Logs:Soup and Speculation

Soup and Speculation
Dramatis Personae Hive, Kieow	2020-12-15 "{Nah. You? Mormon? You aren't 'nice' enough.}"
Location <PRV> VL 403 {Geekhaus} - East Village
This is a small, two-bedroom apartment, the living room semi-open to the kitchen and dining area, a single bathroom situated between the doors to the bedrooms. The common areas are beautifully appointed with solid, matching handmade wooden furniture in intricate geometric mosaics. The kitchen table is ringed with coordinated but not identical chairs, two of them modular with low scooped backs, designed with winged bodies in mind. The wide, low coffee table fits neatly into the corner of a modular sectional couch, and the immense television is enthroned in an entertainment center that also houses various consoles and video games. The walls are lined with bookshelves laden with comics, roleplaying supplements, board games, speculative fiction, and a grab-bag of technical texts. The walls in between are adorned with some framed posters of classical science fiction and fantasy media along with a few pieces of gorgeous if unusual original art. (Kieow --> Hive): I just saw the news. R U OK? (Kieow --> Hive): Had to ask that first. But really. The heck? what is going on? Why did he stay? (Hive --> Kieow): I don't fucking know. (Hive --> Kieow): Our world's such a paradise I guess. (Hive --> Kieow): Worked out great for the other him. (Kieow --> Hive): I'm getting a ride to your place. Classes are done for today. We can... not know together. (Hive --> Kieow): OK. I'll make soup. It's a crisp cold evening and though the uneasy rumblings around the city have died down, the atmosphere here *in* Hive's apartment is more tense than before. Hive has not made soup. That was a lie. He's gotten halfway into the makings of it, judging by the veggies and pot out in the kitchen, but now is currently out on the fire escape, just lighting his third cigarette in a row; the window back into the apartment is open, and in just jeans, socks, a lightweight blue chambray workshirt, he's *definitely* not dressed to weather the cold this long. It isn't stopping him though it *is* slowing him down, half-frozen thumb fumbling at the stiff wheel of his cheap plastic lighter as he bows his head to it. Mutters a quiet string of curses around the end of the stick. Kieow slips her key into the lock impatiently and opens the door, not bothering to knock or announce that she is arriving. That's not needed when her brother likely sensed her when she entered his current range. She thumps down a backpack with clothes and kicks off the heavy moon boots she has started wearing despite the lack of snow. She's pulling off a gortex coat so filled with thermal protection that she looks to lose half her mass when it is shrugged onto her growing pile of stuff. Underneath, she's wrapped in a very colorful sweater (mostly yellow) with a cowl neck and a bottom hem that almost makes the shirt into a dress. She pulls off a pair of sweat pants to reveal plaid, flannel leggings. Fingers twist her hair of cedar branches into a clump that stays out of her way as she finally starts looking around the apartment, scowling at the open window that's letting in all that cold air. She glances over at the soup ingredients as she crosses to that open window. "Bua." "Fuck," is Hive's greeting, grumbled more at the cigarette than at Kieow as he flicks futilely at the lighter again. He drops heavily to sit on one of the half-frozen metal stairs. With his fist curled tight around the lighter his fingers don't really run through his hair when he lifts his hand to scuff against his head, and he scowls at this, too. His head thunks to the side, against the thin guardrail bars. "{I didn't finish the soup.}" "{I can make the soup, Bua.}" Kieow steps outside and wraps her arms around his torso as she slides under his hair scuffing arm. "{He's not going to live here, is he?}" she glances up at his face, her expression clouded with her own bubbling emotions. Frustration ebbs out of her, a growing anger at this other Dawson who can't leave her brother alone just barely kept in check. She's worried, but having trouble finding any words to express it. Hive drops his arm, wrapping it tight around Kieow's shoulders. His own is just skin and bones and trembling right now, a shiver in his scrawny frame that he doesn't seem to notice. "{I don't know what the hell he's going to do. What do you do when you get dropped in a new fucking... world.}" His head shakes hard. He flicks at the end of his cigarette with his thumb, quick and jerky, and sticks it back between his lips before remembering he hasn't actually lit it yet. "{Maybe he'll go somewhere else. Fucking. Idaho. Go be -- real Mormon.}" The statement gives Kieow pause as she tries to imagine a life without a home place. For her, her family was home. but... she was Fon's family and she's already set against this new guy. She grumbles. "{Is he even Mormon?}" << Nevermind. I don't want to focus on him. >> She reaches out with one hand and takes Hive's lighter, trying to produce a flame with her much warmer fingers. Hive pauses, looking at Kieow with wider eyes. His brows pull together uncertainly, and he keeps this puzzled expression as he leans forward to light the cigarette off her flame. "... what else would he be? Fuck. Some kinda. Evangelical. No. Shit. Catholic. That'd be weirder. {That's weirder, right? Maybe he's an apostate. Maybe he's...}" His shoulders slump. He takes a long drag of the cigarette and turns his head away from Kieow to blow the smoke out over the rail, letting the wind take it off toward the street. "{Sorry. I can't stop thinking about him. I haven't stopped thinking about him.}" "{Don't apologize. I was trying to be sensitive to you... and how you are feeling. But if you're also stuck with all these questions and thinking about him -- then I'm not going to fight it.}" She tucks the lighter into a pocket unconsciously and returns to just hugging on him. "{What if he is Buddhist? You know... if you .. other you rubbed off on him...}" "Fuck." Hive drops his hand to his knee, thumb flicking jittery again at the end of the cigarette. "{What if the other me was Mormon?}" This draws a rough breath out of him, almost a laugh though he's burying his face in the crook of his arm at the end of it, wiping his eyes against his sleeve. "{Nah. You? Mormon? You aren't 'nice' enough.}" Kieow shakes her head. "{Not on the outside anyway.}" She squeezes him once more then before getting up to head back inside. "{It's too cold. Hurry up with your smoke and come in. I'm going to work on the soup.}" "{Maybe the other me is nice. Maybe the wrong Flicker is a cranky asshole.}" Hive just slumps against the railing, nodding as Kieow gets up. He's followed her inside a few minutes later, cigarette spent and his hands still numb as he fumbles the window closed. "{What if he just got stuck?}" His voice is quieter, now. His eyes fix on the counter as he wanders over to lean up against it. "{What if he doesn't have anywhere to go?}" "{You should ask him that.}" Kieow is somber as she finishes cutting the onions - a task that she is immune to. "{We can decide what to do after that. I mean...}" She slides the onions into a a skillet she already has warming. She's torn inside. She wants to accept and help this new Dawson, but she also fears making him simply a substitute. She is also still angry that any of this is happening when Bua was recovering a little more... and now he's ... "{I mean, if you're okay with it. You don't have to talk to him at all, really. We have other friends to contact.}" "{That's true. Fuck. You're right. Someone can make sure he's not out on the streets, I don't have to...}" But Hive's weight is sinking heavier against the counter, his hands lifting to cup at his face. "{He had a family. I mean, he -- he was married, he had kids. I can't imagine him choosing to -- he's probably so fucking lost right now.}" "{Bua. I have no idea how much it will hurt to deal with Not-Fon, but I think... maybe... we should talk to him. At least once. Fon would want us to. Make sure he's okay.}" Kieow gnaws on her lip, some papery bark peels up against her teeth. "{but.. if you can't, I will.}" Hive's head bobs, slow and mechanical. "{We should. We should. I just. I don't know if...}" His fingers are scrunching hard into his hair. "{I can. We can. I just -- how the hell do you even start that conversation. It was weird enough knowing he exists.}" His palms drag down against his face as he looks up, resting his chin in his hands, now. "{If this is how 2020 is ending what the fuck do you think next year's gonna bludgeon us with?}" "{I don't know}" Kieow answers honestly, something quivers deep in her chest, a clawing fear of the unknown taking root. She tosses the garlic and chili paste and a handful of other seasonings in and toast them all together before deglazing the pan with a ladle full of water from the boiling pot. When the pan sludge is finished, she turns the pan over into the pot of water and adds vegetables. SOUP. She's quiet as she works, trying not to freeze up and stop. When the soup looks to be doing its thing, she turns to the couch and finds a blanket to toss over Hive's shoulders. "{Maybe, we don't worry about that yet.}" Hive's cheek smooshes up against his fingers, his knuckles digging in against one eye. His shoulders ease under the weight of the blanket, and he slumps the rest of the way down, head pillowed against his folded arms on the counter. "{There's new season of Hilda out,}" he finally announces, a little muffled into his arms. "{Tonight, we can watch that. Tomorrow --}" Just a slow, heavy exhale. "{Ohhh. Hilda is the best thing for right now.}" Kieow agrees and presses her forehead against his back as she slumps a little with him. She doesn't stay long - she can't. She's cooking. "{Okay. I'm going to add some frozen dumplings to the soup... and then we're turning that on.}"