ArchivedLogs:Holding On (Letting Go)

Holding On (Letting Go)
Dramatis Personae Hive, Jackson, Jim, Flicker
In Absentia	2013-04-04 DeHiving
Location <NYC> 403 {Geekhaus} - Village Lofts - East Village
There's kind of a college-dorm feel to this place, though some of its occupants have left college behind. Entering the apartment finds visitors greeted by the perpetually messy living room, a mismatched assortment of couches and chairs (and milk crates) surrounding the wide table in the center. The wall holds a range of posters; some political, some sporty, some from video games, and a string of white lights strung over the kitchen doorway might be a holdover from Christmas. The kitchen adjacent is just as cluttered, its table unfit for eating due to its perpetual covering of books, papers, cereal boxes, projects; the fridge is usually sparsely populated. Ketchup. Beer. Not a lot of food. There are two bedrooms here, split between the four people; the fold-out couch in the living room (often folded out!) suggests that at least one of them does not actually claim a room as their own. It's quiet in this apartment, at the moment. Quiet save for intermittent irritable hisses at the television. Even while gaming Flicker does not /curse/ but he does experience the usual complement of GAMER IRRITATION. He has an Xbox controller in his hand and is currently perched on an upturned milk crate, battling a dragon in Skyrim. Hive is there, too. Not playing. Lying on the couch, kind of half watching the game and half dozing. He has a library copy of Roger Zelazny's first /Chronicles of Amber/ in his hand, dangling forgotten halfway to the floor. Sprawl. Jackson knocks, but mostly as a formality; he's unlocking the door regardless to head inside. He has a tray of muffins (mocha chocolate chip) and a cardboard cup-carrier with four large cups of coffee. He pushes aside some of the default mess on the living room table to set all these things down. Today he's very red-and-black. Black capri jeans edged in red, black fishnet tights over solid silver ones, a long bell-sleeved t-shirt with a red one layered over top ('ALL MY HEROES HAVE FBI FILES', it says.) Jet black hair, tipped in red at the pointy tip of each liberty spike. "They don't breathe acid, do they?" He's eying the videogame dragon. Jim has been around pretty often; stealing in and out, stealing /food/, maybe SOMETIMES bring food to /be/ stolen. Generally involved in some variety of theft or another, and weathering the surface-level abuse of it with hard stares, threats, cursing and scarfing/gulping. He's here already, though not so long that he's remembered to remove his coat yet. He is /trying/ to read the paper, but the epic soundtrack of the game keeps drawing his eyes. "--just fire and frost, I've seen." He says it like he's /annoyed/ that he's seen these things. Nevermind that he's commented a few times on the graphics (albeit of the 'now /that'd/ make a good photo' variety. Because everyone knows video games aren't /really/ art.) He reaches out a grabby-hand... for coffee? Hopefully? "Yeahno um, no acid. Just --" Flicker gestures towards Jim, though immediately afterwards regrets this decision and puts both hands back on the controller as he dodges a long trail of frost breath. "Hey, muffins!" It's cheerful, if maybe a little more subdued than his usual. Hive says nothing. He keeps watching the screen with a half-focused gaze. Jackson pries the coffee cups out of their cardboard holder, and lifts the top of one then another before finding a strong black one for Jim. His own is milky and heeeeavily sweetened. Flicker's is secretly not coffee at all, but a hot cocoa. This gets set down on the floor beside Flicker's milk crate. Hive's is identical to Jim's. That gets set down on the table, too. "Muffins!" he agrees, bringing the tray first to Flicker and then to Jim in offering. "Mocha chocolate chip. What's news?" He nods to the paper Jim is kind-of-reading. Jim's teethy-flash of grin, too dour around the eyes to actually be just 'happy', is a clear wordless thanks for the coffee he's handed, "Buncha bullshit." Jim just flat-out /hands/ Jackson the newspaper, like a consolation prize exchanged for his sweet sweet caffeine. He shifts from his chair /over/ to the couch. Where he begins to poke-snowshovel-nudge on Hive to try and make him sit up. "Dumbass. Coffee." If he can prop him up /enough/, he's going to then notch in where Hive /had/ lying. It's not just stealing a spot so much as... mugging him for his spot. Flicker pauses his game, setting the controller down and turning to claim his cocoa with a bright smile. Also to claim a /muffin/, this time with a peck on the cheek for Jax. Because heteronormativity, what? He tucks a leg up beneath himself, biting into the muffin. Hive does nothing to make room for Jim, but he does nothing to /resist/ this, either. Grunts, quietly, as he's pushed-propped-nudged, and it leaves him -- well, okay, pretty much exactly where he'd /been/ by the time Jim is through. Up enough to allow the seat-claiming, and then just slumping back /down/ into his sprawl. Except now with Jim's lap in between his head and the sofa cushions. "Hive, honey-honey, you should eat a thing. Muffin. Coffee." Jax brings both these things over, tucking the newspaper beneath his arm. The mental link is not /necessary/ to read the flicker of worry that passes across his expression. "C'mon, man. I know you've got work to do. Clinic's going public tonight. Io was fretting at how long you was MIA." "Aaaand there he goes," Jim comments, making /zero/ attempt to fight Hive's re-draping, save a kind of vague pat-pat-PAT on Hive's shoulder. "C'mon, buddy, you're not just gonna hitch a ride on /us/ eating this time." He goes from shoulder-patting to ROUGH noogie-scruffling on the top of the telepath's head (far above his scar, maybe unintentionally but... probably intentionally.) ScrubScrubSCRUB. His face hasn't really changed from the typical P.I. scowl, his free hand lifting coffee to his face. "Hasn't eaten since yesterday-lunch," Flicker relays, putting down his cocoa and picking up a second muffin. He moves closer, leans over the couch, kind of PRESSES it against Hive's mouth. NudgenudgeMASH, have a muffin. Hive doesn't grunt but there's a sort of mental groan that presses against their minds at the mashing. It takes a moment before he remembers how to open his mouth (possibly, somewhere out there on the borgnet, another person or two /attempts/ to eat a muffin that does not exist before Hive gets the right mouth.) But eventually he opens his mouth, takes a bite. Has a ripple of pleasurable appreciation for the taste. Even after this it takes a good twenty seconds before he manages to lift his hand to claim the muffin. Jackson watches this process with a growing frown. "Hive --" He takes a seat on the table, opposite Jim and Hive. He claims his coffee, takes a long sip. "You know, I went up to check in on Joshua, he's been restin' up since surgery. But s'-- I mean you don't need -- I don't think there's folks no more needin' your leash." Jim's eyes slid to Jackson's face behind his coffee cup, tipping back his head for a long slurp and then raps his knuckles again on Hive's head. "Hey. C'mon-" << /Listen/ to this. >> he says it both mentally and out loud, shoving at the little node in the back of his mind that is the most Hive-y. He's not just bored-attentive now - he's straight attentive, leaning forward to more directly speak to Jackson, "-They got 'em all out now? /Shit/ that's fast. We owe that doctor Saavedro found /big/ for this. What'd you say his name was?" (For all of this, he's bull-headedly continuing to go << nudge-nudge-nudge-SHOVE-push-nudge-LISTEN >>.) "Yeah, all the ones Hive was holding. I think the last is getting knifed out as we /speak/," Flicker says, tone a lot more casual about this than the stressworry flutter in his mind. "So they're okay now /and/ you're home now, so --" He shrugs a shoulder. "So you can just be you again." Hive scrunches his forehead up, at the knuckle rapping. He slowly works his way through his muffin. Spills some crumbs onto Jim's lap. << Already am us, >> he eventually manages to answer. "/You/," Jackson says, "You-Hive. Hive-you." This is supplemented with memory-image. Game nights and rock climbing and air hockey. Sleepy-eyed four a.m.s at Hive's favourite diner. Too many cigarettes and too much coffee. Crankysurly snarking. Mentally dragging people out of a burning-down facility. Jax sips his coffee again. "You're home now. And people are okay. I think we kinda just want you back." Jim's mind is a rougher place, and his addition to Jax's is flavored thus, if no less /adamant/. Hive to /him/ is the hard hammer-crash of his /solo/-mind, razor sharp wit and tearing apart the news as it scrolls across a computer screen. Eating hot dogs and stealing his coffee and /having/ fries for Jim to retaliate steal and a /bitter/ drive to keep moving forward. Almost all of it's angry. But it's angry because it cares. Whether this is relating to Jim or /Hive/ is so intermingled it kind of melts into one: << This fucking city. This fucking life. >> It's not even a kind request, it's in full knowledge of how ugly and unfair and shitty everything is, so it comes like bringing a curse upon his head: << Come back, dude. >> Whatever addition Flicker makes to all this is not easily overheard; having by far the most practice of -- well, /anyone/ alive, really -- in navigating the mental link, he offers his words quietly, though they draw Hive's eyes up for a moment. Back down. << Good muffin, >> he says, a little crankily, << We're /right here/. >> "/Hive/," Jackson says again. "Not we, you." He rests his coffee cup on his knee, biting down on his lip. "I mean, you gotta --" He hesitates. "Ain't nobody going anywhere, we're all still gonna be right /here/." His fingers drum slowly against his cup. "But all those people from the lab, we got them out, you know? So they could be free. Can't just keep caging 'em /anyway/." << -- and we miss you. >> "Y'gotta let 'em go, Hivey." Jim's hand is still absently resting on Hive's mop of hair, and he scruffs it roughly again, not smiling. << Little bit at a time if you gotta. But you gotta. Or you're just another warden. >> These reminders still Hive. He drops his hand, muffin held in it half-eaten, and there's a distinctly discomfited twinge in his mind. It /clangs/ there for a moment with the heavy slamming sound of metal against concrete. And then there is silence. << can't, >> eventually rises up, quiet and uncertain. "Yes, you can." Flicker is patient with this. "It might take some remembering, but you can. One at a time. You can keep us for last, if you need the -- company." "S'was a temporary solution, Hive. Some'a them needed you. We needed you. To help. But t'weren't never supposed to be forever. Y'can't just chain people up for always." Jax's teeth worry at his lip ring again. << and we /miss you/. >> This echoes again, involuntary but strong. "You gotta." Jim echoes his own sentiment, hard because it has to be. But pressed close in mind, with a misshapen and kind of clumsy protectiveness. It's easier with him draped close; proximity-hovering, and the primal human /adrenal/ trigger hovering not far off - there's no flight. Just fight. << And you already know it. >> << can't >> whispers again, tired and /small/ as the voice withdraws, almost losing itself in the chorus of voices that surround it. /Nestling/ back into them, borrowing down. And then not words, just a /sentiment/ of 'can't', echoing repeatedly as Hive's face turns, eyes closing, cheek pressing against Jim's knee. His hand drops, muffin still clutched (for the moment) in loosening fingers. Flicker leans down, snatches up the muffin before it drops. He puts it back in Hive's hand and curls Hive's fingers around it. "That's crap," he says. "You're /coming/ back from this. Now." "Flicker's cursing, man," Jackson says. "I mean, if he's cursing you know things've just got real serious." His tongue wiggles at one lip ring, eye focused on Hive and his hand almost absently dropping to rest at Hive's knee. "Start with one. Find them. Let them go." << No, you don't. >> Jim swipes after Hive, though being not psionic makes it fruitless when he burrows off. Which follows with a massive frown -- and resuming once more a steady, stubborn << *POKE-pokePOKE* >> And a shoving, a tugging, a pulling. Possibly, there's some vague mostly-subconscious annoyance from other members of the borgnet at a sudden low annoyance. That's internally. Externally, that same roughness isn't present. He sighed, clutched up his fingers on Hive's head and is slightly less-meanly scrubbing it. Just kind of mussing him now, with a deep frown. "I know you can do one, asshole. You dropped /five/ when you snagged /me/. Do it again. Just that many. An' you can take a break." A muffin break. Flicker settles himself at the base of the couch. He pries the muffin without much resistance from Hive's fingers, reaching for his hot cocoa to sip at it slowly. The muffin he places in the center of Hive's chest. For safekeeping. His expression has shifted just a little vacant. Sort of concentrating on something sort of not-here. He tips forward, slow, resting his head kind of against the base of the couch but kind of against Hive's side. Hive's eyes just close. There's a further withdrawing, /disappearing/ into the messy background-noise. The mental shoving-tugging-pulling draws him further away, burrowinghiding outrunning it easily to vanish. But these concrete physical reminders pull him back, slowly. Creeping out to focus, on Jax's hand, on the heavy weight of Flicker's head, on the fingers scrubbing-mussing at his hair. His own hand lifts slowly, settling at the back of Flicker's neck, fingers tracing slowly against his spine. Internally he is slipping outward again, but this time not burrowing. Not hiding. Just poking, gentle-light, at each mind in his network in turn, examining what they are doing, where they are, until he finds one safely at home. Nudgepokenudge. << It'll hurt, >> he murmurs, to those around him. << Them. >> "Yes," Jackson agrees. "It will. But it'll hurt more the longer you wait. And you gotta let them go. You don't gotta rush it. We'll see you through. But s'gotta happen." His fingers tightening absently, squeezing at Hive's knee. In his mind there is worry, fierce and strong, but fiercer and stronger there is a deep love directed at the telepath. "C'mon, man. I know you. I know you can do this." "They'll be happier long-run." Jim adds to the argument, lower, rasper. Still mussing aimlessly on Hive's hair. His own base offering is heels-sunk-in determination, one that sinks in hard enough that he'd /fight/ any attempt to /be/ moved from this spot, "An' we'll be here." Flicker's head shifts, kind of butting up into this touch and then just nestling. Tucked against Hive's side. Hive's fingers trace against the back of Flicker's neck, brushing absently at dark hair. For a long time there is nothing. Just quiet whistle of breath through teeth that are slowly clenching. Inside, there's a hard wrenching pull, mental claws slowly dislodging from somewhere they have been sunk in very deep. Hive is shivering. His jaw clenches. There is a empty /void/, mentally, where once there was a voice and now there is a vacuum; it isn't long before other voices rush to fill it, but Hive's breathing is a bit more strained than before. << One, >> he says, strained and tired. It will probably be a long day.