feeling strong so long ago, I don't remember

[godtooksides]

Today, despite the bitter cold, there are a number of people out and about in Chicago, though not all of them are willingly so. For instance the sudden drop in temperature has quite dismayed one particular angel, who's downtown, huddled in the entranceway of a shop. He's only been there for a few minutes, because he knows before long someone's

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[anjelsword]

Aniki lingers outside of Arlin's door, debating whether or not to knock. She finally grumbles and rolls her eyes, rapping on it and standing back, hands tucked into her pockets.

She's been avoidant lately. It's been annoying her. "Hello, my lad," she calls. "I know you're home."

[kineticmachine]

Arlin scowls at the door at the knock, wondering for a half-second if it could actually be anyone important enough to get up for. But Aniki's voice actually does get him to move away from the machine for long enough to open the door.

And stare at her blankly. What? He opened the door. What more does she want from him?

[anjelsword]

"Hello," she repeats. "Now--the first lesson, you say it back. And then maybe even ask me inside."

She doesn't actually wait for him to let her in, instead sliding past him and into his apartment. "Pretty," she says. "Are you making it for a reason?"

[kineticmachine]

Arlin rolls his eyes when she slips past him, and closes the door. "I figured you'd come inside if you wanted to, regardless," he says, but does add, "And hello," only slightly sarcastically at the end. Of anyone that could have knocked right then, Aniki is the person he minds the least right now, for all that he would like to be alone.

He'd also like to be Not In Chicago. He's learned to deal with not having things he'd like.

"Not any of the right ones," he says, sitting down in front of the half-finished machine again.

[idontlikecake]

There are lots of things Jessi needs to do today, but it's hard to remember what was so important when she sees the angel huddling there. She pauses, hovering near him, but careful to stay out of his personal space.

"Hey," she says quietly, shoving her hands in her pockets. It would be nice if she hadn't forgotten gloves. "Haven't seen you in a while. You doing alright?"

She knows the answer to that question; Jessi can tell just by looking at him. But that's not really what she's asking. She wants to make sure he's fed and has somewhere to sleep. "Need anything?"

[godtooksides]

He jumps when someone speaks to him. Not that he wasn't expecting it, but he wasn't expecting nice and he's still just jumpy in general. For half-a-second, the warning bells that still feel like they're constantly going off in his head get a little louder -- she recognized him? From where? What was he doing? Who is she?

Oh. Right. She works at the shelter. They've spoken before, however briefly. It's okay. It's okayRepeating that isn't having as much of an effect on his heartrate as he might have liked

[idontlikecake]

When the wind picks up, Jessi closes her eyes, looking uncomfortable. She needs to get somewhere warm enough that she can take off her jacket. Her wings are cramped, no matter how small they are. "I'll go buy you a pack," she says, momentarily pulling her hands out of her jacket pocket to fight a losing battle with her hair. "And yeah. You got somewhere to sleep, right?"

She glances away from him, towards the corner store down the road. "You wanna come with me, or you wanna stay here?"

If there's one thing Jessi's been good at in her life, it's trying to be completely non-confrontational.

[godtooksides]

The angel looks startled at her niceness. No matter how often it happens in this town, he's always surprised when someone's nice to him, instead of spitting in his face or kicking him or just walking away. Though that's what happens when you have enough self-hatred for an entire town. Nice surprises.

"Yes," he says in response to her first question. The second question he just answers by taking a step away from the wall -- he doesn't want to go in the store, but he can't stay in this particular entranceway much longer, so he might as well move to another one and get cigarettes out of the deal. Normally he might be a little put-out, offended, at her pity, but today is a bad day and he needs those fucking cigarettes. "I mean, I do, I just fuckin'--I can't."

Yes, it's totally ambiguous to anyone but him what, exactly, he's answering, but he doesn't really realize that.

Arlin, I'm sorry Luka's kinda up the crazy tree.

[designed2kill]

Luka is standing out on the landing to Arlin's flat, her fist resting on the door. She hopes Arlin isn't mad by her coming up here. She knows he's up here, she can feel him, and hanging around downstairs in the gunshop without coming up and talking to him was beginning to feel torturous. She knows he's weirded out by the things she said to him in those three days they couldn't leave each other's side, and she doesn't want to push, she really doesn't, but to her that time together (even if enforced) was important and she doesn't want to give it up completely.

Even if he yells and shuts the door in her face, even if he hits her--both of those are his right--she thinks it will be worth it to see his face, even if only for a moment. Luka pulls her hand back from the door and knocks.

I'm sorry Arlin's kind of always stuck in his own crazy tree. :/

[kineticmachine]

Arlin is very tempted to ignore the knock. There are very few people who actually know where he lives, and there are even fewer that he actually wants to interact with.

However, of everyone that knows where he lives, all of them are very insistent. Other than Duncan, but Duncan probably would give him a call first. And, if Arlin answers the door with a glower, will just go away.

...of course, it's not Duncan. It's the person he has, frankly, seen enough of lately, thanks to the Trickster.

So he's just going to stand there with the door partially open, glowering at Luka instead. Sorry Luka.

I wonder if we can build a rope bridge between the crazy trees?

[designed2kill]

Luka winces a bit when she sees that glower. She knows she should have been expecting it, and she knows it's a lot better than having him hit her, but it still hurts to see him upset with her.

"Joe and Jamie downstairs were getting a bit hungry, so I offered to go get them some food, and I was wondering if you wanted me to get anything for you too." There's no introductory pleasantries; she's carefully keeping to the point of the stated reason why she came here. Just seeing his face will have to be enough right now--besides, she did offer to go get food for Joe and Jamie, so she couldn't have stayed and talked anyway. If she's very lucky, Arlin will let her come in and eat with him later when she comes back with food, but there's no reason to hope on that yet. Best to be happy with what's offered.

[kineticmachine]

Arlin blinks at her for a second, the scowl not leaving his face. At least she isn't asking very much of him; the answer is easy.

"No," he says. And then shuts the door again.

[calicoway]

Luke walks into Babel's room, hesitating in the doorway. He has a glass of milk in his hand. It's nearly empty. He watches her fondly while he stands there. Luke has always lived in moments. With this virus running through his veins, he has learned to appreciate and linger on every moment.

He sets the glass on the floor and climbs into bed with her. Luke presses his hand against her elbow gently, not wanting to wake her but unable to keep his hands away.

[allmydiredreams]

Babel only half-wakes when he climbs into bed with her. It's not a bad sort of half-awake, really, though she doesn't really register person so much as good bodybeat. But she rolls over, blinking at him for a second before throwing an arm over him and burying her face in his chest.

After a few more seconds, her breathing becomes even again, and she's back asleep.

[calicoway]

Luke pulls her closer to him, wrapping both his arms around her and smiling. He presses a kiss into her hair, memorizing how it feels to be here, wrapped up in someone he loves. It is a feeling that he has never tired of and likely never will.

He falls asleep shortly after she does.

[xandtheman3]

Xander walked through the park to buy a hot dog from the vendor and then walked back though. He's not the most perceptive, but he noticed the woman with the huge coat, wandering around like she's lost her cat (or cats). On his first walk through, he didn't think anything of it but since she's still looking and it's cold out...

Xander is not the boyscout sort, but he's used to saving the world and he hasn't done much of anything lately. Might as well put in a good deed and hope karma repays him for it, right? He is Xander: the can-do guy.

He stops in front of her, pulling the hot dog out of his mouth and wiping the mustard from his face with the back of his hand. "You need any help looking for something?"

[mme_jolie]

Jolie starts with a gasp and a little "Oh god!" exclamation. She'd been concentrating so hard on trying to find the Piece, using both her eyes and her antennae -- though they never do her any good in these sorts of searches, she can't help but try to tune in Pieces just in case -- that she didn't even see the young man in front of her. He's just Junk, as much as the humanitarian side of her wants to combat that. Right now she's very much in a Bestowed headspace, even if it fights with her sometimes.

But after a second her surprised expression melts into a grateful smile. "How lovely of you," she says. "My friend lost her...I'm not entirely sure what it is, some fancy word I can't pronounce." She waves her hand, looking just like a befuddled older woman for a moment; it's a good act to have, when one is Bestowed. "She's some sort of astrophysicist or something, always has fancy things just sitting in her purse, and I kept telling her she was going to lose them or break them if she didn't put them where they belonged, but nooo

[xandtheman3]

When she reacts with surprise, Xander jumps and gasps, too. It's not that he's paranoid and jumpy, expecting everyone to be a vampire in disguise. No... really.

"Sorry! I didn't mean to sneak up on you. I'm usually bad with the stealth so you made me feel like I have awesome, secret stealth skills. Some good came out of us both jumping like... little girls."

Why did he just admit to that out loud? It was obvious already by his jumping.

The grateful smile is reassuring. He relaxes. This is all very good for his karma. "A fancy thing is kinda with the vague on the description there. It fits in a purse, right? So it's small." He smiles proudly. "Look at Xander Harris using logic... and talking about himself like I am not... him."

It's best to abandon that line of thought.

"Nothing to be sorry about. I tend to get talky all the time. I'm Xander Harris, in case I confused you a second ago. You're welcome. I figure a good deed done is... of the good. And I'm a good guy."

[mme_jolie]

Jolie laughs at all of Xander's rambling antics, though it's a nice sort of laugh. The kind of laugh that belies the fact that she's still laughing at him -- almost patronizing, really. There's a lot about Jolie that's just shy of patronizing.

"Good, good," she says. "Though I suppose that if you were a one of the bad guys, you wouldn't admit it outright. But I will trust you, my good man, to at least help me find this. Though I agree, the description was a bit lacking, but my friend was in a hurry, I suppose."

She starts to pace again, agitated, but then catches herself. "Oh! Sorry, my manners, you told me your name. I'm Madame Jolie, though if you like you may call me just Jolie. And yes, it does fit in a purse." The last bit she's not sure of, but it can't hurt to give him something to look for, anyway. If she finds the thing is bigger than a purse, well, she can blame her 'friend', anyway.