Logs:Package Deal

Package Deal
Dramatis Personae Harm, Jax
In Absentia	2024-05-09 "I guess I'm having like. Girl problems?"
Location <NYC> Evolve Cafe - Lower East Side
Spacious and open, this coffeeshop has a somewhat industrial feel to it, grey resin floors below and exposed-beam ceilings that have been painted up in a dancing swirl of abstract whorls and starbursts, a riot of colour splashed against a white background. The walls alternate between brick and cheerfully lime-green painted wood that extends to the paneling beneath the brushed-steel countertops. There's an abundance of light, though rather than windows (which are scarce) it comes from plentiful hanging steel lamps. The walls here are home to artwork available for sale; though the roster of prints and paintings and drawings and photographs changes on a regular basis it has one thing in common -- all the artists displayed are mutants. The seating spaced around the room is spread out enough to keep the room from feeling cluttered. Black chairs, square black tables that mostly seat two or four though they're frequently pushed around and rearranged to make space for larger parties. In the back corner of the room is more comfortable seating, a few large black-corduroy sofas and armchairs with wide tables between them. There's a shelf of card and board games back here available for customers to sit and play. The chalkboard menus hanging behind the counter change frequently, always home to a wide variety of drinks (with an impressive roster of fair-trade coffees and teas largely featured) though their sandwiches and wraps and soups and snacks of the day change often. An often-changing variety of baked goods sit behind the display case at the counter halfway back in the room, and the opposite side of the counter holds a small selection of homemade ice creams. A pair of single-user bathrooms flanks the stairway in back of the cafe; at night, the thump of music can be heard from above, coming from the adjoining nightclub of the same name that sits up the stairs above the coffeehouse. The cafe has been crowded, today, bustling with spillover from the rally just down the block. It's clearing out a bit right now, though, as the nearby chanting gives way to the first very recognizable notes of "Rogga"; plenty of people are taking this time to snatch their drinks up and hasten back to The Action now that Ryan Black has taken the stage. Jackson, not so much, but probably he's had plenty of lifetime opportunity for Impromptu and Intimate concerts. He's out on the dreary patio, no current rain happening but the seats are still wet from an earlier drizzle. He's less colorful than he often is, black tactical pants and sturdy black boots, bright red tee that reads ALL MY HEROES HAVE FBI FILES around a graphic of a monkey wrench. He's drawing a hand slowly over the surface of the patio railing, the rain there steaming away as he does. He hops up onto the rail after this, still kind of in eyeshot of the distant stage, which he's totally not fretting over. Just sipping at his plain black coffee. After the stampede of concert-goers, Harm makes their slow way outside with a mug of their own. They're wearing rugged generic outdoorsy clothes -- a lavender shirt, gray zip-off pants, and green-brown hiking boots. They consider the stage and the growing crowd, then consider the damp chairs, and finally just leans half-sitting on the edge of a table. "Hi," they say, oddly shy considering how long they've known Jax and how much they've worked together lately. "Can I talk to you about something? It doesn't have to be right now. I can make an appointment, but it's not really like..." They chew on their lower lip. "A normal advising type thing. And I kind of don't want to talk about it at school anyway." Jax stretches a leg out, hooking his toe through the arm of one of the nearby chairs. He's leaning down, then, to dry it like he dried his own perch, and nudge it gently back in Harm's direction. "Do you good t'get off your feet a spell, you know them kids gonna decide it's marching time once all the songs and speechifying's done." He sips again at his coffee, glancing off in the crowd's direction but then back to Harm. "Always can talk to me. What's going on?" "Thank you." Harm gives a small bow before dropping gratefully down into the chair. "A lot of those kids are older than me, but I'm really getting a head start on that signature street medic 'I'm too old for this' vibe." They take a sip of their tea, and keeps their eyes on the cup even after. "I guess I'm having like. Girl problems?" They look up at Jax, blushing. "I'm not sure if that's downplaying or up...playing it, but I mostly just want some advice on how to talk to Naomi about some difficult topics." Their lips press thin, and they seem to consider before adding, "Safely." "Time you spend buddied up with Joshua you probably picking up that vibe at hefty doses." Jax's leg swings absently, heel thumping against the railing bars. "Oh -- oh." It's not a particularly surprised oh, just kind of thoughtful as he takes a slow drink of coffee. "Just so I'm clear, s'it the topics you thinking you need more help on, or the -- safely?" Harm snickers, smiling into their mug. "I keep trying to pick up his grace under fire, but maybe the long-suffering exasperation is a package deal." The smile fades from their face as they set the tea down on the table beside them. "Maybe...both? There are a bunch of things I probably should talk to her about, and I need to like, prioritize." They fidget restlessly with the pendant -- a simple smooth jade disc with a hole in the middle -- on a long red cord around their neck, usually kept under their shirt while medicking. "I just don't really feel comfortable talking to her about any of it after what she did the night Taylor died." They bite their lower lip. "Everyone was pretty messed up that night, I get that, and it's not like she did it to me. But." "I do think the one help with the other. S'like a constant low-key pressure release valve. Get the little doses of exasperation out on a rolling basis and it don't build up and explode." Jax's eye tracks to the motion of Harm's pendant; as they fidget with it, faint flickers of color whorl and eddy off of the smooth stone. "But. Yeah. I can see how that'd be a difficulty right about now. S'been a real rough time an' I think a lot of folks weren't thinking real straight with that news -- but." He pauses, fingers tapping idly against the side of his cup and sending out more slow ribbons of light to swirl strange and marbled through his coffee. "What kindsa things you think you should talk to her about? I mean to say -- should in what -- direction?" Harm blows out a long breath. "I don't even know where to start. Like, I haven't told her I've been medicking with Lily -- Lily Allred -- for months. And I want to talk about the whole...you know, her power. And it's not like I'm afraid of it in a vacuum. I've seen her do far --" They clamp their mouth shut for a moment before going on. "It seems so minor in a way, but it was disturbing and I guess I want to understand. Like maybe if I know their side of the story it'll be easier to think it through." They slump a little, though they still turn the jade pendant between their fingers at the center of the illusory vortex. "And I guess I want to talk about graduation, and what we're going to do after. She wants to go to college, and I want to..." Their shoulders tense. "Well, I don't want to get in the way of her goals." "If someone's 'bout to gun down me an' my team and I put a laser through 'em, that's real-real heavy, but it also ain't the same at all as if I burn someone's hand just a little because they was about to take the last cupcake an' I didn't want 'em to eat it. The burn might be a much more minor injury but what it says about me s'more telling." Jax's teeth scrape against the side of his lip, fidgeting absently with his lip ring. His head is tilting slightly as in the near distance "Rogga" is giving way to "Safer". The tapping of Jax's fingers has shifted in time with the music. "What's she think about your goals? Feel like 'tween music and international medicking your life's on a real different trajectory." Harm tenses again at Jax's example, but nods stoically. "And it wasn't even like she -- I don't know. But thank you, that does help. I kept feeling like I was catastrophizing, even though I didn't think Avi and Lael were." They lick their lips, rubbing the pendant between thumb and index finger. "I don't actually know what she thinks, exactly. I mean, she loves music, too! I don't think she loves the medicking. Well, that's not fair. I think it's the amount of time I've been spending away. At first I thought she was just worried, or missed me..." Their shrug is tight and small. "Maybe it is just that, and I can't blame her. Like, with Palestine I was gone every weekend, but at least we live at school, together. But now..." They hunch themself smaller, both hands cupped around the jade pendant now. "I'm pretty much here whenever I'm not in class, and like, that's because this is important! But I think...maybe it's also a little bit because I'm avoiding the confrontation?" Jax nods, lowering his cup to his knee. "S'understandable to be worried. You been in some real dangerous places and that's pretty heavy to think through, too. Seems like that's all the more reason to make sure you can talk to the important folks in your life about what's important to you. S'a lot to carry --" His brow scrunches, and he shakes his head briefly. "Well, I know you ain't been alone, s'some solid folk in your corner. Just --" He's pausing a moment for thought before he continues: "When you think 'bout the future, do you see this relationship as part of it? Probably the way to approach this gonna depend a fair bit on your answer." Harm is studying the sidewalk intently. "Even if it wasn't for the...powers stuff, it's kind of hard to explain how it's both more horrifying and less dangerous than most people probably imagine. Like, I wasn't afraid to talk to her before, I just didn't know how." They let the pendant fall to the end of its cord and picks up their mug for a sip, transparently stalling. "I think I want to, but maybe that's not very realistic. I don't know where she's going to go to college, or whether I'll even be able to afford to stay in one place between wandering anarchist healer-slash-minstrel stints. Especially not here. Finding a decent-paying job will be hard because of the whole wandering anarchist healer-slash-minstrel thing. And it feels kind of pointless to imagine any of that right now, when I'm afraid to even talk to her about it." "I can definitely point you towards --" Jax is vaguely fluttering a hand over his shoulder, wisps of color flitting off in brief halo of the distant stage. "-- folks who can help you sort out the practicals of a music career. An' we got some classes on occasion at Chimaera specifically geared towards figuring out the business side of being an artist." His leg is starting to swing again, in absent rhythm with Ryan's music in the background. "I think everything about relationships is unrealistic. Think 'bout -- literally any person you love at that school, in this city, in your community here. And what brung them into your orbit and what made y'all connect and what you might have had to deal with to keep that up. Any relationship gonna take a completely bonkers amount of work. On paper my family makes not one shred of sense, but." His shrug is small. "In the end it comes down to what you want to prioritize. What you want to work at, y'know?" He's looking back at Harm, lips briefly twisting to the side. "S'there things might make you more comfortable talkin' to her?" Harm nods thoughtfully. "I haven't been prioritizing her. I think maybe...we have pretty different world views, and we want different things." They swallow, their gaze dipping again to the sidewalk. "I still have to talk to her, either way. Which is going to be uncomfortable no matter what, but I'd be less uncomfortable if I knew she couldn't just. Change my mind." They give a small huff that maybe, on a different day under different circumstances, might be a laugh. "Probably it will piss her off if I use Avi's 'Brain Armor'. Doing it over text would come off basically the same, or worse. Making her mad is pretty uncomfortable too. I don't really see a way around it, though." Jax's lips twist to the side. The faint flutters of color that dance from his fingers are fading away, his brows furrowing deep in thought. "I think," he finally says, slow and careful, "there might potentially be a way around it. I'd need to talk to the Professor, though, if you're comfortable with me doin' that." Harm nods readily, but then immediately starts hedging with "It'll probably be totally unnecessary, and I hate to take up more of anyone's time when I should just..." They trail off, blushing. "...let people help me? Yeah, I'm comfortable with that." Jax is hitching his eyebrow up, but a quick smile brightens his expression at Harm's catch. "I'll talk to him when I get back t'school." It's not the stage he looks at this time, but a couple of medics grabbing a quick drink inside while the crowd is musically occupied. "See, some things is definitely rubbing off."