taxonomites | [visual | Taxon Forest] Open

I've never been much for profanity. Don't know why, but it never really suited me. Growing up, I didn't come in contact with curses all that much. When I joined up, it always rubbed me the wrong way, being yelled at and called names. It was part of the process, not a big deal, but again, it just didn't suit me.

That was a long time ago. A different time, a completely different world, even compared to the one I lived in.

One of the things I do remember from those days, from the training days, preparing to go out and fight the good fight, is something one of the officers said to us. He said it's not the loud ones you should watch out for, not the boisterous, short-fused ones.

It's the quiet ones, who keep their head down and never reveal a thing. They're the ones you should keep your eye on. So that's what I decided to do.

The drive to Taxon Forest is uneventful at best, but for once Mick doesn't mind the boredom of driving down unfamiliar streets. He's got worse things on his mind than complaining about jumbled architecture: like the bruise on Summers' face, or why in the world he'd go to such lengths to defy his own mortality.

Mutant or no mutant, Mick can't imagine it comes with an immortality clause.

So...

When Scott reaches the top, guess who's already there, waiting. One knee pulled up halfway to his chest, the other casually stretched out in front of him, Mick watches the (quite impressive) views.

Scott appears slowly, one hand at a time, fingers white knuckled as he grabs on tight and hauls himself up over the lip of the cliff.

In the shadow of his downcast face, it's easy to see his gaze lift, the red pinpoints coming to look at Mick before he kicks the rest of the way up. He flops onto his back, breathing deeply.

That's potentially deadly laser beams, right there. Wouldn't want to test those out, not anytime soon.

Book, cover, pot, kettle - hidden dangers all around.

"Hey."

"Hi." Scott sits up, pushing his hair back from his brow. "I didn't realise anyone came out here."

Read: I was trying to be on my own.

"They don't, far as I can tell."

In so many words 'good luck with that'.

Mick looks over, eyebrows sloping into even more of a sprawl across his forehead. "Hasn't Cliffhanger taught you anything?"

"Hasn't what?" He leans his elbows on his knees, still catching his breath. "So why are you here?"

"Stallone movie. Cult classic. Long story short, never go up against a climbing instructor, 'cause you're gonna lose every single time. And always check your gear twice before you head out."

He shrugs, because as far as pop culture references go, it's not that important. It wasn't all that important to begin with, just a quip that fell flat from start to finish.

"Me? I'm just looking out for a fellow ant."

"Don't watch a lot of movies." He doesn't give himself the time. "Also, there is nothing in that summary that applies to this situation. I am a climbing instructor, and I don't have any gear."

"That's not the point." Mick grins, shaking his head before turning his eyes to the bright, sunshiny day. And right as that thought hits, he tenses up, expecting drums and trumpets and background singers for a very mediocre rendition of a certain Johnny Nash classic.

When it doesn't, his shoulders slump in obvious relief, 'cause if there's one thing he's learned here it's that you don't want to tempt the hamsters.

Behind the black lenses of his own sunglasses, his eyes narrow despite themselves against the sun. They're high up to see the light reflected off of the many varied buildings, not high enough to be entirely without shelter, and still he can't help but shake the nerves.

He shrugs. What he means to say is 'the point is you'd know what I meant if you'd seen the movie', or 'that's it, I'm gonna have to educate you on the pure awesome that is Sylvester Stallone'. But what comes out of his mouth is a very calm, very casually spoken, "Horizon rising up to meet the purple dawn. Dust demon, screaming, bring an eagle to lead me on."

Now, see where I was going with the profanity angle?

Mick's eyes fly wide open, his jaw drops and he goes white as a sheet. "Sorry, that's, that's not what I meant to say at all--"

Instead of trumpets, he gets guitars and a lone piano.

"Nooononononono."

"No," Scott instructs. "No, you are not singing to me. I've had Maddie doing Within You, complete with the leather pants, I've been punched in the face for something I haven't done and may never do, I am not doing another round of song to cheer me up."

He's not really talking to Mick. He's talking to the hamsters. At the hamsters.

"If there is more singing, I am doing my next climb." He gestures his head at the base of the next jagged piece of rockface.

There's no time for talking at the hamsters, because Mick saw what happened to Jason, and it wasn't anywhere near pretty, but maybe if he'd just gone along, it wouldn't have turned into a night at the cabaret.

Taking a deep few lungfuls of breath that he doesn't technically need (it's just masking the fact he's a monster, but he does it every day, every waking hour to remind himself), Mick looks around for an escape.

Either Scott goes up, or Mick throws himself off the cliff--

"For in my heart, I carry such a heavy load." Too late. All too late, because before he's quite aware of it his legs have pushed him up off the ground and his hands righted his collar.

"Here I am, on Man's road."

no_rose_tint - 2012-08-20 08:34 (UTC) - Expand

The young man from Pedestrian Plaza looks out of place out here in Taxon Forest, at the base of the high summit. He has his hand to his forehead shielding his eyes as he looks up the face of the cliff; he hasn't got his violin now, or his coat either, but seems to be wearing a trendy T-shirt from the Taxon Mall and a pair of narrow-leg jeans. Not exactly climbing gear.

He looks even more out of place a few minutes later when he's somehow scaled an easier section of the rock and is sitting, a little precariously, on a low ledge. Sherlock assesses his position, about four uneasy meters off the ground, and then glances up at the climbing ahead of him, assessing which path could be the friendliest. He's chosen a route he thinks is well away from Scott, trying to avoid hindering him or drawing his meddling attention. It's not that he doesn't realize climbing is dangerous. But he's curious about what Scott is doing, and curious about what he can see from the summit, and the other side. He's aware that shouting to Scott could distract him to his own peril. So the obvious and logical conclusion to him is that he'll try to find his own path. There's got to be some way, hasn't there?

It's only when he picks his way over to another ledge -- recklessly, to any onlooker -- that he accepts that he might have gotten himself stranded.

He leans back against the face of the rock, out of breath and tired, and looks down at the drop. It's a good thing he isn't afraid of heights any more. He'll have to work something out, he thinks.

Scott's on his third climb when he hears the scrabbling.

He doesn't look at first, not until he's got his fingers firmly gripped and a foot safely braced on a solid piece of rock.

If he had less control, he'd growl in frustration. "You're stuck, aren't you?"

Sherlock glances up at the sky with the sort of fearlessness that comes of understanding one's predicament and not feeling particularly moved by it, except to vexation at a seemingly unsolvable puzzle. He's braced himself in a stable position for the time being, but his arms are tired.

Scott can't safely help him without going down to fetch a rope, going back up to attach it, and then going back down to get him, he reasons. So he shakes his head. "No," he answers and shifts his handhold on the rock for a steadier one.

He calculates his odds of surviving a tumble from this height without serious injury and wrinkles his nose in thought. It's a predicament, at any rate.

"What is wrong with you?" He swings his way across a small ledge that is just big enough for his fingers, pulling himself up to the next platform that he would normally rest on.

"There's a shadowed nook, about a foot above your left foot. You're tall enough to grab the ledge I just used, it continues on around to near you. That should give you the leverage to get up to somewhere you can safely sit."

Sherlock ignores what is wrong with you?, mostly because no one has ever come up with a satisfactory answer. He focuses on Scott's instructions, hooking his foot into the crevice and pulling himself up to inch sideways along the ledge with his hands. Once he's far enough along he hoists himself up onto the far edge of Scott's platform, taking a moment to catch his breath.

He dusts off his trouser legs nonchalantly, like a cat that's just taken an undignified tumble. He hesitates, a thank you lingering somewhere in his throat, and looks out over Taxon Forest instead. "Your tablet's broadcasting," he says instead. "I don't imagine you're trying to record a demonstration."

Scott helps him up, able to see the tremble in his arms. "You're not going to be able to get the rest of the way up. You're not experienced enough for this face."

He taps the tablet on his bracelet, turning it off completely. Just in case. "I can probably get you back down safely without having to go back and get rope and equipment."

"And how exactly would you plan to do that?" Sherlock retrieves his own tablet and holds it up in front of him to take a picture of the Taxon landscape from this vantage point.

He's made it surprisingly far for someone without a lick of climbing experience, actually, but this just means he's trapped himself where he's even more worn out and it's even more difficult to get down. Forget experience, even, he doesn't have the muscle mass to successfully climb to the top of this face -- even he can estimate that much factually, knowing his own strength and the distance.

Even so, it's a little more serene up here. He looks up at the summit again.

"Giving you a break first. You're going to need to rest." He offers out a bottle of water that was hanging by a clip from his belt. "Drink."

He pushes his glasses up to rub at his closed eyes and pinch the bridge of his nose. "It's not too far back down. Not if you get a rest."

Sherlock takes the bottle and turns it over like it's an alien artifact before he unscrews the cap. His arms are white, clearly not used to seeing the light of day, and he has a little -- not much -- definition in his biceps, clearly from not any purposeful effort at a gymnasium. He tips his head back and drinks, rather still.

He has a better view of the climb down from here, so he looks down at the face and the potential handholds and footholds, tracing his own path with a methodical eye and scanning for other potentials. He glances up again, doing the same. "We'd have to go one after the other," he replies after a moment, handing back the bottle. "My route doesn't have room for us to climb simultaneously, and it's not near any other good footholds; your route's about seven meters away. Over there." Sherlock points. "I'll go first. I don't think it will matter how strong you are if I fall on top of you."

Though he hasn't rested yet, he tests a possible foothold with the heel of his foot, scooting precariously close to the edge again.

He drops his glasses back over his face, fitting them snuggly before he takes back his bottle.

Then Sherlock starts being an idiot. Scott grabs the back of his shirt and pulls him back sharply. "Sit down and do what I tell you," he snaps. "You have no idea what you're doing and putting us both in danger with this stunt. Sit down, rest like I've told you to and I'll try and find you a safer way down. Do not presume to give me instruction on how to climb or how to rescue people from their own foolish impulses, I've got plenty of experience to draw on."

He leans back against the rocks

Sherlock blink-blink-blinks several times at both being seized by the collar and Scott's sudden reprimand, but it's in fact the correct tactic to take with him, as his friends and family might tell you elsewhere: he doesn't respond to a spoonful of sugar. "So you do," he acknowledges after a moment, glancing at him sidelong.

He sits back further on the rock and does, for the time being, as he's told. His pale eyes with their uncertain color flicker over to Scott several times without comment. Finally he says, "I'm endangering my own life. You're also endangering your own life. The only way I could endanger your life is if you took it upon yourself to be responsible for mine -- and as I don't see a badge on you, you aren't. They are my foolish impulses," he says evenly. "You just happened to be on the same rock."

Still, he obeys and remains where he is.

Scott's not big on softly-softly.

"My life is not in danger. I know what I'm doing. You don't. So yes, I'm tkaing it upon myself to get you out of this stupid situation safely because that's what I do. I save people. Even from themselves. Now, take another drink, take in the view and keep your butt parked right there."

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