Logs:Eyes Only

Eyes Only
Dramatis Personae Joshua, Winona	2024-04-04 "You seem like the type who's seen everything." (followed immediately by dropping in on Luci.)
Location <NYC> Chimaera Arts - Dumbo
This is just one of the many abandoned warehouses in DUMBO, and like many of them it has recently changed hands. Unlike most of those, however, it does not have some corporate developer's sign out front promising a transformation into luxury condominiums or a boutique shopping center or the latest concept restaurant. Instead it's marked by a piece of weathered but wildly colorful plywood propped up on a stack of broken pallets, which reads "Chimaera Art Space!" above "chimaera.org" in smaller letters. The warehouse is moderately large and decorated with graffiti art in various styles--some of it recognizable as the work of renowned local street artists. A pair of monstrous scrap metal sculptures, perhaps still works in progress, flank the entrance. The building itself has undergone significant renovation recently, complete with wiring, plumbing, and a modular partitioning system. The grounds, too, have been cleaned up, ramshackle fences torn down and rusting detritus removed in favor of reclaimed (and brilliantly repainted) outdoor furniture ringing an impressively engineered firepit. The warehouse is busy, tonight -- there's pottery class and painting class and beginner silversmithing all being taught tonight; some aerial silks performers are working out there routine over some thick mats set out in one corner, some of the Food not Bombs crew are cleaning up a mountain of pots and pans in the kitchen; the smells of weed and sounds of a very off-beat drum circle are driving people from or attracting them to the courtyard, depending on their proclivities. One of the classrooms rooms upstairs is just emptying out of its small group of attendees. Joshua is still inside, bland today in jeans, a kippah styled like a slice of watermelon, an OCCUPY LASSITER tee. He's perched on a table near the front where a green-haired nose-ring'd young man is still talking to him.; Joshua is writing down an address on the back of a quartersheet flyer advertising a rally from a few days past and handing the sheet over together with two packs of Naloxone "-- s'other vending machines, but that's the closest." There are still a few packs of Narcan left beside him that he's tucking back into his medic pack once the other man heads off. Despite the scents and sounds, Winona has been a model student, paying attention to any information imparted, and taking notes in a coiled notebook that, even after the class has concluded, is still kept partially open in her hand, her thumb propping the page open. Because she had seated herself at the very back of the class, her after-class questions are naturally the last to be addressed. She wears purple, black, white and grey camo style pants, a light grey canvas jacket over a black tank top with multiple bright purple eyes on it. "Hey," she says, allowing a long enough pause for the other man to walk off, "thanks for the class." She blows a puff of air upwards to knock a few strands of hair that fell from her rainbow swoop back away from her eye. "You mind if I take a couple minutes of your time? There's a couple things I don't think we covered that I'd like to get your thoughts on." Joshua is trying with some difficulty to zip the pack up, though the zipper is just barely not-closing around the last box of nasal spray that he's shoved in there. He grimaces, pulls the box back out and offers it to Winona with a lift of brows. "Shoot." Winona nods in thanks and takes the box as it is offered to her, though does not quite yet put it into her own messenger bag. Her eyes flick to the door and then back to Joshua, "Have you ever come across a case where, well after an overdose, a body has gone missing?" She holds up the box demonstratively, "I know this stuff can near work miracles. But there are limits, right?" Once his hands are free Joshua reaches for one of the water bottles tucked into one of the side mesh pockets on his bag. It's a plain grey sport-top squeeze one; bright red duct tape has been wrapped around it top and bottom and is labeled in bold sharpie: EYES ONLY and DO NOT DRINK!! All the same he gets the bottle halfway to his mouth before scowling at the scolding from Past Joshua. He tucks that bottle away and gets out the bottle in the mesh pocket on the other side, identical in design but bright blue and labeled only with a smiley face sticker. He's taking a swig as Winona asks her question, and claps a hand over his mouth when she's finished, kind of splutter-coughing into his palm. "...should use this before there's a body. " He has not quite recovered, blinking and still trying to clear his windpipe of its intruding water, but he answers all the same. "Have had people take a swing at me after coming down. If they run away that's kinda like missing." A slight frown on Winona's lips appears as Joshua starts to sputter, and she leans in with an outreached hand as if wanting to help, but being unprepared by this particular class in how to. "You alright? I figured of anyone, you'd know. Bodies don't usually up and vanish, but if anyone's seen it happen--" She sweeps her hand towards Joshua, speaking low with an extra layer of meaning, "You seem like the type who's seen everything." "I'm good," Joshua insists (through another cough, eyes still watering). He takes another swig of water and this seems to help, his slightly watery breaths easing off. "Only seen half of everything." One of his knees is bouncing, restless, and he taps the bottom of the water bottle lightly against it. "Never seen Narcan spirit anyone away. You misplace a body?" "Me? I usually keep good track of bodies under my supervision," says Winona, more relaxed now that Joshua's coughing has subsided. She nips at her bottom lip, "But this particular body was never in my sights, and I'm trying to track it." Her eyebrows pinch together, "Lucien Tessier. I am trying to piece together what happened to him." Her voice goes a bit quieter, "I was hoping you could give me some insight." "You handle a lot of bodies?" Joshua's voice is -- no flatter than usual on this question, though he's squinting intently at Winona. His jaw tightens when she clarifies, his eyes lowering. His fingers squeeze tighter at his bottle, a small spurt of water pushed up to dribble down onto his knee. "Work with his brother some. Lucien and I weren't close. Sounded like a tragedy." His words are a little more clipped than before. His brows have pinched when he looks back up. "Were you? Close?" "Not recently. In Prometheus, they had no shortage of bodies they wanted me to look at." Winona closes her eyes for a moment, "He's been kind of a mentor to me. Helped me with a lot." The ghost of a smile plays on her lips when she adds, "More recently, we've started exchanging dog pictures. It'd be nice to still get updates on Flèche." She takes a deep breath and continues, "But the least I owe him is to dig up whatever truth I can. And make sure his business doesn't remains unfinished." "M'sure Matt would --" Joshua breaks this thought off abruptly. His knee is bouncing faster, and he presses the bottle down harder like this might force the jitters out. It doesn't work, though it does bounce a little bit more slowly. "Have you talked to --" he tries instead, but this doesn't finish, either. He lifts his water bottle as if to drink it, but his teeth just clamp against the nozzle, worrying there without sipping. His voice drops softer, eyes fixed at some indefinite point on the floor. "When you talk to the dead, what do they tell you?" Finally, Winona unzips her bag to place the box into it, "They tell me what they know. Sometimes, they tell me what they don't know they know. The dead are usually more forthcoming than the living." The fast jerk of the zipper makes a quick zzt sound, and her hand falls back to her side. "I don't want to speak to Matt," she says flatly. Her eyebrows pinch when she adds, a slight tension in her jaw, "I will leave him to his mourning." Joshua pushes out a small sharp hiss through his teeth. "Yeah. Sure he's real broken up." His shoulders have tensed, his words just a little thicker with the clench of his teeth. "Can't throw a damn stone in this city without hitting someone he helped out. Like I said, I didn't know him well, but I -- know he deserved better." He's fidgeting with his bottle, now, loosening the cap and then screwing it back tight. "Guessing you've caught on but it was sure as fuck not an accident." Winona's lips press together into a fine line. "He deserved better," she agrees after a beat, "People don't even realize the breadth of the things he did. Those who took him for granted are surely headed towards a calamitous awakening." She leans against a desk, rolls her head left and right to pull some unease that's been sneaking into her neck, eyes closed while she tries to shake it off, "I figured it out. But what I haven't figured out yet is--" Her eyes open again, one obscured by her hair, but the other firmly on Joshua. "Where's his body?" "Lotta shit I can't figure out." Joshua is digging knuckles hard against his eyes, as though this might scrub clean the images in his mind. "S'goddamn face was smashed in. No autopsy order. All the people he put himself out for and --" When his hand drops his knuckles drag slow down the side of his face, pulling his expression into an even more pronounced droop until he lets his hand fall to his lap. The jittery bouncing of his knee has finally quieted. "Please don't ask me that." Winona studies Joshua's face for a few moments, then bobs her head up and down a couple of times. "I've gotta assume you have a good reason to not want me to." She crosses her arms and turns her eyes down to the floor, as if searching for the spot that Joshua just got done looking at. "So I won't. But you've gotta know, I'm going to keep putting pieces together. A picture's going to form, one way or another. All's it would do is save me time." The click of her tongue punctuates her sentence. "How about this: you need help with figuring out any of that shit you can't, call me." Joshua's relief is visible, or would be if Winona were looking at him and not the floor; a easing of shoulders, an easing of his scrunched scowl. "Yeah," is all he says, gruff. And softer: "Thanks." And then he's gone. --- It's not too long later, though, when he reappears. At this hour, sun long since down, the skate park isn't particularly busy, so Winona has not had too much of an audience. It's very quiet when she abruptly receives a new spectator, hands shoved into his pockets, standing quietly to the side. Joshua waits for a point when it doesn't seem like interrupting would risk any imminent spills to clear his throat, lift his chin in a nod. One hand comes out of his pocket to extend in offer. "Aiite. I'll save you some time."