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 Posted: Fri Nov 25, 2016 8:01 pm
& NO NEED TO FIX
what god already
put his paintbrush on
│CREATED BY SERENITY
│· Some ******** rooftop with terrible security.
│· Closed thread for Serenity and LavvytheJackalope.
│· Julian and Zach.
│· Oh s**t, it's the cops.
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Posted: Fri Nov 25, 2016 8:10 pm
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▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆BABY IF THE COPS COME CALLIN I'LL NEVER TALK▆▆
Everybody missed something different. That's what they said in the group therapy sessions when they talked about
the transition back to civilian life. When you were in, you missed normal, everyday things. You missed your friends
and your family, and that restaurant that made your favorite food. You missed the sky, or walking barefoot at the
beach, or getting to sleep in as late as you wanted. And as time went on, the wants got simpler, more primal, as
Maslow's Needs were peeled away from you layer by layer. Forget self actualization. Forget esteem. Safety was what
it came down to, and the things you were willing to do to ensure that safety. And some people, they got back to the
real world and couldn't find their place in it anymore. Too big, too bright, too loud, too full. Everybody not sure how
to treat you, so they try to treat you the same, except you can see them working so hard at it, you know that they're
thinking about how ******** up you are. The people who loved you when you left, do they really love you anymore?
How, when they don't know anything about you, the things you've had to do, the person you've become? A lot of
people got out and jumped right back into trouble, because it was the only thing that was familiar. Others tried to
stay on the straight and narrow but didn't know how to manage themselves anymore after being scheduled and cor-
ralled and controlled for so long. They couldn't get a job, couldn't keep a place to live. There they were on the out-
side, among all those things they missed so much when they'd been away, and they found themselves wishing for
a cell and a bunk and a system that had replaced everything that used to be familiar. They missed their new normal.
And some people killed themselves.
They tried not to dwell on that in group. Tried not to acknowledge that an empty chair didn't always mean somebody
had finished their allotted time. Suicide prevention was a completely different meeting, a completely different hotline.
The last thing any of them needed was to look around the circle and think critically about how the guy that used to sit
to the left of them laid down in front of a train.
It was part of why the inkwell was on a roof in the middle of the night, staring down at the cars from four stories up.
All those flittering lights and faraway noises. Even with the taller office blocks up and down the street, the wind was
cold as hell, making him flex his fingers inside the pockets of his jacket. But there had been an empty chair at 10:45
that morning, and he needed to be under the sky, at the edge of the world.
It wasn't that he'd been friends with the guy. Julian couldn't really remember his name-- Freddie, Fernando, some-
thing with an F in it-- and that made him feel shitty enough, because once upon a time he'd been good at acknow-
ledging every single person that crossed his path. Once, he'd have engaged himself in group as an effort at helping
the people around him come to terms with their own issues. But that was useless, because that was the shiny penny
he'd been before prison, and now.. God, he'd looked across the circle at that empty chair, and he'd wondered. What
was it that the guy just couldn't handle? What about the real world had been just a little too sharp? Did he wake up
in the dark from nightmares that just wouldn't quit? Did he catch himself staring at nothing, chasing the tail of his
thoughts, unable to stop the ruminations? Did he cling to any small bit of safe contact, and then feel guilty, feel dis-
honest, feel somehow disloyal? Julian didn't know. It wasn't the kind of thing he ever asked anyone when he was
told to speak in group. He didn't open his mouth until he had to, and even then, he never cast his words back. Only
forward, like skipping rocks across a lake. I have work. I'm keeping myself busy. I'm doing okay.
Forward was the only direction that mattered. He would never get better if he sat across from Leon at a cafe and ru-
ined their lunch asking if the fairy sometimes felt out of place in public areas like these. If he ever had to write down
lists for himself to make sure he was following a routine, because knowing what to expect felt safer. If he ever felt an
odd simultaneous fear of and longing for enclosed spaces. He certainly couldn't ask if the ivorette ever missed Odin,
or wondered where he was, how he was. Wondered if he was trying really hard to function out here in the real world,
too. Wondered if he ever thought about any of them.
No. Questions like that would have been pathetic. Would have made the fairy worry about him, which was inexcus-
able after everything Julian had already put Leon through. And thinking about Odin only ever led the azurette in cir-
cles. If this, why that? Then what did this mean? What was any of that about? What was I?
He'd promised Krish that he'd write things out. Those two beautiful bottles of ink had been a thoughtful gift, but
also a gentle pressure, a nudge toward the method of recovery that Marie and everyone else thought was such a
good idea. Let it out. Let it go. Share it, and it will lessen. They didn't understand that he couldn't, because he was
too busy trying to piece it together himself. If, then. How. Why. And inevitably, he got back to a blank wall where
the only answer was the most painful one. So he'd sit in front of the notebook and he'd scratch out a few cryptic
lines, and hope that they helped Krish to worry less. Maybe one day he'd be better at it. Maybe one day it would help
him. But he couldn't write down the one word he needed to, couldn't overpower a deep defensiveness. So he kept to
other things. Current events and vagueries and pretended the whole point didn't exist. Still, smiling didn't fool the
metal mage, didn't make him believe Julian was All Better, any more than it worked in Marie's office. But he tried,
really hard, not to be some kind of livid stain on the other man's life. Didn't want the things that were wrong with
him to so much as touch Krish.
That was the other reason he was standing with one foot against the low wall around the roof's perimeter, looking
down on the world below. Ears full of the only kind of music he listened to anymore. If he couldn't dance to it, if it
would bring him down, it never made it's way into his headphones. Because maybe that would be the thing that
turned him into an empty chair, and he'd promised Krish he wouldn't do that, no matter how soothing the thought
was sometimes. No more questions running races in his head. No more moths fluttering weakly behind his eyes
and in his hair. No more missing and grieving and fearing and distrusting. No more clockwork tide of fear and lone-
liness as the moon worked its way toward full. Just no more. Deep in the cell of my heart, I'll be so glad to go. But
that was par for the the course with Julian in these later days: wanting something desperately and wanting to avoid
it completely all at the same time.
The sneaker perched on the walltop pushed off, swinging the azurette around in a half circle, away from the building's
edge. No reason to give any passers by down below the impression that he was a jumper, even though it was an un-
tried method as yet. Hanging and cutting hadn't worked in prison, but he'd been under constant supervision then. Be-
tween the guards and, later, Chase, he'd never quite managed the quiet repose he'd been so desperate for after his
return from the hospital. Maybe a third time would be the charm. But no. He'd promised. That wasn't what he'd come
up here for. He just needed to stand at the edge of the world, not leap from it. Needed to tip his head back and see the
sky, even if all the city's light pollution locked out the stars. Needed to look up and put things in perspective. Needed
to see things from the outside and realize how trivial his problems really were in the scheme of things. Somewhere,
probably not very far away, someone had it so much worse. In a city like Saxon, it wasn't a possibility but a guaran-
tee. It did nothing to dwell and be maudlin. That was just Julian behaving selfishly when he should be grateful for
everything.
The fact that you're alive is a miracle. Just stay alive-- That would be enough.
He had his life. He was physically whole. He had friends who wanted him to survive and succeed, and they were wil-
ling to inconvenience themselves to help that happen. He had steady work. Clothes on his back. Food in his stomach.
The sky above his head, and wind on his face, however cold it was getting. A wide rooftop whose access hadn't been
locked. Music in his ears that made him nod his head with the beat, body going a little loose, relaxing into the sound.
He had all these things. All these freedoms. So burn the land. Boil the sea. You can't take the sky from me.
What had he missed? The easy, reference-laden communication he used to share with Krish-- fractured now from how
hard they each tried to walk on eggshells. Making tea for Maluk down at the Steps, picking up sign a little at a time
until he only had to glance at the chalkboard every now and again, searching for definitions when he couldn't translate
the way the caim's hands moved. Catching the subway across the city to sit with Nhu Linh in the insulating bubble of
her apartments, so she wouldn't be alone. He'd missed feeding strays, whether they walked on two legs or four, know-
ing that he was helping even when they watched him with suspicion. Missed sitting in abandoned buildings, running
his fingertips over weighted legal paper, leaving all the details of a new life drying on the page. Connection. Yes.
That was what it boiled down to.
But he'd also missed the mundane things. Going for any span of days without being covered in bruises. Being able to
choose his own clothing. Food served at a temperature above lukewarm. Speaking when the urge took him. The free-
dom to relax his slight frame out of the coiled knot he'd become in the last year. And music.
So he rocked a little, easing at the hips and shoulders, hands coming up to cup the headphones he'd rescued from some
yardsale. Sneakered feet moved in an easy V, heel to toe to heel again, always making it look relaxed, look so simple,
look like it required no coordination at all to keep in rhythm. "Even though I'm-- On my way, On my way, On my way
down.." It was a long way from the waltzes and foxtrots he'd learned as a kid, but he liked it all the same. Kept his
limbs languid, rolling ankles and knees to turn angular steps into something fluid. Left, and then right, the forelocks of
his hair penduluming, strokes of cyan-cerulean to navy at the roots. It felt good to move, to twist his slender frame into
a roll from shoulders to hips and stay poised on the toes of his shoes, punctuating a line in a song only he could hear.
They said let it out. They said let it go. This wasn't what any of them meant, but it was the only thing that worked for
even a short amount of time. Getting lost somewhere else. Unwinding himself like a thread being pulled from its spool.
The only answer was to keep moving.
"I can tell you ain't laughed in a while-- but I wanna see that crooked smile."
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OOC: For those unfamiliar with what Juju's doing, he's C-walking, the most basic steps of which look a little like this.
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Posted: Sat Nov 26, 2016 11:50 pm
It was another slow night on the job, for Zach, at least. It seemed that the rest of the precinct was still under the impression that Zach 'needed time to recover' after the incident with Lex. At the moment he was flying solo with no partner in her absence, and so they kept giving him the dull jobs, sitting around in the middle of the night in quiet neighborhoods just in case something happened. So that left one antsy taser angrily chewing on a cheap dollar burger in his squad car and playing games on his phone to try and distract himself. He hated being treated like he was somehow a less capable officer without Lex around, as if he was the one who'd been put in a wheelchair. They kept passing him off onto these low-rate jobs, in the late hours in the quiet seldom-traveled neighborhoods, answering paranoid old ladies about loose dogs and sitting on his a** listening to the radar call all units but him. He wanted to be working under the detectives still tailing the suspect who'd put his partner in the hospital in the first place. He deserved to help take that ******** down, didn't he? Hadn't he put in his time and work into the investigation? Did he not deserve to see it through? But there was no point in bitching about it. Real life wasn't like some television drama where the loose cannon cop slams his badge on the desk and says he'll leave the force if he's not on this case, because he needs it, and the chief sighs and reluctantly gives in because dammit, he's the best they've got. No, in the real world the chief would be more than happy to let the loose cannon go so that he'd stop snooping and pushing about all the bribes the old man takes, and quit pissing off the wealthy elite and the well-connected slumlords they were quietly working with. And Zach needed his job, and his measly paycheck, and he needed to keep trying to root out the bad apples inside the system. So he stepped down, let the other officers go on the chase and leave him behind, like the runt of the litter. He grumbled to himself, clicking off the angry birds game on his phone and pulling up his email instead, flicking his eyes over the links and clicking the syllabus for his class. He might as well get some studying done, if he was just going to sit around in the squad car all night. He still hadn't let the chief in on the fact that he was studying criminal justice on the side to try and become a full-fledged investigator. He wasn't going to let anyone in on it until he'd graduated and he submitted the application. He new that otherwise the chief would sabotage him left and right. Last thing that guy wanted was a Murphy with even more access to records. He quietly passed the time trying his damndest to focus on his online textbook, but the writers didn't exactly make it easy. The thing read like a radio instruction manual, and Zach had to read each passage multiple times to retain even some of the information. It was grueling, and his short attention span for boring things was part of the reason that he was barely passing as it were.
His mind kept wandering to other things, other places and people. Bia was probably studying too, in the library at her university (Zach could only take the online courses). The fairy was always eager to help him out with his textwork when they were together, but usually they both wound up pretty... distracted. Although lately, she'd had less and less time to visit with him. School was keeping her busy, plus her internship in the government office. And Zachs shifts had been shuffled around again, thanks to Lex. Of course, Zach knew what it really meant. In the beginning, Bia would have found any excuse to come over and lay with him, no matter what was going on with either of them. But he pushed that concern to the back of his mind for now. It was only a matter of time, so there was no point dwelling on it. He finished off the last bite of his burger, quietly proud of himself for keeping mustard off of his lapel this time. Those alchemist concoctions to get stains like that out were all kinds of stupid expensive, but everyone knew only magic worked on mustard stains. He frowned at a grease smudge on his screen, pinching a bit of his undershirt to swipe at it when the radio blared to life again, this time calling Zachs number for once. The taser rolled his eyes, taking his sweet time cleaning his phone screen before tucking the device between his thighs in the seat and picking up the radio to respond, barking code back and fourth with dispatch. After a brief exchange, Zach hung the radio up, turning the key in his squad cars ignition to bring the machine humming to life, flicking on the headlights and slowly pulling out of the dingy alley where he'd been parked. It was just another domestic disturbance, some weirdo out on a roof, who knew what for. Likely it was just some drunk squatter who'd gotten too rowdy, but it might have been some teenager getting their kicks, or a stalker or a pervert. Zach just hoped it wasn't another jumper. He wasn't sure if he had the stomach for that s**t tonight. He rolled along the quiet back streets, occasionally glancing out of the windows to peer into the dark corners of the alleys as he passed them. Sometimes you could make out quick little shadows moving. Sometimes it was just rats and raccoons, but sometimes it was a more desperate sort of creature. Bianca was an abolitionist. She said that treating people like animals turned them into them. Zach didn't necessarily agree with her views, but watching some of the slummers often made him think of her words. People were terrified. They knew how easy it would be for some of them to simply disappear, like so many did. Pushed into the illegal trading rings never to be seen again. And part of him knew that the legal slave trade was part of what made the illegal trade so easy. Some gangs even had forgers, fake chips, the whole nine yards, but most didn't bother with it. By the time they'd used the men and women they kidnapped for their purposes, they were quietly disposed of. People living on the streets were particularly susceptible to the industry, but most had only illegal means of sustaining themselves, so they wouldn't exactly go running to the cops for help even when they needed it. Seeing another fluttering shadow dart by as he drove, he quietly wondered if it was really possible for him to do any good for people like these, if they feared people like him so much. Was there any hope at all? He shook his head, looking away from the shadows and towards the street signs instead. He hated getting pensive on nights like these; his thoughts always went dark and hopeless. Again, he hoped that he wasn't about to have to deal with a jumper. He'd never put his top lights on (it wasn't an emergency, after all, and he was in no rush) so he nonchalantly pulled up into an alley alongside the building number dispatch had specified, quietly clicking the car engine off and stepping out, squinting up towards the top of the building. Four stories wasn't too much, so if it was a jumper, it was a drunk one, a stupid one, or both. He as hoping it was just a rowdy hobo.
He rubbed the back of his neck, scowling at the fire escape next to him, ladder already down and waiting. He wasn't exactly in the mood to climb up four flights either, but such is the life of the working man. So with a sigh he rolled his shoulders as he walked over, put his hands on the cold metal, and started hauling himself up. Despite his groaning about it Zach was in terribly good shape, even for an officer. He always wanted to keep himself in good form so that they'd keep putting him on the more high-action cases. Of course part of him sometimes wondered if maybe the chief kept putting him on the dangerous assignments because he hoped he'd off himself on one of them. Well, the joke was on him either way, because Zach was stubborn as hell. It would take nothing less than a meteor strike to kill him. So he made his way up the fire escape with relative ease, but moving at a leisurely pace, not bothering to try and mask the sound of loudly creaking metal under the weight of each step he took. He was hoping that whoever it was up there would hear him coming and hopefully be less startled by his appearance. He didn't want any accidental jumpers either. So he finally hauled himself up to the top, but what he saw when he poked his head over the top of the landing startled him. It was not a rowdy old hobo.
The color was what caught him first. Long cascades of bright blue, twirling and unfurling, almost like water in the air. The second thing was the way the stranger was moving. It wasn't a drunken stagger or a thoughtless meandering - they were dancing. It was something unusual, to be certain, but something about the scene was oddly.... Zach hesitated to use the word magical, but.... entrancing. There was an odd feeling in his stomach, watching the figure move. As if he were expecting something to happen, or as if this odd moment was supposed to be relevant, somehow. Important, but he couldn't put his finger on why. It was one of those strange times where his instincts were shouting something at him, but he couldn't make out what they meant. Whoever they were, they were wearing headphones, so it was likely that they hadn't heard his loud approach up the fire escape. And although the blue dancer didn't seem to be straying too close to the edge, he didn't want to push his luck. The dance wasn't exactly an elegant one, not like you'd expect of some nymphish being dancing alone in the moonlight. But then, you didn't really encounter things like that in Saxon, so the mage was at a bit of a loss as to how to proceed. And even still, the way the stranger moved was fluid and lithe, like it all came so easily to him. He caught a glimpse of his face as he moved, a masculine jawline even with somewhat pretty features. Zach had frozen on the spot, not yet stepping up onto the rooftop itself, as if he were trying not to startle a deer he'd come unexpectedly close to. But slowly, then, he moved again, stepping up and standing straight to keep watching the stranger, who seemed completely lost in the music. Granted, he'd certainly notice the cop any moment now. He cocked his head slightly, watching the strangers easy footwork across the stone, mildly impressed by how he managed not to make a single misstep. Moshing was about the closest thing to dancing the taser could manage, and even then people got hurt. But even ignoring the languid way he moved, something about catching a person who was unaware of your presence in the middle of dancing seemed... intimate. It was something somehow incredibly private, and Zach felt like he shouldn't be seeing it. But, sentimental though he was, he had also been sent to get the guy off the roof. He reached into his jacket pocket, withdrawing a case of cigarettes and withdrawing one, quietly tucking it back, and then reaching into his back pocket for a lighter. He flicked the flame on in front of his face, not trying to cup it from the wind. Hopefully the bright flame would quietly catch the strange dancers attention without startling him too badly. He lit up, taking a few puffs and exhaling the smoke through his nose. He hadn't looked away from the dancer once since he saw him, and when the stranger finally seemed to take notice of him, he grinned, holding up a hand and waving. No use saying hello as long as the guy had his headphones on.
[[ooc; not exactly a masterpiece, but hey]]
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Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2016 7:18 am
▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃
▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆BABY IF THE COPS COME CALLIN I'LL NEVER TALK▆▆
Of course he didn't hear anyone approaching, because he had the headphones on. He was up four stories in the mid-
dle of the night, with a clear view across the roof to each fire escape, and he'd been trying to work out his anxieties.
Which meant immersing himself wholly in something else, distracting himself instead of focusing in on the never-end-
ing loop of unanswerable questions that spooled out in his head. On good nights, he could avoid any painful flashes
of memory, any sensory hallucinations. On good nights, he eventually got tired and trudged home, let himself in as
quietly as he could so that he didn't wake Krish, and collapsed into exhausted, unbroken sleep on the couch. And he'd
been thinking that maybe, if he kept moving for long enough, he could make the silk purse out of the sow's ear and
just escape the riot inside his own head for a little while. He'd been thinking that he had to start living his life like he
wasn't in prison anymore, and that meant dropping some of his paranoid bullshit every now and again, because maybe
if he just let himself be-- like that was easy, like that was something he should just be able to do-- then he'd go back
to being what he'd been before. Shut all of it out. Forget it. Pave over it. Be better, feel better, do better. God, just <******** grow up, Jules. Anybody else would be able to handle it, so just let it go and learn to function. Stop clinging,
stop crying over it, stop wondering, because you're never going to know, or because you already know, even if you
won't accept it. Don't you understand how much worse it could be? Don't you get that, you stupid little ******** the one that was tryna keep me way down--"
Don't think about it, don't think about it, don't think about it.
"Like the sun, know you know I'll find my way back 'round."
His legs crossed, left behind right, before his weight settled on that left heel and the other popped upward again, his
leg tilting as though he meant to sit down at a table somewhere and have a riveting conversation. But the hand not hol-
ding the headphones dropped low to cup the bottom of his sneaker, and a second later it looked like he'd somehow
jumproped over his own leg, landing on the ball of his left foot. The right came down like a punctuation mark, heel
again, before he rocked forward, executing a curve of legs and ankles that spun him in the opposite direction, hair a
paintbrush stroke against the lights of the taller buildings.
"Crooked smile, we could style on 'em--"
He was faster, Before. Moved with a sharper precision then, all the years of crisp ballroom box steps still fresh in his
mind. All the upper-crust accent intoning, Head up, square shoulders, spine straight. Remember to angle your elbow.
Remember to maintain an even distance from your partner. And-- one, two, three, one, two, three--, very much a solid
memory. Not anymore. Other things were taking up more space inside his head nowadays.
Dancing helped. Music helped. Movement helped. No doubt the endorphins had something to do with it, and he'd wel-
comed them in a last several weeks, as he'd adjusted to having the room and freedom to go where he wanted. He wal-
ked almost everywhere, jogged some of the time, had even started back in on the yoga he'd been working on a year
prior, carefully putting himself through each form. He was eating regularly, because even when he felt too depressed
to consume anything, Krish was there making sure he didn't starve himself away to nothing. From the outside, he
looked fine, he looked healthy. He moved on that rooftop with an ease and confidence that he felt in no other area of
his life, stepping and turning with casual coordination, like anyone should be able to do what he was doing. And it was-
n't work. Didn't have any of the false flirtation or sensuality that his stage appearances necessitated. He didn't need to
wear any expression but the one that came more naturally-- brows creased together just the slightest bit, even though
he wasn't actively focusing. Lips moving fractionally, breathing the words in and out without putting any sound behind
them. There wasn't anything enticing about it. Nothing sexy, or even particularly remarkable. He was only, in those
moments, being Julian, as close to how he'd been Before as he could get.
"If you was around, then you wouldn't needa witness, now-- So, how you like this crooked smile?"
And all of it came to an abrupt halt as soon as he realized he wasn't alone.
The presence of another person hadn't been something the azurette noticed until that little flick of flame came to life in
his peripheral vision, followed almost immediately by the acrid scent of smoke. One of his least favorite smells in the
world, bittersweet ever since Leigha. Plenty of people smoked, but he'd never been able to shake the urge to look around
for her when that scent was in the air. A decade later, standing on a rooftop, looking directly at the cause, it was still a
tiny detail that made the inkwell feel lost and a little inadequate. Of course, that was far from the only reason he had to
be uneasy. Who knew that the police in Saxon City actually did anything? But even in the dim glow of the cigarette's em-
ber, and the shitty arc sodium lamp on the rooftop, the uniform was hard to mistake. With the haircut and the jackal
grin-- ********, it was unsettling that the guy's face was so sharp like that, all extreme angles -- he looked more like some
street punk than an actual officer of the law, but then, in a place like Saxon the two weren't always mutually exclusive.
The wave didn't do much to allay his worries, either. Plenty of people were all hail-fellow-well-met until they were close
enough to do real damage. Julian knew that from in prison and out of it. But he couldn't exactly run right off the roof--
not without taking a really long plunge. Even if he went for the other fire escape, that'd be suspicious as hell, and he
was really hoping Pritchard didn't absolutely have to get wind of this.
Sighing, the mage brought one of his hands up, running it through his hair and shoving the headphones back at the
same time. The tinny, faraway sounds of another song starting to play still filtered out of them until he turned it off,
dropping into the white noise of the city at night. Wind, up here, and down below the muted traffic, sparse at this hour.
He hadn't been asked to show ID, but then, maybe he had been and just hadn't heard it. Still, the cop didn't look pis-
sed off, didn't have any of the telltale markers that he felt like his authority wasn't being respected. So maybe there
was still time to turn it around.
Act natural.
Sure.
".. So, is this an elaborate mugging, or did somebody actually report me for standing on a roof?"
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OOC: Congratulations, Zach, you've managed to remind Julian of two people he has incredibly conflicting feelings for before you've even open-
ed your mouth. Also, pffft. Everything you write is a masterpiece, bby.
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Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2016 12:25 pm
It seemed like a scene out of a movie. Maybe that was why it seemed to surreal to him, the stranger dancing in front of him to music he couldn't hear, the cool wind over the isolated rooftops, the dingy night sky stretching out over them, stars obscured by smog and city lights. The trick was just figuring out what kind of film he stepped into. Maybe one of those artsy kind of movies Zach never really liked, where all the dialogue was cryptic, and you never really fully understood the plot, if there was one. Or maybe it was just an eerie opening scene of some action mystery flick. The stranger would take off his headphones and smile, say something cryptic, some clue to a bigger puzzle, and vanish in a flash. At least, if the was the route, he hoped he vanished in a flash, and not off the edge. Movies like that always went somewhere reaaaally dark, and Zach got enough of that s**t on the job. For the moment, he did what he did best, and existed in the moment as it unfolded, watching the graceful stranger making his lithe movements across the roof. And the world almost seemed to go in slow motion when he finally caught sight of him. Zach couldn't quite place the look in the strangers eyes. Of course it was likely mostly anxiety. People in Saxon very seldom wanted to deal with the police if they could help it, especially not if they weren't the ones who'd called them. The precinct had a nasty reputation, not only for turning a blind eye to certain people and crimes, but also for rather sinister threats and extortion upon the common populace. Officers regularly abused their power to harass, belittle, and blackmail the citizens they encountered. Not all of them did, of course. There were those like Zach and Lex, like his father had been before he retired, who really were trying, but there's no way the rooftop dancer could know what hand he'd been dealt. And really, maybe it was just as well. Shitty as it was, a healthy fear of unpredictable law enforcers provided a thin veil of safety from the loonier side of the city, those desperate shadows slinking around in the slums, doing their best to go unnoticed. The more willowy man in front of him didn't exactly look like a public menace. He had a graceful figure (although maybe Zach felt that way because of the dancing), just a touch shorter than himself by the look of it, and no immediately noticeable tattoos or scars. He didn't square his shoulders or sneer or snarl at him either, which was always a plus. Most importantly, he just wasn't getting any alarm bells in his head. Zach was no lycan or metamorphose, but he'd learned a long time ago to trust his instincts. Any time he'd doubted them in the past, he wound up paying for it. Like that one time with that little old lady in her apartment that reeked of cat piss. He'd thought to himself that he must be feeling anxious about something else, there's no way the little old lady is a problem, but he felt pretty differently when she stabbed him in the shoulder with a fountain pen after he found her stash by mistake. But unlike little Mrs.Iskiwitz, the dancer in front of him didn't have him feeling on edge. If anything, the noise in his head and his guts, usually so raucous, was oddly quiet. Maybe it was just the calm night air.
He waited patiently as the dancer came to a stop to pull off his headphones, waiting until he'd clicked the music to a stop and he spoke up before taking any other steps.
".. So, is this an elaborate mugging, or did somebody actually report me for standing on a roof?" Zach put his hands in his pockets, chuckling as he took another drag from the cigarette clenched between his teeth.
"Unfortunately, someone did actually report you for standing on the roof. But hey, if those were your two options, maybe it's the luckier one." He might have been in his officers uniform, doing the job of an officer, but Zach seldom put on his 'Officer Murphy' voice when he was working, choosing instead to save it for the times when things really were serious. There was no point bringing out the Officer tone for routine traffic stops, minor mischief, catching taggers and the like. The other officers had given that voice its name, because for years 'Officer Murphy' didn't mean Zach, it meant his father. Zach had long been delegated as 'Little Murphy', and had more often been called by various such nicknames, Zapp, Taser, and the like. So when he put on his serious tone, his fellow officers joked that he 'sounded like Officer Murphy.' Even now that he was back to being the only Murphy in the precinct, it had become somewhat of an in-joke. Officer Murphy wasn't Zach, it was Zach using his fathers voice, one that everyone agreed didn't really suit him, but it got the job done. The voice wasn't for times like these. Times like these Zach really was just some street punk who just happened to wear a badge. He reached into his jacket, withdrawing his wallet and flicking it open, turning it to let the stranger see that yes, he really was a police officer and not just some loon in a uniform. Well, maybe it didn't actually alleviate the fear that he was just a loon in a uniform, but he could see that he was legitimate, at least. And he hadn't bolted or fluffed himself up, so Zach wanted to keep this encounter as simple and easy as possible, so he kept speaking casually. "Officer Murphy, SCPD. I'm not here to book ya er nothin', so you can relax. Just have to go through the steps and then we can both get off the roof so the geezers across the way don't worry they're lookin' at another jumper." After he was sure the dancer had gotten a good look, he folded it up and tucked it in his jacket again. The forearms of that damn jacket still had scorch marks, bits of fabric blackened on the cuffs of the sleeves and long black skids leading from wrists to elbows. Here and there, if someone looked closely, one could see small black scorches here and there along the shoulder and collar as well. He always tended to smell like something burnt, particularly whenever he was in his uniform.
He hadn't moved from his place near the edge by the fire escape, because the dancer struck him as somehow skittish. Maybe he was just being a little over cautious, but he didn't want to startle a deer off of a roof. But who knows? Maybe he'd be all wrong about everything, the dude would judo-slam him into next sunday, bolt off down the fire escape and that would be the end of it. It wouldn't be the first time Zach had been caught off guard for being wrong.
"All right, now I've showed you mine, so you show me yours. Just need to run your ID right quick, check to make sure you haven't got any outstanding warrants, and then you'll be free to go dance your heart out somewhere else. Preferably not another roof. Or, you know, if roofs are your thing, maybe try over near the warehouse district. Not as tall, but there's no old biddies over there to call the cops on ya." But he still didn't approach the azurette, instead taking the cigarette from his lips and exhaling to one side, putting his other hand back in his pocket and watching him, waiting for the other man to approach him.
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Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2016 3:16 pm
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▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆BABY IF THE COPS COME CALLIN I'LL NEVER TALK▆▆
If he'd been loose and relaxed while he danced, every bit of it was gone the second he glanced over and saw someone standing there, watching him. Even before he registered that he was dealing with a cop-- or someone wearing the uniform, anyway-- the tension had already crept back into his shoulders and spine, because being observed like that, letting his guard down enough for someone to get that close.. Someone he didn't know. A stranger. How long had the guy been there, peering at him like that? Julian couldn't say. And maybe it was stupid, feeling like he'd had a private moment intruded on. The roof wasn't his. He didn't own it. Didn't even live in the building. More than that, it wasn't like he'd never danced in front of other people. In classes when he'd been younger, and parties he'd been to during college. With Sara, who'd been so surprised that some blue-haired moron would pull her into a waltz right there on the platform while they waited for the train. And, of course, he'd danced more than once now on stage at Narcissus, wearing more and less all at the same time, unashamed because nobody watching was seeing him. They saw the shifted pigments and the temporary body modifications and the costume, the hair lightened so a seafoam color and falling in artful waves around his painted face, the quick smile and the sensuous movement. An illusion. But this was something else. It had been his moment, up against that sooty sky, still crowded by the taller buildings, but better, freer, than being on the ground. And then his moment had passed. It was over.
At least it didn't look like he was about to be robbed. For all that the guy didn't look like an officer, he also didn't appear to be playing any of the intimidation games Julian had become so used to. He wasn't crowding into the azurette's space, choosing instead to keep the distance between them-- something that the inkwell felt grateful for, because it allowed him to edge closer at his own slow pace when the cop produced his badge and ID for inspection. And the tone of his voice was completely casual in a way that Julian couldn't remember any other uniform being. Of course, there was a difference between correctional officers and beat cops, but his experience of both groups had always included sharp, barked orders or tense silence as he tried to comply with whatever those orders had been. If he hadn't been looking at proof that the guy was on the force, the mage would have pegged him for some NEET wandering around at night. Probably because Julian himself had been labeled that way in the past, by less benign rooftop wanderers. After all, they each looked like a completely different kind of street punk.
..if those were your two options, maybe it's the luckier one.
Well, he had been trying to look for a shiny lining around all the clouds over his head, but even Julian couldn't quite stifle the sound of amused disbelief that caught in his throat when he heard that. Luckier than a mugging? Probably. Unless the cop changed his mind and decided on search-and-seizure, which amounted to the same, except it was legal and sanctioned by the city. But really, it was just the entire concept of things not going wrong that caused the first little catch of laughter to stick in his throat, like he wasn't quite sure how to manage the rest.
"'Luckier' usually doesn't apply too well to me, so if I look tense, that's less a judgment on you and more my own personal weather forecast, where it's always raining shoes."
Waiting for them to drop, he meant. Shoes. But he said it like it was just supposed to be completely obvious, like the guy should be able to connect one turn of phrase to another and Lego-blocks that s**t into something that made sense. All the same, there was a visible change in his expression-- a slight relaxation between his brows and at the line of his mouth-- at the words I'm not here to book you. That much was plainly a relief. After all, he'd technically been trespassing, albeit harmlessly, and he doubted if being processed would go over well with the copper-haired caim who served as his parole officer. The woman was sharp enough in their weekly meetings to make Julian dread seeing her, already braced on Monday for the way she'd be cutting him down on Friday. It wouldn't-- couldn't, could it?-- be enough for her to advise a return to the system, but she'd already told him situations like this would run across her desk, even if he wasn't arrested. You so much as get stopped for speeding, I'll know. Any officer runs your ID, they're going to find your parole status.
Not like it was a secret, of course.
"Sorry for the paranoia. It's been a long year.."
And you don't look anything like an authority figure.
But that probably wasn't the kind of thing he should say right before he was asked to identify himself.
He'd been maintaining a good fifteen feet of distance before, which just felt good and prudent. Julian didn't like being in strangers' personal space unless he had to be, and this one, no matter how cavalier he was behaving, was still a cop. But having been asked to show his own identification, he couldn't very well toss his wallet toward the fire escape. So the azurette came forward, hands still visible, slightly out to the sides of his body so that his palms were completely clear, fingers in a relaxed splay. It was a slow approach, one that made it obvious he was aware how things could go if he moved too quickly or seemed like he might be hiding a weapon on him. It might have also suggested that Murphy wasn't the first officer he'd had to deal with in his life. Or maybe the guy would just think he liked to watch a lot of procedural crime dramas.
"Wallet's in the inner pocket of my jacket."
Translation: I'm just reaching for what you asked me to get. Although, even with the preamble, he moved carefully, holding one side of the puffed up coat open to give a clear view of its lining while his other hand slipped into the pocket to tug his wallet clear. Unfolded the simple black nylon material to fish out the plastic rectangle that was supposed to sum up all his life information. Julian pocketed the wallet again, but the ID he held out to Murphy, pinned between his first two fingers. It was, at least, current. He'd had to update the address as soon as he was released, and they'd taken a new picture of him at the same time. The name was what usually gave people pause, though-- at least the few who'd seen his birth name written out in English letters, in English order.
An Zhu-Li St. Jude.
First, middle, last. As opposed to the way his mother had always spoken it into his head, with the middle name preceding the first, the way they did things in her family. Zhu-Li An. Anglicized by his half-brother, Ben, until it didn't make people ask why his name was so different from the rest of his family. As a child, the metal mage had overridden his introductions-- This is Julian-- until the azurette learned to do it himself, learned to just accept that it was what other people felt more comfortable calling him. But they'd never legally changed it. It was still there on the plastic, next to the picture of his face.
The advise about where to go if he wanted a different roof caught him off guard, another thing that was distinctly un-cop-like. Like the guy was trying to encourage him to break the rules he was presently there to enforce. Or maybe just bend them a little. Seriously?
"Yeah, but see, on that side of town I'm not going to have to worry about elaborate muggings. I'd be too busy with the regular kind. But, less chance of anybody thinking I'm a jumper if I'm too busy falling through a badly maintained roof ."
Levity. There was even something like a smile-- just a quirk at the corner of his mouth, like the humor got caught there somehow. It felt strange, but it was there. While he joked about falling to his death inside an abandoned building somewhere.
Sure, he was well adjusted.
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OOC: Sorry for how tiny and s**t this is. D: I had to peck it out on my phone.
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