ArchivedLogs:Date Night

Date Night
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Isra
In Absentia	2014-11-14 Dusk and Isra catch up. Warning: graphic violence. Takes place at fight club. (Follows Logs:TKO.)
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. The atmosphere down here on Friday nights is never exactly /not/ tense; excitement is its own kind of tension, taut and wired and crackling in the air amid the meaty thuds of flesh on flesh, the grunts and growls and screams, the rainy patter-splatter of blood, the /cheers/ and encouragement and whoops at particularly well-executed (or gruesome) blows. Tonight, though, there's a different vibe to the tension. Fierce and intense and /focused/, reaching for some kind of release that -- /Maybe/ Dusk is finding tonight. It's been kind of A While since he's been here and while sometimes there is more than one fight happening at once, other things going on in the house, at this exact moment pretty much all the eyes are focused this way. The concrete floor is still warm underfoot; there's a smell in the air, still, of ozone and smoke, crisp-seared blood and dusty broken stone. The floor is gritty-rocky, bits of concrete and plaster strewn over a ground alternately slick-wet with fresh blood and flaky dry with what's already been /charred/. Against it Dusk's feet are bare. His chest is bare, too, only a pair of lightweight quick-dry hiking pants tied firmly on his bony hips -- they once /were/ long pants but have received a fair amount of /shredding/ that makes much of their lower fabric pretty much a loss. His pale skin is streaked and spattered with blood -- which glistens red on his sharp fangs, too. Currently bared, in what might be a snarl or might be a /grin/, sharp and fierce and tipped upward from where he's just hit the floor, hard. His palms are pressed against the ground, talons scraping it with a roughscratch rattle as they try to shift into a better position to lever himself back /up/. Isra circles Dusk in a low crouch, eyes keen and unblinking, expression stony and intense, wings mantled for balance. She wears a sports bra and bike shorts, both black and both torn here and there by tooth or claw. Those gashes and many more send trails of red across her pearly gray skin, painting stark contrast with the intricate purple spiral patterns somewhat more permanently imprinted. Her tail whips sharply into her path of travel and the talons of her leading foot scrape across the charred floor as she abruptly shifts her not inconsiderable mass to intercept Dusk mid-rising, one wing snapping out high and the opposite hand raking low. Dusk's wings flare wider, no longer pushing up but down to catch his fall, slamming back down against the floor to brace there. Against the floor by way of Isra's whipping /tail/, talon stabbing down -- kind of /through/ it towards the concrete. He's remarkably more quiet than usual at this exact moment, largely because the thud of wing has made the breath /whoosh/ out of him. He doesn't try to avoid the raking hand, just bring his own hands in, sharp and hard in a twinned blow that strikes with no real /checking/ of his not inconsiderable strength against forearm and bicep in opposing directions. Isra's tail only narrowly escapes pinning, but does come away unscathed--shedding an arc of blood now as it flicks in the opposite direction. The moment her trailing foot plants, she propels herself forward again, but Dusk's strike against her upper arm changes her path of travel. There's an audible crack, though it's hard to say what has broken or how badly except that no bones are protruding from flesh as of yet that do not belong outside. It is doubtful that anyone but Dusk can see her pupils dilate, and she gives no other sign that she has even registered pain. Unless one counts the flashing of a fierce grin just before she slams her hairless, bony head into his. This time this is met with a snarl, sharp and tearing up harshly from Dusk's chest. He doesn't stumble backwards, though he does rock; his wings snap inward with a sharp thwack, not so much a blow in themselves as it is playing on the forward momentum Isra already has to bring her in further, faster. Right as his forearm slams up towards her throat. Isra, not unaffected herself by the clash of skull on skull, is still pushing forward. Her trailing hand darts in just as Dusk's wings close--perhaps she expected that to be more of an attack in its own right--and slashes at his side, low, just above the waistband of his much-abused pants. The blow aimed at her throat strikes home, partially crushing her trachea and probably enough of her vocal chords such that whatever noise she was about to make comes out more like a hiss. She drops her center of gravity and snaps at the arm that just struck her. The air /thrums/ with Dusk's growl, a rumbling vibration in the air as Isra's talons slash long streaks of red against his waist. The thrumming increases as Isra's teeth sink in to his arm, his eyes shooting open wider. His teeth clench, lips pulling back to bare his fangs. His weight shifts, too, arm bearing down together with his body. His wing-claw flicks sharp towards Isra's calf and his arm doesn't try to pull away from the snap but uses it to shove Isra towards the ground. Isra doesn't push back when Dusk bears her down to the floor. She tucks her wings and twists mid-fall, dragging /him/ with her now by his arm. Hitting the ground on her side finally causes her to release him. Her chin and one cheek are coated in his blood. She extends one wing to flip herself on top, and though this inevitably pushes her broken arm up against him, her crimson fangs are driving for his neck this time. Dusk's breath hisses out between his fangs, whites of his eyes showing briefly when they roll back. There's a good chunk of flesh avulsed from his arm, hanging near off when Isra's teeth release him. His muscles tense, standing out more prominently in his neck when Isra's fangs sink in. His other hand is coming up, large strong hand closing around /Isra's/ neck where the blow had struck before, clamping in hard and tight. Ground fighting looks a mess when the combatants have six limbs a piece, entangled and tearing and bleeding. One of Isra's wings ends up pinned beneath them, as well as her good arm. Though her growl is inaudible, it rumbles fiercely against Dusk's hand. Her other wing thrashes at him blindly, its movement growing weaker and more erratic by the moment even while his blood pours into her mouth and spills over their broken bodies onto the broken floor. Dusk's wing is half trapped beneath his body, too; but half still leaves a /whole/ lot of wing that, just at the moment, is swatting back against Isra's thrashing one. The long sharp claw on it tears against leathery painted skin, leaving blood and flapping /hole/ torn into Tag's artwork. Its blows are more irregular, less aimed, though, as blood pools beneath them. Dusk's grip contrastingly tightens with a slow crunch of bone and cartilage beneath his hand, but his eyes have widened, his face paling. His fierce-sharp snarl of a /grin/ hasn't faded. Doesn't fade, even as his grip goes slack and head lolls to the side, wings puddled wide against the blood and rubble as his body goes limp beneath hers. For a moment, /neither/ of them moves anymore. When Isra does again, it is to free her good arm and apply pressure to the wound in Dusk's neck. Her wings curl in, gathering him to her--gently, now, and a little shakily. When she raises her head to call for a healer, no sound comes out, but their need is apparent enough. She just remains slumped on the floor, cradling Dusk, resting her forehead on his.