ArchivedLogs:Better Angels

Better Angels
Dramatis Personae Ion, Tian-shin
In Absentia	2017-09-23 "{I've read enough of the Bible to know the /good/ angels were scary, too.}" (RP Challenge: Lonestar - "What About Now")
Location <NYC> Chinatown
One of New York's oldest neighborhoods and the oldest Chinese enclave outside of Asia, Chinatown is a vibrant ethnic community, which draws throngs of tourists annually as well. This neighborhood is packed with Chinese-owned businesses, from restaurants to groceries to theaters to fashion. It's evening, and Columbus Park is bustling with its usual after-dinner crowd: elderly people playing a variety of games at the tables, young families out to walk their dogs or small children or both, teenagers lingering about the edges of the park smoking cigarettes they half-conceal with their hands--and regardless of age, predominantly Chinese save for the handful of exhausted tourists. Tian-shin, though plenty Chinese, looks rather out of place. She's seated on one of the decorative boulders on the western perimeter of the park, across from Central Booking, a lit cigarette in one hand and a smartphone in the other. In addition to being quite a bit older than most of the other smokers lounging on the landscaping, she's dressed rather more formally in a pearly pink blouse and gray pencil skirt, a matching jacket lying across her lap and a black briefcase leaning against the stone beside her. Her hair is done up in a neat and complex knot at the back of her head, pinned in place by a black lacquer hair stick decorated with a rose quartz plum blossom. The growl of Ion's bike is not the harsh roar that many de-muffled motorcycles very noticeably bring with them, but it is distinctive all the same, throaty and rumbling as he pulls up alongside the park. Everything about him is distinctive, really, from the vanity WIRED license plate to the heavily customized chopper to the extremely singed-clawed-chewed on cut to the lightning-bolt emblazoned helmet hiding his face. It earns him a couple glances -- couple second glances -- and out of place though /he/ may be, earns him some familar smiles, a few friendly nods as he hops off his bike, removes his helmet (to reveal his own bright smile beneath.) He grabs a large tote bag from one hard-walled pannier before loping over to Tian-shin, hopping up to sit on a lower-down stone than she has claimed. "{Hey-hey-hey. I ain't miss them let out DJ? I rush some but little bit of trouble it take tracking down his medication. Got more soda and candy and arnica and /mad/ smokes, though.}" His brows lift as he flumps back against the rock, head tipping back to peer up at Tian-shin. "You keeping alive, huh?" Tian-shin looks up from her phone when Ion's bike approaches, though her thumb continues swiping at the screen for a while longer, her face bathed in the soft blue glow of the screen. She glances back at it one more time, taps send, and slips the phone back into an inner pocket of her jacket. "{Hey. Thanks, and no, he's still in there. Pigs are dragging their feet real hard today.}" She takes a hard drag on her cigarette and breathes a long stream of smoke up at the leafy canopy. "I'm--keeping. Been busy with school and disaster relief, but this..." Her free hand waves in the general direction of the austere building across the street. "...I know I don't have to be here in person, but sometimes it helps. I'm good with cops, you know?" Her smile is kind of crooked here. "How're you? And the gremlin?" "Yeah, you got some /skills/, querida. Shitty skills to need but damn if they ain't help how many people life? Fuck if them pigs gonna remember the rest of us got lifes to /get/ back to without someone to do the remind." Ion's smile, for a moment, drops into a hard frown. Deeply creased, his shoulders tensing and fingers pressing down hard against the rock. "Where you been disast... disaster..." His cheeks puff out. "Reliefing? Dusk a ball some stress. {Puerto Rico he says the whole fucking place, no power. Everything. Maybe whole months they won't turn it back on because America bankrupt the whole island.}" His head shakes hard too, the sharp motion seeming to dislodge the frown just like that. He reaches into the tote bag, pulls out a small paper bag slightly patchy with oil splotches and a Tupperware full of green glop. "When you eat, yo? {I make the /best/ guacamole, you see if I'm lying.}" His fingers drum against the rock, rapid. "Tiny-monster they growing {like a fucking weed /damn/. I turn my fucking back -- bam.}" His fingers snap. "{Ten new things they've learn, ten new troubles they've got into.}" Though his eyes still have a too-bright gleam, intense and manic, there's a softer quality to his smile here. "No time at all they'll be riding. Vroom. Already they asking me always." "{I don't think it's /skills/ so much as...}" Tian-shin gestures at--all of herself, really. "I happen to look just about the right combination of respectable, non-threatening, and /kind/ of hot. I've learned to milk it pretty well." She rolls her eyes, pulls hard on her cigarette. "Did some work in the Pacific Northwest, but also down in the Caribbean, yeah. The Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, mostly, though some of my teammates have covered more territory than I have. The most desperate evacuation and supply situations have been sorted for now, but actually rebuilding looks daunting, especially when some of the smaller islands rely so much on tourism." The small shake of her head might be unconscious. "My brother brought us some buns earlier, but I could probably stand to eat again. {And I wouldn't skip your guacamole even if I was stuffed.}" She's leaning toward the food with a hungry gleam in her eye. "You think they're trouble now? One of these days they're going to get strong enough to /actually/ pick Tola up and fly with her. Then, watch out!" "/Kind/ of, fuck." Ion scoffs at this descriptor with a /pah/ of breath, a shake of head. "{You're selling yourself short. Skills /and/ looks both.}" He uncaps the container of guacamole, setting it up on the rock in Tian-shin's easy reach before handing her the bag of (thin, home-baked, light and crispy) tortilla chips. "Ay-ay-ay don't whisper not a word at them, I think already probably? Probably maybe they more than strong enough for /that/. Them two going to be some whole new storm of trouble, world /not/ ready." He sucks in air through his teeth, head shaking. "Gracias a Dios -- you your team, I glad you out there doing your work. Some small bit I gone. Meet up our SoCal chapter, help them dogs go down Texas and -- shit's been fucked every-damn-where. {Kind of need every bit of help that's there. /More/ than usual even, damn. And not like there /ain't/ other relief out there but some people -- some people.}" Just another frown, here. "I glad you out there." "{I think it depends on who you're asking, but thanks.}" Tian-shin pulls out a small handful of chips and starts methodically stuffing her face with guacamole. For a few moments she only makes muffled but happy approval-noises, though she manages to sign 'delicious' kind of clumsily with the hand that's holding her cigarette. "{You are some kind of angel, you know that?}" She tilts her head. "Your whole club, really. My team--we do a lot, but it mostly feels like reacting once the damage is already done. You're out there keeping people alive whether there's a disaster or not. That's /harder/, really. But I'm glad your out there, too." Scooping up some guacamole and sort of saluting Ion with the loaded chip. "Really glad for the snack, too." "{/Some/ kind.}" Ion's grin is /fierce/, his laugh delighted. "{Lucifer, he was an angel too. I bet they --}" His hand is waving over toward lock-up, "{would have some /thoughts/ on what kinda angel we are.}" He's bouncing a little in place at this, though, if anything seeming further energized by this thought. "This fucking world, though. Feel like we ain't need no kind of hurricane to have some disaster. Everyone living every-damn-day a storm. We find some small bit of dry ground, why not we share it?" Shrug. His shoulders roll as he sits up -- stands up -- immediately sits back down again with a small restless bounce of leg against the rock. "{You, though, you doing plenty for people. All the time.} But you got an itch, maybe you come ride with us some time. See if the vibe its for you, eh?" Tian-shin snickers, shaking her head. "{I've read enough of the Bible to know the /good/ angels were scary, too.}" She's nodding along to Ion's philosophizing. "I'd /love/ to ride with you. Just not sure where I'd find the time, you know?" But she's glancing over at Ion's motorcycle all the same as she smokes her cigarette down to the filter, finally--reluctantly--stubbing it out on the side of the rock before slipping the butt into a little portable ashtray. "How about now? Well, not /now/ now, after we drop all that stuff off, and I leave some instructions, and change out of these clothes..." She interrupts herself with a laugh. "Wow, I'm just no good for spontaneity these days." "You want to do a thing? We /make/ time, then." Ion's laugh comes again -- brighter, sharper, this time as he bounces to his feet and -- vanishes. It's only a few short seconds before he's back, though -- or close enough to back, reappearing by a nearby lamppost, this time with his hands empty, his tote bag gone. He dashes back toward the rock, bright gleam in his eyes and wide grin on his face. One hand extends in invitation to Tian-shin. His rumbling deep bass carries the tune cheerful, easy, with his invitation: "What about now? How 'bout tonight? Baby, for once let's don't think twice --" Tian-shin must have anticipated Ion, as she is pre-emptively pulling on her jacket and picking up her case when he returns. Her alto is rich and, though unpolished, more or less on-key as she picks up the next verse, "--Let's take that spin that never ends that we've been talking about." She takes his hand, and the shock that comes with his touch, pulling herself to her feet. "What about now?"