ArchivedLogs:Gallows Humor

Gallows Humor
Dramatis Personae Corey, Eric, Hive, Tatiana	2013-04-23 '
Location <NYC> Central Park North
Central Park North is slightly quieter than its southern counterpart, being further uptown and slightly out of the bustle of the City - insofar as one can escape the bustle of the City even here, in the acres of green and blue that make up Central Park. The reservoir is in the northern half, providing miles of jogging and biking trails along the clear water, as well as benches for people to sit and rest. Early evening and Central Park is less populous than it might otherwise be, as the work day ends. It's middling warm, but a light but persistent drizzle has chased casual park-goers indoors. It's starting to peter off, though, a desultory sprinkle that is having trouble making up its mind whether or not it wants to be rain. The drizzle doesn't seem to be bothering one skinny figure, damp shabby grey jacket hanging on his thin frame light a coat hanger, his jeans faded and his ratty shoes no doubt soaked through; their soles are only attached to the rest of the shoe by dint of a band of duct tape. His shirt is dark, black with a picture of what looks like a moon on the front, 'Ceci n'est pas une lune' written beneath in cursive. But right now Hive's back is to the path; bony fingers are hooked through the links of the fence that surrounds the reservoir and his forehead rested against it. His dark eyes are focused outwards, staring at the water as it ripples, faintly, both from the drizzle and from a pair of ducks passing nearby. Done for work for the day, Corey was wandering the city just for some time to think and do the soul searching he had intended to come up north to do in the first place. Yet it was to the parks that he continued to make his ways to, enjoying the greenery in the the midst of the urban jungle. He was dressed for the light drizzel, with a navy blue nylon windbreaker on, a ball cap that was too worn to worry about what had been on it previously, and a pair of dark brown cargo pants. Still the drizzly weather hadn't seemed to get him down too much, after all, without water there was no life, and he'd dealt with worse downpours than this in his life. With his mind drifting through the past few days of various degrees of cranky people and bright smiling faces he moved along the path without a goal. Just because most people's work is ending, doesn't mean everyone's is. In fact, Eric's shift has just started, not long ago, and he looks fresh, for the bike patrol. Over the tight uniform of the NYPD bike patrol, he is wearing a bright-blue windbreaker with 'NYPD' splashed across the back of it. His path down the trail is fairly quick, moving along at a good pace, though he slows down as he watches the man standing not too far away from the fence. << Hm. A jumper? >> Eric swerves into the grass and hits the brakes, coming to a quick and - mostly - silent stop. He swings a leg over the frame of the bicycle and raises his hand to the radio near his neck. "Central portable 2, I'm 10-39 for a possible EDP by the reservoir." he says, approaching Hive slowly and circling around to the edge of his vision. "Hey there!" he calls out. Tatiana is currently located not far from the action but not immediately visible to it thanks to trees and other such encumbrances. Wearing a casual ensemble and the oblong dull red glasses, black hair with extreme light green/blond streak in a long pony tail, she talks to someone on the cell in Georgian, a russo-asiatic language that has some asian traits and some russian traits. When the cop shouts she jumps a little once and looks up, sees him circling around the jumper and walks towards that situation, possibly passing Corey on the way. At a psychic level she shows up as the total opposite of a normal person, instead of an aura of thoughts and emotions and memories and dreams like a normal person, she's a sucking hole into which these things vanish. She isn't unreadable or undetectable, she just shows up very different from a normal person. Hive might look like a jumper, really. He's even half lifting himself up against the fence, fingers locking around the metal and one duct-taped toe tucked into its links. He drops back to the ground with a heavy rattle of metal, though, at the yelling. "The fuck is an EDP?" he asks Eric, without turning around. Familiar minds and very unfamiliar ones, though, /do/ make him turn around. His lips curl into a /thin/ sliver of a smile as he spots Corey, but his eyes are sliding past the man to watch Tatiana with an acute look of curiosity. "Yo." It comes with an upward jerk of chin as she walks towards them. "S'alright, the good officer just got a little overeager. Park's probably boring as shit today, eh? I dunno, do you get more or less crime in good weather or shitty weather? If I was a mugger, I'd be staying home today." Watching the bike officer zip by him, Corey glances at the fellows face, swearing he'd seen the man before. Smiling pleasantly towards the woman though, his eyes focused on the cyclist and the man pressing himself against the fence. Having the better look now, he did recognize the office, and the fence climber. Figuring that perhaps this situation was slightly his fault due to telling Hive where he had last seen Shane, he stood nearby in hopes of diffusing the situation before anything happened. Thankfully, Hive was stepping down, and giving the man a smile at being addressed, Corey's hand rose up in greetings. "Hey there, any luck?" he said, figuring it at least might help legitimize the situation. Eric stops walking towards Hive as the other man turns to face him, and a smile cracks across his face. "Emotionally disturbed person. From what I've heard, you most definitely qualify." his eyes twinkle mischievously, and he glances at the other figures on the path. A look of surprise crosses his face as he spots Corey, eyes flicking over the other man. "Fancy seeing you here." he drawls, hands settling easily against his belt as he looks between the two men. "Coincidences abound." He keeps Tatiana in the edge of his gaze, like a good officer, even as he asks Hive, "What're you doing? Tryin' to get arrested for tresspassin'?" Tatiana looks to Hive for a moment, "Relationsheep between weather and crime rates not whell understood. I know. doktor psychologik." Russian accent thick enough to dip into borscht. She glances to the cop. "What haf you heard? He dangerous?" Looks over to Corey as well for a moment, unsure about him. She doesn't say anything to him quite yet. She allows herself to be watched by the police officer and doesn't make any sudden moves. The more an attempt to probe her occurs, the deeper, darker, and more violently the mental vortex pulls, though it does no harm to Hive's psyche. "Dangerous as fuck. Look at these guns." Hive raises one bony arm, flexes his extraordinarily unimpressive skinny-nerd bicep in demonstration to Tatiana. His hand drops, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his inside jacket pocket to stick one in between his lips. He doesn't light it. "You here to help?" He asks Corey, still with a /thin/ smile. "Cuz my day sure won't be complete without an injection of cheer. He offers the pack of cigarettes out to Eric. "Looking for a friend. And I got my emotional disturbance /all/ cured. Saw a doc. Got my head shrunk." He is not looking particularly deep, really, although his senses stay as open as they ever are, picking up surface thoughts from all of them and just leading to a more /puzzled/ look at Tatiana. Chuckling at the mention of coincidences, Corey's lips rose in a smile to Eric. "Indeed, it seems that everyone I meet knows everyone else at least in passing." Offering the officer a hand, he continued "And everythings alright here, just a misunderstanding I'm sure." Glancing over to Hive again, his hopes were not met but what could he do. "I'm always willing to help if you want it. Though somewhat outside my area of expertise. He hadn't been here last night though. Mighta moved on?" he asked more hypothetically than anything. Yet with the russian woman speaking, his eyes went to her. It was a curious gaze, but with her asking about danger, his shoulders rose in a shrug. "Well there is danger in second hand smoke, and he's a bit of a downer, but I do not think anyone who cares for his friends as much as he does is a danger." His assessment came with a smile for Hive, as if to say here is the start of cheer. << Yeah, well, it's not your guns that I'm lookin' at. >> Eric reaches out to take a cigarette from Hive and reach into his own pocket for a lighter. A smoking bike-cop. Brilliant. He lights the cigarette and pockets the lighter once more, taking a long, satisfied drag. Eric reaches out and grabs Corey's hand, shaking it once, firmly. "Well, I may not be a doctor, but I certainly have quieter days when it's pissin' outside." He gives a little shrug of his shoulders, then turns back to Hive. "Lookin' for a friend at the reservoir? If they're in there, ain't comin' out. That water is cold and tricky, and you go in, you don't usually come out." His eyes turn to the water, though, scanning over the murky surface. He takes another, longer, drag on the cigarette. << They're not in there, I think. >> Tatiana speaks casually. "I think it safe to say theres no danger here." Laughs suddenly. "Statistically speaking getting out of your own bed in your own house is dangerous. Its just the danger is statistically insignificant. I mean its statistically ~possible~ that you'll get out of bed, a hairline crack in your toe spreads up your leg past your knee when your foot touches the ground, and you die in a fall by hitting your head on the bedpost..." Laughs again rather suddenly. "...but its unlikely." She speaks english just fine, Tatiana just has a thick accent. << Sucking hole of darkness vortexes more >>. She wiggles her glasses up and down a few times, squeezes her eyes completely shut and wipes off the lenses, eyes remaining squeezed completely shut till she finishes, telling that she's finished by an audible squeak the silk rag makes, and using this as a signal to put the glasses back on. "Haven't you heard?" Hive says to Tatiana lightly, "these days, there's danger /everywhere/, or so the government'd like us to believe. Mutants just waiting around every corner to eat your brains and steal your children." He extends a hand, fingers gesturing -- gimme -- for Eric's lighter. "Looking for a friend wherever. S'a big city, though." He grimaces, at that. The grimace settles into place and /stays/, his posture just a little bit more tense the longer he stays near the woman. << Fucking bastards, >> is his aside to Eric alone, more grumbled than really /angry/. << This is killing Jax. >> Unlike the last time they spoke, his voice isn't its previous strange quiet echoing chorus; this time it's hard and heavy, /slamming/ into the officer's mind like a bludgeon. "Still. Somewhere between the news paranoia and your --" His fingers wave to Tatiana and Corey both, "dismissal there's probably the truth. Do you really think that caring about their /friends/ tells you how much a danger a person is? S'fucking stupid, man. People who care the most are the /most/ dangerous. You see what elephants do when you threaten their group? People are like that." The lady was vaguely creepy, but between creepy and grumpy, Corey was just going to be his peaceful self. "Compassion for others within the tribe is the starting point to develop compassion to the larger group." Knowing that he wasn't going to change Hive's mind didn't mean that he would give up his own viewpoint. "I do hope you find him soon though, he was rather angry when last I saw him." He really hoped he hadn't been the last person to see Shane, it was killing him that he hadn't known at the time that things were bothersome for the shark boy. A muscle in Eric's cheek twitches as the telepath mentally beats him over the head with a club, but he reaches into his pocket and extends the lighter to the telepath still. He glances at Corey as he leans back against the fence. "I dunno. I think I'm with crazy, here," he says, thumbing at Hive with one hand. "People tend to get pissed when it's their friends and family in danger." << Still fuckin' twinges sometimes. >> His face gets darker for no apparent reason, frown crushing the smile off of his face. << Fuckin' bastards is fuckin' right. That'll learn me to be a good guy. >> Tatiana chuckles darkly but smiles casually. She responds to Corey. "Precisely. Which is why its always best to know who and what you are around, am I right?" An eyebrow twitches. She may have noticed Eric's cheek twitch. She has been keeping a casual eye on all 3 of them. "Every group has an other of some kind, most usually its the member of the group who sticks out the most either physically or behaviorally, depending on the intelligence of the animal." She looks over at Eric more directly for a moment. Hmms vaguely but says nothing. Looks back to Hive. "We live in berdayev's paradox, we are free to make any choice we want, if we are ready to accept the implicit and explicit consequences of that choice... I'm guessing since you weren't going to kaput yourself that you're perhaps looking for someone you've had some sort of falling out with." "That isn't what you /said/, though." Hive's tone is bland. Almost bored, around the drag of cigarette he pulls in. "/That/ makes a little sense. But what you /said/ was that you don't think anyone who cares for their friends as much as I do could be a danger. And /that/ is fucking /stupid/. Have you actually /met/ people, dude? Because every thing that comes out of your mouth sounds like you've spent your life living in some gorram Norman Rockwell painting." But he actually smiles at what Eric says, wide and amused. "Shit, yeah. Someone could be the /sweetest/ /sunniest/ person and the moment someone they care about is in trouble? You'd best be rethinking your idea of what's a /danger/. Might lose your fucking balls before you know it." This is said in such an innocent tone. << You miss them. >> To Eric once more, it's heavier. Resigned. He blows a stream of smoke up towards the sky. "Nope." His head shakes at Tatiana. "Wrong. Weirdly enough, I don't actually have that many falling outs with people. Like I said. Looking for a friend." His eyes slice towards her through another wisp of smoke. "What're you looking for?" Shaking his head, Corey still smiled as the other's opinions came at him, he was pleasantly surprised that it was the creepy lady who had agreed with him. "Well at least someone doesn't think I'm a complete nut." Offering his hand to her to her, he said "I'm Corey by the way. Pleasure to meet you Doctor." With the complaints of Hive continuing though, his nod was short but accepting. "Well, I wish that person luck that they won't have to experience such turmoil. The measure of a man's morality comes most when it is put to the test, and few things are as testing as defending that which we love and care for the most. Finding out the dark places in ones own heart is a traumatic endeavor." Not that he would know, but personal experience hadn't stopped him from waxing philosophical before. Eric flashes Hive a middle finger, though he grins around the cigarette. "Yeah, yeah, real funny, asshole. Don't make me ticket you for smokin' in Central Park." The smile fades slightly - again, seemingly apropos of nothing, and he takes a longer drag of his cigarette. << He's a good lay. >> This internal explanation, perhaps, does not explain the dark swirl of FEELINGS that sweep through him for a moment - pain, longing. He takes a longer drag, blowing the smoke out through his nostrils. << Fuck, I should go to Evolve tonight, see what's there. >> He gives Corey a strange look, one eyebrow raising. There's a brief chatter on his radio - dispatch, ordering some other Central Park cop to respond to a disturbance, but Eric's only response is to turn the radio down slightly at his waist. Tatiana extends her hand to Corey, her touch having an emotive chill in it. "Dr. Tatiana Oblamovska." She introduces herself finally. She looks back to Hive. "Andrei Chitaev killed over 100 people over the course of only 4 years because his appearance was so generic that very few people even bothered to remember him. And thats just the ones we know about for sure." Looks to Hive and laughs again. "That was gallows humor, right? Laugh in the face of death so you can deal with it like a manly man would when he mans up, I suppose." She titters again. She looks to Corey. "Finding and facing your own inner other is something very few people really truly have the courage and capability to do. But it behooves us to at least try." "Jesus /fuck/ you paternalistic twat, do you even /get/ how condescending your nice-guy bullshit is? You don't have to tell /me/ how /difficult/ it is defending what I care about. Is that a /test/ you've ever been fucking /put/ to?" Hive exhales sharply. << Jegus, can I punch him? Just once? You could look away. It'd be real quick. >> It's hard to tell if Hive is serious; his mental tone to Eric is just about as bland-dry as his audible one, not sharp or yelling or really anything but flat. "The hell are you on about?" he mutters to Tatiana. "I drag out gallows humour when I'm faced with a gallows. All there is here is a little rain." << It's a Tuesday. Evolve'll be dead. Go swimming. >> As if expecting the wave of cursing and vitriol extruded at him, Corey just let it wash over him. "You had asked for cheer did you not?" Shrugging however, he shook his head with an exhale of breath, calmness in the storm. "Perhaps its best for me to go, I don't think you'll find what you desire by cursing my optimism." Inclining his head to Eric, he offered him a smile at least. "It was nice seeing you again, maybe I'll see you at Heaven again sometime." He did turn on his heel as if to go though. "Easy, there." Eric says, putting a hand - heavily - on Hive's shoulder, restraining him. "Easy." he soothes, glancing between Hive and Corey carefully. He straightens off of the wall, and one can almost see his posture change as readiness presses up in him. As Corey begins to walk away, it fades, slightly, simmering just under the surface. "Yeah, maybe I will." << Fuckin' as cheery as Jax is, but I don't want to fuck him as much. >> Tatiana chuckles and speaks to Hive. "Not everyone who lives truly lives, and no man or woman knows exactly when old man death with show up knocking at your door. It could be 80, it could be 8:00 tonight. PM of course." Laughs. "Every day is a gallows. Statistically speaking." She calls back to Corey. "It was a pleasure to meet you." She pauses. "I'll probably be taking my leave soon as well. I stopped in the middle of a conversation before I started talking to you." She comments idly, seemingly unfazed by the vitriol. << Sucking hole of blackness and depth vortexes a tiny bit more for a moment and then resumes its normal vortexery. >> << Jax isn't an /asshole/, is the difference. I know cheery people. I know /nice/ people. /They/ don't do this power of positive thinking bullshit about crap they have no fucking experience with. >> Under Eric's hand Hive's shoulder is mostly just bony. He sucks at his cigarette. "The fuck do you know about what I desire?" His mouth hooks up into a crooked smile, and he nods to Tatiana. "That," he agrees, "is probably the most correct thing anyone's said all conversation." He turns his head away from Eric to exhale another stream of smoke. "C'mon. We're getting a hot dog." He prods the officer in the ribs. << It'll help my emotional disturbance. Might haul off and slug someone otherwise. >> Though this mostly sounds amused. Hive is not really in much danger of hitting anyone. He does not really /look/ like a dude who has thrown a punch in his life. Waving over his shoulder to acknowledge Tatiana, Corey departed from the fenced area and went back down the pathway to remove the target of Hive's agitation from the area. With thoughts bouncing back and forth between Shane and his conversations with Hive, he was wondering what things had happened in the lives of people in this city to make it so traumatic. "Getting a hot dog. Alright." Eric straightens up and heads back down towards the path, giving a little wave to the doctor. "Good to meet you, Doctor!" he calls, before turning to his radio. "Central 2 to Dispatch. 10-90 X-Ray. Going 10-63." He picks up his bike and swings a leg over it, mounting back up. "Come on. Let's get a hot dog."