Log: Jubilee and Kevin || Moving Day
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xp_logs Jubilee helps Kevin pack his bar
Jubilee carefully packed the fifty-year-old Dalmore whiskey into one of the wooden boxes lined with straw as she hummed along to a song she'd heard playing on the radio just next door. Normally she'd have a set of headphones on and be rocking out to her own beat, but given she was helping Kevin pack up his liquor cabinet, going completely non-verbal on him would have seemed rude.
"So, like, is this stuff original, or you just really like the expensive liquor?"
"Just like the good stuff. I don't have possessions older than 2007, remember." He said, although her characterization wasn't entirely accurate. Much of Kevin's liquor was midrange, but she'd started on the bottom shelf, which contained the special bottles.
“See, we totally need to work on my ability to tell when you’re lying to me cause I have no idea if that comment was serious.” Jubilee pulled a bottle of aged gin from the bottom shelf and packed it in its own box. She knew you only really aged gin for a few months before it was put in bottles but that it was mostly a resurgence in the early 2000s. “I’ve not seen this one before.”
She showed off the bottle to Kevin, glancing back at him from her seat on the floor.
“New addition?”
"Fillers? I was trying to recreate this vanilla-infused martini I had in Lyon last year. Never could quite get it right."
“Maybe ask Gabe to give it a shot? Why have a bartender as a Padawan if you don’t get him to make your drinks.” Jubilee placed it gently and moved onto the next bottle. “So, like, what do you wear other than suits? Don’t think I’ve ever seen you more casual than forearms bare around here. Do you even own jeans? I mean, not a criticism just curious.”
"Some things I like to learn how to do myself." He added a few more bottles into a box before shrugging and pouring himself a drink. "I own plenty of casual wear. However, especially for work, I like a suit. It's a kind of armor and after 50 years or more of wearing one every day, it feels natural to me."
“Pour me one?” Jubilee asked with a note of hopefulness and a grin. She took another bottle and placed it carefully before closing the box. “I think I’d like to see the casual you someday. I’m pretty sure Emma has some kind of beach vacation planned for us all eventually.”
"What's casual me for you?" He came over with a glass of rye for her. "I don't wear jeans because they represented something different when I was young. We have different scopes."
“Hmm,” Jubilee took the time to think on it as she took a sip of the whiskey he’d given her and then saluted him with it when she caught the buttery aftertaste. “Honestly, I don’t think I could see you in board shorts but maybe those 3/4 pants? Short sleeve shirt or a polo if you wanted to go for preppy. What would you consider casual?”
"I consider what I feel comfortable. And that is a different world than you think."
“Explain it to me?”
It was a query and not a demand. Kevin fascinated her, he had since the day she’d met him. Someone who had lived the life he had, been through so much, and yet still cared enough to do this job, and allow the people in their team close? That was not what she’d expected.
Mostly she just wanted to know more, to see how he saw himself and integrate that into how she saw him.
She continued to pack boxes with bottles, substituting for a sip of her drink between each one.
"I grew up poor. Poor in a way you can't imagine. I remember using rope to keep my pants up. But for years, a nice suit made me equal to the people who had different backgrounds."
“That makes sense,” Jubilee said, continuing to pack as she thought about what he said. “You said before you were in the Korean War? Did you join up because of that? Being poor?”
"In part. It was also better than catching a beating from my old man once a week."
“How young were you when you joined?”
Jubilee knew kids had lied about their age to join back then, that Kevin’s home life had been shitty enough to prefer signing up was sobering information. She pulled another bottle down, examining the label before packing it away, not wanting to bring to light the fact she was listening intently.
"Sixteen. After the Second World War, there was a period that the military would take someone between sixteen and eighteen so long as they had parental permission and was sponsored by either their local Congressman or State Representative. My father was happy to see the last of me and used the Union to reach out to our representative. The idea behind it was that once you were done Basic if you weren't 18, you couldn't be deployed but you could take over a job stateside, freeing up someone of age who could be deployed. You'd end up driving Majors around Fort Hood or working in the mess in Fort Benning. However, after my second day on the firing range, I was shipped off to Advanced Marksman school at Camp Perry, and mysteriously, there was a mistake on my records that shifted my birthdate back a couple of years. Three months later, I was in Korea." He took a sip.
“A mistake?” Jubilee looked at him, pondering the implications. “You were that good?”
She’d believe it, she’d seen his work, not just here but in the universe that didn’t exist. She’d been trained in firearms, they all were but she preferred explosives work and thievery above all.
"I am that good. Considerably better now." He said with a nod, setting down his drink to finish packing the first box, closing it carefully.
“Modest too,” Jubilee teased, pulling from the second shelf now. Apparently a good selection of vodka. “Are some of these actually from Russia?”
Not that she didn’t pick up numerous small things when she traveled, she usually went through the duty-free section like the Grim Reaper of knickknacks. It was as much about keeping her hand in as it was just the joy of taking from capitalism and giving to herself.
"Some. It's not hard to get decent Russian vodka these days. Although modern standards screwed it up. Because the real Russian stuff didn't have a cap. It had a foil pull tab." He came up and added a new box to the pile to be filled. "I do miss the Soviet Union at times. I mean, horrible genocide and potentially blowing the world to shit, at least the KGB tried to bribe us properly."
“I used to know a couple of Russians. Well, one was a good friend and the other was her brother but she was cool at least.” Jubilee started taking a bottle at a time and placing it carefully, taking a sip of her drink between each. “It’s weird sometimes living through the ending of one Universe and the beginning of the next. You don’t know what’s changed until it’s staring you in the face. History seems mostly the same though, no monkey Abraham Lincoln at least.”
"I wouldn't know." He remarked wryly.
“You didn’t miss much unless you would’ve been interested in knowing us all as teenagers and probably being drafted by Pete Wisdom.” Jubilee grinned up at him. “Honestly, you two would have either gotten on well or killed each other, no in between.”
"According to the files, he was one of Christians. I think we've had got on fine. Chris has a good idea for talent and we've been friends a long time."
“I’ve never actually met Gar’s Dad, you know? Like, I knew Gar well but I was never really around for any of the stuff that involved Christian.” Jubilee packed another bottle and took a sip of her drink. “What’s he like?”
"James Bond grown old. Seriously. If you'd met him, he would have already fucked you, and yet, you'd have thanked him for it." Kevin said with a quirk of his mouth.
“Hah!” Jubilee grinned and gave Kevin a wink. “I always did have a thing for older men.”
"No kidding. And younger men. And women." Kevin said, grinning. "You are not exactly narrow in your lusts."
“I like to think of myself as a giver,” Jubilee noted in a very prim fashion but it was spoilt by the smile she couldn’t contain. “I figure as long as everyone is legal and everyone is having fun, who am I to deny them my beauteousness?”
"Or, as we say in the real world, you're just as horny as a stray cat." Kevin shook his head. "Help me finish this off and I'll buy you one of those terrible fruity cocktails you love."
Jubilee carefully packed the fifty-year-old Dalmore whiskey into one of the wooden boxes lined with straw as she hummed along to a song she'd heard playing on the radio just next door. Normally she'd have a set of headphones on and be rocking out to her own beat, but given she was helping Kevin pack up his liquor cabinet, going completely non-verbal on him would have seemed rude.
"So, like, is this stuff original, or you just really like the expensive liquor?"
"Just like the good stuff. I don't have possessions older than 2007, remember." He said, although her characterization wasn't entirely accurate. Much of Kevin's liquor was midrange, but she'd started on the bottom shelf, which contained the special bottles.
“See, we totally need to work on my ability to tell when you’re lying to me cause I have no idea if that comment was serious.” Jubilee pulled a bottle of aged gin from the bottom shelf and packed it in its own box. She knew you only really aged gin for a few months before it was put in bottles but that it was mostly a resurgence in the early 2000s. “I’ve not seen this one before.”
She showed off the bottle to Kevin, glancing back at him from her seat on the floor.
“New addition?”
"Fillers? I was trying to recreate this vanilla-infused martini I had in Lyon last year. Never could quite get it right."
“Maybe ask Gabe to give it a shot? Why have a bartender as a Padawan if you don’t get him to make your drinks.” Jubilee placed it gently and moved onto the next bottle. “So, like, what do you wear other than suits? Don’t think I’ve ever seen you more casual than forearms bare around here. Do you even own jeans? I mean, not a criticism just curious.”
"Some things I like to learn how to do myself." He added a few more bottles into a box before shrugging and pouring himself a drink. "I own plenty of casual wear. However, especially for work, I like a suit. It's a kind of armor and after 50 years or more of wearing one every day, it feels natural to me."
“Pour me one?” Jubilee asked with a note of hopefulness and a grin. She took another bottle and placed it carefully before closing the box. “I think I’d like to see the casual you someday. I’m pretty sure Emma has some kind of beach vacation planned for us all eventually.”
"What's casual me for you?" He came over with a glass of rye for her. "I don't wear jeans because they represented something different when I was young. We have different scopes."
“Hmm,” Jubilee took the time to think on it as she took a sip of the whiskey he’d given her and then saluted him with it when she caught the buttery aftertaste. “Honestly, I don’t think I could see you in board shorts but maybe those 3/4 pants? Short sleeve shirt or a polo if you wanted to go for preppy. What would you consider casual?”
"I consider what I feel comfortable. And that is a different world than you think."
“Explain it to me?”
It was a query and not a demand. Kevin fascinated her, he had since the day she’d met him. Someone who had lived the life he had, been through so much, and yet still cared enough to do this job, and allow the people in their team close? That was not what she’d expected.
Mostly she just wanted to know more, to see how he saw himself and integrate that into how she saw him.
She continued to pack boxes with bottles, substituting for a sip of her drink between each one.
"I grew up poor. Poor in a way you can't imagine. I remember using rope to keep my pants up. But for years, a nice suit made me equal to the people who had different backgrounds."
“That makes sense,” Jubilee said, continuing to pack as she thought about what he said. “You said before you were in the Korean War? Did you join up because of that? Being poor?”
"In part. It was also better than catching a beating from my old man once a week."
“How young were you when you joined?”
Jubilee knew kids had lied about their age to join back then, that Kevin’s home life had been shitty enough to prefer signing up was sobering information. She pulled another bottle down, examining the label before packing it away, not wanting to bring to light the fact she was listening intently.
"Sixteen. After the Second World War, there was a period that the military would take someone between sixteen and eighteen so long as they had parental permission and was sponsored by either their local Congressman or State Representative. My father was happy to see the last of me and used the Union to reach out to our representative. The idea behind it was that once you were done Basic if you weren't 18, you couldn't be deployed but you could take over a job stateside, freeing up someone of age who could be deployed. You'd end up driving Majors around Fort Hood or working in the mess in Fort Benning. However, after my second day on the firing range, I was shipped off to Advanced Marksman school at Camp Perry, and mysteriously, there was a mistake on my records that shifted my birthdate back a couple of years. Three months later, I was in Korea." He took a sip.
“A mistake?” Jubilee looked at him, pondering the implications. “You were that good?”
She’d believe it, she’d seen his work, not just here but in the universe that didn’t exist. She’d been trained in firearms, they all were but she preferred explosives work and thievery above all.
"I am that good. Considerably better now." He said with a nod, setting down his drink to finish packing the first box, closing it carefully.
“Modest too,” Jubilee teased, pulling from the second shelf now. Apparently a good selection of vodka. “Are some of these actually from Russia?”
Not that she didn’t pick up numerous small things when she traveled, she usually went through the duty-free section like the Grim Reaper of knickknacks. It was as much about keeping her hand in as it was just the joy of taking from capitalism and giving to herself.
"Some. It's not hard to get decent Russian vodka these days. Although modern standards screwed it up. Because the real Russian stuff didn't have a cap. It had a foil pull tab." He came up and added a new box to the pile to be filled. "I do miss the Soviet Union at times. I mean, horrible genocide and potentially blowing the world to shit, at least the KGB tried to bribe us properly."
“I used to know a couple of Russians. Well, one was a good friend and the other was her brother but she was cool at least.” Jubilee started taking a bottle at a time and placing it carefully, taking a sip of her drink between each. “It’s weird sometimes living through the ending of one Universe and the beginning of the next. You don’t know what’s changed until it’s staring you in the face. History seems mostly the same though, no monkey Abraham Lincoln at least.”
"I wouldn't know." He remarked wryly.
“You didn’t miss much unless you would’ve been interested in knowing us all as teenagers and probably being drafted by Pete Wisdom.” Jubilee grinned up at him. “Honestly, you two would have either gotten on well or killed each other, no in between.”
"According to the files, he was one of Christians. I think we've had got on fine. Chris has a good idea for talent and we've been friends a long time."
“I’ve never actually met Gar’s Dad, you know? Like, I knew Gar well but I was never really around for any of the stuff that involved Christian.” Jubilee packed another bottle and took a sip of her drink. “What’s he like?”
"James Bond grown old. Seriously. If you'd met him, he would have already fucked you, and yet, you'd have thanked him for it." Kevin said with a quirk of his mouth.
“Hah!” Jubilee grinned and gave Kevin a wink. “I always did have a thing for older men.”
"No kidding. And younger men. And women." Kevin said, grinning. "You are not exactly narrow in your lusts."
“I like to think of myself as a giver,” Jubilee noted in a very prim fashion but it was spoilt by the smile she couldn’t contain. “I figure as long as everyone is legal and everyone is having fun, who am I to deny them my beauteousness?”
"Or, as we say in the real world, you're just as horny as a stray cat." Kevin shook his head. "Help me finish this off and I'll buy you one of those terrible fruity cocktails you love."
