ArchivedLogs:Practicing

Practicing
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Jack
In Absentia	2014-12-04 '
Location <NYC> Harbor Commons - Courtyard - Lower East Side and <NYC> {Geekhaus} - Harbor Commons - Lower East Side
This courtyard is the lush central hub of the surrounding Harbor Commons, bound in on three sides by rows of duplexes and triplexes, cutting upward at the sky with the sharp thrift of a minimalist's style, neat lines and bountiful windows, boldened with accents in wood towards the upper stories, stone towards the base, the whole of the compound sealed in by a low stoneworked wall that opens entrance gates to the streets beyond at its two far corners, smaller gates at building back doors. The fourth side of the courtyard is open to the East River, the ground forming a slight decline, controlled on one side by micro-retaining walls to form wide steps where picnic tables sit beneath the nominative shelter of a trio of dogwood trees, accessible by ramp. The other side is allowed to slope at its natural angle, a wide open yard space, until its cut off at the river's edge, where a massive pair of oak trees stand, a staircase leading away up one of their thick trunks. The yard itself is carpeted in an organic flow of emerald grass swirled through with wending channels of smooth-paved cement walkways, flowing naturally away from the building's front entrances, where some are arced by trellis, some flanked by hosta plants, fern and lilies, a few laid in gentle switch-backing ramps for wheelchair access, before forking off at matching angles to sites of small garden installments. Bird feeders and baths suspended from the necks of small lamp posts, a rock-lined koi pond, a sleek gazebo tucked to one side in simplistic varnished wood, its southern side overgrown with a mass of thriving grapevine and a caged-in barbecue pit under its sheltering roof. A play area and proper garden are within sight off another branch, until finally all paths spiral in like wheel spokes to a shared common house at the center of all traffic flow. Last night turned very bad luck to very good luck for Jack. A chance encounter with Peter and Micah led to the invisible teen being taken back to the Harbor Commons and offered one of the guest beds for the night just like he'd been for Thanksgiving. He was insistent about doing something to pay everyone back for being so nice to him though. And he's been working since after breakfast. Sweeping, mopping, cleaning...honestly he's appreciated having something to do that hasn't just been 'survive' or 'pick pockets'. Even as it's getting dark, he can be found outside cleaning fallen leaves off the paths. In borrowed clothes, anyone that doesn't already know about how his powers work will find what looks like a headless person sweeping the path. No one appears to be in those clothes that are finishing up the sweeping work. The dark, for a moment, gets just a little darker, a shadow passing overhead that comes with a stirring of wind that musses with the sweeping. The gust rustles leaves back /onto/ the path, a draft swirling chill-cold up around Jack. /Whump/. The gust resolves into a thump of feet down onto the path behind him, a /snap/-rustle of wings, and then there is Person, a little shivery, a little -- "... woah. Shit, hey, man, I didn't mean to mess up your -- Oh. Hey. I -- who are -- huh." Blink, blink, blink. The young man on the path behind Jack is lanky-lean, middling-average in height, nondescript in clothing (jeans, Vans sneakers, a corduroy jacket over a grey-green sweatshirt), but the eyes blinking out at Jack are /shining/ with an odd green-yellow reflective sheen in the dim evening light and his profile sports two very /pointy/ batlike wings, clawed at both top and bottom edges, that though folded up compactly behind him now nevertheless seem like they might be rather /large/. "-- Hi. Hey. Hi. You new?" He circles a fist over his heart before extending the hand cautiously towards the maybe-empty suit of clothing. "Dusk. Didn't mean to fuck up your leaves." The wind and leaves get an unseen frown from Jack and he gives them a look as if blaming them for jumping back onto the path. Then there's that whump and Jack jumps. He wasn't expecting anything like that. He turns quickly and jumps again when he sees Dusk, more from being surprised that there's a person there all of a sudden than anything else. He stares at the other young man and nods a moment before realizing he doesn't even have a hood on to make the unseen motion noticable. "Uh, sort of. I'm a guest...I guess," he replies. "I'm Jack," he chimes. And while there's no visible hand coming out of the end of that sleeve, the hand that shakes Dusk's can be felt. "It's okay, about the leaves. I'll just get 'em again in a minute." "Huh." Dusk's eyes open a little bit wider, maybe ever so faintly surprised when the handshake is actually invisibly accepted. "Guest. Cool. Whose guest?" He rubs his hands briskly together after the handshake, fingers kind of cold in the chilly evening, lifting them near his mouth to blow on his fingertips. His lips peel back into a warm smile -- easy, friendly, though there's two pairs of wickedly sharp and very long fangs visible when he smiles. "Someone who's making you do chores? Either you have a shitty host or you're a /way/ better houseguest than most of mine. Mine just like. Drink all my beer and forget to do their dishes. Though, uh, /I/ never do my dishes so I guess I can't really blame them." Jack's feeling a bit cold too but he's used to worse to worse and doing his best to ignore it. He still flexes his fingers invisibly though to try to get them warmer. The fangs get a quiet noise of surprise and curiosity from Jack but he doesn't comment. He ends up laughing at the talk about Dusk's guests though. "No one's making me work. I kind of...said I'd only come by if they let me do some work to pay them all back for helping me out so much," he says, rubbing the back of his neck. He glances down at the leaves and concentrates before telekinetically sweeping them back off the path with a wave of his arm. Why he didn't just do that from the start is anyone's guess. "If you still need dishes done, I can handle that too," Jack chuckles. "Promise I won't touch any beer too," he adds. There's a pause before he realizes he never answered the first question and he looks as embarrassed as an empty set of clothes can. "Oh yeah, sorry. I ran into Micah last night after some...stuff...and he offered to let me spend the night." "Shit, man, if you do dishes you can drink my freaking beer any time." Dusk's brows lift at the TK sweep, his smile widening, impressed. "Sweet. /That's/ handy. For chores especially. Get 'em done in five minutes, spend the rest of the time with the Playstation." There's only the slightest dimming of his smile at the mention of Micah; his eyes slip away to look towards Micah's house. "Oh, yeah, he'll do that. Nice that way. He lives with me. I live with him. I guess. Sort of. Mutual living-with. Different kitchens, though, so the dishes are all my fault. He and Jax are /so/ freaking clean. They're like, the /responsible/ part of Responsible Adult. I'm --" He rubs the back of his neck, a little sheepish. "Maybe still working on both those things. How long you staying?" "Got a couple years before I should be drinking anyone's beer," Jack replies with a laugh and an unseen smile. "Thanks but it's not that helpful. Not as good with it as I could be," he admits sheepishly. "I'm pretty sure anyone could cream me at the Playstation. Way out of practice," the invisible teen adds, leaning against the broom he'd been using. "Most of us srill have to work on that kind of thing. You're probably farther along than me," he says. The question gets him looking away a moment and shrugging. "As long as I'm allowed to, hopefully." "I doubt anyone's as good with anything as they /could/ be." Dusk shrugs, one clawed wing hitching upward rather than a shoulder. "That's just what practice is for." With more amusement: "-- With Playstation /and/ with being a freak." Though it's a little bit more wry as he grudgingly admits, "... and I /guess/ with being a responsible adult, too. Though I don't know how you even start practicing that. I -- don't really know how far along I am on /that/. Don't think very." His head tilts thoughtfully to the side at the question of being allowed to. "... Huh. You staying in their house or the Common House?" "Practice is probably a good idea. Been thinking about practicing with these powers a bit more. Thinking I might...some other people living here gave me some ideas I may take them up on," Jack says, waving an unseen hand. "Playstation's probably going to be harder to get practice at," he laughs. "I'm pretty sure the whole responsible thing doesn't come with a practice run. It's evil like that," he says. "The common one. They set me up in a guest room there." "Guess it's important to find a safe place for that. Practicing, I mean. Since out, uh --" Dusk's wing crooks out a little bit to flick towards the City At Large. "You're just likely to get yourself busted. But -- I mean, if you've found /us/ that's probably not hard." He looks briefly thoughtful at the mention of the guest room, glancing back towards the warm lights of the Common House at the center of the courtyard. "-- Hm. Not... actually /sure/ how long -- I don't think we ever --" He trails off, long upper thumbclaw on his wing curling down to scritch at his hair. "Where would you go if not here?" His grin curls up crookedly after this. "Yeeeah, the responsible thing just kind of. Waits. Kicks you hard in the freaking nuts as soon as you fuck it up." The grin evens out after this, though, brightly. "/Playstation's/ easy enough, though, c'mon, I've got one right over there." That same long thumb-claw is twitching towards the house he shares with Jax and Micah. "Yeah, cops suck," Jack mutters. "Pair of 'em chased me last night just because some lady saw my hood fall off and screamed," he sighs and shakes his head. "Was a major pain to lose them," the invisible teen goes on. "Really I only met everyone here because I let the smell of cake lure me somewhere I normally wouldn't go," Jack laughs. "Now that I think about it, food has led to me meeting a lot of people here in New York," he says. The idea is an amusing one to him. "Yeah, that Hive guy seemed surprised when he found out I was a guest too," he says with a shrug. He watches the movements of Dusk's wings curiously, idly wondering himself what having extra appendages would be like. The question about where he goes gets a sigh out of Jack and he looks down at the pavement for a few moments. "No point in hiding it I guess. I've been living on the streets. Been staying in a place...and this Ion guy showed me a place too. I know there's a shelter too but I'm...still not sure about that," he babbles a bit. He lets out a breath after he finishes. The grin makes him smile a bit too though. "Kicks ya then stands there and laughs," he says. He considers the offer a moment and then nods. "Sure. Lead the way." "I'm pretty much way in the fuck-the-police camp these days," Dusk says with a lopsided grin. "And following cake doesn't seem like it could steer you too wrong. Hive's rad. He's my roommate. This whole place is his." His wings both flick, now, out to either side to gesture to -- all the Commons, maybe. Despite just saying that Hive lived in his apartment. Who knows. Both wings hitch up in a vaguely sympathetic shrug at the mention of living on the streets. He starts heading towards his house, wings wrapping inward around himself like a cloak. "Kinda shitty. Spent a while doing that when these things grew in. Ion show you the house down by Evolve? You need like, a sleeping bag? I got a warm one if you want to take it out there. Beds fill up fast most nights." "Sounds like a camp to join," Jack agrees. "He did seem cool. Wait, this whole place? Wow...I should thank him too," he says. The invisible teen follows after Dusk, carrying the broom along so he can put it back where he got it from. "If it's the same house that's supposed to get extra rowdy on Fridays then yes. The beds do go pretty quick, someone ended up sitting on me since they thought I was just a pile of clothes left on a bed," he laughs. "I'm okay though. Slept on worse than the floor there." "Thank him?" Dusk looks puzzled at this, for a second, before realizing the miscommunication. "Oh, shit, no, I don't mean -- no, like, he doesn't /own/ it, nah. He just designed the place. /Built/ it. S'an architect. It's, uh. It's how we ended up with this thing? Cuz, like, /we're/ not -- none of us are rich or anything. Except Ryan, he's fucking loaded. But the rest of us, when we had the idea for this place it was just a fucking pipe dream, you know? But then the plague happened, so land was dirt cheap and there was all this empty space cuz -- well. Everyone was dead. And Hive had the knowhow so we could actually make it happen. Design a place of our own. Build it." He pulls his keys out of his pocket, unlocking the front door and pushing it open. "-- Gets really goddamn rowdy, Fridays. You heard about that? You interested?" He holds the door open for Jack, gesturing with a wing to invite the teenager inside. <NYC> {Geekhaus} - Harbor Commons - Lower East Side There's an open airy feel to the floorplan of this unit. The door opens up into a wide expanse of common space that is not so much divided up into rooms as it is simply multipurposed. Ash-grey resin flooring underfoot runs up against the paler grey of the exposed stone in the walls; between the stone support there are wide floor-to-ceiling windows looking out at the river on one side of the home and the Commons' central yard on the other. Half of the space has a ceiling at one-floor height, though half of the space is left open with a balcony up on the second floor overlooking the living space below. A slatted stairway heads up to the second floor balcony; on the other side of the room, a fireman's pole running straight down the the basement provides a quicker way /down/. The wide open space here is combination living and dining room; near the windows there are a pair of couches and large armchair around a wide coffeetable; further off a steel-and-glass dining table is surrounded by eight tall black chairs. A full bathroom behind the stairway is done up in dark granite; the glass-doored bathtub/shower is rather expansively large. The kitchen is tucked off in back, beneath the half-height ceiling; in here the appliances and cabinets and shelving recessed into the wall are in brushed steel, wide grey sweeps of tempered glass countertops running around the edge of the room and a large central island holding stoves and oven and deep double sink. Adjacent to the kitchen, beneath the ceiling as well, is a sitting area structured largely around the enormous television against one wall, a wealth of video games for a number of consoles held on the shelves around the television. Crates and beanbags and one low futon folded against the floor are arranged in good viewing distance; opposite the television, a sturdy large pen built out of wood shrines a couch amid a sea of brightly colorful playpen balls. A door in one wall opens up to the apartment next door; a door opposite leads down to the basement. Jack listens quietly as Dusk explains, looking around at the buildings. "Wow...that sounds pretty cool too," he says. "Don't think I've met anyone named Ryan yet," he says. He falls silent again at the mention of the plague but shakes it off. "Well, I'll change the thanks to telling him he's pretty awesome at the architecture thing. I mean I don't know much about it beyond LEGOs but it looks like a really cool place," he says with an unseen green. "I heard about it," he confirms with a sigh. "And as much as I don't like fighting...I think I should at least give it a try. Practice with powers. And I've been hearing about some...unsettling stuff so..." he shrugs. "Thanks," he says as he's invited in. "Yeah, he's never. Really around, he's a -- musician. Tours a lot." Dusk shrugs, closing the door again, though he leaves it unlocked, tossing his keys aside to land on a counter. He sheds his jacket once inside -- it's kind of a /process/, unbuttoning a top flap that jackets don't usually come with so that he can then fold up his wings and wriggle them out -- tossing the jacket aside also to land on a chair. Haphazardly. There's a lot haphazard in here (the sink, as promised, is pretty dishes-laden; there's Thai takeout-cartons from lunch still sitting on the counter between kitchen and dining room, there's some textbooks strewn around the dining table, some Shadowrun sourcebooks strewn around the coffeetable.) "Unsettling like what? I mean, that can mean a whole lot. This city's kinda unsettling. But different people are unsettled by -- different things." He is wandering over to the kitchen, opening up the fridge to peer inside. "You want anything?" "Musician, huh? Cool," Jack replies. He just unzips the borrowed hoodie he's got on, for once having something under a hoodie. He watches Dusk silently and wonders if there might be a better kind of coat for people with wings. When his gaze turns around the room, he smiles at the general 'someone lives here' feeling. He glances back up at the question and frowns. "Well, apparently there's a colony of cannibals from that HG Wells book living in the city," he says, still not clear on who or what the Morlocks really are. "And there's dreams of some end of the world thing going around and it sounded almost like people believe they're like...prophetic or precognative or something," he says. "The city itself doesn't bother me. I survived Newark, I'll survive here," he says with a little nod. He falls silent again, just staring off into space until Dusk gets his attention again. "Oh umm...just some water please?" "You sure? I've got like, uh. Juice or coffee or -- hippie blackberry or pomegranate soda or, uh. ... almond milk, maybe expired. Possibly not that." Dusk frowns at the carton he pulls out of the fridge, sniffs at, and then promptly returns to the fridge. "Or like a half-dozen kinds of booze but." He shrugs a wing, lifting it afterwards to hook a cabinet open with his claw. He pulls out a pair of glasses, eyebrows lifting. "You sure on the water?" For himself he's pulling out a dark red plastic packet marked with an official-looking white label sticker with a lot of small print on it; in more clearly bigger text, though, it is labeled 'Mendel Clinic', and somewhat below that, 'O/RH+'. He chucks it into the microwave to heat up. "... cannibals? I don't know about any cannibals. I'm not sure what's going on with the dreams, though, but I've been getting them, too. Not much fun." "Oh uh, I guess coffee in that case. A warm drink is better than a cold one in this weather," Jack replies with an awkward laugh. He blinks a few times as that packet appears and is tossed into the microwave. The clinic label caught his attention the most though, Jack remembering what Peter said about mutations possibly causing health problems. "Yeah, Morlocks like from the Time Machine," he says. "I read the book awhile ago when I used to uh...make surprise after hours visits to the library," he shrugs. "I haven't had anything like what I heard Micah and Peter talking about. Worst dream I had lately involved getting on a motorcycle with Ion again," he tries a joke. Dusk nods, putting beans and water into the coffeemaker to start some brewing. "Oh. /Them/. Nah. Not cannibals. At least none of the ones I've met. Just, uh, freaks. But who isn't." He snorts at the mention of Ion and the motorcycle, grin flashing bright again. "Hope you at least had a helmet. I mean, that's -- definitely an extreme sport. Dude -- don't get me wrong, I freaking /love/ that man, but shit, he's crazy." He shakes his head, popping the microwave open again to pull his packet back out, slicing a slit into one end of it to squeeze the thick red contents out into a glass. He gestures out to the TV room with its assortment of beanbags and milk crates and a couch that is half-hidden in a playpen among a sea of playpen balls -- instead of the usual assortment of bright primary colours most these plastic balls sport a dazzling array of various colours, swirled and glittery and rainbowy and metallic, pearly, oilslick, no two quite the same. Among it the three or four that are still just plain red-yellow-green-blue seem quite odd in contrast. "Games are all in there. There's, uh. Well. Whatever you want." Kind of a /few/ different systems. "Honestly it'll be kind of nice, kinda been lacking for people to play with lately. My roommates -- not so much as we used to." "Wait, so they're...just mutants down there?" Jack asks. "Huh..." he trails off. He's wondering if the Morlocks are the rumored mutant group he heard whispers about back in Jersey that started him thinking about NYC in the first place. Shaking it off, he laughs. "When I really did, he let me wear his helmet. In the dream, nope," he laughs. "Glad to hear it's not just me. When I first met the guy, he almost took my head right off," the invisible teen remarks. He watches as Dusk pours that red substance into that cup and frowns a moment. He's wondering what the other man is drinking but not asking yet. The ballpit just makes him stare again. "What the..." he trails off with a chuckle, walking over to pick up one of the balls. "You should pick. I'm three years behind, don't even know what's out these days other than the big stuff they put on busses and billboards," he says with a shrug. "Far as I know. Ones I've met are. I mean you hear stories, like, I dunno, monsters, but I think that's just bullshit. People call /us/ monsters. Ghost, demons, whatever. But they say that about people like you and me. So I figure it's just normal mutants and humans freak and make up nonsense." Dusk shrugs again, waiting until the coffee's brewed and pouring Jack a cup. He brings it out, setting it down on a milk crate. His glass is still held in one hand. "-- Oh, yeah. They used to be normal. One of our friends kind of had an -- accident. On the balls." As though that's an explanation. "If I'm picking it's Smash Bros every time." He takes a gulp from his glass, setting it down so that he can turn the television on and get the game set up. There's a bit of hesitation while he's doing so before curiosity gets the better of him. "... can you turn it off? The, uh, invisible thing." Jack looks as guilty as empty clothes can. "The ghost thing helps sometimes..." he trails off. "Gotten my butt out of trouble a few times," Jack admits. He's played that up more than a few times. "I was more confused as to why there are a bunch of balls here in the first place," he replies with a laugh. "Smash Bros sounds good. I remember that one," he says. He shakes his head at the question he was expecting to come sooner or later. "No, I'm always invisible," he says, letting the ball he was examining drop back into the pile of others. "Huh." Brief and thoughtful, and then Dusk slides back into setting up the game. "They're for the couch. To sit in. You jump into them. Sometimes you lose yourself in them. Also, the balls are good for throwing at people." /Obviously/. He tosses a controller over towards Jack, flopping face-down onto a beanbag. "C'mon. You're on." Jack catches the controller with his TK as he moves to sit down. Taking it in hand, he looks the controls over a few times and then grins. "Alright, super smash rumble in the most amazing ballpit ever. Game on," he agrees. He's grinning and probably about to get his virtual butt kicked.