Logs:Millennial Screaming

Millennial Screaming
Dramatis Personae Skye, Ryan, Sarah
In Absentia	2019-07-06 If you see me walking around yelling at the ground, you'll know who to blame.
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 sound system is not on full blast at the moment, but the Mouth of Sauron's "Black Gate" is loud enough as it is. Skye is sitting cross-legged on the couch, wearing in a fitted black t-shirt with a rainbow-striped brain over the word "neurodiversity" and silver shorts shorts. "So then the guy leans over like," she leans towards her companion and pitches her voice low and sultry, "'I speak fluent Mandarin.' And I have to spend the rest of the date guessing what that fuck he's saying in 'Mandarin' and trying desperately not to crack up." She picks up her sweating bubble tea cup and swirls it around. "Which was a way long winded explanation for why I need a drink. Sorry." "Granted it's been a while since I had that kind of client to deal with," Ryan is just returning from the kitchen with a pair of tall glasses, tiny paper umbrellas stuck in the top of the freshly blended and heavily rummy strawberry daiquiris inside, "but I feel it's likely whatever you were guessing was probably twice as interesting as the bullshit he was actually trying to say. Those dudes are always boring as piss, he was probably telling you about his stocks." He offers one of the glasses to Skye, flopping down on the couch. He's in a black kilt interspersed with pink, purple, and blue panels, and a deep purple mesh sleeveless shirt so dark it looks almost black. Outside in the hallway, Sarah is continuing her quest to meet as many neighbors as possible (and bring them cookies!) She holds the handles of two Chinese-style takeout containers in one hand and uses her free one to knock on the door. Sarah is dressed to beat the heat, in high waisted shorts and a white crop top that was once a t-shirt. The words 'All you knead is love' are worn but still visible across the front. Skye laughs, running a hand through her hair to push back where the fringes have flopped over her face. "You're probably right, though in this case I think he was mostly trying to tell me about his degrees in Chinese-American business relations, which I guess was kind of apropos considering." She makes completely unnecessary grabby hands at the glass that Ryan delivers to her, then takes a long sip, sinking back against the couch cushions. "Oh my god you are the best." She sits up a bit straighter when the knock comes, eyes widening. A few loose items on the table in front of them rattle, and she blushes. "Expecting anyone?" she asks, her casual tone a little forced. "So I've been told." Ryan's grin is shameless and bright. "I had a lot of incentive to perfect this one, I spent too fucking long once working off a debt in this shady as fuck casino and this Bratva skeezebag who always came in really loved --" He cuts off here, his head tilting at the knock. "Don't think I was." He looks down at the drink in his hands. Very deliberately sets it aside on a coaster on the table. He's slow to get up, soundless as he moves to check through the door's peephole. His brows pull together. He steps to the side of the door, though when he answers his voice comes from just in front of it all the same: "Yo. Who you looking for? We didn't order delivery, sorry." "Oh, I'm sorry if I disturbed you." Sarah manages some sort of sheepish grin, her face hot. "I just moved into apartment 203 downstairs, I'm just going around with cookies and introducing myself." She holds up the containers, as if she could possibly be carrying cookies in anything else. "I'm Sarah." Skye takes another sip of her drink before putting it down, too. She shifts onto her knees on the couch and peers towards the entryway, unsure. Her phone is in her hand and unlocked, though it's not clear what exactly she intends to do with it if there is an assassin at the door. Ryan looks back at Skye, frowning deep. "If I am about to die, make sure you get a good angle?" Though this comes across perfectly clear to Skye, the words aren't audible on the other side of the door. He unlocks the deadbolt and then the security chain and then the handle, turning on an easy smile as he opens the door. "Sorry, I saw the containers and just assumed. Though now I kinda could go for Chinese. Wait, you said cookies? Look at this," he's nodding his head to Sarah, "I get so goddamn spoiled with my neighbors. Welcome to the building." Well if she was blushing and embarrassed before, now Sarah is simply mortified. She actually feels the blood drain from her face. "Thank you," she whispers, more on instinct than anything. She prepared for meeting new neighbors, but meeting a celebrity new neighbor is a level of social interaction she doesn't know how to handle. She can at least hold out the containers. "I hope I'm not bothering you," because that is at least the truth, and it even comes out at normal volume. Skye obligingly flicks on her video recording. "I got the livestream ready, but please try not to die?" Her voice is quiet, and more successfully nonchalant this time, though Ryan can hear the fear beneath it loud and clearly. She braces the hand holding her phone against the arm of the couch and tenses. Then, relaxes slightly when the door opens. "Hi," she says, lowering her phone -- though not putting it away! -- and waving at Sarah. "I don't actually live here, but welcome to the Lofts!" "No promises. My track record there is -- well, I guess pretty great depending on how you look at it." These words come softer, just by Skye's ear. Ryan's brows hike up when Sarah turns pale, but his smile stays firmly in place. "I'm guessing nobody told you, huh? Hey, don't worry." He sounds blithely cheerful as he takes the cookie containers. "Only, like, half the rumors about me are true. You're safeish. Thanks for the cookies, Sarah-in-203." Sarah waves back with her now empty hand, scrambling for something to say that wouldn't be horribly weird or awkward. It's maybe too late for that. (Honestly, some part of her brain says, she handled meeting Dusk better than this, this should really be no problem.) "I don't think you're dangerous," she offers back quietly. "I think you're brave." Nope, nope. That was definitely weird. When Ryan shows no overt signs of further concern about his unexpected guest, Skye levers herself up onto the arm of the couch. "Wanna talk about brave, have you heard this guy can fly by yelling at the ground?" Her grin is glaringly overwrought. "I'm Skye, by the way." "Are those mutually exclusive?" Ryan's smile is still easy. He only half turns to toss the cookies lightly toward Skye. "And that's not bravery, that's just plain physics. You could do it too if you could just yell loud enough." He shrugs a shoulder, confiding in Sarah: "Things they don't teach you in school." "Wow, really?" Sarah's eyes widen at Skye, a giggle escaping her at what Ryan says. "Even if they did, that sounds like a lot of screaming. I'd rather be able to... do what I do." Just admitting that little bit makes her heart race. "It was really nice to meet the both of you. I'll let you get back to your visit, though. Sorry for interrupting." Skye points at Ryan, narrowing her eyes. "Challenge accepted." Then, to Sarah, "If you see me walking around yelling at the ground, you'll know who to blame." She catches the cookies easily. "Hey, Millennial life is chock full of screaming anyway, may as well put it to good use, right?" She hops off the couch altogether now, turning the takeout container in her hands. "Thanks for the cookies, Sarah. Are you like, doing this with /everyone/?" The lift of her eyebrows is more /impressed/ than skeptical. "Have you checked out the world lately? I just have to open the news and it gives plenty of screaming fodder." Ryan leans against the door frame, his head thunking to the side against it as he studies Sarah curiously. "What you do? I take it you aren't talking about baking an apartment building's worth of cookies?" "I haven't been in the city very long, but I don't think someone randomly yelling at the ground would be the /weirdest/ thing I've seen. And yeah." Another sheepish grin steals across her face as she rubs the back of her neck. "I mean, not all at once because it's a big building, but it didn't seem fair to only give something to a few apartments near me. I don't mind, I like to bake." Ryan's question has her smile falling some, a bit of tension stiffening her shoulders again. "Oh. Um." She knows nobody else in the hallway, but her first reflex is to check anyway. Nobody, like she thought. Her hand falls back to her side, fingers twitching nervously. "Do you have a pencil and a scrap of paper?" "It's not that anyone lacks things to scream about, but I feel like maybe we're not creative enough with what we scream at. So like, you're really expanding my horizons." Skye puts the cookies down on the coffee table. "Oh, and sorry, I didn't mean like that was a bad thing, I'm totally into free food, just -- yeah, it's a big building!" She grabs a legal pad and a pencil off of the coffee table and pass them to Ryan. Ryan glances down to Sarah's twitching fingers. Then back up to her face, his own mouth twitching slightly to one side. "It wasn't like a mandatory question, you know. Just a curiosity." He doesn't seem any /less/ curious when she asks for the pencil and paper, though. He grips them tight when Skye passes them along, offering the pad and pencil out to Sarah. "That's where we're missing a trick," he adds over his shoulder to Skye. "Picking better targets. If we just harnessed the collective power of Millennial /screaming/, we could bring the whole damn government down." "I know. It's just hard to explain." Sarah accepts the offered items with a thank you. After a moment, she has the legal pad balanced on the inside of her forearm, fingers curled around the top to keep it steady. "I can help with free food, but if you want /screaming/, you would need to talk to my roommates," she absentmindedly comments, drawing a quick outline of a butterfly at the bottom of the page. It's little more than a few lines but she keeps it close to scale, shading in the body and around the edge of the wings after that. Once she considers it good enough for a demonstration, the pencil gets tucked under her curled fingers. Her now free hand presses against the paper. She has to concentrate on ignoring how /open/ of a space she's in, but within a few seconds the wings of the butterfly are lifting up from the paper. Leaving a perfect blank white space on the page where it was drawn, the butterfly begins to flutter between Ryan and Sarah. It isn't a /perfect/ butterfly - for one thing, she forgot to draw legs, so that may be a problem for it. Its wings are the same yellow with blue lines as the legal paper. The outline and body are gray and graphite shiny. It dips and bobs and flies in the air, regardless. "There's plenty of screaming in my life TBH, but I'll never be satisfied. Until we fus ro dah the government into oblivion." Skye wanders all the way up the door, finally, peering curiously at the legal pad while Sarah sketches. Her eyebrows hike up slightly and she looks about ready to say something, but no words actually come out of her open mouth because that's the moment the butterfly comes off of the page. "Woah!" She looks at the butterfly, looks at the paper, looks at Sarah. "Is that -- like, an illusion?" Ryan rests a hand on the doorframe above his head, weight leaning up against his arm. His eyes widen as the butterfly pulls itself off the page. A bright smile flits across his face. Almost involuntarily, his eyes dart to the apartment door just across the hall from his own. "-- You met Jax yet?" Kind of casually, as he lifts his hand palm-up towards the fluttering butterfly. "That's fantastic. It's not alive, is it? It still looks like paper." "I think it's an illusion, and I like to think they aren't alive. They're never solid, and that idea gives me the heebies." Sarah feels tickled as pink as her hair. The opportunity to show off like this doesn't visit her often. She follows the butterfly's movement with bright eyes, smiling as it tries to land on one of Ryan's fingers. It's lack of feet seem to be the least of it's problems in that regard; it breaks up like smoke and drifts around Ryan's hand to reform underneath it. It continues on flying like nothing ever happened, circling around Skye's head. "I /did/ meet Jax. And Spence. They were really nice, they let me help them cook something for the roof cookout thing. I honestly want to move into their kitchen. I could fit into one of their cabinets just fine, don't you think?" "That's amazing!" Skye's smile spread wide when the paper butterfly circles her. "Yeah, Jax is also an artist, and like -- oh boy, you should meet Tag, too, if you haven't already." She reaches out tentatively to touch the butterfly. "Not sure you'll have much luck talking the Hollands into clearing out a cabinet for you, though. They work that kitchen." "Huh. That is amazing." Ryan's fingers close loosely on the air as the butterfly melts and then reforms. His eyes still track the butterfly as it circles Skye. "Their cabinets are pretty full. Thankfully for the rest of us, 'cuz they put that stuff to good use." He straightens up from where he's leaning, his hand dropping to his side. "Hey, thanks for the cookies. I'm sure we'll see you around, yeah?" Sarah gives a dramatic sigh. "Yeah, that was kinda what I thought. I'll have to settle with knowing it's a kitchen being used to its full potential." After all, there are always her own kitchen cabinets to live in. It would be a great way to scare Angie. "That would be really nice. It was great meeting you both." She almost has to go on tiptoe to reach the butterfly, as it makes its way higher into the air. It melts away as she wraps her fingers around it and appears back on the page, leaking in like ink until it's nothing but a sketch again. "Here, you probably want these back," she says to Ryan, holding out the pencil and legal pad. "It's good to meet you Sarah!" Skye watches the other woman take the butterfly back. "And your butterfly, too. Though now I want to watch 'Miraculous'..." She shakes her head, then waves. "Good luck on your quest to feed the whole building!" Ryan takes back the pad and pencil, lifting his hand to his forehead in a vague kind of salute as he closes the door and locks it again. "We have the technology," is the last thing he's telling Skye cheerfully as he does so, "we can make this happen." The cookies, regrettably, get dumped in the trash before he flops back onto the couch, but he's still examining the little sketched butterfly curiously as he goes to turn the television on.