2311/Giant Truth Bombs

Giant Truth Bombs
Date of Scene:	03 September 2017
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Sabretooth, Blink

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Sabretooth has posed:
YESTERDAY...

"She did WHAT!?"

The noise that escapes Sabretooth's throat is eerily close the the kind of full-throated roar that his namesake might have made before it pounced on its prey. Before it was extinct, obviously. Dinner plate-sized hands grab his target up by the front of his coat, and hold him up in the air, so close to Sabretooth's face that the poor man can probably distinctly smell the ever-present whiskey on his breath.

Freezing up, the man reflexively tries to bring his hands up to protect his face, looking very much like Steve Urkel might when confronted by a nearly four hundred pound bully.

"You ordered us not to intervene, sir! Just observe and report! I... I... I reported as soon as you got back from your mission!"

As a warm yellow substance runs down the man's leg, Sabretooth's snarling expression softens slowly, and the rumbling growl disappears from his chest. He sets the man down, belatedly noticing that his Adamantium claws have completely ruined the poor guy's suit jacket.

"Oh. Right. That IS what I said. Good job, Jenkins. Keep up the good work, and yer on the right track for a promotion."

TODAY...

The locks on these doors never seem to want to cooperate. Sure, he managed to score an apartment in one of the nicest areas of Genosha for his... ward? Foster kid? But even the nicest apartments in Genosha are still mostly temporary construction or hastily-repaired buildings from before the revolution. Pretty decent locks, though.

Sliding one of his steel claws into the door jamb, he notes with some amusement that the door has been recently repainted from the last time he broke in this way. Hooking his claw around the latch assembly, he jimmies it as gently as possible, but still scratches up the paint in the process. The lock eventually pops, though not as easily as he would have preferred, and the door swings open.

"Still haven't lost yer touch, Ol' Vic. You deserve a beer."

Walking into the apartment gingerly, as if he doesn't want to disturb anything, he takes in a few quick inhales to sniff the air for... whatever it is he usually sniffs the air for. Taking off his shoes, so as not to track in the persistent Genoshan sand, he makes his way over toward the kitchen.

Or more specifically, toward the refrigerator. "God, I hope she's got beer. But... she'd better not have any."

Blink has posed:
Clarice let's the javelin in her hand vanish with a soft -Blink!-. Dressed in deep green skinny jeans and a loose tee-shirt, the mutant's hair is still damp from her recent shower.

The girl coughs softly from where she stands off to the side of the door. Where she'd be in the blind spot of anyone coming in. And where, indeed, she'd quickly moved to the moment she'd heard someone jimmying the lock. With a loud sigh the teen crosses her arms beneath her breasts and gives him her best '/Bad/ Mister Creed' frowm. "Can't you just /knock/ Mister Creed? What if I'd been /changing/!?" The same line she gives him every time he breaks in...

Sabretooth has posed:
"Who changes in their living room?" It's the same thing he responds with every time she asks. "But even if you're stark nekkid, you always gotta be perpared to rip someone's throat out."

He says most of this over his shoulder, as he continues his quest to find alcohol and/or yell at Blink if he finds anyone. The drinking age on Genosha is still kind of an open question, as are many of the rules on the glorified pirate cove, but he's made it clear that HE doesn't want her drinking.

Of course, he doesn't ever tell her that he started drinking whiskey when he was about seven.

"Nice job gettin' in the blind spot, by the way. Looks like a few of the things I taught you sunk in." He reaches the kitchen pretty quickly, it's a small apartment after all. But he seems to be a bit less than impressed by the state of things. It's almost like she's getting a lot of her meals elsewhere, which of course he already knows.

Blink has posed:
"There's a couple of buds in the bottom..." She admits after a moment's hesitation. "Or a bottle of vodka by the sofa. Good stuff too." How she'd know what's good and what isn't is anyone's guess. Or maybe not so much of a guess if they'd had access to spy drones.

"And thanks, though you still pick clumsily. No finesse..." She wiggles her slender purple digits at the giant of a man, showing her dexterity. "If you can't do it silently, you should probably just knock." It's a new tactic at least. If a little hap-hazard. That's probably because she knows him. "So uh... Who do I have to thank for you coming over to visit?" Because when was the last time he'd had a chance to visit without a /reason/? Too long, that's how long. Outwardly she gives him that blase grin, affecting non-chalance.

Sabretooth has posed:
"Oh good. You DO have alcohol. I'm gonna need to mellow out a little bit before I give you the granddaddy of all scoldin's."

Reaching into the refrigerator, Sabretooth looks suspiciously at the can of beer he comes up with. First of all, it's in a can, and second of all it's not one of the mass-produced names that he recognizes. He's never been a snob about beer, and completely avoids the fancy stuff on the left side of the beer aisle.

Poking his fingernail into the top of the can twice, he punches out two holes on opposite sides of the top. Anybody who drank beer back in like the sixties would recognize why he does that, he's never really mastered the pull tabs.

"My daddy was a big fan of what they call 'corporal punishment', but seein' as how I turned out so shitty I figgered I'd try a different approach with you. But maybe I shouldn'ta spared the rod when you was little. Lord knows you're way too old for that to work now..."

Sabretooth brings the can up to his lips and drains it way more quickly than any person should be able to. It's almost like he's draining the sugary juice out of a Nik-L-Nip, rather than drinking twelve ounces of foamy beer.

Blink has posed:
This was not sounding good. Clarice started to rack her brains, what could she have done that would have him coming here just to chew her out. Not only that but he was using vague threats as well, which normally meant he really /was/ angry. She'd have to be very careful, as much to make sure she didn't give anything /else/ away as to placate the powerful father figure.

"So uh... Clearly you've /heard/ something you don't like." A nervous lick of her lips the only outward sign that her grin is anything other than genuine. "Why not tell me what it was so I can tell ya the truth of it? I'm /sure/ it's all blown way out of proportion. After all, I've been doing good remember?" A hopeful rise of her eyebrows goes with the final comment.

Sabretooth has posed:
"Nope! Nope nope nope!" He's holding up a finger, the universal signal for 'in a minute.' Sabretooth crushes the empty can in his hand, and then reaches back inside the refrigerator. He quickly repeats the process, and only when he's finished his second beer, and once again crushed the empty can, does he finally seem ready to actually converse.

"Let's just assume for the sake of brevity that I got my information from a pretty reliable source." You can't get much more reliable than video feed, after all... "Now I ain't gonna argue with you about whether what you're doin' with your free time is 'good' or 'bad', because my moral compass points ever so slightly to the left. But I'm pretty sure that we can both agree that what you're doin' with your free time AIN'T sendin' in applications to Harvard!"

Blink has posed:
"Well no, you need to have gone to high school to go to Harvard. Even /I/ know that." She quips, moving back through the room to the set of basic bay windows out onto her verdana. What the apartment lacked in size it made up for in potential. Like that potentially the veranda would look out on a city /not/ ravaged by war and strife. That potential had yet to be realised. For her part however, being by the bay windows meant being by a quick exit that wouldn't lead to unwanted damage should she say... Need to portal out pretty quick.

"But your still not telling me what it is I supposedly did? Was it help out Molly? Because yeah, sure I did that. You would have too, people ask for a hand and I give it..." Keep it light, keep it positive... "Or was it the visit to the Justice League place? Because I was just /looking/, I didn't go to really /join/." A beat. "I know the Brotherhood has to come first."

Sabretooth has posed:
"You do?"

It's fair to say that Sabretooth never applied for Harvard, or any college, or ever went to high school, or any school of any kind. So he probably isn't super familiar with the way things work. But being puzzled kind of sets him back a bit, and he's not altogether sure that he really has as much to yell at her about as he thought when he showed up.

"Look, hang on a goldurned minute, that ain't important. If you wanna go to college, I'll make sure they let you in. But this stuff you're doin'... hanging around fight rings, takin' trips to places like Madripoor and GOTHAM, none of this stuff is what I wanted fer ya. I wanted to keep you somewhere safe, maybe buy you a closet full of sweater vests."

He reaches back into the refrigerator, and quickly drains his third beer in less than two minutes. "You're supposed to be makin' somethin' of yourself. Not endin' up like me."

Blink has posed:
"What's wrong with ending up like you?" She asks with genuine concern. All she'd ever wanted was to be as fast, as unstoppable as him. She shakes her head, moving over to snatch the bottle of vodka. A quick glance his way is her only nod at defference before the top is unscrewed and she's taking a quick swig, handing it over to him as her softly glowing green eyes find his. A soft challenge to call her out on the drinking. But as if sensing that's a challenge she'll lose, her own lips split to speak before he can.

"Did you find out /why/ I was going to the fighting rings Mister Creed?" She asks, itself another rhetoric, because the teen carries right on; "I went looking for /you/. I hadn't seen you in weeks, so I followed a lead I had that put you in the Mutant Town fighting ring..." Her frown is equal parts concern and displeasure; "I was too late, all I got to hear was that Juggernaut and maybe you had brought the house down. Literally." The bottle is surrendered easily should he take it. But the charge isn't done yet; "I'm doing good by the way. I even found a great woman to ask all those important /female only/ questions. And she said she's met you... Plus when I said about maybe having a go in the fight rings, she said she'd have to get /your/ permission!" There's a note of incredulity to the last.

Sabretooth has posed:
At first there's a frown, and then a grudging smile as he takes the bottle from her. There's no way that he could stop her from drinking, or anything else, no matter how hard he might try. So the second best option is to drink most of the vodka before she has a chance to get to it.

His fingers wrap all the way around the bottle, reinforcing the sheer monstrousness of the man who barely deserves to be referred to as such.

"Dammit kid! You're right... I shoulda called. I just got so busy with this new job... and I figgered you'd know by now that nothin' short of Apocalypse can hurt me." It's a slight exaggeration, but one that he's been telling her for years to keep her from worrying when he's away for prolonged periods of time. Maybe he's even starting to believe it himself?

"There's reasons I don't want you seein' me when I'm at work, baby girl. I'm the best there is at what I do. But what I do best is... well... sometimes the things I gotta do get a little Rated R for Violent Content. But seein' as how you're already gettin' plenty of violent content on your own, maybe it's time I showed you what it is I do for a livin'?"

Blink has posed:
"It's about /time/!" The young woman opines with vehemence. It might be that she misses the gravity of the situation, or it might simply be that with all the years of worrying /anyway/ when he'd vanished for weeks on end had finally come to a head. Whatever the reason, she's certainly not shying away from this opportunity to know the closest thing to family she has better.

"I've been saying for years that I can take whatever it is. It can't be any worse than the news says about you right? And they had a field day with me dropping that AIM commander through the jet engine..." She shakes her head, they'd blown that all out of proportion. Saying she'd flung them half way across the park! She'd had to laugh - it was better than the alternative. "Should I be sitting?" She asks with an impish grin, finding the back of the sofa to perch on.

Sabretooth has posed:
"Yeah... yeah... I know. Context, and all that." The feral mutant drains a pretty impressive amount of vodka, though it's not clear whether this is simply a stalling tactic or a way to calm his nerves. After all, letting down the only person in the world who looks up to to him isn't something that he'd ever want to do. And if she found out what he's really like when she's not around, she'd be both crushed and traumatized.

With a grimace he hands the bottle back to her. It's a tacit recognition of the fact that she is in fact grown up, and it's time he treated her that way.

"Can't believe you drink this Russian piss... You'd think with all the fancy plants and shit we got on Genosha, somebody'd have opened up a distillery by now." He files the idea away for later, but it'd make a decent Plan B if this whole killing people for money thing ever stops being fun.

"You don't gotta sit, I ain't droppin' any giant truth bombs on ya today. Remember I said 'showed' not 'telled.' So I'm gonna give you a grid coordinate, and you can decide when you think you're ready to find out all of yer old man's dirty secrets."

Blink has posed:
Clarice's mouth opens to protest in a move that's more instinctual than anything else. It stays there, poised to offer up an argument for a long moment before she realises that the offer is in fact, a pretty fair one. Never one to let herself be caught out however, she turns it into saying; "That seems fair Mister Creed. Just be sure if I do turn up ont that, that I'm not gonna have to explain the /why/ of me being there to some hostile folks." Because she knows it wouldn't be beyond him to have to change alligiance and forget to tell her. He was getting old after all.

Taking another swing from the bottle she smirks at the dig regarding her drink of choice. "Hey, I have to go to Europe to buy drink, might as well save a bit by buying local." She giggles softly, passing the bottle back knowing full well he'll finish it this time. It's the beginning of something new between them, and as they settle into an evening of quiet banter, Clarice at least begins to puzzle at what it could mean to their relationship...