Logs:Try Harder

Try Harder
Dramatis Personae Ion, Jamie
In Absentia	2021-10-25 "{You're kinda like the unofficial Riverdale police, huh?}"
Location <NYC> Riverdale
The neighborhood has been lively with construction, renovation, landscaping, and other changes in its ongoing transformation. The last few days it has been even livelier than usual, and the recent influx of new Prometheus rescuees has meant a lot more communal chores. Residents, part-time residence, even visitors have been picking up the slack, but there always seems to be more to go around. Jamie has just finished his rotation on dishwashing duty at one of the communal houses hosting newly liberated Prometheans, and is sitting on the back porch, watching the rain. He's wearing a heather gray Xavier's School hoodie, heavy jeans, and soft brown slip-on boots, shoulders hunched inward. He has a notebook in his hand and a pencil stuck behind one ear, though he is using neither at the moment. There's a smeary-bright glare through the rain, the headlights of a bike whose quiet purring motor isn't loud enough to be heard over the pounding rain until its quite close. Ion pulls straight up to the porch before killing the motor of the sleek black and silver chopper ('WIRED' reads its vanity plate), hopping off it and up over the porch railing. He's soaked through from scruffy hair to jeans to heavily beaten up Mongrels cut -- among its many patches is his own take on the Mongrels' Jolly Roger, a skull and crossed-lightning-bolts patch on the back, MMNYC and PRESIDENT and RABID DOG. He doesn't seem all that rabid -- perhaps today the disclaimer is more necessary than in the past -- just a little shivery, still wearing an easy grin all the same as he leans up against a pillar, not really looking at Jamie as he digs a smushed pack of Newports out of an inside pocket of his vest. "Yo boyo {there still supper?}" He's frowning at the wet pack of cigarettes now. Alas. Jamie tenses when Ion vaults over the railing, as if he expects the other man to hit him outright. "Uh, yeah, there's {beans and rice and chicken soup,} but it's been put away and it'll probably need heating up." His Spanish is quick and fluid, norteño Mexican with distinctive Sonoran color. He stuffs both hands into the front pocket of his hoodie, as if just seeing Ion soaked through has made him cold. His sidelong glance says it might be as much fear as chill, though. "You uh..." He glances between Ion's cut and his motorcycle. "{You're kinda like the unofficial Riverdale police, huh?}" Ion is just shoving the cigarettes back into his pocket when this question comes. "{Boy who the fuck you calling a pig.}" It's a lazy sort of question, the irritation in it not carrying a lot of heat. "{Riverdale's still got cops, we keep them the hell out. You fucking new here or --}" Only now have his eyes lifted to Jamie. Narrowed, first with a quizzical tilt of head and then a sharper recognition. It's now that he does close the distance between them, fist drawing back to swing straight for the other man's jaw. Jamie raises his hands as in surrender. "{Alright, I didn't mean anything by it, just -- }" Whatever he just meant will have to wait. Ion's fist catches him right in the jaw and he tumbles off of the bench swing, scrambling away from the other man as soon as he has his feet more or less under him. "{Shit, I'm sorry, okay?}" His hands are still up, though more stiffly now, as if ready to fend off another blow, and his eyes are fixed on Ion's patches rather than his face. When Jamie just raises his hand Ion spits, a disgusted expression on his face. He wipes his hand against his pants, rocking back a step. "{Fucking pathetic,}" he says, first, and second, "{that was for Flicker, you goddamn coward. The fuck you doing here?}" Jamie's jaw sets hard. "{You don't have to use him as an excuse,}" he mumbles. "{I know I've done plenty wrong, but I want to try to...be a part of the mutant community here. Maybe that's not possible, I don't know. I just didn't know where else to go.}" Ion's hand clenches hard, its abortive twitch suggesting strongly that he'd very much like to be punching Jamie again. He spits once more, at Jamie's feet, this time. "{Excuse, fuck you. You're ugly in your fucking soul you even think that. The fuck you know about community? The fuck you know about giving a shit about someone and not because of what they done for your weaselly ass. Damn right it ain't possible.}" He sucks his teeth dismissively. "{But everyone else gonna try for you anyway.}" "{What do you know about my soul?}" Jamie snaps, straightening up, hands clenching into fists at his side, his weight settling tentatively as if he's actually considering fighting back. "{I did care about him, I tried to do right by him -- after. During the raid, that -- that wasn't -- }" He stutters, fighting back tears. "{I'm trying! The fuck do you want from me?}" "{As much as I care to already.}" Ion's lips peel back into a thin sliver of a not-quite-smile. "Boy! Like fuck I want anything from you. {Shit. Enjoy my town, traitor.}" He turns with a shake of his head, one hand lifting to push water back from the fringe of hair that's fallen down across his forehead as he heads for the door.