ArchivedLogs:Somewhere Safe

Somewhere Safe
Dramatis Personae Lucien, Matt, Rasa, Steve
In Absentia	2015-12-06 "Suddenly my world has changed it's face, but I still know where I'm going."
Location <NYC> Harbor Commons - Rooftop - Lower East Side
An open-air escape especially popular with smokers and fliers, the Common House rooftop makes good use of its limited space. The railing that circles it has child-resistant gates where walkways can be extended to connect to the other buildings in the development. A colorful and ever-changing table with sometimes-matching benches provides an ideal spot for an urban picnic. There are two garden boxes on the south-facing side, one for vegetables and the other for herbs and flowers, a tool shed and small patio table with chairs between them. It's been a mild day and it's turning into a mild night, clear and bright. The Common haus below is lit up warmly, blue and white lights strung in its windows and Matisyahu's "Miracle" currently playing somewhere downstairs. Up here the warmest light, at the moment, is currently coming from the flame of Lucien's lighter as he lights a slim black cigarette; the sweet smell of clove fills the air by him a moment later. He leans forward in a chair at the patio table, the leather of his jacket creaking as he rests his weight in against his elbows at the edge of the table. He looks -- much like most people these days, really -- like he has seen better nights, gaunt and pale and drawn, dark circles under his eyes, fingers shaking where they hold the cigarette to his lips. At least his hair is back to its state of /artfully/ tousled, his neatly tailored trousers impeccably crisp. There's a knife sheathed at his hip, a bow and quiver of arrows propped up against his chair. He is, at the moment, kind of staring blankly at a plate of latkes in front of him (there is on the plate both applesauce /and/ sour cream) without a whole lot of appetite to speak of. Beside Lucien, Matt is a ball of nervous energy...or possibly just ravening hunger, judging by the way he is mashing a heavily laden potato pancake into his mouth. He's dressed in a dark green bamboo t-shirt under a light green and gray jacket, his blue jeans old and a bit too long for his legs even when he's wearing hiking boots. His Blue Suns messenger bag is leaning against the leg of the chair in which he sits, and a long knife (it looks new and not much used) is strapped to his belt. He washes down the latkes with a long gulp of tea from a silver thermos which he then hands to his brother kind of automatically. An old but well cared-for paperback copy of /Wicked/ lies on the table before him. A skittering noise can be heard in the quiet moments around the roof as strange hands and feet make their way up the side of the building. Rasa peeks up when hir head is on level with the roof top then hoists herself up higher, wrapping a hand around the top of the railing before pulling hirself onto the narrow surface. Ze is gray upon gray, mimicking the colors of the city for the most part, with chitinous scales around hir hands and feet in a darker shade while the rest of hir is short whispy in mottled colors covers the rest of hir visible body. Ze continues to wear loose fitting clothes that allow hir movement, with a satchel hanging from one hip with supplies inside. Across hir chest are a pair of straps that criss cross with break away clasps. Twin axes are attached to these straps on hir back, hir weapon of choice. Hir tail twitches as ze smells the potato pancakes and hir gray eyes brighten to a shade of blue. "Hanukkah?" Steve comes out onto the rooftop his shield slung over one shoulder the way one might carry a shed jacket. The mug in his other hand matches the red white and blue motif of his shield. He wears a green, purple, and white plaid flannel, dark blue jeans (a long knife sheathed at the hip), and black combat boots. Scanning the rooftop, he smiles and nods politely in the Tessiers' direction and looks for a moment like he's about to move on to whatever rooftop meditations brought him here. Then he hesitates, and approaches their table, but even as he is opening his mouth to speak he spots Rasa's gray head peeking up over the edge of the roof. The change in his entire carriage and demeanor is immediate, his weight shifting lower, his expression snapping from friendly to serious. He grips the edge of his shield but does not lift it to throw just yet. But then ze speaks and he tilts his head. "{Yes, the first night,}" in German with a very heavy French accent, and then, belated, "{Good evening.}" Lucien stiffens, at the noises from the side of the building. Cigarette still held between his fingers, his other hand drops to the hilt of the knife at his side, head turning sharply towards the edge of the roof and his eyes narrowing there. There's a faint de-tensing when Rasa comes into view. He releases the knife, though his eyes stay narrowed on hir. In answer, he only lifts his head in a nod, pushing /his/ plate slightly forward in silent offering. Gesturing towards it, open palmed. His gaze shifts towards Steve when the other man arrives -- looking from the shield up to the man's face. Scrutinizing Steve's expression with a slow furrowing of brows. Matt...does not have the combat reflexes exhibited by the other two men, and it's only in response to Lucien's tensing that he looks up from his food to check his surroundings and then wave, smiling, in Rasa's direction. He also doesn't notice Steve until he follows his brother's gaze, though when he does finally spot the supersoldier his recognition is immediate. "{Oh, hey, it's Captain...}" in fluid Qubecois French, though he trails off, suddenly self-conscious, "...Steve Rogers." He turns back to Rasa, signing 'Not sick you' very mechanically, brows furrowed instead of uplifted. "{Dates are ridiculous measurements of time. It's been kind of nice not really paying attention to them.}" Rasa grumbles in Russian quietly before skirting around the table to bow politely to Lucien's offering. Hir eyes catch Matt's signs and ze smiles a little, repeating the sign without the question. Ze is polite and removes a pack of handiwipes to clean hir hands and ball up into a 'trash pocket' before grabbing a utensil and start to eat. Ze chooses to use the sour cream. When hir mouth is clear, one hand shoots straight up and points down at hirself. "Rasa." Steve leans the shield against one of the garden boxes. Blushes at Matt's recognition, bows his head slightly. "{Just Steve is fine,}" this in French, continental and very /country/. "{And you are...? I've seen you a few times, but we never spoke.}" To Rasa he chuckles self-consciously. Switches to Russian, which he speaks slowly, with a ludicrous American accent and somewhat wonky word choice, "{Time...very strange, yes. I remember you, now. Your speaking. Any language we all speak?}" He repeats the last sentence in French, much more easily. Lucien gives no response to the Russian. He turns back towards the table, inhaling a long drag of his kretek and letting his eyes slip half-closed. His head tips back, blowing a thin stream of smoke towards the sky. Eventually he looks back at Steve, green eyes flicking over the man's face again. Then returns his gaze to the table, eying the latkes once more. With some /determination/. Though he still does not touch them. A small twich tugs his mouth into a slim half-smile. In warm Quebecois-tinged French: "{English.}" "{I'm Matt, and this is my brother,}" Matt punctuates his introduction by swatting gently at said brother's shoulder, "{Lucien. Pleased to meet you properly, Steve! I'm pretty sure we were at Sinai for the same reason. This time around.}" His smile is bright and warm. "{The rest of us are not sick, and if you have finished your treatment as well, we can just speak English.}" Rasa reaches out and pokes Matt in the arm as he goes on and on in a language ze doesn't quite understand, signing after, 'What.' Ze shakes hir head and finishes off Lucien's latkes and then dives into the applesauce like it is a side rather than a topping. "{I don't think we can... I mean, I can butcher Spanish with everyone, but I don't know if that is communicating.}" Ze straightens up and moves away from the table as ze speaks Russian, eying Lucien's cigarette for a moment. Then ze refocuses hir eyes on the man smoking. "C'est Bien?" "Oh!" Steve's blushing is probably hidden, in large part, by the dim light. "I see. Yes, I am cured, also." His English comes out hesitant and strange. "It's only...I've been sick for so long, and around so many others who were. Had to mostly get by butchering Spanish." He looks down, allows an embarassed smile. "Can communicate...sometimes with surprisingly little." He shrugs. "But, nice to meet you, Matt. And Lucien." His eyes settle on the book beside the older Tessier momentarily. "You are here to visit Rasa?" Lucien drops his hand to the side, resting his wrist on the arm of the chair and flicking his thumb against the butt of his cigarette. His brows lift as Rasa pokes at Matt, his tone dry when he speaks -- in English. "/He/ does not speak Russian, either, you know. And no. We are not." Another small flick of the cigarette. "Our youngest sister came to share in Spencer's Hanukkah celebration. They are quite close. Your treatment is done, then." Not exactly a question. "I am well pleased to see it a success." Matt ducks his head when Rasa pokes at him, his smile turning just a /little/ sheepish. "Russian /is/ on my list, yes, but judging by recent experiences I think I'm going to prioritize Spanish, ASL, and Mandarin in terms of languages to learn." He wipes his hands on a napkin tucked under his plate while nodding at the book, "It's sort of a tribute to the /Wizard of Oz/. The Wicked Witch of the West's background story." To the explanation of their visit, Matt only nods and sips at his tea, brows knitting faintly and eyes unfocused. He reaches out and touches Lucien's wrist, straining to sense the state of the biochemical chaos in him though the suppression drugs have not wholly worn off. "Virtually no one around here knows Russian, but it is what I fell into, so..." Rasa slips back into English with similar rusty issues, hir intonations are still somewhat Russian. "I am going to get better at Spanish, now, and keep up with the ASL. I hope this doesn't come around again, but diseases are tricky." Ze settles more against the railing ze has chosen and inhales deeply. "Aaah. No. As much as I enjoy their company, I don't think people think to visit me here. I am kind of... a visitor myself." Ze reaches a hand up to scratch at the back of hir head, watching Matt and Lucien interact. Hir eyes start to lose their color once more, hir tiredness returning. "How is Desiree?" "Oh, you must be Sera's brothers, then?" Steve smiles, nodding more confidently. "I just finished treatment yesterday. It's been...a bit of a trip." His pale blue eyes look out over the city lights. "Perhaps it will be like influenza, after all. Flaring up every so often. I mean to get better at Spanish, regardless." Then he looks down at Matt's book again, eyebrows raised high. "Really! Maybe I'll check it out sometime. I love /The Wizard of Oz./" Lucien draws in a sharp breath when Matt touches him, his fingers clenching inward. A chaotic spill of exhaustion and stabbing-pounding headache and nausea spills from him over to his brother, laced less immediately identifiably with other (just as pleasant!) sensations; a tight knotted ache through his muscles, an incessant itch behind his eyes, a fuzzy dizziness swimming through his mind, an intermittent sort of scraping burn like tiny shards of broken glass crawling beneath his skin. Lucien's jaw tightens. He lifts his hand, takes another drag of his cigarette. "You should," he ventures, low and steady, "watch /The Wiz/. Online. I just caught it. This past week. Fantastic production." He exhales slowly, a faint shiver running through him as he tips his head back towards the sky. "Another reimagining of /The Wizard of Oz/." His hand is slightly shaky as he sets it back on the arm of the chair. "Yes. Sera's brothers. -- Desiree is very much wishing to get back to school. How long can you live somewhere, really, before you stop being a visitor? When does this start to be your home?" The flick of his thumb at the end of his cigarette is sharp and restless. "Do you plan to move, when this is over?" Matt winces at the barrage of sensations from his brother, biting down on his lower lip hard. He shakes his head and looks back up at the others, though it takes a moment for his eyes to focus properly again. "Knowing commonly spoken languages is more of a survival skill now than it once was, but I sure hope this doesn't turn into...well, like the flu." He hasn't finished his food, but he looks down at his remaining latkes now without much evident interest, and drinks more tea instead. "/The Wiz/, yes, very excellent. /Wicked/ was also made into a musical, you know?" He taps the book gently. "Oh, I don't know," Rasa confesses, drawing in a deep breath and casting hir gaze over the rest of the Commons. "I don't really have any plans to do anything yet. Stuff got interrupted. Gotta get my feet underneath me again. Who knows what will come up when things settle down. I know where I'm not going," ze admits at length, scowling. Ze listens quietly to the others talk show toons before hir mood starts to dissipate. "How did you guys's place hold up?" Ze nods hir chin toward the Tessiers. Steve glances from Matt to Lucien, to where their hands touched, then back up at their faces. All very quickly, and he says nothing, though his smile has faded somewhat. "/The Wiz/," he repeats, producing a pocket notebook and scribbling in it. "I'll /search/ for it." He leans on the verb heavily, as if feeling some need to differentiate this kind of 'search' from a non-Internet one. "I've missed a lot of good shows, from what I heard. But it's so much easier now to catch up than it was in my day." He looks at Rasa, gives hir a rueful smile, "I think I've some idea of that feeling. But...here already feels like home to me. Maybe that just comes easily to me now." He shrugs. "I suppose that's a start." Lucien glances to Rasa, then away. "You have missed a lot," he confirms to Steve, quietly. His eyes have turned upwards, now, a small curl of smile on his face. A little wry. "Suddenly my world has changed it's face, but I still know where I'm going. I have had my mind spun around in space, and yet I've watched it growing --" His voice is clear and strong, a rich baritone that carries the snippet of song with an effortless warmth before he trails off into a quiet chuckle. His head shakes. "Our house still stands. Goodness. For all I have barely been in it this month. Where /have/ you been staying? Somewhere safe, I hope?" "I guess all that...other stuff didn't actually go away because of the outbreak?" Matt asks Rasa, though the very slight lift to his intonation suggests he isn't all that uncertain about the answer. "Just puts it off. I'm sor...er...um...oh, dear. I hope it gets sorted out, is all." A smile returns to his face as his brother sings, and he props his cheek up in the palm of one hand. "Plenty more good shows to see. Plenty of good songs to sing, too." "Well, you know, there were some slightly more pressing matters to deal with than little old me." Rasa shakes hir head, hir voice taking on a dry note. Hir expression softens as ze listens to Lucien almost sing, nose wrinkling up. "There are some doozies, too. I never really did understand 'Hair' or 'A Chorus Line.' Or... 'Cats,' really. I guess I like a little more plot to my musical shows." Ze chews on hir lip before quietly admitting, "Been staying with Ivan. He's got this super tiny apartment in Brooklyn near Brighton Beach. It's been safe enough, as there are lots of Russian speakers there." Steve's eyes widen with childlike joy at the song, however brief. "That's beautiful," he says, almost reverently. "The music, and your voice." He arches an eyebrow at Rasa's eclectic list of shows. "Those are a sight stranger than the ones people have been recommending to me, but I'll see for myself in time." The oblique references to Rasa's situation, of course, go right over his head, and if he has any inclination to speculate, he keeps it to himself. "Safe enough," he echoes, "that's something, these days." Lucien finishes off his cigarette, stubbing the butt into an ashtray on the table. "Merci." His head inclines slightly to Steve. "For the moment, it is all we can ask for." Though now his smile returns -- small, brief, but warm. "For the moment. Driving back this disease -- who knows. Perhaps one day we shall have our streets again as well. And our lives. Whatever," there's a hint of sympathy in the flick of his eyes to Rasa, "those may be."