Vespertine

Participants:

eve_icon.gif teo_icon.gif

Scene Title Vespertine
Synopsis Commiseration in the dark.
Date January 24, 2008

Ruins of Midtown

Standing in the ruins of Midtown, it's hard to believe New York is still a living city.

There's life enough around the fringes — the stubborn, who refused to rebuild somewhere else; the hopeful, who believe the radiation is gone, or that they somehow won't be affected. Businesses, apartment complexes, taxis and bicycles and subways going to and fro — life goes on. Perhaps more quietly than in other parts of the city, shadowed by the reminder that even a city can die, but it does go on.

Then there is the waste. The empty core for which the living city is only a distant memory. Though a few major thoroughfares wind through the ruins, arteries linking the surviving halves, and the forms of some truly desperate souls can occasionally be glimpsed skulking in the shadows, the loudest noise here is of the wind whistling through the mangled remnants of buildings. Twisted cords of rebar reach out from shattered concrete; piles of masonry and warped metal huddle on the ground, broken and forlorn. Short stretches of road peek out from under rubble and dust only to disappear again shortly afterwards, dotted with the mangled and contorted forms of rusting cars, their windows long since shattered into glittering dust.

There are no bodies — not even pieces, not anymore. Just the bits and pieces of destroyed lives: ragged streamers fluttering from the handlebar which juts out of a pile of debris; a flowerbox turned on its side, coated by brick dust, dry sticks still clinging to the packed dirt inside; a lawn chair, its aluminum frame twisted but still recognizable, leaning against a flight of stairs climbing to nowhere.

At the center of this broken wasteland lies nothing at all. A hollow scooped out of the earth, just over half a mile across, coated in a thick layer of dust and ash. Nothing lives here. Not a bird; not a plant. Nothing stands here. Not one concrete block atop another. There is only a scar in the earth, cauterized by atomic fire. This is Death's ground.


It is either very late or extremely early. Either way, Teo shouldn't have woken up when he did; was unhappy to find the text regarding a certain motorcyclist and FCC agent's recent death on his cellphone and Cancel out of the message center to check the time and realize that Flint Deckard was only an hour away from boarding the tugboat. There was no real getting back to sleep after that. He dragged himself out of the heap of blankets in the boarded-up garrett room and threw on enough clothes to hold up under the weather's needling teeth.

He's sitting on the steps of the derelict book institution, now. Someone had swept the stairs, so he has no real concern that he's going to wind up with an embarrassing patch on the back of his jeans. His feet measure a three foot sprawl, apart from each other, and his shoulders are hunkered low inside the confines of hoodie and bristly, quilted jacket. The ruins are too blacked out by a covered moon and the silhouetted contrast against the backdrop of the still-living city's lights to make out details.

A soft rustling can be heard as a figure gets closer. A long black dress is worn on the woman. Her hair is pinned up and she looks up to the sky and then down to Teo. "Something wrong?" she says in greeting to Teo.

The only shifter who constitutes a real threat to Phoenix, these days, is physically inhoused by a megalomaniacal demon smoke man who one would think would be too busy preparing to fuck up the world with a horrifically contagious virus to snoop around abandoned libraries. One would think. Teo closes one eye and studies the woman's face and figure out of the other. His face is gaunt with something that isn't poor health or eating. "My friend died yesterday," he answers, presently. "I just found out: motorcycle accident. I think he was at the wrong place and time because of me." He punctuates this statement with a cough. "Buona sera," he adds the next moment. And despite that it apparently isn't — a good evening — he volunteers that with sincerity. As ever.

"«I'm sorry to hear that. Please don't blame yourself, I hate to see you do that.»" Eve says and moves closer to Teo, she places a hand on Teo's shoulder as she switches to talk in their language.

Teo's eyes smile up at him, honest as the sun. Rancor fails him, even if the words he chooses to speak may be interpreted as unkind to most people. Eve Mas isn't most people. "«I do remember: you like to see sociopaths, no?»" Sylar, he means; the one who had turned on her. A work-rough hand closes on top of hers, offers a brief squeeze.

"«Not like more of always running into them.»" Eve says and walks closer to Teo and squeezes his hand back briefly. "«Death.. is unavoidable.»" She tilts her head at the man.

The man tilts his head back, before swiveling to look at a distant streak of headlights passing, little better than a flash-a-flash pinprick of white threading behind buildings too far to raise alarm. Too far— in theory, anyway. "«Coming from a dream prophet at a time of war, that— should I be worried?»" He's going to look worried anyway, despite putting strength into his effort to be still as he asks. He is as afraid to die as he is ashamed to mention it when there are five and a half billion lives on the line.

"«I haven't seen anything that points towards you having to be worried personally.»" she replies and looks to Teo. "«The tragedy comes soon, Teo.»" Eve blinks and looks up to the sky.

Despite the fact that Teo is largely aware he isn't going to find anything up there, he follows her gaze up. "«I like to tell myself it wouldn't kill me to die for a noble cause.»" The statement annoys him. Anger is either a reprieve from grief or part of it. He can't tell: he's angry most of the time. A sigh rattles out, ends in a low cough that fades white toward the firmament. "Mi dispiace. «I'm being rude. Was there something you were here for?»"

"«I haven't seen anything that points towards you having to be worried personally.»" she replies and looks to Teo. "«The tragedy comes soon, Teo.»" Eve blinks and looks up to the sky.

Despite the fact that Teo is largely aware he isn't going to find anything up there, he follows her gaze up. "«I like to tell myself it wouldn't kill me to die for a noble cause.»" The statement annoys him. Anger is either a reprieve from grief or part of it. He can't tell: he's angry most of the time. A sigh rattles out, ends in a low cough that fades white toward the firmament. "Mi dispiace. «I'm being rude. Was there something you were here for?»"

"«Will you be able to think back once you died about your noble cause?»" Eve might not make sense with that statement but we'll see where he goes with it. Her eyes leave the sky and center back on Teo. "«I was just going for a walk, you know this is my hangout place.»" Eve smiles softly and comes closer to Teo and tilts her head. "«Every time I see you.. something is different.»"

The tilt of Eve's head elicits a fractional list of the Sicilian's in the opposite direction, eyes hooding wearily in the half-light. "«I don't think that's what I'll be thinking about,»" he replies, at length. "«One doesn't spend the years congratulating themselves there.»" His boots scrape the concrete slab underfoot, pushes him a few inches along as if to offer her a seat. It's either that, or a fractional retreat: he'll see where hse goes with it. "«Something happens juuust a little bit before every time I see you. It's one of those funny things. Smoke?»" A cigarette swivels out from between his fingers.

"«I wonder about what happens after death some kinds. No fairytale of heaven and hell.. what is it like?»" Eve takes a seat and slides in close with Teo, particularly because she is cold and she shivers slightly. "«Cancer stick, no thanks.»" the singer shakes her head and looks to Teo. "«It's all coming to a end.. ready?»"

More cancer for Teo then. The yellow stub tucks into his mouth and there is a snik-snik of the lighter's tiny rowel before he fosters enough fire to light up with. Tucking the impelements back into his coat, he then begins to shed the coat, shunting it down after a pop of buttons and reluctant rasp of zipper. The garment is flung over Eve's slender shoulders, the lapels drawn closed with a tug of a gloved hand. He hates cold, but there are apparently worse things. "«Fairytale of Heaven and Hell?»" he repeats, oddly, as if seeking clarification. "«Fairytale?»"

"«What does it /really/ feel like to die? I-.. I wanted to die after the bomb.. then after Cameron.»" This something that Eve has told nobody else no matter if they suspected it or not. "«It was hard to go on, to live after that. Losing someone twice.»"

Teo offers her a hand, sidelong, palm-up. Gloved, it looks like a black crab, belly-up, vulnerable instead of armored. "«I think it depends on how you lived. It might hurt, it may not. I hope yours doesn't,»" he says, vague with discomfort. "«Twice? Other than Cameron..?»" His gaze falls the next instant. Presumptious.

"«I don't want yours to hurt either.»" Eve closes her eyes and tilts her head back. "The first loss of my life were my parents to the.. bomb.»" Her breathing is shaky and she rubs her legs and brings the coat around her tighter. "«I was so depressed.. I didn't paint.. or sing, nothing and then.. I saw Cameron and joined PARIAH. It gave me something to live for. To try and achieve, to help the fellow Evolved.»"

That is one category Teo certainly isn't included in. Her fellow Evolved. They're all human above and below that, though; he can't hold onto the distinction for long, a fleeting semantic distinction that falls through his fingers like sand. Less metaphorically speaking, his hand proves tangible as ever, interlacing through her own. "«Now you have more,»" he says. Then adds, blankly, "«To lose, to fight for. The Ferrymen, Officer Darius… same causes, different armies. You'll be all right.»" he says.

"«I.. I also have you.»" Eve says this quietly and she isn't sure how Teo will react to what she said, the precog leans forward and squeezes Teo's hand. "«I would fight for you any day Teo.»" She closes her eyes to lay her head on his shoulder.

For once, there isn't a lot of reaction. Teo closes and opens his eyes, renewing the glint across irises dulling from the algid loss of humidity. "«I'm not Evolved,»" he points out after a protracted moment, stupidly. He slings one arm across in front of himself, pushes her hair back from her face with a gloved hand. Drops his shoulder an inch or two, pillowing her head across layered cloth and the notch of his clavicle. He observes, "«Not much of a cause there.»" Fighting for him.

"«I don't care if you aren't Evolved. You're important to me.»" she counters and looks up to Teo, she draws even closer as if she is going to kiss Teo, something she hasn't done in a while. Her eyes close and her hand squeezes Teo's hand tighter.

When the woman draws closer, the man doesn't pull away. It is cold. Whatever numbing quality grief has on him doesn't make him entirely immune to the complaints and neuroses he has fostered over the past eight years. He doesn't mind huddling like penguins. He isn't sure if he minds being kissed by someone with another lover. Supposes it depends on the lover. And given he doesn't know hers, the telegraph of movement compels him to trail the tip of his thumb down her bone-white cheek. He should probably stop thinking about dying. It's awful shit. He suspects he'll see Christian in Hell. "«They say we can't choose our vices,"» he offers by way of consolation; as if her vices were one to question about.


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January 23rd: You Meant Never
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January 24th: A Clockwork Deckard
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