taxonomites | 09[Central: Visual, open to anything] You can't quit until you try

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09[Central: Visual, open to anything] You can't quit until you try

The sun was just setting over Taxon when Josef emerged from his freezer. Taking his time he donned crisp slacks and a button down shirt with the collar open. Picking up the tablet, he refrained from affixing it to his wrist as he might have his watch in those days before Taxon. So much of that was a distant memory some mornings but it was fresh and crisp in his mind that evening upon rising.

Maybe it was dreams he didn't remember. Maybe it was the cool, icy feel on his skin just rising, the night air crisp as the last rays of sunlight lit up the sky. Desperate fingers trying so hard to cling to the sky against the encroaching night. It was a battle that Josef had seen a million times over, night after night for so many years. Yet tonight it was fresh, deadly and beautiful at the same time.

Humming under his breath as he dropped the tablet on the counter, he opened the fridge, peering into the contents. For a brief moment he missed the ship. He missed fresh blood from a clean bite. He missed the heat on his cold tongue, the richness that seemed to dissipate with the cold and the storage and no amount of heating could change that. Yet he wouldn't ask. Not of Bagoas, or Madelyne, or anyone. He had a supply and it would do. No matter how it sometimes grated, though at least it wasn't animal.

Empty the contents into a decorate crystal flute, he crossed barefoot to the small patio that led off the main room of the loft. The combination of blood and those last fiery fingers fading into nothing but grey with the first speckling of stars reminded him a moment of L.A., of standing out on the pool deck and looking over all he surveyed. Now what he looked over was a prison but it didn't hold him back. Not tonight.

He didn't even realize when he started singing, lips just barely tinged red with blood. Nor did he notice that the tablet was broadcasting, catching him lit as the sunlight died.

"You can't quit until you try. You can't live until you die. You can't learn to tell the truth until you learn to lie. You can't breathe until you choke. You gotta laugh when you're the joke.
There's nothing like a funeral to make you feel alive."

Taking a sip as he let the night sky seem to wash over him as the blood bringing a flush to his cheeks, or very nearly so.

"I know some things that you don't. I've done things that you won't. There's nothing like a trail of blood to find your way back home."

Dipping his finger into the blood, suckling it off skin and imagining how it should taste as he sighed. "I was waiting for my hearse. What came next was so much worse. It took a funeral to make me feel alive."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Welp.

"You've got a little--" Glitch swipes at his lip cautiously. "A-and your tablet's on. With all that singing stuff."

At the sound of a voice, Josef looked up. His finger traced along the rim of the glass before raising to brush the side of his finger over his lower lip.

"It's a beautiful, delicious evening, don't you think Glitch? Have you seen the sunset lately," he asked, taking a sip before singing once more. "Don't you try and tell me that it's not my type."

Oh dear, the aliens are having a grand ol' time with this one. Eyebrow arch: engaged.

"I'm not trying to tell you anything," Glitch says with a placating lift of his hand. "Except that you've got an audience. And...okay, 'delicious' isn't the adjective I'd use but it is nice, yeah."

Josef winced. “Sorry. No, wasn’t thinking you were,” he admitted, sliding the glass aside on the counter and slightly to one side of the tablet. “I… I don’t even think I know the music I’m singing,” he added, shaking his head.

“Least it’s not stuck in sunlight,” he offered, making a face over the entire thing. “Is it bad for everyone?” He hadn’t checked the tablet yet, just starting the day singing.

"That happened a lost last time, but...gotta say, pity the non-Earth folks. None of these songs mean anything to us," Glitch says with a little shrug.

He pauses and tries to ignore the twiddly guitar he thinks he's hearing. "And as with all things here, what happens to who when and how much is totally random. Though with this one they tend to skew more towards the ironic. It's like...like..."

Oh cripes.

"Like a traffic jam when you're already late, a 'no smoking' sign on your cigarette break. It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife..."

Despite himself, Josef laughed. Perhaps not despite but in spite of others. He might not be a fan of singing but he felt so much like himself in those moments, of his life before this place, that he was enjoying it more than he probably should.

“Well, there’s a song to make me mock,” he said, frowning a bit. “It figuuures.”

Glitch looks bemused, then shrugs.

"Yeah, see, totally lost on me. Oh well." What can you do? "Anyway, just wanted to give youa heads up on teh whole broadcasty thing. Enjoy your evening."

And stuff.

"Josef...?"

Madelyne's not really sure what to say. In act, she's a little afraid she might /also/ burst into song, really.

Would that be a hell of a date?

The sound of Maddy’s voice caught Josef off guard, turning suddenly. Perched as he was on the rail, it wasn’t a safe move and yet he stayed there a moment longer before dropping down onto his bare feet. He smiled, lowering the glass and inclining his head towards her.

“Good evening, Madelyne.” Pausing only a moment and then softly singing. “Blue jean baby, L.A. lady, seamstress for the band. Pretty eyed, pirate smile, you'll marry a music man.” He winced. “Sorry. It’s been happening.”

"So far I'm just hearing a soundtrack to my life. Mostly it is sort of everyday sort of music but, there have been a few moments of swelling strings and some drumming..."

Madelyne chuckles softly, "I started out hearing it. I think all of the Extras are plugged into whatever it is. Their thoughts are all a jumble."

"And all the others singing and hearing songs," he asked, wondering what the lyrics he kept finding himself speaking said of him, though he felt more himself than he had in some time.

"No doubt all the thing's that I've read what he wrote me iIs now sounding like the man I was hoping to be."

Josef winced. "And sometimes you don't even need telepathy for it."

"I haven't even sung anything yet and I'm already embarrassed. My singing voice is not something you want to hear." She's probably not /that/ bad but then again, she doesn't have a lot of experience with singing.

There is music slowly growing behind Maddy.

"Are you embarrassed for me because I am," he admitted. "Even if I do have a great voice." And he wouldn't be convinced otherwise.

"Least it isn't pygmy hamsters and a ship?" This had to be better, right?

"No, I'm more concerned what it is that I will sing, once I start singing."

A faint smile on her lips, "It is better than sunburns and mini-giant hamsters, that's true but... well... I'm not looking forward to this either."

Oh that piqued his interest. "Why would you worry? What sort of things might you sing," he asked, arching a brow, smirking a bit. "What's the worst you could sing about?"

He moved closer to the tablet, giving a spin and a step. "What's your name? Just window dressin'. Everyone knows that it's the clothes that make the man."

"Oh, I have a lot of bad things in my past, Josef."

Madelyne gives him a smile, though it may or may not be comforting. Then again, she needs to take into account who she's talking to a little more specifically.

The music behind her is getting louder still. She's not exactly ignoring it but she's not giving into it, either.

"And you might sing about what a good woman you are now," he noted, still working to try and make her see beyond the things she worried about.

"You know this is like Bagoas told Remus. If they want it, they will have it."

"I don't know, do I? I just don't know."

The music swells and then, recedes before the strings pick back up once again. Madelyne looks down and it seems as though there might be a ... spotlight... coming from somewhere as she sings, "Nothing's gonna harm you, not while I'm around. Nothing's gonna harm you, no sir, not while I'm around. Demons are prowling everywhere, nowadays, I'll send 'em howling, I don't care, I got ways."

It had been coming and going for Josef so he shouldn't have been surprised when Madelyne started singing. Though the words were caught him off guard, not having expected it, not in the least. That of all the things that she might sing about, she was singing about protecting him.

"You do. Have ways," he agreed, touched by the song and hoping it wasn't him reading into alien games. "But you know some would say I'm one of the demons."

"I ..... I wasn't literally one but it was close enough."

Madelyne gives him a small smile and looks like she might say something else but the sing sweeps her up again, "No one's gonna hurt you,
No one's gonna dare. Others can desert you, not to worry, whistle, I'll be there. Demons'll charm you with a smile, for a while, but in time, nothing can harm you, not while I'm around...."

That they shared, and he hadn't ever thought of it that way. "One day tell me how," he asked, even before the light came down over him and the words came out in song.

"Hello, hello remember me? I'm everything you can't control. Somewhere beyond the pain there must be a way to believe we can break through."

"No one's gonna hurt you, no one's gonna dare! Others can desert you, not to worry, whistle, I'll be there! Demons'll charm you with a smile, for a while but in time... Nothing can harm you, not while I'm around..."

Madelyne seems to be skipping around in the song but, well, at the same time it makes sense. This is... just a weird experience.

The words struck him in a way that was likely not intended by the aliens. How long in his life had it been since anyone had viewed him, even subtly during song, as someone to protect. He was the demon, not...

"Madelyne, you have quite the fetching voice," he said, voice slightly softer than it had been before.

"I'd never really thought about it one way or the other. I haven't done much singing," she admits with a small smile.

"I have to admit, I wasn't expecting this Hamster aided singing experience to be like this at all."

“I don’t think I expected anything involving singing at all,” he admitted. “But I’m thankful for it if it doesn’t mean dealing with the torture we did before.”

Josef hesitated, formulating just how to word the question that he wanted to ask it. “Do you feel that way? That you need to protect me? And do you mean from…” He gave her a pointed look, wondering if that was something she worried about.

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