ArchivedLogs:Guypersondude

Guypersondude
Dramatis Personae Alex, Anole
In Absentia	2015-01-24 '
Location <NYC> Brooklyn
The most populous of the boroughs, Brooklyn has nothing if not character. With a thriving music and arts scene, and a distinctive New York slant to its stereotypical gritty accents, Brooklyn ranges from the high-cultured to the very much working class. From botanical gardens to beachfronts, Manhattanites might like to think their borough is the only one that matters, but Brooklyn has a lot to offer of its own. It's been a coldish drearyish day and it's shifted on into a coldish drearyish night. It's not snowing, as predicted. It's not raining either, though, not /really/, though the streets are wet and the air clammy. Just a cool misting -- intermittently kind of /feels/ like rain with drops falling heavily off the buildings, but, nope. Dribble. Mist. Trickle. Splat. In this section of town it's quiet, come night. Industrial and often-abandoned industrial, to boot. A skittering of rats, the flicker of trashfires from a ragtag group of homeless folk set up in a warehouse, the smell of something roasting. There's a quiet scrape of claws over corrugated metal, across the rooftops. The figure moving swiftly across the roof of one large warehouse is odd and hard to track -- a blur of dirty-grey on dirty-grey, clothes and skin and backpack all faded into the colour of the roof to leave him a somewhat disorienting shiver of motion when viewed from above. He's far easier to see in the gaps between roofs -- something long and stretchy wings out with a /thwip/, latching on to the adjacent building to let him /swing/ across, latch on to the wall near its top, scale it nimbly back up to clamber back onto the rooftop and continue his path across the buildings. On top of one of the flat, gravel-and-shingle rooftops of an abandoned factory, one of the machine shack's door has been jammed open by a piece of wood. A crude awning from a sheet of corriguated metal has been bolted above the door, shielding it partially from sight and from the elements. Out of one of the large vents that hot air from the HVAC units inside once steamed through now streams a light column of pale steam rising up and blending into the light-washed sky of New York. From inside - audible on top of the roof if not far down on the street below - there is the soft sound of a man's voice speaking in a soothing tone. "This is Conor Hanick, and you're listening to WQXR. Up next we have--" The voice dies abruptly, only a handful of seconds after the thwip-SPLAT, skitter-skitter, crunch crunch crunch sounds of someone climbing onto the roof murmur into the night air. A few seconds later, two brown eyes look out from the little shack, wide-eyed and partially hidden in the dark of the rooftop and the dirty grey hood pulled partially over his face. Skitter-skittercrunch -- Anole is moving over the roof, too, but comes to a sudden halt when it's clear someone /else/ is there. He presses down as flat as he can get against the rooftop, a lumpy bundle of dirty-metal -- from with two very large (also dirty grey) eyes peer out huge and wide right /back/ at that figure in the dark. Big-eyed. Spook. Alex's masked eyes peek out into the darkness for several seconds before his voice says, quietly, "H-Hello?" It's the tone of a child left home alone after the radiator has made a clanking sound, and it matches rather nicely with the wide-eyed look on his face. "Is anyone there?" The teenager takes a step forward into the doorway, bringing tattered jeans and mismatched shoes into view as he peers around the roof. "No," squeaks the grey lump of rooftop. And then, "... uh." The second one sounds more sheepish. Anole shifts from his flattened position, pushing up into a crouch -- though his colouration doesn't change it at least gives him more definition, now. Bundled up in a lined denim jacket, scarf, double layer of mismatched ratty armwarmers, similarly tattered jeans, worn old boots, his head spiked, his arms unevenly sized with one large and clawed in contrast to the other more normally proportioned for a human teen. "... why are you on the roof." Peering closer at the bit of roof that has just /moved/, Alex's hands come up to rub at his arms, shoulders curling together in the cold winter air. He reaches briefly inside the doorway to take out a black jacket at least two sizes too big for him that he drapes about his shoulders. His eyes focus on Anole's arms for a moment before he pushes his hood back away from his forehead and back to reveal the dark feathered not-hair on his head which he scratches at absently. "Why are /you/ on the roof? I was here first." he counters, suspiciously. "And /how/ are you on the roof? The door is locked." Anole's eyes blink a little owlishly, opening slightly wider as Alex pushes his hood back. His head tips, and he skitters juuust a little closer. Maybe a couple inches. Not far. The next blink leaves his eyes bright green -- in sharp contrast to the rest of his still very grey form. "There's a door?" This is a little surprised. "The roof's quicker. And nobody's -- /usually/ -- on the roofs. Less bother when you're trying to get around." "Yeah." Alex glances behind him reflexively, as if he could see through the metal shack and towards the locked enterance to the building on the other side of the roof. "Locked through. Nobody comes up to the roof. Usually. That's why I stay up here." He shrugs his shoulders, an unsure, hesitant movement as he examines the other teenager, the tension in his shoulders relaxing. Slightly. "The roof's quicker than the sidewalk?" "Sure. There's so much less in your way up here. And nobody stopping you to harass you. And no traffic and plus --" Anole hesitates, but then one corner of his mouth hooks up in a quick smile. He doesn't rise from his crouch; his arm stretches out towards the edge of the roof and another /thwip/ shoots out a long stringy-white strand; he disappears over the edge of the roof in a quick swoop, reappearing a second later after another thwip and a rapid midair turnaround. "Quicker," he explains after landing, froglike-crouched on the shingle. "... if it's locked how are /you/ on the roof?" If Alex's eyes widen when the white strand thwips out from Anole's wrist, that is nothing to when he throws himself off of the roof. By the time Anole appears back only a second later, he is standing a foot from the doorway, one arm outstretched and mouth hanging open. It takes several seconds of blinking and open-mouthed staring before his brain can catch up to the scene in front of him and he closes his mouth with a clack of teeth. "That's so /cool/," Alex breathes out, reverently, still wide-eyed. "It's... that's...." He shakes his head. "Wow." The teenager pauses, still reeling, and grins at Anole. "Well." He darts back into the little shack, disappearing from sight. A few seconds later, a two ravens appear in the doorway, heads tilting back and forth quickly as they take in Anole from several angles. One of them quorks to the other and the two of them spread their wings and flap the short distance to land a few feet away from Anole with a friendly sounding trill. "It's pretty cool, right?" Anole says it kind of shyly, a small smile on his face. "That's not /me/ exactly that's a -- I wear a --" He turns his wrist up, showing a clunky wristwatch-looking thing strapped around it. He curls his arm around his knees, other hand splaying against the roof. He rocks back forward out of his crouch and onto all fours when Alex darts away, loping forward a few paces in confusion. "Hey where'd you -- huh?" When the birds appear he falls back wards, pressing his hand against the roof again. "Waitwhat? Guypersondude?" He glances from the ravens back to the shack in puzzlement. "Guypersondude." One of the ravens mimics, tilting its head from one side to the other. "Hi." The two ravens look towards each other and laugh uproarously, as Alex steps back into view in the doorway. He looks very different than a moment before, face twisted and stretched into more of a bird-like shape, arms mutated into a half-wing, half-arm limb that likely serves a poor job for much of either. "Guypersondude." One of the two ravens says, as the other one darts back to hop across the roof and flap up onto Alex's shoulder. It presses against the side of his neck and seems to melt away, absorbing into Alex. His face twists and flattens back out into a much more human shape, and his wing-arms reform with a soft crunching sound back to arms - though a couple of feathers still peek out from his collar. "I flew up." "Yeah. Guypersondude." The raven adds. Anole's eyes open even wider. The grey colour snaps back into his green eyes. "Oh." It's a soft startled breath, his fingers pressing harder to the roof. "That's -- you -- wh --" He /stares/, long and silent, slowly swallowing over a wordless gulp of sound. After a moment of goldfish-mouthing open-shut, though, the roofgrey drains from his skin and clothes, leaving his scaly-spiky skin green and his clothes -- okay, /still/ kind of dirty-fadey-grey toned, mostly. Alas. His boots are more brownish, though. "Ohwow. Oh /wow/. That's what that's /you/ that's holy /crap/ that's. Holy crap. You can fly you can /bird/ you can /what/?" His goldfishing has turned into a sudden wider grin. "Guypersondude!" The remaining raven clacks its beak several times in delight as Anole changes his coloration, doing a little flap-hop-jump of excitement. Alex laughs and nods, a little bit shyly. "Yeah. I'm really a bunch of ravens pretending to be a person; you just can't see the strings so well. You can change colors? That's wicked cool." He shifts awkwardly under the jacket for a moment before he looks back into his shack. "Do you want to come in? It's warmer in here - I've got a little fire place." "You're -- doing a really good person-impression." Anole's grin has remained, head tipping slightly from side to side as he looks Alex over, as though he might /see/ the strings. "Oh -- I, yeah. I change. Colours sometimes, I." He shrugs a shoulder, teeth scraping against his lower lip. "Oh. Oh, I -- I was actually going, um. Do you live here?" Alex hesitates for a second before he nods once. "Uh, yeah. When I'm pretending to be a person, anyway. Though I'm usually around here even when I'm not, somewhere. At least, some of me," Alex babbles, then he cuts himself off and his cheeks color a little bit. The raven at Anole's feet quorks once and spreads its wings to flap into the air, flying a circle around the roof before landing with a skitter of claws on the roof of the little shack. "I mean. Yes." Anole shifts a little awkwardly, pushing back up into frog-crouch again. He rubs at the back of his neck, looking down at the rooftop. His glance tips kind of shyly back up to Alex. "... by yourself?" Alex gives a little suspicious look to Anole. "Y-ees? I don't really... know anyone around here. And it's not exactly like I can get a job and an apartment," he says, shrugging his shoulders once. He hesitates for a second, and then grins. "I'm an illegal immigrant, you see. Birds don't recognize borders." "It's just, I was. On my way home, is all, and I -- if you wanted you could come to --" Anole shifts again, weight rocking now from heel to toe as he tips back and forth slightly in his crouch. "It's just I know a place. With more of us. Like a lot more. And we have food and -- plenty more fire and. You know, people." His grin returns, tipped a little crooked. "And we're not going to ask for your papers." Alex pauses at this, his forehead furrowing as he looks over Anole. "I..." He stops, glancing back into the little shack for a moment before he looks back towards the green teen. "Uh. Maybe another time. I'm..." he trails off, lamely. "Well. Alright, I guess. I'll check it out, at least. No promises or anything." "S--" Anole stops, circling a fist against his heart with a small shake of his head. "You don't have to. I'm not -- you don't. It's just." He scoots a couple steps backwards, shoulders a little tensed and his voice dropping to a lower mumble. "'pologies, I didn't -- it just seems. Lonely up here." Alex's smile is a lilting one. "Yeah." He looks over the other boy and shrugs his shoulders. "You're not wrong, eh?" He looks back into the shack and nods twice to himself. "Alright. Yeah. Plus, I want'ta see you use that wrist-thing again." His smile brightens, and he jerks his head towards the inside. "Give me a sec to get out of my skin-suit, yeah?" Anole bobs his head in a small nod, straightening slowly to his feet. He's kind of hesitant, slightly awkward, shifting a little uncertainly as he looks back towards the shack. "'kay. It's not far. Well it's not -- I mean the entrance isn't far. Kind of. A couple warehouses over. But it's a little bit of a hike afterwards. Um. Through the sewers." He sounds kind of apologetic about this. "Which is where we live." "Guypersondude!" The solitary raven replies, bobbing its head back and forth. It turns its head this way and that, almost in constant motion, looking over Anole, over the roof, over the entire city spread about all around them. It takes a minute before the raven hops down and joins the little murder, a crowd of seven ravens chattering and quorking as they step over towards Anole. Two of them are carrying tightly wrapped little bundles of cloth - a shirt and pants, it seems. "Guypersondude!" All of the ravens chime in, this time. "Holy -- crow." Anole's face has lit up again with this, bright and amused. "Alright. C'mon. Guess I don't have to ask if you can keep up." With a grin, he drops back to all fours, loping across the roof to /thwip/-sling his way back out into the night.