ArchivedLogs:Not Enough

Not Enough
Dramatis Personae Dex, Jackson, Tess
In Absentia	2013-12-03 '
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. Tess is loitering in the park, near the chess boards, but not really doing anything beyond watching people. She's got her hands stuffed into her pockets and despite what people might expect of a girl her age with that attitude, she's not smoking. For the past half hour or so, there's been a teenage boy, Dex, dressed warmly, shooting baskets on the basketball court. It's a little bit desperate, the pace of it: as if in some kind of insane tournament with himself to get as many baskets as possible within some kind of time limit. He's not a particularly good shot, though, but is keeping up good endurance. At least, he WAS, until a shabbily dressed, slow-moving, elderly man wandered into the court in a stumbling, halted walk, and Dex uncomfortably decided now was a good time to rest, diverting towards the chess area, but mostly staring at the basketball court, as if unsure if he'd be chased. Jackson is making his way home through the park, eye-catchingly bright with his peacocky purple-blue-green hair and purple jeans and silver jacket, a blue eyepatch over one eye with a silver dragonfly embroidered into it. He has a black FreakAngels messenger bag over one shoulder and a loaded grocery bag on the crook of the other arm, and as he makes his way through the park he's humming quietly-cheerful to himself. The sight of the slow-moving man making his way into the court stops him, though. He watches the man on the court for a few seconds, then turns his attention towards the chess tables where Dex wandered off to. "Hey. Did you get a good look, is that man -- okay?" His accent is thick, a heavy Southern drawl that marks him quite clearly not-a-native. At the moment he doesn't yet offer Tess a greeting; he's watching the basketball court with the habitually alert wariness of -- well, /most/ of the city these days, really, after all the zombie attacks. Tess may have been watching Dex for at least part of his basketball bouncing, and then Jackson speeks to Dex and Tess decides to approach. "Hey Jax and company." She is clearly from around New York. She doesn't get too close right away, for whatever reason. "What's up?" She smiles, but her eyes remain set a bit harshly. Dex had been really focused on the man that intruded on his basketball practice. Not in a fearful way really, that would be the wrong word. Dex is panting pretty strongly from his workout, but it's not panic-attack breathing. He jumps visably when asked questions, looking to Jax when he speaks and is further startled by Jackson's flamboyant look. "How ould I possibly know if he's okay?" Dex asks immediately in a rapidfire string of words, in a kind of high-strung defensiveness, as if asked something super personal. And then he notices Tess, as if he hadn't noticed her at all prior. Probably in his own world. One with frantic basketball opponents and no wandering dead. Dead or not, the man is slowly approaching. "---Nobody should assume, right. Maybe he's somebody's dad," Dex says, before suddenly jogging /directly/ at the guy. "Hey. HEY," Dex yells at the man, and veers to one side a little when he gets close, backpedaling sidways, clearly attempting to draw the man's attention or lead him off to one side and away from the chess area. "Hey -- oh, gosh, hi," Jackson greets Tess with a little bit /harried/ of a smile. "Nothing. Um -- maybe nothing? Not -- sure. Yet." He waves glittery-nailed fingers towards the basketball court. "Maybe the same way /everyone else/ in New York tells if people are okay after being plagued by zombies for a month?" he answers Dex, a little bit incredulous. "Use your /eyes/ and -- nevermind." His fingers scruff through his hair with a faint note of exasperation. "Hey, kid, don't -- augh, come /back/ here." He sets his grocery bag down on a bench, sprinting off after Dex. "What are you /doing/." He looks between Dex and the old man with a slow frown, scrutinizing the older man intently. "Hey. Sir?" Tess follows Jackson, picking up his grocery bag to prevent some homeless person stealing it. She doesn't run, just kind of follows at a slow pace. "Be careful." She yells at the two, regardless of zombieness, it's good advice, right? Well, if Dex heard Jackson, he didn't obey his request to not go running over to the man whatsoever. Evidently Dex has opted to try to be friendly, or stupid. "Hey man, you're acting funny, let's go over here," Dex says loudly, blatantly positioning himself to attempt to turn the man away from the two others. It probably looks like a very typical foolishly heroic jock move. The vicinity of Dex, or his words, does have the man's attention, because he moans or mumbles something quietly and reaches for Dex. "We're all cool here," Dex says in a loud enough tone to clearly be trying to talk to more than just the man. Dex lifts the basketball some to transfer it to under one arm, other hand reaching out towards the man as if to kind of try to calm him. "Kid --" Jackson doesn't actually get closer, when Dex positions himself in front of the man. But he doesn't need to -- when the older man reaches towards Dex his fingers hit up against a solid wall of nothing. Or nearly nothing -- at second glance there is a faint shimmer in the air, glimmering with odd iridescence at certain angles, prismatic like a soap-bubble but infinitely more durable than one. The wall spreads out between Dex and the other man, curling back to form a little half-moon of solid surface walling off the old man. Jackson steps in closer, now, peering through it towards the man. "Sir? Y'aright, can you talk none?" His hand lifts, fingers rubbing at his temple as he frowns between the man and the teenagers. "I'll be careful," he assures Tess wryly. "New York was dangerous enough even before the dead started attacking." Tess heads towards a small nearby pond, seemingly at least a little scared, but also seemingly feeling slightly more comfortable next to the body of water, She keeps watching what's going on, shifting her groceries to her left hand to open up her right. The shield seems to spook Dex more than anything else. Dex reacts in alarm, jolting backwards from the shimmer, clearly associating it with the man. The man takes a step forward, and kind of claws and pushes at the shimmery shield. Dex stares, clearly totally unsure what to do, and unwilling to touch the glimmering zone. "Oh /shit/, a Mutant?" is what Dex comes up with in a gasp, and starts to move a little to one side, seeking the wall's edge. Probably directly in the way. Dex pauses, looking around quickly, having lost track of the other teen, Tess. "Yes, sorry," Jackson says though he sounds fairly unapologetic about it, "I'm pretty much as mutanty as they come. You aright, he didn't touch you, right? -- You good, Tess?" He's still examining the man, looking into his eyes a long moment. "-- M'sorry, but this one's dead. Y'all might not want t'watch the next part. -- Don't -- don't get /close/ to him." Jax presses his fingers to his temples again as Dex approaches the edge of the shield. "He'll just bite." Tess answers, "I'm good, really." She totally is, honest. The spear of ice she's made is conveniently hidden in a bush, where it'll melt. That was more of a worst case thing for her anyway. She doesn't look over when Jackson gets to the zombiekilling. "Everything okay otherwise?" Wait, what? Dex swivels fully towards Jackson. "Oh! I thought HE was a mutant," Dex says, surprised, gesturing towards the shiny shield and the man. To the comment about him being a zombie, Dex answers with a kind of frustrated, "Yes I know, but it's not /his/ fault," in answer. But the tone reeks of loss, or empathy, but not defensive. He almost reluctantly moves back from the glowing shield. "I'm sorry," he says, to the zombie, very sadly. "Ohgosh. No, that's me I -- when we go zombie it can get real dangerous though." Dex's response about the man puts a sadder look on Jackson's face, heavy and tired. "No, it's not his fault. But there's no curing it either." The shield drops, and he lifts a hand -- a brief bright beam of light flashes outward, searing a very /neat/ hole straight through the older man's skull. Jackson curls his arm outward, catching the body as it collapses to lower it more gently to the ground. His arms curl loosely around his chest once the man has been laid on the ground, and he nods to Tess as he pulls out his phone. "As alright as it can be. You doin' okay today?" He looks at Dex, too, with this question. "M'sorry. It don't never really get easier. Y'aright?" Tess tries to hide the ice spear a little better, hoping no-one saw it, as she heads over to Dex and Jackson again, handing him his groceries back. She very carefully not looked to what he was doing, and a good thing too, because it would have terrified her. "I made sure no-one would steal this." Because she knows someone could've easily, she might've if she hadn't known Jax. The execution of the zombie makes Dex turn extremely pale. He's a sixteen year old boy, not a combat veteran. And the results of what's happened in the city haven't numbed him yet, and he wasn't wise enough to look away like Tess did. And so ...he squats against his heels, hanging onto his basketball, and looks like he's going to be sick. "You don't know that there's NO cure," mutters Dex, weakly. "He maybe came to me for help." Dex says, sounding very distant and on-the-edge. He glances up at Tess in a mix of embarrassment or something similar. "Zombies don't /think/. He came to you to eat you and yes, I /do/ know there's no cure because I was /there/ when --" Jackson stops, fingers scrubbing through his hair again. He glances up when Tess approaches, taking back his groceries with a bit of a bemused look. "Oh." He sounds surprised. "Oh -- thank you. That was -- thoughtful." Only then does he look back to Dex, puzzled and curious as the boy's words catch up with him. "-- why would you be able to help?" Tess avoids looking at the zombie corpse. Like Dex, she doesn't really have any experience killing. She's made weapons before to threaten, but she's never had to act on her threats before. Instead she looks between Dex and Jackson. Confused. "What's going on?" Dex sets down the basketball, partially between his knees, and rubs his face and eyes with his fingers a little roughly. If someone did pay attention to his hands, they'd see a lot of clawmarks on them, mostly healed. He glances again to Tess, "Nothing at all, I guess," he says quietly, but then back to Jackson, to consider his question. And then sighs. "Because I helped some before. But it wasn't /enough./" "Not -- entirely sure," Jackson answers Tess. "Which is gettin' to be kinda a trend this evenin'." His pierced eyebrows knit together, and he doesn't look any less puzzled at Dex's answer. "Helped? How do you mean, helped?" Tess looks at Dex's hands, and then looks back at hers. Hers don't have clawmarks, though there's little chips of ice all over the right one, which she brushes off as soon as she notices them. "Do you know this guy, Jackson?" She just asks, a bit confused, and just kind of keeping her distance from both again, a little bit nervous. Dex flushes with some embarrassment, which helps reduce the nausea. He swallows and grips the basketball, standing up. He's still pale, and his eyes keep going towards the fallen undead. "Healed them," he says simply, entirely deadpan. At Tess's questioning him being a stranger, he shakes his head, "No, haven't met... just was trying to help, I suppose," he answers, and, as if finding the will somewhere, walks towards the fallen zombie. "No. No, we ain't never met before jus' now. I don't --" Jax's knuckles press against his one good eye, and he steps back to lean against a nearby lamppost. "Healed them? The zombies? You can make them people again?" His teeth scrape against his lower lip. "Or -- is that. Just. Make them alive again." Tess nods and starts to walk away, "Seeya Jackson, dude." She's kind of just distancing herself physically from the corpse, to help herself feel better faster. "Make them--? No. I can't help them enough, I said, and that-- that's crazy, of course," Dex repeats, a little aggressively, but it's just frustration, or pain that he's not sharing, not anger. It sounds like Dex isn't entirely sure. All he does with the zombie is squat and shut it's eyes, fearless with touching the zombie. He closes his own a moment, and then rises, after what looked like a brief prayer and gesture across his chest, although the basketball is in the way of the movement some. "I... I better get home too," he says, as if it just occured to him, as Tess bids farewell to Jackson. "Ain't that crazy. I've seen a whole lotta crazy things." Jackson watches this small prayer with a slight bow of his head. "See you," he says to Tess, though his eyes are still on Dex. "Be safe," he tells the teenager, his brows still furrowed. He dials his phone now, putting it to his ear as he calls to have the city come identify and claim the body. "Maybe. I keep thinking too crazy, it feels like. Not more crazy than a laserbeam to the head, though, I suppose. I still feel this man; that's the crazy. Safe? I guess," Dex answers with a soft sigh, staring at Jackson and the phone a little, then the body. He doesn't actually go anywhere, as if he forgot to walk away, it's just a silent, long stare at the corpse. But he'll remember, and finally go: quickly, jogging away that lapses more into a run.