Participants:
| Scene Title | A Day With Pigeons |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Tibby is rude. It's a casual day with the Pigeons. |
| Date | May 4, 2019 |
Pigeon Courier Service
It's been a long day for Tibby Naidu, just a few weeks into her new legitimate gig of being a courier. Most of the employees knew her as a rather quiet woman, in fact. Most would say they hadn't heard but a single word from her ever. The job was a good way to see more of the Safe Zone and learn this city like the back of her hand. A year ago, she would have been leaning on the support of the numerous felines in the city but the woman leaning against the outside wall of the entrance to the building of Pigeon Courier Services doesn't seem to share the same affinity. A fat tabby cat looks up at her pitifully meowing for attention and the small woman who was just returned from her latest run out delivering messages looks down…
…and ashes on the cat, tapping the end of her cigarette with a quick tap tap at the same time waving her foot in the direction of the cat as ash sprinkles down on it, squinting up towards the gray matter it leaps back and runs off down the street. Tibby's lips curl at the ends, downwards.
She was going to need to get some kind of cat repellent. Shaking her wild platinum blonde haircut, the late afternoon sun has her with sunglasses perched on the crown of her head. Smoke drifting up from her hand and mouth, Tibby's attire consist of a loose fitting top with long sleeves that fall well past her hands and black plain short shorts allowing light skinned legs to be seen, scars and all.
Isaac Faulkner rounds the corner on his bicycle, coasting towards the Pigeon Courier building; he's wearing a pair of sunglasses, a gray, long-sleeved shirt, a pair of black jeans and sneakers.
And it's a good thing he's coasting instead of coming in at full speed as he sometimes does, because if he'd been really going all out as he rounded the corner he'd probably have run over the tabby scampering down the road before he'd even seen it.
As it is, he manages to slam the footbrake, bringing the bike to an almost instant stop; the bike lurches, but by some miracle he's not launched head over heels into the road. Isaac swears under his breath as the panicked cat reverses course, scrambling down an alleyway; he shakes his head, pedaling into the homestretch and parking his bike out front.
He doesn't proceed directly inside, though. Instead, he leans on the bike rack for a moment, looking back to where the cat had run out in front of him, and shakes his head again. "Shit."
Legitimate gigs. Right. For one multi-verse alternate-timeline hopping traveler, this was his quote-unquote dream job as well as he could have imagined it. Shaw steps out of the building with a generally unmarked box in tow, tucked beneath an arm. There’s a shipping label with their courier company logo slapped on it, but that’s it.
That he just so happens to step out to see Tibby tossing ashes on a stray, and the subsequent near-miss of the cat and Faulkner’s bike, first gets a sucked in gasp from the witness. Then, a sigh of brief relief. And then, eyeing Tibby, Shaw says, “You should not have done that. It’s very rude.”
Issac's entrance to the street is noted by a slight turn of Tibby's head. Eyebrows lift a tick but she doesn't say much but nod in greeting at him. Shit, indeed. The exiting of Shaw from the building would have been ignored but she hears his gasping and she knows in her heart he was one of those people. She tilts her head as he berates her, yes it was an action but she was meaner now. So.
Her movements are her own, she owns herself, her body, her time. This is a mantra the young woman repeats often to herself whether verbal or mental. I am me. I own me. Tibby had always been rather good at lying.
Puffing on her cigarette with not a care in the world she has the decency to mostly blow the smoke away from Shaw before she lifts her eyebrows even higher to stare into his doe eyes. For a moment she sneers and then ashes again off to the side of her, luckily there isn't a cat. There's a light shrug and she waves her hand in a mockery of surrender, "Busted." Her voice like her, is small but ragged. There's a hard steel edge in that tone.
Isaac catches Tibby's nod out of the corner of his eye; he glances towards her, then offers a nod of his own to the young woman, accompanied by a faint hint of a smile. He offers a nod to Shaw, as well, but at Tibby's comment his head turns to the woman, regarding her with interest. It's not so much what she says as how she says it; there's enough contempt beneath the surface there to probably dissolve bones. Maybe she's got a chip on her shoulder… but against Shaw? Interesting.
His eyebrows rise, and he leans against the bike rack, curious as to how this is gonna play out. If these two are gonna go Mortal Kombat here on the sidewalk, it'd be a shame to miss out on it.
Mortal Kombat would mean investing more into a game, and Shaw doesn’t seem to know yet whether or not to play. Tibby’s devil-may-care attitude in the face of the admonishment earns her a further furrowed brow. There’s a quick glance to Isaac, a blink in acknowledgment for his salutation. But then Shaw’s focus returns to Tibby.
There was a time, back when, that Shaw was thrown into a cage and locked away for the entertainment of others. And in that time he’d seen the attitudes of his captors be something similar to the nihilistic hedonism that the steely edge of Tibby’s response carries. Something about the shrug, something about the mockery of surrender… tips Shaw’s action from verbal to physical.
He whips out his hand to quickly snatch at her smoke.
A tiny hand snakes out to grab at Shaw's wrist. Tiny but quick, nimble when she needs. Her dominant hand grabbing on, fingertips peeking out from her long sleeves to reveal what appears to be sub dermal piercing anchors. For all her attempts at stopping him his fingertips do flick the end of the cigarette knocking it out of her hand sending embers and the stick falling to the ground.
Doo.
Green eyes with an brow arched match Shaw's almond brown. Tibby's body shivers but not from cold, something she's feeling inside. Pain, crawling over her body like tiny iced needles. She was always a bit more grouchy and flippant when it was this bad.
Smoke from that cancer stick seeps out of her mouth slowly as the woman reaches with her free hand to pull a fresh cigarette from the pack in her pocket. Keeping her eyes on Shaw's as she sticks it in her mouth and proceeds to light the new one. Throwing the man's hand back at him as smoke pours from Tibby's nostrils.
Isaac regards this exchange with both eyebrows raised; it's seeming more and more likely that they're about to break into a fight right here. Shaw's looking like Tibby's attitude has got his hackles up, and Tibby's all but bristling like a cat spotting a strange dog. Which, honestly, seems like a fascinating afternoon diversion… but as much as he loves throwing the proverbial cat amongst the pigeons, there is the fact that Shaw's wife did him a solid.
Well. Hmm. Alright. Much as he's loathe to step in and disrupt what looks like it could be a really fun afternoon, Isa might set him on fire if he just stood around and Shaw got knifed or something from picking a fight with a starveling alley cat. Soo…
"Are you two gonna fight?" he asks in a tone of mild interest from where he lounges against the bike rack. "If you are, that's fine, but let me get my phone so I can put it on youtube." He smirks. "You could be internet famous," he says.
"That's not the sort of advertising I had planned for the shop," Ande says as he steps into view. He's dressed in a brown sweater because his office is always cold, no matter what the weather is like outside. He's holding a clipboard because he's been working. He looks between the three of them as a dad would three errant children. Disappointed but indulgent.
"Do we have a problem out here? You all know you can bring your disagreements to me if you need to. I'd preferred it to any actual fighting." His brows pull together, concern falling across his features. "Who wants an extra run today?" he asks, as if he were offering them a treat. Well. It is overtime.
Is Shaw smiling at Tibby, or is he baring his teeth at her? Brown, dark eyes are rounded to the whites, making the expression more like a taunting demon's mask grimace than a placating smile. He's only successful in flicking out the first cigarette, and seems helpless in watching her light a second. Reluctant to move, lest the claws on her fingertips sink in for a bite.
Once his hand's returned unharmed, Shaw side steps around Tibby. His dark gaze doesn't leave her, but he bends to pick up the fallen cigarette. Fingers snuff out the tip wordlessly; the burn scars on his skin there tell that he doesn't feel it much, if he does at all.
Isaac's words finally turn Shaw's attention away from Tibby. "I- I don't want to be famous," comes his plain statement. Infamy is threat enough to make Shaw stand down for now, and reinforced by the sudden appearance of Ande at the door. A glance darts to the bossman, and he hushes into the quiet worker. The extra run perks him up too, and although he's already got a package in hand to deliver, Shaw can't help but ask. "Where is it going?"
Fucker.
She almost wants to wipe the smile off of Shaw's face but then their boss is outside and disapproving and Tibby's other gig Demanded she have this position and so her face changes and she looks softer but not at Shaw, she just ignores him as she puffs on the cigarette. Green eyes passing over Faulkner and his jokes on fame, no thank you. She would say. But there's a package and she's the one causing the trouble, being rude and such to that ratty creature that had slinked off around the corner.
She rather not be scolded anymore so she raises her hand. "I'll. Go." Blonde hair lifts in the wind and she beats herself up on the inside. She should have behaved herself, kept it reigned in. Tibby wasn't also capable of that it seemed.
Between Isaac pouring some cold water on things and Ande's arrival on scene, it looks like maybe Shaw and Tibby aren't going to try to murder each other this afternoon. That's a relief… though perhaps, just perhaps, also a tiny bit disappointing.
Ah well. Isaac offers a relieved nod and a smile to Ande. The offer of an extra run catches his eye, but alas, Tibby's quicker on the draw. It's probably a smart move on her part to take the run; it gives her an opportunity to withdraw without losing face… which… might be exactly what Ande had intended, come to that. He glances to Ande for the briefest of moments, eyebrow rising slightly. Shrewdly done, if that was his intent… and even if it wasn't, there's something to be learned here. Isaac makes a note of it.
"Alas, seems I've been scooped," he sighs, offering a resigned shrug to Tibby… though his usual smirk never quite fades. "My own fault; should've been quicker. Maybe next time," he says… then his gaze shifts back to Ande again. "Unless… I don't suppose you've got another bonus run lined up? I'd not be averse to overtime," he says, giving a brief grin.
"Then you're up," Ande says, passing the package to Tibby. She can see the address is less an address and more a set of directions to a certain intersection on Staten Island. But, they take all sorts of deliveries. He turns to Isaac, giving him a warm smile. "You'll have dibs on the next one that comes through. Remind me," he adds the last with a tap against his temple. Sometimes he does need reminding of these little promises he hands out. He looks over at Shaw, including him in the smile as well. "Maybe we'll just have to start an overtime rotation. Because we're a team here, right?" For better or for worse. "A flock." Haha.
Shaw might not be able to see the address, but that's fine. He observes Tibby at distance this go around, wariness and curiosity balled into a round-eyed expression and slow blinking. Reminded that he still has a package in hand, he glances to the box tucked under arm and back to his coworkers and boss.
"A team," echoes Shaw, nodding once to acknowledge, or perhaps dismiss, the briefest altercation and its finality in the moment. No hard feelings from this man, for now. The punned bit gets a belated tilt of his head and a twist of a smile once he realizes the word play, and once again a smile spreads across Shaw's face. This one's far less menacing. "Okay," he says with a quick glance about to the trio, "Gotta fly."
Someone's on board with the boss' sense of humor.
Tibby grimaces at the flock term but she twists her mouth into a wary grin, "Absolutely." Is all is said in a clipped tone before she's padding over to her bike and rolling it back. Hopping on after securing her package she pulls a pair of bright yellow sunnies and places them on her nose. Lifting her fingers in a peace sign.
Behind those sunglasses she gives Shaw an intense look. She'll get him back, later. When he least suspects it.
Then she's off. "To the flock!" She calls, no hint of sarcasm noted.
Not one bit.