Logs:Shitty Fucking Club

Shitty Fucking Club
Dramatis Personae B, Polaris
In Absentia	2019-08-31 "I guess the terrorism was more lifestyle than hobby."
Location 305 - Village Lofts - East Village
It's the middle of the afternoon, but Polaris looks as though she's only just woken up as she rattles around the kitchen trying to make coffee. Her hair is a mess, her eyes red and vacant, and she wears only a black ribbed tank and black boy shorts. She seems to have assembled most of the necessities and is now hung up on the fine details of turning beans into brew. Outside, someone leans on a car horn, probably harder and longer than is strictly necessary. Her eyes snap to the window, and metal implements all around her clatter ominously. Knock knock knock! Maybe unfortunately timed just on the heels of that car horn. Outside the door B is fidgety, in a very swirly purple dress with galaxy print paneling and extremely stompy boots heavily festooned with metal, metallic silvery-purple eyeliner sharply winging her eyelids. Polaris whips around, staring at the door, her breath coming shallow and quick. Her hands flex, two coils of steel wire that had been shaped into abstract rings on starting untwist from her fingers and then re-wrapping themselves. The door unlocks. "Yeah," she calls out, more or less casually, "come on in." B pushes the door open, tugging off her boots in the entryway. "Hey." Her smile is very small, closed-lipped. "I'm really sorry to bother, I just. There was some stuff I left over here, I'm working on a thing and I had to pick up some of my --" One of her webbed hands gestures kind of vaguely, her huge black eyes intent on Polaris. "Is it okay if I grab it from my -- from the bedroom real quick?" Polaris relaxes when she sees B. "Oh, hey!" She straightens up, rolls her shoulders. "No worries, go for it. I'm the one squatting in your house." She starts to turn back to the counter, then looks B over again. "So uh, can I offer you some...of your own coffee?" "It's Shane's coffee." B's gills flutter briefly. "But yeah, I'd like that." Not this second, though. She disappears off into her bedroom. There's some rummaging, some clinking. She returns shortly carrying a toolbox with a pair of delicate metal creatures atop it, one of them shaped like a jumping spider and the other a large luna moth. She hugs the box to her chest, peering back into the kitchen. "You all need anything in here?" "Oh!" Polaris's eyes go wide, her pale skin flushing faintly. "You're...Bea?" She manages to get both coffee and hot water into the french press by the time B returns. She turns around and leans back against the counter. "We're okay. Folks have been real attentive, and I mean--we really appreciate. All this." Her eyes focus on the bugs perched atop B's toolbox. "Do you make those? Or -- mod them, or something?" "I'm B, yeah. And it's -- I mean, we've all been there, you know? I think people just try to make sure everyone has -- things we would've liked when we were --" Her shoulder hitches. She brightens after this, bouncing up onto her toes with a quicker flutter of gills. "Oh! Yeah, I make a lot of things. I make these." She sets the toolbox down on the counter, perching herself on a stool. "What do you like to do? When you're not -- cooking for everyone?" "Nice to meet you." Polaris flashes a quick, fey smile, something in her posture easing. "I'm Polaris. It's kind of horrifying how many of us are in this shitty fucking club." She shakes her head. "I'm sure I dunno the half of it. Me and my bestie, we've been admiring your bugs. They're pretty amazing." She smiles, bending down to study the intricate bots. "Me? I uh..." Her brows wrinkle. "I used to be into a bit of everything, but...haven't had a lot in the way of hobbies the last few years. Getting my ass handed to me at board games, mostly. Getting my ass handed to me in general." B has taken her phone out of a pocket on the side of the dress. Her finger swipes quickly against the screen. "Yeah, it's really awful. We had to stop our textloop, hundreds of people on one just gets out of hand." The jumping spider shifts as Polaris bends to look at it, squatting down lower on its back legs while its front two lift to wiggle in Polaris's direction. "Do you like board games? They have about a million up at Flicker's place. We used to have Game Night every week. He hands everyone their ass." Her hands fold neatly in her lap, her feet swinging to thump lightly against a rung of the stool. "What kind of hobbies would you want? I get so crazy if I don't have some kind of project." Polaris gasps, delighted. "It even moves like the real thing. You program them, too? All by yourself?" She glances aside at B, amazement written in wide hazel eyes. "Depends on the game, but in general? Sure. I especially like the kind where you're all on the same team. Like the one where you have to save the world from diseases, um..." She narrows her eyes and snaps her fingers, but gives up when the name doesn't come to her at once. "Is terrorism a hobby? I guess maybe I shouldn't be so eager to get back to that, considering it's what landed us in Prometheus to begin with. Doesn't seem like the world's any less on fire now, though." She glances at the clock and pulls two mugs from the drying rack. "I could make art. I like to work in scrap metal. You take milk or sugar in your coffee?" B's eyes open wider, her gills fluttering again as she sits up just a little straighter on the stool, bouncing slightly in place. "Yeah! I program them. I have a whole bunch, if you ever want to..." She trails off, looking briefly down at her lap. "Oh um. Pandemic? We play that one a lot, it's great. And terrorism can be a hobby if you keep it up." Her head cocks to one side; she studies Polaris a moment longer. "Just sugar please. Like five sugars. Have you been down by Chimaera? Our um, our art collective -- There's some amazing metalworkers there." Polaris arches her eyebrows. "I've got no knowledge or skill in robotics, but it's fascinating and I'd be so down if you wanted to do show and tell." She snaps her fingers again. "Pandemic! That's the one, yeah. There's others I like, but I don't remember titles--mostly I've played other people's board games, bouncing between punk houses and all that. Come to think of it, I guess the terrorism was more lifestyle than hobby." The silverware drawer slides open and a spoon levitates out of it into her hand even while she pours the coffee. She loads B's mug up with sugar and hands it over before turning to lighten and sweeten her own coffee. "That's the warehouse, right? With all the murals? I've been there to help with food prep. The place looks fuck rad." B giggles, hiding her smile behind one hand as she takes the coffee. "You make it sound like some kind of HGTV series. Floral crocheted balaclavas. Molotov cocktails in upcycled hand painted bottles." She blows on the coffee before taking a tiny careful sip. "It is really rad. My pa teaches painting and glasswork there. Sometimes Shane teaches music classes. Flicker does -- used to do --" The wrinkle of her brow is very brief. "Such amazing woodworking. It's just a really nice place to -- collect yourself." "I would watch the fuck out of that show." Polaris takes an unguarded gulp of her coffee, admittedly tempered somewhat by the addition of milk. "Oh! Or I can be the un-crafty collective member who's always wandering through the scenes drunk." She blinks rapid at B. "Jesus Christ. He's literally a carpenter? Flicker, I mean--I already knew about Jesus." Then she looks down into her coffee. "Sorry. The place does sound pretty great, though. Maybe I'll stay after, next time I have meal duty there. Bend some metal. Learn some terrorist crafts." "Oh yeah! He made our coffee table." B flicks her claws toward the room's polished centrepiece, solidly built with a mosaic of glass running down its center in dappled shades of blue-green reminiscent of a river's running waters. The shelf that sits beneath the tabletop echoes the flowing mosaic motif in intricate inlaid wood. "Well, my Ba did the glass bits but he did all the wood. Should he, um, not be a carpenter?" Her smile brightens again; she nods eagerly. "We teach so many terrorist crafts. But the couches are really comfy, too. If stumbling drunk is your thing. You might occasionally have to kick some brocialist off of them though. They currently have a corner on the drunk and uncrafty, um. Market?" "He made that?" Polaris gawks at the coffee table in open astonishment. "I mean, that's amazing. Obviously I knew someone made it, but I figured that someone was. I don't know. Someone who makes their entire living doing Bespoke Home Furnishing or something." She slouches down onto one of the beanbags, curling one leg beneath herself. "My drunken stumbling is intermittent at best, and probably not even that until I have the income to spare. Kicking brocialists around is like, one of my signature moves, though." There's a faintly hysterical edge to her grin. "Though you're better dressed for it, especially in the footwear department." "Isn't it great? He's pretty amazing," B chirrups in agreement. "He does do, um, Bespoke Home Furnishing but I think there's kind of a waiting list on commissions, med school didn't exactly leave a glut of free time." Her forehead rumples inward after this. She studies her coffee intently, claws clicking against the glass. It's a short delay before she shakes her head, lifts her eyes back to Polaris. "They're my Jupiter Ascending boots. -- Hey, can you fly?" The uptick in her voice is suddenly more excited. "I mean you --" Her hand whooshes through the air. "With the spoon and all. I bet you could fly in my boots without even turning them on." "Right -- that's more why I was surprised. But like, obviously sometimes people can be good at more than one thing." Polaris's cheeks have gone just a touch pink, but she doesn't seem much perturbed by the blush, if she's even noticed it. She watches B carefully, her own brows wrinkling. "Jupiter Ascending?" Her blank expression blossoms into recognition. "Oh my fucking God, I wanted to see that, I heard it was amazing. If I got enough ferrous metal on me, I can levitate myself, but it tends to be wobbly and precarious. Maybe it'll be easier now, I think I've gotten stronger since--" She breaks off, gawking again. "Whoa, hold the phone, you have flying boots?!" "Ohmygod it is amazing we should watch it you'll love it it's the greatest!" B wriggles off her stool, already starting to scamper toward the television, grab the remote. She stops short, though, her own cheeks tinting darker -- it's a little less obvious in her gleaming blue skin. "I make flying, um, a lot of things. You gotta see the movie first, though, they're way cooler if you've seen the movie." "I mean, I figured some of your bugs probably fly, but I've seen flying drones. Flying boots, though? That's some wacky sci-fi hijinks and I am so here for it." Polaris slams back the rest of her coffee and sets the mug aside, leaning forward in her seat with avid interest. "Alright, then, let's watch this bad boy!"