sirenspull_logs | The Normpocalypse!

Entry tags:

The Normpocalypse!

Who: OPEN LOG
When: 12/12/12, beginning at 12:12am and ending around 10pm at night.
Where: Siren's Port, across all sectors
Summary: Everything detailed here is going down, citywide. Panic and chaos ensues as shortly after midnight, everyone in Port loses their special abilities. Is The Core playing a cruel doomsday trick? Or is it something even more sinister?
Warnings: Violence & Civil Unrest. Angry swearing inevitable!

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John is not asleep yet (well, perhaps a light doze), and the flip of the blanket is enough to have him open his eyes and blink owlishly.

Harry hasn't made any remarks about John's tiredness. That's something of a miracle, considering how much Harry has reveled in winding John up lately. He takes the silence as a blessing and shifts until he can lay down on his side. He makes an effort to encroach on Harry's personal space as much as he can to throw the spare half of the blanket back over Harry's legs, particularly the injured one. The message is clear.

"Wake me at least an hour before the sirens," John says quietly before shutting his eyes, his arm tucked under his head. Just a little sleep will do him well, and he's fairly confident that if Harry was going to kill him in his sleep, he'd have done it sometime last week.

If John has put up with his bitching and complaining and getting into trouble for around a month now, then Harry figured it would be kind enough for him to keep his mouth shut and not make underhanded passes at the other man's exhaustion. He's been moving nonstop, and it only serves to remind Harry that he has to find work. He's got to pull his own weight; he may not owe John in letter, but Harry has always been about breaking even, so in spirit? He continues to feel a little indebted to John Marcone.

"I'll wake you," he doesn't so much promise as affirm, turning through the pages of his NV with lazy, casual passes of his fingers. His eyes, however, watch John like a hawk. If they are to share the blanket... he'll shift his legs just a little closer. It's chilly, and it's sensible to keep watch over the needs of the unconscious party, after all.

He won't kill John in his sleep. As a graduate of the school of you'll be facing me, and you'll be armed, he's honestly not the sort of man who'd stab a guy in the back, or get after him while he's sleeping. He is the sort who will draw at ten paces and put a hole through your heart - be it with fire or a bullet. It's a little over an hour before the sirens are due, and the sky is only just beginning to grey at the edges. That's the point where, quietly, he leans over to put a hand on John's ankle and give it a firm shake. Better down there, in case John is the sort of sleeper that wakes up fast and hard and has a knife in his hand. The thought had crossed Harry's mind, after all.

John comes to like a light turning on. He was soundly asleep, make no mistake, but when Harry shakes him, he's back. Green eyes blink rapidly, adjusting to the light, but he's completely alert again. Call it an old habit from his military days.

It's still light out. That's good. Sitting up, he looks at Harry, scanning his form. That sort of fast cataloging of Harry's condition is second nature to John. He looks much the same as before, and John is satisfied with that.

"Thank you," John says, both for the wake up and for the watch Harry kept. "I'm ready to head out when you are. We can try the city, see if we can get into the underground mall for the evening. Or we can try--" A yawn sneaks up on him, remnant of his nap. It cracks his jaw before he can smother it. Well, it's not like Harry isn't aware that John's impervious act is a carefully constructed lie. "We can try to find someplace in this Sector, as long as we keep our distance from the AGI compound."

Getting up, he starts to get ready to move out again. Supplies are stashed back in the sidecar, the shotgun is slid back into its slot, and the granola wrappers are tossed into the closest trash can. That only leaves the blanket Harry's sat on; John offers the wizard a hand up.

Immediately, Harry takes his hand from John's ankle and raises it, a placating gesture to let him know that all is well.

While he had never been a member of the military, the Wardens operated as a unit often enough for him to understand the basics of what it means to immediately inform someone of their status. Especially if they were asleep, or unaware of their surroundings. It's safe; he woke John because it was time, not due to emergency. He says nothing, but eventually drops his hand back into his lap and shuts his NV, pocketing it before going through the motions to get back on his feet.

It means rolling over a little, onto his good hip, pushing up with his hands until he can get his good leg under his weight - then standing while simultaneously trying to keep his balance. Where some would have been adept by then at maneuvering, Harry manages to look like an infant giraffe fumbling to his feet while on the ice. He's all arms and legs flailing until he puts out a hand to keep his balance and winds up closing his hand around John's wrist. Well, that's better.

He straightens and clears his throat, hobbling a little to pick up his staff and then lean on it again. "Totally meant to do that," he coughs into his fist. Yeah, and his face wasn't red from exertion and embarrassment. Venture back to the city or find temporary lodgings out in the countryside? Harry thinks about it for a moment, and then-- "You know. I thought I saw a house a couple miles back the way we came from. It was a little off the beaten trail, but I think the bike could get back there."

Dear god. The infant giraffe metaphor springs directly to John's mind as well. It nearly gives him secondhand embarrassment to watch Harry struggle to his feet, and John wears his most opaque blank-faced mask as he helps Harry get upright. He is mortified, but it doesn't show to a point that might be even more of a tell. Jesus, Dresden.

John braces Harry, holding his arm, just in case he wants to teeter around some more. Once he's settled, John folds up the blanket. "Of course you did."

The mention of a house has John flipping through his mental notebook. Said notes are more vague that he usually likes to deal with. Call it a consequence of running on no sleep and trying not to crash the bike. "You'll have to point it out to me. I must've missed it."

He walks with Harry back to the bike, even if that requires him to walk at a pace that'd be charitably described as leisurely. Once Harry's settled, he hands over the blanket and climbs on, getting them back on the road in short order, this time going back the way they came.

Look John, you have got to be used to Harry's antics by now. He's ungainly, he talks to himself, he does weird things like combine rusty nails and glass shards and kitchen chemicals in the kitchen sink and take notes because he's bored and he likes to experiment. Anyone else would think he was attempting to make fragmentary grenades or something. If there was one person who could be simultaneously disturbed and completely understand the oddity that was Harry Dresden? It was John.

"I'm practicing for my up-and-coming audition for the role of Odette," Harry shoots back again, absent and natural as can be. That shotgun mouth of his, going off again. He'd even attempt to stand arabesque, because he was just that sort of a lunatic, ludicrous man. Comparing his flailing to ballet, dear god. And -- pausing, with his hand wrapped around John's wrist, his eyes elsewhere. In another memory, at another time - one where he had ripped his hand out of reach as though he'd been burnt.

It would be a bold discrepency were he to do that now, when taking a look at all the absent contact he's offered John over the course of the last week or so. The knuckling of his fist against the man's shoulder when discussing something particularily funny to Harry. The back of his hand resting against his ankle, only hours ago. While Harry doesn't know whether to count his actions as a positive development or a new madness, he does not jerk away. All he does is release John's wrist, without a word. He doesn't need to say anything, anyways. He has a very expressive face.

"How about you focus on doing driving, and let me do the directing?" that's working together. Harry clambers back into his seat and groans when John offers him the blanket, again. Nanny. Worrywort. Nitpick. Harry stuffs the blanket around his hips and over his lap just to make John happy and settles back, keeping an eye out for the particular patch of earth and the subtle absence of trees that he'd mentally highlighted for later exploration. After a few minutes on the road, he lifts a hand and points to the spot -- through the trees, the garish flash of paint. "Back there."

Understanding the oddity doesn't mean John doesn't resent the moments when he has to try and discretely throw out a smoldering kitchen pot that smells like a molten slag. John will always get some sort of awe from magic, but when potions go awry and result in a need for new kitchenwares... it's less awe-inspiring. Seeing the trial and error needed for magic did remove some of the mystique of the thing. Not that seeing Harry sling fire or direct wind would ever get old.

Harry has been doing that fairly often. That jerk-stop moment, like someone unfamiliar with the brakes of a borrowed car, has been writ on the wizard's face more than once this past week. Any attempts to get an answer out of Harry has only warranted more smart remarks and dismissals. So John makes note, adding a tic mark on a mental tally, and moves on.

Once he lays eyes on the house through the trees, he's not surprised he missed it. The house peeking through the trees is a chipping burnt sienna with a discolored cream trim, and his mind must've skipped over the sight of it for its own safety. It's an aesthetic nightmare, and the overgrown grass and encroaching trees are a sort of blessing, shielding it from view.

John slows as they turn onto the rough road leading up to the thing. From here, John can see antiquated Darkness-proofing; many places on the island upgraded their protections from physical reinforcement to electrical shields and automated systems. This place is like a house fallen out of time, its protections bulky physical things.

"Mother of God," John breathes as he kills the engine. "Why hasn't someone done the world a favor and burned this thing to the ground?"

Edited (typos) 2012-12-18 07:39 (UTC)

Harry remains hesitant to talk about himself, beyond surface-level answers and ironic quotations that he feel befits the moment and will annoy John enough so that he drops the topic. Or talks about himself. See, Harry doesn't mind when people talk about themselves, he likes learning, and that generally meant learning about people as well. When presented with something new, something 'unlike' him or how he may have once reacted in Chicago, he scrutinizes it as though it is a foreign notion, then he puts it aside to look at it at some later date. Save for the part where he forgets to unpack it.

That's what he does even now, absently tossing the memory back into the pile of them in favor of moving on as steadily as he can. John keeps neat tally marks, Harry accumulates rubble.

The house is garish, that's for sure. It's no wonder that Harry, with an eye for picking out strange details and extraneous information, had noticed it in the first place. He sits up a little more in the sidecar when the bike slows, then quiets. Where John's voice is full of what can only be horror, Harry's is absolutely excited as he crows over the other man: "It's beautiful." Immediately, he fumbles his way out of the sidecar and takes a brisk hop towards the garish, burnt-sienna building, throwing his arms out. "Shut up Marcone, it has character! Look at it."

Of course he would like something that looked utterly eccentric, battered by fauna and weather. It only resembles everything in his apartment back in Chicago. In contrast to John, Harry looks absolutely elated to be able to see the sagging monstrosity up close and personal. "Can we go inside?" And without missing a beat: "Oh screw you, I'm going inside and taking a look around." He then began to pick his way through the overgrowth, limping in a wavering loop up to the house - muttering things like you are just the prettiest ugly house and don't you listen to mean ol' marcone's words he's just jealous and listen i know i have a bad track record with old buildings but i won't burn you down.

"Beauti--" Oh no, it sounds like Harry is already forming an attachment to the eyesore. Nevermind that looking at it straight on gives John a headache. That's probably a point in its favor for Harry, come to think of it.

John kills the engine before hurrying after Harry. He hasn't seen the man move so quickly since before the Castiel incident. When he's near enough, he can vaguely hear Harry talking to the house, Christ. John shakes his head and passes by, up the porch, which is sturdy enough. "I wasn't aware colorblindness built character," he grouses mostly to himself, sorting through his pockets. There's a few thin tools that he pulls out before kneeling on the floor in front of the door. It has two locks, and John sets to picking them open.

It's just a matter of time, really. They only have about forty minutes, fifty if they're lucky, before the sirens. That's enough time for John to find an alternative, but maybe not with Harry hobbling around crooning at this collection of chipping paint, worn hinges, and clouded glass that calls itself a house. John is capable of thinking pragmatically even when his sensibilities are offended. God, that orange is awful.

He picks the upper lock before settling in on the doorknob itself. "This isn't a field trip, Harry. When I get this open, check for vulnerabilities first. All the character in the world isn't going to hold off the Darkness."

And it's more lack of use he fights against on the second lock than the actual tumbler. It eventually comes free and John shoots Harry a quelling look, eyes serious, as he retreats to grab their equipment and supplies from the bike, leaving Harry to explore his find.

Mother of God, when John wanted to start looking for new places to live, this is not what he had in mind.

Edited 2012-12-18 15:34 (UTC)

Heedless of John's obvious exasperation, Harry makes it up onto the worn porch and proceeds to hover by a window. He cups his hands around his eyes so that he can better see through a gap in the wooden boards. The interior is dark. There's way too many walls to understand how the rooms are meant to be broke up. The floors are ugly and made of linoleum or whatever god-awful plastic exists in that shade of yellow. Which, of course, means that his grin is full of teeth by the time he sees that.

Once he'd acquainted himself with a cursory look into the belly of the dirty, orange beast of a house, he turns from the window (with a swatch of dirt across his nose, because there is literally no reason why that wouldn't happen to him) and proceeds to limp his way to the other side of the porch to knock about the corner of the home and take a studious look at the nearly antiquated Darkness proofing and what defenses the structure has to offer.

"I can't get to the back," he admits, if only because there is wooden debris where the porch roof had gone and caved in over on the rightmost side of the building. "But all the defenses are still up and working." The evening is creeping up on them, and he's all but doomed them if they didn't. But he'd had a good feeling about this house, a similar sort of tug-and-pull that he'd felt the first time he'd been on that grumpy old island out on Michigan. Though he knows his magic isn't there to provide that sense, Harry is still the sort that accepts his gut reactions as an acceptable reason to throw their lives into potential chaos and danger. Of course. He doesn't run the numbers in the same manner that John does.

The defenses are humming to life as evening creeps up, he draws attention to them by pointing. "See?" More an absent gesture, as he's certain John is regarding the quality of the place's defenses now as well. The man has made his way back to the bike, and in return, Harry proceeds through the open doorway. Cautiously. The floor looks old and dark and god knew how old it was, he'd rather not topple through a weak spot and bang himself up further. John didn't need to be taking care of his sorry ass any more. And as much as he wants to go exploring, he takes preemptive steps to test the few windows, to check the back door (overgrown with ivy, how pretty) and poke about the walls.

"Surprisingly sturdy," he calls out again, before turning about to regroup with John. "Old and dusty, but really freaking stubborn. Here, give me something to carry will you?"

When John comes back, he's got all their bags and supplies over his arm, about his shoulders, hung from their straps. He must look like a pack animal for the moment, but the bike it empty, its engine pinging quietly as it cools for the night. Harry wants to help, and John knows no better way to irritate the wizard than to deny him the privilege; all he gets is his staff and the shotgun, and only because John doesn't want to drop either, and the rest John carries into the house.

It's a small mercy, but the smell of the house is musty and wooden, not like something (or someone) was dead inside. That's a point in its favor, which does little in the face of the plasticky floors. They're worn, curling up in areas, and are torn wholly away from the living room. At least underneath is decent wooden floors, albeit scuffed all the hell. The living room is enormous, possibly half the entire house with a ceiling that goes all the way to the roof. At the top, there is one ceiling fan, jauntily crooked, and certain to shake itself free if anyone dared to turn it on. John nods up to it. "Character," he says sardonically.

There's furniture, shrouded in white sheets that John is almost afraid to move. There's a kitchen, with more linoleum. It smells clean, and there's no rotting food or anything of the like in the pantry.

Once he gets past the hideous outsides, it's not the worst house he's ever seen. Granted, if it were property he'd bought back in Chicago, he'd take a wrecking ball to it, but it's not a complete catastrophe. Though he hasn't seen the upstairs; the stairs are broken.

"All right," John says with an air of resignation. "It's better than the stairwell I hid out in that one time I was out past the sirens." He unloads everything into the living room, then turns and notes that every step they've taken has left footprints in the dust. "It's an asthmatic's nightmare though."

By the time he's done setting out supplies, he can hear the sirens winding up. Sighing hard through his nose, he looks at Harry. "Do you actually like this place or are you winding me up? Because the latter is fine, but the former makes me worried about your tastes."

Well yes, he wants to help. Can't John see the way that his hands are mysteriously empty of any of their things, and how helpful two free hands might be? Apparently he does, and wants to put a vague scowl on the wizard's face, because all Harry gets out of his offer is the artillery. Okay sure, if that's how they're going to play the game. Harry keeps an eye out on the dimming sunlight (the siren's going to go off any time now, and he hates that their lives are already so oriented around two piercing noises at dawn and dusk), and shuts the door behind them once they've both set foot inside.

He props his staff up against a wall - and puts the shotgun on a countertop and takes his duster off to drop it lazily over one of the stray pieces of furniture. Dust clouds eddy in his wake.

"Character!" Just to make sure John got the message. Third time was the charm after all, because Harry gestures to the high ceiling and the really dirty windows that have been boarded over for a long time it seems. He'd like to see what's upstairs, but with the stairs broken and he with a bad leg, he'll save himself the struggle for another day. "I mean, okay. The color is pretty crazy." He'll give John that.

Ah, there's the sirens. Harry's attention wavers to them for a moment, and then to the house. Structurally sound, good defenses that could use some upgrading, plenty of space to ward. Despite his obvious affections towards the place, he had no experience with it, and it kept him alert enough. Finally, he returns to the pieces of covered furniture and sits on the arm of the couch. Not because his leg is starting to hurt, no. It's a couch, it needs sitting on to know it's loved.

"I like it because you don't," Harry states, and smirks. Then he turns his eyes up to the ceiling again, like he's thinking of filling the space with stolen sky or something. He doesn't look back down, even though he speaks to John. "Definitely because you don't. Come sit down and go back to sleep, I'm too keyed up, so I'll watch out for a few hours."

John's eyes linger on the staff. It's an excellent clubbing device, strong enough to rival an officer's truncheon with five times the reach, but the way it is set aside makes John grimace. There is a sense of wrongness, leaving it to the side, even more so than the shotgun. He is too certain that this power situation will be lifted, it's hard to even think of Harry staying like this, without his magic. What is the wizard without the magic? Which might be a cruel thought if John were not sure Harry would think along the same lines.

"The color is an aesthetic assault. Perhaps it was painted such a way to combat intruders, rendering them blind upon approach," John intones, dry as the Sahara. He looks at the way his steps are painted in the dust is distracting, and John does half of a gliding dance step just to see the echo of it. Then, shaking his head, he starts pulling the sheets off the furniture, careful to roll them up as he does to avoid scattering the dust.

And there go the sirens. John looks up, like they'll manifest in the air, and sighs. The days are so short this time of year too....

"Of course you do," John mutters, long-suffering as ever. He looks askance at Harry, that far-away look in his eyes as he stares up. It feels like he is seeing more than the rickety ceiling fan. "You're not mentally picking out drapes and wall paint, are you?" His voice is heavy with dread as he lays down on the sofa, head near Harry's perch. At least, under the shroud the furniture isn't completely awful. Out of date, but serviceable.

The staff is going to stay right where it is, because Harry still has fingers decked in silver and his blasting rod hanging from his coat, which is still slung over one of the chairs. Other than when he had decided where to place is things, Harry has been rather pointedly been avoiding deeper thought about the gaping void where his magic had been. If the Port has been calling people to it - people with unique powers, and gifting people with powers - he's sure the situation will be resolved. What would be the point otherwise?

"I don't know," Harry shoots back with a bit of a grin, "you're the only one who feels like you're being attacked by a color." But he notices the way John slides through the dust. He notices in a hundred and one ways, and keeps one hundred of them to himself. The single one he doesn't takes the form of a private smile that causes the wizard to duck his head and bite his lip rather than share.

That one's his. It's so silly, he'll keep it to himself.

Harry's eyes wander away from the ceiling, and he twists a little so that he can glance down at John as the man lays back down. "If I am, that's for me to know and you to wonder about when you wake up. I mean it. Try not to let it keep you up."

"Only one out of two?" Really, Dresden? Is that what you're going with? John is unimpressed. Harry's level of taste has always been suspect, though John used to give him the benefit of the doubt; the duster with its obvious protections are one thing, and it's entirely possible that the only wizard in the phone book wasn't able to afford fine taste. Having lived with him a while, though, has made it clear that no, Harry's just colorblind.

John nodded and shifted onto his side, tucking his arm under his head. "Maybe I'll just burn the place down and say you did it," he says on an exhale, eyes closing. "You're overdue, firestarter..."

He trails off, letting himself relax. With sturdy walls around him and Harry above him, he drops off almost immediately.

John wakes at the sirens, coming awake like a shot; sudden, and all at once. There will come a time when the sirens won't bother him at all (and some mornings he does sleep straight through them), but he's not to that point of familiarity yet. In truth, he's glad for that.

When he looks to the room, he sees Harry's taken over the oversized reclining chair for his own slumber. There's a pinched look there that has John wondering if Harry deigned to take his medicine before falling asleep, but there's nothing for it now.

Sitting there, John feels it, now hyperaware of its presence after dealing with its sudden absence: that gift Siren's Port gave him.

As Harry starts to stir, John sits up on the sofa and thinks you cannot see me if I don't want you to, your eyes will slide right past me, I'm no concern of yours.

Then he calls out in a low voice, "Dresden."

Edited 2012-12-23 04:15 (UTC)

Firestarter. Overdue. Harry emits a particularly unladylike snort at that, shakes his head at the thought of it. "Not my fault," he protests, though his voice has dropped lower, softened as the light dims and casts the house into shadow. It paints foreign patches of darkness on the walls, and Harry breathes into the dark living room. Steady. Calm. The temperature will drop a little, he knows it. For a moment, he regards his duster on the back of the chair. Just two strides away. He knows its weight and warmth, and contemplates dropping it over John for a moment.

They have blankets for that, though. He chooses to limp to their bags and fish one out, spreading it over John's legs idly before he retreats to his own spot - over in the chair where his duster is. He stretches his leg out, hands running over it with a wince. There's a kink in his knee he's been fighting all day, too stubborn to let on that he's in pain (because then John will make him take his fucking medicine, and John's tired enough as is, he needs the sleep). He props his chin on his knuckles, his elbow on the arm of the chair and chooses to keep a watch as the shadows shift around the room.

A flicker of motion, and his attentions snap to it. Empty night, he just can't do this to himself. The house is secure. There's a goddamn shotgun where he left it. So, he sits back and slumps in the chair. It's a little lumpy, but he's slept in stranger positions, in stranger spots. Gradually, even he nods off--

--only to awaken when he hears his name called. Alert, eyes flashing with power that had been decidedly absent (hello fire, he's missed you) and now that it's filling his nose and his lungs and his fingertips, he's brighter, he's alert, he's alive. He's -- looking for John. "Oh god, you're making me do this right now," he grumbles blearily, rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands. Fine. Fine, he'd said he would. Dragging his fingers down the length of his face, wiping the sleep from his eyes and mouth and cheeks he draws together.

There's a palpable shift in the air. Harry doesn't take his hands from his face, but bridges the fingers over the nose and it amplifies his breathing for a moment and his eyes are closed, but he sways a little, and then stops. Stills. A deep breath, almost as though steeling himself for something - some psychic blow. Then he opens his eyes.

There's a soft, syrupy-sweet sentiment that shooes his senses from where John has slept. Some idea that it's futile to look about, there's nothing to be seen. Some sort of bend in reality that tells him not to concern himself, there's other things to be Seen. That's the part he fights against, mapping out as few areas as he can as he looks for John. (The defenses glow in a corner, something subtle and stirring like a great beast waiting to be poked with a stick, waiting to remember what it's like to be pissed off so that it can rear and fight and--) Harry has to not look at that.

He presses against the insinuation that there is nothing on the couch. It's actually difficult. Some part of him understands that it is the most likely place to begin his quest for the source of John's voice. It was where the man was last. But another part of him doesn't want to fucking concern itself, doesn't care, why bother, why look, why put himself through that. He's anything but stubborn though, and turns his Sight on that. And look, it's honestly not Harry's fault that his mouth parts and he heaves in a tight breath that sounds like it hurts and exhales a faint oh as his eyes widen.

Okay, so get this - he's always attributed John Marcone to a tiger. Tigers are the shit. You see a tiger and you think that is a beautiful creature and it can kill me dead if it wanted to. You think silent, invisible killers that will sink teeth into your neck and bear you to the ground. You think sprawling, green jungles when you see tigers. John's got jungle-green eyes and he's city through and through and it is so ginormous that Harry gets slapped with urban jungle cat at first. That's the first layer.

He sees stripes, and they're not actually stripes, they're mirrors - no they're both. Something shiny and soft and mercurial, pressed tight to John's skin like an exoskeleton that mimics the world (and every tug and push of breath through the man's lungs) around it through absent, lazy eddies of light and illusion. There's this mist, the fog that descends in the wee hours of the morning in the streets and across grounds and it adorns John like a crown about his brow and shackles about his wrists. "Hells b--," Harry chokes for a moment, because it's actually hard to focus on John. Everything he sees tells him he's not here why are you looking.

It's not in his clothes (the port wouldn't care to press power into mere clothes), it's in his skin and the way he breathes into the air like a set of bellows that just wants to make its way through the world without pinging on anyone's radar. He thinks of tigers, because there's no way he can't think of them, all flexing, striped power in dusky light and bright eyes in the undergrowth. Harry finally shakes his head sharply, and shuts his eyes, puts his hands over them and laughs, abortively.

"Oh my god," he rasps. His nose might be bleeding. There's Seeing things, and then there's fighting tooth and nail to See something that doesn't want to be seen. "Good morning to you too, asshole. That was a wake-up call."

John has been told about this, but he's never seen it. Gard's magic is not like a mortal practitioner; her inexplicable knowledge of things doesn't come from the same tools. The Sight sounds pretentious and New Age-y to him, but... he's had a soulgaze before, and there is nothing ridiculous about the experience. It's an epiphany laid out for you, leaving a deep mark on you like a scar. It does warrant a little pretentiousness.

Harry's eyes open, and immediately there is something different to them. They track along the room for a second, sliding to John before bouncing away from him. There is a small wrinkle on Harry's brow as his eyes narrow, yet still remain distant. It's not as though Harry is looking through him, but like he's just seeing something else entirely in John's place. Which he could be, for all John knows.

When he finally gets there, and it does take a moment, John watches a bead of sweat form and slide down Harry's face. The sheer force of concentration is terrifying to observe, especially aimed at him. He almost tells the wizard to stop, but Harry coughs out half of his odd expletive and his face changes. It's like sunlight breaking through the clouds, and Harry's mouth is slack in wonder. It is intensely disconcerting to have that regard aimed at him, and he desperately wants to know what the hell Harry s looking at like that, his pupils growing wide until there is just a thin amber ring circling the black.

Harry Dresden surprised and enraptured is an attractive visage, only marred by a hint of red sliding down to his lip from his nose.

John gets up at the same instant that Harry closes his eyes. A twang of guilt strums through him, and he's in front of Harry in a second. There's a Givenchy handkerchief in one of his pockets, a remnant of the suit he'd arrived to the island in. "I didn't know--" John starts, voice thick with apology as he boldly catches Harry's chin in a hand and sets the silk against his nose. "Are you all right?"

His lips are pressed together, white. This was not what he expected. He would not have asked in this case. He'll not say sorry, because outside Harry's little overmedicated torrent of apologies back when John was initially patching him up, the two of them don't do sorry.

"Hey," Harry jerks his head back at first, because with his hands over his eyes and John's footsteps so soft along the floor, he doesn't expect the man to be in his personal space that swiftly. There's what can only be a really nice handkerchief pressed to his nose, and he's breathing in silk and the scent of John's slept-in-clothes (which means the exhaust from his bike and his shampoo and the man himself). "I'm okay. This is nothing I can't handle."

Slowly, he peels his hands from his eyes and blinks through the tears. The circles under his eyes are stark, although he is not in agonizing pain. What he'd seen was painful, but when comparing it to other situations, it was not something that was painful with intentions to cause agony. "Trust me, I've seen worse than that." Lightly, he closes his hand around John's wrist, fingers seeking his pulse, pulling his hand back while Harry takes up the handkerchief and leans forward into it, groaning. "Give me a sec."

It takes about a minute, and he finally sits back. He hadn't let go all that time, he doesn't want John to retreat into whatever world he goes to when he's feeling guilty. "I'm sure the nosebleed came out of me trying to force myself to look through your ability. You either focus hard or you lose it," he explains absently, finally pulling the bloodied handkerchief away, testing his nose with the back of his hand gingerly to see whether or not the bleeding had stopped.

Harry stuffs the handkerchief into his pocket. It's habit, not mistrust. How to explain this? "Okay, see -Sight is more of an extrinsic ability; a soulgaze is more of an intrinsic. I was using it to look at how you were affecting the world around you, mostly. Let me tell you, it's like trying to look at the sun through a kaleidoscope. Hard to focus on, bright as hell."

It's good that Harry catches John's wrist, because he was about to step away, giving Harry as much space as possible. He's as quick to offer aid to the wizard now as he is to give the man space. Sometimes Harry yanks him into drugged hugs, and sometimes Harry needs nothing more than to be alone for a few hours. John's making a concentrated effort to read when is which.

"It's stopped," John informs him quietly. His eyes alight to the smear of red left above Harry's lip. The part of him that remembers the way his mother fussed at him wants to lick his thumb and rub the mess away. Best not though... Just that he's thinking of that means he's not awake enough to do much of anything, lest he endanger the delicate peace between himself and Dresden.

That handkerchief is the last piece of the suit he arrived to the Port in, and he almost demands it back before realizing how idiotic that would be. Christ, he needs a cup of coffee.

"By which you mean the Sight is something you have to work at while a soulgaze is simply waiting for a trigger," John translates, mostly to himself. Extrinsic, intrinsic-- it is all Greek to him, the tangles of magical theory and practice. "So my ability is... which? I was using it subconsciously for a long time, so intrinsic?"

And the pinched, pained look reminds him. Harry's still got his hand, and John is loathe to deprive him of something to hang onto like a clingy sloth, but he can lean far enough to reach the bag with the pills in it. It's suspiciously full, considering Harry's meant to take one every few hours. John gives him a stern look before handing it over. "Take one or the bike's going to play havoc on your leg when we drive back."

The handkerchief is long gone by now. Though lost to the deep pockets of Harry's jeans is better than lost to the black hole that is the pocket of his duster and all the little bits and bobbles that he picks up and squirrels away. Fishing line. A broken chunk of cobblestone. A scarred and scratched CD. The teeth of a zipper. Rubber bands - one could never have too many rubber bands. Why, it wouldn't be long until he hauled home something bigger than what would fit in his pockets, proud as punch that he'd scored so much material - thick with use and energy and old memories.

Harry knows that his roommate wouldn't go using his blood against him, too. That's why he touches his fingers to his pocket and drags the thing out slowly, reluctant to give it back. He took it. Fair and square. Some less-than-scholarly part of him doesn't want it for material; he's not going to be that honest with himself. "Ah, sorry." He doesn't want John to think he doesn't -- well, trust him. It's weird, thinking that he trusts the guy, but it also works just right. He offers the handkerchief back, apologizing with a frown for bloodying it up.

Harry rubs the back of his hand just under his nose, as though John's staring has alerted him to the fact that there might still be blood staining his face. It's a fruitless gesture, but at least it confirms that he isn't going to bleed all over his shirt. "It's a really intelligent ability," he explains gladly, gesturing to the outline of John's body. Finally, he's let go of the man's wrist. "Entirely intrinsic, just waiting for a stray thought to drag it around your body and into your skin and boom - you're gone. Well. You're not really gone, you're just telling people you are. And they believe you. It's almost like you're impressing your will out and onto your environment - it's scary-cool."

Harry smiles, just a little. It's clear that even though John doesn't like his ability, the wizard is enamored with it. He wants to explore it, take notes on it, work with John and see where the limitations lie and how to use it in creative ways. Even if he does have a terrible headache and the other man is practically dumping pills down his throat with his demands. A faint scowl, and Harry deigns to take his medication (he hasn't been, there's nothing more he hates than being drugged to the gills and fuzzy-headed when he needs to be sharp as a tack and hard as diamond). He pops a pill, and hands the bottle back. "Time to go back, yeah?"

The amount of relief John feels at having back that one piece of who he was before November is unsettling. He misses it more than he ever expected: the resources at his fingertips, the control over his environment, the armors he wore (be they kevlar or Armani), the two tall shadows that offered him their advice and camaraderie, and yes, sometimes the money. There's something reassuring in having the handkerchief back, and there is something about having Harry's blood on it now that makes him wish he had a poetic bone in his body so he could understand it.

"I'm glad you find it so intriguing. Someone should," John says bitterly. He can tell that Harry finds this bit of inherent magic worth merit and possibly study, but... John knew that when he asked Harry to use his Sight on John, it'd bring a confirmation of what he already knew. Somehow, it still stings. It's still that feeling of wrongness. And the worst of it is that, in hindsight, he can see just how often he leaned on his quiet power. He can't stop now. He couldn't support them so easily if he did.

If Harry wanted to play with it, he'd let him, because he's not so petty he'd squander an advantage. But he's not about to enjoy it.

Pocketing the pills, John puts a hand on Harry's shoulder. "Sit. Drink a bottle of water. I'll get everything back in the bike." Squeezing once, John steps away, moving to gather their supplies and replace them on the bike.

It is dreadfully poetic, isn't it? It was poetic when John took the time to muck up Harry's blood trail on the floor of their apartment. It was pretty poetic when he spent the time and energy hauling his ass to safety, after Harry had realized that the only person he had to contact was the one person he knew he could count on to turn up - for whatever reasons John had besides the fact that they were the only one each other had. That alone was a fact that caused all sorts of complicated feelings.

Harry doesn't have much to say in lieu of John's bitter feelings for his unwanted ability. He opens his mouth to say something encouraging, but this isn't anyone who can just receive a pep talk and a few uttered reassurances and call it helpful. Harry doesn't even think that offering anything like that is good enough. So, he shuts his mouth, and clears his throat awkwardly. This is going to eat at John, and eat him up - and the wizard knows it, he knows from experience, god damn it all. Anything short of something meaningful is not going to help whatsoever.

"It's like y--" He begins, and bites back what he wants to say. He'd like to get up and help, but he knows in a matter of minutes, all the colors are going to explode all over again, and he won't have the brain to differentiate between where one thought begins and another ends. Whee, drugs. So, while he can, Harry sits back and lets John have at the supplies, his hands in his lap and his thoughts focused on What Do I Do for as long as he can, before his ideas become fuzzy and ludicrous and far-flung and utter lunacy.

While John's busy - Harry writes notes, for as long as he can until they've become stray doodles and nonlinear thoughts and sloppy scribbles that he probably thinks are the long lost works of Marlowe or something. It's going to be a long, contemplative-slash-trippy ride back to the city, that's for sure.

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The Normpocalypse!

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