[Location: Feng's Bar] A dark and smoky establishment this is, and with very few patrons this time of night. None, in fact, except for one perched on a stool at the end of the bar. Jesse Mayhem reaches up and pokes one of the paper dragons above the bar, watching it sway in the few lights that aren't burned out. She looks into her coffee cup and takes a sip from it. She seems unaware that she's still wearing her labcoat. Blake is huddled in a corner, hunched over his sketchbook. It's hard to see in this light but he's scribbling away, no doubt ruining his eyes slowly but who cares? The atmosphere in this place is just what he needs to absorb for a project he woke up with an idea for this morning. He sketches elements from the decor at random, hoping he's getting enough. He'll probably need to visit the Library again and do some more searching for books on Chinese art. Blue Raja walks around Chinatown and spots a place called "Feng's Bar". He suddenly has a craving for chinese food, and pushes on the door to Feng's. It won't move! Maybe they're closed? He pushes again. Still no give. Raja is about to walk away when he spots a little sign that says "pull". He pulls, muttering to himself, and steps into Feng's Bar. Jesse Mayhem looks up at the paper dragon above her again. It seems a lot darker than it really is to her, since she's still wearing her shades. It's not that she forgot to take them off, really... it's just that after a certain fiasco, she's trying to be inconspicuous. Not likely. She looks up toward the door, and sees a silhouette of a man in a turban. Same one? She thinks a while, looking back to her coffee cup. Blake pretty much has his nose pressed to the paper now, and when the paper lantern above him flickers out he gives up. Not that he hasn't sketched without looking at the paper before (it's a pretty standard art exercise), but he'd just as soon forget it and get out of here. It's so close and...over-populated. He gets up, leaves a tip for the water he never drank, and heads for the door--and stops. Hey, it's That Guy. Blue Raja looks around and sees two familiar shapes. The lady from earlier today, and Blake. Wow! What luck! Raja smiles a bit and jingles his way towards Blake. "Hullo, Blake! Fancy meeting you here!" Jesse Mayhem slowly shrugs out of her white lab coat, folding it up and setting it on the bar in front of her. She looks again at the turbaned man, who seems to be talking to someone. She lowers her shades a little with a gloved hand, and recognizes Blake, a small grin making its way across her face. Blake positively beams. "Jeff, howareya?" he asks pleasantly. "How you been holding up in thisch pit of a town I call home?" Blue Raja says "Well, I found a place to sleep last night, and I wandered around a bit." Raja purposely skips over what he saw earlier today at the city street circle. Something best left unmentioned. Jesse Mayhem takes another sip of her coffee, again turning her attention to the paper dragon fluttering above her. She makes a mental note to buy cat food. Blake nods, deciding not to ask details on what kind of a place it was Raja had slept in. "Lischten, I've been in here a long time and wasch juscht heading out for schome fresch air...You know how important that isch." He grins. "What did you come here for, a drink?" Blue Raja shrugs. "I just had a sudden craving for Chinese food. Is it as good as it is in Champ- oh." Raja blinks and changes the subject. He motions at the scetch pad. "Are you doodling again?" Jesse Mayhem leans back against the bar a little, and glances at Feng for a moment, who's busying himself with polishing a small cup. She stretches, the vertebrae in her back popping back into place audibly. Blake glances down at the pad. "Oh...yeah. Well I've never eaten here," he admits, shrugging. He glances at the door, then turns to lead Raja back to the table he had just vacated. "Here, they don't bother you scho much back here." On that instant he sees Jesse, finally. "On schecond thought let'sch go over *here*," he says, heading in her direction instead. Blue Raja follows Blake, wondering what made him change his mind, when he sees that SHE's there. THE she. He becomes shy, and sits down timidly next to Blake. Small city, Beacon Harbor. Jesse Mayhem looks up and smiles as Blake approaches. "Evening," she says, sighing as she finishes putting her back in order. "How are you?" She looks over at the turbaned man, smiling amiably. He'd gotten to witness part of the Staring Guy's reaction toward her and seemed a little uncomfortable, she remembers. Now if she can only keep from saying something stupid... Blake sits down right beside her. "I'm the schame," he tells her cheerfully. "Draw your own concluschionsch. Hey, thisch isch my friend, The Blue Raja," he introduces Jeff. "Thisch isch Jesschie," he tells Jeff. If they turn out to already know eachother he won't be the least surprised--it's common that the people he knows already know eachother. Blue Raja smiles thinly at Jesse. "Hello." This is DEFINETLY the person from earlier today. He stays wary of her, but relaxes a bit. If Blake is friendly towards her, then she's okay. "It's good to meet you... er, Blue Raja," she says, smiling. Jesse moves her arm to pick up her coffee cup, which is sitting very close to her lab coat. As she picks up the cup, the name tag on her coat can be seen, and it reads MAYHEM. "Anything interesting happen lately?" she asks Blake. Blake snorts a bit, and motions Feng over so they can order drinks. "Dependsch on your point of view," he remarks. Feng leans on the bar in front of them. "You gon' order mo' water?" he grunts at Blake. "No," answers Blake cheerfully. He looks at Raja. "Order for usch," he says. "I don't know what all thesche thingsch are called." Blue Raja stops staring at Jesse and looks puzzledly at Blake. "Me? Oh, very well then." He squints at the little menu thing and tries to make out some of the words on it. Boy, it's dark in here. "Uh... what do you guys want, exactly?" he asks, trying to cover for his lack of knowledge about Chinese food. Jesse Mayhem sips her coffee before answering. "I already ate," she tells him. "The Szechuan chicken is very good." She looks at Feng. "Could I get a refill, please?" she asks him, setting her coffee cup down. Feng refills the coffee cup wordlessly and glowers at Raja. "You order *now*!" he bellows, slamming the metal coffeepot on the counter so hard a jet of coffee flies through the air like Old Faithful. Blake shakes his head. "Juscht give me what sche's having," he points to Jesse. Feng slams a cup in front of him and pours coffee in it. "Well, Mister Prince of India?" Feng roars at Raja. Blue Raja scrunches down on his stool, and stutters something of an answer. "I'll have a gr gr grape Ne ne ne Nehi?" it's more of question than an order. Jesse Mayhem smiles toward Feng, having become somewhat used to the man's abruptness a while back. "Thank you," she tells him and pulls her shades off to try and gauge how long the coffee's been sitting and consequently, how much sugar she should add to it. "A what? A what, did you say?" Feng shakes his beet-red head. "Nevermind! I make you something good, you like." He turns, and begins mixing a drink, humming some unrecognizable tune. Finally he pivots around and deposits a glass on the counter. "There!" he says proudly. "It is grape, you like!" He moves off. Blake contemplates his own coffee. "Thisch remindsch me of the bog out in the wooodsch near where I grew up," he editorialises. Then he peers at the designs on the cup. "Oh, cool," he mutters, and, opening his sketchbook, quickly copies the figures down. Blue Raja looks down into the purple drink. It is bubbling ominously. He gulps and bravely sips it. A look of disgust spreads across his face as he splurts it out. "ohmigosh!" he gasps as he grabs Blake's coffe and downs it in one gulp. "That's di..." he catches a glare from Feng, "...great! Wow!" Jesse Mayhem agrees with Blake's opinion on the coffee and stirs quite a bit of sugar into it. "Where did you grow up?" she asks Blake as he sketches, assuming the area must have been fairly rural to have a bog. She raises a brow at the concoction Feng's put in front of the Blue Raja, idly wondering if it has alcohol in it, and exactly how much... she presses her lips together to suppress a smirk as she catches Raja's reaction. It obviously had something in it that he disliked. Blake blinks over at Raja, then ducks behind his sketchbook to snicker. The loss of his coffee is obviously no biggie. He emerges at last, and looks at Jesse. "Indiana," he says shortly, then looks almost disappointed when Feng appears like magic to refill his coffee cup and shove it back in front of him. Blue Raja finds a chopstick on the counter and pokes at the drink with it. When he takes the chopstick out, it's almost totally dissolved. Raja discreetly dumps the drink into a plant, and tries to avoid ordering Grape Nehi in Beacon Harbor ever again. "Ahh," Jesse says in reply. There's a school for mortuary sciences in Indiana, but since she went to a different one, she sees no need to mention it. She sips her coffee quietly, and stirs a little more sugar into it. God, the coffee is vicious today. "Feng," she ventures, "are you trying to kill the customers again?" Jesse grins a little at him. "Ha ha," says Feng tonelessly, wiping out a cup with a nasty-looking rag. "You complain, always complain. But you may as well pay rent on that stool, you always there!" Blake nudges Raja. "Scho?" he prompts. "Have you met anyone intereschting? Scheen any crimesch in progressch? Thrown any flatware at anyone?" Blue Raja grins at Blake, ignoring Jesse's comment about killing customers. "Actually, I've been keeping a low profile, but, yeah, I did meet someone named Marley." Jesse Mayhem chuckles softly at Feng. "I pay my rent on this stool by buying coffee. You couldn't give it away otherwise," she jabs, grinning. She loves that guy. Jess turns back to Blake and Raja, listening quietly to the conversation at hand. "Marley..." Blake tries to recall the name. "I might know them, but I don't recall juscht now. I think the vaporsch from the coffee have affected me adverschely. I'll try again later. Well...met any copsch, then?" he presses. "You're bound to meet them eventually." Blue Raja wonders what Blake is trying to get at. "No, not yet... well, at least not that I know of..." Raja finds another chopstick and mimes throwing it. Jesse Mayhem leans back a little on the barstool and sips more of the coffee. It's bad, but she's had worse. Besides, she likes the atmosphere of this place. Blake shrugs. "Well, you will. Probably the schecond you actually do schomething heroic. That'sch how it worksch here," he says bitterly. "How was it, back where you came from?" "Well, it was practically the same. The instant you got your powers working, Captain Amazing would pop in and just... finish it off. Of couse, HE got all the credit. No-one cares about second-rate superheroes." Raja jingles on his stool. "When he.. aherm... passed on, we had a chance, but..." Jesse Mayhem grits her teeth and takes the glove from her right hand. She burned it slightly a few days ago, and now it itches. She takes a look at the burn, flexing her fingers, and pulls the glove on again. She's leave it where it was if it wasn't for the scars. And other things. She listens to Raja and Blake talking, and sips her coffee. Blake shakes his head. "No, I mean...I wasch referring to..." He pauses. "Juscht...the copsch. How bad were the copsch?" Raja may not have been here long enough to know what he means, he knows that...but he's bursting to know. "OH, them. With Captain Amazing around to do everything, they got-how should I put it?-lazy. They'd just sit around and tease at us." Raja squeezes the chopstic, talking about home makes him kindof queasy. Jesse Mayhem grins a little. This Captain Amazing person sounds like a jerk... but he obviously knew what he was doing, at least some of the time. Sounds like he's dead though. Sometimes they never see it coming, no matter how smart they are, she thinks to herself, and drinks more of the coffee. Blake nods. "Scho my uh...other schelf wasch a bit luckier than I when it comesch to prischon-schtaysch, then. That'sch good to know. The copsch here are *way* too uptight. Don't let down your guard. They'll lock you up for dressching funny--and I schould know." Blue Raja hmms. "For DRESSING FUNNY? Really. That's another thing I need to do, find some decent clothes to wear besides this." Raja jingles a bit as he straightens his turban and smiles. The sip of that drink he had is getting to him. He never /could/ take his alcohol. Jesse Mayhem shakes her head. She sips her coffee again and ponders this, then sets her cup down to pull a rubber band out of her pocket. The gloves make the job a little more difficult, as she can't tell what she'd got in there. She finally settles for pulling everything out of her pocket and putting it on the bartop to find a rubber band. Loose change, paperclips... LOTS of paperclips... there it is. She pulls her hair back and ties it. Blake nods. "You schtill need money, don't you? I wisch you'd let me help you. Here--juscht take what I've got on me right now." He digs through his jacket pockets. Blue Raja does a double-take on the plant. It's dead now. "Glad I didn't drink that!" he mutters, turning back to Blake. "No... you don't need to do that-" Jesse Mayhem grins faintly. Blake really is a nice guy. She could take on an apprentice at her job... but is that guy the mortician type? Probably not. She finishes tying her hair back and puts the paperclips back into her pocket, leaving the change on the bar as a tip for Feng... for the service, and for putting up with her. Blake scowls and, pulling a wad of crumpled bills from his pocket, lunges at Raja and forces the wad into his hand. "Take it, quit being schuch a baby," he fairly snaps. "You need it and I don't. What kind of schuperhero do you take me for?" He drops a few coins on the counter and stands up, picking up his sketchbook. "I have to run," he announces, ignoring Feng's half-muffled comment, "Good!" "I'll schee both of you around schomewhere. Bye." And with that he leaves. Blue Raja watches Blake leave, then looks at the crumpled wad of bills in his hand. "He really didn't have to do that..." he mentions quietly to Jesse. "He really didn't." Jesse Mayhem smiles softly and waves to Blake. "Take care of yourself," she tells him, but dang if he's not gone already. She leans back against the bar and swallows more of the awful coffee. Jess nods to Raja. "I know," she tells him.