Participants:
| Scene Title | Bonnie and Clyde |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | After the attack on the Vanguard facility, two survivors make their way through the ruins of the city to figure out their next move. |
| Date | January 13, 2012 |
New York City Ruins
It was easy to follow her footsteps.
Shaw only needed a moment to recover from the devastation of the failed mission, or rather, the temporary setback. The end goal was still there, just the goal posts had moved. The rules of the game changed the day Magnes and Elisabeth had arrived at the Hub. As soon as Isabelle had told him of their true origins, he had believed it.
Just like now. He believes in hope.
Panting breaths, in and out, steady in his pursuit of the woman-on-fire. Eanqa’. The Phoenix. How else would he describe her, and the fire that lit up and coursed through them that night. The night Thompson died. The night they found a key piece of information that would send the blocks of fate tumbling like dominoes. The night they found hope.
He slows only briefly to check the flaming, ashen bodies of Vanguard conscripts. A spare rifle here. An ammo clip that hasn’t been rendered unusable there. Shaw gathers the weaponry to him like he’s out on a scavenging run, prepping. He’ll find her eventually. The path leading to Isabelle is spun with reds, golds, oranges. Light. Warmth. Even as the sounds of explosions and gunfire are nearing, he doesn’t seem alarmed. His confidence high, Shaw picks up his pace.
It is some time before Shaw comes upon the Phoenix, flames and ash swirl in her wake but there is a path through them if you dared to follow and Isabelle knows that Shaw does indeed dare. The brunette is crouched in the middle of an intersection not far out from the site of their failed mission. Fucking Vanguard. All those kids. There isn't time for that though, no time for grief. Not yet.
The flames on her body are no more and so she's as nude as the day she was born and as the connection between she and Shaw was cemented. A chill wind blows through the ruined streets but she doesn't feel that, the blasted cold held at bay thanks to her ability being back. Strands of her hair lifts off the back of her neck as she stares ahead. The bullet wound on her arm is twisted and cauterized by the flames she kept alive on her during the day earlier. Letting herself recharge is smart because she's on the hunt.
“Hey baby,” her voice carries as she hears him approach. “Sorry.. about that back there.” For leaving him behind to catch up. For barbecuing almost everyone back there. “It's better for me to walk away and chill out, those flames.. they can take me.” An endless cycle, Izzy fuels the fire and the fire fuels her.
She can hear him approach long before he comes into view. When Shaw turns the corner of a ruined building, still sticking close to the long, growing shadows and making sure he has some sight lines to the taller buildings in watch of snipers, he’s amassed three rifles - two slung behind him and one held in hand - a belt with pistols holstered on either side and pockets with something or another in them surely, and a long sleeved trenchcoat rolled and tied above the belt.
“No, don’t be sorry,” he says softly as he comes up beside her naked form. His gaze looks upon her body, but in an appreciative but not lewd manner. “I brought you a coat, just in case,” he adds with a quick glance down to the trenchcoat. It happens to be a deep red color, who knows where it came from. His smile is short, because he adds after a beat, “She got away.” Which she - Gillian or Vör - remains unclear. And with a long look around, a look back from whence they came, and finally a look to Isabelle, Shaw blinks at her with the weight of everything they’ve been through and where they are now, the state of them, in those large, dark eyes.
“I wonder, if the others are okay,” he says in a tone just about a whisper.
“My hero,” She says with a sly grin reaching out to take the trenchcoat donning with a satisfied grin. The knife of Vör lays in the rubble nearby and she backs away on bare feet to scoop it up and slide it into one of the pockets. She leaves it open for the moment, grabbing one of the rifles and looking over his shoulder to make sure nobody is following. Another look around their immediate area and her ears are straining to hear over the roars of distance flames and gunfire. Isabelle had survived out here before, she wasn't sure if she was angling to get through this time.
It makes her think of Brenda. A pang to her heart coupled with the statement that she got away. They both did.
“We’re gonna find that bitch.” Izzy’s hand reaches out to grab at Shaw’s arm to pull him into a nearby destroyed run down cafe. There are half walls that can be used for cover and she squats there to go over their options. “They’ll be fine. Magnes..” she bites her lip. There wouldn't be a goodbye for them. Just like the last time this happened to Magnes. She hated herself a little for willingly burning his heart for a second time by leaving.
“Magnes won't let them all die. He has a kid on the way.” And he had the craziest luck of them all. “Are you okay?” Concern laced through that smile she gives him. He’s alive. That’s enough for her now.
Shaw does smile at the sight of her in the red trenchcoat, the way the color plays off her pale skin and dark hair. The way it accents her blue eyes when she looks at him. He’s still watching her when she grabs his arm, and stumbles a half step before he catches himself and moves after her. Under cover, he squats down as well and leans against one of the walls, breathing in and out. “The air is different,” he notes thoughtfully when she asks if he’s okay. Without the haz-mat masks to protect them, without the plastic shield and strange filters, there’s little doubt that they’ve been exposed. With neither of them negated, it’s more likely than not…
“Maybe they can find another way,” he says, reaching over to take her hand and gives it a light squeeze. “Maybe we can find another way.” They are still alive. Which means there’s a chance. “And… we still have work to do.” His dark eyes meet hers, then travel down to the blood that has been dried and burnt by the flames, but is still there like a light dusting of ash. His words are quiet. “I saw you. I saw your fire. It was beautiful, Isabelle.” When his hand releases from hers, it’s to travel up and push the coat aside slightly, exploratively, fingers stretching towards the skin around the freshly cauterized bullet wound. “Are… are you okay?”
“It is but it's nicer than those damn suits,” she agrees and pushes a thread of hair out of her blue eyes that are centered on him. Isabelle nods her head, “They will, we will.” She hears that clock though, it's ticking in the back of her head. They don't have much time, better make it count.
She allows the rolling back of the sleeve and she grins through the pain she feels there flaring in her arm. “D’aww don't make me blush Shahid.” There goes his name again, they just escaped death. Certain death. She's not so sure the third time will be the charm for her. But she will protect him, she has too. Isabelle leans forward to place a delicate kiss on Shaw’s lips. Gripping his arm with her good hand, “I'm fine, promise.”
It's an assurance she wants Shaw to really feel, even if later she won't be. She’s fine.
Looking him in the eye she prepares to stand. “We've gotta move Shahid, can't be sitting around out here. That bitch is somewhere around here, I think we should lay a trap out for her.”
The kiss is returned with a little fevered restraint. Shaw looks to her hand, then back up to her face as if he’s wanting to remember everything that’s happened and afraid that soon it will all disappear. His heart pounds, and he flinches with her movement like he hadn’t expected the interruption to the roiling thoughts. But then he scrambles up to his feet too, realizing that she’s barefoot after a glance down.
“But we don’t know where…” he starts to say, pausing as he realizes something. “The Hub.” Those two words cause a hitch in his breath. “They’ll know where it is. Isabelle, they’ll be watching where everybody ran to. That’s what they wanted… The wolves follow the rabbits back to the den.”
His eyes widen with the implication of his thoughts. “We have to get back there before the Vanguard does. And if she is with them…” Shaw’s gaze drops down to his rifle in hand. Another troubling thought comes to mind. “How do we fight her? She’s a ‘porter.”
She stops to consider what Shaw is saying, he's right. The Hub isn't safe, they have to get that way. Brenda. Her best friend’s face is in her mind, she's worried about her. She's wanting revenge though. Nodding her head along, “Lets do it.” Wasting time is not on her mind besides a kiss or two and she rushes forward for another before pulling back and walking forward.
“We need to set a trap. Not too far from the Hub, she’ll wander in. We need bait.” Barefeet be damned, she'll find shoes somewhere. Shahid was an excellent scavenger and she was alright in her own right. The fire inside her rages as her gaze searches the windows and doorways making sure they are clear. Jogging down the street careful of any sharp objects.
“Gas.” She says simply, keeping a good pace. Blue eyes narrowed to slits as she looks to and fro. “Spread that around, I’ll light it up.” Flame roars to life around her hand as she raises it, orange and yellow. It's bright though and she douses it before attention is drawn, smoke wafting from her fingertips.
Shaw’s thoughts are also turning, though there’s the brief interruptions of her kisses on him. He’s paused in place for those scant seconds before moving to catch up to her, to check the ground beneath their feet and make sure that she doesn’t step in anything that will be dangerous. Not that they themselves aren’t heading directly into something that is dangerous.
Their path isn’t steady, nor is it slow. But they do eventually come to a part of the city that used to be a commercial area, and in one of the many gutted ruins, they’re bound to find supplies including shoes. And a change of clothes. Possibly off of old skeletons that are now likely not a worry for them to be touching, given the way they are now. “The wolves, they’ll find the den mouth,” Shaw muses aloud, head bobbing. “She will be with them. And we could… trap them. The Hub will fight from the front, and we can fight from behind. They don’t know we’re out here still.”
When she mentions gas, he glances down to the single molotov cocktail made from Izzy’s moonshine that he still has attached to his belt. He regards it with a tilt of his head, and unhooks it to hold it up beside her flame, turning to her as she extinguishes the fire. “‘Attack like the Fire, and be still as the Mountain’,” he quotes from The Art of War. He looks back to her, a small smile quirked at the corners of his mouth.
Then his expression grows serious and he says, “I can do it. Writhe and wriggle, like a worm on a hook.” His eyes twitch around the edges once. “She won’t see you coming.”
Coming to the commercial area, Isabelle makes for one of the storefronts and kicks looking through things to find supplies. Socks would be nice, she doesn’t feel the cold but the protection would be appreciated. As she turns over an empty box to reveal a mouse that scurries away, “She will be. Wolves, huh? I wanna turn them into a bunch of whining dogs. Cowards, they couldn’t rule the world while it was alive and well. They had destroy and rule over a wasteland, a broken place full of even more broken people.” She snarls the last bit with disgust and jumps to her feet.
“A mountain and a hurricane.” Two forces of nature bearing down on the cowards that Isabelle spoke of. It was different hating your enemy from afar but when you got up close and are able to look them in the eye, then you know them. And Isabelle had looked the Vanguard in the eye, “I don’t see wolves or grand hunters at all. And I think it’s time we show these pieces of shit.” As if burning down their headquarters wasn’t enough. “They have a leader that Volken, it’s not gonna stop until he’s dead.”
That’s a problem for another day, first things first.
“That bitch comes first, maybe we can get some information out of her before she’s burnt to a crisp.” That’s highly unlikely but. “I..” Shahid offering himself as bait makes her pause. She was ready to be the bait herself. “She won’t touch you.” It’s a promise.
A wicked curl of Shaw’s lips echoes the sentiment briefly that they’ll get the Vanguard one way or another. But it remains there as he reaches over a hand to place on Isabelle’s shoulder. “We’ll show them. Like magic, pop out of nowhere. Houdini. Pen and Teller. Bonnie and Clyde.” One of those doesn’t match with the rest, but he doesn’t care. He meets her eyes, nodding. Then as he glances around to their surroundings, up at the sky where it seems to have gotten darker with the passage of time. He frowns slightly, then looks back to Isabelle, blinking at the woman.
“Are you hungry?”
Later…
A small, sheltered fire burns beneath the slow turning of a spitted quadrapedal animal roasting over it. It’s some lean looking creature, a runt of a feral dog that tried to take them on. Shaw sits beside Isabelle, looking tired from their excursion. Their progress is slow because it’s on foot, and now all his muscles just feel sore. Exhaustion drags deeply in his bones. His head hangs, the notion of sleep lapping against the shores of his mind. To that end, he starts to nod off, body listing to the side away from her until some sense of imbalance comes and the fire’s crackle-pop wakes him.
Shaw startles awake, tenses as he looks around and orients himself again, finding his anchor point in Isabelle’s face. He smiles slightly, sheepishly in the fire’s glow.
“Bonnie and Clyde it is.” Shaw’s grin matched by Isabelle’s. And a few seconds before Shaw’s inquiry of food her stomach rumbles. “Kicking ass on an empty stomach is not the way.” At least they were alive to enjoy another meal together.
And runts work as well as any piece of meat. She hums as he dozes a hand outstretched in front of her. Flames leaping from the fire and onto the palm of her hand, the orange and yellow flickers dancing in her blue eyes. She looks in at it, peering down at the little spark. So much beauty, so much destruction. Much like her.
A gentle toss from her hand and the flame lands squarely back into the fire in front of them, a brief roar as more energy is funneled into the source of heat for the pair. She's tired, no exhausted, but Shaw needs his rest in her eyes, more fragile but not weak. As he gives her that sheepish look, she rolls her eyes and reaches out to pull him forward. “Come here soldier.”
“Get some sleep, I'll keep ya warm and take first watch.” Because she's a respectable lady and that's what they do duh, protect their damsels (men). There's a light grin on her face as she leans back to get more comfortable. Balling up a sweatshirt she found to make a pillow in her lap.
Who is he to protest when he’s pulled forward? Shaw shifts his position, laying back so his head rests upon the sweatshirt there. Looking up at her face from that angle, his eyes trace her jaw, her ear, the shadows that dance off her cheek bones. He lifts a hand away from the rifle clutched to his midsection, to brush along those cheeks, though his touch is a little cold despite the fire’s warmth.
“Ruiz and Lynette got married,” he remembers off handedly, his voice drifting. Dark eyes seek the night sky, the stars glittering above them through the sections of ruined buildings and destroyed rubble. “He sang a really nice song for the rings. I never heard it before, but he said it was one of her favorites.” He breaks off talking to hum a few bars of the melody of Fly Me to the Moon, then he fades off to wonder, “What’s your favorite song?”
Leaning into that caress, Isabelle gently rubs a hand through his hair smiling at him fully. She's not this gentle with anyone. Her skin is hot like fire, warm to the touch. Fire incarnate. Tiny flames dance in her eyes, “Marriage huh? I'm happy those rings went to good use.” Not one for marriage herself, well she also thought she wasn't for whatever it is she and Shaw were doing.
“I'm not sure what mine is.. hm.. I like Kanye West. Love Lockdown.” It's a quick thought but as she mulls over it more she does like that sound a lot.
“Maybe some Led Zeppelin, their “You Shook Me. Best of all time.” How mundane, speaking of bands and favorite songs while they try to stay warm together and also alive. It's a nice distraction and Isabelle can learn more about him.
Warmth from her skin, from the fire, from the smile. Shaw gathers it to him with as much need for it as one might need food and water. His eyelids flutter heavily as he tries to recall what those songs are, what they sound like, but loses out in favor of just listening to Isabelle’s voice.
Slowly but surely, as they talk about the mundane things like music and just life in general, Shaw slips his hand off of brushing at her cheek to lay it between his face and her torso, tucked between. His eyes close, breathing out a long sigh as sleep overtakes him in the comfort of her being, and their simple feeling of existence within the ruined world.