16087/Hide Awaaaaay

Hide Awaaaaay
Date of Scene:	16 October 2023
Location:	Harry's Hideaway (Bar)
Synopsis:	Quiet meets another pair of Xaviers School's cult members. She's really building quite a dossier on them... for very innocent reasons! Entirely innocent! Drinks and pretzels!
Cast of Characters:	Quiet, Logan Howlett, Negasonic

---

Quiet has posed:
Steffani has been stopping by Harry's off and on for the past two weeks now, and Harry has become used to the eccentric mute woman because of it. It's a Sunday night tonight, and the football crowds are filing out after the games. Harry is cleaning up, and Stefani is helping. He fought her about helping for the first week, but now he's just allowing it. He grumbles about her, not even being paid, and doing more work thatn his paid employees do, but she seems to like it.

This is what she's doing right now, filling up a tray with empties from the pool hall area. Dressed in a banktop of black, green denim shorts, and black leather boots, the quiet woman is carrying that tray loaded with bottles toward the bar, a smiling on her lips as she shuffles along between tables!

Logan Howlett has posed:
Logan wasn't much for football, no matter how much the folks up at the School seemed to assume he liked nothing more than to drink beer and watch sports. The noisy crowds were more than he had the patience for, so on game nights he tended to drink and smoke in his car for a few hours before venturing into the bar once the crowds had done drifting out.

He steps through the main doors towards the bar, laying down a wad of bills and muttering something about his tab to Harry before reaching over the counter to serve himself and save the owner the trouble.

"New girl?" he asks, glancing past the grumbling Harry at Stef and giving her a tilt of his chin in greeting, "Hey, Smiles, good to meet ya."

Quiet has posed:
"She can't talk." Harry grumbles as he stands beside the cash register, a towel over his shoulder as he calculates something. "And she's a customer that won't stop helping out around here. It's utterly-" He's cut off as she sets down the tray of bottles, and turns around to glare at her. "Utterly annoying. But, at least I don't have to pay her for sitting in the back and smoking like my actual employees."

stef smiles at Harry, before smiling next to Logan, one hand on the bar now, and the other on her hip.

"She can't talk either." Harry adds, motioning to Logan, then to her. "Logan, Stefani. Stefani, Logan. Though we call her 'Quiet' too. Some of her SHIELD buddies called her that, right Stef?" Harry asks her while putting the empties in their recycling bin under the bar.

Stefani nods two quick times before her hand leaves the edge of the bar, travels up to her forehead where she brushes some of her hair out of her eyes, then offers her hand to Logan.

Logan Howlett has posed:
"Damn, free labor? How annoying. My heart goes out to you, bub."

Logan nods his head as Harry gives the introductions, smiling in reply and nodding his head.

"Could be she can talk and just doesn't want to talk to you. Wouldn't blame her."

A joke, of course. Logan leans up off the stool he's sitting on to shake Quiet's offered hand.

"Logan. Like the fella said. Got a shop in town where I teach folks to punch n' kick."

Quiet has posed:
Harry smirks at Logan playing off of the 'free help' angle. "Yeah, yeah..." He quietly says before getting Logan the drink that Logan always orders. "I backed off on telling her to stop when I found out she's a war vet..." Harry adds before setting the drink down in front of Logan.

Stefani smirks at this, as she stands there to Logan's left at the Bar. She pulls her phone out of her back pocket, dropping it softly on to the bar's counter, before she sweeps her fingers across its screen with a graceful motion of key strokes and little taps.

The device speaks for her in a melodic female voice: "I just like it here. I want to help make it better for others."

"Better for others. Noble, and a pool shark." Harry quips dryly. "Don't let her tell you she's bad at pool. She's been cleanin up in there since she first showed up here."

Stef continues to smile, perhaps even more at this revelation that she's a scheming pool shark!

Negasonic has posed:
A hoodie over her shaved head, and the teenager did slip into the bar.

Why did she come here? Well... where she was from, Genosha? She didn't have much of anything. And now, here? She often felt... older than most of the other students her age. And it was sometimes nice to just... hang around adults. And in a place like this?

She tended to get left alone, mostly. But she did have 'fuckoff' vibes around her. If the nose ring, silver studs in her ears, and leather spiked bracelet was anything to go by.

And while she did have a fake ID, Ellie's normally frowning face frowns more when she looks across the bar and sees... Logan. Her expression pinches.

She curses under her breath.

Not that she ever really approached the bar, but she did usually like finding a dark corner and out of Harry's usual gaze, too. But maybe Logan was distracted by the person that he was talking to, her eyes drifting towards Stef.

Ellie would understand, at least.

Logan Howlett has posed:
Logan seems to sense Ellie coming a mile away. Something about being able to hear heartbeats at a distance helps that. When she walks in, the Canuck leans casually towards Harry and mutters low to the man: "Do me a favor and look the other way with her. Next time those One Percenter rejects show up and try to trash the place, I'll talk 'em out of it. Permanently."

He doesn't wave the Teenage Warhead over, though he does make it clear he's seen her and isn't chasing her back to the school to study or read a book or something. He just turns back around to look at Stef, glancing at the device in her hands as it explains her motives.

"I mean, I like it here, too, but I ain't about to mop up Jim Bob's puke to show it."

Quiet has posed:
Harry hears the request, his eyes partially seeing Ellie out of their corners before he agrees reluctantly with a grumble. He turns away from Ellie entirely then, his back to her, as he reaches for a bottle of booze, pops the cap off and slides it toward Stefani. "She's just doing it for the free drinks. Don't let her fool you in to believing there's an altruistic undertone." The grumpy old bald bartender says. He sounds mean, but anyone who knows him knows he's just being personable, in his own way.

Stef accepts the bottle, and raises it up to her lips for a drink. She lowers it a moment later, and gives it a soft spin on its textured glass bottom against the smooth bartop.

She doesn't seem to register Ellie's arrival, as there have been people coming in and out all night. Instead, she just regards Logan, then swipes another sentence with that app on her phone.

The phone speaks up again for her: "I'm terrible at pool, would you like to play a game?" It asks, as Stef just openly grins at the Canuck.

Negasonic has posed:
Logan was annoying like that. Hard to sneak up on him.

But yes. She easily blended into the morass of people that had been coming into and out of the bar all night, but there was another factor here.

She had chosen one of the seats near the pool tables - notably, the one that no one was using. Even as her hands lift up to look down at her phone. She couldn't hear Logan's interaction with Harry, so one might get the sense that she was trying to hide from the Canucklehead as much as possible, the hood of her hoodie tugged forward - even though her features were lit up by the electric glow of her phone.

Logan Howlett has posed:
"I know a fella who does complex geometry equations in his head," Logan tells Stef pointedly, "And if he didn't have a stick up his ass a mile long, he'd put you to shame on that pool table. But ... you caught me in the mood to get hustled by a mute whose all smiles and sunshine."

Logan grabs his beer by the bottleneck and slips down from his stool, taking a mouthful as he struts towards the pool hall. As he goes, he pauses by Ellie's table and raps his knuckles on the wood.

"C'mon, we're playin' pool. Harry's kindly agreed to pretend you're invisible and I'm buyin' if you promise to plead the Fifth if or when Chuck and Jeanie ask. Or you can hang out in the corner and play Angry Birds."

So old.

Quiet has posed:
"Don't say I didn't warn you." Harry says, upon seeing Stefani lure another 'victim' in to a game of pool. Stefani just smiles, and sweeps past Logan in a rush toward one of the open tables. She has it setup within moments while Logan speaks to the young woman in the corner. The triangle-rack is lifted away from the perfectly arranged pool balls, and the unusual woman sets it aside as she reaches for a pair of cues. Approaching Logan, she offers them both outward, one to Logan, and woman to Ellie. She smiles toward Ellie then, before she extends her right hand toward her, introducing herself without speaking a name...

With that settled, Stef sweeps herself back over to grab up a cue for herself, then motions toward the table for one of them to feel free to start the game off, to take the break-shot.

Her phone is set on a table beside her, and she swipes her fingers across its glossy screen. "Friendly game. Ignore Harry, I am not trying to scam money out of you." The device says for its wordless owner.

Negasonic has posed:
Ellie lingers her eyes on Logan, her brow knitting, the silver of her thin nose ring reflecting the light. "I think Angry Birds is even older than you are," says Ellie. "I don't want to push it, anyways," she says. "If I start drinking beer or some..." she curses. "... other things, then I can't come here. Which means I have to get stuck in the girl's dorm this time of night," she says.

Negasonic frowns, a flashback dancing behind her eyes, and she suppresses a shudder. "And I really, really don't want that sometimes," she says. "And right now is one of those sometimes," she says. "That... super peppy girl is throwing some kind of party, and..."

That was that.

Her eyes, dark as they were, go to Stef when she smiles at her, black painted lips going flat as she considers the woman. "I'm Negasonic Teenage Warhead," she says, flatly. Yes, the madeup name here.

"...but that's exactly what a scammer would say, too," she says, quickly getting the picture when she looks from phone to Stef.

Logan Howlett has posed:
"Well, I've got money burnin' a hole in my pocket," Logan explains, putting a ten dollar note down on the edge of the table, "So, feel free to scam me. I'm coverin' the pair of us."

Pool cue in hand, Logan places the cueball down on the table and lines up a shot. One wouldn't think he was much for precision aim, even those that know about his mutant abilities. But then he sinks several of the colorful balls on the break, winking across the table at Quiet.

"Harry ain't gonna give you trouble," Logan tells Negasonic, letting her go by her fancy made-up name without comment, "I'm doin' him a favor. I know about needin' to get away from it all. Cabin in the woods an' all that."

He steps back, nudging the back of Ellie's lower leg with the bottom of his pool cue as he does: "Go on. You're up after her."

Quiet has posed:
The response that she gets from them both just garners a pleased smile upon Quiet's youthful visage. She has to softly shake her head, and playfully roll her eyes up to the left, before she huffs out a breath indicating her exhaustion at being labeled a 'shark.'

She leans on her cue lightly, watching Logan makes his shots, before she has her phone in-hand again. "Nice turn." The phone says with a pre-programmed tap of her thumb upon its smooth screen. The device is set aside, and the brunette steps around the table with a bubbly jump to her movement, before she reaches the cue-ball, and leans over the table to prepare her first shot...

*clack!*

The cue-ball goes rolling toward one of the Stripes, and it connects with a satisfying sound. Unfortunately the ball misses its intended pocket by a good half a foot.

Grumpy face initiated. Stef stamps one foot solidly on the floor before she steps away, defeated. It's a terrible display, really, of being terrible at pool.

Or is it?

A drink of her beer is taken, a swipe of her hand is sent over her forehead to sweep little dark strands of hair from her brow-line before she smiles over at the duo across from her.

Ellie's turn!

Negasonic has posed:
Ellie curses again, particularly as her leg was caught like that.

She glances down, as if to try to catch a glance of what caught her leg. A roll of her eyes, and she lays her phone on the edge of the pool table, moving to grasp the cue. The grumpy face that Stef makes, and the display of the stamped foot, though?

Ellie's expression brightens a bit, her normally morose face softening.

"You can't let him beat you like that," she says. "He'll start saying that 'I'm the best I am at what I do' crap," she says.

Ellie was legimately bad at pool. She had to be coached on how to hold the cue - had to be reminded of the rules. So unless Logan was taking pity on her, she was legitimately terrible.

"What if we add our scores together or whatever?" she asks, handing the cue back to Quiet, and snatching up her phone again, drawing away from the table, and catching up on the ten minutes of updates she missed.

"Do we win then?" she asks.

Logan Howlett has posed:
"She's right, y'know," Logan says with a grin, "I will say that, given the opportunity. I'm crazy about sayin' it."

He does step in to let Ellie know how to hold the cue, but he does so from a comfortable distance. He dares not disturb the aura of cool indifference that surrounds the Teenage Warhead of the Negasonic persuasion.

He's still laughing at Quiet's potentially exagerated display of being bad at pool.

"What, you both want to gang up on me? Jeezum Crow, I can't catch a break."

Quiet has posed:
While Ellie takes her shot, and a bit of guidance from Logan, Quiet reindulges herself with her absolute favorite part of pool...

The blue chalk cube! Squeaky-squeaky-squeaky-squeaky-squeak!

After applying a unhealthy amount of blue dusty chalk to her pool cue, Quiet puffs a huff of a breath across the tip, then resumes leaning lightly on it as she watches Ellie's attempt. The comments from the teenage warhead, gets another sly grin upon the pink lips of the enigmatic woman.

"Yes." Her phone says for her a moment or two later, following a bit of tending to its display. "I need all the help I can get." The device adds in a melodramatic flavor of tone that Stef selected via a emotion menu on the phone's screen.

When she sets it aside, though, she smiles softly at them both, and steps toward the table.

Her black combat boots... one having green laces, the other having red laces, lead her to where the cue-ball lies, and once more she leans over the table. Her pool-cue glides forward and back across her aiming fingers, her eyes staring 'down sights' at her target.

This time she connects with the cue-ball and sends it whirling down toward two of her colored balls. They snap against one another, split apart, and dash their way in to two separate corner pockets!

Stef straightens, and shrugs her shoulders innocently.

Negasonic has posed:
There was an aura of grouchiness, even as Logan advises her and so forth, the young woman having tugged down the hoodie by this stage in order to see the game better.

Her eyes close - the heavy dark shadow and liner that she was using adding to her overall punky appearance.

And that was before she started catching up on her social media.

But the display of skill that Stef shows then draws her eyes up from her phone. You know that kinda thing where, even if you have no idea what was happening, it still draws your attention?

It was a good shot, even to the uninitiated, and Ellie whistles low.

"Hell," she says. "Maybe I even need to add my score to yours, Logan," she says, a mild admiration in her tone.

Logan Howlett has posed:
Logan leans back against one of the pillars with a small shelf around the middle for drinks, silently lamenting the days where you could smoke in places like this. Instead he just exhales towards the ceiling and takes a swig of whatever local IPA Harry picked out for him. He's never been particularly picky about his hooch.

"Nope, no way, traitor," Logan says to Negasonic with a haughty sniff, though the grin on his face betrays the good time he's having, "You already signed up with our Smilin' Assassin over there. You gotta play the hand you're dealt."

Logan's next shot is as accurate as his first, though it's clear that Quiet is more than a match for him. All the same, he's not about to give up and declare defeat just yet.

As he sends one of the balls artfully spinning towards the hole, he shoots Ellie a wink and retreats to his beer.

Quiet has posed:
Quiet is back at her table to enjoy another sip of her own bottle of beer, a Budweiser, as since she is apparently drinking for free, Harry is giving her the cheap stuff. She sets it aside after Logan lines up, and watches him take another good shot. This gets a grin to appear upon her visage, as she nods her head in satisfaction at the display. She sees all skill levels come through this bar, which has been one of the driving forces behind her continuing to come in here. this bar has a nice 'crossroads' feeling to it, getting all kinds coming through the doors.

She even claps softly with her hands coming together in front of the pool-cue that she leans against herself.

Her phone is reached for then, before she taps away at its screen. The device speaks out in-lieu of its owner's own absence of words.

"Are you two related?" The device asks, Quiet's green eyes searching either of their faces then, as it is once more Ellie's turn.

Negasonic has posed:
The last question Quiet - or her device, at least, asks, has Negasonic saying, "God, I hope not."

"Fine, I'll play the hand I'm dealt," says Ellie.

"And she's gonna stomp your dumbass," she says, taking a moment with her next shot. There might be the sense that Ellie was trying to mimick Quiet's pose and posture, lifting the pool cue and lining up a shot with a similar form.

She sticks her tongue against her upper lip, before pulling back and taking the shot...

Ellie wasn't an expert. So she hands the pool cue over to the next in line without remark, picking up her phone again.

"That big fancy private school nearby," she says. "That's where we both live," she says. "It's kinda like a cult. Come by and have some koolaid sometime."

Logan Howlett has posed:
"Yeah," Logan huffs out an exhalation and nods in silent but enthusiastic agreement with Ellie, "If you don't have a robe and funny hat, we have some to spare."

He chuckles to himself, emptying his bottle and waving it in the air at Harry as though asking for another. Or another two. When Ellie makes her shot, he politely claps his hands together.

"I'm a shop teacher. She's a delinquent."

Quiet has posed:
The response that Stefani gets from both of them has her darting her eyes from one of their faces to the other. In the end she's just giving them a tilt of her head, and an expression that suggests she finds it very endearing, and / or even adorable. But then Logan is in possession of a EMPTY!

Stef's pool-cue is set aside, she rushes toward him with rapidity in her footfalls. She takes the empty, and putter-shuffles quickly through the bar's interior toward the bar itself.

"Stef, damnit, I have a server. I pay them to bring--- Ah nevermind!" Harry's voice comes from the main room, grumpily serving the quiet woman with the new bottles.

Just as she'd shuffled out, Stef returns, serving Logan his new drinks, and serving Ellie a bowl of pretzels with a grin.

She's back at her phone a moment later, and typing out another string of words through the phone's assistant app.

"Darts after this? I'm really bad at darts." The device says as the device's owner appears beside the table, leans over it, and sinks a ball after a series of side-rail bumps that send the ball back and forth across the table before tumbling down in to a pocket.

The chalk-cube is collected, and there comes the sound of more quick squeaky noises...

Negasonic has posed:
"He's a shop teacher like Jeffrey Dahmer was a babysitter," says Ellie, her tone of voice grouchy now that she was obviously losing by a lot, and generally out of her comfort zone without a phone in front of her.

So she takes her pretzels after taking one of her other less skilled shots.

"I'm better at darts than this - at least I've *played* that," she says.

She plucks up a chalk cube of her own. She didn't understand the point of it all, but she starts using it on the end of her pool cue now too, her lips tight.

Logan Howlett has posed:
"Hey, I haven't eaten anyone. Least not that I can remember."

With a memory like swiss cheese, that isn't saying all that much.

His empty gone, and Quiet returning with refills and resupplies, he nods in appreciation and takes another drink.

"I ain't tippin' you, Smiles. You're already connin' me outta my hard-earned."

He lays the pool cue over his shoulders, draping his arms over it and swaying from side to side thoughtfully.

"We can play darts next time. Though somethin' tells me she's just as good at that."

Negasonic has posed:
"That's not what some of the other teachers say," says Negasonic to Logan, munching on a few pretzels afterwards.

Honestly, she had no idea if any of the faculty were dating, but that long, judging look she sends Logan afterwards might suggest she did.

"Yeah. It's been like twenty minutes. I gotta go catch up on my feed," says Ellie. In faaaaact, she had her phone in her hand, thumb dancing over the keys as she goes.

"Thanks for the pretzels," she says, flashing a 'v' sign to Stefani as she starts to wander back to her corner. Although if anything like last time, Logan would probably harass her there too.