ArchivedLogs:If

If
Dramatis Personae Masque, Nox	2013-05-05 (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 the middle of the night, by the far the most quiet of periods in these cells. It's almost peaceful, the way the silence washes over everyone despite whatever their differences may be. Big and small, the brutish and the cunning. Only occasionally does someone cough, sniffle, or /grunt/, but somewhat more piercing was the noise of an electric collar being activated earlier, when a new arrival attempted to take advantage of the silence to try and attack their cell mate. It was followed only by a thud, then a crawling sort of drag. Now, the loudest noise by far is someone snoring. One of the bigger mutants in an adjacent cell can't be helped, apparently, breathing ever so loudly into his pillow. Masque's been one of the quiet ones. No coughs or sniffles from him. In fact, he hasn't even moved since the lights went out in the other cells, lying on his side in the only cell still brightly lit. But something causes him to move, rolling sluggishly onto his back with a creak of the bunkbed, the hood falling back as he turns his head to look around, somewhat blearily. Nox has been quieter still. Since the meal, she's remained in the lower bunk, where there is the most protection from the flickering florescent lights. It isn't quite a refuge though given that the collar and bracelets continue to glow at throat and wrist. Spring and summer have always been when she slept most, withdrawing to her little cave nook for longer and longer periods while the days lengthened. Now she lies curled on her side, black eyes open and dull, their usual sheen stolen. The white streaks marring her chalky grey skin have spread. Her neck and wrists were already banded but those marks are spreading now, creeping up her arms, and down her shoulders. She remains hairless. But these are only the physical changes. For long stretches of time, she's silent. It's worse when she mutters. When she speaks of labs. Of cages. Of men and women with lights. This isn't one of those times, fortunately. When Masque moves--or maybe it is the creaking of the bunk--her eyes turn slowly. The divide between the bunks is small; it takes her a moment before she focuses, truly focuses, on the man with the hood. A listless smile follows not long after. It's a smile that is not returned. Instead, Masque's attention drifts elsewhere, up to the ceiling. Then, after he props himself up onto his elbows, his eyes scan the other cages, then beyond. Looking for anyone who may be watching, or walking by. Finally, his gaze lands back on Nox with a sigh so quiet it's easier to see than hear, even through the coat he's wearing. He waits for another snore of the man nearby, timing his whispered sentence to partly overlap with the heavy breathing. The lowered volume doesn't soften his tone, it just helps in making it sound doubly unkind. "... You're not gonna make it to your first fight." A clever method of communication! Nox's eyes drift to lock on his lips, reading them as much as hearing him. Normally it would be no effort at all to decipher what he was saying--he sits in shadow, and those are /hers/. Now, it takes some time before the meaning of what he's said makes it through whatever minefield her mind has become. He'll know when it's reached its target when the woman gives a silent sigh, to match his own. The snoring sputters brokenly again. Nox breathes, "I am have always been a better spy. Than a fighter. No Knight." Another effort is made to smile, to try to capture something gentle and amused. "You would have had me. Years ago. If I did not cheat." Masque's lips curl into a bitter sneer around crooked teeth in response. He rolls onto his side to easier look to Nox's face, his hood caught underneath his head. The light spills onto the good half of his face from above, leaving the other pressed against the bunk. "I would have left--" He starts almost a little too eagerly, a little too loudly, before gritting his teeth. Fortunately, then, he chooses to wait. Timing his words again and starting over, more controlled, when the nearby noise permits. "I would have left... /nothing/ the same." There's something vaguely hungry about his gaze, a hand dragged up along the bunk to in front of his chest, fingers absently curling in and out. "Your nose. Your eyes. Your /pretty little neck/." "If." Nox stops there for a time. She'd shifted as well, drawing her knees up and hugging her arms to her chest. The additional light from the bracelets reflects on her face. The snoring continues unabated; it is more an issue of lack of focus, expression growing blank and eyes looking at Masque without truly seeing. Eventually she returns. "If. You could have caught me," she whispers, eyes closing again. "You never did." Another pause follows. Then, so softly, "Perhaps they will turn the lights off, for my match." Finally, that smile is returned, though it is a long shot from pleasant - a closer description than 'smile' would be that it's a poorly executed act of mimicry. It's /almost/ convincing on one side, but the muscles coiling under that broken turmoil of a surface that is his skin on the other side of his face turn it into something so much worse than a grimace. Lips that have not participated in a warm expression for decades struggle to hold their shape, and even then, it's only in mockery. "/Think/, little spy. I wouldn't." A pause, as his expression so easily melts into one of disgust, "Do you think these... people are much /better/?" "You are better." This is quite possibly the first and only positive thing that Nox has ever said about Masque, in the three years that they have known each other. Her eyes remain shut as the whisper lilts across the aisle separating them. Only her lips move and then only barely. Will she remember it's been said? Possibly not. For a time his only company is that incessantly snoring man and the lump of human-shaped chalk on the opposite bunk. Then, blearily, she pries her eyes open again. "If. Masque. If they dispose of me. Will you look after the child?" Disgust makes place for contemplation, wrangling Masque's face into something that isn't necessarily less hostile, but definitely more uncertain. His own focus is sharp, eyes locked alertly onto Nox's even when they close. Now it's his time to miss some opportunities to speak, and when he does seize one, his voice virtually drips with loathing. "When they do." A correction? "As you should have, years ago..." another pause in silence, as he /wrings/ his hand down onto the bunk, grabbing and twisting while his eyes remain on the weaker form ahead, "... he will be taught to fear me." "He is fond of you," Nox murmurs, offering no explanation for /why/ this might be. But she's noticed it and she lays the fact out between them in that same pitiable (weak!) susurrus of breath. "He is fond of you and they will. They might. Use that. You would. You are. Perhaps. When they do...they will come soon. They want me to smother fire, his hair burns blue fire, it hurts so much but I have to try..." Her voice trails off but her lips continue to move soundlessly, a shudder working through her twisted body. For a moment, there is no more noise from Masque's side of the conversation. Not only his expression but also his eyes lose that sharp edge, remaining on Nox in a much more passive way now, half lidded. After a shake of his head, the hand grabbing at the fabric beside him releases its inanimate victim, and his fingers uncurl to instead press down on it so he can lift himself up onto his side again. Enough to peer around, over other bodies and past the scarce items placed within the cells. When he lowers himself again, it's to roll forard, shifting his weight to swing his feet off of the bunk and onto the floor as he sits up, hunched low over his legs. "Nox." Though he wait for another snore, his voice is raised enough to be heard easily /over/ the stranger's laboured breathing, insistent and biting in its snideness. "/Shut up/." Footsteps. Too casual to be coming from a fellow mutant. Coming oh so slowly closer. Nox reacts as if slapped--she startles and curls in around herself. This has the benefit of burying much of her whimpering behind the shield of her knees. "I am sorry...sorry. I will try, I will. I will do better." Her arms slide up to curl around her naked head, the final touch needed to turn her from woman into tiny ball. Then, silence. Blessed silence, as whatever horrors she was experiencing in her mind are translated into shivering rather than whispers. The footsteps continue. One. Two. One. Two. One. But something else joins them. Masque lying back down? It sounds similar, yet... no. There's a snapping of buttons, a heavy rustle of fabric over fabric, noises indiscriminate of timing now, rushed. A weak shadow finds Nox in a man's form blocking some of the light shining downward. An arm, bare and lean, swings atop her to cause even more darkness to be cast across when Masque's signature red coat - heavy, still smelling of the street and sewers as much as it does of this place - billows down on the other bunk, big enough to cover Nox from head to toe where she has curled up. This happens just seconds before another another noise pops up-- the kzZZSHZT of a collar being activated, followed shortly by Masque dropping halfway back onto his bunk, ribcage crashing against its side. He looks much smaller now than he did before, in a wifebeater that must have been white at some point, perhaps when it did not hang quite so loosely around his overly wiry frame, dark trousers stuffed deep into his boots. The pattern of disfigured muscles and skin carries downward along his neck where it leaves his face, fading over one shoulder and back into pale but healthy skin. A breathy hiss leaves him, before he crawls back onto the bunk and collapses on top of it to halfway curl up as well - facing away from Nox - as a voice pipes up from somewhere far enough to even be /seen/ in that darkness nearby, providing a single, gruffly spoken word as warning. "/Sleep/." His coat trembles for a time. Two minutes, maybe three. That subtle shivering eases gradually and then is finally gone completely. Maybe Nox sleeps. She is quiet, at least.