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."

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"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.

"Not just you but everyone, Josef. I want to protect people but especially the people I care about, my friends."

The redhead arches her brow at the pointed look. Even telepaths need some help when they're not using their powers.

"You know that I'm pretty damn good at defending myself, right? With the whole... and all," he asked, though he wasn't one to say the word. Even after all this time in Taxon.

A smile tugs at the corner of her mouth, "Everyone has bad days, Josef, and around here who knows how that will work out."

"You have to know I wouldn't hold it against you," he pointed out, liking that smile. "Not here with the way things go."

"I would hope not," she says through a chuckle.

"I mean it, Madelyne. This place alone would be enough but I know more about the innate nature of the being a person can be than most."

"I come from a place where mind control is something that happens on days that end in Y and that's not considering possession, shape shifters or clones. Usually, we hold ourselves more to blame than the people we hurt."

Madelyne lifts a shoulder in a small shrug, "I guess that's the balance."

"I rarely blame myself for those I hurt," he admitted, though there was a softness to his tones. "I blame the reasons they made me do it."

He realized how harsh that sounded. "Of course, speaking of people that act out criminally and risk the lives of all."

"There are ...." Madelyne pauses for a few moments and then shakes her head, "There were people who could stop me if I went crazy again but Charles is gone now.... Well, I'm sure you all could come up with something to stop me."

She's not, actually, but she's not going to say that.

"If they don't want us to, we won't be able to. That's what I told Remus. All we can do is what we have to until it passes."

"I'm not worrying about it. There isn't much point."

She's totally lying but she does that reasonably well. Still, she's not worrying about it the way she was when she first got here.

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