm not here to make a scene. I'm not here to party or get drunk." Even if he was clearly here to get a drink, Ash didn't ever care to be out of control of himself. "I need different scenery, and--" He paused, uncertain for only a second before forging on, "to take a break from getting anxious anytime someone walks past the door to my room." It wasn't the sort of thing he might have admitted to anyone before, and it still wasn't, not really. But.

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whatintarnation
2025-03-09 10:56 pm UTC (link)

"Yeah they really are, much better than where I grew up." She agreed, that was one thing about moving on from the south that she'd learned to love. But then when so much of life was so difficult you learned to find joy where you could.

Some people were more suited to the whole cozying up thing than others, Rogue knew - she'd long considered herself one who would be apart from all that sort of thing, it wasn't safe, it wasn't fair, but Remy.... well he was something special. So here she was, taking a chance. "It's pretty nice," She agreed instead, because they weren't here to really go into all the reasons why she might have thought she couldn't have something like this after all.

"It's not about you making a scene, hon." Because he didn't seem like the type really, and honestly it tugged at her when he mentioned feeling anxious about living in Pickman and hearing people moving around in the hall outside his room. "How about I get you a soda, and sit with you until you're ready." She offered.

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ashlynx
2025-03-09 11:19 pm UTC (link)

"I bet." Ash didn't doubt it was pretty nice. But the one person he might have wanted that with (the one person who never would have asked for it, and had never expected anything from him at all) wasn't here. And Ash, selfishly, was a little glad about that. This place seemed fucked up. And Ash was -- well. Eiji didn't deserve any of it, was all.

He didn't say any of that. He'd never say any of that, if he had his way.

Instead he smiled, a little crooked, like he'd expected that response and was choosing not to be offended over it. "For a place full of ghosts and killer monsters and surprise trips to Antarctica and whatever else," he said, sticking his hands into his pockets and heading toward the bar, "you guys really infantilize your youths. You got Pepsi?" He'd take it, for now. Not like he couldn't get beer somewhere else if he really wanted it.

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whatintarnation
2025-03-09 11:53 pm UTC (link)

Ash seemed nice enough, Rogue thought, though there was a lot more to him beneath that easy going exterior. She didn't have to have powers to be able to see that - and she had a feeling if you had what most would call a more normal upbringing you might even miss that he was hiding anything at all. But she, like so many mutants, knew very well what it was to plaster on an easy going smile and try and make certain people didn't look at you like there was something wrong with you over something you couldn't do anything to change.

"Shuga, we got killer robots, dinosaurs, and aliens back where I'm from." She told him with a shake of her head, "Despite all of that we still have laws about how old you gotta be for a drink." After a certain point it was a little silly, she could admit, but she wasn't going to be the one responsible for Remy getting into it with anyone over this.

"Gimme just a sec," She made her way back behind the bar just long enough to pour two Pepsis and then made her way back to where she'd left Ash a moment earlier.

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ashlynx
2025-03-10 12:14 am UTC (link)

Laws were silly things and they rarely did what they ought to to protect those who needed protecting -- Ash had realized that from a very young age, but there was no point in arguing it with someone who was following them and trying to keep the peace. He didn't blame Rogue for standing firm to her morals, even if he saw things in shades of grey. This wasn't his home and he wasn't trying to make trouble for the people who'd tried carving it into one for themselves.

By the time she'd returned, Ash had found himself a spot in a booth, conveniently facing toward the door, with most the rest of the bar in sight, too. He looked casual, like he hadn't just been denied proper service. He tucked a strand of hair behind his ear and offered another half polite smile. "Dinosaurs, huh?" The rest was too outlandish, and frankly he didn't really know where to start in with it.

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whatintarnation
2025-03-10 12:29 am UTC (link)

Rogue settled herself across the booth from Ash, sliding one glass toward him and keeping the other to herself. She wasn't much worried about the rest of the bar or anything else that might be happening that evening, it was another quiet night and so she took a bit of leave to talk with him for a while longer.

"Yeah they're down in the Forgotten Land," She explained, "It's a whole dinosaur world down there, people always though there was nothing but Antarctica down there, but turns out there was a lot more hidden there." It was a far less interesting place in this world than in her own, but what could you do about that? Particularly when Dunwich made up for it in more ways than one.

"Most people will probably never know about any of it though," Because people liked the normal and the expected, so keeping things like that from them was usually what they preferred.

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ashlynx
2025-03-11 03:27 am UTC (link)

Ash pulled the offered glass closer to himself, shifted in his seat a little until he was sitting up with proper posture, and then lifted the soda for a sip. It was real Pepsi, which he had to give this place props for -- a lot of bars went cheap on colas. "Thanks," he said, even if he hadn't gotten the beer he wanted, this was fine, too.

He shook his head over the idea of dinosaurs living in Antarctica, of some weird forgotten place in the secret depths of a place that was mostly unexplored.

"Everyone's from such strange places," he said, wistful. "Magic and powers. Feels a little unfair. But yeah. Of course no one knows. No one ever wants to look at the things that might make them uncomfortable."

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whatintarnation
2025-03-11 04:46 am UTC (link)

"So you don't have any of that where you're from?" She asked, curious about worlds that could be without magic and powers and dinosaurs and everything else that she had considered if not normal exactly but a part of life. "That must be odd." Though no more odd than the difference of her own life compared to his. It was hard to talk about things like this when you were coming at it from two different perspectives like this.

"It's just... what humans and nothing else in your world?" Not that humans weren't a whole thing on their own, it just had to be a quiet sort of existence without mutants or aliens or dinosaurs or anything else at all.

"I suppose that much is true no matter what world you're from though," She agreed with a huff, "No one likes being uncomfortable, and if you can get rid of what makes you uncomfortable even better." It was the whole reason people like her couldn't be safe after all - she supposed if it was just humans you'd find something about other humans you didn't like so you could focus on that.

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ashlynx
2025-03-12 02:54 am UTC (link)

It was sort of funny that there were people out here who could think not having superpowers and magic and alive versions of dinosaurs was odd, and it actually made Ash duck his head down and laugh, just a little thing, but still.

"It's odder other worlds have it," Ash said, although he sounded a little on the sad side. Which was fair, he thought. Of course he'd end up being born in a world that was completely lacking in anything magical at all. That was his kind of luck.

"Humans are bad enough," he said, sobering somewhat and offering a lifted shoulder in response. And magic or powers, he supposed, wouldn't make people any better or kinder than the world he was from.

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whatintarnation
2025-03-15 02:18 am UTC (link)

She smiled at the laugh, it wasn't much - but it felt genuine even if his words were maybe a touch sad when he spoke again. "I guess anything that's not what you're used to is always gonna be a bit odd." She shrugged, because she was something unusual herself so finding out that maybe she wouldn't even exist in a place like where Ash came from was always just a little sobering.

"They're pretty judgmental where I'm from too." She agreed with her own small shrug. "Guess that's just the way they are." One small constant between worlds. Though that being the one thing that stuck was a bit depressing.

"Hopefully you'll meet some better humans while you're here." She offered, small consolation it might be.

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ashlynx
2025-03-16 04:11 am UTC (link)

"Everyone here seems to want to one up the next in terms of being better," Ash conceded and honestly looked a bit concerned about it. Maybe suspicious. He knew better than to believe in those kinds of odds. "Well, most everyone." There were a few people he'd met who rubbed in the wrong way, after all. "Maybe that's just the result of people being torn from their own worlds like this. The ratio of good to shitty is skewed, somehow."

That was something to think on, he supposed.

"Anyway. You have powers, right?" She talked like she did. And that might explain the gloves.

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whatintarnation
2025-03-16 04:24 am UTC (link)

She laughed, "I think maybe we got the pick of them when it came to the options here." They hadn't been unlucky enough to have any real bad apples since she'd arrived, though she guessed there was always a chance that some awful person might just show up and make all of the work they'd done trying to help everyone good for nothing.

As for her? She smiled when he guessed she had powers, but she hadn't exactly been hiding it. "I do, yeah." She nodded, "Not really the show off sort of powers like some folks have though." She told him, "Unless you count the flying." That was a good show off sort of power, just not in the middle of a club.

"I'm a mutant," She told him, might as well go all in, and since that wasn't something they had in his world it felt like an easier confession than if she was talking to someone who knew what was what.

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ashlynx
2025-03-16 04:51 am UTC (link)

"Pretty sure flying counts," Ash said, and couldn't help the way his eyes went a little bigger in wonder.

He didn't think of Eiji. He pointedly did not think of how Eiji had his own way of flying -- that strange athletic freedom that Ash had been awe struck over so early on.

She probably didn't mean with a pole that she'd pulled off the side of a building though.

"Mutant doesn't sound especially flattering."

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whatintarnation
2025-03-16 04:55 am UTC (link)

"That's just a little additional power." She said waving off his assurances that flying, did indeed count as a showing off sort of power. She didn't go into how she'd gotten that particular ability, that was one thing she never really talked about.

But she didn't think she needed to give Ash a run down of all that she could do, flight was good enough.

"No?" She asked, a small amused smile on her face, "Feels just kind of like what I am, to me." She shrugged, "It's a mutated gene that gives us our powers and the name." They all could have been just humans if not for that, instead they were something more.

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ashlynx
2025-03-16 04:38 pm UTC (link)

Flying was a little additional power. So not even all she did. Ash couldn't even fully comprehend it -- the ability to be free without struggle and pain was all he'd ever really wanted. He didn't even really know what to say, so he took a drink from his pepsi, instead.

"If that's what you call it, that's what you call it," Ash said, but mutant sort of just sounded like a word with negative connotations to him. "I didn't mean it badly. Anyway, that's pretty cool."

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whatintarnation
2025-03-17 01:58 am UTC (link)

"Nah," She shook her head, "I didn't think you did." She had a lot of experience picking out when people were saying things that were meant to belittle you, and Ash was a good kid, he hadn't meant anything by it. Words were different depending on where you were from, she got that.

"It is pretty cool," She hadn't always felt that way, and it wasn't all roses or anything like that, but she was past the point of wanting to change who she was. She had so much to be thankful for simply because she was a mutant, the people she'd met, the relationships she'd formed. She'd never have any of that if not because of that little gene.

"You stick around long enough, maybe you'll meet a few more of us." She smiled, Remy was around of course. And Jubilee - but they weren't the only ones with powers. "There's all sorts of interesting people here, even the ones with no powers at all."

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	ashlynx 2025-03-18 12:18 am UTC (link)
	"Well, it's not like anyone's got much of a choice," Ash said about sticking around -- and if he did have a choice he didn't know if he would have, but that wasn't really the point. He raised his soda in a half cheers of sorts. "But yeah, I'll see what I can do." A pause. "Thanks." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

whatintarnation
2025-03-18 02:02 am UTC (link)

"I appreciate that, hon." She lifted her glass with his, tipping it just a little in his direction. It wasn't exactly a favor either one of them were doing for the other but she was thankful he was at least humoring her, the same way she was him.

"Tell you what, let's make a deal." She said after a beat, "You ever need a change of scenery, you can come in here and have yourself another pepsi if you want, on me." She added, because honestly better he be here than anywhere else, and if he was here then she didn't have to worry about what else he might be getting up to on his own. "We don't even have to talk if you don't want to."

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ashlynx
2025-03-18 02:55 am UTC (link)

"Deal," Ash said, feeling momentarily fond in a way that he couldn't quite put words to. She just had a kind sort of vibe to her in the way most didn't. Or, well, most didn't have to.

And even if she was out here just trying to keep him out of trouble, at least she was offering something that gave him a few options. Sure, he could go to a different bar, but -- at least he knew that this one was one he was welcome in.

Even if it was just for a Pepsi.

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