ArchivedLogs:Can Only Hope

Can Only Hope
Dramatis Personae Ion, Killian	2015-11-05 "Yea, yeah. I don't get sick." (Part of Flu Season TP)
Location <NYC> Central Park South
With daylight savings shifted to earlier sunsets, the zoological parks too have found their closing hours much earlier. The Central Park Zoo closed at 4:30PM but that hardly means the staff has cleared out. A beautiful autumn day as it'd been, the evening gains a cloudiness too it that masks the out-coming of stars. Parks have been busy, and only begin to clear out as lamplight becomes the only thing to see by. Some joggers keep at it, hard pressed to give up their routine despite the darker hours, but the families at least have gone home. Killian, though only part-time now at the zoo, leaves as one of the last of the staff. He turns a shoulder with a vague wave to the new guard-staff that's inadvertently kept him from sleeping there, but doesn't grant a look too. His focus is on a ratty old journal, one of those cheap composition notebook that's just a little (very) stained around the corners and looks like /something/ has had teeth in it more than a couple of times. He's finishing up some sort of note, and very focused in doing so, as he takes a memorized, routine path down farther into Central Park itself, towards the corner stands of food that smells all too good to pass up before a flight home. The hot dog man has taken up intermittent shouting, almost in competition with the lemonade and funnel cake guy not too far from him. Ion is shouting right the hell /back/ -- a kind of AMIABLE shouting, to be fair, bright and cheerful. Maybe to the hot dog vendor, maybe to his customers: "/Best/ fucking greasy-ass sausages, you ain't gonna go wrong, need like /double/-hits on that spicy-mustard, though, don't get none that neon yellow shit. Spicy it where it /at/ -- yo shit, my /dog/." This time, to Killian. Ion is raising a hand, waving a large Italian sausage towards the approaching Brother. He has one, foil-wrapped, in /either/ hand. Currently dressed in jeans, tall boots, a very grungy black and white flannel under his Mutant Mongrels kutte. He's looking a little pale, kind of sniffly; that's not stopping his wiiide bright grin as he lopes over towards Killian. "Shit yo what's good how you doing. Tell me some good news, huh?" It would take a lot to miss /that/ and probably somewhere between the description of the sausages and the color of the mustard, Killian abandons the scribbling to curl the well-worn and thusly overly malleable composition notebook into a tight spiral and shoves it into a back pocket of his jeans. There's a crooked but broadening grin on the shapeshifter's face. "Yo, man," Comes with the greeting sort of up-tilt of his head, "How you been? What the fuck you doin' out here?" Is amiable, and as if Ion hadn't made it /clearly/ obvious already. There's an amused 'tsch' sort of noise, though he struggles to get anywhere near Ion's energy, looking far more tired than he usually does at this golden hour of the evening. "Aside from the red pandas having cubs outta season?" That counts for good news right? An interim comes when he lays his palm on the cart, a flick of a pointer finger requesting one high-quality hot dog for himself. "No fucking way?" Ion's eyes /light/, at this, the excited uptick to his gravelly-deep voice as delighted as if Killian had just told him his scratch-off tickets were WINNERS. "You got tiny /baby/ Pokemon things up in there? Those assholes /too/ cute to be real they goddamn flaunt it. It's /disrespectful/. Spicy-mustard, don't forget." He's telling the vendor this, whether Killian asks for it or not, as he bites into his /own/ sausage. "Me, I'm refueling. Been busy as fuck, think it's hitting. Woke up feeling like ten thousand /mile/ of hard road today, man." "Yeah." Killian's laugh follows, something that manages to be more than his usual half-hearted chuckle, but it fades as if it was a /lot/ of effort. He takes the 'dog now, drenched in the spicy mustard that the metamorph doesn't argue against. A dribble threatening to fall is caught with a finger and shoved in his mouth, removed as he starts to shake his head. "Naked little baby things, hide all up in the damn pouch. They don’t got any fuzz and look like- I dunno- not-aliens. Got a couple months, then maybe you come by. Can get you in before the crowds and shit." A pause as he stuffs half the hot dog in his mouth to eat it all too quickly. The spicy though, it gets him obviously here, wrinkles lining his nose, his eyes. But when he swallows, there's a sniffle. Taste is a little off. "What shit you been up to lately? You doin okay?" Is a little more targeted on subject than before, then adds, "You catchin' this damn thing too? Hear half the island at night coughin'." "Pouch?" This seems like news to Ion. "They got a pouch? I didn't know they was," for a moment he stops here, his brow furrowing uncertainly. "{like a kangaroo, what's that, shit}, how do you call those things. Fuck it." His head shakes quickly. He stops for another bite of his sausage, though pauses short of actually getting it /to/ his mouth to stifle a cough against the crook of his arm. "... fff. Half everybody sick, really?" This sounds suddenly sharper, more concerned than it should perhaps warrant. "But folks, they /okay/?" "Marsupial- no." Killian follows Ion's rapid train of thought with the sense of familiarity, answering somewhere in the midst of it. But he was /wrong/, and he seems very delayed in taking it back, as if the cogs are turning all-too-slowly. He squints. "Those fuckers are mammals. Damn, I'm off today. Won't be able to do shit tonight if I can't even-" The latter is mumbled, before he picks his attention back up with an uneven shrug. "Just hearing the sniffling, coughing, moanin'," He lifts a hand to gesture to his ears, suggesting not the human ones. "Sounds like it. Haven't checked 'em all out myself, but shit is everywhere. Anette looked 'bout to pass the fuck out, kept an eye on 'er last night. You seen the others? Haven't seen you 'round there asmuch. You holdin up a'right?" "You get some food in you, maybe that help your brain get better, huh? I don't /never/ think right on an empty stomach just bad fucking decision all the damn time." Ion's grin is broad and bright, here. But fades, at the report of the sickness on the island. "Sniffling, though, it what. Just a cold, just a -- a flu? That's what that's what everyone /saying/, just a flu..." He trails off, here, eyes slipping away with an oddly pensive look on his face. Frowning off across the park. "It been a /week/, man." "Yea, yeah, I don't get sick. Can't." Killian states offhandedly that as fact, still apparently thrown by his given misinformation. But he takes Ion's advice, eating more of the hot dog and taking his time with it. His gives a brief grimace at the question, an unknown. "I guess, man. I dunno. Don't think anything is /just/ anything, you know? Fuck knows whatever's causing it. But-" He hesitates, adopting a very level expression clearly in place of something much more significant. The shapeshifter looks over his shoulder at a couple passing by the hotdog stand but not being tempted by the proactive calling and heavy greasy smells that infiltrate 'round it. "Is there any word? They found anything at all?" His blue-green eyes that flicker just slightly with deeper browns study Ion at that much quieter, darker question. "Hella convenient. Wish I had me some of that. Fucking Sentinels slowed me the hell down enough already without this --" Ion waves a hand towards his SNIFFLY face as if it is betraying him. "Bullshit." He chomps at his hotdog again, licking mustard off the side of his lips. His head just gives one shake. "Dusk, B, they on it, but --" Shrug. His jaw clenches. "One man. Big-ass world. Meanwhile, I been --" His other hand waves, gesturing -- wide. Vague. "Things out here, they still carrying-on, you know? World just keep /turning/, I gotta keep up. Is like no matter how shitty things get --" Weirdly, here, his grin is suddenly sharp and amused. "There still /loads/ of /other/ shit to shovel somewhere else." There's a wry twist to the smile, though. "I stop by few-days-past. Check up some friends. Been sick too. What happen? Whole damn family, all them dead. Tried to eat me." "You gettin anything back?" Powers, he implies before finishing off the rest of the hot dog, and patting his hands together and then on the side of his pants. Killian swallows the most of it down without chewing amidst shaking his head. "Can't ask for better." He notes on Dusk, B, once he can speak again, "But it's time, just keeps tickin. Every fucking day that passes by. He's already dealt with this shit-" He states with some of the impatience not-well-hidden beneath that previously guarded expression and cutting himself off shortly. "And then whatever with the clinic." And everything that involves. Ion's sudden switch and the words that follow it regain his attention from his rambling that had started to simmer. "What? Tried to eat you? Not even stayin out of trouble for a week?" "Tiny tingle. No time at all, I be good as new again, huh? Starting to feel the world around me again. Only just every once in a while." Ion's smile at this has kind of a delay to it, but eventually appears, brief and crooked. He sniffles again, wiping his nose against the sleeve of his fleece. "We gonna find him. Meanwhile got some family of Jewel's to dig up, huh? Heading /back/ to D.C. -- some time." Frown. "Not -- sure. When..." But this trails off, with a deeper frown, a shudder. "/Eat/ me. Dead and come back. Only one small girl she still alive, and she just only barely hanging on, yeah? Rest her family, my /people/, dog, they fucking --" His hand makes a cutting motion across his throat. "Hungry-ass corpses. The island --" There's a sudden intensity to his gaze now. "People sick, or they /sick/? Tiny-shark, Shane, he say some fucking biters come at /him/ last week too. And then /again/ some other they bite on Jax. I know there's been some here-there every-once-a-while but that? In a week? That sound like a lot, huh?" "Yeah, better be. Ain't the same- ain't right- without you zappin' around." Killian remarks on the powers, though it seems the last bit of his amusement. The dark edge of him setting his jaw, his hands stuffing themselves into his pockets. "Some time. Not soon enough." And to the next, "When were you playing with fucking zombies? These.. they sick like normal people sick. Haven't seen no one die and then try to bite on anyone. How fast was it? How quick they get sick and die, do you know? You think this could be-" The shapeshifter's uneasiness comes more in light of anger than anything, "Biters /in/ the city? What'd you do, burn em, shoot em?" He takes a sharp breath. "Fuck this, man, I dunno. There's too many sick. Normal flu season, people do what? Call outta work and go back in a few days. But this? So man so fast. I don't like it. You know anyone looking into this too? Feel like with all the things that need eyes on 'em, we're stretchin a bit thin." "I don't know, like, fucking. /Halloween/. No goddamn /joke/, man, I wish it was some kind of. Spook-day prank. No way. Just my friends, dead as fucking --" Ion grimaces. "Not dead /enough/." The clench of his fingers into a would-be fist squishes mustard out of the wrapper of the stub end of sausage he holds; he polishes the rest of the sausage off, licking the mustard off where it had oozed onto his hand. "I took the little girl to a fucking doctor, what could I do? She still alive. Cops shot the dead ones." His jaw has set into an unhappy clench at this. "Not pretty. But it wasn't till just last /night/ I thought nothing more of it. I thinked, just that one case, yeah? I know here and /there/ it still happen. Then last night Shane say, no, not one. More. And /him/ whole school all sick too. Fuck it." He shakes his head. "I don't know who looking in on it. But Regan, she'd know, yeah? They give her a damn /award/ for -- for -- last-time-through. Find the /cure/ the fucking plague. She'd know. Right?" This sounds -- hopeful. Killian's grimace has him looking away for a second, face scrunched, "Sorry, man." This, quieter, with pauses before and after. He shakes his head, "Like, no breaks." He pulls a hand from his pocket to rub over his face, heated and slightly flushed, but not from the conversation. He listens, and at some point sighs heavily, tensely, "The whole school? Fuck's sake if this is anything even remotely close.. I can at least hit up the streets, see if there's any damn sign of /them/, see what the word is." Of the homeless, the wanderers, and the various critters that get into places they can't. "Can only hope, yo. What I know about viruses ain't much, but know they change, mutate. Get tougher. But she's smart as hell." Is just as hopeful in regards to Regan, but with a fluctuating edge at the end. "If only we can keep our damn heads on straight long enough until she can." "Be good to know," Ion agrees. "How wide this gotten already. How far it -- fuck. Last time, people died real quick? Some ways that a blessing, huh? Caught it. Caught it long before it got /too/ gone past New York. If people been sick long already --" His eyes narrow. Skim away, for a moment, lighting on a nearby streetlamp and then returning to the ground. "... can only hope."