Logs:Inspiration

Inspiration
Dramatis Personae Horus, Ryan, Skye
In Absentia	2019-04-25 "I gotta tell you, what we do? /Even/ less fun than Coachella."
Location <NYC> 304 {Ryan} - Village Lofts - East Village
Similar in layout to many apartments in this building, the front door opens into a narrow entryway with a small coat closet. The living room beyond is wide and receives plenty of light from its high windows; floored in dark hardwood, it is separated from the adjoining kitchen by a half-wall counter, stools perched on the living room side and the sink and counterspace on the kitchen side. On the other side from the kitchen stands doors branching off to a pair of bedrooms and one bathroom; to the left of the entryway, a short hall wraps around past the kitchen to the second pair of bedrooms, a second bathroom at the far end of the hall. The apartment here stands often in a state of disarray, musical equipment or books or scattered notes spread among the pair of couches or coffeetable. The kitchen, at least, is usually kept neatly organized in contrast to the living room's clutter. At odd intervals from the walls, sturdy wooden poles branch out, somewhat akin to very large bird perches. The apartment is actually neat today, tidied up save for the laptop and notebook open on the coffee table, the surfaces well on the way to sparkling. Ryan is, clearly, to blame for much of this. At the moment he's taken the cushions off the couch to vacuum beneath them, frowning INTENTLY as he digs the pointed nozzle into a corner. He himself is in more a state of disarray than the apartment, mussed hair, extremely rumpled t shirt reading PRAISE SEITAN amid a pentagram made of forks, faded old cutoff shorts. Perched on the back of the sofa, wings folded in against his sides, Horus has not in the least been helping. His intermittent pauses to dip his head into a bowl of bhelpuri that sits beside him, munching up the crunchy rice (and spilling occasional grains back down onto the couch Ryan is vacuuming) is definitely Not Helping. His attention is mostly on the television, where "The Rashomon Job" episode of /Leverage/ is currently playing. He does divide his focus long enough, though, to crane his head forward the next time Ryan leans in and carefully pull a few stray locks of mussed hair neatly into place with his beak. (Skye --> Ryan): Hey, mind if I drop by? Possibly the text message can't compete with the vacuum cleaner for volume, but about 10 minutes later there's a "knock knock knock!" at the window anyway. Skye is outside on the fire escape, and gives a sheepish wave before letting herself in. She's wearing boot cut indigo jeans and a beige t-shirt fashioned after the Marauder's Map, architectural outlines of Hogwarts criss-crossed with footprints around the words "I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good." Her gray messenger bag reads "Bag of Holding" next to a 20-sided die, and she lowers with a quiet but solid "thunk" to the the floor once she gets inside. "Woah, now I /know/ you've been cooped up too long," she says, casually plunking herself down into a chair that still has its cushions, though she almost bounces back out of it with excitement when she sees what's on TV. Closer up, there are dark circles under her eyes and a tightness to her expression that fangirl glee can't mask. "Dude! I'm putting that on the table." Ryan does patiently wait until after his round of preening to move the bowl of puffed rice over to the coffee table, well on the other side from his laptop. Vacuum or no vacuum, the knock at the window draws Ryan's sharp attention. It's a brief moment later that he's relaxed from his instinctive tension, shutting off the vacuum and returning /one/of the sofa cushions to its place. Sheepishly, he runs a hand through his hair. "This," a sweeping wave around his near spotless apartment, "was preferable to staring at /that/," a disgusted flick of hand toward his laptop and notebook, "any longer and having to be confronted with what complete shit I'm coming up with this week. I swear, Coachella fucking infected me. What's, like, the reverse of inspiration?" Horus hops down, first to the arm of the couch and then to the floor. Unchagrined by his chastisement, he resumes eating -- no less messily, though it is at least confined to the tabletop now. His feathers all ruffle outward when Skye arrives; he busies himself quite intently with settling them back into careful order. He only offers a soft warbling agreement at Ryan's assessment of his own recent work, a faint but sensible amusement in the sound. Skye gives an exaggerated wince and sucks in a harsh breath through gritted teeth. "That bad, huh?" The question, rhetorical or not, is directed at Horus. "I was gonna bug you to regale me with your work in progress, but probably shouldn't, in light of your...uninspiration? /Dis/inspiration?" Her thumb flicks restlessly at a glossy rainbow gradient spinner ring on her index finger. "Anyway, I'm sorry to interrupt your cleaning spree, I was just...I dunno. Have some stuff for you." She leans over the side of the chair and roots through her messenger bag, coming out with a heavy duty metal USB drive. "Place looks great, though! Hopefully you've also cleared away some of the wypipo noise lodged in your brain." She fiddles with the drive, uncapping and re-capping it. "This...isn't like. /Pleasant/ information. You don't have to deal with it right /now/." "I do /not/ want to play that shit for you," Ryan objects with eyes wider, "it could be fucking dangerous. What if it's contagious? What if I brought something back with me and the whiteness just -- spreads." His shudder is exaggerated as he drops himself to flop across the remaining couch cushions, still jumbled on the floor. He looks over Skye, brows pulling slightly together. "/How/ unpleasant are we talking?" Horus's feathers slowly swell back up as Ryan conjectures about the possibility of contagion. Sloooooowly. He edges cautiously away from Ryan, closer to Skye's chair, his head tucking down into the puff of chest fluff. Puff. Puff. "Oh shit, that's some horror movie material right there!" Skye's eyes go wide with mock terror. "Someone at Jordan Peele, quick." To the question, she presses her lips together and she glances at Horus, then Ryan, then drops her eyes back down to the drive in her hands. "/Prometheus/ unpleasant." "I actually have a song in the /Twilight Zone/ that's out tonight." Kind of offhanded. Ryan drapes an arm loosely across his belly, head rolling to the side to squint over at the others. "I don't think even Peele can touch Prometheus level of scary, though." There's a long pause after this, before: "... what you got?" Horus continues to fluff himself up, just a very round ball of feather beside Skye's chair. A very round ball of feather that sneaks a beak out -- quick! Dart! To nab the drive that Skye is fidgeting with. Cradling it carefully in his beak as he abruptly takes wing to go settle on a perch halfway up the wall. "Nice, I'll have to check it out. After I make a booze run, because I just don't watch Twilight Zone sober. It's a whole thing." She shrugs, rolling the drive from one palm to the other. "I mean, you know I obsessively trawl the conspiracy forums for rumors the labs. It's almost always bullshit, but this time I followed the thread and..." She flinches, then blinks rapidly, when Horus yoinks the drink, but doesn't actually seem all /that/ perturbed. "You can hold onto it, man, but it's encrypted. Information about a Prometheus facility. Not like, blue prints or back doors, but a location, some delivery schedules, other odd peripheral data." Hands empty now, she goes back to spinning her ring. Her eyes drop back down to the floor next to Ryan's head. "I haven't actually tried to infiltrate yet. Wanted to run it by you first, and Dusk, but if you do decide to go after it..." She meets his eyes, and it doesn't take an empath to know she's terrified and angry and very tired. "...I wanna help." "Don't eat it." Ryan's caution to Horus comes so automatic it is probably reflex. His eyes close as Skye speaks, his hand scrunching into the fabric of his tee. Curling it into a fist, letting it go again. "I gotta tell you, what we do?" His voice now is very level. "/Even/ less fun than Coachella." Horus warbles softly to himself, fidgeting from side to side on the perch. The thumb drive falls from his beak with the soft noises, and he doesn't bother to reclaim it as it drops toward Ryan and the displaced couch cushions. Instead he flutters down off the perch, taking off toward his bedroom to shut himself inside. Skye takes a deep breath and lets it back out. "I /had/...kinda figured that." She's quiet for a moment, watching Horus leave. "I'm not sure I'd be much use on the front line. Not without like. A /lot/ of training." Her thumb flicks hard over the spinner ring again, and Horus's bowl rattles on the table. But only for a split second. She closes her fist on the ring and stops the resonance. "But I can do mission support, logistics, transportation -- whatever." She bites her lower lip. "This is important, and I /know/ I can help." Ryan clenches his t-shirt into a fist again as the bowl rattles. "Yeah, I don't doubt you can. And it's not like we don't need support, we sure as hell could use someone with your skills. I just -- it's a lot. I don't just mean the raids. The risks my team takes -- the hell they're always catching --" His head tips back; his eyes fixing (upside-down) on Skye. "I just -- want to be sure you're sure." Skye's anwer does not come immediately. Her shoulders hunch in a bit, making her look smaller and younger than she is. "I'm not gonna lie, I'm scared. I don't usually..." She struggles for a moment, but can't quite seem to find the words she wants, and takes another tack. "I always knew they had my mom. I searched for /years/, Ryan. Gathered a ton of information, and none of it would have freed her, but it got me to /you/ and Jax and your team, and --" She swallows. "And /you/ saved her. But this isn't about debt or gratitude. It's all the people who are still in those labs." She meets his eyes again. "I know it's dangerous, even from the other side of a computer. But I'm sure." "Okay." Ryan closes his eyes again. His fingers drum slowly against his stomach, his breathing slowing. "Okay." His hand falls still. It's preternaturally quiet around them; the television still playing, but inaudible, no background hum from the fridge, no soft whir from the laptop, no white noise from the city floating up to reach them. After a long still stretch, Ryan rolls abruptly to his knees, suddenly animated as he grabs his notebook. "/Shit/, that's it. You gave me just the idea I need."