Allison grinned brightly at Nate’s question, then slid off the stool, gave something in between a nod and a bow, and began singing. It wasn’t quite the right song for her voice, but she could do well enough.

“Miiiss Lucy had some leeches, her leeches liked to suck,
and when they drank up all her blood she didn’t give a--
Funny when the doctors had locked her in her cell
Miss Lucy screamed all night that they should go to bloody--
Hello to the surgeon, with scalpel old and blunt....”

Allison was quite the performer, giving what almost seemed like a bow. He smirked; with no knowledge of the song, he still knew he was in for a show...

And sure enough, Allison did not disappoint. He had heard a song like this in the past, with girls jumping rope or playing one of those silly slapping games, except those lyrics were a little more... public-area friendly. The bar was not busy, so there was not much noise to keep others from hearing her song. As a few people started glancing over, he considered hinting her to stop.

Before that thought was complete, the barkeep placed the drinks in front of him. He sighed, grinning, taking his shot quickly and asking for one more double. What harm could come from letting Allison have her fun; he was certainly amused.

Allison mostly managed not to grin at Nate’s expression, and kept singing. It wasn’t like anything she was actually, technically saying was that bad... and it was, in fact, an actual song. And she was in a bar. She could always point to that.

She heard a slight change in the pace and tone of conversation as people began to notice, and so turned, singing as she backed up a step the stool she’d just gotten off of, climbed up, and sat on it with her legs crossed, in what could had been a meditative position had she not been singing what she was and grinning like a lunatic.

“Come it’s nearly tea time, the lunatics arrive
the keepers bleed them all until there’s not one left a--
Lively little rodents, are eaten up by cats
we’re subject to experiments like laboratory--
Rats I’ve dropped a teacup, how easily they break
I’m on my hands and knees until I pay for my mis--
Take off all your clothing, we’ve only just begun
we have no anesthesia, it’s eighteen forty--
One thing we should tell you, before you try again
the tests are all invented by a lot of filthy
Mentally hysteric, she’s failed the exam
don’t bother telling Lucy....”

Stephen was having a hard time keeping his laughter to himself; the lyrics were darkly funny, but it was definitely her complete lack of concern about those watching her that was putting him in a good mood. So maybe he would start leading a "low-key" lifestyle on his second day in New York.

In the corner of his eye, the frat-boys could be seen laughing, but unlike Stephen, their laughter was accompanied by "subtle" pointing and pompous glares. Without giving any visible hint that anything was wrong, he sent his shadow along the bottom of the bar. It wrapped around the stool of the apparent ringleader and a shadowy hand tugged on his foot, leading him to fall to the ground on his ass. Now most people were laughing at the drunk who could not sit correctly. With that taken care of, his shadow returned and Stephen went back to enjoying his free show.

Allison only vaguely noticed the pointing from farther down the bar; pointing and superior glares had been lurking in her peripheral version most of her life, and certainly all the time since she’d started being deliberately cheerful. She did notice when one of them fell over, but only flicked her eyes in their direction to give them a raised eyebrow--and the grin that was perpetually there--as she continued singing to the entire room.

“Razor blades are rusty, and not a lot of fun
so when they try to amputate your legs you’d better--
Run and fetch the chemist, a patient’s feeling sad
she’s been in chains for ages and she isn’t even--
Madness is a nuisance, and no one is immune
your sister, mom or daughter may become a raving--
Lunatics are dangerous, and doctors are obeyed
they also go together just like toast and marma--
Ladies are like children, with brains the size of squirrels’
let’s give clidoridectomies to all the little--
Girls are helpless treasures, that daddies must protect
so lie upon the table for the doctors to in--
Speculums are super, and stirrups all the rage
so spread a lady’s legs and put her back into her--
Cage of naked crazies, the surgeon’s here to bleed
the doctors are all learned men and some can even--
Reading can be risky, for women on the verge
It only did us worlds of good to poison, leech and--
Purging is a penance, phlebotomy’s a chore
no need to sterilize the tools, we never did--
Before the night is over, before you go to bed
they’ll take a hammer and a nail and jam it in your
Headstones in the courtyard, and statues in the park
are not for the insane just leave them rotting in the D-A-R-K
Dark
Dark
Dark
Dark
Dark!”

Allison finished the song, paused for a second to catch a breath, then folded at her waist in what was as close to a bow as she could get while sitting on a stool with her legs crosses, at the same time letting her arms spread out to the side like they would in a curtsey.

Stephen clapped enthusiastically as the girls looking-on from their tables returned to their gossip and bickering. Smiling from ear-to-ear, he handed her the drink that had come near the beginning of the song. Raising his second whiskey, he toasted, "To one hell of a performance." He enjoyed his whiskey, keeping an eye on her. Amaretto was hit or miss for certain people, since it was too sweet for some. "How is it?"

He swirled the ice in his now empty glass, chuckling. "You know, bumping into you was funny luck. I mean, I met--" he lowered his voice to avoid unnecessary eavesdroppers, --I met my first mutant today, and this might still be the more bizarre story I go home with!" Allison seemed like the last person he would have to worry about divulging too much information to.

Allison laughed, a bit breathlessly, grinned and tipped her glass toward him as she unfolded her legs, slightly enough that she didn’t spill the drink. She twisted so she was facing toward the bar again, leaning on it before trying a sip of the drink. It looked vaguely familiar, but a lot of drinks looked the same to her anyway. Kind of like cars. She blinked at the flavor, then hummed and grinned. “It’s good.” She flicked her eyes in the direction of the rest of the bar, taking another sip. “So now we just wait until I do something that makes one of them helpfully decide I had too much to drink before I got here and tries to take me home.” She glanced back at Nate out of the corner of her eye, somewhere between grinning and smiling. “Think you can scare off the nuisances before I insult them too badly?”

Allison leaned in conspiratorially--or, the same way she has when she was six and trying to advertise to everyone that she and her friends were conspiring, whether they really were or not--when Nate’s voice lowered, and giggled at what he admitted. “Nah, there’s no way you only met one, unless you got here half an hour ago. There’s way too many of us in New York. Just not everyone’s obvious about it.” Take Allison for an example. Well, Allison that night, who’d decided to practice doing some subtler effects, and so instead or her normal intricate tattoos had only a small amount of ink, in her nails--metallic black again, with a bit of blue--and imitating eye makeup and reddish-orange lipstick. That last had almost been painful enough to make her decide that wearing actual makeup would be worth it. Almost.

She may have been an oddball, but Stephen did not let that distract him from the fact that Allison was certainly clever. She knew as well as he did that, despite mocking her, drunk college boys would turn at the drop of a Nike visor and try to bring home the "weird chick" with the first sign of impaired judgement. "Oh, if they come over here, I'd be more than happy to take care of them. I've never liked 'broskis' like them."

Stephen was nodding to her assertions that mutants were bountiful in New York, when he realized the use of the word "us." "Wait, are you saying that you're a mutant, too?" he asked, wide-eyed. They must be common-place in New York, because thus far, he was two-for-two with his conversation partners on his first day.

Allison grinned and nodded slightly at Nate. “Great, thanks then.” She could probably avoid drunk boys on her own, particularly since they’d be assuming she was drunker than they were, but why bother when she already had a convenient defender?

Allison grinned again. “Yep.” She held her hand out, displaying the metallic nails. “Didn’t think these were natural, did you?” She pulled the ink up a bit, so it was shining on the surface of the nails instead of just under them.

"Well... " Kealey was an empath, so this was the first time a fellow mutant showed him a mutation he could physically observe. It was... exciting. "It sure seems like you New York, big city mutants are a lot more open with your little tricks, huh?" He took a closer look at the ink; he would have to ask about the details soon.

Stephen thickened his accent a bit before continuing. "Certainly not like us mutants down south," he added in a softer voice.

“Prettymuch everyone’s more open in New York than in the South, I think. Except maybe Confederates, Christians, and NRA members.” Allison glanced at Nate before looking back down at her hands, reabsorbing the ink into her nails. “But yeah, there are a lot of us here. The schools help. And some of us are more obvious than others. Like me, I tell everyone when I get the chance, because otherwise they’ll figure out a few days later when they start wondering why my tattoos keep changing, and the ones who get mad about it get even angrier if they don’t know immediately.”

Stephen was a tad bit offended at the immediate stereotyping of Southerners, but he was not terribly phased since it was a common inference and there was obviously a degree of truth to them. Instead, he focused on the colors rushing back into her fingernails. "So your mutation is what then, the ability to control ink? Like your nail polish and tattoos? Is the ink part of you or can you just control any ink?" It was as though he could not slow down his questions; he had entered a different world with plenty of information to collect.

She must have been a very open mutant, because she did not even seem to register him coming out as a mutant, as though it was as normal as saying he was a Republican. Actually, up here, a Republican might garner more notice than a mutant. "As for my mutation, I'm sure you might have noticed that bro-bag over there falling on his ass? T'wasn't exactly an accident," he said with a wink.

Allison nodded. “I control ink, any ink, and it’s not part of me.” She paused for an instant, then continued. “I can move it through things, but not without affecting them. It disturbs nerves especially, though I’ve never tried with similarly delicate nonliving structures, but I assume I’d mess them up too.”

Allison blinked, glanced at “bro-bag,” who was now back on his seat and had apparently completely forgotten his fall, and considered for a moment before guessing. “Some kind of telekinesis? Or illusions, or messing with balance?” She casted about for other obvious guesses for a moment before shrugging. “Well, thanks, whatever you did. Going to chase them off that way?”

Stephen thought about Allison's power thoroughly; how indispensable would ink manipulation be for a forger like him? Someone like her could shuffle words on a document in real time; it was a shame she did not seem like the criminal-type in the least.

"Telekinesis? Naw, nothing like that," though illusions would be helpful too... "Oh wait, they're coming over! Just keep an eye on their feet. It'll make sense."

Like clockwork, the muscle-head of the group gave Allison a dirty look. "How about coming back to give me a private show?" Stephen rolled his eyes at the expected lack of subtlety, sending his shadow in front of the group. He just barely raised segments of the shadow over the ground creating foot snags, and as though they were playing along, each guy got caught and fell in unison. It was beautiful, really.

Stephen scoffed at the grounded guido. "Maybe y'all should just get home in one piece instead of failing to hit on ladies that are spoken for." She was not actually spoken for (as far as Stephen knew,) but the tone of his voice and the confusion from a team face-plant was enough to deter them. The guys stumbled to their feet and left without a conflict.

"So yeah, my shadow does stuff like that. Ends up being pretty useful. What do you think?"

Allison turned on her seat to mostly face the approaching group of boys and gave them a drawn out, evaluating look that was clearly both amused and disappointed, and let her gaze drift to and stay on their feet as she took a fairly large drink. She coughed slightly, partly at the--slightly more than she’d intended--drink and partly in incredulity at the boy’s question. “Uh, really? No.” Private show? Really? A private lesson, now, might be in order; if he can’t learn any etiquette he might at least learn some creativity in being crude....

Allison had, fortunately, not bothered to actually look at the boy as she answered him--she actually wasn’t even entirely sure which one it was--which was fortunate, as she got to see what turned out to be Nate’s shadow run down in front of the boys and trip the entire group of boys at once. She laughed, a bit more than she necessarily felt, as they backed off without a fight, though she did catch some resentful glares and body language among the confusion. Not a surprise really; she’d’ve been pretty irritated in their position too.

Allison grinned at Nate once she stopped laughing, and rested her chin on her hand. “Cool. And pretty useful, too, not a lot I could do like that. Well, anything.” She gave him a larger, amused grin before continuing. “So, spoken for? I wasn’t aware of that.”