taxonomites | [Location: Birdhouse] for all your holing-up-from-winter needs. OTA!

Home-sweet-home currently has several extra guests, everyone who's sheltered here from the brutal winter outside. It's not exactly balmy inside the Birdhouse-- even with the insulation and the heaters, the internal temperature is hovering in the high fifties, because the open spaces inside are just too large-- but that's miles better than the temperature out of doors.

"Note to self," Paul mutters to his tablet, using its recording function, "work on subdividing the second floor into individually insulated storage rooms, convertible to dorms in emergency."

He's on his way down from said second-floor to the ground floor, where the kitchen facilities are. They haven't tried the ground floor door in a couple of days now, the weight of endless snow holding it solidly shut, so the main entrance/exit is currently the rooftop egress, which is being kept clear by rigorous shoveling on the hour.

The generators are doing their job though. Paul adds another note to his tablet: send Glitch a thank-you card-- and beelines for the stove, where he's got a big-ass pot of soup simmering. It's not going to win any Gastronomie awards (oh does Paul ever hate cooking with canned goods), but it's hot, and it's nourishing and fatty and perfect winter food.

"Anyone hungry?" Paul asks of whoever is in the room at large.

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"I should probably eat something," Maddy says pulling off her gloves and unwinding the scarf she'd wrapped around her face. The goggles are already in the leather jacket pocket. She's been out there being a snow plow, since she's pretty good at that with her powers.

"Do you need any help with anything?"

Paul shrugs. "If you want the bread warmed up you can pop it into the broiler," he says with a nudge of his foot at the bottom half of the stove. "Butter and all that's in the fridge."

Extensive stockpiled food supplies are extensive, and stockpiled.

Paul sets a stack of bowls by the stove, turns the heat under the big pot of stew down to a low simmer, and gestures for Maddy and any others to help themselves.

The broiler opens and the bread hovers into it before the broiler closes again. Madelyne is opening the fridge and pulling out what seems like it would be good to go with the bread from what she sees there. Butter and jam end up on the counter.

"I think it might have gotten a little colder out there but it is really hard to tell. All of the snow is just a solid mass," she says as she prepares a bowl for herself.

Paul turns from the soup to grab a bowl-- then nearly drops it as he sees things floating and hovering and crap.

Okay. Okay. He's lived in Taxon a long time now, he's used to the weird shit, he knows she can do stuff like this. Deeeep breath.

"--you know," Paul says, trying for a conversational tone, "that's a little disconfuckingcerting."

Madelyne looks toward him with an arched brow and a faint smirk on her lips, "Not for me it isn't."

Paul gives her a long, blank look. He bites back on a couple of things he could say to that.

After twenty seconds, he says, slowly and carefully, "Right. Of course not to you, because you can do it.

"You know, back in the real world, I used to be FBI. In theory, there was nothing keeping me from walking around, 24/7, with my gun out in my hand, just to remind people that I was armed and that I had the ability and, in some cases, the authority, to shoot people.

"But as a rule, I didn't actually walk around with my gun in my hand. Because demonstrating 24/7 that you have the power to fuck people up is generally considered kind of rude.

"Would you like me to belabor the analogy a little more?"

"This is a part of me and I am sorry it makes you feel uncomfortable to be around. I will do what I can to remember not to use it," Madelyne says giving him a look.

"Please remember, though, that I've been tortured, kidnapped, beaten up and worse because of that part of me has made me seem threatening to others. It has taken me a long time to come to peace with myself. So, I appreciate your gun metaphor but your gun isn't a part of you like your heart and they don't threaten to dissect you out of scientific curiosity about how your gun works."

All of this is said in a very calm voice as Madelyne gets herself some food. There is a tension in her frame, though she keeps it well hidden.

Now, if there's one thing Wyatt Cain isn't, it's a meddler. He can get in other people's business if need be, but as a rule he stays as far away from the equation to be sucked into it.

And, if this wasn't two of the very privileged few whom he 1) happens to care a great deal about, 2) that are still here, he'd avoid this situation (and food, he could really go without food right now) like he would a cholera outbreak.

But it's Paul. Not only that, it's also Maddy.

He could sit right here and let it escalate, hunkered down and bundled up and hating every minute he's trapped in this cramped, dark, narrow space. Only problem is, he'd hate himself for it.

So, having decided that much, he gets to his feet, knees complaining all the more loudly for the extended cold. Back too. And his shoulders and neck, and fuck this weather.

"Okay, then," he says, quite shamelessly interjecting himself while grabbing a bowl. "You both have a point, but they're both irrelevant."

To Maddy, "You'd be tortured for scientific profit for what's in your heart," and to Paul, "You'd be beaten to death for shits and giggles for what's in yours. But this isn't your world, Paul, and it isn't yours, Maddy. This is a sanctuary and a refuge from a lot of the bullshit we've all had to take with a smile and a thank you ma'am back in our own homes."

To Paul, again, "You'll try to be more open-minded, and fast," and to Maddy, "And if someone's skeeved, you'll try to tone down your powers. Everybody okay with this?"

"I ... will be okay with it," Madelyne says. She has a smile on her face, happy to see Wyatt, even as uneasy she is about the topic of conversation. She rhythmically rubs up a thumb across her collarbone beneath the over-sized leather jacket and sweater she's wearing.

"I can compromise for the greater good."

Paul has Things to Say (when doesn't he), but Mr. Fucking Boy Scout himself interjects. Paul glares at the back of Wyatt's head while he plays peacemaker. Oh is he going to have some words for you later, cowboy.

"Mm," he says aloud, when Wyatt turns the blue-eyed look on him. He takes a breath, jams his hands into his pockets, opens his mouth, shuts it again.

He's running through a flow chart in his head, if-then, if I say this, then result X occurs...

After a few seconds he exhales and looks, not at Wyatt, but at Maddy.

"I have no idea what it's like in your world. You're right about that. But I do know what it's like to be spit upon for being who you are. So from one persecuted fucking minority to another, do your make-shit-float-all-about-in-defiance-of-the-laws-of-physics thing, I guess.

"But keep in mind-- please-- that there are people here from worlds where that isn't even something that only a few people can do, it's just plain not possible. Doesn't hurt to give a little warning."

Then he cuts a sideways look back at Wyatt with a coolly arched brow as if to say Good enough for you?

Wyatt knows a nervous tic when he sees one (and he has one or two of his own, though he couldn't tell you what they are if his life depended on it), but lets it slide just like he does for most people. Maddy gets a nod and a smile as he helps himself to some Canned Surprise-- And on second thought, hands the bowl to the redhead.

And reaching across and/or over his partner (whynohe'llneverpassupachanceforsometactileinputshhh) for another bowl, he returns the eyebrow action with a waggle of his own.

Yes, there'll be words later, but pissy Paul is cute, so see if he cares much.

"What's in this soup-stew-concoction again?"

Maddy takes the bowl carefully in her hands, holding it gently, almost as if she's certain that she's going to drop it now that there has been such a point about her abilities. The smile turns sort of wistful for a few moments before she nods to both of them, "I'll keep it in mind and it isn't in defiance of physics, it is just complicated."

Still, she's not looking to start a fight. If anything, she's looking to duck out of intense conversation. She doesn't have to be a telepath to appreciate how Wyatt and Paul interact without words. It warms her heart to see it but at the same time she misses Scott fiercely.

"Everything's complicated."

Some other day Paul might actually ask about the science of it, about where does the energy come from, you can't achieve lift without inertia from somewhere-- but not today.

Today he just grabs some soup for himself and answers Wyatt, still a little flatly, "Potatos-carrots-onions-garlic-tomatos-celery-chickenbroth aaaaand seasonings."

[Location: Birdhouse] for all your holing-up-from-winter needs. OTA!

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