ArchivedLogs:Safety

Safety
Dramatis Personae Anole, Elliott, Jim, Rasa, Regan, Sebastian, Shane
In Absentia	2013-10-19 '
Location <NYC> Tompkins Square Park - East Village
Small but popular, this tree-lined park is a perfect centerpiece to the eclectic neighborhood it resides in. Home to a number of playgrounds and courts from handball to basketball, it also houses a dog park and chess tables, providing excellent space for people watching -- especially during its frequent and often eccentric festivals, from Wigstock to its yearly Allen Ginsberg tribute Howl festival. There's a threat of rain in the future, grey skies overhead but the weather still pleasantly cool. The park has seen a recent influx of mutants even moreso than its usual eclectic crowd, and it might be that or might be the impending rain that has driven the usual weekend /crowd/ away from the park. There's still a scattering of kids on the playground, a handful of people with their dogs in the dog park, but for the most part it's a quiet sort of day. Regan arrives in the park accompanied by a rather highly energetic teenage girl, bouncing her way over to one of the playgrounds to scramble up onto its platforms and give the slide a try. Regan has -- less exuberance to her. She just watches, arms crossed over her chest, in tall boots and slim-fit grey trousers and a black leather jacket, blonde hair pulled back into a neat bun. She pulls out her phone, absently tapping at its screen. The teenagers have been doing -- whatever /needs/ doing, the past couple days. Doing their best to stay helpful and not /underfoot/, which is fairly easy with as many refugees as have flooded the apartments. At the moment, a supply run, one of many such supply runs; the teenagers return with bags laden with toiletries. Shane has draped his canvas bag over a shoulder, and with hands free is now grabbing a pack of cigarettes out of the pockets of his pinstripe slacks. Tapping one out, sticking it between his lips. He /offers/ it kind of habitually to his companions. Bastian declines. As he always does. He's brighter than his brother, white-bordered pink /poodle/ skirt, white cardigan. A small bounce in his step as he pulls up to the fence alongside Regan. "Oh! You should see her," he says to Regan with a small shy smile, "playing with Joshua and Alanna." "Fucking ridiculous," is Shane's assessment of this. Anole creeps along behind the twins, bouncy /until/ they reach other people at which point he slows to hang back behind both of them. He isn't as snappily dressed as either, old faded jeans, a tattered old Columbia sweatshirt with the hood pulled up over his spiky head. "No it's cute," he volunteers quietly. /Eying/ the cigarettes, adjusting his hold on his bag. He takes one. Puts it in his lips. Doesn't light it. Rasa shrugs at the offer and follows after the others, shouldering hir bags and glancing up at the exerberant one. "Ridiculous in a good way, right?" Ze has to check, eyeing Shane and Sebastian for a moment. Ze still embodies shades of gray, darker hair and concrete colored flesh. Ze is countering this with ridiculously colorful clothes, long jeans, a vibrant purple long sleeved shirt and a bright robin's egg hooded vest over the top. The hood has fallen back now that they are closer to the lofts and as hir comfort level grows. "There's so many of them. How do you keep them all straight?" Elliott is out here, today, for a run. Or a jog, at least, making her gradual way through the park in black running shorts, a lightweight jacket, normal foot swapped out for a running blade. She stops nearby the playground, too, to take a swig off her water bottle, slightly /bouncy/ even when stopped. And then freezes as she recaps the bottle, looking over the teenagers with a faint widening of eyes. If you were looking for a sentry guard, you'd likely look past him; Jim slouches along the sidewalk circumferencing the park with his own cigarette crammed in the side of his mouth, burned down to about an inch of ash drooping of its end. His eyes sweep in equally parts between the Loft apartment's front doors, the windows lining up its outer wall, the surrounding street and the park, all without really needing to turn his head much. Or take his hands out of his pockets. He's a little underdressed for the cold in a ratty-edged kilt, a button up shirt patterned with - it looks like hibiscus at first, but if you look close it's butterflies and dragonflies. It's pretty faded out. On his route towards the teenagers-and-co, he passes Elliott, the side of his scarred face twitches, "Picture'd last longer." "He hasn't changed back yet, then." Regan doesn't look at the teenagers so much as just acknowledge their presence with a small lift of head. "Can he still heal, in that form? He could teleport." Her eyes flick down to the cigarettes, not so much Shane's as Anole's. Her lips twitch faintly. It's Rasa that she settles on in the end, shrugging one shoulder. "How do you keep anyone straight? You get to know them." Jim's comment draws her attention towards Elliott, eyebrows raising after a moment. "You're far from home, aren't you?" "I kinda like him like this," Shane answers cheerfully, digging out a lighter to light his cigarette. Then offer the flame to Anole. Bastian shakes his head. "Not as funny. He was funny." "He's still funny." Shane's teeth flash in a wide grin. His head turns at the sound of Jim's voice. "Fuckyou grousing at now?" Though his ridged brows raise, /too/, at the sight of Elliott. Reflexively, Sebastian shifts position, standing slightly in front of Anole and his brother. He glances from Elliott's face down to the running blade. Back up to her face. Shane takes a long puff of cigarette. "Bet my dad could make you a better one." "I can't keep them all straight," Anole confides quietly to Rasa. Then peeks out from behind Sebastian, curious. He doesn't light the cigarette, ignoring Shane's lighter to peer over at Elliott. "Do we know her? I think I know her." "Oh, I'm trying to get to know them. It's just - well, some of them have energy like her and conversations are very short." Rasa nods to Regan as ze pauses in hir steps turning to face Jim when ze hears his voice. There's a quick glance toward Elliott, but Jim gets most of hir attention. "I like your skirt." Ze is quiet in hir admiration. Elliott continues with the pattern of eyebrow-hiking, eyes flicking dubiously over Jim. She doesn't answer him. Uncaps her water for another swig, closes it again. "I'm sorry, do I know you?" It's an inadvertent echo of Anole's question, to Regan. The teenagers capture her attention again next. "Make me a better what?" The smile that crosses her face is very quick. "No, I think I would remember meeting all of you," comes with a faint touch of amusement. "Thanks," Jim tugs his /collar/ at Rasa, grimfaced with... pride(?), and SMOOTHS down a crease in his kilt, "Found it. - 'm grousing at you, fish-face." Which, in Jimspeak, apparently means he wants to fist-bump with Shane, eyes jumping past him to Anole, to Sebastian, like he's counting TEENAGERS. Talking causes his cigarette to bobble up and down professionally, knocking loose the ash jut out from the end. The movement catches his attention and he looks down where the gray has toppled down and caught up on his shirt front. He furrows his brow like he's not SURE if he wants to brush it off or not and the indecision /annoys/ him. "-think 'registration', Anny." He might mean Anole. BRUSH. And mutters with a dirty grin, "--guess you wouldn't recognize me from the news, would you. Without all the branches." Just kind of flat-muttering. "I don't think you and she make the same caliber of news, precisely," Regan says dryly. "We know you well enough, Ms. Carruthers. I've been following the race in your neighborhood, you've been quite outspoken." Her smile eases at Rasa's words. "I think anyone might have a bit of energy to work out after being cooped up that long. You'll have time to get to know some of them, at least." Shane sticks his cigarette back in his mouth, leaning forward to knuckletap his freed hand against Rasa's. "Pfft, fuck you on about, Treebeard, we're not fucking /news/, we're a circus sideshow. Flash in the pan." "She's news," Sebastian agrees softly, "-- Anny?" This just sounds puzzled. "And then, "What /is/ going on with that boy? And Mount Sinai?" "Better foot. He's like a magician. Fucking -- cyborg magician." Shane puffs at his cigarette again, pocketing his lighter when Anole fails to light his cigarette. "Oh! OhgoshCarruthers." Anole's eyes widen here; he skitters back behind the twins a little bit further. "I'mnotapirate," he promises. He doesn't register Jim's words at all, it seems; it's not his name, why would he? "-- The boy's dead." He says this kind of puzzled, too. Rasa nods to Regan, losing an inch of height as the conversation begins to shift toward the mutant boy. "Yeah. They'll be around for a while at least. Just afraid I'm going to call someone by the wrong name." One gray hand reaches back and pulls up hir hood, tucking hir curls in under the shell of fabric. "Don't worry. We're on land. I don't think anyone will mistake you for a pirate here." "Should I?" Elliott looks over Jim a moment longer, but then her eyes slide past him to the others. "I have, yes. And still will. It was a tragedy what happened to that boy. It's -- yet to be seen what will happen at Mount Sinai, over it. Something harsh enough, I hope, that things like this will stop happening at hospitals around the city." Her expression softens as Anole skitters back, and she rocks back a bouncing half-step, shaking her head. "It's okay," she assures him, "I only fight pirates who are fighting me first." She looks down at her foot at the mention of it, brows furrowing faintly. To Elliott: "Nope," Jim has that sort of city flippancy that sounds all but delighted with just how little he's invested in his answer, pulling out his cigarette and FROWNING where the cherry seems to have gone out. His body language is drifting off from Elliott, moving past her to predate Shane's own cigarette - he wants to light his off of it. Hand-out-question-mark-eyebrows? "Who you calling flash in a pan." Apparently he's not engaging in Conversation. Working stiff. "And you imagine registration would help situations like this." Regan just says this quiet, not challenging, not accepting. Thoughtful. "-- You, I believe." To Jim. Her eyes haven't left Regan, though, skimming over her slowly. "Things like that happen in this city every day." Her head turns, looking to Anole. "Oh, nobody will hurt you here." It doesn't sound like reassurance, only flat assertion. "Pfft, yeah, the government'll do so much better at taking care of us /with/ registration than they do now." You can't /see/ Shane's pupilless eyes rolling, but you can hear it in his voice. Though it seems largely directed at /Jim/ and not Elliott, looking at the man for a very long while before he actually plucks the cigarette out of his lips to offer it to Jim. "-- Some of us /are/ dangerous to try and treat," Bastian muses, very quietly. Though he's still keeping his position between the others and Elliott. Shane just looks annoyed, at this. "You'd make a good pirate," he tells Anole, and then, "C'mon, we gotta get this asston of shit up to the house before there's a riot over fucking toilet paper." "You think?" Anole's expression lights at Shane's comments. Very earnestly, he tells Elliott, "-- I don't want to fight. You." As an afterthought: "Or anyone else either. Um. I feel like registering would just --" Though here his frown deepens, cheeks darkening as he allows, "... make no difference for /us/." Rasa snorts softly at Shane but nods all the same, reaching out to gently touch Sebastian's shoulder. "Come on. We gotta start helping with dinner or something too." Ze starts moving toward the lofts once more, but pauses to eye Jim. "I'll see you around?" "It's still their job to treat everyone who needs it. We just want to make sure they're informed enough to do that properly and safely." Elliott backs up another step when the children start talking about leaving, though it seems less out of nervousness and more out of deference to /Anole's/ nervousness. "Have a good evening." She shifts her weight again, tipping her head in a nod to the others and then picking back up, drawing in a slow breath as she starts her jog once more. "'Cause everyone knows, 's all about /safety/." Jim has a WAY of raising up and twisting together his eyebrows in a James-Dean shape at Regan for her /helpful answer/... if you changed the REST into something with a big jaw, thick neck, bad scar, overgrown hair. Tacky shirt. Cigarette bummed off a teenager to light his own to MILK the last half inch or so of his own. Pfffff, he exhales smoke and hands the second back to Shane. With a chin-jerk thanks. "You'll see me," he promises Rasa, his faded blue eyes already looking past her to scan the rest of the park once more. And he moves to stride past with a... pat. For Anole's shoulder before he's moved on. Regan just exhales, slowly. Her arms cross back over her chest, posture rotating back towards the playground. Eyes fixing back on the small girl playing within. Shane shoves his cigarette back in his mouth, and slings an arm over Rasa's shoulders. "Like a fucking bad penny," he answers Jim's promise, ambling along back towards the lofts. Bastian's eyes linger on Elliott, long and thoughtful. He shakes his head, nudging an elbow at Anole's side as they start back for home.