Logs:Left Alone
| Left Alone | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia
|
2020-10-13 << One thing at a time. >> |
| Location
<NYC> Isra's House - East Village | |
Th facade of this quaint rowhouse has been restored to its early 20th-century glory, and the interior is coming along nicely, too, with meticulous gold detail in the white wooden moulding contrasting with black galaxy granite flooring. The entry hall spans the first and second floors, pillars and openwork staircase drawing the eye upward. The living room and the dining room opposite are both newly furnished with gorgeous handmade pieces, all rich dark wood set with mosaic stars whose grain is so reflective they look like organic gems. The dining table is long and oval and ringed with matched chairs of different designs, to accommodate a variety of body shapes. The white sofa is plush with low backs, shaped like a crescent moon that curves around a circular coffee table. Isra is resplendent tonight in a knee-length velvet cowl-neck dress, in an ombre from blue at the neckline to deep black at the slinky hem. Her skin is a hypnotic sunset spectrum--a deep purple along the dorsal side fading to rosy pink on her face and palms, subtle drifts of gold shimmer contouring her entire body to emphasize, rather than disguise, the inhuman angles of her physique. The heavy talons tipping all thirty of her digits and the horns spiraling back from her temples are burnished gold, and so too are her irises. She's perched stock still on her sofa, staring down at the tray with cups of coffee cooling in gold and white cups and saucers. Her wings drape over the back of the sofa, the tip of her tail twitching against the cushions. Her mind is noisy and chaotic, suffused with pain and anger and near-unbearable irritation with the intensity of the light, the city noises outside, the friction of her clothing on skin--almost everything. << One thing at a time. >> It's a struggle for her to form the words, but when they finally come they're low and quiet, a rasping growl barely audible underneath. "Will you go back to the apartment, tonight?" she asks haltingly, her ears pressed back. << He will not care about that. >> But still she presses on. "You can stay here, instead, if you are not returning to the Tessiers'." Dusk's mind is as it often is, a roiling mass of hunger and fury. The fury is getting top billing, right now. One velvety midnight-and-crimson wing has draped over Hive's shoulder; he's sitting on one arm of it, shirtless and barefoot in only soft brown corduroys. Somewhere through the haze there are stray wisps of thought -- sick regret at having stayed away so long, a blank disbelief, a lingering hope that Joshua could probably set this right. "You shouldn't be alone." Hive is still in the button-down and slacks he'd had at work. Tie still tied neat -- neater, really, than he usually does it. His cheek presses against Dusk's wing, fingers kneading at one knee. << not alone. >> It's whisper-soft, a many-layered echo rippling through the others' minds and, overlapping this thought, << he was alone. >> << He's not alone. >> Isra's thought comes in tandem with Hive's. "But it isn't the same. You should be with--" She bites back the word 'family', but knows it's too late and Hive knows what she meant to say regardless. << It's the right word. >> Her eyes raise up and fix on Hive steadily. She wants to touch him, too. Wants to tuck herself close, but she knows she could not abide it right now. "Leo was with him." "It isn't the same." A frown crosses Dusk's face. His wing tightens against Hive's shoulders. "Leo isn't --" It's not a word that surfaces in his mind, but it's close enough. The warmth of a crackling fire and a pleasant exertion-ache in his muscles, Hive and Dawson silhouetted through the smoke where they sit side by side across the pit. The warm glint of Dawson's smile over the top of his GM screen. Hive curled up asleep on the couch with his head pillowed in Dawson's lap. Dawson, pale and sleep-deprived but laughing all the same where he's tucked into the side of Hive's hospital bed. A ripple of nausea breaks through his hunger. His hands clasp, dropping to his lap. "Please stay." << we left him alone. >> The whisper of Hive's voices does not really get any louder, but there's an added edge to it all the same, leaving a sharp trace of anger in its wake. Soft, too, another echo -- not Hive's voice but Dawson's, now, summoned up from memory. << I don't want any eternity that you aren't part of. >> left him presses itself somewhere at the back of the others' minds. Hive pulls himself stiffly up from the couch. His arms wrap tight across his chest; the fact that he is, now, heading for the door does not stop the quiet reply: << am staying. >> | |
