ArchivedLogs:Echoes

Echoes
Dramatis Personae Isra, Jackson, Sebastian, Shane
In Absentia	2013-11-05 Wait. Worry. Bite. (Part of Infected TP.)
Location <XS> Daiki’s Dorm - FL2
A standard, if comfortable, dorm room. Two beds, two closets, two desks, two dressers. Around the boys’ wing at the moment there is -- actually a great deal of noise. With the dorms playing host to sick teachers and sick students alike, it’s become a busy place. Many hushed whispers, much food being brought in. Since returning from his unexpected teleportation, Shane hasn’t /done/ much. He crept into Daiki’s room and has been curled up, not on the bed but on the floor at its base. He’s resisted attempts to get food into him, answering many of these with snarls and chomping of teeth. Now, though, Sebastian slips in as well. He has a plate of roast chicken and a worried look and armed with these things he sits himself down on the floor. Puts the chicken by Shane. Stares, with his legs crossed, elbows resting on knees, chin in hands. The twins are looking more identical today than usual; matching Xavier’s tee shirts, matching Xavier’s sweatpants. Apparently fashion has gone out the window. Isra wears a heavy black jilbab, dragged out from the depths of her pre-coming-out wardrobe and hastily altered to allow her wings free movement. At the moment, those wings are folded down across her shoulders like a gray leathery cape. She walks the hallway in a slow, stalking gait. Her skin looks notably paler than usual, the color of paper ash. Pausing at the door to the dorm room, she looks more lost than hesitant. Her eyes wander across the empty bed before focusing on the twins. Saying nothing, wearing no expression on her face, she steps over the threshold and leans on the wall beside the door. Jax is less colourful than his norm, as well; dark cargo pants, heavy boots, a black t-shirt with a picture of a weather-forecast style storm swirl that reads CLIMATE JUSTICE NOW. He slips into the doorway behind Isra, gaze skipping over the room (still oddly impeccably neat, despite its brief outburst of violence the previous day) before settling down on the twins. He gives Isra a small nod and then quietly moves in further, lowering himself to a slow crouch beside Shane and reaching a hand slowly to rest on the boy’s back. Shane bares his teeth again, instinctively when more people come into the room; a sharp hiss accompanies the sound but when he actually /looks/ at Isra he settles back down into his small-ball. Sebastian nudges the plate of chicken closer to his brother, and then scoots back. Quietly. To lean up against Isra’s legs, his thin form slumping there with a note of exhaustion. Shane doesn’t take the chicken, though he does /growl/ at it. He growls at Jax, too, but that doesn’t stop him from pressing back into the touch with a brief shudder of repressed sob. The collar he usually wears is gone; without it to hold his gills in place they flutter erratically, his breathing uneven. Isra slides down to sit on the floor, long legs folded primly beneath her jilbab and one wing extending to wrap around Sebastian. There is a noticeable tremor in the sluggish movement of that wing, but it stops once she has settled it over the boy. Her skin is alarmingly hot, but she tucks her arms close to her flat chest as though attempting to keep them warm. She looks over at the bed again, then at Shane, then finally at Jax. Her brows crease with evident concentration. "Any news?" Her voice is low and harsh, like someone's synthesizer-assisted rendition of what a stone would sound like if stones could speak. Jax’s hand moves in slow circles against Shane’s back, fingers curling down to scritch lightly against his shirt. His other lifts, fingers stroking down lightly against Shane’s fluttering gills. He reaches to pull the plate closer, nudging Shane gently in a shoulder. His lips compress at the question. “They took Dai an’ Arjun down to -- Io’s looking in to seeing if he can figure this thing out. It’s spreading, though. S’attacks all over the -- the --” He falls into brief blank silence. “City. City. All over the city. How you feelin’?” “Where --” Shane stops as his gills settle back down, still leaning into Jax’s touch. But he bristles at the mention of Daiki, a soft whining growl keening briefly in his throat. “They took him. But he -- if he were here we --” “City,” Sebastian agrees with a slow blink of inner eyelids, leaning in closer to Isra with that wrapping of wing. “City -- isn’t. Better, they.” He shakes his head. “You’re hot.” Frown. “Rasa said he wasn’t. There. Anymore.” Shane’s voice is dull. He sniffs at the chicken and then shies back again. “Eat,” Sebastian murmurs, “you haven’t since yesterday. Shane just frowns, glowering at the plate. “Eat.” This time it isn’t murmured, firmer, more like a command. Shane’s glower doesn’t fade but he does uncurl enough to drag the plate closer, not picking up the chicken, just biting down at it to tear off a chunk. Ears pressing back, Isra bows her head in a gesture that may have been weary resignation in another. She, however, looks weary and /thoughtful/, though her eyes keep failing to focus as they slide around the room. "Then we still do not know if they can be treated." A long pause, then. "I do not feel well. Sorry, I am very warm...sorry." She squeezes Bastian gently. "Sorry. The fever...it seems to be a rather aggressive immune response." Her eyes track Shane's movement as he tears into his food. "The Lofts...attacks there?" “Sorry,” Jackson echoes, still rubbing at Shane’s back though his hand hitches for a moment with this. “Sorry -- um” His eye squeezes shut and then opens again. “S’a lot of folks sick at the Lofts,” he agrees slowly, “but so far not -- quite the same as --” He hesitates, teeth scraping against his lip ring with a quiet click. “-- Dusk has been getting kinda bitey. I mean not like usual. Like without asking. I’m worried that --” He shrugs, not finishing this sentence. “Wasn’t there, what do you mean, honey-honey?” “Sorry,” comes from both twins in unison. Sebastian’s gills flutter after; Shane frowns down at his chicken and takes another bite. “Not there,” he says again. “I don’t know. No mind. Just blank.” His head snaps up when Isra mentions that they might not be able to be treated, his eyes narrowing and a strip of chicken still hanging from his teeth. He answers this suggestion with only a /snarl/, a sudden quick /lunge/ towards Isra, teeth aimed towards one of the arms she wraps about herself. "/Dusk.../" Isra echoes Jax in a breathy almost-whisper, her face contorting briefly as with pain. "What of Micah--and your youngest..." A shudder passes through her, and she looks up at her coworker just in time to miss the warning signs of Shane's attack. She does not move out of the way, does not even attempt to divert him. His toothy maw closes on her forearm and blood wells up all around it. Her expression goes from pained to perplexed. "Shane, what... Please stop that." Bright red blood flows down along the slender fingers of her hand to drip off of the talons at their tips. Tap, tap, tap. Isra's breathing speeds up; she has stopped blinking and gone quite still except for the one wing wrapped around Sebastian slowly curling further around as if the thin membrane could shield him from harm. "Stop." “Both sick,” Jax relates, and here there’s a brief tension that curls through his muscles, too. His brows crease at the twins echoes, and he looks down, reaching to dig in his pocket for his phone right about the time Shane lunges. He looks up in sudden startled surprise, reaching out reflexively to clamp a very warm hand on Shane’s shoulder, squeezing down and tugging once sharply. “/Shane/. Shane, stop. Shane --” There’s a brief flickering shimmer in the air but with Shane’s teeth already fastened down there’s not much he /can/ shield. His fingers squeeze down harder. “Shane, sweetie,” his voice is a little shaky, but low and it’s lost its initial sharper-startled edge, “Listen to me, pup, you gotta let go.” “Shane, no!” Sebastian’s hand twitches upwards but, comfortably tucked into the shelter of Isra’s wing as he is, it’s hard for him to move /fast/ enough to stop this attack. He does reach for Shane’s /other/ shoulder about the same time Jax does -- but then immediately drops it when he sees Jax squeeze down at his brother’s shoulder. /His/ teeth bare, a sudden harsh snarl forced out as he jerks forward -- and then back again, halted enough by the cocooning wrap of Isra’s wing that he drops down to sit beside her again without moving far. Blink. Blink, blink, blink. “...sorry,” he’s seemed to forget Shane now, staring not so much at Shane as through him. “Sorry -- sorry. Sorry. Sorry --” His head turns, face pressing towards Isra’s arm. “... oh. {Oh, god, Shane, no. Stop please /stop/.}” Shane’s teeth stay clamped down, a soft growl coming from him as he presses down harder. His shoulders twitch at the touches to them, but eventually the people speaking to him seem to get through. His jaw unclamps slowly, tongue flicking at the blood trickling down Isra’s arm. He rocks back to sit on his heels, staring with a similar blankness at his teacher, his brows furrowed in a puzzled uncomprehension. Isra's pupils dilate, and the faintest suggestion of a growl rises from deep within her chest. Still she does not move. Only when Shane lets go does she react with some semblance of normalcy, closing her good hand over the deepest of the wounds with a sharp indrawn breath. Even then she seems more /confused/ than frightened or angry. "I should go clean this up." She begins to rise, both wings mantling and wobbling to help keep balance. One horn catches and scrapes the wall, leaving a scar in the paint. At last she rights herself, though the stance is inhumanly hunched and the tips of her wings quiver like winter-bare branches in the wind. There is quite a lot of blood on both of her hands now, and presumably on her clothing, though the black jilbab camouflages it to good effect. "S-sorry," she mutters, and, swaying, starts to topple over. “Woah -- woah hey --” Jax is still giving the boys rather /concerned/ looks but he springs to his feet when Isra starts to sway. His jaw clenches as he reaches for her, not actually trying to keep her /up/ so much as steadying her descent to guide her to /lie/ down instead of /fall/ down. “Wo-okay. Okay. I think we’re all gonna just -- lie down for a bit and. I’ll get a nurse.” “Sorry,” Shane finally says, “sorry, sorry -- I’m sorry,” this last one sounds more horrified than the others, not flat but genuinely remorseful. Sebastian starts to rise to help Isra, too, but backs away when Jax does so, instead crouching by Shane’s side to curl an arm around his twin’s shoulder. “Might be good,” he agrees in a nervous-low voice. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what just -- sorry.” He pulls Shane back to give Jax room to maneuver Isra, tugging the plate of chicken back as well. “Right. Nurse. Right.” Shane glances out towards the hall. Together with the soft hushed voices and occasional footsteps are intermittent quiet thuds. A fist against a wall? A rattle of door? He cringes back against Sebastian. Back against Daiki’s bed. “Okay.” His voice is suddenly very small. Isra struggles to stand for a moment more before relenting and allowing Jax to guide her back to the floor. "Thank you. I'm okay." Her breath comes quick and shallow, and her face has grown even paler. "It's not your fault." One of her wings pulls in tight, obscuring her bloodied limb from view, and the other stretches out toward Shane, not quite touching him--whether due to poor aim or fear of retaliation, it is not clear. "The wound. Isn't even that severe. Vasovagal response. I just need to. Keep still. Drink some--" She swallows, then blinks a few times in rapid succession. "--water. Water..." “Water,” Jackson agrees. “Water -- water. Is -- right. OK. Water.” He freezes for a moment at Isra’s side, fingers trailing lightly against her shoulder. “Right. Water. But you do need bandages on that. I’ll -- be. Back soon.” He stands slowly, a deeper frown on his face at the noises from the hall, and disappears out the door. Shane flinches back slightly away from the outstretched wing, curling his arms in towards his chest like /he’s/ not quite sure he won’t attack it. But then he scoots in closer, lying down as well and hesitantly tucking himself into a small ball at Isra’s side. “Water,” he agrees soft and hoarse. “W--” Sebastian trails off without finishing this. He settles down into a crouch alongside the others, arms curled around his knees. Flinching slightly at the quiet thumps from outside. And waiting.