ArchivedLogs:Incognito, Ergo Sum

Incognito, Ergo Sum
Dramatis Personae Ryan?, Ryan??, Hive, Flicker, Steve, Taylor, Matt, Shane, B, Horus, Ryan
In Absentia	2017-08-22 "There's no place better than with friends to spend a birthday."
Location <NYC> Rock Bottom - East Village, <NYC> {Birdhaus} - Harbor Commons - Lower East Side
<NYC> Rock Bottom - East Village The outside of this sizeable establishment is perennially wallpapered with colorful posters for shows, concerts, and parties. Inside, everything is painted black, though intermittently decorated with art (either seasonal or specific to an event). The floor space is about half bar and half performance space, the former somewhat crowded with tables and the latter wide open except for the stage and a somewhat creaky balcony with somewhat creaky seats. A wide variety of local musicians perform here Wednesday through Saturday nights, and the rest of the week it's open just as a bar with a particularly large dance floor. Tuesday night hasn't stopped it from being a ridiculous crowd. Most of the tables pushed aside to make extra standing room in the sold-out house. There's been a break after the opening act -- an industrial rock band fronted by a woman with a haunting voice and shimmering opalescent skin. In the interim the stage has been busy with techs, clearing down one set, putting up a second. The general conversational hubbub of the audience erupts into wilder cheering -- stomping, applause, hoots, quite a few cries of "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" or "I LOVE YOU" -- when the lights go down, come back up again on one very familiar face -- black and white skinny jeans, tall boots, a silvery-black mesh muscle shirt, silver and black electric violin tucked beneath his chin. "I tell you what, New York --" Ryan's voice is a familiar one, too, just before his bow is set to strings with a flourish, the opening strains of "Out Loud" drawing another cheer from the audience, "there's no place better than with friends to spend a birthday." <NYC> {Birdhaus} - Harbor Commons - Lower East Side This house does not, perhaps, look much like what many people would think when they think of the home of a rock star. Modest and not flashy in a normal sense, it is nevertheless /eye/-catching -- huge tall ceilings, huge tall windows, wide open layout, a balcony from the second floor looking down on the first. Its walls have been studded with a number of long branch-like poles jutting out at angles; from the ceiling hang a few different trapeze-like swings. The furniture is minimalist, low-slung futons and a few overly enormous puffy beanbags, tables set low to the ground. The extravagant entertainment system is the one concession to ostentation. Most of the ground floor is open in layout, foyer opening up into a huge living room, kitchen and dining rooms adjoining it, a small sunny conservatory tucked to the other side of the living room that looks out over the river, a wide full bath off the conservatory. The three bedrooms off the balcony upstairs each have their own bathrooms. There's another full bath and separate smaller kitchen in the basement, together with two spare guest bedrooms and a somewhat cluttered soundproofed room full of musical equipment. On the television, volume down low, a concert is in full swing. A lot of the audience is singing along with "Unruly", cheerfully raucous -- -- in contrast to the relative peace in here. There's a cake on the table, and Ryan is just settling down into a beanbag with a slice, comfortably dressed in a soft red tee and black plaid shorts."I'm thinking maybe /Brooklyn Nine-Nine/ marathon? Not," brightly, "that this isn't great.” "Your birthday, dude. You call the shots." Hive is draped over Flicker on the couch. Not watching the concert. Not watching /anything/, actually, because his eyes are closed and aside from the sleeping he looks largely asleep. His own slice of cake sits untouched on his chest. "Unless those shots are terrible." Flicker is /quick/ to add this. He rests his glass of soy milk carefully on Hive's head as he cuts a slice of (Hive's) cake to eat. "If you vote /Community/ again I'm vetoing." "I, at least, will watch anything you like." Steve is sitting on an arm of the couch, already most of the way through his rather generous slice of cake. "Tonight, at least. Anything you want -- even peace and quiet, improbable as that may seem." "Improbable? Around here?" Taylor is draped over the back of the couch. En route to the kitchen? From the kitchen? He has a mug in his hand but has been waylaid by conversation and vaguely absent concert-watching; he hasn't moved from his slumpy looselimbed drape for quite some time. "C'mon, who exemplifies peace and quiet more than us? /Uh/ though on that note," wide-eyed, "if that's what you're looking for tonight just lemme yoink my present from your pile reeeal quick we might want to hold off on it till some other day." Matt's wheeling himself into the living area, cake balanced in his lap and a steaming mug in one hand. He parks his bone wheelchair next to the couch and glances sideways at Ryan, his expression difficult to read. Faintly amused, perhaps? "Peace and quiet," he echoes, as if turning the words over for consideration. "Anything is possible. Maybe just put on 'Planet Earth', bring up the mood lighting, have a slumber party." On one beanbag there is a puddle of sharkpup. Not yet availing themselves of any cake, still stuck on working their way through Indian takeout. Dressed alike in lightweight hiking shorts (one black, one grey) and no shirts, at the moment one twin is stretching over the other to snag some lamb rogan josh out of their shared bowl. Lazily, thing 2 just burrows closer to their sibling, gills slowly fluttering. "Lord knows you could use some rest. Sleep is good. And pretty things." "Your face is good," Thing 1 adds. Maybe to Ryan. Maybe to otherSharkpup. S'hard to tell. Skewering a piece of lamb, they drop it into their twin's mouth. "Mmm." Muffled, through a mouthful of foods. Thing 2 tosses the remote over to Ryan. Swallowing, peering around: "Hey, where's Horus?" <???> Far away from there Overhead, the stars are glittering brilliantly, sprinkled dense against the clear dark backdrop of unclouded night sky. Nearby a stream gurgles -- crickets chirp -- some night-bird's cry just before a rustle and a snap signals the unfortunate end of their prey. Horus's warbling is soft, against these other gentle noises. A quiet burble, a soft rustling of feathers as he shifts on a tree branch, flutter-hops down to where a hammock has been stretched between two trunks, nestles himself tucked in close against Ryan's side. His beak pokes up at the sky, sketching a wobbly cross out above them. "Nah, dude. You make a way prettier bird than Cygnus. Swans got nothing on you. Not even celestial ones." Despite the ruffling of feathers, Horus's soft twittering does not sound /entirely/ convinced. Ryan just chuckles, soft, as he curls an arm around the other man and settles more comfortably into the hammock. "Which of the two of you's gone out of your way to be here with me tonight? Twenty seven years I've been around and I've sure never met a better bird." This, at least, settles Horus down. He reaches down to gently set a wayward lock of Ryan's hair neatly in place before his head nestles down -- into his feathers, against Ryan's side -- huge eyes fixing up on the stars above.