Log:A Bit of Laundry
| A Bit of Laundry | |
|---|---|
| Participants | 6 December, 2017 Everyone's got to wash their socks. |
| Location | |
| It's rainy. Rainy rainy wet gross rainy. But at least it's not freezing cold out, it's nearly forty-two degrees, like, in December in Vermont, and there are still climate change deniers. It's also apparently laundry day for tin men, because there's this one lead soldier who's got a hefty bag full of dirty laundry and he's trudging across the parking lot from his jeep, getting rained on, battered leather jacket covering a really worn-out Gin Blossoms t-shirt with permanent rust stains on it. Like yeah it's really laundry day. He wearily pushes open the door to the laundromat, squinting at the named dryers, like what??, and dropping his hefty bag into a rolly cart with a soft rustling 'phwooph'. He takes out his wallet and finds a ten, then goes over to the change machine with it, doot do dooo.
The thing about being in laundromats is that they're very bright and who even likes very bright places when you are a star-wolf? Uh, not this one, anyway. And so it is probably not surprising that, while there are dryers running, there is no visible Elia. Oh, is there an Elia here? But there is. She's under one of the folding tables. At first, not visible, except for the scattering of autumn leaves across the floor, shifting illusory in a wind that only they can feel. The pumpkin vines centering under that table are probably a clue, too, for the perceptive tin man. And then there's a quiet humming, a steady, marching sort of beat song, wandering up and down in notes. Singing in time with the music of the stars in her head.
It's the humming that's actually noticed first, because it's the end of Autumn so Czcibor kind of expects dried leaves to gather indoors when doors are always opening and closing. So after the change machine does its seriously loud CHNNNNNGGCH dropping-of-quarters thing, the tin man's pulling his rolly cart closer like he thinks someone might actually want what's in it, or maybe like he thinks he might have to use the hanger hook pole on one side of it to defend himself?? or something, and he very slowly bends over to look under the table over there. From over here. Upside down metal head, blank regard fixed on starwolf, look of utter incomprehension on his face. "Is," he asks tentatively, "it too bright in here? Shall I get a parasol?"
"Flou-rrrrrr-e-scents," explains the star-wolf in her rolling, carefully-dissected words, neat and sharp. "They buzz. Irrrre-gu-larr. And too brrright, yes." Her shoulders rise and slowly fall, hunched under her greatcoat. She's wearing... boxers? And... a greatcoat. Well, at least she's still wearing the coat, right? Oh, and her footwraps, because of course. Those are Hedgespun, you can't put hedgespun in the dryer. "Hel-lo, Cheech." Czcibor is not so easy to say around the elongated tongue and sharp teeth.
"Then I won't bother you to come out from where you're comfortable," the Elemental says in amusement. He straightens up, and rolls his cart over to the laundro-Ma'at, pocketing a million quarters. "Hello, Eliaska. Just call me Kowal, it's easier and I answer to it reflecively. Is this really the only laundromat between here and Tamarack Falls?" He starts loading his dirty clothes in, and... yeah okay so there's blood on some, and rust on others, and some are fantastically dirty with god knows what and also just dirt, and some are ... deffo not his, because they're women's clothes that are for someone much shorter and more slender than he is.
Sometimes, owning a sleazy strip club is not the most glamourous job in the world. ...okay, make that never. It is never the most glamourous job in the world. It is most especially not glamourous when you are the one who gets to fight the rain across the street with a hamper of -- oh dear, the stains, one really doesn't want to know what made those stains, no, and the glitter, and...well. Struggle visible through the front windows, more or less, by the time she gets into the laundry, Lolly is a soggy, bedraggled mixed-blood Asian mess of cheap dyes, cheaper perfume and glitter. So much glitter. She looks rather like a craft store vomited up the entire stripper glitter aisle all over her sodden self, and smells like booze and vomit, under the cheap perfume, though under all of that, the sweet-sharp scent of delicate, intoxicating lily of the valley remains. Ruffly off-the-shoulder peasant blouse less than opaque after her jaunt across the plaza, one of her messy buns is starting to straggle loose, and the long lily-white hair -- with green roots, of course, as befits a proper plant person -- left free at either temple is instead clinging wetly to cheeks and chin. She gets inside, panting, flops her back against the door with a whooshy sigh of relief, then spots Czcibor and emits a frightened, high-pitched, "Eep!!" Panic and wet plastic are not good bedfellows: the instant she spies the metal man, creamy-pale fingers lose their grip on slippery plastic and spill a laundry-basketful of colourful, glittery effusion of sweaty stripper costumes and vomit-reeking towels all over the floor. Lolly freezes, then slaps both hands over her face with a low sound of mingled embarrassment and dismay. One hand's fingers split, a V formed to let her peek out and see if he's still there. ..aaaand yep. Yep he is. Elia isn't immediately visible, but when she -does- notice the starry wolf, the air gets a plaintive, "Why? Why tonight? Why did everything have to fluffing happen -tonight-??"
There's someone else here? There's someone Elia doesn't know, here? She creeps to the edge of the table, on the tips of her fingers and her digitigrade toes, and peeks out from underneath the table, blinking slowly. "... be-cause time con-tin-ues in a lin-earrrr fash-ion, and things must... hap-pen in chron-o-logical or-derrr."
Pausing with a quarter halfway into Ma'at, Czcibor grins at Elia, then blinks at the doorway. "Oh shit, are you okay?" he asks. That really is a Gin Blossoms t-shirt. And JFC that is really actively a Star Trek TNG communicator pin on his motherfucking leather jacket. Putting the rest of the fistful of quarters on top of the machine, he starts over to help pick up Lolly's spilled things and gives Li-- Elia an amused sort of look, shaking his head. "Don't think the question was literal." Attention back on soaked-to-the-bone wow-that-blouse-is-kinda-seethrough stripper glitter queen, and there's literally nothing but concern on his face-- --which does move like a normal human being's, here, and isn't nearly as shiny, and neither are his clothes, which are very very normal (okay nerdy, okay questionable musical taste, but normal), and he's not actually checking her out. "Let me give you a hand, there. Sorry to startle you."
Lolly stares at Elia, blank, uncomprehending. She opens her mouth to say something, then notices Czcibor on the approach, and promptly freezes in place, wide-eyed. Play it cool, play it cool. Right. Regular sane normal human people could walk in at any moment. The mental litany is all but visible as it flits across the anxious Lolly's pale features, eyes flitting from one decidedly NOT human figure to the other, then back to the door, then back to her clothes, courage gathered. "Um." Crouching down, this close, it's more obvious that none of the cheap perfume is actually hers. She would be the source of the lily of the valley. "...Thanks." With a totally not-as-subtle as she evidently believes it is look from side to side, she leans in and whispers, a bit too loudly, "Do your kind of people even -need- to do laundry? Can't you just, like, wave a magic wand or something?" Mind, any time she glances at Elia, there's still anxiety, but it's Czcibor who elicits the true fear, now that the initial shock has passed.
"..." not-quite-sighs Czcibor, and he draws his Mask up around him like Pleasantville special effects. His skin's no longer high-contrast grey and terribly metallic, his eyes are no longer blank. They still have silver irises, sure, but they look like people eyes, and his mantle isn't spilling Spring legit everywhere. His hands still in their task, and he whispers, much more loudly, "Can you?" And then he stands with her dirty laundry and nudges a rolly cart over for her, dropping it in, and oh shit there is glitter on him. He looks down in dismay, then looks at Elia like 'rescue me please fuck goddamn there's glitter fuck fuck what do', then looks at Lolly with a sort of pinched expression. "I'm Kowal. This is Elia. I didn't catch your name the other day. I'm glad Petra could get you home okay after that mess. But please, for fucksake, don't-- I'm not--" Well, he is frustrated, it's clear.
Oh yes, there is glitter. There is silver glitter, and gold glitter, and copper glitter. There is iridescent mermaid glitter, all shimmery greens and blues. Then there is the regular iridescent glitter, pink or green or gold. Then there is the black glitter, for the naughty girls, and the matte white glitter for the snowy ones. There is red glitter and blue glitter and green glitter, purple glitter, pink glitter, but thankfully, all of it is the microfine doesn't actually irritate the skin glitter. For obvious reasons. Unfortunately, this also means that it clings to, oh, just about everything, and infiltrates any attire. When Elia doesn't jump out like some slavering beast and maul her, some of the anxiety fades, but it's Czcibor, again, who elicits the strongest reaction. Fear -- and need? When he strengthens his Mask, she draws in a swift breath of startled surprise, stares, and blinks down at the rolly cart, distracted into a quiet, "Thank you," before blurting, "How did you -do- that?" Oh, right. Introduction thing. "Um." Drawing a bracing breath, she holds a hand out for a shake. Yes, a glittery hand. "Lolly. Um. Lily really, Lily Black. I, um." She looks over her shoulder at the darkness and streetlights beyond the windows, one hand pointing vaguely thataway. "I, um, sort of inherited a strip club. This was a bad night. Too much, um. Too much grog. Patrons...um." She shrugs, not quite meeting either of their eyes.
The Mask-strengthened tinman starts to blink and answer Lolly with something when the buzzer goes off and Elia takes her stuff and runs. His mouth stays open for a second, and then closes. "Sorry," he apologizes for her, "I don't think she spends enough time around people. Also she hates the flourescent lights, and I reeeeally don't blame her. Especially that flickering one in the back, I just want to unscrew it." But then she's introducing herself, and he takes her hand, and his is warm and feels perfectly human, perfectly normal; his face is wryly fond as he looks at her. Quick, almost teasingly businesslike handshake, and Lolly's released and Czci's undeniably bettymarked. "Sounds like a too much everything night. Are you okay? And -- really, how did I do what?"
Lolly's hand is callused, but smoothly so, warm and oh so human. Because she is. Still mostly human, that is. Elia's departure is accepted with an uncertain, halting nod. If the Wyrd people want to be weird, that's their business. Muttering something under her breath in Japanese as Czcibor continues, however, she swaps to English to admit, "Probably shouldn't talk about it here," before she looks around the room, spots the flickering light, then tilts her head, confused. "I never noticed that." Belatedly recalling the revolting vomit-booze-perfume combo in the laundry bin, she hurries over to the nearest empty machines to start sorting things into washers. She, not being a stripper, does not have infinite $1 bills. She does have a lot of quarters, though, and even more of them once she makes a detour to the machine.
"--ahhh," says the Elemental, like he totally understands, and actually this time he might because that sounded just enough like cloak-and-dagger to indicate she probably means That Hedge Shit From The Other Day or possibly some Other Faerie Thing, so he nods knowingly, and then goes to finish jamming his dirty stuff in the washer he'd paused in filling. After he turns it on, he goes closer to where Lolly is, but keeps a safe distance, leaning against the machines and taking weight off his left leg. "Well. Places like this always have a jillion security cameras, and this one's even got real live employees, so if you want to ask me stuff across the street, that's okay too," he tells her mildly.
The mixed-blood young woman mutters under her breath again, the word 'baka' prominent -- and repeated multiple times -- though it seems directed more at herself than at Czcibor. She doesn't answer right away, focusing on the laundry, on making sure there is a LOT of hot water and soap in the one with the barf-covered towels. When she does answer, she's a bit tentative, but less fearful. "I think that would be smart." Lolly scoops up her own laundry basket, because leaving those unattended is just asking for them to grow legs and disappear, before heading for the door.
Anyone who needs a hefty bag can steal Czcibor's laundry 'basket'. The disguised tin soldier tilts his head a little, watching her for a second in puzzled concern, while still maintaining a Nice Safe Distance. (Not that it would be safe for something like, oh, Fleeting Spring. But it's safe, right? It's safe.) Then he looks away, up, and across; he's idly watching the television when she finally answers, so he wrenches his attention back and gives her a quick and sheepish smile. "Okay. Sorry. I'll go first so I'm not behind you," he says, lifting up his empty hands, and then preceding her out into the rainy night with that unmistakeable limp. Determined, apparently, to avoid being a threat. "If you don't, you should probably carry mace," he calls cheekily over his shoulder as he swans out the door. | |
