ArchivedLogs:In Memoriam

In Memoriam
Dramatis Personae Ash, B, Dusk, Hive, Ion, Jax, Kai, Kay, Shane, Daiki, Flicker, Karrie, Joshua, Taylor, Scramble
In Absentia	Memorial Day '
Location Garden, Lower East Side
It's not a big park, really. A small secluded garden in the Lower East Side, quite close to Tompkins Square. The trees stretch overhead to both sides of the mulched paths, forming a leafy canopy through which New York's murky city-sky is visible. Between the paths the grounds spill over with an abundance of flowers, hedges, community-tended, in here. The paths all wind together into the small central clearing, a little circular retreat with fountain and benches. Technically speaking the garden is closed for the day and this perhaps is why there is nobody around to disturb the quiet group gathered within. At the edge of the fountain, Scramble sits, enormous poof of Afro held back with a brightly coloured scarf tied around only its base; she's otherwise dressed simply. Vivid strappy orange tank and a dark pair of capris; she's shed her sandals just in front of the fountain, toes curled against its stone. One hand splays out beside her, the other trails fingertips down into the water. Her eyes slip from face to face, though drop back to the water after a time, watching the ripples shiver out form her fingers. In her mind there is shattered glass, a cabinetful of new dishes in their first new apartment after the labs destroyed in an accidental outburst from Peace, but in her mind there is laughter over it, Peace's dark hair framing her bright smile. And shattered glass, the window of a bunker blown out to let the team in, that same bright smile with a /fiercer/ edge in the face of the oncoming armed guards. Joshua is restless. In further flagrant violation of park ordinance he's been sharing a beer with Rachel, and he wanders over with it to drop a heavy booted foot onto the ridge of the fountain. Offers the bottle silently down to Scramble as he watches the shimmer and dance of the water. In his mind there's a million and one arguments, bills and messy kitchens and stupid radical views and Eli /never/ doing his /goddamn chores/ -- but in crunch time he was nothing but focused, a steady island of calm through the chaos to take care of badly-needed triage. Violating not just park regulations but ALL the regulations, Shane has a beer, too. Though at the moment it's perched on the edge of the fountain as well, his hand loosely curled around it where his arm stretches out of the water. He's lounging not on the fountain but /in/ it, pared down to just a lightweight pair of zipped-off-hiking-pants shorts, one arm curled around his twin as he stares out towards the trees. His gills flutter slowly, fingers trailing down along the long set of gills at B's side. He's staring into the shadows around them, mind filled up as he looks outward with the darkness between the tree trunks. With /just/ enough beer and /just/ enough squinting, they almost might seem alive. Laughing, playing. Fighting. B just curls in close and snug against Shane's side. Ze stares up at the sky overhead, cloudy blue-black and oddly lit with the reflected city-lights. Strange sharp fires dance across strange sharp faces in his mind, Lisa's flames shifting and blending into Liam's flares. Watching a lab go up in smoke and fire. For a moment in the quiet lapping of the pool hir lips curl into a small private smile. Daiki has tea, in a large thermos that he's sharing with Karrie just now. Settled onto a bench a short distance away from the fountain -- perhaps they have been talking but now have just drifted off into looking upwards. Almost /expectantly/. Daiki is briefly distracted out of his staring by his thermos being /snatched/ away by one long snagging tentacle; Taylor drops into place beside them, snaking out a curling limb to twine around both the others' shoulders companionably. Though gunshots echo in Daiki's mind, laughter echoes brighter. Stone-wood houses springing out of the ground on a lot by the river in stark counterpoint to the rubble of broken concrete tombs, scattered equipment of crumbling torture chambers. The dead /always/ clamour in Karrie's mind. Today, perhaps, a little louder. Her eyes close, and she tucks in snug beneath the drape of Taylor's tentacle. Dusk is never good at punctual. There's a rustle-flap of dark wings from above, his flight path unsteady and uneven as he vaults himself over the walls of the garden and into its center, awkwardly too-large wings still moving not-quite-right at his back. He has sneakers, jean shorts, a dark soft dappled-grey t-shirt. A shiny new electronic monitor strapped to his ankle after court this past week. A large bag of takeout that smells a lot like Thai; the paper rustles in his arms as he lands, depositing it on the ground near a bench. His mind is /often/ full of shadows, but today more than ever. The unpracticed none-too-talented thrum of guitar and the constant procrastination on learning For Real. An apartment that used to be full of /laughter/ in all of its dark corners. A splatter of blood against the sidewalk. Jax has had his own plastic tub of cookies and large canister of lemonade to add to the REFRESHMENTS that are being piled up in the garden for consumption, soon. He's quietly dressed today, too, in comparison to his usual; a strappy wispy-cut sunny-yellow tank paired with black capris embroidered with dragonflies. He's shed shoes as well, bare toes crinkling into the soil just off the path. His arms curl against his chest (relatively fresh ink down one of them that in its wealth of plantlife blends in with the lush greenery around him, and he watches the others with a small smile. Through the headache pounding in at his skull the faces he sees are many, fighting and dying at his command. Fighting and dying for /these/ faces still here. He turns his own up towards the sky, pulling in a deep breath scented with the flowers around him. Kai's face is also turned to the sky, his wide eyes taking in the sight of the towering buildings surrounding, and the muted noise of the street beyond the garden. Dressed in a pair of dark jeans and a similarly dark green button-down shirt, the small teenager stands a little ways off from the others, the distance perfectly maintained in awkward uncertainty. His own thoughts are of shadowy doctors and searing electric pain. (buildings are really big) Then that last night, and of being freed. (so many people) Those Foom killed that night roll across his mind in a slow slide show, some of them still nameless to him. Deeper, the dark satisfaction of Foom lingers in his shadowy prison. (we killed some of them) Suddenly, his awe dissipates, and thin fingers twist at the tail of belt that stick out from his belt loop as sadness fills him and he drops his chin to his chest, ears coloring deeply. Ash is standing on the path, eyes on the earth, glancing between the bits rapidly becoming hidden under the burgeoning greenery of grass and flower, and the more solid bits that make up the fountain that others are sitting on. He has a bottle in hand too, one of heavily spiced gingerbeer, the cloudy liquid sending the sharp smell from the opening, a tang reflected on his breath as well. His mind is quiet and dark, heavily grounded in rich deep soil, thinking about how it embraces those that they have left behind, those they fought beside and died beside, but now can no longer speak with. He finds life in the way they move on, enriching those as memories twist like roots together in the darker reaches of the consciousness. He inhales deeply and smiles, sadness in his eyes as he leans over to run his fingers against a silky petal, the edges catching against his rough skin, pulling a little before springing away. Flicker is not far behind Dusk, /appearing/ in a quick blip, though he's /been/ here and left again to help with food procuring. He has a second large takeout bag, also smelling of Thai, that he deposits beside Dusk's before making his way over to where Hive has been propped up on a bench. The teleporter pulls up to sit on the back of the bench, boots thunked down on its seat, still dressed in the red and black of his clinic uniform, still favoring one leg /just/ a little more than the others. He props his elbows on his knees, fingers lacing together and his head bopping lightly. Where others think of shadows and blood he sees sun and strength, ropy muscles against summer-warmed rocks, Ian spritzing water down on Jax climbing up towards the cliff edge. A facility going dark as he sucks the light from it -- somewhere in there, enabling the freeing of a second shadow out into the world. There's a quiet strum of music thrumming through the quiet little garden. Ion's voice is usually strong and clear, a gravelly bass that -- at the moment is silent. Just the skilled strum of his fingers against the strings, offered up to the cloudy night. His lips are curled back into as toothy a grin as ever, head bowed over his instrument where he perches, too, on the fountain's edge, dark curls flopped down over his eyes. There's only highway stretching out in his mind. Both ahead and behind. Passing touches, a rough palm tousleing hair, tugging light at a sleeve there, Kay wanders amongst these patches of life like he's collecting them, one by one, in layers over his palms. With head tipped back to watch the sky, the presence of people around him collects in his mind in a defiant blaze, grown up from decades of faces lost; Briar's terse voice, Munch's sweet eyes. Different styles of kuttes, denim and leather and peeled black streaks of rubber over pavement. Gunsmoke and blood. Helicopter blades and arterial fire. The flames burn brighter in him, rising up in a life of their own, until they rake against the fucking heavens. From a breast pocket he withdraws an old harmonica, and drops down alongside Ion to play a low brassy accompaniment. There's a crack and a /boom/, a loud sudden report that -- hardwired as many of these people /are/ might well on most days put hackles up, muscles tense, flight-or-fight (and fight, and fight) instincts well /honed/ here -- -- but today it splits the sky overhead in a shower of color. Sparks. /Light/ that illuminates the mutants gathered below. A brilliant burst of fire glittering in the air and streaming away to be followed soon by another, and another. Beneath the firework-storm, Hive tips slightly to one side. Leans his head up against Flicker's knee, closes his eyes to watch the show not through his own tired eyes but through all the eyes around him. Lets the music wash through him together with the explosions, harmony here and riot overhead. One by one the snippets and snapshots of thought and memory and emotion are drunk in, and all as /one/ they're washed back out. Faces and blood and shadow and smiles, arguments and sunshine and terseness and crinkled-smiling eyes. Stretched out in a spiraling path from one mind to the next to the next, an entire garden of memory unfurling its blossoms up to the night above.