ArchivedLogs:Being Oneself

Being Oneself
Dramatis Personae Anima, Mirror, Peter
In Absentia	2013-08-21 '
Location <NYC> Village Lofts - Laundry Room - East Village
This laundry room looks as many laundry rooms do. Fluorescent lights a little too-bright, linoleum floor is chipping, lint-dusty and occasionally stained sticky with spilled detergent. A broom and dustpan in one corner encourage its users to contribute to its cleanliness, which they do with intermittent conscientiousness. A bank of quarter-fed washing machines along the wall have clear windows on their doors to watch the laundry spin and turn within. On the wall opposite, a matching row of dryers near-perpetually has at least one out of commission. A rickety folding table and chairs at one side provide a place to sit and wait. There's a dispenser on the wall that will provide single-use sized packets of detergent or fabric softener, but it is hit or miss whether it is ever in stock. Peter is currently engaged in one of his more ambitious projects: Finding a way to make his costume MACHINE WASHABLE. He's already gotten closer toward this goal; the costume -- a dark red jump-suit -- can have its interior circuitry removed! And once you've taken out the peltier plates, there's nothing to smash into the sides of the washing machine. There's still the kevlar, of course, but Peter is /pretty/ sure it won't be heavy enough to do any real damage to the machine. Which is -- why he's here! To TEST his theory. On someone else's washing machine. Peter is currently crouched atop of the dryer -- having gotten through the washing process with little trouble, but now peering down (upside down!) into the washing machine's front end as it makes a steady, loud 'clunking' noise -- and shakes in a /slightly/ alarming way. He's clad in a red hoodie and dark blue sweat-pants -- and his thwippy things -- along with funny looking black socks. "--nngh, /don't/ explode," he whispers to the machine, as if this was a fervent prayer -- or command! The door opens. And is held open, afterwards; Joshua is a familiar face by now, infrequent at Game Night but regular at Fight Club. He has his hand on the side of the door for the person behind him, a laundry basket in his other, and he is watching Peter with his eyebrows quirked upwards and a rather bemused mental inspection given to the boy on the washing machine. "Are you breaking our laundry room?" Mirror!Joshua doesn't sound particularly /alarmed/, though he does glance from the row of washers down to the basket in his hand. Another laundry basket thrust into view crosses the threshold first, followed by the wide-cracked grin of a canid face belonging only to one such resident of the Lofts: Sloan. Unless you remember the many enigmatic - and changing - faces with whom she lives. Whoever wears the skin, they have covered the expanse of soft, white pelt in a loose, silk robe, the sort of luxury attire enjoyed by the unemployed and confined, all fashionable wear forfeited for the expense of light comfort. As she enters, a roving stare of round chocolate eyes befall the dangling teenager, brows raised and upper lip curled by the screwing of her elongated nose in an automatic sampling of the scents in the air. "Oh, Peter." A warm genial affront greets him; as to what lies beneath, however ... "--ohhey Josh--Joshua?" Peter asks, his head snapping up as he looks to him from his perch; both eyebrows zoom high across Peter's chitin. The hood is up; Peter's knees are out. He is squatting like a /frog/ on that thing. "/Are/ you Joshua, or -- I heard -- it's confusing? I mean, uh," and now there's a violet color crawling up Peter's cheeks as he simply -- gestures. In Joshua!Mirror's direction. That gesturing ceases and desists the instant Sloan steps in, though. Peter's violet immediately dwindles to nothing; a certain /stiffness/ enters his posture -- and his expression becomes tense. Lips flattening out to a sharp, straight line; eyebrows descending like an avalanche to form a level plane. "--oh," he says, and then he hops back a step, perching more toward the back of the drying machine -- elbows to his knees, wrists dangling below his belly. Staring at her, even as he tells Joshua: "Pretty sure it won't break." "I look like Joshua, don't I?" Such a helpful answer! UnJoshua tends to share with Joshua a certain permanent /dryness/; the smile that ghosts across his face is brief. He heads in to deposit his basket atop one of the machines. << No hug for you, this time. >> To Anima, a whisper-murmur, dry as well. His dark eyes skip between Peter and Anima, before he digs quarters out of his pocket to feed to the machine. "I'm Joshua. For now. It doesn't confuse /me/. What did you put in there?" He tips his head towards Peter's rattling machine. Sloan's ears twitch and her nostrils flare, attuned to the subtler physical adjustments partner to a shift in facial expression. The affable veneer worn holds, a thick layer of fur, muscle memory, and access to personality Anima paints on thick to disguise hirself beneath all that practiced ingenuity. Shouldering past the door, she advances hir host towards the machine adjacent to Joshua, hefting her cargo of basketed close atop to start sifting through the odd assortment of garments the eccentric members of their apartmenthold accrue. << whatever-you-say >> drifts up against Mirror!Joshua, brief but moist. Turning her head over her shoulder to stare at the rumbling dryer, "Pretty sure? But not definitely. How are you, Peter?" So long as a safe physical distance is maintained, Sloan-persona prevails. "--doesn't confuse you?" Peter asks, as if this was, in of itself, very confusing. His eyes, however, are still on Sloan. "Okay. Joshua, for now," he agrees, finally -- before adding: "Um, just -- a suit. I've been working on. Testing to make sure it's machine washable. It worked in the washing machine, but I'm worried--" CLUNK, CLUNK, CLUNK. The machine shudders and rocks, but stays standing. Peter's /weight/ might be helping. "--well, it should be... okay." This last bit is both the conclusion of Peter's sentence -- and his response to Sloan/Anima. Watching her. His eyebrows, previously flat, begin to pinch together. "...is she still in there?" Peter asks, then -- voice soft, eyes focused on Sloan!Anima's. "Does being you confuse you?" Joshua dumps clothes into the machine, detergent next, and turns to look at Peter once he turns it on. His eyebrows flick upwards. "-- Well. With /you/ I suppose it might, now and then." The smile that has been starting to grow on his face here slips away again near its inception, at that last question. His brows pinch together, too. He lifts a hand. Pinches at the bridge of his nose. "They finally told you." Anima removes each article from the basket one at a time, sorting them into smaller piles by some internal categorization until her heaps build to appropriate sizes. Then, she scoops a stack - all whites and grays - into her arms to shove them down into the open mouth of the washer. "I thought you were a superhero, not a seamstress," arrives the comical dig, framed by sharp-toothed, dogged grin. Eyes document Un!Joshua's actions however; the chore of laundering still novel after these few months of non-captive freedom, resulting in a mimic of his actions supplemented by whatever quirks ze excavates from Sloan!consciousness. Hand halting with a pair of fuzzy socks bunched in her palm, the friendliness in Sloan's face drains. "Oh no, the surprise is ruined. How boring." Still not providing an answer, there is a stretching, a quiet psionic probing of Mirror!Joshua without being allowed her own investigative touch. << do-we-have-a-reading-on-him? >> "--sometimes," Peter admits, reluctantly, to Joshua!Mirror. His jaw is still tense; his eyes focused on Sloan!Anima as she goes through the motions of preparing her wash. When Joshua!Mirror makes that last statement, Peter just stiffly -- nods. And then, to Anima, in reply to that last bit: "Were /you/ ever going to tell -- no, I guess you wouldn't have a reason to tell me," he says. His mind is a shifting rubrik's cube of thoughts and actions -- sliding and clicking and shuffling around with question after question, idea after idea. And not all of them are /good/ ideas. In fact, some of them are remarkably /bad/ ones. "Was it interesting to you, before?" Joshua's tone is mild, his eyebrows still raised though this time, to Anima; beneath this, clinical curiosity: << What /does/ interest you? >> He leans back against his washing machine as it chugs far more quietly than Peter's dryer. Beneath Anima's probing, Mirror's mind tick-tick-ticks in its own shifting whirr-click of shuffling, though it's far cooler-quieter than Peter's. In answer it offers up: << Teenager. >> And, after a moment more of thought, with the mental equivalent of a /sigh/: << Hero. >> "What does it change, now? Knowing?" It doesn't sound like an argument. Just soft, quiet. Thoughtful. Sloan releases the socks, emptied into the washing machine; this is the last of this load, so she feeds the machine change, then soap, applying her settings to close the lid. A click, as the door locks and then the flood of water inside the churning basin as it begins a slow revolution distracts her. "No, it was more like an irritant." Frank, the infusion of warmth lacks now, the candor changed to a cautious expression, ear flaps perked and tongue rolled inside her mouth which is sealed firmly. In the background of the permeating psychic field, << i-never-had-a-chance-to-find-out >> plops up, a secondary, << i-like-excitement-but-i-never-have-that >> behind it. First wash in process, Sloan!Anima turns to hitch her back up against the machine, leaning back on flattened palms gripping the corners of it for support. << teenager-is-unhelpful-so-is-hero-i-am-none-of-those-never-was-either >> "It doesn't benefit me to tell you, or anyone. And they," a glance at Mirror!Joshua, although hir other roommates are implicit in the reference, "keep me on a leash." She smirks. All of Peter's attention is locked on to Anima -- like a focused beam of light. He doesn't look suspicious, or angry, so much as... determined. "--just means," Peter says, his eyes finally breaking from Anima -- at last, reluctantly, settling on Joshua. "That someone I cared about never got out. Of that place." His eyes swing back to Anima. Now there /is/ something angry there. Just a hint, though. "The person you took. You should--" Peter's expression clenches, then. Until, a moment later -- much more quiet: "...she had -- /has/ -- family." Joshua's head tips back towards the ceiling. Studying it as if for answers. Or maybe for patience. Tick-tick-tick, though, his mind is patient as ever. Or impatient as ever; it's hard to tell, it kind of quietly clicks its way along at the same impassive pace. << What is exciting to you? >> A finger taps against the washing machine. Just one forefinger. Taptaptap. << We could go. Find some excitement. The world has a good deal of it. I get paid to follow it. I could follow it for -- >> There's a hesitation before the next word: << Fun. >> He sounds uncertain about this 'fun' concept, admittedly. "A lot of people didn't get out of that place." This, too, is just quiet. Joshua hums thoughtfully. "Does having family make you more valuable than those who don't? I haven't quite yet figured out how to measure the worth of a life. Their families," his lips peel back, briefly, in a thin sliver of teethysmile, "certainly seem to think so." "Why are your cares important. What about /mine/," is the glib counter from Sloan!Anima, muzzle-esque face curled at the blunt corners in a bare snarl. "I am Sloan. But Sloan is not me. I still think, and live, and /remember/ like her." She cranes her head from side to side; a slight crack in her neck occurs, drowned by the ambient noise of the laundry room. "Family /I/ don't want, Peter. It was already nuisance enough to act around /one/ person." Pointed, her once-affable stare has lost its inviting touch, but it's harder, more fixed when she trains it on Peter. "Because I enjoy /not/ being myself." From the bottom of hir mind, a series of thoughts bubble up, slow and anesthetizing as they break to the surface, stacked up against each other. << i-don't-know-that-answer-either >> << could-we-find-out >> << i-think-i-would-need-to-look-different-no-more-dog-walking >> "No, I mean--" Peter's eyes flick back to Joshua, a slight hint of panic entering his expression, slipping into his mind. His posture shifts; he's suddenly sitting /up/ on the washing machine. "Not that she's -- just, her family doesn't know. What happened to her. Maybe... maybe somebody should tell them -- /something/." And now Peter's peering at Anima again, listening as ze speaks. He grimaces in response to those words -- particularly that last statement -- as if he just got socked in the gut. "...or maybe not," he says, then. "Do you want to? What would you tell them, do you think? How would they take it?" Joshua glances to Sloan, and then to Peter. << We could. That body does make it difficult, >> he agrees mildly. << Do you usually have a /preference/? >> "Sometimes --" His tone has shifted, as if he is about to dispense some /wisdom/. Except! Except all he ends this with, with a press of lips and a steady look at Peter, is: "Life sucks." Unsympathetic, Sloan exhibits zero emotion except a cruel laugh that escapes, followed by a dispelling negatory shake of her head. "Both Sloan and I do not see the point of putting her family through that pain /twice/. She is not ever returning to them." A weighted finality hangs in her tone, although it fails to burden Anima overmuch, who commands a limb in front of her direct vision, scrutinizing the thick, slate clawed nails growing from her fingers. Shared in privacy, << difficult-yes-this-body-will-not-last-much-longer-i-need-a-new-one-regardless-sloan-is-dying >>, threaded with a cool, blank, << oops >> in a chain of sudsy thoughts bursting through one after the other. << non-physical-mutant-is-nice-original-body-is-better-they-have-it-i-am-sure >> Beneath Peter, the dryer rumbles to a halt; a bzzzzzzt emerges from within it. But Peter doesn't move; he just continues to stare at Anima!Sloan. For a good five seconds -- eyebrows crumpled, mouth twisted into a frown. Until: "I don't trust you." As if this best summarizes /everything/, Peter hops off the dryer, slings it open, and pulls out his crumpled red jumpsuit -- keeping Sloan in the corner of his vision the whole while. Once he's got it in his arms, he throws a glance back to Joshua, and: "--yeah. I guess -- sometimes it does." "That's probably wise." Joshua, nods -- approving! -- at Peter's summary assertion. "Probably best to trust most people you don't know." << Probably would have moved it after, ah. We. Checked out. >> Thoughtful. << The heroes downstairs might know a thing or two about looking into them, though. Until then, mmm. I doubt anyone would notice if a person went missing from Staten Island, nothing happens there anyway. >> Sloan lifts her shoulders in a careless shrug, the only gesture to come from her otherwise impassive figure. Behind her, the washer continues to spin, vibrating the organized dirty clothes on top of it. Brows lift at the suit removed from the dryer - no answer provided yet to her /own/ inquiry, earlier. "Again: I can't truthfully admit your non-trust fazes me. Although it would be entertaining to prove I am no liar." For a moment, she extends an open hand, hovering in the air. "But ... your friends wouldn't approve." So her arm drops. << tsk-tsk-i-don't-want-to-get-near-their-telepath >> << let's-explore-staten-island-can-we-it-can-be-a-field-trip >> Something faintly juvenile colors hir thoughts, there. Peter stares at Sloan's open hand -- as if ze was pointing a gun at him. He /doesn't/ make any move to take it -- he just glances at Joshua, lips twisted into a thoughtful frown, and... "I'll -- talk to you later." And then he's leaving -- slipping past Joshua on the way out, that folded mess of a jump-suit clutched tightly in his arms. "Almost certainly." Joshua's eyes watch Sloan's upturned hand, then track Peter on his way out. His lips compress. He pulls himself up to sit on the washer, once the door closes behind the boy. << Field trip? >> He turns this over in his mind, then shakes his head. << It can be an /adventure/. >> "Bye." Sloan waits until Peter exits, door shutting behind him to resume any sort of productivity, without the veil of her true, canid self draped over the entity Anima at hir core. "And /adventure/. That... sounds exciting." Then it is the swish of washing machines and whir of dryers, interrupted by the cessation of industry to change loads every so often.