ArchivedLogs:Civilized

Civilized
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Kaori
In Absentia	2013-11-08 (Part of Infected TP.)
Location <NYC> Kaori's Penthouse - Morningside Heights
Kaori's place is at the very top of the tower, 22nd floor, a true penthouse. Exiting the elevator on this floor puts one in a small antechamber. A service closet sits, locked, off to one side. The only other option is Kaori's front door, 22A. Once inside, the visitor is in a short hall. The open floor plan kitchen is on the left, dining room on the right, and both have clear views of the broad living room space beyond. The appliances are all in brushed aluminum. The breakfast bar allows anyone in the kitchen to look out over dining or living rooms. The bar is lined by three metal stools, each a different, bright primary color. The dining room is home to a large glass and steel table, surrounded by glossy, hard shell, plastic chairs. Each chair is a different color of the rainbow, plus a white one to make eight. The living room has a big, gray L-bend couch, sprinkled with many colored pillows. There is also a massive flatscreen on the wall, with an array of gaming consoles. Also in a corner of the living room is a turntable set, with some expensive looking headphones, and a laptop. On this floor also are the master bedroom, guest room, a bathroom in each room, and a half-bath next to the kitchen. On the far side of the living room is a staircase going up to the rooftop patio. The Rooftop Patio: Upstairs, the visitor is treated to a real sight. A panoramic view of the city plays out below, with great views stretching nearly halfway across Manhattan. Outside here are more pieces of glossy, brightly colored plastic furniture, including a table with attached umbrella. There is also an expensive-looking gas grill, but it looks like it hasn't been used in ages. (Kaori --> Dusk): Hey, are you feeling better? I kicked the flu, but now I'm scared to leave... (Dusk --> Kaori): I kicked the flu, but I think that's worse. (Dusk --> Kaori): As far as I can tell, once the sniffles are over is when you're at constant risk of zombifying. (Dusk --> Kaori): I'm still alive right now, though. (Kaori --> Dusk): What the fuck? Seriously? (Dusk --> Kaori): Yes. I've lost a couple friends already. That's the pattern. Sick --> Apparently healthier --> Dead. (Dusk --> Kaori): Or kind of dead. Kind of bitey, I guess. (Dusk --> Kaori): I'm so bitey on normal days it was hard for me to notice a change. (Dusk --> Kaori): How are you feeling mentally? Any weird word troubles? (Kaori --> Dusk): I haven't left my apartment all week. (Kaori --> Dusk): One of those fliers landed about the words though. (Kaori --> Dusk): Shit shit shit. There's seriously no fix? This is so fucked up. (Dusk --> Kaori): I don't know. There's no real fix yet. I know some people working on it, though. (Dusk --> Kaori): They've actually been making progress. They're the ones who discovered how it was spread. (Dusk --> Kaori): If they do find a cure -- well, I guess everyone will probably hear about it soon. (Kaori --> Dusk) Um... Dusk's phone lights up with an incoming call, marked from Kaori. "Yes?" Dusk sounds a little out of breath, when he answers the phone. There's a wail of car alarm somewhere in the distance; distant yelling, too. "Oh shit, are you ok?" Kaori asks. "Not dead," Dusk answers. "You?" "Not super good," she says quietly. Then there's a pause before she blurts, "You wanna come over? Or me go there? I just... don't know anyone in this ci- shit. I'm scared and I don't wanna die alone." She says it all in one breath, and when she finally breathes in theres a shuddering quality to her breath, like she's trying not to cry. "I've been sick, too," Dusk reminds Kaori, "I don't know if shutting yourself in an apartment with me is /really/ the wisest thing to do. I mean, even before you die, this thing -- there's. It changes you. More aggressive. I keep losing control of --" He stops, draws in a breath. "You don't know /anyone/ you can stay with? I mean, it's not that I don't /want/ you here, it's just. Half my building is sick. We have biters in the halls every day. And I don't know when me and Flicker are going to turn, too. Or if I'm just going to snap and hurt someone." Kaori is quiet a long moment. "Pretty much just the people in your building. That's everyone I know here. I've been working so much..." She swallows audibly and her voice has steadied, even hardened when she says, "Yeah, it's probably dumb to go out. Sor- I shouldn't have bugged you. But... if you think of it, could you maybe just... text me. When you're not busy? Just once in a while. So I can talk to someone." Dusk is quiet, too. Slow inhale, slow exhale. "I didn't say --" he starts, and then: "... I just -- don't want to kill you. When this thing gets bad it -- it. Gets. Bad. I don't -- don't want." Another slow exhale. "Where do you even live?" "That's nice," Kaori says in her sweet voice, into which a kernel of hope has crept. 'Nice' that he doesn't want to kill her. She /appreciates/ the sentiment. Strange times, indeed. "But if we're gonna die anyway... Besides, I'm pretty sure I can kick your ass. Anyway, I'm in the big tower on 110th, in Morningside Heights. You know it? Top floor, with a big ass balcony you could land on." "I'm pretty sure you couldn't," Dusk answers wryly, "but I kind of /hope/ you can." And then more quiet. This time the city-noises vanish, soon replaced by the mechanical clicking of keyboard keys. "Okay. Cool. Got it." And then. "Um -- do you own a gun?" Kaori accepts the dare quietly, and the distinctive sound of a sliding glass door opening precedes mostly just the sound of wind and far away city sounds. "What, no." She says, not /completely/ shocked by the question. "Or, well, I'm guessing paintball doesn't count..." "Okay." Just that. "Be there in half an hour." Dusk hangs up the phone. It's more like forty-five minutes later that he lands on the penthouse balcony of Kaori's tower, a messenger bag strapped across his chest and his wings shoved through the modified back-holes in a dark denim jacket. His beard has grown out scruffier than before, his clothing a little dirty and a lot disheveled. His fangy teeth are chattering, after he lands. Kaori is outside waiting for Dusk. She's in probably the bottom layer of her serious snowboarding outfit: fitted fleece pants, tight capilene shirt, with honest-to-god bunny slippers, but the bunnies' eyes were replaced by strips of black tape to make X's. Her hair is growing out. There's nearly half an inch of black air at the base of her neon green. It's just pulled back in a boring ponytail at the moment. "Oh shit, you must be freezing, come in!" Dusk accepts this invitation gratefully, entering even before he answers. His wings shiver against his back, wrapping in around himself like a cloak once they've folded in. "-- It's incredible," he says through his teeth, "how much surface area fourteen foot of wing adds to you. A lot of space to lose -- heat. Hi. Sorry. Late. You had enough food and shit here? I brought some, um, nonperishable -- most people I know are running kind of low." Kaori leads the way inside and grabs one of many blankets laying around to just throw over Dusk's wings and shoulders, without asking. There are more if he wants them, too. Apparently she gets cold. "I'm kind of ok for now," she says, pushing her sleeves up to her elbows. The fleece and long underwear must be pretty toasty. The action does reveal the keywords from the flyer however, written in sharpie on her forearm. "I didn't eat much before today, when I felt like shit. And I still have this fifty pound bag of rice - no fucking jokes, ok? I /like/ rice." She forces her grin, but it's thin as ice. She looks like she could crack at any time. "No jokes," Dusk agrees. "I'd eat rice with fucking everything if, uh, I ever bothered to cook." He doesn't resist the drape of blankets, settling down under it with relief and a slow calming of the chattering of his teeth. He unclips the strap of his messenger bag to pull it off, reaching behind himself and under his jacket to pull out a small black pistol and offer it on an outstretched palm to Kaori. "I know you think you can kick my ass, but the dead /mutants/ seem to be just as mutanty as when they're alive and if I start trying to eat your face, you want to be /sure/, okay?" "I should make rice balls for game night some time," Kaori says, another fluttering, delicate smile at Dusk's chattering fangs finally calming down. The smile fades when Dusk holds out the gun, but she doesn't shy away. "Arigato," she says solemnly, taking it in both hands. She pulls the action open and checks the clip in a smooth, practiced motion, though her movements are also tinged with the theatrical flair of a Hollywood hero doing the same. "Good thing I watched The Matrix this week," she mutters. She sets it on the kitchen counter, and asks, "You want some tea? I got pretty much every kind in bags, but I have a pot of jasmine ready now." She's trying so hard to keep up the image of a 'normal' house visit. The safety has been switched on, but the gun is otherwise fully loaded and ready to shoot. "I don't move quite as fast as an Agent," Dusk assures Kaori wryly, "it should be a little easier than that. Uh." The offer of tea just pulls his expression blank. "... tea." He repeats this with a slow blink, brows furrowing before he just -- laughs. Longer and harder than is really necessary, slumping against the kitchen counter with his head dropping to folded arms. "Oh. Yeah. OK. Tea," he says when his laughter calms. "That just seems so -- fucking -- civilized." Kaori ducks her head instead of nodding at Dusk's joke about how hard it would be to shoot him. She finally does smile though at his reaction to tea. "We can't let thousands of years of tradition go down the drain, just because it's a fucking zombie apocalypse, right?" She walks into the kitchen, goes to the cupboard, and sets two cups on the counter. Then she goes to check the tea pot sitting on the stove, opens the top, peers inside. Then she goes back to the cupboard and gets out two more cups and sets them right next to the first two, when she freezes. "What the-" "You expecting more company?" Dusk's brows lift when Kaori returns for more cups. He picks up two of them, turning them over in his hands. "Or just extra thirsty." There's a lightness to his tone but none to his expression -- he's studying Kaori's face /very/ closely. Kaori just stares at the cups for a moment, before putting the second pair back up in the cupboard. "I just... didn't remember getting those out. But I do now. I remember both. That was fucking weir-" She grunts and shakes her head, tapping the list on her forearm. "Can't say the S word either, but just pretend I said it, ok?" She offers a weak smile, and start pouring the tea. "You can sign it." Dusk rests a fist over his heart, moving it in a small circle. "But you don't need to say it. Everything's fucked up." He offers Kaori a wan smile that entirely fails to push aside his very clear worry at this mental stalling. "But how bad can it be, really? We've still got tea." Kaori's eyes light up, almost literally, when Dusk shows her the sign. Her smile cracks into something not just tentative, but beautiful as she tries it out, managing to mimic Dusk's movement exactly. "Oh... Oh, I love that. I never thought to learn sign language. How fun..." It's not clear how she could have so much glee over something so simple. She tries it a couple more times, and finally brings the cups over to Dusk at the breakfast bar. "I hope you can show me more. I'm really glad you came over today. Thanks, Dusk." She sips at her tea, and sighs, her first moment of contentment in days. "Haven't had call to use it /regularly/ in -- a while," Dusk's brows furrow as he says this, "but just at the moment I'm kind of wanting to teach /everyone/ I know. I'll totally," and here he sets his cup down to sign the words as he says them, "teach you. I mean. My usual Friday night plans have /kind of/ been put on hold for a while." He stops signing, though, to pick his tea back up. Lessons can wait.