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Scene Title | Time Was Running Wild |
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Synopsis | Two FRONTLINE officers discuss the blackouts, the changeability of the future and then stop talking. Time may change me, But I can't trace time. |
Date | June 12, 2010 |
Thirty-six hours since a good portion of the population went unconscious and experienced mass hallucinations. Thirty-six hours since Faye Crawford saw a shotgun fire into her face at close range. Visions of the future, hallucinations, daydreams, nightmares— they could have been anything, but she hasn't slept more than a few hours since that minute of unconsciousness. One of the reasons she signed up was to help with these situations— it reminded her of the cleanups after the bomb, and 9/11, or the Blizzard that the city just started to get over.
No one knows what happened. And maybe no one ever will…
But it's a figure in her vision that she recognizes that brings her to one of the doors in Textile Factory barracks besides her own. After attempting to sleep for an hour, she rolled out of her bunk and wandered down the hall, to knock on another door, dressed in shorts and a shirt that she could have been sleeping in. And socks. The halls are quiet, for the most part, though not everyone is asleep, even if it is just after midnight. The knock is solid and firm, though the lack of sleep shows in her eyes, easily visible by the hair pulled back out of her younger-than-her-actual-years face.
Almost a split second after Faye knocks upon the door, she can hear the automatic whud sounds of feet connecting with the ground — some kind of automatic response to getting woken up in the middle of the night, that being some ability to become instantly awake. Fabricy shuffles ensue, until someone remembers their own ability, and with a slight draft of wind that tugs at the loose tendrils of her hair, the door seems to unlock itself and rush open in the same movement.
The light comes on without Tris needing to physically glance at the switch, his back turned to the door as he wrestles a shirt on, a simple thing of white cotton, his legs clad already in grey sweatpants tied low on his hips. His blonde head comes turtling out of the neckhole, hands shoving the hem down before he's turning with the kind of posture he might put on for Sarisa.
When it's just Faye, his blue eyes widen in surprise, rushed movements stilling. "Yo."
It shouldn't surprise her that he wakes up quickly upon a knock. Faye remembers quite a few drills to see how fast they could get out of bed, into their suits, and trudge out around the city in the middle of the night. It still makes her blink, though, and even look politely embarassed for that. Maybe she didn't expect him to be the most disciplined.
"Hi— Bentley," she starts, looking out down the hall. Yeah, they're definitely not getting called out for a fourth round around the city doing disaster control. Not with her practically in her pajamas, at least. "I wanted to talk to you about what happened, with the— blackouts." Though they could hardly be called black, considering so many visions came with them. "Do you mind if I come inside?"
Slowly, his heart rate decreases, and Tris manages a half-grin when it's clear he's not being dragged out from his cosy bedroom for god knows what reason. Which is fantastic news. It probably surprises most people how rule-abiding and serious the man can be within the context of worktime, and Unit One have since gotten past the shock. In a way, it makes sense — there has to a balance somewhere. That Tristan Bentley might be a good soldier.
Not that it matters right now, actually, and his eyebrows do sort of a dance upwards before settling. "Hey, no, come in — lemme get the door for you." And true enough, it shuts on its own accord by the time Faye is inside, and Tris moves to jump back into bed — quite literally, a slight hop backwards that has his back hitting the mattress, enough bounce to it to let him lever to sit, then back to rest spine against headboard. "So you know, I didn't get one."
"I guess I was one of the unlucky ones," Faye says as she watches the door close behind her without even needng to get closed by anyone physically. "I haven't talked to anyone about it, I was alone when it happened, woke up on the floor to radio calls that we needed to get out there and do major crowd control." Raising a hand to her forehead, she pushes bangs out of her eyes as she moves to find a place to stand against the wall, where she can face him on the bed.
"I saw you in— whatever it was. The vision. That's why I'm knocking on your door and not anyone else's. I was hoping you saw one too so I could hear what you saw and try to figure out what was happening, and what…" Something catches in her voice, her eyes close for a moment and she shakes her head.
"I guess I wasn't sure who else I could talk to about it."
Tris' lantern jaw hangs open a second, as if he might speak, but decides against it to let her talk. His long arms come to loop around his knees, ankles crossed and posture loose, and a hand comes up to rub against his slightly unshaven jaw, fingernails scraping over the grain. "I don't even know what it's like. One second I'm getting a taco at a food stand, the next I'm dragging comatose people from their cars they stopped driving. And you know New Yorkers — they wake up pissed off."
His customary smile flickers to life again, but dims soon enough. "I didn't think I'd be in any. Wanna tell me what happens?" His broad hands gesture towards the other end of the bed, invitation, blue eyes sparking interest in their study of her.
There's a smile of sympathy at the mention of angry New Yorkers, but there's something about what she saw that takes that smile away quickly. Faye doesn't even think much about the next moment, as she moves over to the bed he's patting on, and drops down onto it heavily. There's a slump to her shoulders, one of worry and stress and confusion.
"I'm not even sure what was going on. If it wasn't for the fact you're the only one in FRONTLINE who has guns flying around them, I wouldn't have known for sure it was you. You were in your suit. But I also heard your voice over the radio. We were on a mission of some kind, a raid. It looked like an apartment building. And not an abandoned one, either. It looked… decent. There were officers or security with us, too. I don't know why we were together, or where the rest of the unit was— you were the only one I saw."
And he didn't see anything, so he can't answer any questions she might have about it…
"And I think I might have… died at the end."
"Shit."
Tris' knees come apart, legs folding upon the mattress and elbows coming to rest on bent knees. "That sucks. I mean— hey. No one really knows what the hell this is, right? These vision things. They could just be— dreams. Or completely random." Reassurance is earnest if not very skilled — his social skills are limited and specialised, but there are points available for effort. "You should probably tell Kershner. Tell someone. I mean whatever it is…."
He loses momentum around then, curiousity getting the best of him. His eyes have gone wide around her news of her demise, and stay that way when he finally asks, "How does it happen?"
"Shotgun," Faye says with a shrug, scooting back into the bed so she's not just sitting on the edge of it, allowing her legs up on it. Her feet have socks, but nothing else on them, and she twists so she can face him. Unskilled or not, it seems she's chosen to talk to him about it, rather than anyone else. So far.
"The first shot shattered part of my mask, and I was bleeding, cause I saw blood on the view screen too, but it was still trying to compensate, flickering images here and there— then there was another shot, even closer, and everything kinda… It was loud, and it hurt. I remember the face of the man who did it. He looked familiar, but I haven't been able to figure out from where…"
Her head shakes, and she rubs at the tip of her nose a moment. "You're right, we don't know what it was, it could just be a… nightmare."
Tris scoots forward a little — a handful of inches and no more, letting his long legs come to stretch out along the bed just beside her, hands pinning the mattress and bracing himself back against that lean. He's silent for a while, tongue running over his teeth as he thinks, engages the brain, before tilting his head a little. "Let's say it's not a nightmare." He drags his attention back up, studies her gave and offers a hint of an apologetic smile. "Let's say these are premonitions, like people've been saying.
"What do we do about it?" His shoulders jolt in a slightly ungainly shrug, with the weight of his torso put on them. "You recognise the guy. That's a start. Not that there aren't like a billion— fucking— apartments that look exactly the same in this city, but maybe we can, like, figure that out too."
Another shrugging kind of nod, an almost doggish movement as he swings his gaze away. "We don't have to think about that now. I figured I'd throw it out there so you wouldn't go to sleep thinking otherwise, you know? There are smarter dudes in this building for problem solving, so…" Another crooked smile. "We can just talk. If it'll help out."
"I'm not entirely sure talking will help with this," Faye starts quietly, looking down towards her hands resting on her bare knees. The shorts don't cover too much, and a few weeks ago she couldn't have been walking around in so little without showing goosebumps and shivering the whole time. But now it's warm enough to walk around in those, and… She's not crying, but there's tension and worry in her eyes. She has a daughter now, one who just found her, just lost her father after barely even seeing him once, lost her adoptive parents years before that…
"I can try to find where I know the man from. Maybe if it is a vision, I can just— stay with you when we go into the building, or we can be more cautious… Or— lots of things can happen differently. I've never really seen the future before, but I think once you know you saw it it changes…" Doesn't it? It seems like it should, at least to her…
"I don't know what else to say about it, but— I couldn't sleep. And you were there."
There is character in Tris' meaty shouldered shrug, designed to display a genuine ignorance as to whether or not he knows how this precognitive stuff works, but also suggests sure, that makes sense. It's probably a good thing, that Tris did not get a vision — bad enough to be in one, when considering the dichotomies of futures inherently ruined by seeing them.
"Maybe there's nothing to worry about," he says, perfectly straight, white teeth showing in a quick grin. "But hey. I wasn't busy. We don't even have to talk." It's designed to coax a smile, judging from the wink that follows.
And a smile it does get. No, this isn't why Faye visited him with all the other doors she could have knocked on, but, it certainly seems like an option now that it's presented to her. Not a superior officer. Not even on the same Squad of Unit One, and— though she would never admit to it. It's been far too long.
Without another word, she's suddenly moving to where he leans, pressing a warm hand against his neck, thumb on his chin as she leans in and kisses him. The connection begins to open up between them almost instantly, but it's not invasive. None of his thoughts are at jeopardy, just…
Warmth.
I didn't want to be alone, a voice says to him, like a distant whisper. It sounds like hers, but her lips are too busy to say them.
Warmth is here, too, in a kiss, Tris' mouth easy and yielding when she kisses him, perfectly still until he no longer is. She can feel the way he takes his weight off his hands, leans to her, and hear it in the squeak of the mattress beneath them both. His hand finds her thigh, curls around its curve just above the knee, while his other hand explores more gently the shape of the curve from her shoulder to her neck, touching along that uniquely feminine swoop.
There's a soft sound of surprise at the voice in his head, but it doesn't interrupt them. Hesitation, before, I think I know why I'm there. In your vision. His own tactile influence is similarly unavoidable, a sensation that crosses through her body that, while invasive, is no more threatening than the psychic whisper in his skull. It's an inexplicable feeling, a soft, full body tug, before fading.
There's very few people who can successfully carry on a conversation while their mouths are busy. With hands exploring and tugging, legs shifting so that her body gets closer to his. The clothing gets pulled on, even without so much as a pause. Faye releases a soft sound against his mouth, in response to the tugging against her body, welcome, despite the oddity of it.
Just like her touch grants a telepathic bond, his touch grants something else entirely— it's not just guns he can float around.
Why is that? she responds, telepathic voice pitched and empassioned, but still able to speak despite everything as she tugs at what clothes he has on. While she can't move them with her mind, that's what hands are for. The answer to the question is one she likely knows, but wants to hear anyway.
Both hands find her legs, each knee, and a tug has her swiftly yielding to a shift in the centre of her gravity, to lie back down onto the bed as Tris pursues, allowing his shirt to be peeled up and away with her roaming hands as they go. Brief separation shows a quick smile before it's occupied again in a kiss, one that moves to her throat, collarbone, the bristle of his cropped, blonde hair tickling against her jaw.
I guess because I want to be there, his words slither through her head, only waiting for the removal of clothes and the barriers they create before letting himself press flush against her.
Beyond the bed, the lock comes up on its own with a sharp click.