Al-Razi Apartment
"Hello, Dr. Rashin. I need you to stop by at your earliest convenience. Your earliest convenience is in the next thirty minutes."
1/18/2007
Logfile from Emma.
=NYC= Al-Razi Apartment - Morningside Heights - Apartments in the Sky
The apartment building is old and venerable: the architecture is finely detailed and the building clean, even if the lift shudders and shakes. On the third floor, the walls are a pale golden orange that complements the rich, dark finish of the wood. On the left side of the hall, apartment 320.
The door opens to a high-ceilinged room, divided between a smaller kitchen and a large, open living room. The floor is dark and glossy hardwood finished in the same rich cherry as the hall, but in better condition. Two large windows occupy the northward facing wall, oversized with old, warped glass. The furniture is sparse: a low blue sofa, two matching chairs, a table, lamps, and plants. The kitchen area is separated from the living area by a long counter that curves around in a sweep of cheap laminate; the stove is electric and twitchy; the refrigerator is old, plain, but clean. There are three doors on the wall opposite the small entryway. One is perpetually closed; one is half-open to reveal the white and brushed chrome of a sleek bathroom; one is open to the messy sprawl of a bedroom, most of what is visible taken up by the bed.
In the aftermath of a lesson gone sour, the twins scatter in a stew of sullenness.
Adel scatters by virtue of staying still, congestion and chills keeping him locked into his corner of the couch, blankets and all. He slouches lower yet to pick at the hem of his shirt with two fingers, ignoring Emma's gaze as he focuses muzzily down on dark skin between shirt and pajama pants.
Bahir scatters in a restless prowl, the odd cough punctuating the rasp of his voice, but a world better compared to his twin. He moves for the kitchen when he has finished circumnavigating the apartment -- a quick task, to be sure. He rattles through cupboards yanking out mugs and a tea kettle, tea pot set in the sink while he fills the kittle. A wooden box comes down with sharp motions. "Tea?" he asks, the spoken directed to Emma over the ripple of silent communication between al-Razi halves.
Emma pulls her attention away from examining the less than perfect image Adel currently presents, and turns to Bahir. Her silent hesitation is full of meaning to a fellow telepath, flitting between thoughts of contamination and hygiene before settling on a silent vow to investigate decontamination chambers and saying, "Yes, thank you. Are you certain you..." << should be mobile? are capable? are clean? >> "don't need assistance?" She glances back at Adel and presses her lips in a thin smile.
Dark eyes narrow at Emma on the edge of a flash of temper. With shields imperfect, the leap and spark of angry connections is more than visible: << Just a flu fuck you not a cripple not not fuck you little miss perfect grr. >> The neat lines of Adel's mind unordered by both disease and cure, he slouches further yet and wraps the blanket around him as he lets loose a hacking cough and further contaminates the air. Maliciously.
"I can get it," Bahir assures mildly. He sets the water on to boil and turns back to give Adel a /look/. He goes back to the cabinets and finds honey, setting it to the side. "Do you take anything with your tea?" he asks Emma.
Emma inhales a disdainful sniff and arches an elegantly shaped brow at Adel as she shifts in her chair and crosses her legs, tugging the hem of her skirt into a straight line across her knee. "Milk and sugar, please," she answers, leaning her elbow on a chair arm and turning to follow Bahir's movements in the kitchen.
Adel arches both eyebrows at Emma: darker, less delicate. No clear words form in the shifting sands of an irritable mind, mood dragging down, down. He sneezes.
"Sure," Bahir says, going to the fridge for milk and getting sugar out of the same cabinet as honey. He fusses with the teapot, rinsing it once and then adding tea leaves from a small tin in the box. He eyes the kettle in silence.
"Just how long have you two been ill?" she asks, pique sharpening the question that spears through the miasma of mood and control imperfect. The question is addressed to Bahir, though her indignation leapfrogs over her shoulder toward Adel.
<< Fuck you, >> Adel answers indignation. He pries himself from blankets, throwing off their heavy cloak to rise with a wobble to his feet. Vertigo overtakes his mind in a topsy-turvy flip, and he has to sit down again.
"A week? Two? Somewhere in there. I got sick first, then Adel," Bahir says airily. "Went to the doctor, got a few anti-virals and the like. Adel resisted going longer than I, and pays the price of it." Just when the kettle shrills, he takes it off the heat to pour the water into the pot and then leaves it to steep as he turns back over the island separating kitchen from living room to turn a frown after Adel. "He's really a terrible patient."
<< Not in your condition, I'm afraid, >> Emma retorts, watching his attempt to... storm off dramatically, perhaps? with no small amount of disdain-laced amusement. "Indeed. You both are judgement-impaired as a result, no doubt. Why didn't you contact us? /Someone/ would have ensured you had proper nursing", she chides.
Adel's mind conjures visions of Emma in nursing garb (naughty, of course) and then slashes it to ribbons with an irritable swipe of grar.
"The doctor that we saw /was/ one of the Club ones," Bahir says as he puts milk and sugar into one mug, dissolving the sugar into the milk, honey into the second, and nothing in the third. "And we don't need nursing. For fuck's sake, it's just a bug. Not a fan of the way the drugs make it so hard to think clearly, though," he adds with a frown. He goes back into the fridge to get a squeeze bottle of lemon juice, because he fails at lemon.
Emma lowers her lashes and shakes her head. "No, of course not. A /maid/ would be more appropriate." She shifts in her chair again, uncrossing and recrossing her legs, attempting to minimize her contact with anything potentially germ-infested. The sofa is practically teeming.
Adel's pile of tissues looks guilty from where it overflows the small wastebasket at the end of the couch. He pulls himself to his feet, bit by bit, and leans on the couch for support. Once he's gained both feet, he moves with more easy, shuffling over to flump against the island and wait for his tea. His mind continues to feature Emma in various unflattering portrayals.
Bahir gives the kitchen, slightly messy, a sheepish glance. "A maid might've been more appropriate," he agrees, taking the tea and pouring it into the mugs. "Would you like me to spray you with Lysol before you leave?"
Emma bites down on the response that springs to tongue before it can escape, though not before it springs to mind. "I don't think that will be necessary, thank you Bahir," she settles for instead. "I will just send over one of the club's cleaning staff this evening."
Adel hack-wheezes as he bends over the counter.
Even Bahir gives the spot of counter beneath Adel a distasteful look. "I don't think /that/ will be necessary," he says to Emma with a prickly defensiveness for /his/ territory. "I'm nearly well, after all -- all but. One of my neighbors was helping a little, anyway. Tea's ready." He passes a mug to Adel and then takes the other out to Emma to hand it to her, a dark oolong blend sweetened and lightened by milk and sugar.
Emma reaches up to take the mug gingerly by the handle as she acquiesces to Bahir's sensibilities. "If you insist, darling. I would simply hate for you to push yourself too much in your... /weakened/ state and suffer a relapse." She smiles tightly and takes a sip of the tea. "Mmm."
Adel puddles into a chair at the table pushed against the island, drawing his feet up to his chest, and taking slow sips of the tea. << Will you mind if I go sleep? >> he asks Emma, drowsing already over tea.
"Oh, grow up," Bahir says to Emma with a roll of his eyes, taking a seat in the living room with his tea and sipping. "Not /that/ weakened, and you aren't going to catch any fucking cooties from the mug. I didn't lick it."
"How reassuring," Emma purrs, shutting down a surge of irritation at his tone. "I'll refrain from any further attempts at assistance."
<< What? Right there? >>
<< No. Bed. >> Adel pictures bed, ridiculous wealth of pillows and all, with such affection that one expects sparkles and hearts around the border. He leans over the counter to retrieve pill bottles and shake out a few, swallowing them with his tea.
"Thank you." Milder now, Bahir's thanks is genuine. "Being sick is quite bad enough without all the help."
Ah... Understanding and desire for solitude, for a place to simply be without need of appearances passes, and Emma tips her mug up and sips noiselessly. "Of course."
<< Go on, pet. I'll take a rain check on meeting your bed. >> She enfolds the communication in affection and warmth stronger for the lack of contact required.
For all his bubbling irritation, Adel returns affection and warmth in kind, all the stronger for Emma's easy acceptance. He drains the tea in a few swallows, honey soothing on his throat, and then sets the mug down to zombie off.
Bahir watches him go with a light note of worry creasing his brows to a frown and then shakes his head. He stretches in his seat, feet crossing at the ankle, and leans back. "How's your tea?"
"Delightful," Emma replies, leaning back in her seat and dropping the mug to her lap, her hands wrapping around the warm ceramic. "How's your life?"
"Delightful," Bahir bats back, annoyed at first as illness is at the fore of his mind; he softens as he reflects on this nice thing (Shiite taking over Bahrain? Nice.) or that (Percy.) and actually considers the question. He hop-skips from there to Emma's experiences with Percy, and his mood sours again a trifle.
Emma's too, though underlain with smug satisfaction at a blow landed (still being landed) against Bahir's master. "Your family is well?" Society small talk. Is there anything more boring, yet more unmanageable by some?
Bahir glances over his shoulder after Adel, and then back to Emma with an arch of his eyebrows. "Well enough," he says lightly, though his attempts to make the question about Adel are ruined by the gleam of a hospital's walls and the heavy scent of disinfectant. Sterile white pillows frame a thinned face, once beautiful, in his mind.
Emma doesn't meet the arch. Her face is dipped down over the mug, her attention apparently focused in the depths of the milky brown tea. Slight sympathy, warped by something approaching wistfulness, fog the windows of the room of that memory and retreat.
Bahir drinks his tea with an air of uncertain irritation, silent.
Emma is silent too. She'd better be. /Her/ mother would be horrified if she wasn't silent while drinking tea. The mug's bottom is lifted up to pour the last of the liquid into her throat, then dropped as she uncrosses her legs and stands. "Thank you for the drink, Bahir." She crosses to the kitchen island and slides the mug onto the countertop, then turns on, "Perhaps when you and your brother are feeling better, we can chat about other things."
Bahir prickles along the lines of feeling better /already/, but rises with Emma and nods. "Perhaps when we are feeling better, next time we will be able to focus. I apologize for wasting your time. I hadn't realized that it was so--" He trails off with a wiggle of his fingers.
Emma narrows her eyes, but simply nods and moves for the door and her coat and gloves. The latter are in the pocket of the former and she digs for them before tugging the cashmere-lined leather on. She slants a glance toward Adel's bedroom and says quietly, "You'll be contacted by my business manager soon, I think. To discuss your thoughts on the situation in Bahrain, and to solicit any recommendations you might have in exchange for his assistance with any matters you might have. Assuming you won't view that as... /hovering." The last it said with sharp, challenging humor.
"No," Bahir assures, getting Emma's coat and then holding it out for her to shrug on. "That's helpful," he promises, a wisp of self-mocking humor curling through his mood. "And my pride can handle it. Thank you, by the way, for that as well."
Emma slides her arms into the sleeves and twitches her shoulders so it settles before she turns, eyes still narrowed, but this time they glow in muted approval. "You're welcome. It was my pleasure." And somewhere, somehow, she's sincere, in some small measure. She pull her hair free of the jacket and moves to open the door, saying as she steps out into the hallway, "Take care. Of him and yourself." And just in case it seems she's caring too much, she tacks on, "I don't like having you both out of commission."
"Not out of commission," Bahir demurs with soft disagreement. "Just working at decreased efficiency." He smiles slightly as he holds the door for her, leaning against its support. "I like it no better than you. Percy's sick too, you know. I'll stop in and check on him. You might want to make an appointment yourself and bully your doctor into ordering anti-virals, just in case."
Emma grimaces at the news that Percy is ill too, her dismay deepening with Bahir's suggestion. She grunts and scowls. "It seems I should. Let me know if Percy needs anything. ... /Besides/ your tender care," she orders grumpily, and turns down the hall.
The touch of Bahir's mind waxes just a bit obnoxious, tender care all /his/ to give Percy. "Take care, Emma!" he calls after her, shutting the door with rather more cheer.
1.18.07 - Emma and the twins have a lesson. They are sick and unfocused. It makes everyone grumpy. And Emma germaphobic.
1/18/2007
Logfile from Emma.
=NYC= Al-Razi Apartment - Morningside Heights - Apartments in the Sky
The apartment building is old and venerable: the architecture is finely detailed and the building clean, even if the lift shudders and shakes. On the third floor, the walls are a pale golden orange that complements the rich, dark finish of the wood. On the left side of the hall, apartment 320.
The door opens to a high-ceilinged room, divided between a smaller kitchen and a large, open living room. The floor is dark and glossy hardwood finished in the same rich cherry as the hall, but in better condition. Two large windows occupy the northward facing wall, oversized with old, warped glass. The furniture is sparse: a low blue sofa, two matching chairs, a table, lamps, and plants. The kitchen area is separated from the living area by a long counter that curves around in a sweep of cheap laminate; the stove is electric and twitchy; the refrigerator is old, plain, but clean. There are three doors on the wall opposite the small entryway. One is perpetually closed; one is half-open to reveal the white and brushed chrome of a sleek bathroom; one is open to the messy sprawl of a bedroom, most of what is visible taken up by the bed.
In the aftermath of a lesson gone sour, the twins scatter in a stew of sullenness.
Adel scatters by virtue of staying still, congestion and chills keeping him locked into his corner of the couch, blankets and all. He slouches lower yet to pick at the hem of his shirt with two fingers, ignoring Emma's gaze as he focuses muzzily down on dark skin between shirt and pajama pants.
Bahir scatters in a restless prowl, the odd cough punctuating the rasp of his voice, but a world better compared to his twin. He moves for the kitchen when he has finished circumnavigating the apartment -- a quick task, to be sure. He rattles through cupboards yanking out mugs and a tea kettle, tea pot set in the sink while he fills the kittle. A wooden box comes down with sharp motions. "Tea?" he asks, the spoken directed to Emma over the ripple of silent communication between al-Razi halves.
Emma pulls her attention away from examining the less than perfect image Adel currently presents, and turns to Bahir. Her silent hesitation is full of meaning to a fellow telepath, flitting between thoughts of contamination and hygiene before settling on a silent vow to investigate decontamination chambers and saying, "Yes, thank you. Are you certain you..." << should be mobile? are capable? are clean? >> "don't need assistance?" She glances back at Adel and presses her lips in a thin smile.
Dark eyes narrow at Emma on the edge of a flash of temper. With shields imperfect, the leap and spark of angry connections is more than visible: << Just a flu fuck you not a cripple not not fuck you little miss perfect grr. >> The neat lines of Adel's mind unordered by both disease and cure, he slouches further yet and wraps the blanket around him as he lets loose a hacking cough and further contaminates the air. Maliciously.
"I can get it," Bahir assures mildly. He sets the water on to boil and turns back to give Adel a /look/. He goes back to the cabinets and finds honey, setting it to the side. "Do you take anything with your tea?" he asks Emma.
Emma inhales a disdainful sniff and arches an elegantly shaped brow at Adel as she shifts in her chair and crosses her legs, tugging the hem of her skirt into a straight line across her knee. "Milk and sugar, please," she answers, leaning her elbow on a chair arm and turning to follow Bahir's movements in the kitchen.
Adel arches both eyebrows at Emma: darker, less delicate. No clear words form in the shifting sands of an irritable mind, mood dragging down, down. He sneezes.
"Sure," Bahir says, going to the fridge for milk and getting sugar out of the same cabinet as honey. He fusses with the teapot, rinsing it once and then adding tea leaves from a small tin in the box. He eyes the kettle in silence.
"Just how long have you two been ill?" she asks, pique sharpening the question that spears through the miasma of mood and control imperfect. The question is addressed to Bahir, though her indignation leapfrogs over her shoulder toward Adel.
<< Fuck you, >> Adel answers indignation. He pries himself from blankets, throwing off their heavy cloak to rise with a wobble to his feet. Vertigo overtakes his mind in a topsy-turvy flip, and he has to sit down again.
"A week? Two? Somewhere in there. I got sick first, then Adel," Bahir says airily. "Went to the doctor, got a few anti-virals and the like. Adel resisted going longer than I, and pays the price of it." Just when the kettle shrills, he takes it off the heat to pour the water into the pot and then leaves it to steep as he turns back over the island separating kitchen from living room to turn a frown after Adel. "He's really a terrible patient."
<< Not in your condition, I'm afraid, >> Emma retorts, watching his attempt to... storm off dramatically, perhaps? with no small amount of disdain-laced amusement. "Indeed. You both are judgement-impaired as a result, no doubt. Why didn't you contact us? /Someone/ would have ensured you had proper nursing", she chides.
Adel's mind conjures visions of Emma in nursing garb (naughty, of course) and then slashes it to ribbons with an irritable swipe of grar.
"The doctor that we saw /was/ one of the Club ones," Bahir says as he puts milk and sugar into one mug, dissolving the sugar into the milk, honey into the second, and nothing in the third. "And we don't need nursing. For fuck's sake, it's just a bug. Not a fan of the way the drugs make it so hard to think clearly, though," he adds with a frown. He goes back into the fridge to get a squeeze bottle of lemon juice, because he fails at lemon.
Emma lowers her lashes and shakes her head. "No, of course not. A /maid/ would be more appropriate." She shifts in her chair again, uncrossing and recrossing her legs, attempting to minimize her contact with anything potentially germ-infested. The sofa is practically teeming.
Adel's pile of tissues looks guilty from where it overflows the small wastebasket at the end of the couch. He pulls himself to his feet, bit by bit, and leans on the couch for support. Once he's gained both feet, he moves with more easy, shuffling over to flump against the island and wait for his tea. His mind continues to feature Emma in various unflattering portrayals.
Bahir gives the kitchen, slightly messy, a sheepish glance. "A maid might've been more appropriate," he agrees, taking the tea and pouring it into the mugs. "Would you like me to spray you with Lysol before you leave?"
Emma bites down on the response that springs to tongue before it can escape, though not before it springs to mind. "I don't think that will be necessary, thank you Bahir," she settles for instead. "I will just send over one of the club's cleaning staff this evening."
Adel hack-wheezes as he bends over the counter.
Even Bahir gives the spot of counter beneath Adel a distasteful look. "I don't think /that/ will be necessary," he says to Emma with a prickly defensiveness for /his/ territory. "I'm nearly well, after all -- all but. One of my neighbors was helping a little, anyway. Tea's ready." He passes a mug to Adel and then takes the other out to Emma to hand it to her, a dark oolong blend sweetened and lightened by milk and sugar.
Emma reaches up to take the mug gingerly by the handle as she acquiesces to Bahir's sensibilities. "If you insist, darling. I would simply hate for you to push yourself too much in your... /weakened/ state and suffer a relapse." She smiles tightly and takes a sip of the tea. "Mmm."
Adel puddles into a chair at the table pushed against the island, drawing his feet up to his chest, and taking slow sips of the tea. << Will you mind if I go sleep? >> he asks Emma, drowsing already over tea.
"Oh, grow up," Bahir says to Emma with a roll of his eyes, taking a seat in the living room with his tea and sipping. "Not /that/ weakened, and you aren't going to catch any fucking cooties from the mug. I didn't lick it."
"How reassuring," Emma purrs, shutting down a surge of irritation at his tone. "I'll refrain from any further attempts at assistance."
<< What? Right there? >>
<< No. Bed. >> Adel pictures bed, ridiculous wealth of pillows and all, with such affection that one expects sparkles and hearts around the border. He leans over the counter to retrieve pill bottles and shake out a few, swallowing them with his tea.
"Thank you." Milder now, Bahir's thanks is genuine. "Being sick is quite bad enough without all the help."
Ah... Understanding and desire for solitude, for a place to simply be without need of appearances passes, and Emma tips her mug up and sips noiselessly. "Of course."
<< Go on, pet. I'll take a rain check on meeting your bed. >> She enfolds the communication in affection and warmth stronger for the lack of contact required.
For all his bubbling irritation, Adel returns affection and warmth in kind, all the stronger for Emma's easy acceptance. He drains the tea in a few swallows, honey soothing on his throat, and then sets the mug down to zombie off.
Bahir watches him go with a light note of worry creasing his brows to a frown and then shakes his head. He stretches in his seat, feet crossing at the ankle, and leans back. "How's your tea?"
"Delightful," Emma replies, leaning back in her seat and dropping the mug to her lap, her hands wrapping around the warm ceramic. "How's your life?"
"Delightful," Bahir bats back, annoyed at first as illness is at the fore of his mind; he softens as he reflects on this nice thing (Shiite taking over Bahrain? Nice.) or that (Percy.) and actually considers the question. He hop-skips from there to Emma's experiences with Percy, and his mood sours again a trifle.
Emma's too, though underlain with smug satisfaction at a blow landed (still being landed) against Bahir's master. "Your family is well?" Society small talk. Is there anything more boring, yet more unmanageable by some?
Bahir glances over his shoulder after Adel, and then back to Emma with an arch of his eyebrows. "Well enough," he says lightly, though his attempts to make the question about Adel are ruined by the gleam of a hospital's walls and the heavy scent of disinfectant. Sterile white pillows frame a thinned face, once beautiful, in his mind.
Emma doesn't meet the arch. Her face is dipped down over the mug, her attention apparently focused in the depths of the milky brown tea. Slight sympathy, warped by something approaching wistfulness, fog the windows of the room of that memory and retreat.
Bahir drinks his tea with an air of uncertain irritation, silent.
Emma is silent too. She'd better be. /Her/ mother would be horrified if she wasn't silent while drinking tea. The mug's bottom is lifted up to pour the last of the liquid into her throat, then dropped as she uncrosses her legs and stands. "Thank you for the drink, Bahir." She crosses to the kitchen island and slides the mug onto the countertop, then turns on, "Perhaps when you and your brother are feeling better, we can chat about other things."
Bahir prickles along the lines of feeling better /already/, but rises with Emma and nods. "Perhaps when we are feeling better, next time we will be able to focus. I apologize for wasting your time. I hadn't realized that it was so--" He trails off with a wiggle of his fingers.
Emma narrows her eyes, but simply nods and moves for the door and her coat and gloves. The latter are in the pocket of the former and she digs for them before tugging the cashmere-lined leather on. She slants a glance toward Adel's bedroom and says quietly, "You'll be contacted by my business manager soon, I think. To discuss your thoughts on the situation in Bahrain, and to solicit any recommendations you might have in exchange for his assistance with any matters you might have. Assuming you won't view that as... /hovering." The last it said with sharp, challenging humor.
"No," Bahir assures, getting Emma's coat and then holding it out for her to shrug on. "That's helpful," he promises, a wisp of self-mocking humor curling through his mood. "And my pride can handle it. Thank you, by the way, for that as well."
Emma slides her arms into the sleeves and twitches her shoulders so it settles before she turns, eyes still narrowed, but this time they glow in muted approval. "You're welcome. It was my pleasure." And somewhere, somehow, she's sincere, in some small measure. She pull her hair free of the jacket and moves to open the door, saying as she steps out into the hallway, "Take care. Of him and yourself." And just in case it seems she's caring too much, she tacks on, "I don't like having you both out of commission."
"Not out of commission," Bahir demurs with soft disagreement. "Just working at decreased efficiency." He smiles slightly as he holds the door for her, leaning against its support. "I like it no better than you. Percy's sick too, you know. I'll stop in and check on him. You might want to make an appointment yourself and bully your doctor into ordering anti-virals, just in case."
Emma grimaces at the news that Percy is ill too, her dismay deepening with Bahir's suggestion. She grunts and scowls. "It seems I should. Let me know if Percy needs anything. ... /Besides/ your tender care," she orders grumpily, and turns down the hall.
The touch of Bahir's mind waxes just a bit obnoxious, tender care all /his/ to give Percy. "Take care, Emma!" he calls after her, shutting the door with rather more cheer.
1.18.07 - Emma and the twins have a lesson. They are sick and unfocused. It makes everyone grumpy. And Emma germaphobic.