Logs:Legal Aid

Legal Aid
Dramatis Personae Joshua, Tian-shin	2022-02-19 "It's never enough. But we keep at it anyway."
Location <NYC> Greyhaus - Village Lofts
This apartment is not exactly capacious, but it's reasonable by New York standards. The common area and kitchen are partially open to each other, with a half-wall separating the two. One small bedroom and two even smaller ones share a full bath. The place seems to have been decorated by either a large number of people or fewer, more indecisively eclectic ones, and the color of various furniture and appliances are constantly in flux. The art on the walls range from rough, mass-printed protest art to exquisitely detailed oil paintings, and also change (or at least move around) periodically, while murals come and go with disorienting regularity. A long, low sectional couch with a long, low table to match is the center of the living room, across from a television hooked up to a few game systems. The dining table is small and round and modular, most commonly pushed up against the wall of the dining table with one half folded down to take up as little space as possible. Things are fairly quiet around Greyhaus this afternoon. There is, at the moment, only one Joshua currently tucked onto the couch, comfortable in corduroys and an oversized vibrant green sweatshirt, its ugly screenprint advertising a family reunion for a family that is decidedly Not His. He has a library copy of Debt: The First 5,000 Years in hand and a bowl of vegetable stew sitting on the table beside where he's kicked one socked foot up; the apartment smells richly of it where the rest is still warming in the insta-pot in the kitchen. Tian-shin lets herself in a touch clumsily, keys jingling loud. Her hair had been coiled up neatly at some point, coming all unravelled now. "Ugh that smells so good," she complains while she sheds her other layers along with the chill that followed her in. At the end of this process she's in a fine soft red sweater and black jeans, and she pads into the kitchen and rattles around for utensils. "It was either here or my mom's, I just couldn't look at the paperwork anymore. May I...?" This last half-question comes as she gestures at the pot with an empty bowl already in hand. Joshua has only barely looked up from his book through this commotion, eyes flitting briefly from the page before dropping right back down to it. He turns the page as Tian-shin heads for the stew, his hand lifting to wave, vague and permissive in the direction of the kitchen. His heavy brows knit themselves together, and though his eyes still track over the words in front of him there's a sluggishness to it. "Paperwork?" Tian-shin ladles herself a generous bowl of stew and goes to drop herself down onto the other end of the couch. "Oh, sorry--for Jax's case. I've been doing nothing but paperwork on that since...last night?" She scrubs her eyes with one sleeve. "Pretty soon, just doing all the paperwork won't be enough." Joshua crooks a finger between the pages of his book, Tian-shin's words pulling his brows deeper. His foot slides off the table to thump to the floor, bouncing restlessly where it lands. His eyes lift from the pages to settle somewhere between his bowl and a half-finished glass of water beside it. "What's enough, here?" For all Tian-shin's excitement about the food, she starts in on it slow and careful. "The paperwork may be time consuming, but I understand how it works. The hearings are something else entirely. I have no experience with this kind of case." She puts down her spoon just so she can throw a hand up in exasperation. "I'm doing my homework, but I'm afraid that federal prosecutor is going to bury me." This answer just makes Joshua's leg bounce faster, jittery. He tucks the dust jacket of the book between the pages, setting it aside on the table and swapping it for his stew. When he picks up his spoon it's also just a rapid rat-tat-tat against the side of the bowl, hand tapping there quickly. "So you're saying this sounds real hopeful for Jax, then." Tian-shin groans. "I'm doing my best, but he kind of admitted to doing it on national television. So far my most effective strategy has been to threaten them with inconvenience." She stirs her stew, eyes downcast. "I've been desperately casting around for help, but even in my mutant rights law circles, no one wants to touch this." "Figured the recorded confession just spiced things up for you. Challenge mode lawyering." Joshua grips his spoon tighter, the rattling ceasing although now he's turning a baleful glare down at his half-eaten bowl. Poking at it slowly with the outside of his spoon. "Are those. Big circles." Tian-shin's lips compress. "Not as big as they should be. And I try to put myself out there, you know? Talk about why this is an actual legitimate field of law, why it's important." Her shoulders shrug, tight. "But, bigotry aside, it's a great way to get paid very little and lose a lot. Not that the bigotry is a small factor, and that's before we even get to the terrorism part." "Mm. You ever meet my sister Claudia?" Joshua hasn't stopped looking at his food like it has wronged him, but when he does deign to take a bite it eases his frown somewhat. "Think you should." The question brings Tian-shin up short. She frowns, thoughtful, and it's a long moment before she ventures, "I don't think so." Her eyes skip over to him and linger briefly. "I'm always happy to meet more of your family, they're pretty great, but is Claudia a--lawyer? Activist? Really, really persuasive?" Joshua gives these questions a long consideration over his next few mouthfuls of food. At length his head dips in a ponderous nod. "Yes." He lifts a hand, thumb wiping a fleck of sauce from the corner of his mouth. "Mutant rights and terrorism. Guess when you're criminalized for existing there's a lot of overlap." Tian-shin looks for a moment anxiously tempted to ask further, but tucks into her stew instead while Joshua thinks. She pauses when he replies and studies him, then returns her eyes to the inside of her own bowl, half-empty now. "I would love to talk to her. Not just because--well, definitely because I need help, but also..." She blows out a long, slow breath. "Most of the circles I'm talking about don't see things that way, about the overlap. White knight sorts who love to defend the meek and helpless, but are too good for those who dare the fight back." Without looking back at him, she asks at a delay, soft, "Did you think that's how I would see it?" "I'll send her your contact info." Joshua's brows lift when Tian-shin says meek and helpless. "Have they -- met many freaks." The jitterbounce of his leg is calming, slow but sure. He doesn't look back at Tian-shin, either. His jaw is set, stays set through a looong slow inhale. "I think a lot of people's support finds some pretty hard stops when our actual self-defense comes into play. I think it's a relief when I learn otherwise." "Well, okay, those they see as meek and helpless?" Tian-shin hazards, then falls quiet, stirring her food. "I believe in diversity of tactics even if I don't always agree with them--I think that's good, as long as we can have conversations in our movements about it. But I'm not going to leave comrades in the lurch for the crime of saving one another." She keeps the bitter note in her voice gamely contained, but it's another delay before, "I'm sorry. If I didn't give you better cause to trust I'd have your backs. In more ways than one." Joshua's brows knit again. The silence this time stretches even longer. He finishes his food, scraping the last lingering drops of sauce out of his bowl and then scraping it some more. At length the bowl fails to provide even a pretext of procrastination, and he sets it aside. "-- It's not about you." He shrugs, small. "What we've been doing. People have died. The more people we brought into it, the more people we put at risk." Tian-shin's jaw tightens at this last, her next inhale slightly sharper. "I didn't mean that--" She starts, but then frowns, and amends quietly to, "Maybe I meant that a little, sorry. But I didn't mean that you were wrong not to tell me, I just--" She chews on her bottom lip. "I just wish I could have helped. I wish I could help better now, and everything feels so inadequate." Joshua pulls his legs up onto the couch, knees tucking in toward his chest as he settles back into his corner. His quiet, "-- Yeah," comes soft and a little hollow. "It's never enough. But we keep at it anyway."