This War of Mine (Alvis & BaadBaarbie)

[Alvis Alendran]

No one had expected it to come down like this. No one thought it could really all fall apart this quickly. It had been a nation with every advantage that could be thought of, with one of the most robust economies and excellent technology. But now...well, no one was even sure that it was a nation anymore. The rebellion had been far better equipped than anyone had thought, adn ahd moved quickly to capture adn occupy numerous cities, consolidating their power. But there were a few vital targets that had been denied them.

One of them was the might New York.

The beating economic heart of the nation, losing it would cripple the economy within weeks. Of course, it being cordoned off, and put under siege had resulted in something similar. And when the economy started to collapse, the delicate balance of the rest of the world came down with it.

It was the Russians that moved first, planning to exploit the opening to make a land grab, they landed in Florida and pushed inland. China wasn't far behind, moving quickly to stop the Russians from making too much headway and gaining an unassailable advantage. Once both armies were involved in fighting, the rebels and the loyalists went to fighting everyone, still not able to unite even in the face of the foreign assault.

New York was still nominally held by Loyalist forces, but only just. There were pockets of rebels within, and the Russians had taken over the siege lines. They had severed the train lines cleanly and quickly, and blockaded the port. Overland routes were closed off, and a siege work was dug to make sure that nothing got out of hte city without the Russians knowing. The only remaining way in was the Brooklyn Bridge, battered, but still standing defiantly in the face of the attack. Each end of the bridge was sealed off, the city end by the Loyalists, the other end by the Russians, with small pockets of Rebels using the maintenance areas to stay alive and cause problems for anyone trying to cross.

The Rebels had fired some shells into the city to try and dislodge the Loyalists, but the siege had been relatively mild, order staying largely intact.

The Russians changed that.

The first day, they unleashed Katyusha rockets, raining explosive death into the city, blasting out huge sections of the once mighty skyline. Panic reigned, and things began to break down very quickly.

Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in that opening volley, and even more died in the vicious infighting that began almost overnight as external power was cut, limiting the amount of buildings and services that could be powered.

By day, most people stayed under cover by necessity. The Loyalists were firing on the "Rebels, and Rebel Sympathizers" that they saw moving, which seemed to be anyone. And the Rebels opened fire on "Servants of the Oppressors" which also happened to be anyone they saw moving in the day.

Even worse than that were the bands of looters that moved around by night, doing all they could to consolidate their own position, and taking everything they could from anyone they could. It was hard to survive, staying on the move left you safer from looters, but more vulnerable to soldiers. Holing up did the opposite.

But the survivors were just that. Survivors to the core, still moving forward and living as best they can. But even these hardy souls are a single mistake away from death...

It had bee a stupid idea to the core, and he knew it, knew it from the start. But hunger occasionally made people stupid, and it had come down on him quickly. He knew that the tenement building was occupied, and by people that never seemed terribly sympathetic to the plight of others. But he'd found a way inside, adn raided their stash of food. Of course he'd screwed up the exit completely, and they'd opened fire on him as he ran. The sound of shots had drawn the attention of the soldiers, and He'd not been able to stop running since. Small walls that gave cover weren't strong enough to stand up to more than a few shots, and he wasn't sure if his continued survival was by picking his moments well, or if he was just being toyed with.

The man on the move called himself Ben, and he made a good target really. Taller than most, and well built, he'd made a living at one of the foundries in the city before it had taken a shell, blasting the building apart, along with most of the workers. Ben hadn't been at work that day, taking a personal day to rest, which had turned out to be the best call he'd made in his entire life. He'd tried to help some of his neighbours shift the rubble from some of the destroyed buildings, but the advent of the sniper fire had ended that plan. When his own home had been leveled, he'd been forced to go on the move.

Now, a week later, hunger and desperation had dropped him in this situation.

A bullet hammered into the pavement near his feet. Ben had to jump to the side, hopefully throwing off the aim of the snipers, and he dove forward. He rolled along the ground, aiming for the wall of a nearby building. When he slammed into the wall, it gave. With a startled yelp, he fell into the building. He landed hard on his back in what had to be the basement. He groaned, but as he lay there, he realized that the sounds of gun shots had stopped. Wherever he was, it seemed...safer than the outside. He picked himself up, brushing himself off as best he could, and looking around. If he was going to be stuck here for awhile, he might as well look around.

 

[luminesse]

Growing up in London, she’d never really had the privilege of learning what a gunshot sounded like. When she’d moved to New York, she’d chalked the near-to-nightly popping a block away from her shitty flat up to fireworks; Americans were a celebratory sort, she found. It wasn’t until her decidedly very American flatmate had come back from down the street out of breath and covered in someone else’s blood that she’d even registered that those fireworks were in fact gunfire.

That was just six months ago. How daisy fresh she had been then, bright-eyed and ready to start her career on Broadway. April had been dancing for as long as she could remember and for just as long she had been dreaming of dancing her way across all the big cities of the world. She had started her venture in London’s upper east side and slowly but surely had worked her way into dance troupes that led her at last to the Big Apple. She had dreams—Paris, Milan, Moscow—but dreams took time. She had had faith then that she would make it there someday.

When it had gone to hell, she’d been at practice. She’d caught the flash out of the corner of her eye, reflected in the floor-to-ceiling mirror at her side. One foot still propped up on the barre, she had straightened to look out the window just in time to brace herself against the shockwave that rattled the building. She was still trying to pick the remainder of the shattered glass out of the side of her scalp. In an instant, nearly an entire block had been leveled.

Truth be told, she had no dog in this fight. She’d barely known a thing about American politics before moving abroad—a conscious choice, but in hindsight, a wistfully stupid one. The situation hadn’t seemed nearly so fraught. She’d hardly listened to the chatter on the news anyways. She was always so busy with this or that…

Now, as she ran around a barrage of fire somewhere between 56th and 9th, she wished she hadn’t been so damn busy. She wished she’d emptied her savings and booked the first flight home. Perhaps things were just as awful at home, but April liked to think the British were a much more sensible breed. But… here she was, risking her life for canned corn and some Advil.

So, Central Park had been a bad idea. She would admit it. The greens were teeming with ambushes—it was a risk, but she knew there was a holdout there worth raiding. In the end, she hadn’t been able to make it that far, barely managing to make it out of a mostly-torn-apart pharmacy before she came under fire. As she ran, she fumbled with the zipper pocket of her sport jacket, grappling for the keys to her apartment building.

She wasn’t honestly stupid enough to stay on her eighth floor flat, but there was a cozy cellar that she’d done her best to bunker up in for the last few weeks. It was the only place she’d been able to smoke a blunt before, but now weed was the last thing on her mind. (It made her too damn hungry and she’d go through her entire stash if she wasn’t careful.)

April managed to outrun the fire for just long enough to turn the corner and duck into the alcove where the door was. Her hand was shaking, but despite the added challenge she managed to unlock the door. She slammed it behind her, pressing her back to the wall before sinking to the floor.

Corn and Advil. Corn and fucking Advil.

Once she had gathered her bearings, April removed a bobby pin from the underside of her ponytail, bending it so that she could pick the lock to the cellar. She’d dropped the janitor’s keys down a grate a week and a half ago and she was still kicking herself. She was running through bobby pins faster than she was comfortable with, but for now this jimmy-rigged system for managing the lock would have to do.

She bolted the door and descended the stairs. The candles were still lit, but despite the warmth of the light, the cellar was still cool and damp. She had done her best to cozy it up by hanging quilts and laying down pillows, but she felt that she was only leaving fodder for the rats. The bastards had already managed to figure out a way into her dried goods. She was meant to tackle the problem that night, but she needed a cigarette first.

April dumped her backpack at the base of the stairs, fumbling around in her pocket for her lighter and her last pack of cigarettes. She closed her eyes as she made to light one, cursing herself for falling back into her old secondary school habits. Just as she flicked her thumb over the lighter, there was a distinct bang followed by the rattle of crumbling drywall and cinder. April’s eyes snapped open, greeted by the dust that rolled in the sunlight pouring through a hole in her once perfect cellar.

Out of instinct, she reached for the baseball bat beside the wide self she’d commandeered for her bed. She dropped the cigarette and the lighter on the ground as she crept over the rubble… there was a body, and she prayed it was just that: a body.

She hadn’t been forced to kill anyone yet, and she wasn’t sure she had the nerve to start today.

 

[Alvis Alendran]

Ben gave a groan as he felt his back starting to protest falling from the street level to the floor. Not a pleasant way to finish a movement. He looked back at the hole in the wall. Cheap fucking construction to be sure. But then that might have more to do with the crater not far from the building. Explosions tended to weaken walls. Maybe he was being too hard on the place. He realized that he was running his thoughts in random circles. He rubbed the back of his head, finding it a bit tender. Not a bad hit, but it seemed to have rung his bell a touch.

He rolled his shoulders, finding them a little wrose for wear as well. With a sigh, he realized that he was going to have to take a bit of a rest to recover his strength and try to ease the aches he'd just acquired. On his feet, he looked arounud the place he was in. A cellar to be sure, the kind found under a lot of places in this area of town. Usually a janitors place, also where teh heating was. Granted heating wasn't worth a damn anymore, not with the power grid closed off. There were a few functioning power stations in the city itself, though Gods only knew how long that was going to last. Between the Russians throwing bombardments into the city at random, and the fact that no one was really in a position to maintain the stations, it was only a matter of time before they stopped.

He heard a faint clatter in the cellar, and jerked his head towards the sound. Could just be rats, or some other kind of animal, but then again he might have landed himself in more trouble. His aches forgotten, adrenaline making it's way back into his mind. He took a few steps forward before catching sight of the source of the sound. Baseball bat. Woman. Someone else in the place.
"Whoa! Whoa whoa whoa!" He called, backing away from her, hands out in front of him, trying to not look threatening. He didn't want this to escalate any farther, he wasn't looking for trouble. Certainly didn't want to hurt someone that was just trying ot keep themselves safe. "Easy! Easy there! Not looking to start anything here!"

 

[luminesse]

Not dead. Dammit!

April shifted her grip on the bat as she watched his chest rise and fall, jumping a little when he reached for the back of his head. If she was lucky, he was disoriented. He wouldn’t be able to fight back. It was likely that she would be able to convince his dizzy, likely concussed ass right out of her cellar. It would give her enough time to grab the things she needed to survive. Now that he knew the cellar was compromised, she didn’t doubt he’d be back for whatever she left behind once he came to his senses.

She pressed herself flat to the drywall, but her sneakers scraped along the dislodged rubble underfoot, drawing his attention. April was small, certainly small enough not to be intimidating to the likes of him, but she did her best to seem like a threat, rearing the bat at her shoulder. She could hit pretty hard if she had to; she’d grown up with three brothers… hitting boys where it really hurt was practically second nature to her at this point in her life.

“Not looking to start anything?” April said, doing her best to keep the tremble out of her voice. “You came crashing through my wall, mate.” She paused as gun-fire clattered outside, echoing off the buildings that remained on the block. She was silent as she waited for it to cease. “What did you… what are you… how did you get through the wall?!”

 

[Alvis Alendran]

Talking. Talking was a good sign, it meant that he might actually be all right. He kept his hands up, backed away, putting distance between them, making sure he didn't make any move towards a weapon.
"Um...well, your wall...well, your wall sucked, okay? Rocket weakened it. I wasn't planning on...dropping in like this, I just wanted some cover for the moment. I know being out in the day is really stupid, what with the whole sniper thing and all, but I hadn't eaten in a long time, and...well, I knew where I could get something to eat. They just weren't eager to share, so I insisted, adn they chased me off. So...look, I don't want to impose on you. Just...maybe let me be for a few hours? nough for hte snipers to lose interest, adn I'll be on my way! I can even make it worth your while, okay?" He reached back to the side pouch on his pack, adn pulled out a can of food.

"Here. It's yours." He tossed it onto the floor near her foot. It was a tin of corned beef. And what was more, it had an expiration date that was still a ways off, and a key to open it was still attached. Canned food was a precious thign these days, doubly so if it was actually still good enough for human consumption, and ones that could be opened without other tools...well, Ben could vouch that he'd seen terrible things happen to people over a can like that, and here he was, willing to trade it for a few hours of rest out of sight. Not a good bargain on his part, but he was tired of running, fo fighting right now. He just wanted it to be done for the moment, wanted to sit down. All he could hope was that he'd found someone that was willing to be reasonable.

 

[luminesse]

“So you’re a comedian, then?” April said, twisting her fingers anxiously around the bat. “A comedian and a looter?” She resisted the urge to nervously glance at the locker behind him. Once a janitor’s supply closet, now it held all of the food she’d figured she’d need in order to wait out the storm. Americans prided themselves on being world liberators. Surely they’d be able to work it out quickly enough on home soil.

A can of food hobbled across the debris on the floor, nudging the toe of her sneaker. April glanced down and pursed her lips. She’d feel guilty taking that, even from a looter (and an idiot—a desperate idiot, but an idiot nonetheless). She allowed her grip to slack a little, moving out of a striking stance. The barrel smacked the ground without much fanfare as she leaned to collect the can and inspect it. Corned beef.

She sighed, turning the can in her hand before tossing it back to him. “I don’t want your food. You almost died to get it. I understand that.” She could handle feeding herself. “You won’t make it worth my while with corned beef anyways.” Not only did she hate corned beef, but one can wasn’t worth it when she had a gaping hole in the side of the one place in the city she’d felt safe in.

April was torn. Either they stayed here and risked someone nosy peeking into the hole, or she left and risked him taking her food. She wasn’t about to blatantly open the locker and dangle temptation in his face. He was obviously starving if he was running around in broad daylight and she didn’t want to leave him an opening to jack her supplies—or worse. She didn’t want to invite him up, but her conscience wouldn’t allow her to leave him to the wolves, either.

“Until nightfall. They tend to go quiet around nine, then they start back up when the moon is high. I don’t think they have any of that—” She waved her hand around, searching for the word. “Night-vision… stuff.”

 

[Alvis Alendran]

The accusation of being looter bothered him. He knew it wasn't entirely inaccurate at this point, but he still had to make things clear.
"Look, I'm not a looter normally! But I gotta eat, and those guys aren't exactly saints. I don't know if you'd seen, them, but we used to have a little group of Red Cross people coming around to hand out meals and blankets and stuff. These guys are the reason we don't have them anymore, since they shot them and took all their supplies. They also leave their back door unlocked." He shook his head. Not how he'd figured his day would be going. He couldn't believe when she tossed the can back.

It was all but a fortune in the current state of things. But he wasn't going to refuse taking it back if she didn't want it. Might think she was nuts, but that was okay. He sighed when she gave him a stay until nightfall.
"Nightfall is fine. More than I'd hoped for, so...thanks. I won't make any trouble for you." He stepped away from her, and then slowly shucked his pack onto the floor. He replaced the corned beef, and opened up the main pouch, rummaging through it for a moment. "My parents raised me right, I don't want to take something for nothing. I've got some other choices here if you don't want the beef." He pulled out a few of what was likely the real prizes from the stash he'd hit. MREs, in near every colour of the rainbow. He fanned out a trio of them. "We got chicken and rice, beef stew, and...pasta with garden veggies. They're self cooking even. Seriously, take one, you're being more than fair to me. Let me eat something myself, and I'll try adn do something about your wall while I wait for nightfall."

 

[luminesse]

“Am I wrong to be concerned about random strangers falling through the wall being looters?” April tilted her head, ponytail swaying between her shoulder blades. “You live here too. You obviously know what people are like—what people have become.” It wasn’t hard to understand their motivations, but understanding their desperation didn’t exactly excuse it. People were behaving like monsters, abandoning their humanity in favor of what? A can of SPAM?

She pitied them. She pitied their souls. Surely if they weren’t already there, they were headed straight to hell.

“The wall’s done for.” April sighed. “Forget about it. If all it took was your weight, I can’t imagine the rest of it’s going to hold for much longer.” That worried her; what did that say about the integrity of the building? Perhaps his falling through was a blessing in disguise. Better him than the entirety of the complex crushing her in her sleep. Then again… maybe not. There were less dignified ways to die these days.

“But…” She eyed his pack. “I’ll take that chicken and rice once we get upstairs.”

The blonde stooped to pick up her backpack, shouldering it as she adjusted her grip on the bat. She wasn’t planning on leaving it behind. He could claim to be honest all he wanted. She would trust him about as far as she could throw him for the moment. “Come on. I’ll walk you up.”

 

[Alvis Alendran]

Ben had to grit his teeth, a kind of reluctant smile that showed that he knew his line of logic was not a strong one. She had a point.
"Well, when you put it that way...you're not wrong I suppose." He admit. It wasn't a great revelation as far as he was concerned. While her dismissal of his attempts to work on the wall stung a moment, like a doubt of his abilities, he had to admit there were good odds that without some tools and supplies that he probably wouldn't find here that anything he managed to do tot he wall could be undone pretty quickly. He was too used to his own building, the place he'd called home, with enough suppliues to rebuild the place if he had to.

Of course that hadn't been helpful in the end.

Ben pushed the thought aside, it wasn't helpful, and collapsing into a grumpy brood was not exactly going to be conducive to building a good relationship with his host, brief as his stay might be. In times like this, something his father had told him when he was younger kept coming to mind. Be polite to people Ben. It costs you nothing and can buy you nothing less than your life. She was apparently taking him upstairs. That was somewhat unexpected, but it made a certain amount of sense. No sense hanging around in a place that had a gaping hole in the wall. Going elsewhere might at least give them a bit more of a sense of security. Polite. He stuffed the passed over meals into his pack, leaving hte one she wanted out, making sure it was still properly sealed and the heating unit was still in place. No sense giving her a defective unit.

"Thank you. For giving me the time, and...letting me out of your basement." He said honestly. It wasn't a lot of words, but he meant them, and it was all he could do at this point as he followed her.

 

[luminesse]

“Time’s all I’ve got to give these days, it seems.” If she had been in better spirits, she might have even smiled over her shoulder at him as she climbed the stairs. Instead, her taunt fell flat and her footsteps heavy. She dragged the door across the concrete floor, shoving it against the wall so that it would stay put. She’d likely come back for her food once the stranger was gone—if it was even still there by nightfall.

She dug around in her pocket as they climbed the stairs in silence, searching for the keys to her former flat. It had been well over a month since she’d gone up. She wasn’t certain she’d had the heart to since her cat had run off. Now that necessity begged it, she could swallow the bile that collected at the bottom of her throat. “One more flight.” She promised, ponytail bouncing in time to her steps. “I live—uh, lived on the eighth floor.” The correction was a little more heart wrenching than she’d expected.

The doors to many of the apartments were open. She’d heard looters upstairs not but a week ago, and good fortune had had it that they seemed to be too drunk to care to pry downstairs—or to make it too far upstairs. She took care to avoid the dried vomit in front of the fire extinguisher as she drew her keys from her pocket. Her flat was around the bend, and some small nostalgic part of her hoped that they hadn’t kicked the door in.

They had, but she shrugged and waved the stranger in before her. “Bastards.” She mumbled at the upturned furniture. All they were likely to find was memories… broken picture frames littered the floor, cabinet doors ripped from the frames and left across the kitchen counter and in the sink. “Bloody vultures… no sense of decency.”

She kicked the door shut, not expecting it to slam.

A beat of silence followed as April surveyed the damage. With a weary sigh, she kicked some of the glass to the side and looked to her guest. “My name is April, by the way. April Jackson.”

 

[Alvis Alendran]

Time. SHe might have a lot of it right now, but then, she had a shelter to hide in. He didn't let that make him bitter, more of just a pang of envy. After all, he'd had that once too. There was a sense of wanting to see if she'd let him stay here on a longer term basis, but he knew it would never happen. After all, she didn't trust him. No one trusted anyone these days. For all he knew she'd accept, and then kill him in his sleep for the food in his pack. He'd heard of worse going on in this city.

New York had been an incredible place before, if a little rough. He didn't find it anywhere near what people had preached it to be, especially the natives tot he city, who seemed to have some kind of absurd pride in the way the place was, even the terrible slums and stench of places. It was a city. Pure and simple. And when the chip were down, all of the ugly aggression that they kept suppressed had bubbled out. And the city had eaten itself alive quickly.

Ben was a little surprised at how she managed to shrug off the apparent trashing of her place. But he could still sense it, a bit of a weight to the way she held herself, the sense of loss in the place, even only a little. He supposed it was just one last thing that happened to her, one more thing on the pile of bad she'd had to endure since things went to hell. He knew he'd have likely stood his ground, fought off intruders, but he was also an idiot sometimes. Making sure there was ust nothing for them to take was a smarter move, would leave them less likely to try again, since if someone was willing to fight for something, it was a good chance they had something worth taking. She gave him her name. It had been awhile since anyone had bothered with the pleasantries of that kind of thing, adn it felt like a pang of memory, a familiar thing that he hadn't realized he'd been missing before now.
"Ben. I'm Ben Merrick. Good to meet you April." He said to her a little quieter than normal conversation. The exchange would have been trivial before it all went to the shit, but now it meant something to him. Was important to him. "Did...would you mind if I straighten a few things in here up while I wait? And here's your food, just pull the tab on the side and let it stand for a few minutes to finish cooking up."

 

[luminesse]

“Ben.” April repeated, so she would be less likely to forget it. She’d never been much for names, but nowadays, who knew if something as simple as a name could save your life? “You can leave the food on the counter for now. Not all that hungry.” It was mostly a lie. Her stomach was still too twisted into anxious knots to keep anything down, but she hadn’t eaten in well over two days. She’d been so preoccupied with sheer despair she’d entirely forgotten.

She didn’t give him an affirmative on cleaning, leaving it open to him as she climbed over the back of the couch. She fixed the cushions and shoved the overturned coffee table to the side. She just wanted to sit and breathe for a second. “Will you…” She turned to glance at the window behind her. It faced a gaunt skyscraper, the once busy street bellow empty save for the wind that whistled by. “never mind.” Fresh air might have been nice, but she didn’t want to risk someone spotting them.

“Might want to put those curtains back up and draw them. Just stay away until it gets dark.” The fiends down the road liked to come out and play target practice when they got bored, and she didn’t want to be not-so-randomly selected as the play of the day. “Stuffy in here, though. Guess it’s a good thing they left the door open. Aired it out… though there’s probably rats.” April mused casually, glancing to the floor to look for any traces of droppings.

She wished she wasn’t feeling so… apathetic, but the encounter had become something of an unexpected drain. A week ago, she’d practically begged God on her knees for some companionship, but now that she’d found it, it felt as though there was a weight on her chest.

“You can eat, if you’d rather. I’ll… sweep up the glass, or something. In a minute, though.”

 

[Alvis Alendran]

Ben shrugged and set the meal down on the counter for her. Out of habit, he swept a good amount of small debris off of the counter first, looking about and finding a tash can. He set the can upright, and dropped the debris into it. Her point about the curtains was probably a good one really. The less chance of someone spying them the better. He checked the curtain rod, then the mount for it, and found that it was all intact, had just been pulled down. He set it in place, hesitating a moment before he decided that the risk might be worth it. He pushed one of hte windows open a little, letting in some air. This high up it was away from a lot of the omnipresent dust and smoke.

Ben stepped back and pulled the curtains closed. It did limit the air flow, but it kept them out of view. THe mention of eating did bring him to shuck his pack, and pull out a pair of ration bars, wolfing them down. It wasn't the most filling, but he knew that these thigns were a great way to eat in a hurry. Each bar was packed with nutrients and four hundred calories to boot. He brushed his hands clean, adn then looked around hte room. April had set up the couch, and Ben walked away from his pac to dig around for a broom. He did find one, and set to work. Industrious was Ben in this moment. It was a simple task really, and he liked doing things that served a purpose.

He kept going at it, hearing a faint squeaking sound form one of the room. He shoed out the mouse he found, adn then had a look at her door. The frame was split from where it had been kicked in, but there was enough broken junk int he apartment he could make a repair. Ben went back to his pack.

Side pouch, tools. Heavier pouch than most. Hammer, small nails, folding saw. Tools to do the job. He nodded, adn set back to the door. He started to use the folding saw to cut out a piece of the broken frame.
"Sorry if I'm not too talkative. Just...old habits. I like to fix things, keep busy, you know? And...well, this place looks like it might be able to use a little help." He said casually as he pulled the now severed piece away from the frame, and set it aside. He lifted a piece of broken cabinet door, wishing he had a pencil to scribe it, but cut it as best he could otherwise. He slot the new piece into place, and tapped the nails into place, securing the door. He swung it shut again, hearing the click of the furniture working. "Okay! So, that should keep the place safe fromt he local vermin at least. Um...yeah, I'm great at small talk, so...yeah. What did you do before...all of this?"

 

[luminesse]

He apologized for not talking and she avoided making a comment about not caring. She didn’t want to put him off too quickly, but the thought small talk was hollow, distraction though it was. April pulled the elastic from her ponytail as she sprawled out across the couch. She thought her heart was likely to beat right out of her chest; she could barely hear him over the pounding of blood in her ears as it stood. She wasn’t sure where it was coming from, but she did her best to ignore it.

“I was a dancer.” She answered him reluctantly as she draped her forearm over her eyes. “Not—not like on the pole, or whatever. Broadway, ballet, sometimes music videos.” It was tough to make a living as a newbie, so she took what she could get. She hadn’t stooped to teaching it quite yet. “I came over from a company in London late last year.” He would have been able to place the accent (likely why he hadn’t asked where she was from), but maybe not it’s true origin. Americans always thought they all sounded the same.

April crossed her legs, peaking out from under her arm to inspect his handiwork. A closing door would keep out the rats, but not much else. She didn’t have the heart to tell him she planned on abandoning this building entirely tomorrow night. “Was that just a hobby, or a profession? Fixing things, that is.”

 

[Alvis Alendran]

Ben nodded as she spoke.
"Well, you're in one of the only cities that a pole isn't the default thought for people who know anything about this place." He said with a faint smile. He heard her shifting and looked over. She let her hair loose, and was sprawled out on the couch. Well, at least she was able to get comfortable! "Ah, thought I heard the Londonium tone in there! Came to seek your fortune I see. Certainly not alone in that, seems the only reason anyone comes to this place." Ben stopped the line of reasoning there, knowing if he let himself go down there, all that was waiting was a lot of anger and bitterness. He saw the profit in coming to New York. Hell, he'd done it!

But he hated this city.

And that had been before the siege, when it was just endlessly aggressive and harsh. There were few nights he didn't weight the benefits of heading home, really home, instead of staying in this place trying to scratch out a better living. Her question did make him smile.
"More of a habit than a hobby really. I grew up out in farm country, no contractors around to fix things. If you wanted something fixed, you figured out how to fix it, or spent too much money. I didn't have too much money to lose, so...I figured things out. And I had a good landlord here in town, shaved stuff off my rent if I'd fix things around the place. Best shitty little apartment complex in the neighbourhood by the time I was done there." He answered. He paused, looked away. "It was anyway."

 

[luminesse]

April could barely repress her snort at his commentary. “I thought it was magical until I chased a rat out of my flat the week after I moved here.” London was dirty, but it wasn’t New York dirty. At first, April had found the trash and the clutter vaguely charming. The more she’d been made to deal with it’s consequences—all while paying an exorbitant amount for rent each month—the less endearing she’d found it. When she was mugged on the underground, all of New York’s glittering allure had all but disappeared.

“Then… I thought it was regular. Not quite home, but I got used to it.” Now the city was a shell of herself. She hated to admit it, but she would have endured a lot more muggings if it meant things staying normal. “I didn’t make much, after paying rent, but I did enjoy it, for what it was worth. Still do, when I can find time.” It seemed like a bad idea to waste the energy, but when she was feeling especially pent up, she’d gone to the rooftop and danced in the rain a time or two.

She smiled, and she hadn’t been entirely braced for it. Reflexively, her hand dropped back over her eyes as he spoke. She could hear it in his voice… he talked about home, about growing up. Those things seemed so far away, but he recalled them with perfect clarity. She didn’t need much detail to see that. The smile seemed to fade, though, no longer carried on his voice when he mentioned the apartment complex. April peeked out from under her arm to meet his eye.

She didn’t need to ask to know that it was gone. Shells, maybe, or it had fallen to a bad crowd and been torn apart beyond repair. “I’m sorry.” She murmured. Glancing around her own home, she suddenly felt guilty that she had resented it so, even despite the fact that it was still standing.

With a deep sigh, April threw her feet over the side of the couch. “You have somewhere to go tonight? Somewhere safe?”

 

[Alvis Alendran]

He heard her apology about his complex. Not rally his complex, but the one that might as well have been with amount of effort he'd put into it. He shrugged.
"Not your fault. I'll blame the Russians. Rocket cored the place out while I was trying to gather food. Lucky I drew the short straw to make hte run. Wasn't much left of the place after that, half of a few of the walls. I don't think many made it out of there after that." Ben observed, almost to himself. He shook himself, almost a shudder, like he was bringing himself back to the present, adn not letting himself dwell on what had happened before.

"Ah, so much for regrets." He had a small smile on his face again, shaking his head. It was the kind of smile you had when the options were to laugh or cry. And Ben wasn't big on tears. Hearing her sigh as he packed away his tools, he knew it was likely going to lead to another question, and he was right. He cocked his head at her question though. Not what he'd expected. One might think she was considering letting him stick around, but Ben didn't rank that as likely. But then he had his own supplies, and was handy to have around. Maybe it was a possibility. Still, her question called for an answer.

"Safe? Not sure anywhere is really safe anymore. Not in this city. But there's a half wrecked church over on 5th. Old bugger, figure it might hav a basement I can hide out in. Should be a lot of old bricks and stone I might be able to use to help make it safer to hide out in. Assuming someone else isn't already int here." Ben mused aloud. He wasn't holding out a lot of hope really, but there weas the chance that things could go all right on that front. Half collapsed, it might have chased people away. He'd chance another collapse if it meant a place to hole up. "If you ever feel religious, you should swing by."

 

[luminesse]

It wasn’t until just then that April even began to consider how radically lucky she’d been. The most she had lost was a cat… here she was, moping about and suffering panic attacks over a broken wall when he had lost everything. She frowned and stood, plucking pillows off of the floor and setting them to rights. “It wasn’t your fault.” She interjected, looking up at him as she shoved her coffee table back into place. “So… nothing to regret.”

She understood carrying guilt, but it didn’t mean that he had to. Nothing but fate had fucked things up for the lot of them.

April knew she’d feel guilty for the rest of her life if she just tossed him out. Against her better judgement, she listened to his plan—maybe a little too hard. She continued to clean in silence as she pondered the options. “I don’t think I’ve felt religious in quite some time now.” She said, though there was a bit of cheek behind it. She set a knee on the couch as she turned to face him. “But I think I do need a bit of a come to Jesus.”

Her blonde hair slipped over her shoulder as she gestured at the apartment. “You can stay until you figure out something better. A crumbling church isn’t a safe haven anymore.” This place would hold for another week or so, but it was high time she get moving too. “But I swear, if you even do so much as one shady thing, I’ll bash your fucking head in.” Maybe she would, maybe she wouldn’t… but putting the idea out there couldn’t hurt.

“You’ll have to help me bring my things up from downstairs. That stuff is too valuable to leave out in the open for too long. It took me weeks to build up that supply… I might be willing to share some, if you help me figure out where to go too.”

 

[Alvis Alendran]

Ben felt his face darken a moent at her words. Nothing to regret indeed.
"I wasn't there April. I don't know if the rocket blew everything apart and killed everyone right away, if it collapsed, and people needed help, or..." he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He hadn't been yelling, even speaking loud, but he knew that he'd been heating up emotionally, and keeping himself tamped down right now was the only way that he could survive in this city. "...those people counted on me. And I wasn't there when they needed me the most. I regret that." He spoke the last quietly, his voice carrying the undertone of regret and sorrow, losses that he hadn't really mourned. Where did one get the time for that these days? If you took the time to mourn these days, you wound up dead for not paying attention.

And then she actually did offer to let him stay in here. He cocked his head at the offer, even with the threat included, it was a generous thing. It also made him regret his rebuttal of her words a little.
"Um...thanks." He said awkwardly before managing a smile. "No shady business, got it. And...are you sure you don't want me to plug up that hole in the downstairs? I could salvage a door from one of the other apartments, rig something up with some brackets and braces. Can't promise it'll keep anyone out, but I can make 'em work for it. Even show you your way around a few tools if you want, could be useful if you're going to head out on your own again."