ArchivedLogs:Needing-Wanting-Having

Needing-Wanting-Having
Dramatis Personae Hive, Jim, Melinda
In Absentia	2013-03-23 '
Location <NYC> Melinda and Tag's Apartment - Lower East Side
Saturday afternoon wears on and Melinda is having another day off with pay on account of her somewhat stressful display on Thursday. She seems to have not really started her day yet, but is wandering around the apartment in her pajamas, seeking coffee from the kitchen. Her living room gives the appearance of being very busy, with people's personal belongings starting to pile up around the couches and arm chairs in distinctive little piles, but the owners of said piles seem to have departed the apartment to save the place from true crowding. The barista is grinding beans and leaning against the counter sleepily, eyes squinty with headache and sleepiness at the noise the grinder creates. When it finally processes enough bean material, she is able to turn it off and start making wonderfully aromatic coffee. Just the smell of it lightens the crankiness on her face. While it brews, Melinda drinks a large glass of water. Jim very nearly runs hip-first into the door out of /habit/ lately, a stack of books in his arms and one sack hung off his wrist with a few artpads of drawing paper, a mechanical pencil sharpener and a box of colored pencils - granted, they're Crayola, not /Prismacolor/, but it's the thought that counts. Oh. Right. Knocking. He knocks. Oh... right. Melinda was pissed at him. Shit, what'd he say back then, he can't even remember, oh WELL fuck her she's not the boss of him. (his mind says.) The sound of knocking stirs -- something. It's quiet. A greater sense of awareness, though, and suddenly Melinda /knows/ it is Jim at the door. This comes with a twinge of annoyance, sharp and stinging. And then a sharper twinge. Something longing. It aches. Melinda pauses on the way over to the door and considers this feeling for a moment, a small wrinkle appearing between her brows. She draws in a deep breath and moves to the door and holds the handle for an extended period of time before finally pulling open the door and leaving it open for him to enter without saying a word. "Yo." Jim says this, standing there for a moment In Melinda's FACE like he's about to say something very abrupt, his chest puffed up and his chin /shoved/ forward. BRING IT. "Brought some..." he shakes his arm. The bag goes 'rustle'. And then you can /see/ his expression shift from combative to 'bah!' and he then shrugs past her and invades the apartment. "I smell coffee?" The aching twinge grows stronger upon the actual sight of Jim. Tugtugtug/tug/. Something reaches out, small and quiet, to press briefly against Jim's mind; it comes with a short taste of surface-thoughts that spills over to Melinda as well. Melinda is very grateful he's not yelling yet. She has a headache and hasn't had coffee yet and the way he barks would just drive her nuts. But he's not yelling, so maybe it'll be quiet and she can just enjoy having him around. "Yeah. There's coffee. It's in the kitchen. Sorry. No one else is home." She closes the door behind jim and moves back toward the kitchen, reaching out to get two mugs. "Just black, right?" << Oh, christ, she's trying to /do/ things for me again. >> Jim seems equally determined to Not Be a Heel this time and NOT GIVE A SHIT this time all at once. "--yeah. Uh. Black's good." He's found an empty spot on the coffee table to unload the art supplies into a little Self Expression And Doodle area, wondering bitterly if he isn't expressing his Hippy Gene this late in his life -- /Tug/. His hard old mind's first respond to psionic touch is a businesslike badgery bristling that he isn't consciously aware of. And then, he somewhat .../is/? The fuck? << ...?>> "How, uh. How y'been?" The thoughts Jim thinks are shared with Mel, as well, and that touch doesn't withdraw at the bristling. It /pokes/ at Jim. JAB. Not exactly painful but not exactly /not/ painful either, sucking up surface thoughts and then digging a little deeper. << fucking hippy. >> Mel thinks this, at least it surfaces in her mind as /if/ she has thought it. Jim just hears it, kind of quiet-muted in background thought. "I'm not dead," Mel mutters, brow furrowing as she pours the coffee, leaving it on the counter as she milks and sugars hers. When she puts the milk away, she leaves his mug on the counter as she starts drinking hers. << Well, if he doesn't want me to do shit for him, I won't do shit for him. >> She frowns deeper but focuses on the way the coffee is clearing her senses. "Did someone ask for that stuff, or is it a general donation?" << Tag'd be thrilled at more supplies, wait, does he use supplies? either way, should figure out who they are for in case someone is expecting them. >> << -- /Hivey/? >> All trace of bristled resistance drops like a LOWERED GUN, Jim trying to mind-peer which, from a non-psionic, is like a blind flail in the general direction of a sound. Blunder. "Nah, not for anyone," Jim is drifting towards the kitchen, towards the smell of Coffee, and he reaches around the side of Melinda to take the coffee up, not at all minding having to appropriate it himself. He even absently gives her a pat on the back of a shoulder to let her know he's behind her, to try and avoid either of them having a Spill Accident. "I'm sure you're all gettin' a lot of food and clothes and books, but it's about time for a little enjoyment, huh? Kind of tempted to get a bag of disposable cameras, turn the kids loose. I'll develop them myself in case there's..." Visible mutants? Criminal activity? Evidence of Raid? He covers a lot of bases with very little flourish. << Tag, >> echoes in Melinda's mind, and this comes with a strong sudden sensation of /self/, of /selves/, of /us/. One Of Us. Also a faint stirring feeling of /Tag/, fuzzy-brained enough he is probably high, crashed on Hive's couch. << Don't do shit for him. Asshole. >> But even so this comes with another /push/ towards that flailing, reaching out to /guide/ that blundering. Kind of roughly, admittedly, more jostling than leading, /yanking/ Jim in towards the cacophany-swirl of voices and feelings and experience that currently composes Hive. Melinda is keenly aware of the touch he gives her shoulder and almost seeks comfort in it, but the touch is far too brief. She is a little disgruntled in its absence. Inwardly, she pulls herself together and pretends it didn't mean anything. She's just having a lousy couple of days and << god, where are my painkillers. I suppose I should eat first, but headache. Come on coffee. Work. >> "Ah. Well. I'll let everyone know," << maybe someone will be interested even though we don't actually have many teenagers here. >> "Sometimes I forget that you're a photographer. Haven't seen you with a camera in a long time." There's some grousing inwardly that follows that admission about what he must be doing instead, but none of it really clear. He's just being an asshole instead of a photographer, instead of a photographer asshole. << Hey, hey, ease up! >> The yanking and jostling at Jim's mind gets yet another set of default /yankings/ and joustlings /BACK/, Jim locking arms and wrestling with Hive across the mental landscape with a single sharp relieved-furious /pang/ of << -fuck i missed-.. >> More clearly, more /gruffly/, << Jesus, how many people you /got/ in there now? >> Expression a little gritted-haggard for the effort, Jim leans a hip against the counter beside Melinda, slurping his coffee. "Oh, I've been carrying a camera around plenty," he admits, grimly, and it has a rapid montage-pulse of memorybits, of creeping behind shrubbery and handling manilla envelopes sealed in evidence bags, the sound of a /very/ angry voice through a cellphone snarling '-you'll regret this.-' and Murphy's smoke-filled car. << I'm gonna make someone's life hard for this. >> "Haven't had a lotta time for hobbies lately, though." He eyes Melinda, and blurts out, "What /do/ you do as a hobby, anyway." << Even /I/ got a fucking hobby. Don't let her say helping people, by Jesus's pierced /breast/, I'll put her through a window. >> Once again these thoughts are all echoed to Melinda, because Hive is a dirty traitor. Or maybe just because, surfaced in her mind, he is not bothering to filter what he (we)(they) hear. The jostling doesn't /stop/; it gets fiercer as Jim wrestles back. Yanktug/shove/ -- no wait not shove pull. << fucking hobby is being an asshole, >> he says, gruff. << You're not putting us through anything fuck you. >> This doesn't stop the jostling. Rougher. Thin sharp claws /digging/ into Jim's brain like latching on. << Painkillers, >> surfaces, for Melinda, with a brief-flashed image of a pill bottle in a nightstand drawer. Hive is helpful! Or maybe pays good attention to drugs. Melinda chokes on her coffee when she is given Jim's opinion on her occupations. "I've /got/ hobbies," she manages, once the coffee is out of her vocal chords. << fucking asshole brute, for fuck's sake. >> Mel's own thoughts line up with Hive's when he retorts the idea of being tossed through a window. She sets down her cup with emphasis as she heads off toward her bedroom, thinking very clearly of her pain killers. "I like to read, walk, hike. Ski - cross country and down hill, and I like to cook, but what's the point cooking if no one is around to eat it - so yeah, I like to cook for people, so that means I like to help people for a hobby." "Oh, my god, are you getting angry again? Don't get /angry/ again." Jim is /following/ Melinda, and closely, so that he can hackle-grouse right at the back of her head in a bizarrely casual manner, hands thrown up. "Are you -- are you /borg'd/? JesusSHIT, I was /thinking/ it, I wasn't gonna say it. Christ, woman, just say it like that, you don't have to try and /sneak/-feed people, just shove it in their face. I didn't even know you skiied. How'm I supposed to know you ski? /I/ ski." << -twenty years ago. oh shit i'm practically old enough to be this chick's dad- >>. The mounting aggression is VERY MUCH interconnected with the sinking in of claws through his mind, causing Jim's brutal-callous mind to, wincing, grip back at Hive and /hang on/ (with worry? anger? frustration? concern? helplessness? - the deeper in they sink, the deeper the grubby inner /parts/ are showing) and to PULL BACK, like he's single-mindedly trying to drag the HIVE out of the HIVE'D in a thrashing mental 'gator-roll. << You wanna bring it, asshole? /Bring it/. But you wanna try me, you gotta let at least half a dozen /others/ go. >> << hippie, >> Hive says to Melinda (through Melinda?), although this is with more grudging /fondness/ than the cranky he snips at Jim with. He is helpful in guiding her towards the painkillers. And an idle thoughts to both of them: << weather's getting nicer. Should hike. >> This comes with an image, memory stolen from some time yesterspring, looking up a cliffside, belaying alongside Jax as Flicker and Shane scale the sheer rocky wall. SPRING. Doing Things. ... it maybe also comes with a cranky painful twinge becausee Hive is currently in a cage. No hiking for him. His claws grip hard. Tight rather than tearing, bearing down to meet that PULL and try to drag Jim down, voices rising up in jangling-loud drowning to swarm around Jim's mind. << want to try you, >> echoes softly among the noise, Hive's voice /there/ but hard to pick out in the din; it's slightly clearer, though, at the following words (timed with a harder mental TUG): << want you. >> "Borg'd? Gah, what a term for it." Melinda continues her march into the bedroom, feeling Jim at the back of her neck, tempted to stop and have him run into her. but she keeps going, the call of the pain killers is strong. "What of it. Hive's my friend. I want him around." Melinda's bedroom is nice, painted with Tag's skill and mutation to appear to be a dusky sunset skyline view of the city, buildings and lights wrapping around the walls of her room in navy blues and glowing orange-reds. The headboard on her bed is dark to match, though, it might be that color only to blend in with the decor. Her bedspread is a lighter blue, with tan sheets on the mattress, the whole bed unmade, with throw pillows in a small pile on the floor near a night stand. There's a dresser too, but the room is crowded, due to the low rent nature of the apartment, with a closet taking up one wall. Mel heads for the nightstand and opens up the drawer and fishes out the painkillers. She's uncapped the bottle and is fishing out a dose when she considers the hiking expedition. "And I don't know, Jim, how you would know about these things. You figured out where I lived and my full name without asking me. Maybe you should have poked around further, explored my room, fished around in my closet until you found my skis." << Or ask, you great buffoon. And it's not like I can read minds on a daily basis. Hive's in control of that. >> Mel's very much interested in keeping him, thank you very much, if it's all the same to everyone around. << And don't call me a chick. >> Against barbs and claws, Jim /thrashes/ regardless of whatever discomfiture or pain it earns him, pulling away from and ELBOWING and roaring at all mental voices with a single dedicated effort -- /except/ the one that sounds like Hive. That one, he YANKS on, /worries/ at like a dog. The intense weight of myriad forceful minds bearing down on him at once causes a thin... creak. Like a tree straining under intense pressure, crackle of warningly. Slowly, one mental knee is being forced to the ground, pushing BACK pushing BACK PUSHING BACK with every lost inch. << Let'm GO first, Hivey - ghh! >> Another JERK-yank-rend. << I got -- rrgh, god /dammit/ -- ALL DAY, man. Ain't gonna tell you which ones. But you better /start choosing/. >> Another warning crackle and a lost inch of mental ground, toes scrambling to keep purchase. Which earns a HARDER shove back. THUM-THUMP. That's the sound of Jim's hands landing on the night stand to either side of Melinda's hips, leaning into her face with his jaw gritted, "You /want/ me looking into you?" There is discomfort, certainly, a sharper /hook/ of claws into Jim's mind, a crushing weight of pressure bearing down to /take/ that lost ground and push it into submission. But somewhere in there, Hive's voice is getting louder in the backdrop-noise of minds, cranky-acerbic in his irritable << Fuckyoufuckyou/fuckyou/ >>; quieter, << -- Need them -- >>, quieter still, << ... want you, >> more of a sentiment than words, anger inextricably twined with homesick-missing-aching-fuckthiscell-fucktheworld-/longing/. This feeling rises in Mel's mind, too, stronger, sharper, a deep pull of want that clings /tight/ to /her/, (to Flicker, to Dusk, to Tag, to Joshua, to Shelby, she can feel these brighter points of /presence/, too, warmer and more reassuring in the static of minds.) There is a subtle shift in the mental static. A brief quieter note: a businessman with the unfortunate luck to pass by the Lofts at the wrong moment, snatched up last week and taken, now released. Another snip of thread being let go; a police officer who worked with Eric, taken before, now gone. The feeling of /want/ grows stronger, fierce and burning. Melinda jumps when Jim's hands come down on the nightstand, the bottle of pills jumping out of the bottle and hitting the floor with small skittering noises. She stares at him, feeling the swell of everything in the connection between herself and the Hivemind and herself and the body in front of her. Red floods into her cheeks as she stares at him, her heart pounding. She blinks rapidly when the thought that she has to respond surfaces amongst the mess. "Yes." It's quiet at first, then with more snark, riding on a rush of adrenaline. "Yes, if only to know you fucking gave a shit." Another inch of lost ground, Jim buckling further. It's deeper than skin, a feeling like twisting muscle tissue and knuckled bones grinding far beneath, tremble-straining with a snarling grit. But deeper is something else, heated, hard, rough inside as it is out - but it's a different kind of pull. Something wordless. A strong arm, reaching around the claws to loop in a hard thump around Hive's mind, pounding a fist on his back, mussing his hair with a punishing noogie. << -- c'mon man. >> He grits, pushing back but with less thrashing now, more pressing forehead to forehead to BUTT against him, mind to mind. << Just a few more. You can do it. >> The sense of /battle/ can practically be seen in Jim's face, tensed in his eyes where they lock with Melinda's. "You don't know how much of a shit I give," he rasps, and turns his head to the side to -- he pauses, teeth gritting, << man this ain't right >> -- and then just /goes/ for it, pressing his mouth to Melinda's. Hive is not helping calm that adrenaline rush, his own rather heady-intoxicating in the chaos of /battle/. Intense-fierce-gripping, pulling Mel along for the ride in this fight. Dragging Jim in further to the din, other voices filling their head with a rush of feeling of which /Hive/ is for once predominant. Angrysharp(want), teethgritfierce(longing), stubbornproud(need). He holds tight to those minds he knows (minds he loves), sinking angry /teeth/ into Jim's for all its bucking. In the background, another mind vanishes from the tumult, Doug's shy-teenage-geek disappearing from the fray. In the foreground, in Mel's mind, Hive's << oh, god, fuck, >> at the press of Jim's mouth to Mel'sHisTheir's does not, admittedly, come with any /lessening/ of grip, any quieting of struggle, any slackening of ferocity. It's just so much fight and pull and dragging, hard grip bearing Jim in towards them relentlessly. Mel's hands reach up and brace against Jim's chest at first as she is kissed, tension in her fingertips as her mind reals, caught up in the battle. Kissing is nice, the press of his lips firm. Good. Wait. Jim. It's Jim, that asshole who is already pissed that this isn't right. It's weird, it's strange, it's new, but it's not wrong. Well, until he steps in it. Mel's connection to Hivemind is strong and willing and as much as he pulls her in deeper, she's clinging to him and wanting to stay in it. Her hands slide up around the back of Jim's neck as she kisses him back, pulling him closer. Hive's timely 'oh, god, fuck' puts a moment of clarity in Jim's combat fugue, and he has a dizzying moment to remark on: wait, hang on, thing, um, painted sunset walls her mouth HANG ON hand against chest is pushing -- no? NO? bad? STOP? shit this is her bedroom oh shit shit shit what am I doing ABORT ABORT ABORT, all snarled up against the fierce BATTLE(desperation) raging(god what else do you /have/ left to fight right now, man..?). Now it's just a single hard sustaining PRESSURE dragging him inexorably inward, heels dragging long grooves through the ground as Jim is pulled in, pulled in, pulled in by the hand to the back of his neck, his arms slowly curling around Melinda's back - a wild absurdity stating rather frankly that she /is/ pretty and man she beat him with flowers that's hilarious and then he gave them to -- Another crucial crumpling, and the fall is everywhere now, sagging like cracks in pavement and he grits, /weary/, tired, but /firm/. << One more, asshole. You can do me that. >> There is a portion of Hive that is fighting, now, not just Jim's mind but this whole /experience/, a not insignificant dose of whatthefuck clouding his anger into just bafflement. His grip tightens, though. /Pulls/. Somewhere inside there is another slipping-free, a young woman on the second floor released to her own devices again. << one more, >> he whispers, but this just trails off into an echoing: << /more/. >> His grip sinks in harder, and Jim's mind floods; with the other hivees, with Mel and her cocktail of feelings, with Hive and his fierce-hard aching. It's disorienting-loud, but it soon subsides into only this, Mel's thoughts and Jim's thoughts shared as /Hive/ vanishes into this muddle of feelings. << He did it... >> Mel marvels for a moment as she breaks the kiss, her forehead pressing against Jim's as she catches her breath, still holding on tight. With Hive's feelings and thoughts gone, things are more eerily quiet. She can hear them breathing, feel the race of her pulse and actually feel the touch of Jim's body against hers. She stays quiet and close, concerned about her companion. Jim's body is bouldered-up tense and so slightly shudders when he makes a final exhale, his forehead dropped wearily against Melinda's with either hand propped on the nightstand once more. << He did it. >> He isn't marveling of this, though; he's confirming it grimly. And with a very strange care that's kind of raggedly tender, mind-prodding at the vague 'Hive' area of his mind like a man adjusting a hat. << aw man, dude, how're we gonna get you outta this... >> Also. << ...how'm I gonna get /myself/ outta this. >> Well, he's here already. Maybe he's supposed to leap back and apologize, or sweep Melinda off her feet. Instead, he just opens his eyes and looks down at her face, the tightest edges around his eyes slowly easing as his mind falls back into order from the cyclone-moment of initially Hivery. "Y'alright?" << Not getting out, >> is quiet, not fatalistic so much as just relaxing into the current feel of his Hivees, << staying right here. >> He's -- likely not talking about jail. The fevered intesity of earlier is gone, settling quiet into a steady background feel of companionship. << I asked for this, >> Melinda remarks quietly, mulling over Jim's burgeoning escape plans. << I'll get out when he's all right. >> Melinda takes another deep breath, moving one hand further down his back, while the other pulls forward to caress his cheek. She studies his expression for a moment, eyes fighting to focus due to proximity. "Yeah. I'm okay." She puts a little more feeling into it in an effort to be encouraging. "Do you need to lay down? Are you okay?" She moves to lean against the nightstand, the angle at which she's standing proving awkward. Ergh. Jim's jaw twitches at Hive's factual manner, but (worry, exhaustion, 'gh, this probably ain't so bad where he's at') just kind of awkwardly /pats/ the little curled bundle of settling Hive. << Yeah, yeah. Just take it easy, buddy. You can stay. >> Until we get this shit straightened out. Gotta get Saavedro in on this, talk to Murphy's lawyer chick. A few complicated mental checklists are considered, Jim's mind working in rapid practical arrangements while he realizes he's placed a hand around one of Melinda's biceps, watching his thumb where it presses into the material of her pajama top. Oh. Uh. His jaw a bristlystubbly (MOSSY?) texture in her hand he exhales, "Yeah, I'm. No. I'm fine." He blinks his heavy eyelids HARD. "Man, that takes a lot out of you." He finally steps back and... sits on Melinda's bed, elbows on his knees and either set of fingers thrust through his down-turned hairline. From Hive there is -- nothing more. Not much more, anyway. A soft /sense/ of thankfulness, more than any words, a soft curling mental touch twining itself into Melinda and Jim's minds. And then silence. Melinda kneels down and scoops up the pill bottle and rattles the last few pills inside. She'll figure out how she feels about the pills on the floor later. Instead, she shakes a couple out onto her hand and offers them to Jim, along with the glass of water she keeps at the bedside. "Yeah, it kind of does." If Jim doesn't take them, she will, turning to sit down next to Jim and exhales. A free hand reaches out to rest on his shoulders. Oh, Jim will take those sweet painkillers. He preemptively tosses them into his mouth and swallows them hole before realizing he has water to chase them down with. He'll take that as well, have a long sip, hand it back. He's kind of brusquely /ignoring/ the hand on his shoulder, "I don't think he's spread out this far in a long-ass time. It's gonna be a pain in the ass when we get him back. I'm talking rehab-type shit. Brain's Anonymous." The /other/ BA. "We'll figure it out then." Melinda exhales and gives him a good pat and then scrubs her hands across her face. And then she's up, grabbing the pill bottle and shaking out a couple for herself and washing them down with water. She sets the glass down on the night stand once more and then sets about the task of cleaning the pills off the floor. She decides to just put them back in the bottle. Yep. She'll forget about it and have floor germ pills later. Yum. Jim... topples over and faceplants into a pillow. And groans. << -nrgghh. wanna stay. maybe if i just don't say anything. >> Melinda finishes picking up the pills that she can see so she won't step on them, then straightens up and stretches. When she sees Jim toppled over, she moves down to his feet and starts taking off his shoes. Then, she takes those tree trunks he calls legs and pushes them onto the mattress as well. Finally, she grabs the comforter and drags it over his body, tucking him in. "Kind of want to say I told you so, but only suggested it." Oh. Right. Mindsharing. << When I see you again, Hive, I'm punching you in the mouth. >> Jim doesn't battle Melinda FOR ONCE and just lets his shoes come off. "And I'd say," he muffles into a pillow, "you could kiss my hairy ass. I shed treebark." Not a warning. A STATEMENT. He's a messy sleeper. Already, without conscious effort, his body is growing a slightly darker and flakier, a thin layer of moss spreading in the tighter areas. It's not a full transformation, but it's a reverting back to neutral mid-plant, mid-man. << You tear the sheets, you buy me new ones. >> Melinda considers as she leans in and kisses his temple lightly. << You are going to pay to have them laundered if I can't shake out all the bark. >> She straightens up and smiles a little at the feel his mossy face, and then she's leaving the room. << S'not like he asked me to stay. >> She's got that cold cup of coffee in the other room and maybe she'll make some eggs. << Heh. >> Jim's sore mind kind of awkwardly tries to ease into the kiss set on his temple - pretending you're ASLEEP doesn't really work amongst the mutually Hive'd - and he grouses. << That's what you think. >> (Shit, I probably should.) He sort of holds his breath as she leaves the room and in the descending quiet of the empty bedroom, he ponders: << Yow! Kinda like when she's bossy. >> It's a good thought to fall asleep to.