ArchivedLogs:Up On the Roof

Up On the Roof
Dramatis Personae Daken, Trib	2015-05-22 '
Location <NYC> Sunrise Apartments - Rooftop - Clinton
A concrete wall rising up to about midwaist high rims the edge of this apartment building roof, the tarred surface underneath leading to cut outs and drainage, with small gravel covering that. Concrete slabs lines the walkable portions of the roof, with one door leading to an enclosure around a stairwell leading back into the apartment buildings. An enterprising tenant has left a pair of lawn chairs on the roof for enjoyment of the sunshine in the city - or the sunset at night. There are perhaps a few beer bottles left over from a previous late night hang out as well. Not a lot of good can be said about this apartment building, but the view is good from time to time. There's no telling how long Daken has been taking said view in, lounging on one of the chairs with a bottle of brandy on his lap. He's wearing a pair of cheap sunglasses, a white tank top, and a pair of black jeans. His red skate shoes are /on the table/. Nobody ever said he had manners. Maybe it's instinct that draws Trib to the roof. Maybe it was the text he received nearly an hour ago from his recumbant friend, which only got a terse, vague response. Whichever it is, the squeal of the rooftop door opening signals his arrival, as does the happy yaps of a small, fluffy white puppy that scampers out ahead of him as far as its slender leash will allow. It's certainly an interesting figure: Trib, in a pair of loose-fitting blue shorts and a snug-fitting black tank, walking this tiny dog, his bare feet slapping on the concrete as he heads towards the chairs. "You know the view up here is shit, right?" he rumbles, narrowing his eyes at the older man. "You can't even see the fuckin' park from up here." "Nah, you can see other buildings and the sky though." Daken replies, holding the bottle in his lap up. "You want a drink? Doesn't do shit for me." It takes a moment for the glasses to be slid up his head now that they aren't needed. "Thinking about loading a messenger bag up with spray paint, grabbing my board, and tagging over some of the neighborhood watch signs." Trib shakes his head at the offer. "Don't do nothin' for me, neither," he says, tugging on the leash to bring the puppy closer. Who, now that he sees Daken, yips merrily and hops forward in greeting. Trib looks less happy as Daken shares his musings. "That's a fuckin' shit plan," he grunts. "For one thing, the cops'd fuckin' peg you in goddamned /no/ time -- I think there's one that lives in the building or some shit." He shrugs. "An' for another thing..." he begins, and then trails off, shrugging again. "It's just a shit plan, man. Just go bowlin' or somethin'." "Few of the people I know are doing it. Key is to hit when there aren't a lot of people out, and only at places that have cameras inside." Daken shares, pushing to sit up. The dog gives a wiggle of his fingers. "Hey there." Then his attention is back on Trib. "They're doing it to prove a point, I'm doing it until I run into whoever put an arrow coated in rat poison in somebody I know. And what they don't know? I'm a better archer." Oh, joy, a new person! Taylor jumps forward, sniffing at Daken's wiggling fingers tentatively. Daken's scent must be confusing, because the tiny puppy stands there smelling him for a long few minutes. Trib, for his part, drops into the second chair, throwing his feet out in front of him. "Lots of people shoot arrows since the zombie thing," he says, a shadow flickering over his features. "More'n some of 'em are mutant haters." He falls silent, thinking as he watches Taylor finally decide Daken is all right and push his little head against the older man's hand. Then Trib shifts his weight. "Where you goin' to start lookin'?" "Around that church in Harlem all the bigots really hate" Daken scratches behind the little dogs ears. "Once things settle down anyway. Better if they think everything has cooled down and nobody is looking for them. Unless they're the opposite of the Brotherhood and go out of their way to make being a mutant hell." "Is that where your buddy got shot?" Trib wonders, watching as Taylor moves from getting scritches to actively gnawing on whatever fingers get near his tiny muzzle. Like a tiny, adorably fuzzy piranha. "At the church?" The boxer wrinkles his nose, wrapping the leash idly around the index finger of his half-hand. The mention of the Brotherhood gets a tightening of the big man's jaw, but it's the second half of the sentence he addresses. "If they're smart enough to dip their arrows in poison, they ain't likely to be dumb enough to throw down in the streets," he says. "Unless they're completely fuckin' stupid about shit that ain't rat poison." "No, not positive where he got shot. But that's where I'd look for bigots, and if arrows come out? Only so many people that would use that." Daken leans back once more, letting Taylore chew on his fingers. "And, you'd be surprised. Rile a person up enough, they'll throw down anywhere. Then it's just a matter of kidnapping them, locking them in a basement, and playing that 'Steal my Sunshine' song on repeat until they can't form coherent sentences." Once cannot be sure if Daken is serious or not. Might be what gets him into trouble. Trib stares at Daken for a long moment. "You don't hear so good, do you? Ever since that zombie thing last year, there's wannabe Robin Hoods all over the fuckin' place. Just 'cause some fucker shoots one at you don't mean it's the /same one/." He waves a hand at the older man. "An' how you even goin' to /tell/ if the arrow's poisoned? Ain't fuckin' death over kind of your /thing/?" "It'll have a smell to it." Daken looks over at Trib. "And I heard you. And while there are a ton of them, I plan on getting a description first. Probably easier to just do that and find the last couple of incidents where mutants were shot. Shouldn't be hard to pin down a location." Trib shrugs. "You could just ask your friend where it happened, and start from there." He leans a bit closer to Daken and winks solemnly. "I work for a P.I., y'know." "That reminds me.. I need to find work." Daken sighs, rubbing at his jaw with the hand Taylor isn't using as a chew toy. "Or I could just start a gang war for cash. Whatever works." Trib snorts. "There ain't no money in gang warfare," he rumbles. "Unless you're sellin' 'em the guns. Don't you know nothin' about politics?" He leans back in his chair, his brow dropping thoughtfully. "I thought you was goin' to try an' get on at the fuckin' clinic as security or some shit." "Jax and I aren't on great terms. Be an exercise in annoyance." Daken yanks his hand back when Taylor bites a little too hard and punctures the skin, but it's soon back in the little dog's reach. "And I /could/ sell to them. Know a guy. But I won't. Rather beat the thugs unconscious than make it where they can fuck with people. Because we both know fucking with people is my job." When Daken jerks his hand back, Trib immediately snaps his fingers at the tiny white dog. "/No/, Butch," he growls. "No biting." Taylor, to his credit, doesn't cower, but he does alter his gnawing to something less intense, occasionally stealing a glance at Trib to gauge the appropriateness of his actions. The mention of Jax gets a noise from Trib, but he doesn't offer comment until the older man finishes talking, and then he snorts. "You /are/ pretty good at it," he notes. "Fuckin' with people. Guess you gotta do what you love, yeah?" "Why I'm giving dating Anette a shot, and trying to settle down. I love living." Daken lowers the sunglasses back over his eyes and rests his free hand on his chest. "But she's still freaking out a bit over future dreams. Don't blame her, have nightmares of growing up sometimes. Having our son kidnapped and then her dying trying to rescue him must have done a number on her." Trib furrows his brow. "Um. She knows they're just dreams, yeah?" He waggles the fingers of his left hand at his temple. "It's just bullshit from her...whattaycallit. Unconsciousness. That her brain is just shittin' out when she sleeps. It don't /mean/ nothin'." "Actually, it isn't. Shared dreams, that weren't dreams. Was because of a few psychics in the future, that managed to reach back and pull our awareness into our future bodies. And recently when we raided Oscorp, they pulled a few people into the future. As in they were just /gone/ in the present." Daken explains. "We have some work to do, or the future is going to be seriously fucked. And I'll need more grenades, and an anti-material rifle. Because those sentinels don't play." Trib stares at Daken for a very long time, his face unreadable as he studies the older man. Then he slowly tugs on Taylor's leash, bringing him back closer to his own chair. "Okay." Is a syllable that speaks volumes as to how much the boxer doesn't believe this story. "Don't have to believe me. I personally hope I don't get to say 'I told you so'." Daken folds his now free hand across his chest. "But I /did/ learn something new. Didn't know Norman Osborn was a mutant. Turns into a big ass goblin that eats people. Kinda fucked up." "Okay," Trib says, standing up suddenly. "Now you're just makin' shit up to fuck with me or somethin'." He shakes his shaggy head, giving Daken a disappointed look. "I'm willin' to fuckin' help you with shit, but don't treat me like I'm a fuckin' /tourist/ or shit." "I'm not fucking with you. Plenty of other people know about it, though the only ones that come to mind are Dusk, Ash, Jax, Jack, Faelan, and a few other people." It takes Daken a few moments to realize Trib probably has no idea who he's talking about. "Er, that mutant who's basically a vampire that went to court, the guy that mostly takes care of the plants in the Guerrilla Gardens, you know Jax I think, an invisible teen, and I don't know who the fuck Faelan is. Met him in the future." Trib's mouth flattens into a tight line. "I don't know some of them names, but I know Dusk an' Jax." Which doesn't sound like a /ringing/ endorsement, at least on Jax's part. "I didn't realize /you/ fuckin' knew 'em, though." He wrinkles his nose, and glares off at a nearby building. "That fucker knows /everyone/ I fuckin' know." He turns and jabs a finger at Daken. "Which don't mean I believe your story. They got a friend who's a fuckin' telepath. They could just be fuckin' with you." "I don't spend time with them. When they announced Jax's warrant on the news I showed up at his door. He refused to answer any of my questions, took offense to something I said, there was a veiled threat and I responded with a much less veiled threat." Daken doesn't get up, his eyes might not even be open. It's hard to tell with the glasses on. "That was the last time I saw him. Dusk doesn't care too much for me either, I like to think they have better things to do with their time than fuck with my head. Anette's too. But if that was the case? You can be assured that I'd park my motorcycle on somebody's face." "Yeah," Trib says, bobbing his head at the story about Jax. "That sounds about right. He gets a real bug up his ass, an' gets all huffy with ya." His expression darkens a bit in memory, and then he cracks a grin at Daken's solution. "I bet he wasn't fuckin' expectin' /that/," he rumbles, eyes crinkling at the corners. "But you gotta be careful. I've seen his shit in action, an' he don't fuck around." He rolls a shoulder. "Dusk is okay. He's pretty to look at, anyway." Another shrug as Daken dismisses the possibility of being punked. "Maybe it's legit," he says. "But I find it real fuckin' funny that it's just a handful of fuckin' people havin' these 'future dreams'." He hooks his fingers before spreading his hands. "But what the fuck do I know? I'm just a fuckin' palooka walkin' his boy's fuckin' dog." "Not just a handful. Told Charlie about the first one I had, she had the same reaction. The other person there got real dark, explained shit to her. And me, because I wasn't super positive what was going on." Daken shrugs a bit. "And even if Jax did get pissy and decide he wanted to kill me, he wouldn't know how to go about it. Put a hole in my chest or something and walk off. But I'm not angry at him anymore. No point in it, worrying about other people means I have less time to worry about important shit." Trib stares at Daken for a long moment, his nostrils flaring as he sifts through responses. Then he snorts. "Important shit like sittin' up here not gettin' drunk on cheap brandy?" Daken snaps and point sat Trib. "Expensive brandy. But, that's exactly right. Priorities. Sometimes I hang out here, and sometimes I just ride around on a skateboard. It's a hard life." Trib rolls his eyes. "I'll send my condolences with a fuckin' bunch of flowers." "This is what retirement is like when you have full use of your hips, and the stamina of three men." Daken reminds Trib. "Though, I might want to wait a hundred or so more years." Trib jams the heel of his left hand into his eye, grinding it there viciously. "Argh. Don't make me think about you usin' your hips." He shakes his head as if to clear the image, and rubs at his eyes again with just his fingertips. Then he frowns at the older man. "Hunnerd years for what?" "Next time you hear things crashing around on the lower floors, that's exactly what you'll think of." Daken says, flashing a sharp toothed grin. "And to retire. Said you had a friend that knows my father, we look about the same age, and he's twice as old as me." Trib takes a minute to parse that, blinking suddenly. "Oh, yeah," he says as his brain catches up, and realization dawns. "I don't know if it's your dad or just some cat named Logan. I ain't never seen the dude." He grins, and waves his hand at Daken. "So I'll take your word for it." Taylor jerks on the lead, then, yapping insistently as he's been seemingly forgotten. The big man looks down at the bit of white, then bends to scoop him up. "I better get him back inside," he grunts. "Billy'd have a fit thinkin' I was tryin' to feed him to the hawks or somethin'." He lifts a hand, then, as he moves towards the door. "Come by later," he says as a farewell. "I'm gettin' pizza." "Can't miss him. Apparently he's still living in the eighteen-hundreds, because you'll never see him without mutton chops." Daken almost sounds embarrassed, almost. "I'll bring hard drugs and people of questionable repute." "You /are/ a fuckin' person of questionable repute," Trib rumbles as he opens the door and moves through it. "But you can still come over for some fuckin' pizza."