3082/Hangouts

Hangouts
Date of Scene:	06 November 2017
Location:	Salem Center, New York
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Rogue, Vincent Black

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Rogue has posed:
Rogue was at one of her favorite hangouts in Salem Center, south of Xavier's School... the little town she'd grown to love since coming to the eastern side of the United States.

Rogue had come here to visit friends and have some food and play some games, they let people buy tickets to play the arcade machiens here all day until closing time, so it was a great place to get out of the house and actually interact with people in the real world, rather than on the ridiculous internet.

Rogue was here now, with her gloved hands on her favorite arcade machine... that Simpsons one where you choose a member of the family and run around smashing things up.

Wearing a green sweater that was baggy on her upper body, she had the soft sleeves shoved up to her elbows, but her black long gloves disappeared up inside of them anyway, covering her forearms, she had on some dark blue jeans that had butterflies stitched into the fronts and sides of her thighs and a pair of brown leather boots that went up to knees, with her jeans tucked into them.

Vincent Black has posed:
    Detective Black had made a habit of coming here once a month a long time ago, enjoying the arcade. The lights and sounds helping to drown out the sounds of his numerous memories of the future. Running a smooth hand through his salt and pepper hair, the man's other hand is wrapped around a novelty plastic ware cup filled with coke and a few drops of whiskey he might have snuck into the drink. His brown aged eyes scan the room but they always tend to stop whenever he passes his gaze over Rogue. At least for a moment. If anyone reminds him of his failures and why he's here, now, in this time, it's her.

    Vincent lifts his cup to his lips and takes a soft pull of the pop with kick and breathes out a sigh as he lowers it to the table. He then puts both hands flat and pushes himself out of the chair.

    Slowly Vincent starts walking towards Rogue, but then he veers off behind some of the other cabinets and circles back around and steps up to the machine. "Mind if I play with you?" Vincent asks as calmly as he can before adding for effect. "I used to play this one a long time ago." Yeah, that makes you look less like a creeper and just nostalgic, right?

Rogue has posed:
Rogue had a drink of he rown, but it was sweet tea with ice and she lifted it up to sip from it as she was waiting for the death timer to tick off. Her friends had already left the pizza place, but she was just hanging around waiting until it was later to go by the music store when a different friend's shift started there.

When Vincent appeared beside her she looked over and up at the older man and just eyed him for a moment, cause it was always a bit weird when an older man approached a teenage girl to talk to her/interact with them... that was just a social stigma that could very rarely be shaken, but at least this was a fairly good reason.

"Sure." Rogue said at him, as she motioned to her GIANT CUP OF QUARTERS sitting on the machine by the monitor. "Help yourself." She told him... there was probably fifty dollars worth of quarters in that cup alone.

Vincent Black has posed:
     "Thanks, but I have my own." Vincent says, pulling a quarter from his brown leather jackets pocket. He blows on it like it's a pair of dice in Vegas, and then smirks before holding it out towards Rogue, cautious to not get close enough for her to touch him though. He might even pull back initially if she does blow on his quarter.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue looked over at him again when he offered the quarter like that which she seemed to not know what to do at first, but then yeah, it came to her and she leaned over and blowed on it for the stranger... to be nice! She was nice, right? Rogue then glanced back at him. "You're a cop or somethin', aren't ya?" She said at him then as she went back to the character select screen and picked Marge cause Marge's vacuum cleaner was the best attack in the game!

Vincent Black has posed:
    Vince takes his hand back and stoops a little so he can slide the coin into the slot. Once able to play he softly slides his fingers around the joystick and flicks over to Lisa. "No judgements." He tells Rogue as he picks the Simpson daughter to play with. That jump rope is killer.

     "Does it really matter?" Vincent asks with a smirk for Rogue that she might see off the reflection of the screen. "But yeah, I'm a detective. Used to work around here, but got transfered to the city."

Rogue has posed:
Rogue heard his question after smirking at him choosing Lisa, she'd pegged him as a Homer. She shrugged her shoulders then and shook her head side to side with her white bangs waving gently beside her face. "No judgement here, Chief." She said to him as she started the level and started smashing things.

Rogue shook her head again then. "Doesn't matter, no. I just get a little freaked out when a cop starts getting up on me is all. LIke they're gonna pin some kinda BS charges on me, thinkin' I'm someone I'm not. Happens a lot these days, ya know?"

Vincent Black has posed:
     "I'm not even on duty, so unless you do something really super wrong, I'm not going to do anything to get you in trouble." Vincent says as he is whipping that jump rope back and forth as fast as he can to clear away those evil bunnies.

     "Consider me a friend. Kapeesh?"

Rogue has posed:
"Ka... peesh?" Rogue spared a glance over at the detective then and she gave him a little narrowed look. "Is that even a sayin' anymore?" She asked, and then showed a faint smirk before putting her eyes back on the cabinet's monitor and continuing to battle the forces that threatened Springfield, Anywhere.

"I've seen you somewhere else before." She said then about five seconds later. "In Manhattan, Greenwich Village. Near the arch in the park. You... like, dropped something when you looked at me, right?" She asked, sounding a bit more skeptical about this guy's intentions.

Vincent Black has posed:
"Might have been me. You'll see how hard it is to hold onto things when you're like eight billion years old." He teases, trying to disarm the girl and yet his fingers still tap away at the two buttons the game came with per player. Though he does shoot a sidelong glance at Rogue, he knows she's smart, he'd be almost disappointed for her to buy that, but he also doesn't have a clue what to tell the girl he has known twice before and yet each time they're further and further apart as people and friends. This was a dumb idea and he knew it.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue just smirked at the older man's response and she slowly nodded her head at him. "Its okay t'admit that you got a crush on me." She told him without looking at him, her gloved fingers clattering on the buttons while her other hand moved Marge around the game map.

"I'm eighteen years old, so you're not gonna be all... ya know... Subway Guy on me, if ya tell me that you think I'm hot and you want a sweet piece." Now she was just testing him, right? That was Rogue's style, wasn't it? She was flirty though... so this could be a difficult reaction to read off of the girl who was slapping pixelated people with a pixelated vacuum.

Vincent Black has posed:
     "It's more complicated than that." Vincent says, but then instantly stops playing the game and covers his mouth, at least he kept his hand on the movement stick and isn't getting hit in the moments he's stunned himself.

     "It's never easy telling anyone that you care about them regardless of age, but that does make it that much more difficult." Vincent says as his breathing has gotten shallow, and short. His heart is beating a million miles a minute.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue, however, stopped playing when he answered that question in a rather curious way. She turned toward him then and her arms just folded right over her stomach, rumpling her baggy green sweater. "More... complicated than that?" She said at him then, lofting her left dark eyebrow.

"What exactly is that supposed t'me?" She'd then ask him. "I don't even know what your damn name is. What are you like a Facebook stalke'ah or somethin'?"

Vincent Black has posed:
     "Do I look like the facebook type?" Vincent says, trying to squish that train of thought right away. He turns towards her and takes in a deep breath. Oh dear. Here it comes. "My name is Vincent. You don't know me, but... oh Christ. Other yous do." Vincent says, stumbling and trying to find the right words when only the simplest ones come to mind.

     Detective Black lowers his hand from the stick but his finger hold his arm up by the lip of the armrest. He turns his head slightly to look at her with on brown eye, as serious as he's ever been. "This is the third time I've met 'Rogue'." He admits, realizing how crazy that sounds before he says it and it sounds worse when it's out there.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue just stared at him. "Kind of." She said about the Facebook thing, but didn't elaborate any further on it before listening to the rest of what he said.

It might be a bit overwhelming for her, if she hadn't been through a lot of wild stuff the past year, including that of Nancy/Tatum showing up from a confirmed alternate reality... and then Nate Grey doing the same thing.

Rogue released a light sigh and she turned back to the arcade machine and put in another quarter to play again. "Of course." She said then. "Let me guess, you're my son from anothe'ah dimension and you're here t'tell me that I'm gonna marry George Clooney and he's your dad."

She paused and then looked back over at him. "Please tell me thats the case." She said, smirking.

Vincent Black has posed:
     "Could be, I don't know, but from where I was from... You weren't big on kids... Not until the end... And you were busy with your schools and... harder things." Vincent says, looking, sounding and even acting remorseful. She had a few tough lives, he wants to help her achieve that goal of Clooney.

    "I'm not your son. I'm just some guy who's seen too much."

Rogue has posed:
"Well thats the truth." Rogue replied while playing the video game. "I hate kids." Which was kind of an overblown statement, she didn't hate kids, she just hated responsibility.

"So how the hell did ya end up here then?" She asked him while finishing a stage in the game and reaching for her tea to lift it up for a sip from the straw, it making that nearly-empty noise with the ice chunks shaking around some inside the clear plastic cup.

Vincent Black has posed:
     Vincent has since given up on playing the game and is leaning against the cabinet, his hands held in front, on over the other. "You don't hate kids. You hate responsibility, but you were a great headmistress, and later on sad about not having your own." Vincent says with a thousand yard stare while she's right next to him. So far away.

     "My name is Vincent, and I was sent back in time twice by mutants in the future to... do something I still don't understand. But this time, everything is different. Even the past. I don't recognize half this place." The time displaced dimension hopping self healer notes.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue looked over at him and she peered her eyes at him saying that she was a headmistress. "Head'a what?" She asked him then. "A school? Where at?" She said, going along with this crazy man's words. "Whats different about this place that you don't recognize then?" She asked further before putting her eyes back onto the video game and trying to play more, though she was doing a very poor job of it now... poorer than she normally did.

Vincent Black has posed:
     "You became the headmistress at Xavier's School." Vincent says in a whisper, knowing the secrets there fairly well, but still knowing that it's not always safe to talk about it in public like this. "This time line is very different from the one I was from. We didn't have a metropolis or Gotham. And there were less heroes. Avengers and all yeah but less." Vincent says, his fist clenching when he mentions the heroes. Seems he's got a distaste for them.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue softly exhaled and she turned away from the game again after dying again within it. She rested her left hand on the movement stick while her right just went against her hip with her sweater sleeve falling down her arm down over her hand there.

"There's been strange things happenin' here." She told him softly. "One'a the teache'ahs at Xavier's is from another... reality too. Now you? And... I don't know, maybe there's some kinda people vacuum here." She showed a smirk and a little shake of her head.

"How on Earth could I ever get up to headmaster status at that place? I'm just a dumb noobdy." She raised her tea up for another drink of it then, but it was all empty now.

Vincent Black has posed:
    "I am willing to tell you everything that happened. You were the person who saved my life. Several times. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you." The older Much older man says. He steps away from the game cabinet, shoes pressing against the thin carpet as he walks over the to the counter and orders a sweet tea and takes it over to the table he left his drink on.

     He holds the drink up, inviting Rogue to talk.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue watched him go and order the new tea and then sit down and taunt her with it like a free candy into a creepy van (Okay, not quite like that). She exhaled and went toward him, stuffing the old cup into the trash and then joining him at the table.

After sitting down and claiming her new drink, Rogue started staring at him. "Whats my full name?" She asked him then. "She'd never told the cops her full name, as far as she knew it wasn't written down anywhere on this planet either.

A couple kids moved to the Simpson's machine and started using Rogue's quarters out of her cup that she left here.

Vincent Black has posed:
     "It's been a long time, but I remember Anna Marie and something with a C... Carlyle." Yes, time erases all. The old man sits at his table and sets the drink down in front of Rogue and yet he motions with his chin towards the game cabinet she was just at. "You might want to go get your quarters." Vince says with a soft smirk on his lips.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue listened to him unable to answer her question but she realized it wasn't a fool proof question anyway. "Maybe we didn't know each other that well afterall." She said with a slight smirk before looking back over her shoulder at the kids with the cup of quarters.

She just looked back to Vincent and gave him a grin. "They're not real anyway." She told him. "They're gonna vanish in about an hour, so the little shits can have their fun with'em if they want. Its cheaper than actually buyin' the over priced tickets here that let ya play all day."

Rogue sipped her straw then and enjoyed her fresh drink. "So why are you here then?" She asked next. "Am I supposed t'help ya again?"

Vincent Black has posed:
     "I'm not going to ask you for help. It's not right and it puts pressure on you. Pressure from a problem you are not involved in. I- It's just nice to speak to you and tell my crazy story to someone."

     Vincent takes a sip of his drink and shrugs before his eyebrows furrow and he looks back at Rogue. "Fake coins? That's one of those things I mentioned earlier about being wrong..."

Rogue has posed:
Rogue showed a faint smile to the old man who genuinely seemed to at least like talking to her, even if part of her still thought this entire conversation was bullshit.

She glanced back at the machine, then back at him. "Fake coins." She said at him. "Its a magic trick. I'm livin' with this guy, he's a... wizard, or something. -Sorcerer-!" She remembered the word he liked and pointed at Vince after emphasizing she remembered it, cause she could just picture him getting annoyed at her for forgetting again.

"I told him I was gonna go to an arcade t'day, so he gave me that cup'a fake coins. Said not t'tell anyon... egh." She fornwed and did a little look around with her eyes.

"Forgot about that last part."

Vincent Black has posed:
     It's Vincent's turn to roll his eyes at Rogue. "So you're living with a Sorcerer and /I'm/ the weirdo..." Vincent says with a smirk before sipping the last of his coke and whiskey.

     "I know you're dog is still alive and that you haven't seen your mother or father in years after they were taken by some guy in a white and black suit through a portal. You used to have nightmares." Vince says in a whisper.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue would grin openly at the first part of what he said. "I can't argue that." She'd quietly reply while moving to sip from her straw again.

But when he brought up the other stuff, her face just kind of darkened and her attention seemed to change as though he'd struck a nerve with that kind of talk. She stared at him blankly then and it might look like he'd just upset her in fact... uh oh.

"What d'you mean my dog is still alive?" She asked him then finally, having chosen to focus on that part firstly.

Vincent Black has posed:
     "Your dog, Jinkies, is still alive." Vincent says blinking a few times. "You used to talk about that dog all the time. Jinkies was a huge fulcrum in your life." Vincent says tilting his head when it clicks. "Oh, you haven't gone back to get him yet have you?"

     "I'm sure you could ask your wizard friend to help you I'm sure."

Rogue has posed:
Rogue sat back in her chair when he said this and she pulled her drink up to her lips to sip from it while staring at him after he said it.

She sat her drink back down then and cleared her throat before looking down at her lap. "Thats not funny." She quietly at him then. "I don't know how you know all of that, but its not cool." She looked back up at him then. "My parents are dead, they died the same night I never saw that dog again. Its probably dead too, I don't have any idea where it is. So 'go back and get it'? How the hell am I supposed t'do somethin' like that?"

Vincent Black has posed:
     "Like I said, ask your wizard landlord." Vince says with a shrug. "No, it's not cool, but you asked me to prove that I know you. I'm possibly the man who knows you best in the whole of the universes." Vincent says with a frown, unable to make eye contact with the teenager after he admits that he does know all these things about her, and he's hesitant on offering her to help with the animal or her parents.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue looked up at him then after he'd made this claim of knowing her best. She sat up in her chair again and looked around quickly once again. "Then where the hell is the dog?" She asked. "I mean if you know me so where, where the hell is? If I went and found him in... this other universe? Where the hell did Ah find'im?" She sounded mildly agitated but she was containing it for now.

Vincent Black has posed:
    "Jinkies is at a farm in Mississippi. I'll need a map to point out where exactly. You can go on your own or have whoever you prefer take you. I don't expect you to ask me, you don't know me." Vincent dismisses the idea of her asking the cop to be her guide to her own history. That's acceptable.

    Vince pulls out his flask and pours some into the bottle without even having any more coke in it, might as well have drank from the flask but it doesn't look too good. At least he's a little sneaky about it.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue still didn't believe him, she didn't believe her childhood dog was still alive... He was, a puppy when she'd first gotten him that last summer with her mom and dad... but that was, twelve years ago...

"I don't have a map on me." She told him.

Rogue sat her drink down then and she pulled out her phone. "Give me your cell number." She told him then in her southern toned voice. "A way that I can reach you." She didn't seem concerned with him boozing in front of her, she'd booze too if she were 21 and it were easier to get the stuff.

Vincent Black has posed:
    Vincent reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a business card, extending it towards Rogue with it help between his index and middle finger with his palm down.

    "Any time, You have my cell and work number." It says detective and then has his name in black bold text. "Oh here." He says, reaching over and trying to take the phone from her hand if she'll let him.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue would let him take her phone and she'd take the business card. "I really need t'get me some'a these." She quietl commented, reading the text on his and then flipping it over to see if there were any on the back. "Makes ya feel so damn special." She said down at the card with a slight smirk.

Rogue would shake her head then and put the card into her pocket on her hoodie. "I live with Doctor Strange, is that a name you know or is he someone not... from whatever reality you are from?"

Vincent Black has posed:
    "I'm okay with not being special. I'm tired of being people's delivery boy. I'm tired of going through time and suffering." Vincent says as he holds the phone up closer to his face and keeps tapping rapidly at it before he sets it down on the table. Sliding the device over to Rogue he turns it around so the map is oriented correctly for her vision. "Here. The last time you saw your family and where your dog is still waiting for you. Wait, Doctor Strange. I had heard of him, but I don't know anything about him. He didn't deal much with the X-men or the School."

Rogue has posed:
Rogue accepted the phone back when he offered it and she looked down at the Map. She didn't really know that part of Mississippi all that well... it was south of Meridian though, cause she saw her hometown labeled on the highway north of the farm where he labeled it." Rogue just nodded her head and picked the device up and then put it back into her pocket.

"He still doesn't. He... saved my life and I've just kinda been stayin' with'im cause he's so... strange, and it serves as great distractions. He really has taken me outta my own headspace and let me kinda get away from the shit that nearly killed me. Every day is different with him, the stuff he deals with... its enough to make anyone feel like they're on drugs even if they're not." She smirked lightly.

Vincent Black has posed:
    "Sounds like a good place for you, but the way you talk about it, you don't sound happy." Vincent says his hand lifting to run through his hair again. Something about her makes him feel hundreds of years younger. "Do you want to tell me what has happened to you. You're much younger than you were in my timeline in this year and yet you've seen so much worse than she ever did. I can see it on your face. In your eyes."

Rogue has posed:
Rogue had to admit to herself that something about him made him easy to talk too also... though she might not ever say it outloud. "If there's anything about me that seems unhappy, it has nothin' t'do with Strange or his wonderfully odd house. I love it there, I really do. IF I could pick somethin' about it that does make me sad... it'd just be bein' away from Xavier's school. Xavier himself, even... The professah's smile... he's like that grandpa I neve'ah had. Let alone everyone else there."

She shook her head side to side then. "I've only been here since a week afte'ah my birthday, now I'm only a few months away from turnin' nineteen. Its... weird... bein' on the verge'a my twenties. Like I'm about t'have'ta act like an adult, but most adults I know act more like kids than me. So I don't know what it all means."

Vincent Black has posed:
    "Don't worry about what everyone else is doing and worry about yourself. Oh, why am I telling you that, that's how you became the headmistress." The detective says and takes a small drink from his open cup and then sighing at himself. "I don't even know why I drink. Here." He passes his unfinished drink to the teenager and then winks at her. Meaning it's okay.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue would show a sly grin and she'd nod her head. "I'll remember that." She said softly back at him then before he offered her the drink. She'd seen him drink it, so it was probably fine! Rogue knew that one of her only weaknesses was poisons afterall, so she was doubley aware of situations where that might seem like someone had shmoozed her into drinking something just to get past her ample defenses... and she didn't fully trust this guy yet.

Rogue reached out though, she accepted the drink and tried a sip of it. It didn't seem to bother her too much. "Is it hard?" She asked him then (uh oh...) letting those words settle for a few awkward seconds.

"... Bein' a cop who drinks himself t'sleep every night? Ya know, a giant god damn cliche." She flashed him a grin, teasing him.

Vincent Black has posed:
    "I've never drunk myself to sleep Marie." Vincent replies, looking down at his hands, and shuffling his fingers a few times before lacing them on the table before himself. "I can't get drunk." He whispers and then his eyes widen softly before shaking his head. No, it's a secret they both need to keep. Find a way to make it through the next few decades. This place is so different from the world he comes from, who knows what the time tables are like here.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue nodded her head once to that. "Well that must be nice." She said with a slight smirk. "And shitty... at the same time." She showed a light grin then and turned sideways in her chair so she could put her feet up on another chair beside her. "You're a mutant then, huh?" She said at him then. "Thats gotta be tough... mutant cop, watchin' other cops treat our kind like shit, just cause they hate some random mean mutant out there that wronged'em somehow..."

Vincent Black has posed:
    Vincent puts his hand up to his lip and tries to silence Rogue from saying too much. "I'm trying to stay alive, and keep you safe." Vincent says with a frown before he stands up from the table. Vincent starts to walk around the table and reaches into his jacket to pull out his flask. "Here, make sure this gets lost somewhere." The officer says before he starts to move towards the front door and head out.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue would accept the flask from him and watch him as he stood, she took a drink straight from the flask and then waved at him as he left. "Sorry." She said at him. "Bye. Have fun in whateve'ah it is you do out there." She'd say from her spot at the table by herself now.

Vincent Black has posed:
    Vincent has to get out of there before he says too much, like he knows he's about to. He had his time with the girl before. It's over and in the past. He's just living day to day now waiting for his chance to stop hurting and sweating everything. "Be safe and go get your dog Marie." He says on the way out to the door and his car.