ArchivedLogs:Tension

Tension
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Josiah
In Absentia	2014-04-12 '
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. It's cluttered and dark, in the attic of the safehouse. Not really /intended/ as living space. There /is/ light up here; a few small windows, currently letting in some wan silvery moonlight, and a sole naked bulb that hasn't been switched on in some while. There are boxes stacked on boxes, and off towards the back some of these have been shifted into two makeshift half-walls, L-shaped to square off a small nook that has been /turned/ into living space. Of a sort. A large pile of extra futon mattresses were being stored and now have been spread out; where they /were/ stacked Very High now they're three high, two wide, a large squishy floor space where Dusk has taken up residence. The backpack that holds all his earthly possessions since the fire is leaning up against the edge of this mattress-pile. Dusk is, at the moment, atop it, back to the wall, lying on his side. In corduroys and a green-and-grey striped t-shirt that has been neatly slitted and restitched in back to allow for the massive wings that are no longer there, he -- might be sleeping, it's hard to tell. His eyes are closed, but, kind of sunken-misshapen, these days they're /always/ closed. After some time trying to track Dusk down, Josiah ended up at the Brotherhood Safehouse. Of course, he doesn't /know/ what the place is other than the site of the fight club and where he met he met people who seemed to know the bat well. Still, it's worked in his favor. Here he is, in the attic, adjusting himself to the creepiness of the place. "Dusk?" he says, venturing into the space, carefully sidestepping a pile of boxes. "Your friends told me you're up here." His eyes adjust and he makes his way to the form he assumes is the mutant in question. As an afterthought, he adds, "It's Josiah." Dusk's head turns, though his oddly sunken eyes don't open. He hasn't shaved in a while, a scruffy dark beard standing in stark contrast to his pale skin, though he is at least /showered/ and in clean clothes, fresh scents of Old Spice and cinnamon-clove toothpaste predominant on him. For a moment there's an odd and noticeable vibration in his throat, the ridge of his adam's apple distinctly more prominent than most people's; his face orients afterwards more properly towards Josiah. He doesn't speak, though his shoulders reflexively twitch -- and then settle back with a heavy slump when this fails to produce the result it once did. He shifts slowly, propping himself up on one side on his elbow. His hand turns up, extending, palm-upwards towards Josiah in silent invitation. Josiah stands where he is for a moment. In his red twill pants, brown boots, and blue button-down, he probably looks as out of place as he suddenly feels. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he continues his approach. "I'm glad to hear you're back with us," he says, focusing on the upturned palm. "I was worried." Once at the mattresses, Josiah aims for an unused piece of it to settle down on, slowly, as it feels he should move. "This may not be the question you want to hear, but how are you?" There's a small /twitch/ at the corrner of Dusk's mouth at the question, too brief and too thin to really tell whether or not it might have been the start of a smile or something else. His fingers twitch, too, inwards as though beckoning. And still, he is silent. He swallows, though, hard, and in answer to the question he only slides, slow and a little stiff, across the mattresses a little bit closer to Josiah. His eyes still don't open and perhaps this is why his hand is a little bit slow in its reach, finding Josiah's and curling fingers around it almost tentatively. He pulls the other man's hand closer, drawing Josiah's arm -- around himself. Pulling Josiah's hand /behind/ him, his own arm twisting (with a small wince) to run Josiah's fingers up -- beneath his t-shirt, against his back, until it reaches his shoulderblade. And the twisted knot of torn ruined flesh mangled where his wing /should/ be. He drops his hand back to the mattress, fingers splayed out against it and his slow exhale just a touch shaky. Josiah scoots a bit further onto the mattress pile as his hand is led, knowing where it's going, understanding what has been done. Still, when he actually feels the mass of flesh on Dusks upper back, he winces. "Fuck," is all he can muster for a moment. He takes the opportunity to lie back, sliding his hand out from underneath Dusk's shirt and settling it on his arm. "Why don't we just lay here a bit. You've been through more than I can imagine." Dusk's shoulder twitches, a brief shudder-tremble before he sinks back down to the mattress, head tipping back up to face the ceiling. His hand presses in against his eye, its heel digging in against his eyelid far deeper than it really should be able to press. His other arm tenses, muscle flexing beneath Josiah's hand; eventually his hand comes away from his eye to rest lightly against Josiah's wrist. His fingers curl in, wrapping slow around Josiah's wrist, fingertips coming to rest in against the pulse in the other man's arm. His thumb runs, slow, against the vein, lips parting just enough for a faint glint of fangs in the dim attic light. Eventually he nods at Josiah's suggestion, settling in -- just a little closer. Not quite relaxing, a faint tension still coiled through his lean muscles. In the dark, it's hard for Josiah to notice any of the other damage done to Dusk. Or the fangs, though he knows those are there. So he doesn't think twice when the younger man runs his thumb along his vein. Doesn't understand exactly what happened to Dusk. "You know," he says, leaning heaviy on one side to turn in Dusk's direction, "I may not know you all that well, but I'm just going to come out and say something. This place," he motions to the attic in general with his free arm. "could really benefit from a good maid service." He smiles and searches Dusk's face, bringing his own in further. There's a slight tremble that runs through Dusk's hand, where it grips Josiah's wrist. His face is mostly just -- drawn, a little too pale, shadowed from a lack of sleep, sunken eyes still not opening; his formerly ready smile doesn't appear, in response to Josiah's, though he does draw in a quicker breath as his finger runs against the pulse in the other man's wrist. The comment on the maid service, though, does -- slowly -- pull his lips back a little wider. It's almost a smile; at the least, it does bring his breath shivering back /out/ in a brief, quick, laugh, his shoulders shaking faintly with the quiet sound. His other hand lifts, fingers touching first to the side of Josiah's neck and then trailing up higher. Against his chin -- then the side of his face, like learning its lines, there. Josiah let's out a brief laugh of his own when Dusk expells his. He let's the other man press his hand against his face, even reaching up to give said hand a gentle squeeze as it explores the contours of his head. "Is there anything I can get you?" he asks. "You have plenty of friends running around, and I'm sure they've asked the same thing, but if you there is, let me know." Dusk's fingertips are continuing to trace, gentle and light, against Josiah's face. Against the planes of his cheek, the ridge of his brow, the line of his nose, running against the shape of his face slow and careful. He stops at the question, though. His head tips in, forehead resting against Josiah's. His hand runs down, further, his thumb tracing, now, against Josiah's lips, before his fingers brush back down against the other man's throat, coming to rest against the strong pulse in his neck. His other hand lifts Josiah's from his arm, bringing the man's wrist to his lips. His fingers press back the cuff of the button-down's sleeve, mouth touching soft against skin with a contrastingly hard push of the sharp edges of fangs pressing just past his lips. Josiah still has a grin on his face as Dusk's fingers trace him. He's not exactly happy, given the situation, but it's still there. "Well, this isn't exactly the way I thought this would go, but..." And then he feels Dusk's fangs against his skin, pokey, which causes his to draw his hand away. "Careful with those things, ok?" Dusk's breath catches, head tipping up, his fingers clamping -- inadvertently probably somewhat /too/ tight against Josiah's wrist, there's a considerable amount of strength in his deceptively lean form that he might not be paying the /best/ attention to just at the moment. His other hand drops from Josiah's face to rest, palm flat against his chest, circling once over his heart as his mouth moves in silent -- 'pl--' It's as far as he gets before his fingers slacken their grip, sliding up instead to curl against the side of Josiah's neck. His head tips up, mouth pressing in against the older man's with a sudden fierce intensity, eclipsing, for a time, the rest of the dark attic.