ArchivedLogs:Thank You

Thank You
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Jeremy, Lia, Hive, Flicker
In Absentia	21 October 2013 Lessons in video games and how to exist outside of the labs.
Location <NYC> 403 {Geekhaus} - Village Lofts - East Village
There's kind of a college-dorm feel to this place, though some of its occupants have left college behind. Entering the apartment finds visitors greeted by the perpetually messy living room, a mismatched assortment of couches and chairs (and milk crates) surrounding the wide table in the center. The wall holds a range of posters; some political, some sporty, some from video games, and a string of white lights strung over the kitchen doorway might be a holdover from Christmas. A widescreen television stands against the wall opposite the couch, shelving beside it holding a host of video games from different consoles. More shelving beside the windows on the far wall carries stacks of board games, as well as sourcebooks from various RPGs. The kitchen adjacent is just as cluttered, its table unfit for eating due to its perpetual covering of books, papers, cereal boxes, projects; the fridge is usually sparsely populated. Ketchup. Beer. Not a lot of food. There are two bedrooms here and one bathroom situated between them, split between the three people who live here. Geekhaus has been bustling, as much as any place the ex-Prometheans have been sheltered this week. Here sometimes moreso than other places, with its vast trove of games, large entertainment systems, couple of free-for-all computers for people to catch up on months or years of Internetting (stray laptops, there; the actual primary computers used by the /residents/ of this apartment have been rather emphatically off-limits.) At the moment there is a pair of young women in the kitchen, one perched on the counter and one leaning up against it, going through Geekhaus's store of hard cider. The living room contains two groups, one sitting by the windows with laptops (one of these people is browsing news, more solitary; the other has a trio of teenagers watching red panda videos on youtube); and one clustered around the television, where rather aggressively /catchy/ music is accompanying the roll-roll-roll as an entire seaside community finds is way into an increasingly large Katamari. Dusk is watching this latter; his own laptop is in his lap where he perches on a crate but he's paying its screen little attention. "Time's almost up," he notes, which prompts a more hasty /frenzy/ of Katamari-ing from the kind of corpse-pale young man holding the controller. Comfortable in his borrowed clothing, Jeremy sits cross-legged on the floor with his back against the couch. He usually did not spend much time near the electronics that the other captives had before, too many memories of destroying his own game system with the early onset of his powers kept him back. But in this happier place he couldn't deny the amusement of what he saw before him. A smile crossed his lips as the many things got rolled over and stuck to the ball, and he tilted his head to get a better view of the screen. His hands rested under his chin with his elbows propped on his arms, partially helping to remind him to keep his mouth shut. Lia /might/ have been watching red panda videos over some teenaged shoulders earlier. It would be a good explanation for why the dark-haired girl is now perched squirmily on the back of the couch. She has been lately creeping along the furniture in the-floor-is-lava fashion to peek in now and then at these /laptop/ things. Little boxes. Stuff in them. Some of it moves and talks. All quite fascinating. The girl is dressed in her scrounged-from-the-donation-pile best: an oversized candy apple red sweater that is shove-shoved up on her arms so that her hands exist, one cuff just starting to unravel; a pair of formerly black, now grey leggings that are kind of saggy for leggings, and a pair of bright yellow knee-high socks pulled up a couple of inches over her knees. Hive is here, too! Quietly here. Vacantly glassy-eyed here. It's been bathing time for him and he returns not so much on his own power as kind of manhandled by Flicker from the bathroom back to the living room. Washed and freshly changed, now -- faded old jeans, a very vivid floral Hawai'ian shirt -- Flicker half leads, half drags him over to settle him onto one side of the couch. Flicker takes up a perch behind Hive atop the couch, his own jeans and polo shirt kind of spotted-damp, and retrieves a comb from his pocket to start combing Hive's shaggy wet hair into some semblance of order. "You want to play?" Flicker asks cheerfully, looking over to Jeremy and then nodding towards the screen. "It's fun. And a couple people can play at once anyway." "It'll be there for /weeks/," Dusk informs him with a fangy smile. His wings shift, extending out behind himself when Lia moves closer; one brushes against Flicker's arm and then Hive's, the other touching lightly to Lia's. They pull back in after these wordless greetings, folding up against his bare back in a warm drape of cloaking. "You're welcome to play," he affirms Flicker's offer, tipping his head back to look behind him at the people on the couch. "You, too," he adds to Lia, "you ever played video games?" Appearing concerned a moment, Jeremy looks to Dusk first to make sure its okay before looking back to Flicker and nodding tentatively. After getting the controller passed over to him he fiddles with it a little and gets his hands comfortable with it, but if nothing else he seems to be used to a controller in his hands, though apparently not this one in particular. Moving the little prince across the level select screen he seems amused anyway, then glances over to Lia. He gestures for her to take a controller, signing 'Come help'. Flicker's arrival on the back of the couch has Lia scurrying along to it's extreme-opposite edge after giving the man a rather uncertain-cautious look. Her hand reaches down from her catlike-perch to touch Coppelia's hair, the doll sitting propped on the couch's arm. Dusk's wing petting is conveniently timed to calm her again, albeit only slightly. She strokes back at the wing with her other hand. "Skywing. Soft. Dusk," she says simply, perhaps by way of greeting? "No. Is it like Candyland? That is a game I play. It has colours. There is a plum-monster. I want to pet him." Her eyebrows raise at Jeremy in /concern/ at the request for aid. 'Help?' she signs back. 'Not okay? Hurt? Danger?' "Hey, sorry," Flicker gives in quiet reflexive apology when Lia goes scurrying away. "I'll be gone in a minute. Just need to get this one," he reaches down to jostle at Hive's shoulder, "looking halfway presentable. And it's not much like Candyland, but it /does/ have a lot of colors." He glances between the other two at the signing, but only with a faint furrowing of his brow. "You alright?" Dusk asks automatically, when Lia scurries away. His wing presses up into the petting, gently brushing soft fuzz back against her hand. His smile brightens at the signing, when Flicker's brow furrows. 'No danger,' he signs back, 'I think he means help you play the game.' His other wing moves away from Flicker and Hive, nudging a second controller closer to the couch. 'It's pretty simple to learn.' Jeremy shakes his head when she asks about there being danger, then signs 'what he said' after Dusk's response. Taking up the controller Dusk scooted over, he lifts it up higher so she can reach it without having to lean much, though he's glancing between Lia and Flicker curiously, then shakes his head. 'Make stars from stuff' he signs again, the meanders the prince over the globe again to find the two player mode and selects it. He smiles to the others and gives a nod. Lia nods at Dusk, though not without a backward glance at Flicker. She head-tilts at Hive for a moment before her attention is called back to the boys with their game. 'Oh. No danger. Learn game,' she signs, looking relieved. Her expression is /swept/ suddenly with excitement as Jeremy passes the controller up. 'These things make stars?' Her hands exaggerate the skyward motion of the stars sign in her exuberance. STARS! She nabs the controller and inspects it with a critical eye. Flicker just shakes his head, returning to his hair-combing. And then promptly vanishing, once Hive has been appropriately groomed, disappearing from the back of the couch; his bedroom door shuts quietly a moment later. Flicker's disappearance prompts movement from Hive; just a small shift of head, a faint brush of mental pressure rippling out through the other minds in the room. << Stars, >> is what he elects to pick up on, out of all this conversation. << Put them back in the sky. >> Dusk's brow furrows deeper when Flicker vanishes. "-- Hey. Dude. You don't have to go." His eyes track towards the bedroom door, distracted only in a sudden snap back to Hive when he speaks. His wing uncurls again, brushing slowly against Hive's shoulder. 'The story in the game is that the stars were knocked out of the sky. You have to collect things to throw back into the sky and make new stars. You really only need,' he leans over to point out the correct joysticks, 'these controls. They'll move your ball around. You only need to roll over things to pick them up.' Waiting for the big talky head guy to get done his talking, Jeremy does the appropriate gamer task of hitting the button to speed it the chatter so he can get to playing. Holding up the controller, he gives Lia a thumbs up and then the timer starts as he flicks his hands back to be able to reach the joysticks better. And thus the barrage of silly noises and music begins as he starts trying to roll over all the little things with a contented look on his face in the hopes of making a new star with his friends. Lia's eyes widen at the sudden mind-talking, having yet to connect the voice with Hive's /person/. << Mind-talker? You said you would play, >> she reminds. Then Dusk is pointing out things on her controller. She turns it around in her hands some more before setting it down to sign again. 'I have a ball? Where?' The controller is in her hands once more. Distinctly lacking a ball. It has a cord, but a quick visual inspection of its path reveals no ball at its other end. << We are playing, >> echoes the soft chorus of Hive's voices. It takes a moment before he moves, shifting at the touch of Dusk's wing to slowly rest his cheek against the soft fuzz. Flicker pokes his head back out of his bedroom. "Crowded out here," he comments quietly, and vanishes again. "His name is Hive." Dusk says this soft but firm, signing in tandem with his spoken words. His wing slides further around Hive's shoulders, squeezing their briefly. 'You have a ball on the screen.' He points to the television screen. 'The things you do with the controller in your hand control the character on the screen. You have to move that ball,' he points towards the little katamari, 'by moving the sticks on the controller.' Jeremy nods as Dusk explains it to Lia, and he gestures to the screen. Apparently when the other player is not helping the ball moves funny, and he seems slightly perturbed face about the ball moving funny. Of course, perturbed face may also be due to the face he would have to take his hands off the controller to explain it, and then he remembers that he can pause the game, so with a poke at the button he looks to her and frees his hand. 'We move the joysticks and the little man moves. We both have to move it together.' He nods emphatically at that in hopes that she will get it, then glances to Coppelia wondering on the off chance that the little doll may be better at the game. “Hive,” Lia repeats, nodding. << Hive-mind-talker. You play video game? >> Thank goodness for Dusk's instruction. Lia finally looks to the screen. Screen. Controller. Back to screen. “Oh. Buttons,” she says aloud, giving up on signing because /full hands/. She taps one joystick. Looks at the screen. Taps the other. Looks at the screen again. The effect is vaguely feline. Bat. Batbat. Hive doesn't answer this. His cheek slowly rubs against Dusk's wing. He just sinks back into it afterwards, nestling in a comfortable slouch into the strong hold of the wing. His eyes might be fixed on the game, they're turned that way, but in their glassy blankness there is no recognition at all. "He plays video games a lot. Just --" Dusk switches back to speaking aloud, too, now that the others' /eyes/ are focused screenward. He sets his laptop down on the crate he sits on, shifting back to tuck himself onto the couch beside Hive. "Not right now. Maybe later. And yeah, the buttons move the guy on the screen." His smile is bright and wide as Lia starts tapping at her controller. "Take it you haven't played many video games before. We've got plenty but this one is great." There is little more relaxation as playing goes on with both players now, and Jeremy's mind offers a small <<Thank You>> up to Hive that the combination of him and Dusk has managed to get Lia to play properly, and happier images of younger Jeremy zipping around in Mario Kart battles. The timer is slowly counting down and there is much rolling and smacking into things and some of it sticking at least. As the last ticks of time run out, he tilts his head looking at the appearing big head on the screen, then looking to Dusk, signing 'Did we win?' as he tilts his head. Lia finally looks over at the man cradled in Dusk's wing, a little dawning understanding visible in her face. “Is he in another shape now?” Dusk mentioning the screen again draws her attention back to it. Oops. Tap-tap-tap? “This is...small things. The little man is very little and the small things are very big. It is like being a doll.” She pauses, purses her lips slightly in thought. “Some dolls.” Her head shakes at Dusk's question. “These were not in the rooms.” When the timer ticks down and Jeremy asks about winning, Lia also looks to Dusk for that answer. "What about before the rooms?" Dusk's brow wrinkles faintly as he looks at Lia. His wing tightens against Hive, a little protective. "In another shape?" This is kind of puzzled. "He's not in very /good/ shape. -- What's like being a doll?" He looks from Lia to Coppelia without much understanding. “You --” He studies the screen with a crooked twitch of smile. “You didn't lose. But you didn't get as many things as you /could/ have. If you try again you can make an even bigger star.” Jeremy makes a face at the screen at Dusk's pronouncement and shakes his head, deciding that he should share and passes the controller onto one of the others hovering around the consoles. 'Can I have soda? And a straw?' he signs as he wiggles up from the crosslegged position to standing. He blinks, then looks around at the others around, then also adds 'I can get stuff for others too'. He nods a bit at that as he waits for the permission to go for it, but based on the past few days, the kid seems to have a sweet tooth. When Jeremy sets down his control, Lia gives hers up as well. “I am not good at this thing. It is not a thing I have done before,” she pronounces simply--not disappointed, just assessing. Dusk's mention of /before/ the rooms gets a curious look, but no additional answer. “Another shape. Not /this/ shape. He is not...in this shape. He has gone to another one for now?” She gestures to Hive whenever saying 'this shape'. “Video game,” she explains further, to Dusk's other question, “is like being a doll. Some dolls. The little man is very little and the things are very big. Even though they are small things. It is like being in a smaller shape.” “It's okay. It's not like playing video games is a crucial life skill. You don't have to be good, it's just there to have fun.” Dusk keeps his wing around Hive, glancing between Lia and the telepath. For a long while he just considers this with a small frown before venturing uncertainly, "Yeah. He goes to a lot of different places. He's not always /here/, exactly -- oh hey," here he switches unthinkingly back to sign, 'there are sodas in the fridge. And beer. Straws --' He pauses, frowning. 'You can check the drawer on the right.' Which is full of old plastic-wrapped packets of takeout utensils, napkins, cheap wooden chopsticks. Probably a few straws in there somewhere, too. "Have you tried being a doll?" Jeremy nods at the explanation and smiles signing back 'I can hear fine, I can't talk without destroying everything' he then gestures to the games and computer and heads off to acquire the soda. Rummaging to find the soda behind the boozahol and then rummaging longer to find the straw so he could drink his tasty cold beverage without causing the ultimate sadness from Geekhaus. “It is good. You watch his shape while he is gone.” Lia nods for emphasis. Dusk's question earns an almost patronising little smile, a hint of a laugh. “I am always a doll. Sometimes I am a lot of different places, too. It depends...how much magic I send. And where I send it.” "Someone has to. We take turns. He still needs to -- eat. And drink and --" Dusk glances back towards the bathroom door, and then exhales heavily, resting his chin against Hive's wet hair. Digging it in kind of roughly. 'It's habit,' he signs back to Jeremy, 'someone signs to me, I sign back. It's nice, I don't get to do it as much anymore.' His confusion doesn't notably clear at Lia's explanation. "You don't look like a doll. What kind of magic gets you different places?" “Not everyone...has someone to watch their shape when they are gone,” Lia muses. When Dusk mentions liking for people to sign, she moves back into her hand-talking. 'I don't look as much like a doll because I am here now.' She smiles again at the question of magic. 'Big magic goes other places. Little magic stays here.' Finally she turns, looking down at Coppelia, a look of concentration on her face like someone working on task of mild complexity. After a moment, with very humanlike movements, the doll stands, turns, and climbs up the back of the couch to seat herself on Lia's lap. 'Little magic,' Lia signs before petting at the doll's hair. 'Big magic --' It's as far as Dusk gets before the doll starts to move. For a moment his hands drop to his lap; his wing tightens reflexively against Hive's shoulders. His mouth fish-gapes open and then closed, his eyes following the movement of the doll. "Whoa." He finally manages to summon up words again, still staring at Coppelia. 'Other shapes. I see. Can you see what she sees?' Lia grins, amused at Dusk's reaction, entirely too used to scientists who have her very thick and detailed file in hand before ever seeing her work. 'Not like this,' she signs in answer. 'Need bigger magic.' She darts a quick look around the room, sliding herself down to take the slightly more supportive seat on the couch's arm where Coppelia had been propped before. Her hands wrap around the doll's torso, tipping her face to look into her glassy eyes. Lia does not move at all, her own eyes going glassy-distant. Coppelia sits up straighter. The doll's little hands work the girl's fingers away from her sides, Lia's body not resistant but staying precisely where it is placed. Once extricated, Coppelia turns, sitting on Lia's lap with her little feet dangling off to the side, kicking idly like a bored child's. The doll looks down at her small hands, tiny fingers. “I don't sign well with hands this small,” she explains, the voice coming from the perfect little porcelain lips sounding like Lia's. A ripple of tension shivers through Dusk when he watches Lia's eyes go distant, his own eyes sliding to Hive and then back to to Lia. His other wing unfurls, gently wrapping around Lia's shoulders protectively. He watches the doll, his breath freezing as Coppelia begins to speak. "No -- no I -- guess that would be hard. Wow. That's -- Can you be /any/ doll?" “She won't fall,” Coppelia assures when Dusk reaches out for Lia. “She doesn't move.” The doll reaches out for the girl's arm, swinging it wide out to the side, bending its elbow, leaving it posed perfectly there. “See? Just a doll. First doll. Where I go back to.” The doll smiles prettily up at Dusk, nodding. “Yes. Well, any doll that is not a strange shape. And is not very, very large. Bigger than a person would be. I only have enough magic to fill up a person-shape.” Dusk closes his eyes, for a moment. His lips compress, and he reaches to gently move Lia's arm back down to where it had been. "She's not a doll," he says with a decisive shake of his head, "She's a person. I mean you're -- a person. Projecting yourself into dolls doesn't make you a doll." Lia's body doesn't resist Dusk's direction, following it and sticking where it is placed as if made of partly-cooled wax. "She's a special doll," Coppelia clarifies. "She's the one they put the magic in. Made her alive. So she can make us alive, too." The doll grasps the girl's sleeve with both hands, shoving the too-long thing further up the arm to reveal a tracery of scars all along the skin, disappearing up under the garment. "The doll-maker put her together. Changes the parts. Gave her the magic. She confuses people sometimes. Especially boys, they watch her reading on the balcony. Think she's a girl." The doll doesn't give Dusk a pat on the head, but might as well for her tone. It's very, 'there, there, you're not the first, poor boy.' "She /is/ a girl." There's a faintly harder edge to Dusk's voice. "Nobody /gives/ you this -- they just try to take these powers /from/ us. Nobody /assembled/ her either." His wings tighten, more firmly around Lia and Hive's shoulders both. "They cut on people to try and /steal/ their magic, not to give it. But you're out, now, that shit doesn't happen anymore. Won't happen anymore." Coppelia doesn't argue when Dusk's voice hardens. She isn't good at arguing. "/Can/ you steal magic?" she says thoughtfully, head canting like an inquisitive little bird's. "No more keepers. No tests?" Something comes to her and she suddenly looks...excited. Perhaps agitated or even happy. "No more bodies?" "I -- I don't know." Dusk sounds heavier, now, a tired roughness to his tone. His wings slowly withdraw, from Lia and Hive both; he settles Hive gently back against the couch once he's pulled away. "I don't know if you can steal magic. They certainly try. They don't want to do anything good with it, though." He stands, picking up his laptop to close it and hold it against his chest. "-- Bodies?" For a brief moment his eyes widen. "Like people-bodies? No -- no, no more tests. No more -- bodies. None of that at all. What do /you/ want to do, now that you're out? Aside from watch the sky." Coppelia gives Dusk an odd, assessing sort of look. “You don't like this,” she asserts with a small nod. The doll turns, resting back against Lia's stomach and closing her little glass eyes. A moment later, the girl lifts her head, eyes turning back to Dusk, continuing the conversation with the seamlessness of much practice. “Bodies,” she repeats. “The keepers...wanted me to use them. For tests. I didn't like those tests.” Her hands tighten against Coppelia's dress where it spills into her lap. “Want...to do? I like to watch the sky. I like...to read my book. I would...I like to dance, but there is no...” She glances around at the very full room. “Are those things to do, if there are no keepers and no tests?” Dusk shakes his head. His wingtip flicks towards Coppelia. "I don't mind that. I don't like people forgetting that they're -- people. No matter what they do to us we're still /people/." He grimaces at the mention of bodies, his head shaking. "Jesus. No. Nothing like that here. There's --" He glances around the crowded room, too. "Jax dances. You should ask him. Where's the best place to dance. I bet he'll find you one. Would you like to take dance lessons? Go to school, maybe? He's a teacher, you know. And I'm pretty sure you can dance at his school." “Oh,” Lia says simply, looking a little confused again. “I don't think... Did I forget a person?” Her dark brows knit together, the question legitimate, but perhaps posed mostly to herself. “I would like no more tests and no more bodies.” She nods firmly at this. Please and thank you. “Fairyjax?” This brings a smile to her face, one hand tracing over the other where she remembers blue sparkles resting. “He /would/ dance. He flies, you know? He says. Without having to leave the ground. He has very much magic.” She perks up again at the mention of teaching and dance. “I had a teacher, for a while, in the rooms. Those were better tests, before. Before I moved to new rooms again, this last time to new rooms and bodies. I got to dance. So much dancing. And when I was done dancing, then the dolls would dance and the keepers just wanted to see...how the dolls would dance after I learned. There was...so much dancing and it was...better tests.” "You forgot yourself." Dusk says this quietly, his head giving one small shake. Some of its tired slips away at Jax's name. "Fairy-Jax. Yeah. He does fly. And dances. And is magic. I bet if you went to talk to him and told him you'd like to dance, he'd help you out. /And/ bring you to a place where you can have new teachers and learn all kinds of wonderful things. School does have tests," he allows, "but it's like you're saying. The better kind of tests. No bodies, no hurting anyone. Just reading and learning. And dancing." “Fairyjax...grants wishes? Some fairies grant wishes!” Lia all but slaps her palm against her forehead. “The stories, you have to ask a certain way, give a certain thing. How do I ask a Fairyjax, please?” She leans forward, reaching out a hand--at first excitedly, but then tentative once it is closer--to rest on the back of Dusk's hand. Dusk's nose crinkles up at Lia's words, his forehead scrunching together. He turns his hand over, though, when hers moves to his, fingers lightly pressing back to hers. "It's not like that. Not like in the stories. He doesn't grant wishes with magic, he just does his best to help people around him." His teeth sink down against his lip, briefly, fangs leaving two reddened points against his pale skin once they stop pressing down. "You just talk to him. No magic words. He does like hugs, though." Lia nods excitedly, head bobbing awhile longer than necessary to convey understanding. “Hugs. No words. Yes. Next time I find Fairyjax.” She holds Dusk's hand awhile longer, looking a little uncertain and searching and...perhaps pulling a reaction out of a /book/ for lack of a natural one. The girl brings the man's hand to her lips, brushing a furtive tinykiss to his knuckles before essentially /asking/ the words, “Thank you?” "No /magic/ words," Dusk corrects with a small breath of laughter, "he's no telepath, you still need to talk to him. But just -- say whatever you need to say, there's no magic recipe for wishes." His cheeks colour faintly at the small kiss, and his wing curls up to brush against Lia's shoulder. "I don't know if I've done anything that needs thanking. It's coming up on dinnertime, you want to go grab food?" In one of the apartments, presumably, that has more things in it than beer and soda and potato chips. Dusk's laughter sparks a sudden, bright smile on the girl's face, the sound so welcome and unfamiliar as it is. “You... Give me dancing and reading and sky and no keepers and no tests and no bodies.” Lia nods again, firmly, her words also coming firmer this time, insistent. “Thank you.” She smiles again at the mention of food. “I want to eat...with you?” Her eyebrows tick up, questioning. "I didn't /give/ you --" Dusk starts to protest with a slight shake of his head. But then stops, offering Lia a quick smile. "You're welcome." His hands turn up after this, spreading as his wings hitch up in a shrug. "Do you? Don't have to if you don't want to. /I'm/ hungry, though. I'm going to eat, and you're welcome to join me if you like." When Dusk finally accepts the thanks, Lia's smile broadens. As if a little planned call-and-answer had just /worked/. She nods again, a few too many times, at his questioning her desire to go with him. "They let me pick out food here," she imparts in a conspiratorial whisper, gathering her doll up in one arm as she slips herself from her perch on the couch arm. "And as much of it as you like, too. Oh man, when I first got out I just kept eating food till I was sick," Dusk says with a small laugh. He curls a wing around Lia when she stands, squeezing once briefly and then pulling in against his back as he leads the way out towards food.