taxonomites | [visual | Taxon Forest] Open

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[visual | Taxon Forest] Open

The first picture shows rocks.

The rocks are shifting, but it becomes apparent that it's the tablet shifting, where it's attached to the bracelet on Scott's wrist.

In the next, the rocks drop away to show a wide vista and a sudden drop before Scott's face comes into view. He's still got a bruised up face, but now he's in a visor and flushed red with exertion. In the next, he looks down, the sheer drop under him becoming visible.

A few more shots give a clear view of what's going on. Scott's gone climbing.

He's climbing cliffs in Taxon Forest.

Free soloing. Hands and feet and concentration all that's stopping him from a long drop and a short stop.

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"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."

Scott looks up at the sky. "Really? Have I done something particularly evil while I was here?"

He claps Mick on the shoulder. "I'm going. Give me a call when the song's over, okay?"

An ominous wind blows, sending Mick's hair and clothes billowing like something out of a Japanese animation, but his eyes tell a different story. They say HOW CAN YOU LEAVE ME WITH THIS THING YOU HAVE TO DO SOMETHING. Where his sunglasses went is a mystery.

Behind him, the chorus fills in with dulcet tones of walking Man's road.

"I'm hungry. Weary," he grinds out, trying to grab hold of something, some scrap of fabric to keep the guy there because this crap's not only embarrassing, it's unnerving. Hitting too close to home for his own good and good grief, he has an image to maintain for the love of God.

"PleasedosomethingthrowmeoffthecliffsideIdon'tcareI'llgetbetterIpromise-- but I cannot lay me down.

"The rain comes, dreary, but there's no shelter, I have found."

Edited 2012-08-17 12:46 (UTC)

Scott doesn't know what's expected of him. He feels none of this strange compulsion taking everyone else. Apparently he's so anti-musical that the hamsters aren't willing to risk it.

"Mick, I'm not throwing you off a cliff," he sternly tells him. "I've been a donor to put one vampire back together, I'm not inflicting that sort of pain on you for a multitude of reasons. Just because you heal doesn't mean it isn't agony."

He knows it. He's seen it and he's lived it himself.

"It'll be a long time 'til I find my abode; here I am, on Man's road."

Walking Man's road...

Walking Man's road...

Man's road...

The music begins to fade, the wind settles, and with it, Mick clamps his jaws shut, white-out eyes flitting everywhere but at Scott. Suspicion reigns supreme, and he's freaked out enough he will be looking over his shoulder for the invisible threat. Invisible or not, the bgm scores were bad enough.

"...is it over?"

Edited 2012-08-17 13:02 (UTC)

"I have no idea," Scott offers, all honesty. "Probably, since the music went away again. I'm still not throwing you off a cliff, though. I avoid doing it to anyone, even regenerators.

"Are you okay?"

Mick clears his throat, letting go of Scott's arm as if burned. Aw-kward. "Yeah, uh, sure."

He nods, righting his coat, then runs a hand through his hair. Way to not be an emo kid, self.

"Embarrassed, mostly. Sorry about that."

Scott shakes his head. "It's not your fault, any more than if you were mind controlled. There's no need for apologies."

He cants his head. "However, if that was all, I do have another climb planned. I've been slacking off here, far too much."

Mick nods, but doesn't voice his own opinion. Sure, he couldn't have stopped the music even if the entire city depended on it...but as little choice as he had about the choice of tune, it fit him in a damn unsettling way.

Unsettling, it would seem, is the word to encapsulate this entire experience.

"Slacking off? Yeah, right." He gives a small grin, then nods at Summers' rather badly bruised jaw. "Did you have that checked out yet?"

"Daily runs aren't even half what I need to do to stay in shape." He touches his jaw. "No. No point. If it's broken, they'll wire it, which I'd rather not have. I'll be careful with it."

"Uhuh." No, sorry, Mick's not buying whatever you're trying to sell him, Scott.

But, as in all things, there are ways to go about helping a guy who as far as Mick can tell has been through a bit of a rough patch lately.

"I could take a look, if you want. Free of charge and everything."

"You're a- You mentioned this. Army medic?" Scott tends to remember that sort of thing, even if names don't always come with positions.

"If it would make you happier about it." Because Mick clearly isn't. "I don't heal like you or Logan, but I'm fairly tough. I've had worse."

"Army medic, World War II." He nods affirmative, and steps in to take a closer look now that he has permission.

Ocular assessments first: "There's obvious swelling and bruising, but," he touches the other side of Summers' jaw, moving from side to side to gauge the line up of the body of the mandible itself.

"Doesn't seem like the angle's off. How's your teeth when you bite down? All aligned and good?"

Logan...

"He the guy who clocked you?"

"It's not dislocated. My bite's fine, my teeth are firm in the jaw, there was some internal lacerations, but it's closed up fine." Scott's skin is warm. Very warm. He gives off heat.

"Yeah. Logan, real name unknown. The Wolverine. He remembers fighting in both World Wars and possibly earlier. And his skeleton is metal lined, hence the bruising."

"Hey, don't get smart with me, I'm trying to help. Standard questions, Summers."

Mick's fingers probably feel like ice, which might not be a bad thing, considering the swelling.

Metal skeleton. Well. It's Taxon. You can't expect there to be a limit to the weirdness that comes here. That didn't mean I had any right to judge, or a clue what to think about it all. 'Mutant' just got a whole new meaning.

"Open up."

"I'm not being smart. I'm listing the things Hank always asks." It was just ingrained responses. Scott isn't feeling anything enough to get smart.

He closes his eyes and opens his mouth. There's no wince, no flinch, however much it hurts.

Mick takes a look, his eyes finding the partially healed cuts like a set of honing beacons. Then he does something a 21st century doctor might opt out of: he sniffs. It smells clean, perfectly normal for a guy who got smacked around.

"No sign of infection, and you're right. Your teeth line up. Close.

"You go way back, huh? You and Logan?"

SCott's relieved to go back to talking with minimal jaw movements. "I met him when I was... eighteen or nineteen?" He thinks. "He hated my guts. I hated his. We loved the same girl and she chose me, then she died. It's taken a lot, but we respected each other. We'd become friends after a while, despite Jean and Maddie and that mess."

He shrugs slightly. "Apparently, in his world, I go insane and try to take over the world using the power that killed Jean. Twice.

"Jean isn't dead in my world. We're still married. I don't know what happened between us to him. It doesn't matter. He's not the person I knew." Even if Logan seems set on treating him as the person he hated.

Mick listens, heading towards the next steep climb Summers had in mind. Might as well move forward while they talk.

Or, while Summers talks and he asks much too prying questions.

"Sounds like you got a lot on your mind, with him arriving here. Still, gotta sting to have a friend talk to you like that."

"He's not the man I know. I can't assume he ever was. Divergent realities suck like that." He gives a small shrug. "Not the first time it's happened. And he's spoken worse to me in the past. Nothing's broken, that's the big thing."

"Tough love," Mick notes, and decides that for the time being, he's got no more questions. There's a limit to how many times you can poke a guy before you cross a line you shouldn't have, and he's not willing to risk that.

"You should ice that to keep the swelling down. Take something for the pain half an hour before bedtime, help you sleep. And try not to talk too much, alright?"

"No, outright hatred. It was only the fact that Jean never would've forgiven him that held him back."

He gives Mick a mildly bemused look. "I know. I'm not the one been encouraging me to talk right now. I'm fine, honestly. Go home, before you start another round of serenading."

Summers gets a bemused look right back, because he had to go there, didn't he. Serenading. Yeah, right.

"Thanks for reminding me." He gestures at the cliff face and Summers to go do his thing, break a limb or his neck or whatever he's trying to do.

"If you die, I'll see you in a week I guess. Unless the hamsters decide you've been plenty reckless enough and just let you stay dead. Never know with those critters."

[visual | Taxon Forest] Open

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