ArchivedLogs:Regular Barbie Dreamhouse

Regular Barbie Dreamhouse
Dramatis Personae Hive, Jim, Flicker
In Absentia	2014-01-26 '
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. 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. Early evening at Geekhaus and it's surprisingly quiet. Dusk is in his room, door pushed to but not quite closed, Flicker is settled in the kitchen with an array of textbooks and lab notes, laptop open and a mug of cocoa as he works on homework. Hive is in the living room, tucked cross-legged onto the couch in faded fraying jeans, wearing a dark-blue hoodie with blue raincloud logo on the belly (blue raindrops and red hearts raining down from it.) His laptop is on the table in front of him, two monitors hooked up to it; he has a keyboard in his lap and a mouse on the cushions beside him, a large mug of coffee beside the laptop on the overly cluttered table. He's working on a design of their upcoming Terrorist Mutant Freakshow, the neighborhood layout taking shape on his screen. Screens. Jim's approach comes like a drop in air pressure before a storm. It's mind-grumbly and scattered like thought-buckshot, knotted and looping in on itself. << - needa get a new lighter, fuck i need socks, too. this point may as well just buy a god damn car. Just get a fucking station wagon and be done with it - HIVEY. Open the fucking door. >> Whump-whump-whump, he's loosely kicking at the door when he arrives at it. << Open the door your gorramn self that is what your motherfucking key is for, >> snaps back into Jim's head in Hive's typical heavy hammering. As well as, << You live in fucking Manhattan dude, get a car and you may as well pay a second fucking /rent/ in parking. >> GOD make Jim have to fish around in his god damn pocket. << Or I'll just give up rent and live out of a car I- >> The door opens and Jim shoulders in, "-did that for a while." << Simpler times, man. >> It comes with a complicated mix of wistful bleakness - it's multi-tasked with a more alert inspection of the apartment like the sight of it's pissed him off. He's located a brown leather coat, sprung at the pockets and elbows but sturdy, with a button-up blue shirt beneath and a worn pair of jeans. Under one arm is a large bag of Fritos, which he shoves in Hive's direction as soon as he near him. Shakes it. Rustle-rustle. "--yo, Flick." He jerks his chin. << ...eugh. man. them all being back again. almost think i'll miss this place. >> << Could live in Micah's van, >> Hive just OFFERS this to Jim, << It just sits there. S'got. Living shit. Hobo-like. >> "The fuck is this shit." He frowns at the Fritos as he snatches them out of Jim's hand. "The hippies are bringing guacamole." With which comment he THROWS the Fritos down onto the couch next to him. They will be playing the part of Jim for right now. "Hi, Jim!" Flicker at least has a warm smile. It's probably for Jim but he's really intensely focused on his work, so he forgets to look up, at first. "Do you want something? We have a -- lot of soda. Later there'll be wings." "Already got wings," comes from the bedroom. Hive rolls his eyes, still looking at his screen as he works. << Won't miss this damn place when I build us a /better/ one. Fff. >> He unhands his mouse to pick up his coffee instead, slumping back in his seat. "You're early." "What. That a crime? -- /Edible/ wings, Dracula," Jim shouts back at the bedroom on his way past the couch. Divested of his chips, the bag is all Hive /gets/ because Jim is stalking into the kitchen to wash his hands, "Nah, I'll wait til the big guns get here." Food has a way of /arriving/ if you wait long enough. << What, Micah's monsterrig? Fuck that, the cheerful bastard won't even let me drive the damn thing. >> WOE. << You gonna put in a trampoline room? Fire pole? >> Nevermind that he's thinking of how many times he's used this sink - the stale-pizza-y smell of the kitchen. Yeah, yeah, Jimmy. Worn out places, worn out faces. "People have their mouths all the fuck over those wings." Hive leans forward, popping the top off a bottle of ibuprofen to tip a trio into his palm, knocking them back with a swallow of coffee. "I'm going to make all the fucking floors trampolines. No stairs. Only slides and firepoles." Flicker actually does look up at this, eyes /lighting/ with a sudden bright delight. So very hopeful. "/Really/?" For a bright wide-eyed moment he looks like he actually believes this assertion. "Christ, I'm slipping a fucking disk just thinking about it." Actually, for a moment he's thinking of people literally licking Dusk's wings. It's not sexy, it's kind of like like a bunch of kids eating a very large jolly rancher. Lick lick lick. Except instead of kids it's Jax and Micah. Against... a Candyland background. << ...aand thanks for that fucking image. >> Shaking out his hands, Jim's eyes are following the ibuprofen's journey from bottle to Hiveface. << ...your head? >> It's not /exactly/ that he's asking. It's more reflexive. A throw back to old habits, different times. Not-quite 'our head'. "I can put a firepole in our house if you want." Now Hive /is/ serious, actually, offering this to Flicker in genuine reassurance that makes the teleporter's smile stretch wider still across his acid-etched face. << Head's fine, >> thuds back bluntly into Jim's mind, << everything's just fucking loud. >> The bottle of pills is half tossed, half just dropped back onto the table with a rattle. Hive chugs back more coffee and curls his legs up pretzel-like beneath himself again. "S'pretty much what it's like. He's goddamn Count Chocula. I'll put a /water/ fucking slide in your apartment. It'll go into a swamp. You can grow moss. Hardly notice a difference." 'Loud' doesn't mollify much in Jim; only increase a low restless movement that he crams towards the back of his mind, where deep roots squirm in dark earth. It doesn't help that you can't ever get entirely /accustomed/ to the hard thump of Hive's mental voice. "-- basement apartment?" Jim is abruptly /invested/ in this idea, his head full of thoughts of his sewer territory. Full of vines and shifting leaves. << - but with a mother fucking darkroom. >> "Yeahsure. I'll build you a damn hobbithole if you want." Hive's finger taps restlessly at his mouse button, minimizing-maximizing-minimizing-maximizing his current work and eventually setting the neighborhood plans aside to bring up individual house-plans. "Darkroom, right. Darkroom music room gym gameroom fucking. Garden studio workshop, fff. /Playroom/." Hive's half-lidded eyes stay heavy, focused on the screen as his bony fingers grip his mouse shakily. "Apparently our place is going to be tricked the fuck out. Everyone who's anybody's going to want to live there." "Regular Barbie Dreamhouse. Could have a fucking cover charge at the door for guests." Jim's sauntering across the livingroom, hands swinging at sides, to stand behind the couch, leaning over. His squinted vision shifts from the screens, and down to Hive's hand. The mental churning thickens, creaking like old wood under weight. "--so what's this, then?" He asks bluntly, jerking his chin at the screen. "Guests, dude, my dreamhouse isn't having any guests I'm building a goddamn moat and laser turrets." Hive is slowly working on adjustments to the designs, starting to sketch out what rough notes people have given hom so far. "This isn't shit, yet. One day it'll be our -- whatever. Buildings. Barbie fucking Dreamhouse. Terrorist Mutant Freakshow. Whatever the fuck. Right now it's shitty lines on my fucking laptop. What do you want in your hobbit hole?" "/Round/ windows," Jim growls like he's /mad/, bearing down /aggressively/ on the back of the couch. "Western sunlight. Floor drainage. A fucking /wetbar/. Koi pond - you serious? Just - whatever we want?" The clumsy-pushy churning in Jim harbors other things, amidst the usual drain-circling. Trying to think of something /more/ than... his usual variety of shitty apartments. Backs of cars. The sewers. It's absurdly difficult. "I mean. /He/," with a jerked nod towards Flicker," wants a fucking fireman's pole. Spencer wants a space station. The twins want a tub for a bed. Jax would /like/ a kiln and a glassblowing torch. Dusk just wants space to stretch his goddamn wings. People've asked me for shit in the common areas like -- space to practice music ro a little vegetable garden or an Olympic fucking swimming pool or a rock wall or just a little exercise room. So yeah." Hive shrugs a shoulder, head rolling back against the couch to squint lazy-sleepy-eyed up towards Jim. "You can ask for whatever the fuck you want. I'll probably even be able to swing most of that shit, actually. Some of the stuff people think is a crazy-ass dream is actually pretty workable. And some of it they can blow me. But I won't even try it if nobody tells me they want it. I'll build you a earthy fucking /den/ to go to root in." Though also heavy-lidded, Jim's eyes are considerably /less/ sleepy looking down at Hive's face beneath him - they're awake and watching. /Judgmental/. Inward, uneasiness may be one more color in his murky waters. And something that kind of... clenches. << -not fucking around. actually making a /home/ - all of us- >> Outward -- he flat snorts, "A fucking - terrarium of my very own, huh?" He drops a hand on the middle of Hive's forehead, pat-pat, "Regular god damn Fairy Godmother. Fix my wagon to /that/ star." It looks cavalier-rough but in contact it's... light. And his hand just kind of sits there. Maybe he's trying to take Hive's temperature. Eyes raised back to squint at the screen again, taking in a slow breath. "Yeah. Get you a sunlamp. Water you ever other -- fucking." Hive stops, head shaking under the patting. "Day. Shit. Gonna be showtime -- soon. Let's go get the -- fff. Wings. Not count-fucking-chocula's, either. Buffalo. Maybe teriyaki. Or, shit. Some /jerk/ -- yeah. I am in the mood for jerk." Taptaptap. His hand clicks at the mouse, maximizing the whole development again in its incipient sketched-out form. << All of us, >> affirms, almost absently. And somewhere echoed underneath it, << (and then some) >> a little quieter, a thoughtful-uncertain musing of all-of-us-not-yet-come. Hive gulps down the last of his coffee. Pushes slowly to his feet. "Takes one to - want one." A /jerk/ that is. It's not Jim's best material. Hive's journy to being fully upright meets a slight re-route when Jim giving his skull a faint push to the side before stepping back from the couch. And standing for a moment, still looking at the computer screens. Just considering the possibilities. Then he scratches at his stupid bristly jaw, and moves on to the Next Thing. WANGS.