Logs:More Than Usual

More Than Usual
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Hive, Skye
In Absentia	2019-03-04 "The constant dying is very true to life."
Location Apt 403 - 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. A widescreen television stands against the wall opposite the couch, shelving beside it holding a host of video games from different consoles. More shelving beside the windows on the far wall carries stacks of board games, as well as sourcebooks from various RPGs. 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 and one bathroom situated between them, split between the three people who live here. Jax was probably off work last night; the apartment's been straightened, scrubbed, a plate of raspberry thumbprint cookies left on the counter. In one corner, there's a nest of blankets; a large but very skinny brindle dog (who has, by now, had a bath) is curled up dozing with five impossibly tiny lumps of nearly-naked still-blind puppies nestled against her side. Hive is tucked into one side of the couch, in faded jeans and a crimson sweatshirt with the Greek letters Theta and Tau printed on the front in gold. His laptop is on the table, and the holographic projection in front of him may one day be a building but at the moment is just its bones, measurements reconfiguring themselves as he taps at the faintly glowing structure. The television is on, but low; he's currently paying it no mind. Lying on his belly on the /rest/ of the couch, Dusk is not making /much/ effort to stay out of the way of Hive's work. One wing is tucked snug against his back but the other is unfurled, trailing down onto the floor. His arm hooks over Hive's knee, cheek resting on his roommate's leg; he has several of the raspberry cookies on a paper towel and is working his way through them slowly. A glass of oat milk sits on the floor just by his wing; it's currently under investigation by a curious ferret, her twitchy nose peeking out from beneath one of his fuzzy fingerbones. Dusk's fingers brush lazily against Hive's jeans; a small part of his attention is on /Russian Doll/ onscreen but /most/ of it has been commandeered by a rather demanding clawing hunger. Hive's pulse throbs in his ears. /Alanna's/ pulse throbs in his ears. He closes his eyes, nuzzles his cheek against Hive's leg. Takes another bite of cookie. There's a kind of muffled knock at the door, though the visitor doesn't wait for leave to just barge in. Skye has a cardboard drinks tray of bubble tea in one hand a brown paper bag in the other, and a no-nonsense black tactical backpack. /Beneath/ all this stuff she looks just a little damp around the edges, dressed in a hip-length black coat that flares out at the waist, a pink-and-black plaid shirt unbuttoned low enough to show the white camisole beneath, fitted black jeans with pink contrast stitching, and pink Doc Martens. "Sup, my dudes?" She's managed to wiggle out of her boots with the aid of just one hand, after transferring the paper bag to the crook of the other elbow. "I come with bounty from the distant lands of Essex Market." Hive doesn't seem to mind, much, manipulating his plans around Dusk when necessary. He works one-handed, most often, dropping his free hand to brush down against the soft nap of Dusk's wing or to knead firmly in between his shoulderblades. "Oh shit," is his warm welcome to Skye, without looking up, "we're getting /exotic/ up in here. Have you seen this thing?" He waves his stylus toward the television. "It makes no sense." Dusk gently nudges Alanna away from /actually/ shoving her face into his milk each time she gets close enough to try it. A very low rumble has started in his throat, shoulders relaxing under the kneading and a bit more clarity cutting through the fog of red that's settled over his mind. "It makes sense if you're actually /watching/ it." Nevermind that /his/ eyes have shut all the way, now. "Heyyyyy." The shift of his wing up and vaguely in Skye's direction for Hug is very lazy. Given that he doesn't actually /move/ this mostly just accomplishes 1) completely getting in the way of Hive's display and 2) knocking Alanna further away from the milk. The ferret bounces several steps back, flailing left and right in immediate huffy protest of this treatment until her performative indignation sends her toppling over backwards. "We have cookies, is that a suitable trade?" "Russian Doll? I haven't seen enough to tell if it makes any sense but aside from the constant dying it seems pretty accurate to my experience of New York so far." Skye hauls food, drink, and tech over, meets the lazy wing-hug with one shoulder before folding herself down onto the floor beside Dusk. "Are they /Jax/ cookies? I'm so down." She starts unloading the bag but seems to experience a moment of decision paralysis about where to put the food in the wide expanse of open space on the table in front of her. "I got fried chicken, hipster bao that's actually /good/, and sweet potato tots. Oh and the boba is nondairy, but this one's mine." She snags the beige cup and turns it upside down and rightside-up a few times before sticking a straw in it. "You alright, man?" she asks, peering sideways at Dusk. "Please. Ask Flicker, the constant dying is very true to life." Hive flops back when Dusk moves, exhaling heavily and finally just swatting at the whole display to minimize it. "The cookies just appeared." He leans forward (over Dusk's head) to snag a sweet potato tot, popping it into his mouth. "He's sulking. It's good you brought good sulking food." "You're an /angel/." Dusk doesn't actually -- take the food, though. He just burrows harder against Hive's lap, curling there tighter as Hive shifts to snag a tot. "I'm not /sulking/." The unhappy churn of guilt and stress roiling beneath the hunger in his mind suggest otherwise, though. "But you should know I'm a really fucking bad spy." "Oh man, and here I thought I brought /celebrating/ food." << Or like, got-paid-a-lot-this-weekend food, whatever. >> Skye sips on her bubble tea. "I'm finally making progress on Scylla and figured we should compare notes." She tilts her head at Dusk, eyebrows up. "Buuuut I guess you didn't have quite so much luck with your field work?" "Scylla? Spy? What the fuck nerd shit are you all on about now?" There's a mild amusement in Hive's question. Since Dusk seems unwilling to /move/, this time when he leans forward he takes the whole container of sweet potato tots so as not to keep jostling the other man. "Mrrgh." Dusk curls his wing around Hive's knees, only shaking his head at the inquiry. When he finally does turn his head again, the seam of Hive's jeans has pressed a crease into his cheek. "It's -- fuck." In his mind he's replaying a scene in the Tessiers' kitchen, a little fuzzy with memory but well familiar to Hive by now for how /much/ he's gone over it the past day, asking Steve for coffee and subsequent conversation over cooking. "I didn't even get him on a date this /second/ time either!" Another stab of guilt, even as a blush rises to his cheeks. Outwardly, though, just sheepish: "... I mean, he didn't. Want to go on a date. With me. He just -- said yes. We never got to coffee." Hive's question inevitably calls a condensed explanation to mind -- though a lot of it is highly technical or just plain nonsense without context, it's pretty obvious that Scylla is some kind of mysterious high-grade encryption and Dusk had some kind of plan to ply information from the Tessiers' mysterious houseguest. Skye's /actual/ explanation has to wait until she's chewed and swallowed the chunk of karaage she just ate. "It's /kind/ of a long story, but TL;DR we're trying to figure out who's responsible for some pretty intense surveillance on Matt's house and on the Lofts, and whether they're the same people." Her eyebrows go up, up, and farther up as Dusk explains. "That's rough, buddy." Her brain is referencing Avatar: the Last Airbender, but there's genuine sympathy behind the words. "Look, that doesn't mean you're a bad spy. Just means he has bad taste." She twists around to face the two men, resting her elbow on the couch and propping her chin up in her palm. "Anyways, there's other ways to dig up information about a guy. Give me a full name and a place of birth and I'll move the world." Hive returns to kneading at Dusk's shoulders. "Dude, he's dealing with a lot of his own shit, it wasn't..." His eyebrows lift through Skye's explanation. He's quiet for a moment. His fingers still work at the muscles of Dusk's back, his teeth slowly grinding. "Watching us here? Like -- more than usual?" "I don't care that he turned me /down/. I just --" Dusk shakes his head, deliberately tamping down the tangle of worry that continually resurfaces around the awkward pseudo-date. "Sorry. I'm not sulking! I'm. Having tater tots." He's swiping one from Hive, anyway. Turning a very quizzical look up over his shoulder to his roommate. "More than usual, yeah. Kind of the funny thing about this whole situation. I wanted to talk to him in the first place to see if he knew why people might be surveilling the Tessiers but then he was -- sweet, so I..." Another /fierce/ shake of his head. Another tater tot, which does very little to quell the hunger scrabbling at the inside of his mind. "I mean people are always fucking watching us but this is next level." "Oh yeah, a /lot/ more than usual," Skye replies solemnly. "I mean like it was kind of around the same time Ryan came out, so I thought it was probably just that." She slurps at her tea. "But then I noticed similar patterns of data use in a massive surge of surveillance on the /Tessiers/, who...you know, /don't/ generally have a bunch of alphabet soup agencies watching them. And /that/ started around the same time this Steve dude went to stay with them." She rolls her head further to one side in her palm, looking at Dusk. "I mean, I don't know this guy from Adam, but maybe he /knows/ he's being watched and that's why he...um, agreed to go out with you even though he didn't want to? Yeah no that makes zero sense. Maybe we should just like. Ask /Matt/? Or we may not have to, if this crack I found breaks Scylla wide open." Hive turns towards the TV, though his eyes are unfocused, staring kind of through the show that's still quietly playing. His knuckles dig in slowly against Dusk's back, the food forgotten. "Steve Rogers was recently in the custody of an agency called S.H.I.E.L.D.," he finally answers. "He's also undergone a lot of research that some people would be really interested in getting their hands on, so when he left they --" His teeth grind again, slow. "Have probably been pretty invested in making sure they keep an eye on what he's up to." << Research? >> The mental images this conjures up are predictably unpleasant. Dusk finally does push himself upright, a lower growl rumbling in his chest. "Is he in danger? Are the Tessiers in danger?" "Holy shit." Skye stares at Hive, jaw slack. << Damn, that's both impressive and scary. >> Quietly, "I didn't know S.H.I.E.L.D. did research on people. Granted no one seems to know much about them for sure." She frowns. "An organization like that...if they've been watching the guy for a whole month without stepping in, they must want something from him they can't coerce." << Or think it'd be more trouble than it's worth to coerce. For now. >> Her fingers drum restlessly on the side of her head. "Doesn't mean there /isn't/ danger." "When are any of us not in danger?" Hive snorts, pulling a leg up onto the couch under himself. "But they don't seem inclined to just /kidnap/ him, if that's what you mean. They did try coercing him back at first, but that didn't work and they've backed off since. I don't think they'd be /above/ forcing him if it came to that, but I also don't think they want it to come to that. I have no idea if they'd hurt the Tessiers. I don't know much about them. Do you know how extensive their monitoring's been?" Dusk reaches for his bubble tea now, tipping it over and back before poking the straw in. "It's hard to keep solid track, but they've definitely been watching Lucien, anyway." << ... maybe won't hurt them until they see something they don't like. >> The soft growl underlying his words deepens. "Do they know? Why -- how. Did he end up with them?" Skye nods, points at Dusk. "We haven't seen any positive evidence of the others being actively followed daily. Which doesn't mean they're /not/." << Though I would be /so/ impressed with any organization that can actually keep track of Desi... >> She gives an exaggerated shrug. "It's hard to say for sure about the mobile tapping unless I can access their accounts." She swishes her tea around, considering the formless unease that has been rising since Hive explained Steve's background. << He probably knows already, if he knew about S.H.I.E.L.D. at all, right? >> But still, she says, "Everything I've read about this agency -- which, keep in mind, mostly comes from other conspiracy nuts -- says they specialize in 'combating mutant terrorism'." She puts /large/ air quotes around the last three words. << Like probably /anyone/ involved with the Prometheus raids is technically a terrorist... >> Hive's lips twitch, eyes flicking briefly to Skye and then away. "The Tessiers know where he came from, yeah." His gaze drops as Alanna returns from where she has squirmed under the couch, long body now draping across his foot. Leaning down, he scoops her up and deposits her on Dusk's lap. "I guess I should be glad they're not watching every last one of us but somehow, watching them isn't --" He exhales, hard. "Even slightly reassuring." Dusk just shivers. The image that has come to mind for him is Matt, sipping from a thermos with anachronistic casualness, leaning against a wall in a hallway spattered with blood and riddled with bullet holes. Beyond him several of the members of the Prometheus team are just rallying to return to the fray. Dusk takes a long pull from his tea, chews at the boba, and curls his legs up to topple Alanna down in against his belly. He drops his chin to rest on his knees, head shaking.