Logs:Call to Serve

Call to Serve
Dramatis Personae DJ, Lily	2023-03-26 A mission like that, a place like that -- we could be asking for a bit of extra help.
Location <NYC> Yet Another AirBnB Apartment Building - Lower East Side
This rooftop terrace is large and quite thoughtfully planned out, a well-curated garden green and just starting to bud with early spring color wending all through its expanse, large trellises over the plentiful and comfortable seating alternately hung with roses and overhead lighting, intermittent tables with central firepits in case of chill, glass walls offering windbreak without obscuring the view. DJ's ever-growing crowd of Mormon Misfits is just clearing out -- in typical LDS fashion they are not leaving much mess behind, almost to a person conscientiously helping clear away the empty dishes, the extra folding chairs that were needed, the Tupperwares of food, the trash bags, even sweeping. It's left DJ with very little to do except rearrange a couple of the wicker chairs and long tables back to where they had originally been, frowning thoughtfully at the roof as if he is not quite sure he got it right. With a light touch of one hand to a chair it moves several feet to settle at a different table. Lily is just returning from inside the apartment, hands empty of the dishes she had been carrying before. The front of her navy blue praire skirt is just a touch damp still from leaning against a sink, the sleeves of her white dress shirt rolled up to her elbows. Her hair is braided and pinned into twin low buns behind her ears. She watches DJ’s rearrangement of chairs for a moment. “Can I help?” She asks quietly — the same question she usually asks when she chooses to linger after meeting, but her tone different — smaller, more nervous than past Sundays. “Kaidence shooed me away from the dishes already.” "I think it's right. Does this look right?" DJ doesn't sound certain, but admittedly, he doesn't sound overly concerned, either. He's studying one of the rose trellises, now, more than the chairs, and he's certainly not planning to move that. His gaze shifts eventually from admiring the not-yet-budding greenery to studying his not-quite twin. "Are you okay?" There's a gentle earnestness in his tone. "Atonement is a pretty heavy topic." “It looks — mostly right,” Lily confirms, moving a chair near her just a little left. “Close enough.” Moves the chair back where it was with a small frown. “It was — kind of a lot.” This sounds like there is a but coming, though it never materializes. Her hands curl around the back of the wicker chair, eyes lifting to meet her not-brother’s gaze. “Thank you. For, having me here, these last few weeks. I’m going to miss these meetings.” DJ is looking back to the flowers, one hand lifting to gently touch the very beginnings of a tiny bud -- but here he looks back to Lily swift, his brows lifting. "Miss them? They aren't going..." This ends in a widening of his eyes, a sudden realization -- first excited, a lift of his posture, almost a smile, though arrested into an uncertainty. "You matched." It doesn't quite come out as a question, though there is one buried somewhere in there -- and a hint of a growing doubt, too. "Where are they sending you?" "I did." Lily's trying to smile, too, but it comes off fake for the brief moment she's able to sustain it. "Ohio." A small pause, her grip tightening, resolutely not looking away from her not-brother. "I leave tomorrow." "Tomorrow?" DJ's face falls, though only for a moment. "Ohio isn't so far, I'll have to --" He shakes his head. "Where? Somewhere good, I hope." He's creasing his brow in thought. Mount Carmel's great. Ohio State is -- okay, tell me it's not --" His face scrunches, brief. "I guess I shouldn't assume I know anything about what's good here, for all I know Columbus is the center of this world's research universe. Where'll you be? I'm already planning your care package." "No," comes out quick and fast and harsh. "No -- don't, visit, no care packages, don't --" Lily abruptly lets go of the back of the chair. "-- it's not like, I'm going to be gone for the whole, residency. I hope." Her eyes keep dropping to DJ's shoes and not his face. "...Did you have a place called. Lassiter. Over there." "What?" Confusion just writes itself across DJ's face, now. "Why wouldn't I -- why aren't you." He scrubs a hand against his face. "I -- don't -- know? I don't think I know. Every school. I mean, I went to vet school, there's like. A handful of places you can even do residency at all and then if you want to specialize even further after that your options are pretty much two, so." He's studying Lily's face intently. "What's Lassiter?" There's a flash of relief on Lily's face, all too shortly there before it's overtaken by new and different anxiety. "It's -- Prometheus. There's," she continues quickly, "a plan. I'll be back." When, she does not elaborate on. The flash that crosses DJ's expression is too quick and complicated to properly read. His eyes don't leave Lily's face. "A plan," he echoes, and his voice is oddly calm. "Getting someone out, or hurting those assholes? You got support?" “Killing them, I hope. Final nails in the coffin, if this works." Lily quickly corrects herself -- "When this works.” She's watching DJ's expression, her eyebrows furrowing a little closer to each other. "A team here. A buddy on the ground. Been in the works a while. Just --" her arms wrap around herself. Where was the sentence here going? It's fully stopped, now. "When it works," DJ echoes -- this doesn't sound like a question but a quiet affirmation. "Okay. I can see why maybe visiting would be complicated, but -- do you need anything? I mean, there's being disappointed on Match Day and then there's --" His hand turns up and out toward Lily. "Tell me after this you're going to your absolute dream placement. Who do we have to bribe to make it happen, It's not like I'm doing much with my money." Much of the tension bleeds from Lily's shoulders -- not all, but most. She doesn't laugh, exactly, but the breath she lets out sounds amused. Shakes her head. "Just -- pray for me, maybe. And maybe -- if you could look out for Polaris. Someone, is going to tell her just. After I leave." "I pray for you every day," DJ answers, soft and quite serious. "But --" He drops his hands to rest on the back of one of the chairs, fingers curling against it hard. "I know you aren't -- usually the type to ask me, but --" He's gesturing, now, in invitation for Lily to sit in the chair in front of him. "A mission like that, a place like that -- we could be asking for a bit of extra help." Lily's mouth forms a small 'o'. "You don't have to--" sounds like the beginning of an automatic response, one that she cuts off with a flush and a dip of her head. "...I don't ask for help much," she says, but she's sitting anyway, hands curling into her skirt and looking up at DJ with wide eyes. "Kind of a -- bad habit, maybe. " "No. But I want to. And I'm pretty sure Heavenly Father does, too." DJ rests his hands on Lily's head, kind of careful of her neatly pinned buns. The first part comes smooth and easy -- "Lily Catherine Allred, by the authority of the Melchizedek Priesthood, I lay my hands upon your head to pronounce this blessing of safety and strength." After this, though, there's a stretch of silence; it's nowhere near so practiced when he speaks again, a softer care to his words. "I bless that Heavenly Father keep you safe in your work and that the Spirit lead you with wisdom in all that you do. I bless that Heavenly Father see your courage and dedication through to end this wickedness and save the lives of the afflicted you seek to aid. I bless that you know your own worth as a child of God and a brave and true member of our community. May God protect you and guide you to a victory over evil and bring you home swiftly. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." He has not, actually, mussed her hair, really, but that does not stop him from very gently patting it once back into place before he drops his hands. Lily is very, very still for the whole blessing. When DJ drops his hands, she takes a deep breath -- had she been holding hers the whole time? -- before looking up. "Thank you," comes soft as she stands. There's an unsteady sway for just a moment -- and then she's wrapping her arms around DJ in a fierce embrace. "Be here when I get back," is a fervent plea into his shoulder. It's the hug, for the first time this conversation, that puts a tremor in DJ's breath, an unsteadiness in his posture, but the hug he returns is fierce and strong. "I'll be here," he promises. And then grins -- quick and crooked and teasing and even across several decades and an entire world, it's familiar. "... I'll probably be in Staten Island, which, they tell me barely counts, so I guess you can decide." Lily's smile is more familiar to DJ -- there's only been a rift in space between him and the last time he saw, it, not that and so a whole lifetime -- when she loosens her grip enough to pull back and look up at him. Does not let go fully, not yet. "Staten Island. That is --" She very seriously contemplates this and Dawson Joel Allred both, before deciding -- "Close enough."