ArchivedLogs:Castaway

Castaway
Dramatis Personae Jim, Melinda, Tola
In Absentia	2014-04-29 '
Location <NYC> Mel-Hive-Flicker Temporary Residence - East Harlem
It might sound like footsteps stopping outside the door of the apartment for a long enough time you might forget someone /had/ stopped there. Which makes the knock kind of disembodied. Three rapid 'DMP DMP DMPS'. The crying baby gets closer and closer to the door as foot steps approach. Eventually, there's a shadow passing on the other side of the peep hole and finally, the sound of locks opening. Mel stands in the door way, dressed in soft cotton pants and a loose t-shirt, looking up at the knocker with wide eyes, her arm returning to the embrace of the small child. She tries to put on a smile, but the woman is rather exhausted. "Hey, come in. Welcome to the new place." She steps back and returns to the bouncing motion that should calm the kid fairly soon. Filling the doorway is Jim, for once not /looming/ aggressively against the door when it opens. He stands back slumped up with hands crammed in pockets, the usual patches of bark and leafy plantgrowth making him look like something a kid might leave in front of the door as a prank. He's looking down the hall when the door opens, and rather than look at Melinda, or past her at the apartment, his eyes land on the crying baby. And his hands extend, palms out. Offering to take her. He doesn't come in. "Jim, come on, inside." Mel is also patting the kid on the back, trying to help with that burp that just isn't coming up. "Close the door behind you." She moves over to get a cloth from the back of one of the chairs to loop it over her shoulder before its too late. She unfortunately has the time. "You can hold her, I'm not saying you can't, I just don't want to upset the neighbors. So, inside, door closed. Don't worry. No one else is here." There's a sharp joyless /exhale/ at Melinda's assurance, "-yeah." Jim glances up, around the apartment, then tightens his jaw and looks down again. Side-steps into the room and closes the door. "How's uh." He flaps an elbow in Melinda's direction, "How's the move-in going." "I wouldn't really call it a move in. The apartment's furnished. I've got the baby set up in my room. Clothes in the closet. It's like we're on a vacation, you know, without the good parts of a vacation." Mel keeps patting and bouncing until the kid finally urrps up a curdled mess of gas and spittle onto her shoulder cloth, the crying starting to ebb away after that. "Oh, thank goodness." She sighs and relaxes a little. "How are you? I haven't seen you since we moved." "Well yeah," Jim scoffs, "For how rapidly Hive flees the room when I come in, thought it'd be a special kinda dick to chase his cancered ass out of his own god damn house." He puts out his arms again. A little more /forcefully/. Baby. Muttering, "...then I find out he hasn't even been in it yet anyway. Christ, this feels like I'm the opportunistic backdoor man." He looks to Melinda's face, really studying it for the first time since arriving. " --how you been holdin' up?" Melinda purses her lips and studies Jim for a moment. "Wait. There's an opportunistic backdoor man... involved here?" She inhales sharply, her voice low and quiet, to keep the Sprout the same way. "Jim. Neither of you are the... whatever it is you are referring to. You don't need to sneak in or out. You're allowed to be here and see your kid." She licks her lips and tilts her head to one side, studying him. "Are you okay? You seem... upset." Jim's head shakes sharply, teeth tightening, "Not at his expense, Mel. All the selfish shit I've pulled in my life, I'm not gonna drive him off the last few fucking things he-- sss." The extended arms eventually drop, and he looks down at them, turning over a gnarly left hand to... apparently /commune/ with it or whatever he's doing. Blinking slowly. Right. Conversation. He crams fists back in pockets and leans his ass against the wall, "Yeah. Just uh..." He grimaces. "Guess I can't really spare telling you this - there's gonna be another lab raid. Soon, too." "Oh." Melinda walks over and presents baby, perhaps a little slow, too. She waits now, patient. "I... didn't know." She takes a deep breath and considers it. "Flicker's been... distracted when he's here. He's been out a lot, spending time with Hive. Probably setting this thing up." She takes a moment to regroup her thoughts and closes her eyes. "You are welcome here. I'm ... I apologize if that hasn't been made clear yet. Did you want to... sit it out with me?" "Fffh how far down the list must you be if you're asking /me/ that." Jim for a moment is refusing to LOOK at baby. That ship has sailed. Fuck the baby. "I should /be/ there, Mel." Except maybe his arms are kind of absently raising again, even if he's pretending they aren't. Melinda pulls the kid back in to her chest. "Jim, you're the first person I asked." She eyes the arms, waiting a moment, concerned now. "I... Jim." If the arms stay steady and look secure, she hands the little sprout over to him, her hands lingering in case he isn't ready. Or needs to flail. "I'm sorry." Faint crunching and creaking of wood, Jim's arms move forward. Muttering low like a man might when speaking of a hidden wound, "...don't be sorry." When he enfolds the infant, further green shoots and vines also gently encircle the tiny green body in some arcane sacrifice to a forest monster. And Jim... curls over, around the baby. Touching his nose to her petally head, eyes closing. "...it was the right call, anyway. I'm- fff." His eyes roll up to Melinda, "Y'know you didn't answer when I asked how you been holding up." "I'm worried, nervous, exhausted... and lonely." Melinda admits, exhaling a soft breath as she pulls her hands away, leaving the child with her father. Her head turns up toward Jim's, lips pursed as she studies him. "I'm okay. Still emotional. Still feeling like there's a gaping nothing in my belly, but it's getting better." She slips the cloth off her shoulder and folds it up so that the wet spot is hidden in the layers before setting it down on the kitchen countertop. "Fhh. Was in there a long enough time," murmurs the treeshape, more overgrown now with leaves and moss to cushion and envelope the small cargo housed in the center. It's possible the sproutlings coloring grows subtly more vibrant green, her flowering hair fluffing up with the life shared with her. This does nothing to counter the awkwardness yet of her /alien/ little /freakish baby body/. "Aren't... women. When they have kids - don't they go all. Fucking. Ax-crazy or something." "Yes, Jim, you've found me out. That's why no one is here. I've killed them all. That's not even your daughter. That's a houseplant that I papier mache'd to look like her so I could lure you in here and kill you as well." It's completely obvious to Jim that she is not speaking the truth, at least about their kid. The child is snuggling deep into the moss and starting to fall asleep. Apparently, it's been a long day for both of them. "I'm a wreck, but I'm not that bad. Not every person goes through postpartum depression. If I am… it's mild. And Hanna's helping out with that." She closes her eyes and moves a little to the side, leaning forward until her forehead presses against Jim's shoulder. There's no need for it, but Jim keeps lungs working, breathing, maintaining an arboreal pulse, even in his silence. It makes the movement of one arm less jarring when it twitches. And gradually encircles Melinda's waist. Pulling her tighter to him. Into plants and foliage and a slow thudding heartbeat. Mutters, "'M sorry." Melinda leans into the embrace, her eyes closing as she wraps an arm around Jim's lower back. "Nothing to apologize. We're just in the middle of something right now. Eventually, we'll get to the other side and we'll wonder why we thought this was so hard." Her free hand reaches up and pulls a little bit of the baby's blanket away from the child's face clear her view of her. There is silence for a while, the sound of breathing and the echoing of very different hearts beating in the background. "Did you wake up too early? Your insides still sound wooden." Mel asks at length, her brow furrowed. The natural habit of Jim's mutation has begun to match his own surrounding foliage to match with the sprout's. So that her sleeping face camouflages in amongst her bedding. At first it doesn't seem like Jim intends to answer. Just the slow stabilizing of vines that jacket around Melinda and then still. His breath slow. Then: "Just wanted to get back." Fading evening sunlight streaming in a window, the noise of cars outside. Jim's course voice, "All I could think about. Finding everyone. Like if I could just get back to you all- Fhh." Leaves rustle when his head begins to slowly shake. "But 's kinda awkward to bury a guy if he climbs outta his hole a few weeks later. Fucking... Tom Hanks from Castaway shit." The baby is being shifted, lowered towards Melinda, "I shouldn't be here right now." "Oh, Jim." Melinda breathes the words sadly, letting them hang for a moment in the still evening. She doesn't continue until he's been given a very long moment of sympathy. She then attempts to encourage, her hand rubbing gently against his back. "We didn't bury -- okay, technically, we did bury part of you, because you're a plant, but you weren't left for dead. You weren't abandoned. Yes, things happened while you were gone and it's going to take some time to get back in sync. Things happened to you, too, hun. I can't even begin to understand what you've through and experienced." She pauses to gnaw on her lip unhappily. "Nothing going on right now is… settled or easy or… simple right now. No one is feeling that it is. You may be feeling it more keenly than the rest of us, and I want to respect that, but please don't think that everyone is closing ranks and closing you out. It's just… the world has been rocked by the loss of homes, a new baby on the scene, and friends and family in bad shape, physically speaking." She bows her head and scrubs at her face with her other hand. "I don't suppose it helps that I feel lost, too." She doesn't really ask, just admits it instead, a sullen note in her tone. Jim tips his eyes down to Melinda, and then slowly they raise and consider the apartment spanning out behind her; studying the walls and furnishings, a longer stare at the doors leading off to their respective bedrooms. Or maybe it's a broom closet and the bathroom. Or an alligator pit. Narnia. He's forgotten to keep breathing and starting up again is kind of Darth Vadery, "--yeah." He foists the baby back into Melinda's arms more aggressively, "Everyone's got their shit. Only people could be /dying/ soon because I'm too fucking--" He clenches a fist, and the excess foliage sssschlorps back into his body with a meaty series of soft crunches. "Listen. I uh. Got a new phone. S'the same number. Fucking technology." Jim is subtle with his hints. Pulling away, he impulsively cups a hand around the back of Melinda's skull and... hesitates. Then places a rushed scratchy-scruffy peck on the side of her head. "...I'll be by. T'morrow." "I'm not trying to tell you that you… I'm just trying to explain why… things are off." Mel scrambles for words, but gives up, taking the child back into her arms and holding her close. "Wish I could help." She steps back as the vines pull away, her gaze directed toward the ground. She nods when Jim starts in on phones and numbers, jumping a little in surprise when he pulls her close again, dampness on her lashes when he kisses her head. "Okay. See you then." Jim was clearly leaving. So there's probably some strategic exiting purpose to him still just standing there. With a hand around the back of Melinda's head, his mouth still pressed against her hair. "--hey." This isn't an attempt to get her to look at him. More a weak /protest/. "C'mon." "I … told you. Emotional. No real reason." Melinda replies, bringing a hand up to wipe at her eyes. When it comes back down again, it rests lightly against Jim's side. "Don't worry about it. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" And still Jim is just standing there. Like a lump- or well. The log. Brows twisted up and blinking slowly. Finally, he lets Melinda go, with the old catchall failsafe, "Yeah." And with a last scruffling caress of the sproutling's head, head heads out the door.