ArchivedLogs:Whole

Whole
Dramatis Personae Anima, Jackson
In Absentia	2013-10-01 '
Location <NYC> Village Lofts - Rooftop - East Village
It tends to be windy, up here, but the presence of plastic table and folding chairs suggests that nevertheless building residents occasionally make their way out to this rooftop. With a good view of Tompkins Square Park less than a block away it's a good spot for city-watching. There's a railing around the edge, though it might be possible (if /unwise/) to climb over it to the narrow concrete ledges beyond and from there to the fire escape. Centrally, someone has broken down crates and constructed a small raised-bed garden up here, barren in winter but filled in three other seasons with a small assortment of herbs and vegetables. The concrete wall that rings the roof has been decorated, painted in vivid bright shades by some artistic hand to add colourful cheer to the rooftop. The mural shifts in terrain One wall sports a beach, flecked with grass and seashells and driftwood and shore birds. Beach transitions into meadow, colourful with wildflowers and butterflies and dragonflies; meadow shifts into snow-capped mountains, subsides into piedmont and sprouts into a verdant forest on the fourth, alive with animals. There's been a cool snap of weather but on the first day of October the city is feeling summery again. Sunny and hovering around eighty, it's only starting to slowly get cooler as evening approaches. For now, though, the late-afternoon is still warm, as the sun sinks lower over the buildings of the East Village. The rooftop is quiet, inhabited only by one lone figure perched at the roof's edge. Jackson has taken up a post on the low wall ringing the roof, hard to miss in neon green fishnet shirt over a black tank, brilliantly flame-coloured yellow-orange-red hair, bright purple capri pants. No shoes, toenails painted glittery purple. He has one leg crooked upwards, his sketchpad resting against his thigh; his right hand braces on the wall behind him as he works on a sketch that might be the view from this position -- if the city beyond him had suddenly been thrust into some sort of nightmarish hell-dimension, buildings recognizable but distorted, strange monsters inhabiting the streets. Close of day heralds the return of many Loft denizens to their homes, trickling into the lobby and distributing themselves through the levels of the complex, in hallways or private rooms. There is a certain lack of solitude that comes with the evening hour - at least in regards to some apartments. Like Greyhaus, residence of so many enigmas hidden behind changing faces or slippery veils of personality. So Anima has climbed to the roof, although one might not know it to be hir. Reclusive, ze is a quietly manifested presence announced by the shut of the door granting access to the high space. Perhaps unfamiliar, perhaps not, the person who presents himself is a young man, no more than mid-twenties, face partially obscured by the visor of his baseball cap sticking out over his head. He's dressed unremarkably too, just a plain gray shirt and carpenter pants, a navy backpack slung from his left shoulder and a foldable lounge chair tucked under one arm. Unassumingly, he notes the vivid artist where he sits and moves to establish himself at a respectful distance, assembling his seat to tuck its back against the railing and then deposit himself in it with a *thump*. Jax's attention shifts almost instantly, with the opening-and-closing of the roof door, single eye orienting on motion reflexively. It shifts back to his sketchpad just as quickly, one finger brushing against the page to smudge some of the charcoal into murky darkness in the sky, the beginnings of a storm apparently brewing. "Evenin', sir," comes his cheerful greeting, soft and as ever relentlessly /Southern/ in his thick drawl. "How's your day been?" Settled, Anima!person creates more of a disturbance to the tranquility. He rests his backpack between his feet, contents clanking. Perched on the edge of his plastic seat, slim fingers pull back the zipper from one end. Mud brown eyes lifting to stare down a thin, beaked nose, a wan smile forms on his lips. "Doin' alright, thanks. You?" Tilting his bag on its side, he empties out a cracked teacup, contemplating it thoughtfully. Peering close enough, it's apparent he has a garbage bag within is backpack- less obvious is all the junk inside. "Can't complain." Jax's answer comes light and cheerful, his charcoal pencil twirling in a rapid blur between his fingers. He glances sidelong to Anima with a quick flick of appraisal. "What's it I should call you, now?" "I suppose I'm Zack, now," answers the puppeteer through hir host. His dull gaze lifts to meet that swift assessment with a raised brow, just visible beneath the brim of his hat. Placing the teacup in the center of his palm, he turns his head to look over it, curious, intent. "Do they tell you, or am I obvious?" is asked without breaking his concentration. "I know every single person who lives in this building by name and sight. You brought your own chair up here so you're probably a resident and not a guest. Joshua would've hugged me and Mirror would've paid me a lot more notice, so --" Jackson's pencil stops twirling, tapping slowly against his knee instead. "But. I tend to know every person who lives in this building because within five minutes of a new person arriving Hive's told me who they are. -- I don't know you well enough yet for you to be obvious." "Oh, right. The telepath." A soft grunt accompanies this self-reminder, brows drawn together as the shelf of his forehead pushes forward, more prominent. Is that resentment? Anima!Zack inverts the teacup in his other hand, subjecting it to the same unyielding scrutiny. "Resident. I guess. Yeah. Not that I'm on the lease." Briefly, his eyes tick over to Jax, gauging a reaction. Then, "Would they now. I guess. It's difficult knowing how to interact. But, I'm sure you know." It's almost glib, the way ze states this, a hollow self-assertion. "No. I -- guess keeping a job might be kinda difficult." Jax wrinkles his nose sympathetically, his brow creasing. "You managin' aright? Dusk could probably point you in the direction of places that'll pay you for work y'can do at home." He glances back down to his sketchpad, slowly adding a few details to the stormclouds in the sky. "S'that been hard for you? People, I mean. It's sort of an adjustment." "I have money. Parley helped me acquire whatever she had." Anima!Zack remains poised in his non-chalance, a focused, serious expression governing his face, while he runs a thumb down a crack in his teacup, tracing the chipped hole over. And over. "No one will miss Zack. I can uproot his life, put him to work somewhere here - probably." When the rubbing of his thumb pad over the hole in the ceramic ceases, it is renewed, visible by a brief glimpse before he smothers it between both his palms now, turning it over. "Yes. No one trusts me." At this, the young man shrugs. "And then I wasn't allowed out, until recently. Fur." "Ah. Right." Jax's eye focuses down on his drawing, though he stops again in short order, pencil beginning its rapid twirl between his fingers once more. "Though in Manhattan that ain't like to --" He shakes his head, brows creasing faintly and his pencil spinning faster. "I ain't never met a person that /no one/ would miss." It's quiet and thoughtful, and for a moment he turns to look out over the city. "No one trusts you? I mean, you done much socializing /outside/ the building since you --" His pencil waves towards NewZackBody. "Staten Island," Anima!Zack supplies in terse clarification - as if the name of the location from whence this new body came invokes indifference with its bare utterance. "And also, how do certain people get locked up in cages for so long." He drops his hands in his lap, unfolding them to reveal a teacup - the same one, but newer. Whole. Bright, like it's been freshly lacquered and painted. "I mean here. All you… other mutants. Or maybe just the kids. I remember the barbecue. And that strange boy obsessed with Sloan," he relates with a certain apathy, considering the renovated ceramic in his hand. "People who miss them got no pull," Jackson says with a small shrug. "But it was folks missing us that got us found to begin with. /Missing/ in itself don't go a whole long way towards /finding/, though, not when it's the government set on keepin' folks hid." He looks back towards Zack -- and then looks again, longer, his eye narrowing for a moment. "Y'know, people in Staten Island are still --" He trails off, examining the cup in Zach's hand with puzzlement. "Maybe I'm biased. Guess nobody can think to miss me when I'm still technically there." Anima!Zack mimics Jackson's shrug, narrow shoulders rising and then falling. "People. I know. But. What am I to do?" Attention falls away from the cup, which he sets down near his backpack, a sudden brimming curiosity falling on Jackson, briefly eager. Waiting for a proposed solution, and then not, he rummages, explaining, "Mutant." "Where were you from before?" Jackson's teeth scrape against his lower lip, wiggling at a lip ring as he considers. "-- Do you think they'd have kept /your/ body? I mean, if we found it -- you wouldn't need anyone else's. And there ain't nobody who knows more about findin' and breakin' into those places than we do." His gaze follows the path of the cup, watching as Zach sets it down. A quick smile splits his face, kind of crookedly. "Oh. Well. I kinda guessed on that much. But what'd you /do/?" "Chicago- then, some other place before the labs." Zackanima turns out the remains of an action figure next, severed into three pieces - unnaturally so. No Transformers for hir. "Maybe. I wasn't dead when I escaped. Would you bother trying to find it? It's a lot of risk for someone you don't know well," is the cool, matter-of-fact counter, faint suspicion pulling the corners of his mouth down in a frown. "Repair objects? Or break them down. Works on people too. Wanna see?" Toy laid out, he grabs the teacup again and extends his hand, offering it. This time, Jax's smile isn't crooked, just quick and warm and genuine. "Honey-honey, do you remember who you're talkin' to? Half this building is here because of lots of risk for people we didn't know at all. I mean. /Everyone/ deserves a chance to have their life back, if they've still got your --" His lips thin. "I sure can't make no promises. We don't even know if it's there or -- /which/ lab it might -- but we can try." He swings his legs down to the inside of the wall, closing his sketchbook in his lap as he leans forward to peer at the teacup. Then at Zack's hand. He looks down at his own arm -- many times scarred, missing finger -- and bites at his lip. "Don't know as I need repairin'," he says, uncertainly. "You can heal people /and/ things? Will it mess with my ink? Some healers do." "Yes, but you never really rescued /me/. You rescued Tanya." So long ago it seems, mentioning all the names and faces Anima has donned since then. In hir present host, ze lifts his arm up higher, offering the teacup to hold. "I would like my body, I think. Certainly, it is less of a hassle." Those mud-brown eyes, so unremarkable, follow Jackson's trailing gaze to his arms. "So far, yes. People /and/ things. It's like rebuilding. I think. Zack couldn't-- do as much, before me. I /know/ what his powers can do more than I can /explain/ them." He pauses. "Could try. If it messes up, I could always undo it to how I first saw it." "Didn't know Tanya, either," Jackson points out with a shrug of one shoulder. "I mean, d'you imagine we'll want to help /less/ now that we /do/ know you?" He sounds rather puzzled at this thought. He reaches out to take the teacup, turning it over in his hands curiously. "Huh. That's -- really neat. Useful." He offers the teacup back, holding his hand out even afterwards towards Zack with an uncertain expression. Reflexively, his thumb brushes against the missing stump where his little finger should be. "I don't know. People are strange," Zackanima replies, watching him examine the teacup, a small amount of satisfaction creeping into his expression. Removing the cap from his head, he brushes fingers through short hair, flattening it down before replacing his hat, adjusting the brim. "It doesn't hurt. I tested it." He reaches back for the teacup, passing it along to his opposite hand to keep the other one outstretched, palm up, waiting. "No arguments there." Jackson's smile skews a little lopsided once more at this. He slides down off the wall, tucking his sketchpad beneath an arm to hold it against his chest. His other hand extends as he takes a step forward, fingers curling into Zack's. His eye focuses down on their joined hands, a little apprehensive, a lot curious. Touch established, Anima first asserts hirself, tactile telepathy drifting along the surface of Jackson's thoughts, probing, exploring - lightly. Zack, meanwhile, is rigid, intense as his fingers curl up at the corners, locking his hand in place. What follows is a soft, tingling sensation, a surgical reconstruction at the molecular level as atoms reconstitute themselves. There is nothing overt to it - save for the result - just a subtle tug, a pull, and then what once was lost is renewed with a fully formed finger stemming from what mere moments before was a stub. Anima!Zack blinks, several times, slackening hir grip to allow Jackson to reclaim his repaired hand. Jackson's thoughts unsurprisingly tend towards /bright/, a too-vivid scattered disarray appearing more in imagery than words, flitting with hummingbird rapidity from one colourful fragment to the next. Jumbled snapshot-memories familiar in tone if not in detail, the sterile insides of a lab, the flash of a scalpel, the sharp hot pain of losing the finger to begin with. A pensive network of organization and planning, contemplating the best way to work Anima-body-hunt into the upcoming raid. A distinct twist of discomfort associated with the image of Sloan-face, an equally discomfited resignation with this new one, though these mostly even out into a resigned /uncertainty/ about any /better/ plan until they find Anima's body. And, distinctly, a mingled curiosity and wariness, taking to mind /warnings/ he's been given about Parley's roommate combined with the general ill-advised nature of letting unknown mutations /demonstrate/ on him; this shifts into both a bright flare of amazement together with an odd heavy /sinking/ somewhat incongruous with his newly healed hand. His smallest finger gives a tiny twitch, in Animazack's hand. He withdraws his hand slowly, staring down at it for a long moment. The next twitch is jerky, too; it takes a slow moment before he curls the finger in towards his palm. He swallows, hard, his eye closing and a brief shimmer of light flickering unstably around him. "... Wow. That's -- wow." Slowly, too, he extends his hand back towards Zack. "You -- can put it back, too?" Anima mind drinks in that rich, vibrant imagery hungrily through that fragile connection, consciousness /pouring/ forward, liquid and cool. But ze refrains from descending upon that mental photo-album, only lapping along the peripheral edge of thoughts, floating along the surface like flotsam. Of course, when physical contact breaks, so too does this brief telepathic connection, with Anima /firmly/ grounded within Zack. Zack is tranquil once his work is done, his fingers blossom outward like a flower to release Jackson from his hold entirely. His mouth blooms into a smug grin, arm dropping to his side to turn the teacup over- returning what was to how he found it, offering up a chipped, faded specimen for Jackson to survey. "Do you not want it? Do you want an eye, too? What?" Genuine perplexion besets him - bodies. People. Not having one or being your own is confusing. "I --" Jackson's hand drops back to his side, his eye closing during that brief moment of cool Anima-connection, a faint tension threading through his posture that fades when the contact does. He stops in silence for a stretch, opening his eye again to examine the cup and then his own newly healed hand. "-- I don't know," he admits with a slight flush creeping into his cheeks. "It's just been like this a while now and -- all these scars are kind of. Reminders. Of everything that's happened. To just have it vanish --" He shakes his head quickly. "My eye's fine. Can you --" He gestures to the teacup, and then holds out his hand again. "Put it back. How it was?" "It's not like I deprived you of any memory or experience," Zack says, bewilderment resolving into agitation. His teeth grit, grinding against each other as Anima manipulates hir jaw, hooking a finger through the handle on the teacup to let it hang limply, suspended over the ground. "I really don't get why anyone wouldn't /want/ to be- whole. Complete. I'm not undoing time - just you. So you're-- you. Fully you." His eyes narrow at Jackson, as, wordless, he shoves the teacup back into his backpack, zips it, and stands. Leaning over his chair, he collapses it, and abruptly packs up - upset. Ready to leave as suddenly and quietly as he came, Zack stops, and through him, Anima commands: "Your hand." Except ze is not stalling to wait for it to be offered - more so, ze is next to him, fingertips hovering over the /just/ operated on digit restored. Again: the tickle of nerves that subsedes to a complete deadening of feeling as atoms are unstitched, unbound, collapsing away as if nothing. Absence to absence. "I'll see you around." With that, he is moving on, gruffly and brisk, leaving Jackson to his rooftop artistry. "No no I didn't mean that you were -- that you'd done anything /wrong/ I just -- I mean what you do is incredible I just --" Flustered, Jax's cheeks tint darker; he's still looking a little bit out of sorts when Anima reaches for him. "-- Thank you." It's a startled reflexive courtesy; his eye focuses down on the vanished digit, and he lapses into a somewhat rattled silence, still and quiet where he stands until some while after the door has closed behind Anima.