ArchivedLogs:Catch You

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Catch You
Dramatis Personae

Dusk, Isra

2014-05-29


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Location

<NYC> The Roost - Harbor Commons - Lower East Side


The second level of this house takes up less floor space than the ground floor, owing largely to the open sweep of balcony that overlooks half the home below. Up here the floors are in natural hardwood, polished and smooth. At one side of the balcony, again, a door leads over to the adjacent unit in the house. The doors off the balcony lead to the rooms up here, currently unpurposed, spacious and vacant with large closets and enormous windows on their back walls leading to the wide outdoor balcony that runs along from one room to the other, overlooking the river.

What /will/ be Geekhaus eventually is currently a large amount of empty space, quiet and vacant. The bottom floor stands huge and empty, all large windows and stone walls and a whole lot of nothing.

There is, right now, no furniture in what will be Dusk's bedroom, yet. There's not really furrniture /anywhere/ in the house but there's /almost/ the first piece of it assembled in here -- the better part of a desk built to one side of the large room, its surface still hollowed out and unfinished. Scattered around the floor right now there are quite a lot of computer innards yet to be assembled. No chair, no /bed/, no sign of clothing, on the lower level the kitchen stands empty. Dusk has /priorities/.

Right now those priorities, though, are stretching his /wings/, which even in this new place he can't /quite/ do inside. Maybe he was supposed to be able to but. But. That was before. Now he leans up against the railing of the balcony outside, barefoot and in dark jeans, shirtless; his enormous wings stretch out to either side, their span now notably larger than they used to be. There's a small grimace on his face with the stretch, shoulders rolling. He has a thermos in one hand, held kind of lazily until he lifts it to take a sip, then lowers it again, elbows propped against the railing and his head slumping beneath the cloudy-cool sky.

At first only a darkish gray patch in the lighter gray of the sky, Isra grows more distinct as she sheds altitude, resolving into two-horned, two-winged, many-taloned predator. She sweeps in along the line of the balconies and backwings hard once, twice, and alights on the /outside/, hanging onto the railing with one hand like a schoolboy on a fence.

To judge by her outfit, nobody told Isra about the break in the sweltering heat. She wears an amethyst cropped top that leaves her midriff bare and a matching wrap skirt that barely reaches her knees. Black cohesive bandages cover her elongated feet from metatarsus to talus, but exposes toes that end in long talons. A somewhat weathered black cloth satchel is tied across her torso, across the flat, muscular planes of her chest and between the massive gray wings that rise from her shoulders.

Folding those wings in Isra looks to Dusk and arches one hairless eyebrow ridge. "May I come in...so to speak?"

Dusk's wings stay outstretched, a slow roll before he only gradually brings them back in; it's stiff and somewhat ungainly as he pulls them in a crumpled fold against his back. His head rolls to the side, tipping a gaze up towards Isra that is squinted up a little pained even in the muted cloudy-grey light. There's a small twitch at the corner of his lips, one long upper thumbclaw flicking back towards the tall glass door behind him. "I thought it was my kind that needed an invite to enter."

Isra mantles her wings and snaps them back in to propel herself over the railing and onto the balcony proper--this hop also iconically schoolboyish, belying both her age and her profession. "This place is so new and spotless, I felt like I was desecrating it just by setting my grubby talons down on it." Her idea of "grubby" evidently constitutes dulled nail polish; the faintly shimmery purple on her fingertips could use some touching up.

Her bright green eyes trace the outline of Dusk's wings. "Not quite settled in yet?" She stretches out one of her own, brushing the long index phalanx against his.

"I'm the only one here," Dusk answers with a small crook of smile. "S'not much to settle, yet. Just -- kind of needed a. Place. That wasn't --" He shrugs a wing, scrubbing his palm against his face. "It /is/ pretty freaking -- polished, isn't it? Hive did a good job here. But no. C'mon, it's /us/ living here. You saw our last place, right?" The stretch of his wing towards Isra in invitation is almost tentative, slow and hesitant as it brushes back against hers. "Because we do grubby /right/."

Isra's ears press back, a smile pulling back her lips just far enough to show the tips of her fangs. "By now I imagine myself a connoisseur of grubbiness. I live amongst high schoolers most the year; they lack your panache in the ways of untidiness. I won't count the pristine condition of this domicile against your grade." She closes the distance to him in one inhumanly long stride, reaches out a hand, and lays it on his chest. Her skin is warm and rough. "I did not mean the apartment, though. How are /you/ settling?"

"We're messy with /panache/? I'll let Hive and Flicker know, they'll feel very accomplished." Dusk pulls in his breath quick and unsteady when Isra's hand rests on his chest, his eyes dropping to rest on her claws. He lifts his own hand, resting lightly over hers, fingers curling in against her claws. His head gives one small shake. "I don't --" His wings shiver restlessly at his back. "Still doesn't feel like -- /my/ --" One wing flexes uncomfortably outward, then folds back in. "S'getting better," he finally settles on. "Slowly."

Isra nods. "I do not know if it is within my power to help you." She has sunken gradually to about Dusk's height--a feat made easy and even natural by the structure of her legs. "But you taught me how to use my wings, and if you want someone to spot for you when the time comes..." Her hand flexes just enough to press the sharp tips of her talons into his skin. "...I'm strong enough now."

Dusk shivers, leaning a little more heavily into the press of Isra's talons with a sharper exhale. His eyes close the rest of the way, wings pulling tighter against his skin. "-- Would help. I've been doing," he admits wryly, "a crapton of /falling/. Kinda the way of it, isn't it." His head tips forward, forehead thunking against Isra's chest. "Feel like I've been falling a /lot/ lately. Maybe kind of all I've been doing for a while."

"I recall you telling me you did quite a lot of falling the first time around, as well." Isra's other hand goes to the back of his head, claws grazing scalp. "I will catch you." Her wings spread out and wrap around Dusk, warm and leathery, criss-crossed with fading scars. "I will," this last in the lower register of her voice, more rumble than words.

"Seems to be kind of a prerequisite to learning how to fly." Dusk nestles into the warmth of Isra's wings, finally relaxing, his own wings drooping down behind him as his breathing evens out. His hand lifts, fingers tracing slowly against the inside of Isra's wings. "But it's okay. Few scars are just kind of a road map to how you get there in the end. And we /will/ get there again." His voice, quiet, isn't quite so low as hers. "We will."