Marius, Mel, & Jay | Tattoo
Jul. 12th, 2024 12:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsOne impulsive decision later, Mel shows off her new tattoo.
For the past week or so, Mel had spent most of her time in Jay’s room, crying, sleeping, and being clingy. She realized now that it probably didn’t look great that she had left out of the blue without telling him. It had been on an impulse, and now she was attempting to recover from said impulse without worrying him.
She was trying to be inconspicuous and get back to the suite hopefully before he saw she was gone, but had never had the best luck, proven by the man she was spotted by as she rounded the corner of the hall.
A practiced eye might have identified a flash of relief when Marius realized the current incarnation of Mel Guthrie was both fully conscious and not streaking towards him at terminal velocity. These two details immediately put him in a better mood.
"Ah, Mel," he said with aplomb, "haven't seen you about in a bit. Doing well, one hopes?"
“Hi Marius,” she responded, albeit a bit weakly. Sensing the inevitable conversation, Mel sighed internally. “Um, well, as well as I can after, yknow..” She gestured vaguely in what was to be interpreted as a “being sent to hell” motion. Despite having showered before her outing, Mel was well aware she looked like shit, and hoped Marius would pick up on the vibes and not prod too much.
"Ah, right. Can't say I've had much experience with demonic entities, although I've had some exceedingly unpleasant experiences with a dimension of a different sort. You look no worse for it, th . . ." He paused, noticing a bandage on the side of her neck. It was half-hidden by her brown hair.
"Er, no offence," he ventured, making a vague motion towards his own neck, "but you weren't bitten by anything eldritch, were you?"
“Oh!” She half reached up to touch the bandage. “No, nothin’ like that. I jus’ got a tattoo, actually. It’s supposed to stay covered fer a few days.”
Mel paused and considered the implications. “Are… vampires actually a thing? Do y’all deal with those here?”
Well, he'd left himself open for that one. "In a certain sense, yes," he acknowledged carefully, "as I myself technically meet that criteria, but that is simply a rather uncouth aspect of my mutation. As to the traditional sort: I've yet to meet one, but I've learned to take nothing for granted." He flashed her a smile. "One can never be too careful, eh?"
There were no fangs visible in his grin, and Mel didn’t particularly want to follow that line of questioning, so she let it pass. She smiled back and leaned to knock on the wood frame of the closest window. Better safe than sorry. “Of ‘course not, ‘specially ‘round here.”
"Moving right along, with what image have you chosen to commemorate this, your very first slide into a hostile dimension?" Marius asked. That seemed a safer question. He did not particularly wish to compare body modifications, but unless she had made a very poor choice of tattoo artists Mel's was unlikely to be cult-related.
“You wanna see?” Mel brushed back her hair and slowly peeled off part of the bandage, exposing the ink below. She was supposed to change the dressing soon anyways so it didn’t really matter.
Obligingly, Marius moved forward to get a better view of the younger woman's neck. He was mindful to keep an appropriate distance between them; salivating palms had made him a firm believer in personal space.
"That's a neat bit of work," he remarked, raising a hand to trace the curve of the tattoo in the space between them. "Runs nicely along the stemocleidomastoid muscle there . . ."
"Excuse me," Jay Guthrie said from behind Marius from his spot at the top of the stairs. Distaste dripped like poison from his voice at Marius of all people lingering on his lil sister's neck. Imagine his surprise coming up the stairwell to see the scene of Marius with his hand on Mel's neck. For all he'd said that Mel could make her own choices, if her choice was Marius that'd be a whole other story.
He was just so... He just made Jay boiling mad and touching Mel like she were some sort of statue didn't help none.
“Jay!” Mel squeaked, nearly jumping back a foot. She had just enough self awareness to realize what this looked like from her brother’s perspective, and flushed an embarrassed shade of pink.
"Jay!" Marius' greeting was completely unfazed. Embarrassment, after all, was only called for if one had been doing something of which one was ashamed, and for Marius such conditions were rarely met. He gestured towards the younger Guthrie. "Mel was just showing me her tattoo," he explained, utterly failing to perceive a potential minefield.
"You got a tattoo?" Jay asked in complete surprise, hatred of Marius momentarily forgotten as he came to see it. "And right on your neck?" It wasn't in judgment, but more confusion that he asked.
“Yeah.” Mel replied sheepishly. “But it ain’t noticeable when my hair’s down. I can hide it if I need too.” Two butterflies danced behind her ear in black ink. She’d felt like doing something stupid, and it’d seemed like a safe option.
Jay took a closer look and smiled at her. "It looks real nice," he assured her. "Kinda classy-like." He turned to look at Marius. "I hadn't known ya knew Mr. Laverne though."
The older man bobbed his head. "Ah, technically we've had two encounters, though she was somewhat less than conscious during the first. I admit the second meeting was rather more productive."
The temperature in the room could have dropped twenty degrees and it still wouldn't be as cold as the look Jay gave Marius. "Excuse me?" He said, looking for any, any kind of explanation.
Mel hurriedly offered one, putting a hand on Jay’s arm in a calming gesture. “Sleepwalking, Jay. He found me out in the halls. Kept me from flyin’ out a window accordin’ to Sam.” She’d asked their brother about it after her second encounter with Marius.
An easy shrug from Marius. "I mistook it for a medical emergency, but your brother appraised me floating about whilst emanating a mildly ominous glow was quite normal."
He glared at Marius still. Even if he had thought it was a medical emergency when Mel was sleepwalking, that didn't mean he had to touch her neck to see her tattoo. "She glows when she flies."
“Yep,” Mel said, trying and failing to relieve the tension in the air.
"Though it must be noted some of that is simply a natural consequence of her sparkling personality," the X-Man added with a smile.
What was it with Mel and attracting men who were so much older and richer than her? "That it may be," Jay said and decided to steer the conversation away from Mel. "When ya get the time can ya email me the contact information for the doctors you vetted?"
Marius snapped his fingers. "Ah, thank you for the reminder. I can have them to you directly. Mel, did Jay mention he is assisting me and Dr. Grey in our endeavor to open a new clinic in District X? As it turned out Warren Worthington had thoughts in that direction himself, but he was kind enough to stand aside. Happily, none of Jay's efforts in that area have gone to waste. He's been a tremendous help. He has quite the talent for it."
“He didn’t, no.” Mel glanced over at her brother. So that’s how they knew each other. “Sounds like an awful nice project y’all’re undertaking.”
"It's goin' well enough," Jay admitted, still not taking his eyes off of Marius in distrust to his intentions with Mel. And they probably were innocent but again. He just plain didn't like him.
"Which, I suppose, is incentive enough to hold up my end of it." Marius nodded to Mel. "A pleasure to see you again, but it seems I've some emails to send. One day I'm sure we'll run into each other outside of the most recent abduction."
Mel smiled. “‘Course, see ya ‘round.”
For the past week or so, Mel had spent most of her time in Jay’s room, crying, sleeping, and being clingy. She realized now that it probably didn’t look great that she had left out of the blue without telling him. It had been on an impulse, and now she was attempting to recover from said impulse without worrying him.
She was trying to be inconspicuous and get back to the suite hopefully before he saw she was gone, but had never had the best luck, proven by the man she was spotted by as she rounded the corner of the hall.
A practiced eye might have identified a flash of relief when Marius realized the current incarnation of Mel Guthrie was both fully conscious and not streaking towards him at terminal velocity. These two details immediately put him in a better mood.
"Ah, Mel," he said with aplomb, "haven't seen you about in a bit. Doing well, one hopes?"
“Hi Marius,” she responded, albeit a bit weakly. Sensing the inevitable conversation, Mel sighed internally. “Um, well, as well as I can after, yknow..” She gestured vaguely in what was to be interpreted as a “being sent to hell” motion. Despite having showered before her outing, Mel was well aware she looked like shit, and hoped Marius would pick up on the vibes and not prod too much.
"Ah, right. Can't say I've had much experience with demonic entities, although I've had some exceedingly unpleasant experiences with a dimension of a different sort. You look no worse for it, th . . ." He paused, noticing a bandage on the side of her neck. It was half-hidden by her brown hair.
"Er, no offence," he ventured, making a vague motion towards his own neck, "but you weren't bitten by anything eldritch, were you?"
“Oh!” She half reached up to touch the bandage. “No, nothin’ like that. I jus’ got a tattoo, actually. It’s supposed to stay covered fer a few days.”
Mel paused and considered the implications. “Are… vampires actually a thing? Do y’all deal with those here?”
Well, he'd left himself open for that one. "In a certain sense, yes," he acknowledged carefully, "as I myself technically meet that criteria, but that is simply a rather uncouth aspect of my mutation. As to the traditional sort: I've yet to meet one, but I've learned to take nothing for granted." He flashed her a smile. "One can never be too careful, eh?"
There were no fangs visible in his grin, and Mel didn’t particularly want to follow that line of questioning, so she let it pass. She smiled back and leaned to knock on the wood frame of the closest window. Better safe than sorry. “Of ‘course not, ‘specially ‘round here.”
"Moving right along, with what image have you chosen to commemorate this, your very first slide into a hostile dimension?" Marius asked. That seemed a safer question. He did not particularly wish to compare body modifications, but unless she had made a very poor choice of tattoo artists Mel's was unlikely to be cult-related.
“You wanna see?” Mel brushed back her hair and slowly peeled off part of the bandage, exposing the ink below. She was supposed to change the dressing soon anyways so it didn’t really matter.
Obligingly, Marius moved forward to get a better view of the younger woman's neck. He was mindful to keep an appropriate distance between them; salivating palms had made him a firm believer in personal space.
"That's a neat bit of work," he remarked, raising a hand to trace the curve of the tattoo in the space between them. "Runs nicely along the stemocleidomastoid muscle there . . ."
"Excuse me," Jay Guthrie said from behind Marius from his spot at the top of the stairs. Distaste dripped like poison from his voice at Marius of all people lingering on his lil sister's neck. Imagine his surprise coming up the stairwell to see the scene of Marius with his hand on Mel's neck. For all he'd said that Mel could make her own choices, if her choice was Marius that'd be a whole other story.
He was just so... He just made Jay boiling mad and touching Mel like she were some sort of statue didn't help none.
“Jay!” Mel squeaked, nearly jumping back a foot. She had just enough self awareness to realize what this looked like from her brother’s perspective, and flushed an embarrassed shade of pink.
"Jay!" Marius' greeting was completely unfazed. Embarrassment, after all, was only called for if one had been doing something of which one was ashamed, and for Marius such conditions were rarely met. He gestured towards the younger Guthrie. "Mel was just showing me her tattoo," he explained, utterly failing to perceive a potential minefield.
"You got a tattoo?" Jay asked in complete surprise, hatred of Marius momentarily forgotten as he came to see it. "And right on your neck?" It wasn't in judgment, but more confusion that he asked.
“Yeah.” Mel replied sheepishly. “But it ain’t noticeable when my hair’s down. I can hide it if I need too.” Two butterflies danced behind her ear in black ink. She’d felt like doing something stupid, and it’d seemed like a safe option.
Jay took a closer look and smiled at her. "It looks real nice," he assured her. "Kinda classy-like." He turned to look at Marius. "I hadn't known ya knew Mr. Laverne though."
The older man bobbed his head. "Ah, technically we've had two encounters, though she was somewhat less than conscious during the first. I admit the second meeting was rather more productive."
The temperature in the room could have dropped twenty degrees and it still wouldn't be as cold as the look Jay gave Marius. "Excuse me?" He said, looking for any, any kind of explanation.
Mel hurriedly offered one, putting a hand on Jay’s arm in a calming gesture. “Sleepwalking, Jay. He found me out in the halls. Kept me from flyin’ out a window accordin’ to Sam.” She’d asked their brother about it after her second encounter with Marius.
An easy shrug from Marius. "I mistook it for a medical emergency, but your brother appraised me floating about whilst emanating a mildly ominous glow was quite normal."
He glared at Marius still. Even if he had thought it was a medical emergency when Mel was sleepwalking, that didn't mean he had to touch her neck to see her tattoo. "She glows when she flies."
“Yep,” Mel said, trying and failing to relieve the tension in the air.
"Though it must be noted some of that is simply a natural consequence of her sparkling personality," the X-Man added with a smile.
What was it with Mel and attracting men who were so much older and richer than her? "That it may be," Jay said and decided to steer the conversation away from Mel. "When ya get the time can ya email me the contact information for the doctors you vetted?"
Marius snapped his fingers. "Ah, thank you for the reminder. I can have them to you directly. Mel, did Jay mention he is assisting me and Dr. Grey in our endeavor to open a new clinic in District X? As it turned out Warren Worthington had thoughts in that direction himself, but he was kind enough to stand aside. Happily, none of Jay's efforts in that area have gone to waste. He's been a tremendous help. He has quite the talent for it."
“He didn’t, no.” Mel glanced over at her brother. So that’s how they knew each other. “Sounds like an awful nice project y’all’re undertaking.”
"It's goin' well enough," Jay admitted, still not taking his eyes off of Marius in distrust to his intentions with Mel. And they probably were innocent but again. He just plain didn't like him.
"Which, I suppose, is incentive enough to hold up my end of it." Marius nodded to Mel. "A pleasure to see you again, but it seems I've some emails to send. One day I'm sure we'll run into each other outside of the most recent abduction."
Mel smiled. “‘Course, see ya ‘round.”
