ArchivedLogs:Fucking Up

Fucking Up
Dramatis Personae Hive, Jim, Shelby
In Absentia	2013-06-01 whoops.
Location <NYC> Down Under - Morningside Heights
Gritty, grimy, with food of questionable origin and unquestionable greasiness, Down Under is nevertheless a place to drink. That is about all that can be said for it -- that and it is a place to drink if you are short on cash. As such, it is frequently frequented by college students and those looking simply to get Very Drunk. For those none too concerned about the quality of their booze, this is the place to go. The longest process had been in taking the pictures, really. ID photos have a certain set of requirements that Jim had ad hoc'd together in a manner all too practiced, Jim and Shelby each taking their turns snapping shots of one another, getting them developed, sending them away. This was all done before today, however -- Today, it's all come together. Shelby, instructed to stay the FUCK over there out of sight will possibly have a glimpse of Jim standing in the shade of the park, handing over a rather /plump/ envelope to a little man with a mole-face, little pointy nose, little round spectacles, hunched Danny DeVito shoulders and a case of the sniffles. The little mole man in turn hands Jim an envelope of his own. They shake hands, murmuring a few blank-eyed comments into one another's ears, and then part ways. The Jim now walking towards Shelby is more human than he's been in a long-ass time; his skin is intensely flaky and scaly, a serious late-stage case of shedding psoriasis and he now has a /deep/ scar that runs up the side of his face and disappears under his hair, which has now gone entirely gray. But he's /flesh/. And walking. And most important of all, "The /fuck/ kid! Where'd you get to!" /Look/ who's talking now. It's music to Shelby's ears! You tell a street kid to stay out of sight, and it can be pretty incredible how they make themselves disappear. It's a certain thing that she found a hidey hole from which to observe but /where/? And /how/? There's no sign of her--until she pops up at his elbow, strolling along at his side as if she'd never left. Still wearing last night's make-up, now liberally smudged, and with her classy professionally done ringlets pulled back into a ponytail, Shelby looks like a hungover cheerleader. If one can overlook the black off-the-shoulder t-shirt she's wearing that's been decorated with the image of a human skull (with its crown adorned by a pink satin ribbon). Add in black leopard print leggings and those sneakers, and yeah...street kid. Not a cheerleader. "Didja get 'em?" she's asking, looking with bright interest from raggedy faced Jim to his pocket to Jim, /to his pocket/. Subtle, she is not. Eager...yes. "Yep." Jim says, strolling along with his eyes directed forward. He doesn't look at her when she joins him, he has the WORLD AHEAD to be gazing balefully at with squinted, deeply lined eyes. He's wearing a hawaiian shirt, khaki cargo shorts, flip flops, utterly unconcerned with all that flaky peely skin showing -- there are scars on his arms, but they're fully healed in a speed that would be a medical marvel on a human, walking all /brisk and healthy/ like he's trying to /shake/ his current company. He does not /hand/ their 'it' over though. With his one mangled claw-hand (as reformed as it /can/ be with missing fingers) crammed casually in a pocket, he fishes out the envelope and holds it up over Shelby's head as he walks. Jump for it. /Jump/ for uncle Jimmy. /Wait/ a sec. Shelby is caught somewhere between snickers and scowls at being forced to make like a dancing monkey for his pleasure. Sure, he paid, and sure, she'd probably do the same if she had his height, but...damn it! She won't. She will not perform for-- Okay, she'll jump. With an 'oof!' because she's something of a wimp. And again! Swipe! "Oh come /onnnn/, let me /seeeeee/," she whines as she tenses in preparation for a third leap. "Still can't believe my /best/ picture still looked like I'd been been run over by a train." Jim lets her have it on the third on, permitting her to be the one to /open/ their little package. Which means he looms in behind her to look over her shoulder, "Where's yours say you're from?" It takes all of two seconds for Shelby to rip the envelope open once it's in her hot little hands. The cards produced are ticked, one behind the other, so she can leer at Jim's first. "Man, you look like a goon," she says in apparent agreement before passing it back to him. Then she studies hers, face twisted in apparent disbelief at her /own/ picture. /Fuck/. "These things always end up looking like shit, why is that? I'm from..." She pauses to check. "Wyoming. Where the fuck is that?" "Where's /Wyoming/. Christ, kid. That is standard god-damn geography. It's in the fucking -- continental divide. Capitals uh... What's it. /Cheyenne/," Jim is saying all this absently while looking at his own card. "You listening t'me? You gotta know this shit if you're gonna play it off." He stuffs his brand new ID into his /pocket/ and wheels off on a path that takes him out of the park and across the street towards the nearest bar he claps his /eyes/ on. "So how old'er you now." "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cheyenne. Sounds like a stripper name," Shelby grouses as she gives her ID a last dark look, then slides it into a rear pocket. Hopefully not to be lost, given how much these things go for on the market. "Twenty-one. Probably can't pull off older than that but with makeup I can do twenty-one easy." This brightens her right up, considering where he appears to be leading them. A /bar/, huh? Jim's given the ol' hopeful side-eye until memory kicks in and her brow rumples. But only briefly. It's not like he's buying himself shots /yet/. "Try tell the fuckin' Indians that," Jim looks both ways, crosses the street, "What the fuck is up with chicks and make up anyway. You're gonna get carded either way, and there's not a god damn ID I've seen that didn't leave a chick looking like a /hag/." The Down Under is practically deserted in the off season, with no Columbia college students toppling down from their hillside perch to pickle off the cheap libations. As it is, there's a pair of honest-to-god cowboys at the far end of the bar in jeans and sweaty button-ups, both talking to that /one/ woman you find in any watering hold, dried-up and in her late forties, she's still got a little leg left in her and the lipstick to get her another round of mileage. The bartender looks their way, eyeing the /kid/ and the man with a scarred face, and shores up a braced expression that's ready to weather any unknown variety of storms that might arrive with them. Jim only jerks a chin, "I get two beers? Whatever's dark on tap. Hot as balls outside." One of the /downsides/ of having human flesh again is he's remembering /sweat/. And pores. Oh god, bodies are disgusting. Shelby is content to let Jim play safety cop. /She/ just starts across the street, and the only thing she looks out is /him. A dirty look too. "I don't look like a /hag/. Asshole." Could she be regretting his newly found ability to speak? Naaah. Once inside, she cozies up to a bar stool and folds her arms on the counter as if she belongs there. Being eyeballed phases her not at all; she copies Jim's chin-jerk. Yo. That second beer is for /her/. She doesn't even produce the ID, not yet. You don't do that shit until it's /asked/ for, man, or they know it's a fake. "You sure you're gonna be all right with that?" Here it comes. "I mean, you said you'd been clean awhile, huh? No booze, right?" "Says the underaged kid," Jim says it in a low utterance, the way convicts speak - with lips that hardly move, jaw clenched. He sits in his stool sideways, one arm - the one with the /good/ hand - folded on the bartop, the mangled hand tucked in a pocket. "Y'know, somehow, princess. I think I got this." The bartender - a man built with a really wholesome face that's seen a few too many decades of bullshit and developed a perma-stubble and a receding hairline for it - returns with their drinks. "ID's?" He's far too experienced to look specifically at Shelby. But c'mon. The other guy has a head of silver hair and a face as deeply lined and dry and a dried up creek bed. Jim waves flashes his sardonically. And then fishes into a back pocket for his wallet to put that bad boy in its new /home/. "How'd uh. Dance thing go." Surely Shelby'd mentioned going to it. The look that Jim gets at that moment, when he claims he's got it under control, is more uncertain than skeptical. Then the moment passes, thanks to the bartender. Shelby tips forward, fishes her shiny new ID out, and holds it up for inspection. /Booyah/. Victory tastes like cheap beer. "Went good," she says as she returns the flat slip of plastic to her pocket. "It was pretty insane, but everyone loved the flower thingies you put out." This comes with a quick sidelong grin. "Bastian seems better and Hive, he..." She pauses there, all ten fingers drumming against the bar. "I didn't think he'd come but he did. Wore a dress too, so B wouldn't feel as weird. It was...it was nice. Y'know? Like /real/ people nice. Movies 'n shit." "Ksh." Jim doesn't /quite/ interrupt Shelby to make this sound, but it follows up on her last words fast, his hand closing reflexively around the base of his drink when it arrives like it gives him /strength to endure/. "So they both went huh?" He raises his drink part way, scowling at the dark foamy head puffed dangerously above the rim. "-christ, you kids and your everyone-dating-everyone-else." He seems very nearly to be making a /toast/ to this statement, unsmiling, unblinking, and tips back his glass. "--Basti's alright with it all, then?" "It's not like that." Shelby isn't annoyed or defensive. She's just statin' the facts, man. Keepin' it real. Or maybe she's just thrilled to be presented with her own beer, right here at a bar, in plain sight of God and everyone. One hand curls around the condensation-cold glass while the other scratches idly at her ribs through her t-shirt. "I'm not dating /anyone/. Hell, I didn't even /fuck/ anyone last night," she says with a glance at her companion. "It was just...nice. Bastian knows, I told him I asked Hive to come." Jim had /things/ he was likely to say, but either Shelby's last statement, or maybe her /second/ to last one earns a willingness to quiet - after so long without a voice, it's a willingness perhaps he's a trifle more given to these days, and he turns his head towards the girl slightly with a brow raised. Skeptical? Surprised? Bored? He leaves the yawning gap that follows for her to /elaborate/. "What?" Okay, now she'll scowl. Shelby scrunches her face at him then looks away deliberately, to concentrate on having a nice long swallow of cheap dark beer. Yum. She even licks her lips afterwards. "I'm not /always/ a horndog," she claims. "Besides, me and Hive can't anyway. He doesn't wanna eat my brain or whatever, and I guess it's hard to...y'know. Without doing that." The wonder of it, that she can say this without trace of tension or grumpiness. Maybe it's the beer--another sip is taken. "Maybe I'll blow my five grand on batteries instead of a car..." "Mph." Jim grunts. "...I was workin' with him on that. Before fucking -- bootcamp from hell broke it up." The sound of his own voice even offering up such small tokens is nearly its own distraction, it would seem, wiping a thin layer of foamy 'stache off his upper lip. "And don't get your panties in a bunch, kid. Whatever you wanna do," he gives his beer a lazy swirl, scanning the far wall, "s'gonna be what you wanna do. You're happy, I ain't got a complaint. How 'bout Shane? An' the other kid, Parker. They all taking back to school alright?" "Fuck those assholes," Shelby mumbles into her mug, eyes slitted. "And not just 'cause they messed that up. But it'd be...nice. He said it was...mehngh." Yes. Just that. There's another question on the table and she shrugs as she attends to it. "I think they're all still a little fucked in the head about it. I mean, who wouldn't be, right?" Did she just slide a glance towards his beer there? Maybe she did, the sneaky little minx. "But it kinda seems like maybe it'll be...I guess? Yeah? Shane's even coming back and he wasn't gonna, before. Maybe it's different 'cause he's with Peter now. He had Daiki before too but that wasn't gonna make him stay. How about you? You okay with...like, being back and all?" "Pleased as punch." If Jim feels Shelby eyeing his drink, he is ever so inclined to demonstrate his /intentions/ for it. GULP. His adam's apple rolls with it. "Got a lot of work t' catch up on." His head turns, a fraction, three-quarters of an angle to facing his unlikely company head on. "How /you/ holdin' up in all this? What was it like out here?" Shelby's eyes shift in tiny increments, watching that bobbing adam's apple. /Now/ she seems more skeptical than uncertain. But...if anyone's earned a drink, it's the guy who got his face cut in half, right? Right. So she contents herself with leaning against the bar and just watching. Watching Jim drink. Hell yeah. It's like having a cat staring at you during the most intimate of acts. "It was pretty much hell," she admits. "Didn't know shit all about where you guys were, or what happened. Thought maybe you got grabbed by the labs but when they found out you weren't, it was like...it was even worse. They could do stuff about it, at least." Brows raised a fixed inch, Jim is silent for a moment, staring blankly ahead while rubbing a hand up and down his disfigured cheek. Damn. "...Yeah." He makes with a long, gravely exhale, "Y'mad?" "Wut?" Shelby actually says that. There is no H or A involved in that question. "Mad at /you/? What the /fuck/, dude?" Heedless of the looks they might get, she tilts towards him on the stool to plaster herself against his side. "I'm pissed enough at /them/ that it was probably good they /didn't/ take me with. But not you, Jim? Don't be a dumbass, okay?" Yeah, she doesn't do comforting well. "I just...want you to be safe. And okay." "Eugh," sound of Disgust, Jim dropping an arm around Shelby's shoulders and awkwardly smooth-- /shaking/ her. Like UGH knock it off, comfort /rejected/, "Y'know you're allowed to sometimes, right?" "I've been mad at you plenty. If it makes you feel better, I'll be pissed off right now." Shelby, who has not budged from draping against him in spite of the shaking, flicks and switch. Bam, pissy face. "I'll kick your ass if you get yourself hauled off and half-chopped up again, you dick. You scared me half to death." Pause. "Better?" "Gettin' there." Hi, Shelby's beer. While Shelby is being held captive, Jim is taking advantage of her vulnerable /glass/ for a sampling. Old habits die hard. "Shit like this. Almost easier dealing 'ab irato'. Lot to be mad at. Like a fucking -- cleansing by fire." "Ab irato," Shelby parrots. An ineffective swat is made at the purloined beer mug. No dice. It is well and truly stolen. "Like...abs of fire? Fire in the belly, huh? I can do that." It might be /all/ she can do with that ninety pound weakling physique but... "You get as pissed as you wanna be, Jim, you know? I know this empty lot, down a few streets. The building's empty. Throw rocks, break some glass. I used to go there before they suckered me into school. It'll help." Her head tilts against his ribs, eyes cast upwards towards his face. "I won't tell." Bwahaha. Jim is in possession of /all/ the beer now. He helps himself to Shelby's. Sets it down and moves back to his own. "'Irato', like 'irate'", he clarifies, dead-pan and swirling his glass, leaving an arm tossed across Shelby's back in a manner that shifts kiiind of into a headlock. "And 'ab' is... fucking. 'From'." Though now he's frowning - a /gifted/ Latin speaker, James Morgan is not, and now he's looking ceiling ward, mouthing silent words as he tries to figure out if he'd used the proper syntax - BAH. Who fucking cares, he scruffles a mussing on Shelby's head when she looks up at him, "You used to do that, huh? I'd just fucking bet." Okay, he'll finally release her. "So what'd' you do now instead?" Muffled, from beneath the visegrip of his arm, Shelby's voice drifts up. "Oooh, Mister Fancy Words." It's all Greek to her! If he wants to be a gifted Latin speaker, he could probably get away with it around her. When she's released, there is a prissy little show of sitting up straight and smoothing her hair back. A little red-faced from captivity, a little rumpled, but no worse for wear. She has all of the natural dignity of an alley cat--which is to say, she turns it off and on at will. Right now, it is /on/. "I...kinda haven't been doing that either," she confesses with a grin. "Need to figure something else out. Maybe driving too fast? You gotta help me pick something out though. Car salesmen are /assholes/. I mean, bigger assholes than you." "Gotta have money to get a car, sweetheart." Jim /jabs/ holes in the first thing that looks like a story. Call it professional habit - one he's got a lot of JABBING built up for from his weeks of silence. Shelby applies the smugface. "Yeah, well, guess who won five grand at that art show? Maybe more like four grand, I got some shit I gotta do, but...yeah. Wanna go in halfsies? You can have it on weekends." This is dangled before him like the carrot it is intended to be--even /she/ knows Jim Morgan's covetous nature towards cars. Jim sloow-turns to stare at Shelby, his drink just /frozen/ in front of his mouth. "They gave /you/ five grand." He just needs this clarified. "You." You know what - he tips back his beer and /downs/ the rest of it in a few rapid gulps. Lord give him strength, /bam/ he sets the glass down and has decided - FINE. "You know what?" He points a finger in her face, "You're fucking on. Let's get a god damn car. Why not." He raises a hand and waves the bartender over to give him a refill. "Insurance'll be hell," he comments, tracking his gaze up and down the far wall, /gnawing/ the idea down to its bones. "Young drivers get it up the ass. Could put it under my name, write you in on the insurance..." "Me," Shelby confirms. The smug, it radiates. She leans away only a little when she ends up with a finger /right there/; it does nothing to diminish her grin. "Yeah, well..." There's a brief pause as she sends a glance down towards the bartender. Her eyebrows inch together. The pace of her joke is /almost/ lost. Almost. "Some of us..." Okay, yeah, no. It's gone. She sighs and folds her arms on the bar, watching the dark liquid go foaming into the mug as it's drawn up. "Whatever you think. Just so long as we get something sexy." Jim's eyes are on Shelby, though from askance; they sooner move forward again, "We'll see. Be surprised how little /sexy/ you can get for five thousand - 'specially when, once the five-thou has run out you're paying gas, repairs and insurance outta /pocket/. Not so easy on a high schooler's fucking income." Aka, a great big goose egg. Though he allows, in an undertone, "Guess with it paid for in full, I might be able to swing it..." The longer he talks, the more he's rubbing his face, "Look," he comes up saying by the end, "Why don't you head on home, kid? S'gonna be getting late before too long and you got a hell of a commute yet. Or you staying at the doc's tonight?" "Doc's, I think. Unless he's fucking Lucien again, then I'll maybe crash at Ryan's or Hive's." Shelby had been quiet through his musings. Partly due to not really having a firm grasp on those realities and...well...she's just listening to him roll over something that /isn't/ what's happened recently. Thereby proving her method of crisis coping is the /right/ one. "Or I could stay at yours," she says, studying Jim carefully. "You okay?" "How the hell's the doc affording a pro like Luci right now?" It's asked incredulously like - 'and where can /Jim/ get in on that kind of fat cash.' He's frowning over his refill, "Not a reason you can't crash at my place, you wanna - cept that we haven't exactly gotten gotten the shitty couch replaced yet. Kinda low priority; neither me or Ash really use a couch much." The men of the Mancave tend to take to the dirt floors in Big ways. "But you start lookin' at me like you think I need a handler and I'm gonna put you through a god damn window. It's a fuckin' Saturday night and you're spending it hangin' out with some old dude in a dive bar. Why don't you scram. Got a lotta shit on my mind right now." Shelby's eyes widen--and then her expression clouds over. "Whatever. Like you could even /catch/ me." With a low huff of breath, she slides off the stool. It is retribution enough that she /doesn't/ answer the nosy man's question. Giving her ponytail a flip, she makes for the door...but only after saying, "You need anything, just text me or whatever. Asshole." And then she's gone, without looking back. "Yeah." Jim gruffs back, in the time that their backs are facing one another. He remains, his depleted hand absently tucked in a pocket. Soon enough, he'll probably chat scar-facedly at whoever seems like an easy mark to tell /stories/ to, flashing teeth and devolving maybe into impromptu game of /quizzo/. Good times. Good times indeed, for someone sitting comfortably inside working on a buzz. Less so, perhaps, for Shelby. She does not "scram". The teen ends up across the street, sitting on top of a mailbox with one foot hooked under the opposite calf, tapping away on her cellphone. There is no escape, Jim Morgan--save what the average travel times here in the city allows you. (Shelby-->Hive): hey u tlk 2 jim l8ly? (Hive-->Shelby): Yeah. At his place right now but the asshole's not home. Sup. (Shelby--> Hive): shit i jus left him @ tis bar im kinda woried? he liek told me 2 taek off liek an asshol n hez drinkin (Hive--> Shelby): He's drinking? What bar. (Shelby-->Hive): yah 2 beers no w8 3 beers cuz he had mien duno wut 2 do ykno? cant rilly maek him stop dude eernd tat beer but (Hive--> Shelby): What. Fucking. Bar. (Shelby-->Hive) sry sry im woried ok? its teh down under in uh sec wtf r we (Shelby-->Hive): morningsid hites (Hive--> Shelby): Thanks. You still nearby? (Shelby-->Hive): wuz thinkn mebe i shuld stay n watch 4 him yah c if he leevs? (Hive--> Shelby): Please. (Shelby-->Hive): im so on it u dont evn kno (Hive--> Shelby): OK, cool. I'm on my way. It isn't actually long before Hive shows up -- twelve minutes or so, having hopped in a cab to come uptown. He arrives without much to herald him; no further text messages, just one cab in the manymany cabs that litter New York's streets. He even has money to pay the taxi! This is probably unusual for him. He is kind of slouchy as he gets out. Hands in the pockets of his threadbare jeans, fraying at the bottoms and torn at the knees. Sneakers held together with duct tape. Brown blue-painted-hedgehog t-shirt. A deep scowl. The bar sadly remains kind of impassive to this last. Standard operating procedure, then. Less so, for the watcher. Shelby's still up on that mailbox, except she's exchanged pecking away at her phone with chewing on a thumbnail. Given the already ragged state of said nail, this has probably been going on for awhile now. Maybe even as long as twelve minutes! She alternates staring at the door to the bar with scanning the surrounding traffic. It doesn't take her more than a few seconds to spy Hive--and it probably takes him less than that to pinpoint her, given her level of concern. << Something's seriously wrong, >> she's thinking at him, even before she's slipped down from her perch and wound her way down the sidewalk to his position. << One minute we were talking about going in half and half on a car, the next he was like...telling me to take off. Said he'd put me through a window...>> "If I acted like he needed someone watching after him or something. I think he's going to get pissed off I called you," Shelby finishes, at his side. "So let him get pissed off." Hive's scowl only deepens as Shelby approaches. He is glaring at the door to the bar. "He takes it out on you, I will punch a hole in his brain it takes him a fucking year of rooting to regrow." His shoulders slouch further. << Maybe you /should/ take off. >> This sounds tired, for all nuance can be discerned over the whipcrack-sharp snap of his mental speech -- devoid, once more, of any underlying voices but his own. << Don't think he wanted me to see him fucking up. >> It's explanation and the train of her thoughts, in one. Shelby hesitates--then goes up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. Chaste, and not at all the tight clinch she'd /like/ to pull him into. Just a glancing touch of lips before she's pulling her street face back on. "He wouldn't really talk about what happened, either. Just some Latin shit about getting mad. Maybe...I dunno. Just help him?" Then she is rubbing her eyes, indulging the wince of discomfort she'd held off. It is a tired teenager who turns to go, heading off in the direction of the subway and fishing her phone out of her pocket as she backtracks down the sidewalk. "Mngh," is Hive's answer to this, but -- it is hard to surprise a telepath and in the moment of hesitation before that brief kiss he is curling an arm around Shelby's shoulders, squeezing /tight/. And then he turns, too. << Getting mad. Hah. >> That painful sting of voice will have to serve as farewell; he shoves the door open with a shoulder, not bothering to remove hands from pockets as he slouches his way in to the bar. Inside, someone's set off the juke box; it lays down a brassy background bigband trumpet that rolls and pitches with an aesthetic drunken pursuit of notes. The bar itself is a classic hole, grubby and serviceable and a little depressing without the local college students in town. Jim's made a pair of friends, an older fellow in a plaid shirt with a battered stetson hat hung off the back of his neck by a pullstring, and a woman likely somewhere around Jim's age with wavy hair back in a high pony tail and a make up style that might edge into looking more 'washed up' than 'made up' - Jim makes /three/, with his scarred face and gray hair, all of them leaning together like the buzzards from an old high school reunion. The woman is laughing, "-now, I have one. It was - No, I have it." "Gloria," the city!Cowpoke mutters with a grin behind a shotglass, "You haven't had it in years." "I do!" She has a grin that takes years off her face, "It was - 'One bright day, in the middle of the night...'" Jim, mostly silent behind his own clear shot of Jameson, his half grin making a /snarl/ of the scar running horizontal down his cheek, chimes in, "-'two dead boys got up to fight'?" And together they say in unison, "'-back to back they faced each other-'" Hive /interrupts/ this scene of merriment, slouching his way up behind Jim and reaching a hand down to CLAMP it over the shot of Jameson. His other comes down on Jim, the juncture of shoulder and neck, with -- friendly jostle? At least it probably looks that way, for all his hand is squeezing way too tight. "Drew their swords and," he downs Jim's shot in a quick gulp. "-- You missed dinner." JOSTLE. Except his mental voice is a snapping /whipcrack/ of a thing, slamming-stinging-sharp as it cracks loud across Jim's mental plane. << You're going home. >> "-shot each other - now /that's/ not how it goes!" Gloria's eyes had tracked the young man's entrance in the idle manner of a regular, her mind a place of warmth and amusement regardless of a background fear of breast cancer; mortgage; a son in jail. She makes a delighted O-mouth when Jim's drink gets STOLEN. Jim's grin has transfixed to something /manic/, twisting deep in the crows feet around his eyes that are not. /Popping/ wide. From the deep mental /wince/ recoiling - but to /where/ precisely? - with a /litany/ of inward swearing << -fucking /shit/. >> "Guys, this is fucking /Hive/. I /had/ dinner," his voice shreds out a touch raw. He rams an elbow backwards, /Hive/wards. The surface area between his shoulders and neck can, beneath the material, be felt hardening, roughening when its squeezed. "Liquid dinner," the Cowpoke has that old-man classy-drunk voice, that rolls over a Tennessee drawl, "Best meal of the day. Pull up a seat, son." "This place? I've been this place," << (with you) >> comes across more in ghosting memory of greasy fries, a drunk-game-night barfight in the background, SPORTSBALL on the television. He is leaning forward to set the empty shot glass back down, "they don't serve shit worth eat --" This ends in a sucking in of breath at the elbow that connects with his ribs, an easier target in his leaning position. The hand on Jim's shoulder falls to his chair instead with a sudden backwards SHOVE away from the table; in lieu of straightening back behind Jim's chair he is stepping to its side to slug his recently-emptied hand in a bony-knuckled fist at Jim's cheek. And probably hissing afterwards with a wince and /shake/ of that hand. It is not a hand that has punched often. Just like that, it's not funny anymore. Jim's head swings down from the punch. But not far. He almost doesn't seem to notice it, eyes gone blank. Gloria makes a squeak of surprise; the cowpoke almost /curious-calm/ just kind of rocks back onto a heel clear of the commotion, his eyes idly trailing the ceiling. The bartender has a chance to turn his head -- But Jim is already on his feet. Wheeling around with his good hand packed into a fist that's had a lot of /use/ in its life, he reflexively puts /body weight/ behind it when he goes to return the favor. Here's the thing about fighting telepaths: they cheat like motherfuckers. For all Hive's inexperience in actually /hitting/ people he has (per/haps/ unsurprisingly) a good deal of experience with people who FOR SOME REASON want to hit him, and telegraphing your shots takes on a whole different meaning when your target can read your mind. And so all the /body weight/ in that shot finds no target to /land/ upon; Hive is SCURRYING (it's not very dignified) out of the way around an adjacent empty table pretty much as soon as Jim is getting to his feet. The bartender, it might be noticeable for people NOT focusing on punching Hive, /had/ been circling around the bar with the kind of bland but determined expression of someone who has kicked a whooooole lot of people out of this bar for fighting. But now he -- isn't. Just stopped leaning against the side of the bar, for a moment clutching hand to temple, and for a moment after /that/ just staying, still and silent. The bar as a /whole/ is getting kind of still and silent, for that matter. Except for Hive /wheezing/ with a hand curled against his ribs. You might think Jim had hit him with a baseball bat instead of an elbow. His SQUINTY EYES are glaring at Jim. "Mother/fucker/." Jim just raises a foot. And /kicks the table/ at Hive. Anything on it, coasters and a salt and pepper shaker, a roll of silverware wrapped in a paper napkin leap off it. And Jim himself marches around the side of the table. In pursuit. Hive grunts, catching the table (for, uh, a given value of catching!) with a whumph of air against his stomach, though his deeper /frown/ only appears when a stray (tiny!) salt shaker rolls off onto his foot as if /this/ was the most injurious part of the blow. He shoves the table /back/ as Jim marches around it, kind of scuttling around its side himself so that he can properly lever it towards the other man. << You /hypocritical/ fucking asshole. >> The bar around them is oddly uninterested in their fighting (or, admittedly, much of anything else. Nobody is drinking. Nobody is /talking/.) Hive's voice has mellowed from whipcrack to an abrasive rasp of sound scraping over the surface of Jim's mind. << You want to fuck yourself up, you >> << (/don't/) >> filters in layered beneath, << (at home)/(can look out for you) >> and more strongly, << (come)(talk to me /first/)(would help) >> but over all these sentiments what finishes in actual /words/ is: << leave Shelby the fuck out of your /bullshit/, you selfish prick. >> WHUMP. You'd think Jim had been here before, for how rapidly even delayed reactions have his palms slapping down on the table and bearing down /full weight/, pinning it in place reflexively. And then yanking back on it to throw it aside. It's an old song and dance, something /bored/ and furious equally rolling in the tonic of Jim's mind as Hive abrates over it. For a moment - something wells up - And then clamps down. And instead he turns to stalk towards the exit, "That's the plan, Hivey. Now get fucked." There is a sharp khhhh of breath that hisses out from Hive and he clambers /over/ the table, scrambling along the quickest route towards the door. "The /plan/," he echoes, through gritted teeth, one skinny arm outstretched to clamp a hand down over the door handle. << What fucking >> "plan, you don't --" This cuts off into a strangled noise. << Just fucking >> "stop for a second." There is a push against the door from the /outside/ that presses his hand forward, for a moment, but. In the next moment they decide to /leave/. Or maybe just stop where they are outside the door and not come in. It's hard to tell as the door pushes back closed. "/What/." Agh, Jim puts a hand /over/ Hive's on the door handle, fingers landing in between either of the telepath's in a fight for custody. The attempt some poor bastard makes to enter is barely glanced to, in the same way Jim only offhand glances at the eerily silent patrons in the bar - like he's looking for someone to say '/you seeing this guy?/' to. His mind is - not busy. Angry, in the flat buoyant way a drunk sustained anger leans to. Somewhere far beneath it is bolting, repetitive adrenaline that cuts short with an inner sound. A 'chnk' - of some sort of solid impact. It resonates like a gunshot in an empty wood - CHUFF, Jim's hand seizes up in Hive's shirt front and leans in to shove him back against the wall beside the door, "I fucked up, Hive. Happy? S'not gonna happen again." He yanks on the door, /irritably/. "Now move." Hive is pretty eminently shoveable, a skinny-nerd collection of bones and skin and a mind spreading through too many other bodies to offer much resistance in /this/ one. He /whumphs/ back against the wall, hand still curled against the door handle. His other lifts to take a fistful of /Jim's/ shirt when Jim's hand seizes in his, giving it a brief /shake/. << Of /course/ I'm not >> "happy," he grits out just as irritably. His hand twitches beneath Jim's, curling tighter. << Come >> "/home/." Jim's eyes are shifted to look out through the fern-pattern frost on the door's narrow window, maybe looking to see if that /guy/ that tried to get in is still just standing out there like a goober. "And where's that. The place you an' that cop swap out high schoolers for a Saturday night?" The grip on Hive's shirt front eases - that's his good hand, five fingers and a thumb. The one on the door /has/ fingers...ish - protofingers, with a thumb nub, where a hand once /missing/ about seventy percent of its finger mass had been gobbled together into three digits. It's easing up to, stepping back. "I heard what what you got to say." << Sick of watching this shit keep happening. >> "Tell the kid I'm sorry." Still watching that door. Like it's going to open. With /mind/ powers. He must really be straining to will it to happen - his face it clenched up hard. "Yeah. Right. You look at yourself," there's a press of mental feeling-memory, here, contrasting the /blast/ of Shelby-worry Hive got when stepping out of his cab with the warm-comfort-security of Shelby nestling (under Jim's branches) in a hammock down in Georgia, << and tell me >> "what's more destructive?" Hive's hand isn't moving from the door. "/Home/, asshole," comes with a clutter of thoughts; cluttered /apartment/ mess and boxes of donuts and << the rain in Spain >> and Jim burning himself on Hive's shitty cheap coffee, << is where people >> "/give/ enough of a fuck to" << care when you fuck up. >> Jim's eyes nearly close, tightening deeper into a fixed-blank tension, the wash of Shelby-worry as sobering as a dunk in ice water. << … yeah. >> Grits, to Hive or himself or the ( << insists he sees >> ) /mindghosts/ lurking the room of silent mannequin people. << -he's not wrong, Jimmy old boy. Haah, risum teneatis, amici? >> And it falls, slowly, into an undercurrent of steady-solid latin; most of it broken and flawed for actual grammar, more of it senseless without meaning. But droning in steady inebriated queue. "Dunno how t'tell you this, Hive. But I /am/ fucked up right now. And I'm /gonna/ fuck up right now. I can't close my /fucking eyes/ without --" He's just looking at the door now, the hard tension distant, aging and twisting like a stomach cramp. "And the fact you're not doing as bad as I am doesn't mean I got to like it. And by /god/ it doesn't mean I've got to watch. I'm just not fucking doing it right now." "Jim," is the only syllable Hive manages to grit out between very clenched teeth before words lapse back into mental speech; uncomfortably jostling, now, but lacking their earlier force. << -- Dunno how to tell you this, but that was already pretty clear. >> He's slumped back, half against the wall and half against the door, now, his head thunked back and his eyes kind of glassy-vacant in their upwards non-focus on the ceiling. There's no distance in his voice, though, intensely aware, intensely present, when he's speaking. << You've been neck-deep in a pile of shit. Dumping /more/ shit on top of it won't get you back out. Fuck up. Go for it. But /you/ can get fucked if you think I won't /be here/ with a gorram shovel. >> Jim looks down at the knocked over table, then back to his seat - it probably knocked itself over when he stood up to make with the /attempted bodily assault/, then scans his eyes over the silent unmoving puppet show of bar patrons. And sighs, "To what. Hit me with?" He makes a weary nod at the door, "Let 'em go, Hivey. Let's just get the fuck out of here." << If I need to, >> is noooot the most reassuring of answers probably, and yet. There's a /stirring/ around the room; it's subtle but more starkly noticeable for everyone's previous stillness. They don't /move/, just resettle as Hive pushes himself away from the wall. The touch of his mind to Jim's is tentative. Not prying or digging in although the heavy feel of /power/ behind it suggests it would likely be all too easy to do so. Just building itself up into -- something solid-stable-earthy laid out in unobtrusive /presence/ against Jim's. He /peels/ his fingers away from the door handle, gone bloodless-pale from the prolonged hard clenching, and shakes them out before pulling the door open. And glaring at the statuelike pair of men frozen outside the door like /their/ presence offends him. He holds the door a little wider as they shift, continue into the room /abruptly/, right about the same time as behind them a ripple of (kind of /confused/) voices start back up. "Yeah," is still through his teeth although this time it looks more like a wince of pain. "Let's." There's little peace of mind for a telepath in these ugly kinds of tangles. Jim's mind roils dour and bleak and generally unkind to the universe; it's full of dark eyes in seared white lattices of scarring and old men with twisted, broken jaws and shattered teeth and bloody children and Hive and /Eric/ and Shelby in fishnets and a short skirt -- Some of it tries to roll in, but human nature is ugly and some of it lashes out as well, all sloshing around in his soupbowl mind and - oh jesus /people/ outside the door. ...but he does lean, against that mind. Unacknowledged outwardly, Jim running his eyes over the creepy sudden movement of bodies and arms and heads all beginning their generic white-noise movement and making their standard white-noise sound. Out on the street, he shoves hands in his pockets and for all his hard-packed posture and unpromising gaze he may as well be walking the night alone. Save that he pauses at the curb long enough to be caught up to. Then -- maybe the park. Why the fuck not. Maybe if he clenches his jaw long enough, someone will put a cigarette in it. Later that night... ( Jim --> Shelby): You make it to the doc's alright? ( Shelby --> Jim): wen bak 2 scool instd u ok? (Jim -- > Shelby): Yeah. Sorry if worried you. (Jim -- > Shelby): You alright? (Shelby -- > Jim): dude no dont evn k? if i wer u id b inna H coma rite now u kno? jus want u 2 b ok. :( (Shelby -- > Jim): 1 beer gud 100 beers bad u cant get our car if u dwi (Jim -- > Shelby): Three beers on a saturday night isn't exactly a wild bender, kid. (Jim -- > Shelby): Kinda hard getting a DWI when you're not behind a wheel even then. (Jim -- > Shelby): You alright? (Think I sent that. And didn't go through. You see this?) (Jim -- > Shelby): I fucking hate these things. (Shelby -- > Jim): u thin i nvr knew ne1 been dry b4? cmon dude 1 is all it taeks. u eernd it but. :( (Shelby -- > Jim): n im ok prty much i thin mebe were on lok down agin? mebe. ivan kinda mebe got um he went 2 play w/ big bugz (Jim -- > Shelby): What. Like those Grover Mill things? (Jim -- > Shelby): Fuck. You safe where you are? (Shelby -- > Jim): tats wut teyr sayin yeah but no 1 knos 4 sur he wuz actin weerd n rasa heerd bug sonds in hiz hed n now hez just gon (Shelby -- > Jim): gona hav 2 b ok if im stuk heer ware u @ rite now? (Jim -- > Shelby): I'm home. You've seen what Ash did with the walls. Most fortified mancave in New York. (Jim -- > Shelby): Doubt Hive would've let me go anywhere else anyway. (Shelby -- > Jim): u saw hive huh? (Jim -- > Shelby): Kind of hard to miss him. (Jim -- > Shelby): You wanna give a warning shot next time before sending in the cavalry? (Shelby -- > Jim): huh? i wuz woryd n u sed 2 tak off. thaut he culd mak sur u wer ok n got hoem After a few minute delay - it might just be Jim's slow unskilled phone-typing. (Jim -- > Shelby): You're a good kid. (Jim -- > Shelby): Sorry agai.n (Jim -- > Shelby): again (Shelby -- > Jim): stop sayin tat. u sur ur ok? did sumthin hapen? (Jim -- > Shelby): Nah. We left not long after you did. (Jim -- > Shelby): Probably still just buzzed. (Jim -- > Shelby): Stay safe, right? (Shelby -- > Jim): kk gud im glad ur ther <3 promis i wil not liek bugz liek me or nethin but ugh finals tis week kil me now (Jim -- > Shelby): Smartass like you? C'mon. (Jim -- > Shelby): Hey. If you're on lock down not like you can do much other than study. (Jim -- > Shelby): Maybe this is all BugEyes' elaborate play. (Shelby -- > Jim): snot my ass im woreed abot. im gona b stuk w/ sumer scool if ivan set tis up mite disapeer him msef. but. dont tel ne1 i sed tat teyd thnk i wuz bein meen :( (Jim -- > Shelby): Don't do the fucking face when you say that. (Shelby -- > Jim): wut tis faec? :( :( :( (Shelby -- > Jim): luk im cryin Q.Q (Jim -- > Shelby): What the fuck even is that. QQQ I don't even know what that means. (Shelby -- > Jim): teyr cryin eys u c it? big round eys w/ teers cumin out. ok try tis 1 (Shelby -- > Jim): :-* (Jim -- > Shelby): Is that mouth? (Shelby -- > Jim): almos! sa kiss muwah (Jim -- > Shelby): Are you high. (Shelby -- > Jim): fuk no tey got ruuls 4 tat heer lol dont u c it? sa lil puckr faec kissykissy (Jim -- > Shelby): I'm not sober enough for this. (Jim -- > Shelby): It's like you're taking advantage of my PHONE. (Jim -- > Shelby): Listen, kid. Heads up. I might be out of town for a while soon. (Shelby -- > Jim): rofl scalld sextin if i wuz id be sendin pix of my w8 wut no (Shelby -- > Jim): ware u goin????? u cant go (Jim -- > Shelby): Like hell I can't, princess. Don't get your panties all knotted up. (Jim -- > Shelby): I think I need a fucking vacation. Get my head on rihgt. (Jim -- > Shelby): right. (Jim -- > Shelby): I'll bring my phone. (Jim -- > Shelby): Stick close to Hive, right? He worries about you. (Shelby -- > Jim): ...u promis? promis ur gona hav ur fone? (Shelby -- > Jim): he wories bout u 2 promis ur gona cum bak (Jim -- > Shelby): Who you think you're talking to. We gotta get a car this summer, remember? (Jim -- > Shelby): I'll be in touch. (Jim -- > Shelby): Maybe I'll bring you back something if you do alright on finals. (Shelby -- > Jim): yeah liek tats gona hapen just cum bak ok? srsly i meen it :( (Jim -- > Shelby): Then maybe I'll bring you roadkill. (Jim -- > Shelby): Wiht maggots and shit. (Jim -- > Shelby): Bones stuck out. (Jim -- > Shelby): Be good. (Shelby -- > Jim): hsadgegwysds thx a lot be SAEF