Logs:Somebody That I Used To Know

Somebody That I Used To Know
Dramatis Personae Jamie, Not Joshua
In Absentia	2021-10-21 "Who decides who to tolerate?"
Location <NYC> Riverdale
The neighborhood has been lively with construction, renovation, landscaping, and other changes in its ongoing transformation. The last few days it has been even livelier than usual, and the recent influx of new Prometheus rescuees has meant a lot more communal chores. Residents, part-time residence, even visitors have been picking up the slack, but there always seems to be more to go around. One of the volunteers does not seem to be finding much welcome, today. Jamie has been hustled from one task to another, perhaps as much due to his incompetence at common chores as his general unpopularity. His latest assignment seems more or less manageable, at least -- just sweeping the common ares of a communal house. He's dressed in a black hoodie at least two sizes too big over a much better fitting yellow polo shirt, blue jeans, and soft brown slip-on shoes, focusing more and spending more time on his sweeping than is probably entirely necessary. The man who ambles in, now, has been meeting with an extremely warm welcome - though it's one that soon enough sours to confusion and occasionally some outrage. Joshua (?) looks much as he always does, casual in jeans, grey waffle-weave long sleeved tee, red and black kippah, droopy hangdog expression. His hands are shoved in his pockets, his eyes tracing the floor. He stops short in front of where Jamie's been sweeping, eyes dragging upward and his brows slowly lifting. "Does that help?" Jamie is looking up well before the newcomer even addresses him, his brown eyes wide. "Oh! You're back." His expression twitches minutely, his gaze dropping back down. "I mean, I'm glad you got back safe." He looks between his broom and Joshua, then back. "It needs sweeping," he replies, although the furrow of his brows suggests he's not altogether sure it is the right answer. "I'm trying to help." "I mean," the other man clarifies patiently, "do people hate you less. Can you just --" Joshua mimes a firm sweep of the broom, "sweep all that away?" Jamie blinks. "N-no? I don't think so." He stops sweeping for a moment, both hands wringing on the handle of the broom. "But if I want to be a part of this community I should. Participate in it? Even if people hate me." "Community," the not-Joshua echoes, with a slow nod. "Do you mean Riverdale, orrrr." He drags the or out, looking slowly around the communal house. "Mutant community, I mean." Jamie blushes. "Or...at least some corner of it that can tolerate me. I don't really know all that much about Riverdale yet, but they say we're all welcome here." "Some corners," Joshua agrees, lips compressing as he looks away and out the window, "do have a lot of tolerance." He moves over to drop himself onto the arm of a couch, elbow resting against its back. "What do you want to know about Riverdale? Project's pretty new. Idea's pretty new." Jamie rotates the broom slowly between his palms. "All I really know is it's a place for mutants, by mutants." When Joshua settles, he starts sweeping again in short careful strokes. "The same way the rest of the world is for humans, by humans, I guess? But who decides how that happens? Who decides..." He chews on his lower lip. "...who to tolerate?" Joshua's foot swings slowly, heel thumping lightly against the side of the couch. His eyes track the short strokes of the broom in small tics. "Who decides out there?," he finally muses. "Same here, I guess. Nobody. Everybody." One of his shoulders hitches, small. "Lucky for you," his voice is slow and quiet, "there's no tribunal. Just, folks. Might like you. Might not." "The government decides a lot of things out there. That's not everyone. Here..." Jamie frowns down at the line of dust and debris he's gathering with the broom. "I don't know if there's a government here, but we're still in America. That government doesn't want to tolerate any of us." He looks up at Joshua again, his jaw working. "Might?" he snaps, then immediately tries to even his voice back out, to little avail. "I'm pretty damned sure nobody here likes me. If there were a tribunal, I'd take my chances, because there's no place for me out there." Not!Joshua's eyes lift when Jamie snaps. Meet the other man's eyes briefly, then lower again. "You really think there's a place for you here? Huh." He pushes himself up off the couch, shoving his hands back into his pockets and skirting around Jamie's dust pile. "Sorry. Dunno what I thought I was looking for here." Jamie narrows his eyes at Joshua, flushing bright red. For a moment it seems likely he is going to explode into some kind of tirade, but then he just deflates. He stares fixedly at the floor and not at the other man. "I never said there was." The !Joshua's posture deflates subtly too, just a small sag of shoulders in time with a small downward tip of head. "... somebody I used to know, I guess," sounds almost to himself. To Jamie, "Good luck," has as little inflection as most of his speech, as he trudges for the door.