2019-10-06 - Soup and Stars

The Gym is a lot roomier than when people last left it. The center of it cleared and prepped for when the new ring arrives but how and when is DHL's issue to figure out. Joeys problem is figuring out how to not infect his family and not die with means... yeah crashing at the gym. It's Duarte that knocks on the door to the back and asks, "Heeeey Joe? You still dyin in there, homes?" Theres a grunt. Duarte announces, "Yeah it's alright. He ain't dead yet or nothin." He is passed out face down on an old metal frame twin bed in the very not up to code converted crash space that is the corner of the boiler room.

The door is opened, and a vision walks in. Maybe he died. Roxy is wearing a 40s era vintage dress which is incredibly modest in lack of skin showing, but hugs ever last curve of her body in a way that feels like one is a voyeur just looking at her. She has a plastic bag in her hands. "Joseph. I brought you some soup. Is that all right?" she asks.

Joey picks his face off the pillow. Really meager is a good adjective to describe living conditions, but then again it's also not a permanent residence. We hope. As a testament to how long he's been out he's managed to achieve short beard growth from giving up on public appearance for a while in favor of having a fever and passing out. Hand comes up to rub his face and he rolls to one side murmuring, "Hmm? Shit... s'you. Duarte, it's fine. Go be useful." Looking up he watches Roxy make her way carefully down the steps murmuring, "You are way overdressed." He stops and s sighs slowly shaking his head, "That probably didn't come out as intended. Hey. Fair warning, I've been sick." She knows, Joey. Hence the souping.

"I know you are sick, Joseph. You told me so the other night via text. But I owe you my thanks for taking care of the Javier problem, so I brought you some chicken soup from the diner." Roxy smiles at him, and moves to set the bag down near him. She takes out a styrofoam bowl with a lid, and a plastic spoon, plus napkins. "You need to eat, keep up your strength," she insists, before finding a place to sit. "And all my clothes are, what you call, overdressed?" I have had to travel light, so I choose nice things to carry with me."

Joey takes a deep breath and pushes himself to a sit. His hair has seen better days. There's an office chair that is leather and not cloth so it's at least pretty clean though he says, "Can sit on my jacket. Keep it nice." He mentions of the white dress. Pushing himself uprighte there's a stretch and hi lets bare feet drop to the floor though he's wearing athletic shorts and a take top. The look on his face reads Are you done talking yet? but that's likely just RJF: Resting Joey Face. He mumbles, "Ole hyva." He remembered. "He's gonna make this problem go away and I'm gonna do the same for one of his. Everyone's happy."

"I am sorry to have been a burden to you, and to Javier. I realize I am vulnerable. I do not know how to protect myself from this place, from the people here, from those who would victimize women in my profession," Roxanne admits with a small pout. "I wish to learn to protect myself though. You could help me learn? I teach you ballet, you teach me to punch people in the face?" she asks, with such innocence it's funny. She takes the lid off the soup and hands it to him, with the spoon.

She nose wrinkles at the state of his hair. "You have hairbrush?" she asks, poking around looking for one.

Joey sets his jaw at an annoyed angle and he murmurs something in a mumble. "Yeah. Too few do." He points and there's a competitively inelegant bathroom with all tile and concrete and the original sink from 47. There's a metal shelf on the wall with aftershave and a few personal thing but a hairbrush present and a toothbrush there too. She fetches what he wants and he takes the soup and spelunks around in there with his spoon and works on putting something in his face. "I have a class on it." He spoons some broth and noodles into his face that is more a labor than an indulgence. "You want to talk about what happened?"

Roxy gets up and heads into the bathroom, to come back moments later with the hairbrush. She sits behind him and begins brushing his hair. She was in a dance company, this sort of thing was normal. The other dancers become your real family, and you take care of one another. "My name is not actually Roxanne Kivela," she says quietly to him, in a tone of confession.

Joey arches an eyebrow but has energy to be curious about what she's doing or accept it and eat the damn soup. He opts for the latter. Granted he can use a shower but he doesn't smell like a sacrificial goat so there are small mercies. She confesses her name is not Roxanne and he sets the bowl down and murmurs, "Well, that's something we have in common. Go on." Something about the tone though invites her to continue talking.

Roxy sighs as she continues detangling and brushing through his hair. "I was born in Finland as Riika Korhonen. I was a ballerina with the Finnish National Ballet. We came to North America on a tour, performing Cyrano, when I was 17. Shortly after I turned 18 we were about to perform in Seattle, and something happened to me. Something not normal."

She strokes the brush through his hair dilligently. "I touched things and could tell what the people who they belonged to were feeling. What they felt about me. I could not turn it off, it was maddening. I lost my mind and my parents, who were not nice people at all, they sent me to a hospital. An asylum. I was there for two years I think. I cannot remember much of it. I haven't been able to find it since either."

Joey sets the soup down and lets his eyes close and listens to the story. His brow furrows and the soup is set on the end of the stacked milk crates that double as a nightstand. At first he doesn't say anything but he's got thoughts on it...or his thoughts might be 'Are the noodles attacking me from the inside?' "Like you can pick things up and just... know stuff?" He considers this and the rest of the implications. Staring down the barrel of a security breach all that comes in the form of words, "Well, be careful in here. Boxing gyms carry a lot of grudges." Falling quiet he looks up and over his shoulder, "Not the first person I heard talk like that." He winces fighting for focus and murmurs, "Having things... out of your hands? That ain't a feeling you just get over." Which sounds like that's from personal knowledge. "They, um, they lookin for you?"

"I have since learned to turn it off, so there is no danger but," Roxy shrugs, and finishes his hair to her level of acceptable. She gets up to put the brush back in the bathroom, and then returns to the chair to sit. "I learned my parents were planning on getting rid of me anyway. They had all the money I'd made in a trust. I would get it at 21. Unless I died, then they would get it. They sold me to that Asylum." She wrings her hands a bit in her lap.

"I wound up in Oregon with little memory of what had happened, and nothing with me but the clothing on my back. I danced on the street for spare change, until a woman suggested I come to a club and dance there. I did burlesque for a time, but this place kept pulling me to it. So two years later, here I am."

She smooths out the skirt of her dress over her knees idly. "I have papers now, good ones, to say I am Roxanne. I can't ever go home. They had me declared dead, if they learned I was alive..." Well they'd kill her for good this time.

Joey reaches back and gives her hand a squeeze as she finishes fixing him and making him 'people shaped' He watches her and waits. he waits for all the things said and all the things unsaid. He's tired and his head is swimming shown in the uneven stare and the sweat hugging his brow. He's not a guy that shows his feelings easily, or... maybe really has any? It's been up for debate. He does have angry though. He's made peace with that one and it creeps out like a storm gusting up under a door and making itself known with enough force to push pass his generally indifferent and patient exterior.

Hands grip the edge of the mattress to push himself up and one hand slips, and recovers to take hold again. The effort alone in his exhausted form brings another bead of sweat up on his brow. "They can..." He pauses taking a deep breath, "Can come..." knuckles blanch a bit and angry green eyes find her to fill in the blanks trying to catch his breath, "talk t'me. Kinda like to have... a word with em."

Roxy gets up and sets her hands on Joey's shoulders, urging him to lie down. "Come now, you are very sick Joseph, lie down. You need to rest. You should probably be in a hospital. This flu is very very bad." She goes back to the bathroom, digs out a washcloth, and wets it with cold water. She brings it back to place it on his forehead, sitting on the edge of the bed like some fantasy Florence Nightingale. "I had the strangest dream the other night. Javier was in it, and a lady police officer, and a homeless man. It was bizarre."

Joey is hot and clammy to the touch. This factoid is not deterring him in the slightest. He squints at her like she's lost her damn mind but neither speaks nor budges until that gentle shove puts him back in the pace she found him. "Hospital is for sick people. I don't wanna catch anything." Grumpy bastard. Still the water is cool and the company is nice and he can't really argue either for the sake of just being pissy. Well...damn.

"Dreams do that." Not they're weird, just that they sometimes do things. Stretching he murmurs, "Had a dream about you once running across the lake. Water turning to ice under your dance shoes. Outrunning... something? A big frog I think."

Roxy chuckles at the mental image of that. She smiles at him, mopping at his brow and face with the cool cloth. "That does sound weird. This one felt very real though. But there was a door and behind it was a forest with a cottage, and another door that led to a spaceship. Javier and the other cop and I went through the latter. There was a giant robot that was on the fritz, but was the ship's cook. I went through all this in my sleepwear. Very strange."

Joey murmurs, "I don't remember what you were wearing in mine but you kicked that frog's ass." There's a weak grin. Lifting a hand he rests it on her wrist careful not to grab it and squints faintly, "Hey... I know this is some scary shit. Believe it or not I know being afraid of cops," not new news. "And that the state is going to start telling you what to do." Somewhat newer news. He's terrible at wording but he's fair to middling at getting the intent across. "I don't want them to take you away either. You need help? Like... ask. I said I would. I think. I can't remember. Tell me about your robots." Closing his eyes he takes a deep breath and stiffles a coughing fit. "Tell me...tell me about your trip to see the robots."

Roxy smiles sweetly at his offer of help. "Thank you, Joseph. But at the moment I'm pretty sure a toddler could beat you up. This is why you need to rest, so you can regain your strength." She gets up to re-wet the cloth since his fever is warming it quickly. "As for my dream, I was sewing in my room at the motel, and suddenly I was near the pool. And there was a homeless main rummaging through the bar with a giant vodka bottle. And Javier was in a chair smoking, and then this other woman, who I think is also police, was there in her nightclothes as well. None of us knew how we got there or when and why we left our rooms."

She comes back out and reapplies the cloth to his forehead. "And there was a terrible storm out to sea, and it was terribly hot, and there was a pitcher of water and four keycards on the bar, each one with a different emblem on it. The lady picked up the leaf, and I picked up the cloud, but she insisted the leaf was mine so we traded."

Joey murmurs "Kids have advantage. They're cute." Yes, he's not dying so much he can't argue. He does murmur, "Sounds like Sutton. She ain't no cop." He pauses listening to her tell him the story. It had a bit of a callback if he's honest with himself. Being taken care of is admitting weakness, but on the other hand he liked the company and the soup. It's a great time to get over his personal bullshit for a bit. "Sounds quite the adventure. Better than the one I had. I was stuck in an elevator with the man that tried to kill me." His hands fall to rest on his chest and he asks curiously, "Where were the doors?"

"This was a woman with very short hair. I do believe Javier called her Haven?" Roxy shrugs a little bit, worrying away at Joey's face with the cloth. She pushes his hair back off his forehead before it sticks to his sweaty brow. "She had a gun, so I just assumed..." because where she grew up, only cops carry guns.

"The doors were in the side of the motel. But it wasn't the motel anymore suddenly. It was enclosed, and I couldn't see the bay anymore, and there was a terrible smell in the air. I went with Javier and Haven, into the cloud door, to the space vessel. It was beautiful out the window. There was a nebula."

Joey murmurs something about "Could be a new one. I dunno." New one what he may not know either or seem to fret over it. He murmurs trying to follow along cracking his eyes at her curiously, "Like space dust cloud thing? That sounds... kinda amazing." He pauses and squints with a wry grin, "Wait... De la Vega's name is Javier?" This is his take away here. All this time he's never once heard the man's first name." I kinda thought it was 'De' and like "la Vega' was his last name at this point. Shows what I know."

"I only know him as Javier. De La Vega is his surname then? I wonder why he did not tell me he was a law man?" Roxy frowns at that a little bit. "And yes, it was pretty. I could...show you? I do not do it very well, but..." she taps at a temple. "Sometimes I can share an image?"

Joey murmurs, "You got tits and it scares people is my guess." Yeah he's a little blunt in this state. Not being judgmental, but not sugar coating it either. "He's cool but seriously, who wants to talk to a cop? Sometimes a dude is a dude is a dude." Taking a deep breath he laughs which erupts into a cough that holds a grin admitting, "Longest time I thought his first name was 'You Have the Right To Remain Silent'. Shit, I that's how he used to say hi." When she says she can share an image he furrows his brow curious, "You can? That's... got to be a great way to tell a damn story. It hurt when you do that?"

Roxy seems amused. "He has already seen my tits and everything else. He was at amateur night, remember?" she points out. "But he is probably more than double my age. I do not think he would look at me like that. I think he could tell I did not belong here." She is too innocent for this world. She shakes her head regarding the mental thing. "No, I just...using it is still new to me. I do not remember what happened with it in the hospital, but it did not wake up again, truly, until I reached Gray Harbor."

Her eyes narrow and she clearly concentrates, focusing on his eyes, the windows to the soul so to speak. Then there is the sense of a deep, dark forest, one where the dawn never comes, where only the moon and stars light the narrow paths among the trees. There is the distant baying of hounds, and the presence of a pale white stag, no, a doe, with a crown of aspen branches mimicking antlers. He knows that is her, her mental self. The doe looks at him, asking permission to enter.

Joey snickers and murmurs, "I very much remember amateur night. And it doesn't mean it ain't a joy every damn time." hey, he tries to be respectful but he ain't dead or without opinions. He murmurs, "You assume a lo, but, yeah. The city's good for not being too critical about... what you can or can't do I guess." Which is how he what? Justifies floating bags of gravel? Eeeeh he doesn't focus down on the details so hard.

Really Joey's mental self is not unlike a block of concrete. Not really an animal so much as just a fortified lump of no but there's no assault. There's a sense of permission or more to the point he said sure do this. Murmuring he offers, "Don't worry I won't shoot ya."

The doe lowers her head and then she is gone, as is the forest, and he is seeing the nebula through the thick window of the spacecraft. It is a thing of beauty, swirls like space dust in shades of orange, red, and yellow, with deep blues along the fringes, and bright spots where stars dot it. It glows, like a living thing.

Joey looks around. Eyes sharp and curious. It's the same woods he's grown up in and has never questioned their veracity. Some people are naturally elegant, and some people are Joey Lee Kelly who may have a patronus of unexpected form, but not here, not right now. His hand extends out to the doe, palm up. Curious he follows running a few steps as the image rearranges. And then? Spaceship, and the outside bringing an expression of his mental self, and his actual self. Fever running hot all the same. The last time he might have made an expression with this level of wonderment he might have been Jessie's age. He leans forward pressing his face to the glass and murmurs with a half smile, "It's like a bowl of fruity pebbles..." It's not entirely a coherent thought but an honest one as he asks, "When you dance the starts move with you or they stay put?"

Roxy smiles, watching the look of wonder on his face. She has no idea what Fruity Pebbles are, but it sounds like something nice. "When I dance, I am the star, leaving stardust in my wake. Dancing transforms you. You become the character, and the storyteller, all at the same time."

The image fritzes like an old VHS tape when the tracking needed to be adjusted. Then it cuts out and he is back in his own mind. Roxy rubs a temple. "I am sorry, I have trouble keeping up the connection sometimes."

Joey is still staring at an unfixed point of the wall. Slowly he rolls to his back and reaches up to take her hand from the washcloth and give it a squeeze. "Well... you achieved that. I dunno. I always feel like a storm trying to rip away from the sky; break new ground." He pauses uncertain if that made any sense at all, "Sounds stupid I guess, but, sometimes you just have to get away from things. Everything." He pauses and lets his eyes drift up to her face watching the expression for a whole entirety of a moment. "I guess few know that better than you." Her hand gets another squeeze. IT's a long conversation with a lot of trust in it this afternoon, and much soup.

"You are like a wild horse, untamed, swift, a runner. But you are also immovable when you choose to be, sturdy, you stand your ground fiercely. A warhorse perhaps," Roxy notes with a fond expression, returning the hand squeeze. She nods at his words. "Yes, yes I do. I wish I did not. I wish I had loving parents, and a normal childhood, and I could go home and all would be well. But that is a fantasy, not my reality." She resumes mopping his face. "You should get some rest now, Joseph. I miss my dance partner practicing with me."

Joey is wiped but loooks away at the compliment. He murmurs, "I get stray dog a log, but I think I like your version better. I mean... naw. We don't have parents or some life that goes in a fucking painting. but," he rolls over half awake, "Right here's been pretty good. And your partner misses dancing with you. " He looks to the soup ad back to her, "Get on out of here before I get you sick. I want to be better for your next performance. I picked something out for it."

“Oh?” Roxy asks curiously. “Well then I am off. Sleep well, Joseph. I will check on you again soon.” The raven-haired woman puts the cloth in his hand, squeezes it, then rises and departs.