ArchivedLogs:Never Done

Never Done
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Hive, Sebastian, NPC-Flicker
In Absentia	2013-12-29 Post-murderfacing
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. There is gaming going on in Geekhaus's living room. Quiet sort of gaming; Bastian is seated on the floor across the table from Flicker, studying his hand and the array of Magic cards in front of him. Blue and red, largely. His claws drum against the table. Flicker, opposite him, is playing a green/white deck. /Cleaning up/ with a green/white deck, really. He'd probably be cleaning up /anyway/ but today Sebastian's thoughts are largely distracted, unhappily wandering home. Unhappily trying not to wander home. He's dressed in a dark pair of corduroys and pale green button-down of Shane's, barefoot and fidgety as his life is slowly trickled away. Hive has been Out. Whatever else he's been doing while Out he's /also/ been smoking, that much is quite evident, the smell of cigarettes heavily clinging to his sweatshirt and canvas jacket. He slouches his way back into the apartment, stomping over towards the couch to lean against its back. Drop his chin onto Flicker's head. "S'fucking stomping on you, B." "With combat boots on," Sebastian agrees with a quick snort. "Maaaybe I'm losing on purpose. It's like a birthday present." "Birthday present is totally the /legitimate/ sweet sweet victory I am getting," Flicker corrects with quiet amusement. He stretches upward slightly, bonking the top of his head against Hive's chin. Hive huffs out a quick amused breath, closing his eyes and slouching down further. He eventually sidles around the couch, to drop heavily down onto it and thunk his head against Flicker's shoulder. "Presents now or presents at dinner?" "Oh, I don't -- nobody had to." Flicker blushes, looking down at his hand. "It'll just be nice having people together." Hive's jaw tightens abruptly at this. He gets back up, stalking off to his bedroom to retrieve boxy wrapped package. It's wrapped in blue and white-starred Hanukkah wrapping paper, stolen from Liam, and he drops it without preamble into Flicker's lap. Dusk's thoughts precede him into the apartment, a guilty sick storm of unhappy making its way down the hall to them. His wings are trembling as he enters the apartment, trying to shake the /cold/ off of them from outside. His thoughts cloud over as he enters, deliberate, a practiced fogging of thoughts as he starts running through recent work instead. Lines of code dancing through his head. He cannot obscure his smell, though smells of Ion and Micah and Regan, smells of sweat, smells of decomposing zombie flesh. He looks half a corpse himself, but then he has for days, death-pale with a lapse back into irregular feeding. "Happy birthday." He offers Flicker, with a small brush of wing, slipping past the others t start towards his room. Sebastian glances up sharply towards Dusk. His nose twitches, his gills shifting quickly. One flutter, two flutters, three. He sets his hand down slowly. "... Is Ba home?" His hands clamp against the edge of the table, eyes watching Dusk's wings before they move to Dusk's face. His mind is churning over other questions, though. Is Ba /alive/, is it done, is it over. Can he sleep now. Hive's teeth griiind together slowly. His eyes track Dusk, his fingers clenching up into fists at his sides. His eyes close. Slowly, too. "... Yes," he answers Sebastian, and there's a quiet finality to this that answers yes to /all/ of it. Flicker looks up with a deepening frown at the sudden unease in the room. He takes the present but then slowly sets it aside, scanning the others' faces. "... you alright? You look cold. I can make -- cocoa." Dusk's wings droop downward at Sebastian's question; he can't actually meet the teenager's eyes. "He's --" << safe, >> << fucked /up/ >> << a wreck >> "-- only just home. He um. We --" His gaze drops downward. "Cocoa." He echoes this a little numbly, brow furrowing in confusion. "Right. Cold. Yeah no that'd be --" But even as he says it a sick wrench of nausea swells in his stomach. "... maybe after I shower." Sebastian says nothing else at this. He leaves his cards right where they are, springing to his feet and bolting for the door to flee down one floor to his own apartment. "The /fuck/ is wrong with you," Hive snaps, as soon as the door is shut behind Sebastian. "Jesus fucking Christ, Dusk, /Micah/. And you could've -- /fuck/." Dusk stiffens, wings clamping in at his back. "What did you /want/ us to do, he would've -- he wasn't going to /stop/, Hive, he --" "There's /other ways/," Hive cuts Dusk off sharply. Flicker is just watching this with increasing tense confusion; his hand pressing to the side of his head evidently heralds Hive filling him /in/ on this conversation, because it's shortly after this that he turns a wide-eyed and frankly horrified look on Dusk. "... no." "Other ways. You asshole, if you'd -- /you/ could've fucking /died/ if you -- Look, this way it's just. Just /done/, just /done/ and now we don't have to --" Dusk's wings are quivering quicker and faster, his eyes bright with a sudden harsh sting of tears that he tries not to let spill. He looks away from Flicker with an uncomfortable tension of shoulders, shakes his head quick and hard. "... I need to shower. I need to --" He's rubbing his hands together hard, like trying to scrub them clean. "This shit is never done. You think I don't feel how much you still -- this shit doesn't /leave/. God/dammit/, Dusk, I just wanted for /fucking once/ to be able to --" Hive's teeth grind again, his fingers curling up at his sides. Dusk isn't listening, though. He vanishes into the bathroom, locking the door behind him. The shower runs for a /very/ long time.