ArchivedLogs:Drink

Drink
Dramatis Personae Hive, Jim
In Absentia	2013-10-20 '
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. A widescreen television stands against the wall opposite the couch, shelving beside it holding a host of video games from different consoles. More shelving beside the windows on the far wall carries stacks of board games, as well as sourcebooks from various RPGs. 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 and one bathroom situated between them, split between the three people who live here. Ouf. Clump. Outside the apartment, down the hall, comes an ominous thumping and harsh breathing. Within, a few loafing refugees raise their heads from a game of checkers, a Starbucks application, a passport renewal form, turn towards the door. Some, skittish, but they return to ease soon enough, even before the door gets hip-bumped open and here arrive the WEARY TRAVELERS... all the way from the rooftop above, where Jim had been shading a propped up Hive in the FRESH New York air, chill and autumnal and rife with delicious pollution. Jim wears the familiar kilt, the ratty green shirt. Whatever else Flicker dressed Hive in this morning, Jim's added a few things since taking him into custody - fedora, a pair of sunglasses. He has an arm across Hive's back, sweeping the apartment with a glance. Yep. Still... LITTERED with refugees. Hive is actually looking nicer at the moment than he does in normal times; button-down shirts are easier to dress other people in than t-shirts, so he wears a neat black button-down of Flicker's, paired with his jeans. He moves where Jim steers him, a slow steady walk that moves when Jim moves, stops when Jim stops. His eyes are blank and glassy, staring straight ahead without motion, and though his mental senses pick up keenly on all the psionic noise around them, it's hard to say what of it he pays attention to. Jim, for one, by habit is keeping his contribution to the mental noise down, simplified in a crunch and push of roots through deep black earth, the soft creak of growing greenwood - it's far more serene than his grouchy movements. He flushes a few creepsome lurker refugees off the couch where he nudges Hive to sit down. He pulls off the sunglasses as he does, leaning over to squint at Hive's face, checking for signs of life... or maybe just sunburn. Dehydration. Increasing moppishness to his boyband hair. This - he RUFFLES, with a kind of torn /crinkle/ between his brows. The ruffling earns no response from Hive. He folds himself limply into the couch where he's nudged, head flopping back against the cushions and his shaggy too-long hair dropping into his vacantly staring eyes. His lips, slightly chapped, are slightly parted; one finger twitches restlessly against his jeans. It's a sign of life, perhaps. Jim lays a final firm palm atop Hive's head, mushing him a little deeper back in the couch, and then abandons him there to stride off towards the kitchen. There's a basin overturned in the drying rack by the sink - you can tell when someone that /isn't/ Jackson has been making dents on the chores, it's a lot more haphazard. Thing washed but not put away, things partly put away, the rest left out. Like lonely soldiers standing guard, a half dozen varieties of cleaning products and sponges have been left at the edge of the counter; perhaps at one time just forgotten, now possibly left out as a desperate reminder that they CAN be used if someone is looking for Something To Do. Jim is personally looking for no such thing - he's filling up the basin with warm water while collecting a glass from the cabinet. By the time he's returned, both basin and glass are full of water; warm in the former, cool in the latter. The basin set on the coffee table, he's dropping down /aggressively/ alongside Hive, fitting a hand behind his head, and raises the glass to Hive's mouth. Hive's mouth stays in its slack part-open position, head tipped back into Jim's hand now rather than against the couch. His lips twitch against the cool rim of the glass, but past this he doesn't seem to register it any more than he registers the crowded room around him. The hand holding the water glass rises for a moment to use the base of the glass to move Hive's hair back from his eyes before Jim's fingers tighten into a firm /fistful/ of Hive's hair. Intentionally twisting it hard, giving it a tug. A small rapid shake. The glass is then held to his lips again, tipped up until a small trickle passes over Hive's teeth. Jim's mouth is flat in a grim line, his mind of vines twisting tight. Trickle-drip. The trickle drips, over Hive's teeth, into the corner of his mouth. /Down/ the corner of his mouth, dribbling down his chin to drop onto his shirt. His head lolls to the side at the shake, jostling easy and then just flopping down. A second later, his lips close briefly, and he swallows, though by now his mouth is empty. The corner of Jim's mouth twists deep into his cheek, offsetting the scar there. He watches the trickle fall, but with a hand to Hive's neck, another on the glass, not much he can do about it. Nothing but time the delayed swallow, leaning in like a mechanic looking for a small fiddly inner working of a car engine, and work a slower trickle this time. A few droplets at first. More after a few half-seconds, swallowing his own throat hard reflexively. After the first swallow, the swallowing continues. Slow but at a steady rhythm, every few seconds, working the slow trickles of water down his throat with only a minimum of dribbling. The twitching of his finger slows, timed now to coincide with each repeated swallow. Men have built bottles with less concentration, Jim flexed in a hunch over Hive with the locked stillness that might, from behind, look as though he were /murdering/ him. His own thumb taps with the same rhythm, his throat as well, working with him slowly, slowly until half the glass is emptied. He's then whipping off a towel slung over one shoulder with a whup-crack! flourish a little out of place. Voila. Something to mop at Hive's scrawny chest with, the side of his neck, whomping it down over his mouth to the left and right at a kind of loose swing from either side. A wash cloth is then scooped from the basin alongside, to work loose the remains of sunscreen that had been slopped on earlier. Just kind of STIRRING it at either of Hive's cheeks until they're rosy. Hive's steady swallowing continues even once the glass is moved. Close lips, swallow, open lips. Close lips, swallow, open lips. It takes a minute before this steady pattern stops. His head drops heavily to one side, cheek pressing against the wash cloth. After a pause, his head shakes quickly, a sharp irritable gesture like shaking off a fly. There's a heavy press of mental power that ripples through the room, a hard squeeze down, and then silence again. Grimacing against the mental pressure, Jim somehow also grittingly GRINS, one eye squeezing up. He applies a firm PAT to the side of Hive's clean-scrubbed cheek and reaches down to haul off Hive's shoes. TugTUG. Pull. And tosses them aside in a generalized pile. From there... pfffff. He flops back against the couch, his right side notched along Hive's left like the other page in an open book. And slouches back, hands on his thighs. FROWNING at the far wall. Or maybe the television, if it's on. It's usually on. After a moment, he reaches over... and puts Hive's sunglasses back on. Fishes into one of his pockets - pulls out his own pair. Puts them on as well. Leans back further in his seat. Body type, age demographic, ethnicity, nothing really matches up... save their slouched postures. Hive's head twitches again, after the sunglasses are on. And then drops back against the couch cushion once more, his weight sagging in in a boneless slump against Jim's shoulder. His sunglasses face up towards the ceiling, the slow twitch of his finger subsiding into stillness. For lack of an accessible pillow - a young girl is utilizing it at the moment, to sit on the floor where she plays Angry Birds on someone's tablet by the window - Jim hoists an arm around the back of Hive's head to prop it up. And leaves it draped there. Later, he'll be coaxing Hive off for a trip to the John but for now, it's TV time. Like any good American family. In between passing twitch-smiles at stupid jokes or well-written dialogue, Jim's face drops into hard, aged lines, that last only as long as it takes for him to apply a passing jostle to the other man's shoulder before it's gone.