ArchivedLogs:Time To Decide

Time To Decide
Dramatis Personae Jackson, Jeremy, Lia, Shane, Dorian Siccavil
In Absentia	27 October 2013 Planning what to do with the rescued lab rats.
Location <NYC> 303 {Lighthaus} - Village Lofts - East Village
This apartment is cheerful, in its way -- bright and airy, its floor plan open and a plethora of windows providing it with an abundance of light. The tiny entrance hall opens into a living room, small, though its sparse furniture and lack of clutter give it a more open feel. The decor is subdued and minimalist; black and white is the dominant theme, with occasional splashes of deep crimson to offset the monochrome, though of late myriad bright-coloured dragonflies swarm across the living room wall. The couch and armchair are upholstered in black corduroy, the low wide coffee table central is black wood and glass-topped, and a few large pillowy beanbags provide additional seating by the large windows that dominate the back wall. The living room and kitchen both hold a rather inordinate number of lamps in addition to the ceiling lights; standing lamps, small lamps on each counter, large sunlights in the corner. More often than not, they're largely all turned on, too. Towards the back, a couple of doors lead off into bedrooms and bathroom, and to the right, the kitchen's tile is separated from the living room's dark hardwood floors by black countertops. Above the bedroom to one side, there is higher space; a ladder climbs up to a lofted area looking down on the living room. Standing in front of the partition between living and cooking area is a large fish tank: one lone Betta, blood-red, swims regally among several species of black and silver fish. A hallway beyond the kitchen leads further into the apartment. Another bathroom stands just into the hall and the farthest door leads to the apartment's final bedroom, the door usually kept shut to hold in the acrid fumes of turpentine and paints from within. Mealtimes are always busy around the Lofts, now; even though some of the refugees have begun the slow process of trickling back to their former lives (or striking out to create new ones), dinnertime especially has a habit of calling them /back/ from whatever parts of the city they have crept out to. There's a drift of people between Lighthaus and Greyhaus upstairs, scoping out the disparate offerings at both places and often loading up on a selection of either. Today there is a rich beef stew upstairs, down here in 303 a chickpea soup, fried okra, rice mixed together with tomatoes and corn. Jax is not so much presiding over the kitchen anymore as he is just lingering in it, tucked into the table in the breakfast nook with his laptop and a bowl of soup ladled over rice. Despite his generally hippie nature he's finally caved -- less so because of unending dishes and moreso because of the neverending fight to make sure that the dishes from down /here/ don't get used for the meat-and-dairy food from /upstairs/ -- there's a selection of /plastic/ plates and bowls and flatware available for communal mealtime. Sturdy plastic. He's probably still washing them for reuse anyway. He's dressed brightly as ever, today, glittery makeup and a purple shirt embroidered with darker purple dragonflies, pale green skinny jeans, brightly coloured mismatched socks. His food is at the moment ignored in favour of his tablet; he's working on a painting on his screen, one thin young man crouched over another laid out on a slab of stone, though as yet both have too little by way of detailing to tell quite what is going on with them. Finally figuring out what he likes from the pile of donated clothing, Jeremy has on a ridiculously over sized hoodie with a power symbol emblazoned on its front, and a pair of jeans that might actually fit him. Food has a way of bringing him out of hiding either way, and he has a small note pad sticking out of the back pocket of his jeans as he comes on in sniffing the air. Snagging up a plastic bowl and a spoon, he proceeds to dish himself much soup, avoiding the more thick and chewy bits to avoid accident problems, and he glances around more to take in the current occupants. A small wave goes to Jax, but at the sight of the computer he hunkers down further away to be proactive in hardware protection. Lia has been dividing her time between the various apartments open to the refugees at the Lofts and the roof, as often as the weather will permit her to be there. She has a tendency to wander between them without staying overlong in any one place. Her donation pile ensemble for the day consists of an I <3 NY sweatshirt in what might once have been vibrant blue, so large that it hangs a bit off of one shoulder to show straps in black and pink of a pair of tank tops layered beneath it. Her legs are covered in a pair of navy leggings sticking out from under a flowy black skirt that reaches to the middle of her calves, but was likely intended to reach only to the knees on a person of appropriate size. She has a too-large belt /tied/ over top of the whole set in an attempt to spend less time pulling up at waistbands, and her feet are covered in a set of black knee high socks. Going so long without choices in foods has made Lia adventurous, and she has filled up a bowl with some of /everything/ from the Lighthaus kitchen. She is sitting at the table, feet curled up beneath her, discovering this new thing that is okra. She picks each of the pieces apart with her spoon to release the round seeds on the inside and scoop them up to place between her teeth one at a time, grinning and nearly giggling each time as they pop when she bites down on them. Shane is heedless of WORKING (working pff what working) as he makes his way into the kitchen. He plunks his bowl -- just a lot of beef stew from which he's picked out most but not all of its vegetables -- down on the table beside Jax, resting an elbow on his father's shoulder and peeeeering at the screen. "That guy dead?" He taps a claw at the figure on the slab. "Eat your dinner, s'not working time." He's been a familiar enough face around the apartments, albeit a face he /shares/ with his brother, ducking in and out on supply runs, helping with the endless cleaning, but between school and work he's been an /intermittent/ face as well. His black eyes sweep the room with bland curiosity. His head tips upward in a jerky nod to Lia. "See, /you/ manage to make the donation pile look /good/." More often than not, the past few days, Dorian has been taking his meals in the Lighthaus, perhaps more withdrawn and jumpy than previous. This is currently the case, as the young man makes his way into the apartment in search of a meal, sniffing the air curiously as he makes his way to the kitchen nook. Judging by the bright redness on his cheeks, the otter man has been on the rooftop for some time; he isn't dressed for the autumnal chill, instead wearing a fitted white t-shirt advertising some ocean side attraction or another in faded blue text, paired with once black cargo pants that have been modified to allow his tail some mobility. A cautious wave is given towards Jax and Shane, along with a slightly nervous smile, before he steps into line to wait his turn for food. He picks up a bowl and collects a mixture of rice and soup into the dish, topping it with fried okra arranged vaguely into a smiley face atop the other contents. Food acquired, he makes his way towards the table to sit beside Lia, offering a quiet wave to Jeremy as well. "Um --" Jackson hesitates at Shane's question, teeth dragging against his lower lip. "N-no he ain't. /Exactly/ dead," he hedges in answer, brow knitting together as he looks at his screen. He glances up with a quick smile at Jeremy's nod, and saves his work, shutting his computer down entirely and setting it and his tablet aside. "Hey, honey-honey. C'mon, sit down." He waves this invitation to Jeremy, nudging out another chair at the table with a tap of his toe. "Evenin'!" he greets the others, smile still warm. "'chu all been up to today?" Jeremy blinks at the offer to move closer, and he gestures at the electronics a moment before signing 'You sure? I am eating, may eat your work'. He frowns a moment at the prospect of that, but de-hunkers from the further spot, and puts spoon to lips, slurping up soup through mostly closed lips. He glances about to the others too anyway, just to make sure that no one else would object to the possibility of problems, and as further questions come, he slides spoon back to bowl so he has a hand free to reply 'Read your books'. Shane's attention earns only a widening of Lia's eyes at first, a pause in her slow meal consumption at individual-okra-seed pace. She swallows, and then smiles. "I have never picked clothes before. The ones here have funny shapes and bright colours. I like socks and skirts. We didn't have those." Her head tilts as she regards him. "You are /very/ blue," she finally replies in what is likely intended as a return compliment. Bright colours are good, after all. Dorian joining the table brings a brighter smile to the girl's face, her not-spoon-holding hand waving to him and to Jeremy, as the other man bids him to move closer. "Jeremy is afraid that when he eats his food it will eat-up your computer-machine's power, too. And he says he has been reading your books," she translates helpfully, having found that many people do not understand Jeremy's hand-talking. "Does your computer-machine have dead people in it? That does not sound like a good thing for it. You should get it videos of pandas. They are /much/ better," Lia advises Jax in a serious tone. "Up to? I watched the sun rise on the roof. My breath was all smokey and my fingers turned blue and then a lady told me I had to go inside." She frowns toward the ceiling. "I wanted to go dance later. It is too cold, isn't it?" Her eyes widen again with sudden realisation. "Fairyjax! Dusk said you know places for dancing! He said." "S'aiite, he shut that shit off." Shane gestures towards the computer when Jeremy says Jax's work might get eaten -- notably before Lia's translation, as he sits down in his seat. "What kinda shit do you eat with that?" On 'that', he demonstratively opens his mouth. Like he is swallowing all the WORLD, Jeremy-style. "Did you just call him a /fairy/?" This earns an amused snort. "Pa knows all the places for dancing. What kinda dancing do you dance?" He flashes Lia a bright smile. "I am /so fucking blue/, if there were a blue competition I would win it. But you shouldn't try to compete by freezing your fingers, that's the shitty way to turn blue. You could paint yourself, instead." He drags his bowl in front of himself, not bothering with utensils and just extending one claw out long to skewer a chunk of beef and bring it to his mouth for chomping. His sharp teeth bare again, in a wider grin at Dorian's nervous smile. "Jesus, dude, nobody's gonna fucking bite you." His eyes flick over Dorian for a longer thoughtful moment before he adds, "-- Figured /you'd/ be dead long ago." Dorian tilts his head confusedly at Jeremy's distance, but nods in agreement to Lia, about Jeremy's power, "It gets dark, and cold. And probably other stuff, like when the shooty robot fell over in the hall 'cause he opened his mouth a lot." Descriptive Dorian is descriptive, but he glances towards Jeremy and offers a cheery smile, none the less, "But eating is good. And getting to eat with friends is even better, so you should totally sit closer, 'cause, well, friends?" There's a little bit of a giggle at Lia's description of her day, nodding, "The rooftop is neat. I forgot what cold-cold air was like, sorta, after a while. Haven't seen the sunrise yet. Saw the sunset, though. Sorta. Was playing with Einen's tablet with the flying birds and the mean pigs, so not paying much attention, though." He wrinkles his nose when he mentions Einen, his ears flattening into his mop of hair slightly as he quietly eats his food for a moment. Blinking wide eyed at Shane, Dorian seems at a loss for words, his scarred, now webless hands curling tight around the bowl of food. He finally responds quietly, "Oh. Yeah. Got moved around with other people. Not dead. Dunno why. Not that people didn't try when they didn't want to play. So here I am." "Computer's off," Jax assures Jeremy lightly, moving his own bowl closer. "An' it don't exactly have dead people /in/ it. Just pictures, sometimes." Shane's amusement prompts a laugh of his own. "-- Kinda am a fairy," he allows, "though most people who've called me that in life ain't be so nice about it." He doesn't start eating straightaway, pausing for a brief silent moment to cross himself and bow his head over his food before he picks up his spoon. "Y'like to dance, Lia-honey?" He looks more thoughtful at this, tapping his spoon lightly against his bowl. "Could be arranged. Do y'all have any thoughts on what kinda things y'want to /do/ with yourselves now? Folks tend to go from here to all kindsa places. Go to school, find their families, find a job." His brow creases in puzzlement as Dorian speaks. "-- Who's Einen?" Sitting at the table, still wary as he slurps his food, Jeremy has a very concentrating face on as he eats carefully. There is a smile though at Shane's mimicry of his powers, then he points to Jeremy as some description is given. He takes out his notepad though, figuring it would be quicker to note it out than the signing he's still not perfect at. Scrawling on the page, he occasionally pauses as if remembering, then jots more. It looks like he was copying what some scientist would have drawn on a white board, but with even worse handwriting involved. The diagram has a spiral in the center, and written around it on the three sides are ~Thermal, full electromagnetic spectrum, sonics.~ Letting people look it over, he slurps a few more times, watching the talk of dancing directly as if trying his hardest to not listen to the being dead talk right beside him. He does however drop his spoon into the bowl with the sploosh thud of plastic to soup at the talk of going from here. "Yes?" Lia looks confused when Shane questions her about calling Jax a fairy. "He has fairy dust and knows all about flying and..." She looks even /more/ confused when Shane refers to Jax as 'Pa'. "He is your father? Then you should know this already." Her dark little brows press toward each other. "Why would people say fairy not-nice? Do they think you are the sort of fairy that steals babies and curdles milk and hides tools? I don't think you are that kind. You are too nice and pretty and shiny-light like Tinkerbell." Her opinion rests at that, moving on to the question of dancing with such excitement that she abandons her spoon to her bowl. "I like ballet the best. They only gave me a teacher at the last rooms, to see what I could teach the dolls. There were no teachers at the new rooms." She sounds extremely disappointed by this. "Could I have blue hair? His hair is so many colours." Lia gestures toward Jax's flame-hued head. "Mine is only brown." A frown tugs at her lips at Dorian's discussion of being dead. "No. Don't want Teddy to be dead. He's nice. Fuzzy." "He is my dad. And he knows so many things. But out here in the real world," Shane informs Lia cheerfully, "'fairy' is one of many derogatory names for queer-mo-sexuals. People don't say it if they mean something nice, they say it if they mean they think you're a stupid faggot and are about to punch you in the face. I bet we could give you blue hair." He glances between Jax and Lia. "-- M'gonna pick up some bleach and steal some of your dye, alright? Actually no Tag could do it easy I bet." He skewers another piece of meat, slurping it off his claw. "/All/ the EM spectrum? You eat light? Can you eat," he sounds actually excited at this prospect, waving a clawed hand towards Jax, "him?" His brows quirk up at Jeremy's spoon-dropping, but he doesn't seem to have a lot of /sympathy/ for the alarm at the talk of leaving. "Can't stay here forever, dude. Gotta get a life of your own at some point. I mean, for one thing living in these apartments forever with no way to support yourself would be boring as fuck. For another, my pa and his team are all poor. Can't just pay for a couple dozen extra people /forever/, last time around we did this, our internet got cut off and our rent was two months late. /SO/. What do you want to do next?" His head turns as his attention flicks back to Dorian, a small twist upward at the corners of his mouth. His own fingers flex, briefly. Very much still-webbed. "What are /you/ gonna do with your life now, Taggerung?" Dorian tilts his head in confusion, parroting Jax's confusion at the name, "But... he's... um, he's one of the people watching us? He observes." Dorian shudders and looks down at his food, rubbing one hand against the exposed fur on his upper arm, "Um. He has... spots. Upstairs, in 603? He was in the labs, long time ago. He remembers me." The flat tone of his voice, and the vanishing of his ears into his hair suggests that the memories are mutual, and not necessarily pleasant. He casts a lopsided grin at Lia, "Issok. I'm still here. Still fuzzy. Though... not sure where I can go from here. I was... little. When my parents sent me away. I mean. Do people actually, um, hire...?" There's a vague gesture towards his ears, his thickly furred shoulders with the question. "I'm no warrior. Cuddling and playing - not so much exactly the savage or courageous type traits," he responds to Shane's reference with a head tilt and an amused smile. Jax's brow furrows deeper with Dorian's explanation, until finally his expression evens out into neutrality. "-- Oh. His name is Parley, now." He studies the shift in Dorian's expression for a moment, and then exhales briefly, looking downwards as he takes a bite of soup and then another. "Ain't easy to find a job," he allows, "but it ain't impossible neither. Shane and Bastian both have jobs. Parley does. Dusk found work he can do from home." He's somewhat more gentle than Shane's brusque bluntness, but he does affirm it: "We can help you all find places t'go, make sure you get set up somewhere safe. Ain't quite set up to keep everyone /here/ forever." He tips his head curiously, looking between the others. "-- When was the last time any'a y'all was in school? I teach at a school, you know. For people like us. It can be a good stepping-stone in between here an' the rest'a the world. And there's dance classes," he adds to Lia with a quick smile. His cheeks have darkened slightly redder at her description of him. "Oh -- naw I ain't the baby-stealin' kinda fairy. Just the light-kind." Shaking his head in the negative, Jeremy replies in sign 'Can't eat people. Jax is people, not light. If Jax was light, yes.' He nods as if that would explain it all, and a bit of a frown as if he's done so before and puts his head down as he goes back to soup slurping, leaving the pieces too large to slurp up in the bowl. He seems deep in thought a moment, then looking back up with an inquiring look. 'What should I do?' he signs to Jax as the present figure of authority in the room. 'Few years since school, teachers didn't like wiped grades. Oops' He offers a small shrug at that, then smooshed up the bigger bits to try and make them easier to eat. Lia shakes her head at Shane's explanations, lost either in the concepts or in his colloquialisms. "No punching?" Her head tilts to one side again. "He has face spikes. Probably it is also a bad plan." One hand flutters at her face around brows, nose, and lips, indicating piercings. She bounces in her seat, excited at the idea of blue hair, though she is quickly stilled to watch with great interest as Shane /grows/ a claw. The name that Shane gives to Dorian draws a giggle from the girl's lips. "Teddy is not the warrior. He is the...teddy. For cuddles." Her nose crinkles in thought. "Are cuddles a job?" Her lips scrunch over to one side on top of the nose crinkling at all of the school talk. "I...went to school?" She offers, as much answer as question. "Times tables. Over and over. With all the numbers." "Sure, cuddles are a job," Shane agrees with a /sharp/ slice of smile, "you seen Lucien around here? Tall, blonde hair, green eyes, organizes the kitchen? He can tell you all about getting paid for cuddles." He snorts out an amused laugh at Dorian's response to the nickname. "-- YeahIknow. That was called a sarcasm. I was doing a sarcasm. It's okay, you'll pick them up eventually." He pushes his chair up onto its back legs, toes braced against the floor as he tips it back. "Pa /is/ light. You could go HOOM at him and find out. -- My school could deal with you, I'm sure. We've got a couple of electrokinetics already who don't have the greatest control all the time. You could probably join them in, uh, staying the fuck away from the computer lab." He stabs another piece of meat, this time nibbling at its edges rather than chomping the whole large piece at once. "People hire freaks," he agrees, "just not /many/ people and the jobs are usually shitty. You're probably pretty much fucked. Even more fucked since you /don't/ have an education. Might want to do that first." "P...Parley?" Dorian asks, tilting his head curiously, ears perked up at the name, "Oh. He, um, didn't introduce himself. Just made observations. Like in the labs. He's..." There's a shudder, and he moves on from that topic, frown still on his features as he thinks for a long moment, before answering Jax's question, "Um. I got expelled about two months into second grade for being a constant distraction." His voice is guilty as he admits this, poking idly at his soup, "Parents tried to have tutors for me for a while, or home school me, but there was no way they could afford it. So... um, second grade?" He facepalms at Lia's question, and Shane's response, apparently attempting to hide the faint blush rising to his cheeks, "Thats... not... I..." He looks flustered, frowning for a moment as he shakes his head, "Yeah. S'kinda what I figured. Dunno what to do from here, then. Can I still go to school? I mean, I think I would have graduated by now, if not for the whole captivity thing that ate my childhood?" Jax looks Dorian over a long while, pensive. "Ain't sure how old you are," he finally admits, "but y'probably wouldn't be the oldest person t'ever graduate. A lotta mutant kids end up havin' a real hard time stayin' in school for one reason or other. Wind up graduating way late after they finally make it down our way." He shakes his head at Jeremy's question. "I can't tell y'what you should do, honey-honey. That's your call t'make, not mine. You /should/ do whatever it is y'decide you want to do, you're free, s'your life now. My folks an' I are just here t'help you get to that once you figure it out." He eats slowly, small nibbles of chickpea and rice. "Cuddles --" His nose crinkles up. "Probably not the /best/ career path for you." His attention shifts to Lia. "Would you /like/ to go back to school?" At the pronouncement that Jax is light, Jeremy frowns and scoots away slightly, not wanting to eat the man who helped save him in the first place. He does glance between Dorian and Shane, not sure if the other boy was being sarcastic again or not. There is some thought though at being told its his decision on what to decide, and he shakes his head some more. 'I will have to think.' He nods as he gets up and heads to the trash can to scoop out the moosh he isn't in particular interest to eat and puts his plasticware in the sink, rinsing it off so it can be cleaned and reused. 'Will go read more and come back to it.' He is definitely avoiding the decision making process at that as he heads out of the kitchen. Lia nods in recognition of Shane's description of Lucien. “Pretty man. Doesn't seem very /cuddly/, though,” she assesses thoughtfully. “He cooks many good foods.” She giggles again at Shane's advice to Jeremy. “Jeremy does not /hoom/. Hoom is for Ents. Jeremy is not a tree.” Dorian's talk of tutors brings the faraway-thinking expression to Lia's face again. “I had tutors,” she adds finally. Her fingers splay across the tabletop, pressing down in patterned sequences as if there were keys there. “For music. And ballet. And 'le chat est sur la chaise'.” The little half-nonsense, oft-repeated phrase curls her lips into a smile again. “I would like to learn things again, please?” She directs this to Jax. When Jeremy leaves, she offers a little wave. "He's totally cuddly," Shane's fingers and thumb rub together in a typical 'cash' sign, "so long as you make it worth his time. -- Jim's an ent. But HOOM just sounds like something you'd do when you're --" His mouth opens again. "Sucking all the energy in." His brows furrow at Dorian's talk about school. "-- Your parents got you tutors? Thaaat doesn't sound like the sort of parents who'd just ship you off to a lab dude, maybe you should try and talk to them. Are you /sure/ they gave you up or did the labs just /tell/ you they gave you up, because poor parents who try and scrounge together money to keep you schooled aren't the ones that send you off to get tortured." He dips his head to his bowl, just chomping down some of the rest of his stew without intermediary use of claw-utensils. "What's a le-chat-sure-chase. You wanna come to school with us? We can take you. B and I will be going back in the morning." Dorian head tilts and smirks at Lia's babbled French, parroting back in quiet English, "The cat is on the chair. Kind of a normal nonsense phrase you use to teach people a second language - French, in this case." He closes his eyes and thinks for a minute, when Jax mentions his age, frowning, "I wasn't, quite 11, yet? That was... um, early 2005, maybe? So..." he pauses, apparently working through the math in his head, "19? Maybe?" There's a guilty look, at Shane's assessment, his ears droop slighly, the damaged left one twitching faintly, "They said it was a study. To help people like me. That I'd get to go to school. Parents believed them, I guess. 'Cause here I am. I... don't know how to talk to them about it? I was a kid. What'm I gonna do? Call them up and say 'hey mom and dad. guess what? You sent me away to torture labs for almost a decade, can I come home?'... it'd kill them." He frowns, and sets his spoon down in his bowl, glancing up at Jax, "Thank you. For all of this. I'll... try and find a way to get outta your hair sooner, rather than later. Just gotta... figure out what 'msposed to do now with all... this. Freedom." He sighs, standing up and bobbing his head in thanks, carrying his plate and utensils over to the sink to dispose of the leftovers and rinse the bowl out. That done, he heads back out of the apartment, likely back up to the rooftop and the cool night air. "Having kids myself --" Jax glances from Dorian over to Shane, a small touch of colour rising into his cheeks. "Not knowin' is probably killin 'em already." He lifts his hand, scuffing it through his bright red hair, a faintly weary expression slipping into his face as Dorian and Jeremy head out. "Take all the time y'need to think on it," he encourages. "Kinda the best /and/ scariest part of life outside again. Gotta make all the decisions for yourself." He turns a small smile to Lia. "If you want t'learn things, then you will. I can bring you this week if you like. Look around the school, talk to folks there. Get y'settled proper." The talk of parents and tutors and decisions to send people away to labs has Lia gnawing on her lip, though she leaves off of this when Shane asks about the French phrase. “'The cat is on the chair.' And 'the mouse is under the table.' 'The monkey is on the branch.' They teach easy things. So you can talk right to people from other places.” Her dark brown eyes widen and widen more still, as if they plan to engulf her thin face. “Go? To school? Tomorrow? Is it far away? I don't want to go away again.” A look of sudden fear darkens her expression at the thought of leaving all the /safe/ people she has now. Dorian and Jeremy. Dusk and Jax. “Go away and never come back. Too broken.” She stares down at her hands, fingers splayed on the table. “But I would like to learn.” "I go there all the time, and I'm still here too." Shane shrugs a shoulder. "S'not too far. And it's not like the other place. You don't go away forever, locked up. You just go /there/ to learn and then you can come back here other times if you like, or people can visit you there --" Another shrug. He tips the last of his stew into his mouth, pushing up from the table. "Might want to think about it, too. I mean, I dunno what /else/ you're gonna do, wander around New York like it's a freaking fairytale, I'm /pretty/ sure Disney's already /made/ that movie." He nudges his chair back in towards the table with a hip. "Like he said, though, there's time to decide."