Logs:Right Track

Right Track
Dramatis Personae Gaétan, Anthem
In Absentia	2019-05-04 "What do you want?"
Location <NYC> Subway Station - Salem Center
The terminus station of the 5 line is small, unimpressive, and conspicuously above ground. Two parallel tracks with platforms on either side are elevated about a story above the street, reachable by far too many stairs and a pair of elevators that are as often broken as not. Grimy transparent plastic canopies provide the platforms nominal shelter from the elements, but when the wind blows this is a miserable place to wait for a train. It's well before rush hour on a drizzly, chill Friday afternoon, so the trains aren't running very frequently and the platform not yet crowded with townies coming home or heading down to party in the city. A teenaged girl sits alone on one of the MTA's signature wooden benches, with its blocky arm rests that serve no purpose other than to deter anyone from lying down. She looks out of place here somehow -- might well look out of place anywhere -- despite her unremarkable attire: a black thigh-length coat, wide-leg indigo jeans, and chunky heeled boots. Perhaps it is the extreme, almost uncanny, symmetry of her pale, Nordic features. Her platinum blonde hair is pencil-straight and would be nearly waist-length if she hadn't braided it and coiled it about her neck like a second scarf nested in the ice blue one that very nearly matches her eyes. It probably doesn't help that she's carrying a backpack stuffed near to bursting and reading an ponderous hardcover copy of /Orlando Furioso/. The girl is joined on the platform soon enough. Gaétan wears a jacket of mixed denim and soft grey fabric, jeans, a black umbrella that is currently crumpled closed and slung from its strap around a wrist, still shedding water onto the platform as he walks, attention down on his phone, a guitar case held in his opposite hand. His own backpack doesn't look nearly so heavy, where it hangs slung off one shoulder. At first he walks past the girl without much notice. But then stops -- looks up from his phone screen. Looks back down, leaning up against a wall to wait. It takes a minute before he straightens up, exhaling and sticking his phone in his pocket. Turning back down the platform, he stops in front of the girl, his fingers closing tighter around the handle of his guitar case. "Hey. Um. Sorry, I know you're --" He looks at the cover of the book, lips compressing for a moment. "You're Anthem, right?" The girl looks up from her book, a guardedly blank expression on her her smooth, white face. Her eyes snap to his backpack, then back to his face. "Yes," she replies, at a delay. "What do you want?" Though the question is abrupt, her tone is fairly neutral. She mostly just sounds tired. "Nothing," Gaétan answers quickly; the answer comes with a flutter of anger that does not at all make it into his tone or expression. "I just --" His eyes dart to her backpack, now. "You look like you've packed." Anthem's expression doesn't change, though her breathing quickens slightly and her hands tighten on the book in her lap. Her eyes remain fixed on Gaétan's face, though her gaze is vacant. "I thought I should be prepared." Her shoulders hitch up very slightly; it looks less like a shrug than a very brief shudder. "Please don't tell them?" "I'm not a snitch." Gaétan's weight shifts back on a heel, something shifting a little uneasily inside him as he looks back at Anthem. "Have you been to New York before? I mean..." He sucks his cheeks inward, lets them back out again. "Do you know where you're going?" The little huff that Anthem emits...might be a laugh or an extremely quiet hiccup. "I have, last week." Her eyes drop to the book briefly before she closes it and hugs it close. "Hotel. Then a few clinics I looked up." That tiny shrug again. "/Not/ Brooklyn." The echoing huff that comes from Gaétan is more definitively a laugh, his eyes slightly wider and a short surprised bubble of amusement briefly dispelling his disquiet. "Clinics." He echoes this, eyes flicking over Anthem with more thoughtfulness this time. "I take it they wouldn't help." She shakes her head -- as with all of her body language, the movement is clipped, short. "Kept saying they /want/ to help. Useless." Her breathing grows quick again and she hugs the book tighter. The wave of quiet fury that rolls through Gaétan might well feel like his own. Anthem's eyes dart to the LED visual paging system, which is displaying arcane weekend track work information rather than anything related to the arrival of the next 5 train. "Do you have any suggestions? That don't involve a fake ID." She pauses, considering. "Or, I guess, do you know where I could get one in a hurry?" Gaétan's shoulders tense, his head shaking. "Sorry. That's pretty messed up." His brows knit together, and he opens his mouth -- then hesitates. "Wait. Get an -- unsketchy... sketchy doctor or get a fake ID?" He glances up towards the board, too, then sets his backpack down. "...I know where you can find both." The twitch of Anthem's lips might -- almost -- be a smile. "Sure. Why not both?" Gaétan laughs, softly. There's a returning creep of tension that has settled through him, but quiet, a sort of background hum that hasn't affected the quick small smile he gives Anthem, the gradual /relaxing/ of his posture as he nudges his backpack toward the edge of the bench to sit down as well. "I know some people who help with this kind of thing." His heel scuffs against the floor, his eyes fixing out towards the tracks. "I mean, not /only/ this kind of thing. They just. Help people. Who're getting screwed by regular clinics. Like my brother..." He flicks a brief sideways glance to Anthem. "...Matt. When he had cancer for a long time. They helped a lot. I can introduce you." He swallows, a sudden flush in his cheeks. A sudden flush of -- discomfort? Unhappiness? Shivering through him. "To the guy who runs the clinic. Not my brother." Anthem turns slightly in her seat when Gaétan sits down beside her, but doesn't quite face him. Her eyes go a bit wide when he cites his brother's prior experiences as testimonial to the Guy He Knows. She sucks in a sharp breath, as though she'd been without air for too long. The ripple of guilt-ridden panic from her more or less coincides with his own pain, magnifying it to rather unpleasant effect. When both subside, she says. "You're Gaétan Tessier." Her voice is tentative, but there's no /question/ in her tone. "Please. It would help. A lot.." She licks her lips. Her voice, when she speaks again, is very quiet. "I don't really know what I'm doing." Gaétan's eyes widen at the sudden ripple. His hands curl against his knees, his own breath catching in time with the one that Anthem sucks in. In the sudden amplified wave, the stab of grief that washes through him might get lost in the noise. It takes a few seconds before he lets his breath back out, nodding. He takes out his phone, eyes dropping to it as he taps at the screen. (Gaétan --> Desi): Hey I need a favor (Desi --> Gaétan): What is it? (Gaétan --> Desi): Can I bring someone to crash at your dorm (Gaétan --> Desi): Maybe for the weekend at least (Gaétan --> Desi): She's running away from school but she's rich so I'm sure her backpack has like (Gaétan --> Desi): twenty books and zero tampons (Desi --> Gaétan): Let me check with Alice, but probably yes. (Desi --> Gaétan): Is this Measles Girl, by any chance? (Gaétan --> Desi): She doesn't have measles (Gaétan --> Desi): YET (Gaétan --> Desi): Honestly we're about to get on the train so it's only a matter of time (Gaétan --> Desi): Anyway she wanted help dealing with the measles problem (Gaétan --> Desi): But I thought that taking her straight to East New York would be kind of culture shock because again, she's rich (Gaétan --> Desi): Then I thought I'd take her to Taylor and then I remembered he's Taylor and she's been here all of two minutes (Gaétan --> Desi): So I figured your couch would be nice and safe (Gaétan --> Desi): Ion will still be Ion but that can't really be helped (Desi --> Gaétan): Alice says it's fine, but she's not babysitting. (Desi --> Gaétan): Anyway, bring her by. I'll make sure there's clean bedding and food that isn't just slightly wilty greens. (Desi --> Gaétan): Is this to be kept on the QT from the Elder Brothers? (Gaétan --> Desi): Thanks where would we be without you (Gaétan --> Desi): Full of measles I guess (Gaétan --> Desi): I told her I wouldn't snitch (Gaétan --> Desi): I'm guessing that means telling Matt is in a grey area (Gaétan --> Desi): I don't know how to explain to anyone that he's barely a teacher (Desi --> Gaétan): Need-to-know basis, then. It takes a bit before he looks back up. "My sister's in college in the city. She says you can crash at her dorm tonight while we get in touch with our -- friend." He bites down on his lip, looking down at his hands where they still clench his knees. "Yeah. This just. All sucks. But you don't have to do it alone."