ArchivedLogs:Involved

Involved
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Isra, Killian, J.C.	2015-09-01 "It makes doing the work that needs doing easier--whether raising tiny monsters or raising hell."
Location <NYC> BoM Safehouse - Lower East Side
Tucked away off a little-used side street in the Lower East Side, sandwiched between a youth drop-in center and a taqueria, this narrow three-story townhouse has very little to catch the eye. Boarded-up windows, a door peeling its paint, shabby grubby brickface; from the outside it does not look like much. Inside someone has gone to great lengths to renovate the building into something more habitable. It isn't glamorous but it is comfortable, old furniture dragged in, the place generally swept clean. The first floor holds a large living room, a smaller dining room, a spacious kitchen, a half-bathroom. There are three bedrooms and a full bathroom on the second floor; the attic is just a large empty space crammed full of boxes with a window out to the large flat roof. The basement, much like the attic, consists of a lot of empty space. A bare concrete floor, no windows, occasional poles running up to the ceiling. A tiny half-bathroom down here, too. Not a whole lot else. It's muggy already, even early in the morning on Tuesday. Likely going to be sweltering in here once the sun is up in earnest and somewhere upstairs there is uncomfortable moaning from where a (very pregnant) (also very bruised and injured) homeless mutant has come in late last night to shelter. This early there is, at least, (save for the groaning) somewhat less of the bustle that the safehouse takes on later in the day. Most people sleeping (a couple in the actual bedrooms, though the couch and the dining room table have also been put into use as Beds today; it seems people are none too picky, a lean girl with greenish-yellow scales rippling down her skin in the kitchen starting coffee to brew. The door pushes open quietly. Dusk backs into the house shouders-first, lugging with him a heavy A/C window unit gripped against his chest. His wings today are rippled in dark swirling storm-cloud colours, sliced through at intervals with bright flares of blue-white lightning; the sharp talons are blue-white as well. He's in denim shorts, Vans sneakers, a pale green backless halter-necked wrap shirt that leaves plenty of free space for the large wings. Huge sunglasses. One wing shoves the door closed behind him; he resettles the air conditioner on his hip once he's in the house. Despite the ability, and typically preference, to sleep anywhere- gutters, lamp posts, skyrise window ledges, some zoo habitat... the possibilities are endless- the past two nights have found Killian in the safehouse. An escape from the incoming heat, perhaps, or some other more private reason and likely not directly hiding related, the young man himself can be found in the kitchen on though as no man. To first view, behind the lean, scaled girl making coffee is a medium-sized black and white dog, sprawled on the tile beside the far side of cabinetry. Belly splayed on the cool surface, with head up and pink tongue lolled in its panting in the face of the muggy weather. Occasionally an ear will twitch in the direction of the groaning injured mutant. Familiar this particular creature could be to a Promethean who shared any time with him, at the very least, given it's always been Killian's go-to form. Even if not, when Dusk walks in the dog stops panting, ears perked in his direction and brown eyes watching closely without sounding any sort of bark-alarm or rising to greet as should be normal. Only a minute later, the door opens again to admit Isra. Her wings echo Dusk's, but in a fiery sunset palette of red, orange, and black. The rest of her skin is a more uniform red, with silver and black contouring that makes the stark angles of her lanky body look even more inhuman. Her talons and horns gleam like burnished gold. The Cornell Astronomy canvas tote slung over one of her shoulders smells powerfully of spices and olive oil. This she sets down on a kitchen counter and begins to unload a series of Tupperware containers--mostly smallish and full of dip or spread or sliced vegetables, though one large tub holds thick stacks of pitas. She regards the coffee already in progress, nose twitching in appraisal. Evidently she it acceptable, for she nods and sets out her own mug near the coffee machine. Staking her claim. "{Want help?}" this signed, one-handed, at Dusk even as she takes out a pita and, splitting it open, fills it with tahini and zataar. "{Help?}" Dusk has been starting towards the stairs but detours to the kitchen doorway instead. His brows lift, head tipping towards the coffee pot. "{Caffeine would help.}" The young woman already manning the coffee tips him a (very sharply fanged) grin and stretches up onto her toes to get another mug out of a cabinet. Dusk leans against the door frame with one shoulder, fingers tightening to hold the boxy air conditioner against his opposing hip. "You do coffee?" This time it is spoken aloud, in tandem with his still one-handed signing. He's looking at the dog now, though. "Or, ah --" One long thumbclaw flicks towards the containers on the counter. "Baba ganoush?" The border collie shifts until all fours are beneath itself, paused in the moment of a possible return to relaxing or possibly jumping up to go somewhere. A moment of indecisiveness which could be easily swayed one way or the other. Intense canine eyes, unfortunately dulled in their ability to fully grasp the range of spectrum the winged pair sport upon arrival, move from Dusk to the other who enters the kitchen first, furry ears no less attentive than before. Black nose lifts at the scents which accompany Isra, curiosity for the food and of the rest of it all involved. The dog does stand, moving in its breed-typical way of slinking along avoiding direct interaction with the pair that brought so many scents and the objects and foods that send them, nails click-clacking against the tile until it's just off to the side of the girl at the coffee pot. Its attention seems to be particularly focused on Dusk as he talks, expressive ears twisting up or back intermittently at words or motions here or there pull different amounts of . As if such a high-energy breed needs caffeine, it sits back onto its haunches as if it's in line to be first for a cup of it. It was here first, after all. Nevermind that it's a canine. Isra looks at the dog, then back up at Dusk, raising one hairless (but silvery-highlighted) eyebrow ridge. "Rasputin? Or a stray sheltering from the heat?" Her bright green eyes flick back to the dog, steady and unblinking. "Either way, probably toxic for you, little one. This, however, should be safe." She indicates the stuffed pita in her hand. "Except for the kibbeh, it contains onions." Even now, it is hard to say whether she altogether believes the dog has understood her, though she does not seem too bother one way or another. Shrugging more with wings than shoulders, she adds, "The baba ganoush /is/ quite good." "Uh-huh, that's just what everyone needs first thing in the a.m., a sheepdog with a buzz." To the woman at the coffeepot, he holds up two fingers. 'Another mug?' "As in," he adds aloud with a crooked grin of his own, "something you need hands to hold. Though, breakfast, have at." He turns to set his air conditioner aside on an armchair before heading into the kitchen proper. At the coffee, J.C. shakes her head to Isra. 'Rasputin no. New dog. Less chatty.' The twist of her smile at this is a little wry. In very much a 'bad dog' move, the collie jumps up to put its forepaws on the counter. Toes lengthen into fingers, white fur into fleshy- if dirty- human skin. The form stretches from four feet in length from blackened nose to white-tipped tail, to a man's body of something around six. The remainder of pelt dissolves into skin and clothing; a navy hoodie sporting some thready holes and black jeans equivalently as worn. The canid lean becomes a significantly more human one as he ends up turned, arms slowly coming to fold across his chest as he can then lean his hip against the counter instead of all of his weight. "It wasn't ready yet." Comes the response to needing hands, though there's a broad grin over Killian's face that denotes the humor he found in Dusk's statement. Now with a different set of eyes, his blue gaze sweeps from one to the other. "That," The word is exaggerated, his brows lifting slightly in the earnest of it, "smells amazing though." His head tips in the direction of Isra's collection. And as an offhanded wonder, "Rasputin?" Isra's reply to J.C., a simple and quick gesture, effectively translate to 'I see', and she has just begun to ask '/Real/ dog, or--' when said dog begins his transformation. Isra does not look /startled/ exactly, but she does drop her center of gravity, ears pressing back flat against her skull and tail sweeping back and forth beneath the hem of her white linen sun dress. "Ah, you." She relaxes visibly when she recognizes the man left standing in the kitchen. To J.C., with both hands now that she has stuffed the last bite of pita into her mouth, 'We /have/ met, but I didn't recognize him as a dog.' This very matter-of-factly, as if she ran into similar problems on a regular basis. A moment later, once she can speak again, she goes back to voicing and signing at once--the latter more sloppily now as a result, "Please, help yourselves to the food. Lebanese breakfast, very substantial." She is certainly helping herself to more, dipping another slice of pita in hummus. One-handed, she signs, 'He ask Rasputin who?' Then, aloud, "A young person in our acquaintance, who also takes on various animal forms. I mistook you for hir, as you may have gathered." "Ras'll talk anyone's damn ear off, even as a cat, though. Startles the hell out of everyone --" Dusk grins over at J.C. "Well, most everyone." J.C. /is/ looking a fair bit startled by this transformation, leaning back against the counter with already-slitted pupils narrowing near into invisibility. She relaxes once the transformation is complete, looking up and down Killian with a small curl of smile showing a glimpse of fang again. 'Doesn't make a bad-looking man either,' she signs to Dusk and Isra before filling four mugs with coffee. She sets the machine to brewing again, snags herself some kibbeh, and waggles a hand towards the others before meandering back out to the living room. Dusk picks up one of the mugs, inhaling the steam but not yet braving the hot coffee. "Life in the zoo treating you okay?" "Just me." Killian's arrogance is mild in his sarcasm, "And for better or for worse, I'm forced to keep my thoughts to myself when I'm not," An arm spread, indicating his current self with no lack of smugness, "all this." The latter is said with a wink to J.C. as she pours the coffee, his blue eyes following her out casually before being drawn back by the two remaining. While he doesn't understand the signing, he does watch the interactions, even if he doesn't seem to care to pursue asking after what may have been said. A mug is taken after J.C. is gone, and to Dusk's question, there's a small loss of his pleasantry, "They hired a new night guard who actually seems to notice when the animal counts are off." A loss of desirable living arrangements is what that means, not that it likely matters too terribly much. A testing sip of the coffee is taken, but the effort is retreated giving the heat of it. "How've you been?" He asks the pair of them, "And-" Fingers wiggle, "That little one." Isra signs her thanks to J.C. and takes a mug, wrapping long fingers around it in evident pleasure despite the warmth of both coffee and air. One of her ears cocks forward and the other back. "As I recall, you had wanted to find other work even before this." She closes her eyes, takes a sip of her coffee. Has her moment with it. Opens her eyes again, bright and sharp, her gaze steady on Killian. "Something about work you /should/ be doing?" Dusk plucks up a triangle of pita, swiping it through the baba ganoush and taking a quick bite. "All that." An amused purr rumbles beneath his words. "When /aren't/ you?" He leans back against the counter, nibbling at his pita. "Oh, the monsterling's still -- alive. Still bitey. Still making Kay and Ion's lives a little more growly." His head gives a small shake at Isra's last question. "Fff. Things lately? Think work just keeps growing and /growing/." "Ah." Killian is greatly pleased at Dusk's response, a moment of a breathy laughter given to it, "Exactly." He raises the mug to him as if in cheers to it. The note on the biteling gets a shake of his head at the thought of Ion and the little one. At the end of it, his blue eyes level on Isra, "Just 'cause I play nice with animals don't mean I want t'be walking after goats with a shovel." Killian stares down at the gently rippling black surface of his coffee that would garner no additives, that continuously amused sarcasm drying up. "Useful to have an excuse to be able to get to the staff areas without having to break into 'em, but I could do a hell of a lot more." His smile darkens, "I just need the opportunity. Don't got a lot of connections after I made myself scarce for awhile." He shrugs. "I haven't really learned to, ah-" he searches for the word in his pause, "acclimate?" sure, that's good enough, "You two seem to do well with it given-" Although his sentence is short, his chin tip up to indicate 'them' likely means their not exactly hidden mutations. Isra tears a piece from her pita and swipes it through the baba ganoush, then nudges the tub toward Killian. One of her wings stretches out to brush Dusk's--part show of affection and part showing off. "Conventional employment poses certain challenges." She admits, inclining her head; her horns glint in the sunlight that finds its way in through a window. "But we have family. We look out for each other. It makes doing the work that needs doing easier--whether raising tiny monsters or raising hell." "I'm better at the hell part," Dusk admits, without much overt trace of shame in this. "Anyway, in /some/ ways this --" One stormy-painted wing flexes, claws shifting at its tip, "makes it easier. To find family, I mean. When it's kind of easy for the whole world to tell what we are, s'kinda easy for our own people to find us, too." He polishes off his piece of pita, licking his fingertips clean. "If it's opportunity you want, though -- or even just connections." He lifts his coffee cup, taking a sip finally and wincing at its heat. A small (owhot) hiss precedes the rest of his sentence. "-- There's folks we could hook you up with." Blue eyes shift from Isra to Dusk at his admittance to her statement, his smirk growing in agreement as Kilian shifts to stand straighter to take a few paced strides across the kitchen. "That /is/ true." He says thoughtfully, if still in that dark seriousness of his, to both. "Was hoping you might say that. Talked to a couple of the… family.." The word seems hard to say for him but he manages, "It may just be what I'm looking for." He implies both of the things Dusk offers. "What would I need to do?" Comes with a passing glance at the microwave's digital clock reading, before he returns to where he had been, and where the tub had been earlier pushed in his general direction. A piece of pita collected, and swiped through the ganoush- when he takes a bite it comes with a coloring of surprise on his face, "Ahmazin." Mouth full, at least he doesn't spill any. Isra smiles broadly at Killian, fangs sharp and bright. "What you need to do depends on what you're seeking to accomplish. If it's just some mutual aid you're looking for, plenty of people lend their hands--and other appendages--around here." She sips at her coffee placidly. "But if you want to do something more involved?" Lifting the mug now as in a salute. "We can set up a meeting where you can discuss that with other interested parties." Dusk straightens out of his lean against the counter, his smile a little crooked. "Well, there'll be the standard three trials, of course. After that --" His shrug is more through wings than shoulders. He slips a phone out of his pocket, setting his mug aside. "How do we get in contact with you, anyway? City's a little big to just whistle and hope you turn up." "Involved." Killian echoes quietly with a suspiciously entertained undertone and a pause that ends punctuated with, "A little fun, a little hell," His free hand motions towards Isra, since she'd offered the concept earlier. "I could be...useful, in either." He notes, darker. From Isra's offer to Dusk's, his gaze shifts between them, his smug grin wide but controlled, if barely. The amusement from Dusk's notion of trials is muffled as he fishes into his pocket for his cell. It's an old one, beat up, scratches all along the silver sides and buttons worn. But at least the screen is intact. "Whistling may be just as fast." He muses as if that might be mostly true with a half-hearted single-shouldered shrug as he pushes a couple of buttons. From the counter he scrounges a piece of scrap paper, already partially torn for a different use and scribbles out a number on it in a messy scrawl to then offer towards Dusk. "But this might help. Gimme a place, a time. I'll be there." Isra's smile is bright and fangy. "I have no doubt whatsoever you can make yourself exceptionally useful, but do keep in mind that there is more to how we value each other than pragmatism alone. Also..." She pushes the tub of kibbeh toward him, as well. "...remember there is much we can offer /you./" Dusk shoots Isra a quick grin. 'What, you mean we're not the Business Partnership of Mutants?' he signs, before taking the paper from Killian. He enters the number into his phone, tossing the scrap of paper after. A moment later a text comes through to Killian's beaten-up phone: (Dusk --> Killian): This one's me. -Dusk Dusk slips his phone back into his pocket, straightening and cocking his head to the continued sounds of distress from the upstairs bedroom. His wing flexes out, brushing absently against Isra's and Killian's shoulders in turn. "I'll hit you up soon." And then he's slipping off, hefting the air conditioner back onto a hip as he heads out to carry it upstairs and hopefully make /someone's/ morning more bearable. Killian taps a finger on his nose over a short smirk, a notation that Isra's on point with her reminder. A couple of clicks of buttons on the old cell appears to be a save of the number associated with that message while he takes a final long drink from the now-cooler coffee. Setting the mug in the sink and slipping the phone back into a pocket, he lifts a hand in an affirmative and goodbye as Dusk heads upstairs. To Isra, he notes, "I'll keep that in mind," as he and his sly little expression steps towards the door. He seems to slow his metamorphosis enough that black feathers shimmer in an almost-iridescent hue before the contour feathers become 3D and the primaries and secondaries spring from fingers and arms. The rest of the change is immediate as he shrinks and becomes fully crow by the time he's taken another single step. It's well-timed, as by the time the black bird takes a couple of hops, one of the other young mutants is in the midst of opening the door to leave. The runway clear, the avian takes off in a flutter of wings, likely towards that day job of his.