ArchivedLogs:Unhealing

Unhealing
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Kay	2014-04-14 '
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. The safehouse attic is dark, as it generally is. A bit of light filtering in from the windows, but in the back corner where Dusk has taken up residence not a whole lot makes it through. There's one naked bulb up in the ceiling but /he/ certainly never bothers with turning it on. His little alcove back here /was/ originally mattress storage, a tall pile of extra futon mattresses; he's turned it into a slightly less tall pile, three high, two wide. It's walled off on three sides -- one side by the actual wall of the building, the other two by some of the boxes that make up the clutter in here. Propped against the mattresses on the last open side is the backpack that holds all his earthly belongings, in the aftermath of the Lofts fire, currently zipped up closed and leaning half against the mattress pile and half against the boxes. Dusk has been practically a ghost around the safehouse since the raid, reclusive up in his dim-dark attic, never seen at mealtimes though he /does/ poke his head out, regular like clockwork, once each evening for a shower and once each morning to brush his teeth. Presumably pee, while he's in the bathroom. Take a dump. Aside from these things he hasn't left, at least insofar as anyone in the lower levels of the house has seen. At the moment he's tucked in against the wall, in corduroys and a Columbia t-shirt, neatly modified and stitched in back to allow for the giant wings that are no longer there. He's lying on his side, back facing the wall. Eyes closed, of course. The scent of Old Spice on his skin, faintly. Still and silent. Extraneous visitors have been heavily discouraged from taking curious peeks on the attic dweller, possibly leaving meals that might be edible to him out at times near the steps but otherwise leaving their wounded comrade to his privacy. Kay's mounting the stairs is not hesitant or creeping; loose with long legs skipping steps, he doesn't rush to engage the silent Dusk shape once he reaches the top. Whatever else he's doing, it's quiet. Presumably standing where he is for a time. He then approaches. And lets the warm thermal heat of his presence identify him for now. The smell of char and brimstone. His amber eyes are settled on Dusk. Appraising what there is to see. Plates have been taken; in due course left back, empty. Occasional non-extraneous visitors admitted, too, though Dusk hasn't proven a very /conversational/ host. In due course they've been returned as well -- as often as not bleeding. It's possible someone may have affixed a Red Cross logo to the attic door. Dusk doesn't immediately respond, very /much/, to Kay's approach. The only movement in him comes from his /throat/, a noticeable vibration through the very /prominent/ protrusion of his larynx, shifting for a few moments and then settling again. And then he is back to just stillness. In him what there is to see is -- a week-old beard scruffy and dark against his jaw. Eyes oddly sunken-hollow where they sag closed. They hard tension in his lean muscles suggesting he's distinctly Not Asleep, for all his breathing is regular-slow and he hasn't deigned to move. Colour in his cheeks, a healthy-sheen gloss to his messy dark waves of hair. His fingers twitch against the mattress at Kay's approach, a very small flex of muscle rippling up through his shoulderblades reflexively. Curling at the muscle there, stopping as it shifts beneath his shirt. He exhales, very slow. Kay briefly places a palm over his sternum, brows furrowed to try and see if he can feel the vibration Dusk emits. Not likely. He does down to sit on the floor next to the mattressing. "Hey, brother," his voice is kind of scoffy, in a shortened exhale. Grim but it lacks that typical 'sick bed' coaxing inquisition. More offhand. He's brought a set of knitting needle with him, and shortly they begin their quiet steady clicking. "More n more of a full house downstairs these days. You can probably hear it up here. Family on top of fuckin." The steady infernal heat of him doesn't subside. Faint thermal ripples of it that had once filled up open wingsails now only bathing over empty eye sockets and constricting the flesh across the surface of the brow. "Ion on turned up. Dunno if anyone told you." He snorts, "Crazy bastard washed out to god dawn Tennessee on a powerline. We'll be pickin him up soon." Whatever sound -- series of sounds, really -- Dusk makes is pitched out of range of most hearing, most /feeling/, high and faint and quick to fade. Dusk settles back into silence, a quiet still spectre haunting his dark corner of the attic as Kay's knitting needles start their rhythmic clicking. He listens, though. Quiet as Kay speaks. Quiet /after/ Kay speaks. He's slow to stir again, one hand moving only with what seems like a great effort: 'Ion?' It's a name-sign J.C. gave the exuberant electrokinetic, an adaptation of the sign for ALIVE that, instead of simply bringing the hands straight /up/ the body swerves them wavy-jagged like the sign for LIGHTNING. It should be done two-handed; lying on his side, he uses only one, the ASL equivalent, perhaps, of half-asleep slurring your words. And, after this: 'Good.' His hand thuds back to the mattress. His shoulders curl inwards, slight and wilting. He tries again -- touches his chest, touches his ear, 'I hear...' But then just stops. His hand falls again, fingers splaying out against the mattress. Kay makes a quiet somewhat pleased heh to see Ion's name, "Yeah. He'll be glad to know you're out, too. He sounded cut up when he realized he hadn't grabbed you." And without censure adds, "You'd have probably nuked if he had. Not a good way to go." The needles continue their steady clicking, pausing only for him to unspool a few more feet of slack, "Sounds like they got a healer type that'll be able to get your sight back." Dusk's head tips, slightly, faint acknowledgment, perhaps, with the assessment that teleporting out with Ion would have been disastrous. His shoulders twitch again, a small ripple of muscle that curls them out towards Kay before he sinks back against the mattress. At the mention of his sight, he swallows. His hand lifts, pressing in against his eye, and then drops again. Slowly he rolls over, onto his back with a small shudder as his shoulders press flat down. His teeth bare, fangs clenched hard and his grimace turned up towards the ceiling. His hands both come up, splaying in across his face -- it's /almost/ like the sign for DARK. Or SHADOW. Except they stay there, palms just pressed in, flat, hands draped over his face and hiding, now, his sunken eyes. His shoulders press back against the mattress, his breath hissing out between his teeth. Then drawn in again, as his fingers dig in downwards, compressing the empty space beneath his eyelids to sink it down onto the nothingness beneath. His shoulders lift slowly in a shrug. Accepting Kay's words or dismissing them, it's heavy and resigned and hard to really say. There is a gradual lean throughout Kay's long torso, further and further back until the fulcrum center of his balance tips and he's lying back along the mattress, head resting near, if not ON Dusk. Still knitting, he props an ankle on a knee. For a while, that's about it. The temperature remains warm and dry, Kay's pulse is steady and strong. The muffled noises downstairs are familiar, voices and footsteps. The thump and scramble of some passing scuffle. Laughter fading where someone heads deeper into the basement. "Something else," Kay adds, in time. Dusk shifts, just a touch, on the mattress, a subtle movement that puts him very slighly farther from Kay, though this doesn't noticeably relax him. Unsurprising; he hasn't been noticeably relaxed since he returned. His face remains turned up towards the ceiling, and for a time he just stays like this; if not relaxed at least /calm/ about just lying in the still not-quite-quiet of the attic. His head tips, when Kay eventually breaks the non!silence. Brows raising. The regained distance doesn't seem to put Kay out any - he doesn't really seem to notice at all. "We're looking into ways to un/clip/ you while we're at, brother." Dusk drags in a breath, slow and rasping. His shoulders /twitch/, a shuddery jerk that curls them both inward, body rocking slightly forward to pull his shoulderblades up off the mattress. He rolls over, propping himself up on his elbows. His shirt hangs oddly, in back, where once his clothing -- for all it was /simple/ -- was neatly fitted, now equipped with holes for limbs that are just -- gone, hacked off ruins of things where his wings once were. Beneath the t-shirt, his shoulders twitch again, his breathing rasping out hoarse again. His fingers clench down against the mattress. Hard, the muscles in his forearms tensing up into firm definition. "Problem is," Kay carries right on, steady and watching Dusk from his sprawl on the mattress, "For all the options we're looking at, they all depend on you not healing /over/ back there in the mean time." His own muscles are coiling faintly, abdominals pulling tighter. Dusk's fingers clench. Unclench. Clench. Unclench. His muscles twitch-jump with the motions. His head turns towards Kay, breathing slow. The word 'options' makes his shoulderblades ripple-flex again, his brows lifting in silent expectant questioning, his own stomach tensing, breath caught and held. "This healer gal they got. Uh, Kate?" That little shk-shk sound is Kay itching behind an ear with a knitting needle. "I guess she'd got a harder time healing shit you don't see on the average body. Think she's already set to give that Rasa kid her leg back. And she'll get your eyes easy. But for a sweet rack of wings like yours..." He sits up as well, rocking his legs first up, then down to weigh it out. "She'll gonna need some time. /We're/ gonna need some time. Til she looks over a few," slightly bitter 'hah!' "/bats/. Or other freaks with wings." His head turns towards Dusk, "Or til I find the mother fuckin wearing yours around. And take 'em right back again." Dusk makes a quiet exhalation at the name Kate, some recognition ticking something quietly in his features. His teeth grind, though, head giving a small shake at the word /time/. Slowly he presses himself up further -- with a /wince/, a grit of teeth as his weight shifts up onto a leg lamed and badly healed. His hands move down, fingers curling into the hem of his shirt to pull it up and off, finally. Then drop with a quiet whump back down onto his elbows. His head bows, his shoulders curling down to bare the -- well, it's ugly, back there. Whoever took his wings off did a /hack/ job of it, mangled flesh, uneven splinters of bone; where they were sawed off and torn away it's rough-hewn and mutilated and knitted back together knobby-knotted and messy. But it /is/ knitted back together, red-raw but closed, healing factor well fed and well rested these past ten days, its work is near done. His fingers lift to pull up at an eyelid -- baring empty socket behind before he lets it fall back into place, only clean new healed muscle /there/, with no bone to heal and only soft tissue to seal up it's had an even easier job of healing. His fingers tap against his wrist when they drop back to the mattress. Where a watch might be, were he wearing one. And turn his hands up, palms empty. But -- then. Slightly. Shifting one shoulder down to angle its blade towards Kay. And drawing in a slow breath as though he's /bracing/ himself. "Hff." There a sound of movement; a removal of fingerless gloves. Either of Kay's palms are hearthside warm when they come to rest on the back of Dusk's shoulders. Soothing to sore muscles and ragged bone fragments. And for a moment, they massage. Unflinching from the gnarled of scarring. Exploring the bone structure beneath. "...it'll hurt like hell." He comments, at length. Adds, "Probably less. For the eyes." Under Kay's hands, Dusk's shoulders are tense and quivering, hard coils of scarred knotted-up muscle that press up into the warmth. His breathing can be felt, slow. Deep. And for a time he just lets this warmth ease through the sore injuries. He exhales a long breath, an odd shivery /release/ of tension when Kay says it will hurt. His head bows. The firm set of his elbows against the mattress lets him bring his hands together, for a moment, beneath his bowed head. Perhaps in prayer. When he finally pushes to his feet it's slow and uneven; his left leg still doesn't entirely /like/ taking weight. But it's not /unhesitant/. His head tips off towards the window to the roof. It's going to be messy and he has to sleep /here/, after all. The corresponding exhale from Kay matches Dusk's, and he stands as well. Dusting off his hands on the seat of his pants. "You'll have to ration your blood intake, too. Cut back on snacking. Up your daily doses of flat fucking fury." It's not actually... teasing. It's a warning. But it's said light enough to be more in passing, as he heads to the window. Shoves it open with a grunt. And begins to untie the black bandana from his bicep. And begins to double it over around a fist. Gripping it tight enough the fiber creaks. Dusk will need something to bite down on. "Let's get you un-healed."