ArchivedLogs:Dinner

Dinner
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Hive, Jim
In Absentia	2013-07-15 '
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. 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, split between the four people; the fold-out couch in the living room (often folded out!) suggests that at least one of them does not actually claim a room as their own. "Ohmy/fucking/ hellshit you /gorram/ son of a /cockmunching/ dickweasel shitshitshit nnnnnnnnaaaaaaaaaugh /no/ you stupid /cuntwaffle/ --" It is video game time in Geekhaus that much is clear from the stream of expletives coming from behind the door. Hive is perched on his bed, two monitors hooked up to his desktop, not laptop; on screen an undoubtedly expensive ship is in the process of getting itself destroyed. He is cursing at it. In the sweltering un-air-condition'd apartment he has a very /large/ fan turned towards him, all windows opened to let in the -- admittedly still sweltering evening air. He's peeled down to shirtlessness, denim shorts, his mop of black hair sticking to his forehead. He had a glass of ice water and a large bag of Cheetos, essential gaming foods, but the ice has long since melted and the Cheetos mostly gone. Now there is only cursing. The apartment is bizarrely /clean/ today. There has, yesterday, been a whirlwind of /Jax/ through it. Swept, /mopped/, counters scrubbed, place tidied. The counter holds a goldfish. Even his bowl is clean. Glub glub. Outside in the living room, Dusk has another FAN. More open windows. No cursing, though he's occasionally got a twitch of amusement for Hive's. His mind is mostly focused on work. Mostly not really /wanting/ to be focused on work, hitting that point where staring at the same thing over and over is netting him no real /progress/ in his debugging. He is also pared down to shorts, wings draped over his armchair, taloned tips trailing scratchily against the floor. His fingers tap against the keys of his keyboard, but kind of aimlessly. It's been a while since he did anything PRODUCTIVE. His mind more frequently slips into drift, too formless to really be called daydream, lazy-tactile. Drooping into heat listlessly. Fixating on the fanbreeze. Amused at Hive's cursing. One wing absently wrestles on the floor with his ferret. Alanna pounces at a talon. He nudges her onto her back, listens to her teeth click against his claw. You know who better have given Jim keys to this apartment by now? HIVE better have given Jim keys to this apartment by now, no one keeps him from his visitation rights with his fucking baby Entree. Except - /thump/, his shoulder hits the door, followed by a quiet "/Fuck/." Because keys don't work like car fobs. You do, in fact, have to get them out and use them before doors magically open. Either way, he's eventually throwing open the door, standing in all his hobo-chic glory of hawaiian shirt, /shredded/ khaki shorts trailing strings down his hair man-legs, flip flops and a pair of SUNGLASSES. He's moved on from scruffy-unshaven to just scruffy-beard. "Batman," he greets Dusk, walking past the couch with a hand out absently to see if Dusk won't slap him some SKIN while he grim-faced marches towards Hive's room for a moment. Feel that ominous thunder in his mind? RUMBLE! "Jegus fucking shitcock you goatfucker oh my fucking Eris, I could smell you all the way from Third and A, dude, I know you've moved into the fucking sewers but they still let you shower at the gorram Y." Hive segues neatly from lambasting his video game to lambasting Jim. "There's Febreze on the nightstand you can just. Spritz yourself." It's like a hi, right? HI JIM. Hive stretches out a leg to nudge the fan towards Jim with his toes as he marches in. "What's got you so sunny?" Twitchtwitch smile. "Hi, Treebeard." /Dusk/ at least offers an /actual/ greeting, quiet-laced with amusement. Alanna wriggles over onto her belly, pouncing instead at one of Jim's feet as Dusk lifts a hand to answer that high five. "How've things been with --" He can't help it, Hive's mentions of the sewers cloud his thoughts with shadow and this is mingled; a sharp pang of sorrow mixed with a sharper /stab/ of anger. His wings shake much as he might shake /wet/ off them, and he scoops Alanna back close to MANHANDLE her back onto her back. "-- all your folk?" "They're - ohshitweasel," Jim kind of hot-foots enroute to either avoid accidentally stepping on the ferret or maybe to FLEE from her viciousness, "-bein' folk. Y'know how it goes. How's batbusiness." To Dusk, this might just sound typical gruff deadpan. To Hive it's got an undercurrent lowgrumble of, << ...'s never gonna get fucking easier. >> BLAM. He's thrust his way into Hive's bedroom, to /do/ things to him. He'll even leave the door open if Dusk wants to watch, talking abrasive-flat right on top of Hive's tirade, "Yeah, bite my turgid /branch/ you slant-eyed pencildick mother-fuck." He is getting right up in Hive's face, never one to NOT want to see just how far the hive'd can /bother/ the queenbee and poking him THUMP in the forehead, "Is there /someone else/ in here now? Someone ELSE, Hivey?" Hive chomps his teeth. Towards Jim. Like he just MIGHT if Jim extends within biting range. When that finger pokes, he DOES take a chomp towards it. "It's not a goddamn weasel, moron, it's a fucking stoat." He brings up the menu screen on his infuriating bout of space capitalism and turns to face Jim properly, swivelling around on his mattress to pull his legs up and sit cross-legged on its edge. "I confess. I've been cheating on you." "She's not a fucking stoat, she's a /mink/, jeez." Another push of Dusk's wing sends Alanna toppling in a barrel roll again. "Business is --" In Dusk's mind this doesn't come up, as it usually does, in rows of code and geekery; of late it comes up with the sound of gunshot, the tinge of blood. His eyes turn back to his screen. "The usual. Oh my god did you come all the way here for a lovers' spat? You can do that long distance now, you know." "He doesn't listen if I yell long-distance." It's like getting mentally HUNG UP on. Go on, /bite/ it. Jim sticks a greenwood finger right the fuck in Hive's face while swatting the other upside that stupid boyband hair. Or giving it a go, to see if he can, against whatever mental block there might be. "You sure that thing's a mink? If it ain't a weasel it's a god damn /ermine/." He's literally trying to just latch onto one of Hive's arms and /haul him/ out of the bedroom, into the living room where he can yell at him and still look at Dusk's pretty face. If he has to, he'll drag the bony bastard onto a shoulder, grunting, "Not funny, /hero/. I told you - /me/? Alright. I gotchu. Flicker? Sure, the sorry son of a bitch's got the patience of a god damn saint for your bullshit. But that was gonna be /it/, you mind-hungry bastard. But no one /else/, Hivey. You haven't even got that fucking chip out, yet. S'been /months/." Okay, and there was a kidnapping and a DEATHCAMP and a death-by-police in the process. And Jim is even aware of all these things. But then ask him if he /cares/ right now. Hive does bite it. CHOMPaaugh, because just after his teeth clamp against that finger he's getting dragged. Swatted, /he/ doesn't stop it and no inherent mental block stops it any more than there is any mental block against swatting /yourself/ in the head; he just /grumbles/ a low rumble of curses this time in irritable Thai but it's undoubted they're curses all the same. "Ngh. I never hold onto Flicker more'n a couple -- jesus, your fucking polecat is under/foot/." Hive is nudging the rolling Alanna away wtih a foot as he's hauled into the living room. "I wasn't hungry, I don't even want the fucking guy," he adds irritably, "and he'll be gone in a couple days." He's rubbing at his forehead where it was swatted, as if it actually hurts. Tugging one bony arm halfheartedly, not really trying to dislodge it but pulling /anyway/. "-- Where is the bastard, anyway? S'taken up residence on our fucking couch." /He/ looks at Dusk's pretty face when he's in the living room. Eyes narrowed. << Why's it always gotta be blood with you? >> snaps whipcrack-sharp to Dusk, but just normal calm speaking-volume for Jim. "Grison," Dusk corrects absently, flicking at Alanna with a talon again (she bites it happily! And then pounces Jim's foot once more. Raaar) "and she's gonna eat the shit out of you. -- Oh, this is about /Tag/." His brow furrows, there's a brief internal wrestling with what level of concern to assign to this. On scale of one to ten he settles on four. "When /are/ you getting de-chipped, dude, wasn't that -- Iolaus's friend." His fingers snap. At the last question, though, his eyes lower. His wings flutter. << Always blood, >> answers softly. Not hungry. Just quiet, heavy-flat and oddly hard, for him. << I'm not the one who makes it that way. >> "Tag?" Jim sort of knows this name. Enough that, once he's replanted Hive where he can appropriately pick on him /while/ reaching down to swat Alanna between either of his hands, he's asking, "What're you eating Tag for? The shit, man. - ssss, fuckin' otter." He's going to scoop her. And /deposit/ her on a shoulder before he drops into a seat to rub his face. Dusk is given a /thank you/ look. Hive -- almost looks /abashed/ when Jim asks why. Almost. He mostly ends up /looking/ annoyed, though, a disgruntled /frown/ on his face, a kssh-hiss through his teeth. But there's an inward-curling sense of abashment that /twinges/ briefly and then fades in his mind. "Motherfucker was just. Ngggh," he answers this. /Doesn't/ answer this; it comes instead with an inward-curling feel of sense-memory that are each quashed as soon as they rise. /Jim/ in a bar, Hive's hand clamping down over a shot glass; a woman with too much makeup, Hive's bony /fist/ sore from connecting with Jim's jaw, a /deep/ gut-wrench ache of worry; these things are shoved-down buried beneath fresher memories; Tag skinny-scrawny, never-eating, ever-changing panoply colors alternately too-bright and washed-out. Thoughts an acid-trip riot of color. Crashing too-bony on Geekhaus couch. Grey eyes and bright red mohawk. Hive hisses again, irritable. "Not keeping him," he says with a twitch-jerk of shoulder. "Tomorrow. Maybe Wednesday. Be gone." He slumps against the back of the couch, grimacing over at Dusk, and then drops his head into folded hands. "Too much fucking blood," he says. "It's too much, man. -- Toure. Jim, you trust this Murphy motherfucker?" Alanna wriggles happily between Jim's hands, bopping from side to side to flail-paw at his fingers, bap her head between them. WrigglebapWRIGGLE. Twist. GRAB. Wrestle. She curls her way around his neck once she's deposited, like a fuzzy warm stole, nosing at his ear but then settling. At least for now. "You look good in sable," Dusk says with a quick smirk at Jim's new scarf. "Toure, that's right. You know," and this is quieter, more serious, "that thing could kill you one day. Make an appointment. You've got time this summer." He shuts the lid of his laptop, resting his hand against its surface. His fangs sink down against his lip and, softer: "-- I know. But I can't --" His head shakes. "... Murphy?" he says instead, frowning. "Jim's Murphy?" << Yeah. >> Grimly, Jim recognizes those first fragments of memory, the side of his face getting EAR-nosed grimacing up, the eye on that side squeezing shut. He sprouts /leaves/ on that side, from the side of his jaw, from his shoulder just to vex the ferret - or give her something to climb on. "Kinda brings out my eyes, yeah?" In mind, he's responding with his own images; anger because anything else is panic, dragging Hive off the couch to shove him to the ground - that anger is a long bloody rope stretching from the past and up to this present moment, /shoving/ against Hive's mind - shake it off, just you, man, you gotta kick this-- << But you did it /right/, with me. I'd have fucking shot you, if you thought taking over my damn life was how to help. >> "Murphy? Pff." Jim drops back his head, leaves rustling from the motion. "-- with my fucking life. What's that crazy asshole got to do with anything?" "I know. But he's different. He's not like you, he's --" << Fucking weaker, >> Hive grumbles inwardly, tired; he shakes his head, rakes fingers through his hair. "Fuck. /Fuck/, I didn't -- I /shouldn't/ have," he acknowledges, "shit. I was just -- at -- we were at " The mental image here is bright, saccharine-sweet; in Hive's mind Happy Cakes is a sickening-twisted mental ooze of cavity-inducing /fake/. Too bright, too colorful, sugar with no substance, smiles with no personality. Blood and the deafening sound of gunfire, shadow curling against his mind, Ian's mind /screaming/ inside his but desperately futilely reaching for /Dusk's/ before snuffing out. "-- at the fucking bakery and I couldn't /watch/ him fucking -- shit. He'll be gone," he grunts, gruff with mouth half pressed against the crook of his arm, "soon. Ngh." His eyes close. "He seems like a crazy-ass motherfucker," is his answer, "paranoid as shitcock, he's been looking into -- into fucking Toure over." His head shakes. "You know Tessier? /Pretty/ goddamn whore? With the basil. /Sweet/ brother. Died. Fucking cancer, man, you saw the kid. Murphy thinks -- I don't know what that motherfucker thinks." His head shakes. "Some batshit half-cocked theory about Toure and mutant corpses. I should," he agrees reluctantly, fingers curling against the side of his head, tracing that familiar knotted-scarred path, "make an appointment." << Can't what? >> curls between all three of them; it might almost be an afterthought except for how it -- isn't. "-- He had /cancer/," Dusk is flat and baffled and just leaves it there, rubbing knuckles against his temples for a moment as Alanna noses at one of those leaves. Paws her way through some of them, nestles in more snugly like a cozyleafy marten hiding place. "Makes you look real chic." The last question he -- doesn't really ignore. But doesn't answer, either. He tips his head back, breathing in, breathing out. Struggling to keep his mind clear, not a precaution he is /often/ given to /take/ around Hive but one he is well-enough practiced at anyway from long association with telepaths. He just doesn't usually /care/. "Jax and Micah still been bringing your folks --" Dusk's lips twitch. "Febreze?" And, you know, less critical things like food. "Every time I think it's gonna ease up --" His brows knit slowly. "Is everyone down there holding up --" "We're holding. Rm." Jim grunts, the side of his mouth twitching. He nods - it's about all the visible response he has for the bad news. Inwardly, he's thinking of a hot dog place; a pair of brothers, an empty wallet and Hive's card failing to charge through. It puts the feeling of something hollow, in the pit of his stomach. Hollow and familiar. << Yeah. That was gonna happen. >> And then, lower, in latin, a default trickle prompts from the association << {No herb grows in the gardens against the power of death}. Fuck. >> "Eh. I said I trust Murph. Not that he ain't paranoid. And thing is? He's fucking /good/ at being paranoid. He vetted the hell outta Saavedro - you even know that? Was all over he fuckin' map, bugging my ass about how well /I/ knew the guy." His brows are furrowed, for a moment a passing fog of his own paranoia picking at threads. "If he doesn't find anything, it'll pass. But a mind like his, dude... if something doesn't match up, he can't /un/know it. Or forget it. Or ignore it. The sooner you just let him work it out and make it all fit, the sooner he'll move on. And if he /can't/, if he keeps looking and looking and he /can't/?" Jim drums his fingers... and just doesn't finish. Even in mind, it devolves into a dark spiral of brooding. "Next time, dude," he kicks /himself/ in the fucking pants, onto the next thing, scrubbing a hand over his face and -oh shit, finding a /nesting mammal/ in his foliage. Poke-poke, scritch, "Just - take in strays the old /fashioned/ way. Y'can't keep doing this. You're never gonna run out of people that could stand a fucking full-time babysitter." It comes out criticizing - because inwardly... "Just." Aaaaweasel. "Get the appointment." Hive lifts his head, lifts his hand, thumps a closed fist down on an unweaseled portion of Jimshoulder kind of heavily in time with that hollow feeling. His mind just has the heady fresh scent of /critical emergency/ monsterbasil plant, contrasted with a brief echomemory of Murphy sobbing in pain on Lucien's immaculate hallway floor. /His/ sense of loss is somehow sharper and more acute for Lucien than for Matt although it was Matt he was close to; unvoiced but held in sharp contrast in these two memories is how deeply Lucien cared before Matt died, and how completely he has /not/, since. It's a quick flash, though, there and gone and then Hive's mind settles in place against Jim's again, not filling that hollow place but wrapping himself around it. Shoulderthump. "Yeah. /Jesus/. His mind's like a -- fuck. I hate being around it, I wouldn't want to fucking live in that hell." Fist still thunked against Jim's shoulder, he's shifting his head to rub against his knuckle like scratching a stubborn /itch/ just below his eye. "-- I eavesdrop on every motherfucker to walk through the doors of his building, I guess I can't fault a man for being paranoid." Scratchscratchscratch. The careful withdrawing of Dusk's mind is shared with Jim through the mental link, less a deliberate transmission and more just kind of absent-/worried/. Hive doesn't chase after it, doesn't /poke/, doesn't pry; in fact, /he/ withdraws further when Dusk shuts down. Insofar as it is possible for his mind to allow mental /privacy/ around it (not very) he does so. But he does so with a tight knot of worry -- more than happy to let his friends /have/ their secrets, when friends who never /take/ that option suddenly decide to, it rarely means good; and whether Dusk is protecting himself or Dusk is protecting something he thinks /Hive/ shouldn't have to know -- well. Worry. And blood. That report of gunshot echoes in his mind. "Hnnaugh, we don't have any more /room/ for fucking strays, Tag's got our couch and -- and /your/ fucking /goldfish/ is eating all our extra food," he says this like Dinner is a serious extra mouth to feed. Over in his little tank. Glubbing away. Staring at his little plastic castle. And right on the heels of this: "The fuck do you want for dinner? Jesus, I bet no good Thai even /delivers/ to your rankass sewers. /Tell/ me your whiteboy tongue hasn't forgotten how to deal with real food." By 'real' he means 'spicy' of course. Duh. "Yeah, Sushi's really been breaking the budget." Dusk's already opening the laptop again to pull up foodler and find a menu for their favourite Thai. Alanna nuzzles her head up into fingers when scritching happens. Her whiskers tickle, into foliage, against barky neck, when she settles back down. And down. And down. Nosing down into Jim's SHIRT to investigate, omg, a tunnel! Tunnel? TUNNEL TUNNEL TUNNEL, she's starting to burrow downwards past his shoulder towards his chest. Slinkweasel. "Saavedro's good people. Crazy, but -- and this guy's his --" Dusk's fangs press down against his lip. His cheeks puff out. "He's probably paranoid," he says, "but we're taking Joshua with us when you go under his knife. Or laser. Or -- maaan," now he's just sharply /curious/ rather than worried, "-- what /does/ he use, he didn't leave scars half so bad as yours on anyone." Jim's responding heated alarm, an ingrown /sick/ fire that springs up at the image of Murphy sobbing (a thousand fractured memories of the man - Murphy Law does not /sob/ in pain, blood and rain and adrenaline, watching one another's back -- ) Crossed with Hive's own sentiment, they're too entwined to combat. It just leaves... a conjoined sickness. Darkness. A craving for a world underground and rich dirt(a drink) and bright sunlight(just a mother fucking drink). It's a fine background for blood. For the report of a gunshot. - a sound that echoes with four reports of Jim's own. << … remember it. >> He murmurs, making a mark to himself. Or to Hive. To both. The ominous puzzling nature of it so synchronized between them it's almost of one paranoid, watchful mind. << Ask later. When the blood's dried. >> He stretches out an arm, drapes it over the back of the couch, on the side that Hive occupies. It's a lazy, distracted drape but... a sullen protective hovering dwells in it, watching a LUMP creep around under his shirt. Frowning at it where the shirtWeasel creeps around on skin that accommodates by becoming rough and scratchy and easy to get clawholds on. "You could always just /eat/ Supper. 's getting /big/. You notice that? I swear it's like his markings have fucking... /stretched/ or something." He's relaxing into this weird place of unhappy and hungry and protective, longing for things and sturdy, reaching deep into his inner soils to brace and keep ground. "I can eat whatever the fuck you bring on, Ching-Chong. Just..." His head drops back, bonking on Dusk's wing. "...just. Bring Joshua. When you fucking go. And /drop/ the stray." << Bastard's sick, >> is Hive's clinical assessment of the situation that brought Murphy Law to sobbing. << -- And Murphy's -- >> His brows crease. Deep. Because Murphy came /back/ to Lucien's house, after that. Against Jim's shoulder, his fist still rests; against his fist, his cheek still grinds down, wait settling in just a firm /presence/ as Jim's arm stretches and shifts. << -- He's been so angry, >> Hive doesn't even sound like he's talking to Jim, either. Or talking to himself. Thoughts just surfacing shared between them as his eye cracks open, shifts to take in Dusk's features in profile and slip back away. << Blood only dries if you don't keep opening the wound. >> His knuckles dig against the muscle of Jim's shoulder, scrubbing in there with those undercurrent thoughts of drinks. That unhappy hunger. It's answered with a settling, a mind that expands /through/ his to fill cracks between roots, deepen to spread beneath them. "'ll burn your fucking tongue off, round-eyes." Dusk's wing curls up; for all the membrane /looks/ fragile-thin its constructed to hold /aloft/ a full-grown man, it's a firm leathery-strong beneath its soft fuzz and when bonked it bonks up BACK in a flick that then settles hammock-like to just hold there. "S'cuz we just eat him every day and change him out for a new fish. Flicker gets /hungry/ after his seven hours of daily church." Alanna is scrabbling down against Jim's hardening barkskin, creeping downwards and then curling up to /nest/ in his shirt, puddling at the bottom of it in a little pool of ferretfur along the waistband of his pants. It takes a bit of tickly resettling, turn this way, turn that way, coil up tight. Minkball. "Need your orders." He turns the computer around towards them, once he has the menu pulled up. "You should come topside more often, Jim. He pines." Dusk's wing is gesturing. Towards the /fish/. "Yeah?" Jim's eyes swivel to eyeball Sashimi - fish have a mastery of eyeballing you BACK, his arm falling off the back of the couch to drape across Hive's coathanger frame. In between his roots are deep den-shelters; they grip down on Hive's mind when he pushes inward. It's just a grip, not a bite - the hard packing of pressure makes a more solid base between them. Like two hands threading fingers into a hard, stony fist. "Always knew he was gonna grow up to be a wuss." Poor emotionally-abused fish. With his shirt transformed into a Stoatsack, he looks down at the belly bulge and loops an arm around it like he's /expecting/, kind of... /hefting/ the little bundle like it sort of horrifies him. << … >> He's trying /not/ to come to a personal judgement call about Murphy and Lucien's exchange, but being Jim this mostly comes down to approximately thirty eight /different/ judgements, most of them only continuing in the same vein of angry and frustrated and bone-deep resignation and a hard grip kept on Hive. << Come topside more often. Yeah. Though fuck if all I wanna do is keep all these people /away/ from each other. >> Masque and Hive, Dusk, Jax and Nox, Lucien, Murphy. He can feel his brain weighing the scales of how much he has left to care with. << Fuck, I'm becoming a bitter old man. - what do I want? >> That's not a huge philosophical inquiry, though - he's leaning over Dusk's shoulder and just as abruptly genuinely at a loss over what he wants to EAT. Hiiiiiive, fix it. "Uh." "With you as a role model what else could he have been? We've been toughening him up but you gave him a /rough/ start. << They're all adults. >> This is wry. << Not your job to -- >> Wry/er/, << ... babysit them. >> It finishes in resignation. Hive claps Jim on the shoulder, leaning over the back of the couch to commandeer Dusk's laptop and make an order /for/ the both of them. Battered and fried calamari, vegetable panang. Chili duck, extra spicy. << Jim, you were a bitter old man the day I met you. You were a bitter old man the day you were /born/. >> But this ribbing has a resigned undercurrent to it, too: << This fucking city. >>