ArchivedLogs:Bending Towards Justice

Bending Towards Justice
Dramatis Personae Iolaus, Anole	2013-02-02 '
Location <NYC> Central Park South
Central Park South is home not just to the park itself, but also to the Belvedere Castle, the Alice in Wonderland statues, and the Central Park Zoo. These areas tend to draw tourists like a magnet - it is, perhaps, for that very reason that places like Bethesda Terrace tend to attract more New Yorkers than not, if just to escape the press of tourism that infiltrates the whole city. It's sunny, but it's cold, and the harsh chill drives many people indoors. Central park is never deserted, but it's sparser populated today. Some dedicated joggers out by the reservoir, some dedicated tourists snapping photographs. Anole is well bundled, just one of so many shabbily-layered vagrants tucked onto benches. There's not much of him to be seen in his hoods and caps and gloves where he sits crouched by a path, /eying/ a hot dog stand hungrily. When its sole shivering customer is served and the vendor turns his back, one very long tongue darts out long, nabbing a pair of roasting Italian sausages right off of where they heat on the grill. Eating, though requires actually lifting his head from its obscuring layers of hoods, though. He gets up quickly, pulling off his gloves so that he can toss the hot sausages from hand to hand, sucking in cold breaths to cool his tongue from the heat as he rapidly starts walking the other direction than the cart. Even as Anole turns to depart, another figure heads along the path, one of the dedicated New Yorkers either unbothered by the cold, or unwilling to give it the satisfaction of interrupting their routine. As Anole passes, though, quickly, the figure slows to an abrupt stop and turns, the edges of his overcoat fluttering, superhero cape style, at his feet. "Hey." he calls out, voice gentle, as he quickly reverses direction and heads towards the other man. "Easy," he says, gently, spreading his hands out and lifting them slightly in a gesture of calm and submission. "I don't think we ever got introduced. I'm Iolaus." he says, extending a hand with a light smile. The boy's green eyes widen at the first words, and despite the calm tone and placating gestures he squeaks, startling backwards and dropping one of the two sausages to the frozen ground. The other he grips in a tight fist, squishing sausage-grease through his fingers and backstepping quickly. He looks at Iolaus, worried. He looks at the sausage on the ground. Hastily he darts forward to claim the fallen food, dirt and grit and all, wiping it off with his fingers. "Sorry," is his nervous reflexive answer to this introduction, eyes darting around the park as his shoulders hunch down into his jacket. He gives Iolaus's extended hand a wary, uncertain look, and then, just as wary and uncertain, transfers both his sausages to one hand to extend his in return. Tentative. His own green hand is coated with a healthy dose of sausagey grease and park-path-grit as he offers it to Iolaus. "Hey, no, I'm sorry." Iolaus says, looking crestfallen as the other man's food falls, partially, to the floor. "Didn't mean to startle you." he says. A glance at the partially-gritty sausage. "Would you like a replacement one?" he says, gesturing back to the stand behind him from where it came. "My treat, considering I lost you that one." he offers, gently. "Come on - it's the least I can do." he insists, gently pressing. Victor is already taking a bite of the fallen sausage, grit and all. "Lost?" He looks a little confused, hastily swallowing his mouthful. The offer makes him stand a little straighter, though, eyes skipping between the stand and Iolaus. He takes another large bite of the sausage in his hand. "I --" he starts, clearly tempted, and then swallows again. "-- Why?" is a little more nervous. Iolaus blinks as the other man begins to eat the groundsausage, but it is only a slight pause before he speaks that gives indication of his hesitation about the condition of that food. "Or somewhere else, if you would prefer not to return to that stand?" he asks, raising one eyebrow with a thin smile. "Because you look hungry." he answers. "And because I want to." "But I mean," Victor says, muffled around another bite of sausage, "why do you want to? I --" He frowns, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. "I took your --" He polishes off the first sausage in a hurry, waving the clean one at Iolaus. And then just shrugs. "Most people aren't, like. Nice." He swallows his mouthful of sausage. "To me. Us." "You gave it back." Iolaus points out. A wry smile twists his lips and he chuckles. "I would have settled for the wallet back without the money in it, but you gave it all back." He gives Anole a curious, measuring look. "Not a very good tactic for a pickpocket." He glances around the surroundings, lips pursing for a moment. "Come on. There's a food truck that I passed a couple blocks from here that's pretty good." Waving once to the younger man, he begins stepping slowly in that direction. "I'm not most people. Besides, I'd be a pretty dumb person if I couldn't stand mutants but was opening a medical clinic for them." he says, laughter in his voice. "I'm not a good pickpocket," Anole admits, a little ashamed like this is a terrible confession. "I mean I'm good at the getting but then people -- it's hard to screw them over." He is mowing his way through the second sausage. And licking the grease off of one hand, dirt and all. "-- You're what?" He /was/ following after Iolaus, but now he's just blinking. Iolaus gives the teenager a warm smile and grins. "Some place where mutants can go and see doctors. Get check-ups. Shots. People to take care of them when they get sick. You know... a medical clinic?" he says, playfully, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small metal case. He opens it and pulls out one of the business cards lining it to pass towards the teenager. It is, to be fair, his work business card, not his clinic business card, but at least it has his degrees after his name. Victor reaches out to take the card with a hand partially greasy and partially spitty. "You're -- what?" He doesn't seem any /clearer/ on this subject after reading the card. "You're a doctor?" This much he's gotten, at least! "Are you a mutant?" "Yes." Iolaus says, nodding once. Now, two doctors for the price of one! "I am very much a doctor. And, no, I'm no mutant." he says, smile breaking wider on his face. "Though I think you will not be surprised to find out that /that/ question almost immediately follows every single time I tell people what I am doing." He rubs his finger on his nose, bemusedly, as he leads them off of the path and towards the sidewalk. "I have considered having it added to my business cards." Victor tags along, shoving the card down into a pocket. He finishes the second sausage, too, and has a small hesitant smile afterwards. "Yeah? Really? It's probably cuz of how you look," he tells Iolaus, in a very earnest tone. "Nobody ever asks /me/ that question, how'd /you/ know I was a mutant?" Iolaus laughs. "A little birdie told me after you almost got run over by a car." he says, flashing Anole a wider smile as they approach the truck that Iolaus had mentioned. It is named Chinese Mirch, and a heavily spiced and distinctively asian smell rolls off of it like a fog, blanketing the block in the scent. Iolaus' stomach growls softly as he approaches, appraising the menu taped onto the side. "Have you ever eaten here before?" he asks, glancing at Anole. Victor eyes the truck apprehensively, hanging back and not approaching. He licks at his lips, and then at his fingers, and then shakes his head. "No. What's a Mirch?" He's frowning at the side of the truck warily, shoving still kind-of-dirty hands into his definitely-dirty coat pockets. "I haven't been here long." "It's a Chinese and Indian food truck." The doctor hesitates for a moment. "I mean, it's Indian Chinese food, not that it serves both. I found it one day when I was walking, and it's amazing. If you don't mind spicy food, that is." He glances back to the other man. "If that bothers you, they have some mild things. I'm sure you can ask." Victor considers this, uncertainly. "I don't know. I haven't eaten much. Spicy food." He shrugs, still eying the cart contemplatively. "I -- can ask." He doesn't sound particularly confident in this, but trudges a little closer to the cart. He pulls his hood -- hood/s/ -- back up, further over his face. Iolaus steps up to the food truck as well, cutting in with his order first. "Hi. I'd like an order of..." he trails off, glancing at the menu beside him. "The hakka noodles, please. And whatever he's getting." he says, gesturing to the teenager beside him even as his hand goes to his wallet. He pulls it out and begins counting cash out of it, ready to pay for their food. Victor eyes the menu a while, from beneath the shadow of his hood, keeping his head bowed. "Um. Those dumplings look good," he mumbles, more to Iolaus than to the person in the truck. "Maybe on rice." He's already backing away from the cart, right after saying this. "The dumplings on rice, then." Iolaus says, sliding the cash across the counter and politely refusing the change. He, too, takes a few steps back, stepping back over to Anole as the truck's residents begin preparing their food. "You said you haven't been here long. When did you come to New York?" he asks, curiously, stepping over to the fence and leaning against one of the stone columns. Victor shrugs a shoulder uncomfortably, looking down at his hands. "Couple weeks, I guess," he says, looking at Iolaus and looking at the truck and looking away. "Do you have, like, a thing." His forehead wrinkles in a frown. "For mutants?" "A thing?" Iolaus says, blinking. His eyebrows furrow slightly, and he gives Anole a somewhat perplexed look. "What do you mean... a thing? Like... an interest? A fascination?" His lips quirk. "A fetish?" he says, unabashedly. "I've been accused of that, too. And while I find mutant's abilities and genetics fascinating, I'm not sure it rises to the level of 'a thing'." "Yeah," Victor says, generically vague reply to /all/ these things. "Like a thing." He looks away, leaning against the fence a little droopily, his head bowing for a moment and his eyes closed. "I mean most people --" He stops, hesitating, and when he speaks again it's slightly more sluggish than before. "Don't. Really. Not their furst choice of career. So. A thing." "It's the right thing to do." Iolaus says, shifting against the stone for a moment. "And it will certainly not be boring work." his eyes twinkle and a smile slides over his face. "The politics I could do without. The medicine, though... the medicine is something else entirely." he says, reverently. "Even the handful of mutants who I have had as patients have all been fascinating. A win-win." "Huh." Victor looks curious, for a moment, but then just sinks back against the fence. "The right thing to do." He smiles again, a little slower, a little smaller. "Weird," is his pronouncement. "But never boring is cool. Where's your clinic?" "Nowhere, as of yet. We're fighting with the government about letting it get built, letting it get licensed, getting all the pieces licensed..." Iolaus waves his hand in a lazy little forward circle, wrist bent. "On and on and on. But we're fighting." he says, a spark of passion alighting in his eyes. There is a 'ding' sound from the truck, and Iolaus pushes off from the stone to fetch their food and bring it back to Anole, along with a plastic spoon and napkin. "How's it go? 'The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.'" "Do you believe that?" Victor doesn't seem to notice the food, immediately, only belatedly dragging his hands from his pockets to take it from Iolaus, their green a little bit darker than his face. "I mean, even living under a rock I see the news." "Oh, I don't think it will get better tomorrow." Iolaus points out. "It was not many generations ago that my ancestors would have been unable to get work in this country, and even today holding hands with another man can get me beat up, fired, or, in some parts of the world, jailed or killed." he says, taking his own fork and swirling it thoughtfully through the noodles. "But, yes, I believe time is on the side of justice." "You can get fired for that?" Victor looks puzzled, frowning as he closes fingers stiffly around the spoon and digging it in to tear a dumpling open. "I mean, I hope you're right. It's hard to see from --" He shrugs a shoulder. "Some places. But I guess if people like you are doing things like a clinic --" He pauses, stuffing a spoonful of food into his mouth. "Well." Iolaus' lips quirk and he lifts the fork to his mouth, taking a bite of his food and clearly savoring the experience. At length, he continues. "Trying to." He pauses, looking at the younger man carefully. "It can be hard, definitely. There are people out there who would rather that they never had to grow up, to see their fellow man as man. So they hide behind hate, and they seek to block us left and right." He looks skywards for a moment, then gives Anole a playful grin. "Fuck 'em." Victor ducks his head, his cheeks coloring a little darker. He takes another bite of his food, tentatively. "Welllll," he says, slowly, "that'd be /nice/ but they're kinda. In charge. Of everything. It doesn't -- I mean -- they're the ones who do all the --" He blushes deeper, waving his spoon at Iolaus. "I mean they're pretty good at blocking whatever. Hating whatever." "And back in the 1700s, I'm sure that there were people who thought that slavery would never end in this country. And in the 1900s, I'm sure there were people who thought women would never be equal citizens. And in this decade, there were people who were /sure/ that /fags/ would never have the right to get married like 'real people'." Iolaus counters, gesturing with his fork before he returns it to its noodley duties. "They can stop us for now. Maybe for a long time. But not forever." Victor's nose wrinkles at something Iolaus says, his shoulders stiffening slightly. "I mean, they still -- don't," he says uncomfortably, looking down at his food. "A lot of people don't get to be real people. There's never been anywhere in any-- when. That everyone was just real people." "True. But there are /less/, and the abuses less." Iolaus says, voice suddenly soft and gentle. "All things considered." He takes another noodle-filled forkfull and glances around the street. "And until we win, there will be people fighting, and I hope to be one of them. For all of the battles worth fighting." Victor is picking at his food slowly, his posture a little hunched as he spoons another mouthful into his mouth. "Yeah but which are worth fighting there's a /lot/. I mean that sounds really tiring, you know? You'll never get to the /end/ of them?" "I'll pick the ones that I can be most helpful in, and I'll do the best I can." Iolaus says, pausing, fork left in the tray for a moment as he runs a hand through his hair. "And as much as I can. That's all I can ask of myself, and more than anyone else has the right to ask of me." he says, hands going down to his hips. "It will be what it will be." "I guess," Victor says dubiously. "It's just kinda, uh, I dunno. How much can one person do? The world's pretty big. It /sounds/ nice but isn't it sort of -- pointless?" Iolaus looks over the younger man for several moments, and when he speaks, his voice is soft and slightly sad. "If I help even one person, it won't have been pointless." his eyes search the other man's face as best he can with the hoods piled atop each other, lips pursing. "When I became a doctor, I swore my life to healing the sick and helping those in pain. One, a hundred, a thousand, a million - doesn't matter." Victor isn't meeting Iolaus's gaze; his eyes are turned down to his food, his slowly-darkening hands fumbling at his spoon. His face looks more sleepy than anything else, though his slight frown is easy enough to see. "S'cool," is all he says eventually. "I mean everyone's got their thing I guess. Yours is like. Doing. Good. That's cool." Chuckling, Iolaus shakes his head. "Don't hold me up as some kind of saint. I'm just... a guy, who tries to help." he says. He looks over the teenager's coloring skin and frowns, slightly. "You're getting darker. Is that normal?" "Well, yeah, but most people don't even try." Victor shrugs, glancing around the park. He takes another bite of food, chewing slowly. He shrugs again. "I, uh, sure. In winter. S'cold. Don't /you/?" This might be a serious question. He's eying Iolaus seriously. "Pink at the edges, if I stay in the cold too long." Iolaus says, with a little shrug. "Skin turning dark doesn't usually set in until the limb is almost destroyed by cold, typically." he says, a switch in tone in his voice making him sound somewhat like a professor lecturing in front of a classroom. "It would be very rare to see that behavior in mammals." He tilts his head slightly to one side, curiously, pausing. "On the other hand...", he says, slowly. "It would be perfectly normal behavior for cold-blooded creatures, like reptiles." "I'm not sure if I'm a mammal," Victor admits, a little more awkward in tone. "I mean, I --" He lifts one hand, darkened deep green by now. "Do this. I'm not really good at warming myself. I can't shiver. I just kind of go to sleep." He shrugs. "But if I'm not a mammal I don't know if I'm --" His head shakes. He takes another bigger bite of food. "You better get out of the cold, then." Iolaus says, a lightly concerned tone entering his voice. "Before you fall asleep on your feet. Do you need a cab home?" he asks, eyes flickering over the other man's hand, curiosity clearly not abated. "Or is it safe enough for you to take the subway?" "A cab home." Victor blinks in a little puzzlement at this. "I --" He shifts, uncomfortable, and then shrugs a shoulder. "No, sure, uh, I'll be okay. I can. Subway. Or whatever. Um. Sorry about your wallet, I just -- sorry. Thanks. For." He chomps another bite of food. "Alright. Well, you have my card. Even before the clinic opens, if you or one of your friends needs help, give me a call and I can see what I can do." Iolaus says, brightly. Taking one more glance at the other man's hands, he hesitates. "You sure about the cab?" Iolaus inquires, giving the other man a small smile. "It's no trouble." "When's it going to open?" Victor is taking another bite, but slower, now, fumbling his spoon a time or two before he succeeds. "Yeah, I'm, I don't think cabs -- Uh." He stops and considers. "I mean, I'd take /money/ for a cab, if you -- had some." Iolaus nods, once, and opens his wallet. "Where do you live?" he asks, peering through the amount of cash in the wallet. "I may need to go to an ATM to get you home, depending." he says, with a little shrug of his shoulders. The question seems to put Victor at a loss. A little wide-eyed, a little uncomfortable. "Uh. Not -- that far," he hedges awkwardly, "look, I don't want to put you out. I'll be okay. Thanks for the food, man. That was -- that was good of you." "Alright," Iolaus says, pulling forty dollars out of his wallet and holding it out towards the other man. "If it's not far, that should cover it." Concern is still flickering in his eyes, and a trace of suspicion lingers as well. "You should go home and get warmed up." Victor's eyes widen. "Holy crap are you /sure/ that's -- woah, man, I -- wow. Uh." Even with this demurral he is /snatching/ at the bills quickly, hastily shoving them away into his jacket. "Hey, thanks. I -- thanks. You're really pretty cool, you know?" "Shelby keeps telling me that, but I think she's just after my couch." Iolaus mutters to himself, a slanting grin on his lips. "Thanks. I appreciate it." he says, a twinkle in his eyes. "I do my best." he folds his wallet shut and stuffs it back inside his jacket pocket, tapping it a few times with his fingertips idly. He then picks his fork back up and begins spooning noodles back into his mouth. "Couches are valuable real estate," Victor says with a quick smile. "I don't blame --" He's already forgotten then name. "Her." His eyes follow the path of Iolaus's wallet back to the pocket, and for a moment he glances guiltily away. But then he just turns, darting off across the park. Iolaus waves him goodbye, then turns to head towards the subway to continue on towards his next destination, still shoveling noodles into his face. Om, nom, nom.