Participants:
| Scene Title | A Little Omission Between Friends |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Delilah needs a little help, and a personal ad seems just the way to do it. |
| Date | February 13, 2020 |
Certifications and officialism only get you so far. The slim ratio of Expressives who manifest abilities of the spatial influence variety is itself a hurdle. Add to this the potential for abuse, both against and from. Subtract the tiny dash of the good ones who decide to become instructors,.
What you get is a frustratingly scant number of individuals; some whose gifts do not even fully quantify what you need. Then you've got to get creative. Delliah knows exactly how. Once upon a time, she was nothing that she is now. The skills don't exactly leave you. Media was one of hers, all the way back to her time in Phoenix and onward. It's wavered some over time, but Dee can wordsmith as well as any journalist.
There are a few community newsletters here in the Safe Zone, and a print run of national news; as for the locals, the biggest outlet tends to be the Siren. May as well aim for the sun and hope for the best.
SLC+ Consultant Needed
Seeking SLC+ individuals with transpatial based abilities or experience.
Must have Intermediate proficiency.
Personal references preferred.
Will provide transportation if needed.
Pay negotiable based on freelancing experience.
Contact P.O. Box 8110, Bay Ridge
For the Siren, it will have to do.
Eleanor's Coffee Stand, Red Hook Market
February 19, 2020
This is a more formal type of consultancy than Amanvir normally goes for, but maybe it's a step in the right direction. Something to get him as far away as possible from accepting the type of work that got him accepting a teleporter-for-hire gig gone wrong a few weeks back.
There's a touch of irony to this, given the very type of ability that got him into trouble is the type he's offering a consultancy for now.
He clears his throat after drinking from the paper cup of coffee, trying to ignore the well-meaning side-eye that Eleanor's giving him. "This going to be a regular occurrence?" she asks skeptically. Aman doubletakes at her like he's been caught by a parental figure with his hand in the cookie jar.
"What?" He says, though he's clearly heard. "No, today's business. Helping someone who needs help."
Eleanor smiles, kindly save for a glint of mischief in it. Well-meaning, she leans forward and hums out, "Keep it up, and I'm going to start charging you rent." The old woman winks and turns to her next customer, leaving Aman to sip from his coffee to hide a grin of his own.
He leans back against the side of the stand, a brown suede jacket with over a black dress shirt. His hair is worn short, beard curated. A thin blue-green scarf settled around his neck brightens the outfit otherwise, keeping him professional but approachable.
It was the best place to meet this someone. She needn't even go far once she'd closed up shop. The day has given Delilah ample time to think of questions.
Unfortunately, she was too nervous to remember to write the good ones down.
She's winged worse, more complicated things! Is that good or bad? The man she's come to meet is sought out with the color of his scarf; once Delilah spies it— and him—- she is relieved to see him interacting peacefully with Eleanor. The old woman is usually a good judge of character.
"Hello?" Windswept red hair frames Delilah's sunny face, smile friendly. Her dress seems to match her initial disposition; casual shirt-dress, dark olive fabric, enamel sunflower buttons. The coat she wears is a touch of contrast, more bomber-style with an array of patches. "You must be Aman." She offers a hand. "Delilah. Make it official 'n at."
The accent throws Aman for a moment, brow arching up in a sign of surprise before he accepts Delilah's hand. "Aman, yes, that's me." The pronunciation of it is repeated for her sake as well as his own, though it's not something he'll bring up twice. He's heard all kinds of shifts to the tones of the vowels— the length of them, too— over the years, but 'ɑmənvir' gets the one solid demonstration on initial greeting and that's it.
"Good to meet you, Delilah," he says with a small smile. In the space of that handshake, he can feel that sense of something being on the other end of the line, but leaves it right where it should be. When he breaks away, he slides his hand into the pocket of his jacket and gestures with his coffee hand instead. "You want to walk and talk or stick around here?"
He looks past her for a moment, checking to see if anyone trails her, then looks back to Delilah with a warm politeness. "Listen, I apologize again for not really having a resume to put forward for this. It's part of being freelance for these sorts of things." Freelance was how she put it, so he sees no harm in reusing that language. "But I think depending on what you're looking for, you'll find I've got relevant experience. So…" His brow lifts again inquisitively. "What're we working with, here?"
"Lovely to meet you too, Aman." It only takes once for her to commit the pronunciation, and for the sake of his comfort she even proves it. See? She's got you. "I think, ah, walk and talk is probably best." No offense, El! Delilah's hands briefly squeeze together before she pops them into her pockets. As to his apology, the young woman just shakes her head once, having a small laugh to reassure him.
"I completely understand, it's alright. I've just— had trouble finding someone in the usual ways. Hard to find people that are familiar with this sort of thing in the first place…" Dee gives a short jerk of her head, a gesture for him to follow her as she pulls away from the coffee stand. Her shoulders roll in a very exaggerated shrug, words tinkling with another laugh, "So long as you're not going to give me trouble, I don't really care how official this is. I did call Pigeon to make sure you existed."
That's…. Good?
"Short range teleportation. Mostly situational right now…" Lilah starts with a smile and ends with a small sigh, neutralizing; clearly something else more troubling than Aman's skinny resume. "Happens under stress, or nightmares, or just being scared."
Aman emits a tone that's at once understanding and acknowledging of that special kind of trouble. "I've dealt with something like that before." It's the last thing he admits in a conversational tone of voice, gesturing with his coffee as he glances down at her and continues on more quietly, "I don't know what you consider short-range to be, but this other teleportation allowed you to go anywhere you'd previously been before. Was especially triggered by stress, and anxiety. If you got worked up, it was easy to pop unintentionally from one place to the next."
Looking ahead, he relates in a deadpan, "Sometimes it was across the room, sometimes it was across the city. Could be a little difficult to reset on command, too— head back where you were before after an accident. But it was possible."
A more thoughtful rumble comes from him as he asks, "Wwwwwhen did the manifestation occur?"
"Sounds a little familiar, yeah. It's… different, though, I know that for sure." Delilah takes care in her words, threading hair behind an ear, brows knit as they walk. The market is as casual as ever, somewhere between trickle and everyday shopping. It's still daytime, and a slow one. They don't have much overhearing to worry about.
"Um, I'm not sure. There were things, now and again… just over the last year or so? But it really hit this past November." In the shade of a wall of the bookseller's, Lilah shoots him a meaningful look. "Your description is pretty good. Would you be able to teach someone something like that? It doesn't have to be much at first, just—" Brown eyes turn over her shoulder for a moment, looking back up to his. "Enough that the 'popping' happens less. I think that's a start."
Aman drinks from his coffee, mulling over the nature of the ability that Delilah describes. His fingers tap along the side of the drink as he shoots a look back in her direction, weighing something. She says teach someone, not her. "This for a client of yours?" he asks as delicately as he can manage, a little suspicion to it.
He trusts her concern is real, that the issue is real. He's just not sure what her role in this is, suddenly.
Of course he picks up on it; she'd been trying very carefully not to imply herself foremost, and also trying to reel his interest in before the weird details. Delilah smiles sheepishly, making sure that as she ducks him along the wall there is nobody rubbernecking. Gossips everywhere.
"Right. No, not a client. This has to stay on the DL, got it?" Not exactly client. But sort of? Not really. It's on his behalf. She hasn't told him; best not to get his hopes up.
Because it scares him, sometimes.
Level 5 wasn't kind on a tiny Expressive, even if he is confident of himself in the way kids can be.
"I'm trying to find someone to help my son. There aren't a lot of people with this experience, and even less that would be likely to work with a kid. He's nine."
Aman's expression falls, suspicion fading away in a slacking of his shoulders. A kid, she says, leaving him dumbstruck, feet stilling. His coffee hand lifts, the side of his thumbnail scratching against his forehead while he looks off. It's only for a moment, because it's not that it takes him long to process, but he's taking an especial mind to properly convey what he means to here.
"I've heard of kids manifesting before, but this is the first time I've ever heard of somebody so young."
He's only halfway successful.
With a shake of his head, he looks back to Delilah with a different air than he had even a half minute ago. He's engaged and involved in these details like he's already committed to saying yes. There's a gravity to his words, for all their empathy. "I understand the desire to help him in any way you can, here, but are you sure about hiring someone like me? At the school for SLC kids they opened up here in New York, I heard they have counselors who specialize in early-life and traumatic manifestations. They might be better-equipped to handle this than any stranger you might find, given that his situation is… rare."
Aman frowns just a tad, shifting his posture so he faces Delilah better. "That being said, I do have experience with that kind of ability. I can't say I'm great with kids or anything, but I've been an uncle for a few, so I kind of… you know…" His shoulders wobble. He seems a little uncomfortable despite his earnestness. "Know how to talk to kids. And I know for sure how to talk to abilities."
He grazes his teeth over his bottom lip, hesitating for a moment. "With his permission, and as much of an explanation he can give me as possible about the way it works, what I can do is work with the ability directly and hopefully give him some more direct pointers." Now there's a touch of caution in Aman's gaze. "I can share from my past experiences, of course, but I could also go that extra step. That's only if you— and more importantly he— would be okay with that."
His first few moments of quiet thinking seem way, way too long to her. It's why she set up the issue first. Delilah figured, perhaps rightly, there wouldn't be anyone to contact her had they known it was a child.
Not lying. Omission.
"He attends the school already. They've talked with him, some. He's— it's not that I don't trust them." Delilah attempts to get her words straight, brow furrowed and attention split between Aman and her surroundings. As he looks to her she is able to focus, worry written from ear to ear. It may be because she fully expects him to dip out. Instead, what Dee gets is a particularly curious voice in her head.
"Work directly… That means what?" The redhead's eyes narrow, briefly roving up and down Aman's frame, back to his face. Direct he says. "He has a lot of people in his life with a crazy array of abilities. We try our best to teach our kids the fundamentals. The morals of them, you know? He even has some he looks up to. A lot."
"But beyond the idea of willpower and focus…" Lilah shakes her head, looking to her hands and the stone under her boots. Mnh. "We don't know anyone like him."
Aman nods when Delilah shares that the advice the counselors have is somehow not enough. Her kid was her kid, he could understand her wanting the best for him. His hand slides from his pocket to make a gesture of understanding as he looks down at her.
It's a look that fades when she looks him up and down in that scrutinizing way, trying to figure out his deal. It's hard to look keen with that eye on him, though he relaxes when she moves on with her explanation. Aman sighs. "Directly… means…"
He glances off and then back to her, trying to find a succinct description. Somehow that seems like it'll go over better. "What I can do is borrow his ability for a short period. I usually offer my services as a negator for hire, but in this case, maybe I could use my past experience to work with his ability and help him get a better feel for the triggers of it. Like I said, offer more precise advice."
His hand comes up in a gesture of disclaimer now. "Or at least give it a shot, anyway."
"No."
It's the most emphatic she has been so far, and loud enough that she reddens and examines over her shoulder again.
"No, please not that far." Delilah breathes out as if she'd been holding it— maybe so. "Not to start, I mean, not that it doesn't sound like a good idea. It's just… it's different. I'll be straight with you, here— it's more than what he thinks it is. I. Can't put knowing on his shoulders."
Small shoulders, still.
Maybe down the line she will trust him, if he does good enough by them, but even then she will no doubt be just as cautious. "Sorry if I seem really finicky…" No explanation comes for it. Maybe he'll just think she's way too protective.
"If you'd like to meet him before you make any decisions, I can your offer you that. See if he's your type of student." Dee laughs softly, smile widening.
What a 360 the woman performs, from the vehement no to the smiles that follow. Aman's only visible reaction to it is the slight upward tick of his brow.
Well okay, then.
"Ma'am," he says as delicately as he can manage, insomuch as that he tries. "If it's his ability, he's going to find out about it sooner rather than later. If you can prepare him for it, he'll know how to handle it better when it happens." His brow actually knits in concern. "Better than it happening to him and he can't stop it— gets into something dangerous, something that maybe can't be undone." The words are spoken with care, trying to not tread on her autonomy to raise her kid how she wants to, even though he's wondering why she somehow knows more about it than he does.
Hm.
"I'm definitely willing to work with him, I want to reiterate that— but in return I'm asking you give what I said just now some thought. Maybe we revisit the topic in the future. Yeah?"
Let's start that over again. Aman can pretty much see her for what she is— protective— and he seems to make as much sense as anyone else. Dee pushes her hair back, hand on head with a sigh through her nose.
"He's a sharp kid, so he probably knows more than he lets on already. Of course I'll explain it. I just… I don't know when. When he knows himself better." Lilah does seem just as concerned about Walter getting into something, given she's here; she listens to Aman, rather than just hearing him.
"That might be sooner than I think. With how he's been the last few rough nights I want to make sure he doesn't teleport into the river or something before I can." That would be unfortunate. Delilah's posture is guarded, and her hands busy with themselves; all of this is something she's thought about for a long, long, long time. It shows.
"I had to learn by myself in the beginning and it was horrible. Only after Phoenix took me in and gave me mentoring did I learn real coping skills. If you two get on and he can learn a little, we can revisit. Abso-fucking-lutely."
It can give her some time to suss Aman out too.
The casual drop of the freedom-fighting crew earns Delilah a slow, upward tilt of Aman's chin to acknowledge the mention. Well okay, then indeed. That coupled with her sudden enthusiasm brings him to chuckle, and then he offers his hand out to her again.
"Sounds like a plan, Delilah. When do you want to start?"
One small step for man, one giant leap for time travel. Something like that. It's the first step. Delilah hopes it's in the right direction. She chuckles right back with a sense of palpable relief, taking his hand and adding her other to clasp overtop. Thank you.
"How does this weekend sound? And if you're not busy right now, maybe you can come with me to pick him up. Say hello 'n'at? It's cool if not, I'm sure you've got a life too."
Once he's shaken Delilah's hand properly, Aman is free to check his watch for the time, making a split second decision. "I've got some time now," he decides, a few hours yet before he needed to be at his shift. "Let's make some introductions."