ArchivedLogs:Blubbering

Blubbering
Dramatis Personae Alicia, Ash, Selene
In Absentia	2013-12-28 Ahhh. Puberty.
Location <NYC> Brooklyn
The most populous of the boroughs, Brooklyn has nothing if not character. With a thriving music and arts scene, and a distinctive New York slant to its stereotypical gritty accents, Brooklyn ranges from the high-cultured to the very much working class. From botanical gardens to beachfronts, Manhattanites might like to think their borough is the only one that matters, but Brooklyn has a lot to offer of its own. Alicia walks down the street, but doesn't seem to be taking in much of the world around her. Her face is tear-streaked and puffy, her white-blonde hair seemingly blown behind her, whipping a bit in the wind. Except...there is no wind. It's a still, calm day, but she looks as if she's walking through a thunderstorm, leaning forward. Bit of debris even occasionally pelt her, blown leaves or stray fast food wrappers snatched from trash cans. A limb cracks on a small tree as she passes and falls to the ground in her wake. "Stupid...stupid...useless..." she mutters to herself. Ash is coming from the opposite direction, humming quietly to himself as he walks, wearing mostly all brown. His coat is brown and well insulated, but open as the day's weather has not really warranted wearing it. His tee shirt is white, while his jeans were once blue, but are now stained brown with dirt. His tan boots are the hefty and sturdy, steel toed and reinforced. He carries a tool belt instead of wearing it, looped over his shoulder and held in place with one hand. He walks, mostly enjoying himself and the warmish evening air when his eyes fall on Alicia and her own wind effect, his head tilting to one side. Alicia pauses for a moment, lifting up her oversized calfskin purse, fumbling around through the contents as if looking for something, biting her bottom lip in frustration, "Dammit...dammit..." she mutters to herself and then blows out a breath, the bag falling again to hang against her hip. "Doesn't matter..." she sighs and then she sees the bridge ahead and just stares at it for a long moment, as if she just thought of something. A tarp over the front of a nearby storefront tears off and flies up into the air behind her, the girl apparently oblivious as only a bare wire frame is left behind, torn shreds of fabric dangling... "Oh. Hey. Whoa there," Ash speaks up, his brow crinkled with concern, one brow up, the other down and squinty over one eye. "I know they're talking about repealing the act of ticketing mutant acts, but I am not sure it went through yet, so you should probably.... calm down." Ash draws up closer, wetting his lips as he looks the girl over. "Hey, come on, everything's going to be okay... just stop with the throwing things around." Alicia blinks as the stranger starts talking to her, and shakes her head, "I'm not...I'm not doing it. That's what I keep telling them, but no one listens. I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's a ghost...or...or...or a demon or some...invisible...thing that just...follows me around! But I don't want any of this to happen! But I always take the blame, don't I?!? I just have to..."grow a spine" and stop being a baby...just because everyone...everyone thinks I...I..." It's not just the incident she just had, but years and years of this same problem, only getting worse over time as her powers have grown stronger. "Just...it's okay...I'm...I'm not going to be hurting anybody...anymore..." she mutters, beginning to continue walking. "Hey, Kid. You have your own personal wind tunnel. Now I've seen some crazy shit, but demons or spirits haunting you?" Ash raises an eyebrow, this time incredulous. "It's more likely you being upset. So hey, why don't you take a deep breath, slow down, and take another deep breath, okay? I really don't want you to get in trouble." He takes a deep breath as well and gives her a nice, encouraging smile. "You can do it, you know. Just ... deep breath." Alicia bites her bottom lip, looking at Ash shakily. "It doesn't only happen when I get upset, it's just that it gets...worse...I think it likes it when I'm upset...that's why it always ruins things," she murmurs. She sits down, right there on the pavement, her oversized coat several sizes too big for her thin frame. She opens up her purse and finally finds the tissues she was looking for, pulling out a crumpled handful and pressing them to her nose. "I..I tried to tell the...the bat...man, but he just kept...yelling at me...and calling me names...". "It?" Ash takes another deep breath, his smile turning a little plastic as he tries to keep it on his face. "Well, okay. Here's the thing. Calming down and focusing on something else will help you not be upset, therefore make it less bad, right? So deep breaths, it'll be okay when you settle down a bit." He kneels down beside her, one elbow resting on his raised knee. "You met Batman? The Batman?" Alicia blinks for a moment at the question, trying to do as the grown-up asks her, because that's what you're supposed to do, even if she doesn't feel like it and she wants to scream and scream. But she's tired, too, tired of being angry and so she lets it out a bit, the tears starting to slow. Her hair settles back down to her shoulders from its static standing, the vibrations in the air seeming to calm a bit, "The...? No...no, it was just some...some jerk with big...big bat wings. I told him...that I liked chocolate and then the mugs broke and he told me it was my fault and I paid for it, but then...then other things...broke and he and the...the other guy told me to leave, that I was ruining e-e-e-e-everythinggggggg!" she says, and then the crying starts again, the girl pressing her face down into the sodden tissues. "Oh, honey, hey. You're not ruining everything. It's kind of impossible for a kid your size to ruin absolutely everything. There's a whole hell of a lot of world to ruin." Ash reaches out a free hand to gently touch her shoulder, then pats the top of her head once. "I am sorry that you had a rough time with that guy, but he was probably just upset and there's not a whole lot we can do about the past, now is there? How about we focus on staying calm and maybe I'll buy you a hot chocolate from a street vendor. I mean, if you really wanted, we could go to Starbucks, but that's a bit of a hike from here." Walking down the street in her black peacoat and trousers, with furry boots, is Selene, who observes the mess in the path. Following it in curiosity, she grins when she recognizes Alicia. Scanning the mind of both her and the man with her, she approaches, a worried-looking face on her. "Oh, Madame Coventry, are you alright?" Turning her head away back to the mess, Selene's face gets a short, devious grin, before turning back, readopting her worried face. "Does your grandmother know where you are? Do you need help getting home?" She places her hand in her black hair, twisting it, biting her lip. "What happened?" Alicia tries to smile weakly at Ash, at least appreciating that the man's being nice to her, "No...no, that's okay, I...I...I'm really not in the mood anymore. But thank you..." she says. She's struggling to get to her feet when Selene arrives, making the pale girl blush pink as the sophisticated lady comes across her in this state, hair askew, face smeared with tears, "Ohhhhhhh! Oh! I...I'm sorry, ma'am...I...Grandmother..." Oh, lord, Grandmother. How is she going to explain all the charges on her credit card to Grandmother. I had to pay it, Grandma, the demon broke all those mugs and ruined the flooring. Crap on a cracker. "I just...I had a little problem with some...some people earlier, but...this nice man...I'm sorry, I don't know your name...was just...helping me...I'm okay. I'm okay." she says, as if seeing the other woman reminds her that she's a mess and she'd better straighten up. Much like she reacts to her Grandmother, actually. As Alicia gets to her feet, Ash straightens and stands, still smiling, but looking Selene over quietly as he does. His thoughts are mostly on getting Alicia to stay calm and stop broadcasting to the entire street that she's a mutant and getting arrest and carted off to jail if not horribly beaten and or killed by the unfriendly population. He has no idea how to help the girl understand the difference between this made up idea of a demon because demons don't actually exist, unless of course that the demon is another mutant that is tormenting her for hir own amusement or well, there's this grandmother figure now and the way the girl is sort of stiff at the mention of her. Maybe the grandmother is senile and the girl is getting some sort of astral project from Grandmother of her insane side while the woman manages to be a strict authority figure on the outside. that'd be weird, but not the weirdest thing he's seen when it comes to mutants. But really, paranormal stuff doesn't really make sense to Ash as mutations explain things much easier. "It's okay, ma'am. I can pay for her cab home, just as soon as she's calm and peaceful enough to take it, you know. Can't just stuff a kid in a car and hope that home will fix all her woes, what with how devastated she seems before." Whilst she doesn't show it facially, Selene is quite enjoying Ash's inner thoughts. Her face, instead, maintains the worriedness, as she smiles lightly towards Alicia. "No, no need. Allow me to pay.". Selene's reaches into her pocket, pulling out a 100$ bill. Keeps up the kindly image, at least. "This should be enough for a ride home, or anything else.". Selene grins, nodding towards ash. "So I take it, her powers acted up again? I hope no one was hurt?" Alicia sighs. Ah, yes, it's the familiar refrain. Whatever shall we do about Alicia? A dance adults have doing around her for years now, "I don't have any powers," she mutters, "If I had powers, I could, like, use them. See?" she says. She points at a nearby carton of Chinese food, spilled from one of the garbage containers and now falling in the gutter. It sits there. "Nothing. Move. MOVE!" she says, furrowing her brow and then sighs, "See? No powers." She slumps a bit, the familiar refrain of adult supervision at least getting her over the worst of her self-hatred for the moment. "Nobody got hurt. Unless you count me, which, of course, nobody ever does..." she mutters, stuffing her hands in the pockets of her jacket, "I can get home fine, don't worry about it...I can use the subway without killing anybody, promise..." she says. Ah, sullenness, the first line of teenage defense. "Hey, hey, hey, don't talk like that. People aren't discounting you. I'm not anyway, and this lady wants to give a hundred dollars to you. That's not something people do when they don't care about the person. Hell, we're in New York... well, area, anyway, and most people wouldn't give each other the time of day if they could help it. They sort of drift through life hard core ignoring everyone around them." OH, maybe he's not doing so good a job convincing this kid that people in their region care. He's trying, but describing the mostly disinterested New Yorker isn't really going to help much. "But this lady, she stopped, so she can't possibly be not counting you. So. There are two people at least that consider you a person." He smiles and looks up at Selene before looking over at Alicia. "You really okay taking the subway?" Selene hands the 100$ bill towards Alicia, smiling. "Here, take it. Even if you're taking the subway.". Whether Alicia takes the money or not, Selene turns back on the path. "Well, it was nice seeing you again, Madame Coventry. Sir.". Waving towards them, she walks off, her devious grin coming back as she walks off. Alicia realizes she's being rude to Ash, who, after all, was being nice to her and straightens up a little bit, trying to manage a smile. She still feels a bit bruised, but she's starting to pull herself together, "Well, she...I've met her before, so...I guess that's why she stopped. Thank you," she says, but Selene has already departed. Her brow furrows for a moment. Rich people. She supposes she's sort of one of them, but she never thinks of herself that way. It's Grandmother's money, not hers. With the way the poltergeist has been acting up, though, "I...actually, a car would probably be better, I guess. Not as many...problems." "Yeah, Car would be best. Let me call one for you?" Ash starts pulling his cell phone out of his pocket, looking through the list of contacts until he finds his favorite cab company for Brooklyn and gets ready to dial. "Oh. We'll probably need an address. Hmmmm. What does that street sign say?" He points to the one at the corner, obscured from sight just then. Alicia peers up at the sign and reads the name of the street off, and realizes she doesn't actually really know where she is, "I live in the East Village..." she says, at least wary enough to not just give her address out to a stranger she just met. She may be a naive country girl, but she's not quite -that- naive. "Thank you for...for stopping. I'm sorry I made such a fuss," she says, now rather embarrassed by her outburst, "I just...I guess I'd hoped I'd left all this craziness behind me...but I've got to accept that it's never going away," she sighs. "Okay, East Village. You can narrow things down a little when you get closer." Ash gives a little smile and calls up the cab company relaying everything about their current location to the operator on the phone. When the cab is on the way, he hangs up and smiles at Alicia. "So you have enough cash to cover it and maybe some the mug price too. It'll be good. Don't worry about the fuss. Everyone goes through some of this during their lives. It's called... puberty." Alicia manages a small laugh and nods, "I think I'd preferred pimples," she says, brushing a white-blonde lock of hair from her face, "Thanks for helping me, Mr...gosh, I still didn't get your name...or maybe I did and just wasn't listening. I'm Alicia Coventry," she smiles, extending a hand for shaking and, once she gets the man's name in return, she'll wait quietly for the car... "Well, pimples seem to draw less attention," Ash admits, smiling a little easier. He reaches out a hand and takes hers. "Nice to meet you, Miss Coventry. I'm Jorge. Did you want me to wait with you? I mean, it's Brooklyn, but things haven't exactly safe as houses lately." He runs his fingers through his hair and looks over toward the set of headlights pulling up. "Well, I guess that takes care of that. Have a good night."