ArchivedLogs:Black Magic

Black Magic
Dramatis Personae Hive, Joe
In Absentia	2013-12-26 Hive and Joe become best friends by engaging in witty repartee
Location <NYC> Forbidden Planet - East Village
It's Thursday night and the Forbidden Planet comic book store has been open since early on Boxing Day. Everyone has been streaming in and out with their gift cards and certificates all day, but the evening is finally ramping up to the main event. Plenty of people (mostly guys, let's be honest), have been stocking up for a serious Magic the Gathering tournament. All types of games will be set up at the tables prepared around the store, all meant to play tournament style, with winners being awarded all manner of prizes ranging from rare singles, to packs and even a full box up for grabs. Joe is here trying not to look too miserable. Any mind-readers present will be able to tell right away that he's riding the line between /really/ enjoying the game of magic, and wanting to play to win, but also /really/ not being thrilled at being in a crowded room full of people. He's sitting at a table he's managed to get to himself, but could easily seat 6 or 7 more people. He's taken up most of it and his sorting his haul from opening an entire box's worth of cards already. At glance, it looks like he picked out a very profitable box with several valuable, rare cards. What luck! Hive doesn't look like he's enjoying a crowd much, either, but then he often looks like he's not enjoying anything. He is dressed in battered old canvas jacket unbuttoned over a Cornell hoodie, faded jeans, falling-apart sneakers held together with duct tape. His hands are shoved into his jacket pockets, and he's /glaring/ at the tables with a disgruntled look of irritation. Eying the players like they're a particularly loathsome obstacle standing between him and the shelves on the far side fo the room. He pushes his way past one table, stopping to drop his knuckles down in a heavy thump on Joe's. "Got back into your nerddom, then." He doesn't really look like he's paying all that much attention to anything, eyes half-lidded, lips pressed thin together, though his mind is (perhaps unfortunately) keenly attentive to the (perhaps unfortunately) crowded room. "-- Box is a haul." "Yeah, it's funny, I guess," Joe says, looking up at Hive. The mental atmosphere in the room indicates a few disgruntled or jealous folks who've noticed the rarity of Joe's haul. Joe's own mind flicks to time he spent blinking cards between unopened packs, inside sealed boxes, masking the time it took as a superstitious ritual. "You know, when I was your age, I could hardly afford to play packs. Never had this kinda luck back then." Joe chuckles. << Fucking make my /own/ luck now >> is his idle, amused thought. "You competing tonight?" "Mmm." Hive's eyes close the rest of the way, then open again, still lazily half-mast. "Helps when you're a fucking cheater, I guess." There's a considerable delay that precedes his reply, but it's blunt and heavy when it comes. His teeth bare, just a thin sliver in a sudden sharp smile. "Oh, you would not want that, I don't think." To his credit, Joe masks his shocked, guilt-ridden mind behind a placid expression, betrayed only by a raised eyebrow. He starts to stand, but a twinge of pain in his left knee flashes hot in his mind, pushing everything else aside for a moment. He forces himself to laugh, "Yeah, a box like this? Got the black magic on my side." After a deep breath, Joe gets focused again, and he's scrutinizing Hive's face. His mind reveals some confusion about Hive's facial expressions, trying to reconcile the fact that /he/ believes that /Hive/ believes Joe is a cheater, but he can't figure out how Hive would know or come to that assumption. "I dunno man, I like a challenge. Maybe you're as much a cheater as I am." Joe shrugs. "Just a friendly game man. You beat me, I'll give you this legendary I pulled." Joe reaches out and places a finger on a card that retails solo for more than forty follars. "If you win, you just have to tell me how you beat me." "Black magic, is that what they're calling it these days." Hive's hands stay in his pockets. A small upward tug pulls brief and twitchy at one side of his mouth. "I'd be completely as much of a cheater as you are. But that's why I don't play. No fun cheating at games I /like/. Plus," his brief-thin sliver of smile returns, "I'm not betting you with someone else's card you just stole." Joe seems relatively relaxed as they continue talking about cheating, as he comes to the decision that Hive just made a lucky guess. Until, that is, he mentions 'stolen' cards. He stops and just watches Hive for a long moment, registering little things like his dominant hand, listing potential tells, etc without even really realizing he's doing it. "Whoa, stolen cards? What's that about man? Who's card did I steal?" Joe glances around, surprisingly subtle about it, and his mind betrays his trained, practiced criminality. He lowers his voice and nudges the chair opposite himself out with the toe of his boot. "What /card/ did I steal? Everyone here watched me open the packs." His mind flashes through the five very rare cards he swapped, and he continues to analyze Hive's face for any clues as to << what the fuck is going on here? >>. There's another small twitch at the side of Hive's mouth. His lazy-closed eyes open a little wider, studying Joe's face a moment as his mind listens in on the other man's. He doesn't take the offered seat, but he does lean in, one hand rested on the table and his skinny-bony weight propped against chapped scuffed knuckles. He reaches for Joe's cards, rifling through the pack and dropping out those five very rare cards face-up on the table. He sets the rest of the pack down neatly beside them. Joe gives himself credit for staying so cool and collected while Hive reveals what he did. Fortunately they're both being fairly subtle about the conversation so they don't seem to have drawn any undue attention yet. "These cards," Joe says, sliding them in a flourish, making them disappear and reappear in turn, using only genuine sleight of hand before fanning them out. "Came out of this box. Which I just bought with green American money." But Joe already knows this conversation is just for show. His mind flits through the various items in Hive's pockets until it lands on his library card. Joe's third eye widens at the mouthful of a legal name, but his face only betrays a moderate amount of concentration. "What do you do for work, Jet?" << I know you can read my mind >> Unfortunately he can't hide the fact that this is a gamble. He /thinks/ Hive can read his mind, but hasn't actually figured it out yet. "Because I'd like to beat their offer." This fact is true. He's actually trying to figure out how much he'd have to offer the young man to join him in various 'interesting' business ventures. Joe has a very industrious imagination. << I can do much worse than read your mind. >> It's somewhat unfortunate that Hive's mental voice feels like an /attack/ even when he's simply making conversation; his words do not sound in Joe's mind so much as /stab/ themselves into it, sharp and gouging-hard. << And I will, if you call me that again. >> Outwardly he's not quite so cool and collected as Joe, knuckles tightening into a hard fist, eyes narrowing, jaw tightening. "My name is Hive." His words aloud are much softer than the stabbing mental pain, a quiet tenor accented enough to be clearly Not From Around Here though past that it is harder to place. "What do /you/ do, when you're not scamming your way through competitions?" "Ow, ow /fuck/!" Joe says, nearly toppling backwards from his chair. Joe is completely flustered and people are looking over at the two having a quiet conversation now punctuated with this one loud obscenity. Over by the register a tall, gangly looking fellow wearing a name tag as an employee at Forbidden Planet, looks over at the two, frowns, but doesn't say anything yet. Massaging his temples with a pained expression on his face, eyes closed, Joe leans forward to rest his elbows on the table. "Jesus Christ kid- /Hive/, whatever the fuck you want... My bad." Joe's mind flashes through his brief deal with with Wilson Fisk, and then being set up at his Off-Broadway show as the Amazing Zerah. Part of him actually really loves doing the shows, the part of him that resents the sick, twisted aspects of his personality. He reaches into his jacket pocket and produces a business card advertising his stage show. "You and I could take that show to a whole new level. "Fucking white people can't even say my damn name." Hive does take the business card despite this grumbling, straightening up from his lean at the table to eye it and then shove it in a pocket. "Amazing Zerah are you for real. Tell me your costume has sequins." He drags out his own wallet, retrieving his own business cards. Rang Phueng Design. A website, a phone, an email. Office in SoHo. The name on it (Title: Principal Architect) actually /says/ 'Hive', too. Just Hive. "Already got a gig," he says, laying a card down on the table. "No trickery required. Can't con a /building/." Slowly getting himself back together after the brain stabbing, Joe opens his eyes experimentally. It seems the sudden migraine is fading quickly, and he looks up at the young man who refuses to sit with him, regarding him for a long moment. "I'm for real, yeah. I'll comp you some tickets, if you promise not to fuck up my show." He grins, and shakes his head at Hive's description of his job. "Everyone's conning /someone/ man. Besides, I thought architects make bank." << You look one step up from homele- >> Knowing it's too late to edit himself, Joe clamps down on the thought anyway, and shrugs his apology. "Never met a mind-reader before." Hive's mouth hooks upwards at one side, eyebrows hitching just faintly upward in time with a slightly interested widening of his eyes. "Huh. Yeah? I'm more of an eavesdropper than a meddler anyway. I bring a friend or two?" He exhales a quick sharp laugh. "Yeah. Yeah, okay, I guess everyone is." He doesn't seem overly offended by the mental comment, looking down at his threadbare clothing and taped-together shoes with a wry smile. "About to get evicted so I guess I am. Not over rent though. I pay /that/ fine. Just never bothered much with shopping." His fingers lift, scuffing through his hair, fingertips running against the side of his head. "Never met one that /told/ you." "Yeah, sure," Joe nods. "I'll leave four at Will Call under 'Hive'. Come any time." Joe watches the comment about 'nearly evicted' go by, and his mind briefly latches onto the news story about the lofts, but he doesn't consciously remember or make the connection. His mental self reveals a phenomenally sharp mind, but he's also still recovering from being brain-punched. "Oh shit... I never thought a'that." Joe shakes his head slowly and shrugs. "Well, siddown and play a fucking game with me." He holds his hands up at the side. "No funny business. I made a white deck and a black deck already. They're actually both decent. We can use your dice for life counters. You pick." He moves his foot under the table to nudge the chair out another inch. "I've met a shitton of freaks, and a disproportionate number of them psionic as compared to any one other thing. Just try thinking /really loud/ weirdass shit on the subway and see who bristles." Hive regards the chair for a moment with deep suspicion, but then he hooks a heel against a leg to drag it out further. He drops down into it in a loose-boned slouch. "Not porn, though. /Everyone's/ got porn on the brain, it's never startling." He scrubs fingers through his hair again, then digs dice out of his pockets, rolling a d20 towards Joe and setting two d10s in front of himself. "Black. Gimme. No funny business." His teeth flash again in a thin sliver of smile. "Because I'll fucking /know/."