Logs:Three-Body Problem

Three-Body Problem
Dramatis Personae DJ, Hive, Polaris
In Absentia	2022-05-10 "--what."
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. There is Chinese takeout cooling on the counter, the cartons lined up neatly but untouched beside the bowls that clearly were intended for dinner. It Takes Two is paused in split screen, one of the Playstation controllers set aside on the coffee table and another discarded on the floor. There are clothes discarded, too -- a green and blue flannel tossed haphazardly onto the arm of the sofa, a Theta Tau sweatshirt in a heap on the couch's back, a pair of jeans crumpled in a heap on the floor, the white shirt of temple garments thrown just beside them -- a path of best intentions strewn en route to Hive's bedroom door. Good intentions did not carry them quite far enough. The door is still shut, and though once DJ's thoughts might once have been filled with an aim to get Hive into bed, currently there's very little on his mind past the immediate. Hive's skin warm and firm in his grip, Hive's body pressed up against his. He presses Hive up against the closed bedroom door, pulling his hand back from the other man's boxers just long enough to tug them off and to the floor before the next stroke. Earlier, there may have been guilt -- may have been uncertainty -- but these hesitations have been drowned beneath a flood of belonging and desire. << (love you) >> whispers quiet and fierce underneath it all, somewhere in this sentiment an equally fierce plea: << (love me) >> The rest of the Lofts are no doubt having an awkward sort of evening, their hivemind bubble expanding and contracting in erratic time with Hive's flushes of pleasure, rolling many unsuspecting minds into these brief flashes of euphoria. At this exact moment Hive has wrestled them back down to just two. The expansive roots of his mind curl greedily into DJ in possessive claim that somehow does not feel like a contrast at all with the willing yielding of his body to DJ's touch. One of his arms is wrapped close against the other man's back, his face flushed and his head tipped back against the door with a shuddering moan. He pulls himself just upright enough to kiss DJ, soft and deep and echoed between them with an affirmation that may be his own thought or may be reflection of DJ's own yearning: << (love you) >> Polaris's thoughts, quick and jangling but flush with anticipation, might under other circumstances have tipped Hive off to her approach. These are, however, not other circumstances. The soft click of her key turning in the lock is all the warning they get before Polaris slips side. Her hair is loose, with a bit of extra wave that suggests it'd been braided until recently, and she's wearing a black tee shirt on which two horseshoe magnets overlap to form the shape of a heart, black jeans with red stitching, and heavy boots replete with steel hardware. The casual greeting she had started to make dies on her lips before her mind has quite processed what she's looking at. Once it does process, though... Shock, confusion, anger, desire, and distress flash through her so rapidly it's almost impossible to tease them apart. << What-- >> She stumbles back a step (sharp pain at the back of her head) and the door clicks shut behind her. << --what does it look like (no no no) isn't he straight (dumb bitch) I should go (love you) >> Her mouth works, too many disjointed thoughts crowding for her attention, but what finally tumbles out is still just a bewildered "--what." In the mental space between them, DJ is every bit as willing, hungrily pulling Hive deeper as he loses himself to -- all of this, the chaos of love and desire twining inseparably together -- Hive's soft moan in his ear -- his mouth pressed hard and demanding against Hive's -- his hand stroking just the way Hive likes it. He has some vague thought, now, of fumbling for the door handle, of actually getting them into the bedroom. When the front door opens he meets this with a slight confusion -- not the door he was going for! -- only in the next moment catching up to the mind that accompanies the entry. << -- oh no -- >> flits across their thoughts but isn't quite enough to stop the greater swell of desire, love -- guilt, here, too -- reaching out hungrily to envelop Polaris and drag her into their shared mindscape. Their shared mindscape is alight with pleasure, singing through Hive's body and by extension theirs as well. Whatever his orientation may be normally, right now it is consumed with DJ, a blissful borrowing of desire that he's slipped into comfortably. He barely has had time to register the interruption, the upset, several apologies starting to rise in his mind but then curtailed into a gasp. He drops his head briefly to DJ's shoulder, tries and fails to feel abashed about his current state of undress. "Ohgod," is what he finally manages to breathe out -- and then, more dismayed: << (sorry) >> "Oh god." Their mind is unrooting itself -- more carefully, now -- from Polaris as he bends down to grab his underwear and tug it hastily back on. For just an instant, Hive's pleasure drowns out all the tangled emotions. Something in Polaris answers with a shockingly powerful swell of love and desire and need. << (oh god) >> When Hive withdraws she slumps back against the door, eyes averted, breathing hard and shaking and trying to re-orient herself. Shock, confusion, and all the rest come rushing back in a chaotic torrent, but quieter than before, slowly subsumed into a tight ball of hurt in her chest. "I didn't --" << --didn't what how the absolute fuck could I have known?! >> Her cheeks burn and the physical sense that she is about to start crying presses down on her, inexorable. << (get out get out get out) >> "Fuck. Sorry I should go." She fumbles at the door handle, dropping her keys--she'd forgotten she was still gripping them. As she kneels to retrieve them some detached part of her is musing that this is what people mean when they wish the earth would open up and swallow them. << oh no, >> echoes again in DJ's mind and for once his thoughts don't jump first to another dimension, to his wife and his Hive. The sick sinking feeling within him is centered squarely on the others actually present with him, a sharp pang of regret rising at Polaris's distress, at Hive pulling away. If he's awkward or ashamed it's buried deep. As he collects his garments to put them back on there's only concern forefront in his mind. Their mind reaches back out, presses down against Polaris's; it takes a concerted effort for DJ to rein it back in. "Wait, Polaris, I'm sorry, we --" << what? >> is answered almost immediately by << we hurt her >> << (this shouldn't hurt) >> "Please, can we --" << talk? >>, uncertain, overlaps with a far more insistent clamor of desire: << (be with us) >>, a thought that finally brings a flush to his face where the initial intrusion had failed to do so. "I'm sorry. That you --" << interrupted us >> << got hurt >> "-- didn't know." "I'm sorry, I would have told you but --" << don't know what the fuck we're doing >> << what are we doing? >> << not even her business >> though this last thought clashes up strongly against the feelings of love and hurt and anger that were rolling off of Polaris. There's a deep reluctance in him when DJ moves away to get dressed, and he fights back the swell of need that rises. He wrangles himself back into his own jeans, cheeks burning now in time with DJ's. "Please, can we talk." Polaris stands up a bit too fast, lightheaded, but is at least feeling less like she will imminently burst into tears. "It's--it's fine I'm fine." << You're being crazy stop being crazy Lorna you're upsetting them >> Her hand grips the door handle tight, but she does not turn it; neither does she turn around to face the others. A quiet shiver of metal travels through the apartment and she quiets it with a will. "You don't owe me the details of your--love life." This conviction is clear in her mind, but doing nothing whatsoever to ease her pain, which only makes her more agitated. Her forehead thunks lightly against the door frame, and it's only to stop herself doing it again much harder that she finally pulls away from the door and hovers awkwardly in the entryway. "I don't have any right to be mad, it's my problem and I can deal." Now DJ's thoughts are tangling over themselves, not my Polaris warring with the deeply rooted belief that in some fundamental way their universes share a soul, that his covenanted relationships transcend the boundaries of dimensions or life itself. He swallows, brushing his thumb lightly over his wedding band. "We love you," he finally gets out, "that makes it our problem, too, when you're hurting." "Love life? I don't --" The confusion that rises reflexively in Hive's mind grinds to a screeching halt as he thinks about the others in the room, thinks about DJ's steady warmth and Polaris's bright passion, thinks about his own deep care for them both. He slumps back against the bedroom door, lifting a hand to run fingers through his hair. His eyes close, mind fixating on the pain still prominent in Polaris, on echoes of << I should go (love you) >>. "I -- have trouble. In times like this. Knowing if I should be answering what you say or what you're -- thinking. I think it's normal to be -- upset if you have -- feelings for -- if you --" He doesn't finish this. His hand drops, wringing slowly together with his other. At "we love you" Polaris is fighting back tears again. << He doesn't mean it like that (does he mean it like that) >> She clumsily tries to suppress the involuntary surge of hope. "I dunno, either, but like, my thoughts are shitty and I don't wanna be shitty to either of you I love you so, so much and I want you to be happy--" Despite her best efforts she does start sobbing now. "Yeah sure I have--feelings but I'm not a jealous person--" << wait do I mean jealous or envious fuck >> "--and it's not like I ever told you and anyway it's not okay to throw a fit--" << Oh God is this manipulative stop crying just fucking stop >> She wraps her arms tightly around herself, looking incongruously small for someone who usually takes up so much space. DJ doesn't answer any of this -- not out loud, though in his thoughts there's a surge of love and protectiveness so fierce it dwarfs the rest of the muddle. He's at Polaris's side in an instant, folding her into a close embrace. Hive is at first drawn along in DJ's wake -- he doesn't cover the distance nearly so fast, though, and stops himself short of Polaris, his hand dropping to grip the rear of the couch. Guilt and disbelief jangle insistent in his mind, blaring that this kind of love has no place in his life. His thoughts may be loud but his voice is quiet whes n he speaks. "We mean it like that." Polaris does not startle when DJ appears beside her. She does tense briefly harder at his touch, but then melts against him, curling an arm around his waist and burying her face in the crook of his neck. << --is this okay maybe I shouldn't have said that (too late) isn't it complicated enough without me crashing-- >> Hive's reply quiets her babbling internal monologue and her weeping, even if it does not wholly banish the hurt or the guilt she's unconsciously building around it. She sniffles and turns to peer at him. "Me, too." The desire to go to him is near-overpowering but absurdly stifled by the realization she'still wearing boots. "...what now?" DJ's hand rubs slowly against Polaris's back. His breaths are slow, and he is trying not to dwell on how right Polaris feels in his arm. He does release her at her desire to go to Hive, curling his arm around himself and clenching down hard on the plastic biceps opposite. "I think we're still figuring all this out as we go. But I guess now we -- figure it out together."