Logs:Fudging Shit Up

Fudging Shit Up
Dramatis Personae DJ, Hive, Murphy
In Absentia Dawson, Polaris	2023-02-28 "My whole frigging world is past tense."
Location <NYC> Freaktown - Riverdale
Down below, there's life, buzzing and vibrant in the way this neighborhood often is. Kids eagerly hurling snowballs at each other in the yard, the cheerful cries and hollers that accompany this activity. Somewhere among the kids a small black and white goat prances, clambering up icy structures and trying to headbutt the flying snow. That is down there, though. Up here is a balcony, connected to a grand sitting room in one of Freaktown's many repurposed mansions -- this one become something of a common-house, huge kitchen and rooms set up for recreation rather than permanent living. In the room people are chatting, eating dinner, kind of vaguely not-really-watching old episodes of Community on the giant television screen. Out here, DJ is just leaning up against the slightly icy balcony rail, dressed in a lined chore jacket over thick black and white flannel, heavy jeans, heavy boots, his fingers loosely clasped together as he watches the merriment down below. His gaze keeps hitching on a very small pair of girls collaborating to build a lopsided and quite structurally unsound fort -- or at least a wall of a fort, who knows if they will get farther. Twined underneath his constant hypervigilance is a deep grief that he is unsuccessfully trying to push back down. << -- will they even HAVE friends their age by now? >> << terrorist camp, no place to grow up >> << (please, Heavenly Father, let the war have ended) >> << stop staring stop STARING you'll look like a creep >> << hope they got good snows this winter, they'll be old enough to enjoy it now. >> Hive is only just slipping out onto the balcony beside DJ. In just his old Theta Tau sweatshirt, jeans, sneakers, he's underdressed for the cold -- especially for him, skin-and-bones tropical baby, habitually shivery even indoors under an entire pile of blankets. Who knows where his jacket has got to. In his hands right now there's a large bowl of sweet potato stew; as he fetches up, backwards, against the railing, he offers it to DJ with a quiet mental nudge. The tableau of life below them is interrupted by the presence of something behind them. Murphy's near-constant mental buzz -- like the psychic equivalent of an anvil grinding its way across a floor made of indestructible chalkboard -- has probably long alerted Hive as to his ensuing arrival... but only now is it looming closer, ever closer -- accompanied by a man with a dense layer of stubble, a glower, and a black coat that swallows him up. He saunters right up to that banister, his eyes drifting down to the girls building that fort (<<what kinda bullshit fort is THAT it ain't got a chance somebody needs to teach these kids some basics about SIEGE WARFARE-->> is a thought that bubbles accidentally to the surface) -- placing himself to the opposite side of DJ, across from Hive. "Did you know," he tells DJ, eyes never leaving the fort, glowering at it -- as if he could tear it down through sheer negativity alone, "that they had a subreddit about you?" << I hate that I know what a subreddit is. >> DJ shifts closer to Hive, his grief not lessening but settling into something more manageable as he leans one shoulder up against the other man's. He glances down at the soup -- tries not to just continue down his Wallowing with his immediate thought back to Polaris's cooking -- and, with a very small sigh, straightens. He shucks his jacket, draping it over Hive first and then taking the soup. He can't hear Murphy's angry buzzing precede him up here, which may or may not account for the flash of surprise that crosses his face when the man steps out onto the balcony. In his memory he's thinking of a mirror-image scowl in a backdrop of various safehouses, thinking of refugees and information drops and casseroles, of all things, layered over by equal parts fondness and sheer aggravation. The aggravation is winning, but despite that, contradictingly, a cheerful smile is lighting his expression, dredged out from some old ingrained habit that he thought surely the past couple years had ground out of him. "What," he's asking, a little wider-eyed before he takes his first mouthful of soup, "the heck is a subreddit?" Hive hunches his shoulders tighter under the jacket, but doesn't shrug it off. "Those kids are like, fucking, five," he's grumbling. Ostensibly to Murphy, although now he's turning around too, shrugging his arms into sleeves while they're still warm from borrowed body heat. "And there's a goddamn subreddit about stapling bread to trees." He doesn't actually answer DJ's question. Murphy scoffs. "You think Hannibal carded the Romans before he road up in elephants and wrecked their shit?" He seems at least a little amenable to the idea that five year-olds shouldn't be held to the same standard as Roman or Carthaginian generals, though. A little bit. When DJ asks what a subreddit is, something flickers over Murphy's expression: "Fancy word for a bunch of online assholes. It's gone, now. No moderators. But they had theories about you -- lost city of Atlantis, Mayan calanders, vril-ya..." His face turns, settling on DJ for the first time. Something ripples over his face; his brow crumples tightly, pinching into a knot. Suddenly, he's peering at him. At that cheerful smile. <<why is he-->> Flashes of Other-Dawson's face, superimposed over this one; cheerful smile, compared to the one actual image Murphy found of him -- a bearded, exhausted man from a newsclip about Latveria. Compounded on top of what he knows about the man's story; someone separated from his entire universe. A man who is, in reply to Murphy flipping Law, looking at him like... <<does this motherfucker-->> Murphy's scowl intensifies. Something in his brain clicks. "Fuck," he growls, pushing himself back from the banister, folding his arms over his chest. He's now decisively focused on that fort down there, refusing to look at DJ. "He doesn't wear a fedora, does he? Almost went through a phase." "Like you weren't just thinking disparaging thoughts about their architectural principles." DJ is not hived, but does he need to be on that count. The fond-amused-aggravation is spilling over to extend now to both grumps currently flanking him. The confusion that rises in his mind at Murphy's question resolves into understanding so fast it never makes a chance to show on his face - though Hive can hear the complicated lightning-chain of thoughts that starts somewhere around a puzzled << is this a crazy person >> through a sinking << ... does this have to do with Dawson >> to a relieved, << no he's asking me >> to an exhausted << ... oh, he's asking me >> and settles somewhere back at the aggravated amusement he began with -- intensified this time. << of course this bastard made that leap. >> Outside, his cheer hasn't faltered, his thoughts resolving so fast that he outwardly seems not to miss a beat in his answer: "Deerstalker." "I --" Hive's eyes narrow and he slouches down further, quite conspicuously not contradicting DJ's accusation. << Old friend? >> thumps up against DJ's mind curiously. He's looking at Murphy, though, sidelong past the man between them. "Almost? You aren't that old yet, there's still time." In Murphy's mind, the image of himself -- glowering, scowling -- with a deerstalker cap on his head, a pipe held firmly in his hand... and for some inexplicable reason, a black cat atop of his shoulder (<<doctor watson>>) flashes briefly, and is permanently catalogued somewhere inside of his brain. Murphy grunts; it almost sounds like a half-snort of laughter. Something shifts out of him, like a weight settling and sliding away. He returns to the banister and leans forward against it. Staring down at the kids, again. A part of the fort has collapsed, but they've already moved on to working on the other side. His voice is gentler, now: "--hope he wasn't... like, fuck, I don't know him... but... if he's anything like me? I know -- he's a lot. Sorry." Old friend and a lot are met with a rapid surfacing in DJ's mind -- additional memories, though their perspective is jarring; sometimes watching a different surly Murphy glower his way through a refugee handoff, sometimes watching DJ cheerfully explaining the Kingdoms of Glory through that glower. Buried under this is a resurgence of that grief, deep and wrenching, that doesn't quite spill through to DJ's silent and casual reply: << Comrade. >> DJ lifts an eyebrow, the << sorry >> jarring up oddly against what feels for a moment oddly like self-image. It is entirely DJ's own irritation that surfaces, though, bitter and defensive. << whole world was a lot >> << years of war was a lot >> << losing my beloved, my children, my family was a lot >> << doesn't need this asshole apologizing for him he did more for our people than this jerk has ever -- >> Once more these thoughts have flickered one to another in no time at all. When he turns to face Murphy it's just on the wake of that apology; his fist is coming up hard toward Murphy's chest. The bowl of soup drops from his hand -- though only a short distance; he's caught it again, reflexive, only a few short inches below where he released it. The sudden splash of hot soup over his hand redirects some of his irritation << why did I do that >> -- at least enough for << ... I don't know this guy maybe he's not a jerk maybe he's done a lot maybe -- >> a swell of regret to blossom almost immediately. "... fuck." No sorry, just a glower on his own face, now. Hive's eyes open wider. At DJ's speeds even he barely sees the punch coming. He turns, resting sidelong with one elbow against the balcony rail, and idly fishes a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket to slip one between his lips. << brain too fast for your own good >> is his answer to why DJ felt the need to catch the damn soup -- evidently the most important thing going on right now, since it's all he comments on. Compounding all of this, there's just a tiny lick of self-indulgence to Murphy, barely readable on his face but flickering through his mind; as if he's expecting to turn to DJ and see some sort of gratitude. And instead, what he sees is -- WHUMP. Absolutely nothing. Any sense at all immediately lurches out of Murphy's mind and body as he stumbles back. Murphy's a big guy; accustom to taking hits. But this... this slams the air right out of his lungs. Every last molecule of oxygen is driven out as he whooshes back and whumps against the side of the glass door with a thud, barely managing to stay on his feet. At once, he's wheezing, clasping at his chest -- blinking: "Fuuh... th'..." It takes him a full eight or nine seconds to get his voice back: "Th'fuck... th'fuck did he...?" Murphy stares at DJ, slack-jawed -- struggling to comprehend. "Did he -- did he tell you to do that?!" For a moment, this is the only explanation Murphy's mind can cough up: That Other-Murphy told DJ what to do if he ever came across another Murphy. "What is flipping wrong with you?" DJ has been wrestling his glower into submission, working his way up to some kind of apology, but this knocks it right out of him. "Why would -- how would --" His fingers are clenching at the slippery-wet side of his bowl with the restrained urge to curl into a fist again. Hive is flicking at his cheapo Bic lighter, taking a couple tries to light his cigarette. "Every-damn-thing crammed into your skull and somehow, the only thing you can think of is yourself." He turns back toward the balcony rail -- mostly so that the smoke will be more politely not in the others' faces when he blows it out. "You can't tell me you don't get that a lot, man, just all on your own charm." Still recovering, Murphy grimaces at the sight of DJ's other hand curling tighter around that bowl. One hand steadies itself against the glass door behind him; the other lifts up, palm spread: "Alright, so, can we just..." Wheeze. "Not... punch me -- again?" He drags his gaze over to Hive: "I'm used to getting punched because of shit I did, not..." Back to DJ, catching himself before he finishes that thought: "--wait. This is me, ain't it? I'm the asshole, here. Not him." At the notion that he's the asshole, a sort of calm settles over him; as if this, at last, is something Murphy can grasp. DJ swallows -- there's an apology, again, just at the tip of his brain, but it catches like a lump in his throat and does not come out. At his other side there's a twitch, barely perceptible to anyone but Hive in the frustrated desire to hold up a hand, palm-out, a habitual Totally Not Going To Do More Punches gesture that is rendered moot by the lack of arm where he still strongly feels there should be an arm. Instead he shifts a step back, closer to Hive, more symbolic than it is actually putting much more physical distance between him and Murphy. He's struggling against the desire to simply take off, struggling against a tide of thoughts and memories he does not want to batter Hive with right now; instead of either of these things he leans just slightly into Hive as if the other man's physical presence is a decent substitute for the psionic bolstering he is used to. "He was a good man," he answers Murphy now, low. A small chuff of breath puffs out of him -- almost a laugh. "An asshole, yeah, but a good man. Helped save a lot of lives." He's trying -- failing -- to stop the screaming in his mind, the bloody-panicked-rending of so many lives snuffed out in his mind, of a last desperate push to deliver information, of his Hive desperately reaching across the miles for him. The soup bowl is trembling, slightly, in his hand. "Doesn't need you apologizing like his life was some kind of burden." Externally, Hive's shift is minute, just a very small settling of weight up against DJ's side. His mind is further to move, extending slow roots to curl around DJ's grief and irritation and press deep into the other man, slipping into this familiar shift of identity as comfortably as slipping into his borrowed coat. He isn't consciously thinking of skinny blue shark-children with their skin cracking in cages, not consciously thinking of blood spattered on the floor of a fighting ring, but he doesn't need to think of it, now, nor of the furious-anxious hunt for the captured mutants. The knowledge just embeds itself in with DJ's along with his gruff, "This one's a good man, too." His smile slices thin, amused. "And an asshole." There is a flicker of something bordering on solemnity in Murphy when DJ mentions Other-Murphy being a 'good man', especially in the wake of him speaking in the past tense <<the fuck happened over there?>>. He almost looks ready to apologize. When Hive chimes in, though, it flips over to offense over having the label assigned to him. He rises up on his own two feet, one hand clutching at his chest, wearing an expression you'd expect of a man who had just bitten into a lemon. "I just figured -- you knew him, and maybe --" Something flashes through Murphy's brain. A series of clicks so sharp they're almost audible -- pieces snapping into place. A dark, brittle sort of amusement surges through him. <<motherfucker. he tried to piss this guy off, didn't he? wanted to get him to throw a punch. yearned for it. and I managed to get decked in under 20 seconds by accident. that's his touchdown, though. he put the work in; I just walked it into the endzone.>> A surge of begrudging respect for Other-Murphy, who has pulled out a victory post-humously. It's followed by the completion of his thought: "-- if somebody stuck around through my bullshit, I'd hope some other-me out there would apologize on my behalf. But he ain't me. I got no clue what you and him went through together. Sorry." For a second, bright and keen there is a flash of unbridled rage kindled in their mind, throwing a chaotic jumble -- fury at this man's smug assumptions, grief for the world he lost, grief (sharper and different) for all the friends lost even before that to the war, exhaustion at how many times he will have to go through this dance with every new person tiresomely predictable in their curiosity about Their Other Selves -- into stark relief. The fierce desire to punch Murphy again gives way to a resignation << unfair >> << didn't say it >> and then, just, heavy numbness. He clenches his hand harder against his bowl with a grimace -- this time just at the lingering slimy-sticky feel of the soup drying between his skin and the plastic -- and ultimately, just exhales one sharp breath. "My whole frigging world is past tense," is all that comes out heavy and flat, as he turns to make his way back into the mansion and hopefully a sink inside. Hive slouches back further against the rail and takes another puff of his cigarette. "You know," this is slow, but casual, "if I met some other fucking Murphy and he apologized to me for your existence, I might want to punch him, too. Wild fucking thought but maybe, the people whose lives you're a part of, it's cuz they want you there." "...fuckin' Christ," Murphy mutters underneath his breath as DJ exits -- the exasperation in his tone is entirely self-directed. <<could I have fucked this up any worse? like, if I maybe got a team to work in a lab. develop entirely new methods of Fucking Shit Up-->> The thought terminates. He slumps against the side of the railing, looking Hive's way gloomily when he speaks. "I'm... I know. I'm not good at this shit. I'm trying, but..." He rubs the bridge of his nose between two fingers, eyes closing. The next words, repeated again with tired resignation: "I know."