ArchivedLogs:When God Closes a Door...

When God Closes a Door...
Dramatis Personae Ash, Kay, Noah Ringe
In Absentia	2014-03-02 You punch a freaking hole in the wall and jump for it.
Location A construction site somewheres
The crew for the construction on the group of residential apartments has something quite nice for lunch nearby: well, considering. There's a circle of trucks with a variety of food within walking distance on the site, as it's close to a patch of commercial buildings. So for the most part, the workers find delicious hot food over that way, and leave the direct vicinity of the apartments. It has just so happened that upon returning to the site just past lunch, one of the workers suddenly bolted down out of the upper floor, crossing himself and yammering about that the devil has taken over the building and marked it with his evil. Perhaps it's an indian burial ground. ...And so on. He explains this very rapidly to the foreman, who looks dubious and uninterested about some crazy sighting. Hard to believe, particularly with it being afternoon, but the worker is clearly frenzied about it. Emergent from the lunchy-warm smells steaming off vendor carts, Kay and Ash make a casual duo. Beanpole-built, exceptionally tall and exceptionally wiry-lean, Kay's worn-out skinny jeans and calf-high steel toes swing his bony hips under a black leather jacket, unzipped and swinging open from a t-shirt with a skull and crossbones on it, a red beanie hat, fingerless gloves carrying a MASSIVE hoagie sandwich. The cold doesn't seem to affect him much - stand close enough to feel the subtle heat radiant from his proximity and you might suspect why. His ongoing attempt to coax Ash to let him drive a backhoe ("-come ON man get that beast UNDER me, I'll do her RIGHT-") fades off as they near the construction site once again. And the commotion erupting by the foreman. "Trouble in paradise?" he asks serenely through a full-cheek. Ash is carrying a likewise large hoagie, but he has already started into his. He's not as tall and not as thin as his companion, and definitely a little bit browner. He's dressed in a brown canvas, treated coat with leggings to match, the thick material coated with dirt and grime from work. He pauses where he is and blinks rapidly at the commotion that has come up. He frowns a little and glances over to Kay, reaching up to wipe at his mouth before looking over at the construction site. "I... guess. It's weird, man, because he's usually such a solid guy. I suppose we ought to go check it out. Wanna hunt some demons, flame-o?" They're not the only ones who are reacting in a manly way about it. At least one guy has already started up the stairwell of the incomplete apartments, clearly certain nothing will be found there. Interior work isn't so bad, since it's not quite as cold inside, besides. But demons appearing out of nowhere will PROBABLY slow work down a little bit. As of now, the building looks unassuming and no different than it did before lunch. The 'demon' isn't making any obvious moves. Perhaps the guy just ate a bad fish taco. For now the foreman resolves it by putting him on another outdoor task and 'encouraging' everyone to get their asses back to work. Kay's eyes fix on the building, exposing a crooked-and-chewing grin as hard and ferocious as a broadsword, "I have gone my whole life wanting to be asked that." With all that long leg, he has to kind of show-pony prance his way over piled sack of cement, swing his hips wide around a passing wheelbarrow, generally falling innocently in line behind Ash as they breach the outer barrier to the construction zone. Presumably, Ash will toss him a hard hat to at least make a passing /nod/ to construction site safety codes, which Kay will wear with an even WIDER shit-eater grin. By the time they reach the building proper, the wildest of the mania has smelted down to a little more casual-assessing, commenting, "All the civvies are gonna make this messy, if I gotta light up. How're you packing for topsoil?" "Why do you think it's something real? I'm figuring some possum on rabies came up here and scared the shit out of the guy. Poo smears making it seem all bewitchy and the creature making all sorts of noise." Ash does hand him a hard hat, strapping on his own as he heads up into the building to where the worker claimed to see the demon go down. "Or maybe, there's a drop cloth flapping on the wall and someone had a little not kosher during lunch and probably needs a tox screen before he gets back to work." Even so, he's a little tense. "We got cinder blocks on every floor." He's good. The guy on the stairs, let's call him Daniel, disappears up into the building. A little bit later, there's a truly horrible noise that emits from the stair, the windows, the whole place throbs with the sound, despite that it only lasts for about two seconds in length. Sounds similar to a shriek, possibly a giant demon cat being twisted into a knot. It carries no emotion, just a horribly eerie, ghastly note that makes the air throb against eardrums just slightly, suggestive of how high up in pitch it may go. It would mesh perfectly with a horror movie, to generate chills. ........That'd have to be one HELL of a opossum. Daniel doesn't come running out, either. "Y'know it's funny?" with head tipped down, observing from under the shelf of his hardhat, Kay's amber eyes track a few construction workers as they pass him by - one or two glance back at him, unusual visitor that he is, "It's not really a demon I'd be wanting to keep my eyes-." The rest is ripped away with this sudden explosive sound, leanwiry body locking up into a braced tension, all the humor is wiped off Kay's wind-beaten face. It ages him badly to lose it. He glances only once to Ash, wired, his hair on end, his eyes LIVELY - "Noisy dropcloth." - and then he's /off/, piston-springing legs taking two stairs to a stride. Ash just gives a noncommittal shrug to Kay's initial comment, his eyes drifting upwards as he hears the explosion. He pauses, frowning, eyeing Kay as he bolts, then takes off after him, matching the two at a time stride, but working a little bit harder to do so. He's eerily quiet now, the loose blocks in the area giving a hum of vibration as he passes, heading on to see what is going on. Oh, it's fine, there's Daniel, at the top of the stairs. Except that he's leaned way back, against gravity: as if he should be toppling backwards down the stairs, both arms out and back, head backwards and loose. If he falls, he'll probably take some serious injury. But he chooses NOT to do that (although 'choose' is the wrong term) because he's yanked up towards the ceiling by the front of belt, hauled directly upwards into the partially open ceiling sections, by a big black -something- that's sitting up in there. A part of the creature hangs into the hallway: seven feet or so of horrid twisting black tail is present in a slight curl: broad as a limb and covered in gruesome black shiny spines particularly towards the end, like a stegosaur's tail. "Oooopsy," is said (and not terribly quietly), in a raspy voice type one would expect out of a young, very heavy smoker. Not fire, but /heat/ rises with Kay as he ascends, felt like a sudden thick thermal of air that ruffles puckishly through sweet Daniel's hair and clothes. "Oh HO HO HO," the grimest of Kay's features fall back with an instant bright /excitement/ when his head cranes back (and then back /further/), like seeing a long-lost friend, "Get a load of YOU." He actually sounds - charmed? Gleeful? Completely fucking manic? He comes to a stop at the landing below the black THING hanging down through the ceiling. "Boy are you spinning /crop/ circles pulling this shit in broad slap-ass daylight." As eager as his crackly-vulpine voice may be, he is shamelessly /coiled/ down his legs, weight pressed forwards onto toes as though just itching for a /reason/ to move. His hands are open and empty, poor hoagie abandoned in the stairwell. Maybe he'll find it later. His body shifts to make room for Ash to fall in alongside him without seeming to even notice, "-s'your name, guy? Or's it 'gal'?" Ash sidles in right beside Kay, his face cool as stone, his eyes narrowed at the dark creature before him. He rolls his jaw from left to right and back again before swallowing hard. He blinks once more before glancing at Kay and then over at Daniel, before locking eyes on Noah. "You mind putting my coworker down? He's a pretty decent guy, all things considered, and the hazard pay around here isn't that great. Set him down easy, let him get out of here, he'll be good and not cause you any more trouble." The thing on the ceiling seems perhaps mentally slow. Or unaware. Or just very still, for a few long moments. It has no face at all, no eyes. And due to position, it's probably really hard to find where the head is; he's just a crouched black mess of spikes and distended, bizarre limbs. He seems to be thinking. "Kkkkkk," he scrapes, as if grinding various spines together. "'e was gon' fall down the stairs, 'e passed out, he's a scaredycat. I'm a /hero/," the black creature rasps, and promptly lowers Daniel. He's got him by the front belt with talons on a long, narrow black limb. Obviously Daniel doesn't stand on his own, and but Noah wobbles and shakes him all over: ... trying to get him loose from where his talons are now caught on the man's belt. It'd be humorous if it wasn't clearly starting to get towards a shaking level that might end up throwing the guy somewhere. "This place was empty!" he adds, agitated, as if that was his main defense. Since nobody was USING it, he came in. "Yeah, well," Kay's head is tipped slightly to the right, one eye squinted as he darts eyes all over the /thing/creature, like he's trying to find its god damn head. Or maybe he's still pondering the gender and looking for dangly bits, "It's not gonna be empty for long, hero." He slowly is easing into a long arachnid-smooth crouch-walk up the last flight of stairs, not seeming particularly concerned with the flopping body off the end of Noah's limb. And more concerned with tossing a quick look back down the stairs to listen for any other approaching workers. "You got some kind of escape plan worked out, genius, or'd you bumble in here /looking/ to start shit?" "Hey, I totally appreciate it, Hero. I can understand people getting a little spooked, but the place was only empty during lunch. We've got a whole crew waiting outside and starting to head in to continue working on this place." Ash continues talking, his voice light and breezy, almost as if he didn't have a care in the world. He starts moving toward Daniel, getting underneath him to grab him as soon as he is within reach. "More people to spook. More people moving around here. We've got work to do, see? This place is still unfinished." "Came to get insulted by construction workers, so I'm super happy now, /HOORAY/," the creature retorts quickly, which suggests the pauses before weren't for cognition, but for some other purpose. "You're more creative than usual, mostly I get comments on my beauty," he adds dryly. He seems to startle a little bit when Ash gets close, as if he might not have been aware he'd moved there. "Kah! Tons of windows, for 'escape', but I--- well take him then, but I--" he pauses. And loops the tail up quickly, and slithers his upper body down directly onto the floor, the tail partially curled in anchor up above to make the motion fluid, and quiet. He's humanoid in body type, but all the limbs are 'off' and covered in that black spined chitin. He's big, as well, although hunched for now, so his height is a bit masked. Once he feels Ash grabbing Daniel, he opts to rip talons sideways, severing the man's belt... which drops his pants to his ankles. But he doesn't react to it, as if not even aware, as he makes a sudden move to approach Kay. It's not aggressive, more like a big dog would come over fearlessly, hands and feet on the ground. "Why so warm here? It's /so nice/," Noah nearly purrs, snaking his head to one side and the other. It may be suddenly very very obvious that Noah's blind. "That'd be me, Joe." Kay's heels may adjust, spreading out and testing the tread his boots have on the unfinished flooring, but he keeps his ground. Though his lively-sharp eyes dart from Noah, to watching the stairs, back to Noah, to checking on Ash, back to Noah, he's still grinning, features still game even if his posture is lividly /prepared/. And extends a hand, palm-out, that Noah will eventually come up against... to feel a very warm hand print against the center of his brow. It could be almost friendly, a familiar playful touch. Or it could be a very threatening feeling, "I'm a god damn firebug." His proximity is warmer, warmer, the closer anyone stands to him. Not scalding, but very dry in its heat, so that flesh might feel itself constrict. He tips his head to the side, calls to Ash, "Any your coworkers come up here, you don't know me, yeah? We met at the god damn hoagie stand and I tailed you here." Ash takes Daniel into his arms, giving a little grunt as the full weight falls on his strong frame. He tosses him over his shoulder and starts to back down the stairs. "Sure thing, strange man with a hoagie. That won't make everything think I'm gay." He turns when he's cleared the pair and continues down, clearing Daniel out of the way before heading back up to hopefully save some of the interior work. The giant black spined mutant seems to have turned pretty docile. "I was so fucking freezing, you have no idea," he says, somewhat quietly (as opposed to his normal kind of shouting causual conversational tone). He doesn't actually have a jaw that moves when he talks, as if he's shouting to talk THROUGH the closed armor of his face. There seems like there could be a jaw and fanged hinge but it's not in use right now. Otherwise, docile, and just kind of stands there, although he does shy to one side a bit, preferring the hand near a shoulder. He has foot long huge black sharp spines on his shoulders and neck and head, but doesn't seem concerned about Kay's ability to not get speared on them. The broad tail curls in and around to Kay's left, but seems more like circling into the heat than being brought in as a weapon. Taloned hands stay on the floor, splayed. Fingers are weird: as if he used to have five, but some of them seem to have merged in the bizarre mutation that has covered his whole body in the sea of mutating black armor. "Not 'Joe'. Go by 'Roach' now." He seems unaware of Ash's progress, or just isn't reacting to it. "Yeah right, I saw you checking out my ass, pendejo, don't lie," Ash, don't just HAND Kay these things. Kay shifts his hand to hover wherever Noah seems to prefer, his eyes shrewdly following that creeping Alien tail."Tsh. 'Roach' - if the shoe fits," his tongue is curled around his upper teeth, not quite licking his lips but nearly there, "Y'can call me 'Frag'. Went by Fragarach, once a time. Anyone tell you, you are one tough-looking motherfucker? What is all this shit?" If Noah's coming in close, Kay will shamelessly poke at the side of one of those spikes, seeking possibly to identify a /texture/, "You see me?" He snaps his fingers in front of Noah's face, once to the left, once to the right, "How the hell you get around?" "Nah, nah, I got Danny out. Now, just let me see if I can get the other two out so we can get back to work," The conversation is quiet as Ash tries to reassure those below of the situation, his hands in his pockets as he starts to climb the stairs once more, light on his feet. He surveys the area once more and looks to Kay. "You adopting him? Sure you can probably think of a warmer place for him to be - quieter, less people. Better entertainment." "Magic and moonbeams. And I can smell /fear/," Noah adds, deadpan. He's amazingly good at being deadpan, lacking facial expressions and all. But he adds, "--Vibrations." He doesn't react to being poked; poking him is about as fun as poking a giant piece of slightly warm metal that has absolutely no give to it. His head moves a little bit at the snaps, but it's minor, he's just monitoring what Kay's doing with his hand. He doesn't seem to be in a hurry, sitting in the warm place. And entirely fearless about the whole thing, very nonchalant. "All what shit? Do I have something stuck to me?" Noah asks, in a tone that has a sigh in it, as if he usually has some nonsense stuck to his spines. "I had a zombie torso stuck to my back for /ages/," he complains. A grating screechy noise follows Ash's comment about adoption, which comes from the jaw scissoring, and rows of spine-mutated fangs rubbing together. "Not a /pet/," Noah, the 'Roach', informs them dryly, but he's not against warm places, so, that's all he complains about. "You going along by fear, you're gonna go blind. - /Again/. I guess. The fucking cities never /not/ ripe with it. Also, pff, good, 'cause I don't do 'pets'," Kay and Noah, face to face, fill up a very dangerous void of potential, between fire and spines. And this seems to please Kay just /fine/, his eyebrows going way up towards their outer sides, to form a few rows of M-shaped wrinkles in his forehead at the mental image of a zombie skewered on shishka-Roach's spines. "Bet I could hook you up with a warmer place to crash than /this dumb/, for damn sure - got a safe house not far from here. What'dya say, gorgeous." He's casting Ash a silent head-jerk to keep those freaking people /back/, "You wanna go for a stroll with me?" "Sheesh, guys, who said anything about a pet. I got adopted as a roommate. It happens. No need to freak out about it." Ash shakes his head, hands lifting in surrender. He catches Kay's head movement and starts back down the stairs, turning to start ushering everyone out, finger pressed to his lips to keep the group quiet, pleading glances given to people too stubborn to move - until they do. "I came in the window, can go out that way too," Roach supplies, orienting a little bit back and to the side to gesture with one misshapen limb, but not roving off on his own. Kay is toasty! And he won't wander off from the warm toasty gift horse quite yet, it seems. He seems to either not care or not react to head motions, but based on the evidence so far: he has no idea about it. He doesn't stroll anywhere yet, anyway, but if Kay moves slowly it looks like he'll drift along. Just before Ash vanishes from sight, Kay offers him two HUGE thumbs up and a vaguely Gene Simmons-esque expression with his tongue hanging out, teeth bared and nose all wrinkled up. Totally an 'I GOT THIS' face. His feet are, in fact, slowly stepping off towards the window, "Fine by me, buddy. What'd'ya say, wanna give me a lift? Get the fuck outta here?" Ash continues to keep the group at bay, mostly quiet, and certainly out of their hair. His supervisor calls for an ambulance for Daniel and others start calling the cops, but Ash remains stoic, pleasant even, as he tries to keep the peace as the other two make their get away. That 'lift' thing gets a lot of interest, the body language shows it, on the obvious mutant. "You WANT to be carried?" Roach asks, as if that was a new joke and he's amazed by it. "...Heeheehee." Great, the crazy and the crazier. And who knows which is which. He moves quickly towards the window, opting to lift off of all fours to stand up more completely, but still hunched. "But how do I know your 'safehouse' isn't sinister place like, what, Prom-ithy-iss?" Roach asks, while reaching with both hands for Kay, intending to, well, pick him up. "Those losers wish," Kay doesn't just allow himself to be picked up - he whole-hog just goes with it, hopping his bony ass up into Noah's clutches like a grungy-ass biker-BRIDE. And the two go right the fuck out the window, Kay giving a lively fox-yelpy "yow!" with a fist thrust in the air, to go bounding across the rooftops and away.