if the sky can crack [OTA mingle]

[sixthiteration]

Hail had been falling for two days now, peppering the ground and shredding the grass but rather than melt away like a late spring storm it had only intensified, growing in diameter and moving from a mild annoyance to damned near deadly. As the storm raged, ice flew up through updrafts and was forced back to earth in the downdraft, accumulating layer after layer of murky debris until it went hurtling toward the earth with wicked accuracy.

Shingles were ripped from roofs, the wind howled and lightning cracked. The hail had driven both humans and animals into the safety of the indoors, to the dark corners of buildings that might withstand the assault. With only candlelight and the hushed voices of villagers to stave off fear and boredom, the storm raged like a sentient being heedless of those who might be caught in the path.

After the storm, a calm came over the land and weak sunlight glinted off smoke-tinged ice. Steam rose from the melt and humidity was thick in the air; petrichor hung heavy, a soothing scent after a savage display of natural fury.

[OOC: Your hail mingle post. Feel free to have characters on the run, gathering animals or inside the Town Hall waiting out the storm.]

Comments

[3ofswords]

"Well if we had coins, I'd flip you one for it," he spits, vitriol stirred up to the surface by the weather, the rush home through the trees, the fact of Ren's house done in by lightning only months before. But there's only so much of it, and his nerves do better with a roof between them and the storm.

"Sure, just leave your boots by the door." He peels himself out of his own, leaves them with the wet branch against the back wall, and pads into the house proper still dripping from all his clothes. "I don't think I have anything that will really fit you," even Casey's clothes aren't for a man of Ravi's height. "We could try letting out the overalls all the way, maybe."

[zomboligist]

Ravi pries off the boots and settles them by the door with his hat to settle on top of it, dripping and making a bit of a puddle, but truthfully, Ravi's just happy to be inside where he can listen to the ice pellets hit the roof, though the idea of the shingles coming off wildly does make him wary.

"Any pants?" he suggests. "I don't mind wearing capris around the house so long as you can excuse the fashion faux pas."

[3ofswords]

"I already suffered that hat, I don't know if I can handle another," he says, padding barefoot across the house to his room. The squall outside hasn't let up--if anything it sounds worse, hail striking the roof with the force of a hammer, rain hissing and wind howling. It's strange to think they were just outside in it, that they were really that stupid.

"I don't know how Bodhi's special tea set really works, and I don't think he'd appreciate us touching it either way, so you'll have to settle for what I can manage with the kettle." When he returns, he has Casey's grey scrubs, which might at least fit Ravi in the waist, if not much anywhere else.

The sweater won't be much better--he's pretty sure it was left in the collection pile by a woman who happened to be taller than himself, but nowhere near Ravi's height, but it's bulky and warm, and the knit can stretch. "You're going to look a mess, but you'll be dry."

[zomboligist]

"You're just jealous that I can make hats work," Ravi replies, seeing as he does feel like he can work a hat, especially since it gives him a little extra height and makes him that much more scarily imposing and giant-like, even if he is a beanpole. He takes the scrubs and heads for somewhere a little private to change, grateful that they don't look entirely like flood pants.

They only look a little like it, so as he tries to adjust them, offering an apologetic look as he takes the sweater. "I feel like the inevitable crop top you're about to see me wear warrants an apology," he admits. "It's not going to be pretty, I don't wax," he says, gesturing to his stomach in a circle.

[3ofswords]

Kira's never been body-shy, or any other version of it, and he wanders back toward the bathroom from Ravi's private corner leaving wet clothing in his wake. When he returns, he's in his thermals with a coat pulled over, holding a towel in one hand and a Snuggie in the other, hair mussed something closer to dry.

"I don't know what kind of man you take me for," he asks Ravi passing over the towel first, "if you don't realize I like a little fur on my company." The black length of plush fabric, pilled from use and improper wash, hangs bundled in his other hand. "I'm pretty sure if you turn these things around they're just robes, so you can cover your shame with this."

[zomboligist]

"Your dog has told me that," Ravi deadpans, though he thinks that he's grown as a person in that he's standing here worried about his clothes instead of on his knees petting the dog and ignoring Kira wholeheartedly. He reaches out for the fabric with relief, adjusting them so that he sort of looks vaguely senatorial, spinning like he's on the catwalk. "Well? Who wore it better?"

"Me, or the depressed girl who just got broken up with and is now watching Legally Blonde for the tenth time," he quips.

[3ofswords]

"I would chew off my own hand to be able to watch Legally Blonde any number of times," Kira says, with feeling. After a beat, he spares a glance to the ceiling, as if it occurs that someone might be listening, and that someone might have the power to make that exchange happen.

When Ravi returns the towel, Kira uses it to pick up the wet clothes and carry them back to the bathroom. On his way back, he opens the bedroom door, letting Aurora wander out with her tail and head dropped low, trying to creep below the storm's notice through the house. She gives Ravi's hand only the softest, mildest lick, before dropping down again. "Well, if we didn't know things were fucked out there, she could have told us."

[zomboligist]

"Me too," Ravi confesses, though he'd put a stop to it after two viewings because he might be depressed some days, but that would just be sad. "Honestly, I'd chew off more than that to play Diablo or Call of Duty," he mopes, shaking a hand through his hair to try and get some of the moisture out.

He figures that he's ignored the dog long enough, crouching down to give her a thorough scratch behind her ears. "Hello beautiful," he greets warmly, groaning wistfully. "I miss having a dog around," he says. "The lab rats just aren't the same."

[3ofswords]

"Well, promise not to experiment on her and you can see her as much as you like." Aurora hasn't seemed to have met a person here she wouldn't claw the boots of and offer clods of dirt. Kira hasn't had enough dogs to know if she's good or bad, and sometimes when he tells her go home he just finds her eating bees near a person or landmark she knows, but she comes when she's called and she hasn't mauled anyone, so he figures he's doing an alright job of raising her.

Ravi's mention of the games gets a tight smile and a nod, but as Kira moves across the kitchen to find and fill the kettle, he gives it a little more thought. "With the quarantine," he says, "it's been...something like a year since I've used the internet. This place seems to like entertaining us with lightning and earthquakes, or--" he gestures to the ceiling, still facing the sink.

"I used to party a lot," he admits. "Dancing at clubs, picking people up. It was a big city, there was a lot of trouble to find, temporary friends to find it with. Strange how the people here are more permanent when we can literally disappear." It isn't meant as another dig at Ravi's actions, but he does cast him a glance when he moves down the counter to put the kettle on the stove. "Grab me some wood, it's stacked by the back door."

[zomboligist]

"Dogs are for cuddling and talking to, not experimentation," Ravi vows, seeing as he would never have allowed Minor to be an experiment. Apparently, he had allowed him to be the dog of a frozen zombie victim, but that's neither here nor there. "I miss the internet," he complains. "I miss my cell phone. I definitely miss YouTube videos and the ability to google something. I swear, I wouldn't be half as useless if I could just google my way out of a bad situation."

"I partied once," Ravi says proudly. "It lasted about six hours, but I met a lovely girl who turned out to be a stalker and I table-danced." He was roaring high on Utopium and Liv had been on frat-boy brains, but it had all worked out. Heading to the back door, he grabs the wood as he speaks. "You don't feel like starting up the village's first rave bar?"

[3ofswords]

"If you know how to make those glowing tube shots from scratch, I will put in whatever leg work you ask of me," Kira promises, though he doubts the combination of Ravi's complaints about booze and scientific mind would have just been waiting for him to come along before solving that particular problem.

"And hey," he adds, shoving wood only a little damp from its proximity to the door into the stove, "if it stays this wet, maybe the fields will mold and we can all start hanging each other in our acid-trip paranoia."

[zomboligist]

"Sadly, I didn't spend my time at school learning how to do that," Ravi says with a sad shake of his head, though it would be nice to be able to let loose and just sort of party hard. Not that he really ever parties on a regular basis, so much as in a controlled scientific environment with a watchful friend nearby to ascertain how Utopium affects you.

He really is fun at parties.

"I've seen far too many acid trips gone wrong to think that sounds exciting," he admits, trying to tug his sleeves a little longer. "What if the hail doesn't stop?" he asks, unable to get his mind off it. "Do you think we're in trouble?"

[3ofswords]

"I guess I should ask the guy who all but told me he ran guns and brothels back home," he sighs, leaning his head back as the damp wood starts to smoke, catching on embers. "But, you know, super clean and empowering ones where women are only there because they have a love of the craft, or something."

He's rolling his eyes even now, standing up to leave the kettle boiling and walking far enough away that Aurora starts to look between them, like she's not sure who might need her comfort--or give her more attention for it--in this situation. He doesn't push her by making a noise or gesture in either direction.

At the window, he runs a hand along the sill to check the seals: the wood is damp, and it's entirely possible a piece of hail is going to bust a window or three before the end of the night. It just reminds him of the panes Casey had gutted from Ren's house, the start of a slow-burning fight that Kira regrets, now. Those materials are sitting in the cellar with the wood and stove, waiting to serve their purpose, and Casey isn't waiting anywhere. "I think we're always in trouble, one way or another. If the hail doesn't stop we just deal with it. Between the two of us we can probably trek out under the dining room table if we have to."

Turning back, he shrugs with half a smile: "You'll understand if I eat you before I eat the dog, right?"

[zomboligist]

Ravi starts to lean towards Aurora, because if Kira isn't going to steal the dog's attention, then he is more than willing to be that guy. He makes a little hand motion and beams when she actually drifts closer, like he's just won a lottery. Really, this is better, this is the love of a dog. Who wouldn't want that? "I'd like to think we could attempt to eat some of the more organic parts of the house before we turn to cannibalism," he says conversationally, like this is just the sort of thing that two men talk about in their spare time.

"Or," he offers, "we could lure someone in from outside and work together to eat them!" That's just true friendship, as far as Ravi's concerned, and it shows real gumption in working together.