ArchivedLogs:It Takes A Village

It Takes A Village
... of terrorists.
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Ion, Isra
In Absentia	2015-01-09 '
Location Jail
Cramped and small, this thick-walled concrete room offers very little by way of comfort or privacy. There's a cot on one side with thin grey mattress, thin grey blankets, thin grey pillow. On the other side sits a lidless steel toilet with built-in sink atop it. There's not a whole lot by way of /room/, about six feet by eight feet. No windows to the outside, and a solid heavy steel door rather than bars; a barred window in the door is usually kept shuttered from without, as is the slot in the wall where a shelf protrudes and meals are often slid through. A single wan light in the ceiling provides dim illumination whenever the guards care to turn it on. Dusk's cell is quiet. The prison is quiet, really, at this hour, well after lights-out. Dusk isn't sleeping, sitting up on his bed in the dark with a book in his lap. He's half-dressed, khaki pants but no shirt, grey blanket draped around his chest. The time in jail hasn't seemed to be hurting his health much, ropy-lean muscles fleshed out. The dim light doesn't seem to be bothering him much, eyes flicking back and forth across the page, elbow propped on his knee and his forehead resting against a curled fist. A pop of light flickers near the ceiling, a thu-thump heralding two new figures in the room. Ion is a familiar sight, here, regular visits (often with Eric in tow) helping /keep/ Dusk's health up. His winged cargo today, not so much. He sets Isra on the floor to give her a chance to /recover/ from the electrocution, sauntering over to flop down onto the bed beside Dusk, sling an arm around the vampire bat. "{Hey-o, Darkwing, brought you a present.}" His normally boisterous voice is kept down to a low-gruff whisper as he jostles Dusk in against himself. Isra sways only slightly in place as Ion deposits her, wings mantling out and tail lashing to maintain balance. She wears a pale pink wrap dress, and matching cohesive bandages on her elongated feet as well as both wrists--the still-mending wounds covered by the latter notable to a sufficiently keen sense of smell. A faint rumble rises in her throat and fades as quickly. Following Ion, she sinks down on the other side of Dusk and curls a massive wing over both men and coils up into a surprisingly tight ball. "Eat," she urges softly, only her lower vocal folds engaging. Dusk's head snaps up at the thuds. There's a quiet vibration, clicking slighlty out of the range of most human hearing, and he relaxes before Ion has approached. "{Oh shit. Sparkplug. You always think of the best gifts.}" In the dark his fangs bare. His wings uncurl from behind him, one sliding around Ion as the other wraps around Isra. 'You're hurt. And just got electrocuted. It can wait, seriously,' he signs, leaning into Isra's side. 'Missed you.' "{I'm a considerate motherfucker.}" Ion drapes a leg over Dusk's, nudging at Dusk's knee to push the other man's leg downward on the bed. "{Know your tastes.} ... also under orders tonight." 'Hurt?' Isra's eyebrow ridges lift up. Then she looks down at her forearms. 'It's fine, only minor cuts.' "Besides," she continues signing partially when she starts speaking, "I get electrocuted all the time. And then I fight." She subsides against him. 'The egg...' A deep frown. "I don't know how to sign 'hatched.'" 'One week ago. Their name is...Eridani Perl.' This last fingerspelled slowly, laboriously. Reflexively, Dusk signs 'hatched' at this. But then his eyes widen, his wings tensing. 'What? What what what.' His breath puffs out sharply. 'What. Already? What.' "{Heard he's a terrible monstery thing. Eat people the fuck up,}" Ion informs Dusk helpfully. He sounds oddly cheerful with this information. "{Freakbat. Gargoyle vampire. Monsterbaby. Little-sharks say everything's terrible forever.}" "Maybe Horus's /eggsitting/ helped?" Isra throws her hands up. 'I don't know. But.' She slips back into simultaneous communication again, not very smoothly. "They seem healthy. But yes, monstrous. Looks like me, drinks blood like you." She turns up her palms to present the bandaged wounds. "Jax and Micah are not coping well. Especially Jax. I try to help, but the baby, they feed so often..." Dusk's head bows, hands scrubbing across his face. His wings twitch against his back, head shaking as one palm scrubs down against his beard. "Well. Fuck." "I not yet meet them. Shane say Jax maybe he dying? I don't know that." This is less cheerful. Ion shrugs, leaning back against the wings around him. "B just say, they not going home again no more. Maybe after this I stop by. See how everyone they doing. I think you both pretty-okay monsters. Tiny-you, kind-of-cute, huh?" "It's a bit of a train wreck. We need to do something, but I've no notion what. We," Isra indexes herself and Dusk, "weren't like this as infants." Her unoccupied wing drapes over her with a shivery rustle. "I'll go with you." She indicates Ion at that. "Offer to take Eridani for the weekend at least." "No. An infant with /my/ hunger --" Dusk shudders, a ripple felt all through the supple-strong skin of his wings. 'Fuck.' "/Dying/? Jax can't -- fuck. This isn't," he whispers, a little wretched, "what I wanted. This isn't what I wanted at all." "{Pretty fucking terrifying.}" Ion shivers, though there's a faint crooked smile on his face. "Maybe you find the littlemonster a new home. More monstery home." "I don't know if he's dying, but Jax looked quite unwell when I saw him." Isra agrees, her ears pressing back against her smooth gray scalp. "I don't know what home would take them, but if one can be found..." She shakes her head. "It's Jax and Micah's call now." "Fuck." Dusk buries his face in his hands again. "And I'm here. And I'm fucking. /Here/." He gets up, abruptly, wings sliding away from the others to fold in at his back as he starts pacing the small cell. 'We knew they'd be different but. I didn't want -- for Jax and Micah -- I love them, I don't. Fuck.' "What why?" Ion just looks confused at Isra's statement. "In out two seconds I could grab them. Tiny-baby how hard it could be to take them?" "We didn't know," Isra's soft voice sounds as weary as the movement of her hands looks. "They didn't know. I doubt if anyone is ever wholly ready for any child, much less a premature one with extremely special needs." Green eyes fix on Ion unblinking. "I hardly think we need resort to /kidnapping,/ Ion. I imagine they would with great relief give Eridani up to a home more able to accept them, but we need to have something to offer first." Dusk's pacing stops at Ion's reply. His head turns to stare, a little dumbfounded, at the electrokinetic. After a moment he exhales, a soft rasp of laughter, more incredulous than amused. "{Dude, you're fucking crazy.}" His knuckles scrub against his eyes, and he slumps against the wall. "Don't have to /kidnap/ our own -- just. Need to." 'Talk to them. I never wanted to fuck up their life.' "{Oh! Oh, /talk/ to them. Shit right.}" Ion's tone makes this sound like a revelation. "C'mon, yo, we live on freak island. Me and Kay, we got some little ones, huh? We take another monster. Raise-em-up strong." "We'll talk to them," Isra says equably, though the tip of her tail twitches fiercely. Her wing squeezes down on Ion. "But I beg you give some serious thought to offering to adopt. I have no authority on the matter, but if two experienced parents of mutant children can't handle them..." Dusk pushes away from the wall, returning to sit down on the bed again. His elbows rest on his knees, chin dropping to his hands. "You and Kay /are/ fucking monsters." Ion's fingers snap -- a small spark is produced with the motion -- and his forefinger points to Dusk. "And /that/, hermano, that it's why we fit for this, huh?" Her expression blank, Isra does not look particularly impressed by Ion's logic. "If monstrousness alone qualified one to parent this child, I ought to take them on alone." She caresses the back of Dusk's neck and rubs slow circle down between his wings. "You should also talk to /Kay/ before volunteering him." "{Just because they were born a monster doesn't mean they should have to grow up a monster, too.}" Dusk's voice is softer, here. Sadder. His wings droop lower at his back. He leans in against Isra's side. "Kinda where our life leads, doesn't it?" "/Fff/." Ion turns his head, spitting onto the floor. "{Fuck that, Darkwing. You think we're /that/ kinda monster, maybe you should find yourself a new family, huh?}" Not that that stops him from curling his arm around Dusk's waist. "What we doing we doing /for/ all the tinymonsters. For all the fucking /every/freak. We /seen/ real monsters and they ain't wearing the horns." His head shakes as he squeezes Dusk a little tighter. "Kay he love every-damn-body." "The child will grow up a monster, no two ways about it." Isra closes her eyes, but her knuckles continue kneading Dusk's back. "So long as they have a family who can provide for them, who can teach them to love--or at least to relate to others as something more than food--I can hardly ask for more. At this point, /stability/ is a luxury they won't find in any home. The Brotherhood may prove a safer family than most who would take them." The muscles in Dusk's back are tense, knotted hard beneath Isra's knuckles. His head bows, welcoming the kneading. "Maybe," he agrees, softly. "Stability's more than any of us have. But love --" His shoulders sag. "Island got /plenty/ that." Ion drops his forehead to Dusk's shoulder. "Always thought, kid, is too much to put on two-people anyway." "Love isn't easy, and it isn't automatic." Isra leans her head against Dusk's, careful of her horns. "I expect Eridani will prove a difficult child to love, practical considerations aside. But maybe Ion is right. It'll take more than a village to raise them."