Logs:Being Loved

Being Loved
Dramatis Personae Hive, Matt
In Absentia	2022-04-07 << (we are broken) >>
Location <PRV> Tessier Residence - Greenwich Village
Understated opulence claims this spacious and well-kept townhome, the decor throughout the whole of it of the highest quality and carefully chosen. The front door opens onto the entrance hall, a closet close at hand to receive coats and shoes -- the pale hardwood floors gleam underfoot, unsullied by tracked-in mess from outside. The living room beyond the entrance is all dark woods and pale earth tones, comfortable couches and armchairs and a thick soft rug laid down beneath. Two large and painstakingly aquascaped aquariums flank the entrance to the dining room, with several brightly coloured species of fish within. Most of the rest of the wall space, notably, is taken up with shelves -- shelves crammed with books of every subject and genre. A study branching off of the main hall is cozy, small, done in pale blues and lined with books as well around the large computer desk and smaller futon, though these rarer books are cased behind glass. Another securely locked door leads to the basement, and another to the full bathroom downstairs. The kitchen connects to the living room; in contrast, it is sleek and modern and well-appointed, stocked by someone who takes their cooking seriously. And takes their alcohol equally seriously -- to one side of the kitchen there is a fully-stocked bar. The back door to the kitchen looks out on a small well-kept garden. Outside it is terrible, cold and wet, the rain drubbing the windows in a steady beat. Though it's much cozier in here, the warmth has not stayed Hive's shivering. It's a faint but steady tremble mostly obscured by the baggy red and gold sweatshirt he wears, visible mostly where his hands curl around a steaming mug of coffee. He's wandered over to the mantle above the fireplace, peering at the statuettes atop it. "Your brother's set to chase Ryan to that EGOT." He's giving the Tony disc a spin with one finger, careful and almost surreptitious like he's worried maybe he shouldn't. His brows crease. "...Missing a trick not calling that a GOTE." Matt has just returned from the kitchen with a plate of berry scones with pots of cream and jam to set on the tea table. He's in a pink dress shirt, a black-and-white checkerboard tie, gray vest and matching slacks, his mind unusually quiet and flat. "Mm, I might start calling it that. Won't you come sit down? Our fluffy blanket stores are strong." << {Only so much blankets can do, but it's startling how much that is.} >> He sinks down onto the couch. "{Luci is of course the greatest actor on Broadway, and I have every confidence his skill would translate to the big screen.}" He picks up his own coffee and takes a careful sip, watching his friend without much concern of his damaging the trophy. His memory supplies a brief flick of Lucien spinning the disc when he'd first received it. "{He's worthy of all those accolades and more, but he's had a awful time of it with this role as it is and I shudder to think what Hollywood might do to him.}" "{Oh, I'm sure it'd be vicious. Motherfuckers having a field day today because someone snapped a picture of him eating a burger with a knife and fork, I call only imagine what the bullshit levels would be like if he got more widely known.}" Hive trudges over to the couch, eyes flicking to Matt as he sits. "{Or how long it'd take before you murdered someone for groping him in public. Man, the shit Ryan deals with is next-level.}" He sets his cup down on a coaster, freeing up his hands to arrange one of the fluffy blankets over his lap. "{... I haven't actually seen the show,}" he admits. "{Had a vague idea of going with DJ but it's sold out, like, always.}" Matt sucks in a sharp breath and draw himself up, laying the tips of his fingers delicately on his chest. "I am wounded, sir." Though it would not take a telepath to clock this as facetious, there is just a whisper of real distress somewhere deep below. "Wounded that you think so little of me." He sniffs, drowning his feigned indignity in coffee. "{I would never jeopardize Luci's career by committing murder, however richly deserved.}" Though grave, this insult is evidently easy for him to set aside. "{Oh, darling, I'll get you tickets, that is no object. I know I talk up everything my siblings do, but it really is an excellent show.}" He half-turns to face Hive, studying him impassively. His familiar grief for Dawson stirs, but cannot quite break through the glassy surface of his serenity. "So, then...DJ. How's that going?" "{I only meant the groping was public, I didn't mean the murder would be.}" Hive doesn't quite smile, but there's a brief tug at his lips that seems like it's giving smiling an earnest contemplation. The mention of DJ chases this away, cheeks flushing though he unsuccessfully tries to hide his fluster behind another sip of coffee. His answer, gruff, comes at a delay. "{Motherfucker still barely ever answers his texts. Think the adjustment curve on settling into a new universe is pretty steep.}" "I am mollified." Matt sets his coffee back down and unfurls the rest Hive's blanket over his own lap. << {Hard to imagine him not answering your texts.} >> A subtle ripple passes through the preternatural flatness of his emotional landscape, barely recognizable as concern, but at least it is recognizable. "{You probably have a better idea than just about anyone else native to this plane how steep it really is.} That's a boon and a bane to you both." His sharp appraising gaze gentles and then falls away altogether as he scoots over to rest his shoulder against Hive's. "You needn't kiss and tell even if there is further kiss to tell of, but you ought to talk to someone about that situationship." << {Someone other than DJ, though I still maintain you should talk to him, also.} >> "{If I text him and he's not busy it's more like a summoning spell. I could be like hey you seen the latest Severance and bam there he is in my living room to talk about it. Otherwise it's like texting into the void.}" Hive sinks back, slumping more heavily against Matt's shoulder. His eyes tip up toward the ceiling, his breathing not quite steady. "{It's not just that he's -- not quite Dawson. He -- his Hive died. A little before he came here. I don't think there's anyone else who gets it like he can even when we're not -- together.}" There's a brief outward pulse from him -- it presses heavily up against Matt's mind, flutters out farther into the neighborhood around him, pulls back sharply as Hive's eyes close. "{And it's so fucking hard not to be together. His mind feels like --}" He swallows, shaking his head. "{-- like home?}" The lift of Matt's tone is clearly interrogative, but it doesn't really feel like a question. "{Only, the furniture is a bit different and there's just one more step at the bottom of that staircase.}" He turns his hand palm-up. "And even that aside--I think there is a lot you can give one another, some of which you cannot, perhaps, find anywhere else. Maybe you can even find healing together." The grief finally does break through, and he adjusts it, careful yet detached, until he can breathe normally again. He curls an arm around Hive and pulls him close. "{But I think you run a great risk of hurting each other if you don't go about it intentionally. And I imagine that in itself is hard.}" Hive's nod is heavy. "{I fit there. And -- don't.}" He's not breathing normally, a little choked and a little uneven. He tenses but then curls in against Matt's side. "{Don't even know where to fucking start. When we're apart I have all these rational plans about how we need to talk to each other and then I see him and --}" He gives a small hitch of one shoulder. "{And it's not fair to him, he doesn't need the same shit Dawson needed from me, he's not like him. He's so much more sure of himself and so much fucking crazier.}" This comes out just a little wry. Almost as an afterthought when he adds with a small huff: "-- think the man's knee-deep into starting a cult." "Mm. Maybe he needs something different from you, then." << Maybe you need something different from him. >> Matt eases up on the oddly deliberate processes of his mourning and lets himself feel some part of the tumult beneath the surface. "Those are things you can learn about one another. You don't have to pretend to be the proper strangers you aren't to make efforts toward...fitting better. As for how..." He smooths his hand down over Hive's shoulder and arm. << (sometimes you have to start in the middle of things) >> "Might it help if you had ballast? The way you do for the raids. Or, I know he's shy of electronic communication, but you might try to start each summoning with a question? So you'll both have your respective views of it before you become you." He's still considering possibilities but comes up sort. "Cult," he echoes thoughtfully. "Is this to do with that manifesto of his, or more just random Mormons holding him up as some kind of space messiah?" He arches both eyebrows. "In fairness to them, he literally came from another dimension to save the world." The next touch of Hive's mind is lighter, a gentle pressure coiling carefully against Matt's mind at the tumult of grief. The tight clench of his shoulders eases under the other man's touch. "It always helps. I just -- feel like I shouldn't -- be subjecting people to all my --" His teeth grind, brief. "Everything. Fuck, you've had so much of your own crap to deal with and every time I see you I'm just a goddamn mess." He's reluctantly struggling upright, tensing back up as he pulls away from Matt. "He fucking did. I don't think he gets how powerful that is. He wrote that whole-ass document thinking hey I'm just going to reform the Church but -- shit, there were people leaving their President's talk at that conference of his just to stand outside and hear him have a random-ass conversation." Matt shivers, but lets himself relax into Hive's careful bolstering. "You're not subjecting me to anything, and you know perfectly well how readily I will put myself first if that is what I need." << Or want. >> "I want to help, darling. And many more do who know you well enough to lend at least the weight of that acquaintance." He lets Hive pull away but kneads at his shoulders gently. "You've supported plenty of people while dealing with crap of your own, you know this isn't a zero-sum game." He picks his coffee back up and sucks down a long drought while Hive speaks, his eyes growing fractionally wider. "Goodness. Nobody clamoring to touch the hem of his flannel yet?" << That sure escalated quickly! >> "Maybe you can help him understand what is happening in terms of his legend--you, and Polaris, if she's not too crazy to be of any help at the moment." He brightens, mouth twitching into a faint smile. "For that matter, I'll talk to him. I'm no one special to him, but he has so very few connections in this world and he could probably use more." "Other people don't subsume you into their issues," Hive replies, though his protest is halfhearted now. Where his mind presses up against Matt's it's extremely deliberate, hunger tightly restrained to keep the contact gentle. Even so there's a trickle of longing that washes through. "I think Polaris is half ready to join him. S'a lot of people in that community eager for change." His head dips downward, tight-knotted shoulders rolling slowly into Matt's touch. "I'm sure he'd be glad if you reached out. Think it's just -- hard for him, with Dawson's friends. Constantly worried he's gonna upset someone and -- I dunno, start another rabies plague." "Debatable." But Matt doesn't press the point. Though he has not shut his grief back down, the pain it brings is quieting where Hive presses up against his mind. That solace belies the sudden vehemence of his trust--he can feel the sheer force of what Hive is holding back for him. << (don't have to) (I won't break) >> "{Some of us do have an idea what we're getting into, and are willing to get into it because we love you.}" His tone is earnest and his hands knead harder, but behind those words there's no obvious sense of the emotions usually associated with love--only the mostly illegible chatter of the mental mechanisms he's built to replace them. "I suspect the more help you get processing when you have your wits about you, the more likely you are to keep them about you around DJ--whether or not you happen to have ballast at the moment." He considers and quickly discards the idea of putting his grief away again. "{Luckily, my special disease powers only work one way.}" His amusement, at least, comes easily. "That's not to say it isn't hard for me--gods, but I resented him, and I always knew it wasn't fair. But I've mostly worked past that, and the pain..." He finishes the sentence with a shrug. << I could just not hurt for a while, but most people find that disturbing. >> Hive's breath shivers out slowly as his mental grip loosens. His mind sinks roots deep into Matt's with a suffocating wave of grief and confusion and desire. << (love you) >> echoes soft and surprised back through them -- warm but struggling against a heavy sense that he is far too broken these days to be lovable. "{If you could spread your addiction to cancer we'd all be in trouble. One hit was more than enough, thanks.}" He picks up his mostly-forgotten coffee to take another long swallow. "... how have things been with Sera?" Matt's breath hitches, then aligns with Hive's, though slightly steadier. His mind is no longer placid, but it opens to accept the torrent of emotions with perhaps startling facility, unfazed by its intensity. << Love you >> he repeats, determined, as he gently teases that heaviness apart. << We know a thing or two about loving people who are broken (being loved even though we are broken) >> He leans harder on Hive for just a moment at the question, and even though there isn't much in the way of dismay in him, what wells up first is << (she deserves better) (what if I hurt her) (I'm too broken--) >> And what he'd just told them echoes back, dismissing those doubts at least for now. "{She's...well, we are talking. It isn't even always completely awkward. She has been growing more interested in her powers--actually interested, not just for the sake of control, though I would credit Luci more than myself.}" There's a surge of pride, here, and yet another, less expected, when he adds, "{We play chess sometimes, and she's good at it.}" << {It's because of him, but still...she's good.} >> << (we are broken) >> whispers back in their mind. Hive pushes it down, grows solid and stronger against Matt's lean, a protective canopy spreading over them as he settles more comfortably. << (loved even though we are broken) >> is more confident. << him? >> Hive isn't trying to tease out this thought further but the question arises between them all the same. "{I mean, of course she is, she's --}" << your sister? >> finishes, uncertain, unvoiced but present all the same. "{With you there I bet one day she'll be great.}" Matt closes his eyes. "{The other Matt was a grandmaster.}" This comes with an antipathy quite unlike the envy his words imply, but with Hive's grounding he lets it go with a shaky exhale and opens his eyes again. << my sister? >> The memory he dredges up isn't quite deliberate, but neither is it wholly reflexive: Sera, the tidal pull of her joy bright in his senses, poring over a glossy instruction booklet and directing DJ as he sets up a board game on the Tessiers' beautiful, sturdy dining table. "{Yeah. Ours, now.}"