They don't make jukeboxes like they used to...

[rememory]

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To reach the unreachable staaaaaaaaaar....

From the kitchen that she'd designated as the focal point for de and reconstruction, Sabine barked, "Mimi!" and then choked out a laugh that was half a sob. Man of La Mancha had always been one of Byron's favorite musicals.

"What? You can't build without music and you don't have a boombox!"

"No one has a boombox anymore. Don't make me regret manifesting you." She shook a finger at the showgirl ghost who was lounging on the back of the couch like it was a baby grand.

Unrepentant, Mimi went on singing,

To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star.

"I love that line, don't you?" Mimi teased not just Sabine but Scott, even though he was out of earshot.

"Zip it, or it's Tsura's turn," Sabine snapped, cringing at the reference to their chaste, but far less than pure love.

"What was that?" Scott emerged from the next-door apartment through the hole he'd put between them to make testing the walls for support beams easier. There were two more like it in the filthy foursquare they'd chosen to turn into a community area -- for the time being.

"Nothing. Mimi was just asking your favorite musical so she could sing for you. Isn't that right, Mimi?" Mind-to-ghost she sent #Don't even contradict me.# Forbidding it with power was the simplest of her abilities, but Sabine didn't abridge her free will.

Mimi just laughed and laughed, sticking to Impossible Dream until the next person joined them Then she started in on songs from Annie:

It's a hard knock life for us!
It's a hard knock life for us!

Sighing, Sabine shot Scott and the newcomer an apologetic look then shrugged helplessly. "It's not like she's wrong."

[ooc: Gathering post! Sabine and Scott are clearing out a group of four apartments to start with to make a communal kitchen, dining, sitting area on level D. Mimi is audible and vaguely visible as a holographic figure of a showgirl with an indistinct face. She won't interact unless you ping me and ask for her. Will, Molly, Marie, Jack, Sebastian, Nick, Porthos, Maggie, all got a message inviting them for potluck and construction. Anyone else can have heard from them or have seen the 'excuse our dust' sign and stop by. Feel free; all are welcome. Tag Sabine with a note in the subject line; all other tags are top levels.]

Comments

[lee_fallon]

"Usually my job is supplying and pouring the wine," Lee told her with a warm smile and a soft laugh. It was nice to chat with someone like this, to remember his life before, comforting to talk about who he still is, even being now twice displaced.

He found a small plate and a fork then, cutting off a small bit of one of the enchiladas and putting that on the plate and then going for some of the salad as well. He took a bite of the salad first and was pleasantly surprised to find it had a nice bite to it. "This is good," he told her, his tone delighted. "It's got some good heat to it, wow."

[wgraham]

Will's eyes fell to Sabine's hand, but he only hesitated for a moment before he took it, allowing her to lead him toward the spread of food she'd prepared. His gaze moved over the items she'd set out, and his stomach growled immediately. "Well, it smells amazing," he told Sabine, turning to her with a smile.

"It's been so long since I've eaten good, fresh food like this," he said, inhaling the scent of the spices deeply. "I was good at catching fish, but not great at preparing it," he admitted with a soft chuckle. "I've always relied on friends who can cook to do something good with it." Of course he couldn't help the way his thoughts went to Hannibal, and he was surprised, after all this time, that the memories were more fond than they probably should have been.

"If I could catch fish here, I'd be on your doorstep immediately, seeing about one of your Creole dishes," he said. "I haven't eaten Creole food since I was a kid."

Re: Sabine

[malachai]

"Sounds like the way most cops would think," Nick nodded. "We're a little more fortunate since we have a network of what we call squires, both on the force and in the medical examiner's office, that understand the more supernatural elements that go on around them. Helps with those kind of sticky situations. Must've been tough for you, dealing with all of that."

[thewinterlady]

Molly grinned at him, proud and relieved that her magic was back to it's normal level after the muting effect of quarantine, enjoying his pride at the same time.

"I think so." She said and sent a tiny, invisible curl of a shield out to nudge him gently towards his own section of wall. "Get to work, slacker. Race you. Last one to get their section down gets the beer or beer like substance." She lifted her hammer and rested it against the wall, pushing her playful energy through their connection. "Three, two, one, go!" She called and started to smash.

[thewinterlady]

"It's a really good idea." Molly said with a smile. Kitchens were always comforting to her. Her mother had ruled the stove with an iron gauntlet, but it had always been a welcoming and warm place, a place to talk and relax, occasionally a place to stitch wounds or have heated arguments. It was the soul of a place, really.

It'd be a shame if something happened to it, Molly thought, images of someone official coming through and seeing what they were doing. But she could do something about that.

"If it's okay with you, I'll put some wards around the place. It'll essentially stop anyone that doesn't know about it for realising it's here. they'll just...pass it by." She offered.

[cpt_harkness]

"I've been to a few raves," Jack chuckled. "Too bad the drugs never work for me, I'm sure they'd be more fun if I could participate. You know, dance is something you'll find humans do all through time, no matter where they are in space. It's not uniquely human, but we all do it," he grins as he finds himself a cup of water to drink.

[cpt_harkness]

"UNIT? Really? I've got to meet her. I bet she just loves us Torchwood people," he chuckled. They'd never gotten along, though for a long time their missions had been similar, particularly regarding the Doctor. Torchwod Three had changed when Jack took the helm. And after Canary Wharf...

He didn't want to think about that.

"I should probably mingle, get to know more people. But right now I'm so thirsty. Have you noticed the water here tastes funny? Really, I think it might be the lack of eostrogen..."

[rememory]

A slow smile warmed Sabine's features as she offered him a quarter of a Southwestern Monte Cristo to try. "Now I know what to make for dinner for you and Molly. Or at least where to start."

The menu began shaping itself in her mind, along with a list of ingredients she could replicate and those she'd need to buy--plus the awareness she'd need to find some paying work or an income of some kind soon to keep the kitchen stocked.

"Gumbo, red beans and rice, blackened trout...beignets and coffee," she murmured, less of a recitation and more of an incantation, like she proposed to make it appear from thin air.

[rememory]

"I go for the music and movement. The chance to be just one more human in a sea of humans for a few hours." Instead of a psychopomp and a wanted mutant fugitive. "I imagine we've always danced for the same reasons. Movement to release tension, movement together for connection."

She gestured to a plate of sandwiches, a Southwestern twist on a Monte Cristo with jalapeno jelly in place of raspberry and replicator turkey instead of ham. She didn't say try these but it was inherent in the gesture.

Re: Sabine

[rememory]

"If his force blasts start up and he doesn't have his glasses, he'd rather you grabbed him than he hurt someone." That much Sabine knew beyond a shadow of a doubt. Scott would rather die than be responsible for killing a bunch of innocents. He still hated himself for everything he'd done while the Canaanites had him.

"For that matter, if an army of ghosts ever starts massacring innocent people," Sabine added in a tone that said it wasn't quite as ridiculous as it sounded. "So would I."

[rememory]

"If only we had a decent wine to pour. Or even a bad one," she lamented, somewhat playful but with a genuine wistfulness behind it. She did miss some of the luxuries she'd never really gotten used to but enjoyed anyway.

Tipping her head in acknowledgment, she smiled with pleasure at the compliment. "Although a crisp light pear cider might go better with that. I'm glad it turned out all right. I'm better with Chinese, French, and Creole, but I was inspired."

Re: Sabine

[rememory]

"Actually the cop was the one person who believed me," she said, remembrance fond but no longer painful. "But he was a pretty extraordinary guy. The squires sound useful. Interesting, too." It seemed best to explain, though that, "People know about 'us' in my world. It's just that they usually don't think of mutants having powers like mine. Which is just as well since I'd never have made it out of the U.S. alive if they did."

Re: Sabine

[rememory]

"Excellent. I can always use a good taste-tester. Cooking's a family tradition--" For her and Em, anyway. "My cousin and I cook together for holidays and birthdays and whenever people are upset and need somewhere to gather and talk," she explained as she led him toward the actual kitchen in use.

"That's what made me think to do this. At the castle...where we live at home, we have a big shared kitchen. Whenever there's a battle, or someone's hurt and we're worried, someone starts cooking and pretty soon there's five or six of us and everyone else is eating and talking and laughing or crying. It's nice. I figured we could use something like that here."

ooc: so so sorry for the delay. Life went a little crazy for awhile.

[rememory]

Sabine frowned thoughtfully. "I'd hate to think of anyone needing a place to be and people to talk to not being able to find it. Serendipity's such an important part of making friends in a place like this."

But Molly did have a point. The labor and the resources would make it valuable, which meant that someone, sometime would almost certainly try to destroy it or at least take it from them. "Can you key the wards to bad intentions? If not, maybe we could take up a small collection, and pay people to take shifts as guards. Or just put an alarm on it to trigger if someone without the code tries to get in when there's no one with the code there to invite them?"

[rememory]

"It does bespeak an intentionality, design rather than happenchance," Sabine mused but as much as she'd learned about strategy from Go and from Scott, she didn't seem a logic in it. "It's a bit as if a not quite human intelligence is trying to lull us into a false sense of security without realizing it's actions only raise suspicion."

Abruptly unnerved with her own imaginings--a human zoo--she glanced the long way up at Scott for reassurance before glancing a bit worriedly toward Will, too.

[thewinterlady]

Molly gave that some thought and then nodded slowly. "I can tune the wards to outsiders. We have a different aspect to us that's unique to us." She said smiling. "I can make exceptions for locals if we need to, but that would work I think."

[revisor]

"Oh, I don't think there's any doubt that it's very much by design," Scott said bleakly. "What bothers me is that it's not surface-level knowledge of us in at least some cases, which suggests... insight into our thinking." Psionics of some sort, was what he would have said if they were home. "Which opens up the possibility of any planning we do being subject to the same insight."

Re: Sabine

[malachai]

Mutants. Okay. Well. Why the hell not? It wasn't like the weres he knew couldn't be called mutants as well on a good day. And just because they didn't appear in the world he knew, that counted for pretty much nothing in the grand scheme, or so he was learning.

"Where did you go when you left the US?"

Re: Sabine

[annnamarie]

"I'll check that with him. I mean - are you guys like boyfriend and girlfriend now? You didn't come here together, did you? I know mutations are a thing that need to be discussed in relationships, but I'm not gonna - I'm not going to take your word for his. Not yet, until I know the both of you better. Don't put it against you, sweet."

Marie just didn't want to get burned at any ends. "..ghosts can massacre people?" What?

[rememory]

"That should do. And we can take turns keeping watch in here in case anyone needs a place to be or people to talk to," Sabine said decisively and flashed Molly a quick smile. "It shouldn't be too hard to amass a small library and a chessboard to pass the time."

Re: Sabine

[rememory]

"Scotland, if you'd believe it. The mother of--" Oh, Kevin. She hadn't thought of him hardly since she'd been here, and the memory of moments shared provoked a soft pang in her chest. "A dear friend," she managed. "Inherited a castle and a title. She's an MD with a specialty in mutant genetics. So when the U.S. started imprisoning us, she turned her castle into a refuge."

Re: Sabine

[rememory]

"To the contrary." Sabine smiled and sipped her beer. "It shows uncommonly good sense that you'd ask him yourself, and that you asked to begin with."

The other questions were more complicated, so she let them settle a few moments while drank a bit more of her beer. "Scott and I aren't together. He's still married and I'm involved." And as long as they still had a hope of going home, that would keep them apart. "As for ghosts, when I'm controlling them, yes, they can massacre people. They need weapons to strike with, but they're surprisingly resourceful. Which is why I said to take me out. They can do much more than haunt without me and the connection with all but my companions severs when I'm unconscious." She gave Marie a level look. "I'd appreciate it if that didn't become public knowledge."

Re: Sabine

[annnamarie]

"Thanks." This time she can smile without any nerves or anxiety. Sabine comes with a lot of weird Marie isn't used to any more, but she seems to be a decent human being as well, which there's always too little of in her life.

"Oh. Well." Being untouchable at least prevented from love mathematical problems. "That's a - that's a lot. And of course, I'm not telling anyone. Who can I tell, any way, the butt load of friends that suddenly popped up here? Don't worry, I don't have anyone and it's not really a subject for cute conversation either."

"Okay, let me swing a hammer around now, give myself some excuse for being here."

[cpt_harkness]

"I dance to make a spectacle of myself," Jack replied, taking a sandwich, tearing part in half and then cramming the whole thing into his mouth.

"...Or to get laid," he added with his mouth full.

[wgraham]

The feeling of Molly's magic pushing him gently was a new one, and Will wondered why she'd never used it before. Maybe she was worried what his reaction would be, though he'd only even felt excited and proud to see Molly put her true talents to work. At least when Winter wasn't involved.

"You better not be using your magic to cheat," Will warned, tossing a playful smile her direction and taking his own hammer to the wall. "Manual labor has never been in my job description."