ArchivedLogs:Walking With You

Walking With You
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Isra
In Absentia	2013-12-03 (Part of Infected TP.)
Location <NYC> Candyland - Village Lofts - East Village
This bedroom is bright, bright, bright, a cheerful riot of colour in contrast to the more minimalist scheme outside. It, too, has a plethora of lamps to lend it even more light than what comes in from the large windows opposite the entry; many of them bear stained-glass coverings in cheerful mosaic patterns to add still more colour to the room. The walls have been painted in pale blue with darker blue trim, though one is instead a mural of surreal fantastical artwork, odd unearthly plant and animal life spread across it in vivid colours. There is scattering of furniture here -- a bed on the wall adjacent to the window (usually dressed in vividly patterned mismatched sheets), a dresser opposite the bed, standing beside the large closet, both in wood that has been painted black and then covered in a swarm of brightly coloured images, too. The wall near the door bears an enormous handmade shelving unit, similarly painted; it is filled largely with meticulously organized art supplies. By the window, a desk stands in as-yet-unpainted wood; besides laptops and drawing tablet it often bears an eclectic mix of items, too. Comic books, knitting supplies, a hiking pack of climbing gear. It's Tuesday, and in the grand tradition of Geekhaus Tuesdays, Game Night is back in session. Quieter than usual Game Nights, less populated, more subdued -- and moved to Lighthaus owing to Geekhaus's continued lack of heat -- but there's food and there's gaming and there are friends and really that is all that is necessary. Outside in the living room, there is more noise. Conversation while playing. Here in Jax and Micah's room it is more quiet, except for the soft whir of Dusk's laptop fan. Though he was out with the others earlier, eating, losing at Chrononauts, at the moment he's just tucked himself into the bedroom, sitting on the chair in front of the desk with his elbow propped on the desk and his cheek resting in his hand. He's been reading the news -- or at least reading Fark, close enough. But at the moment he's just kind of staring a little blankly down at the keyboard, fingers curled around a squat glass still holding a few fingers' worth of tequila. Out in the living room, Isra's long gray fingers, tipped with sharp but immaculate talons, separate out her Dominion cards with more care than most of the other players, who are now actively debating whether to play another hand. "I think I will sit the next one out, regardless." Distributing her cards to the appropriate stacks, she rises from the table. "Begging your pardon." She delivers her empty plate to the kitchen sink, but keeps the mug of hot cider--lukewarm by now--with her as she stalks through the apartment on long, silent steps to Jax and Micah's room. Standing near her full height, she fills most of the door frame with a deep purple kimono and massive gray wings. "Would you care for some company?" Her voice is soft but strained, barely maintaining a low alto. Dusk's wings shift restlessly at his back at the sound of another person at his door, though they settle back into relaxation when he hears Isra's voice. "Do you drink? I'd offer to share -- but just realized I don't think I even know." His finger taps at the side of his glass in indication. "S'good tequila, not the shitty -- cheap stuff's barely drinkable. We've had this since last -- last -- god, s'been a while. Matt was here then. Fancy-ass bastards can't just show up with chips and salsa like everyone else it's three hundred dollar bottles of booze." He holds up the glass, turning on his stool so that he can offer it to Isra. "I drink on occasion--over dinner with family or friends, usually." Isra does not so much duck into the room as she just settles into a lower stance, pulling her wings in tight lest she upset precarious towers of books and games in passing. "Never had tequila, though," she adds, accepting the glass with her free hand. One wing extends to caress Dusk's shoulder as she tips the glass to sample its contents. "It is...rather different." Her head tilts. "Quite good, but nothing like what I expected." She hands glass back to Dusk, eyes searching his face and his posture. "Are you unwell?" "There's dinner out there. It's not exactly as fancy as the tequila. Kind of been on a beans-and-grain thing for --" Dusk rubs his fingers against his temple, leaning into the touch of Isra's wing and then nestling comfortably beneath it. His arm hooks outward to curl around Isra's waist, pulling her close so that he can rest his head against her side. He takes the glass back, taking a small sip and then lowering it to his lap. "Feels kind of decadent, this whole thing to myself. Flicker doesn't touch booze and Hive -- with Ian gone he can't --" He shakes his head. "Nah. I'm healthy as a fucking -- healthy. Thing. What is that, ox? Horse? I'd bet I'm healthier than most horses, actually, the way they're bred these days." "I think I have eaten about /half/ of that." Isra's ears press back, though she does not sound particularly sheepish. "And I had dinner before heading over, too." She strokes his hair with one hand, long nails trailing lightly over his cheek. "Though it pleases me that you are in good health, I did not necessarily mean that in a /physical/ sense." Her wing wraps farther around his body and squeezes. "I shall not pry, but know that I am here for you if you need or want to discuss anything. Or if you just want someone to beat in a video game." One corner of her mouth quirks, briefly exposing one sharp canine. "Or a fight." "S'good. Jax could make pigslop taste good, I think." Dusk closes his eyes, pressing his head up against Isra's talons. "I'm good in a fight. I'm always good in a fight." His eyes open again, turning back to his computer. "And a lot of good it's done the world, huh?" Isra's hand drops to Dusk's shoulder when he turns away, but she does not remove it. She sets the cider down and places that hand on his other shoulder. "You are one man, but even if you were a hundred, you still could not defeat an epidemic by tooth and claw." The pads of her thumbs rub small circles at the base of his neck. "You fought to save those who could be saved from those who were gone. That surely helped quite a bit. For all my education, that was all /I/ could do." "I fought," Dusk replies slow and quiet with a small shiver of his wings, "to mitigate some tiny fraction of the damage I'd done." His head tips forward slowly, accepting the neck rubs though his muscles remain tense. "Micah keeps telling me to stop this -- blaming myself but it's." His wings shiver again. "Read the news, go out in the city. Thousands and. Hundreds of thousands, that's a hard weight to just /ignore/." "You feel responsible for the outbreak." Isra does not phrase it as a question, though there is a kind of bewilderment in the tone of her voice. "The news--if you can call the Bugle--claimed mutant involvement, but in the current political climate, we are the natural scapegoat." Her hands massage a slow path down to the base of his wings. "If you have cause to blame yourself..." She draws a deep breath, but her hands do not stop moving. "Was there some truth to that piece?" Dusk breathes out a slow quiet breath, relieved despite himself; the hard muscles through his shoulders and back /always/ carry a good deal of tension where his wing-joints lie, and slowly beneath Isra's fingers they start to relax. His head falls back to his hand, his other hand lifting his tequila for a bigger swallow. "I made bad choices. God, it feels like forever ago but it was just -- October, fuck. Just October." His fingers press at his eyes. "It's true. And I guess if they know that much the rest of the story might come out soon enough. Though I have no fucking clue if that'll make it better or worse." "The raid." Isra says this so softly that her voice slips into its lower register. "Then whatever choices you have made are but half the story, one that has been plagued by horror from the outset." Her hands work downward, between Dusk's wings. "But whatever story the news tells, and however you see yourself in it, the damage is done. That does not mean we ought to forget, or fail to learn from it, but we must be ready to fight again, as I am certain we will need to." She stops for a moment, then brushes her fingers against the elongated bones and the fuzzy membrane of his wings. "We will need you, and not /just/ your fighting prowess, either." "The raid," Dusk confirms, a shiver running through him again. "There was a man -- Jax ordered me to leave him, once we learned what it was he could do." His head shakes, at this. "It's funny, you know, I think giving that order tears him up as much as --" He swallows, staring down now into his drink. "I didn't listen. I took the man out and left Jax there to die. One life for a million. And I don't even honestly know if I wouldn't do the same again." His wings droop downward, slowly growing lax as Isra rubs at the muscles between them. One shifts back upwards when her fingers brush against it, though, brushing back against the back of her hand. "Feels like a long-ass time I've been fighting already, but I know it hasn't been. I'm not exactly that old. And I'll be ready. To fight again soon. I think I just --" He flicks a long thumb-claw towards the door, and the games being played beyond. "-- it's like for the first time since all this shit started tonight we've stopped to take a breath and all this shit just comes /crashing/ in. So long as I kept fighting it was okay. It's the rest of life I can't seem to remember how to fucking -- handle." Isra is silent for a moment, her hands roaming over Dusk's wings. Then, finally, "You were right when you called it a war. Like every war, it is full of terrible choices and terrible consequences. I don't know..." Her words end in a shudder that travels all the way down to her fingertips, but she masters herself quickly. "I don't know how to process it--not the epidemic, and not assigning blame." She sinks to the floor beside him, long legs folded awkwardly and displacing a stack of books. Even from this angle, she does not need to tip her head back far to look at him. "The only way I know to carry on is to go through the motions until they feel right." She takes the glass from his hand and sips from it before setting it down on the desk. "I cannot take your burden, but I can walk with you." "They tried to kill him, afterwards. Recapture him, I don't know. It started then. He just wanted to get back to his fiancee. Finish school. Maybe it'll be good, the truth coming out. Can't really tell the story without explaining the labs." Dusk's wing curls down around Isra's shoulders, his hand falling to rest atop her head, running fingers slowly over her scalp. "Might have to start at a crawl." He leans down, lips pressing to the top of her head. "But then I'll walk again. And then we'll fly."