revivalproject | It's a Party in the Not-USA

Entry tags:

It's a Party in the Not-USA

WHO: York Stark, YOU
WHERE: Agrii Ship
WHAT: Holiday Time
WHEN: New Tick
WARNINGS: York’s broken filter

#FF00F8

This being his third year for this, York knows what to expect for New Tick. Pink snow, too much fucking glitter, and gifts buried in wrapping paper that also probably had too much glitter. The android also knows better than to touch anyone else’s wrapped up presents because unlike the organics around him, that zap goes all the way from his fingertips to his toes. It does not feel any emulation of good.

So he keeps going until he finds his own stack. Three this year? How generous, though seeing one in wrapped up in orange feels suspicious. Did it have to do with the various colors the aliens were wearing? And the orange gift is big, too. Almost as big as York himself. What the hell could that be?

For now, it’s ignored. The pink gift gets opened first, revealing a pretty metallic frame holding…

Holy shit.

York stares at it, then looks up and around for the other two - no, three - in the photo. Then looks back to it again, with Mini, Reeve, Richie, and himself captured in the likeness of a family photo. A family photo. Their family. The only one he considered like that back in Detroit was Duncan, who obviously wasn’t here. After last year’s gift of the matching suits, it was clear that the Agrii recognized them as a family unit. They were a family unit.

The frame is set onto the table with some reverence, because York doesn’t want to break it, even by accident. The purple gift gets opened next and oh. A sewing kit! That’d be useful since Miss Lark went home. She had to have gone home, since he hasn’t seen her in a long time and Little Bear was hanging around one of the Hawkins people. The little kit gets put into his hoodie pocket and he goes for the last one.

The orange gift. It’s nearly flat, thin, and a decent weight. The paper falls to the floor when ripped open and York staggers back. A riot shield from home, with the words ‘RIOT UNIT’ printed on it. The same riot shields that the police used to protect themselves when raiding Jericho. He kicks it away from him, then steps backwards quickly as it clatters loudly to the floor.

#0093FF

The pavilion is nice.

York isn’t really a water kind of android anymore. Not since what happened back home right before being brought to Temba. The terror of the raid, then the shock of cold water that threatened to ice his hardware - water wasn’t what York would consider a good memory.

Standing on the pavilion with the riot shield laying on the floor of it before him felt like a good step towards not being traumatized by it. It wasn’t like he had to get into it after all.

It’s tempting to push the shield into the water and forget about it entirely. It feelsl ike a ‘fuck you’ kind of gift to him, knowing how the police felt about androids where he was from. Or maybe this was supposed to be a gift about taking something from your oppressor to defend yourself with’ kind of thing. Irony, maybe.

 Either way, he glares at it for a long moment, then looks back to the serene water stretched out before him.

#FFC300

Fireworks aren’t really York’s thing back home, and he’s okay with that. But seeing the glee in the younger aliens as they run around, piques York’s interest. It’s not like he could hurt himself the way organics could. He’d just have to repair himself.

Hm, maybe that’s what the sewing kit was for? For himself and his beloved hoodie.

The android goes over to the table to light up his own sparkler, using the burning end to help one of the small aliens light their own before they’re running off. The joy he sees on the alien’s face is enough to have him smile himself. York may be a machine, but he’s not entirely cold-hearted. He starts following at his walking pace, keeping the lit end away from him so the sparks don’t land on the skin mesh. The other hand is tucked into the hoodie pouch as he files after the running children, grinning at their antics.   This wasn’t his idea of ‘fun’, but it’s entertaining at the very least.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Saying 'fetch' would have been a good way to lose the riot shield.

As it is, though, Leo watches the arc of the throw, keeping up with where the shield landed so he knows where to dive. Once it's disappeared under the surface and the ripples have slowed, he strokes his way over, tossing a grin back at York before taking a deeeeep breath and diving under.

Though Leo is a little more terrestrial now than he was as a baby turtle, he still has plenty of his original aquatic traits: membranes to protect his eyes while he looks around, air pockets in his throat to help him hold his breath. The shortage of webbing in his hands and feet means he can't swim as quickly as he might have if he hadn't mutated, but he makes up for it with his size.

It will take him a few minutes (longer than a human could reasonably stay under, but perfectly within his comfort zone), but he eventually spots the shield, resting at the sandy bed at the bottom. Getting to it is easy - raising it is a bit harder. It's heavy, and it's shape has a lot of drag.

It'll take him a bit - hopefully York doesn't think he's drowned.

But after a few minutes he pops out of the water again, dragging the shield to the surface with a wet splash.

"Phew!" he says as he blinks water droplets away. "This thing is heavier than I expected."

York goes to the edge of the pavilion and sits, the soles of his shoes barely skimming the water. He watches Leo dive under the surface, his system calculating the math of the angle and such as he does so, until all he can focus on are bubbles and ripples on the surface.

It does take awhile for the turtle guy to resurface, but York really isn't worried. The guy seemed more reptile than human. Oh, he does straighten up seeing the guy resurface, shield in hand. Feet get pulled back up to keep dry and he laughs.

"Jeez, about time. Didn't know amphibians could stay submerged that long. They can stay submerged about four to five minutes. And yeah, it's a riot shield so it's supposed to be able to take a lot of damage before it shows."

Leo quirks his eye ridges, which isn't quite the same as raising an eyebrow but does get the point across (though it looks better when he's wearing his mask).

"Turtles are reptiles, Einstein," he notes dryly, swimming in the direction of the pavilion. "And I'm a red-eared slider. If I hadn't been mutated I'd be sleeping underwater."

He's an aquatic species! Though not as aquatic as the Agrii seem to be.

He pushes the shield out of the water and onto the pavilion to return it.

It does get the point across, as York clocks the motion easy enough. "Whatever, you got what I meant, that's what matters." Though no doubt York would get upset if Leo called him a human even though he looked like one.

"My directive is building, not the animal kingdom."

York pulls the shield to him, getting it upright and then leaning it against one of the support posts so it can drip dry for the time being. "Think the Agrii will let me borrow a weapon to do some damage to this fucking thing?" Though he glances around to where some of the Agrii are congregating.

"...Have things seem a little... tense around here to you, or is that just me?"

York is the one who brought up amphibians! Leo was just setting the record straight.

At the first question, he shrugs. “I mean, probably? Those orange guys seem to like handing out weapons.”

And that would be part of the problem, which York is pointing out now.

“It’s not you. They were already all riled up before, but now it’s worse.” Leo looks off to where the Agrii are, too. “First those guys are still around trying to kill people, then the orange group hands out a bunch of weapons. It’s crazy.”

York only brought it up because the powers beyond him were confused themselves. Either way, the android ignores the point in favor of focusing on the topic of things being tense.

"I found my riot shield wrapped up in orange paper. Did you get a weapon? Maybe the color of the paper indicates who it was from." He then thinks on the attempted murders back on Temba and nods. "I feel like I got really close to figuring out who it was, but everything else happened right afterwards so I haven't made any headway since Radley and I talked to Loomis."

At least some of the more sane people of Temba might have weapons to defend themselves with now. York had double the protection in the shield and Reeve's gift to him around his finger in the form of a ring.

"I have a feeling that whatever's happening up here is not gonna end well." He looks to Leo. "Do you have an idea what's going on up here? I haven't been paying much attention because alien politics can be worse than human ones."

Leo gives another of those not-eyebrow eyebrow raises.

"Yeah. In orange wrapping paper. Gee, I wonder."

Leo didn't think this was a mystery that needed solving, but from the guy's next question, Leo concludes he must be totally clueless. Leo doesn't really understand why so many people here don't seem interested in learning all they can about their situation - he hates not having information.

Ugh. Makes him feel weird to admit it, though, so he isn't going to say it.

"All the Agrii split into factions. The purple ones are following Ga Re, the orange ones are following Mu Ly, the green are... uh, well, I dunno, but I think they're all into fixing the ship? And the blue are following Te Mi. That's mostly the kids."

Leo's learned a lot of this from chatting with the blues, but he remembers the factions from back when they were arguing after the He Rows got back from the space port.

"Anyway, you said you talked to that Loomis guy?" This is more important to Leo right now than the Agrii fighting each other.

York had kept himself mostly out of it by his own volition. Android/human politics lead to violence and enough deaths that he didn't want to have repeats of it on an alien planet. There wasn't any water to save him this time if the Agrii decided to detonate some kind of explosive. And what if whatever was happening got out of hand and they aliens hurt Richie? Or Reeve? Mini? Anyone else?

He rubs his hand over his face. "I figured the shield was just a fucking joke, that they knew what was going on where I was from and figured it was a sick joke. As for Loomis..."

York starts telling what he and Radley gleened from Loomis after Robin's attack and their investigation of the Alien Target. "He seems really suspicious and dodgy. But that was the only lead Radley and I could find."

Leo doesn't want himself or his brother to die as a result of Agrii political nonsense, either. That's why he wants to know what's going on.

"Well, maybe," he concedes on the joke thing. "They gave me my brother's weapon and... some kind of robot arm that looks like it belongs on him?"

(It's actually Leo's arm, he just doesn't know it yet.)

But he'll listen attentively to the information about Loomis. This is all important, and lines up with what he and Donnie had been finding out with the security cameras. At the end of it, he whistles, impressed.

"Dang. Didn't know anyone else was looking into all this stuff, but that's all good to know."

A robot arm? York give Leo a very steady and concerned look about that. "You got androids in your universe? Maybe it's from one of them and the Agrii are playing a trick on you."

They could do that, of course. York's seen it happen in the few years he's been here.

Then he bristles a little after recounting his experience with Loomis with Radley. "They made it personal. They went after Richie. I don't like a lot people and I've been crass to more than my fair share of the humans here, but he didn't let that shit bother him. So if we can pin it on them, I'll be the first to serve it right back to them."

“Uhhh… I dunno, maybe? It had my bro’s tech logo on it, and he does make robots sometimes… This didn’t look like it belonged to any of them, though. Shelldon was too small…”

And now Shelldon’s body is gone. Of course, Donnie could probably rebuild it, eventually… It’d be a pretty messed up prank to send Leo Shelldon’s arm, though.

He pauses at the heated response. Why does this feel… familiar…

Wait.

Leo’s eyes go wide. “You’re York!?”

He doesn’t sound stoked about it.

Shelldon? York's missed out on stuff, but he's been watching over Richie and trying to sort out what he's found for the stabbing incidents. There's no time to ask about it when Leo looks at him with what the android classifies as disbelief.

His own narrow in suspicion. "Yeah, what the fuck about it?"

Leo stares at him a second longer, then scowls and pushes himself back from the pavilion so he floats in the opposite direction.

"I just didn't put it together until now," he says. "Then again, those ghost face guys never did come kick my head back together like you wanted."

Which is not exactly what York said, but Leo's been holding a grudge over the entire ghost face situation and this is part of it.

What the? What was this guy's problem? York watches him push away before what the guy says clicks into his memory and brings up the conversation he had with him over the comm.

Oh. That's unfortunate.

There's a series of remarks that go through his head. Most of them can immediately make the situation worse. Things like 'you're doing such a good job at it' and 'maybe you could've helped me investigate then', but he shuts those down. Mouthing off is what got his ass in trouble ninety-seven percent of the time after all.

"Guess you're still mad about that conversation," he stupidly points out, like that was the best he could come up with as a response. York does at least look... ashamed about it.

At least it stops Leo from going back underwater entirely. But he still looks distinctly unimpressed.

“Wow, you’re so good at detective-ing,” he grouses. “Pretty sure most people would remember someone insulting them just for trying to help.”

York doesn't move to get closer, figuring Leo wanted a bit of space after that stark revelation. Moving away would feel like a retreat and he doesn't want that either.

"I am, because did you know about that stuff I told you Radley and I did?" Don't smirk, don't smirk, don't smirk. "I only got aggressive like that because my father figure was in the--" York pauses, letting himself calm his circuits down before he makes the situation worse.

"Was in the hospital. I felt like no one else wanted to help me so I went off to do investigating myself. It was only luck that Radley showed up when he did to help. Insulting organics shouldn't be the default but it's still a work in progress even when I'm angry."

Leo notes that now York's rephrased from humans to organics. Perhaps he should be honored by the inclusivity.

"...Well... I was going to help you, but then you told me to fuck off, so I kiiinda got the picture that you didn't want me there."

And Leo hadn't tried to reach back out after that, because why would he? He doesn't know why it was on him to do that, after how that conversation ended.

"Me and my brother have been looking into it, too. That's how we figured out Stu was involved. Or did you miss that giant trainwreck on the Peanut party?"

It was broadcasted live on the network, so it's totally possible York could have seen it.

Everyone but him and Cayde were organics, so yeah. Inclusive language! Better to not upset Leo more than York clearly has at the moment.

If he could flush with embarrassment from his initial conversation with Leo, he would. And York hadn't wanted to reach out, sour from the conversation even though it was his fault it went that way. At least now they could find a bit of common ground trying to puzzle out more of the attempted murders.

"Heard bits and pieces of it from my pocket, but there was a lot going on and I was working on trying to find information at the amphitheater before I ended up going to the store instead. I figured it was something we might be able to fit connections to if I found anything and look. We've got something with our info, right? I'm sorry I was shitty because I got angry, but I'm not going to let that stop me from trying to figure out how to stop Stu and Loomis."

At least the apology keeps Leo in place. He considers this a moment longer, before sighing and coming closer again.

"I never told you to stop," he notes. "But fine. Apology accepted."

Leo has been a brat, too, when Donnie was hurting, so he kind of gets it. Even if he can hold a grudge...

"Me and Dee can get you what evidence we've found. But that's probably the most we'll get involved," he notes. It's less about himself and more about Donnie; he doesn't want Donnie to get hurt anymore over this.

"I don't think it really matters who has the evidence. Just that we have it and use it against those two," York points out, with only a little bit of bite in his tone. It's habit. Maybe he'll apologize later.

He moves to sit down, crossing his legs so his knees point out to each side. "I can't bring two full grown people down by myself anyways. I couldn't even handle this vampire chick that was my size last year. I don't know what you guys are reptiles can do, but it's probably more than me."

Leo frowns at that. First he gets told to fuck off, then when he tries to pull himself and his brother out of the proceedings, it’s like he’s doing something wrong.

“I don’t know what my powers would do to a normal human. I’ve never fought one before.”

Well, that’s not entirely true, but Casey Jones barely counts as a normal human. She’s too scary for that.

“But these guys tried to murder my brother for revealing what he knew. I don’t know what I’d do if I got my hands on them.”

He’s not sure he wants to find out.

"I'd say you could test on me, but I don't have a lot of backup parts and there's no telling how much Reeve would yell at me. Also hardware isn't comparable to organic, so that nulls that option out." He looks down at his hands for a long moment, then back to Leo. "So you're an anthropomorphic turtle and you have powers? Save some cool for the rest of us."

"As for the murderers, I got beef with them, too. Like I said, they went after Richie. He was my first friend in Temba and pretty much a dad figure to me. Put my face back together about a year ago with Reeve's help."

Leo makes an immediate face at the idea of “testing it out” on York. He doesn’t want to accidentally hurt anyone, even if that someone is a pain in the butt robot.

Though, at the cool comment, he immediately loses his frown to a big grin, preening where he floats.

“Impossible. I only get more cool with time.”

He nods along to the rest, though. York told him Richie was his “dad” before. And Leo knows how it is with family, blood or not.

“I get it. But unless you want me to put those guys in traction for the rest of their lives, I don’t really know what to do.”

Okay, that face is enough to show that testing out on York isn't on the table. Good to know that Leo isn't in the business of hurting someone he's upset with.

Or maybe he's not that upset judging by the huge grin. York grins himself, almost laughing, at how much Leo turns into a peacock. "If you say so. I was made cool at the start, no time needed for improvements."

"There's probably some place we could put them. A makeshift jail or something. Maybe there's enough people in the city that we could actually make something to house them in where they can't hurt anyone anymore."

Leo might be petty, but physically hurting people who haven't done anything to deserve it is not in his moral fiber. And just being rude to him isn't enough to deserve it. (Unless you're one of his brothers, then physical retaliation is always on the table.)

Leo just snorts at the assertion that York is already cool. "As long as we know which of us is the coolest."

Though the jail suggestion makes him sober up again. He wishes it was that easy...

"Apparently at some point some of the other He Rows kept someone confined on one of the ships. I don't know how easy that is, though."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's a Party in the Not-USA

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject