Logs:(Semi) Sober Second Thoughts

(Semi) Sober Second Thoughts
Dramatis Personae Joshua, Lily, just a lil compact Mirror
In Absentia Lucien	2023-03-21 "Please. Leave." (Set shortly after a Greyhaus chat.)
Location <PRV> Lily’s Sublet, Parkchester, The Bronx
This is a stereotype of a New York City bedroom — it’s clearly half of a bedroom, the wall cleaving it in half thin. A tall twin bed is pressed against the More solid wall, a chest of drawers tucked underneath along with open boxes and a folded up rolling duffel bag. A set of bars hanging from the ceiling serve as an open concept closet, currently only maybe a third full of clothes. A small desk is up against the window looking out vaguely in the direction of the East River. The door of this half room opens directly into the kitchen — a cramped space for the sheer number of appliances stacked on every available surface. Someone in this six-person apartment is a baker, someone likes a morning smoothie — the mixer, the blender, and the drip coffee machine are all pulled forward, the toaster and air fryer pushed back against the yellowing backsplash. The cheap dining table is covered with clean mugs, one small group of three labeled “Lily’s” with a piece of printer paper, the larger assembly labeled “claim before Ariana uses for target practice stress relief!!!” As many people as live in this apartment, it's probably not entirely surprising when someone is currently Keeping Weird Hours. And, certainly, there's been no alarming noises of HOUSEBREAKING. But nevertheless the person currently quietly puttering about the kitchen in the late hours of the night (or, by now really, the wee hours of the morning) certainly does not belong here. Perhaps in his current state of Casual Dress (jeans and an undershirt, no shoes, not even his usually omnipresent kippah) he's someone's booty call? As a complete stranger to the space it takes Joshua perhaps longer than it should to find the coffee, start a pot brewing. Scowl at the machine for a while. Then rummage up some whiskey -- nominally to go in the coffee, though he's already pouring himself one measure to slug back before the caffeine is ready. The door to the half room opens at length (again?), Lily leaving it open behind her. She was certainly asleep when Joshua arrived, but she does not look well rested -- heavy bags under her eyes, hair tangled, book-ink smudged against her cheek, the faint lines of Numbers 13 reversed but possibly legible if she doesn't wash it off soon. She's in sleep-clothes still -- bare feet, flannel pajama pants, the neck of the oversized Albert Einstein Medical tee falling over her shoulder -- and rubbing sleep from her eyes as she shuffles in. Her giant Nalgene dangles from her other hand. "Move," she grunts automatically, only perceiving Man Shape between her and the sink, at first. She looks up, annoyed -- and then Lily wakes up properly, eyes suddenly going wide. Her grip on the plastic bottle tightens, as does her sleep-rough voice: "...What the fuck. Get out." Joshua's "What the fuck?" echoes Lily's just a beat later. He's turned away from the counter, two of the "Lily's" mugs held in his hands where he was about to fill them. "I mean, what the fuck?" Now his voice has dropped lower, into an incredulous whisper. "This was a really terrible time to ghost me, what is going on?" Lily's jaw works, her mouth open, but no words come out. She mouths 'ghost you?' once, before her expression shutters. "Fuck off." Lily shoulders her way past Joshua to the sink. Runs the water. Fills the bottle. Curls her fingers into the metal. "What do you think is going on." She doesn't look back, but her free hand gestures to the table of mugs. "I'm moving. You aren't. Get out of my apartment." "What the fuck," Joshua echoes again. "Are you fucking serious right now? You don't think you should have told me the plan had changed some time before fucking now? Why are you..." But as he trails off his expression shutters, too. His shoulders tighten, and he turns to actually pour the coffee, now. With a generous helping of whiskey. "So you could find another way to fucking spy on me?" Lily's voice is wavering even as she snaps back at Joshua, almost cracking on the last word. She snorts as she turns off the tap. "Fuck no. You don't trust me to do this, you don't come. I'm done trying to prove I'm not evil." Joshua is, regrettably, just taking a drink when this comes -- he splutters, wincing as the boozey-hot coffee goes up his nose. "So I can spy on -- what the fuck?" His what the fucks are continuing to morph with each iteration -- this time, it comes out kind of plaintive. "I wouldn't be going with you if I didn't trust you I don't have a fucking death wish. I don't think you're evil, who the..." Somewhere around here he is lowering his coffee, his long face pulling yet longer as some internal realization dawns. "... fuck." " 'What if you want to stay.' " Lily's voice is flat but not her kind of flat; this is so clearly an approximation of Joshua's speech in her own register. "You can't ask me that, then, and expect me to believe this, now, I'm not--" She sucks in air before turning around. "You were the only person I didn't expect that from." Her jaw is set hard, her lips pressed tight, but the harsh lines just make it more obvious when her voice wavers. "Can you please. Stop. Whatever the fuck this --" her free hand flicks out towards Joshua, back to herself, as if this can encompass the pain that keeps threatening to show on her face, "-- is. Please. Leave." "Lily, that wasn't me." There's not, actually, any apology in Joshua's tone, but the incredulity has left to leave it softer, now. "I don't mean like, I wasn't acting right, I mean it literally wasn't --" He vanishes, here. But his compliance with Lily's insistence is a very letter-of-the-law kind of leaving, because he is back only a moment later, and this time not alone. "-- apologize, the fuck did you say to her?" He is berating a second person begrudgingly in tow, dark skin and dark hair and dark eyes, kind of androgynous in features but wearing what is clearly one of Joshua's borrowed tees touting a family reunion for a family neither of them likely belong to, a pair of Joshua's jeans, both kind of loose on their frame. If they are trying to pass themselves off as Joshua, they are doing a terrible job -- though unfamiliar as this face is as Anyone In Lily's Circles, they do look strikingly exactly like Star Bugle Reporter Naseemah Chaudhry -- admittedly far less put together than she normally appears on television. Lily has only just begun to deflate in the full-on-tears direction when -- "The fuck?!" -- the kitchen is suddenly full again. She stares at Naseemah blankly for a moment, then down at the Very Joshua Shirt. Lily closes her eyes, swaying slightly, looking and sounding suddenly so much more tired than before. "... please get your famous reporter girlfriend out of my apartment." "Apologize for what. You both have stupid ideas and they deserved to be scuttled." Mirror is putting up very little resistance to their kidnapping, but once there they are ignoring Lily entirely. "If anything, she should be apologizing to us for what she's trying to put you through." They are claiming the second mug, though clearly once intended for Lily they are making their own Irish Coffee. And, coffee in hand, swiftly distorting, melting, filling out in the baggy borrowed clothes until they fit neatly on Joshua's form. Joshua now, promptly, lifts the coffee in a salute to his housemate and then vanishes. Joshua is sinking back down against the counter, scrubbing his knuckles hard into his eyes. He offers Lily his doctored coffee, now back down to just his usual level of flatness with his reiteration, "It wasn't me." Lily blinks slowly -- her genius deduction of Joshua Is Dating Naseemah Chaudhry proven (maybe?) incorrect, she is now taking a second to catch up. "It was..." she points at the space that previously had Mirror in it. "But. What. How did she -- he? -- how did they..." The anger has begun to drain from Lily but the confusion and hurt remains. When she takes the coffee, its to stare into it without drinking. "They knew the plan. Did you just -- tell everyone?" "Mirror just -- knows shit. I was going to tell them, my roommates ought to know why I'm ditching for god knows how long, but they already knew." Joshua's jaw tightens, but only for a brief moment. The tension eases on a hard exhale. "They and I shared a cell back -- a couple labs ago. Don't think they're taking this plan well. I'm sorry they were a shit to you, but that shit isn't what I think. I meant what I said back on the beach. I'm coming so someone has your fucking back." Now Lily drinks, nearly emptying what's left of the coffee-whiskey in one go. "I meant what I said on the beach too," she says into the bottom of the mug. "I don't want you to come. I just wanted -- someone to know where I was going, who wasn't putting me in there. I just didn't want to be forgotten." Her gaze drifts to the last "Lily's" mug, pocked and lumpy and almost physically unusable. "I haven't told anyone else I'm going. I haven't told Lucien and all of them you're going. People want you here. Why won't you stay." "Give the people who want me here a hell of an excuse for a welcome home party," Joshua's immediate and dry answer comes. "Besides, left on your own, you're really unlikely to tell anyone what a badass you were. Someone's gotta do the story justice." "Stop it." Lily's reply is also immediate, but far sharper, far harsher. "You -- you keep dodging the question, will you just. Answer me." She moves to fill the mug again -- just whiskey this time, with maybe a splash of coffee for flavour. "Please." "I fucking answered you," Joshua's voice has gotten a little sharper, mostly only noticeable in contrast to its typical flatness. "You just don't want to hear it cuz..." He throws up a hand in frustration, then drops it back to his side. "I don't know, cuz it's hard to believe someone gives a shit about you? I do. You're my friend and I love you. Why do I need adifferent reason. I don't have one." Lily stills, hand still on the coffee pot where she was returning it to its place. Maybe she was going to nod, but when her head dips it doesn’t lift again after, “…be easier to square with if you did have one,” she admits, some trace of shame creeping now into her voice. “I love you and you’re — my best friend, I don’t want…” She’s passing the mug back to him, now, instead of completing her thought. At length, sounding weary and small: “…Ohio. I fly out next week.” "Gonna have plenty of time to get used to it." Joshua takes a half-step forward to take the cup from Lily, curling his hands around it tight. He takes a long swig from the mug before replying, dry: "I know my way there." Lily lets put a slow breath. “Well, fuck.” She drags one hand across her ink stained cheek. “Guess I should. Catch you up on the plan.” Her eyes flick to her tiny room, the laptop on her desk and the thick manila folder underneath it. “If you’re not busy, we suddenly got a lot of coffee.”