Logs:It Will Be We

It Will Be We
Dramatis Personae Lily, Winona	2023-05-27 We are going to make it worth it.
Location Hotel LeVeque, Columbus, Ohio
It's no Le Bonne Entente, but for this recovery weekend Lily has selected the next best thing on offer. White and gold dominates the suite's colour palette, softened with light grey on the walls of the bedroom (gold rimmed mirrors are hanging above each double bed, making it seem less narrow than it is) with some greys and blues in the living area. The expansive bathroom is done in white marble, its large, sauna-like shower almost painful to look at when all the lights are on. There's a desk and a chair in the living space, a little breakfast table against a window looking out over the great skyline of Downtown Columbus. Lily got in the night before -- maybe has actually done the shopping she told her coworkers she was going to do, there are some department store bags tossed on the unmade far bed -- and is there at the door to let Winona in. Possibly she's fresh from the shower -- possibly she was in there a Long Time, looking at how her fingertips are still shrivelled. Her hair is drying, a dark ring of damp around the neck of her oversized UPenn tee, barefoot in flannel pajama pants that are just a touch too long for her. "Please tell me," she says when the door closes behind her guest, "that you brought weed." Isn't this a no smoking room? Lily doesn't seem to care. "And a bong. Did I ask for a bong? I don't remember." Shakes her head quickly. "Doesn't matter I will smoke out of an apple at this point." Winona tosses her canvas bag onto the bed. She is significantly less fresh, having taken this excuse to take her car on a bit of a road trip. She unzips one of the side pockets of the bag to retrieve the requested weed. "No apples, but I did bring the bong," says Winona, blowing some of her stray hairs out of her face. She is wearing a new looking hooded sweatshirt with the text 'Home of the Loveland Frogman', an image of a frog superimposed over the state of Ohio underneath. She tosses a baggie in Lily's direction. "I also bought road snacks on the way out here. Pretty much pure garbage, the kind that hits just right." "All we can get out there is garbage." Lily catches the bag with one hand and clutches it to her chest. "Doesn't mean I won't want more, though. You're an angel." Even with the refresh, without the benefits of Zoom pixels its more clear how Lily's changed in her time away -- the bags under her eyes are darker than before, her skin still winter pale despite the slow march of spring into summer, a thinness in her frame that is not just rock-climber-lean, anymore. "I already put up those -- signal jammer things, we should be good in here. Got presents for you, too." At the foot of her bed is a duffle bag -- she reaches in and pulls out a battered shoebox, sets it on Winona's bed and removes the top. Inside -- a bunch of garbage, too. Pens, mostly, in various states of functionality. Some shattered pieces of mugs, a cracked coffee carafe. Half of a clipboard. The handle -- and just the handle?? -- of some drawer. The plastic cover of a chair armrest. "Break room and testing stuff, mostly. Things all kinds of people touched before." From the shoebox, Winona picks up one of the pens with some curiosity, clicking it a couple of times. She nods once firmly and says, "This is perfect. I'll be able to glean a fair bit from just this stuff. I've been making other progress on my end, hoping you won't have to--" She bites her lower lip lightly as she studies Lily's face, but continues after little hesitation: "So that we can put our project to an end soon. I know it's not been easy on you." She pulls the bong out of another pocket of her bag, and holds it up in presentation, as the greatest feature that the day might bring. "One of the pens is still out there but --" From elsewhere in her bag, Lily is pulling out a small stack of memory cards, each painstakingly labeled in fine print and thin marker. "The originals of everything I've already sent. Just in case." Onto the bedspread those go, too. She reaches out for the bong, some tension in her shoulders bleeding away just at the promise of inebriation. "Shit, do I get to complain yet? How long were you in there, a year? Thought I would have to clear that bar, first." She turns to retrieve a lighter from the bedside table (right beside the "no smoking" warning, conveniently!) and add that to her pile of goodies. "Besides, I'm having a great time. Meeting all the brilliant minds of Prometheus and Company X. I think I went on a date with one of them!" There is a faint hysterical edge to her tone, a clench of her fingers around the neck of the bong. "The founder of the whole fucking thing came by to ask about Dawson I am --" she sucks in a breath, "--coping really fucking well." Carefully, Winona takes the stack of memory cards, and starts to stow them in her camera case so that they are well protected by the padded bag. "A year. A bit more than a year, right after I finished high school. My gap year travels. Go ahead and talk shit about them, though, I might end up joining in on that." Her eyebrows pinch together for a moment, and then they widen. "The founder of the whole thing? Who is-- no, take a hit first and then we can talk about the asshole who got this thing kicked off." She waves her hands encouragingly to urge Lily on in getting some relaxation. "Should keep Dawson's name out of their goddamn mouth, though." "God." Lily doesn't sound surprised, exactly, to hear this from Winona, but she doesn't sound happy with the knowledge. "There are so many teenagers. I'm so sick of seeing teenagers in there, every time I look at them I just see --" She sucks in another breath. "-- you should see the bathroom, it's fucking huge." Does Winona want to see the bathroom? Lily is drifting there anyway, adding water to the bong before sliding down onto the faux-marble tile. Starts filling the bowl with weed. "That motherfucker isn't even the worst of them. You know Skye? Her shitheel of a father is there salivating over my shoulder nearly every damn day. I keep trying to get into his files but I'm not a goddamn hacker, she is. You all sent the wrong fucking spy." Lights up, now, takes in a long lungful of smoke. Holds it for a long time before breathing it up towards the high white ceiling. "...Ansel Covey, too. He's just. Fucking. There." "Yeah, I saw other teenagers. Younger people. Probably better for them, having subjects who are easier to control. Does anything in the box belong to Skye's father? Might be able to help you out on the 'hacking' stuff." says Winona, her fingers trace across the smooth wall as she examines the washroom. A tension grows in her jaw at the mention of Ansel, and her eyes turn towards the floor where she, too, slides down. "So that's where he ended up." This is said in a tone meant to be carefully neutral, but it's impossible not to detect the heat of the hatred leaving its mark on her words. She holds her hand out in Lily's direction, gaze still downcast. "One of the, fucking, mugs? I 'accidentally' knocked it over yesterday-- Thursday-- one of them--" Winona is going to have to wait: Lily takes another deep breath of smoke before she passes the bong over. Breathes it out veeeerry slowly towards the ceiling. "Lucien showed me -- all the footage. Of Dawson in Blackburn. Before the news. I watched it all." Her head knocks back against wall. "I hate him. I'm terrified of him." She's quiet for a time -- more tension fades from her shoulders, but it a way suggesting more exhaustion than relaxation. Slowly, she continues: "I thought I knew what was coming. I thought, I've already seen horrors. I thought, if so many of you can survive that, probably I would be -- okay enough, getting to leave every day." There's wet glimmering at the corners of her eyes. "Fuck." Winona's hand remains outstretched while Lily takes the second breath, and she is inhaling when there is mention of the footage from Blackburn. "Fuuuck..." she says as smoke billows from her mouth, "I am sorry that you had to--" Her eyebrows furrow and she closes her eyes a moment, "I hate him, too. I hate the whole--" Once again, Winona trails off as she brushes some of her hair aside and then rests her hand on Lily's shoulder to provide some comfort. "I'm sorry. To kill it we need to keep it in our sights, but that-- that's a burden nobody should be carrying. At least. When we're done, they're done." Lily rolls her head towards Winona, watching the smoke twist up and away. Her eyes widen at the touch at her shoulder -- doesn't pull away. Her shoulder hitches up into the contact, her head tilting down so her cheek (damp where tears are beginning to roll down it) presses against the back of Winona's hand. "Promise me again this will burn them down." Her voice is small, soft. "Promise me again this will be worth it." Winona closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, leaning towards Lily as she speaks. There is little intonation in her quiet words, just a steady confidence. "We are going to burn them. We are going to make it worth it." Her finger moves to wipe away one of the tears that is falling down Lily's cheek. "When we're done, there is going to be hell to pay." It's the touch of Winona's fingers against her cheek that seem to make Lily's eyes flutter closed, that cause the small hitch in her breath. Where they sit together on the bathroom tile, Lily's low hand reaches up, out, towards Winona's face -- pulls back for a moment. Her hazel-green eyes open again, searching Winona's face with sudden intensity. Fingertips press lightly against the younger woman's jaw, Lily carefully cupping Winona's cheek in her palm. There's a question in her expression, unspoken, when her gaze flicks down to Winona's mouth. "When we are done," she murmurs. "Doesn't feel like much of a we, in there." Winona studies Lily's face for a moment, her expression softer than it was moments before. "We," she emphasizes in a low voice, resting her forehead gently against Lily's. "I know it feels lonely there. My thoughts are with you and I will bleed to make sure none of it is in vain. Even when you feel alone, it will be we." There is another moment of pause in answering Lily's unspoken question, but her eyes turn down to the other woman's lips, and answers it she does with a kiss.