ArchivedLogs:Sharing the Weight

Sharing the Weight
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Kay
In Absentia	2014-07-31 Brothers do it with blood and fire
Location <NYC> Harbor Commons - Fitness Room - Lower East Side
This exercise room is the epitome of 'intentional design'. It has been carefully crafted with the mutant physique in mind, which is saying a lot because physiques can vary so drastically these days. The room is a high-ceilinged cube allowing for extreme range of motion movements. And the walls are blissfully free of the floor-to-ceiling mirrors common in commercial gyms, having instead a couple of narrow mirrors off to the side if one needs to double check their form for a particular lift. Instead, the reinforced concrete walls are covered in resident paintings, the designs done in a graffiti style, changing over time as murals are modified or painted over. At the entrance one finds a few standard-looking treadmills and rowing machines for anyone needing an indoor cardio workout, from which the speed governors have been removed. They allow for anyone who would benefit from a more 'vigorous' pace, but they also operate perfectly well at more normal speeds. Past the machines, off to one side is a collection of large, rolled up mats to be deployed for light sparring sessions. A sign on the wall asks simply: Be gentle with our space! Further back in the space is a large collection of free weights lining the walls, dumbbells and bars with assorted plates. Most standard exercise machines would be too limiting for many mutants, but the free-weights can be used for any strength level. The room also features an expensive pair of shiny, Olympic class weight bars, capable of supporting up to a metric ton with a minimum of flex. Sitting with them is a matte black, custom-order bar rated to support four metric tons. On the wall near where the bars rest is a sign requesting: "Don't overweight the bars. Put away your plates when done." Kay's stride down into the gym is hardly shy; wearing tie-shorts and a black binding racerback tank slim down the already whipish-severe distribution of muscle mass. His long feet bare, and hands in casual fists, his shoulder muscles bouldered like a pair of eggs beside either side of his neck, the movement causes the dual red dragons spiraling up his arms and down his back to twitch and jerk. The black bandana normally tied around his bicep is now tired over the top of his head, keeping his lank hair off his face as he sets squint-shaped eyes to roving the gym for signs of life. In some universes it could be a matter of debate whether vampires count as signs of life; Dusk, these days, certainly /looks/ the part, ghost-pale skin only highlighted in its pallor by the velvet darkness of huge wings, black hair, short black scruff of beard. He is here, though, quiet /huffs/ and grunts giving evidence to at least some level of animation. He is in only shorts, a white length of bandage wrapped around one wrist and the contrasting black of his ankle monitor still present around one leg. In his hands, the more heavy-duty of the weight bars, loaded up to 2500 lbs; it puts a distinct strain in the lean muscles of his arms and chest, shoulders flexing with an overhead press. His fangs are bared in sharp grimace though this shifts into a gritted /grin/ when Kay arrives. "Think fast." His grip shifts, making as if to /throw/ the ton+ barbell at the other man though given that he has no murderous intent the twitchy feint ends with the weight still gripped in his hands. It's fortunate Kay's feet have passed over onto the hard cement floor, where the faint ripple-shimmer that leaps up, yank-rippling through his shorts and bandana, doesn't have anything to /scorch/, hands raising reflexively like he just MIGHT catch the weight. Or - more likely reflexively explode. Just - it, himself, the room, all of it. Instead he smiles back, eyes gleaming, hard, also toothy, "You take my weight on it?" He's coming right at Dusk, hands out, and raises up one foot to step ON Dusk's knee, closing hands around the barbell and trying to climb up onto it like a park bench. "Hermano," Dusk braces his knee, curling a wing forward to help /boost/ Kay up onto the bar; his head tips back to give Kay room as his arms push up again to lift the bar -- and Kay -- off his deltoids in a smooth roll upward, "compared to what I'm pushing I can barely /feel/ the extra weight." His arms lock overhead, holding there for a moment before lowering the bar back towards his shoulders. He huffs out another grunted breath, words coming through clenched teeth, "You come to sweat?" Kay is no /gymnast/, that wing probably saves him from cracking his fool head open, riding the bar with a short gasp-swear when suddenly held aloft on the thin bar. And resting his feet on Dusk's shoulders when he's lowered again. "Nhah. Takes a lot," positioned above Dusk, it's not possible to see his smile - nor is it all that audible in his rasping growl of his voice, "to make /me/ sweat, bro." Subtle, the bar in Dusk's hands, where it rests across his shoulders, is growing warmer. Conducting heat rapidly, and only increasing. Hot. Hotter. Kay's bare feet are shifting like he's ready to leap down. "You /take/ me, Darkwing?" "Haven't exactly been /short/ on heat though." Kay had best make with the leaping because Dusk's next push of motion shoves the bar up and outward in a hasty /jerk/ aimed to dislodge the other man from it. He pushes a sharp breath through his teeth, continuing the motion downward to thump the weight heavily back to the ground, releasing it to shake out his hands rapidly. The heat brings a small growl rumbling out of him, and in answer to this he only flares out a wing, strong and heavy in a sweep aimed straight /for/ Kay somewhere along his trajectory towards the ground. "Sh-hfk!" Kay curls mid-air to protect himself from the thump of wing. It sends his once-tidy almost-landing into a tumbling act to the ground, landing on a shoulder, rolling along the back of his shoulders before he can slam the heel of his palm to the ground, shoving himself with the same momentum to wind up back in a crouch. Already, his arms are moving up to bear, stretched out at his sides, and then swooping forward like there's some invisible shape just in front of him that he's trying to /bearhug/. The air lashes out instantly with the motion, carrying an oily-shimmery blast of dry heat. Not quite flame, but baking hot and rippling in a hard shove of thermal-air. A rogue workout magazine is yanked off the ground and smacked against a far wall. Clothes and hair don't so much ripple as they do leap to the far side of the body like flags. Should wings catch the heat, they'd likely fill with the air like a ship sail. The baring of Dusk's teeth gets that much /more/ bared when the air presses his face /back/, lips pulled open wider. There's a /whumph/ of air, huge wings flared out around him with a sudden jerk that pulls him not just back but /up/, the rising hot air lifting him off his feet in a strong tug of yanked-wide wings. Just as soon, though, those wings are tucking inward, angling to use his lofted position to curl and /dive/ towards the source of heat. It's a little ungainly, shoulder tucking to roll in a heavy thud towards Kay's chest that's likely as not to just end in a tangle of limbs. For how fast it all happens, there's precious little time between Kay's first mini-explosion and the second one, thrown up hastily with a gout of flames that licks partly up his /own/ body. It forms a silky-bright curtain through which Dusk erupts, his hair and wing fur streaming ribbons of smoke before - 'uff!' the two are a sizzling, smoking mass of limbs and wings and licking flames that, between the both of their rapid healing, are more a painful inconvenience that leaves skin red in places, peeling back, fresh and pink and new grown beneath. All the laughter in Kay is missing, now. It's just bared teeth, a swung punch that deals a blow of fire across the side of Dusk's temple. A knee that thumps up into his stomach. Once, twice, then just a rapid wild /pounding/. The lick of flames puts a harsh growl back in Dusk's chest, rumbling there rough and low as his nostrils flare at the smell of smoke. His wings clap back in, hard, curling to pincer sharp claws against Kay's back. The growl grows deeper at the heated punch that leaves the side of his head reddened; the knee against his stomach is met with more -- -- equanimity is probably not /quite/ the word for the hard push of muscle that shoves back against the blows. His hand shoves back hard against Kay's leg, levering it down with a flex of muscles that -- not long before were swinging ton-weight barbells around. His own elbow swings up hard towards the back edge of Kay's jaw as his other hand moves to push the punching-hand down to pin against the concrete floor. To stand to the outside and watch, it would appear a thing of horror and beauty, Dusk's bare back and wings folding over Kay, the fine furred membrane of his sails filled with an inner hellish glow that threatens to eat through them at ember-bright points of red, should they not regenerate fast enough. Within this winged enclosure, there's a panting, fiery privacy of skin-smells and burn-smells and blood spells and thudding heartpulse, biblical Shadrach and Meshach alone in their personal furnace. The strength in Dusk make his points of uncompromised grip and pressure sites of the Mongrel's body that are held fast in place, bony wrist compressed to the ground - the rest squirms within these taloned wings, sweating and increasingly heated to touch, free leg opening to lock around Dusk's waist, until the elbow to his jaw /stuns/ some of the fight from him, head jerked to the side, cheek against the concrete. In the midst of it all, the smack of his free hand landing palm to Dusk's brow is quiet. It lays over the middle of the other's forehead, where the skin will find itself dry-constricting from the heat that does - /not/ erupt. Remains just short of it, Dusk's dark hair wafting in the thermals. Kay's thumb rests atop Dusk's eyelid. Exerting just enough pressure to -- explore the rounded wet sphere beneath. A strained-rough laugh shudders out from below. There's a strangled harsher edge to Dusk's rumbling growl, fur singing and burning /away/ in places to leave his velvety wings more like cracked old leather. The ponder pincer-grip of his wings constricts further, sharp talons digging in against Kay's back. The sweat that should be dripping off his forehead is instead dried away as soon as it appears, leaving a gritty salt crust to his baking skin. His elbow is shifting, pressing the hard bar of his forearm in against Kay's neck in a slow steady pressure; the feel of thumb against his eye, though, /snaps/ his attention away. There's a sharp animal snarl, and his head jolts back like it's been electrified, turning to just sink fangs blindly towards Kay's hand, wrist, whatever part he can /reach/ of the offending /thing/ attacking his eye. Yelping, Kay's body twist-spasms when talons dig points into the tight-coiled muscle clusters of his back, reflex-jerking in the limited space hard enough his tailbone and the small of his back rise up off the ground - only to the limit that his pinned neck and arm permit. The yelp soon morphs into a bitten off snarl when Dusk's teeth seize onto his wrist. Blood fills Dusk's mouth and the fire merrily step-ladder climbing and then dance-retreating up and down the vampire's body /thickens/, edging to a full explosion -- -- and with a sharp hiss, it abruptly yanks back from a roar to a low-clinging kindle amongst their clothes and hair. Kay's teeth grit, a vein throbbing in his neck, eyes squinching up, not /closed/, fixed on Dusk, but twisting with concentration against the dulling spots of oxygen deprivation to slits. "--hey." It does not come /easy/, the careful easing in the clenched surface of his abdomen, where it presses against Dusk's. Relaxing to return his back to the ground, relaxing /into/ the grip of Dusk's talons. His voice has a slight shrill-ragged pitch, but is softer. Harder. Disembodied from his rapid-thudding pulse. "--brother, I know.S'alright." His arm turns, angling his wrist to make biting only easier. "I've been there, too." The snarl in Dusk's throat climbs higher, edging into a choked-off yelp, muffled since his teeth don't actually /leave/ Kay's arm. The tightening grip of his wings eases, curled around Kay still though the talons stop their sharp press. His hand slides away from Kay's neck, bracing on the floor beside the other man's head. There is still a clenched tension to his muscles, chest heaving in more strained breaths with the smoke, the reddened burns singed up his skin, but contrastingly his other hand is gentle where it lifts to hold Kay's wrist against his sharp bite. The abnormal prominence of bump in his throat rolls over swallow after swallow, eyes slipped to half-mast. It takes a while before he pulls away, crisp-edged hair pressing into Kay's palm as his head tips forward. "Think too fucking many of us have." All things ease, as Dusk feeds; Kay's eyes slide shut, riding out the residual flush it shares and relaxing into it. Though the flames joyfully creeping amongst their clothes would continue on their own, they snuff out instead, leaving red angry burns and blisters that all too quickly fall into knit. The soot and char and singed residue, not so much. After a few moments of panting, Kay's fingers curl in to take a fistful of Dusk's hair. Maybe not so much dragging his head up as it does tip it to the side to see his face. "'S going on with you, man." It's not angry or shocked. Winded! Open-mouthed breathing and intent on the other's with - some animal worry? Intent interest? Dusk's face is fiercely alive, with the taste of blood. Eyes slightly dilated, cheeks flushed -- or maybe that's just the red of burns climbing up the sides of his face. His head tips against the grip in his hair, tongue swiping up against still-bleeding wrist before he looks to Kay properly. "Big empty house, going fucking stir-crazy. Hive went with Flicker off to Thailand to fucking die." He sounds strained, here, disgruntled, though there's a breath he draws in afterwards like he's about to add to this, like the impending death of one of his best friends is not /enough/. He licks at the dripping blood again, low growl purring back up, though quiet this time. "You follow this Themis bullshit?" Kay's eyes close, blowing air out of puffed out cheeks for the first statement, and nods grimly. His legs are shifting, sitting up with an absent care to leave his wrist within Dusk's range. Unapologetically /climbing/ the other man a little to get there, hard eyes looking ever so casually across the gym, "Hah. Yeah. Could say I am." Dusk's teeth grit harder, strong hard muscles more than up to the task of being climbing-prop but raw burned skin protesting this. He doesn't move from it, though, just closes his eyes a moment and takes another sip of blood. "That woman's fucking moved in here. Neve. /Nox/." He spits the name out like it's a curse. Kay's rangy-casual (ginger, /burned/…) movements stop mid-motion, still looking out across the gym.... -- then /resume/, after a moment. His brows are now pulled together with an edge of pensiveness, head turning back towards Dusk, "--why here." Dusk answers this with a deeper growl and his lips pulling back in hard baring of bloodstained teeth. "/Oddly/ enough there's a lot of freaks out there who want her dead." He hisses a breath out through his teeth. "And a lot of people here strong enough to protect her. Guess she's turning over a new fucking leaf." His sharply disdainful tone suggests what he thinks of /that/. Kay's face breaks into a slow, thin smile, long legs spread out in front of him to look over the lap of fire damage, "Gonna give up all those precious treatments, then?" He's taking his arm back now, kthx! A brief flash-fry over the bite wound seals it - and sets it on a much speedier route to healing. "They were taking their -- fucking treatments out of Matt's goddamn /spine/, I wonder if they'll even be able to make them without him to torture." Dusk's brows furrow at this thought, a shiver running through him. "S'a good guy. We were friends back before they nabbed him. -- /She/ was goddamn friends with him before they nabbed him." His wings stretch out behind him as he pulls himself into a crouch. "Guess getting Ian killed and raining down hell on the whole city wasn't enough for..." His head shakes, breath pushed out slow. "Jax says killing her would just bring down /more/ hell. S'probably right." His wings shiver behind him. "Wouldn't be sad to see her whole genocidal House go up in fucking flames, though." "Met 'im on the drive back." Kay offers, though blankly - it wasn't much of a drive for riveted conversation. "That's his ability, huh? Haaah." Dusk's shivering seems to coincide with him leaning somewhat nearer, though short of contact - burns don't really like that. "Friends…" his head shakes, slowly. Suddenly, energy is filling him up again, and he's up and moving (ow-tss!) just - around. Towards the handweights, hefting up a pair of twenty-fivers to curl them while he /roams/. "Ffff. Guess -hff- there was a lotta folk that sold out, in the labs, huh?" Said with his back turned, the weights /curling/ hard in time with controlled breathing. And then a long, deep silence descends, timed well with Dusk's final statement. The smell of burnt meat and blood and sweat against a deeper more pervasive smell of regular cleaning and the metal in the weights. Kay's breath cutting its sharp inhale, slow exhale. His wandering course takes him back to Dusk eventually, his face, when visible, full of all the deep lines of sever contemplative thought that has him abruptly shoving the weights into Dusk's custody. "Forgot. I gotta do a thing. Get these for me?" His head is turning towards the door already, amber eyes gone brighter now. "His ability is fucked up, but that's part of it." Dusk's wings are starting to tighten, but this motion stops when they rub against his burned shoulders. "There's a lot of people," he says this with a pained twinge in his face, a pained twinge in his wings, "that do a lot of terrible when they're up against the wall. She got the fuck out. And kept right on at it." His eyes track Kay's roaming movements, his breath still hard and through his teeth. His lips peel back a little more when he finds the weights suddenly in his hands, tongue flicking over his teeth to wipe the red clean. In answer to Kay he is silent, teeth still bared in grit or grin as he moves aside to return the weights -- and his original barbell -- to their place with a heavy final /thud/.