o1 🦅 I want to walk into the heart of you

[pridestar]

Characters: John Proudstar & CR
Summary: A series of reunions and confrontations, some of them sweet, and some of them a little more bitter than that. Catch-all for the month!
Date(s): May 2018
Warnings/Notes: Potential mention of trauma, battle, sexual themes, genocide, etc.



closed to kurt;

[Call him old-fashioned. He knows a great deal about technology, its uses for freedom, its uses to oppress it; the most cutting-edge inventions of the United States came out of the military, after all. Even were medicine was involved. Especially where cellular capabilities were in development. And now he's stuck in this -- extra, semi-parallel dimenison, where the universe itself is software? He's already been hunted by enough robot Sentinels to question reliance on anything that prides itself in being chips and wires.

So go figure. When Kurt sees the man, it's because he's nailing a poster up on a public corkboard. It reads:

DID THEY CALL YOU A MUTANT?

SEEKING OUR COMMUNITY WITHIN THE COMMUNITY IN XISTENTIA

John Proudstar @ Thunderbird
You could never tell from the business-like font and grave colors, that John had spent at least fifteen minutes waffling over whether or not to capitalize the -d. It seemed— a little vulgar, for his sensibilities. But he stands back now from his handiwork, hammer in hand, a hand on his hip. Pleased. Hopeful.]

closed to rosie;

Hi.

[He's been watching her work out. It isn't creepy. She pumps iron like no human can, and it's rare and interesting to him still— easy associations in his mind with special abilities that put a target on your back, marginalized people, the politics of his kind. Even if it isn't wise to generalize, he's never been a shy man, anyhow. His long legs cover the space easily. Narrow jeans, and a tanktop that shows off the cut of his tawny arms, the eagle-shaped tattoo marked into one bicep. He smiles at her.]

I'm John. How much are you lifting there? [He nods over at the weights she'd just set down, a few feet behind her. There has to be any number of men, who wish they could be the bench that she'd stretched her long, lean back over.]

closed to lorna;

[By now, she knows he's in town. He's a quiet presence at parties that are loud, a helpful voice on a network full of fearful and troubled people. He's been with Marcos— she might even know that, about the home they've made, bachelor-style, the stuff of some kind of adorable sitcom. It'd be an adorable sitcom, if the situation around them wasn't so fucking dire.

But he hasn't come to find her before now. No guesses as to how he realized it was her, despite that she has her green hair tucked under her cap. He's interrupting her lunch, one of the charming little cafes operated by someone who proudly holds their non-human ancestry public— some species called Kh'ferme, who have fur and slut-pupilled eyes, but are funnily vegetarian. They make the best eggs. John-- probably didn't come here because of the appetizing smell, either.]

How's it going, Lorna? [he asks, sitting in the seat opposite her.]

closed to sonya;

[She doesn't notice him coming in, mostly because her morning class has already grown to seven bodies, many of them eager for her expertise and tutelage. Besides, when you're off the ground and moving through ribbons suspended so many feet off the floor, what you're probably supposed to be paying attention to is not falling. Of course, looking at her, you'd never think it required any effort at all.

The students are dispersing by the time he steps up. Maybe she saw him at some point in the middle of the class, standing back by the windowed doors, watching. His expression hasn't changed the whole time. Reserved, as ever. Disciplined. Maybe careful.

Which is pretty funny, when his stride doesn't stop. He walks up right into her space. He looks for the shift of her eyes, the flicker of expression, that makes the decision for him: if he's allowed to put his arms around her. To kiss her on the mouth.]

closed to ignacio;

[Night-time darkness provides little in the way of a burden or an obstruction to John, who doesn't exactly have 20/20 vision, but nonetheless finds it easy enough to compensate with his hearing, the tracking that's practically psychic in its capacity to extend his understanding of the world beyond ordinary sensibilities. He's restless. He's been thinking-- this isn't his war, and he's also been thinking: that's a lie, of course; this is everyone's war. It's familiar to him, feeling at odds with the people around him, his memory, his principles. He is the descendant of an oppressed people, and yet, he'd gone into Iraq on behalf of the United States government and saw the hate on brown faces. He questions even the daemon that F.A.T.E.S. gave him— the symbolic eagle that's circling overhead.

The whole thing, it troubles him. He can't walk it off, but he knows himself well enough, now, to know that he needs to be in motion.]

Hello. [He sees the man's figure in the distance, where trees meet shore.] Don't mean to startle anyone. Name's John.

closed to thea;

[He finds her at the Citadel, one of those low-key community gatherings that the city's resident party-throwers like to put together now and then. He prefers them low-key. He's heard about the sex demons and he was right there at ground zero for the outdoor bazaar that led to the psychic bomb, and he figures smaller get-togethers with less windows are safer. Guerilla tactics, maybe. The life of an underground resistance fighter. Old habits die hard.

But he doesn't look tense as he steps up to her, a lopsided smile on his face.] Hey stranger, [he says.] I got you a little something that's been burning a hole in my pocket for you, a couple weeks now. Gonna assume you're keeping it sober, and this is going to be as good a time as any. You're looking good, Thea.

[His hand is empty when he reaches out to shake her hand. But it's a friendly gesture, in and of itself.]

closed to rafaello;

[he did this after the war, too. have these terrible dreams. wake up, and go outside to be by himself.

he had learned at some point, probably during out-processing in virginia, that this is pretty normal to go through if you've seen some shit. ptsd, they don't diagnose until you've been having the dreams and jumping in and out of your skin for a few months. he had understood, then, that he was lucky. he's been watching himself ever since he left panultima-- wondering if his luck was going to hold out. during the daytimes, it seems likely. coffee in the mornings, hunting, community services and rebuilding in the afternoons, dinner with marcos. nights like this, it's harder to say.

and he'd be lying if he didn't admit, the cut of rafa's silhouette emerging abruptly out in the trees made his heart jump for an instant. just like the arena. but unlike the arena, he can see the hair swept over the vampire's crown is smooth, his shirt clean of dirt and blood.] I remember you, [he hears himself say.] You move like a cat.

Comments

[hasitsthorns]

You're telling me, [ she says to that, about war. It wasn't anything she figured she'd be intimately familiar with but, well. Life can throw some pretty mean curveballs, it seems.

But it can throw nice ones, too. Like guys checking her out at the gym when she wasn't planning for it. ]

Oh my gosh, dude, that's like. Three of me? Maybe four? I believe it though with those biceps. [ In contrast to her, lithe and lean muscle. Also in contrast, she's a bit more obvious. ] But, yeah, I'm from earth. Wi-fi and Starbucks - though not a huge coffe fan - and way more out there than most people realize. Er. Realized.

[pridestar]

[A moment, and then he offers her a hand on impulse. Inviting her to get up. He nods his head over to the right, indicating the area sectioned off for martial arts training. Pumping iron is very well, but he has a certain suspicion that those scars don't just come from hoisting weights in the safety of an air-conditioned facility.]

What do you mean 'out there?'

[He isn't prying, not exactly. Not in the sense that he's unwilling to share. God knows he's spent enough time in his life thinking about why they fight, and these allies are unknown quantities. If, you know. Uniformly hotties. That much, you can tell just by looking at them.]

[hasitsthorns]

[ She regards the extended hand for only a couple seconds before reaching out to grasp it. This isn't usually how this goes, but- She likes it when people surprise her. When they're interesting. John, so far, is very interesting. ]

My world's complicated in that's several in one. A lot of people thought there was just humans, but then- Surprise. There's a whole world of us demons just waiting around the next reality.

[ She gives a stretch as she says it. Causal. 'Us demons' is nothing she ever thought she'd be able to just say one day. But two years in these nexus worlds and four at war openly declaring what they were, well. It understandably changes a person. ]

[pridestar]

Demons, [John says. Despite his predisposition to be quite open to people of unusual looks and backgrounds and 'supernatural' abilities of course, those words still have. Connotations, where he comes from.] Back where I come from, 'demons' don't exist. Far as we know. A religious concept, mostly, about creatures who by nature want to hurt or even kill others.

[He's

a little blunt, maybe. But not unfriendly, as he opens out a tattooed arm, invitingly, starting toward the martial arts area. They have everything from punching bags to blocks of concrete set up over there.] What does it mean in your world?

[hasitsthorns]

Demons, [ she echoes, stepping easily onto the cushiony mats lining the floor. His is a familiar tone. Demon, people would say, and she could hear the connotations they held behind them. While not holding anything like the heat of hatred behind many a hunter's hiss, it still had its own weight. It held it's own connotations for her what he might think. ]

Hell exists, in my world. Not quite like The Bible depicts it, but- Close enough, in my opinion. It's where I'm from. Where all demons are.

[ It's here she smiles, just as pleasant as always. ] We're more varied than just red tails and horns though. Some of us hate or eat humans. Usually both. Some of us don't. [ More than she had actually known after centuries of feeling alone. Her blond hair is suddenly bunched and tied back. If they might spar, better safe than sorry. ] But it's probably a safe bet that more do.

I think it means the same thing as being human though. We're all different, we all just want to live. [ At least, I do. ]