#( catalyst. )

[grrlmusic]

Gramicci

[sylvianneliu-blog]

➢ C R E S C E N D O

@jacklevesque

Like most typical days, Sylvianne wasn’t exercising much in the way of patience when it came to the freshman that swarmed the quads, glancing up at the towering buildings and the words etched into ancient stone. They had been there for over one semester now, but still it seemed that a new bunch of them found themselves enthralled by their surroundings every day, creating an impossible weave of camera phone toting dummies in the midst of the campus. She lifted her hand, dodging a selfie stick-- the mobile went clattering to the ground in response. 

Usually, when she made eye contact after such an encounter, the gaze was downturned and sorry. Sylv was much more accustomed to striking fear and obedience in those that she came across. Instead, she saw a scene of a flaxen haired girl scrambling for her android (she scoffed at the chunky case) and her companion, dark eyed and glowering. 

“Pute.” He had said more, but she hadn’t caught it-- the way he stepped up was more of a stomp than anything else: a sign of aggression that made her clamp down on her teeth. She began to work out a response, mulling over equally sharp syllables when a much larger figure reached out, shoving him backwards. Her brows tugged in until she came to recognition.

Jack.

[dulcectdecorum]

midmorning, a few days post tower attack, dulce’s fancy ass cambridge home ( @catclyst​​. )

Going from living utterly alone, to having four covert houseguests, only one of whom he actually knows well, meaning there are a half a dozen people coming and going constantly to visit them, is an adjustment to say the least. With Shadow’s own unexpected new live-in guest, he doesn’t feel like it’s fair to escape to Shadow’s townhouse to take refuge from the chaos overnight, and that’s without considering, of course, that he had promised to play security for the defectors, and so play security he has. All of this, and he still hasn’t managed to figure out a good time and place to meet his brother to discuss the still very real target on his back, considering the manor no longer feels safe, thanks to his own involvement in the grand Tower happenings, and White’s well-founded concerns over that.

Peace isn’t really possible in the house any longer, even if there is enough space that it’s possible not to see any of the others for hours at a time. Overload’s always been terribly loud, though, and there seems to be a constant sting of coming and going of people visiting his houseguests, or the more independent of the four leaving, against his advice, to meet others elsewhere. Mostly, though, they don’t directly bother him, besides Overload, which he’s glad for, thrilled to have her around, even if she could use some work on boundaries, and the odd need to force Specter into taking care of himself with a command or two since it still feels too dangerous to let him free of his command entirely.

So it’s no shock that, sitting at the table in the sunroom at the back of his house, doing a bit of light reading, with a cup of perfectly brewed tea, enjoying the very brief moment of silence, that it’s interrupted just as he brings the cup to his lips for the first sip.

He looks up, expecting Overload, but is greeted by Catalyst instead, apparently stopping for a chat for some reason, instead of leaving immediately after her visit with whichever of the four refugees he was currently housing in his guest wing. With a little sign, he puts down his cup of tea, ignoring the way his wrist twinges with the motion, both wrists still feel just slightly wrong, despite the healing, the phantom sensations of the gunshots very much sticking around. He doesn’t very well feel like having this argument now––in fact, he was hoping that she might be busy enough with the fallout of her almost annoyingly, certainly impressively well-executed plans that she wouldn’t have time to find him to pick a fight. But nothing is simple, as evidenced by literally everything that’s happened in the past several weeks, so he doesn’t bother to try to put it off any longer if that is what she’s seeking just now.

“Has the time come to listen to the list of complaints regarding how I handled my part of your mission at last?” he asks blandly, folding his hands over the book sitting in front of him on the table.