ArchivedLogs:Best Sight in the City

Best Sight in the City
Dramatis Personae Anette and Killian
In Absentia	2016-08-03 "I'm not a trophy"
Location <BOM> Beachfront - Ascension Island
Largely rocky and desolate, the majority of the waterfront on this small island is an unwelcoming place. Craggy and forbidding, lined with jagged black rocks, the coast here can take a fair bit of scrambling to navigate. Here and there, though, the coastline levels out to narrow sweeps of pebbly beaches littered with shells and seaweed carried in on the frigid tide. Occasional old trunks of fallen trees dot the narrow beach, victims of the storms that frequently plague the island. One small stretch of the western shore holds a small dock, a few boats usually moored there. Tucked off the mainland coast in Jamaica Bay, the buildings and lights of the city can be seen far across the water. The beach isn't particularly made for swimming but that doesn't stop Anette from finding the one almost safe part of the beach and wading out. She doesn't go out far, only to about chest level, occasionally diving below the cold water to resurface a few feet away. The only thing likely making the ocean water bearable being the afternoon sun beating down on her and the water. She seems oddly...content. Occasionally, she floats on her back, turning her gaze towards the island or the distanct cityline or even up towards the sky. There's no rhyme or reason for her to be out here, just swimming for the sake of swimming. Her towel and flip-flops lay on top of a nearby boulder, within easy reach for when she's prepared to head out. Surely, Killian had come as something particularly subtle because no footsteps, clicking of claws or beat of wing had given away his arrival. Rather, the first sign of the shapeshifter being present is a quiet chuckle. Low and breathy, gravel-roughened like the rest of his peculiar accent that seems to have grown moreso, and almost more formal, as time has gone on. He sits on a boulder, close enough to the one she's left her towel and flip-flops on that he could theoretically reach out to take them. One knee is bent, the other let to hang over the edge of it almost to the level of the lapping bay waters. He leans his folded forearms over the bent knee, watching Anette from here. One brow is risen, curious and, well, that leering gaze of his kohl-rimmed eyes can't be entirely counted as appropriate. He's enjoying the view, and not ashamed of it. Even if he hasn't sought her out in private since she asked him away. "The best sight in the city." Anette looks up when she hears Killian's voice, pausing a moment as if contemplating her options before chuckling and shaking her head. "I knew I should have swatted that mosquito," she calls back, deciding now is as good a time as any to dry off. Unlike many who come out here, Anette is actually clothed, wearing a black bikini, though it admittedly doesn't cover too much. She wipes her hair back and out of her face, feathers ruffling as she shakes the water from her wings once they're longer submerged. "How long have you been following me?" she asks, reaching for that towel. "You hurt me, love." His sarcasm is playful in response to her comment of swatting whatever may have been him, "If I'd been a mosquito, I would have had to taste you for myself. I'm not sure that's an instinct I could have-" He cants his head a little to one side, smirking, as he changes his mind on his wording, "Would have wanted to control." Killian looks over her, taking his time in doing so before looking back up at her face. If there's disappointment that she's clothed, he doesn't give it away. His boots and jeans scuff against the roughness of the rock as she begins to climb out of the water, the shapeshifter reaching to take the towel first before she gets there, yet ever-unhurried in his nonchalance. He unfolds it between his hands, giving her a curiously sly look before attempting to drape it over her shoulders, standing in front of her when she arrives back on dry-ish land. "Long enough. Why, disappointed you haven't seen me?" "Naturally," is all Anette responds with, to his comment about wanting a taste. "Well, you might have survived. You'll be happy to know I haven't used in...well, three days." She gives a quiet sigh, her mood dropping as she realizes just how little time it's been. "It's something." She catches sight of Killian's wandering eyes, which breaks a smile from her again, though she quickly snaps her fingers and points at her eyes, attempting to correct his gaze. As he reaches for her towel, her expression quickly bounces from shocked to the briefest flitter of angry before she realizes what he's doing, allowing him to drape the towel over her, taking it from him and holding it tight about her. "I've learned to assume you're always there." "You hit quite hard, I don't think I'd have survived the swatting much less anything else." The snapping does bring his attention back to her eyes, though the smirk broadens with it. The reminder of her drug addiction sours his mood for a second, a flicker of his gaze denoting him as unsettled but his crooked grin is never quite lost. He must have known, at least to some degree, if he's been following her given the level of his surprise of her being clean comes as no more than that, "And what is it that made you try again? You were so persistent than you were a mess to get away from me, that you needed it." He's patient with the towel, even as she reaches for it, even as she acts angry. There's somehow a softness to his expression and his slightly forward-tilted head that waits for her to allow him to wrap her in it as he does. And once she does, he lets it go, but doesn't move himself away quite yet in the way he blocks her immediate path, "Have you? And has that bothered you, knowing that I've seen him, smelled him," Darker tones sink into those words, though far be it from him to admit jealousy, "Everywhere. You've seemed better, and I can only imagine that's because dreaming of me has put you in ever a better mood." "I only hit you once...and that was your own damn fault," Anette says, relaxing into the towel as she smiles up to him. "I told you. I needed time to myself. It wasn't just the drugs though that didn't help," she says, raising the towel up to hair to squeeze some of the excess moisture out. "Besides, it's only two days. That's still far from not being a mess." As he questions her further, any hope that their conversation would remain light-hearted is gone. She stiffens, returning the towels to her shoulders, finding some comfort in using it as an emotional shield of sorts. "He's a friend. So is Pedro. And Dusk. And Isra and Ion and half the island. Should I board myself up, never see the outside world?" His accusation of her being happy is met with a soft chuckle, dark in tone as she hangs her head. "I quit using cocaine on a daily basis. I alternate between actually being happy and pretending I'm happy to avoid jumping off a cliff, the withdrawal is so bad." "No, but it's farther than not at all." Killian states, still searching for something in the way he studies her. There's a long pause that he lets sit after her accusation, that's met with a rising of his brows and a vague shrug that just barely rises his shoulders. "You can be with whoever you want." He turns from her, giving her space as he takes a couple of strides along this small flat part of beach so surrounded by rubble and rock like the rest of it. "You can sleep with whoever you want, too. That doesn't make it easy to swallow." Seablue eyes have drifted out over the water, watching some seagulls off in the distance, or perhaps nothing at all, "I'm glad you're clean, love. I only wish that you stay that way. I would rid the city of dealers if I could to help you. I don't know what else I might offer. Even before I was gone, you were struggling. My company didn't seem to be enough." "Not by much," Anette adds, yellow eyes flickering over Killian, taking in his form just as much as he studies hers. "I'm not with anyone. I told you that. I just need time to myself. To...figure things out." His mention of sleeping with someone earns a visible flinch. He knows. "I was drunk," she says, her voice dropping to a much softer tone. "We were drunk. It meant nothing. It could have just as easily been anyone else. Including you." Eventually, her eyes quickly glance away and she turns away from Killian. Instead of leaving, she sits down on the boulder. "I was struggling because I was weak. I was struggling before you met me. You're why I quit the half a dozen times I have. I relapse because...I'm not as strong as I pretend to be. And rather than face my emotions, I'd rather drown them out." Killian closes his eyes when she makes her excuses, barring himself from flinching in a similar manner as she. Instead, he takes a long inhale, a longer exhale before he's capable of looking back at her, the sinister aspects of him dulled but not absent in her presence. "Including me." He states neutrally, a flicker of something behind it that whispers of the sharp jab that that was. "Do you forget, love, that we're fighting the whole fucking world?" There's almost a laugh in this as the shapeshifter spreads his arms as if to encompass all of that which he speaks, "How can you still consider yourself weak when you've been burdened with that every step of the way? And all the other shit that's hit the fan over the last few years." And more. A hand returns to him to rub roughly over the scruff of his face, and falls back to his side. "Have you figured it out? I won't go after him for the sake of winning you like some trophy. I'd rather you choose me." Anette leans back against the boulder, letting Killian react to her words with an icy-cold, emotionless gaze. Her talons press into the rock, as if she could force them to sink in. "Of course I haven't forgotten. But while you've been off fighting the world, I've been here fighting myself," she says, her voice stern and like she's trying to suppress her real emotions. "I am weak. Please don't try to argue it." She watches him scratch at his stubble, her features softening though she quickly looks away, staring out over the water until she can regain herself. "I'm not a trophy. And this...is why I told you I needed distance. I don't know what...I don't know who I want. And if I'm not going to be killing the feelings with coke, then I need to actually figure things out." The cold of her gaze doesn't seem to affect him outwardly, though for as much as he internalizes, it's unlikely it does nothing. Killian turns to face her, reclaiming some of the distance that he'd given until he's close enough that he could reach out to her. But he tempers himself, pausing there, waiting. Deliberating word and action both. His too-light eyes watch her too intently, in the likeness in intensity of a predator and prey but with a feeling wholey differently. Affection soaks it, dampens the cruelty that should be there, that used to always be there. "That's not what I see in you." The shapeshifter's final arguement remains a cryptic one, said hushed, rough, almost at a whisper at this distance. "Are you going to send me away again?" His head tilts, curious and almost wickedly playful despite the weight that sits on their discussion yet again, "I'll never be far." Anette's gaze gradually softens as Killian approaches, the ice melting to reveal some of her own pain and depression. But she remains where she's sitting, returning his stare. There's no looking away this time. If he wants to read her, he can. Beneath that cold stare, is something much softer, more fragile. Something she normally tries to keep hidden below the surface. She holds it, until he speaks of what he sees in her. Quickly her eyes drop to the ground but they quickly flutter back up to him, offering him a playful smirk at his words. "I wasn't planning on it. Did you want to leave?" she asks "No." Killian says simply, leaning forwards with full intention to place a butterfly-light kiss on her brow if she allows him that. But he withdraws instead of pursuing to hold her, or the number of other possessive affections he often desires. "But." He sets that between them with a low rumble of a chuckle, the small word something of a wall that he voluntarily allows to be recreated, "I think, as a compromise, I would rather make it easier on you." And for himself, for now. Being permitted her company for the moment seems enough to satisfy him in the way the mischievousness has returned to his features, the way his swagger of his arrogance is no longer suppressed by feelings that manage to push past that visage he carries so boldly. His variation of compromise shouldn't be too surprising, given their first days together were spent in much the same limbo of animal forms being more prominent than human. The shapeshifter melts before her in the fantastic grace that he seems to manage regardless of whatever he becomes. And for now, he returns to that which is most familiar, and most friendly. Where black and white fur cover the whole of him, and tall furry ears stand attentively angled towards her for all but a second before he's surging down towards the bay waters where one of his many tennis balls has been left stranded. It'd be retrieved for her, with muffled barks given past it in the dog's expectation. Though Anette doesn't back away from the kiss, she does press her lips together. She looks as if she might say something, but the urge passes as Killian continues to talk. Her eyes sparkle a bit, knowing full well what his intended compromise is. Sure enough, man is replaced by animal and Anette watches him run off. When the tennis ball is retrieved, she stands up, letting the dog drop it near her. She begins to relax, letting her guard down. The dog's intentions are simpler. Play, maybe pet, probably eat. She picks up the ball and, after bouncing it in her hand a few times, raises her arm and chucks it into the ocean for Killian to swim for.