Vanessa & Angelo | Tuesday afternoon

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On her way out of the ELPIS offices after visiting Nate Vanessa runs into Angelo and heads out to lunch with him. They talk about his future as a senator, creating sex scandals and limitless fingers.

"Hey, Vanessa", Angelo said easily, swinging into step beside her as they both crossed the Elpis foyer. "Just dropped by for a visit?"

Her eyes slid to the side as her was joined, not that he would be able to tell given their solid red coloring. "Ah, my favorite grey-skinned man. Yeah, I figured I'd see if the old man was in and catch up a little. I was already in the neighborhood. I haven't caught your mom's taggers yet. I'm hoping they didn't show up the one night I wasn't out there because I have a feeling she would have cleaned it off before I could see it to save their knees. Shoddy reasoning there, I'll just have to break their legs too if I find out they got one past me." She sighed with faux disappointment. "They just never think about how their actions effect me, do they? Delinquents."

"She's like that," he agreed. "Jean-Paul even found a real nice house she could move into, but every time I bring it up she says she's not gonna let them drive her out. But hey, if you don't catch them sooner or later, I will. How're you doin' other than that?"

"Jean-Paul was helpful? On his own?" She was struck with apparent shock over the prospect, but soon developed a wide smile. "She shouldn't let them drive her out. She should let us beat them to a pulp and then move her into somewhere better. It's much more colorful in District X." Of course, Vanessa meant colorful fairly literally. In a neighborhood full of physical mutations there was a relative rainbow of people walking around on the street. "And I'm good. Fighting the good fight, saving the girl, slaying the beasts and all that. How's things around here? Old and Senile driving you mad still?"

Angelo grinned back, amused. "Hell yeah, he is. He will keep insultin' diplomats down the phone if they're not 100% enthusiastic about our projects. And he always knows when I call them and apologise when he's not looking."

"He'll have to live with someone cleaning up his PR disasters unless he wants to learn to have some damn manners. You can take the guy out of the mercenary field but can't take the merc out of the guy?" Though Vanessa really didn't think mercenary life had anything to do with Nathan berating diplomats. That was just his own special brand of charm.

"Exactly!" He looked vindicated. "Nate is many things, but someone who cares about sweet talking bureaucrats an' the like is not one of them. Not that insults and threats don't ever have their place in this work... I threatened a guy with the President once. That was fun."

"You guys deal with far more politicians than I can suffer. I like politics, but politicians are usually sleazy enough that my trigger finger gets itchy." That was likely a little to do with her history of infiltrating and sometimes killing politicians. Ah, the fun of war on the African continent.

"Usually", Angelo agreed. "It just depends how sleazy. If they're actually breaking the law, there's ways to use that, or even if they're just doing something they wouldn't want the newspapers knowing about. And some of them're even decent. Barath, for one."

A mischievous smile spread across the metamorph's face. "So what you're telling me is that you blackmail people for fun and profit?"

"When the occasion calls for it", was the cheerful response. "We're not really supposed to, but whatever gets the job done, right? It's all in a good cause, and I'm sometimes good at being subtle."

She gave an amused sort of snort and shook her head. "And people think I'm shady? I've never blackmailed anyone. And I hate being subtle on a job unless I have to be. That's what eight years with a sniper rifle does, undermines all your subtlety."

"I am an upstanding and respectable citizen," he declared, the effect rather spoiled by the wicked grin. "If they didn't want to be blackmailed, they shouldn't do things to deserve it and let other people find out about them. If I ever run for office, I'm going to go on a talk show and bring all my skeletons out myself."

"Should I start practicing calling you Senator Espinosa? It's got a nice sort of ring to it with all the S sounds to it. Very alliterative." Now Vanessa was silently repeating it to herself in her head. Senator Espinosa. "I feel like you need to have a few right, proper sex scandals. No one will vote for you if you don't have some sex scandals."

"Senator Espinosa, President Espinosa, whatever you feel like." He grinned, then considered. "Does a month or two as a teenage mutant runaway hooker count? Or there was that time I was sleeping with John... if not, I'll have to make some more."

"Everyone's slept with John, he's not that scandalous." Actually, she wasn't sure she knew anyone who had slept with him other than Angelo. John seemed the sort who got himself around a fair bit, though. "The teenage hooker thing could work in your favor but if it's only a month or two then it seems more like an unfortunate phase than a scandal. You need to acquire more," she told him with an air of certainty. "And you've got to go big. Have photos taken, maybe some cell phone videos."

"Damn. Why didn't I think of that when I was havin' public sex with Sarah?" he demanded of himself, laughing. "Guess I'm just gonna have to see what I can do. Maybe I'll bribe Jake with doughnuts to do it for me. Meanwhile... you wanna go for lunch? I was just heading out."

"Sure, lunch would be great." She hooked an arm through Angelo's as if to cement the invitation acceptance. "Jake'll do it. He's sort of a manwhore. Too bad I'm not a manwhore and I have a boyfriend. I don't think he'd appreciate me having public sex with people for you. Then again...maybe he wouldn't mind if I promised it would only be with women..." She was sure the appeal of his girlfriend fucking a girl would be greatly diminished if she were wearing a guy at the time anyway.

"Jake will do anything for cake, going by the journals. And I don't really know Lex well enough to say," Angelo said as they turned towards the doors. "I'm all for you asking if you think it's safe, though."

"Oh it's true. Jake, I mean. I've witnessed it. I feel like I should have used that to my advantage more when I was working with him. Give him pastry and he will do anything for you. Hey, maybe there's a sex scandal for you." In her very best news reporter voice Vanessa said, "Senator pays man with pastry for public oral gratification."

Angelo cracked up. "That would be the cheapest sex scandal ever. Which makes it funny. I'll keep it in mind."

Grinning, Vanessa told him, "If all else fails we can just spread the rumor and Jake probably wouldn't refute it if he still got the pastry and the infamy of a tawdry affair with a future senator."

"...he wouldn't, at that. Especially if I throw a win at basketball into the bargain. Tawdry affairs are the best kind."

"Tawdry affairs are the only kind, love," Vanessa told him with a crusty, upperclass British accent of the sort you found on BCC period pieces. "All other affairs are simply attempting to be tawdry and failing at the effort."

"And that's just very sad." He glanced up and down the street. "Any particular kind of food grab you today?"

"I'm craving pupusas, but I haven't any idea where to find El Salvadorian in this part of the city." Her response was followed by a pointed look in Angelo's direction to suggest he should know where to find it or he'd be a huge disappointment.

"I think I can help you there. I'm not El Salvadorian, but I know people who are. Follow me!"

"This is why I like you Latinos," she said in the sort of matter-of-fact way some oblivious middle-aged women said these things, "you all know each other. It's very nice, you Latin American people all keeping with the community here in the new country." She was waiting to duck the swat that was no doubt coming for that one.

She got the chance, but Angelo had anticipated the duck and suddenly seemed to have twice as many fingers as usual, the lower five just in the right place to tap her on the back of the head.

"Oi!" She was sure she'd ducked far enough and in enough time to clear his hand. Vanessa rubbed the back of her head and glanced over at him only to find...too many fingers. "How is that fair? Cheater. With your...extra...fingers. Wait, what? How? I thought you just had stretchy skin or summat."

"Very stretchy skin," was the smug response. "And I know how to use it. See?" And he unfolded said skin where he'd doubled it over and waggled his extra-long fingers at her.

Vanessa stared unabashedly, blinking wide eyes at the fingers. "But it's just skin, aye? No bone? So how do you manipulate your freakish extra fingers?" She quickly added, "And I mean 'freakish' in a good way."

"The docs did try and explain that once. Something about muscle tissue in the skin so I can direct it. They thought it might be a very limited telekinesis if it wasn't that, but my brain doesn't fire the ways they'd expect for TK, so we're going with the muscle explanation." He grinned. "I can do it from pretty much anywhere, extremities are just easier."

An eyebrow went up in a slow, artful arch. "Like Jake, you're everyone woman's fantasy," she told him, dead serious. Vanessa's eyes swept the shops on the street to see if maybe they were near their destination yet but she didn't spot anything promising so her gaze went back to her companion at her side. "Your girlfriend must love you in bed. I know if I could have limitless fingers and....other extremity augmentation there would be orgies going twenty-four-seven at my place. Me and the ladies." She made a playful purring sound to go with that declaration.

"I've never had any complaints", he said, grin turning wicked. "And are you saying you want to be my stand-in scandal maker instead of Jake, now?"

"I'm way more qualified for it," she told him with a side of enthusiasm. "I've got the job experience and skills to make sure that every all-girl orgy you have is utterly satisfying for all parties involved." She started to think about the mechanics of limitless fingers and what amounted to inflatable genitalia. Head tilting to the side she asked, "Could you theoretically make finger-like appendages protrude from flatter surfaces of your body? Say, your leg or something?"

"I'm pretty sure I can", he said with a grin. "There was this one mission, low gravity, a guy tried to stomp me an' break my ribs an' I made him bounce off. So I should be able to stretch it further."

The wheels were clearly turning in Vanessa's head. "Can I borrow you-slash-your-mutation so I can have an orgy?" It was unclear whether or not she was serious.

It made him laugh, either way. "You know, why not. My mutation's yours any time you want it. If you want to be me, there'll be a few more conditions."

"Speak to me of these conditions, Obi-Wan." See, she could have pop culture references. Completely inappropriately used pop culture references but it was better than none at all, right?

"Oh, they're easy." He grinned. "One, no one I know unless you warn me first. Two, either my girlfriend can never possibly find out about it or else I get to know when you're gonna do this and I can make sure I'm actually with her at the time so she'll believe me when I explain. I think that's it."

A blue hand waved dismissively through the air. "Oh, I can work with those. Those are easy conditions." And now the metamorph seemed to be plotting diabolically. "I wonder if my boyfriend would let me have an orgy if I promised it would only be with other women and no men..."

"Can't hurt to ask!" Angelo told her cheerfully. "You're asking permission, not just going ahead and doing it, so the worst he can say is no, right?"

Vanessa drummed two fingers against her chin. "I shall be in touch about this borrowing situation, my friend." She managed to make it sound as shady as possible.

"I shall be at your disposal." He glanced forward and to the left. "We're almost there. Hope you're hungry."

"You're lucky I haven't tried to gnaw off your arm yet."