Split Knuckles

Location: Kiara’s Apartment

Status: Closed (@spitethestrong)

Abigail has only felt like twice before in her life. The first was when she came out to her family; the second was the night she left her childhood home for good. Heart in her throat, torn between the exhilaration of everything changing and the terror of nothing ever being the same. The whole world open for her to take, hers to harness or to be consumed by whole. She thinks it might be the best feeling in the world.

A man is dead, she reminds herself, her hands shaking as she tries to fit her key in the lock to Kiara’s apartment. Out of the dozens of feelings crowding her heart, one or two of them must be mourning-adjacent, but they’re not the ones currently taking her attention. She’ll have time for that later, reflection on why she doesn’t feel worse, if she should feel guilty for not feeling worse. Guilt isn’t something she’s all that familiar with, but Benjamin was good to her, apart from the knife he’d left in her back. Still, as the key slides home and Kiara’s door clicks open, dead Kings are the last thing on her mind.

“Kiara,” she whispers in the dark hallway, voice child-giddy even to her own voice. She stumbles getting her coat off, throwing her boots carelessly behind her. Then, singsong, as she heads towards the bedroom door, half-closed: “Kiaraaa!”

This is what she expects: Kiara waiting for her with her phone in her hands, maybe more upset than Abigail, maybe disapproving that Abigail isn’t more upset, but willing to be brought to Abigail’s side after a few minutes in her giddy presence. Abi draping herself over Kiara’s bed, chattering about plans and dreams and next steps, half-covered by a throw blanket, eyes practically sparkling. Kiara looking half-smiling and indulgent, shooting down the ideas that are plainly absurd. Abi’s enthusiasm finally waning as she throws herself on her back, sighing and resting her head in Kiara’s lap, looking up at her face as she lets a crack of doubt show through her own. Kiara’s hands combing through her hair. “What do you think, my dear? Would you be up for all that?” And the unspoken question, And do you think I could pull it off?

No. She wouldn’t let it come to that. She would leave in the dead of night and disappear somewhere else where she could be safe. Maybe it wouldn’t be right to leave all those she had come to know and care for like this, but she didn’t want to sacrifice herself for it. If she left her sister, she could leave the Kings too.

She was so deep in her thoughts, in her choice, that she hadn’t even heard Abigail come in. Foolish. Her guard was down, now of all times. It would’ve made her laugh if Abigail didn’t look so stunned. Kiara stared at her for a moment, taking in the smallest of trembles in Abigail’s hand, before back up at her. She suddenly realized she didn’t want to tell her she was leaving. 

“Read my mind?” she wanted to ask like a coward, but that wasn’t fair to Abigail. She deserved more of an explanation than that. She deserved more than Kiara leaving too, but she tried not to think of it.

Today, while the sun was high, so was Isaac – well, physically speaking, at least. Sometimes literally in a different sense, but currently he was quite sober as he was elevated above the city. The later hours and setting sun made the streets and alleyways more tempting for him to explore, but during the day, and quite a sunny one at that, his sights were set on the skies and the challenges the different buildings this city had to offer proposed to his easily tempted mind. He didn’t pay much attention to the cold as he climbed towards the warmth, plus it was harder to get found once he finally got up there (and up there, and up over there, too) – not to mention he had the police walkie talkie with him to send them on a chase below him like ants in a maze of his own amusement. There was also the potential to make some cool tiktoks up there, a fact he’d already capitalized on and have already muted the notifications for as he basked in the warmth of the sun desperately trying to fight off the chill of the day.

Isaac’s voice was the first thing that pulled her gaze away, and it was probably the maternal instinct screaming through. The desire to hide and shield her sister from the worst of it spilling over towards Isaac in a desperate attempt to control something, anything about this situation. Even though Isaac was Blackburn. Even though Isaac had no reason to trust her, a King, anymore, she still wanted to reach out and touch his hair and pull him away by his shoulders.

Cain rolls his eyes skyward. He’s not usually a fan of people throwing their weight around, especially not when they’re throwing their weight around trying to take something away from him, but Kiara is hot enough to make it work. He takes the avocado because it’s the only ripe one in all of Chicago apparently. 

“Yeah yeah, you’re not impressing anyone Ki, we both already know you peg me.” That gets him a weird look from an old lady passing by. Cain ignores it in favor of throwing a couple of the better-looking avocados into Kiara’s cart. “How you doin? I haven’t seen you around since this shit show with the peace treaty started.”

Perhaps it was the complete lack of shits given about her strength that made Cain so appealing to spend time with. Or maybe it was how unafraid he seemed. She liked that. He was interesting like that. And he certainly knew how to make her chuckle, her eyebrows flying to her hair line with amusement at his dismissal. Still, she let it lie and instead rested her arms against her cart, sighing at the mention of the treaty.

“It’s a mess. I don’t even know where to begin. But I’m holding out hope for future agreements. There are more important things to be fighting,” she said, lowering her voice significantly as she trailed off, before she carefully switched her braid to the other shoulder, picking at the hair tie in a rare show of nerves. “Something serious is coming, Cain. And there is always strength in numbers,” she said ominously, before she rubbed her temple. 

LOCATION: Trader Joe’s DATE: Friday TIME: 5:30 PM STATUS: OPEN

The problem with avocados is that you never know if you’ve got a good avocado until you give it a squeeze. Unfortunately, when you’ve got indelicate punchy fist hands like Cain’s it means you bruise every goddamn avocado you touch, ripe or not. He’s got about 15 avocados in his basket and none of them are good. There’s one avocado left in the entire damn store which means that Cain’s got one chance at getting good guac tonight. 

He’s reaching for it when another hand swoops in out of nowhere, closing around it like a vice.

Motherfucker. Cain is not about to buy 15 unripe bruised avocados and exit this Trader Joe’s without the only ripe ‘cado in all of Chicago. 

Maybe if Kiara wasn’t so deep in thought, she would’ve noticed Cain and at least greeted him, instead, his face startled her, if only because he wasn’t a stranger. The threat finally sank in, and Kiara couldn’t help but smile with faint amusement.

When: Dec 29, 2019

Status: OPEN

The bar is an old haunt, a mutant-friendly establishment on the edge of Ukranian Village, low-key enough the owner lets Abigail smoke inside as long as she stays near the window. It helps he’s an old friend. Abi has lots of old friends in this town. She’d freelanced her powers in the months she’d still been courting the Kings and had loved it, the simple satisfaction of solving a problem for someone else. It was almost all small, petty things– the trivial mysteries of daily life, cheating spouses and two-timing business partners. It had made a lot of money, but more importantly it’d collected her a lot of favors, ready to cash in as needed. Earning the trust of the owner of her favorite bar had been a plus.

Abigail’s nursing a whisky sour, undecided on whether to get drunk tonight. She feels the old tug to give into temptation, muffle her mind under a thick glaze of liquor and someone else’s affection, playing off a stranger’s mind until she’s captivated them, the focused attention singing through her body. Wow, it’s like I’ve known you forever. Cultivate adoration, and slip out the door before sunrise. 

It’s been a while since she’d done something like that, nursing old wounds with new strangers. Joining the Kings had given her a sense of belonging and purpose, validation that helped temper whatever hungry void pushed her out of bed each morning. Tonight, though, she’s not feeling exactly herself. On her way out of her apartment she’d turned off her phone. And then at the elevator she’d paused, gone back to open her door, and chucked the damn down the hallway.

She fiddles with a cigarette in her hand, not so much wanting to smoke it as needing to busy her hands. She’s trying not to think of her sister’s name, lighting up her phone, relentless these past few days. How she’d even gotten the number, Abi hadn’t a clue, but she was ready to take apart whoever had given it up to Laila, piece by bloody piece. 

She curls her fingers tighter around her drink. Of course it was possible her sister had changed. Abigail would be able to tell within moments of being with her in person, if that calculating brain of hers had opened up itself and let in some genuine love and warmth for once. If she’d started to actually care about Abigail as someone beyond her childhood competitor, the one person between her and winning the only spot in her parent’s limited affections. It had been so long since their childhood, but some divisions couldn’t be healed by time alone, and at this point Abi had stopped hoping. Whatever Laila wanted, Abi didn’t want to hear it, and certainly not over the phone, where she couldn’t read her sister’s intentions. She just wasn’t ready to be disappointed again, to feel that poisonous resentment radiating from her closest kin, cold heat where love should have been.

Abigail feels a touch on her shoulder, either on accident or to get her attention, she doesn’t know and doesn’t care. She half-turns, smile ready, aching for the distraction like a painkiller for a migraine. “Can I help you?”

Here Kiara could watch, without being called out. She could sit and experience the amusement of watching someone a couple too shots too drunk fall over, without having to worry about them getting home at the end of the night. Overall, it was a place where she could be alone, while surrounded by others. 

Be as that may, that did not mean that when she saw Abigail, she did a one-eighty and headed in the other direction. No, it would be rude not to greet her, especially since Kiara liked to think she had something of a repertoire with the other, working as close to her as she did. It was why she used gently cuffed her shoulder with the hand holding her drink, offering Abigail an almost hidden smile as she lifted her glass in her direction. 

strawbs 🍓