ArchivedLogs:Cat Bait

Cat Bait
...in ur base eatin ur sammiches...
Dramatis Personae Ivan, Violet
In Absentia	2014-06-17 '
Location Docks, NYC
Night shifts are nice, aren’t they? The world’s hum fades to a distant roar, and everything seems cooler, quieter. Maybe even cleaner, although clean is a relative concept down on the docks, where odd smells are the norm and rough, callous-building work the rule. Odd smells and hard work aside, there’s a charm to working in cool darkness and the yellow glow of lamps, where lunch can be taken sitting on a pier looking out over water colored and sparkling by the city’s lights. Provided, of course, that one /has/ a lunch. For the past several nights, Ivan has suffered the misfortune of having his lunch taken. Not just nibbled on, as might happen were a rat to get to it in his locker, or the storage boxes down near the big tankers and container ships that constantly stream through. No, these lunches have been taken entirely, not even a crumb left to mope over. Once, an apple was left behind, but mostly they’ve just vanished. Gone. Stolen. /Purloined/. Or...purrloined? Because tonight, the lunch thief--though she may not know it--is going to be caught. It is 3AM. Time for hard-working young men to enjoy the fruits of their labor. And Violet, who intends to enjoy those same fruits through a different sort of labor, is creeping out from between two immense metal storage containers to creep through alternating pools of light and shadow towards the door meant to keep people out of the dockworker’s break room. The room where the lockers are. The room where the security camera has been out for months, and no one is actually breaking because most of the other guys have set out a folding table beneath one of the lamps out on the pier, to take advantage of the balmy night and the chance to smoke while laying down a few hands. She’s dressed all in black as all good thieves prefer. Black hoodie, black jeans, her face and hands and bare feet all black too save for the occasional glint of orange or cinnamon where light catches a less abyssal patch of fur. Her eyes, however, those gleam as she listens for a moment at the break room door...and then eases it open in order to prowl inside. And prowl she /does/, actually slinking down on hands and feet to navigate the room towards the bank of faded silver and blue lockers that lines one wall. Behind her, her tail trails in a lazily swishing pattern--not the agitated lashing of a cat on a proper hunt, but the contented sway of a feline who /knows/ her next meal will come easily. One particularly scratched up silver locker is... not doing its job incredibly well. It's been in a much better state, and a dent in its swinging door prevents the locking mechanism to hook shut upon closing, leaving it with one top corner sticking slightly out and the contents ready for the taking. It should probably be fixed, but hey, it's probably one of the lockers assigned to the newbies, so who cares. As if to add to its state of disrepair, a cockroach appears to have decided to sit right at the locker's base, wedged against the bottom of the cold metal door, and not moving beyond the occasional twitch-a-twitch of its long antennae. But the cockroach is not the only other thing in the room. Within the the darkest blotches of the room, on the edge of one of the storage containers that the light from outside does not reach, sits something else. Something person-sized, bundled up in a black pea coat, head dipped. Looking suspiciously much like it might be an Ivan. And sitting suspiciously still. He might have missed half of his shift to climb up here and wait. And he may have fallen asleep while doing the latter. Just maybe. Cockroaches are a given. And a bonus, occasionally! Though with the prospect of human-made food on the horizon, Violet doesn’t trouble herself with what would be a single skittery bite, She ignores the wag-wag of antennae as she eeeeeeases up to the locker, still clinging low against the floor. Really, she should attend to the room’s corners. It would be such a simple thing to swing those night-light eyes in the direction of each one, tick, tick, tick, tick. Or even to put her hood down, free her ears and have a listen. Or a sniff! A sniff of the air, a quick tang of male sleep-sweat and she would be out the door in the time it takes to say, “Hiss!” But the young woman does none of these things. Easy takings for several days means overconfidence. Heedless of the risk of cockroach smushing, Violet pours herself into a crouched but more upright position and hooks a single claw around the gapped edge of the locker’s door. There is a metal grumble, a shudder, a light squeal as it is drawn open and then a rustle as that single hand dips into to feel about for the bounty that she knows to be there. But thought the cockroach lacks movements at first, when the door begins to open it suddenly springs to life and /skitters/-- head first into another locker at first, then zooming 'round like a miniature bumper car and straight into the darkness of another corner. At the same time, Ivan begins to stir from his sleep. His head lifts, tired eyes open under a mess of curls, blinking blearily as they track a path directly to Violet. Sticking her hand into /his/ locker. But this is the extent of his movement, while he waits for her to find - on a shelf just over a hung up raincoat - that familiar bounty. Tinfoil wrapped sandwich of the day: tuna. And... cucumber? There are two shiny wrapped bundles, today. Violet is not so lackadaisical about security that she doesn’t freeze at the roach’s flight. Utter stillness, save for her eyes, is immediate as is the puffing up of fur beneath her clothes, and on her face. Fwoomph, she’s a big cat, and not to be bothered with! A fact the cockroach seems to understand. It’s skittering flight is tracked as far as night vision allows but as tempting as it might be to pounce and chase...there is food underhand. Not one foods but two foods! Giving a contented little sniff--that’s right, she’s a fierce hunt--she resumes her hand-patting to draw out first the sandwich, which goes right into the belly pocket of her hoodie, and then the second package, which she hangs onto. Overconfidence has its limits. It becomes clear, the way she backs from the locker and hunkers down again that the prowler has no intention of remaining to eat her prizes. But a few seconds can be spared. Long enough to pick at the foil covering with a tick-tick-crumple of claws peeling up tin to determine the contents. "Do not run." Ivan's voice comes calmly, clearly, and without warning, as hoarse as his Russian accent is thick. He still hasn't quite moved, but his head angles slowly one way as he watches on, curiously. His tone of voice remains flat, despite his words, "That one is mine." Two more cockroaches fall down from just beside him, as if he were sitting in a /mess/ of the things, hitting the ground just as... more somethings begin to move. All around. More cockroaches atop the lockers spring to life, perhaps out of sight, but /skittering/. Moths flicker in and out of the light as they leave the slightly damp walls they were clinging to, ignoring the draw of outside lamps to dart hither and thither. What he says and what he means are processed separately--that one is his? Violet leaves that on the back burner because generally, when advised not to run, running is /just/ what she should be doing. Except the room is roiling with fresh insecty life, more movement and sound than she’d anticipated just a second ago, and that leads into a different mode. She displays. The bounce to her feet happens even before those Russian-flavored words have finished, leading to a smoothly oiled bouncing back and sideways, shoulder turned towards him. It’s a shift that would work if she were a quadraped with a back to arch and a tail to go straight up. Not being that thing, it means she simply looks rather larger as fur pushes up against clothing, and narrower too. Less of a target. Pussyfooting does not come with this package though prancing, dancing feet might risk the stomping of several of those roaches. To finish the effect, eyes are narrowed, ears pressed back to her skull beneath her hood, and teeth flash white and sharp as she opens her mouth to /hiss/ at the clump of shadow in Ivan’s hideyspot. Oh yeah, and she hangs onto the second wrapped bundle, tightly enough and with both hands that it’s probably squashed now, so sorry. Ivan's eyes widen, just as the movement of all of the insect and arachnid life in (and around?) the room flts about a little more chaotically for a moment, as if it was all startled at once. Several more roaches fall down around him, but skitter away underneath the container, as though in fear, as soon as they manage to flip themselves upright and tuck their wings back in place. "... Okay. You can have both." He shifts his weight, now, arms lifting to become less of just a... black mess of coat with a head on it, and more of a person leeaaning slowly forward to plant both hands onto the metal edge of the container while peering uncertainly downwards as if wondering just how good of an idea it was to climb up there in the first place. "Can... you help me." ...what? It’s difficult to say which stops Vi in her tracks more: the easy allowance that all of the foods are hers, or the request for assistance after. He...he...what? Confusion leads to a high and trailing end to the growling that had swelled within chest and throat, a sad, garbled finish followed by silence. Her eyes do not /un/-narrow, nor does her posture shift, but Ivan has at least won a few more seconds of interview. “You…” That syllable comes out clotted, more cat than human as adrenaline lingers. She pauses until her throat is under more conscious control before continuing. The seat of her pants shows continued agitation while the young woman ponders, tail still compelled to lash. But when Violet speaks again, there’s more Southern than “die human” in her voice. “Help you down?” Just to be certain. And also for clarification, “They yours?” The bugs. An immediate and somewhat exaggerated nod is the only answer Violet gets from Ivan when he is asked the first question. He stands then, slowly, to calmly and ineffectively brush some grime off of his jeans. When he looks back toward the lunch-thief, it is with a furrowed brow that might mean disapproval just as easily as confusion. "They are... from here." He replies, finally, with all the eloquence of someone who has yet to turn on the English part of their brain properly. His attention switches to a wooden crate, just out of reach for someone with less than stellar agility to jump onto from where he stands. And then, his eyes land on Violet again, for him to state matter-of-factly, "But they listen." And within the same breath, "I thought you would be bigger." And as if that's their cue, the skittering of tiny bodies and legs calms, somewhat, retreating back into cracks and crevices, settling on walls and lockers and - in the case of one particularly poorly coordinated moth - on Violet's shoulder. When she snorts, it sounds more like a delicate cat sneeze than a snort. Snrf. But Violet doesn’t otherwise dignify the bigger remark with a response. Instead, she shoves the second sandwich in with its compatriot, making the hoodie’s pouch bulge. Just as smoothly, her newly freed hand swats down on her shoulder. Fwap, the moth is captured, and fwip, into her mouth it goes. Not once do her eyes leave Ivan’s while this sacrilege is performed. /That/, for his scaring her. Still munching--a tickly leg picked free of her lips and flicked off--she turns and advances on the container. It takes, literally, a hop for speed, a skip for height and a jump to let her bounce off floor, wall and then hook her hands over the top of the box, whereupon she pulls herself the rest of the way up. Beside him now. Smaller than expected, okay, but smooth and coordinated too. A graceful murderer. “Hands,” Vi instructs, turning her own up to accept his after crouching down. The pads of her fingers are visible, bubblegum pink, through sworls of thicker fur. The intention is clear--she’ll swing him down there, sure. If there is any internal reaction from Ivan while the moth is up and gobbled, it does not make it to his face beyond just the weakest squint. It is WEIRD, just... maybe not as weird as to unnerve him too much, at this stage in his life. But her arrival on top of the container gets more of a reaction out of him - sending him stumbling backwards as both his eyebrows and shoulders roll upwards in surprise and preparation for... something. Defense? It takes him a few seconds to steady himself properly, while his eyes unapologetically picking over Vi's clothes, face, and then hands. Lingering on the hands. After several more seconds of that, he nods firmly, begins to lower himself near the edge, and obliges. Hands. Sure. Hell of a trust exercise. He looks only marginally concerned, though two bobblyheaded spiders choose /that/ very moment to crawl out of his hair, onto a temple, and BAIL, jumping off and into the darkness on thin, thin webby safety lines. He can stare all he likes; Violet waits patiently for compliance, eyes still wide, pupils still immense. This is...every bit as much a trust exercise for her but she shows it only in that look, not the lazy coil of her body. When trust pays off, and her fingers lock strong and sure around his wrists instead of his hands, the lowering begins. At least she is considerate enough to keep her claws /sheathed/, though Ivan will be able to see their tips poking free of those fur tufts. The way down is slower than that taken by spiders on safety lines--the cowards--but no less certain. Braced back on her haunches, Vi displays the strength and flexibility her easy movements promised. Down, down, down he goes, and if his front scrapes the side of the container, that isn’t /her/ fault. Dropping him, though, when his feet dangle two feet above the ground--the point where bending becomes a risk for toppling--is her fault, though. At least she warns him with a terse, “Stay loose,” before her hands release the young man? Generous. And the way he lands back on the ground, tense, peering down immediately, might imply he expected to dropped from further up. His hands are briefly stared at, turned over, before his gaze lifts to Violet again. "Thank you." And thus the staring continues, as he takes a few steps back to facilitate his staring more comfortably, and slowly lowers his hands to stuff them into the pockets of his coat. After a narrowing of his own eyes in thought, he adds collectedly, "... Chicken, or ham?" Never. Ever. Get into a staring contest with a cat. They are good with the staring and in their minds, it is an automatic win even if they blink and look away--because in their world, those are happy signs. Though...that doesn’t happen. Not for Ivan, nope. Violet curls her hands over the container’s edge, between her spread feet, her sharply bent knees. She is gargoyling at him. But. She will allow, through a slight narrowing of eyes, that he is amusing with these unexpected questions. “Fried chicken. Ham in sandwiches.” And cucumber? No thank you. A quick tug produces the slightly squished bundle, to be tossed down towards him. Only after he’s stuffed his hands away though. Of course. Either way, Ivan doesn't seem overly concerned with winning staring contests. And loses this one. His attention switches all too easily to the discarded sandwich, and once it's rolled to a stop, he takes his hands back OUT of those pockets and picks it up. And starts to, very slowly, unravel the crinkles foil from around the foodstuffs. "I have not seen you before." The information her answer provided him with is, apparently, stored but not put to use quite yet. Four halved slices in each sammich packet, it seems, and the top half of the cucumber one has been all but destroyed. He picks at it for a little bit, lifts a salvageable piece into his mouth, and then carefully tears a more squished part of bread loose from the rest, to throw it to the side. Littering! ... Sort of. Within seconds, there is a tiny, rattling hiss of movement again, and as soon as their tiny legs will allow it, the slice of bread is /swarmed/ by roaches big and small. Had he thrown the bread /before/ the staring contest ended, he might have won. That roiling mess of roaches is a perfect snare for Vi’s attention. Her head ducks, her pupils swallow each iris again and she /stares/ at the bugs. All that’s missing is a butt-wiggling prelude to a pounce--but then she collects herself and snortsneezes at the young man again. A quick shift lands rear end on container metal, legs swung out over the edge to leave bare feet dangling. Toe-claws are more visible and more ragged than their sheathed finger brethren, showing the signs of splits and tears. She swings then, heels thumping against the metal side, careless now. “Seen you,” she counters while digging out her own foil packet. The unrepentant thief adds in a drawl, “You give good lunch. Keep to yourself. Didn’t figure you for…” Y’know. Mmm, sandwich. Tastes like stolen. And Ivan seems almost more alert for her added carelessness, standing in the midst of the uninviting room, holding what's left of his sandwiches in one hand. Paying no attention at all to the small swarm of life he's just summoned off to the side of him. Violet's unfinished sentence is not helped along by him, because apparently more important matters are rolling around in his head. She's seen him? He squints up at her face, for a moment, before a free hand comes up to rub a palm at his eyes. Nocturnal he is not. "Are you..." A pause. "Do you sleep /here/?" “You think I’m really gonna answer that?” The tuna and bread that she’s in the process of masticating makes the question a little garbled but no less amused. “C’mon now.” A finger is wagged at him. For shame. But on the heels of scolding comes a compliment. The sandwich, already missing several hefty bites, is lifted in a salute. “S’good. Nice of you. Bringing along an extra, I mean.” Though the gleam in Violet’s eyes, pure mischief now, tells that she might well think it less nice than simply a matter of not wanting to go with stomach unfilled, on his part. “I’m Vi. Violet. Sounds like you’re not from ‘round either, yeah? You got one of them...exotic accents. Like German or something. You German?” Ivan shifts his weight, picking some cucumber off of his sandwich to eat while he listens and watches this stranger. Now, a stranger with a name. He starts to meander, then, towards the mass of cockroaches fighting for a prime spot to nibble on the discarded bit of sandwich. Another squished piece of bread is dropped right next to it as he strolls past, and is immediately /covered/ by a number of the critters. Russians words always flow much more easily than English for Ivan, and in this case they do so with just a hint of a smirk as he peers back up, "{Do you really think I'm going to answer /that/?}" And, a little more incredulously, "{/German/. Am I eating a strudel, or what.}" It’s easier to ignore the roach swarm this time. There is ample tuna sandwich left to munch on, which Violet continues with while Ivan feeds his...pets. When he stops to look up at her with that look on his face, she does pause between bites to return the peering. Down and down and down she looks, her cheek bulging occasionally where she appears to be trying to tongue out a stuck lump of soggy bread and fishy stuff from her teeth. It is clear the catgirl is debating with herself before she answers that stream of what sounds, to her ears, like nonsense syllables. Her feet stop their swinging, that muffled fur-against-metal thump thump thump coming to a halt. “That’s German for no, then?” At this, Ivan freezes. As if Violet's ignorance runs deeper than he could possibly imagine, and it's just... plain STOPPED his brain. He stands, over the slow writhing mess of brown and black bodies pushing and shoving for a it of food, unblinking while he continues staring upward with his already weak smirk fading steadily away. Pondering something, perhaps, considering a slow curl inward of his fingers. Whatever it is, he chooses to say instead, "Russian. Ivan." Pronounced the American way. Because why confuse her further. If he looks carefully, he might see a twitch occurring in the region of her lips. Something very much like a smile, partially hidden by dark fur and darker shadows. “Oh right, sure, /Russian/. I knew it was something like that,” Violet claims. “Nice to meet you, Russian Ivan. You make a mean sandwich.” Pronounced the Southern way, he becomes Ahvahn. There’s nothing left of hers, of course, save for a few crumbs. These she diligently works to brush away from her hands, with more time paid to the mouth region. Brush brush, groom groom, smooth smooth. Engaged in this, her eyes shift idly back to the lump o’ bugs again. “Guess I can start peeking in other folks’ lockers.” "My mother makes a mean sandwich." ... If ever it was clear someone has never used 'mean' in this context before, it is in the way Ivan says this. His head angles to one side as Violet rids herself of crumbs, but then his attention, too, is directed downwards. All at once, the cockroaches /scatter/-- but only for a second. Then, they all stay still roughly the same distance from their nibbled bits of bread. Ivan moves forward to kick, carefully, the bits of bread toward the shipping containers. Mindful to avoid stepping on any of his 'pets', he moves past them and then nudges the last bit of food underneath the shipping container. Only then do the cockroaches start to move again, beelining in a RACE toward their scraps - some flying, some crawling around or /over/ Ivan's shoes. As they do so, his eyes follow their paths. Until he states, utterly flatly, "No more stealing from lockers." Skittering! Her kryptonite! All of that scurrying movement down below provides ample distraction for Violet. She leaaaaaans over and observes with interest, head moving sharply as she tracks this bug or that one. In time with those twitches and jerks, her tail begins to swing behind her, a furry lash unleashed to the rhythm of hunting instincts. But… Before interest becomes action, before she can pounce, a line is drawn in the sand. Ivan, once more, becomes the subject of those glowing orange eyes. This time, she does not smile. An inquisitive sound is made, a sort of subaudibal, “prrt?” Really? He’s going to dictate that? “...you volunteering to feed me, then?” Ivan IS going to dictate that, apparently, because look. Look at his serious face when he stares back up. LOOK AT i-- oh wait. Wait. Gotta stifle a yawn first. Okay, now look at his serious face. "They will use a camera, if they find things missing. You are quiet, but you are not invisible." His eyebrows knit together, and he stuffs what's left of his crinkled, tinfoil lunch into a coat pocket. Then, he simply shrugs. "You need food. I have food. I will bring more." And so they are back to their staring contest. Hopefully he realizes that by yawning, Violet wins. But also by yawning, he is giving certain cat language cues that leave her more favorably inclined towards the young man. It does help that there is food on offer, of course. The combination of the two steals the edge of the catgirl’s own staring, leaves a smile ghosting over dark lips again. “Deal,” Vi declares, without negotiation. She locks her arms, hands braced on the container, and lifts her rump just enough to curl her legs up beneath her. A second later, and she’s leapt over his head in the direction of the door--a leap that ends with her straightening smoothly to tidy the fur beneath the angle of her jaw. “See you, Russian Ivan,” she bids him goodnight with a look back, a flick of her tail. The smile is not returned, and Ivan instead looks... vaguely confused, his eyes flicking to the side momentarily. As though he didn't expect his offer of charity to be accepted quite so easily. Perhaps this is why he's easily taken by surprise when she up and leaps overhead, causing him to steel himself for /nothing/ with a sharp inhale and a shift of weight in order to turn and face her again. Hands balled into fists out of an errant reflex, but slowly unfurling. "{Good night, Vi the cat.}"