2019-05-11 - Friendship tattoos incoming.

Around four o'clock in the afternoon, the park gets busy with teenagers cutting across it from the high school toward downtown, toward home. Closer to five o'clock, it starts to thin out a little and the foot-traffic skews older, people cutting out early from the hospital, the police department, the zoo, stuff like that. The drizzle also conveniently tapers off around midday, so the benches are almost dry by that five o'clock hour, and that's why Emily is comfortable taking advantage of one. Dressed from her workday - teacher-stuff, skirt, blouse, nothing fancy - she sits a little ways off from the carousel. Although it still spins with music-and-lights, most of the toddlers and moms are headed home for the night, so the carousel is largely empty. She's supposedly reading, but mostly she's watching a zookeeper struggling to herd the zoo's prize peacock back onto zoo property.

Said peacock is having none of it, and struts around busily, doing everything in his power to avoid being herded. Emily obviously finds this perversely amusing, since she keeps peeking over the top of her book at this adventure, smirking at the show.

Alexander is not close to dry, so he's probably been out here for a while. His disheveled hair is plastered to his skin, his too-large sweater in an unflattering mottled green hangs with a wet weight around his frame. At least its bulk seems to have kept most of the wet out of his jeans, but his old work boots are spattered with mud, so he must have been walking off the path. He's stopped a little ways away from Emily, and is staring at the zookeeper and peacock with an unnerving sort of focus. "Interestingly, the ancient Greeks thought that peacocks didn't decay when they died. You see them a lot in early paintings as symbols of immortality." A moment of silence. "The ancient Greeks were wrong about a whole of things. Pretty sure peacocks are just asshole birds." His gaze shifts to Emily, staring at her with the same dark intensity. He tries on a smile, and it slips and slides around his face, like he's just trying to emulate an expression he's heard about but never felt. "You seem to be enjoying the show."

Even if he looked totally normal, even if she really tried, it's not like Emily could just ignore Alexander. It's that thing, yanno? But the zookeeper sure gives it the old college try, turning his shoulder to Alexander, resolutely pretending the guy doesn't exist while the peacock dances and skitters around the lawn outside the zoo, being exactly what Alexander called him: an asshole-bird. Leaving Emily free to comment, "Next time I run into an ancient Greek, I'll be sure to let him know how fucking stupid he is." She wears her smile a little more credibly, though - no point lying - there's a sort of coolness about the answering gaze, no less intense but it would be a stretch to call it anything like warm or friendly. "I mean, it's free, so it's hard to complain," she answers for her enjoyment of the show. "I heard you finally got picked up by the men with the butterfly nets. Just a rumor?"

"Good, good. A lot of unfortunate historical events probably could have been avoided if people let ancient Greeks know that they were fucking stupid more often. Instead of 'memento mori', 'eísai ilíthios', whispered in every ear. Better than some whispers people hear at night." Alexander's attention shifts back and forth from Emily to the peacock, back and forth, like both are equally entertaining. Or possibly equally dangerous. Neither that, nor the distinct lack of warmth from Emily's direction stop him from moving closer, and taking a seat at the other end of the bench. "I pulled out my wings and escaped through the holes, Miss Harris. They never remember to plug the holes. These days, I hear more rumors about you. None involving nets. Yet. What are you reading?"

Emily flies a hand over the top of her head when Alexander literally speaks Greek at her. That one went right over her head, bub, and she makes a little "whoosh" sound to illustrate it flying away into the ether. This while he's sitting down and the peacock is trying to fly, with his clipped wings (very metaphorical), but really just winds up flapping and skimming the grass and making the zookeeper get even more frustrated. "You ought to give him some pro-tips." She tips her chin to the bird that can't use his wings to escape, poor thing, and winds up side-eyeing Alexander and his roost on her bench. "Hippie poetry." Howl and Other Poems, says the book cover she tilts to display. "Do you Ginsberg?"

"It means 'you're an idiot'," Alexander supplies, helpfully. "So, if the occasion arises you need to insult someone in Greek, there you go." He turns his attention to the fluttering bird, and the corners of his mouth tick upwards in a more genuine sort of smile. "Why? The bird's enjoying itself. He's getting paid. Why hurry the path back to the cage? It didn't do anything wrong. Just happened to be pretty enough that we want to stare at it without having to hunt it down." He narrows his eyes at the book, then shakes his head. "Never heard of it. Or I forgot. Is there snapping?" He demonstrates a couple of snaps in his best impression of a beat poet. His hands are damp, the snaps are not impressive, and his impression just sort of looks like he's having a very snooty sort of indigestion.

Emily says, "Right," of the Greek phrase and leaves that there. But the bird... she leans a little to the side, looking around some random pedestrian that's come between her and the zookeeper and his pretty charge. "I meant you should give the peacock some pro-tips. On how to use his wings." There's a brief temple-tap, fingertip tilted toward the bird afterward, and then she folds her book closed around that fingertip. "I think that's hip*ster*, not hip*pie*? Though I guess - " She trails off, dithering with a teeter of her head back-and-forth, now that she thinks about it... Amiably, like it's a totally normal thing to say to someone you just accused of belonging in a psych ward, "You'd like it, I bet. Ginsberg saw the best minds of his generation destroyed by madness."

"He doesn't want to escape. Not really. He flirts with the idea because it helps him pretend that, if he did, he could survive out there, become some sort of king of the wild peacocks - which, of course, don't exist on this continent - and eventually mount a feathered revolution against the primate oppressors. But even he's aware, on some level, that if he did escape, all that would happen is that he would get lost, and either starve to death or get eaten by someone's straying housepet. But the fantasy makes the reality bearable. Even for an asshole bird." Alexander says it all in a staccato rush, voice and expression going flat. "We're mostly the same, if you think about it. Always flirting with leaving, never quite wanting to. I'm surprised you came back, Miss Harris. I'm glad you're not dead. It seems like a fair portion of those who leave end up that way. But then. So do those that stay, don't they? One way or another."

While the zookeeper gives up and goes to get his long-poled net, Emily listens to this bird's inner workings with her face scrunched up. "I'd eat peacock. I mean, if I was given the opportunity to try it? I'd eat it." So that scrunchy face wasn't sympathy, it was pure carnivorism, which shifts all too easily into a brittle laugh, super-dry (especially when compared to the damp day). "Thanks," for being glad she's not dead, she means. "That's really. Sweet. But you left, didn't you? When we were kids," not him-and-her 'we,' some 'we' that's not here right now, "everyone said you ran away and became a satan-worshiper. And yet here you are, not worshiping Satan." Beat. "Right?"

Alexander is sitting on a park bench near, not really 'with', Emily, looking damp and like he's either starting to rant about reptillians or ask for money. But, at the moment, he seems reasonably calm, watching a zookeeper attempt to rein in an escaped peacock. "Hail to the Dark Master," he says to her, deadpan. Then another of those smiles that just look like someone threw the expression on his face and hope it would stick in a human sort of fashion. "Left. Came back. Just like you. I wouldn't eat peacock, though. It's mermaid flesh that's supposed to make you immortal," he adds, solemnly and like this is a rational contribution to the conversation. "And chicken is cheaper. Probably tastes about the same."

"And that's how the rumor that Alexander Clayton is a Satanist was rekindled and burned through town like wildfire." Emily sighs theatrically on behalf of this poor man. "As peacock or mermaid flesh? I'm not sure I'd - well, no. I take that back. I'd try a mermaid, as long as it was just the fish parts." There's a long pause there, like maybe she's about to walk that one back, too, but then she just leaves it there without qualification. "I think immortality might not be all it's cracked up to be, though. Can you really imagine doing this," sitting on damp benches, watching peacocks get chased by zookeepers with long-handled nets, "until the universe does whatever it's gonna do at the end of time?"

Hannah is an unfamiliar face, a stranger in a strange park with a strange bird on the loose. It's the peacock more than anything that stops Hannah in her tracks though her dark eyes light on Alexander and one eyebrow twitches when he hails satan over there. And Emily offers a lot to unpack in her reply, but she lets it be, flickering a polite smile at the pair on the benches.

Alexander frowns at Emily, an expression his face seems far more suitable for. He shifts in his seat. "Why JUST the fish parts?" What. THAT is what's bothering him, not the small town rumormongering? Yup, seems so. "It's not like it's not all the same creature, Miss Harris! If you'd be willing to eat a mermaid, then whether it's a hand or a heart or a...a...whatever fish tail muscles are called, it's still the same thing! You'd still cut through living, thinking flesh! The blood would still flow! If you posit that a mermaid, if such a thing existed, was a thinking creature, it would still be murder!" Annnnd his voice is not rising to shouting, but it's loud and weird enough that people are looking. Townies, of course, sort of wince and start walking faster, before Alexander's attention maybe shifts to them. Catching sight of Hannah's polite smile stops the rant, and his face twitches a bit. "I don't know you," he snaps at her, as if that's a deliberate and maliciously meant effort on her part.

The show with the peacock gradually becomes less interesting than the show that Alexander is putting on, and Emily attends this new display with her head tilted to the side, totally on-board. "So? I also prefer dark meat to white meat, are you gonna yell at me because I'll take a leg over a breast same as I'd eat a mermaid tail before I'd eat her face?" She smiles a completely irritating, pat-on-the-head smile at some woman that's pointedly circling wide around this particular bench, and then shifts that smile to something considerably less condescending when she follows Alexander's new focus onto Hannah. "Careful, new friend. Crazy's cranking the dial up over here, they'll lump you in." But that's what happens when you walk around town being interesting, Hannah. The nuts take notice.

Yeah, this conversation is way more than Hannah signed on for, and Alexander's reaction to her presence has her backing up a few steps. "You don't," she replies in a tone undercut by bemused bafflement and might just keep right on going except for Emily. She saw that other lady walk waaaay around. "What do you mean?" Curious. And maybe a little suspicious.

Alexander's eyes narrow at the 'crazy', and he snaps a near-black look back to Emily. "When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw, Miss Harris. Shall we compare life decisions? At least mine hurt only myself." His eyes twitch back to Hannah and he stares at her as if trying to scour the inside of her skull with his eyes. "Why are you asking HER? I'm the crazy one, after all. If I am going to 'lump you in', then surely it would be more productive to ask me? Unless you already know - I admit, I have assumed that you are as ignorant of me as I am of you, but that could be a faulty, flawed assessment. I don't /know/ you, but that just means that maybe you are very good at hiding." The wind, perhaps, has shifted from southerly.

At least his only hurt himself. "Really?" Emily's question isn't a real question; it's an accusation, put while she leans her torso back from Alexander and looks at him with a doubtful arch of one eyebrow. She exhales a sniff through her nose, then lifts her open hand toward everything that spills from the man in the aftermath of Hannah's question. It's a wordless response from her, the answer is right there, Hannah, she means exactly what she said: Crazy's cranking the dial up over here.

It's true that the crazy has in fact cranked up the dial even further from when she first asked the question; it makes more sense now but Hannah's reaction is contained and distant. "I wasn't sure who you meant." She does now. But look, they were BOTH talking about eating mermaids. To Alexander, "No, that's a correct assumption."

Alexander stares at Hannah for a long moment, way longer than is polite or comfortable. And THEN he laughs, like some sort of switch got flicked in his brain that says 'have a different emotion now', and he's doing the best he can. It's rusty and sharp, and he tilts his head towards Emily, looking just a touch smug. "See? From a distance, we don't seem that different. That's nice. Isn't it." His gaze ticks back towards Hannah. "Alexander Clayton. Assuming you don't have a file already."

"She's prettier. Even from a distance." Emily contributes this, having looked at Alexander, then Hannah, then nodded like her input is the only one that matters. "A much smaller bite, though. That must be nice. Hi." She lifts the hand she'd been using to gesture at Alexander in a wave to Hannah now, curiosity writ large when she adds, "Do you have a file already?"

Oh, and since I never got around to clearing that up... the zookeeper catches the peacock finally. There is a lot of flapping and whatever noise peacocks make while it rebels against the net and the zookeeper is like, "HAHA! FUCK YOU, BIRD!" A couple of parents whose kids are still riding the carousel look scandalized. It'll be in the paper on Sunday.

Despite the staring and emotion-switching coming from Alexander, Hannah doesn't look nervous or scared. Just resigned. "Hannah. Butler." She cracks a smile, a flash of teeth without humor. "Yeah, I have a file." It's like a private unfunny joke. "At least one. Hi." That last is to Emily, or both, and then her gaze flicks towards the zookeeper and his recaptured friend and his potty mouth.

"Hannah. Butler. I'll remember that." Oh dear. Never feed stray animals, never tell the town crazy your name. He frowns at the mention of files, but doesn't press. Yet. Thank the zookeeper for that, because the shout draws his attention, and he stares over there. Once he does start staring at it, the bird seems to calm down remarkably quickly, and his features twist into something genuine and sympathetic for a moment. "Dream's over, bird. Back to the cage. But at least there's food there."

"On Alexander? God, that must be the thickest fucking file." Emily turns her face down while she says that, like she doesn't intend for everyone to hear her dialogue, but - well, she would've said it quieter if that was really true, right? "What do you do that you - " The rest of the question was probably 'have a file,' but then they're back to watching things happen with the bird over there, and she peeks thataway. "Unless there's not. Maybe that's what the damn thing is always roaming around, stealing popcorn."

"No. No file on Alexander." Though from her expression, Hannah aggress with Emily on that one. And he seems like the kind of guy who would figure out your name whether you wanted him to or not, so she's just saving Alexander some research (stalking?) time like a pal. "Maybe he likes popcorn better than the food he gets in the zoo." It's not a stretch. "Does he get out a lot?"

Alexander turns back to the two women. "It's only thick because they realize that I know too much. That's why they're always trying to discredit me, with their rumors and their suspicions, and their whispers. You don't bother keeping a file on someone who's not important." You just keep telling yourself, Alexander. He bobs his head to Hannah. "Fair amount. Everyone likes to take a stroll sometime. Peacocks. English teachers banging their dead sister's husbands. You. What do YOU do, Miss Butler. On the record, I mean."

"Oh, I'm pretty sure you do a bang-up job of discrediting yourself without any help." Emily smiles peachily at Alexander, but it's to Hannah that she notes, "He gets out more than he should." She's not talking about the peacock. But Alexander's question is a good one, what does Hannah do, please? So Emily shuts up to let the answer happen.

It's sometime around five in the evening. It was drizzling earlier, but it's not right this actual second. The park's got a little foot-traffic, not a lot. Emily is dressed from work (skirt-and-blouse routine), sitting on a bench she shares with Alexander (who looks like something the cat dragged in). Hannah's standing a conversational distance away. They're 'chatting.'

He's like a database and Hannah tips her head to look intently at the man on the bench, then briefly cut a look to Emily. But she will breeze on past that nugget of information that Alexander just shared. "Computer stuff," the short woman replies easily enough. "At the Firefly Club." Do they call it that? And not some cool nickname that only townies use? She hopes for the best.

"They tried the restraints. But it didn't take." Maybe Alexander isn't talking about the peacock either, but although he shoots a sideways glare towards Emily at the discrediting crack, he doesn't actually /disagree/. His shoulders hunch a little in the old, mottled green sweater, and he studies Hannah with renewed interest. "Firefly Club. Interesting. Hope you know what you're doing. With computer stuff."

Geoff strolls down the path through the park this evening, the man dressed in jeans and a zip up hoodie for warmth. As his path takes him ever closer to the group centered around that bench he studies them out of the corner of his eye before offering them a grin and raise of his hand as he approaches "Good evening, how are you guys doing tonight." with a nod offered towards Emily as she seems to be the only one he actually recognizes

Oohh intrigued, Emily asks, "Do you get a lotta hackers trying to break into nightclubs? Is that a thing computer nerds do?" She tips the book she's been holding this whole time toward Alexander's latter comment, about hoping Hannah knows what she's doing - and any other awesomely cutting commentary she was going to have gets waylaid, since along comes, "Geoffrey Turner, as I live and breathe. You look different. A lot different." Her eyes widen for the once-over.

Hannah absently rubs at one skinny wrist poking out of the sleeve of her jacket. "Oh, I don't," she tells Alexander with an amount of flippancy that suggests it's not true. "The lighting and sound systems are all computerized now," she tells Emily easily and then draws back a little as Geoff approaches. She lifts a hand in acknowledgement of his greeting.

"You might be surprised how much money moves through a nightclub, Miss Harris. And these days, it's all electronic. Not having a computer person on staff would be like inviting people to steal from you. And digital thieves are quite clever these days." Alexander's features brighten a bit and he sounds and looks almost normal. Just a normal person, talking about crime. Yes. When Geoff approaches, though, his eyes narrow again. "I know you." A long pause. "Turner, right? Robbery." Someone spends way, way too much time reading and storing the local crime pages. WAY TOO MUCH TIME.

Geoff runs his fingers back through his hair with a rather wry smile "Hey Em, yeah it's been a while." grin turning a bit more roguish he says "I hope the change is at least partially for the better." with a laugh he dips his head to the others "The name's Geoff as Emily here has already let on." though as Alexander just outright calls him on his prior his smile completely fades and he appraises the man again as if this time he might be trouble "Robbery yeah, I did my time and it's behind me. What's it to you?"

With a tiny cringe, Emily mouths the word 'sorry' at Geoff when robbery spills out of Alexander, whoops, her bad. She'll just press on ahead with, "I mean, you were normal the last time I saw you, so is that better? Worse?" She flicks a look to Hannah, everyone's all part of the Sparkly Club. Then she taps the air in front of everyone in turn, alphabetically no less: "Alexander, Emily, Geoff, Hannah. Now we're all friends." She sits back to find out exactly what it is to Alexander, very excited about this.

"Also that," Hannah says under her breath at Alexander's contribution to her job description, then politely tunes him out when he rattles off his file on Geoff. "Nice to meet you," she tells the newcomer with a faint wry smile.

"Mostly just a statistical data point, Mister Turner. It wasn't a very interesting crime. I'm glad it's behind you." Alexander doesn't seem to notice anything wrong with this line of conversation at all, and it's hard to tell whether he's glad that it's behind Geoff for his own sake, or because that leaves the crime field open to more 'interesting' activities. He does give a thoughtful look at Emily's words, though, staring at her fixedly. "I don't think we act like friends, although I might have missed something." He sounds genuinely apologetic about this, as if they might have somehow established Best Bud status and he just...forgot. Or something.

Geoff is now entirely conflicted, on one hand the stranger doesn't seem to be too skittish...On the other a deeply personal point of his life was just ruled 'very uninteresting' by a rando. This conflict plays out on the man's features for a moment, before he shakes his head and clears it away "Well if we're all friends now, not much we can do about that. Guess we should start planning our friendship tattoos to commemorate it."

"No?" Emily looks around, quite the little hodge-podge, and then blinks back at Alexander. "Aren't friends all up in each others' business? You must have a lotta friends." And then proceeds to blab helpfully/hypocritically to Geoff, "Hannah works for at Felix Monaghan's club. Doing... Computer-stuff, she says." She smiles questioningly at Hannah, in case she wants to supply more details. "Y'know, so you can have that info when you sit down to design what's obviously going to be the world's most amazing friendship tattoo."

Hannah pulls in a breath but does not comment on the magic of friendship. "Security stuff," she throws a scrap to Emily. "Computer security stuff." That Alexander has already rambled about, so she doesn't go into detail. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other and says, "I'm not sure if I'm ready for the tattoo just yet."

Alexander blinks a couple of times at Emily, looking confused. Then, enlightenment dawns. "Oh. You're being sarcastic." He ducks his head and stares at his boots, although Hannah's rejection of the tattoo draws a brief nod. "Tattoos are just convenient ways to implant microtrackers and recorders, anyway. I've heard the technology is getting better every day. You can't do the old 'feel under the skin for the bump' trick anymore; no, nanotechnology means that the trackers can go in with the ink, and just linger subcutaneously, pumping out information to Them for years." A pause. "So I don't need a friendship tattoo. But I wish your business the best, Mister Turner. Just remember to negotiate high for the tracker implant fees. Costs of living are rising."

Geoff eyes Alexander "I'm pretty sure I'm not implanting anyone with trackers man, that's no beuno." looking to Emily he asks cheerily "So what have you been up to chica? I haven't seen you since highschool."

Emily blinks at Alexander's deduction. "Am I?" She seems surprised by this revelation - but she's really not, and feel free to assume that's obvious enough. Nanotechnology comes up, and she looks between Geoff and Hannah with the same sort of almost credible, wide-eyed surprise. "Wow, I think you two just got handed a million dollar idea, here. Join forces, computer-girl and ink-guy. Just. Well. Which them are we talking about reporting back to? Like, the government or..." The them she's not going to talk about, even on a nice afternoon in the park. For Geoff's question, there's an authentic awkward-smile. "I mean, I didn't go to jail or anything? But it's been... fucking dark. Lately."

Hannah wraps her arms around herself and gives Geoff a side-eye though there's more suspicion directed at the idea than her apparently new business partner. "No. Thank you. I don't really think that's even a thing." And this is about the time she decides to leave. "I'll see you around." Probably. Small town and all. With a little flip of a wave, she walks quickly away.

"That is what a man who was implanting people with trackers /would/ say," Alexander points out. He frowns as Hannah heads out. He doesn't say 'bye' or anything, because that would be something approaching human politeness. He just stares at her departing back for a bit, before turning his attention back to Emily. "You say that like it matters. One darkness or the next - there are a myriad to choose from." At 'fucking dark' he turns back to Geoff. "Her sister died."

Geoff shakes his head "Nope, if I was chipping people I'd just tell them. It'd be a selling point. I once tattooed a business card on a dude and put an rfid chip beneath it so clients could scan it." at the explanation of the dead sister he frowns slightly "Sorry to hear that, it's rough." eyes falling back on Emily he snorts and says "You better not have been to prison, there's only room in this town for one ex-con. It's in the rules."

"You say that like it doesn't." These two are obviously BFFs already. "There are degrees of darkness. It's like the mermaid thing. Some things are fucked up, and some things are too fucked up." Emily says all this to Alexander like she expects it to land, is he paying attention? Also, "That was, like, sixteen months ago, but thanks. I almost went to jail for it. Some people," not naming any names but she sure looks askew at her bench-buddy, "thought the circumstances were a little suspicious." With a shrug.

Alexander waves his arms at Geoff in sudden exasperation. "See? SEE? We choose our own demise! The leash, the shadow, the unblinking eye - it's all the same in the end. Choosing to be chipped! And they say I'M crazy!" A sideways glare at Emily. "And I'm not even dignifying the mermaid argument any further. But the circumstances /were/ suspicious. Are suspicious. And, for once, I am not the only one who thought so. On reflection, I don't think you and Mister Miller actually murdered her, though. So you can tell him that." He stands, bobs his head perfunctorily to both, and ambles away. No goodbyes, just wandering vaguely towards the exit, giving the carousel a wide berth - probably wise, considering the stink eyes he draws from the few holdout moms.

Geoff eyes the other man as he walks off and draws the stink eye from that group of moms "You know, despite obviously having hit his head or having had a bad trip at some point, dude doesn't seem that bad. Can't wait for him to start ranting about the clockwork elves, its going to be amazing." This last bit is said with a touch of undisguised glee

"And at least now the new girl," she means Hannah, "has already seen what this town will do to you if you let it? So there's the bright-side for ya." Emily looks off in the direction that Hannah left, then the direction that Alexander is leaving, watching the latter with a resigned sigh. "He should probably get one of those chips, though. The ones people put in their dogs. Then, if he ever gets lost, we can go pick him up at the pound." Quit talking shit, Emily. She looks back to Geoff presently, noting, "Soooo, you went off to jail and came back special, huh? That must've sucked." It's a roundabout way of inviting the tale.

Geoff drops down onto the bench beside Emily and reaches into his breast pocket to draw out a pack of cigarettes, lighting one up as he nods "Yeah...It was something." taking a drag from the cigarette he holds it in for a second before blowing the smoke up towards the heavens "I can tell you there's no one else like that in the clink. No way to know you aren't a solitary freak in the world." with a wolfish predatory grin he says "About the only upside was I was able to hold my own well enough that no one wanted to fuck with me, and I didn't have to join up with any of the gangs for protection. Still all things considered I think I'm going to do everything I fuckin' can to avoid that place again."

"Oohhh, so you can't unlock doors with your mind?" Beat. "Not that I'm saying that I can, but I totally can." Emily, with the bragging. But it's wry bragging, on the heels of his coming-of-age story as it does. "That's kinda sad. Thinking you're the only one. Sounds," she glances down at the book she's been nursing this whole time, ruffling the edges of the pages with her thumbnail to a nice little zippery-rippery noise, reaches for the right word, "lonely."

Geoff grins wryly and shakes his head "Nope, and even if I could its not like I could use it to good effect with the guards all being armed and me being surrounded. Was better I served out the time." hooking his arm along the back of the bench away from Emily he shares as if it is a simple thing "I can patch others up with my powers....Well patch others up and royally fuck up those I get in brawls with."

For a second, a full-on prison-break plays out behind Emily's eyes, which focus off somewhere in the middle distance. She blinks back to the present with a mild, "All you have to do is scare them enough that they run away." She walks her fingers through the air, a pantomime of the fleeing guards before her hand drops back onto her book with a dull chuckle. "You're like Logan, then. Do you wander around breaking all the shit in your," stupid fucking, "house, too?" It's hard to sound both so over something and completely fond of it all at once, but Emily pulls that shit off, just a little manic.

Geoff gives a dismissive wave "Are you kidding? I like my stuff, I'm not going to break that shit I worked hard for." looking out over the park he frowns slightly "Man this Logan sounds like a piece of work if he's actually breaking all his shit. Bro needs some self control." arching his eyebrow he asks "So what do you use your mutant powers for? Breaking and entering? Never having to carry around your keys?"

"'This Logan,'" air-quotes, "is Logan Miller. From high school?" Emily goes on to explain artlessly, "Who married my sister. Who fell down the stairs and died. So." Her shrug leaves that subject there, where it can just be awkward. She could just not bring it up, but where's the fun, yanno? "No," with a laugh about what she does with her powers. "I throw stuff at people sometimes. When they're not looking. And I like to turn on or off light-switches, that's always good for a laugh. But mostly... I dunno. It seems like, if you use it too much, They start to notice you?" Capital-T. And a little tentative at the question, with a glance at Geoff: has he met Them?

"Ah that Logan." Geoff responds as if he'd known the entire time and was simply testing Emily. Poking the woman lightly he says "I'm pretty sure you just described yourself as a poltergeist. Sneaking around throwing stuff at people and playing with the light switches. Which I mean if I could do that, I probably would, you know?" with a laugh he leans back and looks up towards the sky before growing more contemplative "I've heard the horror stories of Them but I've luckily never run into one."

Emily nods agreeably about the poltergeist-thing. "I try to reserve it for people that deserve it, but." She lets an apology tinge her smile, like she's sorry to Geoff specifically for her own lack of self-control when it comes to fucking with innocent bystanders. The apology turns wry, jealous, even. "Count your blessings. I don't - understand them? Or I guess. The rules? I dunno." She trails off, shaking her head in a quick flurry of little motions. "Anyway, just tread lightly, I guess is where I'm going. They make you see things and hear things and do things. And sound crazy." She rolls her eyes at herself.

Geoff rolls his eyes and says "Yeah I don't see much of use fucking around with my powers in the day to day. God didn't bless me for nothing, and to waste a talent on just making things easier seems like it'd be wrong." wrinkling his nose he admits "Besides maybe I just lack imagination but I don't know that many reasons to put the hurt on someone that are actually justifiable. Back in jail there was plenty to fight over, you had to make sure everyone knew you'd throw hands if they started fucking with you...If you didn't then you were in for a bad time." This is said rather casually as if violence had simply come to be another language for the ex-con "Out here? You don't gotta keep face to avoid being hurt, you can actually move on with your life and assume that folks aren't calling you out."

He doesn't know many reasons to put a hurt on someone? Emily looks impressed - and argumentative, but she doesn't say anything to the contrary, just looks like she begs to differ. And maybe it's just because she gets up about then that she doesn't pick that particular fight, 'cause she does get up about then, thumbing the pages of her book with a head-tilted look down at Geoff. "Well, before we descend into the philosophical, about God and all." She pauses, letting her skepticism show for a second. "I better go home, or my dinner will be cold, and then I'll be a bitch, and it becomes a whole Thing." Genuinely, "It was good to run into you, Geoff. Here, I'll give you my number, we can catch up." She makes gimme-your-phone gestures.

Geoff chuckles and digs into his pocket to hand Emily his phone "We'll have to get coffee or something sometime, or you'll have to swing by the shop and you can have worse coffee." standing up he stretches "I really should getting going too, promised myself I'd pick up a case of beer on the way home and actually get some real food rather then peanut butter."

"Wow, that's fucking tempting." With the worse coffee. Emily punches numbers in, hands the phone back, and concludes, "I'll see ya. Good luck with the groceries. Not my purview." Then it's a nice stroll out of the park and home for Emily.