ArchivedLogs:Lunchmeat

Lunchmeat
Dramatis Personae Jax, Pedro, Rasa, Shane
In Absentia	2015-11-11 "{Now sit down and /behave/.}" (Part of Flu Season TP)
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. It's a mild day, overcast, grey. Not yet raining, but with the skies threatening it maybe that is what is keeping people out of the park today. Maaaybe. At any rate, this particular stretch along the lake is largely quiet at the moment. A woman jogs by with her eager black lab loping along panting beside her. A man in a business suit hastens past, talking low and rapid into his cellphone. And Shane -- a tiny lone figure perched on a slab of stone near the water, claws scraaaping against the rock where his fingers twitch restlessly against it. There's a messenger bag resting on the grass beside his seat, a violin case propped beside that; he's just recently out of class. His phone sits in his lap, eyes fixed out across the lake. He's dressed neatly as ever -- crisply pressed slacks, a sharp houndstooth vest over grey dress shirt, neat bowtie, polished Oxfords, a trim peacoat that, in the current only-slightly-cool weather he has shed and folded neatly beside him. Jax is hurrying through the park, a bright splash of colour in the grey day. Bright metallic-blue and silver diagonally-buttoned jacket, blue galaxy-printed leggings underneath strappy black and silver cargo skirt, tall stompy boots, rainbowy armwarmers, peacock-toned hair. There's a FreakAngels messenger bag over his shoulder, a canvas shopping bag in the other hand smelling strongly of food; he deposits both of these on the ground as he swoops in to settle wordlessly on the rock by Shane, planting a kiss atop the boy's spiky head. 'Class okay?' Signed, not spoken. 'Brought lunch.' Rasa comes up the path looking a little worn in the clothing department, not in that hir long sleeved tee shirt and loose cotton pants are shabby; they are merely oversized and strapped in around hir midsection. Ze is in flipflops despite the temperature and sans gloves with a pack slung over one shoulder, hir attention primarily focused on the path ze walks. Ze is a muddled brown and gray color, with a bright hazel eye. Hir hair hangs shaggily around hir head in loose wavy curls, keeping with the theme, colored a mousy brown. Ze brightens a bit when ze sees Jax and Shane, peeling a pair of headphones out of hir ears. Soft classical music can be heard drifting from the buds, the volume perhaps a little louder than normal -- all the better for drowning out unwanted words. Ze waves and leans close to Jax's bag to sniff. Mmmm. Lunch? A young man in blue jeans and a grey 'American Eagle' hoodie scrounges through the brush nearby. The batlike mutant is quietly and efficiently picking elderberries from a sizeable bush, storing them in a cloth satchel that hangs at his side. Any garbage he finds, stray coffee cups and ubiquitous wrappers from all manner of fast food places, gets put into a plastic bag hanging off his belt. Deciding that that particular bush is done, he shuffles past the three, leaves crunching under his bare feet. The new patch he stops at has him paused, sniffing at the berries it bears. Shane leans up into the kiss -- it's kind of /like/ he's nuzzling, but there's a small growl that comes with the affection. A faint baring of teeth as his face mooshes up against Jax's collarbone. Rrrumble. Grr. He pulls away, though, leaning into the bag of food to sniff at /this/ instead. Sniffle snuffle sniff sniff sniff. He snatches it close, unpacking it quickly to examine the TREATS within. 'Class SHITTY,' this is EMPHATICALLY signed. 'Many sick. Starting shit with me. Guess who gets in trouble? Not sure what to do. Miss class? I guess. Fuck. Eat my classmates, maybe.' Maybe this is a joke. We can hope it's a joke. His growl is deepening, though. The bag contains many a food! Apple pie with bits of pomegranate in, a savoury winey shepherd's pie, herby tender slices of pot roast. Looooots of that. And a fresh pomegranate just for good masure. Two thermoses -- one has hot tea, one cold hibiscus drink. "{Probably do not eat classmates.}" This time it is in halting stilted Spanish. Jax frowns at this. "{Definitely will kick you out for that. I think.}" He waves at Rasa, scooting to make room at their lunch spread. His head turns, slightly, following Pedro's movement past them with a small furrow of his brows. His posture reflexively tenses, shifting just a little closer to Shane. "{Why class. It does not please me.}" Rasa's Spanish is extremely shitty, given ze is just starting to learn it in light of the crisis. Ze moves closer to Jax and settles down beside him, offering a quick scrunch of a hug before switching to Russian, a language ze is far more fluent in. "{Xavier's is at least doing something sane - not forcing people to be together and listening. Hell. The boarding school aspect makes it hard to not provide some type of structure, but at least there aren't standard /classes./}" Ze pulls hirself a little away from Jax and turns hir attention to the nearby bat figure, studying him outright. Pedro's ears flick, and swivel towards Jax when he speaks in Spanish, the young man pausing to glance over at him. An odd spot in the conversation to jump into. He looks away before it becomes uncomfortable, though an ear now faces towards the three. Rasa's use of Spanish is noted, and he glances over at her. Ulp. Curious. The tangle of bramble before him catches his attention once more, and the batty one starts to pick them, if a little reluctantly. "{Eating one's classmates is generally poor form.}," he comments in Spanish, not looking their way. Shane's growl turns into a pleased rumble, and he snatches up the pot roast quickly, opening the lid to skewer a slice on one long claw. He tears off a hunk rapidly, quiet for a moment as he hungrily chomps it down. "{Just gonna be hard to get through this fucking. Term. If --}" He breaks off, nose twitching as his eyes skip over to Pedro. "{Fff. So's stepping on other people's goddamn business and that doesn't seem to be stopping /you/, man.}" He's on his feet, now, the growl returning as a low thrum in his chest. A shiver runs through Jax when Shane opens the tupperware, his head tipping briefly to /eye/ the roast. Around him there's a flutter, a small shiver of light. It stills, calming a moment later. Rasa's Russian just pulls his brows together uncertainly. 'Xavier's' mostly the only part of it he catches. The unstead tremor of light returns at Shane's next growl. His hand presses down flat against the rock, his brows hiking up. He looks from Shane to Pedro, muscles tensing. "/Shane/." There's a sharper note of warning in his tone. "{I'm sorry, we don't --}" His Spanish, again, is faltering. "{He's just -- not.}" Rasa rises as well, skin darkening as ze exhales, glancing between the two parties, hearing Jax's words in hir ears. As Spanish seems to be the more useful language at the moment, ze speaks up once more. "{No eat the stranger.}" Of course ze uses the wrong gender of the article and noun. Whoops. Ze's learning! "{Mister. You need something?}" Then, aside to Shane, once more in Russian, "{The pot roast looks more appetizing than this guy.}" Pedro glances over at the blue on standing up, and growling. The batty ears swivel forward, and a large number of clicks can be heard. He blinks, and his eyes have become clouded over. "{He is infected, yes?}," the young man says, looking to Jax. "{Not himself, you were saying?}" He looks to Rasa a moment. "{You said Xavier, just now, didn't you? The sickness is there, even?}" The batty one swallows, and more clicks can be heard. He looks to Shane, "{She is right. Do not eat me. I'm just skin and bones.}" A few more berries are rapidly plucked. "{Just getting dinner. I'll be gone in a moment.}" Shane hunches, gills fluttering; Jax's warning earns a sharp snap of teeth in his father's direction. "Don't need a fucking /lecture/, Pa." In English, this time. But the series of clicks /snaps/ his attention back to Pedro, sharp and sudden, his eyes widening and an abrupt /hiss/ coming from him. This time there's not any particular /answer/; just a snarl and a lunge, fast and sudden as, teeth bared and claws out, he surges forward in Pedro's direction. "Oh gosh Shane --" Jax is on his feet in an instant, though not /nearly/ fast enough to /catch/ the much (much!) quicker teenager. There's a brief shiver of light in between Pedro and Shane -- but this, too, is not fast enough to resolve into anything. There's a small irritable hiss from the photokinetic, and a brighter glow around him as light starts to collect. Then just as quickly turn around and flare back out, brief and searing to zap at the back of Shane's leg. "{/Stop/.}" Rasa is leaping after Shane a second after he starts to move. Initially, ze looses hir footing as hir sandals come off in the first few steps, but ze moves faster afterward, suddenly smaller and shark-like as well. Ze goes for a full tackle, wrapping hir arms tightly around him. There's a digging in of new claws when hir leg is zapped, a very audible, very English, "/FUCK/" bellowing out of hir small body as ze continues to cling on. "{Apologies, but,} Fuck! Shane! {settle yourself. I'll take care of this asshole if he's a problem. You are sick. I am not.}" Rasa speaks Russian in crisis, not releasing hir friend for the time being. Pedro blinks as Shane bares his teeth and the claws come out. "{Nope. No. Nada.}," he says as he turns and runs the few steps needed to get to a nearby tree. He starts to climb up it, his wings giving him good purchase, and the small claws on his toes helping. He doesn't stop until he is far out of the sharky one's reach. "{I'll uh, just stay up here. Hopefully he will calm down. Uhm, hopefully he will not bite you?}" Shane's snarl is deeper when Rasa tackles him; being boneless helps a great deal with the way he twists around quick and fluid to rake his claws up across /hir/ face instead. "/Fuck/ you get the fuck /off/ you goddamn /asshole/ let me fucking /go/." His legs dig in against the ground for leverage as he turns. His teeth are still bared -- at least until he chomps down at Rasa's shoulder. "-- Shut /up/ you're not /helping/." Jax snaps this quick and annoyed when Pedro keeps talking, one hand shooting back over his shoulder -- kind of very Talk To The Hand, if... that hand /glowed/ and shot lasers. Very searing hot ones in two quick bright flashes up towards Pedro's perch. Pew pew. His hands are still glowing -- and fiercely, burning, poker-hot -- when he moves in to /clamp/ one on each teenager's shoulder. "{I said /stop/. We are /having/. Lunch. Now sit down and /behave/.}" Shane is flooded with all the pain that Rasa is feeling at having claws raked down hir face and being chomped -- and then a burning hand is searing and scorching through the layer of cotton on hir shoulder. Ze shrieks out in pain and unfortunately, reflexively clings harder to Shane for a moment before ze starts to scurry away from the pain. Hir mind cries out desperately, begging, << Please stop. >> to anyone touching hir skin. Pedro blinks as the shary-one turns on Rasa, his ears rising up as bites down on her shoulder. "Loco.", he mutters. He grunts and falls several branches downwards trying to dodge the beams of light, even though they would probably have missed. "{Seriously, dude?!}" The young man rights himself, clinging to the larger branch he landed on. "{Now you're gonna have the cops on you.}" He starts to make his way down, moving several steps away from the three. But Rasa's shriek halts him, and he looks over at the group again. "{Fine. Time for you to cool down.}" It starts faintly at first, but Jax and Shane feel it building. A gentle breeze that quickly builds to very strong gusts of wind, that push at the two, guiding them towards the lake. Shane yowls -- at the pain that floods him from Rasa, first, and then at Jax's searing hand jerking him away. Instinctively his anger redirects, his head twisting now to chomp down on /Jax's/ arm. But his dad's tone cuts through his rage, for a moment, his eyes widening and his snarl turning to an unhappier whimper. His shoulder tugs away from Jax's hand as he -- kind of backs away, kind of /stumbles/ away, in the suddenly windier air. "{-- Are you calling the fucking /cops/ on him?}" The whimper is -- starting back into a growl. The glow fades away from Jax's hands, his arms trembling as they fall to his sides. "{... I'm sorry.}" His voice is quiet, a brief shiver of shadow curling around him as he releases the teenagers abruptly, scurries back. He curls his arms tightly around himself with the sudden gust of wind, his bright hair whipping around his face and the spread of lunch that had been laid out buffeted away towards the water. "{/Cops/?}" A little bewildered, a little wary. His posture is defensive, shifting now sort of in front of the kids and bracing hard against the wind as he digs his boots into the ground. "{No, no no, I can't -- you /can't/ --}" His hands both /push/ outward against the wind; the beam of light that pushes out with it is bright, too, one hot beam that flashes out in Pedro's direction and then another. "{We have to go.}" Rasa starts to collect hirself when ze is away from sources of new pain. Hir attention shifts back to the pair still snarling at the previously tree'd figure. "Fuck this," ze grumbles and reaches carefully to hir waist and removes hir belt, letting it fall where it might. Underneath the baggy clothing, the figure grows and stretches, adding muscles onto a larger bone structure until ze is nearly seven feet tall and straining those clothes to their limits. Hir skin is a sickly green color, still mangled around hir face, the places where it was torn to shreds are now grotesquely magnified. Hir eyes are the yellow of egg yolks and catch the light in such a way they appear to be gleaming. Hir mouth is filled with exaggerated teeth, all sharp and angry. Hir taloned feet dig into the ground in the face of Pedro's wind as ze reaches out to protectively scoop up Jax and Shane, bellowing a roar in the aerokinetic's direction. Pedro looks at Jax a moment, and then Shane. {What? No. Pfft, as if I would do that. They'd look at the lot of us and arrest us all. It's one thing to be fighting, but Mr. Light Show here is going t.. ACK!} He looks at the neat hole burnt through the membrane of one of his wings. {Ssss. Ah dude... what the fuck?} That limb is pulled in close and he throws himself to one side. {Alright alright, just go, fuck. The cops will definitely come now. Giant bird lady!} He stands up suddenly and starts running away from the three. Shane just whines again, now, a soft unhappy sound; he doesn't resist being picked up, though he does look back down at the ground. "-- My violin." It's expensive! And he /definitely/ can't afford a new one. His hands strain towards it. But so long as their Stuff is collected -- well. He's not interested in sticking around for Cops.