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Dramatis Personae Hive, Jim
In Absentia	2013-06-12 (Set a few hours after Ian's death.)
Location <NYC> TriBeCa
Home of the most expensive residences in New York, and of many a celebrities' penthouse, TriBeCa is now best known for being merely that - the richest neighborhood, and, as a result of the many films and television shows shot there, one of the most recognizable ones. Still, the vast majority of the people who walk its streets are that vermin most despised by New York City residents: tourists. It's not long, but it's long enough. A crowd still lingers around, though it's the afterparty where words are relayed from person to person, comparing notes or catching the late-comers up. There's disapproval and a restless anxiety milling the streets - it's through this that Jim is shouldering through, his head and eyes sweeping pretty heartlessly across faces he doesn't know. People seem generally amenable to /not/ remedying this; the man's only gone scruffier, a week old beard and stringy overgrown hair gray and dirty as pencil lead, not even counting the way the scar running down the side of his face and the parallel /swipe/-marks dragging along the side of his eyesocket twist /thusly/ when its tense. Hive hasn't actually gone far. Not -- far at /all/, really, sitting just a few doors from Happy Cakes on the stoop of a Sephora, rows of bright color in the windows providing backdrop to his kind of scrawny dark listless form. He still is dressed in faded jeans, his favourite brown blue-painted-hedgehog shirt -- both speckle-splattered with blood, now. He certainly doesn't look like he /belongs/, and yet. The milling crowds, the fashionable people who drift in and out of the makeup store (skirting wide /around/ the caution tape roping off glaring bloodstains on the sidewalk) don't seem to pay him any mind. Possibly because of the odd brief flush of /presence/ that pushes its quiet way into the mind of every person who passes. It's a subtle thing, for most people barely noticeable; a strange new sense of being not-quite-alone but nothing enough to be alarming. Just a brief odd disorientation and then continuing on their way -- albeit with a new feeling that that figure on the steps is not to be bothered. Hive is tapping at his phone. He's not, actually, /looking/ at his phone. Or writing anything. Just. Tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap, his thumb batting in a rapid tic against the screen. It's long since locked him out for failing to enter his unlock pattern correctly too many times. That same quiet push washes up against Jim's mind, when he nears, though for him the fact it is /recognizable/ is probably enough to be quite noticeable where in other people it is ignorable. "/Hiv/-!" Jim barks out the word, /ragged/-abrupt as soon as he sees him, and nearly bodychecks his way /through/ the caution tape and crime scene before he notices it. Cursing, he has to back up (bodycheck, maybe elbow) between two teenage girls that have meandered up behind him for a nervous peek, their hands against their faces. Getting around to the other side probably involves having to pretty much cross the street to get around all the obstructing emergency vehicles still surrounding the area, vaulting up the curb. The press against its mind will find - well, the usual reflexive-abrasive push /back/. ...And with comes muttered, simultaneous, "-I know. I know, buddy." His knees drop down in front of the scrawny man, the two looking like two hobos, and reaches to take the phone from him, "You hear me? What happened." The phone is relinquished without any resistance. Hive's thumb keeps up the same jittery tapping motion even empty-handed. His eyes have taken on a telltale glassy-blankness that stares /through/ more than at Jim. But dispersed as his mind is it has not been that way /long/, not cemented into this distance; there's still enough presence there to slooooowly refocus. Slowly. His mind pushes /harder/. Sinking in -- and then withdrawing. He reaches out towards his phone but then just closes his bony fingers around Jim's wrist instead. Clutching tight. "I know," Jim says again, this time with a clenched pain to it; to the sinking in of pressure, maybe. Maybe it's just a Jim variety of dismay. Either way, he seems fit to take it out on Hive, running an arm around the back of his shoulders and setting down beside him to crumple him in, restlessly scanning the people just... going about their business. Not seeming to notice the bloody shirt that really should classify as evidence. "S'alright, buddy," his voice is generally flat-even, "I know." His mind - nearly a keening white noise of pragmatic planning (<< -get him out of sight before someone notices shit where're the others, he said Dusk and Shane, too, that's a lot of blood -- ...ian.- >> ) and something more primal; harder, more steady, rooted deep in the earth. And it's this part that speaks, grim, stable. << -...you can, man. If you needa. But you gotta let them go first. Remember? >> Somewhere in another world, arms lock, grappling (Jim's couch; Melinda's apartment), push, pull, << -just a few more- >> << -want you-. >> << -his fists against->> It's all fractured, though. Against a tugging pull of << ...i'm here... >> Hive is sort of boneless-limp against Jim's side, crumpling in when he is pulled closer, head dropping down to thud chin against his chest. His shoulders tremble, and then still. From him there is only silence (thumb still tic-tic-tic tapping at nothing.) Silence, and a heavier headier push, insinuating itself into Jim's mind with something that feels almost like relief. Almost-like, too worn-dry-heavy to really reach it. The buzz of minds underlying this contact is oddly overlookable -- not for its lack but for its /multitude/, a buzzing /rush/ that is too much white noise to distinguish any one from the other. A background rush of wind, a background spill of water rushing white-froth-rapid somewhere in the distance. Hive's presence over top of this is whisper-quiet. It contacts in no words, only a spill of thoughts-images-feelings. Fisted hands thumping against posts. A smoke-shadow silhouette ghosting in the background. A tangled knot of heavy-sick-guilt that has settled in deep and unmoving. His fingers tighten against Jim's wrist. << (sorry) >> << (missed you)/(need you) >> << (so fucking /worried/) >> << (didn't want)/(lose you) >> << (/sorry/) >> These things tumble-jostle against each other for primacy, surfacing, knocking together, fading again beneath a heavy cloud of just -- sick. << ... you're here. >> The insinuation into Jim's mind is met with a clench of teeth and - something pained. << i know. >> It had been out loud. << i /know/. i fucking know. >> It's also internal with Jim just kind of folding Hive up like wadding a newspaper against himself, guilt-sick and dismissive-frustrated in one << so stupid; don't even know what I was thinking. >> His own mind, however, is /not/ laden with the force-might of so many others. And it's trying, /failing/, but trying to even guess at the hoarde of minds already amassed. And even as he's responding, more firmly << I'm not going anywhere, Hivey. We're gonna get through this, >> he's adding, with ferocity: << But you /gotta/ let them go. NOW. >> Said with a /hard/ physical jostle against Hive's shoulders. << You're here, >> it's a stronger echo this time; still soft but a touch above /whisper/, creeping back into higher definition. Hive's head stays lolled down against his chest. There's another tremble in his shoulders, and this time it just settles in and /stays/. There's no immediate definable change, enough minds that at first the untethering of one or two or /ten/ don't really quiet the background /rush/ at all. But the background rush /does/ thin out -- though initially this manifests in a /louder/ presence mentally, individual persons vaguely distinguishable in this worry about missing an appointment and that deliberation about what shade of lipstick to buy and this vague irritation at the dog meandering sloooowly and that wide-eyed curiosity at the bloodstains on the sidewalk. And then far more clarity, still, different voices surfacing enough to temporarily /eclipse/ Jim's own sense of self. A sense of /being/ restless-bored waiting for shift to end, a bubbly-happy cheer as new-promotion-at-work mixes with omg-cupcakes, a sick-tense-jittery-worry pained and grieving and underlaced with an odd /hunger/ -- /that/ one Hive /shoves/ back down as soon as it surfaces. And then there is quiet. Just Hive's mind coiled in-around-through Jim's. The shaking gets worse as the last other person slips away from this knot. He turns his face in against Jim's side, hand lifting to bunch up and /fist/ into Jim's shirt as his breathing skews more ragged. Around them, the classy-polished passersby and immaculately kept store attendants are finally /noticing/ the hobos on their doorstep. Jim's arm clamps down harder around Hive, when the shaking starts, like an /argument/ against it, his other arm joining the encirclement. Thank god; jesus, how many was that. It's like getting him back just to loose him again-... A rising hysteria accompanies the thought, one so starkly /unfamiliar/ it's actually accompanied by a wave of intense, hazy confusion, the volume getting louder, sharper in his mind. All the important workings of his hindbrain grow prominent; a deep inner throb of his pulse pounding against the side of Hive's face, eyes closing, head dropping down as the storm grows loud, ravages through and tears him loose. Buries him. And there's silence. Only earth and roots that know nothing. Nothing of human necessity or blood or the chemical-sweet smell of perfume wafting from the Sephora doors. Hive is here, a mammal warmth in the heart of his roots -- Hive's phone is ringing. --where it's safe. There is no loss or screaming or fire or riots -- Hive's phone is ringing. --or loss. Bad decisions or /anger/ or -- Jim lifts a shaky hand, fitting Hive's phone to his ear. "/What/." As answers go... it's not that far off from how Hive would answer, really. There's a stark hollowness to the mind that tucks itself into Jim's, freshly-emptied and all the more unsteady for it. Hive doesn't move, much. Unaffected by the newfound stares, oblivious to the smells of perfume or the sounds of passersby. Just tucking, burrowing, curling in against Jim even as his mind does the same. Nesting in the solid-steady-stable. Until there is sound and -- he seems to try to burrow /away/ from it, head dipping down lower. << no no go away no, >> he's no answering the phone-ringing phone-answering with any sort of coherence. Just. Do Not Want. << ... took him, >> finally surfaces, and with it a tearing-wrenching of guilt, grief. Rage. "--/yeah/." Jim's voice is rasping into the phone. "Yeah, he's." He's what? The spread of vine and root sinks into Hive, or - grows up him? Harbors, like a burrow deep in the earth, and it stables into a more firm, if /out of depth/ tone, "He's here. I got him. He's alright." He /heard/ her, her words about Ian... but there's no response to it, save a brief clamping down once more on Hive's shoulder. But talking is waking him up further, and he's /noticing/ the looks cast their way finally. And, awkwardly, he stands, seeking to haul Hive partly to his feet, if propped against him, while still keeping the phone against his ear. "Shane's there? You hear from Dusk? We gotta regroup, pull in. You at the Lofts?" He's kind of trying to drag Hive with him, away from the caution tape and Sephora windows. Towards an alley. Like he's going to /mug him/. Hive moves. Pretty malleable, at the moment, if also pretty unsteady, he's easy to haul but leans heavily once on his feet. His eyes are pretty blank once more -- it's not the glassy vacancy of before but a stony hollow numbness that shutters out much by way of emotion in his face. In his mind it is another story, a storm battering down, flooding through Jim's roots, driving in against those vines. But he moves. Stumbling along at Jim's side. << i had him, >> it's not so much a statement to Jim as just a tiny-small thought surfacing tired and forlorn. << had him /had/ him had him -- >> It cuts off with a sense of tearing. Ripping. Roots yanked out of the ground and taking heavy clods of earth with them. "We're on our way." Jim clips off into the phone, and then hangs up, stuffing it into a front pocket. And with both arms free, one slung across the back of Hive's shoulders, the other kind of loosely pressed against his chest to keep from stumbling /too/ creatively, he navigates them for the alley, to follow it through to the next major street up the way. And all the time, he's murmuring, grimly, "I know. I know, Hivey." And with the storm tearing through him, he doesn't recoil - there is, low, deep, a howl in him, like a fissure of responding hate-pain. So he weathers. And shares. And keeps close.