NOWHERE

i got royalty, got loyalty inside my dna.

{henry zaga, twenty-eight, cis man, he/him} || emilio azevedo is a non-mutant who has been in new york for two weeks where they spend most of their time as an underground boxer and hitman. when i think of them, i think of a slightly bowed head, wavy, groomed hair, a tight-lipped, kind smile, tense shoulders, dark-hued trucker and blouson jackets, and a whiff of bergamot, lemon, bitter orange, rosemary, and myrtle. they are in support of mutants.

click here (or the source link) for his dossier + hmu on dcord @ tin#0007 for plots 🗡

Finley slips into a bar stool at O’Donahues. She leans her hand in her palm, staring glassy eyed into the liquor bottles. She’s silently waiting for someone behind the bar to clock the fact that she’s there, and without a drink, but she figures it’ll be a while, and she’s fine zoning out. She scans the back lit bottles until she catches another set of eyes looking at her from her peripheral. When she turns to look at him, she realizes just how close she sat without even thinking about it. “Wow. I totally encroached on your personal space, didn’t I? I can move if you want, I don’t wanna be one of those weirdos.”

@strucknerves​​

“No, it’s fine. I… I get it.” They wouldn’t hold anything against him, especially because Monique didn’t have a lot, or any, high expectations for their friendship. Monique nodded their head, eyes flickering between both Emilio and Papi, listening to both as the pair spoke to them. Emilio using English and Papi who just barked. “Why wouldn’t he? He says you’re a fantastic owner, that of course he’ll worry about you.” Then there was the comment about his face, which Monique was trying hard not to point out. Because it was rude to do so. “Papi says that despite your new face, that he still likes you, so don’t worry about it.” 

          “Oh  really.   I  don’t  see  a  drink  in  my  hand.   Look  sir,   I  don’t  know  who  you  think  you  are,   but  I  can  handle  myself  here  and  I’m  not  drinking.   So  as  far  as  I’m  aware,   there’s  nothing  stopping  me  from  staying  here.”   She  tilts  her  head  a  bit  and  says  in  a  sarcastic  voice.   “You’re  not  my  dad  and  I  don’t  have  to  answer  to  you,   but  if  you  want,   I  can  kick  your  ass  at  darts  or  something  and  you  can  leave  me  alone  the  rest  of  the  night.”   Did  she  think  she  could  win?   No,   probably  not.   But  it  was  better  to  fake  confidence  than  leave  because  someone  thought  she  was  too  young. 

“Save some kids?” Blake echoes with a mixture of amusement and, yeah, some teasing disbelief. She’s only briefly distracted when a heaping basket of fries is pushed to her from across the bar, at which point she’ll grab the bottle of ketchup and empty roughly a quarter of it into a pile on the waxy paper. “Did you get some kittens out of some trees, too? Help an old lady cross the street, stop a bank robbery?” Blake gestures towards him with a couple of ketchup-dipped fries before taking a bite. “You’ll put the Omegas out of business.”

it’s sickingly familiar. nia, lounging on a hotel (currently: motel) bed, anticipating julien’s return, ready to jump on him the second he comes in. all the physical pieces are there—it’s the emotions around them that have changed. “almost,” she answers in a singsong tone, then in a flash she’s on julien. a knife she’d had in her pocket is now against his throat, and she grins at him. “i thought before eating, we could have a talk. that’s okay with you, right, baby?” 

          @strucknerves​ !!

         despite better judgement, fins approaches. “hey, saint…” he addresses carefully, looking for any signs that his presence is unwanted. “i watched your fight. you were really good.” after a beat, he adds. “i wish i could be as fast as you. sometimes you end up looking like a blur.”

It takes him a moment to realise he’s being addressed. One voice barely cuts through the clamour, and it doesn’t really occur to Sawyer that anyone would want to talk to him here in any case. Blinking, taking a soft breath, he turns to find the person that spoke. 

It’s nobody Sawyer recognises, but the man has an oddly kind face. Maybe it’s because Sawyer is feeling so overwhelmed, but he feels immediately inclined to trust Emilio. “Uh… Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Just a bit of a meat market in here.” He exhales a mirthless laugh. It reminds him all too much of the brutality of Essex, so the excitement in the air doesn’t feel contagious. It feels nauseating.

“Think of it as charity. As in, you probably need it, Emilio.” She cracks her grin, and pats him on the cheek, patronizingly. She missed this, like a warm coat on a cold winter’s night that she’d long thought was lost. No one else got this side of her. The vigilante. The harbinger. Even if she isn’t out there with her on the roof, at least she can take solace in the fact that they can be a little comfortable around each other. Just a little.

Winning a cage match against a mutant? Oh, this she has to see. “I’m coming then,” she says, laughing despite herself. Emilio’s made some wild claims, but she knows that three to one she’d still bet on him with his bare fists. Mutants learn to rely on their power; they don’t learn how to use their physicality in a fight. “Besides, if those guys get someone from the audience to teach you a lesson, I might even volunteer.”

“Just the confessional? You know I’m not good on my knees, Saint.” If it seems pointed, it is, a sharp eyebrow raised in response. “Besides, God’s been dead since the twenties—everyone knows that. Or at least I do, and just assume. You gonna tell me he’s been listening all these years and I still haven’t gotten enlightenment?”

“no matter how you square it,” grins emilio, his lips pursing as he feels jackie’s skin against his own, “free is free.” he really feels how torn up his face is, slit open by vicious, inhuman claws. it’s something he shouldn’t even think about, considering his profession (it pales in comparison to most of what he suffered), but still. it’s a new, odd sensation when it’s his face. it’s a message as it is the clothes he wears on his back.

“you gotta pay a visit sometime—you’d like it there.” emilio’s eyes roamed over the crowd, taking in the unifying spectacle of humanity walking over the fairgrounds’ flattened grass. he teases her with a narrowing of his eyes, “i doubt you could take me on,” he says, “you’re looking at the only non-mutant contender in that joint— i’m kind of a big deal.”

“Really? So that’s why the rooftops’ve been silent, huh?” During the night, where she hunts, with less mercy and grace than usual, she hadn’t seen Emilio going at all. Perhaps it was a change of heart, after the whole Xavier’s deal, but she wasn’t in the business of guessing anyways. What Emilio wanted, Emilio did. They both have the means to deal with whatever shit they’ve been going through. “You want me to be your tour guide, pretty boy? Fine, I’ll bite.”

She closes her eyes and redoes her mental rolodex of things she has to do until she knows that she’s absolutely free. “Or is this a play to make me watch boxing? Because I can watch a match, if you want, but if you get your ass beat, I’m never going to make you forget it.”

“miss me that much, huh?” emilio teases; though the more he thinks about it, the more he does miss taking up assignments with late night stakeouts. the silence on a rooftop is unmatches, he finds. it’s a unique kind of peaceful to know you're far from the madding crowd—literally. jacquelyn’s occasional company doesn’t make it worse, either. “wow, sponsoring my surgery and a compliment? you’re generous today, rumley.”

and as for the boxing, he simply grins. “i was actually trying to brag a little, but you’re more than welcome to see me win a couple belts—or get my ass beat. it really depends on how much the guys over there want to punish me. it can get pretty aggravating for a human to win a cage match against a mutant.” maybe he is bragging now, though this time, emilio’s sure it’s warranted.

“You’ve got me beat by several weeks. I got here maybe three weeks ago, now.” It doesn’t feel quite that long, but with everything between Mo prepping the place for newly freed Essex residents, and just getting used to the flow of a city this big, time had flown by. “Zia, thank you for the uncharacteristically warm welcome,” She returns, taking his hand with a friendly shake. “What you brought you to the city? You Gospel on the dangers of Dive Bars?”

          “No,   I’m  twenty.”   Holland  knew  that  she  looked  so  much  younger  than  she  was.   It  wasn’t  her  fault  that  she  looked  young.   “It’s  not  a  fake  ID.”   She  pulls  out  her  wallet  and  shows  her  ID,   as  well  as  the  fake  one.   “I  can  handle  myself  here.”   She  knew  that  was  probably  lying,   she  couldn’t  handle  herself  if  she  got  into  trouble.   Holland  knew  how  to  keep  herself  out  of  trouble  though.   “Are  you  going  to  keep  lecturing  me?”   

Blake laughs as the bartender sets her drinks in front of her; she likes this guy’s style. “Pleasure, Julian. You’d probably cringe at some of my regular haunts.” She’s got a wide web of them. O’Donahues just happens to be her favorite when she’s trying to run across some of her Brotherhood pals. “I like ‘pissed off the right person’ over the totally tired ‘you should see the other guy’. Maybe I’ll give that a shot in the future. You often pick fights with people with claws?” The question is lightly posed but has some layers, ones that might make Blake change her opinion on Julian real quick; you often pick fights with what sounds like a mutant?

Her hands find his cheek, rubbing a thumb along the scars before snorting. “Don’t push it, pretty boy. I can write a check for some good plastic surgery and get that all fixed up.” Good. At least he doesn’t know—she can relax around him a little more. “And to be fair, the terrorists that ransacked the school weren’t part of the faculty. Otherwise, we’d have more positions open for staff—but that being said, you taking a day off from your, uh, usual activities?”

“Yeah, it has.” Too long if you asked them. If their life wasn’t a complete mess, Monique would’ve tried to hang out with him and Papi sooner. However… life wasn’t easy, not for them at least. Once closer, Monique got onto their knees, gently petting the top of Papi’s head. “I don’t think that’s true,” they said. “Though, he is worried. About you, obviously.”