ArchivedLogs:Short Reprieve

Short Reprieve
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Jack, Matt, Melinda
In Absentia	2015-07-30 "Apparently, I have drank... drunk? Half the bottle." (Part of the Buzzkill TP.)
Location <NYC> Harbor Commons - Commonhaus - Lower East Side
Accessible to all residents of the Commons via electronic keycard, this three-story building holds a number of facilities freely available for the shared use of all Commons residents. The stone-floored foyer is high ceilinged -- balconies on the two upper floors look down into this entrance, leaving just the wide skylit ceiling three stories up to trickle light down through the whole of the house. Through wide wood-and-glass doors the spacious dining area is visible on the left; on the right, heavier doors beside the elevator lead to the similarly large kitchens. There are four single-user toilets on this floor, two apiece by the foyer and the dining room. Though a wide staircase runs all the way up, there is also an elevator tucked to one side. For the adventurous, though, there's another way up through the house -- through the center of the house where the balconies look down, an enormous climbing structure has been erected, solid wood platforms softened with carpeting, held together with strong spiderwebbed steel cables. Interlaced in an intricate maze that spirals up through the whole of the house and down to the basement, it provides a crazily winding path to duck and wriggle and worm through, with exits -- if you can /find/ them -- dispensed out onto each upper balcony and into the basement below. It's fairly late in the evening, but not quite full on night yet. It's also pretty humid and nigh miserably hot. While others are hanging out by the river, trying to grasp some of the cooler breezes over the water, Melinda has found her way into the Common House. She's sitting on the very base of the climbing maze, wearing shorts and a droopy tank top, bare feet scuffing at the floor. After a trying day in the cafe and an even more difficult evening at home, the hours wearing on her face. She's got a large bottle of wine at her side and a glass near that. While the bottle is open, the glass is unused. She grabs the larger vessel by the neck and lifts the mouth to her lips, drinking a little from the top. Happy Thursday. Jack isn't a common non-sight at the Commons but he's come by for a visit. Right now he's looking like a pair of floating jeans, worn sneakers, and a blue hoodie as he steps into the Commonhaus. The empty hood glances around as if looking for something. He blinks a few times when he spots Melinda, hood tilting to the side. "Uhh, hey," he offers in greeting. There's a faint swaying of the climbing sculpture -- only faint, really, its heavy steel cables more than sufficient to keep it /mostly/ in place -- and scraping-clicking from above. "... just funny when /you're/ Vimes," Dusk is not really putting the climbing structure to its /intended/ use, maybe; he's skipping the tunnels and platforms and hopping over the balcony upstairs to hook his enormous (silvery-blue, today, patterned in iridescent fishlike scales) wings onto the outside of it, scaling down the mesh that encloses it. "Nobody expects you to be the asshole. -- Wooah." His nostrils twitch, a small fangy smile crooking across his lips as he looks downward towards Mel. "Long day?" Matt's progress down the sculpture is not nearly as efficient as Dusk's, but he navigates his descent through the structure with casual ease. "What's a little dramatic meta-irony between friends?" His hair is a touch damp, it's hard to say whether from sweat or a not-too-recent shower. He wears gray cargo pants and a black t-shirt with the silhouette of man clutching a book to his chest, engulfed in abstract orange flames. "And yet everyone seems to expect me to be the Cylon, somehow." He pokes his head out over a platform to see who Dusk's last comment was aimed at. Spotting Mel and Jack, he breaks into a bright smile and waves. Then he picks his circuitous way down to the floor. "Hi!" Melinda looks up at Jack, frowning as she studies him, her lips slowly pursing as the moments stretches. "You're that kid... at least I think you're a kid... that was at the clinic." She rests her bottle in her lap and wets her lips. "Twins are old enough to be considered adults now, but they're still pretty short, so I suppose I shouldn't use height or width of frame to judge age." She stops after a moment as she feels the vibrations in her previously still seat, head tilting upward to stare into the darker ceiling at the figure. "Who you calling an asshole?" It's not an offended question. Mostly curious. Perhaps a little confused. "Ohhh. You?" This is directed to Matt, a small smile pulling at her lips. "Hi. Yeah. Long. Minutes stretch these days. I think we have a mutant fucking with time, too," she states in all seriousness, "As the days are hellishly long when I don't loose time in micro-naps." "I'm seventeen," Jack sighs a little. "But yeah...I was there," he says. The sounds of the sculpture moving draw Jack's attention upwards more than the movements since he's too far to really notice them. He looks up slowly and perks up when he spots Dusk. "Just the guy I was hoping to see," he says with an unseen smile. Spotting Matt next, Jack lifts an empty sleeve to wave. "Hi," he calls, stepping closer so he doesn't have to speak as loudly. "Height is a bad gauge. Daiki's been an adult since he was like, fucking, twelve, by that metric, and the twins may never be." Dusk's claws click against the wires as he makes his way down; unlike Matt, he doesn't head all the way to the floor, stopping to hang slightly above and to the right of Melinda's platform. One hand reaches down to make gimme-fingers towards her bottle. "How much of that have you /had/? Your sentences are -- not so much sentence. I don't think it's a /mutant/ messing with time, wine'll do that just as well. And Vimes is an asshole. Matt just plays one on TV. Or -- well. Board games." His brows raise, and he cants a curious look down at Jack. "... me? Why? Huh?" "Time?" Matt tugs his shirt to straighten it. "Oh, no, too soon!" His smile spreads wider. "It may be a bit late for it, but caffeine should be working at the moment. Speaking of which..." He glances at Jack. "...are you looking for Autumn? She's tucking DD in, I think." He sits down beside Mel. "I don't always play an asshole in board games, but when I do, it's apparently hilarious?" "Kiss for wine?" Mel asks, raising an eyebrow at him. She gives a little shrug and lowers her gaze once more and tilts her head as she gives Jack a small smile and nod. "Well. Okay. I'm Mel. And I haven't had that much wine. I'm just tired. I have..." she lifts the bottle and looks through the green glass and frowns. "Apparently, I have drank... drunk? Half the bottle." There's a pause and the bottle is just handed toward Dusk as she turns Matt and stares at him. "Working? Like... coming back? Like it's going to be there in the morning, too? Like... I could actually... function and sell a viable, legal drug to New Yorkers in the morning?" She is /just/ /barely/ keeping herself from pouncing Matt for more information. "My name's Jack. Nice to meet you when we're not in danger of being attacked by angry mob," the invisible teen introduces himself. "I think half the bottle counts as maybe a little too much wine," he remarks, rubbing the back of his neck. Shaking it off, he looks back up at Dusk. "I wanted to talk to you about something that happened the other day when I went out with Autumn and DD," he replies. Before he can explain, Matt is asking about the teens in question and Jack looks as surprised as empty clothes can. "Wait, she back? Is she okay? Did she say what happened?" he asks. Dusk gives a small laugh at this, swinging the rest of the way down to drop surprisingly lightly down beside Mel on her platform. One wing drapes loosely around her shoulders; he leans in to give her a soft kiss even as he snags the wine bottle. "Like I /need/ a bribe to kiss you. Wine's just a bonus. And caffeine'll work until --" He breaks off here, taking a swig from the wine bottle. His head tilts slightly to one side, quizzical. "Huh-yeah? Sure. They've been back. They're fine, except for Autumn just got her ass handed to her by /this/ asshole --" One thumbclaw curls towards Matt, "-- but then so did we all." "It'll work as long as I'm here." Matt bows his head at Mel, looking genuinely apologetic. "On the morrow it will leave us, as our hopes have flown before. But only for now! We have a /plan./" He turns back to Jack, eyes blank and uncomprehending. "She's been stressed, but you knew that. If something uncommonly bad happened, she hasn't told me, but we are looking to set up a day for her to visit the school soon." Melinda ping pongs between the pair, a little too tense with the tease of caffeine. When Dusk begins to give answers, she turns on him, sliding up against his side as he's already got a wing around her. "Please please please. And I know you don't need a bribe. It was just more playful than admitting I needed a kiss just then, you know?" She inhales deeply and looks to Jack again, before Matt's news causes her shoulders to slump. Her elbows brace on her knees as she scrubs her face with her hands. "A plan? A plan would be nice." Her spirits have not risen just yet. Jack stares for a moment and then his shoulders slump. The teen deflates a little, letting out a relieved breath. "At least she's okay..." he trails off, reaching up to tug on his hood a little. "I got pictures of the plates on the car she went with if you want to track them down," he shrugs. "A plan sounds like a good thing." Dusk's wing rubs slowly against Melinda's back, even as his eyes stay fixed on Jack. He takes another pull from the wine, then offers the bottle back to Melinda. "Track them down? Did they do something to her? I mean, I don't know, she didn't say." His brows furrow. He tips his head down, this time pressing a kiss to the top of Mel's head. "You could have /several/ kisses. /Many/. Whole night-ful of kisses, if you're in the mood." "The plan is playing the long game, which unfortunately won't help tomorrow morning in the harsh uncaffeinated morning light." Matt gives Mel's shoulder a gentle, sympathetic pat through Dusk's wing. He considers Jack's information, frowning. "I can hazard a guess or two about what they wanted with her, and it doesn't give me warm fuzzy feelings, but..." He shrugs. "...ultimately it's Autumn's call whether to pursue that kind of an investigation." Melinda's personal distress seems to evaporate as Jack starts speaking of cars and a girl going away in one -- Dusk's added inquiries laser in her focus on the invisible teen. She inhales deeply and glances between her two companions and picks back up her bottle, taking another long drink. "You should let her know you care though. You know, don't force her decisions on things, but be supportive of her well being? I don't want to sound... drunk, but yeah. Be there for her -- whoever she is." She reaches out to squeeze Matt's knee gently before moving the bottle back toward Dusk. "I'm up for it if you are." Jack shrugs a little. "I don't know what they did but those guys gave me a bad feeling," he says. "One with some kind of power, at least one had a gun..." he trails off. He just ends up nodding as Matt speaks. Melinda has him blinking a moment and nodding again. "Good idea. I guess I'll go say hi and ask how she is before I head back to the school." "Eesh. A gun? Sounds like -- not the best people to be hanging out with for her, yeah." There's still a furrow in Dusk's brow, but he nods, too, at what Matt says. He slides down off the ledge, taking the bottle back and leaving his wing scooped gently around Mel. "Kisses it is, then. -- Night, all." The tip of one wing curls in a wave goodnight.