Logs:Believe In Ghosts

Believe In Ghosts
Dramatis Personae Joshua, Polaris, Winona
In Absentia	2020-10-25 "Be sure to like and subscribe."
Location <NYC> Polaris, Wendy, and Winona's Apartment - Lower East Side
This tiny apartment is on the fifth storey of an aging and ill-maintained walk-up, its walls dingy and paper-thin. The living room immediately inside the entrance has space for a couch and a coffee table, but little else, though its windows offer a commanding view of the narrow side street below to anyone who cranes far enough to look past the rusting fire escape. The kitchen is tiny and has no windows at all, but being partly open to the living area is at least not completely claustrophobic. One bedroom is almost the size of the living room, which doesn't say much, and the other is much smaller -- really only intended as a study or home office -- to make room for the single closet-sized bathroom. Even with mostly cheap, second-hand furniture, the place has grown steadily more homey over the months. A creaky futon is flanked by an empty food service drum on one side and two stacked milk crates on the other. In place of a coffee table is a long, low bench with a flowery sarong as a tablecloth. Potted herbs line the windowsills, and whimsical metal sculptures line the walls and tables (or the items serving in place of them). A brightly colorful fused glass mezuzah is mounted in the doorway, while a set of matching candlesticks and goblet sit on a disintegrating radiator cabinet in the living room. The Lower East Side is still boiling over; the daily protests have not stopped, and with them an attendant surge in violence. Right now there's a lot of chanting outside, occasionally punctuated with some jeers and hecklers. It's muffled in here though the windows, just a distant chaos that isn't, yet, affecting the peace of the apartment's current sole (non) resident. Boots left by the door, Joshua is sprawled on the futon asleep, full dressed in cargo pants and a grey long-sleeved tee, a hip pack (New York City Action Medical patches butting up against a black and gold one that reads 'mir veln zey iberlebn' in Yiddish orthography) half-shoved under the futon, a thin fleecey blanket decorated with Captain America's shield insignia pulled up most of the way over him. The door unlocks and Polaris walks in half turned to face her housemate. "...so anyway, that's why we have more baking soda than a low-budget science fair. Eventually we're gonna run out of space in back." Her silver and black eye makeup is a little blurred, her eyes a touch bloodshot, her green hair coiled messily at the back of her head, nails painted an uncanny metallic multichrome of purple and green. She wears a black t-shirt with a silver graphic of the Tree of Gondor, black jeans, and heavy black boots, adorned with steel hardware much like her belt and cuffs. Setting down an Evolve Cafe canvas tote (which falls open to reveal several takeout containers supported on a bed of baking soda boxes), she is turning and just about to stoop to remove her boots when she spots the figure on their couch. "Eeek," she says, deadpan, "a man." Winona nods along with what her housemate is telling her, but her slightly knit eyebrows betray some uncertainty. Her dark rainbow dyed hair is, as it usually is, styled in a swoop over her eye, with a faded green beanie. She is wearing an olive coloured jacket over a tank top, black with a stylized white ghost in the center, and a pair of jeans that are torn up, and clearly not because they were pre-torn. They have earned their damage. She is also wearing a pair of black Doc Martens, a bit scuffed. Her uncertainty turns to confusion when Polaris speaks, and she looks towards the man on the couch. "Whose man is that?" she wonders, quietly, as she starts to chew her lip. "Nnnno," is the first mumbled thing that comes from Joshua's mouth, as the others enter. "Water only." His eyes aren't even awake yet, but they do open a moment later as he sits up and rubs them groggily. "-- shit, sorry. Swear I set an alarm." Evidently as unalarmed as her tone suggests, Polaris kneels and unlaces her boots. "I think in the context of how he came to be on the couch, Wendy's." she answers Winona blithely. Rising up and stepping out of her boots, she picks up the canvas bag to bring it into the kitchen. "Winona, this is Joshua. Joshua, Winona. Don't worry about it, man--the sleeping, or the baking soda. Y'all crack the case yet?" Winona takes off her boot as well, and she looks between Polaris and Joshua. "How did he come to be-- A case?" Her eyes are wide with interest as she walks further inwards. "Are you doing some kind of mystery solving with Wendy?" "Had any trouble out there?" Joshua is swinging his legs down to the ground, blanket still draped half-around him. "Getting there. It's a tricky one. Narrowed down some possibilities and I like none of them." He pulls the blanket more properly around his shoulders, turning to look at the others. "Something like. She's helping me figure someone's ability out." Polaris shrugs, but there's a tension in her frame that makes the gesture look anything but casual. "Nothing I couldn't handle, yet. But even just coming and going in the neighborhood is getting kind of hairy. Can I get you something? I got coffee from Evolve or..." She peers in the refrigerator, grimacing. "...water only, we need to do a grocery run. Oh hey, Winona's also an investigator! Not quite the same kind, though." Then, peering sidelong at Joshua. Just a touch uncertainly, "Do you -- also work at that school? Xavier's?" Winona gives Polaris a quick glance and then confirms to Joshua, "Yeah, I'm all about figuring out mysteries. Finding secrets. But for that kind of thing, I think it is definitely more in Wendy's wheelhouse. Still, if there's anything I can help with..." Her gaze turns back over to the fridge and she starts to head in that direction. "I can pick up some groceries... something to tide us over at least until we can all go." "Got work tonight. Coffee'd be amazing." Apparently Sit Up Straight is as far as Joshua is currently getting in his attempt to get up off the couch. "Xavier's. Yeah. Be a much better gig if they paid me." This only sounds a little wry. He's looking to Winona with a lift of eyebrows, warmer interest in his tone. "What kind of mysteries? What kind of secrest?" Polaris pulls down two mismatched mugs from the cabinet. "Thanks, sorry I've been so busy. You want coffee?" this to Winona with eyebrows uplifted. "I'm not sleeping, but no reason we gotta drag you down with us." She plucks a cardboard carton of coffee from the tote and fills the mugs, delivering one to Joshua. "She's like...mutant Sam Winchester. Or Dean? Whichever one isn't a dick." Apparently having forgotten her own coffee, she leans back against the radiator cabinet and studies their guest. "You'd think they're swank enough to pay people who help the kids not blow up the school. I don't even know how you do that if you're not like--Matt, or Wendy." "I think they're both dicks," says Winona as she nods to the question about coffee, and then she focuses again on Joshua. There is a bit of a flush in her cheeks when she says, "Yeah, paranormal investigator. I do videos about it... it's sorta more than that, like, look into things and figure out what may have happened but with a spooky twist." She raises her eyebrows a little. "They don't pay you where you work? Isn't that-- Can they do that?" "I think they're --" Joshua starts, but only nods in agreement with Winona's opinion. "Wait, really? Badass. Ghosts need a good ally, I think." His eyes drift back to the window, fixing out there. "Not a lot of people here on their side." A faint smile pulls a corner of his mouth up after this; he takes the coffee with a small nod of thanks. "Please," he says after this, "this is America." He shakes his head, swallowing a mouthful of coffee. "But I volunteer, so I can only complain so much." Almost an afterthought when he tacks on, "I am like Matt. And Wendy. Sometimes." "I've only ever seen the episode where they're at a Supernatural convention, but I believe it." Polaris heads back to the kitchen and pours a third cup of coffee; when she brings this to Winona she brings her own, too. She drifts through the room and fetches up against the windowsill. "Capitalism screws up everything, even volunteering." She takes a long gulp of her coffee, raises her dark green eyebrows high. "Wait, aren't you like, a teleporter?" As soon as the words are out of her mouth she's blushing. "Shi--sorry if I got you mixed up with someone else." Winona's gaze follows Joshua's out to the window, and she bites her bottom lip gently between her front teeth, "The ghosts usually don't get a lot of say, but they got important stories to tell. Just because we don't hear them doesn't mean we shouldn't listen." She takes the coffee when it is offered to her, gripping it with both of her hands to warm them up. "Like Matt and Wendy? Sometimes?" She furrows her eyebrow and looks to the floor as she tries to decipher any hidden meaning to such a statement, but instead of making a deduction she just takes a sip of coffee. "Am. Sometimes. Stole that one from Jax's kid." Joshua turns, leaning against the wall and sipping at his coffee as he studies Winona. "S'good. To help people hear 'em. Make people hear 'em. You put those stories anywhere? Like, that people could see?" "Ohhh..." Polaris's large eyes go even wider--perhaps aided by the half cup of coffee she's just downed. "Gotcha, that sounds so cool. So's Winona's show, you should totally check it out. I didn't really believe in ghosts--" She breaks off, her gaze dropping to the copy of the Book of Mormon on the food service drum serving as one of their side tables. Then she looks away, blinking rapidly. "It's an awesome show whether you believe or not." "Oh. Oh," says Winona, her eyes not as wide as Polaris's, but widened nonetheless. "Yeah, that's--" She stops and then just echoes Polaris, "Cool." She gives a subtle nod and says, "I can send you a link to one that I can recommend starting with. Some of the older ones are cheesy, but in my defence, I started making them when I was sixteen. If you watch them just-- judge with that in mind." She crosses her arms, to rest the mug on her forearm, and mumbles, "Be sure to like and subscribe." Joshua takes another gulp from his coffee, wandering toward the kitchen. "I love cheesy ghost stories. And spooky ones." He's draining the rest of the mug in one long pull, washing it quickly and setting it to dry. He appears back by the couch a moment later, crouching to drag his pack out from under the futon. "Thanks for the coffee." He glances to the book on the side table as he stands. "Glad someone's speaking up for them. I'll subscribe." And then he is gone.