ArchivedLogs:Eight Million

Eight Million
Dramatis Personae Hive, Jim, Flicker
In Absentia	2014-02-04 Part of Infected TP
Location <NYC> The Unicomplex - Village Lofts - East Village
In contrast to the messy apartment outside, this room actually tends to be fairly neat. Clothes in the two laundry hampers, books and clutter relegated to the bookshelf or the desks. It's set up for two, Flicker's neat-made bed on the left wall and Hive's generally unmade one on the right; the shared closet is large, on Flicker's side of the room, the shared bookshelf on Hive's side packed full. The back wall holds a pair of desks side by side, both with their own desktops. The walls are eclectically decorated. A replica of Arya Stark's Needle, a few bright-colored but anachronistically somewhat morbid paintings of Jax's, a Mega Man X poster, a stained-glass suncatcher hung in the window and a collage of feathers framed on one wall. Hello, Geekhaus. Jim is letting himself in, his busy mind worked up to an agitated pitch. Even as a regular with his own damn key, he can still make it look nefarious, mopping /chocolate/ off his face with a handkerchief and jabbing around at the corners with his eyes not unlike a man preparing to toss a room for hidden items. In his free hand: a paper cup he swiped from a Starbucks along the way. Just to kind of... carry on the way here. And collect the freaking choco-DOWNPOUR to take hits off along the way. His hair, tatty corduroy jacket and worn out brown trousers are damp from the rain but curiously un-stained by the brown downpour - he's heading for Hive's room, "/This/ bullshit. HIVE." There's already a BOWL of chocolate /ice cream/ sitting on the gaming table, collected there by Flicker in between one class and the next today and curiously un/melted/ despite sitting there for a while -- hello, dream-logic. Hive probably hasn't touched it. There's none of his usual mental /pain/ in greeting, today. Just radio silence. The door to his room is ajar, though. He's sitting at his computer, folded up into his chair with his plans for the Commons open on all three monitors -- /so/ much farther along than they were before swiping Sebastian's tech all weekend, to an untrained eye they look like they might be nearing completion but Hive is down to so many fiddly details of measurements and nitpicking he's probably still going to be at this for ages. Except right now he's not actually working. Just sitting, knee crooked up towards his chest in faded old jeans, Grumpy Bear sweatshirt-clad arm wrapped around it and his head tipped forward to rest head on his knee. Hand loosely draped against his mouse. Eyes closed. "What." "Oh, fucking nothing, just a god damn rain of chocolate from the /sky/." On sight, it's impossible, really, to /not/ be thinking about last night, the world in Jim's mind a black pit of pounding-guilty hangover headache and the smell of donuts; the memory of a bony shoulder curled up-clenched, Hive's voice ('-and they were pretty much all screaming.') It's a messy cobble that he's not even decided on whether he cares to even /bother/ trying to shield it. He folds his arms over the back of Hive's chair and leans forward, "Swear it's like we fucking all must have died in the apocalypse and this is the Kingdom come." << nice jimmy. real casual. >> "Yeah but whose fucking heaven is this. Pretty sure it's at least /someone's/ idea of hell. Lucien's, probably." Hive's lips twitch at this. Smile or frown, it's hard to tell. His grumpy expression has a way of always looking like he's frowning even when he's /happy/ and his face is currently half-hidden against his thigh besides. His teeth grind at the mention of apocalypse, though. Chhhhkgrit. << Did die. Couple dozen times. >> For one manic moment, Jim is thinking clearly of Lucien standing beneath a pouring torrent of chocolate-brown, his neat blond hair and tidy clothes all plastered down. Just. BUCKETS of rain. It's tempting, to just focus on this. Spare them both and gripe and argue and whatever other fucking past time can be found on this, the brownest of days -- "Yeah." He raps a knuckles on the back of Hive's chair, "Yeah. You did." And then, while he's /thinking/ << leave it there, jimmy, for god's sake >> he's instead /saying/, "You couldn't talk. When it was all going on." "Eight million people." Hive's hollow voice is quietly somewhat muffled against the denim of his jeans. "Eight million people watching their familes get /eaten/. Clawed apart. Starve to death. Die fucking screaming. I could hear every fucking one, Jim. Some days I still can't talk." A sick rhythmic... /clenching/. Hard-dry and deep, deep in the center of Jim's mental rootsystem, it's a thorny calloused heartpulse; each an image. Of Rachel's apartment. Her wings backlit in the kitchen doorway. Hive slumped on the couch. Looking so relaxed. Looking so peaceful in a world gone mad. All the while, he was out /there/- Jim pulls away from the chair, numbly sits on the bed instead, a clenched fist set on either knee. "Show me." "Fuck you." Hive says it sudden and /sharp/, not his reflexive-automatic-gruff. His head lifts, chin propping on his knee instead of his forehead. His eyes slowly open, heavily cracking to their customary half-lidded state. "Because what. This looks like so much fucking fun, asshole. I'm not stabbing holes in your goddamn brain too." "/Fuck/ you, you think I'm asking for fun?" Elbows locked, Jim bears down hard on his knees like a bull. Still thuds the inner pulse. Desperately angry. Frustrated and at ragged ends. Desperately /sunk in/ to hold ground and take this to the /mat/. But also just... desperate. "Hivey, I sat there next to you, /watched/ you the whole- fucking-." Fists flex open, fists clench SHUT again, "And I never even knew. You can tell me eight million people screaming and I /still/ won't know. How the hell am I supposed to--" Pulse. His vocals lock up in a /snarl/. << how the fuck am i supposed to back you up stand by you watch your back find you have you >> << if i don't even know where you are anymore. >> "Everywhere." Hive's hand moves slowly back to his mouse, fingers slow and trembling as his cursor starts to shakily go about his work again. "Nowhere. I don't know where the fuck I --" His eyes close, hand sliding back to his knee. Slowly returning to his mouse. << S'an easy back to watch. Nice and small see. >> Bony shoulders FLEX. Sharp-angular shoulderblades. "Not like your whompy oaktree ass. Who can keep an eye on -- all that at." Jim does look at Hive's back, all it's << stupid scrawny bony-ass >> sharp, defended angles. And hates how easily it looks lonely. Even in a world surrounded by loved ones - << -...but he's not really, is he. where he is, there's not a damn soul but him. >> "Hive." "/What/." "/Hive." Crrrrrkgrind. Hive's teeth creak against each other. "/Look/ at me, asshole!" Crrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrk. Taptaptaptap. Hive's fingers rattle against his mouse buttons. Slowly he shakes hair back from his eyes, turning his head towards Jim. Still sitting with his fists on his knees, Jim has the braced forward-leaning posture of a sumo wrestler. His gravely voice is... quiet, "No more cheating. No more - borging or dodging or half-assed pretending. You're /in/ this." His own jaw is clenched. Always alone - even sitting next to him. Always alone, even sharing a /mind/ with him, but all Jim is thinking of is... an orchard. A hammock. Soft wind swinging through creaking branches, and the sleep depth of the tree, remembering who it is by the hard grip of another mind. "And that means I'm /gonna/ be in it with you." "I'm not fucking /dumping/ this shit in your /brain/, asshole." Hive's words come gritted through teeth still attempting to grind even while he talks. "It'd break. It can't take -- /my/ brain can't fucking take." His words stutter to a halt again, eyes lowering, unfocused; it takes concerted effort to lift them back to Jim with a hard, "fffft." They're glistening when he does. He wipes at them, fierce and irritable, scrubbing at them with the sleeve of his sweatshirt in a sharp annoyed motion with a sharp annoyed /hiss/ for having to do it. "-- M'not alone." This denial comes sudden and sharp. "God sometimes I have so much fucking love I think I'm going to drown in it. It's my /own/ -- fucking brain I don't -- know -- how to -- fff. Can't fucking -- tear /you/ apart like --" "In this," Jim grits right /back/, "yeah, actually. You /are/. You are isolated as /shit/ with all this and it /shows/." He hooks out a foot for Hive's chair to haul him away from the damn computer and nearer. Facing him fully. He locks a hand on either of the chair's armrests, "I fucked up last night, Hivey. With my AA shit. Back to square FUCKING one again. And it didn't help because it /never/ helps, it's all just part of a god damn cycle, and it's no fucking different from /this/ one. Shit gets /in/ you, it fucks you up, you get your hardware glued back together and somehow treat it like you're /fixed/." The chair is given a hard /lurch-shake/ under his hands, "I'm not telling you to dump it all on me til I crack like an egg. I'm telling you let the fuck go and /share the load/." "Maybe we should just. Get the fuck away from -- here. All of here. For a bit. Once this -- place." Hive waves a hand towards the computer. "Is built. Go -- fucking /home/." He sounds a little choked on this last word. "Sleep for a year. On the goddamn beach you can have fucking /virgin/ pina coladas and I can -- not. Have. People -- fuck." His hands mash against his eyes again. "-- Except my fucking family." This is almost a whisper. He slumps forward in his chair, tipping in slowly to thud his head down against Jim's shoulder. << Don't fucking know how I don't fucking /know how/ you guys are the only fucking -- only fucking /bright spot/ I've fucking -- just had this whole -- jegus fuck Jim. haven't had -- any goddamn. Anything. Just an ocean of goddamn -- screaming and I've been clinging so goddamn hard to -- you people are all I've had and if I let go I might crush you with it. I don't know how. I don't fucking know how. >> << Just stop. >> It's not communicated /to/ Hive. It's just Jim's mind, thrashing, pleading, angry, as it watches Hive struggle. << Just let it go. Let it /go/ man you think this isn't crushing already just be /hive/- >> You'd think he had been willing Hive to begin leaning forward with his own mind. Though when he moves, it's not a gentle coaxing so much as a sprung-possessive /trap/, an arm suddenly looping hard around the back of Hive's shoulders. Leaning forward, he thumps his own head against Hive's shoulder, like a two-man huddle, forming a small hidden space tented between their bodies << here I'm here I'm /here/ be /here/. >> And he rakes through so much accumulated black sludge to counter with... contrary, stubborn /stability/. << You can't crush me just being /you/, asshole. But the more you try and protect it all from yourself, the more you're gonna /lose/ it. >> << Not just me. /Not just me/ I can't just be me anymore. >> It's hard to tell exactly when the tears start soaking through Jim's shirt; Hive isn't sobbing. He's not even breathing raggedly, not trembling, not anything except slumped there against Jim's shoulder, his hands lifting to fist up against the sides of the older man's shirt, oddly steady now for how persistently shaky he's been through the past weeks. << Eight fucking million people and I don't know how /not/ to be them. And that'll crush any-fucking-body. I don't -- >> Hive pushes out breath in a slow hiss through his gritting teeth. << It's not /just/ trying to protect you, asshole. You guys are all I fucking /have/. I crush you and I'm going to break myself to fucking /pieces/. I need you. I need you so goddamn -- so fucking -- >> His fingers fist tighter. << I've been holding on to every. Fucking shred of -- >> Words fail again, not -- entirely because there are none so much as because he's forgotten how to /form/ them, mind bearing down instead in a heavy-painful squeezing press against Jim's. It crushes in with a force of feeling instead of the words that he fumbles uselessly for. The bright glitter of the painted city. Jax's starry-eyed look at seeing, not just his artwork painted over it but his artwork /tattooed/ over it, such a deeply /personal/ investment for him etched bright over the home that he loves. The twins and Spencer hugging Jax so hard when he got out of prison that it left bruises. Moans coming from the bedroom downstairs. Or the one next door. Flicker and Dusk brainstorming tabletop campaigns around the gaming table. Micah buckling a collar back onto Jax's throat. Everyone sitting downstairs planning what the Commons will be like till late into the night. Parley's throat tipped up in offering to Dusk's teeth. Jim wanting to freeze-frame Hive's expression with Sebastian's holo-projector. Flicker's head tucked against his shoulder. Family dinners downstairs. << (not just)(protecting /you/) >> All these tiny moments to sink /claws/ into, grip them tight. /Hold/ them tight against the endless backdrop of screaming. Jim digs in and weathers, and it /batters/ him in turn. He hangs half-collapsed, heavy body propped against Hive's shoulder, his fingers curling up over either of Hive's elbows and he focuses on hanging on. On breathing. On /listening/. It takes effort to make sense of it and fight the impulse to say 'STOP' or 'OKAY', and when understanding comes it's not a gentle comfort. << ...a candle against the darkness. against an army of screaming dead. >> A painful rush of love and useless twisting protectiveness, like a twisting wire around his heart. << you /bastard/. >> A signal constricts in his shoulder, twisting a cluster of muscle in his bicep. It pulls tight a string of tendon in his forearm that digs his open fingers into Hives upper arms and drags Hive forward against him. So different, this body - from a time he'd shoved Hive down to the couch in a battle of minds; from when he'd pulled the man off a bench one lonely night and thrown arms around him. From when he'd supported his weight from (his branches) and relaxed, the deepest sense of comfort he'd known. Dappling shadows and entwining kudzu enfolding Hive in a time his face hadn't been so gaunt and lined. << /You/. >> It's different. << But it's /you/. >> << Can't fight it out. Can't dig it out. Can't /KILL/ it. Can't make it go away. Eight million people -- sssss. >> His arms tighten. Where Jim's arms tighten, Hive's loosen. A slow tick-by-tick easing of muscles, loosening weight surrendering itself into Jim's constricting grip as the patch of dampness grows against the older man's shoulder. There's noises behind -- Flicker's arrivals home don't tend to come with keys and locks so much as just shifts of weight, a thump of backpack here, a chk of feet moving against wood there. His arm and head coming to rest against the doorframe, green eyes looking down at the others, breathing slowing. Doesn't interrupt so much as just climbs up onto the bed, pulling knees up towards his chest, curling arms around them. Eyes closing. He settles in in mental presence more than physical, breathing slowing to match time with Hive's, his fingers curling into the fabric of his jeans hard. Hive's breath catches, his fingers curling in tighter into Jim's shirt, the only contrasting point of hardness in the rest of his otherwise loose-boned sink of weight. No words, anymore. Quiet /echoes/ -- of screaming, rattling distantly against Jim's mind. << (me?) >> isn't affirmation but question. The weight of his mind crunching in, gripping-tearing, holding. Searching for an /answer/ to this. Beneath the screaming a fainter sound, sterile and bland, the distant beep of a clinic monitor sounding out a heartbeat. << (maybe never) (woke up.) >> << /You/. >> Jim's mind throws it out with an unquestioning hardness, like dropping a sandbag. Cut up, tired and torn apart, he is still /Jim/, still stubbornly prioritized. And though he reflexively tries to recoil, arms mashing down around Hive and trying to turn his physical head /away/, to escape the rough searching -- he's also pushing forward what it looks for. Fragments. Of Hive, in his office - but sitting at the receptionist's desk for no fucking reason; Hive at game night, his sly-scowly face hoarding over the table as he makes his move; running a hand through his hair, touching hidden scars without thinking; snarling for coffee and then stealing someone else's when it comes. For how desperate-rough he scratches them up, there's something else that comes with it, with the love and /fury/ and aggravation. A simple, breaking /joy/ - to think of him. To have him here, his bony body /familiar/ and somewhere /safe/ and alive << (...mine.)(christ just for a little longer) >> So that even as the blander tone begins its musing, Jim's pounding back: << DON'T. You're /here/. FEEL this- >> The bed wobbles with Jim gives Hive's body a /shake/ and then packs it in harder against him. Forgone greetings, he reaches for Flicker almost the instant he arrives, reaching for his hand to attempt dragging it over and clapping it palm-down against the exposed side of Hive's /head/, "See this? This is /real/. This is /you/. And us. /Cling/ to this." << /You/, >> echoes back to Jim, a fierce hard clench that grips and holds tight. Coils around stubbornness and deep soil and tree roots, around kudzu and dappling shadows and a hammock swaying in creaking branches. A shudder passes through him, a brief rippling wave of tension that tightens his muscles and then breaks into a looser collapse again when Jim brings Flicker's hand in to bear against him, familiar scarred fingers meeting familiar scarred head. << Just sometimes -- >> Amid the clenching-tearing there's a strong feeling -- of gripping but of /drowning/, of hanging on to this like a life raft in a storm. Like a life raft in a goddamn /tsunami/. << Sometimes don't -- >> And these words falter too. His head butts up against Flicker's hand. Against Jim's shoulder. His mind clenches and unclenches hard claws into theirs, furious-hard, furious-tight before this releases too, lets it all go to just -- /be/ here, a bony /nothing/ weight against Jim's sturdier form, breathing slowing now to match /Flicker's/ rather than the other way around. Taking in the fragment-memories Jim feeds him in quiet absorption. Fingers working slowly in hard curl-uncurl into the other man's shirt. And, tightly, he clings.