InsaneJournal

Greg drives a truck. It was cheap, it only seats three people. He doesn't need a lot of room. It's not black or white (just like him! Ah, bad taste) it's not red (insurance is higher on red cars), it's sort of a dark blue color. He parks it off to the side of Abebe's dojo and stands front and center of the building, gazing up at the windows above it. Instead of just going up the stairs to her apartment above the building, he just shouts, "HEY!"

"Ki-YII!" *thump*

"Ki-YII!" *thump*

"Ki-YII!" *thump*

The apartment window has an old dashiki print curtain that's currently closed, but the lights in the studio are on. You can hear her from the outside and a couple steps into the dojo (take off your shoes!), Abebe has shrugged off her gi jacket and is currently kicking the crap out of a tall leather bag. Every hit is precise and aimed above her shoulder, struck rhythmically in time to her shouts.

"Ki-YII!" *thump*

"Ki-YII!" *thump*

"Ki-YII!" *thump*

Greg doesn't take off his damn shoes when he enters the dojo. He steps off to the side, nice enough to not track shoe prints all over the mats. "HEY! B-B!" Greg's voice never gets too loud, but he's just fine with shouting for this girl.

"Ki-YII!" *thump* Abebe lands her feet in a fighting stance, turning to look over her shoulder. She goes from surprised and pleased to see Greg to a sharp frown. "Take off your goddamn shoes and get over here, Greg!"

Yeah, now he'll take his shoes off. Standing on one foot at a time, Greg yanks his shoes off and tosses them at a corner. "Are you gonna hit me?"

From frown to smirk. "Do I need to?"

Once he's decent (she doesn't expect him to bow before coming on to the mats or anything), Abebe will wander on up and give the guy a hug. "What's going on, you?"

"You don't ever need to hit me. --Going on? I'm just coming to see you." No reason. No awkwardness back at the apartment! Abebe is just the person he goes to see when he doesn't feel like he has anywhere else to go.

"Well, come on up then, I got a few hours before classes..." She nudges him with an elbow before turning to pick up a towel from a nearby bench and going for the studio door. She turns a sign to closed and locks the door. "Unless you wanna spar for a bit?"

Greg throws his hands up, turning his palms towards the ceiling, "Why do you always wanna hit me, BB?"

"Hey, look, back where I'm from, that's all we ever did. Just a bunch of guys hitting each other all the time to train for the honor of hitting the biggest guy of all." She chucks her thumb at a door, the stairway that leads to the studio above the studio. "Don't take it personal or nothin', it's just like saying 'hello'. 'Sides, it's not like you couldn't take it."

"If you really wanna go, Rand, we can go." Greg doesn't feel like it, he hopes she doesn't call his bluff. In fact, he starts walking towards the stairs. "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."

She's already heading upstairs. "Okay, alright, take it easy there, Buddha," she chides, bare feet thumping on old wooden stairs. There's a little landing before the door where you can put on some house slippers or store some shoes carried with you, but Abebe doesn't bother.

It's a narrow little stairwell leading to a beaded curtain. Abebe's modest New York studio above her gym is an ethnicity explosion: African tapestries and wooden masks hang on the wall next to old brushwork art of Chinese characters, a couple bonzai trees sun themselves on her kitchen window. Plants hang from the ceiling in macrame baskets, a few chimes tinkle quietly with movement in the room. All of her furniture is low to the ground, a futon set on a bamboo mat covered in an African print comforter next to a short table with a few fitness magazines on it and a wireless X-Box controller. Tons of colors, textures and designs were thrown into this single room and set on puree.

"Want anything?," she asks, headed for the old '60s deco fridge.

Greg makes himself comfortable, slouching onto the floor and leaning against said furniture. "I would like something to drink, please hold back any awkward confusion about your sexuality for some other time."

Abebe pauses at the fridge door, "'scuse me?"

"'I just was at home, laying on my coffee table, Charlie offers me a drink and then starts to tell me ... stuff I really don't need to know." Greg looks a little bit like he feels out of place. Just a tinge miserable, slightly lost, but with a bit of a wry grin!

Okay, so that wasn't a comment directed really at her as so much around her....

Abebe comes back with two bottles of iced tea, offering one to Greg over his shoulder as she comes around, finds a weird circular pillow and sits nearby Greg on her own little pillow lilypad. "Wait, is Charlie the one with the sweet TV?"

Greg takes the iced tea and immediately opens it. "Dan's the one with the TV, which I moved about twice today. He told me to tell you that you can come over and watch it whenever you'd like." With that, Greg gives her a cheesy finger gun gesture and wink.

Abebe looks skyward and takes a sip of tea, putting the bottle down on her very low table. "Yeah, I'm sure about that. But wait, which one is Charlie then- oh! He's the beat cop right? You order him around or something?"

"I'm his boss, sure." That's not exactly true, but Greg likes how it sounds. "How are you?" Need a roommate?

"I'm cool. Classes are getting busier but we'll get slow around the holidays. I've been filing for Mom on the weekends." She shrugs. "Kicked a gold tooth out of some punk's head last Sunday." Come on, ask! Let her tell the story!

"Abebe Rand, you know I cannot condone--" Haha, no. Fuck it. "Tell me the whole story."

"Okay," she prepares him, something of a twinkle in her eye. "Last Sunday, I was comin' home when these kids down the block take a baseball bat to this car's window, right?" Okay, maybe not so right as Abebe was in the middle of walking her block and these 'kids' were maybe a couple years younger than her? She looks far too young for her age, let alone to be calling anyone over 13 'kids'. "So I call out 'Hey!' and they think, 'Aw, little girl, what the hell' and shout back. Two of them start up to me, all puffed up and their buddies keep going through the car..." And the tale goes on. The two guys try and start trouble, she ends it. The poor fools trying to steal the car are also equally handled; she makes special note of calling the cops afterwards to appease Greg. Her hands animate her moves as she excitedly tells Greg about her fight in the same way that little girls describe ponies and sunshine.

"So, one of them tries to take me down and just as he's comin' at me, I throw this spinning heel kick that catches him right at his upper jaw and BAM! Little tooth..." She points from her own mouth out into the distance, like a falling star.

And Greg enjoys the story. He nods along, eyes lighting up and grinning as if he really didn't expect her to hand their asses to them. He even puts his iced tea down to clap. Then he leans back and gestures with one finger, "Wait, so you beat up minors?"

Abebe rolls her eyes at the applause, picking up her ice tea again. "Not like I stopped to card them or anything..."

Greg lets this roll around in his head a bit. His finger goes to scratch the dimple above his lip. "Fair enough, and they came at you first. Okay." Then he goes back to clapping.

"Hush, you."

Abebe's pretty proud, much like she normally is when she's able to kick the criminal element in the face. She's no Avengers or superhero, just a girl who wants to make sure people get home safe at night. "Why don't you put Charlie out here so I don't have to go kick people's teeth out?"

Greg squints one eye, the glasses on his face going crooked for a second. "It doesn't really work that way..." Aw, but wouldn't it be nice for Abebe to think he's got a more important job than he does? --Not that his job isn't important. He's just to be someone's "boss."

'Well, how does it work? How do you get a police car out here? I mean, it's not like we're living in Hell's Kitchen here- but even then, shouldn't you guys be everywhere?" Her mom does work for hire, she lived for a few years around the world and grew up in an ancient mystical city. Social services are a little hard to get her head around.

"I could bring you to work with me one day. You wanna do that?" Partially a distraction, a quick fix so he doesn't have to explain police politics to her.

Abebe fixes him with a look. She gets the feeling he's patronizing her so she just stares him down... in a rather adorable fashion. Tough guy, she is not.

He's patronizing her. Big time. Greg scrunches up his nose, "Ride in the police car, make the siren go a-woo woo?"

Abebe pffs and says something in Chinese in an attempt to one up him. It sounds disparaging.

Greg tilts his head, "What was that?" He strokes his chin, "Did you say you'd like that a lot? I can't understand you!"

"Sha gua," retorts Abebe. "You told me you sit at a desk all day."

Greg quickly reaches behind him and finds a floofly pillow to toss in Abebe's direction.

"Do you keep a siren on your desk, 'cause I'd go see that. It'd be kind of funny!" Abebe catches the pillow and throws it back at him.

Greg thinks about his desk at the precinct. It's usually nice and organized except for when he first comes in (as Charlie's leaving) and someone (Charlie, clearly) has knocked over all his folders. Greg gets hit by the pillow in the face, he doesn't even bother to flinch. "I do stuff... sometimes."

"You're very important," Abebe agrees. "Even if you don't have a siren."

"You don't need a siren when you're so badass." So badass, it hurts. Greg flexes his muscles, which appear to be non-existent. It's not like he's skinny, but he certainly isn't built like his father.

Abebe rolls her eyes and takes a swig of tea.

In his mind, he's sure she knows it's true. Oh yeaaah. "I'm hungry." He stands, hoping just the declaration is enough of an invite.

A hand is waved towards the fridge, "I got some curry, some dim sum, rice..." The finest in takeout from a few blocks down.

"Nah, let's go out. I'll pay. I don't want any rice, I said I was hungry." Damn, girl!

"Remember, I got a class in an hour, kids'll be out of school then," she reminds him getting up with a lanky little stretch and getting some ridiculous looking knitted shawl. It probably came from Peru. "Where you want to eat then?"

"We'll eat fast. In fact, we could see who can eat the fastest. I'll win, you'll pay, and we'll come back." Greg's already heading down the stairs. "Some place that doesn't serve rice!"

"Oh, what, we gonna get hot dogs again?" Looking around, she's pretty sure her pumas are downstairs, so she just grabs a pair of ankle socks from her dresser and heads after Greg. "No, really where we going? And what's wrong with rice?"

"I was going to say hot dogs, actually. Gyros?" Greg twirls his keyring on his finger, stomping down the stairs and straight for his shoes. "Rice doesn't fill me up. What about those guys that right stuff on them? How weird is that? I don't want to eat anything that can be written on."

"Gyros are good. There's a guy two blocks down who has a great mustache who sells those and he's got this great mustache!"

Lights are turned off wherever she goes, leaving a couple on for that 'in-business' feel. Abebe looks like a stork as she slings a sport sock over each foot then crams her feet into her sneakers.

"I was thinking about growing a handle-bar mustache, what do you think?"

"You'd look not so great."

"I'm also thinking about dying my hair purple and wearing a bright yellow shirt, with about five or six buttons undone..."

Abebe stood by the door; a few pictures hung around the entrance to her dojo, some of classes and one faded newspaper photo of Power Man and Iron Fist, hanging in a place of honor right by the door. "Now you're getting ridiculous."