Logs:Whatever your lips utter you must diligently perform, just as you have freely vowed to the Lord your God with your own mouth.

Whatever your lips utter you must diligently perform, just as you have freely vowed to the Lord your God with your own mouth.
Dramatis Personae Damien, Joshua, Leo, Mirror, Jax, Scott, Wendy, Anahita, B, Bryce
In Absentia	Joshua's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week "The fates are far harsher than I, to those so cavalier with their words." (Set in the Wake of Fucking Around.)
Location The Vicissitudes of Fate
4 June. <NYC> Q-Tip - East Harlem This is the kind of place you go to when you want a dive bar but don't want to wait for compete for use of the sole pool table covered with suspicious stains that always leans toward one corner pocket. Q-Tip may not be fancy, but its tables are solid and the drinks are decent. The bartenders are polite but taciturn, the regulars are diverse but largely blue collar men with a sprinkling of hipsters, and the neon-lit jukebox always seems to be playing classic rock. One game has slid companionably into several more, as afternoon slips into evening. Lower stakes, which is good -- though he won a few earlier on, since the stakes now have just been subsequent rounds of drinks, Joshua's performance has not improved as time goes on. "Shit," he's saying now with a squint down at his phone. "M'late." Hopefully not for anything he has to be sober for; he's leaning against the table and kind of fumbling as he puts his cues away. "Been fun. Hope I see you around." "Oh, I am quite sure you will." Has all the drinking affected Damien at all? He moves just as fluidly as he circles the table to collect the pocketed balls. He's leaning closer, reaching -- delicately -- around Joshua to claim the 8-ball from the pocket just behind the other man. "You owe me a year, after all." Joshua's breath catches, hips shifting kind of automatically when Damien moves closer. He doesn't actually pull away after this reflex, though. He's transferring his squint to the taller man, brows knitting slow. At length he just puffs a small laugh, looking between Damien and the Many empty drinks near their table. "Unfair how steady your fucking hands are." Damien's eyes stay fixed with a disconcerting intensity on Joshua. He takes a step back, 8-ball and cue ball clacking quietly together where he rolls them in his palm. "In what way," his voice has gone quiet and very even, "am I being unfair. You made the wager. If you want to reap the consequences of reneging that is on you." Joshua's expression shifts, jaw tightening and his eyes narrowing. Now he does step back, posture gone slightly stiffer. "...Right." He gives one last flat look to Damien, and vanishes. For a moment, Damien watches the space Joshua had just been. His head tilts slightly to the side, his brows lifting slow in thought. He gives a quiet huh!, shakes his head. He's reracking the balls again when a new voice sounds behind him, putting a sharp smile on his face: "-- want a game?" --- 4 June, not long after. <???> Big Deck Energy "{Things turned weird, though.}" Joshua hasn't gotten settled yet, still a bit tipsy, still a bit wobbly. "{I always find the fucking weirdos. Just my luck.}" He's set the dinner he brought on the table but is now just leaned up against the side rail while he recounts his evening. "Fuck's that even mean. A year. How do you take --" The swell of the water isn't that turbulent, really, but in combination with the drinks he's already had it's enough to tip his balance -- the sentence just ends with a splash as he topples off the railing. Leo has been getting out drinks, getting plates together, punctuated with sympathetic noises of acknowledgement. "{You were at a bar.}" Sympathetic or not he sounds quietly amused about this complaint, though it's immediately followed by a brief consideration of the Many Medical Supplies stored just inside the adjacent cabin. "{Okay, maybe one of the more normal places for you to meet people. Do you think --}" But then, splash. He looks extremely Not Alarmed about this Man Overboard situation, not bothering to Even consider the usual safety protocols here. He just wanders closer to the rail, brows raised as he looks down. After a consideration, he puts away the beer he'd taken out for Joshua. He does crack his own, though, only a faint smirk as he takes a swig. A short while later there's a Very Disgruntled Sound coming from the cabin. Joshua -- dripping wet now, his scowl deeper -- is rubbing at his hair with one of his own towels from home. He narrows his eyes hard at Leo and his beer and drops with a squishy whumph into a bench. "Hngh." --- 5 June. <NYC> Abandoned Warehouse - Red Hook It's always chaotic at Fight Club, Wednesday nights especially. Today it's been a kind of muted chaos; the fighters are skilled and the healers have been minimally necessary. Joshua has been in his usual place off in a far corner away from the action, frowning at a cryptpad document of upcoming protest logistics. He spares a glance over toward the ongoing fight. Judges it contained enough that the other healer can handle it if anything goes wrong. He's just slipping around the edge of the warehouse toward the coffee, but doesn't actually make it there. There's a sudden rattling, a whoomph of air, and in time with the triumphant yell from the aerokinetic in the ring, Joshua's world goes black. When Joshua comes to, it's alongside a second Joshua. Mirror!Joshua is drinking the coffee that Joshua did not successfully get. He's pulling his hand away as actual Joshua comes to. "Situational awareness, man." --- 6 June. <WV> Bramwell, West Virginia The interior of the full-scale Egyptian pyramid at the far end of this tiny town is, actually, about what one would expect -- abundant booby traps, glowing hieroglyphs on the walls, the trek deeper into its caverns interrupted only occasionally by enormous mummies or spiders or third graders on field trips taking dutiful notes. Scott has a row of blowdarts bristling cleanly out of one leather-jacketed arm, the wounds oddly bloodless, but he seems to be ignoring it, brandishing a fiery torch out at their latest obstacle -- a climbing wall. He looks a little -- younger? older? something is different about him. Maybe there is a crease at the corner of his eyes that shouldn't be there. Maybe there isn't a crease at the corner of his eyes that should be. Maybe his eyes, tired and hazel and restless, are completely normal and he just got a haircut or something. He's stopping at the foot of the climbing wall, head tilting up-up-back at where it just disappears into darkness. "We don't have equipment for this," he says, but then he shakes his head -- "I'll go back to the front desk." Jax looks mostly the same as he ever does, except perhaps the giant batlike wings now sprouting from his back. "What? We have the equipment." His wings are flexing, though he isn't actually taking off -- just feeling the climbing wall for a good foothold, wings curling to support him as well with claws hooking into the wall. "See?" Totally replicable. He is looking up into the darkness with a frown, though, a large glowing golden beetle flying up above like a lantern to illuminate the ascent. "... gosh, Joshua coulda got us up there in a minute." Speak of the devil, because Joshua is appearing right now. He looks basically the same. Droopy face. Kind of glum. He's clearly very tense, posture a lot stiffer than usual, taptaptapping his phone restlessly against his palm, which stands in all the more contrast to his low and even tone. "I'll get it back," he's saying matter of factly, "but the Blackbird just got eaten by --" It's not the monster devouring the jet (with him inside it) that actually alarms Joshua, though. It's doing a double-take at Scott: "Shit, your eyes --" The blast that abruptly turns back on at this reminder obliterates a huge chunk of the climbing wall. Thankfully not Joshua -- hopefully not Joshua -- he's gone in a startled heartbeat, leaving only the splintered ruins of his phone behind. --- 7 June. <NYC> Williamsburg - Brooklyn The shabbat candles are burning low, but there's still plenty of life in this gathering. Wendy has been circulating around this rooftop terrace, leaving one knot of people to their (extremely heated) discussions of racism they've recently been on the receiving end of from Zionists to drop her two cents in on another (extremely heated) discussion of whether holes and tunnels are the same thing. This latter conversation is getting extremely animated. It's somewhere around an emphatic opinion on the proper depth required for a hole to become a tunnel (four cubits, apparently) that one man rising abruptly to his feet flips the flimsy plastic folding table, together with the remainder of the food atop it. Wendy is taking a quick step back, looking almost but not quite apologetic about her contribution to this mishegas ("a mezuzah is technically a tunnel" apparently stirred Particularly Strong Emotions.) Joshua has unsurprisingly been very invested in the Tunnel Discourse. He's largely kept his opinion on this weighty issue to himself so far, though his eyes are keenly attentive as he follows the passionate back-and-forth. He's giving the Four Cubits drash particularly strong consideration, and has just opened his mouth when the table upends with a clatter of dishes and heavy THUNK of the crockpot sitting atop it. He's skidding backwards with a scrape of his chair, but not quick enough. The remainder of the -- still very hot -- cholent inside splatters down over his arm, and his face has scrunched up in a grimace. His teeth are still clenched in pain. He's ambling to the next table over to get a pitcher of water, pour it down over his reddening forearm. After this it sounds kind of mournful when he finally does weigh in: "What is a tunnel but a hole that persevered." --- 8 June. <NYC> SoHo The marshals have helped usher everyone away who didn't want to be here when shit got spicy, but it's definitely spicy now. The block outside the swank hotel is thick with tear gas and smoke. It's tough to see and tough to breathe. The bright flares of of flashbangs reflect oddly off the hazy particulate, and between the police and the protesters there's a lot of yelling. Somewhere through the blazing heat rolling off the fiery cop cars there are steadier voices, steadier instructions, various Mongrels helping get what remains of the group away from the police weaponry and, hopefully, safely away. Hopefully. Anahita is not a Mongrel, but she seems fairly steady, all things considered, in her flight. Or, at least, she was, until a tear gas canister sails through the smoke and firelight and hits her. Perhaps it's extremely bad luck from a certain point of view, but the fact that it struck and broke her goggles rather than her skull is arguably excellent luck. Either way, she tumbles to the pavement. Those nearest are already scrambling to help her up but, inconveniently, the canister that struck her did not bounce so very far away and is now filling the air with more gas. She does get back up, leaning on a terrified young person but still moving slow, straggling to the rear of the group as they finally clear the street and out onto a patch of grass on the other side. Like the rest she is coughing and disoriented, and the crimson scarf she'd wound around her head and across her face makes the blood streaming down the side of her face look a bit less alarming. Probably, the fact that she crumples the moment she's unsupported is a more concerning sign. Joshua has just appeared somewhere out of the smoke -- with goggles and helmet and mask on he's not all that readily identified, but his NYCAM patches are. He's got another medic with him, younger but pre-jaded and, despite their cough, seeming to take all the chaos largely in stride. Joshua's surveying what he can see of the group -- he's made brief eye contact with one Mongrel and then another and when his examination of the fleeing group turns up no further serious patients, he's approaching Anahita first. "{-- yo, let's get you out of here. Get that seen to.}" He glances to his buddy, then to Anahita's, and with her on the ground he does not wait for an actual reply -- we'll just assume she wants to get safe and treated -- before he reaches down to blip them all away. It's only a few minutes before they return. "{-- hope there aren't more of --}" he's saying to his buddy before he stops and looks around, his brows dipping slooow together and his face a shade or two paler. "Okay." He does not take a deep breath, but he takes just a moment as if he had. The scene might have been chaotic before, but its ugly now -- there's blood in the streets and the screaming has intensified. The police who managed to find weapons and get near have been disarmed, but not before wreaking some havoc. There's one Mongrel in the street there, a pair of kids in bloc trying to drag themselves toward the sidewalk, a lot of people running. The small blue shark that staggers nearer could be either of them -- jeans, black tee, cut, Thing Two on the name patch. Their gills are fluttering wildly, and they start to grab at Joshua as if for steadying. Though there's a distressingly significant hole torn in one side and their voice strained and raspy around struggling breaths, it's not treatment they're asking for -- just pointing a claw towards the line of Cop Boots still glued to the floor, nearby which one protester half-out of sight behind an overturned trash can is lying in a pool of blood. The fact that she follows this silent request up with a gasped "sorry" is probably better indication than the name patch of which one she is. "Okay," Joshua says again, like maybe this time it will calm things. "Lets --" But whatever he was about to say to his buddy is swallowed by the loud crack of a flashbang that whacks into the street just by them. He's stumbling backward from the concussive blast, eyes squinted up tight. When he opens them again to see his buddy on the ground, he's gritting his teeth, and pulling out his phone. The motion probably isn't as ingrained as it should be, but all the same he's managed to get the panic button app open just before he reaches his buddy's side again. --- 9 June. <XAV> Back Patio - XS Grounds << -- they thought it was kind of weird for a beetle to give testimony. >> There's just a small glum edge to the voice in Joshua's head, a brief respite from the cheerful chattering that's been ongoing for the better part of an hour now. It doesn't last; Bryce is back to bright just a moment later. << Is it weird? I still have a testimony. Maybe a stronger one even now that Heavenly Father saved us that day. If I'd been at Dawson's church I don't think anyone would have cared. I might just stay here after all until -- you know, you've helped... >> The bright colored beetle is moving, crawling to the edge of the patio table where, maybe, he can get a better look at his current companion. << How do you actually teach people to do this? Are you gonna make a textbook on learning powers? Am I gonna have homework? How did you learn to teleport? >> His antennae are waving towards Joshua like he's trying hard to reach, though in lieu of arms it's a heavy press of mental pressure that stretches out to clumsily press against the X-Man. Joshua has been saying very little, throughout all this. He's slouched in a chair, looking pretty haggard and a little banged up -- burn dressing down one arm, bruising under one eye, a number of smaller cuts peppered over his face and arm. He's been staring very hard -- at the beetle, at a passing bird, at the shaggy dog curled up dozing by the edge of the flagstones. Back to the beetle. Intermittently he sips at the lemonade he's brought out here, flicking his thumb absently to get rid of the condensation. The careful scrutiny of his power is not really sensible to the boy where it's been alertly mapping whatever shifts and fluctuations he can feel in the teen's mutation, comparing it to his own (currently inert, he's not looking to grow any feathers today) borrowed copy of this strange metamorphosis. He's mostly been replying to Bryce with nods, intermittent grunts to fraudulently suggest that he's following along with the chatter. He does glance back at the homework question, though. "Probably. This sh -- kind of thing takes prac -- fffu--dge," his eyes are going wider at the inept psionic push, mind bucking against the squeeze that bears down against it. "Stop that, it's --" But here his words cut off. Aloud, at least. In the space where their minds have conjoined it's a stream of very colorful curses mingled across Spanish and English. There's a t-shirt puddled on the chair, empty pants slipping down to heap on the patio stones. The rough mental touch pulls back, but then, reconsidering, slips out through Joshua's mind more gently, deft now where Bryce's accidental reach was jostling. In the whisper of wry << (guess you'll need the radio too) >> apology there's also a deep amusement. A careful shifting is highlighting Bryce's weeks of Learning How To Beetle knowledge, and it's as the second tiny green insect emerges from Joshua's tee shirt that Hive is offering, dry: << Gonna have homework. This kinda thing takes practice. >> --- 10 June. <NYC> Creative Little Garden - East Village Most people coming through this quiet garden probably do not spend a good deal of time paying close attention to the moods of its insect life. Still, to the very (very) observant, one little green beetle in here looks like it has been having a long-ass day. He's been perched for a really (really) long time on the edge of a very brandy-soaked cherry that someone has left here in a doll-sized shot glass on a small wrought-iron table. The cherry has been dwindling over the course of the day. As it gets steadily smaller, the beetle gets steadily more wobbly in its perch. Damien has been trailing a crow into the garden; he stops too far a distance away for what he's saying to the bird to be easily intelligible to a beetle's hearing, but the conversation ends with him plucking a very pretty ring out from where it's gotten lodged under a stone. He wipes the thing against his coat and offers it out to the bird. When the crow flies off he's pausing to enjoy the garden, meandering slow through the flowers. He's stopped a short distance from Joshua's table, bending down to examine the tiny brilliant purple jewels of beautyberry on a nearby bush. << You. >> In Damien's head Joshua's accusation is a very much un-slurred grumble, though it comes with the fuzzy background sense of intoxication. << Holy shit. I was starting to think you were a bad fucking dream. >> "Me?" Damien is peering a little bit closer at the beautyberry. "Were you dreaming?" He is very clearly asking this of the plant, pretty solicitously. "I am so sorry to have woken you." << (is he stalking me) >> is overlapping in Damien's mind with << (is he talking to the fucking plant) >> and then, << {oh shit he can't see me} >> and then, << shit can he hear -- can you hear -- {fuck I fucking hate telepathy.} >> There's a silence after this messy jumble, and then, << I'm on the table. >> The beetle is taking a few wobbly steps forward, spreading its wings as if to make itself noticeable, and then toppling over. Thankfully the half-eaten cherry is taking up enough room in the tiny shot glass that he has no space to fall into the brandy it is soaking in, but he is flailing half-upside down between the cherry and the glass wall, in a very undignified manner. << Fuck. >> Damien looks up from the plant, head tilting quizzically. He's looking at one of the small tables dotted around the garden and then at Joshua's. Then back to the first. He nears it more cautiously than a table probably warrants. He has a look of great relief when he gets closer, and stoops -- still not getting too close to the wrought iron -- to put himself at eye level with a large ant crawling over its surface towards some stray crumbs there. "Have we met before?" << Other table. >> Joshua's mental voice sounds approximately infinite times more exasperated than his usual dry tone when speaking aloud. << Last week. Pool. >> In the glass, his tiny beetle-legs are flailing harder, but have yet to get enough purchase on the side of the shot glass to right himself and crawl back out. << I was bigger. >> Damien pulls himself quickly away from the vicinity of the ant's table with a quietly murmured apology. He seems not too much keener to get close to the other, circling it slowly. "Oh! Yes, your voice is familiar. That wonderful human with the most entertaining tales." This time he isn't crouching. He's looking over at the beetle, and a smile -- wider, wickeder -- spreads across his face. "You were indeed." He is perching himself just a short distance away, on the stone edge of a small fountain. One of his legs crosses over the other, and he watches the beetle's flailing with a mingled sympathy and curiosity. "Has it been a terribly rough week? I expect at the least you've picked up another tale, or two. Likely a good many more before your years are through." << I'm a fucking beetle. >> snips back immediately, in a very what do you think kind of tone. Joshua gives up on his flailing, simply lying toppled over in deep resignation. << Did you know. You said -- >> His words cut off here. His antennae twitch, and then stop. << Years. You were talking about a year. The fuck did you do to me. >> "I did nothing. You made a bargain, and you did not keep it. The consequences are your own." Damien is standing again, slipping closer to the table. He very carefully reaches out to pluck the shot glass up, hastily retreating to the fountain again and setting the glass down beside himself on the fountain ledge. "You promised me one year. The fates are far harsher than I, to those so cavalier with their words." He leans down, swiping a stray sumac leaf where its fallen on the ground, and dips this into the glass to provide foothold for the beetle to cling to. "It is not too late, you know. To turn your luck around." << I didn't -- I'm not -- >> Joshua sounds actively offended, now, somewhere under the more dominant feeling of complete and utter confusion. He is at least clinging to the leaf, slowly walking himself up far enough that he can climb properly back onto the cherry and take another bite. << Was a joke. You can't just -- are you some kind of. Luck... bender. Shit. >> His confusion is slipping rapid into annoyance, and then, just, a tired acceptance. << What do I have to do to get my life back. >> He's chewing off another teeny tiny mouthful of cherry. << Ideally by tomorrow. They are not going to have beetle-sized copies of the readings at Tikkun Leil Shavuot. >> "Your words have weight. You'd do well to remember it." Damien is stretching his legs out casually in front of himself, and watching Joshua continue working through the cherry. "Give me the year you promised, of course. Or --" He turns his hand up delicately. "Just wait, and see what next week will bring." << You're not some kind of perv, are you. >> This sounds at once flat and deeply suspicious, Joshua's mental voice level enough but his unconfident telepathic touch leaking a hefty dose of worry. He's shifting as though trying to get a better look at the man beside him, and, this time, when he slips, the bites he's just eaten leave just enough of a gap that he gets wedged solidly between the cherry and the glass. He can't sigh, and yet, his words carry the definite suggestion of one. << ... what do I have to do. >> "Your kind find so tediously many things deviant, I haven't any idea how to keep track. I've no intention to abuse you, if that's what you mean." Damien is drawing the shot glass closer, and delicately dipping a finger into it to help guide Joshua's scrabbling footing without dropping him into the alcohol below. "Oh, I've got an entire year. I'm sure I'll find you something."