Logs:High Expectations

High Expectations
Dramatis Personae Cyan, Kamil, Kasim
In Absentia	2025-01-02 "I can be creepier if that’s a requirement?"
Location <NYC> Outside Grand Street Market - Lower East Side
This little bodega is always bustling, but the steady crowd that has been trickling in and out today have a certain skew. A lot of elderly folk, alone or supported by tired-worried children, an excess of wintertime sniffling, at least three different people with extensive bandaging long past need of a change. The bodega itself has only benefited minimally from this business; the incoming sick and injured are shipped off to the upstairs apartment where the Mongrels have set up today to distribute their medicines and healing aid to the indigent in the community. Kasim, not a healer, not much help just yet, has been outside for -- a while now, actually. He's sitting on a railing adjacent to the (currently closed) basement trapdoor, a hulking brooding figure in jeans and motorcycle boots and a patchless PROSPECT cut over his fleece-lined canvas jacket. His head is bobbing slow and small; this maybe started out as greeting to the last trickle of patients still slipping in and out but now is just to the rhythm of some music in his own head. His eyes -- a little squinty-narrowed -- are scrutinizing every passerby who comes down the sidewalk, far more intently than is probably comfortable. Kamil is slouched over the railing next to his brother. It looks like this should be a little uncomfortable, his arms draped down the front, his head smushed against his shoulder, his back slumped, one boot braced against the trapdoor. He seems content enough, though, eyes blearily half-open, focusing and unfocusing on the street. He has a scruff of buzzcut not quite long enough to fully obscure the sharp-feathered raven tattooed around the back of his head, wings outstretched like a wreath; a canvas jacket and lime green/dark blue windbreaker over his own PROSPECT cut, ripped jeans. More eye-catching than any of this, where he's letting his arms dangle over the railing, his hands are yo-yoing up and down on the ends of his wrists, bobbing down and then yoinking back up, in a syncopated rhythm slightly different from Kasim's. Cyan is leaned up against the wall, trying to stay perfectly still while also not managing to avoid staring. His hands are fidgeting in the front pocket of his worn-down black hoodie, his pants black cargos with far more pockets than what is convenient, and on the front most of his face masks he’s written the word ‘Friendly’ with a thick red marker. “Is he supposed to be doing that?” The question comes out as a whisper as he watches Kamil’s hands bob up and down much like a cat watches a laser-pointer. Kasim looks up, slow-blinking at Cyan. His brows knit a little bit deeper. There's a small gust of wind that stirs, now pushing at Kamil's yo-yoing hands to sway them like a pair of defective windchimes. He is now watching the hands, eventually giving a firm nod at Cyan. "His hands. His call." Kamil tilts his head around at Cyan too, also slow-blinking; this sort of incidentally butts his head into Kasim's leg, to an overall housecat-like effect. His hands are catching in the wind, palms ballooning out like sails, his fingers wiggling creepily (happily?) at their edges. "Creeping you out?" he says. This is notably not an offer to stop, he doesn't sound apologetic in the slightest, mostly he sounds sleepy. One of the hands, at the end of his stretchy-thin wrist, is twisting up to wave at Cyan. “Right, okay...” Cyan sounds anything but convinced, his brows knitting as he keeps watching Kamil. “No, “ there’s a small chuckle, “-I definitely have no right to talk about anything being creepy-” he slowly takes a gloved hand out of his pockets to wave back. “Just worried I might have broken you.” Kasim is huffing a slow, drawn-out laugh, a long push of hhhhheh that for a moment makes his severe features look considerably softer. "Can twist him around but." The wind is blowing back the other direction, wiggling back at those wiggling fingers. "Hard to break." As his expression settles back into its harsher morose cast he is turning his stare over to Cyan with a deal of scrutiny. "... you creepy?" Kamil laughs too, though his is not drawn out, just a short puffed, "Heh. Like to see you try." His fingers open and close at this new gust of air, like he's trying to catch it. This time when he twists his head sideways (almost all the way backwards, to look up at Kasim) he does it quickly, like he's summoning his usual energy back just to say "What kind of weird-ass question is that." Cyan finally manages to draw his gaze away from Kamil, staring off at nothing in particular as he responds to Kasim. “Some people say I am, “ he shrugs, “I mean, I know what I look like,” and points a finger at his own face, “I sweat green dude, you tell me if that’s creepy.” Kasim's eyes follow the pointing -- then drop back to his brother, head twisted rubbery-backwards on his neck -- then back to Cyan's green sweat. The shake of his head now is as firm as the nod earlier. "Stolen fucking valor," he's directing more down to his brother, delivering this with all the weight of a very soundly considered judgment. "You put work into the creep." "Mmm, it's more -- kind of a teal," Kamil is saying thoughtfully, yoinking one of his arms up to stroke his chin, still at its weird sideways angle. "Or turquoise. Aqua -- marine." Pushing off from the wall Cyan rocks back and forth on his feet, his hands firmly in his pockets, his eyes darting nervously at the others before fixating hard on the floor. “Cyan, the word you’re looking for is cyan.” Kasim's mouth twists skeptically to the side at this. He is frowning more intently; his hand lifts to stroke at his beard, now examining the green-blue sweat with all the seriousness of an art gallery snob. His grunt sounds a little dissatisfied. "Kinda green-blue. Thought Cyan was more blue-green." After another stretch of thought: "Black would be creepier." "Black would be sooo creepy," agrees Kamil; his eyes are drooping -- sort of half-closed, sort of longer, like they're stretching down the sides of his face, until with an odd shudder, his head rips itself back straight, uncannily fast; his arms retract back up into his sleeves, and he folds them on the railing, his chin sinking down into his flesh. "Think creepy is -- in the eye of the beholder, anyway. I'on't think you're that creepy. You're here helping people. Your own volition and sweat and everything." Cyan’s still fidgeting, still ready to run, but as he tentatively looks at Kamil again, his feet seem to be a little bit more grounded. “Thanks, I err...so you think it’ll work? Me being here I mean?” He still has a few nervous glances to shoot in Kasim’s direction. “I can be creepier if that’s a requirement?" Kasim is nodding along with his brother's assessment, but after this his brows are pulling in low once more. He tilts his head back (considerably less impressively than Kamil), rocking slightly backwards on his perch to peer upwards, not that he can see anything going on in the upstairs apartment from here. "Eh." It's a fairly neutral eh. "S'folk already sick. Doubt creepy's a plus." "Shit, we ain't in charge here," this is with a small head tilt, maybe initially intended to indicate their PROSPECT cuts, but then Kamil just lets his head flop sideways into his elbow. "You wanna be creepier?" "No," this comes out fast, as Cyan rocks back enough on his heels to once again lean against the wall. "Just tryna figure out what folks around her expect from me that's all." He takes a deep breath, makes a decision. "Like-" he looks very quickly at Kasim "-am I supposed to be all tough? Play nice? Be all quiet and stoic and shit? I'm just trying to get a read on things but I'm not sure I read the language this place is written in." "Spanglish." Kasim is slowly settling back in to his previous course of squinting critically at every hapless passerby. His fingers drum quietly against the metal railing beside him. He pries his grip off slowly to pat, absently, at his vest; whatever he was looking for isn't in that first pocket and he does not evidently have the presence of mind to try his others. "I don't expect shit." "No one language out here." Kamil scrunches his face against the tiny reverberations through the iron, and then he's unfolding himself off the railing, stretching up to his full height for a yawn. Then sagging down again, this time just into his shoulders, hands braced on the railing. "'Sno supposed to no more either. Thought we covered that." “Pssh...” Cyan rolls his eyes, “of course you expect something, everyone expects something.” He’s no longer sure if he’s talking to the two K’s or to himself. “You either live up to what people expect or you’re tossed away. Denying that there’s expectations is just...” he trails off into nothing, before finally punctuating what he’s saying with a deep sigh. “Alright, whatever you say. " "Broooo," this is sluggishly drawn out. Kasim's eyes are scrunching closed, opening to look down towards Kamil as if for backup, a helpless I'm-too-high-for-this wideness as if his much higher brother will fare better here. "Just met you," he's finally summoning up. His hands spread in front of him, which makes his perch on the railbar wobble very precariously. He tries hooking a booted food underneath the lower railing but only succeeds it nudging Kamil repeatedly with a toe. "Expectations are for after I remember your name." "Don't," says Kamil -- his voice is getting a little stronger, with this, a little aggressive, maaaybe being even higher is not doing Kamil any favors in the 'personable' department. He's jerked his head upright to fix Cyan with an intense stare. "-- put your shit on us, you don't know us. -- K, what the fuck are you --" he whirls like he is about to just whack Kasim's leg away, but then he generously, delicately hooks his foot for him. Then settles back into his slouch. Probably he is racking his brain, alas that he is so high. "Mmmushroom," he says, then at a small but conspicuous delay, "-- guy." “Yeah, no, you’re right...” Cyan sinks down into a crouch, leaning his elbows on his knees and spreading out his fingers in front of him. “My bad. “ One, two, three, four... for every count he curls down a finger and the restless fidgeting slows down. “Cyan, the word you’re looking for is Cyan.”