ArchivedLogs:Neighborly

Neighborly
Dramatis Personae Elliott, Iolaus, Jane
In Absentia	2013-07-31 '
Location <NYC> Iolaus's Apartment - East Harlem
Down a hallway and overlooking a open air market in El Barrio, Iolaus' apartment is not particularly a large one. It is three rooms - the main room shaped like an L with kitchen at one end, a small bedroom large enough for a full bed and a dresser, and a bathroom barely large enough to fit the bath inside it. The walls are a light yellow in the main room, with a large bookcase sitting against one wall and occupying much of the space, stuffed with books as it is. Two couches sit across from it, pressed up against the corner of the L shaped room. The kitchen is separated only by the transition from wood floor to grey tile and is sparsely filled with food and cookware both, and the bathroom is equally sparse of accouterments. In fact, were it not for the full bookcase and the clothing hanging in the closet, it would look almost as if the occupant had moved out and left some few things behind in a hurry. It is not a good day for Iolaus, nor for Jane. Glaring up at the ceiling where a grey stain is steadily dripping water onto the living room floor, Jane has her hands crossed over her chest as Iolaus bustles about taking his books off of the bookcase and moving it into a corner of the kitchen. His cellphone is tucked against his shoulder, and he's complaining quite loudly into the phone as he works. "Eight hours? That's not acceptable, David. There is water /dripping/ onto my floor - this is an emergency, and needs an emergency callout." A pause, and he calls out to Jane, "Can you open the door and put a fan out? I don't want it to get moldy in here -- no, not you," he says, scuttling back to the bookshelf for more books. "Get someone over here in the next thirty minutes or I am calling a plumber myself and taking it out of rent for next month!" There is a woman in the hall already, when that door is opened. Elliott is just returning from -- somewhere, who knows; she has a backpack slung on her back and a cell phone of her own tucked between ear and shoulder. She unslings the backpack to retrieve her keys, but pauses at the commotion from her neighbor's apartment. Backpack hitched back onto her shoulder, she dangles the keys from a finger as she turns to give the other apartment a curious inspection. Today she is dressed summery -- light yellow blouse and a denim knee-length skirt that, for once, actually displays the sleek new prosthesis allowing her out of her wheelchair. "-- Having problems?" Jane looks at Elliott, assessing, as she places the fan in the doorway. "Pipe burst, ma'am," she explains, standing up a little bit straighter. Old habits die hard. "Trying to get all the stuff out of the way until the plumber gets here." She glances back into the apartment where Iolaus is still threatening the realty company with dire financial invectives. "-- Oh, ouch." Elliott acknowledges Jane with a nod. Her eyes slip past the other woman, flicking over the apartment. "That is -- incredibly unfortunate." She slips her keys back into her pocket, shifting her backpack a little higher on her shoulder. "Could you use a hand? Sounds like a mess." Jane straightens a little bit more, lips thinning to a paper-thin edge. "Depending on how quickly the plumber gets here, we may have a few things to move out into the hallway, if you don't mind, ma'am." She glances at the alarm system mounted on the door and she looks back at Elliott. "But I would not want to intrude." "Oh, it's no intrusion at all. I know I'd be glad for the help if the situation were reversed." Having just put her keys away, Elliott withdraws them again, though only to unlock her door so that she can deposit her backpack in the entryway closet just beyond. She is back out again a moment later, hands freed and keys clipped onto a belt loop of her skirt. "My apartment's pretty empty, you can stash anything there if you need," she offers, slipping over to Iolaus's apartment to survey the damage for a quick moment. Jane is very suspicious looking at Elliott as she passes, but she still stands aside and laces her hands behind her back, clearly standing at a form of attention as the other woman passes. Iolaus is just hanging up the phone and putting it into his pocket, turning to look at Elliott for a minute. His eyes track to Jane's face, and then he gives Elliott a small smile. "Lieutenant. Sorry my home is not the most hospitable, at the moment," he says, wryly, as water starts to drip a little bit heavier onto the floor. Splat. "That's what I heard." Elliott returns the smile, easier and warmer than Iolaus's. "Just Elliott, is fine. I came to help. If you need to move anything out while this is getting fixed, there's plenty of room --" She waves a hand back towards her apartment, gesturing across the hall. "-- Oh, no, your poor books." Unconcerned about the leaking water, she hastens towards the bookcase to help finish emptying it. While many of the books are quite normal, a few are kept very carefully tucked away - most have been moved, already, but one wrapped in a acid-free cloth is still sitting on the shelf. "Thankfully, it's not too near them and - so far - they haven't gotten wet," Iolaus says, as he picks up a few more and quickly steps over to tuck it in the safety of the kitchen corner. "Thank you for your help, Elliott." Elliott takes the wrapped book off the shelf along with a few others, peeking beneath the cloth at its cover before moving them over to join the others. "It's no problem at all. I always mean to get to know my neighbors a little bit better, anyway," she admits with a laugh, "but man, everyone keeps such different schedules, don't they? It's almost a shame I know more about you from the news than I do from living right across the hall." The book is old. Very old, from the looks of it, running back hundreds of years. The title is in Greek, and the book is in rather shockingly good condition, considering its age. Back turned to Elliott, Iolaus is carefully carrying books to safety. The doctor chuckles and nods his head, a little shake back and forth. "I'm not a mutant, despite what they say," he jokes, and though there is a trace of darkness to his humor, he smiles widely. "Very different schedules. And I could say the same thing about you, Elliott. Well. From what I've read, and your advertising campaigns." He turns around and places down the stack of books gently on the counter. After a moment's hesitation, he extends a hand towards Elliott. "Iolaus Saavedro." "I didn't imagine you were," Elliott answers, her own trace of humour just quiet-light. She leans in to take the offered hand. Firmgrip. Briefgrip. "I know. -- Elliott Carruthers. And I never really planned on being famous." Her smile quirks, a little crooked. "-- Though I don't guess you did, either." Iolaus grins and shakes his head. "I was a little bit less prepared than you were, I think." he says, eyes twinkling. "Believe it or not, I used to be a doctor." he says, outright winking and then glancing past Elliott at the increasing flow of water. He steps neatly around her to go check the now-empty bookcase for any stragglers, even as he continues. "Now, I seem to have somehow ended up becoming a politician as well." "Believe it or not, I used to be a pilot." Elliott shakes her head, a quiet laugh in her words. "And now I guess I did, too. -- Do you want to move some of this furniture across the hall? It'd be pretty terrible if your couch started molding." She moves over towards the couch, stepping stiff and careful around the growing water puddle. "The world pushes people in strange directions, sometimes." "Into the hall, at least, I think. The plumber should be here soon, and I'd hate to have to move everything and then move it back in." Iolaus says, frowning at the couch as if it has hurt him. "What do you think, Jane?" The ex-sergeant is staring at the ceiling with a deeply written frown on her face. "I think someone left the water running in the apartment above you." Iolaus frowns at this statement and shakes his head. "No help there; alright. Let's move it. We should just be able to push it - it's on coasters." "That the apartment with the little kids in?" Elliott looks upwards towards the ceiling for a moment, but then focuses her attention on the couch. She walks around to its arm, stooping slightly to brace her hands against it. "You steer," she suggests, "I'll push." Jane is still peering at the ceiling, frown not lessening. "Hm." She taps her nose with one finger, contemplatively, even as Iolaus nods to Elliott and steps around to the front of the couch. He slides between the small gap in the wall and the edge of it to nudge it towards the room, one leg skidding through the water unhappily. "Alright. You ready?" he asks, looking up at Elliott with a smile. "Go ahead and push." "I was born ready." This answer comes reflexively, half under Elliott's breath with a small crook of smile. She leans in to the couch, teeth clenching down as she braces against the floor, weight shifted more to one side than the other when she starts to push. Her muscles flex, corded up into definition that shows more clearly the hard /strength/ carried under the summery-pretty clothing. "What happens if they don't get it fixed today?" "I'm not sure," Iolaus says, moving the force of the push with a light pull one way or another, sliding the couch towards the door. He begins pushing back so that Elliott's movement sweeps the couch out and in the direction of lining up in the door. "Besides me flying off the handle at them again," he says, lips twisting into a grin. "I'll probably head out to crash at someone's house, or rent a hotel for the night. I think my insurance will cover it, anyway." A shrug of his shoulders, non-committal. "We'll see. I hope not to find out." "Hopefully. I guess we'll see." Elliott pushes forward slowly, shoving the couch along where Iolaus guides it. "I've got a spare bed if you end up needing one." Her mouth curls upwards a little more, and she looks down at the couch in front of her. "-- and might have a spare couch, too." "Really? I might not have guessed." Iolaus says, grinning down at the sofa underneath him. He hesitates for a moment, and then looks up at Elliott. "I must admit, I'm somewhat... surprised at your offers of help - much appreciated as they are," he says, carefully. "You and I are, perhaps, not exactly on the same side of many of the issues that seem to define us. In fact, we are quite /visibly/ not on the same side of the issues. And while I certainly..." A brief pause as he lifts his end of the couch up with a grunt, taking it over the bump by the door. "Am not complaining, it is a - pleasurable - surprise." Elliott's eyebrows raise, and she huffs out a quiet laugh. "Well, you know," she says lightly, "it's only because I'm inviting you over to shoot you. Isn't that what my sort of people do?" Her head shakes as she pushes the couch out the door, lifting up her own end when she gets to that same hump. "You're my neighbor. You think I'd really let you just drown in there?" "I don't know," Iolaus says, chuckling and shaking his head from side to side. "I've had several death threats from people belonging to some of the same organizations from you... but, mostly, hanging around Jane too much makes me paranoid. I think she was in the military a little bit too long," he says, winking at Elliott. Jane, indeed, looks up at the phrase 'shoot you', and gives Elliott a suspicious look for a moment. Stare. "I can believe it." Elliott grimaces as this, resting for a moment once the couch is over the threshhold. Her arms lean against its back, cheeks puffing out in a quick breath. "I've had a fair few since the campaign started, too. It's a topic that gets a lot of people -- pretty heated." Her eyes flick over to Jane, then back to Iolaus. "Guess paranoia's kind of her job, though, isn't it?" "Very much so, both for being heated, and being paranoid. Double for the paranoid." Iolaus says, rolling his shoulders backwards for a moment, muscles cracking in complaint. "And, unfortunately, she keeps being correct." he says, giving Jane an affectionate smile that does nothing to ease the tension in her body. "You relax around a UXO, you don't get a chance to relax a second time," she says, arms crossing over her chest. "Well, you're still here so she must be doing something right." Elliott's lips compress as she leans back in, shifting her weight uncomfortably to brace herself once more. "Has it been bad, yet? I mean, you've been out of the news a while. The public has a notoriously short attention span." "Not too terrible. A lot of threats, and a few incidents, but nothing incredibly serious. No one's taken any shots at me or anything, though a few people have tried to corner me and yell." Iolaus shrugs and glances at Jane. "I think the bodyguards send the message quite clearly, but we're not taking any chances. Unfortunately, quiet doesn't mean safe. Or so Jane keeps telling me." He looks up at her and grins. "Over, and over, and over." "I'll stop telling you when you start listening," Jane replies, glibly. Elliott exhales, a quick sharp laugh. Her head shakes once, quickly. "Hope it keeps up that way, then. Though the way the city's going lately, it kind of feels like /everyone/ could use a bodyguard. Not that most people could afford one." She leans back in to start pushing the couch again. "When do you actually open?" "Not sure. Depends n when we have all the necessary permits to move in, and when our... renovations are complete." Iolaus' smile is oblique, and he shrugs his shoulders once. "Whenever the contractors get stuff done, I suppose, at this point. Sometime in the next couple of months, hopefully, but I don't think there is a firm date yet." A pause, and the elevators ding once. Jane steps quickly forward, standing in front of Iolaus as a maintenance man walks out. "I hear you've got a leak." Elliott glances up, looking between Iolaus and the maintenance man. She pushes the couch back against the wall with a grunt, and then straightens. "Guess I should let you deal with this," she says with a small crooked smile. "I've got nothing but a pile of homework waiting for me so -- if you do end up needing anything, I'm right across the hall." Her head tips in a nod, to Iolaus and Jane both. Iolaus nods to Elliott as Jane gives the maintenance man a once-over and then steps aside to gesture him forward, silently. "I definitely will," the doctor says, pleasantly. "I'll at least knock on the door and let you know one way or the other, so you know what ended up happening upstairs. Probably just the kids leaving the bathtub on, but if it's the pipes, you'll want to know in case it's coming for you, too." He nods once, glancing down then back up at Elliott. "It was good to meet you, again, and... thanks." The thanks, it seems, is a bit more weighty than even the couch was.