Logs:The Weight of Weighing Options
| The Weight of Weighing Options | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia | 2024-11-10 "We're havin' real cheery times in here, honey-honey." |
| Location
<NYC> Guest Room - Le Bonne Entente - Astoria - Queens | |
This is a "standard" guest room, the smallest on offer at here, but Le Bonne Entente's standards are quite high. Careful interior design makes the most of the limited space and keeps it from looking or feeling cramped even with a queen sized bed, nightstand, and a little sitting area complete with coffee table, love seat, and chair, all upholstered in blue velvet. The walls are a pale and soothing sea blue, largely unadorned except for a few small plant sconces and the art mirrors that make most of the copious natural light streaming in through the tall sliding glass doors that lead out to the small balcony. Though the toilet tucked into the hallway corner is fully enclosed, the rest of the bathroom is enclosed in only partially frosted glass that leaves sight lines open. The closet by the front door is not large, but outfitted with a clever organization system. Across from it, the expected minibar (with some less expected but very thoughtful amenities), minifridge, and mini-microwave are cleverly concealed in a sleek sideboard in the entryway. The blinds are drawn, shutting out the late afternoon sun. The room is still plenty illuminated, the soft glow from expansive holographic 3-D blueprints suffusing the room with pale light. Hive is in soft fleecey black pajama pants, his old Theta Tau sweatshirt, hood pulled up over his shorn head. He's sitting cross-legged on the bed, rotating the in-progress library design around him, expanding it so that he can jot additional measurements in pale light inside the designs. There's a rap at the door. Three times, crisp and firm. Inside the psi-shielded quiet there's no immediate tell as to who is out there, but the chipper-bright "Room service, sugar!", thick drawl and all, is a ready giveaway. There's a distinct pause, and it's only after the space in which his mind attempts to reach out, is rebuffed by the secure shielding, that Hive deigns to grumble. Aloud. "... don't they give you fuckers keys?" There's no response from outside. Not for a while. A considerable while. Eventually, though, there's another knock, and this time, immediately following the rap-rap-rap, the quiet beep of the lock. The (annoying) (painful-bright) blaze of his mind precedes him into the room as soon as the door is open; even his obscuring mental static is harsh, layers of color building up into a painting done in shades beyond what most human eyes are capable of processing and jarring oddly when translated from mind to mind. He's carrying a tray, fresh hot coffee and fresh squeezed juice and spicy garlicky grits crumbled with blackened tofu. "They give the real room service keys," Jax is saying lightly, "I gotta go beg. Told Luci you would drop over dead if you had to walk all the way to the door." Hive's eyes squint shut as if the sliver of light from the hallway, though it doesn't even hit is bed, is physically painful to him. "Maybe I would. Fuck, when'd they unleash you?" He tucks his stylush behind his ear, lifting one bony arm and hook-hooking it toward Jax -- maybe he will also drop dead if he has to move half a foot out of his position for a hug. "Late last night. Pretty rude of you to go get yourself all dying while I was indisposed." Jax sets his tray down in the coffee table and leans in, pulling Hive in for a tight (and oddly unheated) hug. There's some questioning in his mind -- Joshua's face painted on his shifting canvas, quiet and steady at a Mongrels' Clinic bedside -- but he's determinedly holding off on asking. Instead he moves the coffee and the juice to the bedside table. One of his fingers traces against a wall of Hive's blueprints, doesn't leave any trail of light of its own behind. Through his mind, the Refuge and it's carefully designed welcome, the new dorms and the thoughtful touches to keep the children comfortable. "S'it feel ironic to you at all, you ain't got no house of your own yet?" "Sometimes." Hive goes for the coffee first, of course. He cups it close, cups it tight, relaxing even before his first sip just from the warmth in his hands and the rich smell drifting up from the mug. "It just never seemed that big a deal, until now. I had plenty of homes." He flicks the library designs shut, pulls up an elaborate arcology and expands it until its bones shimmer around them. He shakes his head. Takes a large swallow of coffee. "Cancer isn't like a broken arm. It's not -- you can't just sit down one afternoon and fix it." "You still got plenty. I'm sure there's lots of places that'd --" The school's guest rooms flicker to life in Jax's mind. Shane's house, empty, for now. Hive's family's place in Bangkok. The farm down in Georgia. Jax sets the bowl of grits beside the drinks, and drops himself into one side of the love seat. There's a strange flex of the colors in his mind, trying to push some of the imagery out into the world and twinging, uncomfortable, when it fails. "How many afternoons you think your friends would give up for you?" Hive's eyes lower. He takes another swallow of coffee, and then lowers the mug as well, setting it onto his knee. "You ever get tired of cheating death? Feel like all our lives for years now just been taking a big fucking piss all over nature. Reality." He starts to lift the cup again, but when his hands wobble he sets it aside. "Everyone dies. End of the day, even we're still fucking human." Jax shudders, the wave of discomfort rippling through him sort of at odds with his quick laugh. He's pressing his fingers against his forearms and in his mind, colors bloom from his fingertips, leaves and vines first tattooed on his skin and then digging roots in, growing outward. In the world outside his mind, of course, nothing. "Please." With some difficulty he pries his hand away from his arm and flicks at Hive's intricate blueprint. "Ain't nothing unnatural 'bout using our talents to make life better. What's natural about this place?" His hand waves wide at the elegant hotel around them, but then drops, heavy, to his lap. "Sorry. I ain't tryna --" He's shoving down the faces that try to rise in his mind, too many over the years. "We just had so much of death already." There's another knock at the door, accompanied by no announcement. On the other side of it, Polaris is in a much-patched black canvas jacket, a scarlet scarf, a black babydoll shirt with a glittery graphic of a compass, black jeans, and black faux Doc Martens, a small messenger bag slung across her back. Her hair is wind-tossed and her cheeks faintly red against her pale, pale skin. She's fidgeting with a handful of ball bearings--whether they are themselves magnetic is an academic question. Hive presses the flat of his palms down against his knees, waiting for them to steady themselves before he picks up his bowl of grits. "Of course you are. You think if you were dying I wouldn't smack you upside the fucking head until you did whatever you needed to do to --" His teeth grind, fingers clenching tight around his spoon. "How do you keep making these decisions. How much time does Joshua take the fuck off -- how many people die because he wasn't on shift saving his energy for this fucking --" The grinding is getting harder. "How many people die because I don't have good control with the fucking brain damage that follows, how --" His agitation shatters with the knock -- or redirects, anyway, into a snappish, "-- what?" "You keep making these decisions cuz that's what life is. You got a million hard choices a day about how much you do or don't do about all the terrible you see all 'round. He's got a million about triaging his energy and I guarantee you he's thought about that hard call more'n you have. If you want to die, that's one thing, but --" Jax pulls himself out of the chair at the knock, straining to feel something past the door that isn't there. He sighs, trudges over to open it, but the exhaustion wipes itself from his face when he sees Polaris. "We're havin' real cheery times in here, honey-honey, you right on time." Polaris starts when she sees Jax, her wide eyes going wider, the muddled static of her thoughts brightening at a small delay with joy. "Okay I don't know who I was expecting but it's so good to see you!" Her ball bearings wind themselves in a spiraling chain around and around her wrist as she gives Jax a hug. Then pulls back startled again, suddenly matching his weirdly cool ambient temperature with her failure to recognize his bioelectric signature through the door. << (stupid stupid stupid obviously he's depowered fuck those pigs) >> She looks past Jax to Hive, draws a deep breath and tries to hold onto the brighteness in her mind. "Hey babe." "They let him out last night." Hive is grumbling this to his grits as he takes a mouthful. He's hunched up small within the glow of his arcology design, spoon tapping against the side of his bowl. "I don't want to fucking die. I don't want to worry my next seizure will take out half of fucking New York and I don't want to deal with this shit without --" When he feels Polaris at the open door his teeth clench tight, gritting hard to bite back the rest of this thought. He takes another mouth of grits. Chews it more than it needs to be chewed, swallows hard. "Doesn't it scare you guys?" He pulls his eyes up to them. "Maybe next time you get shot you take out half the damn city, maybe -- and this shit is going to eat my control." Jax flushes, vivid red in his too-pale cheeks at Polaris's startling. "Got out last night, guess this alien business changed someone's mind." He returns the hug quick, shuffles back to the loveseat. "'course I worry." The brightness in his mind is getting still brighter, a fierce heat that sears away at all the imagery that came there before. Beneath it is the chaotic spikes of fluctuation that come, not just with the depowering sickness but with the dangerous intense surge of energy that happens when the furnace in him rekindles itself from full extinguishment -- each new cycle of depowering-repowering more touch and go than the last. "Think there's plenty of us got plenty call to be concerned. There's also --" He's hesitating here, considering that, admittedly, the thought of living without his mutation feels near as bad as dying, but considering, too, that he's been strongly weighing it as a choice when balanced against the dangers. "-- options in between here and death. I know I'm selfish as hell, sugar, but -- after all this. All this, and you, too?" Polaris follows Jax, slower, shrugging off the strap of her bag and leaving it on the floor before balancing herself with one leg folded on the arm of the loveseat. The mental chaff she draws from her magnetic sense--like aurora that doesn't really parse as light or color--is fairly decent token screening of her mind under normal circumstances. There are not normal circumstances, and so the rapid jittery static of her thoughts keep coalescing out of the lovely meaningless noise. Countless half-finished prayers. Dozens of anxious questions, some utter nonsense, that need sorting. A grief that suddenly isn't important at all, but which still clenches tight in her chest. She's still calm, at least. "You--I guess you're. Weighing options? Or...weighing whether to weigh options." "Dr. Toure was going to operate, but --" Hive shakes his head heavily. He nibbles, again, at the grits. "Cutting into my head is fucking dangerous. I don't just mean for me. Something goes just a little wrong and if this shit gets out of hand..." He's trailing off here. He sets his spoon down, eyes fixed into the bowl. "... I don't know what the fuck to do." Jax is strongly considering moving to Hive's bed, offering him a hug, but vascillating quite heavily on this -- sure, he usually likes hugs, does he want hugs right now, probably it is annoying that he is even fretting about this. He trails his fingers against the soft velvet upholstery, letting the soothing motion quiet some of the anxiety in his mind. "Can we at least talk to some folks for you? We know so many people with so many powers. At the very least I'm sure we could buy you a little time to think about it when you -- ain't --" He gestures towards Hive's head. "In such a time crunch on having to choose." Polaris looks slightly confused, and opens her mouth to ask, but << what do you mean-- >> never makes it to her vocal chords. They're obliterated by the memory of what rippled through her when Hive found out Dawson had died, a moment that still feels like a fever dream even now she has some context for it. The possible remedies her mind throws at her--suppression drugs, suppression grids, metamutants--unfortunately all materialize first in snippets of Prometheus memories. She clenches her jaw tight. "You're better at assessing the risks than anyone, but it can't hurt to put some heads together. Like Mendel has had to deal with all kinds of powers-during-procedures stuff, even if it's not quite on this level, and--" She stops herself too late, her mind has already conjured up DJ in flashing, fleeting memories. She pushes her knuckle into one eye as if that would make it stop. Hive presses the heel of his hand into his eye, too, sucking in a quick breath. "Fuck Mendel and fuck --" he is starting, short and terse, but -- what exactly he is directing this next fuck at doesn't properly surface. He closes his eyes tight, lets out a shaky breath. His knee is bouncing beneath his bowl, and he sets the food aside before he can spill it. His next "fuck," is soft, tired, no longer sharp. "People ask so much of that fucker." It doesn't actually sound like a protest -- it sounds resigned. After a silence, he gestures again to Jax, slumping back against his pillows. "Can we just. Put on a movie or some shit. I don't want to talk to you." Jax moves over to grab the remote and then sit beside Hive, curling his arm around the other man's shoulders and tugging him a little closer to make room for Polaris on the other side. He's thinking of Joshua, haggard and tired and always rising, every single service, for Mourner's Kaddish. "-- I won't say nothin'." Polaris grimaces, but doesn't disagree, aloud or in thought, and in some dim subconscious way she's thankful for the current state of her attention span that whisks away her words before she even knows their shape. She obligingly settles herself against Hive on the other side of the bed and reaches across him with waggling fingers to pluck the remote from Jax. The only words she speaks now are addressed to the remote in lieu of typing out "Scavenger's Reign." | |
