Logs:I will plant them upon their land, and they shall never again be plucked up out of the land that I have given them,

I will plant them upon their land, and they shall never again be plucked up out of the land that I have given them,
Dramatis Personae Anahita, Carnage, Leo
In Absentia	2023-01-07 "I followed the goddamn YouTube tutorial!"
Location <NYC> Freaktown - Riverdale - The Bronx
The sun's well on its way down, casting Freaktown in a dark shade of blue only occasionally interrupted by the metallic tangerine glow of firepits intermingling with street-lights -- punctuated here and there by the bright, festive glow of numerous mutlti-colored ornaments left-over from the holidays. Not too far away from the makeshift town square below (where someone's putting on a fierce drum solo on a set outside for a small audience), there's a much more ramshackle setup... located on a flat rooftop, maybe two floors up, overlooking the town square, squished between three higher flat roofs (with the open-end facing the town square itself). The only way to get here is through one of the open windows (accessible via several different public hallways), or to just hop off one of the higher rooftops to a lower rooftop... or, if you're feeling particularly adventurous, to just climb up the side of one of the buildings. Well, that, or... use the convenient fiber-glass extendible ladder that someone's recently plopped on the side of the building, forming a sort of makeshift ramp. And it is a good spot to people-watch down below, in the square... Either way, once up top, you'd find a small (temporary) workshed and a very poorly constructed raised garden (filled with, at this moment, a copious amount of dirt, some dead leaves, and... precious little else). Several IV sacks filled to near-bursting with water dangle on wooden posts over the bins, with lengths of hose dropping down into the soil -- it looks like not a drop has exited them. "Fuck!" The whole operation appears clumsily constructed, with very little foresight. Emphasizing this fact is Cletus Kasady; currently stalking a circle around the ramshackle garden -- clad in a loose black wind-breaker, one sleeve pinned to his chest, his left eye... burning yellow from within the hollow socket. "I followed the goddamn YouTube tutorial!" He flings his arm up in disgust. Leo is standing nearby, dressed for the mild chill in gray needle cord trousers, a diagonally color-blocked button down (black on the upper left and hunter green on the lower right), and a slim-fit camel jacket. He has one arm folded across his chest to tuck in the crook of its opposite; his other hand is lifted, knuckles serving as a prop for his chin. The pose, his furrowed brows, his pursed lips, all lend him an air of deep consideration, as if he may be about to dispense some helpful insight to Cletus's current predicament. When he does reply, though, it's only to offer, mildly wry: "YouTube once told me that mixing bleach and ammonia was a surefire way to unclog a drain. I wouldn't put too much stock in it." He is drifting nearer the IVs, idly poking at one with a forefinger. "It's probably," he says this a bit quizzically like he's not really certain of what schedule plants live and die on, "-- too late to salvage these right now but maybe someone can help you fix it before spring." Though she's certainly a new face in the neighborhood, Anahita carries herself with such unremarkable facility that she draws less notice than she might if she didn't just look like she belonged there. She may not know there's a garden waiting at the top of the ladder she's climbing, but she's reasonably dressed for gardening already: black canvas jacket too loose for her slight frame, heavyweight green-checked flannel, ancient but still sturdy denim overalls, black engineer boots. Her long hair is neatly braided down her back, and there's a sprig of holly tucked into the elastic holding it together. She must have heard the two men talking before she saw them, but it's only when her head clears the edge of the roof that she hesitates, eyes widening mostly at Leo, though she gives Cletus an appraising once-over. Then she finishes climbing, careful as she dismounts the ladder in the fading light. "Leo," she says, not smiling, though the crow's feet at the corners of her eyes pull deeper for just a moment. "Do you remember me?" "Huh -- what's bleach and ammonia do? Explode, something like that?" There's a flicker of interest in the otherwise-hollow socket of Cletus's left eye. His lips peel back as he turns back to the wooden crates he's filled with dirt... his right arm extends out, hand gripping the edge, staring forlornly at the IV sacks as Leo pokes them. "--christ. Should have done this back home. I don't know. I -- mmh...?" Cletus turns, and suddenly has two arms. The sleeve expands; a red hand extends from it. The motion is so natural, so effortless, it appears as if he was merely holding it tucked away, and just now decided to slip it through the sleeve. Cletus watches Anahita close, expression guarded -- that red hand gripping the edge of the wooden trays. When her focus shifts to Leo, his grip relaxes and he pulls his hand away. Several deep gouges now score the wood. "No, no, nothing like -- actually," Leo reconsiders, "it would probably be safer if it did explode. It makes chlorine gas. Kind of melts your lungs. It's not pleasant. Might unclog a drain, I have no idea." He's stopped poking at the IVs, now tracing their tubing. "Here seems good. There's always more people to feed and always people around looking for things to do to help. -- Oh!, I think to make it flow you need --" He stops here, reflexively turning toward the motion at the edge of the roof. His fingers press against the plastic tubing, kinking it between them, as his head tips to one side. He does venture a smile -- small, uncertain. "Anahita. Yes, I --" Something briefly flickers across his expression, dimming his nascent smile. "I mean, everyone's -- kind of hard to forget. Are you -- do you -- were you --" Several questions, grasped at and then discarded. Instead, an equally uncertain: "Have you met Cletus?" Anahita has shifted half a step back, and might have gone farther except that her heel bumped where the ladder is leaning against the roof. Her eyes are still only a little wide, and no flexing of powers seems evident. Her eyes draw thinner, for just an instant. Then they are smiling at Leo again. "My people on the outside found me so forgettable, I keep getting ready to re-introduce myself. But no, I haven't met Cletus." She repeats the name with deliberation and tips a small bow at him. "I'm Anahita. I was at Blackburn with Leo." Her eyes slide back to Leo. "It's good to see you safe." The smile fades altogether. "I should have stayed." The word 'careful' is on Cletus's lips, but only comes out as a tiny, inaudible breath as Anahita steps back. The red hand rises up, as if to reach out -- in warning or to grab -- but sharply drops when she stops. He instead takes a step back himself. The light in his left socket glows a little brighter when she says she has not met him, but when she introduces herself with that bow, mentioning Blackburn and Leo... it constricts to a pin. "I -- o-oh," he murmurs, looking to Leo -- to Anahita, then, back to Leo again -- until finally glancing down. Reflexively, he hides his red hand behind his back. "Cletus got out of a lab last year," Leo offers by way of explanation. "Massachusetts somewhere, I think?" His brow scrunches delicately with this uncertainty. He's still squeezing at the plastic tube, rote and repetitive now in a small fidget of forefinger and thumb. "Your -- people? They don't sound very..." He presses his lips together, color very faintly darkening his tan cheeks. Now his eyes track down to the wooden planks, fixing on the gouges Cletus has just clawed there. "I've had some help. Staying safe." This comes out soft and precise. "Are you staying now?" Anahita nods gravely, looking Cletus over again with a different if still inscrutable expression. "I'm sorry. It's an understandable reflex," she adds, softer, nodding at his hidden hand. "You just startled me." Still, when she steps away from the edge of the roof it's in Leo's direction. "Maybe they weren't my people, after all." She gravitates toward the raised beds, eyes skipping from one feature to the next. "But it isn't all their fault, either. I'm glad our people are keeping you safe." She puts just the lightest touch of emphasis on "our". "I'm staying. Do you live here? In Freaktown." Her glance takes in both men this time, eyebrows upraised. "Yeah." Cletus confirms Leo's statement with a breathless mutter. The hand stays behind his back. For a moment, his eyebrows lift at Anahita's mention of his reflex; it looks as if he wants to say something, but he thinks better of it. Instead, he just listens. His eyes refuse to lock on to either Leo or Anahita. Until: "--keeping him safe. Yeah," and now, an uncharacteristically bright smile flickers over Cletus's face, eyes meeting Anahita's without any trace of anxiety. "That's one way to put it. No. I, uh..." The left side of his mouth is tugged up with a near-violent grin. "...don't live here. Doubt that'd be safe. For --" He looks at Leo, again. The smile melts into something more pensive, more thoughtful. "--fuck, don't even know what that means. 'Safe'. Sounds like some made-up thing." Leo shakes his head firmly. "I don't live here. I just visit, sometimes. Make sure people are staying healthy. With so many new people coming in all the time, it can be --" He shrugs a shoulder. His eyes lift to Cletus, and then shift beyond -- to the neighboring rooftops, to the town square below. "Well. Nobody's thrown us back in a cage or killed us. For me, for the world being what it is -- that's a pretty big start." Anahita eyes Cletus's dramatically shifting affect just a little too keenly to seem as calm as her serene expression suggests. "Feeling safe is not the same thing as being safe, but it's still important. And often not as straightforward to achieve, especially when your whole life has just changed so radically." She follows Leo's gaze down. "You're still doing that." Quiet, awed, not a question. "I had to read between the lines, anytime there was news about you. So I don't know what you went through, or how many lives you saved, but I know what you risked." Her brows furrow. "Are still risking?" "Some of us felt safer in the cages," Cletus mutters, but then he's immediately lifting that red hand -- even as he takes a step back, almost as a precaution -- to rake crimson fingers across his brow. "...sorry, that's -- that's fucked up to say. Right? Pretty sure it is. I'm trying to cut back on saying and, uh, doing -- fucked up shit. Like, at least 50 percent less fucked up shit." Then, lowering his fingers, he peers out over at Leo at Anahita's mention of saving lives, and smiles. A little less fiercely; a little more melancholy. "It -- is, yeah." Leo is laughing despite this agreement, soft and almost startled, his eyes going a little wider. "I think the cages left us all. Kind of. Fucked up. I -- really hope that doesn't mean you want to go back, though." He finally releases the tortured IV tubing, curling both arms around his chest. His shoulders have hunched slightly inward as he nods. "Someone has to take this pandemic seriously." There's a sad kind of amusement in his voice. "Thank you, though. For trying to read between the lines. Lots of people just --" His mouth twists to one side, briefly, but shifts back to a gentler neutrality when he speaks again. "Are you staying here?" With a small nod out towards the community beyond. Anahita huffs a sharp breath that probably could have been a laugh. "It's true, though. Not safety, for me. That got fucked up long before the labs. But I felt seen." She shakes her head, but does not look or sound wistful. "When the pandemic hit, I got stranded with someone who wanted nothing to do with me. At least he took it seriously enough not to turn me out on the street. Without your work, I might still be stuck there." She turns back to the barren garden beds, but it isn't quite enough movement to cover her hesitation. "Yes. For now. I don't know if..." She licks her lips, and finally allows, "This place is a lot, for me. It might not always be, but at least right now." "No," he responds to Leo's comment about going back. There's a hint of wistfulness in Cletus's voice. "...at least, not unless it was to..." The red hand lowers. He takes in a long, shaky breath... and one finger extends, thinning into a razor-sharp crystalline claw. It carves a long, narrow, oh-so-deep path into the bedding's edge -- prompting a thick pig-tail of wood shavings to curl up under his palm. For a moment, that yellow eye, focused on the claw, swells... dilating like the eye of a cat that has just caught sight of its prey. He shakes his head, blushes -- retracts the claw and plucks up the wood-shaving, tossing it aside. "...sorry, that's -- also a little fucked up, I think." His eyes drift back to Anahita. "Yeah. It's -- Christ. People aren't afraid of me, here. Some kid thought my eye looked cool. Cool." He doesn't look offended, just baffled. "But... it's... warm. Nice. I just -- I just don't want to fuck it up for everyone else." "I don't think you're the only one who sometimes fantasizes about..." Leo's fingers wiggle restlessly as Cletus carves out the wood shaving, then curl into a loose fist at his side. "... do you think you're going to? Fuck it up." He curls his arm back around his chest, tighter than before. "A lot? I -- guess it is kind of -- I mean, anything Ion is involved with is going to be. A lot." He gives Anahita a curious look, head inclining faintly to one side. "But maybe you don't mean the year-round party decorations or weeknight dance parties or a dozen kids and dogs always underfoot?" "I find that pretty reasonable." Anahita's eyes follow the path of Cletus's claw, slowly developing a frown. "Not mutually exclusive, though." She looks up at his eye thoughtfully, as if trying to decide if she, too, finds it cool. "That'd be part of the not-feeling-safe, I imagine. But remember, 'everyone else' has agency, too. The community may think you're worth the risks you bring." She trails her fingers along the frame holding up the IV bags as she turns back to the lively common grounds below. "No, all that is wonderful. Even when I don't feel so festive and lively myself. Maybe especially then." Her gaze loses focus. "But I guess 'all that' is partly why it reminds me of home, too..." She pulls out of her thousand-mile stare before it grows any more distant. "That's hard, when home is gone" is her matter-of-fact conclusion. "I'm going to find some food and drink and park these aching bones by a fire before it gets too cold." Her shoulders square almost invisibly under the heavy jacket, and her eyes almost smile again. "If you want to tag along, I'll tell you a story about a place called Utopia."