ArchivedLogs:Still Alive

Still Alive
Dramatis Personae Sebastian, Shane, Peter
In Absentia	2013-05-13 (Part of Thunderdome.)
Location Thunderdome
It's a basement, somewhere, that much is clear from the slightly musty-cool feel, the lack of windows, the stark-bare cement decor. What purpose this place originally served is hard to discern; something industrial, judging by the heavy reinforced eyelet hooks still set into the ceiling, now devoid of any loads to bear. Of late the place has been repurposed, though. Around two parallel edges of the room, sturdy cells have been constructed, heavy reinforced metal segmenting off large cage-like cells. The enclosures are largely identical: two sets of bunk beds with pillows, thin sheets, identical grey wool blankets. A pair of large covered bedpans, a bucket usually filled with fresh-ish water. The center of the room is divided in two. One half is large and open, a spacious expanse of cement floor and emptiness. The other half holds long trestle-tables, long benches, both riveted into the cement floor. The ceiling -- of the room, of the cages -- hold very noticeable dark security-camera bubbles. There is one door leading out of here, heavy steel that is securely chained and barred from the outside. The lights in the room have been dimmed for bedtime, save for the one cage at the end where Nox is imprisoned by light. Through most of the room, though, there is a softening of the harsh institutional lights, a dimming that still leaves light to see by -- light for the cameras to monitor by -- but not so /much/ of it. The door has clanged a few times, dragging back in beaten and bloody mutants victorious or defeated. And here it clangs again. Earlier two had been taken, and now two are returning. Not the same two, though. Where there had been one giant octopus and one sharkboy, now there are just two tiny blue figures, limphobblestumbling back. One falls, has to be picked up and half-carried by the other. But they make it with only minimal baton prodding and only one zzp of collar. Shane's crisp-elegant linen pants are red with blood. The pinstripes still show up, faintly darker streaks of red in the sea of it. His vest is rumpled, a button missing, somewhat torn along its side, although he's still cinched it back together to keep in in place. His bowtie is still precisely tied. But, also, thick and stiff with blood. There's blood, too, coating him. Fairly liberally coating; his hands are red with it, his feet is red with it, his /face/ is red with it. He's chewing on something, swallowing hungrily, limping along with his weight balanced heavily against his twin. Bastian looks much the same. /Drenched/ in red. His pink shirt has turned dark, though the butterfly screenprinted on it still shows up. The pastel flowers in his black skirt are all stained darker, too. He is limping also, though less so than Shane. There is also a muzzle wrapped around his face, strapped to the back of his head, heavy and solid, a metal grate on a leather harness. Behind the muzzle, his teeth are bared. The twins don't go to bed when they're prodded back into the cage. Shane just sinks down right where he is, leaning back against the cage bars. Sebastian settles beside him quietly, wrapping his arm around Shane's shoulders. "OhGod /SEBASTIAN/." The voice comes from overhead; it is followed - promptly, suddenly, forcefully - by the descent of Peter. Who hasn't been sleeping; not since Shane disappeared. /Last/ time Sebastian saw him, his skin was blotched with glowing oil-black marks that were beginning to out-cluster the pink; now, there's no pink to be found - just a sea of chitin that gleams with a metallic blue sheen in what little light the cells have. His shirt is gone; it's been reduced to a rag, dangling from the mouth of a nearby water bucket. He's left wearing nothing but dress slacks, now. Peter's still got several injuries - a set of black stitches on his forearm, another set on his stomach and hip - but they're hard to make out on the gleaming black carapace. He looks - haggard, eyes rimmed with red - but also /shocked/, surprised, /exhilirated/. When he lands in front of Shane and Sebastian, it's in a crotch - about five yards back - but already, he's /charging/ forward toward them. "You're ALIVE oh my /GOD/," and then he's moving in to HUG Sebastian. Which he'll commence to do - right up until the point that he notices - oh hey, Sebastian's wet. It's his shirt. Why is his - oh. Oh. Oh, /holycrap/. Then, Peter would leap back - /way/ back - staring at his own chest. Looking back to Sebastian. Eyes even wider. "...that's not -- yours, /right/." Sebastian growls, softly, at this charge. It's evidently not a /displeased/ sound, though; he answers it with a lift of his arm to return to hug. His teeth clench behind his bars. "Not much of it." Some, though, as suggested by the rips in his shirt where tentacle-hooks clawed their way in. Shane watches Peter's approach with dull tired eyes. He tips himself slowly sideways, slumping against Sebstian's shoulder. "Hardly any of it." Sebastian looks Peter over again once the other teenager has pulled away. "You changed your skin." He's still /speaking/ through his teeth, his long sharp claws drawing back in to his fingers. There might be a tingle of danger-sense from him. Just a tingle. "Been changing. Pretty, isn't it?" Shane says this with his eyes closed. He's not looking at the black, just resting his head against Sebastian's shoulder. Peter picks up that danger sense pretty quickly. Even a tingle of it tends to set him on edge; he scuttles back - another few inches. And just kind of - nod, nods. "Um. I mean, I guess I--didn't /mean/ to, but... Sebastian you're alive," Peter repeats, this last bit expressed with a combination of exhaustion and /overwhelming/ relief. "We thought... oh man, I didn't think... I thought Shane was gonna go all 'Where The Red Fern Grows' on me." Peter looks like he's getting a little misty eyed just /thinking/ about this. "Thank /God/, oh man, um... um... we have some - I can - we can - wash you guys... off." He's moving toward that bucket, now, hefting it up by the handle, yanking up his still-dripping shirt - moving toward them. Slowly. /Hesitantly/. "...think we might be able to get a plastic tub," Peter adds, quietly. "For washing clothes. But also, you guys can. Take turns. Sleeping in..." Swallow. Scooting closer. Warily, around Sebastian. Then, despite the fact that every sense in his brain is /screaming/ at him not to ask, Peter does it anyway: "I guess... the other guy... didn't...?" The danger is at least not growing. Just sort of low-level /there/. Quiet background danger. Sebastian doesn't answer the question about the other guy, just looking Peter over. He grimaces, nudging Shane up a little more and peeling his bloodsoaked shirt off. "You're hurt," he says, "you have a fight?" "He fought." Shane sounds sort of glum about this. "Think he lost." "Who'd you lose to?" Sebastian's eyes narrow. He looks around the dim room like it has displeased him. "Other guy's dead." Shane /does/ answer this question now. He /says/ it like it's displeased him, too. He curls his knees up towards his chest, arms wrapping around them. "Jim. He's - a tree. He's okay," Peter tells Sebastian, frowning a little, setting the bucket down beside him. The shirt - dip, /squeeze/, twist - and then he's reaching up - before /blushing/. When he does so, the faint change in color across his skin is emphasized by the metallic sheen - switching from a delicate blue to a darker violet swirl. "He was -- he wasn't /hard/ on me or anything. I just, um, kind of went down. I don't want to --" Peter's eyes flicker up to the cameras, now. His voice drops to a brief whisper: "I've just been taking falls." Peter starts dabbing at Sebastian's torso. Looking for /wounds/. Wiping away blood. His voice becomes a little louder, then, addressing Shane. "You should - your shirt - we need to check you for wounds, I guess? I don't know if you guys - have to worry about infections... um, you k--jeez," Peter says, not exactly sure what to say. "...jeez. I'm -- I'm really glad you're both alive. /Really/ glad," he repeats, as if this is all he can manage. Concentrating on cleaning Sebastian up, swiping. There are cuts, there, scraped shallow or gouged deeper against his side where tentacles had gripped tight to fling him around. They're not bleeding much, though, just raw slices of pink and red against his blue skin. "-- why are you doing that?" Sebastian's voice is quiet, his eyes droopily half-closed. "... You could trounce half the people here." Shane's head has tipped to the side, again. He's watching this careful cleaning through half-lidded eyes. "You bore them, they'll kill you." He says this in a flat-dull tone to match his flat-dull eyes. Sitting up is more of a struggle. He reaches behind himself to unstay his vest and then just slumps back against the bars. "We're alive." Sebastian doesn't sound as glad of it as Peter. Just tired. "Did you know," Shane is quieter here, a keen interest in his tone even if his eyes don't change from their droopy half-lidding, "your skin /swirls/. When it's flushing." "I... might really -- hurt someone. If I --" Peter swallows again. The damp cloth slides toward those cuts - carefully - testingly - to see if Sebastian hisses or snaps in response. If not, Peter carefully cleans /around/ them; once the cloth is soaked in red, he wrings it out - over the floor - letting it dribble to the concrete reluctantly. They can get more in the morning, he figures. For now, though... he resoaks the cloth, lifting it again - dab, dab. "--when I first practiced with my... trainer, my fist went /through/ the dummy," Peter explains, almost apologetically. When Shane brings up the flushing, the metallic sheen's swirls only /increase/; the violet spreads, almost threatening to cover Peter from his head down to his mid-torso. Like a giant, person-shaped mood-ring. "I... wh--seriously? I--I don't even know--what I look like, anymore." Now the color /does/ reach his mid-torso. "Um. We -- you should, get the blood off of you too." Sebastian does hiss, but it's brief and quiet; there's no snapping and probably more pertinently no increase in potential danger. Just a slight tensing, and he closes his eyes as his muscles tighten against the new pain. "Yeah. That's /good/, Peter. I mean, that means you can live." Shane opens his eyes a little wider. "Yeah. Look," he reaches a hand, blood-covered finger pointing -- poking, if he can, just a light brush-nudge of contact -- towards Peter's chest. "Can you see it there? It's purple." "You look like --" Sebastian gives this a long moment of consideration. "Like the rainbows that get trapped in oil slicks." "Bastian's right." Shane's eyes are closing again. "You gotta learn to do this for real. Cuz one day it might be for real. And then you /want/ your fist to go through the --" His arm wraps around his shin again. "You could practice with us. You might really hurt someone. But we can take it." At the poke, Peter briefly bristles, but does not draw back; when a dab of blood is left in his chest - he quickly /wipes/ with the rag. But then he's peering - at his own torso - brows squeezing together into that intentful knot, and. "That's... really /weird/," he says, a little breathless, but even as he says this, the unusual swirls seem to withdrawl - retreating back toward his face, becoming - once again - metallic blue. Peter's eyes remain /focused/ on his chest for a little while. "...I know. I mean, /nngh/ I just -- you know d-- my trainer would always tell me, when I'd practice? My biggest problem was I just... always try to find a /clever/ way out. A way that didn't involve - just smashing through a problem. But sometimes you have to--" Peter glances up at the twins, now. Eyes flicking between the two of them. The rag, temporarily forgotten, has slipped back into the bucket. "...I guess - you guys don't even have /bones/ do you? I mean - I don't want to hurt - but you /are/ hard to hurt. And you /do/ heal, like, crazy-fast..." "We heal crazy-fast." Sebastian manages a smile again here. "If we had bones we'd be dead by now." Shane winces, slowly rolling one very bruised shoulder. He sits forward slightly again, slipping out of his vest and starting to unbutton his dress shirt. "Can whale on me as much as you fucking want. You /gotta/ learn how to do this serious." Shane wrinkles his nose, looking Peter over. "You're strong as fuck. But so're we." Shane tugs his shirt off. Beneath he's in much the same state. A host of bruises, some sprinkled cuts. "We practice now someone'll probably kill us for cutting into their sleep. But you should -- learn." "Okay," Peter says, reluctant but - agreeing. "In the morning, I'll punch you both /so/ hard." There might just be a hint of teasing there. Like, everything that has happened up until this point has been part of Peter's plan. To convince the twins to let him spend his mornings PUNCHING THEM SILLY. But then, he's reaching for the rag, with a dribble - moving it toward Shane's bloody, mangled torso. Again, his face and shoulders are flushed with a metallic violet tint. After a few passes of the cloth - wiping what is probably considerably less blood away from Shane's torso - Peter pauses. Lowers the cloth. And, with a ragged, exhausted sigh, just - reaches for Shane and Sebastian, arms stretching out for their shoulders. Weakly reeling them toward him for a - brief, careful - hug. Not too tight, because. All /three/ of them have injuries. But, it might involve an attempt to bring about a gentle three-way head-butt. "We're alive," Peter whispers. "We're going to win." Shane is mostly tired, through this tending. He droops his head against Bastian's shoulder and submits to his cleaning wordlessly. But the hug makes him pay attention again, eyes opening to curl his arms gently around Peter in return. "We're going to win," Bastian agrees, forehead bonking down lightly against the other two. He probably has more to say but here a quiet zzp ripples through all their collars. Bastian sits back against the bars with a grimace. "Gotta make sure you /stay/ alive." Shane grumbles, lifting a hand to rub fingers along his collar. It earns him another zap when he pulls it slightly away from his skin. "Need some fucking sleep first, though. And /then/ running around playing hero. Zzzzpnnnerrgh. Peter just... /glowers/ at the camera. For only a second. But he quickly looks away, back to the twins, and offers them a tired smile. The rag gets squeezed out; he slumps it along the edge, then. "Bed," he agrees, and though he certainly hasn't been /punching/ anyone tonight, it's clear that he's tired; probably been crawling along the ceiling just /fretting/ in the dark. Soon, he's slowly scrambling his way to a bunk - where he quickly makes himself a little 'nest', peering only briefly out at the twins as they slip to bed. "...um, I -- uh, g'night, love you guys." he states, and now that metallic sheen is a /deep/ shade of violet, gleaming only briefly before his head ducks under - something, /anything/ out of view. Sebastian returns the smile, a quick small flash of sharp teeth behind the grate of his muzzle. Shane does not, exactly, but glancing over at it does soften his expression. "Love you," he answers back, and even when Peter is out of view his eyes stay fixed on the bunk for a while. Then he, too, is nesting, burrowing into the blankets on his bed and disappearing till morning.