Logs:Crime and Feelings

Crime and Feelings
Dramatis Personae B, Desi, Eric, Ion, Rasa, Shane, Ted
In Absentia	2019-05-30 Birthday party in prison (the aftermath of the Purifiers crashing the vigil.)
Location NYC - The Tombs - Lower Manhattan
It's been a busy day around here today! /Brisk/ business, the jail is doing. In among the usual slew of turnstile jumpers and low level pot dealers, shoplifters and sex workers, this cell is crowded with a glut of mutants (and allies) brought in from a vigil earlier in the afternoon. Not /entirely/ sure how to deal with them, the police have been alternating between giving them a wide and wary berth and watching them with deep and vigilant suspicion. At the moment anyone watching with deep suspicion would see this: Shane, still dressed in pinstripes, button down, his Mongrels vest, lying on the floor in the corner with his head pillowed against his twin's lap. Staring at the ceiling with wide black eyes, humming quietly to himself, one hand bobbing through the air above his chest in time with the song. Though the words aren't English, there's a sharply scathing tone to his voice, a bitter sarcasm that can be heard clearly in its tone /regardless/ of if the lyrics are remotely intelligible. "Wer möchte nicht gern Opfer sein? Und spürt ihr auch in euerm Bauch." Ted is pacing the length of the holding cell, as he has been for quite some time now, still in his green giant form. This time, at least, he has some idea how to shift back -- it happened last time once he fell asleep -- but he's too wired to sleep, and in any case doesn't want to shift back to his human form... he figures they can't identify him this way, with his wallet and phone "safely" cached away. He's not sure what he's doing, honestly. He didn't expect to end the day in jail, and he isn't sure how he'll explain this to anyone if it ends up on his record. On the other hand, he can't think of a single decision he made that he would make differently given the chance. So... maybe it just is what it is. Four years of high-school German did not quite prepare Ted to translate anti-fascist folk songs... at least not under these circumstances. "Who wants to be a victim in your stomach?" he echoes back, puzzled. B leans up against the wall, legs stretched out in front of her. Her wrist cuffs have been confiscated, alas. Her blue skin is starting to look a bit chafed after being in here a while, a little too pale, a little but crackly. Her lips curl up into a small closed-lipped smile as Shane sings; her webbed hand drums a beat lightly against his forehead. She knows /this/ part of the song in spirit but not in words, humming along until it switches to English verses. Her smile is a /little/ wider when it gets to, "-- Don't let your dogs attack them on the street. Embrace the fascists where you may meet!" Her head thunks lightly back against the wall, turning to look toward the cage door of the large cell. A slow flutter ripples through her gills, but quiets as she sits up just a little straighter. "I don't actually know the German," she adds to Ted. Desi hasn't moved in quite some time, still dressed in a purple tunic, green corset, and long, multi-tiered brown skirt. She's actually sitting on a bench, her legs curled up against her chest, her chin propped on her knees. Her eyes are wide open but shadowed with exhaustion that was probably there all along, if disguised by impeccable makeup that has since been worn away. Her gaze shifts to Ted at his question, then to B at her reply. Her lips curl ever so slightly, though her shoulders hunch in tighter, as if cold. There's a brief crackle, a snap, and suddenly by one wall there's an Ion where there was not an Ion before. He's cleaned up, changed from before; a soft blue tee with Captain America's shield logo bold on its front, clean sturdy jeans, tan workboots. Still got his Mongrels cut on, though. He has a guitar case slung over his back, a large canvas tote bag in each hand. "/Yo/, friends, you alive in here? Holding up? Anyone you want /out/ yet? I bring the snacks. Jax and Ryan, they send /all/ they love. Jax also he send some /food/. You hungry? We think maybe, by now, you some kind of hungry." He's crouching in the center of the room to set down the guitar first, and second the tote bags. "-- You would be sheep with wolves around you. Why not be gladly victimized? And if you feel inside your guts the nazi daggers blade. Embrace the fascists that you have made." Possibly this makes slightly more sense now than in the German. Possibly! Shane bounces to his feet when Ion comes in, launching himself towards the man to throw his arms around Ion in a tight hug. "Dude, I could eat your whole fucking face they've given us shit-all in here you're a lifesaver. Is there like a -- pillow? Desi's about to pass out and die." He's shucking his cut, folding it up into some approximation of a pillow to tuck it behind Desi's back. "Don't suppose you happen to have brought the twins some water? But like skin water?" Rasa had been pretending to sleep curling up in one corner near the wall. Ze perks right up when Ion arrives. "Shane's singing is the only thing keeping some of us sane and if he dries up or dries out, it will be soo quiieeett." Sure, quiet, with all of the mutants stuck and fidgety. With the cops being assholes from time to time. "Did you know? I once had a dream where I went to prison for saving a cop from a big green mutant. I wonder if that was prophetic. I could be psychic now." "I'm not really sure 'sane' is really a target at this point," Ted observes wryly -- or as close to wryly as he can manage, given that he's actually fairly panicked, though trying not to show it. "But yeah, food would be great. Thanks. I don't _think_ you saved a cop from me," he continues, without really pausing or indicating a change of topic, "I mean unless the bleached blond was a cop in civilian clothes, which I guess is possible... I hear there's a lot of, you know, Nazis, or whatever," he tries to say it smoothly, but it's pretty obvious that a) this is just not a sort of conversation he's used to having, and b) he has no poker face whatsoever "in the police force." "No offense but you're a pretty poor psychic." B is getting up, too, now, with a slow stretch of narrow shoulders. She takes off her cut as well, drapes it loosely around Desi's shoulders. "There were /zero/ cops in danger then." She crouches on the floor beside Ion, reaching for one of the bags to help unload it. "This is kind of new for you, huh?" Her voice is sympathetic. "I'm sorry you got roped into -- well. Prison. If it's any consolation," the crookedness of her closed-lipped smile suggests she knows it's not /much/, "my ba is a /really/ good cook." Desi closes her eyes briefly against the glare of Ion's arrival, blinking in its wake as though dazed, but too exhausted, really, to be startled. "I'm not dying," she contends, but there's little force to the statement and she does not, in fact, try to argue the point about passing out. She submits to the twins' ministrations readily enough, settling back a little more easily. "Thank you kindly," she tells Ion, her smile warm if weary. Then admits, quietly, "I could use some food." She slowly unfolds her legs and puts her feet on the floor, though she does not attempt to rise. "She is not exaggerating," this last to Ted, with a nod ta B. "If you had any of the cupcakes at the vigil, they were made by the same man." The bags are laden with many foods -- /two/ varieties of cupcake (maple topped with maple buttercream and glazed walnuts, mocha mousse-stuffed hazelnut with chocolate ganache), a big steel carafe -- "S'lemonade," Ion says, /many/ bottles of water, large tupperwares of smoked salmon, lemongrass chicken, rice-paper tofu basil spring rolls, scallion pancakes. "You sure nobody want out? Otherwise, I come back again with some blanket, yeah? Pillow? What else you want here?" Ion's hands spread once the food is unpacked, opened. He shoves the meat towards the pups first. "There some kind of difference in being a cop and a nazi? I don't know it. One you just get a badge and the government tell you your violence is /good/ and right. What kind of food you like, friend?" He lifts his chin towards Ted. "I got, uh, pancake things. Cupcakes. Some chicken. Wait wait /wait/ I forgetting shit your brother he would do a kill me, we getting near on midnight by now yeah?" He gets out his guitar /first/ before reaching into the bottom of one bag -- pulls out a small purple-swirled candle. Sets it in the top of one of the buttercream cupcakes. Cups his hand around it -- when he pulls his hand back, the candle is lit. He turns the cupcake over to B. Retrieves from the bag a glittering colorful multi-pointed rhinestone plastic tiara to perch on Desi's head, his smile /bright/ before he starts playing the guitar, his bass voice rich and strong when he starts the familiar -- "Happy birthday to you --" A door down the hall opens and shuts with a soft clank of metal, and with the sound of footsteps muffled by guitar and singing, Eric arrives just in time to add in, "happy birthday dear someone, happy birthday to you!" Carrying a small cardboard of water bottles under one arm, Eric's not in uniform, but rather dressed in loose fitting exercise clothing with his sergeant's badge clipped onto the waistband of his shorts. His eyes flick over the crowded cell, two eyebrows going up slightly as he takes in the guitar, the food, the cupcakes. "Well, I see that my corner store water has been truly outclassed." Eric says, a smile lilting on his face. His eyes pause on Shane, B, and -- blinking once, twice -- on Ion. His smile tightens a little bit at the edges, but he says nothing turns the water on its side and pushes it between two bars, resting it awkwardly on one of the crossbeams. Shane grins broad and then even broader as first the candle and then the /crown/ come out, scuffing his knuckles against his cheek. He joins in the singing enthusiastically -- only hitching a /brief/ instant when Eric joins in but continuing on cheerfully to the end of the song. He shoves the water back through the bars once they've finished, his smile still just as toothily broad as before -- if a little more clenched. Goes, instead, to pick up one of the water bottles that Ion's delivered. "Outclass /you/? That bar is set so fucking low." He settles down cross-legged on the floor in front of Desi, skewering a piece of chicken with a long nail and looking at the cupcake. "I think this earns you a /really/ good wish." Rasa adds hir voice to the singing, a husky contralto that carries through to the end no matter what everyone else is doing. Ze does look around at the commotion, but then slinks over to Desi's side as well, mostly for the B Day stuff. "Yeah, this is all pretty new," Ted admits to B, gesturing to indicate both the prison cell and his own body. It's not clear they were talking to him, but, well, he replies anyway. "But it's not... I mean, I wasn't roped in. I could have left, I just... well. I didn't." The pride in his voice is unmistakable, and more than a little inappropriate, and he seems to dimly sense that fact from the reactions it engenders in the others and backs off, focusing on Ion and the food and the... birthday party? And the plainclothes cop who doesn't mind? None of this is like it is on TV, and Ted just tries to keep up. His singing voice in this form is a deep bass, which surprises him, but is kind of cool, and he plays around with 'Happy Birthday' harmonies while Ion plays and everyone sings, then helps himself to a chocolate cupcake, a cup of lemonade, and a couple of spring rolls. "Thanks. This is really nice of you." B's smile is quick, small; she allows herself a small chuckle at Ted's answer. Her, "-- I'm glad you didn't leave," sounds sincere, though. "I mean we've ended up here a lot and it's good to have -- community. When --" She breaks off, her eyes opening to huge black dinnerplates in her elfin face when Ion brings out the candle, the crown; she takes the cupcake from him, holding it up in front of Desi. Perfect candle-blowing-out height. Her voice is soft and quiet when she sings along -- hitching a liiittle as her gills flutter when Eric makes an appearance. She scoots in closer to Desi, head bumping lightly against the taller girl's shoulder. "Hey," she says softly. "You know, my pa and Ryan both spent their twenty first birthdays in jail? Maybe this is like prophetic. You're gonna turn into a total badass." Desi's hands come up, fingertips pressing delicately to her lips, though not enough to completely obscure her delighted smile. "Oh! I--" Her voice falters; she blink rapidly. "Thank you, Ion, this is..." Her words dissolve into a small squee of delight when presented with the crown and the cupcake with a candle. She presses hands more /firmly/ over mouth when the singing starts. Bright green eyes snap to Eric when he enters, the intensity of her gaze almost palpably venomous. She drops one hand when Shane sits down on the floor beside her, hand pressing gently to the side of his neck. "Fortunately, my store of challenging requests is strong." She draws a slightly exaggerated breath to blow the candle out, then plants a kiss on B's rough, spiny head before taking the newly extinguished cupcake. "Thank you all. Except for Sergeant Sutton, who will oblige me by getting the /entire/ fuck out of my birthday party." There's a definite edge to the sweetness in her voice, here, but she proceeds to completely ignore Eric after that. To Ted, "I'm glad you stayed, too. From what I saw--you probably saved quite a few lives. I knew this was a proud tradition--in /general/..." She gestures around the cell, bumping her shoulder against Rasa's. "...But up until now I'd only ever played /support/ to these arrests. I'll accept it as a blessing of badassery if I'm following in Jax and Ryan's footsteps." "You badass already, little sister, but you only going bigger for sure." Ion doesn't acknowledge Eric at all. He just sets his guitar back in his case once the song is through, and starts helping with distributing the food, the lemonade and water (that /he'd/ brought), the cupcakes, to the detainees. "Ain't no need to thank me, big guy. You all lock up on some /straight/ bullshit, can't even mourn our /dead/ without catching more shit, best believe people show up for you. Is not just me, you know it, right? I'm just delivery. Many people out there they pulling for all of you." He lifts a small paper Dixie cup of lemonade to the room at large, gesturing at the food he's brought in. "S'what community /for/. You got our backs. 'Course we gonna have yours."