(no subject)

[whiiiip_laaaash]

The 99th running of the Preakness Stakes was held today. A lot of people were really excited about that. Peter finds it hard to get properly excited about a bunch of horses running in circles considering that he's been to Pimlico and the track is like what, one and a quarter miles, tops? Which is a distance he can clear in less time than it takes most people to complete a really satisfying sneeze? Whatever.

Which isn't to say he didn't go, it's just that while everybody was betting and roaring and cheering and drinking he repainted that stupid weather vane in gray and silver so the guy whose job is to go up there and make it match the winning rider's colors had a surprise waiting for him, that's all.

So, he's a little satisfied with himself and maybe smells a little bit like horses as he pops into the Bar. It's been a fun day.

Comments

[likeroaringlions]

It has been a fun day! Not as busy a day for William as it has for Peter, but still fun. He's kicking a ball around, and sends it knocking over to Peter by way of greeting. "Hey there!"

[whiiiip_laaaash]

"Yo." Peter reflexively kicks the ball back the way it came. "How's it hanging?"

[likeroaringlions]

"Yo to you too," William answers cheerfully, corralling the ball. "I'm good, just hanging about here with time on me hands. Are you after anything in particular here, or just--" He shrugs and waves a hand. Hanging out.

[whiiiip_laaaash]

"Just got back from the horse races," says Peter. "Do they have those where you come from?"

[likeroaringlions]

He rolls his eyes and laughs, because of course they do. "Oh, aye, I think I've heard of something of the sort, just maybe. --Did you back a winner?"

[whiiiip_laaaash]

"Nah, I'm no good at picking a horse." Peter shrugs. "They all look slow to me."

Well, they do.

"Should've seen how people got about the same race last year, though. Secretariat took the lead on the first turn and none of the others could catch up with him for the rest of the course. The crowds went insane."

Honestly, the people at horse races are more interesting to watch than the horses themselves. Mass screaming in slow motion is seriously hilarious.

[likeroaringlions]

"Aye right, you're the speedy one." More eye-rolling. Because the mun totally flaked on the thread where Peter was going to show off, so William hasn't seen him do his thing, derp, sorry. "Was that Secretariat horse running again this time?"

[whiiiip_laaaash]

"Not this year. You win the Triple Crown the way he did and they take you off to spend the rest of your life on a stud farm instead of taking a chance you might get hurt in a race. Makes sense, I guess."

Hey, wasn't William holding the ball a little while ago? Because if he was, now he's not. And if he wasn't, then Peter just bounced the ball off his chest when he wasn't looking.

Actually, he might do that anyway.

[likeroaringlions]

"Aye, with a horse like that you'd--"

He stops mid-sentence with his mouth open. Because he's stumbling over where his foot had been resting on the ball and something just thwacked him in the chest and WHAT.

"--the hell was that?"

[whiiiip_laaaash]

"What," says Peter, who is holding the ball, "this?"

Thwack. He's still holding the ball.

[likeroaringlions]

"The hell was that," William repeats, going rather red in the face. He'd hit Peter, but--but what's going on?

[whiiiip_laaaash]

Peter holds up the ball- or, more accurately, Peter hoooooooolds uppppp the baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllll- and says, "Reflex test. Yours are slow. Mine, not so much."

[likeroaringlions]

His expression has shaded slightly from baffled to incredulous; he swipes a hand at the ball to reclaim it. Which is probably pretty funny from Peter's perspective.

[feminine_menace]

YT is over by the fireplace reading The Odyssey. She has to read it for school, of course, but she's kind of gotten into it, to the point where she's read beyond the section the teacher assigned.

She is also - point of interest - wearing something that looks like a Catholic school uniform, except that the words embroidered under the symbol on the left breast pocket are not something like "Our Lady of Mercy" but "Nova Sicilia di Firenze Academy."

My apologies for not tagging back sooner. Friday got hairy.

[whiiiip_laaaash]

The uniform gets a curious look. "Didn't think you were the Catholic school type," Peter says from right next to the chair. Because he can.

Re: My apologies for not tagging back sooner. Friday got hairy.

[feminine_menace]

YT jumps in surprise and jumps to her feet with impressive speed. Well, it would be impressive, for most people who aren't Peter Maximoff.

When she sees it's him, she scowls. "Geez, dude, you're gonna give someone a heart attack. With that shit." She sits down. "Also, hi. It's not Catholic school, though. It's a Nova Sicilia school. Not religious at all."

But it's Italian, so there's an unmistakable Catholic influence.

[whiiiip_laaaash]

"Guess I should learn CPR, huh?"

He grins and drops into a nearby chair, all duct-tape-colored ungainliness.

"Nova Sicilia? I don't know Italian. That's Italian, right?" The fact that it's not a Catholic school doesn't much matter, he figures. He's kinda familiar with private schools. Of several kinds.

[feminine_menace]

"Yeah." YT slips a bookmark between the pages to keep her place. "It's, like, the Burbclave division of Cosa Nostra."

If Peter's familiar with the meaning of Cosa Nostra, then yeah, it's exactly what it sounds like.

[whiiiip_laaaash]

"Huh," says Peter. "Didn't know those guys had schools. I guess it's better than putting their kids on a schoolbus. That just seems like it'll end with a lot of extra horse heads in people's beds."

(Peter has never actually seen The Godfather, because he rarely has the patience to sit still for an entire movie, but he's read the book once or twice when nobody was looking.)

[feminine_menace]

YT gives Peter a look like 'seriously?'

"They don't really do that thing with horse heads," YT says. "Not anymore, anyway. They're legit these days. Or at least as legit as any corporation gets."

More legit than what's left of the Federal government, that's for sure.

[whiiiip_laaaash]

They still haven't seen the tail end of Richard Milhouse Nixon in Peter's day, so yeah, the Mob's probably a good deal more legit at this point for him, too.

"Huh. Okay," says Peter, and then- "Oh, I get it. Like the guys who used to do bootlegging back during Prohibition and wound up making themselves into professional racecar drivers."

[feminine_menace]

"Kinda, except it's more like we don't have laws anymore," YT says.

That's not strictly true. There are still laws, and some of them are even pretty consistently enforced, but there's a lot less of them.

[whiiiip_laaaash]

"Seriously?"

Peter is getting way too many ideas, by the look of things.

"Huh."

[feminine_menace]

"Yeah. Individual Franchise-Organized Quasi-National Entities or FOQNEs have their own laws and constitution and stuff. They hire MetaCops wor WorldBeat Security as police. Or they do their own, like Nova Sicilia."

The Mafia is sure as fuck not gonna let someone else handle their security.

"Beyond that, it's kind of spotty. Unless you're in one of the city-states like San Francisco or something."

[whiiiip_laaaash]

"Oh, okay. That makes a little more sense, I guess."

Just because he breaks rules as easily as he breathes doesn't mean society would work particularly well if everybody did. Also there's the murder thing.

"The Mob doesn't run the cities, too?"