Logs:Born Anew

Born Anew
Dramatis Personae Jax, Joshua
In Absentia Lucien	2024-10-03 "Should bring that man back an 'I ❤️ I ❤️ NY' shirt."
Location <MOJ> X-Men House - Mojoverse
This is a largish house that has been very unevenly appointed, its decorator gone somewhat heavy-handed with yellow and blue color theming in all the decor. The ground floor has a cramped kitchen that is nearly empty of any equipment or food. The adjacent sitting room is crowded with a baffling range of chairs and tables and cabinets all jockeying for space together with numerous televisions of varying sizes that all only receive Mojo's own baffling network all day. There is a sunroom beside this, seemingly devoted entirely to hammocks of varying sizes and styles. The upstairs has quite comfortably appointed bedrooms across the top two levels, enough for everyone to pair up. Ornately gilt-framed oil paintings of Scrat from Ice Age have been hung up prominently in each bedroom. The basement level has an extremely well furnished gym and leads out into an extensive yard where someone has halfheartedly begun working on a garden and then given up. There is quite a nice patio to sit on, though. The whole place seems to have just one tiny bathroom tucked up on the top level like some kind of afterthought, crammed in there with the shower under the slope of the roof so it's impossible to stand up straight if you are over 5'7" and even sitting on the toilet feels claustrophobic. At least there is a toilet. It's been quiet in Jax's bedroom a long time. Still quiet, for the most part, except for Joshua's quiet humming. Low and deep, the same two lines from the Unetaneh Tokef stuck on some kind of repeat in his head for a while now. Which is fine, probably, there's been nobody else in here to annoy, his only other company long since cold and dead. Or, he was, a while back. Jax has been less dead for a bit, now, even if not quite near actual consciousness, but his slow and careful work is gradually stitching a person back into the revivified body (even paler and more colorless than he was before, sorry to the many years of work that went into all those tattoos but healing is healing) beside him. Joshua is still kind of on autopilot, though. Slumped heavy by the bedside, a good deal thinner and a good deal more haggard than he was this time last month. One hand clutched tight in Jax's and the other propping up his head, fingers raked through his hair (too-long, too-shaggy, now sporting several bright glints of silver.) His eyes droop half-closed. He hums the same two lines, again. Cold and dead before, but long enough alive again and Jax is swiftly getting warmer. Considerably moreso than most people, heat fierce against Joshua's hand. The room stirs before he does, flickers of shadow curling and coiling around the bed, around Joshua's arm, around the walls. They shift into silhouettes vague and ephemeral -- the ghosts of trees and houses and people that don't resolve enough for real details before Jax himself is fidgeting. His eyes don't open, but his hand does tighten in the other man's. "B'Rosh Hashanah yikateyvun," he murmurs, soft and a little mumbled in time with Joshua's humming. "Uv'Yom Tzom Kippur y'chateymun." Joshua's humming shifts easily to singing. Still low, still quiet. He's gotten a little more tense, but hasn't yet pulled away, still taking a careful assessment of Jax's condition, though his eyes haven't yet opened. "Shana tova, man." "Feel like you've been going all through His book with Wite-Out this past year. Was just barely a year ago you was..." Jax's eye cracks open now; he's peering up at Joshua first kind of blearily, but then with a growing concern. His hand starts to clutch a little closer at his friend's and then, somewhat self-conscious, eases his grip apologetically. "Never thought I'd be getting nostalgic for Nazis and torture labs, but --" Here he's broken off, though, looking abruptly down at his pale arm with a disoriented confusion. Faint outlines of the tattoos that had been there glow and then fade across his skin. "Huh." "No don't --" There's a sharp desperate edge in this -- Joshua is struggling quickly a little more upright, his hand gripping tighter at Jax's. Just for a second, and then he slumps lower again, bland and flat once more as his eyes drop to fix on his lap, his cheeks reddening. "... wasn't done." He swallows. Steals a brief glance at Jax's arm and shifts, uncomfortable. "Sorry. Spilled the wite-out." "Mmm. I sure ain't in no condition to rush you." Jax closes his eye again politely when Joshua flushes. His thumb brushes slowly against the back of the other man's knuckles. There's a faint tremulous shiver of shadow that coils around their joined hands, wisps up along their arms, and then fades. His smile is a little crooked. "S'pose what the saving my life an' all -- again -- I can forgive the mess. 'sides, now I just got a whole exciting blank canvas'a possibilities to --" For just an instant his smile falters. Eventually he does look up again. "Oh! I saved a couple apple Airheads." One of his nightstand drawers is glowing. "Might be as close as we getting." "Didn't save it." Joshua's jaw tightens uncomfortably. "You died." He is still for several long breaths before he reaches over, tugging at the glowing drawer. He snorts, low, when he pulls out the candies, dropping one on the other man's chest. "Corn syrup's like honey." He doesn't open his yet, just waggles the little slip of candy jittery between his fingers with a quiet crinkle of plastic. "Should start planning what to replace 'em with. Tell Luci to book you an appointment." This is still delivered just as flat as before. "Should bring that man back an 'I ❤️ I ❤️ NY' shirt. Impossibly polite. Would not let this other dimension problem get in the way of offering New Year wishes." "Aright, technically, but I feel like the end result is still..." Jax breaks off, fumbling for the candy with his free hand. He's tugging at the edge of the wrapper with his teeth but only gotten a corner torn partly down when he looks up, eye wide-wide. Blinks. Sits up. "Wait, what?" "S'different," Joshua's objection is very firm, but he doesn't elaborate. He peels open his strip of candy as well, tucking it between his lips where it dangles half-out like a lime green tongue. "Called today. Got some whole team. Trying to find a route home." "Luci?" Jax is staring at Joshua now in stark disbelief. "Jus', like, rung up your phone? How -- what? How's that even --" His knuckles press to his lips hard. "Nah. The Brotherhood's Peloton." Joshua shrugs. "S'Luci." Maybe he thinks this explains everything. Maybe it does. "Still gotta find a ride out." His tongue presses up at the tab of green candy, which mostly just makes it look like he is sticking the Very Green Tongue directly out at Jax. "Luckily your Zombie Club's got a lot of free time now." "The --" Jax does not ask about the Peloton. He drops back against his pillows with a whumph, blinking back tears from his abruptly bright eye. His mouth his moving, his words very quiet, but the whispered Shehechiyanu is more than familiar enough that Joshua probably doesn't need to hear it, really, to feel what he's saying. Joshua nods, shifting a little closer in his chair to settle in against the side of the bed. His low voice joins Jax's. It's only a moment after lazman hazeh that he lets the other man's hand fall back to the mattress, his own dropping back to his lap in silence.