Logs:Rift Apart

Rift Apart
Dramatis Personae DJ, Hive, Polaris
In Absentia	2021-11-13 << (this) >> << (you) >> << (us) >>
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. Polaris picks up the remote and hits "pause" decisively just as the next episode of Legacies starts loading. She's in a red fitted t-shirt featuring the Colonial Seal from Battlestar Galactica, ringed by ghostly sigils for the Lords of Kobol, and comfortable faded bootleg blue jeans, draped half over one arm of the couch. "Okay, so." << What the actual fuck did we just watch? >> She straightens and picks up her empty TARDIS mug yet again only to shake her head and set it back down. << I'm gonna need something stronger if we keep watching this one. >> "The dead unicorn was infested with slugs that make you manic and can only be killed with electroshock therapy...?" It's hard to say if Hive has been paying the television show much mind, curled up in the corner of the couch under a blanket in jeans and an Theta Tau sweatshirt, both probably appropriately sized at one point but now hanging loose and baggy on his frame, his eyes largely focused on his phone. He's been idly scrolling Twitter for some time now, but pauses when Polaris speaks, although he doesn't look up. "I like to think that's just an ordinary day at Xavier's." There's a (strange) (too-familiar) strobing flicker of tangled-fluttering thoughts spilling themselves in Hive's direction, overlapping in a jumble that makes it hard to pick one from the next from the next: << (stupid this is stupid) >> << is it even the right day? >> << why wouldn't it be >> << CRAP wrong street these streets are WRONG >> << -- woah, I liked that noodle place -- >> << (how is there the same noodle place) >> << (how is there the same Hive) >> << (is there the same Hive) >> << should have stayed home you should have stayed HOME he won't want -- >> << (hah) >> << (hah. what home.) >> << can just give it and go >> all preceding -- -- nothing. Maybe DJ intended to knock. Ring a buzzer. Something. The clamor of his mind, a few stairs down on the fire escape, has stopped its approach if not its spiraling. He doesn't knock. Polaris puffs out a single breath of laughter. "I kinda want to ask one of teachers now." She's mentally evaluating which of the ones she know would give the most entertaining answer. When she levers herself she takes her mug with her, waggling it at Hive by way of offer to refill his. "Teenage-me would have bee so psyched to go to Mutant School. Probably it would have sucked in all the same ways as regular high school, but with more sh--things on fire. And I wouldn't have met Wendy." << Or maybe I would have? Oh no, not this again God my brain is gonna explode-- >> Her brain does not explode, but she does freeze for a second when she picks out DJ's approach in her own way, his unusually bright bioelectric field and pattern of movement together unmistakable. But then, it'd been unmistakably Dawson, before. She sucks in a long breath and arches an eyebrow at Hive. "Jax," Hive replies with confidence, "it won't make you groan and it'll come illustrated." He starts to pick up his mug to hand it to Polaris, but freezes, his eyes peeling upward now to flick toward the (still, quiet) window. His breath has caught, his jaw going tighter and his fingers clenching around his mug. Tendrils of his mind have stretched outward reflexively, coiling themselves down around DJ's with a distinct mental pull. << Oh no -- >> is DJ's first reaction at the feel of Hive's mind against his, though it comes simultaneously with an automatic relaxation, a kind of mental easing that lets the other man in more readily. At the same time: << (i'm sorry) >> and << (-- please --) >> and << should have texted nobody'll die here >> though even before he pats at his pockets he knows his phone is not even there. There's a shimmer of motion, and a moment after that psionic pull DJ is inside, plain in jeans and tan chore jacket over his grey and white flannel, a slim box neatly wrapped in blue wrapping paper tucked under his arm. His cheeks flush dark when he sees Polaris, but whatever his first words were going to be get derailed when he steps inside, holding the present protectively against his chest. Startled and a little suspicious as he looks at Hive: "-- You're in a frat?" Somewhere in the back of her mind, Polaris is trying to compare Jax's illustrative storytelling with Maya's << (he doesn't have to wait for you to fall asleep) >> instead of what the front of her mind want to do, which is rifle through her memories for ways that Dawson felt different from DJ beyond the implants. She finally shoves all of it aside when DJ appears in the flesh, and had only just drawn breath to greet him, but stops at the unexpected question. "That's also what I thought and probably blurted the first time I saw you in your letters." << It's totally different though (is it?) (did she go to college with him did she finish college oh God Lorna stop) >> Her hand's been wrapped around the mug for so long the TARDIS on its side has started to fade from her body heat. Hive's shoulders pull in tighter, and though for a moment his mind curls in harder, pushing down into DJ's, in the next it's pulling back, releasing its tight grip on the other man. His exhale is audible -- ending in a short rough breath of laughter. "Hell yeah. My brothers really loved y --" He cuts himself off sharply, teeth grinding. "I don't know why people always think that's weird." << doesn't feel anything like Dawson, >> he's saying -- kind of sharp but then, his singular voice always is, cutting knifelike through Polaris's thoughts, and a moment later, << -- except -- >> He doesn't clarify this except; it just hangs, twisting on a thread of grief. << Fuck. >> Out loud, almost as startled as DJ had been: "You brought a present?" DJ's head turns aside, almost like he's been slapped at that abortive you. << (not me) >> << (not him) >> << {not her) >> rattle loud in his mind as though he's trying to convince himself of this; underneath, a creeping uncertainty. Maybe-maybe-maybe, that refuses to be shaken. "I thought --" << is it wrong is the date wrong is the world wrong -- >> This is almost -- almost! -- hopeful, for a second. Grasping on to this tiny potential, maybe if this is different they're all different, if his birthday isn't the same they aren't -- "-- isn't it your birthday? I just -- I'm sorry. I should have texted." A delayed realization he does not even have Hive's number; has not ever thought to get it. It puts another blush in his cheeks. He sets the box down on the counter, dipping his head to Polaris. A very tiny ghost of a smile, here. "He just doesn't seem like the type, does he?" "People mostly don't think of nerd frats?" Polaris offers with a shrug much too tight to look nonchalant. << I can't feel minds. Most people feel pretty much the same in the biolectric department (not him) (not them) unless I'm really all up in their--nope nope nope-- >> She seizes onto DJ's question, grateful for anything to derail that train of thought. "I didn't think so at the time, but I didn't know him or about nerd frats. << (see he doesn't know him either) >> Helped my suspension of disbelief once I knew." Her eyes dip, remembering Hive's mug then and finally reaches to tug it gently from his hand. << C'mon. Coffee'll help. Maybe. A little. (Shit should I offer him something this isn't my house) >> "Engineering frat," Hive says, his tone clearly not arguing with 'nerd frat' so much as further clarifying. "They've helped me through a lot. Can't be all freaks all the time." He looks down at his mug with a mild surprise when Polaris tugs at it, like he's only just remembered its there. His fingers peel off it slowly, and he settles back in the corner of the couch once it's been relinquished. His now-freed hand extends, beckoning toward the wrapped gift. "Yeah. I just didn't think anyone'd -- I mean, I haven't really been in a -- thanks, though. Let's see it." He glances to Polaris, back to DJ, and belatedly: "You wanna drink? I don't know what the fuck we got that isn't coffee." The confirmation that it is Hive's birthday just sends DJ's mind reeling once more, spinning anxiously down a confused and chaotic path of uncertain identity. He's trying hard not to strain through the space between them towards Hive, trying hard not to think about the other people in the room as his family. He's having, admittedly, very little success.