ArchivedLogs:Getting By

Getting By
Dramatis Personae Jim, Nox, Sebastian, Shane
In Absentia	2013-05-08 (Part of Thunderdome.)
Location Thunderdome
It's a basement, somewhere, that much is clear from the slightly musty-cool feel, the lack of windows, the stark-bare cement decor. What purpose this place originally served is hard to discern; something industrial, judging by the heavy reinforced eyelet hooks still set into the ceiling, now devoid of any loads to bear. Of late the place has been repurposed, though. Around two parallel edges of the room, sturdy cells have been constructed, heavy reinforced metal segmenting off large cage-like cells. The enclosures are largely identical: two sets of bunk beds with pillows, thin sheets, identical grey wool blankets. A pair of large covered bedpans, a bucket usually filled with fresh-ish water. The center of the room is divided in two. One half is large and open, a spacious expanse of cement floor and emptiness. The other half holds long trestle-tables, long benches, both riveted into the cement floor. The ceiling -- of the room, of the cages -- hold very noticeable dark security-camera bubbles. There is one door leading out of here, heavy steel that is securely chained and barred from the outside. It's breakfast time. It's been breakfast time for a bit; most people are finishing their meals and returning to lounge on their bunks or walk aimlessly around or spar or sponge-bathe fighting-grime off or just sit and chat. At one table there are a pair of boys, tiny and blue and considerably /flakier/ than usual, skin cracking in small hairline traces and their gills sort of starting to crust shut. Their trays are empty of food although there's another tray beside them that still has some of its potatoes and oatmeal left over. At the moment, Shane is packing the congealing oatmeal together. Into a mound. Then a ball. Then a sort of cupcake shape. After this he smashes it back down with his fork. Sebastian isn't really doing anything. He's watching, a brief bout of sparring over in the large empty other half of the room. He is watching it /hungrily/; it's practically palpable from his peeled-back lips, clenched teeth (some of them are /missing/, small new teeth starting to push themselves forward), slow strained breathing, wide eyes. He looks kind of worse than Shane, a mottled dappling of bruises, still dark but at least not /swollen/ anymore, splotched over -- most all of his visible skin. He's colourful outside of that! Pink skirt with a large monarch butterfly. Pink fishnets. Black skirt pastel-dyed with flowers. Shane's more staid. Pale linen trousers, short-sleeved dress shirt, dark vest. /Bowtie/, tucked beneath the collar around his neck. Not that any of their clothes look /nice/ anymore, rumpled, kind of sweaty-grimy-gritty. But. Some people are late to breakfast. Thus far no one has really hassled Nox about sort of...drifting around, as if her mind were a thousand miles away. This could have something to do with her notoriety--they know what she can do, and so long as she is banded with lights, she cannot do those things and so why worry that she appears to be a little crazy? It's a quiet kind of crazy. She's bothered no one. She's fought no one. Mostly she remains in her cage. Not always, though. Like right now! Nox emerges from the cage she shares with her fellow Morlocks. She is bald as an egg and an unhealthy shade of dove-grey. She's wearing a pair of poorly fitting sweatpants and Masque's heavy red coat, which is long enough on her that it drags behind like a cloak. Taking a tray, she drifts in starts and fits down towards the table occupied by the twins--not recognizing them so much as counting them as people still sitting and therefore she should sit there as well. The tray is set down, she is set down and then...she just looks down at her breakfast, hands curled loosely over the table's edge. Oatmeal. Yay. Of late arrivals, Jim moves much like his element may suggest. Gradual, like tree roots, he explores - and with equal unmitigated stubbornness. He moves around obstructing food-seekers just enough to avoid aggression, but by /god/ is he not dissuaded or thrown off course by bumps or jostles, eyes fastened overtly on the table with only covert snatch-glances at certain points as he goes. Camera locations. GLARE. The powersets displayed by the sparring mutants (powers: NOTED), but also the quiet. The meek. The little pockets of /anti/ personality by those that remain curled in their cave or licking their wounds (in the case of one young woman, literally. Lick-lick-lick-wince.) He collects a tray of food, the side of his mouth twitching. Oatmeal. What. And then - He stiffens. Eyes locked, face shutting down. Staring at the table of Twins. And... Nox. And then the shutdown fades, his brows pull together and he strides over. /Drops/ his tray next to Nox, across from the sharkboys. "So here's where you guys've been playin' around." His tone softens to mutter to Nox, offering his hand in... a bizarrely gentlemanly gesture, "-- boy it kills a guy seein' a gal like you in a place like this, lady." Shane's nostrils flare, and if he's surprised to see Jim it doesn't show. Just a upward jerk of his head and a hand lifting to offer /fistbump/. "C'/mon/ dude, spill enough blood you're /bound/ to draw --" "-- oh my gosh don't say it." Sebastian is groaning. But he isn't looking away, watching the fight. At least not at /first/; when he does look, it's with considerably more surprise than his brother, head /snapping/ around to look at Jim. Wide-eyed. "What, dude, c'mon, you didn't /smell/ him --" "-- He just smells like plant," Sebastian says with a shrug. And then they're both looking at Nox, shifting down a little closer to her seat. "Hey," Bastian offers, more quietly. "Hi. Miss Nox." "You look like shit," Shane says more bluntly. But with a good deal of concern. It takes Nox a moment to realize that the hand that appears in her line of sight is connected to an arm. She follows it back to its source and blinks at Jim. Her eyes are lustreless, one can almost hear them click like a doll's with that movement. Her hand slowly extends--revealing the glow-bracelet and the band of blanched white skin around her wrist as it clears the tatty red sleeve--but hesitates just shy of accepting the clasp. "...please do not say it kills. Will they...I think they will charge your collar. If you touch me. I am sorry, Mister...mm." There, she's lost her train of thought before she can recall his name. It wanders for a bit, her withdrawn turning the plate slowly as if it will become more appetizing if she can just find the right rotation. But nope, it never arrives. The twins do instead. "Boys? Jackson's boys? But I thought you were..." She stiffens then with a sudden horror. "They have us all again? Where are the...did they go to the school? The men in the coats?" "Yeah," Jim mutters, dropping into a seat, "I'm starting to see how trigger happy they get." His skin is on the far rougher side, worse as usual around his hands, bare feet, further down his neck, presumably, his body as well, but it eases up at his face. The junction between, where the collar rests, the treebark has gone a bit singed black. "They really worked you over, huh." He says it - kind of blandly to Sebastian, STABBING... his spoon around in his oatmeal. Nox's memory lapse... compresses his mouth, but he shakes his head, muttering with a /quick/ glance down at his bowl when she mentions the school, saying somewhat on top of her, sounding impatient-distracted, "No men in coats at all, lady. Just the old mother-fucking boys in blue. That who snagged you guys?" Nice, pleasant snacktime conversation. It /is/ their most immediate commonality. "Nope. No fucking doctors," Shane says with a shake of his head. "Just a bunch of cops," Sebastian agrees. He has a quick almost-flash of smile but it dies soon. "Got Shane for underage smoking," he informs Jim seriously. Shane snooorts. "The fuck they get you for, dude, snooping? Peeking in windows?" Sebastian shudders, abruptly fading from not-quite-smile to distinctive grimace. "He's /not/ that kind of creep," he says this with an odd /firmness/, looking up and across at a distant cage. "Yeah, I guess they got a little batonhappy." Another quick-stiff shrug. "He's /totally/ that kind of -- oh. Right. /That/ kind." Shane grimaces, and glances down at Nox's plate. "Just oatmeal? You get any eggs? You know there's raisins -- if you hunt 'em down." "Police? I...perhaps? There were lights. The garden. We were not supposed to garden there but we did. Myself. Masque. Anole. I think...I think they are here too. Anole..." And that is the extent of Nox's ability to remember. There are /still/ lights, but the sight of the twins have galvanized the woman. She is studying Sebastian's face with a sort of muted puzzlement. "I am a poor hunter, but there are eggs. Underneath. Are you...yes. You would be hungry. Growing boys." Frowning, she reaches for the spoon and begins to carefully scrape the oatmeal to the side. Hunting for eggs. A poor hunter indeed; it takes her several moments before the tray is pushed towards the sharks. The eggs are scrambled, and pebbled with oats. Tasty! "Do you like raisins?" Ahhhah. Peeking in windows? "Something like that. Big difference between snooping and creeping," Jim growls reflexively, shoving his oat meal around with little enthusiasm. "Why. Someone creeping on you kids? Told you smoking would k-," he glances at Nox, "-get you in trouble some day." All SHANE'S FAULT. With his head tipped down, he mutters behind his lifting spoon, "Lotta people looking." It's said so flat and low and /around/ the spoon shoved in his mouth it might just be an incomplete sentence fragment. Sebastian's hand /shoots/ out when Nox unveils those eggs, snatching them in a messy wet /fistful/ from her plate. GONE. Not into his mouth, though; he dumps the /bulk/ of them onto Shane's empty tray but then downs the rest in one bite, licking his palm clean afterwards; the noise that he makes for this mouthful is low and caught between a growl and a whine. His cheeks flush, after, head ducking with perhaps embarassment. "Fuck raisins," Shane says around a mouthful of eggs, "but they're /sweet/ some people like sweet I thought maybe you'd --" Shrug. "It's good. To have. Things to enjoy." To Jim's question, Sebastian just shrugs. "They didn't leave you any /smokes/ did they?" Shane is eying Jim with keen interest. "He's getting the shakes," his brother explains. This is actually true! Though the subtle tremor in Shane's hands might not be from nicotine withdrawal. "Anole. He green? I'm -- we're supposed to teach him to fight." Shane is slurping at his plate, now. No hands, just lift it to his mouth to SNARF. "Creeping on fucking /Peter/," he adds to Jim, and /this/ is practically /growled/ out. "I," he adds, "am going to bite off the first asshole's /cock/ who touches him." This comes with a zzzzzp of familiar noise that clenches Shane's teeth harder and puts another growl in his throat but something in his narrowed eyes does not suggest he regrets this announcement. "Creeping on?" Poor puzzled Nox. She is lost. The only clear cues she has are the signs of distress from the boys--Sebastian's whining, Shane's growl when the collar is heard. She makes her own whispery sound of soothing and reaches out to stroke the nearest's back though her hand never makes contact. It's a ghost of a touch, intended to comfort but only heightening the sense of distance. "Is...not on Anole. On Peter? Who is Peter?" "They took everything," Jim grumbles, the kind of livid sharpness about his movements possibly also in response to nicotine withdraw, "even my god damn shoes. No dirt, no sun, I'm going nuts. -- you two aren't lookin' so hot either." He seems intent for this one moment, coasting on flat shallow topics with his eyes ever scanning, sweeping, gouging out visions of his environment, faces. "Eugh." It's just... a dry sound of disgust, teeth gritted, "He's down here too, then." He says it down to... his oatmeal. "'s real then, what Masque was saying. This is a god damn /dog/ fight." "There's an /actual/ dog woman," Sebastian says this kind of /excited/ -- but then abruptly not. His brow furrows, instead. Shane shrugs. His eyes are back to roving. He's watching movements of people nearby. "Muzzle-dude says there's a guard or two might hook you up with shit." "For /trade/," Sebastian practically spits. Shane shrugs again. "Need meat. He needs light. Sun? Dirt? Water?" He scrutinizes Jim for a moment, then returns to roving. "Peter's another kid. Not green," Bastian clarifies to Nox, for a moment leaning slightly towards that ghost of touch. Just a moment. "But yeah, it's real. You just get here?" He is scrutinizing Jim now, too. "I think everyone needs a lot of things they're not just going to up and /give/ us." Shane doesn't sound particularly bothered by this, just thoughtful-assessing. "They are taking children." Maybe it's because Nox has huddled down into the heavy coat, hiding collar and bracelets, or maybe it's just taken her this long to process what they've been telling her. But. Some clarity is returning to her eyes, even if they remain flat and full. "They are.../raping/ children? This Peter? The guards are...?" Aaaand that is all the shadow lady needed to set her off. Her naked head turns ever so slowly towards the sparring matches. Towards the area where guards are most likely to be. Her restraints are hidden and though the lights are shining on her from above, something is happening to her skin. It's mottling with darker streaks of black, while her eyes grow larger and she...yes, yes, she is getting up from the table. "Not worth it, kid," Jim mutters /dryly/ at Shane, "These guys want a good fight, letting 'em know what they can do to /get/ a good fight's doing them enough of a god damn favor. Don't fucking /reward/ 'em for-." *Bzzrt*. Jim's body doesn't jolt or lock up from a current; it /winces/ in around his neck though. Ssizzle. Little smoke tendril, the smell of singed /tree/. He goes back to JABBING at his oatmeal. Boy does he LOVE OATMEAL. He loves this bite he is taking SO FUCKING MUCH - He darts his head towards Nox when she begins to stand. The twins are given a subtle... questioning look? Like, is this normal? "--Uh, lady." Damn to the collar, he slips an arm around that filthy (familiar!) red coat, trying to coax her back down to the table, "sit down, we're just talking." His face... is not happy. Or optimistic. Just hard. Shane shrugs, looking over at his brother -- bruises, crusting gills, too-dry, too-shaky and he doesn't /have/ nicotine addiction to blame -- and his tone is just as plainly neutral as he says: "Not rewarding them to stay alive. Might not need the smokes. /Need/ more food." "Not like that." Sebastian's jaw is tight. Shane's isn't. He shrugs again. Tips his head up and over to watch Nox get up and, almost absently, reaches out a hand for hers. Aaaalmost absently, though there's a not /insignificant/ strength to his thin arm as he just sort of -- holds. "Hey, don't be stupid," it's casual, even if the grip isn't. Until his collar zzzps and he drops it. "Nobody's /raping/ anyone." "Except maybe that muzzle creep," Sebastian mutters. "Trade. Not force." This just makes Sebastian's eyes narrow. "It's kind of the /same thing/ if you're going to die otherwise, isn't it?" Shane looks over Jim again. "What's it you need?" "Some dirt?" Bastian suggests, uncertainly, "I doubt they'll do much about the sun." For the first time, Shane's voice is -- small. "Pa could --" Bastian cuts this sentence /off/, hard-edged where Shane's gets smaller. "Maybe more water, too. I don't know what to do for you," he adds to Nox, kind of apologetically? "We can't turn off the lights." Nox is caught before she can take even a step--the benefits of being slow and unsteady. She looks down, rather confused at her forward progress being hindered. Then she winces, free hand lifting to claw at her throat. The jacket's collar is shifted, revealing the brighter glow of her collar. It's enough to drop her back to the bench with a whispered sound too soft to be a proper grunt. The tracery of black creeping over her skin slowly begins to fade. "They would not. Will not. Turn off the lights. I would tear this building down," she murmurs when speech is possible again. "All of it. And all of them. These are /children/. Trades...children /trading/..." She can't really spit the words out. But she tries. Then her pique is lost. Jim is wiiincing loose his arm from around Nox, the 'zzp-zzzp!' earning an alarming little wet-wood kindling /pop/ that puts an /enlightened/ look of -horror? /fascination/?- on his face. He sets his hands very deliberately back on the table. "Funny," he says this /raw/ at Shane, swallowing a few times and clearing his throat, "how you think I'd take anything you got pulling tricks for shitheads. Before you try the most retarded-drastic compromising bullshit you can come up with that'll set off every god damn person at this table into this," he nods his head at Nox, and for her he has a frank, honest expression of /agreement, "let's try a few other things huh? Don't worry about the sunlight. If they'd bring me a god damn potted plant or two, I'd give up my rations entirely. This is useless, it ain't plant food." He pushes his eggs at Sebastian as well - /he/ at least seems to have some god damn preservational sense. "...this is the longest I've gone so --." He claws up his hands, hovering them over his chest, "-- green inside without--. What it needs." "Fuck you," Shane says to Jim, more calm than spitted out, "you think I give a shit about /your/ dumbass value system? It's sex, dude. I get that you all --" His hand waves to Jim, to Nox, "are stupid-uptight about it, but /I'm/ stupid-uptight about /not dying/. And we --" His hand flicks between himself, his sort of /peeling/-apart brother, "don't really have that much leeway there." Sebastian /yoinks/ Jim's eggs, though once again he gives the lion's share to Shane. This time, though, Shane passes most of them back, eating a handful and leaving the rest for his twin. "He's right," Sebastian is admitting this /reluctantly/: "/You/ can do what you want. But I'll take living over kind of, um, dumb human-values." "Yeah. I'll leave those for the people who give a shit about them." Shane's licking his hand clean hungrily, but then he's getting up, clapping a hand to squeeze at Sebastian's arm. "I mean, shit, if you find a way to get what we need I'll fucking take it. But if you haven't noticed these aren't -- /exactly/ the kind of people who care if you ask nicely. And we don't --" He doesn't finish this sentence. Just tightens his fingers on Sebastian's shoulder and looks down for a moment with clenching jaw. "You," he says to Nox, and it's not hard but not really much of anything but plain, "should worry about yourself. You look like you kind of need that." Nox sits quietly through the conversation. It's difficult to tell if she's even hearing any of it--her focus is on the table, as if the secrets of the universe might be trapped in the fake woodgrain. When Shane stands up, she has lifted her hand and is rubbing at a blotch of moisture left from the condensation on the bottom of the tray. So when she is addressed, it takes her a moment to lift her eyes to Shane. This time, it's he who's on the receiving end of her not entirely comprehending doll-blink. "Worry?" She considers this advice for a moment. "Yes. Yes, I can worry." Pause. "You should. Join us. For dinner. Perhaps there will be chicken." "Aaaand yet you sure weren't okay when it was Peter." Jim looks less than impressed with the whole argument - though that is also just kind of his /state/ right now, he's also unimpressed with his food. And with this entire /room/, and the people in it and just about everything else around him; he's even turning his head to scan the room to make /sure/ there's noting left. The hard floor. The cages. He just looks tired and bored. FUCK THAT. The roughness of his skin is returning, and thicker, making the blue of his eyes stark. It's not even surprise when he looks at Sebastian, hands opening then just - dropping, "I didn't say a damn thing about not /living/, I said don't jump so eagerly at --." He shakes his head, "Kids, I can't stop you. And I'm not the kind of guy that pushes people around even if I..." oh god, Nox, she's inviting them to dinner like an absent housewife inviting people to tea, "--/could/." He got derailed. Staring at Nox. Then. Bizarrely. /Snorts/. Kind of like amusement. He looks back at the twins, "You're supposed to be training some kids to fight? Fine. Tell them then - say you need meat. And more water. Or you're not gonna be any use. Just hear me out?" He holds up his palms? "It's crazy but I got this bizarre feeling these guys are more into this for the money than the scrawny-shark-ass. Not dissin' your BJ's, Shaney, but this is an awful lot of work they'd go through just to get their cock in your hand." "Of course I'm not OK with it when it's Peter," Shane looks less than impressed for his own part that Jim is even making this comparison, "/Peter's/ not OK with it. I wouldn't be OK with Peter doing a lot of shit I do because it would /bother him/. You know what cracks me the fuck up, man, these people drag us in here to fucking /kill each other/ and for some reason it's the fucking /sex/ that is getting you two on the defensive." "People have weird priorities." Sebastian shrugs, and he's standing, too. The look he gives Nox is kind of sad. "Yeah. Dinner. Maybe they will." Shane shrugs. "We'll ask. And ask. But he," he jerks a hand towards his brother, "is going to take a /chunk/ out of someone's /gut/ by this time tomorrow and I don't think they'll look kindly on that. I'd rather it not get to there." "I'm not --" Sebastian starts to protest this, but then doesn't. He's kiiiind of hungrily eying a man nearby. "-- Ishouldgo." Back to his cage. Because where else /would/ he go." Shane bares his teeth. It's /like/ a smile. "See you at dinner." Nox watches all of this with a startled look. Heated voices, heated /expressions/. She rests a hand near her throat--then winces, snatching it away. Her fingers are very briefly a stark bone white. "Please," she murmurs. "It is. This is not the place...to. To be this way. Towards each other. Boys..." But one of them has fled and the other is making a face that causes the shadow lady to regard him with sorrowful eyes. "Shane," Jim puts both hands on his head, eyes closing tightly. "Go a little easy on me, huh? I just got here, man, give me a few minutes before you rip my head off. My 'weird priorities'," one eye opens to watch Sebastain's retreat, sighing, "are to avoid anyone having to do anything beyond what they /got/ to. I just can't /do/ anything about the fighting." He brief-light touches Nox's forearm - just a light pat, leaning nearer to her and murmuring quieter, "You take it easy too, huh? We're just trying to work things out. How to get by. We got this." Sebastian doesn't answer because -- he is fleeing. Possibly to go gnaw on his ARM. Shane's shoulders sink, slightly, and the look he gives Jim is -- it's not really sad. But it's kind of heavy, as he exhales. Slips around the table, to lean in and curl an arm briefly around Jim's shoulders from behind. Press a kiss to the back of his HEAD. Until the zzzp that makes him pull away. "We'll get by," is all he says, and then he is slipping off, too. Nox's troubled eyes track the last twin until he's disappeared from view. Then she tilts her head, turning it in the direction of Jim's murmur. Belatedly, of course. But at least she appears to be considering what he's told her--though that isn't a certain thing until she replies, with lips barely moving. "I...am losing. I think. If...when they. Make me fight. There must be light, yes? Because in the arena, one must see. Lucien will...you should tell him. I never carry a phone, I cannot tell him..." And like that, the threads of coherency that she'd held together are unraveled. Jim is given a small smile before she also moves to stand, clutching Masque's coat around her. Though not looking at him, Jim pats a hand down /hard/ on Shane's arm, giving it a firm squeeze, letting go when - yeah, it's not the best ending to a hug. Zzpt. He pushes air out his nose; Nox's words not the variety he's /loving/ to hear. "Worry about that /tomorrow/, huh?" He gruffs, though he'll nod, if that's what she needs, quoting to... himself. Or her. Or his useless oatmeal. "...'Sufficient for each /fucking/ day is each day's mother fucking anxiety." He might be reinterpreting a little. He also stands up, at the same time Nox does like some reflexive leftover propriety. And then tightens a hard, /rapid/ smile. And nods. And then... shoves his hands in his pockets. And turns to wander. To watch. And probably go for a quick bath to wet down his roots. Mm. Water.