Logs:Cooling Off

Cooling Off
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Heather, Pietro, Wanda
In Absentia	2020-08-27 "This person moves at normal speed."
Location <NYC> BoM Safehouse - Lower East Side
Tucked away off a little-used side street in the Lower East Side, sandwiched between a youth drop-in center and a taqueria, this narrow three-story townhouse has very little to catch the eye. Boarded-up windows, a door peeling its paint, shabby grubby brickface; from the outside it does not look like much. Inside someone has gone to great lengths to renovate the building into something more habitable. It isn't glamorous but it is comfortable, old furniture dragged in, the place generally swept clean. The first floor holds a large living room, a smaller dining room, a spacious kitchen, a half-bathroom. There are three bedrooms and a full bathroom on the second floor; the attic is just a large empty space crammed full of boxes with a window out to the large flat roof. The basement, much like the attic, consists of a lot of empty space. A bare concrete floor, no windows, occasional poles running up to the ceiling. A tiny half-bathroom down here, too. Not a whole lot else. Last night's thunderstorms have done absolutely zero to cool the city down, today; Manhattan is baking under a blazing sun, and the concrete and asphalt soaking in and trapping the heat are doing little to inspire people to venture out and brave the 100+ degree heat. In here it is somewhat better; an antique window AC unit determinedly chugging along aided by ceiling and standing fans to bring the safehouse's living room to a livable temperature. Even so, it's also -- pretty quite. Real sluggish hours; though two of the upstairs bedrooms are occupied two of the teenagers up there are just taking a nap while one regrettably heavily-furred woman is trying to read a book in between crunching on pieces of ice. Down in the living room, Dusk has sprawled facedown on the couch, dressed in cargo shorts and a halter-neck wrap shirt, his huge wings (a deep jet black on their outsides, the insides rich crimson) flopped out behind him, one draped down onto the floor and one hanging over the back of the sofa. His laptop is in front of him, but he's only poking at it in a halfhearted kind of way. Flicking on autopilot between the Way Too Many tabs his browser has open without really reading any. Then starting over. Heather is sitting cross-legged on the floor next to the couch that Dusk is draped across. Her gaze is on the beat up smart phone in her hands, her purple and yellow goggles up on her forehead acting like an improvised hairband. Her movements are, as always, a bit restless. Occasionally she makes minor adjustments of her clothes, a tie-dye t-shirt and a pair of black tights with multicolored stars on them. Otherwise, she has been mostly silent, aside from the occasional crinkle of the wrapper of an energy bar that she is devouring, while also browsing through various news stories and social media feeds (though with more focus than Dusk). An icicle in the city heat, Pietro didn't look as sweaty as everyone else. His hair was slicked back, his singlet clinging to his chest slightly damp from sweat, but other than that the man looked fresh as the proverbial daisy. No exertion from the sudden burst of air that heralded his arrival into the living room proper, no fatigue as Pietro appeared suddenly in a flash of speed to come to an abrupt stop. The two by the couch got a sudden sharp look that softened after a huff of a sigh, mentally reminding himself that this was a safe place and not everyone was going to throw his family to the wolves. "Ah," he started, schooling a sharper tongue. "Have you seen young woman, black hair, this tall?" His free hand gestured to somewhere around his chin. He held a large box under his other arm labeled things like FROZEN, THIS SIDE UP and CURLY'S ICE CREAM RIVERDALE, NJ. As if summoned, Wanda swings the door open and looks at the group. Before she can say anything to the nice people who seem to be in charge here, she squeals at the box Pietro is holding. "IS THAT FOR ME??" Oh, she'll share. Eventually. Wanda herself looks like she could be melting. Not only does she have pale white skin, but her hair is dyed dark and sweat gathers at the bottom of her ponytail. Her metal jewelry gathers up sweat quite well too, she's considering taking it all off. The best part is her eye make up running and making her look like a raccoon. Dusk's eyes drag slooowly away from his laptop screen, turning towards Pietro. At first his blink is slightly bemused -- his gaze drops to Heather, looking down at her a few beats. Then lifts back up to Pietro. "Oh -- right. Think she just --" he's starting to say, when Wanda's squeal interrupts. Dusk's wing drooping a little further over the back of the sofa and towards the floor. He eyes Wanda's sweat and runny makeup, drops his chin back down to rest on his arm. "Looks like outside's still a whole bucket of nope, then." While normally, Heather is practiced enough with her equipment to do it nearly imperceptibly, Pietro would perceive her movements for what they are. She brings up a recording device to her mouth in a still very fast flourish, records herself speaking: "This person moves at normal speed." Then turns around towards Dusk while she rises to her feet, playing back at a much slower speed, her eyebrows raise along with her recorded speech, while they didn't when she first spoke it: "This person moves at normal speed." She looks back towards Pietro and adds, without doing the same set of movements, which results in her voice just being a squeaky chirps to Wanda and Dusk. "I see a woman like that daily. But often stuck behind glass." It seems like it is more spoken to herself than anyone. She waves quickly to Wanda, and shakes her head, repeating the initial set of movements to add, "I found her." Pietro is at his sister's side in a snap, smoothing her sweaty hair from her face in a far more gentle gesture. So close to one another now, the family resemblance between them is uncanny. "I said I would be back in a minute," he tells with with light smile before getting distracted. Why did she repeat herself? Normal? A couple birdlike jerks of his head, his gaze is already on the other dark haired girl in the room, as if she just appeared as well. "Ah, my sister, yes," he replies reluctantly, pointing to his intended target then the treasure he brought with him. "It fell off the back of a truck." Wanda gives Heather a funny look. Not anything rude, more interested. "Behind glass?" Belatedly, she nods to Dusk. "Lot of nope, yes." Her accent makes it sound less like slang and more like a barrier. Then, to Pietro, she gives him a side hug and takes the box away in a smooth movement. She's learned a few things from her shifty brother. "Who wants ice cream?" Dusk, for his part, even to baseline human perceptions is moving sort of like a sloth two hours deep into his first edible. A slow retraction of one wing, creeping up onto the couch to press talons down into the cushions. Gradually lever himself into something approximating a sitting position. "It's about ten thousand degrees outside," he tells Heather. "I don't think moving at all is normal. But I'll take your word." He glances towards the box, glances toward Pietro; a brief hook of a smile curls across his face. "Convenient." One wing just waves slightly, dismissive, at the offer. "I'll pass, thanks. Probably some folks upstairs that would love a bit of cooling-off -- if you have any extras that can go in the freezer, though." "Ten thousand degrees? My shoes would not survive that," laments Heather (still, visible to Pietro, making the same series of movements and repetition). Her shoes are, unfortunately, already on their deathbed without the help of hot concrete. "Yes. Give me ice cream." She holds out her hand, opening and closing it a few times in a grabby motion. "It must be a loosely packed truck. It is kind of fate to bring this to us." Like a glitch in the video, Pietro's attention keeps bouncing his attention from Wanda back to Heather to Wanda to Heather again causing his face to blur for a moment. He always gives his sister his full attention, but Heather keeps repeating herself and in the most strangely disorienting way... He winds up just handing the heavy freezing box to Wanda and zipping out of the room another breeze left in his wake. Three short bangs come from the kitchen and just like that, he's back in the living room with bowls and spoons. "Better?," he asks, offering to take back the ice cream box if Wanda is willing to give it back. "Unless you'd rather eat from the carton?" Wanda holds the box of ice cream like it's a child-- until she sees the bowls. She hands the box off to Pietro. It's pretty obvious from this encounter, or at least maybe it's obvious, that Pietro treats Wanda like a child. That she needs to be treated like a child. That she is weak. Well, don't get her angry, and you'll see just how weak she is. "Straight from the carton? Madness, brother." She smiles at Heather. "It's probably mint chocolate chip. The truck knows what kind I like." "Fate's not always such a cruel mistress. Especially when you give her a helping hand a bit." Dusk has finally finished levering himself all the way up, turning with his back against the arm of the sofa so that he can pull his wings behind them and drape them over the side. Wanda's comment just earns a small crook of smile. "S'cool. Don't think we got any, uh --" One of the sleek-sharp thumbclaws atop his large wing twitches, gesturing to the quiet living room around them. "Ice cream police lurking to dictate correct ice cream procedure." "We do not tolerate ice cream cops. Like ice cream cop cops. Except not cops," plays Heather, helpfully. "But if you wish to eat the ice cream from the crate with your bare hands. You will not be restrained. So long as mine is scooped out first." She lowers her goggles back over her eyes. "I like mints and chocolate chips. Do you often find such fate gifts?" Pietro gives a half hearted shrug at the mention of authorities, even fiction ice cream ones. He doesn't divvy up anything among the group, only making sure to make sure Wanda gets her bowl first and fresh. Maybe he does treat her a little like a child, or at least a childlike empress as he grandly presents her a large bowl of ice cream with a fond look and smile. Everyone else can fend for themselves. "Why do you do that?," he asks before he thinks better of it, eyes flitting between Heather and her tape recorder. A hard blink and his mind catches up with his mouth, forgoing his own bowl of ice cream to remember to answer first before demanding any in return. "Ah, yes. Fate has a way of ... being different around my sister." "I'm lucky!" She shouts, as she takes the bowl from Pietro. She sits exactly where she was standing, several feet away from the couch. But she's at least facing Heather and Dusk. She thinks about maybe telling Pietro to be polite, but she's not the boss of him. Good thing Dusk explicitly wanted none of the ice cream anyway; he remains wholly unfussed about the current state of Ice Cream Distribution. "Sort of a community service really. Heather is kind enough to make sure some of us slowpokes can still understand her. Like, shit, if she didn't take the time to slow her comments down now and then -- my life feels less colourful already just thinking of the top-tier snark I would have missed out on." He drags his laptop off the couch cushion and into his lap, his smile returning -- easier this time, brighter, a glint of sharp fangs behind it. "Shit, good thing you turned up then, huh? With all the chaos out there we could all use a little extra luck." Heather flips up the recorder again, then plays the words 'fate gifts' at three different speeds, the volume flipped up a bit higher than usual to demonstrate for Pietro. She speaks at her natural pace to Pietro (which is to say unnaturally and incomprehensibly quick). ">> Time works differently for me. I speak too fast. But you can understand me. Probably because you have a fast brain. Can you scoop the ice cream for me? " She then nods sharply towards Dusk in agreement and communicates again through the recorder. "I am community minded. I have to make sure that my words are well distributed." She raises an eyebrow a little bit towards Wanda at the claim of being lucky. "I hope your luck continues to manifest as ice cream on a hot day." Pietro's brow lifts as Heather speaks up to speed, picking up a bowl to deliberately scoop some of the mint chip left in the box. ">> You don't speak too fast others should be working to keep up with you you're being far too generous," he says in speedy reply; his words are a little slurred and his diction isn't great speaking at speed but it's not a skill he gets to employ often. He leans against the wall, unintentionally looking more aloof than he should. "I suppose we'll have to be more community minded, too," he tells Wanda. Wanda can set fire to a house, but can't warm up a bowl of ice cream. She likes when it gets drippy and cool. Instead, she fiddles with the spoon and listens to everyone. She doesn't seem to be part of the conversation anymore, at least, that's what she thinks. Of course no one is talking to her. "IF we stay here." She looks at the two at the couch. "So what's the deal, have we jumped through enough hoops to get someone to tell us how to find the Brotherhood?" Dusk's brows lift, now; he glances up to Wanda, glances back down to his computer. Returns, in the same desultory-bored fashion as before, to shifting aimlessly through tabs. Twitter? Nah. The Bugle? Nah. Reddit? DOUBLE nah. "No idea who's put you through hoops, but you and every damn cop in the country wanna know that right about now." Evidently his computer is unsatisfying; after a few more clicks he locks the screen and closes the lid to tuck it back in its case. His wings shift slowly, pushing behind him to press him to his feet; he regards the front door with a grimace but turns for it anyway. "I need a fucking smoke." One of Heather's eyebrows lift a little in time with Dusk. "Sorry. I am an only child," she says through the recorder, "I do not know anything about the magic of brotherhood. It seems like you might." She tilts her head a little bit towards Pietro and then speaks to Dusk. "I have a lighter. I would like to second hand smoke with you." She half salutes the twins, picks up the bowl of ice cream with a thankful nod, and then heads towards the door as well. Pietro's face twists up at the sudden cold shoulder given by the other two. He brought gifts! Why the sudden rejection? Between the ice cream and small talk, he couldn't for the life of him figure out what had turned the room so cold. "Tcht," he spits, looking away again as the olive branch was withdrawn. "America is no different. We came all the way to this country expecting your grand dreams of welcome and opportunity. No one talks to us, no one answers questions." Pietro gives Heather a withering glance, putting up attitude instead of disappointment. "You can afford to be an only child here. Enjoy your friends. Enjoy your smoke." A hard look at Dusk. "Enjoy the heat." Wanda's shoulders slump. She doesn't have a smart phone, hasn't been watching television. Where she's from, people get assassinated all the time. This all felt like a waste of effort. "We'll be upstairs if anyone changes their mind. We can help...." Wanda storms off, but there's the sound of spoon clinking bowl as she shovels it into her mouth. She feels like crying.