Logs:The Shape Of Family

The Shape Of Family
Dramatis Personae Hive, Lily
In Absentia	2020-10-29 << What am I looking for? >>
Location <PRV> VL 403 {Geekhaus} - East Village
This is a small, two-bedroom apartment, the living room semi-open to the kitchen and dining area, a single bathroom situated between the doors to the bedrooms. The common areas are beautifully appointed with solid, matching handmade wooden furniture in intricate geometric mosaics. The kitchen table is ringed with coordinated but not identical chairs, two of them modular with low scooped backs, designed with winged bodies in mind. The wide, low coffee table fits neatly into the corner of a modular sectional couch, and the immense television is enthroned in an entertainment center that also houses various consoles and video games. The walls are lined with bookshelves laden with comics, roleplaying supplements, board games, speculative fiction, and a grab-bag of technical texts. The walls in between are adorned with some framed posters of classical science fiction and fantasy media along with a few pieces of gorgeous if unusual original art. It's a miserable day out, wet and thundering and dark even before the sun started slipping below the horizon. The rain is still lashing the windows, occasional bright flashes illuminating the world outside. In here -- the mood isn't much more cheerful. The apartment has recently been tidied, neat and clean but not very lived in -- outside of the kitchen, where Hive is currently staring down at a pot of potato leek soup he's been tending on the stove. Like the rest of the apartment, he looks -- neat but a little un-lived-in. Shaggy hair carefully combed, clean-shaven, recently showered and now in fresh jeans and a black and white flannel, all somewhat accentuating the weight he's been losing, face noticeably gaunt, eyes shadowed and a little unfocused. At some recent point he's texted Lily the door code for the building, but the phone sits forgotten and ignored on the counter, now. A gentle knock comes at the door now. Behind it, Lily shakes out a soaking umbrella, which has not really protected the rest of her from becoming quite soaked. Her raincoat, a long trenchcoat number in navy blue, is dripping onto the floor outside, and her boots are discoloured from the water. She checks her phone again, just like she's been doing on the whole walk down the hall. <<403... right place.>> She's nervous, anxious, and a little annoyed with how disgustingly damp her socks have gotten. << S'open. >> Unlike the quieter more natural-feeling experience of sharing thoughts while hived, now the words come heavy and pounding into Lily's mind, a rather headache-inducing mental bludgeon. << Don't drip all over the floor. >> Hive is straightening from where he's half-slumped in front of the stove, slowly reaching for the spoon to stir at the soup. << Do you need... something... >> For a second he flounders before uncertainly coming up with, << dry? >> Lily lets herself in, the door closing with a quiet click behind her. She sets the umbrella against the wall, pulling off her coat and setting it besides the umbrella, soon followed by her shoes and socks. At least her sweater, a deep red v-neck, is dry, and her black pants seem to be drying quickly. "I'll be fine. Thank you." <<Maybe a towel. And an Advil.>> She looks around the room, trying to glean something about its inhabitants - or, rather, inhabitant. "Smells good," she says mildly. <<Kieow would be happy to know he's eating.>> Very slowly, she moves into the living area, taking in all the games on the wall. Hive drags himself away from the kitchen, vanishing momentarily into the bathroom. He returns with a thick green towel, folded, and a large bottle of ibuprofen, setting both down on the edge of the coffee table. "He was real invested in curating our --" He waves a hand in the direction of one of the game shelves. He starts back toward the kitchen but doesn't quite get there, instead leaning up against the half-height wall between the two rooms. "You eaten? We made..." His eyes scrunch, briefly. "I made soup." "Thank you," Lily says again, the bright flash of surprise in her head fading quickly into gratefulness. <<I'll get used to that, eventually.>> The ibuprofen is quickly thrown back, and even though the throbbing in her temples hasn't stopped yet Lily feels a slight sense of relief. "I can see." She runs a finger over the spines of the books. <<Nerd. He never changed.>> "Hm, its about that time." Lily turns, nods. "Soup sounds lovely." <<Is it weirder to ask to see his room before, or after?>> "Our room." Hive's teeth grind slowly, the words coming out through his teeth. "Was our room. Still -- is my room. But I haven't touched his..." His brows furrow deep with this statement, but ultimately he gestures toward one partially-ajar bedroom door. "Can look if you want." He pulls away from the counter to shuffle back to the kitchen, pulling out a pair of bowls and setting them on the counter. "Was he always..." His eyes drift toward the game shelves, teeth grinding again, but then lower to fix on the empty bowls. "He put a lot of effort into -- making sure we made time. Together. Had this game night running for years through so much chaos." <<Your room? Shared?>> At this point Lily has all but given up on speaking out loud. She's not practiced in speaking telepathically, and the thought-speak is clumsy as she tries to control it more. <> The memory of being Hive, being Dawson, curls up behind the surface thoughts, though it is nowhere near as vivid as it was. <<He always beat me at Candyland.>> A smile threatens to come over her face - she shoves it back down. Lily pulls herself away from the books, goes to push the bedroom door open. In the back of her head, a wheel slowly turns, going over the memory of Hive's mental touch from just a minute or so ago. The bedroom beyond is also fairly neat -- one of its paired beds made up crisply, the other considerably more rumpled in its sheets. A desk, computer on but screen switched dark. A small shelf with more books -- largely textbooks, in here. The closet door is open; one half of it is a disorganized jumble, while the other side seems almost cartoonish in the neat near-identical line of button-downs hanging high, khakis draped from hangers on a lower bar, shoes neatly stacked on shelves on the floor. Packed duffel bag under the bed. A variety of brightly painted prosthetic arms hanging against a wall. A banged-up and bloodstained copy of The Book of Mormon on the nightstand between the beds. A few brightly colored paintings -- one of a flicker in flight, pink-purple-blue ombre under its wings rather than red or yellow. << He beats most people at every damn thing. >> There's a fondness that comes with this, although in the next moment Hive has to correct himself: << Beat. Most people. -- We were fucking broke when we moved in here, who had money for their own room. And then... >> Even beyond Hive's abrasive mental hammering, the twist of pain that follows this is sharp and wrenching. << It was comfortable. >> Her eyes run over the room for a long moment. When Lily finally steps forward, it’s timid, like she might startle some wild prey animal. One finger runs over the button downs in the closet. <<Very Mormon wardrobe.>> She stops to stare at the arms at the wall for a long minute. No conscious thought, but a rolling feeling of distress passes over her as she processes the arms. <<Lord.>> The Book of Mormon is impossible to not look at, after a while – Lily sinks very slowly onto the neater bed, <<No,>> and slips to the floor. She takes the book in her hand running her fingers over cover. When she turns to Hive, thinks at him, it’s different – more controlled, and with a familiar hammering quality in his temples. <<How did he go through all that and stay – >> she gestures at the book, at the khakis – <<such a square?>> Hive appears in the doorway, now, with a pair of steaming soup-filled bowls, ceramic soup spoon hooked onto their edges. He sets one down on the floor by Lily before he moves to sit on the other bed, resting his bowl in his lap. "The hell do you know? From looking at some clothes? He wasn't a fucking square." There's a prickly edge in his voice, his eyes turning to the book with an uncomfortable tensing of his shoulders. "Fuck," is softer, his teeth grinding again. Heavier, a little deflated: "What does that even mean, anyway?" Lily pulls the soup into her own lap, setting the book gently down on the floor on her other side. “Sorry.” Out loud, her voice feels small. “Just trying to put together the picture.” <<What, like what Hive showed you before means nothing?>> Lily shakes her head. “I- I don’t know. He just still dresses like he’s in a BYU a cappella group.” <<Dressed.>> Her eyes are a little misty - she distracts herself with a spoonful of soup, leaning into Dawson’s comforter. She looks up at Hive from her perch on the floor. “I’d like to know more about you, too.” <<If we change the subject maybe I won’t cry right now- he doesn’t seem like he would be pleased with that.>> “Your sister is lovely. Adopted me right away." Hive just stares down at the book, silent for a few moments except for the continued slow grind of teeth. "He tried to change up his wardrobe, once or twice," he finally offers, voice still low. "Wanted --" He looks up, glancing to the line of beautifully-painted arms on their mounted rack. "More color. More pop. Nearly had a panic attack trying to fucking dress himself, like --" He exhales, heavy and hard. "Like does it clash now, is he putting shit together right -- useless pile of stress about what other people would think and -- he was always so fucking busy. Between church and school, saving goddamn birds, saving fucking lives, making sure he still had time for his friends in between it, he just -- figured even one small extra stress or extra decision was not necessary in the life he had." He picks up his spoon, now, though only to stir at the soup slowly. His fingers tighten at the last comments, eyes narrowing downward. "She's sixteen," is all he says, to that. All Lily can think to say, at first, is a soft “Oh.” Hive’s description rolls around in her brain, mixing with all the other descriptions and stories she’s picked up over the last three weeks. “I see.” <> Bubbling up in her mind is a yearning for what Hive showed her before, a desire to feel Dawson’s memories so intensely again. <<It must be rude to ask, though.>> She takes another sip. “It’s good,” she comments, watching Hive’s face change, the curl of his fingers around the soup spoon. <<Was this a mistake? Bringing up Kieow? Coming here?>> She lets the topic drop, looks down into her soup before raising another spoonful to her mouth. Hive's expression shifts through several different stages of Not Happy; a grimace, a deeper frown, an uncomfortable scowl, before settling back on a vague sort of uncertainty. "No. It wasn't -- it's not a mistake, I just." His shoulders have tightened further, hunched inside the slightly-too-big flannel. "I'm figuring this shit out too, you know? And you're not. My sister. Flicker earned that, led me out of hell and back to being a person, we got each other through so much --" His voice is just starting to rise out of his default gruff-low tone and he cuts himself off before it actually makes it to loud. "It's just a fucking disrespect -- to him, to all of us. To pretend that you can show up after a lifetime and be adopted into this family? We're not family." His posture deflates with his next slow breath. "But I would like. To try. And be friends." Lily’s face tightens, freezing into a neutral mask as Hive speaks. <<Disrespect?>> The word echoes and distorts, feeding into doubt <<should I leave hereshould I leave New York>> and distrust <<does everyone think that>> and anger <<he’ll never trust youthey’ll never trust you>>, all gently simmering underneath as Lily takes a few deep breaths. The soup gets set aside for the time being. “I am trying.” It rings harshly in her head, but leaving Lily’s mouth it sounds more like a plea. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful. I don’t mean to be inserting myself into places I’m not wanted.” <<But>> “I just want to -“ <<helpmourncryscreamturn back time>> “I don’t know.” Another deep breath. She shifts slightly, like she might get up any second. “I’d like that too,” <<but…>> the thought fizzles out. "Yeah." Hive's voice is quiet again, now. "I want those things, too." He stirs again at the soup, his eyes a little unfocused. "People think a whole lotta different things. When I first got here, most of them wanted me dead. And sure as hell didn't trust me. Shit changes. We change. What are you looking for, here? If it's important to you, you should stick around for it." There is a slight curiosity she has now, for Hive’s history, which is quickly buried with guilt for not starting there. <<Couldn’t have just eaten the damn soup in peace.>> Her lower lip wavers a bit. <<What am I looking for?>> Her fingers curl around the spine of The Book Of Mormon. <<I’m looking for the edges. Looking for the outline of him. Carve out some sort of relief.>> Out loud - “I just want to make sure the funeral goes okay.” Softer - “I’m so sorry about our folks.” A smile crosses Hive's face, quick and tight and uncheerful. "Well. They're family, after all." He looks back to the book, too. "I think it's hard to draw the outline of who he became without talking about where he came from." Now he does take a mouthful of soup. "But I don't know if that's really good dinner conversation." The soup makes its way back into Lily’s lap, another small spoon makes it into her mouth. “That’s true.” <<wouldn’t mind it, maybe.>> Her gaze darts around the room, to the bright arms and the bird posters, then back out into the hall. “How about a game?” Lily suggests eventually. <<A break, maybe, for both of us.>> “An easy one. That you can play over a meal. With a friend.” "Yeah." Hive rises, slow. This time, his smile is a little bit easier. "I have a lot that are great for two."