ArchivedLogs:Spinning

Spinning
Dramatis Personae Jackson, Shelby
In Absentia	2013-04-17 '
Location <NYC> Tompkins Square Park - East Village
Small but popular, this tree-lined park is a perfect centerpiece to the eclectic neighborhood it resides in. Home to a number of playgrounds and courts from handball to basketball, it also houses a dog park and chess tables, providing excellent space for people watching -- especially during its frequent and often eccentric festivals, from Wigstock to its yearly Allen Ginsberg tribute Howl festival. It is dark and it is a gorgeous evening and there are people out. These three things in combination leads one money-hungry little teenager into the city tonight. Shelby comes armed not with her guitar but with her poi and a little cd player that she got from who knows where. It's not /quite/ warm enough, even with her fire-dancing antics, to have gone for the risque outfit, but she's done the best she can--skinny jeans and cropped, layered tank tops that cling to the body. Her hair is secured into two sloppy buns to either side of the nape of her neck beneath a white handkerchief, to avoid the risk of setting herself on fire. Notice the upside hat set on the sidewalk before her patch of grass. This is where donations should go and have been going, to judge by the jumble of bills inside. It's impossible to tell how long she's been dancing but the swirling lines of fire Shelby is dancing around at cord-length cast off light that show that she's /bathed/ in sweat. The kid's not bad either--she's spiral-wrapping and butterfly weaving with the best of them, all to the tune of some ethereal techno cranked up on the CD player. Somewhere behind a number of onlookers who have gathered, Jax is watching, too. He's dressed as he has been all day, black capris, red straps dangling from them, thick black wrist cuffs studded with silver D-rings, 'All my heroes have FBI files' t-shirt, red-and-black-and-neonyellow plaid knee-high socks. His hair does not follow theme, streaked in bright green and pink. He watches for a while before slipping through the people to drop a five into the hat. Who could miss Jax in a crowd? Not even Shelby, occupied though she is. When she spies the young man there watching, the fire poi go into a stall--but fortunately she's able to recover quickly and continue with the routine. It is perhaps less technically proficient than it was before but the song is winding to a close. She finishes with a flourish, breathing hard and taking a bow in the face of general applause. Most people are content to move on. A few linger to offer up compliments--or critique, in the case of one thirtysomething pair of hippies--but eventually she's left free, the poi extinguished, the hat gathered up. Her expression is /far/ too casual to be entirely honest as she sidles Jax. "Hey." "I lit my hair on fire with some of those once," Jackson informs Shelby, nodding to the poi. "But uh I kinda suck you're pretty good! How long you been doing that?" He has one hand resting on the top of his FreakAngels messenger bag, his other toying restlessly with one of the straps hanging from his pants. One sooty hand gestures at her head, concealed beneath its sweat-drenched kerchief. Shelby's grin is (briefly) authentic. "You gotta take precautions, man. No tips if you fuck it up." She is smoothing and folding those tips together as she speaks. It's not a bad haul, though she's having some trouble squeezing the loose change into the pockets of her skinny jeans. The bills are folded into a tight roll and stuffed without shame beneath her tank tops, presumably into her bra. "A couple years now. Picked it up down in Florida, it's big in the beach scene there. How're you?" "Yeah, I didn't, uh, I wasn't gettin' no tips, there was just some guys who had --" Jackson's cheeks flush slightly and he shakes his head. His hand lifts to brush hair back from his face, his other still fidgeting twitchily. "I'm, uh." He answers this with a shrug, an absent rock-bounce of weight from heel to toe, toe toe heel. "You doin' aright?" "A really big dick?" Shelby suggests into the self-interruption. This is deliberate profanity, chosen because she has noticed all of this fidgeting and rocking and toying restlessly. They all signal /trouble/, so she falls into what might best be described as fuck the world teenassholery--irreverent and devil may care. "Been better," she admits with a shrug. "Sooo...how pissed are you?" Jackson's blush deepens, his head shaking emphatically. "/No/, we were at a -- wait, why am I mad?" He stops his rocking, settling down solidly on the chunky platforms of his sneakers. His brows knit together in distinct confusion. "-- Pissed at /you/? What did you do?" "Cheated on my homework, kissed Hive, broke up with Bastian, and gave Professor Logan a double-bird and called him a douchenozzle," Shelby ticks off on her fingers. There's some bluster to this, a distinct lack of contrition complete with chin-toss and shoulder squaring. "-- Oh." For a moment that is all, as Jackson's cheeks puff out, blowing out a sharp breath. "Right. That. I expect the school's takin' care'a half of those." Which he doesn't sound /particularly/ pleased about, either. "M'I supposed to be mad? Getting mad gonna change all that?" "Yeah," she says sharply, "some bitch ass teacher shot me in the face with a water gun." It is not difficult to tell Shelby's opinion of /this/ form of discipline. But it's not nearly as heated as one might expect. The other half of those, right? She's watching Jax closely. "You lasered a dude's balls off for fucking your kid. I didn't know what you'd do, me breaking his heart or cheating or whatever. I was kinda figuring you'd be pissed, yeah." "-- What." Jackson's eyebrows raise. "A water gun, what -- /why/?" His hands scrub through his hair, a motion as fidgety-restless as the others. "It's -- not really the /same/. I ain't gonna castrate you cuz your relationship ended -- /uh/, not that that's -- even /possible/ with -- I mean maybe it is actually I don't know I mean I ain't never /asked/ you if --" Right, not the /point/, Jax; he stops with a wrinkle of his nose to ask instead: "I do -- um. I do want to -- I gotta know, though, when -- when was the last time you saw Bastian?" "You could cut off my tits," Shelby says, as if this is the reasonable assumption to make. "Not that it'd make much difference, but..." She shifts on her feet and looks off into the gloom of the park. It's the only thing that allows her to continue with her too cool for school act. "...saw him Saturday. At Evolve." "Saturday. Was that when --" Jackson hesitates, for a moment distinctly uncomfortable; when he continues it's almost apologetic. "-- You don't -- got any idea where he was headed after Evolve, do you?" Shelby hooks her thumbs in empty belt loops. She's cooling off now, the sweat drying on her skin leading to a shiver--but she holds the not really paying attention pose. "Yeah. I dunno, I figured him and Shane'd go back into the water, that's where they--wait." Her brow rumples and she finally looks hard at Jax. "What happened?" "Nothing." Jackson shakes his head quickly. "I don't know. Nothing. I just -- just can't find 'em. I just wanted to check in, I -- if either of 'em get in touch with you can you -- tell me? I mean they don't gotta come home I just want -- just want to know." "Bullshit." Shelby takes two steps closer to him, all traces of adolescence idiocy gone. "What the fuck happened, Jax? What do you mean you can't find them? Don't they like, text you every day? Wait...when was the last time /you/ heard from them?" "/Nothing/," Jackson says more insistently, and this time it's a little edged, not angry but sort of ragged. "Nothing, I don't -- I don't /know/ just nobody's seen 'em in -- they ain't messaged /me/ since they decided not to come back I ain't -- but nobody's seen 'em 'cept you and Eric and I don't -- I just want to know they're safe. If you hear from them can you --" He stops for a moment, pauses, continues on more evenly: "I just want to know." It doesn't take long for Shelby to put two and two together, in spite of Jackson's stubbornness. When she does, her face twists up in a look of pure pain. But what escapes her lips is fit for a censor's beeping. "Goddamned self-centered punkass sons of /bitches/," she blurts out. Give her a moment. She's pressing the heel of her palms against the bottom of her forehead. She's breathing. "They ran off. Last week. B didn't text me for like...four days. Nothin'. He said they were in the water. Dunno what water. Which...yeah. I'm like the /last/ person they're gonna talk to but if they do." Jackson tenses, at Shelby's outburst, stiffening for a moment. It's careful and calm when he answers: "Thank you." That's all. He nods, turning to go. "...yeah." Shelby doesn't try to keep him. She's turned as well and crouches to begin gathering up all evidence of her late-night fundraising. She keeps her head down as she fills her arms, not watching Jax go.