ArchivedLogs:Breaking Point

Breaking Point
Dramatis Personae B, Anette, Daken
In Absentia	2015-05-20 Just because the future is changed doesn't mean everything is fixed...
Location <NYC> BoM Safehouse - Lower East Side
Tucked away off a little-used side street in the Lower East Side, sandwiched between a youth drop-in center and a taqueria, this narrow three-story townhouse has very little to catch the eye. Boarded-up windows, a door peeling its paint, shabby grubby brickface; from the outside it does not look like much. Inside someone has gone to great lengths to renovate the building into something more habitable. It isn't glamorous but it is comfortable, old furniture dragged in, the place generally swept clean. The first floor holds a large living room, a smaller dining room, a spacious kitchen, a half-bathroom. There are three bedrooms and a full bathroom on the second floor; the attic is just a large empty space crammed full of boxes with a window out to the large flat roof. The basement, much like the attic, consists of a lot of empty space. A bare concrete floor, no windows, occasional poles running up to the ceiling. A tiny half-bathroom down here, too. Not a whole lot else. There are always things going around here, mutants of all shapes and sizes wandering around. It's nearing the time of day when more of the nocturnal mutants are starting to stir. Daken has commandeered the kitchen and is using the counter as a seat. He's wearing a pair of black jeans and a red flannel shirt open over a white tank top. In his hands is a small camera. "Alright, warehouse. Got it." The door to the safehouse opens, admitting one very small blue shark looking a little shadowed around the eyes and a little stiff in hir walk. B is dressed in a strappy silver and black tank top, pleated black and blue-plaid miniskirt, tall stompy boots, thick spiked cuffs around hir wrists. A low humming accompanies hir, a trio of small metal-bodied dragonflies hovering in the air around hir. Hir attention is captured by a tablet in hir hands that ze is studying as ze makes hir way through the safehouse, but ze looks up with a sharp twitch of nose as ze approaches the kitchen door. Hir huge pupilless black eyes study Daken for a moment, uncertain. Anette comes down from the staircase having, if her wet hair is any indication, made use of the full bathroom upstairs for a while. She has a baggy t-shirt and sweatpants on and doesn't look as if she plans on doing much today. She wanders about aimlessly until she stumbles across Daken in the kitchen and grins. "Hey stranger, fancy seeing you here," she says, hopping up beside him on the counter. As B enters, she gives the strange-looking shark creature a brief glance and pursed lips. Daken leans over to press a kiss to Anette's cheek. "Hey there. Might need to borrow you in a couple of days. Aerial reconisance." he greets, before giving B a nod. "How's it going?" B takes a half-step back from the kitchen doorway, ridged brows furrowing slightly. Hir head dips, gills fluttering along the sides of hir neck. Hir eyes shift to hir drones at the mention of aerial reconnaisance, but move back to Daken and Anette after this. "You'd think," ze finally says, quietly, "time travel would have more jetlag." "Yeah. Surprisingly easy travel," Anette says, ignoring Daken and his kiss for now as she stares down B. "Too bad my future self wasn't around to handle it." "Mine was, though I wish it was me now. Being practically human wasn't a fun experience." Daken frowns a bit, though it isn't clear why. "Especially when the mark four decided to show up. Just glad I came with a bag full of grenades." B's black eyes meet Anette's, the ripple in hir gills quieting back down. Hir fingers swipe quickly against the screen of hir tablet, and ze lowers it to hir side. "Think a lot of people's weren't. The future kind of sucks." Hir gills do shiver again at the mention of the Mark IV. Just briefly. Anette suddenly lunges off the counter, wings spread as she aims to lunge towards B. "You let them take me! You let them take me and my child! I DIED because of you!" she screams, clearly not caring much that this all occured in a future that probably never happened anyway. Daken wastes very little time grabbing Anette by the shoulder and tugging the angry taloned woman against him. "It hasn't happened yet, and won't now." he assures quietly. B's teeth bare, claws lengthening at this lunge. A low growl snarls up in her throat, her posture instinctively dropping into a lower fighting stance as /she/ swipes a clawed hand back hard at the nearest limb to her. Her claws don't retract when Daken pulls Anette back; the growl does subside, though her teeth are still bared. "It looks," she says quietly, "like you're still /standing right here/ to me. Do you want me to /apologize/ for some person I'm not? Some person I might never be? Over something that might never happen? Because I won't." Anette shoves Daken's hand off of her though she does stop her assault on B. "Don't give me that shit. How do I know you're not that person or that you're not going to become that person anyway? You were willing to let a child, MY child, die just to save yourself. What kind of monster does that?" She turns and points an angry talon at Daken. "What? Are you going to tell me that future meant nothing and you felt nothing? Because it sure as hell felt as real as right here, right now to me." "I'm not saying that. But if you kill hir, or ze kills you, I'm not going to be very happy." Daken reaches up to rub his jaw. "And I also know that I'm not going to run away to Canada if that future happens, so while I was there, and it hurt.. I know that things won't be the same. No point in rushing into something to make life harder than it has to be." "You don't know. And I don't /care/ if you know or not. I don't have to /justify/ myself to you because of something that /never happened/, you crazy --" B's teeth click shut, hir gills fluttering quickly as ze pulls in a breath. Pushes out the breath slowly. "/You/ can sit here and slash at me and rant like a loon if you want. You think that'll /help/? But /I'm/ going to take what I learned in the future and do something /useful/ with it. Like make sure that stuff doesn't happen to begin with." Anette stares incredulously at Daken and B. "Really? You both are going to make me out to be the bad guy here? So what, we're supposed to just have a beer and laugh this off because it supposedly 'never happened'?" She turns face B, narrowing her eyes. "Maybe me learning from the future is by ensuring some people never make it there." "You're not the bad guy. But you're thinking about the short fight." Daken pushes up to try and rest a hand on Anette's shoulder. "B is smart. Like right there with Norman and Stark smart. We need hir to help make sure it either never happens, or we have a way to fight the sentinels. Think about it, I'm having to be the voice of reason here. Isn't that your job?" He's actually /teasing/ Anette, flashing a sharp toothed grin. The growl rises harshly in B's throat at that last, again. "It never happened. And yeah. You /are/ the bad guy. You're threatening /real/ people's lives over something that /hasn't happened/. You're crazy /and/ sick." Hir gills still flutter, rapidly, as ze turns to head back for the door. Anette waves Daken's hand off her shoulder once again. "Don't. Touch me." She tucks her wings back in and crosses her arms over her chest, not moving just yet. "If this is supposed to convince me what I wonderful person you really are, it sure as hell isn't working. And my child was -real-, don't you dare tell me otherwise. I'm starting to believe in future you now. Just a matter of time." "And that's the only reason I'm asking you to calm down. It's /our/ child. I don't want to have to live in a future where I'm a single parent." Daken says quietly. "Watching you die was.. Awful. I don't want to have to live through that again." B says nothing. Her low rumble of growl fades away as she heads through the living room and out of the house, tiny drones humming along after her. Anette turns to face Daken, ignoring B as she storms away and clenching her talons together tightly. "You weren't there. I was...I was alone with just this...this tiny child and all over a sudden there are Sentinels and she just...left us." She is now visibly shaking as she struggles to contain her emotions. "She is the reason we were captured, the reason I spent not just the future but the present agonizing over Hiro and the reason you -were- a single father for all of two days. And both of you just want me to get over it? How the hell am I supposed to do that?!" "I don't want you to get over it." Daken says, frowning now. "I just don't want you to do something stupid and me have to lose you again. Especially after we just started a relationship." He offers a hand. "You know me and you know what you got yourself into. This is EXACTLY why I didn't want a relationship," Anette growls. "You can't lose what you don't have. So what do you suppose I do? Just...let it go? Forgive and forget? Move on? None of those are happening anytime soon." "No, think about the long fight, not the short one." Daken repeats. "And, she's one of us. We can't just kill each other, regardless of what they've done. I don't like it any more than you, but I'm thinking about the long fight." "Stop talking about long fights and short fights! It doesn't matter! It's just one huge, endless fight that just gets worse and worse. And don't try and tell me she's 'one of us'. If she is then we don't need her on our side. She can't be trusted." Anette quickly storms off towards the sink and grabs a glass, filling it with water. "That's exactly what they think about me." Daken grunts. "Just have faith that the future can change. And if it doesn't? We'll take care of the problem then." He moves up behind Anette, resting his hands on her hips and pressing a kiss to her neck before she pushes him off again. With a loud crash, the glass of water shatters into a million pieces against the opposite wall where Anette threw it. "Stop! Just stop!" she screams as Daken goes for a kiss once again. Suddenly, she just slinks to the floor, sobbing with her face buried in her talons. "Stop saying things will change and we can take care of everything that happens. Just stop. I just...I can't shake it off." Whatever Daken was going to say is cut short as a shard of glass finds itself in his eye, only made worse by him clutching at it. "Fuck!" It takes a few tries for him to actually dig the intrusive material out, and by then it's a bloody mess. "God Dammit!" He moves away from Anette to take a seat at the table on the far side of the room, covering his eye while the ruined orb heals over. Anette looks up hesitantly as she hears Daken stumble about, clutching his eye. Silently, she sits on the floor, her arms and wings wrapped about her legs, chin resting on her knees until Daken has calmed down. "Hell, let's elope since dating is going so well." "Vegas or Japan?" Daken asks, lowering his hand and blinking a few times. "Or we can just go downtown, get married in a drive-through and I move all my stuff into your apartment. Whatever works for you." His tone doesn't quite match his teasing yet, but he does manage to flash a grin. Anette leans up against the counter but she doesn't move quite yet. "Well...you didn't stab me. We just might stand a chance." Anette idly picks at one her feathers, picking off bits of dandruff. "Not here. Anywhere but here. Let's pack up and move. Australia sounds nice." She lets out a heavy sigh. "I don't know what to do anymore." "Build an earth ship, live off grid." Daken pushes up to stand over Anette so he can wash the blood from his face. "But, we do have obligations here. And, I don't have any contacts out that way." He offers a hand to help her up. Anette shakes her head as Daken offers her his hand. "No, I'm comfy," she groans, setting her chin back on her knees to further her point. "What obligations? I don't have any. I don't have a job, I'm just a faceless drone in the Brotherhood. And we don't need contacts. Just plane tickets. Hell, even those are optional..." Anette wriggles her wings a bit with that last sentence. "I know the feeling. I'm definitely one of the most capable people they have. And they thought about killing me off." Daken grunts, crossing his arms over his chest.