ArchivedLogs:No News...

No News...
Dramatis Personae Hive, Jackson, Flicker
In Absentia	2013-04-17 (Precedes WTF.)
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. Jax doesn't knock. He just unlocks the door and barges IN, Wednesday morning, a tupperware container tucked under his arm and -- he doesn't stop to take off his shoes, he hasn't /bothered/ with shoes in this venture. Just black capri pants with purple straps hanging from their D-rings, knee-high socks in red and black and neonyellow plaid, his 'All my heroes have FBI files' t-shirt. Dusk is still asleep, his bedroom door closed. Hive might be, too; he and Flicker are curled up together on the couch (currently pulled out into a bed.) /His/ bedroom door is closed, too. The apartment is its usual mess. Flicker cracks an eye open at Jax's arrival, crooking a sleepy smile. And then immediately closing his eyes again because mmm, sleep. Jackson sets his container down on the living room table, filled with fresh-baked lemon squares. He has to push some junk aside to accomplish this. And then, studying the pile of mess thoughtfully, he sets about /tidying/ it. Straightening things into neat piles. Moving the neat piles to a crate so that he can wipe the table down. Moving them all back so that he can sweep the floor. Flicker cracks his eye open again, at the sound of the sweeping. His nose wrinkles, and he groans, tucking his head under the covers. But a moment later he detaches himself from Hive's side, getting up to /help/ tidy. Putting junk away. Moving leftovers to the fridge. Starting in on the massive pile of dishes. Jackson eventually moves from living room to kitchen. Sweeping, too. Wiping down counters. The table. He ends by the sink, starting to dry and put away the dishes Flicker is washing. Hive is finally rousing himself now that the bulk of the cleaning has been done. Kind of. In that he flips from his side to his back, perhaps grouchy that his bedwarmer is missing. He peers towards the kitchen blearily, and groans. << Jegus you're so GOOD. >> He says this cranky-irritable, a thudding heavy cudgel of a mindvoice bludgeoning the other's minds. Flicker barely winces; he's kind of running on preemptive-tense already. And then pre-emptively: << Don't fucking /cheerful/ at me. >> Jackson is in fact in the very middle of starting some CHEERFUL; he answers bleary peering with Bright Smile, is starting to chirrup, "Hiiiihi--" but this cuts off with a wince and he drops the mug he is drying back into the rack. His nose wrinkles. "Someone around here's gotta be cheery. I brought y'lemon bars," he adds, "and a question." Images of the twins are already forefront in his mind. << Yeah, but why'd you bring 'em at ass o'clock in the morning? >> This isn't stopping Hive from eying those lemon bars. But only eying. They're so far /away/ he couldn't possibly reach them himself. "-- It's eleven," Flicker answers with a laugh. "I'm glad he did I have /class/, dude." After dishes. "It's eleven," Jackson agrees. And then barges right in with: "Have -- either of y'all seen the twins lately?" He's still doing dishes, calm, but the worry in his thoughts is basically drowning out everything else in a loud clamour-fret. This does pull Hive out of his slump-slouch-grouch, propping himself up on an elbow as he looks over at the others. It takes him a while to answer, filtering slowly through thoughts to settle on, << No. >> He pushes himself forward further still, crawling towards the edge of the bed to streeeeetch over and nab the lemon bars. "No," he manages again, once he has started nibbling at the lemon squares. << Not in weeks. >> Flicker finishes up with the large dish-pile, setting the last bowl into the drying rack. Jackson continues drying, stacking the bowl on top of a few others and putting it away. His mind tightens at Hive's bludgeoning mindvoice, opens at the audible speech, and his worry has more flavour to it than just a fretting parent with his children. "I'll bring you down a real dinner tonight, aright?" He's shaking hair back off his forehead as he opens a cabinet to put the dishes away. He heads back out to the living room, plopping down on the edge of the bed with one knee tucked up beneath him, one leg dangling over the side. "I got a visit from a caseworker yesterday." He's reaching out as he talks, snagging one of Hive's hands almost absently. His fingers play against Hive's knuckles, fingertips tracing against the bones. "They wanted to know if I done seen 'em. They -- they /lost/ my -- they don't know where the twins are." This is quiet, calm. The twisted-up knot of griefguiltworriedsick in his mind is not. << What. >> It's flat and heavy and Hive's hand turns up, clamping down around Jax's. He focuses on this, focuses on the knot of pain, and the hiss he lets out is slow. He squeezes Jax's hand tight. "-- Don't know. Don't know like they ran off or don't know like --" This is a thought that he doesn't finish. Jackson just shakes his head in silence. Don'tknowdon'tknowdon'tknow. "Ffff." Hive scrunches up his face. He sets his half-eaten lemon square back in the box. << Fuck. >> He leans forward, a slow topple to press his forehead against Jax's knuckles. Flicker was in the kitchen but now he is /there/, worry etched into his face: "-- wait, the twins? Whathow?" " -- Shelby and Bastian" << broke up, >> Hive announces again. With a not insignificant amount of guilt attached. << She was here -- yesterday? Day before? >> He frowns. Jax squeezes Hive's hand, now, when Hive lapses back into mindspeak. << Hive, >> is a gentle quiet prompt. And aloud, "I don't know. They ain't at their foster home and they ain't never gone back to the school after Bastian's suspension was up and they just -- ain't -- nowhere." His jaw tenses, his arms tense, his posture tenses, and he turns to look at Hive. "They -- when." Flicker puts a finger to his lips, chewing at already ragged-bitten nails. << Don't >> -- "don't know, a couple. Days. I --" Hive looks down at their hands, and hisses out another uncomfortable breath. "Kissed her. Few days ago. After -- after that. I guess. Fuck. I didn't. Fuck." Jackson answers this with silence. A flurry of thoughts, though, angry, some, but /worried/, more; still it comes out into a distinctly /displeased/ chaos that pinches his expression tight. He lifts /Hive's/ hands to mash the other man's knuckles against his eye, scrubbing down at it. "Why." This is flat in tone but the worry doesn't subside, a heavy sinking ohgosh it's /that/ bad isn't it rising in his thoughts. << Fucked up, >> is Hive's simple answer to this. Simple in thought if not in emotion, knotted up hurt and empty and lonely strong beneath the default /pain/ that has lingered since dehiving, his mental communication leaking heavily, less guarded in this present company than it is with most. "Yeah," Jackson agrees, still mooshing his face against Hive's knuckles. "Yeah, OK, but that's not. Helpful if. You gotta get out, man. You need to get back to life and people and." "People," Flicker reaffirms. "You're not making this /easier/." << On yourself on everyone. >> Jackson's thoughts are flitting. If it was a few days ago then /Shelby/ saw them. If they broke up maybe that was -- the last -- Fret. Fret fret fret. His fretting turns to Hive instead because Hive is /right there/. "I'm taking you out." << What. >> This thuds heavy and flat, too. "Out. Outside. The /world/. The place outside your apartment. It's got sun. People. /Things/. Food. You gotta take a shower, though, dude, you kind of smell." Hive snorts. Now /he/ bonks his face down against Jax's knuckles. "I'm sorry." "Everyone screws up," Jackson says, "though I don't think wanting affection's a crime." Hive is silent after this. His forehead stays against Jax's knuckles. "Might be," he says slowly, "if trying to find it means --" This sentence finishes in a heavy press of mental squeezing, constricting around Flicker and Jax's minds. Jackson exhales again. And then stands, /tugging/ at Hive's hand. "You're going out. We're goin' to Home and you're getting eggs Benedict and /so much/ potatoes." Over his backdrop of << With a side of morphine? >> Hive is GRUMP. But he slowly edges along at the tugging. Flicker disappears to the bathroom, slipping back out shortly after with a trio of advil and a glass of water. Hive downs these things like it is /crack/. And /then/ he stands up, immediately leaning against Jackson heavily. "No morphine, but maybe we could find someone who --" Jackson frowns, curling his arm around Hive's waist for support. << can help >> finishes with images. Rasheed helping the brainchippees de-chip, Lucien and his talent for brains in an entirely different way. This, at least, makes Hive thoughtful. If wry. "Don't think Lucien's my biggest fan right now. But." But. But he is trudging himself off to the bathroom to shower and perhaps have EGGS.