ArchivedLogs:Choosing Battles

Choosing Battles
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Kay, Neve
In Absentia	2014-08-06 Wisely or un-.
Location <NYC> Harbor Commons - Music Room - Lower East Side
Small and soundproofed, this room is a comfortable place to come practice music in relative peace. A large digital keyboard stands in one corner; opposite it are a number of speakers and amps available for use. There are a cluster of chairs in the center of the room, with music stands set up in front of them. On the far back wall, a tall painted-black cube-shaped block of shelving leaves plenty of room for storing music and equipment; a row of lockers flanking it leave space for instrument storage as well. The last side of the room has more comfortable seats along the wall; a pair of deep crimson microsuede couches, a low-slung table between them, an armchair similarly upholstered. Coming up on nine of the evening seems like a safe time to explore. Sure, Neve has been on the receiving end of the Commons tour but touring is not the same as /exploring/--particularly when one is of a mind to give others a wider than usual berth. Yes, yes, she understands the concept of co-op, but... Here she is, alone. Hair that once a pale and gleaming blonde has begun to show roots of pitch, streaks that are dark and deep without any of the gleam of proper, healthy locks. Skin that was once dungeon pale has taken on a tinge of grey where natural shadows collect and her eyes...well, Neve has hidden those behind a pair of sunglasses, no matter that she's indoors. The rest of her is boringly normal: emerald green t-shirt, knotted at the hip, black leggings and matching ballerina flats. Nothing to see here, folks. But there's something to hear, within the music room. She's discovered the keyboard and pushed enough buttons to pull sounds from it reminiscent of a proper piano. Old lessons are coming to her, old /old/ lessons, and it's with a schoolgirl's carefully held fingers and wrists that she is picking out the simple notes and chords of "Hey Jude"--notes and chords that waft into the hallway, as she's neglected to close the door behind herself. The music plays on, reverberating within walls and ceiling designed to make it flourish. Sharp chiming high notes and lower notes felt in the chest, it plays alone for a time, like stars in the night... Until a second brassy sound weaves into it - like a shot arrow, it's jarring for a moment, and then integrated, dirtier and brassier. A lone harmonica stepping in like a man's hand curling around a fingers to dance. Kay stands, lean and long and wearing a black sleeveless compression shirt under a loose ragged-singed kutte decorated loud and proud with Mutant Mongrel patches -- only really an option to wear indoors outside of public view. The plain black 'I <3 NY!' hoodie worn out of doors to hide it is tied around his waist. Being wanted by the FBI is such a damper on fashion. Stooped over, his hands are cupped around his mouth, one set of fingers fluttering over the other to coax honk-and-brass music from his battered instrument. Tap-tap-/tap/ goes one foot, quietly. A proper musician would take the introduction of another instrument and weave it into their own melody. An /excellent/ musician would do so seamlessly. Neve is neither of those things. The piano notes come to a jangling discordant stop, a full-body startle slamming her fingers down on the keys before she snatches them away as if the fake ivories were red hot and she some sort of keyboard playing thief in the night. When Neve turns away from the keyboard, it's with head held high...and hands tucked beneath her arms. This odd mix of proud composure and guilty hiding tips a little towards the composure end of the balance when a smile is found. Sadly, it dies a quick death as she gets a better look at the fellow manhandling that harmonica. She'll wait until he's finished playing before clearing her throat to offer a quiet, "Hello." No comment is offered on the quality of the music he mades. Just the hello and maybe a sense of close, careful observation through the smoky lenses of her sunglasses. She'll be forced to /wait/ for a time, as Kay's fun seems to function independent of accompaniment - there's a lot of funky-chunk 'wonk!s', his hips swinging to the music while coming away from the door to stroll into the room. It fades off with a low 'wa-a-a-a-a-aaaa'... And then 'pat!'. That's the sound of him patting his harmonica into the open palm of his hand, standing just to the other side of the piano, hip cocked one way, head canted the other, and mouth set at a streetwise smirk. He doesn't respond to the greeting persay - runs his eyes up to her hair, down to her shades, a kind of cursory finishing study before staring at her sunglassed gaze as though they weren't there. "Losin' your golden glow, lady." Kay's lead is followed: Neve doesn't answer what has served as his greeting. Instead, she forces her arms to unbend, her hands to lower to her side. And then she says, "You were the one who burned Themis." Not that her /tone/ changes. It remains quiet. Even! "To the fucking ground." Even with the presence of stained teeth - never mind the gold one! - Kay's delighted boyish-wide smile is bright. His amber eyes... actually are, also, in a way. They gleam. He leans nearer, darting eyes up and down the woman's face again more closely, "Ffff. That what happens when you stop injecting ground-up other mutants in your body?" "This is what happens when someone has a monster inside of them," Neve murmurs--and this time her almost gentle tone is at odds with the stiffness that sets her shoulders back, when Kay leans towards her. Or maybe it's the way he's looking at her. The lenses covering her eyes give no clue, one way or the other. They just flash, reflecting the room's lighting back at him. "I hope, for your sake, that there is no retaliation against the city's other firestarters. That's a heavy burden to carry." "We been carrying this burden all our lives." A rustle of metal on denim, and the harmonica is pocketed, freeing hands to rest in tented spiders atop the keyboard. "You think becoming this," his eyebrows go up, "made you /less/ of a monster?" The smile fades, and it ages his face badly. Where sun and desert air and decades of fire exposure have dried the skin, wrinkles shift around his eyes. "I met your other half, y'know, babe. The shit they ground up from /you/ and injected in another guy. Poser boy, Malthus-fucking-Rogers. You heard of him." It's not a question. "A slightly different burden. When your own kind holds you responsible for their deaths," Neve reasons. The question--perhaps wisely--isn't answered. The not a question does finally earn Kay something other than that slight stiffening, and attempts at pleasant. Her lips part. The breath that passes them is short, sharp, as if it were forcing its way down into her lungs rather than being drawn. "My...other half?" "It was night." Kay reaches up a finger, like he intends to nudge Neve's glasses lower on her nose. To find the life behind the reflexive surface - or perhaps break the tiny night /she/ dwells in. "And he was everywhere in it." Regardless of whether she allows him to move them or not, he isn't going to battle her for her shades, and withdraws from her personal space, hands settling at his sides in fists and -- laughs. Short-dry vulpine chuffs, eyes closed and head turning away, "We're all responsible for deaths, lady. It almost doesn't mean much." He turns head back, "Y'know what your problem is?" And that ends Neve's attempt to keep a relaxed posture. Already a failed experiment, the final note comes with her curling her arms around herself again. If there was a shiver, though, it's hidden when she steps backwards to avoid the attempt at dislodging the glasses. "It means a great deal," she insists--this time, the breath she takes is controlled-- "to those who've lost someone. "I suspect you're about to tell me what my problem is." "Yeah, I am!" Kay says it like - you guessed correct! You win a prize! A subtle pressure-wave of dry heat presses like a puff of breath against Neve's body, and then breaks per past to slither in a ripple through her hair. Kay's hair ruffles in it as well, his kutte drifting lazily around his ribs like a hoolahoop. "'Cause you're a guest in this place. And talkings all I got." Back away Neve may, but Kay prowls forward, hips swinging around the keyboard to keep their distance, "All this shit. /Themis/. Humans wanting freaks to be human, humans wanting /humans/ to be /freaks/ - that's a whole bigger problem. But /you/. Everything I've fucking heard, lady, you go /back/ - you wanna call me out, for bringing trouble down on my brothers? Fuck you." Okay, maybe he's stepping a little closer now, calm enough save maintained fists, save wafts of warmth, "I'm starting a fight. /Hell/ yes, I did. They push, I'll push back /harder/. And I'm gonna stick to it. While you - you killed a cop." He'll step forward again, "And you /started/ something. And the world took it up and caught on fire -- and you /hid/. And let it /burn/." The sides of his nose are wrinkled up; it makes the steady amber set of his eyes coyote-ish and empty, "You got no /staying/ power. You started something. And then you /stopped/. And then you started with Themis -- and /that/, by GOD, you'll fight for. Why is that." There is another shadow darkening the room -- just /briefly/, Dusk's enormous wings means he kind of looms even when he isn't intending to, a massive night-dark figure blocking the doorway before he slides the rest of the way in. Like Neve he sports sunglasses even indoors; past that he's casually half-dressed, black jean shorts and no shoes and no shirt. He runs fingers lightly in idle skimming against the wall, the back of a couch, drifting at the perimeter of the room with his glasses tipped downwards but his ear tilted towards the conversation. One wing brushes a tip -- even from halfway across the room it's not much of a /reach/ for him -- against Kay's elbow in silent greeting before pulling back. It's possible, maybe, that he has Thoughts of his own on the current subject -- but for the moment he's just listening. Albeit with a very faint glint of fang to him as his lips curl up in a smile. "Worrying that there will be retaliation against mutants is fighting for Themis?" Neve doesn't see fit to retreat again. Not from the rolling wave of heat, not from Kay's person. From everything else he had to say to her? Perhaps. Instead of responding, her head turns to signal looking past the biker to the man who comes in behind. It isn't only due to those wings that the room feels immensely smaller. A muscle ticks in her jaw. "Ah," the woman exhales. "So it's to be that sort of party." "Yeah?" Nearly nose to nose, Kay's funhouse smile is gritted, "Is /that/ what you're worried about?" The brush of wing to his arm will cause a faint yank-/twitch/ away from it - followed by a huff of air and a subtle easing of the tension there. And a press of elbow into the wingspar. His eyes remain on Neve, "Bitch, if you're so worried, /do/ something." Dusk's head turns, brows hiking /way/ up and his head tilting just a little more to the side at Neve's words. "Excuse me?" At his back, his wings ripple and settle flat. "Did I /do/ something to you that I wasn't aware of?" He turns away from the couch to face Neve more properly, smile pressing briefly into a thin line. "Maybe you just get off on playing the victim here, but I didn't come here to --" His smile is returning, together with a sharp almost incredulous huff of laugh. He tips his head over towards Kay, fangs baring in lopsided grin. "You know I run the security system here, right?" One of his upper thumbclaws flicks up towards the ceiling, a camera tucked in the corner just as there are through all the common spaces here. "I don't know what bullshit you've told yourself to convince yourself everyone here is out to get you. But mi hermano here sometimes has a little bit of /temper/ and I came down to make sure you /didn't/ get hurt. So you might want to lay off the --" He waves a wing towards Neve, mimics her exhale. "Wallowing." "If that's true, then thank you. Forgive me my assumptions. And my opinions." Neve's head turns again, allowing Kay the right to fill her field of vision entirely. Behind dark lenses, a flicker of lashes mark slow blinks. "Though I'm not sure what else I can do. Apologies are worth nothing, yes? Action only. Leaving them wasn't enough. Coming here. Perhaps killing another person? Or hold a press conference in which I call out my torturers. But then I would be misrepresenting my position and denying responsibility. What will satisfy? What will make /you/ feel better?" is her quiet inquiry. "Apologies are worth a hell of a /lot/," Kay extends fingers to break the final barrier, seeking to snatch her sweet shades off her /face/, "To the right /people/. But bitch, if you're doing all this shit you don't think you /oughta/ just to get /square/ with folks, you're forgettin we aren't your fucking /doctors/. We all been there, yo. We all remember that fucking place, doing what you gotta do. But out here, it doesn't mean /shit/, just going through the motions." The soft waves of heat that had been gently rising off him thicken into luxurious rolls. Standing close as he is, Neve will feel it bake the cloth on the Kay-ward side of her body like standing close to a fireplace. Not so hot it burns… but so nearly, almost invisible, there are quicksilver licks of orange amongst the furnace ripples skewing the vision of Dusk behind his shoulder. Neve's choice of phrasing puts a thinner cast to Dusk's grin, a slight flare to his nostrils. He turns aside again with a small shake of his head, fingers trailing once more against the soft fabric of the couch's upholstery. "What opinions am I forgiving?" he wonders, quiet and curious. "I think you forget there's barely a person here who hasn't been there. Hasn't been tortured and abused and fucked six ways from Sunday. Not a lot of people here who haven't made some really fucked-up choices in the crunch, too. But the difference between a victim and a survivor is what you do with it after. -- You know," this is on a suddenly lighter tone, as though maybe he thinks Neve /doesn't/ know, "With speaking out on this shit, there's a place somewhere in between 'do nothing' and 'lie about your part in it'. You don't have to pretend you're innocent to talk about this shit." He is looking down at the couch but he must /feel/ that heat. A wing curls out, disregarding furnace-heat and quicksilver licks of flame to snake a wing around behind Kay's back, soft skin pressing lightly to the other man's shoulders. "Easy, brother. You light hir guitar on fire, B's gonna have a sad week." Glasses gone, Neve's first instinct isn't to snatch for them but to jerk her head back, to cover the black on black eyes they'd been protecting with a spread hand. She turns from Kay, presenting her shoulder, caught between firebug and keyboard. Still in possession of sweat glands, beads of it have appeared at temple, nape, the hollow between her collarbones, as he ramps up the heat. "If only it were a comfort, to have gone from one site to another filled with people so confident they can dictate what I should do and how I should feel. From scientists to citizens, all certain they have a window into my head. The resemblance is uncanny." Neve relays this impassively. Then she steps forward, looking to step past the Kay boundary to cut towards the door. She'll find her feet tangled up where Kay's foot comes down solid between them; less to trip than to /trap/, for a moment. Eyes still directed forward, at a place she no longer stands, the heat does not abate for Dusk's touch. The fine hairs of his wings may singe-curl back from him so slightly if they remain in contact. "You think we're as bad as them?" He asks, low and even. Where Dusk had been offering a steadying touch, at /this/ new statement from Neve he only tenses, pressing just a little harder at Kay's back before he pulls his wings away with a shudder. There is a low growl, deep, rumbling harsh within his throat, talons twitching at the ends of his wings and his fingers balling into fists at his sides. He looks away towards the shelves, teeth bared and his lean muscles faintly quivering with the force of his current restraint. It's a near thing, the line between tripping and stopping. Neve lurches but doesn't fall: a compromise. The need for balance puts her hands out and so her eyes are revealed, black and snapping with her own measure of poorly suppressed emotion. "I don't know you well enough to say," she tells them both. "But it doesn't inspire a conversational frame of mind, when the person who's confronting you says things designed to wound, does it?" There's no shock for the sight of dark eyes - Kay's head is turned to look down into them. Still furnace-hot and breathing slowly, he's not immune to his own heat. His cheeks and brow are ruddy, the hard tan /lively/ for the extra color. "You think we got no reason to be mad?" Dusk's short-sharp breath is back to incredulous, though the hard exhale puts -- just the /slightest/ -- relaxation of tension in his muscles. Still clenched. No longer /shaking/. "Designed to wound? Lady, I /still/ don't know who you think I am but I've said exactly jack and shit to you so far except for the plain truth. If just /hearing/ the thought that you might do something positive with your life now /cuts/ you, maybe you seriously need a thicker skin. And I hadn't even opened my fucking /mouth/ before /you/ were huffing over me even /being/ here. You got a lot of problems, Nox, but /I/ haven't been one of them so don't fucking try to /make/ me one of them." There it is: the name. Neve's eyes flicker briefly out of focus before she turns her head to stare at the wall. A moment after that, she steps /over/ Kay's foot and continues on her course for the door. In a rush, Kay shoves sideways against Neve's, shoulder thumping against shoulder, seeking to bear her against a wall in a single hard pressure. There are soft whickery-whispers of heat sounds, a quiet 'eeee' of moisture leaving his clothing, a light 'whoom' of hot air more felt in the chambers of the outer ear than heard. The sound of him breathing is loud between them. Dusk's harsh grating growl puts a stormy backdrop noise to the rasp of breath. To this quiet symphony of too-close noises is added another, a swoosh of air, a rustle-snap of wing stretching out wide. For all the quick /snap/ there's a care to it as one long velvet-softened spar eels its way between Kay and Neve, geeentle pressure urging Kay back. "{Hey. Brother. This is my home, yeah? There's better battlegrounds for this war.}" His words come in Spanish, quiet tone undercut by the incessant rumble from his other set of vocal folds. Once it might have been the threat of heat and light from Kay's fire that caused Neve to cringe. Now it's simply that lone act of violence, and the pain of connecting with the wall. Her head thumps hard against it, her body recoils from his, from the heated air that resists filling her lungs. Her hands shove out to try to purchase distance between them, in spite of that heat but...she's no brawler and she has no shadows to call on, for assistance. Dusk's wing will have to serve that purpose, hopefully before she is singed. At least her eyes have cleared. They sparkle suspiciously bright as they narrow into a wince, but they're no longer unfocused. One hand lifts to cup the back of her head, her thumb rubbing in beneath her hair to test the scar there. Wisely or unwisely, she makes no attempt to slide away again--maybe two attempts and two denials are enough. Instead, she lowers her gaze to the floor. And waits. Silent. A ragged angry fox sound, something like 'nya!', cracks in Kay's throat like a teenaged boy. The moment Dusk's wing comes between himself and Neve can be /felt/ with a sudden rush of cool (ROOM TEMPERATURE air) washines in, the pyrokinetic's heat bound inside Dusk's wingsail. He puts up his hands - not in warding or even surrender so much as… 'RIGHT. I'M COOL … I'M COOL'. He turns away from the poor woman walking along the inner length of Dusk's wing and shoving his fingers up into his hair with a soft hiss through his teeth, "{Okay. Yeah.}" Killing two birds with one stone, a clenched fist is circling the front of his chest. "Yeah." There's a small shudder that ripples through Dusk -- anachronistically, it looks somewhat like he's /shivering/ at the heavy wash of heat that fills his wing. He exhales slow (and possibly relieved) when Kay's hands lift. "Yeah." It's a heavier echo, a little tired. His wing folds inward as Kay walks along it, wrapping briefly in against Kay's shoulders in a small squeeze that looses soon after. Looses, but doesn't /quite/ withdraw, wings still mantled outward in overarching curl around Kay (and, in part, between Kay and Neve.) He throws a brief (sunglass-shaded) look in Neve's direction, brows furrowed deep over the rims of his glasses. Lips pressed thin. "Suppose that goes for you, too," he finally manages (growl not /subsiding/ underneath his otherwise quiet words. "This is our /home/. I don't know what you want here. Something real or just a safe place to /hide/ through this shitstorm. /Could/ be your home, too, though. But that's a decision /you're/ going to have to make. And I'll be fucking damned if I let /anyone/ --" This maaay just be directed to /both/ the others in the room, "shit on what we have here." He gives Nox as much berth as is /possible/ with the small room, huge wings, the wing /not/ curled behind Kay pulling in against his back as he nudge-nudge ushers the pyrokinetic away from the silent woman and towards the door.