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Post by Marcus Prasad on Jun 10, 2013 22:11:35 GMT -8
Nighttime had always been a rather special time for Marcus. Growing up in New York city, he would always sneak out of the house and go on runs all throughout Manhattan. In fact he had some of his most infamous adventures out at night. His many fights with a young red headed woman named Tsubame Hirotaki immediately springs to mind.
Night time was also a time Marcus tended to slow down and gather his thoughts, chewing them over in his mind, reflecting on the days events that had transpired in a rare moment of contemplation.
Moments like now, laid out atop of the roof of a tall office building in the mostly deserted Downtown core of Anaheim, arms crossed behind his head as he looked up at the stars and let his normally strung up mind go limp, allowing his consciousness to float along various threads of thoughts and memories. Some would almost call this a form of meditation and in some ways it was. Through this method Marcus was able to gain clarity, insight and perception from his actions and the actions of those around him.
For right now though, there was nothing on his mind. If one wanted to they could almost imagine a screensaver where his thoughts should have been.
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Post by Lucien DeChain on Jun 10, 2013 22:33:24 GMT -8
Lucien loved the night. It was his.
The time to forget everything that was happening, everything that had happened. To forget that his Ari had disappeared, to forget the dreams of murder. To forget, or at least try to forget, the strange conversations that Leon had sought him out for.
Tonight, like every night, was patrols. Lucien liked it, being the only one out here, alone with his lack of thoughts. All the other pack members had gone to bed, content with the "little bro" of the wolves to take the crappy graveyard shift. And Lucien was just fine with all of that.
The night was usually uneventful, a garbage fire here, a string of yelling there. Remnants of the past lives that the citizens of Anaheim were trying to remember.
Strange how it's the other way around.
But, tonight, something was different. The moon sparkled clearly, abnormally for the time of year. And it was so... big.
And then, Lucien noticed Marcus, his commander and Alpha, staring up at the moon with the same quiet contemplation that he felt. It seemed so out of character for the burly man. But, Lucien felt like this could be a good time to connect; he hadn't had much time to actually get to know Marcus, not as much as he did with Delilah even.
"Quite a sight, isn't it?" He spoke through the silence as he approached from the side of the building. Walking towards the man, he smiled warmly as his face was illuminated by the moon's glare.
"Mind if I join you?"
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Post by Marcus Prasad on Jun 13, 2013 18:55:22 GMT -8
Slowly the mans conscious state would bubble back to the surface as the young pup approached the only sign of Marcus noticing Lucien was a slight shift and a gleam in his eyes.
'Though a pup no longer.'
He found himself thinking, making a noncommittal grunt in answer to Lucien's question before gesturing for him to find a seat with a jerk of his head.
'This one has blooded himself. This one has proven.'
A silence would then form between the two men that would stretch until one chose to speak. If Lucien refrained from breaking the silence, then Marcus would simply say.
"You're out late."
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Post by Lucien DeChain on Jun 13, 2013 20:31:36 GMT -8
Sitting down, Lucien would quietly sigh, accepting the silence as it stretched on. It was rare he gave himself the opportunity to sit and stare at the wondrous, gleaming sky, and far too often, he realized, he had been content with having his awareness only cover what was down here, immediately before him. When he could have been aware of so much more...
Lucien blinked himself back into the present when the silence was finally broken by Marcus. In response, the slim man quietly said "So are you, sir. I didn't expect to see you here."
He turned to Marcus, who had quite the pensive look on his face. Studying him for a second, the dark-skinned man looked like he had something on his mind. something that he wanted to forget, just like he did.
"Something on your mind, Marcus?" He said quite casually, hoping that the action would help him seem like someone he could talk to. Lucien's thought was, if he kept calling him Grim Alpha Commander Prasad, it wouldn't really be that relatable.
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Post by Marcus Prasad on Jun 16, 2013 21:12:50 GMT -8
The man jerked his head and shot Lucien a glare at the casual use of his name. Immediately he was reminded of how bent out of shape he became when Kyr did so herself when they first met. This only served to remind Marcus how large the gap between him and Lucien really was and how little he knew of the lad. Quickly he turned away, face reddening in shame.
"Jesus, when did I get a stick up my ass?"
He muttered to himself as he laid a hand across his face.
"Lucien."
He declared in a gentle tone as if acknowledging the precedent. There would be no titles between them here this night.
"Do you know why I love looking up at the stars? I get homesick. A lot actually. It used to be almost crippling during the early years of my travels all over hells half creation. Barely been out of the state and yet here I am taking a boat to fucking England cause I didn't trust my Bike on a plane....."
"Something I learned though. That the stars look the same no matter from where you are. S'why sailors always used them to travel back in the stone age yeah? So I figured if I found a nice high place and looked up at the stars, I could pretend that it was New York City below me. Before the collapse ya know?"
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Post by Lucien DeChain on Jun 18, 2013 15:51:59 GMT -8
Lucien nodded, thinking to himself that it would be nice to be back in Colorado. Looking up at the stars, it was almost the same. Though, back in Denver, he would only look up at the night sky in anguish, crying to himself that he couldn't rearrange the stars by brightness and proximity to the Earth.
Still, the sentiment was there.
"Indeed, the sky is the same, even after all that's happened. The human race has taken a terrible wound, populations decimated, entire cities destroyed... And yet, the universe goes on as it always has. The earth keeps spinning, the sun keeps shining." He smiled at this. It was just another reminder that things could go back to the way they were. It was possible, and it wasn't hopeless.
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Post by Marcus Prasad on Jun 22, 2013 12:43:56 GMT -8
Marcus could only agree, nodding his head as he listened to Lucien speak.
"We shall ever contrive to perceiver."
He would say, almost to himself.
"The World keeps turning and we keep on living and thriving. Kind of our superpower if you think about it. Tenacity."
Turning his head, Marcus would look upon Lucien with a gleam in his eye.
"You and I? We're pretty damn good examples of it, huh? I mean stop and think about how far we both had to go to get to where we are today?
The Hard years of PHS 552 where he Trained hard, fought hard, fell in love, fought in a riot, lead a civil war, SOMEHOW managed to buckle down, study and graduate, travelled the world, nearly got stranded in the rural Philippines.
Travelled across a desolate Danger soaked American wasteland. Hit by a car and stabbed repeatedly before having his life saved by a raven haired beauty......
"What about you Lucien? If you knew then, before the great fall I mean, If you knew then what you know now. Would you still be able to go through it all?"
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Post by Lucien DeChain on Jun 22, 2013 14:12:00 GMT -8
Lucien nodded as he, too, thought back about how far he'd come.
When he left Colorado, his parents were alive, he was 200 pounds, and he had no idea any of this would happen. Less than two years later, he had lost 100 pounds, stopped eating, had locked himself in to his own depressive spiral. And all that was before he joined Crows. Though he had never been stabbed, or lead an uprising... He felt he'd come far.
And, if he'd known then...?
"I wouldn't have done a single thing different." He affirmed, nodding to himself as well.
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Post by Marcus Prasad on Jun 23, 2013 22:44:42 GMT -8
For a moment the wolfman analyzed Lucien after he spoke. Probing him behind half lidded eyed for any signs of insincerity and finding none which brought an approving grunt from deep in his chest.
"You know man when I first saw you, I really didn't think much of you. Small. Twitchy and strung up higher than a caffine addict. Thought you were gonna wash out. Thought I was gonna have a challenge on my hands hammering you into shape. Fact is, you surprised me, which is no mean feat believe you me. S'like you were just......hungry for it. S'what made a lot of the other wolves come around, when they saw how almost desperate you were in proving yourself."
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Post by Lucien DeChain on Jun 23, 2013 22:53:19 GMT -8
Lucien looked to Marcus as he began to speak, feeling slightly sheepish as he remembered the state he was in when he first joined Crows, when he first joined the Pack. It seemed like so long ago, but really, it had only been a few months. Hungry was a good term to use for Lucien back then, as ironic as it was, it suited him at that point. Lucien felt it still, though not as much, that need to prove oneself, the strive to find worthiness through someone else's eyes.
It was a childish notion, and one that Lucien had mostly left behind. Over time, it became less about what others thought, and more about what he thought about himself. It was the initial gain of self-confidence that came from Marcus' approval, he realized, that made that all possible.
"Thank you for saying so. I appreciate it." He chuckled. "I tried pretty hard, didn't I?"
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Post by Marcus Prasad on Jun 25, 2013 23:25:30 GMT -8
The man nodded in affermation. It was true, the boy certainly did everything at 100%. Even crashing through
Walls and windows as he recalled their early days with Parkour training.
"Ya know I must say I'm curious. Where DID you learn how to fight like you do? Reminds me a lot of how Delilah moves."
And boy did he have plenty of oppourtunities to see the young first fight. From their fateful first meeting to the brawl with Barker goons in the burning bar in fact to their quasi sparring match in the compound. It made him wonder if perhaps Delilah had had a hand in his development perhaps during boot camp?
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Post by Lucien DeChain on Jun 25, 2013 23:42:54 GMT -8
Lucien thought for a moment, slightly chuckling that Marcus found his style close to Delilah's. It made perfect sense, at least to him, why that would be the case.
"It's no coincidence. Like Delilah, I've trained traditionally in a Japanese style of fighting known as Ninjutsu. Bujinkan Ninjutsu, to be specific. I'm a third degree black belt. Or, at least, I was. Haven't been to a dojo since I left Denver. As for how fast and silent I can be, well... That's because..." He trailed off for a moment, suddenly realizing that he hadn't told anyone yet. Did it really matter if they knew? Would their opinion of him change? All the same, he was nervous, as if confessing some dark secret for the first time.
"When I learned how to fight, during high school, I was upwards of 300 pounds." He paused for a moment, letting it sink into himself.
"As I learned, I learned how to be graceful with my movement, and how to carry myself lightly in my... large frame. As I lost weight, I kept that gracefulness. So, if it seems like I'm more nimble on my feet, it's because of that."
Though, that also meant that people constantly thought that he was about half the weight he actually was... Which in this part of his life, was a bad thing, as he was constantly trying to work himself up to a normal body-mass index. Oh, how irony strikes.
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Post by Marcus Prasad on Jul 2, 2013 21:00:27 GMT -8
'Black belt huh? No wonder he's been tossing the rest of the pack around during sparring.'
He thought to himself, deciding right then and there that he would have the young lad go a few rounds with him tomorrow.
'Still, I just CANNOT imagine this kid at 300lbs. My Brain just refuses to process this. Wonder if that was the real reason he stopped eating. Mabey it turned into a syndrome after time went by. Then again he most definatly is OCD so....Whatever.'
"Diet and exercise huh? Well good for you man. Used to be nigh on the tubby side myself before I joined up with Leon sensei and went through his training from hell. Parkour only goes so far when you spend your days after school playing computer games and eating junk food."
"So your from Denver huh? You probably already guessed I'm a New Yorker myself."
Granted the Accent IS a monstrous give away.
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Post by Lucien DeChain on Jul 2, 2013 21:25:11 GMT -8
Lucien was not expecting such a subtle reaction to his weight comment. Maybe Marcus was one of those people who was accepting of all, no matter what...? Lucien kept it in mind for the future.
As for the New York comment, Lucien had never been that far East, but he recognized the accent all the same.
"Frankly, I could tell you were from the East. Before you mentioned, I was actually going to say New Jersey..." Lucien said, softer towards the end. With the words escaping his mouth, the very instant they left, he recognized that his words were massively insulting. New Jersey? What was I thinking? No one wants to be from New Jersey!
"For me, it was the medication I was on that caused the weight issue. Those side-affects are pretty drastic, you know. If you ever have the opportunity to take SSRI's, don't. I didn't see colours until I was fifteen."
And, he thought it was best to leave it at that. Sighing, he leaned back on his hands, using his straight arms to support his slim frame.
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Post by Marcus Prasad on Jul 3, 2013 23:30:54 GMT -8
"Excuse me?!"
The man snarled, twisting to his side to better face the young man. His face was creased with a frown and furrowed brow.
"I best not be hearing you say I sound like a fucking Guido. My tan is real thank you very much!"
Marcus HATED Jersey shore with a passion one generaly reserves for ones mortal enemy, and ever since it came on he knew somebody was going to mention it or New Jersey in general at least once in a while after hearing him string a few words together.
"Lived in Manhattan, just so you know, so I'm surprised you didn't think I came from the Bronx or something. Which I didn't might I add, so sorry to dissapoint."
He ranted for awhile after pulling himself up to a sitting position and hugging his left knee to his chest.
"Used to go out at night and putter around Hells Kitchen at night though and let me tell ya, it ain't like what most think it is except for the times that it is."
Battery park. The subway, especialy the long abandoned parts he managed to sneak into. Central Park. That one pizza joint owned by that slimey loudmouth Italian. Butcher Jons and his dockside pub that Marcus would sneak into cause the man knew his daddy......
"So."
Marcus began, hoping to chase those thoughts away for the moment. After the rant, the man seemed to have significantly chilled out.
"Tell me about these pills. I'm guessing they were for your OCD?"
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