♦ ♦ 27TH CONTRACT - Text/Action

[mortemscintilla]

[ Anonymous Text / Unhackable ]

Fond are life's lustful joys;
Death proves them all but toys;
None from his darts can fly;
I am sick, I must die.

              ~ Ye Olde Melodramatic Poet

Best wishes to all those playing hero. Or idiot. A round of applause for the doctors too. All you're lacking are the right uniforms. But here's a little something for levity's sake. I imagine, for the delicate flowers, the City's a grim place right now.

For the rest of you? It seems a week of sickness isn't enough to stop the whining. It's also too damn late to interject, but I don't want your would-be meaningful dreams. And I'm not wasting my time decoding them. That's someone else's fool's errand. Smart people charge a commission.

[ Private//Unhackable - Mao ]

Status report.

[ ... static ... ]

Here kitty kitty.

[ Silence. ]

[ It seems the City's short one talking black cat. ]

[ Private//Unhackable - Yin ]

It goes without saying. But keep indoors and minimize exposure to crowded areas.

I worry enough about you as it is.

[ Private//Unhackable - Chekov ]

Delivery:
[1] One bio-safe Container carrying [1] one Meteor Shard.

CONTACT: hei-twos-and-ones@bogusserver.net
MESSAGE: handle with caution
I'll provide more details at the Karaoke Bar.

[ Private//Unhackable - Pai ]

Pick a decor. We'll get your room done that style, once we move to the new flat next week.

In the meantime check under the bed. Hope you like them.

[ Private//Unhackable - Korra ]

[ Attachment.jpg ]

Yes? Or no?

[ooc: initial text is anonymous and untraceable. Hei is being a jerkass but also gauging City morale. He's also lying about not helping anyone, the hypocrite. He's done a few helpful rituals - if only to stop the creepy dreams. As always, massively backtag friendly since I'll be a slow little snail. ]

Comments

private // unhackable;

[anatural]

Aren't they supposed to be fuzzy? [It's neither a yes nor a no. She's shooting for humor, but it's clear she's uncertain. Working in the Underground has taught her about the sexy use of handcuffs; she'd never understood the appeal. You never know until you try, though...]

private // unhackable;

[mortemscintilla]

I don't own much that's fuzzy.

[ He's also not tacky enough to make pussy jokes. He smiles at her, a quiet curl at the corner of his mouth that doesn't quite reach his eyes. Maybe because it's so easy to read the ambivalence in hers. (If he were anyone else, it might hurt him a little inside, to think of her being scared of him in this way. But he's not anyone else. He's also proven to Korra, by being no less than what he is, that the world is often a nasty place and it's a stupid woman who doesn't think twice before letting a monster sink so insidiously under her skin.) ]

[ A beat. Then, carefully neutral, ] Would you feel better with the fuzzy types?

private // unhackable;

[anatural]

They look stupid. [The fuzzy ones, not these. These just look uncomfortable.]

Is this your way of saying you want to see me tonight? [Maybe it'd be easier to talk about in person.]

private // unhackable;

[mortemscintilla]

I figure you can take a hint. As long as it's big enough.

[ That's a Yes. ]

[ By habit he's angled the Network Device so it hides his location. But in the periphery, piles of boxes are visible. There are knickknacks scattered all over the living room and a couple of sheets spread out on the floor. Most of the furniture's gone, except for the coffee table, which is littered with bottles and bowls and fruit -- and a a copper fondue pot over a burner. The remains of his and Pai's dinner, which incidentally make the room seem like a calorie rich opium den. ]

private // unhackable;

[anatural]

[She rolls her eyes. Jerk. But she doesn't bother getting worked up over little jabs like these (usually).]

Should I head over? [Taking in the piles of boxes, the lack of furniture --] Do you even have a bed?

private // unhackable;

[mortemscintilla]

[ Drop by, and at least I'll have the mattress. ]

[ He doesn't say that. Honestly -- selfishly -- he does want her to come over. Since Pai's arrival, everything has piled on top of each other, events and ideas running together fast. That burst of manic energy, which Hei hasn't felt since the war, is both freeing and a little unsettling. He's both in a constant psychological red-zone and physically keyed-up. In the midst of the most easygoing conversations with Pai, he catches himself wanting to be alone, to get grounded as he clutches his precarious happiness to him like a treasure-map. Good Things piled upon Good Things are an unnatural phenomenon in Hei's life. And experience has taught him to be almost pathologically averse to any combination of adrenaline and strong emotion. ]

[ Sex -- cold as it sounds -- is the appropriate tool to calm him down. ]

Limitation is the mother of creativity. [ re: No, there's no bed. But there are walls. And the kitchen counter. And the tub. And the floor. And futons. And an embarrassment of cushions. And -- ] Are you coming over or not?

[ It's impatient and so far from his usual tone of indifferent or neutral or whatever agenda he's angling for. But in its own way, it's honest. A dangerous and unspoken I want to see you. ]

action;

[sleepingstar]

[Pai does indeed check under her bed and finds the little collection of knives. She goes out to the living room to admire them...and to ask Hei what they're for.

After all, what does a living weapon need weapons for?

action;

[mortemscintilla]

[ He's in the livingroom, settled crosslegged on the floor with a clutter of cardboard boxes. In preparation for the move, he has three piles going --Trash, Oxfam-ish, and Keepers. In spite of all the dissatisfaction and emptiness he's endured here, every item in the apartment is charged with significance. It's absurd. The volumes of science fiction classics 'borrowed' from the library. The disassembled telescope. The half-full bottles of sherry and vodka and sake, obviously kept for cooking, and the empties of Jack scattered everywhere -- taken from out the dresser, the desk, under the bed -- that he'd drunk alone. (Did I really hit the bottle that much? he wonders, and feels a flush of mortification.) 'Li's clothes, that are somehow both conservative and scruffy and the opposite of what anyone ever wore in Tokyo. Amber's dream-catcher, and a strip of clothing she'd left at his flat, after that Visitor Weekend. A few polaroids from the photograph curse, gathered together with a rubber-band. A kibble bowl, kept by the window-sill for Mao's visits. ]

[ Hei hesitates, then puts the bowl in the Oxfam pile. He's checked the Hall of The Missing -- and seen the portrait. He's logged into Mao's server -- and been greeted by the 404 Forbidden error. He's not exactly upset or splitting hairs about his teammate's departure. It's for the best. Mao was useful for reconnaissance. But ultimately? He was ill-suited for a City where his server required constant maintenance. ]

[ In most ways, it's no different from how he left in the Gate, Hei thinks bleakly. Hearing Pai's footsteps, he glances up, automatically summoning a smile. ]

You found the knives.

action;

[sleepingstar]

They were where you told me. [She kneels gracefully in the middle of the chaos and picks up one of the empty Jack bottles. There are too many -- she never remembered him being this much of a drinker. She shoots him a questioning look.]

action;

[mortemscintilla]

[ Kneeling amid the mess, contained and observant, she reminds him of a cat. But when she picks up the bottle, Hei's the one with that bristling Hssss sluicing up his spine. Reaching out, he plucks the bottle from her fingers. Memory is a bizarre thing. Somehow he can't tease apart the threads of time now, to catch the precise patterns of his old desperation. Recalling the past year, he can only vaguely grasp the anger that was sparked at home and fanned by the City, until it balled into something outside his control, formless, pointless and lethal in its self-destructive power. ]

[ Already it seems like a lifetime ago. With Pai here, his mind is hurtling on the straight-and-narrow again, a punctual bulletrain. He can think of his dipsomaniac stints without getting stuck on the self-flagellation part. Shit happened, it was bad, but time moves on, and more shit will happen. You can count on that: death, taxes, and shit. At least the City spares you the first two. ]

[ Quietly, not meeting her eyes, he says, ] It was a long year. [ An evasion, but also a full-stop -- End of Subject and My Head's In A Better Place in the same breath. ]

action;

[sleepingstar]

[She doesn't believe him. Or, rather, she believes what he says, but not what he means. She saw plenty of soldiers turn to alcohol during Heaven's War, and only a few who managed to turn themselves back. Once it becomes a problem, it's never as simple as "I'm better now."

Instead of outwardly voicing her skepticism, though she isn't bothering to hide it, she crawls into his lap and wraps her arms around him.]

action;

[mortemscintilla]

[ It's so easy to read the skepticism on her face. He doesn't like to admit the alcoholism is a problem -- at least, for someone as high-functioning as Hei, it's difficult to acknowledge it as one. He's drunk to excess in the past, yes, because he was angry or unhappy. But he's generally stopped whenever something more interesting engaged him. There's a purpose to Pai's arrival that suggests the same thing. If there's something more attractive than killing himself slowly, he likes to believe he's perfectly able to quit. ]

[ (But it also disturbs him. Because if Pai disappears, if Yin is taken away, what then? Having someone to care for doesn't just keep Hei's monstrousness in check. It channels it into a protective role. Who will take that spot if either the sister or Doll are gone? No one in the City means much to him. He's fond of Korra, is interested in her well-being. But Korra is growing up. She'll tolerate him less and less once she begins to understand how toxic he is. Even Amber, brilliant and singular as she was, couldn't anchor him. To keep him from sliding back into chaos, he needs the utility and concentration he finds only in Pai or Yin). ]

[ Don't think about it. Instead he slips both arms around Pai, the bottle dangling loosely from one hand, his cheek against her hair. He doesn't think he'll ever get used to it -- the tangible reality of her. He doesn't want to. After everything they've endured, this impossibility can't be taken for granted. ]

You still haven't told me if you like your gift.

[anonymous || unhackable ]

[unflagging]

If It Should Ever Come

And we are all there together
time will wave as willows do
and adios will be truly, yes,

laughing at what is forgotten
and talking of what's new
admiring the roses you brought.
How sad.

You didn't know you were at the end
thought it was your bright pear
the earth, yes

another affair to have been kept
and gazed back on
when you had slept
to have been stored
as a squirrel will a nut, and half
forgotten,
there were so many, many
from the newly fallen.

--Ed Dorn
(he's the poet who reckoned we need help)

[anonymous || unhackable ] 1/2 (SOB ilu<3)

[mortemscintilla]

I went there. This is what I get.

[anonymous || unhackable ]

[mortemscintilla]

The question remains:

Did anyone listen to him?

[anonymous || unhackable ] /sounds of "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" playing in the background

[unflagging]

Not that I can recollect.

[anonymous || unhackable ] x3

[mortemscintilla]

[ Now isn't that an uplifting tune. ]

Makes you wonder if poets don't grossly overestimate readers.

Or just the number of people who can actually read.

[anonymous || unhackable ] Music's only an OOC joke, for the record--sorry!!

[unflagging]

You think the literacy rate is that low?

[anonymous || unhackable ] It's cool, I figured<33

[mortemscintilla]

That, or the reading comprehension skills.

[ Private // Unhackable ]

[candothat]

When do we meet?

[ Private // Unhackable ]

[mortemscintilla]

6:00
Rm 12

[ It's the karaoke room with the purple matte walls and the pink zebra-striped upholstery. Hei may be a spy, but he detests cliches. The most important business transactions in his career have taken place in children's playgrounds and ramen stands, not shady bars and parking-lots. ]

[ Action ]

[candothat]

[Pavel's slightly early and mildly bemused. This is an interesting place to meet, if nothing else, even if the decor leaves much to be desired. He doesn't have the shard on him--hasn't so much as opened the container. It's safe at home. Uhura isn't there and won't be leaving what has become the Starfleet apartment. Not only is she still unwell, but Commander Spock arrived today.

Well. And none of them are supposed to be wandering around alone because a fearsome enemy is in the City, but Pavel has done fine in the City for well over a year without any help from home.]

[ Action ] 1/2

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei has only visited the karaoke bar once before. ]

[ It was for early reconnaissance. But he'd immediately noticed that, as a rendezvous point, the place had its merits. The rooms are insulated and soundproof, with a lock on every door. The clientele is mixed. Rowdy teenagers out for a few laughs. Burned-out nine-to-five stiffs desperate to unwind. Furtive young couples here to make out if there's no privacy for them anywhere else. The latter isn't explicitly stated but understood. Which is why, as a policy, the staff don't come into the rooms unless there's an emergency. There are security cameras on the ceilings, true. But that's easily solvable. One well-placed bug, and the equipment malfunctions to play looped feed for two hours straight. ]

[ Anyway it's not like 'Li' is in there doing anything more sinister than making a fool of himself. ]

[ Action ]

[mortemscintilla]

[ By operational habit, he's already there when Pavel arrives. ]

[ Between the flux of crewmembers pouring into the City, Hei knows the young man is preoccupied. But he's also one of the few people Hei relies on -- well, for a given level of reliance -- not to botch up such an important package. (With Pai here, Hei isn't foolish enough to keep the Meteor Shard in one of his safehouses. Even now, the juxtaposition of Sister and Shard has the power to send electric-eels of dread up his spine.) ]

[ When Pavel opens the door, he'll find 'Li' settled on the zebra-striped sofa. For all the world, he seems to be watching TV, except he's got one hand on the mic, holding it up to his mouth, and the other tucked behind his head. Now we're gonna be face-to-face/And I'll lay right down in my favorite place/And now I wanna be your dog. He isn't singing so much as talk-singing -- off-key and croaky. He'll never admit it, but he likes this song because it's ridiculous and kinky and doesn't have a melodic line at all. (BK201 is a man of many talents. Singing is not one of them.) ]

[ Spotting Pavel, he promptly sets the mic down. ] Come in. Shut the door. [ Also, we will never mention his song-choice again. E v e r. ]

[ Action ]

[candothat]

[That... is something.

Pavel obeys the order to close the door, trying to mask his amusement at Hei's singing skills (or lack thereof). The meaning of the lyrics is utterly lost on him.]

Do you enjoy singing? [Safer than offering an opinion.]