Logs:So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.
| So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up. | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia | 2024-07-28 "Can't help it. S'contagious." |
| Location
<DC> Quarantine Zone - Foggy Bottom | |
It's quiet in this apartment building, which is a bit of a blessing after some of the buildings they have been in this week. No sudden startling pounding from behind any doors, no rattling groans, just the occasional ordinary-living sounds of televisions or arguments or music from behind the doors. It's slow going, still, slower than it has been some other days. A lot of knocking on doors, and despite plenty of information going out ahead of time sometimes what follows is smooth and sometimes it is wary and hostile. Leo is just coming out of another apartment, crossing one more number and set of names off a very long (but fairly winnowed-down) list. Leo himself still looks gaunt, his colorblocked button down bold against his sallow skin. His eyes have narrowed on the next door like he's trying to X-Ray it. "Imagine," he's saying, wistfully, "if they had said yes a week earlier." Steve is not dressed for Avenging, but he doesn't really need the uniform for recognition. He's just in a plain black t-shirt, blue jeans, and combat boots, the shield on his back not currently needed. He looks hale and alert, but there is a weariness in his voice all the same. "I image they'd feel like they caved too easily and that might be fuel for their political rivals," he speculates, "which matters a lot more to them than people's actual lives. Not sure they would have caved if this illness weren't so ah...visually spectacular." There's another person in the hallway with them, very abruptly. Joshua is looking a bit of a rumpled mess, one sneaker untied, still tugging his wrinkled tee shirt (black, with an image of a large bird swooping down to drag away the silhouette of a person who looks to be clinging very hard to the earth as they are dragged, next to the Hebrew 'גַּם זוּ לְטוֹבָה') down over his tasseled undershirt. Maybe he's just recently come from the shower; he smells very clean, sweet and cinnamony and some other, less identifiable spice. "Fuck," he's muttering, as he finishes pulling his shirt down. He disappears again, reappears with a kippah (red, with embroidered black flag) in his hand. The pair of hair clips between his lips makes his, "Sorry m'late," a little more mumbled. He's clipping the kippah messily into place, rubbing at tired eyes, and as he does so there's a quiet expansion of Leo's powers, range augmented gradual but intense to blossom out farther and wider around them. Leo huffs, soft and not at all amused. "Shock and awe, but in bioweapon form. Dying isn't enough." He's steeling himself, raising a hand and about to knock when Joshua appears. His hand drops again, a clear relief in his expression. Unseen, now, but easy for Joshua to feel, his newly expanded awareness is stretching out in silent tallying of the rooms and the people he can feel, latching on where he picks up any traces of infection to nip them neatly out. "You are looking..." He's turning to look at Joshua, brow pinching. "Tired." Steve gives a small start when Joshua appears, and has just opened his mouth to greet him when he's gone again. At least he doesn't start when the man returns, just gives a soft "ah" of comprehension when he sees the kippah. "Good to see you again." His lips compress. "Wish it were under better circumstances. Sam's coordinating care for the folks who are cured but too sick to be left..." He looks from Joshua back to Leo, blushes faintly pink. "Oh, I shouldn't assume you're here for that. Are you worried the feds are going to welch on their deal, after all?" "S'just how my face is." Joshua's small grimace at Leo's concern just makes his droopy face look that much more exaggeratedly haggard. He slouches back against the wall, flipping one of his knotted tassels absently between his fingers. "Accidentally spent the night in another dimension." This is casual but it's sounds a little more solemn when he hitches up an eyebrow and asks Steve: "You trust the feds?" Leo's brow is wrinkling further, and despite his very intense scrutiny of his friend's long face he can't seem to decide whether or not this is a joke. "Your other dimension smells very nice," he finally ventures. "But here we've mostly had vomit and zombies. Low bar." Steve blinks at Joshua's explanation. "Does that just sort of...happen sometimes, when you do the..." He makes a gesture like flicking water off of his fingertips and mouths "poof". The gesture eases into a subtle upturn of his hand. "If I trusted them, I wouldn't be here." Though as soon as he's said this he shakes his head. "Well, no, I'd have come even if it was just for moral support. Folks can be real cruel and thankless." The small dip of his head at Leo is thankful, though. "We figured between me and Sam, there's spotlight enough to deter them. I will fight like the devil if they try anything, but the more paths he has to safety, the better." "Smell of hope. According to the marketing." Joshua rubs at the back of his head, making quiet subtle adjustments to ease Leo's work. He watches Steve's little flicking motion, kind of mimics it, though his blinks from one place to another several inches apart. "In here," he's indicating the middle space between the blinks with an upward flick of his tassel, "s'all some kinda between." He drops his hand, hooking his thumb through a belt loop. "Different, though. Lost a kid. Some other between." After a moment he thinks to reassure them: "Found 'em again." He nods towards the closed apartment doors. "People giving you shit?" Leo is still working, busier but easier than before, propped up now with Joshua's borrowed help. He doesn't knock on this door, just crosses off several of the apartments in the hall, now. "I am not popular with humans. Especially the rich whites. Almost more hostile than the undead, some of them." He leans in just a little closer to sniff with a greater approval at Joshua's lingering hope-scent. "Huh. The kid is okay now? You are okay?" Steve shakes his head, quick and bemused. "Far as I can tell, most of scent marketing is rank flimflammery, except for a narrow sliver of marvelous flimflammery. This smells like the latter." He shrugs. "Though even rank flimflammery can be an improvement when..." He mimes a low bar. "Your life sounds awful wild, in between all the betweens. I'm glad you found your kid and came out smelling like a --" He tilts his head one way, then the other. "-- snickerdoodle. You sure do look out for a lot of folk." 'Flimflammery', Joshua mouths silently, head bobbing, kind of impressed. He hesitates, eyes flicking to Steve and then up to the ceiling. His mouth pulls to the side in a small uncomfortable twitch, but then he shrugs. "Kid's home safe. World's awful wild." He looks one way down the hall, then the other, and when he glances back to Leo -- then Steve -- and the shield -- it's with a small smile. "Can't help it. S'contagious." | |
