Logs:Cup-stream: A Song of New Beginnings

Cup-stream: A Song of New Beginnings
Dramatis Personae Ion, Kadar, Kamil
In Absentia Khalil, Joshua, Scramble	2024-10-30 "When you got hell of freaks, things get muy friki."
Location <NYC> Hellhound Bikes - The Hole
Located not far from Jamaica Bay in a predominantly Latinx sector of East New York, this garage doesn't look like much from the outside. A low-slung squat dingy brick building with a hand-painted sign over front proclaiming it to be HELLHOUND CUSTOM CYCLES, this garage has a small office area with its own pedestrian entrance from the street at the front, containing a minifridge usually full of beer and beaten down old desk with a ledger and an antique cash register that no one ever seems to use. The rest of the space is roughly L-shaped, its walls lined with racks of tools and heavy workbenches with built-in steel drawers full of hardware and spare parts. There's a raised platform in the wider leg of the space for working on one motorcycle, and there's space in the narrower leg for parking at least three more. There's no U-Haul currently to be seen, here. Presumably there's a U-Haul somewhere, awaiting its macabre excavation, but right here there's only bikes -- several in various states of repair inside, a couple well tended choppers parked out front. Kadar has for a while been gushing over one of the latter, and Hotshot's been very keen to show off his baby to a willing new audience. When the phone rings inside it puts a pause on Kadar's exuberant questioning, though. As the Mongrel dips into the office he's leaning cloooose in to the bike very much in the vein of a kindergartner who has been told No Touching and is on the twitchy edge of caving to temptation. One more bike is vrooming up to slot itself neat and precise into an empty slot in the row. Its rider, in jeans and grungy plain white tee beneath his skull and crossed-lightning-bolts vest (should be not nearly enough clothing for this time of year but OH WELL these days it's plenty) is grinning broad before he hops off, bright smile and bright skitter of sparks off the hook at the end of the arm he's throwing around Kadar. Ion is kiiind of incidentally roping him back away from Hotshot's ride with the jostling embrace. "Che, bro! Been a fucking age. You go goddamn loco junto with your family, huh?" Just in case anybody has forgotten about the U-Haul there is a rudely blaring HONK from somewhere out of view. Sorry to Hotshot on the phone. "Whaaaaaaat?!" goes on just a little longer than it needs to, Kadar's eyes gone wide. First with shock (mild, jarring, electrical) and then with shock (strong, jarring, excited) and he's clapping a hand against Ion's back, turning to look with some disbelief at the Mongrel, then pulling him in for a proper tight hug. "Bro," is just-a-bit louder than polite conversational volume, and then, "Bro," pitched (sorry, Hotshot!) strident to carry back to the U-Haul, "you didn't tell me this was the looney-tunes biker --" he's dropping now back to just an exuberant Outdoor Voice, hands flung outward as if he's just been struck by disbelief all over again to see Ion. "Hell you mean go, you sleep through that last riot? Born crazy, stayed crazy. Man, I heard you were dead. You pick up all these strays," his head is jerking towards the garage, "from the damn pound, then, who else is up here from Mendeleev?" "{Only a little}," Ion is answering the charges of his death with thumb and forefinger held -- teeny-pinch apart. A smidge, nbd. "Went a whole other fucking dimension though that shit wilder." He hops up to sit on an old empty oil drum, digging in his pocket for cigarettes and offering one to Kadar. "Nah nah these boys they from all over. Our president she out Penfield though and --" His pause here is small, brow knitting through the small hitch that follows before adding, "-- got a Fermi, too. Lederberg. van whatthefuck. Some them ain't seen a cage yet, though -- oh." His fingers snap. "Joshua he come by later, set your brother right for you. Ain't no Mongrel but he still our dog though. I heard," he's saying this with the same vague incredulity as heard you were dead, "you stay in Portland for a minute?" "Whaaaa --" Sorry, Hotshot! At least now Kamil is dutifully coming when yelled at rather than keep communicating via horn-honk, loping around the corner, beer bottle swinging haphazardly at his side. "No, yes I did! I said --" he pauses, frowns, presumably runs back through memories that do not include telling Kadar any identifying information more specific than 'looney-tunes', then still goes ahead and insists cheerfully, "I totally did!" He slouches against an oil can too (right against the rim, which seems like it wouuuld have been uncomfortable if it hadn't squished underneath him like memory foam) and takes a swig of beer. "Shut the FUCK UP," when Hotshot's head emerges from the office he's got an honest-to-god corded landline phone headset cradled against an ear, so likely enough there's a potential customer getting the (also exuberant) benefit of: "anyone else here give a shit this is a fucking business?" He's popping back inside. Closing the door FIRM. Kadar is snorting, amiably waving off the offer of smokes, the exaggerated-grimace pull of his mouth, exaggeratedly-mouthed 'sorry', looking not at all actually abashed. "Sure, sure," he's indulging Kamil, "but shit, man, this crazy fuck. You know he says he went to another dimension and died?" It's hard to say from Kadar's tone if he believes this tale or not, but his brows are dutifully lifting like he's impressed. "-- I was only in Portland for a second," he is then protesting this vicious allegation, "I was all up and down the coast looking for anyone worth hanging with. -- shit," this time when his eyes go widewide it's like he's only just catching up to some of what Ion said, "Joshua? He still on his Jesus trip?" There's a wild but distant glimmer of hope edging into his voice. "I ain't say," Ion begins to protest, but then reconsiders. "-- shit yeah I done that." He tugs one of the Newports out for himself, tucks it between his lips, offers it to Kamil too now that he's collecting Vikings out here. He's shaking his head. Ducking it toward his half-cupped hand to light the cigarette against a crackling arc of lightning that dances between two fingers. "Think he come to get you something proper for your last respects, huh? Your bro he don't play when he fucking up them Nazis." He's looking, now, to Kamil, and amending (with a healthy dose of respect): "None your bros." "I definitely remember there was a time when you were dead," though maybe Kamil's understanding of this period are a little hazy, he doesn't seem to recall when this was. He declines a smoke too, takes another long swig of beer instead, eyes and eyebrows and nose all wrinkling. "Eh but Khalil something else," he says. "He's something else." Kadar does not have a beer to clink with this, so he's just snagging Kamil's for a swing and handing it back. "How fucking much do people come back to life 'round here? Or 'zat just a you thing?" Without his own oil drum to sit on, Kadar is just bouncing in place, now. One hand taptaps quick against his thigh. "Been trying to find out what's good to do 'round here," this might be a lie, Kadar's past couple days have largely been spent on insane brother-excavation mission, "-- but all my brothers can tell me is where Nazis hang. You guys gotta have a line on, like --" Around here he realizes he has no real particular question and so frowns, finishes this with: "freak shit." "For sure. Brave man." Ion takes a long drag of his smoke. He turns his head to the side to blow the stream of smoke back out. "If there freak shit going on in town my dogs don't know 'bout it ain't worth knowing. You need roof? Job? You stick around once you give your bro his goodbye?" Kamil is busily trying to pick something out of his eye (prooobably he really shouldn't be doing that with his raggedy fingers even if he can tug the lower lid down further than any human could) and only chimes back into conversation again after a couple suuuper casual deep breaths. His voice, alas, has been cured of neither its natural emotionality nor its cartoon-animal-sidekick timbre, not reaaally offset by the quizzical look he gives Kadar, one eyebrow twitching way high on his face -- "You wanna stay?" he says, as though he and his Only Mostly Nazi Contacts are a great enticement. "Didn't really -- make a plan past that." Kadar doesn't sound particularly concerned about this, but he is considering it now, with another idle bap against the side of his leg. "Would need work. Place to stay. Lots more freaks here, though, yeah?" He's pulling his upper lip between his teeth, sucking a thin stream of air in with a thin whistle. "-- You like this place?" he's asking Kamil, brows lifting. "When you're not being a Nazi -- hey," now though he is turning back to Ion: "That other dimension shit normal around here too?" "Normal..." Ion shakes his head slowly, but it's not really a no, just a bemused sort of motion. "When you got hell of freaks," he replies, "things get muy friki."