ArchivedLogs:Appeal for Clemency

Appeal for Clemency
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Eric
In Absentia	2014-08-11 '
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 plentiful 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. It is early -- quite early, the shop has only recently opened for the day. There's a trickle of people passing in and out that is likely very soon to grow to a /rush/ with the pre-work influx. Dusk is not /exactly/ what you would call a Morning Person, but he's already here -- tucked away at a table with his laptop and a banana muffin and a huge mug of triple-shot latte and a somewhat intent look, a bit of wired energy that suggests he's not so much up early as just not yet /slept/. There are sunglasses pushed up into his thick hair, which is currently in a state of disarray, possibly from the frequent tousling as his fingers work through it. He's dressed casual, cargo shorts and a blue-and-black striped v-neck t-shirt. though he /has/ sandals they've been shed beneath his table and he is perched in gargoyle-crouch barefoot on his chair (which he's turned backwards to the table), no effort made to hide the boxy ankle monitor strapped to his leg. His fingers move over his keyboard rapidly, eyes narrowed on the terminal there. The door opens and two police officers walk in, badges gleaming, guns strapped to their waist, and long black batons moving back and forth along their spine as they walk up to the counter. This, perhaps, would be a much more concerning proposition if not for the unit patch on their shoulders, and the familiar faces. Two more members of the seemingly constant presence of the Mutant Incident Division, coming in for a place to crash. One of the officers heads to the counter to order a coffee, and the other glances around the room. His eyes land on Dusk, and light up. Eric steps over to Dusk with an easy gait, thumbs in his belt. "Hey there," he says, brightly, sounding not at all in the middle of a double shift. "You look like you could use a distraction," he drawls, putting a hand down on the table Dusk's laptop is on and leaning against it. "Mnnghnh," Dusk answers at first to this, scowling a little bit at the screen. There are a few more seconds of typing before he looks up, curling one arm around the back of his chair and reaching for his coffee cup with his other hand. "You in the mood to give me one?" He minimizes his window -- there's reddit pulled up behind it, thread in his current tab about New York's recent criminalization of mutant abilities. "Yeah, I can do that." Eric sits down with a light thud on the chair next to Dusk, grinning across the table at him. "You know me; I'm always up f'r it." He crosses his ankles, swinging his feet back and forth as if he was on a swing as he glances at the other man's screen, craning his neck to one side. "Ah, yeah. That's a fun piece a' law." Dusk huffs out a short laugh, pulling down a deep swig of coffee. "What you're always up for would break health codes if we did it in here. Shane would skin me." He sets down his cup, pinching off a bit of muffin to pop it into his mouth. "Fff. September second /I'm/ going to be in jail with this bullshit. I got ticketed before for /stretching/ my wings. What the fuck am I supposed to do with them, I don't know." His head shakes, fingers raking through his hair again. "Shane could join in too." Eric says, cheerfully enough. "Sides, in the club upstairs, I'm sure it certainly wouldn't be the /first/ time. Hell, probably wouldn't be the first time this week." His face sobers somewhat as Dusk speaks. "My department is supposed to be called in on any mutant related crime... even this kind. If...." Eric sighs. "We're just going to be cancelling a lot of bookings the next morning, I suspect." Dusk's mouth pulls up in a lopsided grin. He slides the coffee across to Eric. "You're gonna need a fuckton of this if you guys have to come out any time a freak is spotted being freaky. Or you're gonna have to hire a shitton more people." Eric grimaces and takes the coffee from the other man, taking a sip and plopping it back down across the table next to Dusk. "Yeah. I mean, I think the Mayor's office are gonna try to get us involved, but I doubt the brass'll make it easy for 'em. So, we may just be left cleanin' up the mess and releasin' people. We'll see." He shakes his head, lacing his fingers behind his head. "I'm bettin' they'll arrest one of my people in the first couple'a weeks, too." This earns a snort from Dusk, a little more amused. "Oh, man. That'll be excellent. You should just all arrest each other and then see what the fuck they do." He picks up his muffin, unwrapping it more fully to take a bite. "Guess it'd be a little too optimistic to think they'd rethink this shit." His tongue swipes out, cleaning muffin-crumbs from the corner of his mouth. Another tap at his mouse and he turns the screen around towards Eric to show the breaking news about Prometheus being frozen. "I'm kinda in an optimistic /mood/ just right now though." Eric snickers and shakes his head. "We're supposed'ta be exempt when we're workin', but somehow I doubt we'll get the benefit a' the doubt when we're off duty, badge or no. Still, it'll give me a chance to scream holy hell all'a way up to the Mayor and make a nuisance'a myself. Since I'm already the brass' whippin' boy, might as well earn it." The police officer drawls, watching Dusk's tongue flick out from his lips. Eric leans over towards Dusk as he reads the screen, eyes darting back and forth as a smile grows on his face into a grin. "Well, about fuckin' time. I can't /wait/ for one'a them to pop their fuckin' heads up in my jurisdiction so I can put the cuffs on 'em myself. Kidnappin', attempted murder, conspiracy, I'll need to fuckin' staple the fuckin' 5's together in order to fit all the charges on there." Dusk eyes the computer screen, the story there, with a crooked twitch of smile. "Kinda think making a nuisance of yourself is the only way to get shit done." There might almost be a note of pride in his expression before he closes the laptop lid and takes another swig of coffee. It fades back into something just -- tired. "Hope they get to jail with a few goddamn bruises on them if you do. I --" His brow creases, and he taps the coffee mug against his teeth. "... kinda just. Wishing -- hoping. That we can fucking rest now. Especially Jax. /Hive/. Flicker. It's been a long -- fucking." His eyes close, and he draws in another deep swallow of coffee. "Yeah, seems like it." Eric shrugs his shoulders, leaning back in the chair onto two legs as he looks over Dusk's face. "Oh, you can count on it. I don't think you'll find too many cops unwillin' to look the other way when they've seen the videos that came out'a that place. Some, yeah, but." He shakes his head and takes a long breath, glancing back behind him to the other police officer sitting with eyes closed on the chest, looking /very/ much like he's in the middle of a double shift. "Not any on my team." Dusk slumps a little bit lower against the chair, resting his chin on his forearm and closing his eyes. "Good." At first that's all he says, quiet and firm. Eventually his wing shift restlessly at his back. "Trial's too fucking good for those --" He shakes his head, toes curling down against the chair. "... Imagine they'll be on the hunt for Nox now, too." His level tone doesn't give a /lot/ of indication as to what he thinks of that. Eric perks up, tilting his head and straightening up his chair with a soft thunk of wood on the floor. "Yeah, well, hopefully the prisoners will help take care of them when they find out what kinds of shit they did to kids." Eric says, distractedly, as he looks at Dusk with renewed attention. "I don't think anyone ever stopped looking for Nox. Hand wringin' aside, she's still wanted for murder." He pauses for a second, eyes searching the other man's face. "Why - you know where she is?" Dusk grimaces. "I'm not wringing my fucking hands, she was trying to goddamn /peddle/ vulnerable kids bits of other mutants and calling it medicine." His fingers flex, into a fist and back out of one. "You know B was /going/ there? Wanted so bad to --" He exhales, sharp and hard through his teeth. Slowly his shoulders relax again, wings ceasing their twitching. "... in those labs, though. Shit's fucked up as hell." "Torture is torture," Eric says, simply, voice clipped. "Ain't make what they were doing any better than what Prometheus was doin'. It's just gussied up to look all nice and pretty, but at the end of the day." Eric's face screws up, as if he bit into a lemon. He pauses for a second and takes a long breath. "In some funny way, I think the shit Themis' doin' was a lot more fucked up than Prometheus." Eric's voice is a little bit hesitant. "I mean, Prometheus was doin' /worse/, but for better reasons. I'd rather someone want'a /use/ me and mine than someone want to get /rid/'a me. Ya know?" He pauses for a second. "She's a fuckin' traitor." "Two sides of the same damn coin." Dusk frowns down into his coffee and then up at Eric, a low growl rumbling under his words. "Both sick fucks but Themis is more /insidious/ about it. Dress it up like they're trying to help but all their language about how human and normal is ideal and the goal to strive for -- it's the language of gorram genocide. And it's designed to play into the /same/ bullshit we get thrown at us nonstop. About how we're just not /good enough/ how we are." He presses his lips together, hard, thin and pale and /visibly/ making an effort to stop himself from ranting further on this topic. "She's broken," he finally answers. "And I've been there, man. Sometimes you get pushed and pushed and --" His face has paled, too, his wings curling tight around himself like his own security blanket. "They make us monsters." His eyes have dropped to the table, not making contact with Eric, his voice lower with the admission, "... you know, I. Tried to /rape/ Jax. After that -- that Sublime shit, I was. He'd come to make sure I was fed and not alone and I nearly killed him." Eric nods in agreement, a disgusted look on his face. "Yeah, we're not human. They just want to make us act better - more proper." He falls silent, though, as Dusk continues talking. His expression changes first from one of sadness, then sympathy, before settling on a more neutral expression. He nods, quietly, as he listens to Dusk speak. When the other man has finished, Eric lets the silence hang in the air for a moment, before he says, quietly, "There's a difference between something made in a moment of a darkness and something planned, Dusk. You probably didn't even know who he was, you were so apart from yourself. So hungry, and so desperate. Starved, in more ways than one." His voice stays steady, even as his eyes search Dusk's face. "Ain't what she did. She /planned/ it, took it step by step. Was she in a shitty position? Sure was. But ain't excuse it. Just mitigates it." "A difference, maybe, but I -- I just mean." Dusk's wings are shifting again, quick and fidgety. "I /love/ Jax. More than my own goddamn life and if I was in a shitty enough place to /forget/ that --" He shakes his head, teeth pressing down against his lip. "I just know what these places can do to you. And maybe it doesn't excuse it, but. But shit. Just..." His brow creases uncomfortably, eyes slowly lifting back to Eric. "Just if your guys come for her -- have them be gentle?" Eric reaches out with one hand to stroke his fingertips lightly along the surface of one of Dusk's wings, giving him a light smile. "Alright, Dusk. As a favor to you, since I certainly ain't in the mood ta. But... we need to be the one ta find her, ya know?" He shifts on his chair, head tilting to one side as fingers play up and down Dusk's wing soothingly. "And ya need to stop beatin' yourself up about things which ya can't have helped." Dusk's wing shivers and presses up into the touch, the tension in his shoulders slowly easing. "I just get what it's like, you know. When you're so fucked up that -- don't get me wrong she's kind of scum. But I don't know what she /could/ be if she had a chance." Eric stays silent for this for several moments, hand slowly moving up and down. "Ya know," he says, softly, "I ain't know either. But that's not my job. If someone commits a crime, it's my job to bring them in... and trust the jury and the judge ta'make sure that if there was extenuatin' circumstances, they're honored. It might not always work, but it's the best we got." Dusk's smile skews very wry. His head dips, eyes dropping to the ankle monitor around his leg. "You put a freak in front of a judge and jury, /do/ you trust they're going to do the right thing?" Eric grins and shakes his head,patting the other man's wing softly. "Nah, nah I don't. But the alternative is worse. Doin' nothing means people who /should/ be in jail won't be. Hell, at this point, she'll probably be more likely to live under guard. God knows she ain't got many friends, these days. Pro and anti, both hate her guts." "Mmm." Dusk's brow creases deep. "That's definitely true." He chomps down the last of his muffin, washing it down with a gulp of coffee and then squinting into the empty mug as though he could get more coffee just by /thinking/ at it hard enough. With a small sigh he sets the mug back down and looks up at Eric, glancing over the uniform. "... Guess if you're on duty I can't tempt you back home, huh?" Eric's grin turns wolfish as he glances back at the police officer sitting on the couch, staring up at the ceiling asleep. "If you want to ditch him, I don't think he'll mind. It's been a pretty quiet day so far, and I've been on duty for eighteen hours without a break." he says, voice trailing off suggestively. "Plus, you like the uniform." This is said with absolute surity and a mischevious smile. Dusk stands, picking up his dishes to bus his table clean; he returns in short order to slip on his sandals and fold up his laptop. "Fuck the uniform," he answers Eric. "I like getting you /out/ of it." Eric laughs, a warm sound to match the burning in his eyes. "Well, I'm lookin' forward to it." He grins as he steps over to the other officer and places a heavy hand on his shoulder. "Hey. Take a break, yeah? I'll be back." The other officer doesn't even open his eyes. "Sure thing, Sarge. Tell whoever it is to take their fuckin' time, as long as I'm gettin' paid overtime." Dusk slips his laptop into his bag with a grin, strapping the messenger bag on between his wings and across his chest. "I always do," he answers the other officer, wing curling around behind Eric's back to lead him towards the door.