Yuriko; Warehouse
The night comes with dropped temperatures and clouds that block the stars with the impending doom of bad weather to come. In the warehouse a light has been turned on, the large metal dome of the fixture that used to at one time shed light on road construction now serves as source for little Toad. He crouches just within the ring of artificial sheen and organizes his toolbox. Glints of metal and plastic alike litter the ground around him. Carefully each tool separated into their proper order, lined up and waiting to be placed in the tin contraption used to keep them.
Yuriko does not have such tasks to do (although the kitchen, already pristine, has undergone a whole new level of sterilization.) In the wake of bad news, in the wake of the day's tumult, she wanders: outside, inside, in my lady's chamber. Her footstep is quiet and sedate; her appearance, likewise, dull in olives and dark browns. Short hair bound back, hands lost in an overlong army jacket, she drifts into the warehouse with dreamy eyes and pauses to blink at the helicopter. Hello, helicopter.
Each tool is placed carefully, even readjusted with an air of perfection usually not concerned by Toad. It could very well be the cold air that causes him to snuffle suddenly and shift to another section of the pile of tools. He does not notice Yuriko, instead starting to dig through the pile with a feverish intention. The ring of tumbling and rustling metal breaks the pressed silence of the compound. "Where is it?" he grunts unhappily.
'It,' as applied to Deathstrike, follows the lure of voice, the empty inches of sleeves flooping slightly with each step. Toad. She brightens, marginally, which is to say that the distant gaze almost focuses enough to track him. Wordless still, she meanders towards the small mutant with the intent of standing over him. Patience, on a monument. Or mutant chef, on legs.
Toad is hunched over enough that his nose nearly bumps up against one of the shifting socket wrenches under his touch. His hands part through the mess, scattering the pile in enough direction that his lines of already sorted tools are ruined. "There yer--AH!" Toad turns to grab at a wrench that's skidded off to the side, and right next to a foot. He rolls over on his back, slapping his feet to the ground and flipping himself right side up. The wrench in his hand is held out. It might be menacing if not for the trembling little man behind it. "Wot... /fuck/, Yuriko," Toad breathes out her first name without much thought.
"Mr. Toad," Yuriko says, blinking through the first, instinctive twitch of surprise. Dark eyes open round, round, round, then narrow again into more habitual angularity. She leans a little to inspect the wrench. Hello, wrench. "You have very nice tool," she says politely, and refocuses past it at Toad. Mostly. "You require assistance? May I help?"
The wrench isn't pulled away, Toad's own eyes down on it. The traces of red linger in the etched grooves of the wrench's company logo, a fond remembrance where it had come into contact with Sabertooth's nose by the hands of their now defunct leader. Slowly he hugs it into himself. "Thanks," Toad allows with a suspicious squint of his eyes. "Err, not rea-- wot'ter yer doing out 'ere?"
Literal-minded Yuriko. "I am speaking with you," she says, and leans a little further to sniff her little nose at the wrench. Sniff sniff. "I do not know what to do. It is very hard. Today has been very strange. Also yesterday," she adds as a pensive afterthought. "Yesterday was also strange. The day before yesterday was not as strange. Also the day before that. The day before /that/ was Wednesday."
Toad doesn't look too happy about her nasal inspection of his wrench. He takes a step back, sliding the thing in his pocket as he watches her. His forehead crinkles with lines of annoyance, though they fade away as he moves back to his pile. "Yeah. 'Ard, I know." Toad's voice drops down to an rarely used level of quietness. "Wednesday. Wish it were still Wednesday."
"Time moves on," Yuriko says philosophically, if vaguely. It lacks real conviction. She straightens and frowns at Toad. "You like Wednesday? I am informed it is normal to prefer Friday and Saturday. I will assist, if you will instruct me." That said, she sketches a small circuit around him, the better to stare up at the ceiling. Because, presumably, it is there.
There is the tiniest of snorts to this. Disbelief hinged without any movement of clarity on Toad's part. "Can like wotever the bloody 'ell I want," he mumbles in a fit of aggravation as he starts to sort things once more. Toad blinks to himself, finally looking up and sighing. "Yeah, all right. C'mere, luff. Yer know the difference 'tween a wrench, screwdriver, hammer, all that sorta junk?"
Yuriko's gaze floats down to find him again. She regards him with mild surprise, as though discovering his species for the first time. Look. A Toad. "Wrench," she says, and points appropriately. "Screwdriver. Hammer. Junk." The directional finger obligingly identifies each in turn, all save the last appropriately singled out for attention. Creed would laugh at the last identification. "You will go with Dr. Lensherr?"
Toad watches her as she identifies. The last little label doesn't get a laugh out of the small mutant, though the fact there is no comment might be a signal as fond as laughter. "Good gel, sort 'em by each type." He begins on his own side of things, starting to re-straighten the piles that had become upset. "No," Toad grunts darkly to her question. "'E said no."
Yuriko sorts. Yuriko holds up a wrench. Yuriko says, very seriously, "This is ... this is /distressing/," and puts it down. Metal clanks, shuffled to and fro under her careful hands. "I do not believe it is healthy for Dr. Lensherr. He will be all alone, and something will happen. He could die. He is very old and fragile."
Toad pauses with his fingers twined in the worn rubber handles of some pliers. Eyes roam up to her, surprise marked behind them. "Yer... wait, yer worried about him?" Toad asks quietly.
The pale brow furrows. Yuriko glances sidelong at Toad, and thinks. "It is possible," she says. The screwdriver in her hand bumps very gently against her chest, exploring haphazardly for her chest. Somewhere under there-- "He is real."
Toad's eyes are distracted by the screw driver, he peers and slowly sets the pliers down. "Eh, yeah. He's real. But. Um... wot, yer think 'e gave us a choice? Nah, 'e left 'cause 'e 'ad to. Ain't no use in questionin' 'is methods." Pause. His gaze is forced up. "Yer dun' like the blue 'un?"
Yuriko frowns. Behold: the corners of her mouth turn down. She looks down at the tools. "I do not see a blue one," she says, puzzled, and inspects the one in her hand. She thrusts it at Toad. Look. /Red/.
"No," Toad snaps, and the better side of him yanks the chain. "Fuck, no," he corrects himself in a softer tone. That better side is rather small. "I meant Mystique," Toad explains himself and moves to pluck the tool from her hand. "She is blue."
Emptied, the hand opens, the palm exposed to Yuriko's view. She taps it with a fingertip and returns to sorting tools. "She is blue sometimes," she says, again with a touch of uncertainty. "She changes. She is impermanent. It is difficult to remember her. --Creed is real." Her husky alto strengthens in something akin to relief. "Also, Ellen. Also, you."
Toad reaches forward to place the grabbed tool in it's rightful place. "Yeah. We're all real. Wot the 'ell are you on about? Why wouldn't I be real?" He demands lazily as the tinkle of metal on metal continues to sound with each movement. Quickly the correct piles begin to form and organize.
"It is difficult to--" Yuriko begins, and then stops. Her face clouds. She reaches out with an empty hand to Toad, apparently to reassure herself of his solidity; it moves to pat him on the shoulder. "People are very impermanent. It is difficult to ... I do not know the word. Care? Remember. There is a word I do not know."
The pat never comes into contact. He ducks down, knuckles pressed into the poured concrete of the warehouse floor as he clambers back a foot or two. Immediately his eyes slit up, a hand flapping at Yuriko as he judges himself a safe distance away. "Watch it, jeeze. 'Ow about 'not killing'? Is it difficult for yer ter not kill people?"
The denied hand hesitates in mid-air, then drops. Yuriko's expression changes -- fleeting emotion brushes through it, too swift to be read or recognized by either him or her -- before settling back into its customary blankness. "It is not difficult," she says. "I have not killed /people/ in--" Days. Weeks. "I do not remember. There were cars and I died. And Mr. Rawthor killed the President."
Toad settles himself, lowering down fully into a sit as his legs cross in front of him. He watches her carefully, muscles still tensed to spring away at a moments notice. "If you died you wouldn't be 'ere," Toad observes.
"I did not stay dead," Yuriko explains, and moves a screwdriver a half-centimeter to the right. She sighs. It is, perhaps, a wistful sound. "I do not stay dead. It is very inconvenient."
"Things do not /not/ stay dead," Toad points out with a huff. "Per'aps it's /you/ who ain't real?" For a little flare he bends his head forward and takes a deep sniff. "Ooh, ech. You smell like yer ain't real. That must be it."
Yuriko turns her gaze to Toad, dark eyes wonderously blank. "Perhaps," she says, and her eyes grow larger. Rounder. Something wakes in them. "I had not considered this possibility." She looks down at her hand and splays its fingers wide, speculative. Her talons hiss like snakes when they extend.
Toad takes a slim comfort in sending the other mutant through a loop. He revels in this, shedding some of the troubles from his mind as he smirks at Yuriko. "Woah, woah! 'Ey, steady there," Toad stands quickly, backing up. "Put those things up, yeah? That's an order."
The distracted gaze turns up to Toad, regards him with gentle surprise, then return to the glitter of scaled claws. They retract obediently. "If I am not real," Yuriko says, "it would not matter if I killed people, since they would not be affected. However, it seems to me that they die. Perhaps they are playing a /trick/."
"Nah! Nah, nah, nah," Toad protests quickly, wagging his head to this. "I woz just kiddin', huh? Yer real. People die, aye. When yer kill 'em. Let's not test that theory!" With an uncomfortable shift Toad steps forward and quickly moves to prod her in the shoulder before leaning back. "See? Real. Both'uv us."
The clouds already gathering in Yuriko's face clear at that poke. Reality confirmed. "Oh," she says, and touches her shoulder, tracing the afterimage of that contact. Her smile is a rare, miraculous thing. "Also, Ellen," she reminds. "And Mr. Creed. And Dr. Lensherr."
Toad bends down in front of her, not bothering to back away as the smile startles him. "Aye, we're all real. But'cher dun' kill yer Brothers, yer hear? We're real. We can't... ech, come back like you can." A green hand flaps off dismissively to the side. "Well, maybe Mr. Creed." Toad blinks. "Er, Sabertooth."
"Dr. Lensherr has instructed me not to kill my Brothers," Yuriko says, and blinks at Toad. "Even the ones who are not real. Also not to injure them. He did not like it that I stabbed Mr. Creed, even though Mr. Creed heals." She chuffs a sigh, her shoulders rising and falling at the unreasoning prejudice of certain terrorist masterminds. "If I am no longer here, they will no longer be my Brothers, so it will not matter."
"I dun' heal," Toad is quick to remind, a look of discomfort washing over him as he suddenly regrets the close quarters between them. "No longer 'ere? You goin' somewhere?"
Yuriko's face falls again. "Dr. Lensherr asked me to try to stay," she remembers. She regards Toad with deep reproach. This is his fault. Somehow. "You will stay?"
Toad's boot slides with a gritty clamor against the ground as he slides back a few inches. "Er, guess so. Dun' 'ave much to leave for, eh?"
"Do you have a great deal to stay for?" Yuriko wants to know.
There is silence. A sudden drained expression pulls at green features. Without warning Toad is up, stepping haphazardly through the previous sorted piles and scattering the tools with a caterwaul of metallic protest. He is aimed for the door of the warehouse, the wrench in his pocket getting pulled out and dropped carelessly as he moves away.
Yuriko watches him go, her expression as blank and empty as a Noh mask without its player. Her hands twine together, fingers lacing; her head tilts, following the great bound. Toad is leaving. And she is left behind, again. "Good night, Mr. Toad," she offers.
The door is opened with a quick, blind shove. Toad lets out a strangled grunt of acknowledgment before he's lost to the frigid outside.
Cold air. Yuriko slits her eyes against it. All alone in the great warehouse, she turns her attention back to the tools, and begins, patiently, to sort again.
Yuriko and Toad bond. Smiles, claws, and wrenches.
Yuriko does not have such tasks to do (although the kitchen, already pristine, has undergone a whole new level of sterilization.) In the wake of bad news, in the wake of the day's tumult, she wanders: outside, inside, in my lady's chamber. Her footstep is quiet and sedate; her appearance, likewise, dull in olives and dark browns. Short hair bound back, hands lost in an overlong army jacket, she drifts into the warehouse with dreamy eyes and pauses to blink at the helicopter. Hello, helicopter.
Each tool is placed carefully, even readjusted with an air of perfection usually not concerned by Toad. It could very well be the cold air that causes him to snuffle suddenly and shift to another section of the pile of tools. He does not notice Yuriko, instead starting to dig through the pile with a feverish intention. The ring of tumbling and rustling metal breaks the pressed silence of the compound. "Where is it?" he grunts unhappily.
'It,' as applied to Deathstrike, follows the lure of voice, the empty inches of sleeves flooping slightly with each step. Toad. She brightens, marginally, which is to say that the distant gaze almost focuses enough to track him. Wordless still, she meanders towards the small mutant with the intent of standing over him. Patience, on a monument. Or mutant chef, on legs.
Toad is hunched over enough that his nose nearly bumps up against one of the shifting socket wrenches under his touch. His hands part through the mess, scattering the pile in enough direction that his lines of already sorted tools are ruined. "There yer--AH!" Toad turns to grab at a wrench that's skidded off to the side, and right next to a foot. He rolls over on his back, slapping his feet to the ground and flipping himself right side up. The wrench in his hand is held out. It might be menacing if not for the trembling little man behind it. "Wot... /fuck/, Yuriko," Toad breathes out her first name without much thought.
"Mr. Toad," Yuriko says, blinking through the first, instinctive twitch of surprise. Dark eyes open round, round, round, then narrow again into more habitual angularity. She leans a little to inspect the wrench. Hello, wrench. "You have very nice tool," she says politely, and refocuses past it at Toad. Mostly. "You require assistance? May I help?"
The wrench isn't pulled away, Toad's own eyes down on it. The traces of red linger in the etched grooves of the wrench's company logo, a fond remembrance where it had come into contact with Sabertooth's nose by the hands of their now defunct leader. Slowly he hugs it into himself. "Thanks," Toad allows with a suspicious squint of his eyes. "Err, not rea-- wot'ter yer doing out 'ere?"
Literal-minded Yuriko. "I am speaking with you," she says, and leans a little further to sniff her little nose at the wrench. Sniff sniff. "I do not know what to do. It is very hard. Today has been very strange. Also yesterday," she adds as a pensive afterthought. "Yesterday was also strange. The day before yesterday was not as strange. Also the day before that. The day before /that/ was Wednesday."
Toad doesn't look too happy about her nasal inspection of his wrench. He takes a step back, sliding the thing in his pocket as he watches her. His forehead crinkles with lines of annoyance, though they fade away as he moves back to his pile. "Yeah. 'Ard, I know." Toad's voice drops down to an rarely used level of quietness. "Wednesday. Wish it were still Wednesday."
"Time moves on," Yuriko says philosophically, if vaguely. It lacks real conviction. She straightens and frowns at Toad. "You like Wednesday? I am informed it is normal to prefer Friday and Saturday. I will assist, if you will instruct me." That said, she sketches a small circuit around him, the better to stare up at the ceiling. Because, presumably, it is there.
There is the tiniest of snorts to this. Disbelief hinged without any movement of clarity on Toad's part. "Can like wotever the bloody 'ell I want," he mumbles in a fit of aggravation as he starts to sort things once more. Toad blinks to himself, finally looking up and sighing. "Yeah, all right. C'mere, luff. Yer know the difference 'tween a wrench, screwdriver, hammer, all that sorta junk?"
Yuriko's gaze floats down to find him again. She regards him with mild surprise, as though discovering his species for the first time. Look. A Toad. "Wrench," she says, and points appropriately. "Screwdriver. Hammer. Junk." The directional finger obligingly identifies each in turn, all save the last appropriately singled out for attention. Creed would laugh at the last identification. "You will go with Dr. Lensherr?"
Toad watches her as she identifies. The last little label doesn't get a laugh out of the small mutant, though the fact there is no comment might be a signal as fond as laughter. "Good gel, sort 'em by each type." He begins on his own side of things, starting to re-straighten the piles that had become upset. "No," Toad grunts darkly to her question. "'E said no."
Yuriko sorts. Yuriko holds up a wrench. Yuriko says, very seriously, "This is ... this is /distressing/," and puts it down. Metal clanks, shuffled to and fro under her careful hands. "I do not believe it is healthy for Dr. Lensherr. He will be all alone, and something will happen. He could die. He is very old and fragile."
Toad pauses with his fingers twined in the worn rubber handles of some pliers. Eyes roam up to her, surprise marked behind them. "Yer... wait, yer worried about him?" Toad asks quietly.
The pale brow furrows. Yuriko glances sidelong at Toad, and thinks. "It is possible," she says. The screwdriver in her hand bumps very gently against her chest, exploring haphazardly for her chest. Somewhere under there-- "He is real."
Toad's eyes are distracted by the screw driver, he peers and slowly sets the pliers down. "Eh, yeah. He's real. But. Um... wot, yer think 'e gave us a choice? Nah, 'e left 'cause 'e 'ad to. Ain't no use in questionin' 'is methods." Pause. His gaze is forced up. "Yer dun' like the blue 'un?"
Yuriko frowns. Behold: the corners of her mouth turn down. She looks down at the tools. "I do not see a blue one," she says, puzzled, and inspects the one in her hand. She thrusts it at Toad. Look. /Red/.
"No," Toad snaps, and the better side of him yanks the chain. "Fuck, no," he corrects himself in a softer tone. That better side is rather small. "I meant Mystique," Toad explains himself and moves to pluck the tool from her hand. "She is blue."
Emptied, the hand opens, the palm exposed to Yuriko's view. She taps it with a fingertip and returns to sorting tools. "She is blue sometimes," she says, again with a touch of uncertainty. "She changes. She is impermanent. It is difficult to remember her. --Creed is real." Her husky alto strengthens in something akin to relief. "Also, Ellen. Also, you."
Toad reaches forward to place the grabbed tool in it's rightful place. "Yeah. We're all real. Wot the 'ell are you on about? Why wouldn't I be real?" He demands lazily as the tinkle of metal on metal continues to sound with each movement. Quickly the correct piles begin to form and organize.
"It is difficult to--" Yuriko begins, and then stops. Her face clouds. She reaches out with an empty hand to Toad, apparently to reassure herself of his solidity; it moves to pat him on the shoulder. "People are very impermanent. It is difficult to ... I do not know the word. Care? Remember. There is a word I do not know."
The pat never comes into contact. He ducks down, knuckles pressed into the poured concrete of the warehouse floor as he clambers back a foot or two. Immediately his eyes slit up, a hand flapping at Yuriko as he judges himself a safe distance away. "Watch it, jeeze. 'Ow about 'not killing'? Is it difficult for yer ter not kill people?"
The denied hand hesitates in mid-air, then drops. Yuriko's expression changes -- fleeting emotion brushes through it, too swift to be read or recognized by either him or her -- before settling back into its customary blankness. "It is not difficult," she says. "I have not killed /people/ in--" Days. Weeks. "I do not remember. There were cars and I died. And Mr. Rawthor killed the President."
Toad settles himself, lowering down fully into a sit as his legs cross in front of him. He watches her carefully, muscles still tensed to spring away at a moments notice. "If you died you wouldn't be 'ere," Toad observes.
"I did not stay dead," Yuriko explains, and moves a screwdriver a half-centimeter to the right. She sighs. It is, perhaps, a wistful sound. "I do not stay dead. It is very inconvenient."
"Things do not /not/ stay dead," Toad points out with a huff. "Per'aps it's /you/ who ain't real?" For a little flare he bends his head forward and takes a deep sniff. "Ooh, ech. You smell like yer ain't real. That must be it."
Yuriko turns her gaze to Toad, dark eyes wonderously blank. "Perhaps," she says, and her eyes grow larger. Rounder. Something wakes in them. "I had not considered this possibility." She looks down at her hand and splays its fingers wide, speculative. Her talons hiss like snakes when they extend.
Toad takes a slim comfort in sending the other mutant through a loop. He revels in this, shedding some of the troubles from his mind as he smirks at Yuriko. "Woah, woah! 'Ey, steady there," Toad stands quickly, backing up. "Put those things up, yeah? That's an order."
The distracted gaze turns up to Toad, regards him with gentle surprise, then return to the glitter of scaled claws. They retract obediently. "If I am not real," Yuriko says, "it would not matter if I killed people, since they would not be affected. However, it seems to me that they die. Perhaps they are playing a /trick/."
"Nah! Nah, nah, nah," Toad protests quickly, wagging his head to this. "I woz just kiddin', huh? Yer real. People die, aye. When yer kill 'em. Let's not test that theory!" With an uncomfortable shift Toad steps forward and quickly moves to prod her in the shoulder before leaning back. "See? Real. Both'uv us."
The clouds already gathering in Yuriko's face clear at that poke. Reality confirmed. "Oh," she says, and touches her shoulder, tracing the afterimage of that contact. Her smile is a rare, miraculous thing. "Also, Ellen," she reminds. "And Mr. Creed. And Dr. Lensherr."
Toad bends down in front of her, not bothering to back away as the smile startles him. "Aye, we're all real. But'cher dun' kill yer Brothers, yer hear? We're real. We can't... ech, come back like you can." A green hand flaps off dismissively to the side. "Well, maybe Mr. Creed." Toad blinks. "Er, Sabertooth."
"Dr. Lensherr has instructed me not to kill my Brothers," Yuriko says, and blinks at Toad. "Even the ones who are not real. Also not to injure them. He did not like it that I stabbed Mr. Creed, even though Mr. Creed heals." She chuffs a sigh, her shoulders rising and falling at the unreasoning prejudice of certain terrorist masterminds. "If I am no longer here, they will no longer be my Brothers, so it will not matter."
"I dun' heal," Toad is quick to remind, a look of discomfort washing over him as he suddenly regrets the close quarters between them. "No longer 'ere? You goin' somewhere?"
Yuriko's face falls again. "Dr. Lensherr asked me to try to stay," she remembers. She regards Toad with deep reproach. This is his fault. Somehow. "You will stay?"
Toad's boot slides with a gritty clamor against the ground as he slides back a few inches. "Er, guess so. Dun' 'ave much to leave for, eh?"
"Do you have a great deal to stay for?" Yuriko wants to know.
There is silence. A sudden drained expression pulls at green features. Without warning Toad is up, stepping haphazardly through the previous sorted piles and scattering the tools with a caterwaul of metallic protest. He is aimed for the door of the warehouse, the wrench in his pocket getting pulled out and dropped carelessly as he moves away.
Yuriko watches him go, her expression as blank and empty as a Noh mask without its player. Her hands twine together, fingers lacing; her head tilts, following the great bound. Toad is leaving. And she is left behind, again. "Good night, Mr. Toad," she offers.
The door is opened with a quick, blind shove. Toad lets out a strangled grunt of acknowledgment before he's lost to the frigid outside.
Cold air. Yuriko slits her eyes against it. All alone in the great warehouse, she turns her attention back to the tools, and begins, patiently, to sort again.
Yuriko and Toad bond. Smiles, claws, and wrenches.