"The night is still young."
"Sssso it issss," Medusa said, following Horace. While he pumped his long legs to what would have been a very quick stride to those around him, Medusa was meandering. "Where are we going?"
"I'm going to show you my shop," he said. "We'll have a picnic on the balcony of my apartment."
"You're taking me to your apartment?" Medusa teased. "Aren't you sssupposed to assssk first?"
He stopped, his cape fluttering with the sudden movement. Turning to her, he asked in a small voice, "Is that alright?"
She laughed, hissing. "I thought you sssaid it was acrossss town."
"It is," he said. "We can take the bus-" he was cut off, as he found himself surrounded by snake.
Medusa coiled herself around him, picking the tall man up off of his feet, leaving her arms free. "Which way?" she asked.
"Uhh," he blinked, trying to take in a deep breath, and finding it hard to do so. "That way," he pointed south.
What breath he'd managed to catch, escaped him almost immediately as Medusa darted across the street, down an alley and began to scale a building. "The buss iss way too sslow," she said with a wink, coming upon the roof. She then began to catapult over the buildings, chuckling at Horace's high-pitched scream at the first one. "It will probably help not to look down."
Horace closed his eyes. It was almost as if he was being embraced in a very high wind, he could pretend he was on the ground, yes, wrapped up in a hug from the vision of the cthonic goddess from the nightclub, only she wasn't using her arms, she was using her body. He should be pleased, he thought, but the feeling was far from pleasing. There was no give to her body at all, it was as if he were wrapped up in steel. In fact, breathing was becoming difficult.
"You have to tell me when to turn," she said. "I sssaid don't look down, not clossse your eyesss."
He pried his eyes open, his dreadlocks were flapping in his face, some of them having come free from the ribbon. Or maybe he'd lost the ribbon altogether. "That way," he squeaked.
He felt Medusa shudder and realized she was laughing again. "And you sssay people were afraid of you? This it?" she asked, coming to a stop.
Horace looked down. "I think so. I've never seen my rooftop before."
When Medusa began to crawl over the edge of the roof, he closed his eyes again, the going down was worse than the going up or the flying in between. His feet finally hit the ground, and he opened his eyes. Medusa was smiling at him, holding out the silk ribbon he'd put his hair back with. With a glance to the building, he was, indeed, in front of his occult shop. He was quite sure a taxi couldn't have gotten him there faster.
TSOTCTSOTC
Donnie's heart about stopped when he saw Mikey go for Denim. As much as their shells provided impressive natural armor, it meant little to Denim in her current state.
She could break him.
But Mikey was oblivious to personal risk when someone he cared about needed him. He'd always been that way.
And so Donnie waited, hoping the magic that allowed Mikey to save those he loved from themselves didn't choose this moment to fail.
He flinched when Denim nearly took off Mikey's head, but his brother, undeterred, pressed on, plastering himself against her.
Unable to deny the danger, Donnie was poised to move in and stop it before the situation turned irreversible. But Denim's movements slowed and she sagged against
Mikey, whispering. "Don't let go. Please don't let go."
"Never." Mikey answered in a voice too quiet to be his.
Letting out a long, slow breath, Donnie unclenched his hand, allowing the sedative to fall back into his bag. Though he'd taken to carrying it, among a myriad of other things, since Denim's health had gotten complicated, he hesitated to use it, not knowing how it would interact with her current condition, especially in the state she was in.
"Is something wrong with her eyes?" Karai's voice pulled him out of his shock and, from the edge of his vision, he could see her intently observing as Denim clutched onto Mikey for dear life, but not appearing to be seeing him or anything else for that matter.
Retrieving his pen light, he cautiously approached the bed and shined it into her eyes. No pupil response, even now that she was conscious. Not good. For the millionth time, he wished his mother was here.
"She seems to be blind. For the moment."
Mikey tilted his head to look up at him. "What's wrong? She's gonna be OK, right?"
Donnie hung his head. "I don't know."
TSOTCTSOTC
Medusa watched Horace after setting him down. He balanced precariously on wobbly legs and for a moment she wondered if he might puke.
But he managed to pull it together, giving her a shaky grin. "I guess that's one way to avoid the traffic. So this is my shop. I live on the second floor."
She followed his proud gaze to a tiny, two-story building, completely dwarfed by the structures on either side. It looked to be from the pre-war era, as humans used the term, and had seen better days. The lettering over the double glass doors at the front of the shop said 'Beyond the Veil.'
"It has character." She finally decided on, wondering exactly what it was he sold. While he'd mentioned his shop several times before, he'd never actually been specific regarding the merchandise.
He grinned, pulling out his keys. "Yeah, I always thought so too."
Unlocking the doors, he motioned her to follow. She managed comfortably by opening both double doors.
Inside the front walls were lined with racks of varied and highly stylized outfits for men and women in a vast selection of shades of black with periodic dashes of other colors for accent. The walls deeper in held shelves and shelves of books on magic, new age healing, mythology and lots of religions, many of which were not particularly mainstream.
He beckoned her towards the far end of the store. Taking a breath, she very carefully wound her way through the maze of racks and glass showcases featuring, accessories, jewelry, oils, crystals, odd decks of cards, rocks with markings on them and... ingredients? Ingredients for what?
Somehow, she managed to maneuver herself from one end to the other without knocking anything over.
"My apartment is just up this way." He opened a door at the back, labeled 'employees only' which led her to suspect that he was the only person working there.
When he hunched his shoulders to fit into the tiny staircase beyond, she sighed internally. Getting upstairs was going to be a contortion act. She should probably just make her way back outside and find that balcony he mentioned. At least her bones had a lot of flex to them.
Folding herself in as tightly as possible she squished her body into the stairwell and began squirming her way upwards.
He awaited her at the top, frowning as though he'd finally developed some spatial-reasoning skills. "Maybe that's not the best way up for you."
Ya think? "In the future, I'll look for an external entrance to your place."
Horace brightened at the mention of future visits. "Well this is it? What do you think?"
She examined his one-room living space. It was long and narrow. With two, worn chairs and an ancient floor lamp close to the stairs. A couple TV trays rested against the wall in lieu of a table. Beyond that was a small kitchenette with a stove and sink lining one side, surrounded by cupboards and drawers facing off with an antiquated fridge beside what looked to be a makeshift combination of cutting board and counter space. Further in there was a closed off space that was likely a bathroom, with room for only a toilet and shower, assuming you weren't too concerned about having to fit a normal-sized human in there with them. Finally, there were a pair of French doors that led to what she could only assume was the balcony he'd referenced before.
The whole apartment looked furnished in the same fashion as her own home from back before mutants went public and, due to the size constraints of the place, everything needed to be small. Inside it, Horace looked like an adult in one of those miniaturized versions of the grown-up world that were specifically designed for kids. He must have put all his money into his shop.
"Where do you sleep?"
He made his way over to the left wall. "It's hard to show without moving the chairs out of the way, but right here." He gave the wall a little tug and she realized that it was actually a Murphy bed, built into the wall.
"You haven't seen the best part yet."
Trying not to dampen his excitement, she once again worked her way through the too small space to the French doors, which, now that she was closer, were clearly not original to the building and looked to have been scavenged from someone else's leavings. Even old and a little cracked, they were still pretty, though she couldn't imagine how they kept the cold out in the winter.
He opened the doors out to an old, metal balcony with a tiny set of fancy, iron-wrought table and chairs that had no chance of accommodating her.
Looking out from the balcony, though, she understood what he was talking about. Just across the street was a small park, empty for the evening and dimly lit in the street lights. A few simple benches along a stone path surrounded a beautiful fountain of innately carved marble, featuring what she assumed to be several characters from Greek mythology. The glow of the streetlights made the spray of water droplets off the fountain sparkle, giving the park an otherworldly feel.
"This is my favorite place." He smiled at her, seeming pleased to share it.
Giving the balcony chairs another glance, noticing they had once been painted white but it had mostly peeled or worn away, she answered. "I think it might look better from the roof."
He looked up with a dubious expression.
"Don't worry. I can help you up and back down."
He pasted a smile back on his face. "S-s-sure. But first, dinner."
She watched him reenter the apartment and open the fridge, just now realizing that a couple of the fridge shelves had been pulled out and were leaning against the side of the appliance.
Reaching in, he pulled out a pot almost larger that his torso. From the looks of it, the contents appeared to be some kind of everything-soup, though it smelled appetizing, even cold.
"Ssshould I asssk?"
He hefted it onto the stove and turned the burner on low. Given the size of the pot, this might take a while.
He turned back to her, excitedly rubbing his hands together. "It's Creole gumbo stew, a family recipe that I can guarantee is the best. I usually make a lot of it and eat it for a week. This is from yesterday, so I haven't divided it up into zip lock baggies to freeze it in. For myself, I'll usually microwave a bowl at a time, but for warming up the pot, the trick is to heat it slowly."
She arched an eye ridge. "The whole pot?"
He shrugged as he dug through some cupboards to pull out a smaller pot and a bag of rice. "Well you did say that human-sized meals were more like snacks for you."
She coiled up, almost completely filling the balcony. "Ssso thisss isss a family recipe. I didn't picture you as the cooking type."
He ran his hand over his dreds sheepishly. "Well, it's sort of a tradition. My family is from New Orleans, well not me and my dad, we were born and raised here, but my grandparents came from there and this is something they've made for generations. The pot is actually from them. I can remember them teaching me as a kid. I guess when my dad was little, the whole block would get together and bring the ingredients and my grandparents made it for the entire neighborhood. I suppose people don't really do that anymore. It's best fresh made, but that takes some time to do it right."
Longer than reheating it? She preferred her food more on the immediate side, but it seemed important to him. "Ssso it remindsss you of your grandparentsss?"
He nodded with a lopsided smile as he started the rice cooking. "Yup. Bon appetite."
She hissed out a laugh. "And now you speak French?"
His smile slipped a little. "No. Just a few words here and there. My grandparents did. I kind of wish I'd learned more from them when I had the chance. You know, it was my gran that sparked my interest in the occult? When all the other grown-ups were teaching their kids about all that stuff that's not really real. My gran would tell me about ghosts and magic, not stories, but the real thing. She knew there's more out there than people think and so I've always tried see the world in all its possibilities, not just the version most people limit themselves to."
"Je vas t'apprendre a parler francais," Medusa said with a quirk of her mouth, "si tu le veux."
Horace blinked. "You speak French?"
"I can teach you to ssspeak it, if you like," she repeated herself.
"How do you know French?" His face burst in to a smile, "Are you Creole?"
She shook her head, "My mother is French Canadian," she said. Then she added, "Sort of. My husband's...people...had a lot of Haitian in them."
"Do you speak Creole, too?" he asked quickly. "I hear that Haitian is similar to Louisiana."
"No, just Canadian French. But I can understand it, for the most part, if the person speaks slowly."
He came back around from the stove, his dark eyes curious. "Was your husband a mutant?"
Medusa was silent for a long time, so that Horace thought she might not answer the question, before she said, "Yes, he was a human who was turned into an anole mutant. His name was Razz."
"Did he take good care of you?" Horace asked gently.
She blinked. Take good care of me? The thought seemed foreign to her, like he was speaking gibberish. "I sssuppose ssso," she shrugged. The idea of him taking 'good care' of her never occurred to her. It wasn't as if she had men lining up to be with her. In fact, Since Razz's death, Horace had been the first person to do anything more than speak to her after attempting an introduction. She wasn't even sure she knew what that meant. "Maybe," she replied.
He drew his eyebrows together, and she instantly knew that was the wrong answer.
"Do you do Voodoo ?" she asked, the tip of her tail thumping ever so slightly on the balcony floor.
This time, it took him a moment to answer. "I own an occult store," he said.
She laughed hissily. The problem with scaring people, was that they tended not to answer questions honestly. "My mother had a...boyfriend once, that did Voodoo," she explained, trying to make him feel at ease. "A mutant. I don't know what he did, exactly. I know it had sssomething to do with dice and chickensss."
He smiled and ran his fingers through his dreds. "I can't say I get much call for dice among my practicing customers, though there is a lot of variation among how the faith is practiced, but chickens can be used in offerings to the Loa that prefer them. I'm guessing this guy was Haitian?"
She nodded. "Doesss that make a difference?"
He grinned. "Haitian Vodou and Lousiana Voodoo are definitely not the same and neither of which should be confused with Hoodoo."
She raised an eye ridge, trying to decide whether or not he was pulling her tail. "And you sssell them chickensss?"
He laughed. "I can't imagine trying to stock live poultry, but I do sell chicken feet. They make great protection charms."
Her tail flicked slowly back and forth behind her. "You didn't answer my question."
He looked thoughtfully at the pot of gumbo as he stirred it. "I believe in it and I respect it. Louisiana's Voodoo was the faith of my grandparents, but I don't practice it myself. I feel the same about a lot of belief systems and haven't really committed to a specific one. Hope that doesn't make me seem fickle." He watched her out of the edge of his vision, trying to gauge her reaction.
Medusa shook her head. "Non," she answered, "that doesssn't ssseem fickle." She stretched inside the apartment a little, most of her body still on the balcony. "I wasssn't raisssed with a faith. And I am demon in mossst of them, anyway."
Her black eyes glued onto him, like he was a prized meal and she was ready to strike and feed.
TSOTCTSOTC
"I want to see it." His words were stuck in Denim's head like an itch she couldn't scratch. Then there were her cries and screams, but her lips weren't moving. Somewhere amid that noise, she was clinging to Mikey's promise that she was safe, which his arms assured her of, though he no longer spoke it. In the confusion of that mess, there was the pulsing of blood running through her skull, but she could also hear Karai and Donnie, and their words were spoken.
A snapping sensation tingled through her, bringing her tears to a halt. Her insides were washed over and twisted like she'd been wrung out. But her mind fell blank, her skin almost numb where Mikey touched her. Her eyes were open, blinking, but she saw nothing.
Still clinging to Mikey as if he might evaporate she mumbled, "Migraine."
Donnie's head snapped up as he heard Denim's muttered explanation." A migraine could be responsible for her vision problem although he'd never read of a particular instance in which eye functionality was so totally lost. But it was something to go on, which was more than he had before.
"Is that's what's wrong? If you fix her migraine, everything will be good again?" Mikey sounded so earnest, he couldn't help but cringe.
"You don't exactly fix migraines..." Well mother might be able to if she were here.
"But you can do something, right D?"
Focusing on all pertinent data, he recalled that Denim had suffered from migraines since her war injury. It had come up during the police brutality incident, though his mind shied away from the memory. Although the footage had been necessary to protect her, Mikey and Raph, watching it had made him physically ill. But if it was a preexisting condition, she should be prepared for it.
"She has medication for her migraines, right? Is it in your apartment? Karai can go get it."
"Excuse me?" Karai shot him a furious glance, before looking back at Denim and
Mikey. Through gritted teeth, she added. "I can get it."
Mikey looked to be concentrating really hard. "I think all that stuff ended up in the bathroom. The box isn't unpacked yet and she hasn't needed it in a while. What if there's not enough?" He looked back and forth between them, waiting eagerly for a solution he never doubted they'd produce.
Donnie drummed his fingers on the night stand as he ran through the possibilities. "If Karai thinks it's low, she can call it in and April will pick it up on the way over."
Karai sent him another scowl and stomped out of the room.
Mikey stroked Denim's hair in long, soothing motions. "Can't we do anything now?"
Donnie considered everything he knew about migraines. He'd researched them once, thinking he might have been afflicted with the problem, but later deduced that his headaches were a combination of stress and caffeine withdrawal.
Acupuncture was said to be effective, though he had neither the equipment nor the expertise to attempt such a treatment. Systematically tensing and relaxing muscle groups was also thought to help, but Denim didn't seem quite coherent enough to follow instructions. There were some other common knowledge fall backs.
"She should stay in a dark room..." as if it would matter, given her blindness "...and I can get her a cool compress for her head. Otherwise, she'll need rest and quiet."
No sooner were the words out if his mouth, than the door banged open and Zoe's voice rang through the apartment. "Is Denim OK? What happened?"
TSOTCTSOTC
Horace immediately froze as some primal, mammalian instinct rooted him with irrational panic.
Then Medusa broke off the stare, shaking her head with a dry, hissy laugh as she looked back out over the balcony.
Free again and shaky, he worked to piece back together his train of thought from before she'd made her point. His brain seemed slow to respond in the wake of his relief. What were they talking about again?
He cleared his throat, hoping not to sound hoarse in his response. "Well, maybe in the few really popular religions, but that's not universally the case. In history, mythology and some of the less well-known faiths, serpents are symbols of creation, rebirth, the cycle of life, wisdom and healing. It's not an accident that snakes appear in important symbols like the caduceus and ouroboros." He offered what he hoped was a reassuring grin, but, still a little thrown by his earlier panic attack, he couldn't tell what it looked like to her.
Medusa felt sorry for Horace, somewhere deep down, under the hard exterior she threw at him. He was trying so hard. She knew she wasn't making it easy for him, but he needed to know she wasn't easy. She'd discovered very early on in her life that her form made the reaction of those around her more on edge. So much so, that getting off of her mother's arm had been quite an ordeal. When she was wrapped around Phoebe, warm and safe, people did not act so frightened of her. As she'd grown, and grown, and grown some more, the scary factor had increased exponentially. If Horace thought people were frightened of him because of the clothes he wore, or what his shop sold, wait until he was associated with her.
If there ever was a point when he was 'associated' with her. "And what do you think?" She smiled back at him, oh, he was trying so hard. "What are snakes to you?"
Horace gave the question some thought. "Well, I think that those concepts are really important to our identity as people and snakes are useful imagery in understanding those aspects of ourselves. But, though pretty cool creatures, I'm fairly sure actual snakes could care less what philosophical ideas people attach to them."
Medusa tilted her head up. "And me?"
His smile broadened. "I think that you're a person. Unique and amazing and one I would really like to know."
He leaned casually back on the edge of his homemade countertop next to the fridge, but the duct tape-reinforced, plywood supports were unequal to the task of holding him up. The makeshift legs under the side closest to the fridge snapped, sending him flailing for balance as he frantically struggled to catch the collection of items sliding into the fridge, bouncing or rolling off the collision towards the floor.
In a blur, Medusa was at the counter, or her upper half was, anyway, catching things as they slid, but with so many small items, she and Horace were only able to catch a few. As little bits of kitchenware rolled on the floor, Medusa laughed, Horace having been wedged between the fallen counter and Medusa. She laughed, wrapped her body slowly around him, and lifted him bodily in the air, to move him to the other side of the counter.
Horace expected her to feel hard again, like the steel she'd become when he'd zipped with her through the city. But instead, her muscles seemed to have a lot of give this time, as if she were cradling him. She set him down, then released him, her scales shining in the low light as she moved. "Good answer."
Leaning into her loosened coils, he joined her laughter, fine clouds of whatever spice had opened and dumped on him drifting up into the air as he moved. Resting a hand on her smooth scales, he met her gaze, expression earnest. "I meant it. I really do..."
His words were cut short by her ringing phone.
She let out a long hiss at the interruption, reaching up into the short, loose sleeve of her shimmery, black blouse to where the phone buzzed and chimed against her side, held in place by the strong but durable harness that Aries had fashioned for her to serve as the next best thing to pockets.
"Yesss."
"Since you haven't stopped by, I figured no one remembered to call and tell you." Arcos's gruff voice filled the speaker.
"I got Leo'sss messsage about the family meeting. Raph and Ariesss won't be out of work for hourssss."
"A crazy mutant attacked Denim earlier. She's safe now, but not exactly OK. Donnie's done what he can, but..."
"Attacked? When? Ssshouldn't Mama be able to help?" She had to will herself to relax her grip on the phone lest she break it.
"She's out doing clinic and not answering her phone."
"I'll be over ssssoon." She ended to call and looked back at Horace who watched her with a sad smile. "I..."
He shook his head. "It's OK. I get how important family is."
She nodded.
He gestured to the broken counter and surrounding mess. "I should probably break out the spare scrap wood and duct tape and take care of this."
She started back towards the balcony.
"Hey, maybe you could call when you get the chance and we can reschedule? Then I can make you a fresh pot of gumbo. It's best when it's first made." His smile turned hopeful.
"Sssounds good."
Then she was gone.
He sighed, looking around at the mess in the empty apartment. With a snap, he turned the stove off and moved the still-cool pot back to fridge.
Things ended up still casual anyway. So much for a grand romantic gesture. He'd kind of envisioned it going down more like it did in the books and movies. Maybe next time.