ArchivedLogs:Vigil

Vigil
Dramatis Personae Jim, Masque, Nox
In Absentia	2013-05-20 Masque is returned to his cell after his latest fight. His cellmates tend to him. (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. "See you on the other side." Those had been the last words Masque had flatly spoken earlier today, the moment he felt the now familiar effects of his PCP-laced food set in. He'd pondered throwing up, but what was the point, truly? He was going to go in either way. At the very least, this way it would be painless. And thank your-deity-of-choice for that - because the body brought back to the perpetually lit cell today is not in any kind of shape to be aware of his injuries. The man known as Masque is not moving when he is dumped onto a bunk of his very own, face down, one bruised arm sticking awkwardly out from his shoulder, limp and the angle all /wrong/. The hand that was previously bandaged now is not, showing stitched up but ragged tears running across both sides of his palm, and the fingers are bruised and swollen and all clearly broken save for his thumb. His left hand, in comparison, looks much better with just the shallow puncture wounds that run along it, both arms and half of his torso. One leg-- doesn't seem quite right either. Also at an awkward angle, though upon closer inspection one might find that the worst damage there is heavy bruising and a popped-outta-place kneecap. His head is a different story. The worse-looking side of his face has never quite looked this bad. His nose is broken again, a trail of dried blood meeting with another originating from his mouth. Where about half a dozen teeth are missing. The side of his face and ear is scraped open and raw, as though he was heavily dragged over some concrete, and the oncoming bruising is nearly as bad as the swelling that has overtaken his broken cheekbone and brow arch and a large part of his jaw, mouth and both eyes. Though his wifebeater had been pretty shredded before, now his clothing is hardly more than tatters. And covered in tiny little bits of... flesh? Skin? Bone? All of the above. His chest rises and falls slowly, either through the remainders of the drugs still coursing through his veins, or the fact that he may have taken a pretty nasty blow to the head. The blood in his all-too-crooked nose or throat can't help much. All in all, it does not look like he will be getting up any time soon. Jim has been doing a lot of sitting. In his kiddypool of dirt. Everyone knows the old hobo sit, with legs splayed out and loosely bent at the knees in what would normally dig heels into the ground. He has more dug than heels dug in, a latticing of root systems sunk in and fanned out. You'd TRIP on them if you were... walking through his little 4x4 circle of soil. See you on the other side... Masque had said. And Jim had probably given him a salute. He'd been sitting then and he's sitting here now. He doesn't even seem aware of the men that carry Masque in. Just Masque, as though even unconscious and broken he was the only company of much interest, eyes following every floppy bruised motion of limbs. And then the men are gone. And Jim is still sitting. He has no heart to count beats by. And no lungs to hold breath in. But he's watching Masque's chest until - okay. He's breathing. Jim doesn't relax. Doesn't tighten up. But after a few immortal moments, treebark creaks and clicks, dry branches rustle. And he withdraws and reabsorbs his roots into his legs, pushes forwards. And moves to look down at the older man in the cot. And then his broken arm, his fingers, head turning with a slow crunch of plant-matter readjusting for human movement to look down at his leg. He's managed to prop up his good hand with a collective knot of short stub branches. So he has fingers. He reaches down to tug at the mess of Masque's shirt, tipping head to see if there's any new injuries dwelling beneath. Nox has been poor company from last night to this one. Brought in nearly catatonic, the woman was all but poured into her cardboard box--their cell is surely the most cluttered on the block. Mostly she has slept, or appeared to. Looking inside of the box might have occasionally shown a Nox with her dark eyes wide open but fixed on the cardboard so close to her nose. The collar and bracelets they have left on her prevent even the respite of shadow form. But she made it through the night, the day, the next evening. If she was aware of Masque being taken, no signs emerged from The Box. Several minutes after his forced departure, however, it shivers. Several minutes after that, it shakes and then she emerges, crawling on hands and knees, with head down, wearing nothing but her restraints. The light seems brighter today, or maybe that’s just one’s imagination. Without speaking, she took a seat beside Jim’s earth pool, sitting in half-lotus, eyes again appearing to focus on nothing at all. But some company is better than none, yes? She is absent-mindedly rubbing at some of the marks on her arm--if those white streaks itch, she must be in torment from the way they cover her entire body--when the door clangs open and Masque is deposited. She waits, as Jim does. She studies Masque, as Jim does. And then she rises, as Jim does. Where Jim moves to check his torso, she lowers a hand to gently smooth blood-streaked hair back behind his ear. “Alive.” This word doesn't seem to bring much joy to Jim. Then again, it's difficult to pinpoint just how many small human mannerisms require breath to convey themselves. There is no tempest sighs nor sucking of air through teeth. No grow. No keen. Just shrewd faded blue eyes that snap over the broken man like he's considering riffling through his pockets. He'd made no complaint for the company of Nox up to now; the two silent together and side by side, very little human between them, in some terrible parody of a different night, in a different world. He drops Masque's shirt and, as Nox smoothes back the old bastard's hair, Jim turns away sharply and marches the fuck off like the whole thing's disgusted him. He grabs onto the rim of their water bucket with plant-fiber muscles coiled as though intending to /throw/ it at the side wall. And then stands up with it, moves back to Nox's side, and sets it down beside her. Slosh. The funny thing is, for how crowded their three-man cell has become, only one amongst them has much use for the cots. Jim rips the sheets off like a tree in a nightmare, hunting small children, and brings them to Nox as well. Deja vu upon deja vu. The evening plays out like a bad dream echoing others. Nox sinks to her knees beside the cot. She doesn’t startle when the bucket is deposited beside her. Maybe she expected it. Maybe she is simply detached from everything around her again--and that seems the likelier option, given how she croons to Masque as she smooths his hair, bringing it to something like tidiness with the comb of her fingers. Jim gains more of a reaction when he returns with the sheets. She looks blankly up at him before accepting the bundle of cloth. It ends in her lap and her fingers wander the edge, looking for thinner territory. Not difficult to find, given the quality of sleeping material they’ve been provided with. RRRRRRIP, she begins a tear, then /continues/ to tear. With...perhaps more force than is truly needed to separate the cloth into strips. While Nox rips, Jim's moved on to bigger and better things. Well. No, there's nothing big left in this dank little world and not a lot to make it 'better', but he's not paying the shadow woman much mind save a few quick glances at the purry sound of ripping cloth. He's moving around to the side of Masque's cot to be moving the man onto his back in a more natural position. He moves slow, checking what he's touching for breaks or secret messages or hidden clues or whatever there is to find there. He only has one fully five-fingered hand. But the other has a bona fide /palm/ on it still, and a few nubs where fingers had been stretched away like taffy and broken off at around the first knuckle into points. There's a little bone left in them, though. Totally works. The floppy-misaligned arm slows him down, and he frowns. Drums his fingernubs on Masque's forearm once. Then drums them again. Considering. Then just lifts up a knee, braces it on Masque's bony shoulder, and bears /down/. POP. Dislocation /solved/. Throughout, Nox has been busily tearing cloth into strips. Or continuing to do so. Probably far, far beyond their needs but she’s fallen into something of a groove. Riiiip. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiip. Riiiiiiip. The rhythm is broken only when Jim braces himself to force bone back into socket. /Then/ her hands free and a ripple goes through her, easily read as a shudder when seen in concert with the way she closes her eyes. “The first. Twenty-four hours. They say. They say these are critical,” she whispers once the tremor is done. “There is blood in his ears, James.” Or maybe that should be “perhaps we should not get our hopes up”. And yet. The strips are gathered. One is collected, folded into a neat, thick square and then dipped into the water. She’s performed this service for Masque before and here she is, performing it again. She begins to clean the dirt, the sweat, the spit, the blood and the muscousy /whatever that is/ from his skin, beginning with the half a face presented to her. Jim nods, his eyes locked on that same ear, the blood smearing Masque's face. The way he's paused to scratch at the back of his head make the nod look absurdly casual. Like 'yep. that is blood alright'. He taps at the side of his jaw - it's a heavy jaw, and it's not better for the perpetua-grit it's been slung forward in - to make note of another thing to add to the list of shit that Wasn't Like That when they took Masque out to the shop. He touches around on Masque's swollen knee but gives up on it in only a second - water on the knee isn't a condition that can really be fixed - and he moves back to his little dirt pile where he has a pile of shredded broken off sticks and hard lengths of treebark he'd ripped off his arm while fixing it. Who would have thought he'd be using them. Bringing them back to the side of the cot, he kneels down (trees are /good/ at kneeling, Jim's feet expanding into knots and tangles that root his weight solidly). Taking Masque's broken hand... well. There are fingers to set. Crngh. Sklkch. Each one is then splinted with a branch chunk, tied off with a Nox-made strip of sheet. To tie them, he must utilize his free hand and his teeth. It ain't pretty, but he makes do. Every chitter of bone grinding against bone makes Nox pause. She shudders, like horsehide under flies, then returns to sponging the gunk from their patient. There is a great deal of gunk to sponge. Fortunately, they have plenty of makeshift bandages. Less water but she will concern herself with that when it comes time. As she works, she seems to be compelled to speak. Not smoothly but in fits and starts. Quiet interjections, between the more brutal sounds that fill the cell. “When he. When he first came. To us,” she tells Jim. “He healed. Many. If one was hurt. Sometimes...he healed more than was needed. His. Vision of healing. But he did many good things. For us. Before that stopped.” Nox dabs more carefully at the clots filling the bowl of Masque’s ear. “Perhaps it was only to...make certain. We would keep him. He would say it was so.” Jim makes a movement that is kind of like a convulsion of his abdominal muscles. Clench. Clench. Gradual relaxing. If you cross that with the tightening of crows feet around Jim's eyes, you'd almost think it was a bitter laugh. But silent. Maybe it's also just a cough. He pushes back Masque's upper lip, looks inward at his broken teeth, grimacing. Closes the mouth again and leans over to listen to his breathing. Then moves away again. When he returns, it's with Masque's red coat. He nudges Nox vaguely with a hip, gesturing that, by his frown, he seems to feel its important to get him covered? He jerks a head at another scratchy blanket nearby as well. How many cloths has she soiled on Masque so far? They’re piled against the wall, dirty things, discarded. She’s returned to smoothing his hair when Jim returns with the coat but it takes the nudge to draw her attention. Again--deja vu--she looks blankly up at the man. Then it clicks and Nox nods, rising stiffly, like a woman three times her age, to secure the blanket. An outstretched hand will stay Jim from laying the coat down first. /Blanket/ first, smoothed carefully over the unconscious man, before the coat’s allowed to drape over his body. Red can mean a lot of things. Maybe in this instance, she intends it to be a small show of defiance, marking the person beneath it for who he is--and not what they’ve made of him. Then she retreats. Not back to her box, or to Jim’s miniature garden. She sits heavily on the opposite bunk. Settling in under the harsh and constant lights for the night’s vigil. And Jim, silently, beside her. It's not relaxation. They're tense. Watching. But he puts in his roots, slowly working them through the soil, taking pains to not form a /knot/ or bump beneath the shadowy rump of his company. His branches expand, too; not far, not wide. Not leafy, save a few pale spades of a yellow-green color that has never known sunlight. They form a thicker block of shade on the innermost side of the cage, where the shadow woman has positioned herself. And, as before, they return to sitting. Listening. A night's vigil or possibly some dirty-basement funeral wake. And they wait.