multiversallogs | i ordered two coffees, one is for you

Entry tags:

i ordered two coffees, one is for you

Who: Odessa Wander and you, maybe!
What: Coffee break and downtime.
Where: The Glory Shada.
When: Various points throughout the workday.
Notes: This is an open thread for those who have reason to be at the Glory Shada.
Warnings: None as of this posting. Will update if that changes.

When Odessa Wander ~~was told~~ decided she would become a surgeon, it was for a very select organisation. It meant that barring some sort of disaster - and those were known to happen - she didn't actually have to work that often. She found it dull, and never imagined she'd savour the time between surgeries.

She definitely savours it now, like the cup of coffee cradled in her hands. Working with and for the public is more hectic than she ever expected it to be. And if she were a better person, she'd actually find it to be more rewarding. At any rate, she's thankful for her pay, and that she's doing the work she loves, and that she's kept busy, but Christ she wishes she could be more selective about her cases. It's made her glad she didn't pursue working Emergency.

It can't be comfortable in those heels she's wearing, but she isn't sitting in the break room. She leans her back up against the wall, staring across the room sort of at the wall opposite her, but also past it. If uncertainty were a palpable feeling, it would be properly radiating from her. Beyond obviously wool gathering, however, she takes great care to ensure that she doesn't appear to be outwardly sulking.

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Someone else seems to have had the same idea, although Charles has chosen tea as his beverage of choice (although he's not completely integrated with English behaviours, just incredibly particular about his coffee). He'd quickly learned that it wasn't a good idea to take breaks in his office, otherwise people kept interrupting him for odd tasks around the hospital. Having a telepath in the building was handy, and he didn't mind doing things outside his job description, but there was the emotional drain that came along with it. Especially in a place like this. He needs moments to himself like everyone else.

Upon opening the door, he falters for a moment. Someone else is here. Do they want to be left alone? He should have checked ahead.

"Ah, hello." Although relying on verbal cues also works.

Odessa isn't so consumed in her thoughts that she doesn't notice the door open, but she doesn't actually react or respond until she's actually spoken to. Shaking herself out of her reverie, she turns and offers a quick smile. "Hi there. How's it going?" It's a terribly generic greeting, and Odessa's inwardly frowning at herself for it. The thing is, she recognises the face, but she can't for the life of her recall the name that goes along with it.

Charles makes a little face, which can approximately be summarised as 'this place, what are you going to do about it,' followed by, "Same old, same old."

As he takes a seat of his own, he picks up on the lack of recognition and feigns lack of memory himself. "Surgery, right? Doctor Wander? I'm Doctor Xavier, the genetic counselor in the Family Clinic. Well, Charles." They're not about to refer to one another by title, after all.

The sentiment is definitely understood and Odessa nods empathetically. Same shit, different day.

Then, her expression brightens right up. Genetics! That's where she knows him from. "Yeah, that's me. Please, call me Odessa. So you're, uhm..." Is this taboo? Does she care? "You're Evolved, right? I mean, you have an ability?" It takes a certain degree of self-absorption to not be aware of the resident telepath. Odessa's good at that.

Odessa Wander. It strikes him as something out of a story. If it is an alias (which he may eventually find out), it's an oddly poetic one.

"I do, yes." There is nothing that pleases Charles more than to talk shop, especially with other xenians. "We use the term 'mutant' where I'm from, although Evolved works rather nicely as well. Same meaning, really. I'm a telepath." There's a beat, before an addition of, "I promise, I don't abuse my ability needlessly. Although it does come in handy for this line of work."

Some sort of qualifier always seems to be necessary these days.

"Oh, precisely. Mutant's a word the non-Evolved back home use to insult us. Like a genetic mutation means something different than evolution." As if it's something that's not happened before. How else did humanity crawl out of the soup? "I don't fuss over it, though. Or your ability." Odessa's quick to assure with a shake of her head. "Telepathy, though. I'm kind of jealous."

And also suddenly very aware of her thoughts. That's got to be a common reaction, though, to being told someone you're conversing with is a telepath. Probably also, Oh crap is he reading my mind right now? Quick, think of a blank slate. Oh, don't be stupid. He just said he isn't. But I'd say I wasn't if I really was. ...Which is essentially Odessa's current inner monologue. She feels dumb about it, okay?

"I can see where it would have horrible drawbacks, though." Which is a bit like a condolence offered. "I can teleport, and kind'a manipulate kinetic energy, myself." She wiggles the fingers of one hand as if to properly express the mystical nature of the latter ability.

"I'd never even considered that. I don't mind the catch-all term of the city, though: xenian." Unity is important in the face of factions that see them as something lesser to be divided and conquered.

He tries to suppress a smile at Odessa's assurance combined with her forethoughts. Then leaves off mind-reading completely, because he feels a little guilty at having peeked (the temptation is too strong at times, especially when it's essentially an extra sense).

"Not too horrible." He shifts in his seat, always a little uncomfortable when people realise the burden he sometimes carries. Instead he focuses on Odessa's admittance to her own abilities. "Really?" He looks momentarily mischievous, before asking, "Care to demonstrate? I'm amenable to showing off myself."

"Xenian's a good word. I like the diversity of this place." If only that meant prejudice against people like her didn't exist. No such thing as a perfect world. "Suppose you're used to it by now." She winces marginally and rolls her eyes at herself. "Sorry. I'm sure you're not interested in talking about the trials and tribulations of telepathy."

And besides, he's asked about what she can do, and Odessa does love to show off for an appreciative audience. "I usually enjoy doing this demonstration with snowballs, but I'll work with what I've got. Do you have a pen? Or change or something? Toss something this way."

His smile is somewhat rueful before he moves the topic on with, "Let's stick to lighter subjects on a coffee break."

He fishes in his pocket for some spare change and passes it over. "Other people with evolved abilities are still relatively new to me. I've met a handful of people in my own world, although I know there are more out there. Many of them are children right now. We're right at the brink, on the start of something new." Which is why he still gets a thrill from demonstrations. It's evolution truly in motion.

"I know what you mean. The Evolved have existed for centuries, but they've only come into the public eye in recent years. There's been more and more of us than ever before. It's become impossible to keep our existence a secret." Much as people have tried. And for four decades, people managed it. It wasn't always a good thing.

Odessa wasn't just using a turn of phrase when she asked Charles to toss something. That's precisely what she does with the change in her palm. She tosses it up into the air so it begins to scatter before gravity exercises its rule, then fans her hands out in front of her, a sudden snap open of fingers, palms tipped upward toward the array of coins.

They halt their plummet abruptly. "Ta-dah!" Pretty cool, eh?

"Incredible" There's a wide smile of delight on Charles' face, and he reaches forward to poke at the air underneath one of the coins.

And returning to the conversation, "I can't tell whether that's the case for us or not. Then again, I don't see why not. It would make sense. Clearly something was set in motion a long time ago." At least he can't think of any environmental factors that have contributed towards mutantkind. They come from all over his world; there was no sudden alignment of the stars.

He sits back, two fingers going to his temple in concentration. "My turn." And with a quick thinking illusion, bubbles suddenly start to float down from the ceiling above them, all shapes and sizes, realistically iridescent and popping off the furniture.

The praise makes Odessa positively glow. She starts plucking the coins back out of the air while he talks, but is interrupted when he begins his own demonstration. Her eyes grow wide in astonishment and she abandons her task to reach out and experimentally poke at one of the bubbles for herself. "Oh my goodness," she breathes out with a childlike sense of appreciation. "It's so real."

Which only makes Charles grin as he sits there in concentration. Eventually, the descent stops and the lingering bubbles burst 'naturally.' "I try my best. Of course, it's all in the details."

"And I have a few more tricks up my sleeve, which I'm glad for. Being able to connect with people in the way I can is immensely rewarding, but it's nice to do something that can make people smile." And with the show over, he rewards himself with a sip of tea.

"So cool," Odessa murmurs, gathering the last of the coins and setting them down on the table in front of Charles before taking her seat. "The organisation I worked for before I came here had counsellors to help people come to terms with their new abilities. I did some of that, but..."

She smiles sheepishly, tucking a strand of her blonde hair behind her ear. "I'm not terribly good at connecting with people. I can explain how their genetic code has now given them the power to make it snow indoors, but I can't tell them how to cope with that."

"That's where I come in, then," he says, leaning forward to pocket his change once more. "As you've seen, it's not only reading minds. And I --well. I experience what's happening, what has happened to people, too. I can feel it."

Which neatly summarises some of the problems with telepathy. It doesn't need to be made more explicit than that. But his smile is inwardly benevolent for a moment, before he glances back to Odessa, bright eyed. "I'm grateful to be able to help people the way I can."

He's adorable, she thinks, the way he's so altruistic. Odessa wonders where her handlers went wrong with her. "Not enough people like you in the world," she commends. She's certainly not one of them. "I'm glad to be working together."

She considers warning him to stay out of her head, if he experiences what people feel, but... Either he'll be able to figure that out on his own, or he'll find out the hard way. Instead, she offers kind of conspiratorial smirk. "I kind of need to be a bad girl and sneak out for a cigarette." She holds up a placating hand quickly. "I'm quitting. Honest. Stress, though. You know how it is. Anyway, you want to join me?"

"Thank you," he says, looking more modest than he usually does when someone pays him a compliment. But then again, remarks on his moral fibre is somewhat different. Especially since that the months before Baedal and his time living in the city have begun to replace Charles' certainty with the sinking sense that his efforts will never quite be enough.

"I promise not to scold, I--" And there's a strange moment where he glances off to another direction, unblinking, but breaks out of it with a smile, before turning back to Odessa. "Sorry, I picked up on someone I know nearby. Yes, I'll join you. That way we can meet him outside." And, with a look of his own that borders on conspiratorial, "He's like us."

"Well then!" Odessa claps her hands and rubs them together eagerly. "He should appreciate this. Right. My turn to show off again." Reaching out, her slender fingers curl around Charles' forearm. "Deep breath. And off we...

"Go." There's no physical sensation of movement as the break room vanishes in an instant, replaced by the familiar view of front of the Glory Shada hospital. She spreads her arms out to her sides and smiles wide. "And there you have it." She reaches into her lab coat and pulls out a small silver case of hand-rolled cigarettes. "Do you know they call these things Holy Smokes? Made with actual holy water or somethin' like that. I'm surprised I don't go up in flames," she quips, settling one between her lips and snapping shut the case before retrieving her lighter.

"You all right by the way? Sorry, I forget that whole teleportation thing can be jarring for others."

Having never actually been in contact with a teleporter before, that was quite the experience. Charles looks endlessly pleased with this development, although he gives a little shake of his head out of mild disorientation.

"Oh no, no, I'm fine. Although that is quite the talent," and his words are accompanied with a delighted laugh. Don't mind him while he ignores the urge to ask Odessa to do it again (she is on a break, after all. Also she's not Space Mountain.)

He does, however, cast a glance around for a certain familiar face while he answers the other conversation point. "That is a terrible pun. I approve wholeheartedly."

That familiar face is not too far away, actually, and looking surprised—but not alarmed—by the pair's literal appearance out of thin air as he slows his long strides to meet them. He's clean shaven as always, and dressed for work in his dark coat, boots and cap.

"Interesting timing," he says to Charles, of course knowing full well it's not an accident. "Who's this?" He asks this while looking at Odessa, perhaps seeming a touch aloof but receptive nonetheless. (Don't take it personally, kiddo, this is the norm.)

That previous laugh gets turned into a bright smile as Erik approaches. "Well, I wouldn't want to start getting predictable." Don't mind him as he rocks on the balls of his feet, still grinning.

Although it does get curbed due to introductions. "Erik, this is Odessa Wander, a colleague of mine," with an accompanying gesture. As if the lab coat didn't give it away. "Odessa, this is my good friend, Erik Lehnsherr." Now he can put his hands in his coat pockets, quite pleased with how events turned out.

"Oh, it's the only way to travel." Odessa blows a stream of smoke out of the corner of her mouth, away from the two men. She's visibly pleased with herself for having impressed the telepath, which means she's all but glowing as she greets Erik. "Charmed." That he's aloof doesn't bother her in the least. She's used to caution. "It's nice to meet a fellow Xenian. So, what do you do?" Her face scrunches up, apologetic. "Or is that too nosy?"

It is sort of nosy, actually, but it's not as though he's ashamed to discuss his abilities—now that he can afford to do so without worrying about being inconvenienced, anyway. Still, he's sensed an opportunity to be difficult, and so:

"I work with the sheriff's office in Mafaton, actually." Perhaps this evasion will come off as humility? Or prudence? That is a rather knowing look, after all; he's not oblivious to her question. "Deputy, at the moment."

For now. He likes to dream big. (See: working with, not for.)

Someone notices that obstinance. Charles' eyebrow raises ever so slightly, but he doesn't address any grievance directly. Instead there is a small crease to his forehead, as if to say must we?

He does, however, voice what went unsaid. "I've no doubt he'll be running the canton, soon enough. But then I can think of few people more suited." Because if Erik isn't going to sing his own praises, he'll do it for him, apparently (although the sentiment is genuine). Take that.

The evasion is not entirely lost on Odessa, but she doesn't press it. It was nosy, after all. Instead, she lights up as if that had been precisely what she was asking all along (and in some ways, it was). "Really! Deputy, hm? I'm sure Charles is right, and you'll be moving up in no time. You just have that look about you."

She takes another drag and again blows the smoke away from them. "You know, I've been looking into getting a place in Mafaton. The place I have now is way too close to Bonetown for my tastes." Her faces screws up for a moment, a quick shake of her head. "Not that there's anything wrong with Bonetown, but it makes my powers all fritzy." She wiggles the fingers of one hand as if illustratively.

His ego doesn't need any help, Charles, thank you. (But he'll take it.)

"That's exactly what is wrong with Bonetown, actually." He says this mildly despite his own strong opinion of the place. Bonetown should not exist, Erik feels. "Mafaton's housing prices are still reasonable, though, you should look into it."

Without skipping a beat, then, he shifts his attention back to Charles. "I'll come back later, shall I?" He was going to attempt to steal the man away from his office, but if he's busy hanging out with Odessa...

It's a testament to Odessa's sentiment that it's taken most of Benevenuta's day to day colleagues several days to realize that she isn't blonde any more and that that does mean she changed something. Given they do work in Emergency, it's not anything she's especially inclined to take personally, and it's hard to expect a minor style change to register when one of your other colleagues changes color with the weather temperature and pressure. Successfully inuring yourself against startling at that in surgery (or even registering it) tends to have a flow on effect.

--and it's not exactly her own highest priority, witness: "Is that a fresh pot?" Coffee is much more immediately important than aesthetics or even 'who it is she just asked about the coffee'.

Doctor Bernát, is at least recognised as one of Odessa's colleagues. Admittedly, striding into the breakroom and not looking lost is a big tip off on that front, for the most part. "Ah, yeah," the blonde chimes in affirmation. "Just made it."

After a brief second, she offers her ice breaker, "I like your hair. That colour suits you perfectly." An compliment paid that might make her seem more observant than she really deserves to be seen.

"Ah-- thank you," with a smile that has a genuinely warm ease, even if it comes slightly frazzled over the just-poured cup of (black, sugarless) coffee that she evidently simply cannot go on without. "The new stylist in Howl Barrow. Very nice." Supporting their fellow cohort members and skipping the awkward roots stage of going back to her natural colour; it's a nice arrangement.

"Vanessza," she says, after a moment, "I don't think we've properly introduced." Their paths have crossed enough that she knows 'Doctor Wander', but it's not exactly been casual chat territory.

"Odessa," she offers with returned warmth. "Howl Barrow, eh? I'll have to check it out." She absently smooths her hands over tied back hair, checking by feel to assure none of it has fallen out of place. "Been thinking about going red myself."

Taking a sip of her coffee, her eyes lid for a moment as she savours the heat that briefly runs through her. "Busy day so far?"

The rhyming scheme of their names gets a fleeting smile - that's cute - even if she refrains from actually feeling the need to point it out. Coffee in hand, she sinks down into one of the chairs around one of the break room tables and doesn't quite sprawl, one foot tucked back and the other out in front of her.

"It's a day," she says, wryly, which says all it needs to, really. "There was a bleed-through accident at some obscene hour this morning, I got called in, Emergency was chaos for hours."

She's finally getting that second morning coffee, apparently.

A sympathetic grimace. "Well, that's a lovely way to get things started." Yikes. "I don't want to say things have been quiet in General Surgery, but at least in comparison... It's a more scheduled sort of chaos." And Odessa refuses to check her watch and see how long she has before the next bit of that.

“My last job, before Baedal, I was doing general practise at a non-profit, so...” A little laugh. “A little less fraught, but um. Not much.” Non-profit is a different kind of fraught, at least; she's mentioned to Rex that the work at the Glory Shada feels, often, like the kind of thing she'd have liked to be doing there. With these resources and the real support that they have in terms of what they can offer their patients--

--it's a seductive part of a fascinating city, for her, but she keeps the Militia broadcasts firmly in mind every time she catches herself dwelling too long on the Glory Shada vs her previous experiences in the medical profession. One good thing does not a utopia make.

The Militia truly just makes this city feel even more like home. Which is not a point in its favour. She desperately longed to escape for a reason. But so far, she gets paid to do what she loves, the military and the government aren't breathing down her neck to come work for them, and she hasn't got a list of enemies as long as her arm. There are some definite improvements.

"I know what you mean. I used to run an underground clinic for refugees. This? Having funding? It's nice."

“Respect,” Benevenuta adds, breathing deeply over her coffee mug. “The support we get, to give to our patients...” Demanding it is one thing, and for all that she's so mild-mannered she's been doing that for years; actually getting it is another story, and getting it without a fight, even.

“A full night's sleep would be nice, too, though.”

Respect isn't something Odessa's terribly used to receiving. She doesn't demand it from anyone, either. She just makes do with what she has. Her brows come together when she realises she doesn't really like what that says about her. But she agrees, "It's important."

She smiles a bit wryly at the notion of sleeping through the night. "I'm one of those burn the candle at both ends types. Always have been. I'm sure that'll start catching up to me sooner rather than later. I'm going to enjoy it while I'm still young. For now, naps in the utility closet will do."

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i ordered two coffees, one is for you

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please excuse my slownessss

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