ArchivedLogs:Divided Against Itself

Divided Against Itself
Dramatis Personae Hive, Siddhartha
In Absentia	2013-02-15 Hive and Sid have an honest talk--much to the chagrin of both parties.
Location <NYC> Evolve Cafe - Lower East Side
Tucked down an alley, this out of the way coffeeshop is easy to miss if you don't know what you're looking for. Unassuming from the outside, its inside makes up for it -- spacious, with abundant seating and plenty of plush couches and cosy armchairs along the room's edges. The coffee is good, the prices are cheap, and there is a definitive alternative vibe to the room, from the music they play to the art that hangs on the walls. The real draw to this place, though, stems from its client base -- one of the very few businesses in the city that is welcoming to mutants, Evolve has become widely popular as a hangout with that crowd, and it is quite common to see them among clientele and employees both. At night, the thump of music can be heard from above, coming from the adjoining nightclub of the same name that sits over the coffeehouse. Afternoon in Evolve buzzes with conversations, underneath the quiet background noise of music piped in through the speakers. The radio is tuned to alt-rock, and seems to be on a 90s kick, Our Lady Peace's 'Clumsy' turning into Third Eye Blind's 'Graduate' turning into the Offspring's 'Keep 'em Separated'. Hive is not paying attention to these radios. He has earbuds of his own in his ear, and a /very/ large cup of caffeine in black-coffee form sitting close at hand along with a half-eaten roast beef sandwich. He's got his laptop in front of him, the headphones plugged into it, and he's sitting on an armchair in the corner, very intently focused on making adjustments to what looks like building blueprints on his screen. Striding in and ordering without looking at the menu, Siddhartha pays for and waits for his redeye at the counter. A woman who had been sitting nearby comes up to him and they exchange a few quiet words. He picks up his coffee with a nod of thanks to the barista and heads for Hive's corner. He stops just near enough that he can speak in a conversational tone, but just far enough not to infringe on personal space. "Excuse me, Sir," he says, "I would like to have a word with you, if you do not mind." The badge he displays--visible only to Hive, as Sid has his back to the rest of the establishment--does not take the form of a shield like those of patrol officers, but rather a sunburst medallion helpfully labelled "City of New York Police Detective." "Huh, sure, what's up," Hive is saying reflexively without looking up; when he /does/ look up, and notices the badge, his expression sours into a frown. "-- What happens if I do mind?" he asks, and it's not quite a /gruff/ tone but it's certainly, at the least, cautious. He closes his laptop straightaway, resting a hand on top of its lid. "What'd I do?" Telepathic senses that had previously been reigned in as much as possible, here in a generally Safe Place, now open back up, listening perhaps more alertly than he is with his ears. "Well, I would be very disappointed," Sid replies, putting away the badge and shrugging. He is reasonably certain this young man wouldn't respond well to threats, even if he felt inclined to them out. "You are not obliged to speak to me without counsel. Or even /with/ counsel, for that matter. And no, you didn't do anything wrong, but you were an eyewitness to the events surrounding the mayoral speech last week." "Where the fuck am I supposed to get counsel?" Hive looks down at his clothes -- ragged jeans, very faded Yoda t-shirt with a few holes in it, shoes that seem /more/ hole than sneaker at this point. "Don't they usually want money? What d'you want me for? I was a witness, yeah. Me and like seven thousand other people. There was kinda a crowd, you know?" He picks up his coffee, taking a long gulp. His other hand braces against the edge of the table, holding his chair steadyish as he tips it onto its back legs. Taking that as a tacit agreement to talk, Sid sits down in the chair across from Hive. "Yeah, there were a lot of people around, and I've talked to quite a few of them. You were pretty close to the shooter, but that's not actually why I wanted to speak to you in particular." He takes another sip of the redeye and makes a face. The beverage was pretty strong, even by his standards. Fishing his smartphone from an inner pocket of his blazer, he taps its screen a few times. He wants to tread lightly, but there was no point dancing around it. Especially not given how lousy he was at dancing. "You were with some friends. In particular, this young man." He shows Hive the screen, which contains a photo snapped by a journalist of Jackson leaning on him. "And before you ask, no, he didn't do anything wrong either. I am trying to find out if he might have done something uncommonly heroic, as a matter of fact." Hive tenses immediately, at the photo, his teeth clicking against the rim of his mug as they clamp down. His expression clamps down, too, shuttering into something blank and neutral. He /gulps/ again at the coffee. "He's a /good/ guy," he says, defensively, his eyes fixed on the photo of Jax, "and there's not that many of those in the city and he's already gotten so much shit from the world. You're not going to give him shit, are you?" Siddhartha looks Hive in the eye and says, "No, I'm not." Maybe a romantic partner, he thinks. That would be his luck. "I suspect that he saved a man's life that day. There's not a lot of folks who would have done the right thing then." Damn few. Siddhartha isn't sure /he/ would have pissed on the mayor if he was on fire that day, if he were a mutant. "I am trying to find out if he was the one who put up the uh...barrier, and whether he has any insight on the shooting, mundane or otherwise." Before someone less forgiving finds him. "If that was quick reflexes, more power to him. Honestly, this is a gray area in the law--even with the new ordinance--and we're kind of making it up as we go along." "Why does everyone think I'm gay?" Hive sounds /amused/ at this, at least, not offended. "I'm not dating Jax or anyone else." And in case /that/ didn't quite give it away clearly enough: "I read minds. I gave him a heads-up about the shooter. I didn't tell him to save the mayor, though. /I/ wouldn't have pissed on the guy if he was on fire, gorram bigot. He's just a /good/ kid. And that asshole had the fucking nerve to /continue/ his bullshit speech right after a mutant saved his fucking life. You ticketed anyone yet?" His eyebrows raise, here. Maybe challenging? Maybe just curious. Blinking several times, Sid’s face flushes bright and hot--not very visibly, but a mind-reader doesn’t need that to know he is embarrassed as all hell. “Shit. That’ll teach me to assume,” he mutters. “That does explain one thing, though. During the speech, I saw you go on alert--thought you were going to do something, actually, not that I could have known any better.” Sergeant Greene’s stupid pet saying bobs into his consciousness unbidden: ‘Don’t make an /ass/ out of /u/ and /me/, Marine!’ “But no, I haven’t ticketed anyone. I suppose I /could/, but that’s not really my job. I investigate.” Well, mostly he does a shitpot load of paperwork to keep the politicians from pissing themselves. “You know, that...whole thing,” he says, gesturing at his head, expression grim, “kind of fucks confidentiality, doesn’t it?” "Pff, I've never even held a fucking gun in my life, much less shot one. I can hate the dude all I want, killing people seems like a headache though. But, yeah. You couldn't've know. I just heard the dude. Twitchy. Didn't want any of my friends freaking out and getting themselves hurt, you know?" Hive shrugs, still rocking back in his chair as he takes another sip of coffee. "And, you know, people assume all sorts of shit but it's totally possible to care about someone a lot and not want to fuck them. Weird, isn't it? I love him. He's been through a /world/ of shit and he's /still/ one of the most /good/ people I've ever met. That's weird, isn't it? Most people --" His head shakes. His lips twitch up, wryly, at Siddhartha's gesturing. "Yeah. Kinda does. Can't really turn it off, though. Sorry." He doesn't sound sorry. Just bland. The crooked twist of his smile suggests that sometimes he'd really /like/ to turn it off. “Oh, fuck me,” Sid breathes. Dammit, not /literally!/ “Look, I just thought you /might/ have been a significant other, okay? Not like I would have given you flak if you were, either.” This thought is at once frustrating and disproportionately amusing to him. “I know there’s more than one way people can care about each other, look after each other. Or put themselves at risk for people who might just as soon shoot them as look at them.” A disjointed memory--the acrid scent of burning flesh, smoke blotting out the sky, piercing silence in his ears, and a filthy Afghan boy with his hands on Corporal Ashanti’s should-have-been-fatal wounds. His face suddenly twists with pain and anger. “That’s not yours, you stay away from that--” he whispers, but then makes himself stop. A hand drops into the pocket of his coat and closes around a string of sandalwood beads, worn smooth with use. The hot lance of rage fades by increments. “I just...need to get used to the idea that my head is potentially public property, in this line of work.” He lets go of the beads deliberately and retrieves a card from the same pocket, handing it to Hive. The hand does not shake. Much. “Thank you for your time. Please contact me if you remember anything else relevant to the case.” Hive holds up his hands immediately, this time /actually/ looking apologetic. "Hey, I didn't -- I don't --" His face scrunches up, head tipping back towards the ceiling as his chair rocks down heavily onto all four legs with a thump. "Pry." He glances at the card, letting out a heavy breath as he pockets it. "Yeah, sure," he says, though it doesn't sound all /that/ forthcoming. He opens his laptop again, though he minimizes his work to just, instead, be browsing reddit. "The shooter," he says, abruptly. "I saw in the news they'd found out he was human but I don't know what you've learned about him past that. He had a kid. Shot dead by some mutant affairs cop cuz the boy had claws. I don't --" His jaw tightens, here, his lips pressing together as he looks carefully at his screen and not at Sid. "This shit just all feeds into itself, you know?" “Yeah, I know,” Sid agrees softly, “but that ain’t new in the realm of violence, criminal or military.” He is very carefully reciting the Heart Mantra in his head and not thinking about his coworker--largely successful, though the anger flashes again, brief and dark. “Internal affairs is looking into it.” He doesn’t really believe any justice will come of it, but... “To me, it isn’t about mutants versus humans. Not yet. I hope to hell it never gets there.” If it does, we’re /all/ fucked. “As far as I’m concerned, if you’re not out to hurt anyone else, I can care less if you’ve got claws...or can read minds, though that’s a lot harder to swallow. We’ve just got to find a way to live with each other, and I know that’s not going to happen on its own.” He rises, almost leaving his coffee behind. “Tell your friend...thanks. It would have turned out far worse for everyone if that bullet had found its mark. Scared people do crazy shit. This whole city’s got a habit of going off the deep end when it feels threatened.” Hive listens to this with his eyes still steadily focused on his computer screen. His hands lift, scrubbing through his hair, fingers tracing along the sides of his head. There's a brief moment, with his hair pushed back, when thick scars are visible, curving along the sides of his scalp and down around his ears; they vanish again as he drops his hands and his dark hair falls back into place. "With all due respect," he says, quieter, "it's not about mutants versus humans to you because you're human. If they started shooting you for being human, rounding you up and putting you in cages for being human, cutting you open just to see if you bleed the same color /for being human/, you'd see things a bit different." Only now does he look up from his screen and despite his words he sounds more tired than angry. "Scared people do all kinds of shit. I'll tell him. But he just delayed the inevitable. People do a lot of crazy shit when they feel threatened, and that asshole made it real clear he's threatening." “I was under the impression mutants were humans, too,” Sid says. Eerily, he hears himself speaking with his father’s voice. “It’s the same thing in every age. I can’t make up for what happened to that kid, or to your friend, or to you. No one should be persecuted for being what he is.” He almost says he would never condone or participate in any such thing, but he is an officer of the law. How can he make that kind of promise? Not that it matters, if he’s talking to a mind-reader. “I am never going to get used to that. Good-bye.” He walks away like a man half-alive, exhausted despite the caffeine. He needs a drink. /Several/ drinks, preferably. Hive's lips press together thinly. For a moment he watches Siddhartha go, but then he turns back to his laptop, shoving the earbuds back in his ears and glaring at his screen.