ArchivedLogs:Pie and Conversation

Pie and Conversation
Dramatis Personae Micah, Hive, Jack, B, and Flicker
In Absentia	2014-11-27 After Thanksgiving dinner, some gather in the media room to relax and talk. Also, there's pie.
Location <NYC> Harbor Commons - Media Room - Lower East Side
Though this sound-proofed room comes equipped with the same complement of bright airy windows as most of the rest of the rooms around here, it /also/ comes with thick heavy blackout curtains for them, easily drawn to reduce the glare on the myriad screens around the place. The place of honor in the room goes to an enormous flatscreen television mounted on one wall; beneath there are a number of video game consoles hooked up to it and shelving to either side of the television holds an assortment of DVDs on the right and an assortment of video games on the left. There's plentiful seating with views of the television, in the form of wide microsuede couches and enormous squishy beanbags (plenty big enough to share) scattered around the floor. A mini-fridge up here stands beside one cabinet, both often kept stocked with snacks and (generally highly caffeinated) drinks. Across to the other side of the room there are comfortable armchairs and smaller tables, with plenty of outlets available for those who want to plug their computers in and work or play. Four common-use desktops sit on desks against the wall, accessible to any resident with a login. The Commons has been /bustling/ today, rowdy and hectic and /overflowing/ with a ridiculous fest that its residents will no doubt /continue/ feasting on all through the week. There's been no end of food -- traditional Thanksgiving fare, to be sure, of the turkey-and-ham, gravy, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, candied yams variety... but there's been plenty of other things tucked in there too, skewers of peanut satay, spicy fish stew, bowls of ramen and neat rolls of sushi, enchiladas with mole, spring rolls with spicy dipping sauces. A wealth of pies with rather /elaborately/ ornate crusts. Elsewhere in the Common house things are /still/ bustling. Down in the dining room where people are lingering over dessert, out in the playground where some of the younger residents and guests are enjoying the snow, over in the games room where after-dinner gaming has started up. Normally Hive would probably be partaking of /that/, rather eagerly, but just at the moment he's crept off in here, where it's -- at least for /now/, before dessert is done For Good -- rather more quiet. He could almost be overlooked, tucked into a beanbag under a pile of blankets where Flicker's nestled him before going to help with cleanup, he looks kind of just like so much Bundle himself. A shapeless sort of /heap/ of which not much can be seen right now. The crimson top of his fleecey beanie, a bit of fluffy black sock poking out of one end of blanket. The rest of him is sort of buried. But whether or not he can be seen he's certainly /aware/ of the room around him, telepathic senses picking up the surface thoughts of the stray few people wandering in and out. Micah looks /exhausted/ as he wanders in from a stint washing dishes, but the pleasant sort of exhausted borne of two days spent near entire on cooking and kitchen cleaning and food shopping and food delivering and.../lots/ of eating. His auburn hair is in a fine state of muss by this late in the day, his orange and red plaid flannel still bearing a few oil spots from where food got past the apron while he was cooking. The white T-shirt beneath it seems to have escaped unscathed, as have his thick flannel-lined jeans. His feet are covered in thick socks with little black and brown hedgehogs trundling about in flowers on them. He has a hot mug in each hand as he makes his way in, settling himself beside and a little /into/ Hive's nest. "Made some coffee with dessert. Thought y'might want a cup." If asked, Jack will say this has been one of the best days he's had in years. Going from falling into slush and ice to getting invited to a warm bed for a night and a warm meal has put him in a pretty great mood. He spent the meal mostly silent and not drawing attention to himself. Occasionally he piped in a joke or responded when someone spoke to him but otherwise he was just enjoying the meal and the company. But now that he's finished off his dessert, the invisible teen has been directed towards the games where he's hoping to relax a little before heading back out into the city. Of course when he enters the room, it looks like the clothes he's been lent are walking in on their own with no person inside. He starts scanning the room but his eyes fall on the big TV and he stares. "...I didn't know TVs came that big outside stadiums..." he trails off to no one in particular. Bound, bound, bound, bound! B comes /in/ bearing dessert! Because Hive seems to be forgoing his. The teenytiny sharkpup also has both hands laden, a slice of pie in each -- sweet potato in one hand, blackberry-apple in the other (that one even has a tiny little pastry-crust vine-and-flower still intact in the center of the slice.) Though resembling Shane in just about every physical way, in /dress/ ze doesn't much look like her much more dapper twin; /here/ ze takes far more after DAD #1. Black crushed-velvet leggings worn under a sparkly silver miniskirt, thick wooly black legwarmers shot through with silvery threads, blue fishnet shirt with a silvery tanktop underneath, black sweatshirt over that with a yellow cross on the breast that reads HERBIVORE in its center. Bare feet. "Oh they totally come bigger, but you have to build bigger /rooms/. Hive, you were slacking. Why isn't this room bigger?" In hir mind ze is caroling: << Pie! Sweet potato? Berry-apple? Both? You can have both! >> "Mmmnnghuhgh," replies the blanketnest, as Hive burrows more deeply into it. Eventually he surfaces. Or at least, one arm surfaces. It's a kind of skeletal arm, skin draped too-loose over bones with not much by way of flesh to pad it out. Bony fingers open and shut. Grabby. Coffee. Mine. They're pretty /shaky/ fingers, though, it's not very reassuring by way of indicating the coffee will actually make it to Hive's mouth. "-- huhwhat?" Now /there's/ an unfamiliar mind. Hive... maybe slept through most of dinner. Unsurprising. He sleeps through a lot, lately. "Whoz/at/." Slowly some of a /head/ also makes its way out. The rest of a crimson beanie (it is embroidered with the letters Theta Tau in gold), a sallow angular face, sunken deep-set eyes kind of raccoon-shadowed and squinty. Narrowed in a perma-glare, currently directed towards Jack. "... he live here? I miss all the fucking new people." Grumble. The glare turns towards pie next. "Fffffk." He is already retreating back under the blankets. "Christ augh Micah it's /loud/ did you put. Fucking. Crack in dinner. Why so. Loud. ... berry." Fortunately, Micah had the foresight to plan Hive's coffee accordingly: his is in one of those plastic deals that looks like a to-go cup from a coffee shop, and even has a thin straw sticking out the spout. He presses the cup into Hive's hand and helps guide it in closer to him where it will be more stable. "No crack. Just a /lotta/ love an' home cookin'. An' a lotta folks as don't have family or /this/ is their family needin' a place t'Thanksgivin' at. Gathered up everybody in one place bein' festive. Does tend t'get a little noisy. 'Pologies on that end." One hand reaches up to scritch-rub gently at Hive's head through his hat. "Yeah, they'll make you a TV 'bout any crazy dimensions y'want. Easier t'/afford/ that kinda thing, whole group of people pitchin' in, though." He looks a little confused at Hive's proclamation of Berry in answer to a silent question, but figures it out by looking at B. "Oh, right, berry-apple pie. Hey, sugar," also serves as a greeting for the sharkpup. "New person's Jack. He needed a warm bed an' a place t'spend the holiday, so he's up in one of the guest rooms for now. Jack, the blanket-beast over here's Hive." Jack jumps a little when someone come bounding in after him and speaks up. "Huh? Shane?" he blinks invisibly, not yet knowing about the whole twin thing. He was also slightly distracted and didn't pay attention to what was said by the sharky mutant as well as he should have. He glances over to see who else B is speaking to and he ends up smiling when he sees Micah. He's planning on thanking him a few more times. Seeing that there's actually a person inside what he thought was just a pile of blankets at first makes him jump but he offers an awkward wave when introduced. "Hi," he greets. "Oh! Me? No, that's only at the cafe," B answers brightly, trotting over to drag a coffeetable over by Hive's beanbag and set the berry pie down on it. "Off-duty I'm Shane's alter ego B. You can tell because I have the better fashion sense now. /Way/ less stuffy?" Hir nose twitches again, black eyes focusing with bright curiosity on Jack's ghost-floating set of clothes. "Did you get one of /every/ pie yet? Pa baked about a zillion. I was kind of sad to see them cut I think he spent about as much time on the crusts as he did on all his other cooking combined. -- Ines was the one who added the crack," ze confides, in a stage-whisper to Hive. "Eat up." Not that ze brought forks or anything. Ze waggles the second plate -- sweet potato? -- towards Jack. Then Micah. Any takers? Hmm hmm? "-- playing Katamari on this makes me kind of pukey though," ze admits, nodding towards the television. "But some things are /awesome/." "I dunno. You can rock a set of pinstripes." Hive worms his way a little bit farther out of the blankets, closing his lips around his straw with a rather blissful expression when he starts sipping at the coffee. "Oh, shit. An /actual/ fucking. Guest. Usually we just. People like. Turn up on my -- goddamn couch. The lawn. The fucking treehouse. This is all. Legit." His eyes narrow /further/, though, when he examines Jack /closer/, and he actually chokes on his coffee, sputtering and dropping the cup to roll sideways down against the outside of his beanbag. Coughhacksplutter, "-- fuck{sorry}," the apology comes reflexively in Thai, "there's like. No fucking /guest/ there shit. I'm. Losing my. {Goddamn fucking} mind. Again." "Mmn, not Shane," Micah explains, but then leaves off as B handles the rest of hir introduction well enough. His head shakes at the pie plate being waved before him. "Ohgosh, no, thank you, hon. Think I'm just gonna drink at m'coffee an' call it a night on the food. Got more stuff in me'n anybody likely /should/ is one 24 hour period." He lifts his coffee mug to illustrate before drinking from it: a much sweeter, creamier cup of coffee than the one he brought for Hive. Conveniently, he's right in place to retrieve the dropped cup, only a little drip-spill here and there through the cup's spout during its escape attempt. He scoops the cup up and gently returns it to Hive's hand. "Ain't losin' your mind. Jack's just invisible." "Wait, what?" Jack just sounds confused by B's answer. He's nor quite sure how to reply to it but the question about pie distracts him and he ends up shaking his head. "I don't think I could try every kind. I did try a bunch of them though," he says. "And the pies and everything else was just amazing," he adds towards Micah. He blinks as the other man corrects his mistake then holds up a non-visible hand to the pie offer. "No thanks. I don't think I could eat any more right now," he says. His attention turns back towards Hive and he nods. "Yeah. Micah found me embarrassing myself last night and invited me over," he explains sheepishly, remembering his fall into the slush and snow. The coughing and coffee-dropping makes Jack jump and he ends up rubbing the back of his neck when Micah explains. "Sorry...I can't turn it off," he says more quietly, feeling bad about causing the whole sputterty reaction. B's gills flutter briefly at the apology. Hir head shakes, a flicker of something uncomfortable rippling through hir mind at the mention of Hive losing /his/. Ze creeps over, less bouncy with the very tiny bonk of head ze places to -- some shapeless part of the mass of Hive's blanket. Maybe a shoulder? Maybe chest. Who knows. "I do have a pretty awesome pinstripe pencil skirt," ze agrees. "I'm going to find Taylor. I have feeling he wants this pie." Webbed fingers wiggle in a small wave. "There's board games in the next room," ze adds to Jack. "You should come play. Pie not required." The bounce is picking back up in hir step as ze heads off towards the noisier adjacent gaming room. "/Kind/ of Shane. Shane-clone." Hive's words still come out a little... hack-y, as he gets the last of the coffee out of his lungs. "Micah's always bringing home goddamn strays." His gruff voice sounds more /fond/ than recriminating here. He shakes his head at the apology, wiping teared- up eyes against his blanket. "Just. Surprising, is all. I -- heared you before I --" His head shakes again. "Don't have to apologise. Trust me, I fucking /know/ about mutations you can't turn off. -- Thanks." This last to Micah, as his fingers close around his saved coffee cup. "/Am/ losing my mind though. Just not over this." Micah offers B a little wave as ze heads off to deliver more pie. "The game room is pretty awesome," he seconds B's recommendation to Jack. "An', yeah. Hive's usually the one surprisin' people an' makin' 'em sputter, so. He's pretty familiar with the routine." He snorts at the accusation of bringing home strays. "Not /always/. Have you know I met Jack /three/ times 'fore I so much as offered 'im a place t'stay or nothin'." He gives another pet at Hive's head, another long swig from his own coffee cup, then sighs heavily. "Well. That was a good break. /Probably/ there's dishes startin' t'pile in from folks finishin' dessert now. Should go make m'self useful again." It takes him a minute to push past the inertia of warm-comfy blankets and coffee, working his way to his feet to head back into the kitchen. "Oh, bye," Jack waves a little too as B heads off. He chuckles a bit when called a stray. "World's worst stray puppy," he jokes a bit. He nods a bit to what Hive says but he still feels bad about surprising the other man. He was just too busy enjoying a place he didn't have to hide his mutation and forgot it could be a surprising one to even other mutants. He waves again as Micah goes to wash dishes and starts to look for a place to sit down. "Yours didn't come with an off switch either?" he asks Hive after a moment of quiet. "I dunno, you haven't bit me or pissed on anything that I've seen so you could be doing worse." Hive's teeth close against his straw; the continuing noticeable tremor of his hand makes it seem like without the lid of his cup he would /definitely/ be spilling coffee everywhere even when not actively dropping the cup. One eye squinches a little bit tighter at feeling Jack's... bad-feeling. His head shakes. Then nods. Then shakes. "Eh -- that's. Complicated. Didn't /come/ with one. Had to learn... but. It kind of got broke? Someone broke it, anyway. But no. Can't shut it off. And it's the kind of thing that pisses people off like you wouldn't fucking /believe/. So I got no bones to pick about getting a little startled." “I can promise I haven’t taken a leak on anything here,” Jack laughs a little. “Not that you’d be able to see that either,” he adds with a half-shrug. He’s not sure how his whole invisible thing works but he’s not going to question it much right now. He stays quiet about the tremor for now but he is a little concerned. He’s unaware that his bad feelings are being picked up on, listening as Hive explains. He’s confused by the idea of someone breaking any part of a mutant’s powers and ends up tilting his head to the side. “Well, if there’s anything I can do to make anything easier on you, let me know? I mean, I can’t do much but I want to pay people back for letting me come by for dinner and stuff.” "Oh, c'mon, you'd smell that shit." Hive's smirk is crooked, twitching up with faint amusement. The smirk fades into a small wince as he struggles a little more upright, partially for ease of drinking and partially to free his other arm from under himself so that he can reach out and carefully pick up the plate of pie B left him. This hand doesn't seem any steadier than the other; he has to rest the plate on his knees to keep it stable once it's close. His raccoon-shadowed eyes flick up at the confusion in Jack's mind and, unspoken though it is, he answers it casually as though it had been aloud. Leaving the plate on his knees, his hand lifts, pushing up the fleece cap pulled down over his head. Beneath his hair is sparse, close-cropped enough that it leaves largely visible a knotty thick roping of scar wound around the side of his head and looping back behind his pierced ear. He slides the cap back into place with a smoothing of hand. "Break it in the kind of direct way. Slice my head open, stick some malfunctioning hardware in." His shoulder lifts and falls. Just as casual: "There's a fuckton of chores around here, you /really/ jonesing. Most rooms have a chart. What needs doing, who's in charge. Nobody's going to be upset if you find 'em and ask to pitch in. Though to be honest nobody'd fucking notice if you just turned up mealtimes, either. Gets busy around here. Not usually, uh, /Thanksgiving/ busy, but." “Sure, smell it but not see it,” Jack chuckles. “It’s weird, like even if i bleed that stays invisible,” he remarks. “Some guy I met at Evolve said something about cellular changes but science stuff tends to go over my head,” he adds. The invisible teen watches as Hive picks up his pie and the frown grows a little deeper. He continues to watch with more confusion when the cap comes off but the sight of the scar brings a surprised noise from the invisible guy. “The hell…” he trails off. “Isn’t there some way to...take it back out?” he asks, generally horrified at the idea of such an act. It was hard to get information and news back where he used to live so he’s not as in the know about some events that went on. “I’ll take a look at the chart. I just feel bad about freeloading. People here in New York have been a lot nicer than the ones in Jersey ever were,” he shrugs once more. There’s an unseen smirk on his face at the mention of just turning up. “Yeah, I could probably just sneak around but I wouldn’t want to steal from guys like Micah and Shane like that.” "Wait. That is odd as fuck. Forever? What about if you, like, cut off some hair or -- skin or a. Finger or something." Hive wiggles his fingers uncertainly in the air, frowning down at them. "Oh, yeah, it got taken out but brains are -- fragile. Mine's. Got a lot of issues. Whole fucking book of." He shakes his head hard. "-- you're just lucky, anyway. New York's goddamn /full/ of assholes. You could've run into, like, me instead of them first. We just stole all the good ones and locked them up in one place. I didn't mean stealing, anyway. I just meant walking in the front door. Nobody would care. Maybe. Probably. I don't know. /My/ house is usually such a fucking. Disaster. It'd be hard to. -- how long /have/ you been in New York?" is a sudden different question. Speaking of sneaking around -- wait, no, Flicker isn't exactly /subtle/. Just /sudden/. There was no Flicker and now there /is/, appearing without any warning first up by the ceiling but then kind of shimmering his way down to the floor in an eerily ghostlike shiver of image, teleporting too quick to really /track/ so that it just leaves an oddly phantasmic series of afterimage in his wake. His destination is Hive's beanbag where, plop! he plunks himself down to pinch off a piece of pie, just as uninvited in this theft as he was with co-opting beanbag space in the first place. For all the cold snowy day he's not very bundled up today. Jeans, socks, a black t-shirt printed with a design of Gunnerkrigg Court's Coyote; in short sleeves it leaves his clearly prosthetic right arm visible. This one, he doesn't move all that much, hanging a little awkward-stiff by his side. "/Dude/, don't be such a freak. Most people don't chop of /bits/ of themselves just to see what happens." “Dunno. Probably. I mean I have to cut my own hair since no one else can see it and the hair stays invisible,” Jack shrugs. He has no idea that the hair eventually becomes visible on its own. “And uhh...I try to avoid losing any parts of myself,” Jack replies awkwardly. He starts to say something else but the sudden appearance by Flicker makes him jump and almost fall off the chair he’s perched on. “Woah, where did…” he trails off, glancing upwards then just shaking his invisible head. “Yeah, I’ve run into a few assholes. Just the other night I had to kick some guy’s ass because he was chasing this girl and trying to hurt her but I’ve run into a lot more nice people,” a pause for a shrug. “I could just walk in? Isn’t there a security thing?” he asks, not thinking he’d be allowed to come back without permission ahead of time. “And I’ve only been here about a week.” A small grin tips up Hive's lips when Jack jumps. "See? Everyone has their startle moments." He seems a little smug as Flicker settles in. Then amused. "/Most/ people don't," he mouths Flicker's words back exaggeratedly, tapping one finger pointedly against the prosthetic arm. Tap tap tap. "Some people," his chin tips now towards Jack, "are more right-minded about body parts staying attached. I swear to fucking God we have fewer parts per capita here than most places without active minefields." He frowns at the question of security. "Well sure we have security. But that's for strangers. Was it a successful ass-kicking?" He foists his plate off on Flicker to hold since the other man is /thiefing/ from him anyway, and leans forward to nibble a bite straight off the plate. No fingers, no utensils. Just chomp. S'a little messy, but yum. He licks his lips afterwards, closing his eyes and nestling in kind of droopily at Flicker's side. Flicker's mouth opens, then shuts again hard, as Hive taps at his mechanical arm. His cheeks flush /deep/ crimson, his eyes wide with some odd cross between amusement and indignation. It's a jerky stiff sort of motion, not very coordinated, clearly takes some effort -- it seems like he's still getting /used/ to the prosthetic -- but he lifts the arm to thwap it against Hive's chest. Bap. "A week." His smile is bright and warm. "See, you've already found all the most important things. Evolve, and Jax's baking. You'll be set." He's /so/ okay with having custody of pie. He's actually pretty okay with having custody of Hive, too; the nestling up against him just triggers a bright swell of warmth in his mind. Though it comes twined inextricably with a knot of sadness. "You looking for something? I mean, you come here for anything in particular? Trying to get work? Want school? Anything?" “I think this is a little different,” Jack replies, rubbing the back of his neck. He doesn’t notice the prosthetic until he sees Hive tapping on it and tilts his head curiously. He doesn’t ask but he is wondering if Flicker cut his own arm off on purpose now. “Hey, it’s bad enough no one else can see all my bodyparts. I’d rather not lose seeing them myself too,” he tries a little joke. “Yeah but it wasn’t really a fair fight. They were drunk and I spent a bit of time scaring the hell out of them,” he says, sounding both amused and a little embarrassed. Flicker’s question gets a blank stare before the invisible teen sighs. “I came here because I have nowhere else to go and Micah offered me a bed for a night and a hot meal after finding me falling on my ass in the snow.” "Huh. /You/ can see yourself? That's. That's..." Hive sounds /intrigued/ by this. But also pretty sleepy. Burrowing a little more under the blankets, his head tucks onto Flicker's lap. A heavy mental /shove/ pushes at that sadness -- burrowing, /too/, into the brighter warmth. "Think he meant. New York." A little mumbly. "And fighting fair's a sucker's game. I like it best when..." Though he trails off here, not completing the sentence. Maybe he's fallen asleep. Maybe he's just lost his train of thought. Flicker blushes deeper, dipping his head in affirmation. "Right, a-- apologies, I meant New York. But I'm glad you came here, too. It's kind of. What we're for. Think a lot of us know that feel. I was out on the streets for --" He shrugs a shoulder. "Kind of a while. Few years back. It's not really so much charity as it is passing it forward." His smile returns, bright and easy. "Drunks do get easy to spook off. I think fair's kind of fair if you got out without them hurting you and her. That's the best kind of fight." “Yeah, it’s weird but I don’t know how it works. I didn’t even know I turned invisible until things hit the fan on me,” Jack shrugs again, a bit of irritation coming to mind at that memory. “Oh,” he’s a little embarrassed by his mistake and rubs the back of his neck again. “Long story short, there was trouble back in Jersey that escalated a little past what I could handle on my own. And I heard it’d be easier here in New York and that there was some place for mutants looking for help,” he says. There’s a pause from Jack and he goes silent for a few moments. He was also feeling pretty lonely in New Jersey and hoping NYC could change that but he doesn’t voice that. “I’m Jack, by the way,” he introduces himself to Flicker. From Hive there's no more conversation. Just quiet breathing. In Flicker's mind a small mental /weight/ settling in, curled up snug and familiar. Flicker's eyes flutter closed. He pushes out a slow breath, head bowing at the comfort(ing)(able) presence nestling into his mind. His fingers abandon PIE for now, lowering to knead slowly at the base of Hive's skull. "It's a mixed bag. Easier, 'cuz there's a lot of us. Harder, 'cuz there's a lot of us. You see it here in the Lower East Side play out kind of -- in miniature? It's easier to find others. Find community, find support. But on the flip side, there's more hate crimes here per capita than any other neighborhood in the city. And more in New York than anywhere else in the country. 'Cuz we're more visible here. So everyone else is angrier." Oddly, this comes with a small curl of smile. "... but maybe we're angrier, too. I'm Flicker. I guess you met Hive." Asleep-Hive, now. "There's a couple of places around here for mutants. Not many. But a couple. Depends what kind of help you're looking for?" Jack is quiet once more while Flicker speaks, glancing at his interactions with the sleeping Hive. There’s a small and invisible smile on his face too. “Yeah, those jerks were spouting some anti-mutant stuff. ‘Course I would have kicked their asses even if they weren’t. Three big guys ganging up on one girl. Just not right,” he shakes his head. He gives a faint snort at the word ‘visible’ but doesn’t comment on it. “I only knew one other mutant back where I was in Jersey. And she didn’t want me anywhere near her. Didn’t like the whole, incredibly obvious mutant thing I’ve got going on,” hr shrugs. “Honestly, I have no clue other than looking for food and a place to stay. Coming here was a kind of spur of the moment thing. Trouble flared up and I booked it.” Flicker grimaces, shaking his head. "I can feel you there. But a lot of folks around here work with -- a lot of places that might be good to know. Like Mel volunteers at a shelter that doesn't suck and Jax works with a group that serves meals regularly not too far from here and Ion tends to know safehouses for mutants to sleep at? There's one I know that's right by Evolve. A lot of us will be there tomorrow, actually, there's a, um. Club. Kind of thing." He blushes at this, too, actually, hand leaving Hive to rub at the back of his /own/ neck. "Probably not the most /quiet/ place, people come and go, but it's a roof and there's beds and plumbing and power. Should talk to him. Ion, I mean. I don't -- mean to be rude, but can I ask how old you are?" “Yeah, Micah told me about that shelter. I was planning on checking it out tonight after I left here,” Jack replies. He doesn’t want to overstay his welcome. There’s a slight tensing and faint chuckle at the mention of Ion though. “Been planning to ask him about that kind of thing too. Just didn’t get a chance yet. That girl I helped told me about a place that was pretty safe so far but having something else as a backup could be good too,” he adds. “A club thing?” he asks, brows arching up slowly. He’s curious about this club, especially since there’s apparently going to be a bunch of other mutants there. The question about his age surprises Jack. It’s not one he’s used to hearing. “I’m almost seventeen,” he answers, chuckling faintly. “First person to ask me that in awhile.” "Safe is good. Safe is -- key." Flicker's head bobs once. Nod. The blush deepens at the question about the club. He shifts very slightly, dropping his hand back to smooth lightly at Hive's cap. "It's like a. Fight club. For mutants. Powers-on, not a whole lot of restriction. Which sounds worse than it is. It's safe. I mean, the /fights/ aren't safe. But that's the point. Practice like you would if it was /real/. Don't be afraid to use what you have. We keep healers on hand for when it gets -- real. And it's pretty strict about -- who's there so. It's okay to be brutal /in/ the match if you know everyone's got your back outside it." The blush subsides somewhat once he's given the explanation. He stops fussing with Hive's hat and returns to eating pie, giving Jack a quick smile before he takes a bite. "Well, it is hard to /tell/. Just maybe helps figure where to steer you, right? There's other people I can talk to. More -- options, sometimes. School-wise and all. If you're into that. Not everyone is." “Fight club?” Jack’s not sure he heard that right at first, definitely not expecting it. The more Flicker explains, the more surprised he is. He never would have figured there’d be something like that out there that people went to voluntarily. “Wait, does Shane go there too?” he asks, suddenly wondering if this is connected to the punching the shark-mutant mentioned when Jack first met him. There’s some hesitation from the invisible mutant and he shifts in his seat. “What kind of healers? Cause if they’re the kind that need to see an injury to help it, I’d be out of luck with them,” he sighs. He’s quiet again for a few moments, rolling the idea around in his head. “I’m not really a fan of fighting but a safe place and practice is important too,” he says. He knows he needs to work a lot more on his telekinesis. “There are some rules to those fights, right?” And then school gets mentioned. “School,” Jack just feels weird even saying the word. “I haven’t thought about that in a couple years. I figured it wasn’t really an option for me once the perma-ghost kicked in.” "The sharkpups started it. I think a lot of us aren't -- weren't -- huge fans of fighting but sometimes." Flicker's mouth twitches a little bit thinner. He takes another quick bite of pie, the prosthetic shifting uncomfortably beneath his t-shirt. "Sometimes the world has other ideas. Best to be able to defend yourself. And no. They work by -- feel, I guess. They do need to be able to touch you, but that's all. Joshua had problems with a friend of mine who, uh, sometimes was just made out of shadows. Hard to heal that. But corporeal people he's golden." He sucks in his cheeks briefly, chewing on their insides. "There are rules -- to the club." That's kiiind of an answer. Ish. Once more, his smile returns after this. "Well. No rush. But think about it. You met some of the kids here today? Jax and Micah's pups? Taylor? Ghost? They're all in school. Or graduated. Claws and gills and tentacles and all. There's options. If it's something you'd want, we can probably make it happen." “The world needs to keep it’s ideas to itself,” Jack mutters. He’s had to defend himself more times than he cares to think about. Mostly he hides behind his ghost act and only sometimes had to resort to fist fighting. He thinks about what Echo said about his act not fooling some people and the idea of getting practice sounds more tempting. He looks back up at Flicker when he lists those people even if he only knows the sharks. “I’ll...think about it,” Jack eventually says. School is one of those things he’s a little nervous about. Taking a deep breath, Jack glances at Hive and then stands. “I think I’m going to go find Micah and see if I can help with clean up or dishes or something,” he says. “It was nice meeting you, Flicker. And thanks for the information. It’s a lot to think about,” he says in as friendly a tone as he can manage before the empty clothes start to head out the door Micah left through earlier.