ArchivedLogs:We Fight

We Fight
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Isra	2013-10-23 '
Location <NYC> The Roost - Village Lofts - East Village
Dusk's bedroom is a messy place as might be expected, cluttered with books and clothing, forgotten dishes, boxes of Magic cards, other miscellany. His bed is not 'bed' so much as 'mattress on the floor'; though there /is/ a full bed against the opposite wall, it's neatly made and has been untouched for a while. His desk holds the desktop -- somewhat literally. /Far/ more elaborate of a setup than his lack-of-bed, the desk /itself/, with see-through glass body and softly glowing lights inside, has been configured to /be/ the computer case. Closer inspection of a pair of small decorative aquariums sitting to either side of its three monitors finds them to /also/ be computer cases, their inner workings submerged in a pale blue liquid on a bed of aquarium pebbles alongside plastic plants and little plastic castles or fake coral. Things are getting quieter, around the refugee apartments; not so much for lack of people (although a few of them HAVE begun trickling back to their old lives or starting out to build new ones) but for a greater sense of routine and familiarity, more people pitching in to help or venturing out to /find/ things to do rather than waiting around dazed to be /told/ what to do. Geekhaus is still noisy, still a hub for people looking for relaxation. Dusk is not relaxing, just shut away in his room -- possibly to avoid the crowds. In his usual home attire of jeans, no shoes, no shirt, he’s perched on a stool in front of his desktop, two out of three of its monitors filled at the moment with varying snips of code and the last showing a map currently focused on the United States, varying locations pinging with little variably-coloured thumbtacks. He’s not /alone/ in his room although it is silent other than the hum of his computer and the satisftying click-click-click of his fingers on his keyboard (solid black; none of its keys are actually labeled.) On his mattress lies Hive, in soft flannel plaid pajama pants and a Xavier’s school sweatshirt. He looks like he’s sleeping, at first glance, nestled on his side under the covers, but at second look his eyes are open, unfocused and staring vacantly ahead. By the time Isra makes it to Geekhaus, she has already emptied most of the canvas bags and the cooler she brought to the building. The remaining bag of groceries has a blue ribbon tied to its handle. She wears a long, flowing cloak of heavy dark gray fabric with a shorter green hooded capelet just long enough to cover her wings when they are folded in. Ducking inside without invite or remark, she transfers the contents of the blue ribbon bag--instant noodles, cereal, trail mix, and crackers--into the cupboard. She drops the empty bag on top of the cooler with the others and goes to Dusk's room. The cloak and the long black skirt she wears beneath it fall around her ankles, only ten inches off the ground, and make her gait look even more like a gliding stalk than usual. She hesitates at the door, ears flattening back, but finally knocks on it. "Yep," comes the answer from inside the room, Dusk's rapid typing halting as he glances towards the door. He doesn't stand, but one wing stretches far out to hook claws against the doorknob; it takes a few rattling tries before he twists it and lets the door fall open. "Oh, you!" His tone brightens considerably when he notes Isra at the door. "Hey." "I hope I am not disturbing you." One of Isra's wings slips out from beneath the handkerchief hem of her green capelet to caress Dusk's wing. Her eyes fix on him only briefly, then dart to Hive, the faintest frown creasing her hairless brows. "He is still in there." It isn't a question, but there is a hint of fearful doubt between the clear alto and rumbling bass of her voice. "Nah. You're kind of the most welcome /break/ from disturbing I've had all day." Dusk's wing brushes back slowly against Isra's, lingering to rest up against hers. His eyes shift back to Hive, a tired tightness creeping into his expression. He shakes his head, his other wing brushing over Hive's arm with no response. "I don't know. I don't know where he is. It's harder to get him back every time." Isra steps into the room, unlatches the antique bronze clasp of her cloak, and shrugs first her arms, then her wings out of their respective openings. Her wrap tunic is sky blue and edged in white satin--not unlike the others she had made, though her craftsmanship has improved somewhat. A flash of pain and helplessness cuts through her at the idea of /not/ getting Hive back, but her expression does not change. She just crouches down beside him and stretches out a hand to touch his cheek the way one might check on a feverish child. "It has been a trying week. I wanted to see how you were doing." "You make that one?" Dusk eyes the tunic with an appraising glance, gaze skimming down over it and then back up to Isra's face. "S'getting nicer." His wing remains against hers, rubbing slowly. A slow swallow rolls down his throat, and he looks away as Isra touches Hive's cheek with no response. "It's been a trying week," he acknowledges quietly. "I'm -- kind of tried." Isra nods. "Thank you. I started looking at outerwear patterns, too, but could not muster the time or energy to try them. That," she indicates, with a tip of horned head, the cloak now pooled at the foot of Dusk's bed, "came from a Renaissance faire merchant." Adjusting her skirt so that she can kneel in reasonable comfort--not a simple proposition with digitigrade legs--she half-turns to Dusk. Her wing stretches out and cups his head in the crook of the thumb joint. "Can you not rest, even if only for a little while?" "Do you want to try some? I'm actually starting on some new things for winter soon. I could show you." Dusk eyes the cloak contemplatively. "I should try more cloaks, they're probably way more comfortable than squeezing these things," his wings shiver briefly, "under coats." His head turns, nestling into the touch of her wing, his eyes closing as his cheek presses up against her. "Oh, I get plenty of sleep. It's just -- with everything that's --" He exhales slowly, his wing curling against the outside of hers, holding hers against his cheek. "Even asleep it's hard to shake everything on my mind. I think I've made some bad choices lately," he admits quietly. "-- I think I might be making some more again soon." "I would like to, before the weather gets too cold." Isra's wings curl in toward her, tugging at Dusk gently. "That cloak is fine for autumn, but it will not be adequate in the depth of winter. After keeping these bound for so long, though, I would rather not do it anymore if I can avoid it." She puts a hand on his knee. It's easy to forget how long her limbs are. "I do not know what choices those were, nor the circumstances under which you made them. However, I do know you are compassionate and selfless, so I can only imagine they were difficult in the extreme." At some point along the line, she seems to have ceased blinking. "Sometimes there /are/ no good choices. Just ones you can live with." Dusk slides down off his stool, moving with the tug of Isra's wing to move in closer to her. He kneels beside her, his wing curving in to run behind hers, press up against her back. "Some days I'm not sure I can," he admits in a very soft voice. "But then I remember everyone in my life who --" His dark eyes lift to hers, a distinct brightness glistening in them. "I've still got a lot to live for." He tips his head forward, forehead resting against Isra's shoulder. "-- Jax almost died in there. Because of me. I know he looked alright when we got back but -- there was a healer -- without them he'd probably be dead. And I --" His wing squeezes in tighter. "We see so many terrible things. It feels sometimes like there's never going to be an end to them." Though this sentence finishes a little bit quieter, "-- if we don't make one." Isra mantles her wings and re-settles them around Dusk, encasing the two in a cocoon of leathery wings. "And yet Jax lives, as do you, and the people you rescued." She rests her cheek against Dusk's hair. "But yes, those labs are still out there, and they will continue doing terrible things--even if people know and find them unacceptable. How can we make an end to that? The government..." Her body suddenly goes quite still, though not tense as might be expected. "You are talking about a revolution." "It's not just the labs. It's the whole fucking world, Isra, I don't -- do you remember at the church. The man who -- was ordering -- he drove the truck through the frakking wall." Dusk's head shakes, slightly. "He was there at the lab. He /had/ the powers of a -- one of the captives there. Killed her, to take them. Then used them to try and kill Jax. He saw Jax's boys later. Told the pups he was just going to keep trying -- to kill him. And he /is/ the government, this is all -- our own fucking state trying to --" "Revolution. Yeah. But we don't have time for marches and chants and sit-ins when they're out there every day murdering us." He lifts his head, only to bonk it back down against Isra's shoulder again, leaning in close at her side. His own wings pull in tight against his back now, posture as compact as it's really possible to be for him. "-- I think I'm talking about a war." "War..." The word rumbles deep in Isra's chest like muffled and distant thunder. "...on the most powerful government in the world. Men like that one are waging war on us already." Her hands gather him close, holding him wings and all to the muscular planes of her chest. "Whether we can even win such a conflict is a moot question now. /How/ we fight back is not, but we will fight back." Her hands tighten on him, talons digging into the bare skin of his shoulder and his side. "You are not alone, and they are not the whole world." "Men like him are slaughtering my friends. My family. And telling us straight up that they won't stop." Dusk's breathing is slow, his body relaxing in against Isra's when he is gathered closer. Those steady breaths catch, though, at the press of her talons to her skin; he doesn't pull away, but leans in closer, his hands moving to slide around her, beneath her wings, fingers resting at the small of her back. There's a very long stretch of silence. It's quiet, though, soft but steadily determined when he tells her: "We're going to kill him." "That is what people do in wars." Isra's voice is level, soft, and almost all bass now. "But there is no right side in a war. Only survivors." She curls around Dusk, limbs intertwined and . "So we must take this man down." Her hand cups his chin and tilts his face up. Her cat green eyes hold his, at once placid and intense. "It's going to take more than tooth and claw, isn't it?" Dusk's dark eyes lift to hers, bright but steady. "I have friends," he says, softly. "Who can help. They've helped me before. Helped a lot of us before. I think they've been -- ready for war for a long time." His fingers press in more firmly to Isra's back. "-- It's going to take everything we have. But if we don't fight /they'll/ take everything we have, so --" His wing twitches, a small quick shrug. "So we fight. I'd kill every last one of his kind of people if that's what it /took/ to keep ours safe." Isra's expression softens a little. "The hard part is knowing /his kind/. Because that's probably exactly what he thinks about /our kind/. As it is in every war, I suppose." Her thumb talon brushes over Dusk's cheek lightly. "But it takes two parties or more to make peace, and he will not. So, we fight." She leans in and presses her lips to Dusk's forehead, letting out a long, fluttering breath. Dusk's head turns, a little reckless in its quick nuzzle in against Isra's hand with its sharp talons. "-- We fight," he agrees, quiet but fierce. His head tips up, after Isra's kiss, and when he returns it it is with lips pressed to lips, firmer and fiercer than he has before, his fingertips pressing in at the small of her back. The sound that rises from Isra's chest is fierce and low, somewhere between a growl and a purr. She leans into the kiss, gathering Dusk close with a wing and an arm, her other hand sliding down to his neck, talons gripping his shoulder. When she breaks away--breathless, huge lung capacity notwithstanding--she bites her lower lip, elongated canines digging deep into the darker gray of the skin there. Hesitantly, she brings one fist to her chest, over the heart, and then taps the index finger of the same hand to his. Dusk's hand slides up against Isra's back, holding her closer against him. His mouth presses harder to hers, deep, lips parting against Isra's. He rests his forehead against hers when she breaks away, cheeks flush and his own breath quicker. His lips curl up into a fanged smile, after this, his fist moving to his chest as well. His hand lifts after this, cupping the side of Isra's face as his mouth touches softly to hers once more.