ArchivedLogs:Switching Gears

Switching Gears
Dramatis Personae Hive, Jim, Dusk, Ian
In Absentia	2013-01-31 Jim comes over for a booty call. (Part of Prometheus TP.)
Location <NYC> 403 {Hive} - 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. BANGBANGBANG. Even if there is a doorbell, Jim is opting to pound on the door police-raid style. Maybe Hive invited him over. It doesn't matter, HE'S HERE. The door is opened in short order. Not by Hive. It's /another/ skinny young dude pulling it open, though this one is /considerably/ paler than Hive's tan-dark skin. Considerably paler than looks healthy for most anyone, really; it stands in sharp contrast to his very dark hair and very dark eyes. He pulls the door open with security chain still in place, cracked just enough to see pale thin cheek, pale bony shoulder, dark SQUINT. "Uh -- h-- ello?" He sounds a little puzzled. Jim stands outside the door, turned partly away to glance down the hall; he turns his head back when the door opens, brows up, "Yo. Hive in?" The man continues to squint. Frown. He closes the door. The chain rattles. He opens it again. "Shower," he says, pulling it open to give Jim a longer up-and-down look before stepping back. Door open, now, it is easier to see the large wings, membranous, soft-furred, dark, that flex from his back. And probably explain the preference for shirtlessness at home. "Who're you? You need, uh --" He glances around the messy apartment. Towards the messy kitchen. "Drink? Or something?" Jim flexes up his brows /further/ at the wings. The very slight concern that he might have knocked on the wrong door dissolves, giving way to Poking Around the living room with one hand in his pocket. The other is plucking at various books and papers on the table to scan titles and print. "Nah," he shakes his head, "I'm good. Jim, by the way." He tosses out a hand and leans towards the winged man, "S'your name?" << If you're jerking off in there, I'm gonna start thinking about old folks homes. >> The scattering of books on the table leans heavily towards sci-fi. Stephenson. Mieville. There's a couple character sheets scattered among the papers. Some old building plans. A newspaper, from Sunday. A couple textbooks (statistics, macroeconomics. Biochemistry.) The man leans in to clasp Jim's hand, his own fingers long and bony and his shake quick. "Dusk," he answers, at the same time that a voice cuts into Jim's head. It's a mental intrusion but it is decidedly /not/ Hive; this is clear enough from the fact it doesn't come with any level of /pain/. It whispers in dark and somehow shadowy, though even in this quiet undertone it manages to sound startled. Offended. << /Jesus/. What? >> << !!! >> It's not horrific shock, but it is a startled jump when this less abrasive voice whispers into his mind. << Uh. Not you. I don't know you. >> He is vaguely going about working up a good indignation, but curiosity blurts out. << Who /are/ you? >> Christ, I gotta get a better hang of what I'm thinking, or not hang out around fucking telepaths. "Nice t'meet ya," he says it with the rote city-reflex that makes it neither gushingly sincere nor fake. He roves on, flipping open a biochem textbook to squint at whatever page it exposes. Not /not/ interested. The page it exposes talks about glycolysis. Dusk, on a delay, laughs, rubbing knuckles against his eye as his wings fold against his back. "You too," he says, though this is said with considerable amusement as the room -- darkens. Shadowy, suddenly. Something -- someone -- not-quite-solidifies beside Dusk, vaguely human in shape though there's not much definition to it. It leans an arm against Dusk's bony shoulder, though. << Ian. You got a thing for old people? Or. Just a thing for thinking about my roomate spanking it? >> This time, it /is/ Hive's voice that slams in. Bludgeon-hard. Kind of /feverish/ intense. << Old folks home means this decrepit old man can picture /himself/ in this fantasy. >> Jim is never going to get used to this shit. Is what he's thinking. Right along the lines of << Shadowguy. Sure. Why the hell not. >> He puts out a hand, figuring if it has enough substance to lean against Dusk, it can have enough substance to /shake/ on it, "Ian. A'ight. I'm Jim. Y'know what? It's alright if you people missed the nuance, we'll have it your way. Old people. Skinny Asian dudes. Hot." SHUDDER. He's grimacing. The shadow extends something that might be vaguely arm-shaped, closing around Jim with a mushy-soft pressure. It doesn't quite amount to a shake, but it's contact, of a sort. << Jim. Sure. Can you just. Keep the strange fantasies quiet while you're here? >> Ian dissipates, melting away into formlessness; the room darkens, and then brightens again as he disappears. << Get enough of that from Dusk, >> he is muttering in echoing farewell. Dusk grimaces. It's kind of toothy, in that sharp fangs show through where his lips part. In the next room, the shower shuts off. << Should've told me you were coming for a /booty call/, I would've busted out nicer lingerie. >> Jim doesn't want to think about Hive in lingerie. Which means his overactive imagination is thinking about Hive in lingerie. It's like a bra and garters strapped to a plank of wood. << GOD DAMMIT, HIVE. >> "/You/," he points at Dusk, "Must have a /real/ interesting home life. Jesus /breathing/." Dusk's fanged grimace turns into a fanged smile. "Never boring," he allows, wings flexing, resettling, spreading slightly as he dumps himself onto a beaten-up old armchair, some of its stuffing spilling out of the back of the cushion. He drags the econ textbook over, along with his laptop. "Not half so interesting as the place we all met, though," he offers, light and wry. "Getting homesick?" This is in speech, not mental hammering, as the bathroom door opens. Hive has on jeans, no shirt. No /bra/. A towel draped across his shoulders. "Yo. Jim. Sup." "Why, where'd you meet?" Jim asks from behind a newspaper - or if there's no newspaper, he'll take a magazine, plopping down on the messy couch with the ease of a consummate bachelor. He seems to instantly just become part of the furniture, taking off his plaid fedora to wing it like a frisbee at Hive when he bothers to show up. "/Ignore/ him," Hive grumbles with a look towards Dusk, "he's just being a /smartass/." Cuz Hive clearly never does /that/. He fumbles at the hat when it thwacks into his chest, catching it before it hits the ground to examine it /critically/. "Shit. You're a real dick again and all." There's a newspaper. Sunday Times. It's been gutted for its coupons, as well as the comics. The rest is kind of in a vaguely intact heap though. Hive's dragging his own laptop to the edge of the table -- his has not one but two monitors plugged in and all three come to life and ask for a password as he nudges the mouse en route to plopping himself on the edge of Jim's couch. Dusk is putting on headphones. Engrossing himself in economics. And hip-hop. Hive reaches over to thunk the fedora back ON to Jim's head. "Needs a better feather. Good, though. Solid. Cuz I need you to do your thing." Jim pushes up on the back of the hat with the heel of his palm, adjusting it how he likes it while scanning the newspaper, "Better than carrying any card." He flicks up his eyes, a rogue quirk at the end of his mouth while flipping deeper into the paper, "What you got?" "Couple people." Hive's fingers speed over the keys; whatever his password is, it is LONG. The screen wakes up the rest of the way, and he minimizes -- many things. Building designs. Reddit. Al-Jazeera. An IM window. Some forum discussion. In the end it leaves a browser pulled up with a couple linkedin profiles. A pair of city employees. "Everyone's got dirt, right?" "Everyone's got dirt." Jim agrees, looking hard over the edge of the newspaper at either of the faces on the screen. "Lot of people /think/ they don't. Sometimes it takes a little spinning to get the nipple clamp on right. Tell me about these guys." He's already reading what information is on the screen with quick-scanning eyes. Hive shrugs, setting his mouse on the couch between them as Jim reads. He splits the profiles between the two large monitors, returns to forum-browsing on the laptop's own screen. Some discussion about a recent battle in EVE online. Priorities. "Melissa Gonzalez. Robert Wakefield. They both work for the city. Planning Commission. Woman's thirtysomething, never married, likes partying. Dude's on his second wife. Hoping you could tell me more than that." Once he's read either profile, Jim resumes frowning at the newspaper - possibly in thought, possibly about a child abduction news story in Alabama, "You bet I could. More the question, what do you want to get out of it? Where you want to go is going to put a big slant on where I'll be looking." And where I'll be willing to look. It's a low shaded thought, grim and pragmatic. "Got a project I'm working on," Hive says, shrugging a shoulder and frowning at his screen. He's leaning forward to type again, quickly; someone is Wrong On The Internet and he evidently needs to set them straight, right now. "Except the city's holding it up in paperwork. They're not too keen on building mutant-friendly -- uh, /anything/. I need to be able to lean on some folks to get it through. Lawyers aren't having luck." "Hah." The braced reserve in Jim eases, with a self-directed sarcasm: how easily I believe this guy, "It's gonna get worse the longer you leave /that/ one hanging. There's a lot of ugly paperwork already in the pipes that'll work /against/ you." << Which you probably already damn well know. I'm talking out loud, hang on, switching gears. >> "You want these guys," he flicks a finger at the screen, "I'll look into them. See where they're tender, get you something meaty. What's the building?" << That'll affect how hard we need to push. >> "Clinic," Hive says, submitting his post and leaning back on the couch again. He drags the towel off his shoulders to scrub it against his hair, leaving it messy dark fluff that he haphazardly smooths back down with his fingers. "For that doctor who fixed you up. It's really a project for a /team/ of architects, not some fucking rookie," which he must be, at his age, "but. /Weirdly/ there's not a lot of people clamoring to build a clinic for freaks that'll get bombed as soon as it's up. /If/ it ever gets up." His fingers flick towards the screen. "Want it up, though. And not just cuz I'm building it." "Oh, /that/ gig." Jim scrubs at his bristly cheek with a palm with a grumbling exhale. << One thing I'll give him; Iolaus sure knows how to fucking network. >> "Yeah." Just... yeah. "Guess I do, too. And not just cuz assholes like me wouldn't set foot through the front door of a normal hospital." << Not that the morgue didn't have its charms. >> He leans back on the couch, mashing his hat down over his face. "I even want to ask how you're gonna be paying me?" "Nope." Just nope. Hive slumps back in his chair, letting his towel crumple in his lap as he stretches his legs out. He looks down towards the floor, with a bit of a frown. "You'll get paid, though. Uh. Shit, but I don't even know how the fuck much you charge to go all peeping tom on people." Jim wonders about the probability of slipping in an 'I want this to happen' discount, and then inwardly frowns and states gruffly, "I'm not talking money with you in person. I'll call you t'night with an estimate." He's already running down the preliminary steps he'll need to take, while reading the weather forecast with half an eye. Abruptly, he grits, "Shit's not getting better." "Wouldn't say /no/," Hive murmurs wryly, to the unspoken wondering, but then he just frowns. Stares up at the ceiling, instead of down at the floor. "Yeahok." He's kind of huffing out a slow breath, leaning forward slow, too, to bring reddit back up. Thread about the viability of mutant /residential facilities/: read, camps. "least nobody's talking about sending us all to the slaughterhouse," he says, and squints at the screen. "Uh, well, nobody with serious clout enough to do it, anyway." "I was out at Shane and 'Bastian's school," Jim is muttering while making an aggravated order out of two newspaper sections whose spines have come out of alignment, "All these fucking kids. There's not even anything /great/ about 'em, I fucking hate teens." It's a baldfaced lie, and he's damn aware of it. "Met the school's new gym teacher, and we pulled some dumbasses off the frozen lake before they all killed themselves. Buch of weirdos and freaks - but they'd be the goddamn weirdos and freaks even if they weren't mutants." He knows what he needs right now: "You got coffee?" "Yeah, that's not what Shelby says," Hive is saying, deadpan, to Jim's /lying/ claim of hating teens. "S'Jax's alma mater, too. Freak high. Kinda wish they'd had one like it back home, man. I dunno, though. Some of them'd be normal as fuck. Bastian studies hard. Wants to be a doctor. Shane smokes a lot of pot. It's pretty much like every other high school. Who /isn't/ weirdos and freaks when you're fifteen?" He shrugs a shoulder, waving towards the kitchen. "Yeah, sure, if you want to /make/ it. Knock yourself out." "If you're believing /that/ kid, now, good luck with that." Jim gives the kitchen a BLACK look for being so far away. Then drags himself to his feet, whapping the newspaper against Hive's chest in bequeathal and ambles over to begin riffling through cabinets, like a good snoop. "Speaking of the twins, they alright?" It's not good-samaritan concern specifically asking, but it's not callous curiosity either; a preference for understanding shit he doesn't know. "Ran into Shane a while back, swimming in the reservoir. He kinda implied Basti'd put the fear of god into him." An image of winter night flashes briefly; the cold water, a little blue body huddled under a jacket. Five words: 'We. Sometimes disagree. With teeth.' (Also: DAMN he still has my coat.) "But she's so /emphatic/ about the shit she says, that's gotta mean it's true, right?" There's a French press coffee -- thing. ON the counter, suggesting it gets frequent use. The coffee beans are in a cabinet, as are mugs, though there's no particular /arrangement/ to any of the cabinet space. "Uh --" Hive frowns. "I mean, things get rough sometimes. They kinda had a thing. Couple weekends ago. I think they do okay, though. I mean, they wrestle with /claws/ but they heal pretty quick, too. I think sometimes they just go a little more feral in their arguments than most kids." He frowns deeper at the mental image. "-- Man. Sometimes I forget how /small/ they are." "Could fit 'em /both/ in my fucking jacket," like smuggling /watches/. To sell on street corners. This gets a very weird mental image from Jim, who knows his way around a french press enough to understand its mechanics. And to know it's not likely to be the most delicious creation on Earth. And to know that he'll drink it anyway, because it's out of style to ask if you can smoke in people's houses and caffeine is the next best thing. Hive's expression shifts a little more /grim/, at Jim's mental images, and he shakes his head. "Not -- for selling on street corners," he mutters, a little discomfited. "Or selling at all. Stuff fucks with Ian's breathing. You can smoke on the fire escape, though." He waves a hand towards one of the large living room windows. "Yeah. Cause you gotta tell me that," is uttered with a rather derisive eyeroll. The second half, Jim only waves at, "I'll wait til I'm outside. I'm not gonna die going a half hour without a cigarette." He says it in default, and only secondarily considers Ian's biological mechanics. He stands hunkered over the french press, a hand braced on the counter to either side of it. "Yeah, sorry," though Hive doesn't sound particularly sorry. "There's just a lot of fucked up in the world. And they're good kids." He turns a skeptical glance over Jim. "You sure about that? You look kinda washed-up. That coffee going to be enough to keep your sorry ass going?" He's dragging his laptop back into his lap, absently returning to something. Click click click. Jim's eyes stay on the dark brew of his coming blessed elixir. Yeah. It's a thought meant to himself, reflexively. Something tells me, Hivey, you'd know -- /Whump/. It's not actually walls dropping in his mind, but it has the sense of them, as he begins mentally reciting heavy-handed latin phrases to himself. "Fuck you, I look /fresh/. I had a shower." Said like this is a rare treat! He drops a heavy hand onto the top of the french press to slowly push it down. And lo, coffee is born. "You want any of this?" << Yeah. >> Hive exhales, heavily, lifting a hand to scuff it back through his hair tiredly. Somewhere in the pushing-back there's lines where the hair doesn't grow quite right, curling along the sides of his head, down by his ears, thinned with thick scarring. He scrunches his fingers tight, drawing in a breath and looking up at the ceiling before his hands move back to his laptop. "You'd need a lot more than a shower to make /you/ look fresh, old man. Yeah. Hit me." It's difficult to make out what Jim is thinking, behind the rigorous latin running through his mind. But the fervor behind it is angry, and goes back more than once to thinking about the 9mm in the holster at the small of his back. "Hey, in tree years I'm /young/," Jim pours two mismatched cups, "How d'/you/ know I didn't grow up from the ground from a seed?" And don't fucking say because you can read minds. "Milk? Sugar?" << Because I can read minds, >> /slams/ into Jim's, heavier and harder even than Hive's usual. On the couch, he looks tired. "Just straight-up. Shit, do you /seed/? Can we plant bits of you and grow /more Jims/? What happens if we take a cutting. Let it root." "-shitcock!" Jim swears to himself. Maybe it's just suddenly! Maybe he burned his hand on hot coffee. Maybe he has tourettes. "You're not getting a fucking /cutting/ off me. Christ." Though now he's wondering, /would/ it grow? All while setting a cup nearside Hive's computer and then pacing restlessly to a window, "It's funny, up til lately, I never bothered trying to do anything? I went only as far as working on /not/ getting leafy, getting a little bark on if I really needed a bit of armor. And now, I charged that guy, Lucien, a couple hundred bucks just for sprucing up his /basil/ plant. Seems if I work with a kind of plant too much, I get a little more like it. I smelled like pesto the rest of the damn night." He slurps at his coffee while glaring at the sky, "Maybe I'd have loved a school like that back home, too." "C'mon. Snipsnip. Maybe you could grow it back. Can you grow shit back? Like if we took a finger. Then you just rooted for a while. Treed. They can regrow branches." Hive is smirking, a little, up towards the ceiling. "Jax severed a bit of cop the other day. He regrew. Not a tree, though. There's worse things than smelling like pesto, fuck. I could go for some pesto." He eyes Jim. Speculatively? Hungrily? While reaching for his coffee. "Can we turn you into pesto?" He slurps the coffee, loud as he cools it with a mouthful of just-as-much-air-as-coffee. "Of course you would've. Who wouldn't want somewhere to not be a freak. Actually learn how to /do/ shit instead of just learn how to hide shit." "You get a basil plant, I'll make into a fuckin' hedgemaze," Jim snorts, "But you're not ripping a damn thing off me. Between you asking for basil and Shane asking for /pot/ maybe I should /sleep/ with my gun." He rotates from the window to lean a shoulder against the windowframe, to put Hive back in his line of sight. He actually pauses, though, to consider, allowing with a grimace, "...I dunno. I might be able to grow something back. Don't think it'd be pretty, though. I can put out roots and branches, but I can't really change my body shape." There's a long pregnant pause. "Or I guess I never've tried." He grimaces, switching back to something else, "Wait, Jax did what?" He is entirely convinced he misheard that. "This is New York, why don't you /already/?" Hive's smile is thin, and there's something in it that's not really /humor/; he sounds a little distant as he adds, "Maybe you should experiment. No faster way than having someone shove you in the /deep/ end and see how fast you learn to swim." Or to regrow body parts. He slurps his coffee again. His fingers make little scissoring motions in the air. "Snip snip. The man is a fucking /kitten/ ninety-nine percent of the time, shit, he makes the /Care Bears/ look vicious. You know, he fucking stops by here just to deliver /hugs/. But, uh, don't fuck with his /kids/." With arm's crossed, Jim is watching Hive. With no smirks or scowls, it's all just grizzled hard age and sharp eyes. << That what happened to you? >> It's asked bluntly, inward. Directed outward. While saying laconically, "I'll keep that in mind." << Happened? To me? >> Hive doesn't ask this blunt, just startled. Blank-baffled. << /I'd/ kill any motherfucker who fucked with those boys. >> << Me, too. >> Mind communication isn't meant for prevarication. Jim doesn't bother making with abashment for saying it, but dismissively because facts are facts, and he already knows them. The question on his mind: << How fast did /you/ have to learn to swim. >> Hive quiets, at this. Aloud and mentally. At least mentally to Jim, though Dusk looks up from his headphone-muted cave, meeting Hive's eyes a moment with a frown. Then looking back to his computer. Hive scrubs his fingers through his hair again, though this time doesn't push it back quite as far; it's a habitual gesture, though, fingers tracing a habitual /path/ curving along his skull. << I did a year, >> he says, like some people might talk of jail time, /sharp/-stabbing with a residual anger that goes beyond his normal mental harshness. << Little more than. Some fucking lab -- labs. Nevada, when I got out. Don't know where the fuck the first one was. They make you learn fast. >> Jim makes a thin laugh-hiss, though it's not in humor. It's almost glad to /have/ something like the brutal stabs of anger to grit his teeth and /brace/ against. << This world. >> It's so easily becoming their phrase, and Jim thinks it taking a clenched sip of coffee. << Is fucked up. >> << This world, >> Hive agrees, tipping his gaze down to look at the coffee but not actually drinking his. << The twins. Fucking grew up in those cages. Parents /sold/ them as labrats when they were little. >> There's a bitter note that might almost be laughter, << Little/r/. Jax busted me out. We got Shane. I don't know how many of these fucking places there are. We're damn sure trying to find /out/, though. >> << I want in. >> Jim shoots back bluntly, without preamble. And adds out loud over his cup, "You shoot a gun?" The answer is a sudden /burst/ of mental energy, cracking loud and sharp and painful through Jim's mind. "No." This is followed swiftly by a rush of something -- kind of the /opposite/ of Hive. Gentling. Soothing the damage Hive just inflicted. It doesn't speak, though it carries a blanket of something shadow-muted-dark and a general /feeling/ of apology. Roommates, man. What can you do. Jim was already leaning against the wall, but now he /needs/ it, slapping his non-coffee hand to his temple and squeezing shut his eyes, "The /hell/, man." << He's in a mood. >> This is Ian, soft-whispering, soft-soothing. Gentle touches to ease away mental /assault/, before he withdraws. "Sorry." Hive might even sound like he means it, this time. He rubs his knuckles against his eyes, tense-taut through lean shoulders. "You come with us, you'll get worse than shot. They've got guards. Many of 'em don't /need/ guns." Under the soothing, Jim is a little squirmy and uncomfortable, but endures it. And he's not insincere when he mindmutters. << Thanks. >> The worst of the agitation eases, stout conviction undaunted, "Yeah, well, getting /shot/ doesn't seem to be working. Maybe it's time I stepped it up a notch." "Hhhhhah." Hive exhales this long and dry. "You're looking for harder trouble, we can deliver." He gulps down the rest of his coffee. << Run into some /nasty/ motherfuckers, there, >> he says, a little tired, now. And then, slightly blunted at the edges: << They took Jax's eye when he wouldn't hurt the others, >> is soon followed by a still more tired, hollow-edged, << I nearly killed him when his team got into the lab I was guarding. >> He gets to his feet in a sudden jerk of movement. "I need more coffee." << Just avoiding it's not gonna make it magically go away. >> It's hard to tell if Jim is purposely shooting this thought to Hive, or just experiencing it very clearly to himself, looking back out the window. << But it might make it harder to avoid later. If these trends keep going as they're going. >> "What you /need/," he interjects, "is to come down to the range with me sometime. It's legal to shoot a .22 rifle without a permit down at West Side. Gimme a little time, I could doctor you up a permit for anything else you wanna shoot. Whole different kinda loud - but /my/ kinda loud you can wear shit over your ears to /muffle/ it." << They'll keep going. >> Hive sounds /optimistic/ about this! CONFIDENT. He even has a smile to go with it. If it's a thin-lipped thing that looks closer to a grimace, well. Well. "Never shot a gun. Can't be that hard, right? Trigger. Squeeze. Boom. I'll go. I like loud." He leans forward, setting his cup down, trading it out for his laptop. "But these people first, yeah." << Cuz fuck knows with the shit we get into, we're gonna /need/ a gorram clinic. >> "Yeah." Jim comes away from the window, stooping to collect Hive's cup on a flyby along his route to the kitchen. From the sound of things, they're both going to need a refill.