I swear, seriously.
Monday, 18 June 2012 16:25![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flint_garouStop screaming!
18 June, 2012
The moon is in the waning New (Ragabash) Moon phase (4% full).and both feet. And yet somehow she still doesn't stop yelling. Flint certainly overpowers her, but she's being a squirmy nuisance.
Flint sighs, and sits down on the edge of the bed, and though it seems to be wearing on his patience, just lets her. "You going to. To be done yelling, any time soon?" he asks. "Come on, Ex. Try." The words aren't encouraging, so much as annoyed.
Ex continues to yell for a few more moments before she appears to run out of steam…temporarily, at least. Not so with the kicking. She returns to pounding the walls with both heels, kicking as hard as possible, even though her face has turned red and she's got to be tiring.
Okay, seriously, this is the most compelling point that Riley can probably make to change her sporadic sleep schedule, because it seems that no matter when she manages to struggle herself to sleep, something wakes her up, whether it be useful intelligence or raging and caterwauling cubs. This, right here? This is Riley's last nerve snapping after being worn thin. BLAM. The cubroom door opens, smacks against the wall, and closes again. Somewhere in the interim, Riley has stormed her way into the room, eyes bloodshot and facial features contorted. She's more dressed than last time, her coat zipped up over herself, but she has still failed to obtain pants, and her bedhead is no better. "ENOUGH." It's not a suggestion, not a statement. It's an order. A loud, loud order.
Flint sits on the edge of the bed still, and eventually moves to stop her from kicking the wall, when Riley comes in. There is a frown furrowed on Flint's face, and the galliard looks over at the ragabash at the order, then back at Ex. "Seriously," he says, more quietly. "Ex, you need to calm. Calm down."
Riley's entrance is enough to get her to stop. She startles a little, and that throws off her kicks. They subside for a moment as Ex turns her head, eyeing Riley sidelong. There's a moment—two, three—where she is completely silent. And then, while still looking at Riley, she yanks back both legs and kicks at the wall, hard.
"No." Comes Riley's angry snap at Flint, "NOPE." Then, there's that sudden THUMP against the wall, and Riley's nostrils flare. Up through Glabro, up into Crinos, and a massive paw curls tightly around Ex's ankle and yanks her down off of the bunk to thwump down on her back, likely driving the breath out of her. Evac leans in, baring her teeth directly into the girl's face, repeating in a scarcely intelligible roaring growl, "No, cub." She sends a warning glower to Flint. It's clear she's not in the mood to debate, or to brook any disagreement.
Flint had, apparently, been trying to be patient with Ex's temper tantrum, but he just stands back and moves over for the door, to lean against the doorframe. "Have at," he mutters.
Ex doesn't really even have time—or breath—for a startled yelp. She's barely able to flail before her back cracks against the floor, and the sudden crinos muzzle in her face, growling, leaves the cub wide-eyed and blessedly silent. There's a faint trembling about her, suddenly halted energy, fear, or both.
The doorframe is the exact wrong place for Flint to be standing, as it turns out. Ex's ankle is not released—in fact, the grip upon it only tightens as Evac turns and stomp toward the door, giving a jerk of her head to indicate to Flint that he needs to move, and he needs to move now. Meanwhile, Ex is being hauled along the floor on her back.
Flint steps out into the hallway, eyebrows raised in question, a little.
Ex starts flailing again as she's unceremoniously dragged, but it's about as effective as flapping her arms to fly. She's either too winded, or too disoriented, to do anything as sensible as trying to latch onto something. She just moves her arms in various directions.
Out into the hallway, with Riley jerking her ankle up in elevation to put the pressure less on the flailing girl's lower back and more on her upper back, giving her at least the cushion of her clothing on her uncomfortable journey without allowing the opportunity for it to slide up and start chafing her skin off. Drag, drag, drag. When they reach the door to the stairs, Riley jerks her ankle again to lift her completely off of the floor and descends with the flailing girl held upside down by her ankle. Down, down into the basement.
Flint follows, arms crossed and grumbling the entire way.
Stairs. Stairs are not fun things to be dragged down. Ex does try to latch a few times onto the railing as they go, but she's not in a good position for it, and she stands no chance of maintaining a grip for even a moment with a crinos pulling her. Her descent to the basement is entirely ungraceful, punctuated with occasional, lower than one might expect, noises of wordless protest.
Once they're off the stairs, Ex is discarded in a heap in front of her, and Riley snaps down out of Crinos back down to Homid to stand in front of the other girl, though inexplicably now fully clothed, her eyes narrowed. "Explain yourself. Explain yourself right now. Explain your histrionics, your shouting, your kicking, and your pissing, biting, and every-fucking-other thing that you're doing."
Flint grumbles. "Rina's gonna be pissed," he mutters, loudly enough for Riley to hear, though there's no actual questions in the tone.
Ex stares a moment at the clothes, clearly bewildered. The demand, however, drags much more on her attention. She looks up at Riley from her undignified heap status, a muscle in her cheek working for a moment, followed by a tensing in her jaw. It takes her a few moments longer, a few moments of ragged breathing, before the answer comes. "You won't let me fucking go!" It comes out as a near growl, her eyes suddenly bright and feverish again, too intense to be healthy.
Evac snaps to Flint, "Then let her be. You both had your fucking chance, and whatever your fucking intentions are, you're both failing spectacularly." Riley's teeth grind against eachother, clicking and crunching audibly as she looms over Ex, and shouting down at her, "Because if we let you go, You. Are. Going. To. Die." She leans down and grabs the downed girl by the front of her hoodie, yanking her up to her knees and leaning in close, "You're going to murder innocent people until you draw the wrong attention, and you will die."
Flint crosses his arms, but there's the sense that he knows better than to argue at this point.
Ex quails under Riley's shouting. Her eyes—still too bright—go wide again, her nostrils flare, she shrinks back as much as she can given the very little room for doing so. The cub is silent again, silent and staring.
Dropping down to her own knees, Riley's narrowed eyes lean in closer to Ex as she continues the verbal assurance. "You are going to lose control. It'll start small, maybe. Maybe you'll just wake up in the woods, gnawing on a deer. But then you'll run into the wrong things, and you'll wake up chewing on someone you knew." Her voice lowers just the slightest bit, her grip tightening, "Someone you loved. Do you want to know what it's like to wake up to a half-eaten corpse?" Riley's eyes are intense, "Is that what you want? I can let you go right now if it is."
"Kavi-rhya's orders," Flint mutters. "We are not letting her go." Flint pauses, and adds. "Yet."
Riley jerks her head towards Flint, eyes wild. She doesn't even bother to say anything.
There is absolutely no change, no change whatsoever, in Ex's body posture, expression, or silence for a good long few moments after Riley finishes speaking. Then she breathes in a little, carefully, as if afraid this might not actually be allowed, and says, "I already do." Her voice is low and quiet, but there's a hint of resentment there that she doesn't quite manage to hide.
Flint backs off, returning to his birth form to go sit on the stairs up and out of the basement.
The grip on Ex's hoodie doesn't ease. It tightens. But what does ease is Riley's expression. She doesn't say anything, not for several seconds, and when she does, her voice isn't quite as intense, and it's several decibels lower. "Me too. You're here so we can help it not happen again. I know it doesn't feel that way, I know it feels like we're holding you prisoner. But if we don't help you get this, you're going to go full-monster. You'll kill so many people that you'll forget what it was to be human, and you'll lose every last part of yourself."
Ex seems to regain a little bit more of her confidence. She breathes in again, and says, flatly (though notably, she doesn't look Riley in the face), "You are holding me prisoner."
"Yup." Responds Riley, every bit as flatly. She scrunches the front of the girl's hoodie a little tighter, and leans in to throw an arm around the girl's back. Aggressive hug. "I'm sorry, but that's the way it's going to be."
It's the hug. As soon as that arm goes around her, she suddenly squirms and twists like a snake. "No. No."
Riley drops her immediately.
Ex ends up on one knee, with her hands splayed against the floor. She breathes again, but the moment of panic—if it was one—seems to be gone. Instead, she regards the other Ragabash carefully, with her head slightly lowered, and her eyes peering from under her eyebrows.
Riley crosses her arms, transferring her weight from her knees to her backside and pulling her knees close to her chest so that she can drape her arms over them. "If you're not here, learning to control what you are, then let me ask you something, and tell me true. Where else is it that you have to be?"
Ex looks from Riley to the floor. Her jaw works slowly, and the answer is slower. "I don't know." A beat. "Out."
Riley reiterates, "To frenzy, and eat more people."
"And get mad and wake up naked," Flint says. "No. Controlling it… learning. You need to do that." Then, he looks back down, butting back out of the conversation.
"Frenzy?" Ex says, as she rolls the word over her tongue. Her eyes flick toward Flint, and then away. "No one's teaching me yet. They said if I learned, I could go."
"Probably," Riley ventures, "Because you've kept us busy with watching you and cleaning up after you." She rolls her eyes, "That, and my guess is that they're trying to coddle you. If you're looking for that, you're going to have to find someone other than me. I don't have the patience anymore."
Flint lifts his shoulders. "Or because. I. When, every time, you go on about. Too many stupid words, or otherwise. Make it difficult," Flint says, grumbling a little. "Frenzy. Lose control of the rage, get angry, wake up naked. Words. Learn them."
Ex flashes teeth at Riley. "I don't want coddling." Flint gets an equally unpleasant look.
"Then don't act like a child." Riley snaps right back, bristling. "Whatever it is that you've done, know that I'm sorry that it happened—and you have a hard truth in front of you right now that you need to come to terms with. Whatever you thought your life was, that's over now."
Ex is back to eyeing Riley from under her eyebrows again. She gives a sharp jerk of her head as he finishes, her agitation visibly flaring. "You can't promise that. You can't. You can't promise that."
Riley doesn't seem to be willing to let her go with being so painfully obtuse. Instead, she presses, "I can promise that."
Ex says, louder, "No you can't!" She pushes up from the floor and takes several quick steps back from the other Ragabash. Her fingers are twitching now, almost spasmodically. "You think you're big and tough! They don't care! They've got needles, and gas, and guns, and darts, and you can't think and you can't get out and there's nothing but walls and silence and crawling and whispers and people without faces—"
Flint tenses, watching the cub and fostern, almost at the point of getting up from the stairs, but still, he keeps back for the moment.
Riley rises smoothly to her feet, bobbing her head, "Sounds a lot like your old life. Do you know where you are right now? You're in a building that's clogged to the gills with people that not only have guns, but that when they get pissed off, they look like this." She winds right back up into Crinos, making a point to flex her claws out into sight, her mouth opening and letting out a throaty snarl. She eases back down into homid, "And all of those, all of us? We're your allies now. So if anyone from that old life comes knocking, you can just point a finger and watch them disappear in a fine red mist."
Ex drops back into a crouch. She rubs her knuckles over one scarred cheek—roughly, as usual—and studies the floor for a moment before slanting another sidelong look toward Riley.
Flint pushes to his feet, then moves to lean against the wall. "Riley's right," Flint points out. "It. The— They ain't gonna, they're not. We won't let them get you. You're here, safe." It takes a long moment for Flint to properly articulate what he's trying to say, but the galliard says it.
For a change, Flint gets an approving nod from the Fostern. "Exactly that. So the way I see it, you've got a choice." Riley murmurs, taking a step back and settling with her hips cocked, and arms folded, "Either you think of us as kidnappers, or you start looking at it the other way around. We're your armor. And soon you'll be your own armor."
Ex inhales. Slower this time, but still rather heavily. She pushes up, moving again, pacing. "You have too many fucking cameras," she mutters, more to the floor than the other two. "Fucking cameras all over the place, spying for you. Too many walls and not enough windows."
Flint shakes his head slowly. "No. The. The cameras are there, so that…" Flint pauses, face screwing up in frustration, and looks to Riley, then looks down, and continues. "For our safety. So, so they can't just, sneak in, unnoticed."
It's Riley's turn to give her a sidelong look. "Your life won't be inside of this building. This is temporary, and we're not going to keep you here. But hey, guess what? While you are in here? No one is getting in to hurt you, if you'll just accept that we're not here to hurt you. What have you had to endure since coming here? Hot meals? Showers? Far cry from needles, darts, gas, and guns."
Ex twists around, partially facing Riley. Her eyes are still narrowed, her mouth set into a faint frown that seems be her default expression. "Why?"
Flint looks at Ex. "Why what?" he asks. "Why what?"
Ex shakes her head sharply. "Why?" She waits a beat. "So uninfected humans are safe?" Her eyebrow quirks. "Do you think you are the X-Men?"
"First off, there's no 'infection'. And as far as I remember, I was talking about you being safe, I didn't make any promises for anyone else. And like it or not," Riley grunts, "If we're the X-Men, congratulations. You're Jubilee."
Ex huffs. "Genetic mutation, fine." And then there's a snort. "No, fuck that. I'm Rogue. Rogue from the movie if you want. Then nobody fucking touches me."
"Rogue? Alright, then." Riley jerks her head toward Flint, "Flint, this is Rogue. Rogue, Flint." She turns her attention back to Ex. "I can't promise that no one's going to touch you, unless you take the effort to actually tell them—like a mature human being—that you have a problem with it, and you're sorry, but you don't want handshakes, or hugs, or whatever it is that twigs you out so hard." Riley frowns, "…You've got an opportunity, here, Rogue. Because right now, you're dead. It's up to you to figure out how you wanna be reborn."
Flint offers a faint, still-tense grin to the cub. "Rogue it is," he says. "See, and. And here, you've said that. No one touches you? So that's what we— what. What happens. Like. Like Riley said. Like I said. Like Rina said. You're safe here. If. If no one touching you, if, keeping the knife. If those help you, know you're safe, good."
Once again, Ex flashes teeth at Riley, but this time it's more of a feral grin than displeasure. "Okay. Okay, yeah. Good. I'm Rogue, and no one fucking touches me. Okay." She draws herself up straighter now. She doesn't seem more relaxed, necessarily, but there's a hint of calm at least. "Now what?"
"Now," Riley murmurs, "I'm going back to bed, and you're going to cool your heels. If you start to feel antsy, tell someone. We have an open-air roof that you're welcome to pace around on if someone's with you. No cameras there, and lots of space."
Flint looks at Ex. "Breakroom. The apartment. Roof. Here, if you want. But. No more kicking the walls, or ruining. The mattress." There's a tinge of amusement. "'kay?"
Ex's right cheek twitches. "Fine. But I need shit to do." And abruptly. "The roof. I want to go there."
Riley casts Flint a look, and nods her head, "Your ball." Without a second glance cast to either of them, the Fostern stomps back up the stairs, presumably to get herself back to bed.
Flint nods, waiting for Ex, before starting up the stairs, himself, heading for the roof. "Roof, fine. And yes. Okay. I get it, you're bored."
"And you're a fucking thirteen-year-old," Ex mutters as she follows Flint back up the stairs—right-side up, this time.
Flint rolls his eyes as he steps out onto the roof. "Yeah and? Can still kick your ass if. If you lose it," he responds. "Let's not, not push that, yeah?"
The young woman only appears to avoid shoving past Flint by her dislike of physical contact; otherwise, she's through the door as fast as she can squeeze, and she actually breaks out into a swift jog for a few feet before stopping. "Whoa." Ex skids over to one of the sides, and peers over the edge. "Your neighborhood's a fucking dump."
Flint moves over towards the small garden, brushing his fingers against the leaves. "Yep. But. It's home," Flint says, quietly.
Ex leans a little further over, peering at the late evening traffic, and a few pedestrians. She's braced against the stone lip with both hands splayed flat against its inside. Then she twists her head so that she can look up, possibly at the other buildings, or maybe the sky itself.
The galliard sits down on the roof, cross-legged but not necessarily so relaxed as to give Ex the impression that she's not still being guarded. "Fresh air's nice," he says. "Eventually. Eventually, you'll be allowed up here. Without someone with you, by yourself. And. And even, after you get to where, you're allowed to leave? You'll be allowed to. Come back."
Ex shakes her head as she rights herself. "No way. I'm not coming back here once I'm out. Dumpy old building full of cameras and creepy people? Not a chance."
Flint shrugs his shoulders, content to sit and watch the cub. "Your choice."
Ex leans over the rim again. "Good."
Flint hums to himself, the tune mostly that of a Metallica song from a recent album.
Ex puts up with it for a few moments, but a short while into his humming, she plucks up a long spent cigarette butt and flicks at the back of his head.
Flint looks over at Ex. "Let me guess. No humming?"
"It's annoying," Ex says. "What are we waiting for, anyway?"
Flint huffs. "You said. You wanted to come to the roof. We. We did. However, up here, there's…" a shrug. "Less 'shit to do'."
Ex rolls her eyes at him. "Less to do than in an empty room? Or an empty room with beds?"
Ex says, suddenly, "There's this." And hops up on the cement lip.
It takes the barest moment for the galliard to snap into crinos, and he moves over, one massive hand wrapping around Ex's arm to pull her down from the lip. "No," he grunts, gutteral, and quite certainly annoyed. It's with the same force that Requiem just carries her into the stairwell, though he's at least more gentle about it than Riley was earlier, and he doesn't let her go until they're back on the fifth floor, inside the cubroom, at which point he sets her down, shrinks to glabro. "Sorry, Rogue. There's not that. Not. Not yet."
Rina's cleaning the kitchen when they come… well, monstering in. "Jesus fuck," she says swiftly, turning, towel suddenly dropped on the floor and a mixing bowl falling with a clatter.
Flint looks, apologetically, to Rina. "Were on the roof," he explains, gaze dropping to the floor. "Ledge." Head jerks to the cub. "She. Anyway."
Ex yelps as she's snatched—someone, it seems, is still not used to how fast crinos can move—and is full of nothing but squirming and protests until she's deposited in the cubroom. "You're supposed to not fucking touch me!" she snaps at him, as she scrambles back up to her feet. "It's five stories, I counted."
Rina's jaw tightens a little, and she gives Flint a look. "There was a reason I din't take her up to hang out in the garden," she says pointedly. "You've been hangin' out with her how long?"
Flint folds his arms, glancing once at Ex, before leaning on the doorway, in glabro. "Now, I know," he acknowledges. "Next time, you don't do something, like that," he tells Ex, "I don't have to, to do what I did. Until then," and he takes a deep breath, returning all the way to homid. "Sorry, Rina."
Ex stalks back to the knifed up bed, and flops herself onto it, rolling so that her back is to the room, and the others.
"Saright," Rina murmurs, bending to pick up the towel and the bowl, returning to the sink to wash the latter again.
Flint takes a very deep breath, then moves to sit down just out of the doorway, in the hall.
Rina's brow furrows, and she glances over her shoulder. "Flint? Hon?"
Ex kicks the wall, lightly, just once, with the toe of her shoe. Other than that, she remains where she is, with her back to the room.
The door from the stairwell opens and Kavi steps through. It closes behind him, and he pauses, brow furrowing as he regards Flint, and then looks beyond the other galliard to the open door.
Rina listens, as she continues to wash dishes.
"I…" Flint looks over at the stairwell, and Kavi, and then back at the door. "'Sokay, Rina. Just, a minute or two, yeah?" There's the lingering rage in his manner, still, though.
Ex drags the pillow over her head. This has the unintended consequence of scattering yet more pillow fluff over the bed and below it, not that she seems to mind.
Rina lets out a breath, and turns off the water.
Kavi` nods to Flint, but doesn't speak. Instead, he passes the young cliath and steps into the cub room. His gaze takes in the state of things, passing over the destruction to rest on Rina. "Hey," he calls, his voice soft.
Rina looks over her shoulder to him, offering a wan smile. "Hey."
Flint spends a moment at the outside of the door, before he comes back inside, but when he reenters the cubroom, it's with headphones on and his phone in his hands, though there's a grin spared for Rina, and Kavi.
Ex remains, head en-pillowed, facing the wall. There's no movement out of her just now.
Kavi` gives a glance toward the cliath when he enters, and another to the new addition, before he crosses to Rina. One hand brushes her shoulder before he reaches for a towel to dry the dishes she washes. "I forgot to buy milk," he says, as though there were nothing at all out of the ordinary happening.
"I'll run out tonight," Rina murmurs. "I could use some air, anyway."
Flint leans against the wall, then eventually pulls one earphone out, yawns.
Ex abruptly sits up, and throws her slashed pillow at Flint. "Fuck's sake!" She pushes off from the bed, though it's not really clear where she thinks she's going.
"Ex," Rina says quietly, "you ever tried meditation?"
Kavi makes no move to intercept, though he does turn, and his posture speaks of readiness. The tip of his tongue touches his upper teeth, a word, a thought, unspoken.
Flint pulls his lips back from his teeth when the pillow lands at his feet, and he looks to Kavi, and Rina. "I. I should go rest, and," he says. "I. Is… 's that okay?"
Ex twists around to frown at Rina. "What?"
Rina dries her hands on a spare towel, and comes out of the kitchen to offer Flint a small smile. "No worries," she says quietly. "Take care of yourself however you need to. I know this is hard."
Kavi gives a nod of approval to Flint, but most of his attention remains on the new cub.
Flint slips out of the room quietly, and a minute later the door to his apartment can be heard.
18 June, 2012
The moon is in the waning New (Ragabash) Moon phase (4% full).and both feet. And yet somehow she still doesn't stop yelling. Flint certainly overpowers her, but she's being a squirmy nuisance.
Flint sighs, and sits down on the edge of the bed, and though it seems to be wearing on his patience, just lets her. "You going to. To be done yelling, any time soon?" he asks. "Come on, Ex. Try." The words aren't encouraging, so much as annoyed.
Ex continues to yell for a few more moments before she appears to run out of steam…temporarily, at least. Not so with the kicking. She returns to pounding the walls with both heels, kicking as hard as possible, even though her face has turned red and she's got to be tiring.
Okay, seriously, this is the most compelling point that Riley can probably make to change her sporadic sleep schedule, because it seems that no matter when she manages to struggle herself to sleep, something wakes her up, whether it be useful intelligence or raging and caterwauling cubs. This, right here? This is Riley's last nerve snapping after being worn thin. BLAM. The cubroom door opens, smacks against the wall, and closes again. Somewhere in the interim, Riley has stormed her way into the room, eyes bloodshot and facial features contorted. She's more dressed than last time, her coat zipped up over herself, but she has still failed to obtain pants, and her bedhead is no better. "ENOUGH." It's not a suggestion, not a statement. It's an order. A loud, loud order.
Flint sits on the edge of the bed still, and eventually moves to stop her from kicking the wall, when Riley comes in. There is a frown furrowed on Flint's face, and the galliard looks over at the ragabash at the order, then back at Ex. "Seriously," he says, more quietly. "Ex, you need to calm. Calm down."
Riley's entrance is enough to get her to stop. She startles a little, and that throws off her kicks. They subside for a moment as Ex turns her head, eyeing Riley sidelong. There's a moment—two, three—where she is completely silent. And then, while still looking at Riley, she yanks back both legs and kicks at the wall, hard.
"No." Comes Riley's angry snap at Flint, "NOPE." Then, there's that sudden THUMP against the wall, and Riley's nostrils flare. Up through Glabro, up into Crinos, and a massive paw curls tightly around Ex's ankle and yanks her down off of the bunk to thwump down on her back, likely driving the breath out of her. Evac leans in, baring her teeth directly into the girl's face, repeating in a scarcely intelligible roaring growl, "No, cub." She sends a warning glower to Flint. It's clear she's not in the mood to debate, or to brook any disagreement.
Flint had, apparently, been trying to be patient with Ex's temper tantrum, but he just stands back and moves over for the door, to lean against the doorframe. "Have at," he mutters.
Ex doesn't really even have time—or breath—for a startled yelp. She's barely able to flail before her back cracks against the floor, and the sudden crinos muzzle in her face, growling, leaves the cub wide-eyed and blessedly silent. There's a faint trembling about her, suddenly halted energy, fear, or both.
The doorframe is the exact wrong place for Flint to be standing, as it turns out. Ex's ankle is not released—in fact, the grip upon it only tightens as Evac turns and stomp toward the door, giving a jerk of her head to indicate to Flint that he needs to move, and he needs to move now. Meanwhile, Ex is being hauled along the floor on her back.
Flint steps out into the hallway, eyebrows raised in question, a little.
Ex starts flailing again as she's unceremoniously dragged, but it's about as effective as flapping her arms to fly. She's either too winded, or too disoriented, to do anything as sensible as trying to latch onto something. She just moves her arms in various directions.
Out into the hallway, with Riley jerking her ankle up in elevation to put the pressure less on the flailing girl's lower back and more on her upper back, giving her at least the cushion of her clothing on her uncomfortable journey without allowing the opportunity for it to slide up and start chafing her skin off. Drag, drag, drag. When they reach the door to the stairs, Riley jerks her ankle again to lift her completely off of the floor and descends with the flailing girl held upside down by her ankle. Down, down into the basement.
Flint follows, arms crossed and grumbling the entire way.
Stairs. Stairs are not fun things to be dragged down. Ex does try to latch a few times onto the railing as they go, but she's not in a good position for it, and she stands no chance of maintaining a grip for even a moment with a crinos pulling her. Her descent to the basement is entirely ungraceful, punctuated with occasional, lower than one might expect, noises of wordless protest.
Once they're off the stairs, Ex is discarded in a heap in front of her, and Riley snaps down out of Crinos back down to Homid to stand in front of the other girl, though inexplicably now fully clothed, her eyes narrowed. "Explain yourself. Explain yourself right now. Explain your histrionics, your shouting, your kicking, and your pissing, biting, and every-fucking-other thing that you're doing."
Flint grumbles. "Rina's gonna be pissed," he mutters, loudly enough for Riley to hear, though there's no actual questions in the tone.
Ex stares a moment at the clothes, clearly bewildered. The demand, however, drags much more on her attention. She looks up at Riley from her undignified heap status, a muscle in her cheek working for a moment, followed by a tensing in her jaw. It takes her a few moments longer, a few moments of ragged breathing, before the answer comes. "You won't let me fucking go!" It comes out as a near growl, her eyes suddenly bright and feverish again, too intense to be healthy.
Evac snaps to Flint, "Then let her be. You both had your fucking chance, and whatever your fucking intentions are, you're both failing spectacularly." Riley's teeth grind against eachother, clicking and crunching audibly as she looms over Ex, and shouting down at her, "Because if we let you go, You. Are. Going. To. Die." She leans down and grabs the downed girl by the front of her hoodie, yanking her up to her knees and leaning in close, "You're going to murder innocent people until you draw the wrong attention, and you will die."
Flint crosses his arms, but there's the sense that he knows better than to argue at this point.
Ex quails under Riley's shouting. Her eyes—still too bright—go wide again, her nostrils flare, she shrinks back as much as she can given the very little room for doing so. The cub is silent again, silent and staring.
Dropping down to her own knees, Riley's narrowed eyes lean in closer to Ex as she continues the verbal assurance. "You are going to lose control. It'll start small, maybe. Maybe you'll just wake up in the woods, gnawing on a deer. But then you'll run into the wrong things, and you'll wake up chewing on someone you knew." Her voice lowers just the slightest bit, her grip tightening, "Someone you loved. Do you want to know what it's like to wake up to a half-eaten corpse?" Riley's eyes are intense, "Is that what you want? I can let you go right now if it is."
"Kavi-rhya's orders," Flint mutters. "We are not letting her go." Flint pauses, and adds. "Yet."
Riley jerks her head towards Flint, eyes wild. She doesn't even bother to say anything.
There is absolutely no change, no change whatsoever, in Ex's body posture, expression, or silence for a good long few moments after Riley finishes speaking. Then she breathes in a little, carefully, as if afraid this might not actually be allowed, and says, "I already do." Her voice is low and quiet, but there's a hint of resentment there that she doesn't quite manage to hide.
Flint backs off, returning to his birth form to go sit on the stairs up and out of the basement.
The grip on Ex's hoodie doesn't ease. It tightens. But what does ease is Riley's expression. She doesn't say anything, not for several seconds, and when she does, her voice isn't quite as intense, and it's several decibels lower. "Me too. You're here so we can help it not happen again. I know it doesn't feel that way, I know it feels like we're holding you prisoner. But if we don't help you get this, you're going to go full-monster. You'll kill so many people that you'll forget what it was to be human, and you'll lose every last part of yourself."
Ex seems to regain a little bit more of her confidence. She breathes in again, and says, flatly (though notably, she doesn't look Riley in the face), "You are holding me prisoner."
"Yup." Responds Riley, every bit as flatly. She scrunches the front of the girl's hoodie a little tighter, and leans in to throw an arm around the girl's back. Aggressive hug. "I'm sorry, but that's the way it's going to be."
It's the hug. As soon as that arm goes around her, she suddenly squirms and twists like a snake. "No. No."
Riley drops her immediately.
Ex ends up on one knee, with her hands splayed against the floor. She breathes again, but the moment of panic—if it was one—seems to be gone. Instead, she regards the other Ragabash carefully, with her head slightly lowered, and her eyes peering from under her eyebrows.
Riley crosses her arms, transferring her weight from her knees to her backside and pulling her knees close to her chest so that she can drape her arms over them. "If you're not here, learning to control what you are, then let me ask you something, and tell me true. Where else is it that you have to be?"
Ex looks from Riley to the floor. Her jaw works slowly, and the answer is slower. "I don't know." A beat. "Out."
Riley reiterates, "To frenzy, and eat more people."
"And get mad and wake up naked," Flint says. "No. Controlling it… learning. You need to do that." Then, he looks back down, butting back out of the conversation.
"Frenzy?" Ex says, as she rolls the word over her tongue. Her eyes flick toward Flint, and then away. "No one's teaching me yet. They said if I learned, I could go."
"Probably," Riley ventures, "Because you've kept us busy with watching you and cleaning up after you." She rolls her eyes, "That, and my guess is that they're trying to coddle you. If you're looking for that, you're going to have to find someone other than me. I don't have the patience anymore."
Flint lifts his shoulders. "Or because. I. When, every time, you go on about. Too many stupid words, or otherwise. Make it difficult," Flint says, grumbling a little. "Frenzy. Lose control of the rage, get angry, wake up naked. Words. Learn them."
Ex flashes teeth at Riley. "I don't want coddling." Flint gets an equally unpleasant look.
"Then don't act like a child." Riley snaps right back, bristling. "Whatever it is that you've done, know that I'm sorry that it happened—and you have a hard truth in front of you right now that you need to come to terms with. Whatever you thought your life was, that's over now."
Ex is back to eyeing Riley from under her eyebrows again. She gives a sharp jerk of her head as he finishes, her agitation visibly flaring. "You can't promise that. You can't. You can't promise that."
Riley doesn't seem to be willing to let her go with being so painfully obtuse. Instead, she presses, "I can promise that."
Ex says, louder, "No you can't!" She pushes up from the floor and takes several quick steps back from the other Ragabash. Her fingers are twitching now, almost spasmodically. "You think you're big and tough! They don't care! They've got needles, and gas, and guns, and darts, and you can't think and you can't get out and there's nothing but walls and silence and crawling and whispers and people without faces—"
Flint tenses, watching the cub and fostern, almost at the point of getting up from the stairs, but still, he keeps back for the moment.
Riley rises smoothly to her feet, bobbing her head, "Sounds a lot like your old life. Do you know where you are right now? You're in a building that's clogged to the gills with people that not only have guns, but that when they get pissed off, they look like this." She winds right back up into Crinos, making a point to flex her claws out into sight, her mouth opening and letting out a throaty snarl. She eases back down into homid, "And all of those, all of us? We're your allies now. So if anyone from that old life comes knocking, you can just point a finger and watch them disappear in a fine red mist."
Ex drops back into a crouch. She rubs her knuckles over one scarred cheek—roughly, as usual—and studies the floor for a moment before slanting another sidelong look toward Riley.
Flint pushes to his feet, then moves to lean against the wall. "Riley's right," Flint points out. "It. The— They ain't gonna, they're not. We won't let them get you. You're here, safe." It takes a long moment for Flint to properly articulate what he's trying to say, but the galliard says it.
For a change, Flint gets an approving nod from the Fostern. "Exactly that. So the way I see it, you've got a choice." Riley murmurs, taking a step back and settling with her hips cocked, and arms folded, "Either you think of us as kidnappers, or you start looking at it the other way around. We're your armor. And soon you'll be your own armor."
Ex inhales. Slower this time, but still rather heavily. She pushes up, moving again, pacing. "You have too many fucking cameras," she mutters, more to the floor than the other two. "Fucking cameras all over the place, spying for you. Too many walls and not enough windows."
Flint shakes his head slowly. "No. The. The cameras are there, so that…" Flint pauses, face screwing up in frustration, and looks to Riley, then looks down, and continues. "For our safety. So, so they can't just, sneak in, unnoticed."
It's Riley's turn to give her a sidelong look. "Your life won't be inside of this building. This is temporary, and we're not going to keep you here. But hey, guess what? While you are in here? No one is getting in to hurt you, if you'll just accept that we're not here to hurt you. What have you had to endure since coming here? Hot meals? Showers? Far cry from needles, darts, gas, and guns."
Ex twists around, partially facing Riley. Her eyes are still narrowed, her mouth set into a faint frown that seems be her default expression. "Why?"
Flint looks at Ex. "Why what?" he asks. "Why what?"
Ex shakes her head sharply. "Why?" She waits a beat. "So uninfected humans are safe?" Her eyebrow quirks. "Do you think you are the X-Men?"
"First off, there's no 'infection'. And as far as I remember, I was talking about you being safe, I didn't make any promises for anyone else. And like it or not," Riley grunts, "If we're the X-Men, congratulations. You're Jubilee."
Ex huffs. "Genetic mutation, fine." And then there's a snort. "No, fuck that. I'm Rogue. Rogue from the movie if you want. Then nobody fucking touches me."
"Rogue? Alright, then." Riley jerks her head toward Flint, "Flint, this is Rogue. Rogue, Flint." She turns her attention back to Ex. "I can't promise that no one's going to touch you, unless you take the effort to actually tell them—like a mature human being—that you have a problem with it, and you're sorry, but you don't want handshakes, or hugs, or whatever it is that twigs you out so hard." Riley frowns, "…You've got an opportunity, here, Rogue. Because right now, you're dead. It's up to you to figure out how you wanna be reborn."
Flint offers a faint, still-tense grin to the cub. "Rogue it is," he says. "See, and. And here, you've said that. No one touches you? So that's what we— what. What happens. Like. Like Riley said. Like I said. Like Rina said. You're safe here. If. If no one touching you, if, keeping the knife. If those help you, know you're safe, good."
Once again, Ex flashes teeth at Riley, but this time it's more of a feral grin than displeasure. "Okay. Okay, yeah. Good. I'm Rogue, and no one fucking touches me. Okay." She draws herself up straighter now. She doesn't seem more relaxed, necessarily, but there's a hint of calm at least. "Now what?"
"Now," Riley murmurs, "I'm going back to bed, and you're going to cool your heels. If you start to feel antsy, tell someone. We have an open-air roof that you're welcome to pace around on if someone's with you. No cameras there, and lots of space."
Flint looks at Ex. "Breakroom. The apartment. Roof. Here, if you want. But. No more kicking the walls, or ruining. The mattress." There's a tinge of amusement. "'kay?"
Ex's right cheek twitches. "Fine. But I need shit to do." And abruptly. "The roof. I want to go there."
Riley casts Flint a look, and nods her head, "Your ball." Without a second glance cast to either of them, the Fostern stomps back up the stairs, presumably to get herself back to bed.
Flint nods, waiting for Ex, before starting up the stairs, himself, heading for the roof. "Roof, fine. And yes. Okay. I get it, you're bored."
"And you're a fucking thirteen-year-old," Ex mutters as she follows Flint back up the stairs—right-side up, this time.
Flint rolls his eyes as he steps out onto the roof. "Yeah and? Can still kick your ass if. If you lose it," he responds. "Let's not, not push that, yeah?"
The young woman only appears to avoid shoving past Flint by her dislike of physical contact; otherwise, she's through the door as fast as she can squeeze, and she actually breaks out into a swift jog for a few feet before stopping. "Whoa." Ex skids over to one of the sides, and peers over the edge. "Your neighborhood's a fucking dump."
Flint moves over towards the small garden, brushing his fingers against the leaves. "Yep. But. It's home," Flint says, quietly.
Ex leans a little further over, peering at the late evening traffic, and a few pedestrians. She's braced against the stone lip with both hands splayed flat against its inside. Then she twists her head so that she can look up, possibly at the other buildings, or maybe the sky itself.
The galliard sits down on the roof, cross-legged but not necessarily so relaxed as to give Ex the impression that she's not still being guarded. "Fresh air's nice," he says. "Eventually. Eventually, you'll be allowed up here. Without someone with you, by yourself. And. And even, after you get to where, you're allowed to leave? You'll be allowed to. Come back."
Ex shakes her head as she rights herself. "No way. I'm not coming back here once I'm out. Dumpy old building full of cameras and creepy people? Not a chance."
Flint shrugs his shoulders, content to sit and watch the cub. "Your choice."
Ex leans over the rim again. "Good."
Flint hums to himself, the tune mostly that of a Metallica song from a recent album.
Ex puts up with it for a few moments, but a short while into his humming, she plucks up a long spent cigarette butt and flicks at the back of his head.
Flint looks over at Ex. "Let me guess. No humming?"
"It's annoying," Ex says. "What are we waiting for, anyway?"
Flint huffs. "You said. You wanted to come to the roof. We. We did. However, up here, there's…" a shrug. "Less 'shit to do'."
Ex rolls her eyes at him. "Less to do than in an empty room? Or an empty room with beds?"
Ex says, suddenly, "There's this." And hops up on the cement lip.
It takes the barest moment for the galliard to snap into crinos, and he moves over, one massive hand wrapping around Ex's arm to pull her down from the lip. "No," he grunts, gutteral, and quite certainly annoyed. It's with the same force that Requiem just carries her into the stairwell, though he's at least more gentle about it than Riley was earlier, and he doesn't let her go until they're back on the fifth floor, inside the cubroom, at which point he sets her down, shrinks to glabro. "Sorry, Rogue. There's not that. Not. Not yet."
Rina's cleaning the kitchen when they come… well, monstering in. "Jesus fuck," she says swiftly, turning, towel suddenly dropped on the floor and a mixing bowl falling with a clatter.
Flint looks, apologetically, to Rina. "Were on the roof," he explains, gaze dropping to the floor. "Ledge." Head jerks to the cub. "She. Anyway."
Ex yelps as she's snatched—someone, it seems, is still not used to how fast crinos can move—and is full of nothing but squirming and protests until she's deposited in the cubroom. "You're supposed to not fucking touch me!" she snaps at him, as she scrambles back up to her feet. "It's five stories, I counted."
Rina's jaw tightens a little, and she gives Flint a look. "There was a reason I din't take her up to hang out in the garden," she says pointedly. "You've been hangin' out with her how long?"
Flint folds his arms, glancing once at Ex, before leaning on the doorway, in glabro. "Now, I know," he acknowledges. "Next time, you don't do something, like that," he tells Ex, "I don't have to, to do what I did. Until then," and he takes a deep breath, returning all the way to homid. "Sorry, Rina."
Ex stalks back to the knifed up bed, and flops herself onto it, rolling so that her back is to the room, and the others.
"Saright," Rina murmurs, bending to pick up the towel and the bowl, returning to the sink to wash the latter again.
Flint takes a very deep breath, then moves to sit down just out of the doorway, in the hall.
Rina's brow furrows, and she glances over her shoulder. "Flint? Hon?"
Ex kicks the wall, lightly, just once, with the toe of her shoe. Other than that, she remains where she is, with her back to the room.
The door from the stairwell opens and Kavi steps through. It closes behind him, and he pauses, brow furrowing as he regards Flint, and then looks beyond the other galliard to the open door.
Rina listens, as she continues to wash dishes.
"I…" Flint looks over at the stairwell, and Kavi, and then back at the door. "'Sokay, Rina. Just, a minute or two, yeah?" There's the lingering rage in his manner, still, though.
Ex drags the pillow over her head. This has the unintended consequence of scattering yet more pillow fluff over the bed and below it, not that she seems to mind.
Rina lets out a breath, and turns off the water.
Kavi` nods to Flint, but doesn't speak. Instead, he passes the young cliath and steps into the cub room. His gaze takes in the state of things, passing over the destruction to rest on Rina. "Hey," he calls, his voice soft.
Rina looks over her shoulder to him, offering a wan smile. "Hey."
Flint spends a moment at the outside of the door, before he comes back inside, but when he reenters the cubroom, it's with headphones on and his phone in his hands, though there's a grin spared for Rina, and Kavi.
Ex remains, head en-pillowed, facing the wall. There's no movement out of her just now.
Kavi` gives a glance toward the cliath when he enters, and another to the new addition, before he crosses to Rina. One hand brushes her shoulder before he reaches for a towel to dry the dishes she washes. "I forgot to buy milk," he says, as though there were nothing at all out of the ordinary happening.
"I'll run out tonight," Rina murmurs. "I could use some air, anyway."
Flint leans against the wall, then eventually pulls one earphone out, yawns.
Ex abruptly sits up, and throws her slashed pillow at Flint. "Fuck's sake!" She pushes off from the bed, though it's not really clear where she thinks she's going.
"Ex," Rina says quietly, "you ever tried meditation?"
Kavi makes no move to intercept, though he does turn, and his posture speaks of readiness. The tip of his tongue touches his upper teeth, a word, a thought, unspoken.
Flint pulls his lips back from his teeth when the pillow lands at his feet, and he looks to Kavi, and Rina. "I. I should go rest, and," he says. "I. Is… 's that okay?"
Ex twists around to frown at Rina. "What?"
Rina dries her hands on a spare towel, and comes out of the kitchen to offer Flint a small smile. "No worries," she says quietly. "Take care of yourself however you need to. I know this is hard."
Kavi gives a nod of approval to Flint, but most of his attention remains on the new cub.
Flint slips out of the room quietly, and a minute later the door to his apartment can be heard.