ArchivedLogs:Fight or Flight

Fight or Flight
Dramatis Personae Peter, Mirror, Anima, Parley
In Absentia	2013-08-09 '
Location <NYC> 603 {Greyhaus} - Village Lofts - East Village
This apartment is bright and airy, its floor plan open and a plethora of windows providing it with an abundance of light. The tiny entrance hall opens into a small living room. Towards the back, a couple of doors lead off into bedrooms and bathroom, and to the right, the kitchen's tile is separated from the living room's dark hardwood floors by black countertops. Above the bedroom to one side, there is higher space; a ladder climbs up to a lofted area looking down on the living room. Another bathroom stands just into the hall and the farthest door leads to the apartment's final bedroom. The decor in this apartment is eclectic, an odd jumbled mishmash of found items that seem to bear little relation to each other. Here, a newspaper article is clipped and pinned to the wall with various lines highlighted in pink and orange highlighter, here an advertisement, here the label off a beer can. The furniture is eclectic, too. A milk crate for a table, a soft (orange!) suede ottoman (with no armchair to match), a very /bright/ magenta vinyl couch. Someone has helpfully affixed a sheet of paper to the wall over the couch, with the label 'COUCH' and an arrow pointing downward. A combination corkboard/whiteboard near the kitchen entryway more often bears odd scribbled drawings than helpful information. An average day in the Greyhaus doesn't have much grasp of convention; Parley has set up a nest of industry on the floor beside the couch, where a number of legal books are spread open alongside a few dejected second hand Japanese textbooks - one with the really cheerful word Nihongojouzu! printed on the front, his laptop open and shoved to the side and a notebook open with a pen set atop it. All of these things are being ignored, as he leans back against the couch with a bit of old shoelace strung through out his fingers in a ghetto game of Jacob's ladder. Just... /eyeing/ the room for who he might inflict it upon. He's in his house-gear. Which is just a thin wifebeater. So cargo shorts. Fur. Whump whump whump whump whumpwhumpwhumpwhumpwhump -- this is the sound of Peter hammering on the door, in rapid-fire succession. His fist just steadily /whapping/ against it. His mind is like an unstoppable streak of 'BLAZING SPEED' in Lightning Bejeweled; every thought he makes is followed by an EXPLOSION and by a tumble of shiny things into a row. The chitin-clad boy is currently wearing a loose-fitting red hoodie -- slits in the shoulders for black plates that peek up! -- along with a tiny stitch-patch on his torso, a pair of two-toed socks, and dark blue sweat-slacks. He is hopping from one foot to the other, apparently in expectation of something, his nimble mind /very excited/ ohmyGod PUPPY. "What." Mirror is in hir bedroom, currently in Joshua-skin; ze's just getting dressed -- loose t-shirt, cargo pants in some lightweight synthetic material. Dressed to /move/, he's getting ready, ish, for a stint as FightClub healer in place of /actual/ Joshua, out on an ambulance somewhere in the city. "What -- the hell is that." He /knows/ full well who Peter is but his tone sounds like the enthusiasm is /paining/ him. Maybe it is paining him, he is mentally /withdrawing/ from it. "We don't," he tells Parley from the bedroom in all /defiance/ of Anima's recent residency, "have a puppy." He's also making no move to answer the door. Fuck doors. Sprawled across the the frictionless surface of the couch is Anima hirself, in the perma-guise of Sloan, her trusty canine shell. Ze too holds no interest in /physically/ answering the door, though with a faint mental trickle ze drops a hand on Parley's shoulder to percolate through his mind and psionically /probe/ what lies beyond - in the hallway. In a definite canine whuff and drooping of ear flaps beneath platinum hair, Sloan rolls her eyes and adjusts, feet kicking in the air above her as she lies belly down against magenta vinyl, a true complement to the industrious felinesque Parley beside her: while he idly entertains himself amidst a field of study ze focuses on the /cultural/ component to the Japanese language - MANGA. Nose twitching as Mirror!Joshua emerges, she slants him a glance. "Nope. My name's not on the lease either. I won't be so /rude/ as to invite him in as a guest to a guest." BACK TO PARLEY. Will he answer? The door, that is. Parley hates you people. All of you. "He could break down the door, you know," he exhales down at his Jacob's ladder. "He's strong enough." And /enthused/. KSH! The slippery wash of Anima into his mind finds the usual barren gray, though recognition of that /particularly/ busy mind at the door is handed over to the body-snatcher like a meal the empath has just now decided he doesn't WANT. Have my leavings. Followed by a deep rippling mental swallow that pulls Anima into his mind, flushes hir down the soft give of his channels and then SPITS hir out at the far end. Back into the fluffy canine body from whence ze came. Blegh. SIGH. He hoists himself to his feet and pads for the door, tossing the string into the middle of the manga in Sloan's paws - any good cat interrupts your reading at the slightest provocation, after all. And mentions, on his path to the door, "I've been thinking," his eyes are running up and down Mirror's current form, "I may try going with you to the fights tonight." His opening the door is like a haunted house; his silent presence, stepping back as the way is unbarred for Peter. Like it's opening by ITSELF. Peter isn't going to knock down the door! At least... /probably/ not. Maybe not. Okay, by the way he's hammering on that thing it's anyone's guess; one might start to wonder what the hell his fist is /made/ out of. When Parley pulls the door open, Peter's hand continues sweeping forward for several more silent knocks against the air where the door once /was/... and then he grins! Stepping inside. Armed with his /thwippy/ things. "Hey!" he exclaims, eyes sweeping across the room, and... oh hey! PUPPYPUPPYPUPPY. "/SLOAN/ hey ohmyGod." He /darts/ toward her. Hir. /Them/. "Have you been practicing?" It's a bland offhand question; Mirror!Joshua leans a shoulder against his doorframe, looking towards the door as it's opened. "Shouldn't you be downstairs?" comes his greeting for Peter. << We could put you on the lease, >> is directed to Anima and Parley. << But you'd need to have a name. >> A low, guttural vibration rises from the back of a canid throat to growl in a garbled murmur when a web of string falls across the page Sloan(ima) holds. Elongated snout folding at the corners, wrinkled and furrowed to expose the tip of sharp teeth she glowers at Parley, discarding his flaccid projectile in a tangled mess on the floor. "Hi, Peter," is the verbal greeting, ingenuously /Sloan/ in essence, if not for a telepathic backdrop of, << my-first-act-as-tenant-would-be-to-hire-pest-control >> in a sterile wash of translucent /suds/ broadcasted through Parley in a diluted, foamy jettison. << i-do-need-a-name-but-i-lost-my-papers-and-need-a-new-pedigree. >> Sitting upright and draping bare, fur-coated legs over the side of the couch, she subverts her territorial expression into a smile, curled maw twitching in the the opposite direction. Happy Sloan! "Every moment I've been able." Idly answering Mirror, Parley crosses his ankles, leaning against the side of the open door as Peter /zoom/ past. "They've been some help, at Heroes for Hire. Living up to their reputation." He uses his hip to /bump/ the door shut now that they've been effectively invaded. "Though - I guess I hadn't mentioned. That fellow that tried to come up to our apartment? Trib Jones? It seems he's since been fired." He's kind of... dry-smiling as Peter greets their canineCompanion. << (preferably)(a name not found)in (missing persons.) >> He scratches behind an ear, << (...sss.)(no one) has (told him yet.) >> Peter /seems/ ready to pounce Sloan with a /hug/, but he hesitates for a moment; likely remembering what Parley said back at the 4th of July party -- also, perhaps, catching Joshua's comment. Head sweeping back over to him, even as he bobs from side to side, nearly /jogging/ in place. "--oh I just, uh, wanted to say hi, I just got back from Stark Tower, and it's been a while since..." The words dwindle away to nothing when Parley mentions the name 'Trib Jones'. Peter's head twists; something confused and panic flashes through his mind -- though his expression is surprisingly blank, mouth twisted into a firm, straight line. The panic is subdued a moment later, replaced with a tangled weight of guilt and apprehension that sinks down into Peter's stomach. "--how have you been -- doing? Sloan? I mean since the whole..." He waves his arms at her/hir, emulating the bars of a cage. << I thought his friends had planned to, >> Joshua gives in dry answer, overlapping with an even dryer background complaint of: << Teenagers. >> "Fired? For what, stalking you?" He moves off to the kichen, padding across the floor in bare feet to retrieve a glass from the cabinet. << -- ? >> pushes in soft curiosity to Parley, with an echoed wash of that brief moment of panic in Peter's mind. << Trib --? >> "You've said hi," he says out loud. "Are you going to the club tonight?" << i-could-always-show-him, >> drifts the lone thought from Anima; outwardly, Sloan perks at the ears, warm countenance with its dogged grin showing fain bemusement. She slips from the couch with a soft clack of thick slate toenails against the floor as she strides toward the kitchen - to join Joshua with a brief << two >> spurted toward him. Helpfully, she fetches a pitcher of water from the fridge. Unhelpfully, she contributes, "Trib is a tool. I am surprised he still lives." Accompanied by the same, houndish splay of teeth bared by a curved mouth, "Oh, you know..." is that a sly glance traded with hir other roommates? << awaiting-permission. >> << (you wouldn't like) >> Parley whispers so mildly to Anima, like smoothing down her fur with a rasp of mental tongue, << (where that would)(get you). >> Outwardly, he hangs back in a lazy lean against the wall, one hand propped on a hip. To Mirror, he conveys a single mental nod -- he'd caught that swell of panic as well. While he runs it through his filters, offering to Mirror as clean of a sample as might come of it, he notes, << (he's learning)(to keep his face.) >> "Mmh, I shouldn't guess. Mr. Cage didn't seem concerned when I told him. He hasn't," he allows, to Sloan's contribution, "been making very good decisions." Still, he's watching Peter with slight interest now. Elaborating thoughtfully to Mirror << (retribution jones) and (peter parker)(both come from)(the fights...) >> It fades off with some inwardly drifting speculation... "I'm going," Peter says, with a quick nod toward Joshua. "I dunno if I'm gonna /fight/ but, I'll be there. Maybe I'll fight," he adds, just a /smidge/ more bashful at the thought; a flutter of memories of Peter ducking beneath bullets -- of Sebastian /mawing/ him -- of Jax versus Regan -- a near smorgasboard of COMBAT EXPERIENCE, both firsthand and secondhand, hastily assembled in a series of non-sequential images. "--uh but, yeah. I'll be there." Peter watches as Sloan slips off to the kitchen; he hops back, growing quiet and murky as the conversation slips across the topic of Trib; the guilt grows a little /heavier/ as they speculate toward the reasons he might have been fired. It's fairly obvious that Peter suspects the reason has to do with /him/, somehow. Joshua snags the water, pouring his glass full and returning the pitcher to Anima. He isn't mild in his response, rather /forthright/ in a typical Joshua way: << You fuck with that kid, I will kill you. >> It's -- calm and straightforward, even, not so much a threat as simple fact. One side of his mouth twitches upwards. "Good decisions. Around here, who does?" /is/ mild, more reserved in a more /Mirror/'esque tinge; it comes with soft questioning undertone: << How would you know? >> "Good," he says to Peter. "They've been a good idea, I think. Helpful." << (him) >> Remaining loose and leaning right where he is in the livingroom, there isn't an expression to associate with Parley's unhelpful vague-humor directed at Anima, indicating mirror!Joshua's threat. << (to start with.) >> If we're making a list of all the roads Anima /wouldn't/ enjoy if ze got creative with revealing herself. The wash of Peter's combat enthusiasm is warm and bright like a tropical reef, staining color to his drab grays as he answers. << (mm)(how would i know)(they were both there?) >> He takes in a slow breath. << (i suppose)(i should probably break the news)(since i brought hir here.) >> "--Peter." "...yeah," Peter says, to Joshua; both his hands jamming into his pockets, apparently glad for the slight /shift/ in discussion, though the weight of that guilt continues to linger. "I mean, I think it's helpful -- I guess -- yeah." MORE images. Peter fighting... is that a SWAT team? "--it helps, to, uh. Learn when to hold back... and not to, I guess. Huh?" Peter perks, head swiveling to Parley, eyebrows /darting/ up. "Yes?" << How would you know, >> Joshua clarifies with a return to quiet dryness; in his words there is something almost but not quite like amusement, << if Luke Cage were making good decisions? -- I'm not sure it works that way, >> he adds, absently thoughtful, not actually /stopping/ Parley from breaking this news but certainly /far/ from encouraging it, too. << Well. Perhaps that'd be best for your own peace of mind. Maybe not for his? >> He wanders back out of the kitchen with his glass in hand, sipping at the water as he moves to lean against the counter between kitchen and living room. "I watch," he says. "You hold back. Too much. The world really /doesn't/, you know." "--hn. Though it's easier for some, not to hold back. Than others." << (hah.) >> It's difficult to tell if the continued dry flatness is reflection of Joshua, or a return from Parley's. << (i was meaning)(trib.) >> A thoughtful pause. << (luke cage, himself)has been (surprisingly discerning)(lately.) >> Peter's sweet, unsuspecting /sincere/ face drags up an internal FROWN. It's like kicking a /puppy/. << (i don't think) in (situations like this)(there's such thing as)(peace of mind.)(but where bad news is already coming)(well.) >> His eyes do move to Joshua, delving deeper to the Mirror beneath, a curious and clinical touch, like pressing two fingers to the side of a throat to consult a pulse rate. << (--you think I shouldn't?) >> "Ssss." Softhiss, to Peter. "You should know. Sloan's story since her escape is a little longer than you might think." "--sometimes. It does," Peter responds, to Joshua. A flash of soldiers in the sewers, guns bristling; a shot, something impacting Peter's chest. "But, not a lot. But--" Another flash; this time, a training dummy. Peter's fist. Going /through/ it. "--it's hard to know, I guess? How much I should... hold back." Parley's comment about Sloan draws Peter's attention. Big, wide, puppy-dog eyes. Ohno! Peter is presuming the absolute /worst/ here. Something terrible has obviously happened; he's /bracing/ himself for it. "--oh, oh is she alright? Did she--is it okay to talk about it? I mean --" Violet creeps up his face. "--I don't--there are things I kind of don't talk about to people, still, and..." That's as far as he gets; the violet shifts to indigo. "You should hold back as much as it takes not to hurt people," is Mirror's unhelpful advice, "-- who you don't want to hurt. And not hold back as much as it takes to stay alive." The words are directed at Peter -- nominally; in his mind though is only a quiet-pensive reflection on Parley. He gulps down the water, moving back towards his room to grab his shoes. << I think where bad news is inevitable it comes easier from -- >> There's a hesitation, a final word delivered almost clinically, too. << Friends. >> He gives this noncommittal answer, just as unhelpfully followed with, << /You/ think you should. >> A brief glance at Peter and his bracing, a quiet /resignation/ that perhaps that cat is somewhat Out Of Bag. He tugs his shoes on in silence. For that first reflected indication from Mirror, on holding back, Parley's mind curls, vaguely, flexing like a muscle. Not specifically away from Mirror. Just - a quiet spasm, followed up with a sudden tide of murky non-humor, smooth-fixing at the far parameters of Mirror's thoughts - /groom/. /Tidy/. << (slightly different)(for me.) >> << (does it?) >> His head thunks back, against the wall behind him. "--ksh. She is surviving," he says it pretty flippant-annoyed, waving a hand, "As best as anyone can. You should-," a muscle ticks in the side of his jaw, "probably ask Jackson-san for the details later." << (you make it easy for me)(to be a coward)(Mirror). >> "I don't want to hurt /anyone/," Peter says, in response to Joshua/Mirror, but there is a tint of untruth here; he doesn't want to hurt anyone right /now/. "--but, yeah." His eyes slip back toward Parley, a little downcast at the mention of asking Jackson for details. "...oh. Okay," he says, a cloud of concern still hovering over in his tone. "I -- yeah I know there's a lot of stuff that... I'll ask." He shifts, then; a tiny step toward the door. "--m'gonna--get ready. For the club. Are both of you coming?" << Different. >> Mirror turns this word over uncertainly, slowly settling beneath the grooming into just a quiet contemplation. << Different, how? Do you want, >> he muses, << to stay alive? In the end it comes down to that. >> "Maybe not. But people will want to hurt you. It's best to be able to respond --" Joshua's lips twitch, his expression falling into tired. "Appropriately." In his mind the word rings hollow: << (good decisions) (how would) (/anyone/) (know.) >> "I'm coming," Mirror answers, and then just blithely /for/ Parley, "We're coming." << Caution isn't always cowardice. >> << (different.)(because)(it's by not fighting back) >> stated, undramatically << (that i've lived as long as i even have.) >> The more Mirror settles under Parley's restless grooming, the more its slightly feverish edge fades, to something more akin to a slow, mechanical kneading. Still casual-leaning and half-mast eyes, he lets out a silent breath and closes his eyes when Mirror takes it upon hirself to answer /for/ him. With a flex of muscles in his abdomen, he comes forward, away from the wall. His shoes are merely sandals, easy to slip on, and the loose cotton button-down he shrugs over his shoulders to cover his spots doesn't require buttoning. "We're coming," he agrees. << (then why) does it still (feel) as though (i'm running away.) >>