Logs:On the Line

On the Line
Dramatis Personae B, DJ, Scott
In Absentia	2024-06-23 "You taught her, right?"
Location <NYC> Tompkins Square Park - East Village
Small but popular, this tree-lined park is a perfect centerpiece to the eclectic neighborhood it resides in. Home to a number of playgrounds and courts from handball to basketball, it also houses a dog park and chess tables, providing excellent space for people watching -- especially during its frequent and often eccentric festivals, from Wigstock to its yearly Allen Ginsberg tribute Howl festival. Pride week has not arrived, but in its cheerful brazen way it's seeping out merrily to brighten the rest of this month as well. This particular celebration-slash-protest has attracted an inordinate share of counterprotesters -- it's an (unpermitted) street dance party in several blocks adjacent to the park itself. Its billing as family friendly has mostly just been an indicator to those within the community that nobody is making deliberate plans to antagonize the cops today -- but as a queer mutant event it's been taken as clear evidence that the freaks are Out To Get your kids' gender and their genes, too. So far, the haters have been cordoned off by a determined crowd of mingled allies-with-huge-signs, allies-wearing-large-rainbow-wings (one or two people who just have huge wings in the mix), and fierce bikers, who are all doing a more or less good job of keeping the jeers and shouting siloed from the young and exuberant crowd. But the day is very, very hot and as temperatures rise, so are tempers. B (probably; in deference to the heat her cut is on over her bare chest and paired with black swim trunks already near-dry despite a fairly recent trip to the open fire hydrant just up the block, but the heavy metal boots and gauntlets are Unlikely To Be Shane) is just now coming back to settle on her bike -- parked at one end of one of the blocks they are closing off, just beside the patio of a cafe on the corner. A motorist who was not paying attention to their warnings from Waze looks like they're thinking about taking a chance with just barrelling through the parked motorbikes -- B's tiny sleek hoverbike in particular looks like an easy target -- but they make a recalculation when she lifts her hand, one of the repulsors in her gauntlet giving a warning glow. The car takes off. The dancers and the haters continue apace. B regards the sandwich board on the sidewalk outside the adjacent cafe (it is advertising several types of summery iced coffees as well as basil lemonade) with a look of longing. Scott has neither a huge sign not large rainbow wings -- actually nothing in his cargo short/grey t-shirt ensemble is eye-catching save for the red wraparound shades -- but he's planted himself decidedly on the 'ally' side of the motorbike line, standing in a sliver of shade from the nearby buildings and keeping a watchful eye both on the cluster of dancing teenagers he arrived with, and the tense boundary nearby. Whether out of unwillingness or sheer inability, he is not dancing along to the music, just sipping the lemonade he almost certainly bought so he would have something to do with his hands, now mostly just ice and wilty basil. His posture is easing again only as the car drives away, and he slides his free hand back into the pocket of his shorts. If he says anything it is monosyllabic and not loud enough to hear through the crowd anyway, but he definitely gives B an (amused? grateful? acknowledging?) upward nod, like, hey. DJ looks, similarly, aggressively bland in his blue quick-dry tee and lightweight grey hiking pants. He's been making rounds of the dancers and their human barricade alike at a leisurely (even for an average person) pace. He's toting an old-fashioned red wagon, loaded up with a first-aid kit alongside bottles of water and Gatorade in a bed of ice in a cooler (heavily depleted), fruit and granola bars (moderately gone), and small travel-size containers of sunscreen (barely touched). For just a second it seems like he might pass by this small corner of the perimeter but then he stops -- mostly to admire the bike, but he's also gesturing (with his mechanical arm -- in theme here, at least, it's colored in vivid rainbowy-feathers to resemble the plumage of a painted bunting) towards his summer-safety cache. "Need sunscreen? Water?" His mouth twists brief to the side, and he's glancing between the others and the nearby dance party. "Earplugs?" The Iron-Man-glow in B's gauntlet fades away as the car pulls off. B kicks one heel lightly against the frame of her bike, and dips her head politely back to Scott. "Is that good. It looks so good. We have been in full grilled-shark temperatures all week and I'm --" Her already-wide black eyes go even wider when DJ approaches -- it's a vague and reflexive tension at first, but slips away in an instant so she can hop down from her perch and claim a bottle of water and a tube of sunscreen. She's opening up the water first, taking only a small sip before splashing half the rest of the bottle over herself. "Ohwow you're a hero." Scott tries to take another sip of lemonade, which mostly rattles the ice with an amplified-plastic sucking sound, and responds politely (awkwardly), "Mm. Pretty good. There's basil in it?" He says this last like he's still deciding how he feels about that. He gives DJ the same nod of acknowledgment, looking for a moment on the verge of refusing these free goodies before, after a glance at the students he's here chaperoning, he reaches down and snags a pair of sunscreens to slip in his pocket -- "Thanks." Once he's straightened up again he lapses back into his statue-still stance, keeping both crowds in his line of sight. There is an expression of some kind pulling one corner of his mouth -- "You carry earplugs around?" "Lotta kids here seem to think the X-Gene prevents skin cancer." DJ offers B a second water after she's splashed away most of the first. "World's getting way noisier. Half of all of us going to have some hearing disability if we live long enough." He's considering, for a moment, the emblem on B's cut, before looking at Scott's visor. His mouth pulls to the side, too. "... probably more than half if you, uh. Ride a lot. Get shot at a lot." He crouches, unzips a side panel of the bright orange first aid bag to pull out a pair of earplugs in small individual plastic packaging. He's holding it up with a hike of brows. "Big if." When DJ offers the second bottle, B is splashing the remainder of the first over her skin, gills shifting in slow relief. She takes the second and drinks deeper, this time. "I mean the long enough part. We're almost definitely going to be around gunshots and definitely-definitely --" She reaches out to pat at the frame of her bike. "Well, my bike's real quiet, at least." Scott declines the earplugs with a minute shake of his head, although, judging by the wry set of his mouth, he's aware that it's hypocritical of him to deny any kind of PPE. "Pessimistic take on things," he remarks, his tone strangely light. Though he hasn't managed a grin at either B or DJ he does give B's bike a (slim, brief, but admiring) smile before his gaze is once again fixed somewhere in the crowd. "I'm riding less as I get older," he says. "No excuse to hit the road, these days. Better for my ears anyhow." He shakes his cup of ice and tries to drink some of the melty, watered-down lemonade at the bottom, but only succeeds in getting a garnishing basil leaf stuck in the straw. "Do you need an excuse to have..." DJ is starting to ask, but then he looks up from where he's crouched. Studies Scott's face for a second, a slightly melancholy smile briefly touching his face before he looks back down. "I've always kinda felt like one good part about getting older is you learn safer ways to have your fun." He's slipping the earplugs back into the case, though, and pushing himself to his feet. "The bike is the excuse to hit the road," B protests, eyes wider and her tone far more emphatic than her usual quiet one, "at least if you've got a good ride, it..." She trails off, head dipping apologetically. "I mean, your bike is great, it's just. You don't ride it to get from one place to another, you know?" "That's not --" Scott, still frowning at his cup, doesn't lose his train of thought so much as he stops it entirely on its track. His voice -- usually very even, almost monotonously so -- tips strangely back toward the same quizzical tone he gave the basil lemonade. "Sorry, 'excuse' wasn't the right word. I don't know what is." His other hand snakes out of his pocket, and now he is rotating his cup very slowly between his fingertips. His voice restabilizes -- "Unfortunately," he says, back to plausibly-deniably-amused, "I do ride it to get from one place to another." "Kinda responsibilities you have," DJ is musing, without really looking at Scott anymore, "there's probably a couple words I could imagine." He's watching the crowd -- a near-scuffle between one of the hecklers and an arriving pair of kids, de-escalated quickly by a large biker wearing rainbow angel wings -- and then tipping his eyes up. He smile, quick and easy. "Probably a particular joy in joyride when your bike literally flies." "Right, I mean, that's part of the problem though, sir." B's tone stays gentle but her eyes are still wide, her gills fluttering faster. "It's for that but it's not just for that. When was the last time you even took a day off?" She returns to her perch on the saddle, smiling small and close-lipped. "It -- definitely doesn't hurt." Scott's mouth opens, but in lieu of responding aloud he just blows out a breath, almost-smiling enough to make this an almost-laugh. "I take days off," he says, somewhat unconvincingly. He taps one index finger against the cup, quiet and rhythmic, his head tilted at the hoverbike, before he announces, with a conciliatory air, "Your bike is great, too." "You don't happen to make custom --" DJ is gesturing towards B's bike, with only a small fond hope. He shoots a very skeptical look to Scott, but cuts himself off before he can reply to this very plausible assertion. "You ever ridden one?" he's asking Scott, instead. "One of their flying bikes. You taught her, right?" "Shane and I have the only ones." Be says this a little apologetically. A little. "Kinda unsafe for most people, when we were testing them we had to --" She looks over at DJ kind of thoughtfully, but looks away again abruptly with a small hitch of breath. "Anyway, you could probably handle it." His last question startles her eyes open a little wider, gills flaring briefly. "Oh! I mean, yeah, Mr. Summers' classes got me into..." She's gesturing now not just to her futuristic bike but to the scattered Mongrels keeping watch over the gathering, and her apologetic wince is more genuine this time than it was a minute ago: "... probably not exactly the sort of inspiration you were going for, huh?" Scott does laugh this time, a little shuddery -- "No, Jean would kill me," he says, and in contrast to B's more genuine wince his next chuckle is definitely a little more strained even if there is a faint but distinctly pleased note in his voice -- "Well, I am glad you took -- something away from my class. I'll say that." "I dunno. You guys do a lot of good. A lot to be proud of, there." DJ shrugs, picking the handle of his wagon back up. "-- think I should do another round before those kids start passing out." He lifts his chin in farewell, but looks back as he's heading off to add, lightly: "If you took her for a ride on one it'd be safe enough for you both, wouldn't it?" B is splashing a little more water on her palm to pat it absently against the side of her neck. Her eyes fix, wide, on DJ, and her gills press down flat. "Yeah," she's only saying this thoughtfully after DJ has gone, "I guess telekinesis would be almost as good as teleporting." She kicks a heel absently, thunking it against the frame of her bike. "... I took a lot away from you. Just." Her nose wrinkles up brief and small, and she shrugs a shoulder. "S'a lot of different ways to keep people safe." As DJ reaches for the wagon handle, Scott is looking sidelong at B; given how little of his eyes are ever visible this is probably deliberate in its obviousness. "Huh," he says, almost in time with B, "I guess --" he smothers this with small, amused snort, and takes another sip of what is probably just lemony basilly water by now. "You," he starts, but perhaps he feels starting a thought that way is too teacherly, for he nips that in the bud, now staring uncomfortably after DJ, and says instead, "I know." B's inner eyelids shutter, her gills slowly opening and closing. She looks away toward the party, her heel kicking again, and though the shape of thanks is starting to form on her lips it doesn't make it all the way out. She's quiet a moment. "... I could make a bigger model." "A lot bigger," says Scott at once, like he is relieved he wasn't the one to break the silence; a slim smile is starting again to tug at one side of his mouth. He glances -- again very obviously -- at B, then forward again. "Bet it'd be a pretty sweet ride."