ArchivedLogs:Disney Princess

Disney Princess
Dramatis Personae Ash, Jim
In Absentia	2013-09-21 '
Location <NYC> 214 {The Mancave} - Sunrise Apartments - Clinton
Jim's apartment is not big, the living room area L-shaped with the entrance at one end and a kitchenette found at the other. Furnished by a scuffed wooden curb-found coffee table, a saggy green couch upholstered in a scratchy burlap material and two chairs, the habitat manages to just barely function as a one bedroom rather than a studio by merit of a walk-in closet sized bedroom you would have to cross through to reach his cramped bathroom. In here, water damage stains the walls. As does rust, around the showerhead in the cramped shower stall. Hi, Jim's home. It's honestly about as flourishing as that, his key still works -- hopefully -- and his frumping impatient stride brings him into the apartment has him just as instantly turning around to shove closed the door again to re-lock it. Presumably he looked around the apartment before turning his back on an empty room, but he'll /comment/ on it in a minute. The apartment smells of chiles. Ash is standing in the kitchen, pulling a blender out of a box and looking over the individual parts quietly. On the stove, a skillet is quietly simmering vegetables. He hums to himself as he plugs in the bottom and then takes the pitcher to the sink, kicking the box out of the way. He starts washing the glass and the blades, but stops, water running, to turn away and stir the food. He's pretty much ignorant of Jim's return until the door closes. He jumps a little and turns off the water. He also turns off the stove and turns toward the door. "Someone there?" "Yep," Jim just comes wandering into the kitchen as though he'd been expected, head tipped up to SNIFF at the delicious smell of cooking in a manner both judgmental and appreciative in /one/. He leans over Ash's shoulder to look at what he's UP TO, reaching down to pick up a random piece of blender, touching all the things. You'd think he LIVED here or something, "What's cookin?" Ash relaxes a bit when it is a standard sized Jim come to wander through the apartment, with a very Jim like voice and -- well, is that a smell? He relaxes just for a little while, a short moment, before he strides the distance between them and wraps his arms around the older man. He manages to throw himself against Jim's arm in such a way that the private eye couldn't hug him back if he wanted to. "Jim! Hey, Jim! It's been a while! How you been? You hungry? I could make something - oh, not this. This is for tomorrow. It's got to cook for a long while yet, so I can't really serve it, but I got some enchilada fixings in the fridge, or if you want, I could make curry. Oh, wait. That'd take a while too. You want to order curry?" "Aaaaaaghhhhh." Jim isn't screaming he's just kind of SAYING 'aaaa' while Ash hugs him, like a JIM CAR ALARM, even if he's not actually looking at the younger man -- too busy reaching out to PICK at whatever is in the pan, even if it's NOT ready. He's already sniffed it and is putting it into his mouth when Ash mentions it's not actually food yet. The "aaaa"ing kind of turns into "AGGH"ing because it's also HOT from being fresh out of the PAN, clapping a hand over his face to keep from accidentally dropping it out of his MOUTH, he rasps, "Yeah. Yeah, let's order some fucking takeout. Agh." COUGH. He rapidly breathing to cool off his poor burnt tongue. "Hive says you been losing your god damn mind 'cause I ain't been around." Yeah, he just TOSSES that out there. Pretty casually, too - you can could all too easily imagine this same delivery being accompanied with a handful of loose polaroids tossed down to a table with a long un-invested explanation of Someone Else's Bad News. "Because you're not around?" Ash released Jim in the heat of his bad decision and lets him flail around at will. He steps back and chuckles a little. "Hive seems to have a pretty high opinion of you." He elbows him lightly and moves to turn the heat back on the pan and stir it a little. "Take out sounds good. Pizza?" And then he's back to the sink to finish cleaning the blender. "I think I have lost my mind because a bunch of psychotic scientists poked at me for a couple years. Might just be realizing it now." "Skh, Hive thinks I'm scum of the Earth." Like all his other EX-WIVES. Jim isn't exactly /meek/ - but considering he did just fail his 'accessing the stove top' roll, he takes the elbowing appropriately and steps ASIDE to let the master at it. And then he - stiffens? Well, kind of. And tightens his jaw, leaning a fist against the wall. "--yeah." He agrees! "Yeah, that sounds like a thing." He turns and leans his back against the wall, crossing his arms and /regarding/ Ash. "Something happen?" Ash pauses as he dries the blender, setting it down on the counter and regarding Jim for a moment before turning back to the stove to stir. Stir, stir, stir. Finally, a small little laugh escapes his lips with a bashful shrug to his shoulders. "Ah, well, see, that's the thing. I'm being haunted by talking animals. Going stark raving looney, you know? Who has animals talk to them? I think I'm a Disney Princess or something, the way my life's been the last week or two. And then my supporting cast? Oh, they're sometimes helpful, allowing me to think it's just some weird mutant, but then every once in a while, there's someone that says, 'Nope! you're nuts!' What do you even do with that?" He continues stirring, staring down that sauce like it will blend itself before his eyes without the new machine. "What're they tellin' you?" Jim is just asking this pragmatically. And paced, letting Ash take his time between stirring and other household activities. While Jim himself just kind of - hangs right where he is, really. Someone has to hold up the wall. "Like - what kind of fuckin' animals. Who's calling you nuts?" "There was this bird that decided I was interesting because I'm dirty. But he flew off. Later, there was a cat who claimed to be the bird, who was frustrated with his cell phone. The guy he was talking to said that I couldn't be sure that we were having a shared hallucination. I just thought if two utterly unrelated people saw the same thing..." Ash shakes his head and gives another shrug. "I went to see Doc Iolaus and he sent me for a drug screen, because it didn't sound at all like damage from my brain surgery and... you know, I don't know. I really shouldn't worry about some stranger off the street saying I'm nutsy. It just... you know, makes a guy think ... and worry." He moves over to one of the kitchen drawers and pulls out the stack of take out menus. "You want to pick something?" "Greek," Jim says, then claps a hand over his face and scrubs at his eyeballs, "Or - fucking. Mediterranean. Whatever they call it when they put all that fucking -- feta 'n olives and shit. Tomatoes. Crap." That stuff. "Ash, listen to me okay?" Ash fishes out the appropriate menu and pulls his cell phone out of his pocket. He's just about to start dialing when he looks up at Jim. His brows raise as he locks on to the older man's face. "I'm listening." "You're not crazy, kid." Jim isn't making with any humor here. It's all flat business, his faded blue eyes fastened on Ash's. "You don't need a god damn medical doctor. A'right? We're livin' in a world where your fuckin'... roommate is a house plant. Look. You see one of these things again, you use your phone." He lowers a glare /to/ this aforementioned bit of modern fucking technology, "And you take a picture of it. Yeah? And send it to me. 'Cause I /ain't/ crazy." "OH. Hey. Yeah. I could also probably take a video, right? Then there would be proof of 'talking.' Man, I wish i thought of that." Ash nods, a little sheepish in the realization. He nods to Jim and starts punching numbers into the cellphone, calling up the restaurant. "You know, Hive was at least right about one thing. Having you around is good for me." "Oh yeah," Jim says like the remembrance /dismays him/, "You can take videos." On phones. The photographer in him /weeps/. "Yeah, well. Don't thank me," he mutters, coming away from the wall, "Thank two decades of living like a suspicious bastard." He's meandering towards the living room. Casual-indifferent as ever, there's an undeniable /exhale/ as he steps through the dirt, kicking off his shoes to sink bare feet into the dirt. And, with roots slowly extending from his feet, his ankles, even his calves, he's looking around his apartment with his jaw tight. "...I dunno about that." He mutters quieter, to the last comment. But he probably waits until Ash is on the phone to do it.