Logs:P: And from the day on which you bring the sheaf of elevation offering—the day after the sabbath—you shall count off seven weeks. They must be complete: you must count until the day after the seventh week—fifty days.

P: And from the day on which you bring the sheaf of elevation offering—the day after the sabbath—you shall count off seven weeks. They must be complete: you must count until the day after the seventh week—fifty days.
cn: minor Self Harm (day 29), Body Horror (days 10, 16, 47).
Dramatis Personae Avi, Jax, Joshua, Spencer, Wendy, Zack, Alma, Gino, Polaris, Ryan, Bryce, Karida, Lucien, Anahita, Scott, Leo, Maya, Anole, Quentin, Nanami, Damien, Nessie, Tony, Lael, Harm, Gaétan, Mirror, Bug, Roscoe, DJive, B, Marinov, Winona, Sriyani
In Absentia Dusk, Naomi, Kadar, Dallen	Pesach to Shavuout "Baruch HaShem."
Location 49 Steps
16 nisan. 1 - chesed she'b'chesed. It's getting to be time to start making his increasingly inebriated around-the-world rounds, but it's morning here -- bright and early on the farm. Despite his protestations, Sarabeth Holland has cooked up a feast. She's, unsurprisingly, keeping up the bulk of the chatter as Joshua eats. One hand occupied with his fork, the other only now releasing James's, the older man's leg now back in tip-top working order after an unfortunate tractor incident the day before. Joshua quietly slips a piece of his turkey bacon down to Skittles as he eats, the ancient mutt's tail whump-whump-whumping against the floor under the table. "-- just didn't want Jackson to worry, I know y'all got your hands more'n full up there. Time you finish up with him, though, I swear he's spryer even than before getting hurt. You really are a sweetheart to take the time, though, the hospital's so far and you know how these men get." Sarabeth is shaking her head, though it's fond. She tilts her head down, peeking under the table at the whump. "Oh, you spoiling him too? Think that dog gets more people-food than human these days. At his age, though, he's earned it, gosh but he could be in the Guinness Book, you know we had that dog since Jax was just a lil thing, honestly a miracle," though she's giving Joshua a liiittle bit of a knowing smile, "that he's still trucking." Joshua's mouth twitches, not really making it into a smile but lightening some of the perpetual droop of his face. He leans down, fingers rubbing at the top of the ancient dog's head. If there are a few less grey hairs once this brief scritch is through, nobody can see it; Skittles is just continuing the slow whump-whump-whump as he peeks up, hopeful, for more bacon. Joshua takes a bite of his eggs, slips the dog another morsel, and nods, solemn, at the Hollands. "Baruch HaShem." --- 17 nisan. 2 - gevurah she'b'chesed. The sun is dipping below the distant horizon, setting the vast expanse of water between there and here aflame. Spencer has no eyes for the beauty of the sun, the sky, or the sea right now, however great his view from atop this bungalow. He has been lying prone save where he's propped himself up on his elbows, the slow and hesitant swiping on his phone punctuated by much more decisive backspacing. (Spencer --> Jax): Hey pa (Spencer --> Jax): Can I talk to (Spencer --> Jax): I'm sorry I didn't (Spencer --> Jax): I know I let you down He swipes back out to his Signal feed and taps on Ryan's name instead, but his thumb hesitates over the virtual keyboard. Where all his words had seemed wrong before, now he can't seem to summon any words at all. His shoulders tighten and he lowers his head onto one forearm, closing his eyes as the world darkens around him, quiet but for the steady churn of the Pacific Ocean. He almost jumps when the phone buzzes in his hand, though it does not chime because his screen was already open to the conversation that's updating. He rolls onto his side, then his back, then sits up, eyes wide. (Ryan --> Spencer): Where are you? (Ryan --> Spencer): Actually, doesn't matter. Get home right now. Your Pa and I need to talk with you. He tips his head back and blinks at the already faintly starry sky, his adam's apple bobbing as he swallows. His screen has turned off by the time he looks back down at it, and he doesn't wake it to reply. He just scrambles to his feet and vanishes -- --- 18 nisan. 3 - tiferet she'b'chesed. Polaris glares down at the CryptPad document on their burner laptop. "We lost the Osmans even with a perfectly deployed blockade. ICE just dragged them through on foot and shoved them into a different van on the other side." She flops back against the couch and takes an aggressive gulp of her fizzy lemonade. "Maybe we should put active de-arrest back on the table. There are vulnerable people in our contingent but if we practice, recruit more arrestable point-people, or even bring in the bloc--augh" A faint but ominous rattling shivers through everything ferrous in the room, and she scrubs her face, heedless of her makeup. "I know, I know! It's escalatory and we have to be frakking--judicious about our use of force." Wendy has been listening to this with a somewhat abstracted expression, her head tipped back against the couch cushions and her eyes looking -- at the ceiling? Through the ceiling? She sits up with a slow shake of her head, grimacing at the laptop. "I think," she says, finally, very slow, "that we're already in a situation of -- high escalation. If they're going to be so jackbooted about the hate --" Her eyes track down to her long line of metal bangles, fingertips touching against them -- not to quiet the shiver but just to feel it thrumming through her. "-- moderation might be looking a lot different now." --- 19 nisan. 4 - netzach she'b'chesed. "-- some whole bullshit," Zack is complaining -- loudly, huffily, where he is flinging a slightly sagging arm out towards the overstuffed hatchback parked at the curb. From out here, the continued cheers and yells of Fight Club ongoing in the adjacent warehouse are a little more muffled -- it makes his indignance easy to hear over the background chaos. His other arm is clutching against his chest a towering multilevel stone-terraced Indoor Water Feature -- no water in it at the moment, though it's still dripping wet from having recently been unplugged and emptied. The plug at the end is stripped raw in several places; it still has a vaguely electrical-burning smell. "Undead discrimination is what it is, if this was for the fucking Generals would we be having this conversation, no, but I get one nice thing for the Chairman and now you're a dictator?" Nearby, a couple of spectators (ducked out for a smoke and have now traded the spectacle of Fight Club for the spectacle of the Morlocks trying to pack the car) are remarking through laughter, "-- or dig a fucking cardboard box out of the trash and make them really happy." "Begging your fucking pardon," Gino is snapping, from where he's perched sooort of precariously on the hood of the car, trying to stretch a bungee cord around the bags and surfboard and the (small!!!) (filthy, bedraggled) cat tree stacked on its roof; considering that he hasn't attached the bungee to anything yet, everything is remarkably stable, even when one of Gino's feet slips a little and he grabs the cat tree for balance. "At least the Chairman shares his bougie-ass toys, it's not his fault he's classy." The fountain (already slightly dinged in addition to its chewed-up power cord) grows itself another chip when Zack drops it heavily to the ground, reaching up reflexively to help steady Gino. Kind of pointlessly, too; 'reflexively' for him considerably delayed as compared to the average, but nonetheless. "Damn, yeah, I'll go find one in the Rainbow dumpster you clearly got that top from." He is nudging the fountain aside with a sigh and a concession: "... those Mormons probably have some fountains built in." --- 20 nisan. 5 - hod she'b'chesed. It's grown very -- very late. Late enough there's starting to be some question of whether it's even worthwhile to attempt sleep, if only to get fairly immediately back up and head off to school. Still, Jax is up, has been up; the glowing light from his computer screen where he's tucked into the solarium does not actually travel far -- an obscuring cloak of shadow around him mutes its harsh blue light. It doesn't, though, mute the clackclack of the keys or the exhausted anxious fretting they tap out into the predawn dark. He's been slogging through the latest of many data dumps from Halim, a jumbled mix of camera footage and news reports, addresses and government invoices, and though the technopath has already -- likely far more efficiently -- combed and filtered it for relevant details. Well -- it's probably not likely that his second-look agonizing will turn up anything new, but that isn't stopping him. Ryan is very quiet as he wheels his way in, bleary-eyed and pajama'd. Even when he's just about upon Jax he is making little noise -- just peeking over the other man's shoulder before he goes to rest a hand on Jax's arm. "This rate you gonna be a wreck if we do ever find him." "If --" Jax's voice is reflexively sharp, here, thick with a defensive anger that ebbs as soon as it surged. He wilts, for a moment, against the side of Ryan's chair before he closes his laptop on the latest tab (some youth's breathless chronicle of some Superhuman Altercation near their South Carolina home that left one man exsanguinated -- the Apex thread that journals this caught in archive, original since deleted together with the account that had posted it.) "If," he repeats again, though it's heavier this time with a reluctant acceptance. "I don't know how to be ready." --- 21 nisan. 6 - yesod she'b'chesed. The shabbat candles are burning low in the window, their soft glow still visible from the porch where Bryce has been perched outside on the rail. His tail dangles downward to brace his otherwise kind of precarious balance, tipped back-back-back as he squints up at the sky. "It just feels so different, you know?" he's asking this quietly, half-lost between the blare of music from next door -- Now you gettin' drunk, grabbin' on my pants an oddly dissonant backdrop beat to this musing. "Like, believing there's infinite worlds and knowing there are. Do you think..." He trails off, not entirely sure, maybe, where this question is going. "What if it happens again?" Avi is dropped into a large woven basket chair, curled up comfortably and nibbling slowly on a heavily buttery and jammy piece of challah. "Might do," he says finally, and his small stiff shrug is not quite as casual as his absent tone. "Prob'ly will do, our own world's messy as h... eck." The beads on his locs rattle quiet against the wicker of his chair as he turns to look, first at Bryce and then up, too, at the sky. He sounds more confident, when he continues. "But look, brah. When it happens again, 'least we know we got each other." --- 22 nisan. 7 - malchut she'b'chesed. There's a large brunch in the works -- not quite finished, but well on its way. Jax is in the kitchen with the last of the food while Ryan has been setting the table, neatly arranging the last of the artfully folded napkins for guests that -- well, mostly -- will not be here for a bit yet. He's wheeled back to survey his handiwork, eyes skipping aside to the cooking-party-slash-dance-party underway in the kitchen. His head bops lightly along with Lizzo piping through the speakers, though when the bopping continues on down to his hands he just grips them tight against the chair to still the motion. One of his guests is in fact lazing on the sofa. Alma's carriage and attitude are relaxed today, though a touch of her accustomed vigilance slips through when she notices Ryan going still. She pushes to her feet and falls into the rhythm easily, joining Lizzo at "-- that's cool baby, so is you." Rock-stepping around the dining table is how she rolls, and with "if I'm shining everybody gonna shine" she points directly at Ryan, her joy bright and buoyant and pleasantly soft around the edges. She almost dances right past him, but spins back to his side, hooks her hand casually under his, and leads him to the kitchen. --- 23 nisan. 8 - chesed she'b'gevurah. Spencer has been huddled in front of the laptop at a corner table in Evolve for hours. Well, more than one hour, anyway. But finally he finishes entering data and files the last of the hardcopy paperwork away into the waiting accordion folder before slumping back down into his seat groaning. He scoots upright when his taskmistress returns with -- he groans again -- yet more paperwork. "Both the emergency and transitional housing sheets are up to date," he reports hastily, perhaps to forestall himself complaining, though there's a touch of pride in his voice, too. "The moving dates are all in the calendar, and the list of the people who need to be contacted is in the um...project management app." He eyes the folder in her hand with obvious trepidation. Anahita receives this update with the faintest of smiles and an emphatic nod. "Thank you. It is so wonderful to see young people taking an interest in the welfare of our community." She sets down the tray she had been carrying, with a plate of pastries, a pot of tea, and a lemonade, then holds up the manila folder she'd been carrying under her arm. "This one can wait until tomorrow." She drags the accordion folder over and tucks it into the "To-Do" section. "Let us take a small break, and then you can help me deliver housewarming baskets." She sits down and gestures for the laptop so she can check over his work. "It's not all application forms and spreadsheets, you know." --- 24 nisan. 9 - gevurah she'b'gevurah. "Lotta ways to be tough, girl." Karida is draped long and lean against a dockside bench, chewing on the straw stuck into a smoothie and eying the ships out on the water. Her shoulder rolls, and she considers the smaller woman beside her with a hitch of eyebrows. "We would not have made it out of Blackburn without you fucking driving that, I feel like there's not a lot of situations you couldn't find your way out of." "Life seems to be leading to a lot more Situations these days," Wendy replies, a little wry. She's looking down at her hands, folded delicately in her lap -- then, sidelong, over at Karida's muscular arms. "I just don't want to be blindsided." "Fair enough." Karida grins broad around the chewed-up end of her straw. "Roll on by Fight Club, then. We'll get you some moves." --- 25 nisan. 10 - tiferet she'b'gevurah. "Bro." Zack is crouched down on the sidewalk, utterly ignoring the confused and panicked voices around him as he holds Zero's cheeks firm between his hands. "You can't keep doing this, man." The slow way he mooshes the dog's face from side to side makes Zero's pleasantly vacant stare look even goofier. Wag, wag, wag. The dog's tail, happily swooshing from all this attention, does not slow its cheerful wave even when Zack releases him, leaving the skin on one side of his face to peel entirely off and hang down beside his panting tongue -- it's this last horror more than the unsettling Everything that led up to it that finally prompts the upset driver who had almost run him over to get back in their car and speed away. With a small sigh Zack is dropping his forehead lightly against the dog's, lifting a hand to pat the pup again; when he straightens, Zero's face is back intact, together with a heavy dent that had been caved into his side. "I know you don't like it --" This is perhaps an exaggeration; when Zack pulls a leash out of his pocket and attaches it to the dog's collar, Zero hardly seems to notice. Zack, though, is looking considerably wiltier, not just in the patches of sunken-in flesh chewed out of him but in his unnecessarily lugubrious expression. "-- but it's for your own good." --- 26 nisan. 11 - netzach she'b'gevurah. The conservatory is near-empty, this late at night, though Flèche is still padding hopefully through the paths just in case some new and more interesting company turns up. Lucien has been an extraordinarily disappointing friend tonight, her tug-rope abandoned at his feet as he splits his attention between the competing demands of multiple different projects on multiple different screens. He does not seem to notice the faint shaking of his hand as he picks up his tea, sips at it. It's only when he returns to his work and his stylus falls from his unsteady fingers to hit against the table that he attends it -- if only to narrow his eyes, briefly, at the offending limb. His jaw tightens. The shaking stops, for now. Jax has been a quietly colorful co-working companion, across the table. His tablet is rested against his knees; the digital painting he is working on right now is zoomed in too far to see much of what the big picture will be, but this section is growing intricate veining in the strange flower he is currently detailing. His eye snaps up from his work when Lucien's stylus clatters to the table, and he is wrinkling his nose in an undisguised disapproval when Lucien forcibly wrests this exhaustion into abeyance. "And soon to be repping all Earth on top? Honey-honey, when you planning to sleep." He's extending his hand casually across the table -- fierce, warm, brimming over with a ferocious roiling energy, but beneath that it's just his slow careful breaths that he offers, his own steadying calm. "You ever stop to think how much more formidable you'd be if you was working with your gas tank actually full?" --- 27 nisan. 12 - hod she'b'gevurah. Avi's compact Mazda SUV was nearly a decade old when he got it; that it runs even smoother now than when he took it off the lot is probably due to a certain degree of punctiliousness in the Recommended Routine Maintenance. Even so, it's considerably earlier than his usual schedule to be re-checking its filters and belts, but at least this tidy checklist of tasks is here, in this world and not stranded in another, tangible and accomplishable. His competent-but-not-expert progression in Auto Shop has not left him confident about some things, though prooobably Mr. Summers's assistance in checking his differentials has been something of a pretext. Admittedly, even this segue from auto lubrication might also be a pretext; it isn't Bryce or Joshua or the upcoming Rescue Mission that he's bringing up, at least, but a pensive: "... what's it you look for, sir? If someone wanna join your team?" Scott isn't looking up at Avi, head inclined at a small tilt at a socket wrench he probably does not need to be cleaning now. His face is a little wan. "Drive to help people who need it," is where he starts, almost imperceptibly slower and more deliberate than is his wont. "Presence of mind to help them well. And enough independence and experience to keep developing those things naturally, but those are the big ones. You kids are important to me. I have to be sure I can trust the people I ask to look out for you." He's just tapping the heavy metal head of the wrench against his palm now, though this unconscious fidgeting slows when he does look down at Avi, then extends a hand to help the teenager up to his feet. "You're taking good care of this car." --- 28 nisan. 13 - yesod she'b'gevurah. "Mmngh." This helpful grunt comes with an equally helpful half-shrug. Hive is slouched low in his seat, glaring baleful at the blueprints projected above his workspace -- currently blown up large to focus on the panic room before he collapses it back into the overall design of the home. "Look, it's not that I want to ignore this shit, and you can see the security features I've incorporated, but at the end of the day if someone wants to fucking kill him, you know and I know that I'm not gonna build thick enough fucking walls to stop them." Alma doesn't look baleful, but she does look faintly put out. She studies the holographic blueprints after Hive has minimized the panic room, after he has stopped speaking, and by slow degrees her brows unfurrow. "No, you're right. Even if you could, maybe it wouldn't be worth it. I just kept thinking this could be a chance to improve his security from the ground up, but..." She gestures at the glowing floor plans. "Maybe that foundation has to be bigger than the house." --- 29 nisan. 14 - malchut she'b'gevurah. It's a perfect seafaring day out here -- the crystal-clear waters of this isolated bay are tranquil, the light breeze just taking the edge off the warm sun. There's really very little that should pose a danger to a sailboat -- which is probably exactly why Leo has chosen here and now for this lesson. He is relaxing, at the moment, lounged languid in a flotation tube in swim trunks and life vest a short distance from the small capsized craft -- very unbothered about its currently upended state. "{Yes, uncleat that, it will be fine,}" he is calling out with some cheerful amusement. "{When you climb onto centerboard just hold the gunwale and lean.}" Joshua has been very skeptical through quite a lot of this instruction. Not solely due to having forgotten, earlier, wtf a "vang" is anyway, but probably his fumbling through the nautical terms didn't help his confidence. From the other side of the boat there is a string of curses, but he has finally unfastened the correct line. He climbs up -- still skeptical in the glare he shoots Leo in his comfortable lounging. When he does as instructed and the entire boat tips itself back upright he is startled enough by it doing Exactly What Was Promised that he tips, kerPLOP, back into the water. There is a small floudering splash before he climbs back into the boat, leaning out over its side to just hike his brows up at Leo. "{Of course it worked.}" Leo is paddling lazily back towards the boat. "{Hopefully you never have to do this alone but it's -- important to know how.}" Joshua leans over the side, very much as if he's going to help pull Leo back up. "Buddy system, fucker." He's throwing his weight hard into the side of the craft and grabbing one of the loose lines to pull it into the water with him as he tumbles overboard with a laugh. With a pitch and a splash, the boat is heeling far over before toppling back onto its side. "{We're in this shit together.}" --- 30 nisan. 15 - chesed she'b'tiferet. "-- and there I go, just up first ave and this jerk in a cybertruck flings his door right into the bike lane." Wendy has been accentuating this story with small but emphatic gestures of her (bruised and bandaged) arm. She stops here to take a sip of her wine and wince, stiffly, as she adjusts her lean against the tabletop. "I'm flying onto the sidewalk and this construction worker right there he picks my bike up and is just like, hey lady, kick his ass, I'll hold your bike." Across from her in a plush wine-bar bench seat, Maya has been covering her laugh with a hand. She offers Wendy a sympathetic wince at the end of this story. "Really, when the city is kind of -- punching you and holding you at the same time," she says dreamily, "that's when I love New York the best." --- 1 iyar. 16 - gevurah she'b'tiferet. There aren't a ton of people on Evolve's patio just at the moment, and its present company probably has a whoooole lot to do with why most all the clientele has chosen to eat inside on this glorious mild spring evening. Fine by Anole, really, he's very deliberately picked a seat upwind of his companion and has been happily chattering away. "-- not such a terrible idea, is it? I mean, it'd have a niche appeal for sure but have you seen half the trash that's on stage 'round this city, I think Monster Theatre Group would get a couple fans at least, if we --" He's trailed off as a small group (very much human-passing, very much conventionally attractive, sprinkled here and there with NYU gear among their otherwise stylish clothes) just emerging with their coffees stops to snicker. "Please," one of the girls is laughing -- not looking at Anole but veeery much pitched for overhearing, "people do not go to the theatre to see uggos." Zack's back has been turned to the door, and with his neat button-down and neat locs this has hidden most of him from immediate sight. Which is perhaps what prompts the gasps -- one small and startled scream -- when he turns slowly in his seat to regard the group, half-blank white eyes in his drippy-melting face. "No fucking imagination on you kids," he's slurring, aggressively accentuated in his deathrattle voice. He's lifting a hand, yanking off his fingers one by one to huck them right at the group -- that small scream has become several as they start to flee. He's only got the middle finger left, then, raised high to their departing backs. "Just think of the horror potential." --- 2 iyar. 17 - tiferet she'b'tiferet. "-- and you have no idea how annoying they get," Quentin has been complaining vociferously for a short while now but on this particular grievance his voice pitches a little higher and a little whinier. "Like, you teach people art and cupcakes everyone likes those, you probably see all these annoying kids at their best. I have to listen to their stupid sniveling all day like oh, I'm literally the only mutant on earth who's ever been sad, I'm the only person at this whole school whose powers are hard, I'm sorry but you'd go insane if you had to hear all this stuff and I have to deal with it constantly." Jax has been perched on a stool at the end of one of the high tables in the art room, his ceaseless fidget currently quieted down to just a faint glowing tracery of geometric patterns that spiral open and closed on the tabletop in front of him. His mind has been diligently marshaled into some kind of obscurity, carefully cloaked beneath a much more vibrant and lively covering of growth in alien forms and colors that don't quite register to other eyes, leaving the too-vivid landscape of his mind just a little painful to look at too long. Some of the dangerous-looking flowers are uncurling petals in strange toothy configurations that look a little like they might be laughing, but Jax's expression is all over earnest consideration. "Oh, I'm sure I prob'ly would," he agrees. "Ain't sure Mr. da Costa's gonna exempt you from your group project on account'a too much telepathing, though. How 'bout we brainstorm some ways to deal with the terrible burden of existing 'round other people?" --- 3 iyar. 18 - netzach she'b'tiferet. "Chee, Boston? You go one mo cold place, you lolo." Nanami's warm approval comes through clear and bright over the video chat. She's looking up from the large fake tree she's been working on painting to give a slightly green-brown smudged thumbs-up. "Mebbe Boston you stay out dat hamajang freak nonsense ova dea, yeah?" She pauses, tipping her brush towards the camera. "Mebbe some go up north with you." "Psh, I'm sure I'mm'a find my share of nonsense where ever I go." Avi is, currently, backframed by a large print of Action Jesus, standing white-robed at the helm of a storm-tossed boat. Jesus is shifting slowly in and out of frame as he turns his chair from side to side. "This the longest I ever been one place. I'on think I got being homesick when you headed off but it's gonna be weird leaving here." "Nah, you be okay." Nanami shrugs, dropping down from her crouch to sit cross-legged in front of the screen. "Some people, when they leave they leave, yeah? No see 'em no mo. You --" The small waggle of her brush between the herself and the screen flecks tiny brown droplets toward the camera. "You got choke practice knowing how to stay." --- 4 iyar. 19 - hod she'b'tiferet. Polaris turns the slim throwing knife over in her hand, running her fingertips gently along the glossy-smooth flat of its blade. "They're nicer than the ones I borrowed for Lassiter." She presses the pad of her index finger very lightly against the tip and hisses quietly at the tiny drop of red that wells up from the dimple it leaves. "Sharper, too." The knife lifts up and spins slowly along its long axis, but she looks past it and the rest of its set, still tucked neatly away in a row of sheaths stitched into a vest, at the person sitting across from her. "Thank you, they're beautiful. I'll never have even half your style with these, but these will do a lot more damage than my jewelry or ball bearings if--" She sucks in a breath through clenched teeth. "--when the Enforcers catch up with me." Alma smiles thinly. "Well, we both got captured, and Prometheus didn't see fit to give either set back. It was about time for an upgrade anyway." She pats her blazer, under whose unbuttoned flap her own specialized holster vest can be seen. "I guess the improved balance won't matter as much for how you throw things, but they're more comfortable to wear and -- yeah, sharper. Anyway, this is a spare set, and I hope it helps when the time comes." She pushes out of her seat and gives Polaris's shoulder an encouraging squeeze. "But for now? My team will be here until Ryan heads out, and we've gotten pretty good at spotting trouble. Try to relax for a while." --- 5 iyar. 20 - yesod she'b'tiferet. The satisfying-sharp clack of the cue ball is soon followed by the thunk of the 8-ball pocketed. Though the young lady opposite the table has clearly lost she seems sanguine enough about whatever stakes were riding on this game, her, "-- be seeing you later, then," carrying a decidedly prurient purr. Damien is not looking up as he collects the balls, dropping them lightly to the felt to re-rack them, but a slow smile is curling across his face. "If you've come to play, I ought to warn you, it is my turn to choose the forfeit." Joshua doesn't pull himself immediately away from the wall where he's been observing this final winning stroke. He's just continuing to linger in silence, mouth pulling slowly to the side. He does open his case, though, to assemble his cue stick. "K, then." His eyes are solidly on Damien, though, as he saunters closer, leans in to tuck his fingers at the base of the rack and slide the balls in a little tighter. "What is it you desire?" --- 6 iyar. 21 - malchut she'b'tiferet. Probably, at some other nonprofit, an underpaid and overworked intern would have made this supply run. Then again, other nonprofits don't have the force of nature that is Ryan Black. The bankers boxes in the back seat aren't all that heavy, but parking in Manhattan being what it is, they'll have a block and change to walk with them. Spencer twists around in his seat, all awkward lanky angles, and squints back up the street, estimating the distance. "Hey, I can just blip these up real quick," he tells Ryan earnestly, unbuckling himself. "You guys don't even need to get out of the car." "I said I can handle it, Spence." Ryan's voice isn't sharp, but this answer comes with an unusual quickness that lends it intensity. The look one of the other volunteers is shooting him has a fresh concern in it that was not there before Spence's question. "Are you sure you don't --" she starts, glancing not so much to him as the wheelchair. Ryan's fingers tighten hard against it's arm. "Spence likes to be helpful," he says, pressing the button to start unfolding the van's ramp, "even when it ain't entirely necessary." Spence ducks his head, though he does not look too terribly chastened by the reminder. He does at least sound chastened when he hedges, "I know, I just thought maybe..." He trails off into uncertain thoughtful silence, and when he vanishes from the van -- -- to reappear on the sidewalk, he does so without any of the boxes. Instead he pulls the side door open and waits for Ryan without too much visible impatience. "Well, it's not about what I think anyway." --- 7 iyar. 22 - chesed she'b'netzach. "Look what that monster did to Zayn." The sodden grey fur in Zack's hand might be a small opossum or a large rat -- or, well, might be the remains of one of those. Torn up and filthy and half eaten away, it doesn't have a lot left recognizable. Though as Zack carefully pets the mangled lump, it's starting to slowly regrow. "I don't know about this, how many more of my guys are going to get sacrificed to the --" "Wasn't he dead already?" Nessie is eying the lump of ratossum skeptically. "I mean, could he even feel getting eaten. Will he like, remember, when he comes back alive. Maybe he'll be real proud of his ferocity not so many, uh --" One of her many eyes squints at the lump and then gives up on identification. "-- animals that can report coming back from being eaten up by a gator." "That's not the point. These guys are going to bat for us we should respect them." Zack is holding the slimy lump close and protective to his chest. When he looks out at the dim and damp tunnel before them a host of beady eyes -- many kind of milkier than usual, not quite as gleaming-shiny as they ought to be -- look back at them. The thing he finally releases to shuffle back into the muster is stil not very recognizable, half-formed paws and half-eroded body. He sounds very sincere when he tells them: "Thank you for your service." --- 8 iyar. 23 - gevurah she'b'netzach. "-- be damned if I am sharing a table with that terrorist." Like Ryan's (icy-chill) table, Jax's dinner companions have also been having a small amount of seating woes. This particular group seems marginally less likely to break out into punching, though -- certainly Tony Stark himself does not look to be in any sort of rush to defend the good name of mutants, here tonight. As the splutterings of the biotech mogul who's been seated on Jackson's other side grow increasingly agitated, he's watching with a definite amusement, pulling out his seat to drop into it with no evident discomfort. He drapes an arm over the back of his chair, head tipped up to the side to shoot the others a quick look over his next mouthful of whisky. "You --" With a click of his tongue he's tipping his glass directly towards Jax, as if he somehow instigated the night's tension, "have this effect wherever you go?" Jax has been watching the pleas for re-assignment with an expression of polite bemusement. It's broken by Tony's question -- he turns, blinking, at the older man. His hand drops to rest on the back of his chair; he's slow to pull it out and slow to drop into his seat. His smile, though, is quick and wide. "Oh, you got no idea how it comes in handy in lockup. Hard-won habit, I ain't got plans of breaking it no time soon." --- 9 iyar. 24 - tiferet she'b'netzach. "What is it with Boston?" Lael isn't making any effort to keep his hair immobile, the now waist-length locs weaving slow and hypnotic around him, responding to the breeze but not slave to it. The wide berth just about everyone is giving him means they have this little stretch of Umpire Rock all to themselves. "I know there's good schools there, but damn. That town ain't ready for y'all." He offers a dap even as he shakes his head slow, locs curling in a little tighter before relaxing. "Nae's goin' up there too. Berklee College of Music." His expression softens with pride, then darkens with worry. "I guess she ain't been bragging none." "Hoarding good schools up there," Avi answers cheerfully. It's a cheer that's fading with the mention of Naomi -- his eyes a little more narrowed, his mouth a little tighter. He turns his head up towards the sky, settling back a little more heavily on his elbows. "Hadn't heard," comes out just a little clipped. His voice softens when he speaks again: "She ain't really been talking to much of anybody, not since..." His fingers drum against the rock, and then he looks over at Lael. "Could be a new start. Boston's a cold city, be good to have some friends." --- 10 iyar. 25 - netzach she'b'netzach. This studio is always a little extra, of course, but today the lagniappe is avoiding a trip to the emergency room. Conveniently, Harm was already in the lounge, taking a break from the unaccustomed long hours of a recording session. Their mandolin is propped in the open case on the couch beside them, but they are turned toward the person on their other side. Their cool and callused hand is upturned to gently cradle their patient's, their power not sensible except by the steady fading of pain -- the wound looks like little more than a deep bruise, now. "I can heal this up all the way," they reassure, the lines of concentration already faded from their brow. "The worst of it is done anyway, and that was nothing compared to a clinic shift. Are you planning to go right back on duty, though?" Their smile is a bit uncertain but doesn't look forced. "I feel like I'm enabling overwork." "I'm not overworked." Alma's tone is even and confident, but the reply comes so quickly and reflexively that it's hard not to read it as at least a bit defensive. "In general," she concedes in the very next instant Turning her hand over in Harm's and rolls her shoulder experimentally, wincing at the tug on her rapidly mending injury. She does obediently stop at the healer's reproachful look. "It's been a busy week, but we were expecting that. The flatscans are just mad he looked so amazing at the Gala." Her smile looks very certain, grim and determined. "I do usually take the rest of the day off when I get stabbed, even if it's minor. I've been doing this long enough to know when I need that, though." Her hand curls into a loose fist before releasing, consciously heavier and more relaxed than before. "Thank you for enabling. You, on the other hand..." Harm's smile eases with Alma's, and they flex their free hand gracefully in a motion like fretting their mandolin. "Please. Grace under fire isn't the only thing I learned from Joshua." --- 11 iyar. 26 - hod she'b'netzach. There are no hospitals left standing anywhere nearby -- barely anything standing at all, after the latest round of bombardment. It's quiet right now, though, and this makeshift tent as clean and comfortable as they could make it. Mirror has been holding their niece's hand, a job that would perhaps have been the responsibility of Amna's husband if he hadn't been killed in the bombings just last month. The young woman is crying loud on her latest push, face sweaty and contorted with the pain. Joshua has by far the easier job here, but he's gotten a bit sweaty himself nevertheless, gloves streaked with blood, as is the towel he is surfacing with. He's carefully wiping the tiny new baby clean, and eventually plucks a clamp out of seemingly thin air to carefully clamp and cut the umbilical cord. He's tucking the newborn into a fresh new towel before he nestles the little boy by his mother's side. "{Looking healthy.}" Amna turns her head aside, eyes glistening as she looks past the child and up to Joshua. "{For how long, while your people starve us?}" It's not bitter so much as matter-of-fact through the pain. "{You could take him somewhere. Better.}" Joshua is peeling off his gloves -- they vanish neatly from the space. "{If you'll let me,}" he says, quietly, "{I can take you both.}" --- 12 iyar. 27 - yesod she'b'netzach Service won't be starting for a few minutes yet, and the congregation is still chatting, settling in and, in some cases, trying to wake up. Spencer had been waylaid by two women from his family of birth who might be cousins or might be aunts -- it's an open question whether he even knows how they're related -- but now hurriedly excuses himself to greet the not-so-regular who just came in. "Oh man, Shabbat shalom!" He lifts his hands but just manages to stop himself from flailing and transfers the motion to a tight hug instead. "I'm so glad to see you but like, you didn't have to come all the way out here..." He lowers his voice and ducks his head a little sheepishly. "...just to keep me company. Thanks." There's almost no pause or change in tone before he adds, "And you look great!" Gaétan is bapping his siddur lightly against his opposite palm, though this idle animation is interrupted by the hug. He returns it one-armed, and straightens his crisp dress shirt out of its ensuing rumple (only a slight one, some careful magic holding it mostly in place even through the tight embrace). "Keep you company?" His brows hike, his smile small and crooked. "Who says I'm not just here for the grocery-store challah after? C'mon, jailbird." He baps Spence lightly, now, with the prayerbook. "Let's grab a seat." --- 13 iyar. 28 - malchut she'b'netzach. The separation of the holy has been blessed and Shabbat is over. Those who aren't busy with their backlog of texts are mingling, and one of the Rachels (she/her) has wandered over to introduce herself. "I haven't seen you before," she's telling Polaris earnestly. "If you're new, welcome! Community is extra important at a time like this." Then she turns the same bright smile to Wendy. "And what brings you here tonight?" Polaris had been smiling at Rachel in kind -- maybe checking her out, just a little -- but now her eyes narrow and her jaw clenches. "Excuse you. What makes you think I'm Jewish? What makes you think she's not?" There's enough challenge in her tone that the questions don't sound wholly rhetorical, but she answers them anyway. "Oh right, it's the racism. I'm here for her. What brings you here?" Wendy (just on the verge of becoming busy with her backlog of texts) has frozen, polite smile fixed on her face and her slender fingers gripped tight around her phone. She's just opening her mouth to answer when Polaris does instead, and, minutely but noticeably, she relaxes. "Oh, I came here for community," she replies earnestly. "You really should try it, it's extra important at a time like this." --- 14 iyar. 29 - chesed she'b'hod. The soundproofing in here is Very Good, but that means less with Ryan's heightened sensitivities. The soft violin music playing in Jax's studio (Ryan's composition, but Shane's recording) is still softly audible. It's almost-but-not-quite covering up the idle repetitive sound of Jax's voice, a low intermittent murmur whose words are not quite distinct but whose vague empathic register marks it a thoughtless echolalia, not much present in it except the referred and intent focus of work. It makes it all the more distinctive when that register shifts sharply (although the words have not), spiking sharp with an uncomfortable mix of disorientation, grief, and a very physical pain. Inside the studio it's a little hard to tell exactly what the painting is that Jax has been working on -- the canvas itself has gotten very much lost in the overflow illusion that has spilled out to claim the room in its entirety. The studio looks underwater, a roiling oceanic seascape whose tall dark stands of kelp forest look to be hiding immense and toothy hungry shapes among the fronds. The fronds themselves are toothy, too, stretched out to grasp and tear at Jax's arms. Thankfully insensibly, though there's still wet-red slashed across his pale skin -- not blood, too bright and too thick for that, but streaks from the sharp-tipped end of his palette knife. It's probably not sharp enough to break the skin without some real effort but Jax seems to be putting that effort in, digging hard and heedless of the pain at a hungry kelp frond which, unsurprisingly given it isn't real, is entirely unaffected by the attempt. Ryan's knock is perfunctory; he's letting himself in a moment later. The submerged room gives him pause, but only a moment of it. Unthinkingly he is holding his breath as he wheels inside, remembering only a moment later to just breathe normally. He's sizing up the room -- the forest -- the hungry silhouettes -- and Jax last of all, his mouth compressing with a look at the palette knife. "Hey, man, the paint's for your canvas." He's rolled over to Jax's side, careful but firm as he closes his hand around the other man's, stilling the sharp dig of metal against skin. There's a deliberate calm in his voice, steady and grounding and this carries over to the way a second violin is joining the recording in gentle harmony. Maybe this gentle soothing should contrast with the way his nails curl in, digging harder against the dimpled marks left by the knifetip, but then, maybe those sharp pains harmonize too. "You here with me?" "-- oh no oh no," Jax is continuing low under his breath. It takes a short while and a few more repetitions before the disoriented ache in the words is shifting to -- well, it still aches, but it's more present. It's not the calm that ultimately brings him back into focus, though, water ebbing, rapacious plants withering away. The controlled pain in Ryan's touch evens his breathing, calming his own internal roil. He eases his grip on the knife, arm turning just a little harder into the grip, and though he blushes dark he does not apologize. "... m'here." --- 15 iyar. 30 - gevurah she'b'hod. There's no actual mission today; the clubhouse more of a quiet retreat from the chaos of the school than a preparation zone for extracurricular chaos. Quentin is pacing nevertheless, restless-agitated like he's antsy for some kind of action. There's a textbook open next to his laptop on a low table; he's ignoring this nominal attempt at studying to, instead, continue doomscrolling Apex. "-- may as well fall into another dimension, this one hates us. Are we supposed to just sit around and take the fucking APs while the government gears up to round us all up? Wait for shit to get like Genosha before we bother to rise up? Mr. Jax took down a whole military project with like, a handful of people, how much more could we do if we tried?" Avi is studying, eyes scrunched and knuckles pressed to his temple as though the effort of not giving in to senioritis is physically giving him a headache. Orrrr maybe the headache is coming from somewhere else; he glances up to Quentin with his mouth twisting hard to one side. There are gunshot flashes in his mind, illuminating the walls of Lassiter (towering, in his mind, far higher than they probably did in life), and blood pooling under a body in the harsh spotlight-glare of the watchlights. Even so there's a ferocious antsiness of his own, restless and fiery-bright in contrast to the veining of ice that crackles lightly over his knuckles and spiderwebs across his chair. He deliberately shoves down the rising question about what now, deliberately sets aside worrying about the latest in the firehose of Bad News to turn his attention back to math. "Fight's gonna be there a long while," he says, kind of resigned. "Think sometimes it takes more work to sit and prep for it than to rush on in." --- 16 iyar. 31 - tiferet she'b'hod. The thump of the music has for some time now been laced heady with an ecstatic thrill. Admittedly, for a good number of the attendees it's been hard to distinguish the empathic pulse from the copious drugs circulating this ritzy house party. It's becoming much easier to distinguish now that jagged shards of indignation and anger spike pricklysharp through it. Ryan -- very wobbly on his crutches, the molly and the boozy are doing nothing at all for his already precarious balance -- is not using his Inside Voice, and though at first the only people attending were the very much sober pair of women who had cajoled him into leaving with them, now there are quite a few more eyes on him. "-- not my fucking nanny," he's biting, "who the fuck works for who here. You go home, you're fired." Alma has parked herself in the doorway, stoically weathering the storm of Ryan's displeasure. "I'm not your nanny," she agrees evenly, though there is stress beneath her calm that only Ryan can hear. "I'm your chief of security and your friend, and you can fire me from being both once you're sober." She checks her phone and takes a deep, relieved breath. "Jared is bringing the car around. If you really insist on your..." Her voice is brimming with disapproval that she largely keeps out of her impassive if still somewhat unimpressed glance at the two women. "...companions coming along, I'm sure they'll have plenty of fun at L'Entente, too." --- 17 iyar. 32 - netzach she'b'hod. The top-billed fight this evening has promised to be ferocious and bloody, and the warehouse is alive with a frenetic kind of energy as it heats up. It's as flashy as expected, and between the terrifying fleshbender and the many glittering-bloody shards of glass glinting rapid through the air, it's gruesome enough that it is not easy to tell yet exactly who is winning when, very abruptly, a sharp whistle blows, a buzzer sounds, a red light flashes for a complete safety stop. Though one of the competitors in the ring stops immediately the gleaming projectiles don't, and the telekinetic is being wrangled none too gently out the door before half the room has even clocked who stopped the fight or why. The disgruntlement that's been rising does soon enough find its target, though, landing squarely in the healers' corner where Joshua has returned, quiet, to work after red carding this match; there's a couple thin slices trickling blood against his cheek, though the much deeper gash where a shard had landed in his patient's leg is already mostly closed up. He's paying very little attention to the idle annoyances being flung his way by several grousing spectators -- "-- had a lot of money riding on that --" "-- barely even fucking touched this pussy --", though it's a more drunken-belligerent "-- could take him," that pulls his eyes impassively upward from the patient he is tending. "Probably shouldn't," he's replying, flat and low, and nodding over toward where several patched Mongrels are keeping a weather eye on the unrest. "'less you can take all them, too." --- 18 iyar. 33 - hod she'b'hod - lag b'omer. What do you know, it was remarkably easy to put together a makeshift barbershop in the corner, maybe a few grooming essentials won't be missed from what turned out to be a badly unbalanced distribution of care package supplies; most of the other volunteers are still debating how to stretch their shelf-stable food across their abundance of hand sanitizer. The cape was a little improvised, but it fits snugly. With no good way to spin the chair, Kamil is spinning slowly on his heel to face his customer, giving his appropriated haircutting shears a testing snip-snip, his sharp smile framed by the sharp beak and sharp-feathered wings tattooed around his bald head. "Ooh, we in good hands tonight, look at that," he's saying, "piece of shit they give us in Newton got stuck you tried to open it too far." Although the keenness of his expression eases into a more peaceable focus as he comes closer, it does not manage to be quite reassuring when he adds, "Whatchu look so scared for? I cut my hair." Does Spence look scared? Maybe he does look a bit concerned. "How desperate were your labmates? Lassiter was easy, but I don't think I got any haircuts at Rosen. Cuz back then I uh..." He makes a gesture that may not be particularly intuitive to those not deep in the acquaintance of any teleporters: pinching all the fingers of one hand together while splaying apart the fingers of the other. "Well. It was bad times if people got too close to me and I freaked out. I don't," he adds hastily, "do that anymore!" He tucks his hands back under the cape obediently and sort of relaxes into the seat. "Anyway uh. It doesn't have to be fancy, I'm just tired of it poking out over my ears and down my neck." He grins, a little crookedly. "If it turns out too wild, I can always just copy your do." --- 19 iyar. 34 - yesod she'b'hod. Friday nights are far less intense here than their Wednesday counterparts, but Wendy is nevertheless bringing an uncharacteristic ferocity to her practice -- maybe to make up for her usually much fiestier missing bestie. A few strands of hair have come loose from her braid , draped sweaty against the side of her face. She's keeping her weight low, which makes the considerable size difference between her and her opponent even starker. Though she's already pretty bruised, favoring one side, her attention -- intense and scrutinizing -- has not wavered. Whatever she's been sizing up it seems to pay off when she darts in, her strikes sudden and precise and startlingly unerring in finding their pressure points -- alas that this does not disable as effectively as martial arts movies would have one believe, but it does create an opening for a nicely executed throw. The air whooshes out of Karida's lungs as she hits the ground. She's wincing but grinning, broad, her face tipped up toward Wendy above her. "Damn. You keep moving like that --" Her legs are twisting up to lock into Wendy's and pull the smaller woman down atop her. "I might have to get used to being down here." --- 20 iyar. 35 - malchut she'b'hod. There's a myriad tiny skittering feet pitapatting against the dank cement -- some of them close and some much farther off. Zack has stopped moving altogether, though, slouched scrunch-eyed and wilty against a rusting ladder. "Okay this was kind of cool at a dozen or even two but --" It's hard to tell when his eyes have properly refocused on the here, the now, a little milked-over and sagging as they have been more and more often in the growing heat. "Doesn't it ever get too much, when are we just too many guy?" Bug also seems to be looking off in the middle distance, kind of swaying back and forth as his body emits some buzzing. He turns over the cherry sucker held in his mouth thoughtfully. "Seems harder to be too few guys." He pauses and crosses his arms loosely. "Still one sorta thing, though, all working together to be the bigger you. Like playing all the instruments in a symphony! You get to see so much, learn so much, feel so much. Be so much. Sure, sometimes it's a lot, but I think that's probably just how it is to be a person." He grins crookedly and looks between the little skittering Zacklings and then the slouched form of Zack. "At least there's a team of us to share the weight." --- 21 iyar. 36 - chesed she'b'yesod. It's very late, by the time Dinah Williams is trudging home from her shift, scrubs rumpled and mussed -- hard to say if it was a particularly trying time at the ER or just How The ER Goes. Though her eldest is sure to have returned to campus by now, Aliza is likely asleep already, so she opens the door quiet, shuts it carefully, doesn't bother to turn the lights on once she's slipped out of her Hokas and set her keys and ID badge on the front table. As a result it's not until she's closed the kitchen door and switched that light on that she fully notices how the house gleams, recently scrubbed clean and bright. She sets herself down at the table in the cramped kitchen to peel out of her compression socks, rubbing slowly at the aching ball of her foot with one hand. She leans over a moment later to pluck up a post-it left on the fridge, her tired expression easing as she reads it: 'made LOTS of brown stew chicken in the fridge pls don't eat some frozen garbage. ♡ a'. --- 22 iyar. 37 - gevurah she'b'yesod. "I'm not fucking him," Alma says tightly, tipping back her beer. "I don't want to fuck him. I originally got the job because there was no risk I would ever want to fuck him." She scrubs the side of her face with one hand and slumps back into the corner of her couch, putting a few extra pointed inches between herself and her brother. "I know mom doesn't buy it, and at this point..." She waves that same hand in the air, vague and exasperated. "I don't know if that's homophobia or wishful thinking. He isn't just a job to me, but he sure isn't keeping me from getting married." Elias raises his hands in surrender. "I didn't say I thought that! Though now you seem kinda like you're protesting too much." He performatively flinches away from her also performative kick. "See, you getting all violent about it now. I don't even know if she really believes it, or if it's just...all part of her being scared you'll get hurt. Don't!" He holds up a forestalling finger. "I didn't tell her anything you told me not to, and I would bet real money you don't tell me when you get hurt unless you gotta." He subsides, picking his own drink back up. "Look. I know he's important to you, and I don't wanna fight about it. I just want you to be happy. And hey, if what makes you happy is banging Ryan Black -- ow!" --- 23 iyar. 38 - tiferet she'b'yesod. Joshua is looking his slouchy usual as he trudges out of the mansion, one hand shoved in his pocket and the other absently flicking one of his knotted tassels between thumb and forefinger. "Good day for noodles." He's tipping his head up in greeting as he approaches; it's hard to say if his frown has anything to do with the scrutinizing look he's giving Roscoe or if his face is Just Like That. "You got time? Know a place. Great bún bò Huế. Bring whoever. S'far, though." Whatever the Birthday Boy could have done to warrant scrutiny is not outwardly very apparent -- Roscoe seems to be his slouchy usual at the chess table, hunched with his head nestled on one arm, though it's probably too early in the evening for bone-deep tiredness and it's also probably too late in the afternoon for whole-body hangover aches. He is perking up, though, slow but definite, as Joshua comes over, raising his head up off his arms; the corners of his mouth pull wider. Not into an actual smile, but his voice is transparently pleased: "Is it Huế?" he says. Then, though he glances over at the mansion, though the flare of his power flexing is outsized enough to suggest that he's doing a thorough sweep for his friends, after a moment he pushes his chair out and gets to his feet without making any moves toward inviting anyone else. "I'm bringing you," he informs Joshua solemnly. "But you have to bring your party spirit." --- 24 iyar. 39 - netzach she'b'yesod. Probably, Spence knows he isn't supposed to be here. He's been sitting balanced on the railing of B's rooftop patio fidgeting ceaselessly with the handles of a blue nylon grocery bag, but as the sleek hoverbike pulls up he hops down. "Hey. I -- I'm sorry. I haven't been around for you. There's no excuse." He bites his lower lip, brows furrowing in futile concentration that suggests he had a script but has forgotten it. "I want to do better -- and I also miss you and I'm worried -- but I didn't know where to start so I just." He takes a breath. "I mean I'm kind of grounded right now but I didn't think Pa and Ryan would mind me bringing you some bulgogi real quick and -- maybe hang out a little while? But we don't have to!" He holds out the bag, which shows the outline of a boxy container. B hasn't pulled her motorcycle helmet off, just yet, which makes it hard to read anything from her expression -- blank dark faceplate over the broad sharktoothed grin painted below. She kills the soft-hum motor as she dismounts, hopping lightly off the hoverbike. Her gills are fluttering several times quick and light, and then press deliberately down flat along the side of her neck. Her face, once she removes the helmet, is nearly as blank -- impossibly wide pitch-black eyes unblinking in their steady regard. She tucks the helmet under her arm as she pulls out her keys, and she is not looking at the bag -- or at her brother, just unlocking the door in silence. Her fingers tighten on the knob, and there's a moment of hesitation as she pulls the door open. Just a moment, capped with an almost-imperceptible shake of her head. Her shoulders hunch and she disappears inside, the lock thunking into place behind her. --- 25 iyar. 40 - hod she'b'yesod. This particular Sixth Ave intersection is always a nightmare to bike through, but usually the snarl isn't quite -- well. There hasn't actually been an accident here -- not yet -- though the intersection is thoroughly gridlocked. The cars nearby aren't moving, aren't trying to move, though the streets beyond are clear enough they could. The frightened cluster of people in Victorian dress huddled on the sidewalk and the flying carpet that swoops through the intersection are not the cause of any of the confusion -- instead, overhead, an enormous mothlike creature has spread its wings wide, mesmerizing patterns shifting and changing across its iridescent wings. Wendy has planted one foot on the ground and is staring -- everyone is staring, entranced by the dizzying display and lured closer by the quiet feeling whispering through their minds to just give up and drift to sleep. A whipcrack-sharp pain stings quick and jarring through the soothing hypnotic swirls digging into the onlookers' minds. It's far from pleasant but it's a wake-up call, thorny-sharp vines coiling tight against each other mind and yanking their attention roughly away before they succumb. As the stinging tendril yanks back it leaves in its wake the sharp (memory)(knowledge) -- don't look. Though several of the cars are peeling away the moment they can, others are emptying to release their passengers into the street -- two women carry umbrellas, opening them wide to shield the group on the sidewalk from the hypnotic wings; another man is using a large flattened cardboard box as a visual shield to help escort people away. There's a blur at Wendy's side -- DJ is holding out a large black umbrella, still folded. "... almost kind of beautiful," he's musing, and resisting the urge to glance up. "But you might still want this." --- 26 iyar. 41 - yesod she'b'yesod. The synagogue itself has grown a thick coating of odd slime over the past days -- no sign anymore of what creature made it, though a group of large troll-looking creatures made out of rock have moved in with no evident discomfort for the slimy dank. Ma'ariv service is as a result being held in the small park next door -- from the mouth of an alley down the block, the singing is still just-barely audible, lo tevoshi ve'lo tikalmi. Despite the fact that one of his arms is half-off and a thick gash slices down a good portion of his face, Zack's foot is absently still tapping out the rhythm. It lends an oddly upbeat cadence to his sentences whose pep kind of jars with what he's actually saying: "-- know things have been real messy around here but," his words carry just the faintest slurring hint that the bottle of cheap whiskey he is drinking from is starting to take an effect, "that monster talk it starts to sting, I'm just here to pray not -- not -- whatever they think. Like when you cut me do I not --" He's checking the largely bloodless tear where his arm is hanging only semi-attached and pivots: "V'al-kol-yisrael, not just, not just the pretty ones, right. Sometimes I just want them to..." This is cut off by another swig of his liquor. The man leaning against the wall just beside him has been hanging on this increasingly tipsy rambling with a rapt attention. Eyes wide, long fingers trailing lightly along the bangles at his wrist; their clink bears an oddly unsettling musicality that whispers soft and dissonant in counterpoint to the hymn. They jingle again as Damien turns his hand elegantly upward, something wolfish in the slow stretch of his smile and velvet purr of his voice: "I'm listening. What is it you wish for them?" --- 27 iyar. 42 - malchut she'b'yesod. The former owner never formally moved in here, but the basement level of this house manages to acutely bring to mind who it was built for, more "grotto" than "cellar" with a recessed stone-lined pool taking up a decent portion of the living space in contrast to the far more traditionally built levels above. Maybe it's this that gives Jax pause here on the last leg of the tour, his steps hitching -- but only for a moment -- before he switches the light on and enters. "-- anyway," he's continuing, "I just kinda wanted it to -- be something more meaningful, y'know? Not just sell it and --" He's running his fingers through his hair and drops his arm to his side. "Maybe this is outta my lane to be thinking on but I know this city's real short on any welcoming places for all y'all. You think this --" His gesture is up, out, encompassing the house in its entirety, "could be worth the repurposing?" Marinov has been following fairly quietly, taking a look at the property and sometimes sniffing at who-knows-what. Their ears flick just slightly as they look down into the pool, "Didn't know he had--" They shake their head and then look back towards Jax. "You know, a couple times he talked about wanting to set up a monster space in Evolve, just like. I dunno, bounced the idea around." They nod a few times in ascending order of certainty. "I think he'd like-- I think it'd be worth doing. Not really sure what you'd need to do to get it ready, but," they touch their own chest with their clawed fingertips. "You wouldn't have to do it alone." --- 28 iyar. 43 - chesed she'b'malchut. "I know it's natural to be scared of getting hurt." Mira has been watching the fiery blaze the sun throws across the East River. Her shaking has stopped for the most part and her voice is steadying with each word. "It's not that. I'm afraid I'll fuck up and let him get hurt." Her eyes dart aside to Alma, just a tick and back to the reflected sunset "Sooner or later I'll have to stop shadowing you. What if I don't have enough experience? What if I freeze up?" She pushes her fingers through her spiky-short hair. "And then I'm afraid this is what's going to make me fuck up." She holds out her hand, watching it tremor faintly against the sunset. "I swear I'm not fishing for reassurance." Her hand drops back down to her lap. "Tee el dee are, I don't know what I need. I guess?" Alma has been silent through this meandering explanation, her expression concerned but showing no signs of stress from their near-miss earlier. "No need to force it. I find it's usually best not to talk about it too much until the next day, anyway, but everyone's different. Except how everyone has doubts when they're new." She points at herself. "Including me. If the stress gets worse before it gets better -- and it might -- I'll do my best to help you figure out how to cope. If it doesn't settle somewhere manageable, you don't have to stay on. But as far as I can tell, you're doing pretty good." She flashes Mira an encouraging smile. "You want to get some drinks down in the fancy bar in the catacombs? My treat, for rookie's first shooting." --- 29 iyar. 44 - gevurah she'b'malchut. After a week of ghosts and goblins and all kinds of topsy-turvy city chaos, it's almost refreshing to have normal horrors to deal with. Almost. There's a motorcycle mangled at the side of the street, blood streaked thick through the intersection. The driver half-conscious and full-drunk behind the wheel is nodding off -- though one leg is mangled and torn in the crush of his car door he doesn't seem to notice the pain or the wheezing-gurgling breaths of the biker he left dying in the road. The flashers on Joshua's ambulance are lighting the blood on the street and the blood in the car with the same uneasy red flicker. Joshua's face, too, when he appears beside the car -- vanishes again shortly and reappears one more time with the jaws of life in his hand. It's the odd blinking of the teleporter's jumps that pulls the driver's attention. His lips pull back from his bloodied teeth in a sneer of disgust. "Get the fuck," he starts, but his slurring words stutter to a halt; it takes him some time to remember he was busy revving up some vitriol. "Fucking -- genetrash. Don't touch me," this is dipping back into an inebriated mumble, "mutie freak. I'll -- goddamn -- sue." Joshua is just working in silence, looking up as his partner arrives with a stretcher. The twisted car door clatters to the ground; he and the other paramedic are slicing through the bloody seatbelt to free the man inside. "Great," Joshua is saying as he helps extricate the driver. "Glad you'll be alive to do that." --- 1 sivan. 45 - tiferet she'b'malchut. The pale gray stretch of beach lining this little cove on the far side of the lake has been used by generations of X-Kids for illicit carousing. Spence isn't exactly carousing, though the joint in his hand is certainly illicit. He's just sitting and staring up at a swath of sky where the moon would be visible if it were not brand new against the bright blazing blue. Maybe he only imagines he can hear the swell of the spring tide in the gentle sloshing of the lake. Maybe he's also imagining he feels the moment of stillness when it turns, like a quieter version of the lightness in him just before he starts falling. The breath he drew before it comes out after as a soft tumble of smoke and berakah. --- 2 sivan. 46 - netzach she'b'malchut. A thin smoke drifts up into the night sky, the illumination from the backdrop of the Hellfire Clubhouse shining reflecting off of the wisps. Winona's eyes are up towards the sky where stars would be if they could intrude through the light pollution of the city. "It's not very good, my brother left it, and I didn't want to let it go to waste, but..." Maybe I should have is left silently implied, though there is also not really any regret. "He got spooked, 'cause some ICE man was poking into his business on his way in, and he wanted to play it safe on the way back out." She rolls her eyes and holds the blunt out towards her companion. "This fake fucking country." Now that the smoke has cleared her lungs she takes a deep breath. "How do you. Not lose your mind. Not lose your heart in this--" She gestures vaguely around with her open hand. Wendy is leaning up against the balcony, head turned slightly to the side as she takes the blunt. Her expression has drawn slightly in a sympathetic wince, and she takes a long hit before she answers. "I lost my mind years ago," is delivered in the wide-eyed and slightly hushed tone of a great secret, but after this she is sighing. Exhaling a long stream of smoke into the warm spring evening. "Like this, maybe?" She is gesturing with one slender hand between her friend and herself. "Like remembering that we've seen apocalypse before and we're still here." Her head tips slightly down as she looks back to the city. "The sun's going to rise tomorrow. Every night I remind myself it would be cool to see it again." --- 3 sivan. 47 - hod she'b'malchut. There's a distracting kind of expansiveness cutting into the sweet bliss of opioid-laced dreams. First through the fog, the twang of a guitar -- hard to say if the person playing is any good because the thing is untuned, discordant. Then a crash. Voices raised in argument. More guitar. It's the unpleasant sensation of sloppy-wet tongue and fishy dog breath that pulls Anole sharply upright in his messy nest of a sleeping area. He's blinking in a confusion that only worsens as he is drawn farther from sleep, world queasily fractured, eyes somehow at one and the same time squeezed tight-shut and also staring at Zero's goofy face. "What the --" It's only when he opens his eyes, blinks again, squints off to the side that he's managing a slowly-dawning and somewhat miffed: "Zack!" Zack's wide-eyed who-me? expression would look a whole hell of a lot more convincing if he were not currently holding Anole's (somewhat pungent, by now) arm aloft in one hand, waggling it like an forbidden novelty chew-toy juuust out of reach of his very eagerly wagging pitbull. "What, I didn't give it to him!" He is waving The Arm again in indication of just how intact and un-bitten it still is. It's only a moment later that he seems to realize the source of the upset and drops the arm -- neatly and immediately severing the mental connection the contact had brought and returning Anole's senses to a normal and singular baseline. "Oh shit sorry --" Though immediately the oddly dissonant dual-brain view is returning as Zero lunges for The Arm. Zack snatches it back up quickly and hides it behind himself. Like a consolation prize, he is plucking off his own hand to toss it for the dog to chase. Just a moment after he has done this, he winces and moves The Arm into a filthy Whole Foods insulated bag. "Sorry," comes again, though there's a definite hint of grin in his grimace. "Too soon?" --- 4 sivan. 48 - yesod she'b'malchut. The dishes have mostly been cleared away, save for the small bowls of cinnamony rice pudding still being worked on for dessert. Neither Sarabeth nor James have touched their own dessert in a few minutes. The silence around the table is not complete -- some amiable video-game trash-talking coming with an enthusiastic empathetic ripple from the adjacent room -- but the liveliness nearby mostly only serves to underscore the tension here. Sarabeth has opened her mouth several times, but not quite managed to find the words just yet. James, eyes fixed on his bowl, calloused-rough fingers slowly tracing against the edges of the chipped stoneware, is for once the one to break the silence. "-- like a baptism?" "No, goin' in the mikveh ain't --" Jax is starting, brow scrunched deeply. "It ain't about sin, that's not -- so much a thing for us." "Us." There's a slight quaver in Sarabeth's voice. "Jackson, honey-honey, you can't just stop being Christian, that's --" "A sin?" Jax's frown is deepening as his mother's hands clasp tight together. "Ma, you thought the world was ending when I came out and we got through that, right?" There is, again, silence. Sarabeth dabs at her eyes lightly with a napkin. Her nod is heavy, but it does eventually come. "Turned vegan, we still loved you," James finally rumbles, and though his shoulders haven't loosed their tension there's a glimmer of humor in his warm eyes. "We'll manage." --- 5 sivan. 49 - malchut she'b'malchut. There are fireworks lighting up the sky overhead -- knowing the Refuge, it's entirely a coinflip whether or not they did, in fact, get a permit for this part of the birthday party. Bryce's tail is swinging slow and absent behind him, the glittering explosions of light shimmering against the gleaming-black of his face. "... It's just hard to believe you'll be gone after tomorrow --" he's starting, scales scrunching slow together in a small frown. "Just to Boston it's not like he's dying -- don't die," Sriyani cautions, immediate and vehement. "The team will not be the same if you die. Actually you know what," they are suddenly deciding instead, "I'll just Door you into meetings, okay, we are going to be a mess without you and Xavier's is super hard I bet after this college will be a breeze anyway so you'll probably have free --" "Y'all finna have me flunking before I even start," Avi is cutting in with a laugh. "I'm not going anywhere till end of summer anyway. But after --" He's quiet, too. Not quite a frown, but certainly pensive, as he sips on his root beer float. "Y'all gone figure things out. You think Mr. Jax or Mr. Summers'n'em had it all figured out from the jump? If people need you, you work it out." He's turning to the side, grin broad. "You can still Door me back sometimes though. I can not hide Chonk in a freshman dorm." --- 6 sivan. z’man matan torateinu. The Tikkun Leil Shavuot gathering just across the street will still be going for several hours more; dawn is a ways away and there are many various talks and workshops yet to come. The small discussion that had been in this time slot in the small park across the street ("Chevrusa/Khaveyrim - Learning From Our Comrades As A Mitzvah") has officially disbanded for a between-timeslots coffee and snack break, but not everyone has quite made it back inside. Wendy still has her notes in her lap from co-leading this session, but these have been entirely forgotten due to the far more pressing issue at hand: "-- teleporting something into another dimension is a definite shinuy, you can't tell me that's normal." Across the much-condensed circle, Joshua (no notes; very possibly he managed to lose them at some point between This Morning and Running This Workshop) has been growing a steadily increasing frown. "Is HaShem an autistic goldfish. Where's this exemption stop. Free-for-all for all mutants. Everything we do is freakish." "-- naw naw naw that's bullshit," Avi is cutting in, emphatically, and then just as emphatically cringes: "-- sir. Sorry. I'm just saying we ain't talmbout actual work-work anyway. Nobody saying bake a cheesecake, we just talmbout grabbing a snack which I'm pretty sure, that's already allowed based on --" His floundering here is very brief, but still probably enough to make it evident how much he is Reaching when he comes triumphantly up with: "pikuach nefesh." Alma shakes her head slowly and sorrowfully. "I don't think cheesecake is a life-or-death situation right now." Though she looks like she might be reconsidering this, looking first at the two teenagers and then Jax. "Teleportation may technically qualify as a shinuy, but it doesn't impede the performance of the task. What I don't know is whether the other dimension is considered a public domain." Spence's slouch does suggest he might be approaching the snacks-are-lifesaving threshold of hypoglycemia, but at this question he perks up immediately. "It's a mekom petur," he declares with an unreasonable amount of excitement. "So moving stuff in and out of it is permitted by the Torah. It's just rabbinically prohibited to move the stuff more than four cubits through it. But do we measure by that dimension or this one? The Sages did not address interdimensional geometry." He says this with the definite air of someone who has hassled multiple rabbis on the topic to no avail, and he looks over to his father now, eyes wide and hopeful. "But it makes more sense to measure from the perspective of the snacks, right?" Jax (cheerful new smiling-sun-embroidered kippah pinned neat atop his colorful hair) has been nursing a thermos of coffee on the periphery of this group, idly popping the thermos open and closed as he looks back over the handouts from the workshop proper as if something on the page will help him connect this twenty-tangents-later conversation back to the original subject. He blinks and look up -- opens his mouth, closes it again with a frown. "Oh, I ain't sure I know -- I mean, y'all know better than me what --" "Pfft you get dunked in the kosherizer you gotta be as loud and fucking wrong as the rest of us, shit-talking HaShem and the sages is what's kept this people going. -- By the way the Talmud says causing someone embarrassment is like shedding their blood, pretty sure that means you're halachically obligated to get my food and not make me go deal with those schmucks inside." Though Zack has invested heavily for this night, mostly intact and only a little greying, probably the overly-familiar arm he slings around Jax's shoulders with this interruption still carries an uncomfortable overtone of decay. "Whose side are you on. Pick wisely," his grin here manages to be unsettlingly broad even with his mouth intact, "you're stuck with us now for eternity."