ArchivedLogs:No Secrets

No Secrets
Especially not around telepaths.
Dramatis Personae Shane, Hive, Micah
In Absentia	10 March 2013 Shane needs help getting supplies to the Refugee Camp. And holycrap, everyone in the world needs prostheses.
Location <NYC> Tompkins Square Park - East Village
Small but popular, this tree-lined park is a perfect centerpiece to the eclectic neighborhood it resides in. Home to a number of playgrounds and courts from handball to basketball, it also houses a dog park and chess tables, providing excellent space for people watching -- especially during its frequent and often eccentric festivals, from Wigstock to its yearly Allen Ginsberg tribute Howl festival. The park has been crowded, during the day, sunny mild weather bringing people out of doors. As evening falls it's growing chiller, though, and the crowds largely thinned out. Shane isn't exactly Hanging Out at the park, tonight, but he is cutting /through/ it, dragging a handcart behind him, tipped up onto its larger pair of wheels. It's brimming over with groceries, currently. A lot of rice and bread and canned things. Peanut butter. Jam. Pasta. He was not /intending/ to hang out in the park but the rickety old cart is wobbling precariously on a wheel that continually attempts to slide off its axel, which is making slow going over the slush-damp ground. Hive's /apartment/ has been crowded, today, and right now he is /escaping/ this. He is escaping it in company with a cigarette and a Chinese take-out carton. Also, in company with a Very Large -- bird? No, near as tall as Shane and decidedly /human/ in the intelligence in his eyes he's not a bird at second glance but he is very feathery, very beaked, very winged, as he perches on the back of Hive's bench, taloned feet grasping the wood tight. It's Horus who gets up first, rather than Hive, at the sight of Shane struggling through the park. He wings his way over, alighting beside the cart to stretch down and POKE the offending wheel back into place. For now. Micah is sitting on a bench, wrapped in his puffy olive coat and orange Jayne hat against the growing chill. He is busily packing away…what looks like a lot of yarn and some cloth objects in assorted colours…into a large messenger bag. He notes Shane passing by, obviously in need of assistance, and approaches once all of his fabric-goods are stowed. “Hey there, um…” Insert lack of memory for name here. “You’re about to lose a wheel. Need a hand? Whoa!” Oh, hey, very large /bird/! That’s distracting. "Yeah this thing's a piece of shit," Shane is grumbling to himself; he's less irritable with his, "Hey, Horus," and less irritable /still/ when he looks up and actually sees who is speaking to him. "Ohshit you're the cyborg." He lets his cart rock down onto all four wheels, looking Micah over with a quick twitch of smile. "You were at my place yesterday." He says this kind of like an accusation, despite the smile. His thoughts aren't accusatory, though, a rather pleased, << holy /shit/ he actually got Pa to /sleep/ maybe he's magic. >> Horus's beak clacks, once, and he squawks in a little bit of startled alarm when Micah approaches, skittering back a few steps and then winging back a few feet to regard Micah warily. << S'okay, >> sounds in all three people's minds, and unlike Hive's usual harsh-painful mindvoice today it is mellow, almost just like speaking. Except that it comes not in Hive's voice alone but in a quiet /chorus/ of voices together, a jumbled-tangled undercurrent of ManyDifferentThoughts burbling underneath the words. << He's cool. And I don't think his name's Cyborg. Though he could change it, I guess. >> Oh, not bird. Impressively bird-like /person/. “Oh, hi…Horus? Sorry to startle at you, you were just kinda unexpectedly /swoopy/.” Micah offers a goofy grin with this apology. “Oh yeah, that’s me. Friendly Neighbourhood Cyborg Micah,” he jokes in reply to Shane. Man…now /there’s/ an anime waiting to happen. Shane’s accusation earns a fierce blush, visible even in the growing darkness. It takes him a moment to bring his thoughts back from Jax-kiss. “I…um…” And then there are /voices/ in his head? That’s new. “Uh…hello?” Micah does a quick turn-in-place, seeking the source of /mind-talking/. "I smelled you there," Shane says, which is perhaps not the normal way of identifying a person but! But. "And Pa was sleeping. And happy." He leans against his cart, his smile stretching wider at Micah's blush. Even if he's kind of /sizing/ the man up, critically. With a not-insignificant undercurrent of protectiveness towards Jax. But then even he startles, straightening when notjustHive speaks in his mind. "Holy /shit/, Hive, you're such a fucking creepster. Hey. Can you make /me/ a robot leg? I mean, all the cool kids are getting them." Horus stays where he is, mostly; he edges one hop closer but no farther, head tilting from one side to another, quite birdlike in his assessment of Micah. << He says hi. And, uh, wants to see your leg. >> There might be an apologetic note in there except there's so /many/ notes in there it's hard to tell. Someone is tired. Someone is crankily losing at poker. Someone is in a lot of pain. Hive is buried /somewhere/ in this tangle, but it's hard to extricate his voice from the others. << You really kiss him? Good, he could use some happy. Man you /would/ be a Friendly Neighborhood Cyborg, wouldn't you. I'd probably be like fucking Krang. >> “Um…I was helping. With first aid things,” Micah explains weakly to Shane, sinking into a crouch by the cart to inspect its wheel. Broken things = convenient excuses /not/ to be talking about…other things. And to hide a worsening blush. “You’re missing an end cap and a nut on here. Might be easier if we carry the bags in and just collapse the cart down, or this wheel’s gonna come off on you. Easy enough parts to replace, though.” Hive? <<Um…hi, Hive?>> This is so weird. I guess it makes sense brain-talking /and/ brain reading… “Oh, sure. Everyone wants to see the leg; it’s kind of awesome.” Micah looks over at Horus, not moving toward him because he seems a bit twitchy at Micah’s stranger-presence. He just roll-cuffs the leg of his jeans up to thigh height, letting Horus come over if he wants. Aaand then he’s entirely distracted by Hive mentioning Jax-kissing. <<OHGOD I didn’t know you were there when I was thinking about that…>> "Yeah, he's kinda shit at taking care of himself. I nag at him a lot. It's only sometimes effective. I should hire hot guys to nag at him /all/ the time, seemed to work for you. First aid always make you blush?" Shane leans downward, eying the wheel as Micah examines it. "S'a lot of bags," he says uncertainly. "But this shitty thing keeps trying to fall apart on me, hrgnh. Maybe you're right." << Is it a secret? Cuz we live one floor up from him. We overhear a lot. >> If Hive notices his pronoun-slippage it doesn't show. He is finally finishing his cigarette, stubbing out the butt and shoving it in his pocket as he rises from the bench, takeout carton held lazily by its spindly metal handle. << Helping's good, though. Hectic as fuck. Could use as much help as we can get. >> He skirts around Horus and Micah towards the cart, to poke at the groceries inside. He scoops out one bag to carry it, instead. Horus does come over -- not at first but eventually, hopping slowly until he is beside the cart again. He stays close to Shane's legs, here, still kind of wary of Micah, but at length his head darts forward to -- peck, lightly, at Micah's leg. Experimental. Tap. It's only after this that he unfolds his wings, cautiously; hidden away beneath it is clear he once /did/ have arms -- normal human-looking shoulders! -- but they end in stumps shortly beneath the shoulder-joint. He pecks, lightly, at Micah's leg again. "Yeah, that happens a lot. People who have a lot to take care of push too hard and forget themselves. I'm used to seein' caregiver burnout, so I know how to be kinda pushy about that... Oh, for the love...I blush at just about everythin', it just happens." Micah says the last sentence in a rush, hardly any space between words. <<OH. Oh, I don't think so? I don't know...what...yet. I just...uh.>> Micah is being excessively articulate today, both out loud and in his head. Blarg, assault from all sides! Micah watches Horus come closer. He turns the leg to be more easily inspected. A shaft of metal from shoe to what would be a calf region. A copper-coloured unit covered in plastic, shaped to mimic the calf muscle up to the knee. Mechanisms to provide a joint where a knee would be. The rest is hidden under the pants cuff. "Oh... Oh, right, Hive mentioned you might want to talk to me about that." He nods when Horus moves his wings away. "I can try to help, yeah. But he kind of buried the lead on you having /wings/, too. We're gonna have to plan a longer meet-up about that, because usually you control the hand units on prosthetic arms using the musculature of the shoulder girdle and /wings/ gotta work all kindsa different. I should look that up, actually..." Rambling again, should stop that... Micah moves to help Shane unload bags from his cart. "Good. He could use pushy, sometimes. You gonna help Liza? She, uh --" Shane gestures towards Micah's leg. "There was a dragon." Like this explains everything. He reaches into the cart, pulling out the remainder of the bags; they seem heavy, laden with canned food, but despite the skinniness of his arms he hefts them up onto his shoulders without much apparent effort. The cart gets folded up, a latch dropped to keep it in its folded position. "That /is/ wicked cool," he adds, about the leg, "probably stronger than a stupid meat leg anyway. Do you go to Hive's geek nights? Cuz word on the street," or maybe just in Shane's apartment, "is that you're a total nerd." << S'not geeknight, s'game night -- okay, it's pretty much geek night, >> Hive is forced to allow. << Sorry. Didn't think to mention the wings. Some people just have wings, y'know? And he is a total nerd. >> He's shifting his shopping bag up to his shoulder, too, takeout box still lazily dangling from his other hand. Horus's beakface is hard to read typical expressions into, but the bob of his head when Micah says he can try to help is followed up by a stretch forward of his neck to kind of beak /on/ Micah's hair, smoothing it down like he is preening the other man. His weight settles lower, though, almost a slump when Micah mentions the difficulties. He folds his wings as small as he can make them against his back. "If Liza's the girl Jax was tellin' me about, I hope to help," Micah replies to Shane's first question. "She's got a lot to deal with before--" Micah taps the prosthetic leg with his other foot indicatively, rather than completing the sentence. "Needs a surgeon to help revise the traumatic amputation, then there's a lot of work in helpin' to get the shape of the residual limb optimised while it heals. That's where I can /start/ bein' of assistance. Compression bandaging and plaster casts and stuff. These things are a process." Micah lets Hive's answer to the geek/nerd question stand for him without additional comment. Horus captures his attention then. He grins /brightly/ at the hair fussing, but this expression melts into concern as Horus looks more dejected. "Hey now. Just because we got some unique issues to face don't mean we aren't gonna figure 'em. Just gotta get creative. I try to let folks know all of what we're up to the whole time, though. It's a process." This may be something he says /a lot/. "We'll figure it." Micah offers Horus another smile before hefting bags in each arm. "Optimised. S'that like adding armor plating and a wifi connection and lasers? Rocket packs? What would your leg look like optimised?" The cart still kind of wobbles as Shane starts walking back towards the apartment building. Horus perks up again, at these reassurances, crooning softly. He spreads his wings to glide alongside the others as they head out of the park. << Horus says his would have basically a giant bowl of cuddles, >> Hive says, << though I'm not sure you can put those in bowls. Mine'd be a pillow. >> He's stifling a yawn, and his mental chorus of voices is growing sluggish, too. << C'mon. Let's get this shit back to Jax. He's got an army to feed. >> Micah chuckles at Shane’s peppering of questions. “Nothin’ that interestin’, I’m afraid. Just means gettin’ a good shape to the limb so it won’t be painful or have skin breakdown, and so it’ll couple well with the suspension system on a prosthesis. Gotta think long-term outcomes for health and function.” It’s like he’s physically incapable of giving simple answers to “work questions”. Nerd hazard. Hive’s translation merits a wide, lopsided grin from Micah. “I like the way you think, Horus.” He treads onward with the group. “Can’t keep an army waitin’. They march on their stomachs, I hear.” "That'd be freakish. Can you imagine?" Shane can. He has a mental image of many soldiers, all marching to war on a field of disembodied stomachs. He imagines it vividly at Hive. "They're the shittiest army ever, though, bunch of traumatized broken sadsacks. Still. I guess they need food. Were you knitting?" He's only now looking at the bag Micah originally was holding. "I mean, what were you knitting?" Horus squawks again. << Don't think you can knit cuddles, >> Hive answers, distracted, << Jesus fuck, Shane. Your brain is weird as hell. >> He's crossing the street, getting his key out preemptively even before they arrive at the building. << Hey. We were a bunch of traumatized broken sadsacks once. Now we're -- uh -- bunch of, shit. Guess re-broken all over again. Dammit. Did you knit your /own/ hat, we never asked. >> Micah has a good idea of the mental image Shane must have to make that comment, as he’s thought much the same himself. “I don’t know much about who all those folks /are/ or how y’all ended up with ‘em. And I’m not fussed to press for the details, ‘cause things’re things, sometimes. But they looked about like refugees from a war zone. So I figured they ain’t got much. And bein’ cold is awful.” Boy, this is a long explanation for a simple question. “Hats and scarves,” he finally summarizes. “Y’can, too, knit cuddles!” Micah defends Horus’s translated idea. “You should see some of the little plushies y’can knit or crochet. Not to mention /blankets/. Cuddles all over.” He nods to Hive’s hat question, expression all grins again. “Yeah, actually. A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he’s not afraid of anything.” Shane seems startled at this answer. "That's --" << Sweet, >> comes internally, << thoughtful. No wonder Pa -- >> "Fucking hippie," is what he says out loud, "Frakking hell, I'm surrounded by a bunch of dogooders." Hive already has his key out, so he doesn't bother getting his when they approach the building, just stops outside the door /expectantly/. "They don't got shit. Think they'll love the warm." << Yeah, guess it is like a bag of knit cuddles. >> Hive says this wryly, keying open the door and holding it for the others. << Things are things, >> he agrees with Micah. << Shit. Maybe I should have you knit me one of those before the next time we -- I mean, sometimes I could use some knit courage, y'know? >> This is accompanied by a quiet series of twitters from Horus, who has landed to walk into the building along with them. << The fuck are you on about, that's /exactly/ how that hat works. >> Put it on. Grow courage. << C'mon. Let's restock the damn refugee camp. Be time to cook /breakfast/ again before you know it. >> He's grumbling. But the mental words come with an undercurrent of genuine care. << Don't suppose you'd want to trade in your van for a mattress in camp for a couple days? >> He is only half teasing, with this question. << Sure as fuck could use some extra hands. Crowded and terrible, though, not like your life of luxury. >> “I hope so,” Micah replies to Shane, earnestly. “I only got a handful of each done so far. But yarn is cheap, so, more’s to come.” He /giggles/ at the half-a-conversation he’s picking up between Hive and Horus. “Y’all don’t need another body takin’ up what precious little space and food you have. I’ll stay parked near whenever I’m not off for work, though. You’n Jax both got my number.” "Feed two dozen people, feed two dozen and one, it's about the same," Shane is musing. He doesn't comment on the space issue. At least not aloud. << Room in Jax's bed, >> is an amused snip to Hive, though. Possibly inadvertent. Possibly not. "Hey, man, thanks for the hand. S'late, though. I won't keep you." He's reaching out to relieve Micah of his foodbags. << You're fucking terrible, >> is Hive(&co.)'s comment, still grumbled. He goes to hit the elevator button, but stops to flash Micah a quick smile. Horus's mouth is not built for smiling. He bumps his beak up lightly against Micah's hand. << Yeah. Got your number. We-I'll call you. G'night, Cyborg. >> Micah allows Shane to take the bags from him. “Y’all are more than welcome. Glad to’ve been in the right place at the right time today, at least.” That sparks a thought. “Hey, I’ll dig through the toolkit and get replacement bits for your cart. Prob’ly oughtta have things about that size.” People’s arms are all full of heavy stuff…so no hugs. Smiles, though! “Y’all try to sleep, okay? And make sure Jax sleeps?” This request is made quickly, as if he can sneak it by. “G’night!” Shane's answer to this is just a grin. Flashed briiight and sharptoothed towards Micah, as he slips into the elevator, just before the doors close behind them.