ArchivedLogs:Burn

Burn
Dramatis Personae B, Isra, Shane, Taylor
In Absentia	2015-10-09 "He can't just bite all his problems away." (fight night stress relief!)
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. Tonight the basement smells /delicious/, really. Someone's been barbecuing, crisp roasted meat seared in the air. There's a good amount of blood spattered around the floor, scorch marks blazed across the concrete, a brand new /hole/ burst in the ceiling in one corner. Kay is sporting a whole lot of new holes torn in his flesh but Shane -- is not remotely standing, by the time he's carried out of the ring. It takes a bit for Josha to /return/ the friedshark to some semblance of togetherness, but for all he's cooked and battered and very soundly /trounced/, there's still a grin on Shane's face where he slumps at the side of the ring. Yeeeeouch. "{-- Holy fucking /crap/}, two seconds I leave you you have a deathwish already?" There's a veeery familiar voice entering the basement. B has a backpack slung over her shoulder, a motorcycle helmet tucked under one arm, and is dressed already for fighting. No shirt, black lycra shorts, bare feet. Nose twitching in the air. Shane's eyes dart across the room in a hurry. Wiiiider. There's an impulse straightaway to leap to his feet -- but this is curtailed by the fact he's still missing large swaths of skin. He hisses, settles back down, hooks an arm outward to gesture his sibling over. Skin or no skin, there will be HUGS. "You and me together, we could've had him." Not long after B's arrival is another. Taylor's still in t-shirt, sneakers, athletic shorts, bounding down the stairs two at a time. He /yips/ when he sees BOTH twins across the basement, separating some of the fight-time crowd with loooong tentacles to /make/ himself a path so that he can charge through. Snake a long arm around B for a tiiiight squeeze. Pat Shane veeery gently on the head with another. "Heeey the mad fucking scientist is back how's Boston oh my God -- /christ/ on a cracker Shane what the fuck," he's laughing, though. Kind of laughing. Kind of WIDE EYED with horror. Gasp-laugh-choke, "Joshua's got his work cut out -- and here I was hoping to get a piece of you tonight. I need to take a chunk of /someone/." Isra unfolds herself from the corner where she rests, an immense black shawl draped over her folded wings. She wears a dark gray sports bra and matching athletic capris, black cohesive bandages wrapped around wrists and ankles. Other than a few dark blotches in her silvery skin, she does not look particularly damaged despite having been carried from the ring unconscious earlier after her match with Ion. "Welcome back," this to B, simply, quietly, her tail swaying. Then, with a fangy grin at Taylor, "If you do not feel too selective, you may take a chunk out of me." Skin or no skin, B presses herself into the hug. Tight. Fierce. Along her sides, her gills flutter; her face mooshes up against the side of Shane's charred neck. Her mouth curls up into a smile when she feels Taylor's added squeeze. There's a sharp yowl of pain from her twin, but Shane returns the hug just as tight. He's slightly trembly when he lets go, slumps back again with a wince. His fingers stay very loosely curled around B's hand, though his eyes are skipping up to Taylor. "I'm all chunked out. Rough day?" B squeezes Shane's hand back, setting hir backpack down and tipping hir head to Isra. Ze settles down to sit beside hir brother, tucking hirself more gently against his side. "Boston is -- um. There's no fight club." "You could start one," Taylor suggests. He starts to peel off his shirt, worming his many limbs out from its armholes. "I'm not picky. Just have a lot of -- /rrr/ -- to burn. I don't --" He shakes his head quickly. "No -- no." He answers Shane with a small laugh. "No! That's the worst part, right? It wasn't rough. It was pretty much like all the others. There's. /So many/. New people. At school." Isra tugs the shawl from her wings, decorated with an intricate feather pattern in purple ombre. She folds the fabric into a neat bundle and passes it to B. "And somehow the increase in the student population has not magically made anyone more aware of privilege or intersectionality." Not a question. Though her voice remains mild, a vast anger swells within her, intense and inarticulate. "Then let us burn." "Did you bite them?" Shane's teeth bare. CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP. He gnashes them at Taylor demonstratively. "I guess you don't have the chompers for that but you could rip a hefty chunk out with those suckers, pow." He flicks claws towards Taylor's tentacles, his brows waggling with the motion. Through his mind there's laced concern, a fierce and protective surge that sears as strong as the flare of pain just had. B just chuckles. She bops her head very gently against one of the less-damaged spots on her brother's arms. She takes Isra's shawl, tucking it carefully behind Shane's head. "He can't just bite all his problems away." It's almost a gentle chiding, in tone, soft and amused and contrasted sharply with the mirroring flare of rage that colors /her/ mind. << ... not while he's stuck /there/. >> "How many tentacle porn jokes did you get this week?" Shane wonders curiously, settling back comfortably against his newly delivered pillow. "Uhh. Aloud or brained?" Taylor tosses his t-shirt towards the twins (probably to land on B's /head/), kicks off his shoes as well. "I wasn't looking for a fight. I wasn't looking for anything. Just cupcakes!" There's an echo of voices that shivers through the others' minds. A series of questioning: << How flexible are they? can you type with them? and operate a mouse? >> and Taylor's more familiar voice in answer, << You're gonna meet a whole /lotta/ freaks around here. Probably best not to, mmm. Treat us like freaks. >> and the other voice again, << I treat everyone the same. >> The tentacles in question unfurl. Very long and very flexible, as Taylor steps out into the ring. "I'm already burning. I /tried/ to say that treating everyone the same doesn't really have the same impact when -- y'know --" Some of the tentacles on his back shrug. "-- and dudebro launches into this whole spiel about how well /he's/ a mutant too, /his/ life is hard too, /he/ knows what it's like to struggle too." Two of the tentacles fling up towards the ceiling in helpless incredulity. The mental image slipped into the others' minds has a football with 'the point' helpfully emblazoned upon it, whooshing high over the head of a very tall and muscular redheaded youth. << Worst part, >> a little more glumly as he stretches his shoulders, eyes on Isra, now, << he's Anole's new roommate. >> Isra's ears press back against her hairless skull, and her tail whips the air fast enough to whistle as she takes her place across the ring from Taylor. The roiling fury does not otherwise show in her expression or posture. But then, "Anole is going back?" The shock itself remains rather neutral for a moment, then darkens before she even considers how the new student Taylor has just described might treat Anole. "Sometimes," she says quietly, mantling her wings out and flexing the heavy chrome talons that tip each elongated phalanx, "I wish I might have stayed on at the school. Then I remember that I could do little there about these things but swallow my rage and bring it here." "Anole's going back." The feelings in Shane's mind are conflicted, on this. An uncertain acknowledgment that school might come in handy -- a /very/ certain acknowledgment that the circumstances where the world will give a fuck if people who look like him and Anole have a diploma or not will be few and far between. A firm resolve to do his best to protect Anole and the other kids like him from the discrimination they'll face trying to get an education at Xavier's. B's eyes widen. She tugs Taylor's shirt from where it's landed on hir head. Hir gills flutter rapidly, and she snakes an arm gently around Shane's waist. << ... plenty of other places to bring -- >> She's breathing slow and deep. One breath, two, three. It doesn't do much to calm the storm of anger in her mind. "I miss astronomy club." "But it's like. It's not like he's terrible! He seems like a real nice kid. Just like -- all the other -- real nice kids." Taylor's grin is thin and crooked. He pulls in a deep breath. "We can still watch the stars." It's the last thing he says as he slides back. Away from Isra. The longest of his arms are whipping out forward, though; one swiping low towards her legs and one slashing high towards an arm, hook-lined sides grasping outward. "The forecast promises a clear night tomorrow," Isra says equably. "We can do some stargazing at the Commons." Her anger does not subside, but when Taylor finally attacks it begins to transform into something else. She grins with feral glee, a growl bubbling up in her lower vocal chords. Springing forward, her wings snap down, one tucking in against her body and the other unfurled only a quarter, throwing her into a tight corkscrew. One of her arms slashes at the tentacle coming for it, but without any particular attachment to conecting. She mostly aims to vault /between/ the two appendages, running their gauntlet so that she can close the distance to Taylor. "M'sure he is. You've just gotta be three times as nice." Shane's smile is bright and toothy. "Out /there/." But in here -- There's a secondhand exhilaration in his mind, too. He nestles in against B. Gives his other hand to Joshua when the healer is ready for round two. And settles in, to watch.