ArchivedLogs:Aftermath

Aftermath
Dramatis Personae Ion, Kay, Regan
In Absentia	2013-09-26 (Set immediately after the Harlem raid.)
Location <NYC> Staten Island
Seriously? Who the hell goes to Staten Island? Apparently, Ion does, at least when travelling without any sense for where he is heading. It's not a long trip; it takes a matter of moments from the time he grabbed Kay and Regan in the church. But moments have a way of feeling longer when spent in excruciating pain, and /these/ few are spent with the so-very-pleasant sensation of high bursts of electricity coursing through their bodies. Any /actual/ electronics carried with them for the journey make it to the other side, though make it there short-circuited and beyond use; the faint singed smells of clothing and hair (largely intact but slightly crispy at their edges) probably are lost beneath the amount of smoke already absorbed from the previous standoff. They emerge between a building and its adjoining playground, filled with brightly colored plastic playground equipment in very small sizes -- LemonTree Pre-School, reads the cheerful yellow and green sign on the building's front. A cluster of very small children and one rather alarmed-looking young woman are staring at them, the former with excitement and the latter with nervous suspicion. "Ah --" Ion blinks at the schoolchildren and then summarily ignores them to check on his hapless slightly-electrocuted passengers. "Aaaaaghhhhh." On the ground, Kay is a hot mess, long forearms crosses in an X over his head. He isn't really screaming, so much as undertone /rasping/ this single low throaty vowel from the moment he appears, breaking off only to turn his face into the gravel and stray playground woodscips to cough. Lustily. He abruptly slaps his palms down to shove himself up to his knees and backwards, towards the wall, "Nuh!" "Khhhhhaaah," Regan sounds somewhat similar to Kay, a harsh wheeze of raspy breath pulled in where she slumps back against the wall of the building. Her arms twitch, curled tight around a large (and now somewhat singey-smokey) purse she's been carrying, and for a long moment she doesn't open her eyes. Just hunches there while her breathing evens out. rShe is slower to stand, bracing a hand against the wall and rising gingerly, not quite trusting her muscles. "That. Is some trick. Where, uh --" She looks around them, eyes narrowed against the sun. "{Sorry.}" This is in reflexive Spanish, and might well be directed to Ion's passengers /or/ to the class of preschoolers and accompanying guardian staring at them. "Don't know. S'move before they call the cops on us though. I'm sure being mutant around children is some kind of offense, yeah? I don't know about you but I have had my fill, for the day, of la chota." He offers Regan an arm to lead them away from the schoolyard and back into the street, glancing around at street signs with a small frown. The street they are on is a quiet one; aside from the preschool, largely residential. Small neat houses with small neat yards. A few have tidily sculpted topiaries. "Did it, though," he says, once away from the schoolyard. "Everybody out -- though after those ants attacking I hope they don't think to follow underground." Kay doesn't follow immediately; with his hands still vaguely locked in claws, hovering over his ears again. He's staring with ZERO comprehension at the children. A bit of smoke curls up from the back of his heads, slowly tapering off. Koff. "Ion-hff." He manages to stagger after the other two, one eye squinced up, dripping a hand on Ion's none-Regan side and leaning in him. "Where's -koff-where's the others. They all get out?" "Ants." Regan echoes this with a distinct note of displeasure in her voice. "Ants /attacking/. Did they kill anyone?" She slides her purse onto a shoulder and takes the offered arm, hampering Ion with a Regan on his other side and walking stiffly out beside him to the sidewalk. "The escape was successful, it seems." Her eyes sweep one way and then the other down the street. "This is --" Her eyes linger on a topiary. "Not Manhattan." This comes with a very faint puff of breath, not quite a sigh so much as an almost-cough. She reaches into her purse, rummaging for her phone. "Dusk didn't seem like he was happy to see them. I left them in the wires." Ion's shoulder bolsters up further against Kay's hand, and he lifts his own to clap the taller man on the back with his sadkoffing. "Everyone out. They're on their own for getting anywhere now, though. But I think there's someone with them who knows those tunnels, 'least." He looks one way and then the other, too, shaking his head at Regan's rummaging. "Sorry, cariño, I killed that. We'll find a --" He picks one direction to walk, heading for the cross street that seems more populated by businesses. Only at the intersection does he stop, glancing one way up the street and peering at the bus sign there. "Manor Road -- Staten Island." This is said with a note of 'well, fuck', in his tone. "Well. I think they still have taxis here, yeah? Don't expect we should be bringing you," his hand claps at Kay's back again, "back to Harlem any time soon anyway." "D'ju say they got out?" Though still patheti-coughing and walking winced over with a steadying grip on, Kay is kind of semi-laughing suddenly, kind of eagerly glancing over his shoulder towards the park they've left, "Whateve you two are saying, I can't hear a god damn -- Fuck, is this Staten?" Slowly, he's regaining himself, hand dropping off Ion's shoulder too peer around. He keeps hovering his hands over the sides of his head like he's fending something off, turning abruptly to /focus/ on Ion's face. "-back to Harlem?" He exposes his crooked teeth with a but if casual eagerness, "Sure. I'm set. Let's go. Bring it on. Agh, this is weird." He presses his hands down against the sides of his head, then releases them. Then presses them down again. Still semi-winking on one side, "You two hurt? We gonna boost some wheels or what?" "You left the ants /in/ the wires? You can do that?" Regan's brows raise at this information, her eyes sweeping over Ion a longer moment in thoughtful appraisal. Despite his warning he checks her phone anyway, lips pressing together as she returns the dead cellphone to the purse. She shakes her head at Kay, though. "You can't go back to Harlem. I have a place. Lower East Side. Come on." She steps out onto the edge of the curb, one hand lifting to flag down a taxi. "I think we've probably drawn enough police attention for one day without resorting to grand theft auto. I don't know about the both of you, but I'm famished." She pulls the door open for the taxi that pulls up in front of her, gesturing the other two in. "Si, vato, they all got out." Ion raises his voice at this, leaning in a little bit closer to Kay. "You held off the assault long enough. We are /not/ going back there, though." He makes a very emphatic 'no' with his fingers, signing the word in a quick snap of motion to Kay. "Yes. I can do that. Don't know what it does to them, really," Ion admits thoughtfully. "But it gets them out of our faces." He eyes the taxi for a moment, then nudges Kay in before climbing in himself. "Loisaida, then. And I could eat a fucking horse." That fingersign of NO is snatched after. Like if Kay can swipe it, it didn't happen. But he's not really arguing either. "--Wait, why are we -kff- fucking horses?" Kay doesn't so much climb into the taxi as he collapses into it awkwardly. His hand had been open and splayed IN REGAN'S FACE as he does, whispering, "out of our /faaaace/" as he vanishes into the cab, exhaustedly thumping an elbow. In the dark interior he's a little more brittle, smile fading. He lets out a wheeze of -- relief? Exhaustion? Surrender? And scoots over to make room for the others. With his brimstone smell, singed denim biker kutte and general dirty-lankiness, the cabbie probably has a very brief askance /look/ to give him. Kay IGNORES him, running a hand down his face. "...Briar should be here." Regan exhales a short breath, almost a laugh as she gets into the cab. She gives the driver an address in the Lower East Side, slumping down against the window afterwards. "Better than fucking pigs," she gives in answer, eyes drifting outward to watch the city pass by. Ion smells smokey, too, though his has an electrical tinge to it; he's still wearing the apron he'd cooked lunch in, over top of his clothes. He brushes his hands down against the apron, and then claps Kay on the shoulder with a rough squeeze. "Yeah." Just that. His head thunks down against the window, watching as well as they head back towards civilization.