xp_logs | Jay & Dani Log - at night (Reply)

Jay gets back into it after Yvette lets him go. He gets teamed up with Dani and they find a mother and her two children.

"Okay, Ah still haven’t, shit--" the boat grazed the trunk of a tree and Jay turned the steering in the wrong direction. The boat turned towards the tree, instead of away and they went around in a circle and got caught between two other trees. Jay cut the engine. "Aw shit, sorry. This is screwin' me all up. Ah told ya Ah can't steer." He stood up, wobbling the boat, spreading his wings to try and keep his balance. He didn't want to fall in again and placed his hands on the trunk to push them away.

It wasn't like Dani had any more experience with flood waters and boats, but she was a part of the Red X training team and this was the kind of thing that was useful to know. If basic boating was being taught any more in-depth than what they had already gone over though, she hadn't made it to that part of the program yet. "Sit down before you have to get another tetanus shot," she instructed, moving carefully to the back end of the boat so she could steer. She wasn't sure she could do much better, but she knew she couldn't do worse.

"On sec," he said, grabbing hold of the trunk and giving them a push, backing them out of where they were. He folded his wings closer to his body, ducking out from under a branch and sat down as they started to drift. He turned around, looking for the light and found it, holding it up. "All right. Which way were we headed? Didn't we go this way?" He was way too tired and should have taken that nap that they insisted he take. No, he had to get up and leave right away as soon as he got a clean bill of health.

"No, we haven't been down here," Dani disagreed and slowly piloted the little boat down what had once been a street before the flooding. Growing up in Oklahoma, she wasn't very familiar with large bodies of water and boats, though she was a strong swimmer. They were systematically going down each street looking for people who had been stranded, most of them on the roofs of their houses. "We went down Magnolia earlier. This is Sycamore."

"Oh." He was sure they were going the wrong way but his navigation went down with the sun. With the darkness around them, it was hard to tell if there was anyone there or not. The light went out and Jay rattled it. The light came back on but after a moment, went out again. "Oh c'mon. Gimmie a break." He shook it one more time, a little harder than before but it stayed off. "Is there an extra one by yer feet? Ah thought Ah saw one," Jay leaned over, holding his hand out, hoping for her to pass it to him. He could see her a bit better as his eyes adjusted to their surroundings. They could probably do this in the dark but then no one would see them.

"You were never a girl scout," Dani proclaimed, rooting through her bag and producing another flashlight from the main pocket and a set of batteries from the smaller one. "Always be prepared," she chastised him good-naturedly, though she hadn't even thought of things like this too much before she had begun her Red X classes this summer.

"Do Ah look like a girl?" Jay asked, batting his eyelashes. "Yanno, Ah think Ah fail in bein' a field leader. Ah ain't thinkin' ahead. Like goin' to the grocery store and making a list. Only Ah forget stuff and have to go back." He took the flashlight from her, turned it on and around so he could change the batteries.

"Hello!? Help!" Came an unsure voice from the darkness. Jay looked up and tried to find the source. "Ya hear that?" he asked and stood up, trying to keep his balance, turning the light out into the dark. "Where'd that come from?"

Wisely, Dani kept her mouth shut regarding whether he looked like a girl or not. Shining the flashlight into the darkness, she cut the motor down so they were barely idling in the water. As the flashlight illuminated the night, the cries got louder. "Up there," Dani finally said, pointing to a roof as the flashlight went over it. There was a girl almost hanging off trying to get their attention as another child held on to her so she wouldn't fall off. "We're with Red X. We can take you to safety!" she called in a clear voice, "Are you injured?"

"No!" the little girls called, retreating from the edge of the roof. Turning the motor on, Dani tried to manoeuvre the little boat as close to the house as she could.

Jay didn't wait. He spread his wings, clutching the light and beat them down, lifting himself into the air. He flew up to the roof and landed, thankful he got to stretch them. "Hey," he smiled reassuringly. "C'mere and we'll get ya outta here."

But the girls shifted. Their demeanour changed and they backed away from Jay. He stepped forward, not understanding. Instead, he crouched down and offered a hand. They seemed more scared of it than anything. "It's okay. Ah'm Jay. Ah'm here to help." He waited, but not response except their body language as they stepped back again.

"Shit.." he said under his breath, not knowing what to do. "Don't ya wanna get outta here?" He almost said 'go home' but the looks on their faces said that he wouldn't get any farther with them, plus, weren't they home anyways? Sighing, he stood up and took flight careful to land back on the boat and keep his voice down.

"They won't come to me. Ah don't know why."

Dani knew, that was her power after all. Fear. She knew it intimately. "Jay, come down!" she called, hoping he didn't rock the boat too much landing. He had almost tipped her out a moment ago. Once he was back in the boat, Dani spoke to him a low voice, "They're more scared of you than they are of the flood," she told him. It wasn't something she wanted to tell him, but she could see it behind her eyes. In her mind. Their fear was very clear right now. "Let me try?" she suggested, not knowing if it would help or not.

"Hey, girls?" Dani called, "I'm Dani and I'm going to try to climb up on the roof with you, okay? Jay's going to stay in the boat," turning back to Jay she asked him if he could give her a boost. She was tall enough that with his help she could probably get up onto the roof...if they didn't fall out of the boat trying.

He should have known that. He had been scared a few times but having someone be scared of him was new to him. How could this happen? Was it his age? His wings? Were they afraid of mutants? Questions, one after another, rolled through his mind but he stepped over the boat seats and linked his hands so she could step on them and lift her up. His wings spread a little to maintain his balance. "This is stupid," he grumbled. "Do Ah look scary to you?"

"Terrifying," Dani replied dryly, "Like a girl scout. Ready?" she stepped into his hands and was easily boosted up to the roof. It was a good thing she was tall or she would never had made it. The roof was steep, but not so bad once she was used to it. The houses in this neighbourhood had proper shingles on their roofs too, something very different from the trailer she had grown up in. Like most Indian trailers, they'd had a tarp with car tires on it on their roof to help insulate it and keep the rain out.

"Hi, I'm Dani," she said, once she had righted herself. "Don't mind Jay, he's just a big bird, ain't it?" she said, smiling and not coming towards the girls, but approaching the mother, offering her hand. "We're from Red X, a division of the Red Cross. We're here to take you and your family to safety."

He stood there, arms crossed and waiting for the girls to figure out their problem while he sorted out his. This was outrageous in every sense of the word. How could anyone be afraid of him. His wings were pink for god's sake. Naturally, he wouldn’t say that out loud but what girl didn't like pink?

The boat began to drift and Jay climbed to the end of the boat, trying to start up the engine. "Ugh, one sec Danny," he called out, giving it a pull. It started and died. He tried again, and it died again. Shit. "Hey Dani! Ah'm driftin! Gimmie a minute!" he called out.

Shaking her head, though she knew Jay couldn't see her, "First time in a boat," she explained to the mother, not mentioning it was basically her first as well. The mother and daughters did not fear her, only Jay. That was good, at least in terms of their rescue.

"Sherry Masterson," the woman introduced herself, "And my girls, Tina and Janine. We ain't gettin' in that boat though."

"Why?" Dani asked, sitting down cross-legged on the roof. She had no plans right now as far as they needed to know. It was obvious why though, because of Jay. She was going to make them say it though.

"There's a mutie in it!" the younger girl, Janine, piped up. Out of the mouth of babes.

Sighing, Dani tried to reason with them, but they needed to get going, "He's more like Big Bird, ain't it? There's only one way off this roof," she spoke to the mother, "And we're it. Up to you."

Power boats would have been much better for this. Much, much better. Sadly, this was Jay's third or fourth time in a boat like this. Engines were not his thing, as much as he liked to pretend they were. The engine started up quickly and Jay repositioned it, leaning over to grab something to steady them. He didn't want to blow all the gas on this one trip and double checked the jerry can just to be sure.

Jay decided. He killed the engine and rushed to the front, grabbing the edge of the roof and looked for something to tie off the boat to. "Well?" he asked.

"Working on it," Dani called back, taking the smaller of the two girls and trying to figure out how to get her off the roof and into the boat. "Can you catch?" she asked, peering down over the roof to the boat below. This was going to be tricky, but not too terrible.

"No, that ain't safe. One sec." There wasn't anything to tie the boat to, so Jay let go, letting it drift. "One sec. Ah'm gonna have to tie to to a tree or somethin'." This was going badly, or at least, he was looking like some sort of fool. Some rescuers. At least he was with Dani. She was a lot more grounded than he was.

Taking the rope at the end of the boat, Jay flew over to a tree and tied it off before flying back over to the house and landing in front of them. "All right, one at a time?" he asked, gesturing to the Mother first. Better to have her in the boat so the other two would follow.

It was dark, things were a little crazy, better to look like fool than to have a serious problem. Dani had a different concept of time than most other people, she was philosophical about it. Things took as long as they took, period. No sense in worrying over it. "Take Tina first," she indicated the older of the two girls. The youngest one had attached herself to her mother's leg as soon as Jay had reappeared, but the other girl just stared cautiously now.

Kneeling down to Tina's eye level, Dani introduced them. "Tina, this is Jay. Jay, Tina. He's going to take you safely down to the boat." Nudging the girl lightly towards Jay, she nodded at him to go ahead. This way, the younger one and the mother would be reassured.

Placing his hands on his knees, Jay knelt down in front of the eldest. "Hey. Nice to meet'cha. You like to fly?" he asked, gesturing to the girl to take his hand. His concern to her reluctance only showed in the slightest shift in his wings, and he stood up, backing up a pace. Just like dealing with a shy horse, except she seemed to think he was more the wolf. The girl moved towards him and he took her in his arms, careful to give her space even in that regard.

Wings spread and they were quickly off the ground, but the boat was not where he had left it.

"Shit," he whispered under his breath, but Tina could hear it clearly.

"Where's the boat?" she asked in a rising panic. If there wasn't any boat, where was he taking her? Jay flew away from the house, heading down the current and that was when the girl started to shriek for her mother and struggle with Jay, midflight.

"Hang on a second!" he yelled over her, trying to keep a grip on her before he dropped her into the water.

This was not going as well as Dani had hoped it would. Smiling reassuringly despite the darkness she shrugged, "This is what happens when you bring bird boy on a water rescue," she joked lamely, trying to reassure everyone, though there did seem to be a kernel of truth to the words. "O'course, I'm from Oklahoma, ain't much water there either," there were plenty of lakes and things, but not huge ones and the state was easily a thousand miles from the ocean.

Not going well at all. She was struggling so fiercely that she slugged Jay twice and he dropped in flight, which made her scream, but then cling to him hard. Where he couldn't hold onto her before, now she clung to him to the point of cutting off his air supply. "Would ..you," Cough. "Calm.. down!" Jay gasped, pulling her away.

"MOM! MOM!" she yelled.

Jay spotted the boat caught in some branches just as he pulled her arm away from his throat and gasped, flying clumsily down and landed inside of it, pulling her completely off of him. He was very lucky the boat didn't flip. "Godamnit! Don't you know you were chokin' me? Jesus Christ!" He wasn't so much mad as he was afraid that he would fall in the water again.

Screw the engine, he'd just fly them there and grabbed the rope, taking off and heading back to where he thought Dani was. "Dani! Where'd you go?"

"I'm still up here," Dani yelled back, this was getting ridiculous. It had gone beyond a comedy of errors now. "Toss me the rope," she directed, she'd hold on to the boat while he took the mother down next.

Following her voice, Jay got to the roof, giving Dani the rope and took the hesitant mother, whose other child would not let go of her leg. Jay was feeling more and more like the biggest screw up every passing moment. Maybe he wasn't cut out for this? "C'mon," he urged and when she finally got to him, he took her without letting her give it a second thought.

The third one was a real hard one, harder than the rest and Jay knelt down as best as he could, trying to coax her over. He gave Dani a helpless look. There was no way he was going to force her, not like the last one who freaked out.

"Come here short stuff, we'll go down together," Dani reassured the child, prying her from her mother's leg and hefting her onto her own hip. Why did she always get the kids? Even with their combined weight, Dani thought they would be less than the mother was and she could hopefully help stabilize the boat and calm her daughters. Hopefully. Nothing had really gone to plan tonight so why start now?

Jay flew the mother down immediately once she was away from the little girl. He returned just as quickly, thankful for Dani's maternal instinct, which he learned not bring up. Wrapping his arm under Dani's behind, he hefted the pair up, refraining from telling Dani that she needed to lose a few pounds from her waistline. He landed in the boat and immediately let Dani down, taking off again, so not to make the girls uncomfortable.

"Ah'll fly right above you guys Dani. Just holler if you need somethin'," Jay said from above.

Without replying, Dani started the little propeller engine and followed Jay down the river that had once been streets. Sherry, the mother, held her two daughters close as they puttered onwards. "Mutants aren't scary," Dani said, trying to make conversation. It was a little awkward to bring the topic up, but it was there poking at her brain, "Just different. And that isn't a bad thing," normally Dani's English was peppered with 'ain't's' and phrases that just wasn't proper English, but now she made an effort to speak correctly. She could do it, she just normally didn't think about it.

Jay flew overhead, quietly doing a thorough scan in the dark, half listening to Dani's words. He wanted to interject, add his own opinion to that but it was not a human that they saw, like Dani. They only saw his wings and he was past disliking what manifested. A brief glance caught a pair of young eyes looking up at him, not with fear, but a sense of bewilderment and Jay smiled back, before dropping back twenty feet so they could talk privately.