ArchivedLogs:Realtalk Redux

Realtalk Redux
Dramatis Personae Doug, Micah, Hive
In Absentia	26 March 2013 Doug and Micah accidentally run into each other. Hive crashes. (Set after Collision Courses and One Of Us)
Location <NYC> The Batcave - Greenwich Village
Nestled in a basement of the meatpacking district, a hybrid of arcade and cybercafe, the Batcave is far more sociable a place than its name would suggest. Filled at all hours of day with the beeps and music and explosions of a myriad of arcade games, as well as the laughter and conversation (and curses) to go with it, the dark theme in decor is broken up by the bright lights of their game machines. One corner of the establishment is a perpetual LAN party with a projector screen-equipped lounge area for spectators. Along the opposite wall, a counter serves soft drinks and greasy junk food, and off in the back a door leads to what is by far the larger part of the establishment: a fully-equipped laser tag arena. A Tuesday night seems like an odd time to be haunting an arcade. The rows of machines aren't as full as they are on the weekend, but a healthy amount of people still occupy the space. Most seem to be waiting for their turn in the laser tag arena, but a few are working the standup machines over pretty good. Doug is one of them. Dressed in snug, well-patched jeans and a blue button-down over a grey t-shirt, the blonde has commandeered the House of the Dead game. The line of quarters along the screen indicate that he might intend to stay there a while. There's a grim sort of set to his mouth as he fires on the zombies that appear, a smile quirking every time one of their heads explode. He also doesn't seem to be missing, much. A fact which has garnered the attention of a couple of guys who hover nearby, making appreciative noises every time he takes one out. Over it all, the sound system is blasting 'You Give Love a Bad Name', which is probably the Universe's idea of irony. Micah is wandering around in obvious work clothes: a TARDIS blue polo shirt and khakis. He has strange crosshatch patterns on the skin of both of his forearms and the thigh of one pantsleg, in a substance that looks almost like black tar. He is in search of terribleretromachines. Something mindless and low-graphics. Like Pac-Man. Because he has had A DAY and needs decompression before dinner. The stress doesn’t need to go with him there. Pew. Pew. Pew. Doug is focused on the zombies, and doesn't notice the proximity of Micah until he finally lets one get by him and his game ends. Then, on reflex, he twists to gauge the watching crowd. Just the same two that always follow him, and there's not much going on there -- in any way. As he turns back to plunk more quarters in the machine, he spies the familiar blue shirt (okay -- red hair), and his mouth tightens. There's a moment when it looks like he might abandon the game, quarters and all, but he straightens instead, lifting a hand in a dull non-wave as the older man draws near. "Micah." Micah is distracted enough to actually /not notice/ Doug until his name is spoken. And then he’s all right next to him already. Oh no. Micah goes zero to crimson in record speed. “Doug! Hi. Oh. I’m sorry. I’m supposed to be givin’ you space but I didn’t know you were here. I was just lookin’ for a horrible retro game. I can keep walkin’.” Doug winces as Micah blushes, and shakes his head. "You didn't know I was here. One of the hazards of the city, I guess." He lifts a hand and scrubs it through his hair. "Don't go." It's sudden, and /just/ loud enough to carry to Micah's ears. Then it's Doug who's blushing, and he ducks his head. "I think...it's probably good, that we ran into each other, today." He doesn't elaborate, but there's guilt in his expression as he looks back up. "I owe you an apology, kind of." << Mother/fucker/, >> bites out sudden and /sharply/ angry in both Doug and Micah's mind, though to Micah it sounds natural; to Doug, like a sledgehammer to the brain. << You owe him that and Jax as well. >> Micah has to shift his weight back consciously, he was so close to turning around and heading back the way he had come. He rocks on his feet for a moment, only to be startled again by angryHive. <<Cheese and /crackers/, Hive! Simmer down.>> “Not me, really. Maybe Jax,” he replies aloud to Doug, sheepishly. “I mean…I know why you got all weirded out from that day with the plaster. And that wasn’t really anybody’s fault! It’s all this…brainsharing stuff. I think I was gettin’ added to the Collective at the time and kinda went all zombieriffic for a little bit there, myself… Nobody quite had complete control of themselves.” Doug makes a strangled sort of noise, clutching at his head. << Mother /fucker/, >> is an echo of Hive's mental assault, although with less power and focus behind it. << Get the fuck out of my head, Hive. You're not welcome in here anymore. >> That comes with a bit more heat and crackle to it. << Bastard. >> He smiles tightly at Micah, and bobs his head with another wave of guilt. "Yeah...I didn't mean to embarrass him, or get him into all of that. It just sort of happened." He juts out his lower lip, and frowns mildly, pinkening at the reminder of that night. "I was talking about before that," he clarifies limply. "When I told you I understood about things." << No. You stupid shitbag. Are you just that bitter? See him happy and you have to shit on it? >> There's images, here, flashing in quick succession; Jax horrified and glowy-red with a thrown soda can thudding into his back. A room full of hostile glares as he flees. Hiding afterwards in a bathroom, in tears. The red not leaving. The insults and spitting that come with being Mutant In Public. << You fucking /lied/ to him. Just to upset him? What the fuck is /wrong/ with you? >> It's still angry, hot and sharp and heavily coated with a fierce-hot protectiveness, a warm surge of love that sharpens rather than dulls the Royally Pissed Off. << We don't want your petty fucking /brain/ just don't fuck with my friends. >> Micah is struck completely silent for a moment by Hive’s string of images, his eyebrows knitting together unhappily. It was worse than Jax had let on. Of course it was. Of course he /wouldn’t/… <<Hey. HEY. No yellin’. Yellin’s never helped nobody.>> “Can we? Uh…find a corner or somethin’? So we can talk? More openly…” Micah is giving shifty-glances to the people nearby, who are starting to /notice/ the weird behaviour going on. Guilt to the point of nausea rolls off of Doug at those later images, and he winces visibly, color draining from his pale skin to render him ghost-like in the odd lighting of the arcade. << I didn't lie, >> is weak, and there's a flash of an image that is, essentially, a jumble of images: a broken shower, a naked Micah, and Jax shirtless and glowing while pinned under Micah. Jumbled together, it looks very much like shower sex. << I would never hurt him. >> There's a flare of hot determination in response to that, and Doug nods his head at Micah's suggestion. "Yeah. There are tables back there," he notes, nodding in the direction of the laser tag waiting area before wandering in that direction. Hive gets an annoyed push, even though there's nothing to push against. "Oh, man, are you really going to play against him?" one of the watching teenagers asks Micah, his brow furrowing. "Don't let him get you on the Flicky machine. He /owns/ that." << You. Lied. >> Hive says, firmly, but the anger is at least /subdued/ after Micah's reprimand. Not gone, though; it blades his words quietly and sputters in small sparks to tinge Micah's thoughts for a moment. There's a pause, a /settling/, the mental equivalent of a deep breath. The image Hive flashes back of what he /actually/ showed Doug and Shelby that night -- Jax shirtless and glowing, yes, but Micah fully /clothed/ and the both of them on the /couch/ -- doesn't look much like shower sex. Still inappropriate, though. But clothes. << You /did/ hurt him, so don't give me that bullshit. /I'm/ an asshole but I don't weasel around whining about what a /good guy/ I am. You're a fucking eel, and you need to stop the bullshit martyr act and own it or grow the fuck /up/ and /think/ before you /hurt/ people. >> Micah /somehow/ manages to do that one-foot-in-front-of-the-other thing to follow Doug toward the indicated tables. The teenager doesn’t get a verbal response. Just a flicking of fingers as if to say, ‘Shoo.’ Because oh/gosh/ there are so many mindpictures from /everyone/ and they’re pretty much /all/ inappropriate. Micah is blushing quite brilliantly on all visible skin. The black fibreglass dye on his arms starts /itching/ again. And Hive is still angry. <<Ugh, I /used/ to think my head was loud but that was /nothing/,>> Micah is thinking to himself on top of everything…not projecting, just thinking. “Calm down. Everybody just calm down. And no name-callin’. Can’t have a conversation through name-callin’.” There's a wash of confusion, when the image clarifies, and Doug actually stops short, peering up as if the image were tacked just above him. << I...not on /purpose/. I just didn't want him to pussyfoot around it, when I knew the score. >> This is genuine, and Doug's head hangs for a moment before he lands at an empty table and sinks into it, pushing his hands over his face and into his hair. << Just leave me alone, Hive, >> is weak. << You've made your point. >> There's no attempt at defense beyond that, and whatever expression might be on his face is hidden by his hands. "This was a mistake," he says after a long moment, from behind his hands. Clearly, this is directed at Micah. "Hive's right. I need to man the fuck up about this." There's a tug, though. As if he's still not being entirely honest with himself. Which he isn't. Hive is quiet, at the moment. At least to Doug. In Micah's head there is a swirling mire of anger, leaking sharp-hot into the other man's mind. Those images of Jax this afternoon won't /leave/, aggravating the fierce-protective flare. Micah slips into a chair at the table where Doug stops, his elbows seeking out the support of the tabletop and chin resting on his hands. It is too much effort to have /posture/ right now. “Okay, which ‘this’? I can think of so many ‘this-es’ that could be mistakes by now that I can’t even… And we apparently had a misunderstandin’ further back than I thought? Please…” Micah spares one of his hands from supporting his head to place it palm-up on the table, as if to cede the floor. Doug doesn't drop his hands, instead peering though spread fingers across the table. "Can I just take back the whole last month?" he asks, in a weak attempt at humor. "Because I'm kind of an idiot, and my only defense is that there's been /so much/ new and..." he drops his hands, watching them as he twists them over each other. Like they're WRESTLING for control. "I guess 'different' is putting it mildly. In my life. It's had me more off-balance than I really thought about." He sighs, and throws himself backwards in his chair, staring at Micah. There's warmth in his expression (and mind), and a bit of maybe-sadness, too. "I /really/ like you," he says, rolling his shoulders. "That's about the only thing that seemed /normal/ in the middle of all of the other stuff, so I think I might have been putting too much stock in it. In you." He presses his lips together, and the corners of his mouth tighten. "And that was kind of selfish." << kind of an idiot, >> echoes in soft agreement, not to Micah's mind but quietly rising up from it. Hive has a heavily lingering dose of cranky, colouring his thoughts (their thoughts?) with irritable suspicion, distaste, dislike. There's a long moment when these feelings blend with Micah's, /are/ Micah's, and then it settles down quieter, pulling back to -- well, it doesn't leave Micah /entirely/ unaffected by HiveGrump, but it's at least slightly easier to separate whose feelings are whose. This careful partitioning comes with an (admittedly cranky) sense of apology, for the blending. That hand comes right back up from the table to rake through messy auburn hair as Doug talks and Hive /grumps/. Micah looks extremely frustrated for a moment, but this dissipates in a heavy, deflating sigh. “Honey, you’ve got a /crush/. And that’s sweet. And it’s fine. And it’s /normal/. But you gotta learn t’see those for what they are and move /on/, right? I mean, I get it. I get crushes on people at the drop of a /hat/. A lot of those people are now very dear friends, though.” A string of images flicks though Micah’s mind…assorted men and women that Hive wouldn’t know. One shadowy figure with a purry laugh. “You just gotta figure out how to meet people where they are an’ only take what they got to offer, y’know? Gettin’ all jealous when we wasn’t even…” He just trails off with a headshake. “That’s /not/ okay. And takin’ it out on Jax is even /less/ okay. That’s not fair to him. But Hive shouldn’ta been pokin’ at any of that, either. Ain’t nothin’ /normal/ about seein’ what people are doin’ behind closed doors or havin’ thoughts fabricated in your head, either. That wasn’t fair to you.” Everybody gets a lecture tonight, yay! Doug absorbs that, and it's clear that he's not really happy to hear it, to everyone at the table. Micah gets the physicality of it, though, as the blonde's expression turns thoughtful. Or maybe it's broody (probably). "I wasn't /jealous/," he says, in mild protest. "I mean, I /was/, but I didn't think I was. And that's probably where I started going wrong." He sighs, and flicks his hand from his chest to Micah, and back again. "I don't know how to /do/ this kind of stuff. I was doomed to fuck it up." He rubs his hand over his face. "And I wasn't taking anything out on Jax. I /like/ Jax. I had kind of a crush on him, at first, too." There's noisy exhale through his lips in a motorboat sound as he sorts his thoughts. "Maybe that's what made it a little harder. Because it was /you two/." He spreads his hands. "I mean, if you'd hooked up with literally anyone else in the world, we wouldn't be at this point right here." He leans forward. "Let me make it clear, though. I'm not mad at anyone but myself over this. Because I'm an idiot, and should /really/ know better." He scrunches his nose. "Well, okay. Maybe I'm a little ticked at Hive." In Micah's head, the anger is subsiding. With it, though, comes a blurring of the boundaries just erected, another muddling of Hive's feelings-Micah's feelings-their feelings. Tired, now, not so much angry as /weary/, still fierce-protective. Not just of Jax but of so many people orbiting their mixedup-broken family, and, perhaps, protective even moreso of the shreds of happiness that have crept in amidst all the chaos. Like Jax and Micah. Doug's words wash through all this with a quiet, << teenagers >>, not much cranky anymore. Possibly the boundary-blurring goes both ways, Micah's influence blunting Hive's ire even as Hive's feelings melt back into Micah's. “I know you don’t know what you’re doin’, hon. This is why things like ‘no teenagers’ rules exist. Everybody’s gotta start somewhere. One of these days you’ll find yourself another idiot and you can fuck things up together and it’ll be fantastic.” A playful grin has swept the corners of Micah’s lips upward, making it clear that this is good-natured teasing. “Just…word of advice? Try to check the jealousy. With anybody. Recognise it, talk about it, but don’t let it get out of hand. It’s one of the worst things.” Micah is trying to put barriers in front a memory, but there’s definitely yelling and a sensation of fear, an echo of pain like his wrist being grabbed too hard and /pulled/. “Also…try not to be too upset with Hive. He’s kinda everywhere and not all there at once since all the ‘New Folks’ came back, if you get my meanin’? He’s been stretched to breakin’ and back. And now they’ve got him isolated, locked up, and alone except for where he’s rattlin’ around in our heads.” Hive is getting /all/ the mental hugs right now. “Everybody’s been a little bit stupid in this, but they’ve all got their /very understandable/ reasons and /I/ forgive everybody. Okay?” "I hope so," is Doug's only response for Micah's prediction, although it doesn't sound like his heart is in it. "I'd kind of like to experience that." His mouth pulls to one side, and he tips his head to one side. "Jealousy sucks," he agrees. "Even from this side." Maybe especially from this side. The attempted Hive-explaining doesn't really find fertile ground, though, and he lowers his brow. "I guess," is almost sullen, and there's definitely a dark cloud that passes over his mindscape. "It's going to be a while before I can really get around that, though." Which is a completely honest admission. Micah's forgiveness gets a wan smile, and the blonde pushes to his feet. "I'm glad of that," he says, tugging his shirt back into place. "Although I'm not sure I deserve it, unless I make things right with Jax." Perhaps Hive is growing as a person, because he does not pry at that memory Micah tries to wall off. Much. Mental fingers /touch/ at it, not exploring but questioning, and in answer to those mental hugs he has his own to give, a soft curl of /presence/ that settles into Micah's thoughts. Micah is standing too, having already spent more time on this pit stop than originally intended. “Well, that’s true. Whether Jax forgives you is between you’n’ Jax. I’m not the Pope or however all that Christian-y stuff works. Can’t go forgivin’ on someone else’s behalf.” He flutters a hand at this dismissively, chuckling softly. “I’d like to give you a hug now, if you’re up for that? Friend hugs.” <<Thanks,>> is whispered silently to Hive. Doug chuckles, as well, and ducks his head. "Well, I'll talk to him tomorrow," he promises. "I'd hate for things to be awkward at the party on Thursday, and I don't want things to be awkward, period." He smiles at the offer, and nods. "Yeah, okay." It's really more of a warning, because then he's stepping forward to envelop Micah in his arms, closing the embrace tightly. "I wish I were older," he murmurs into Micah's ear with a chuckle. Then he's withdrawing, the brush against Micah's ear is /totally/ not his lips. Nope. Must have been his cheek. "I should probably go," he says. "I promised my mom I would take pictures of me in my tux, so she can see it in 'regular lighting', whatever that is." There's an involuntary mental shudder, at the brush of lips on ear; Hive can feel it, too, apparently. It quiets, calms back into just a continued sense of closeness, of presence, Hive answering the thanks with quiet nestling. It's a muddled mix of emotions that still trickle-leaks to blur Hive's thoughts with Micah's; apology, gratitude, exhaustion, affection. <<You really don’t,>> Micah thinks loudly in reply to Doug’s statement, but doesn’t say. “Just…maybe you should call or text him first? To let him know before you spring on him. And, well, best of luck with all /that/. I am of no help with clothes-things. But. I am now runnin’ a little late, so I should scoot, too. Take care.” Doug chuckles, already moving away. "Oh, I'll send him a text," he says. "It would only compound things if I just turned up." He lifts a hand in farewell. "I'll see you Thursday," he says, lifting his eyebrows. "Save a friend-dance for me." His grin slips wider. "The three of us can scandalize the One Percent." Then he's gone, disappearing into the maze of machines like a ninja. A nerd ninja. Hive is back to quiet. But lingering. Perhaps mental hugs have shifted into mental cuddles, because he is kind of just /staying/ until told otherwise.