ArchivedLogs:Enjoy the Silence

Enjoy the Silence
Dramatis Personae Hive, Flicker
In Absentia	2014-10-03 Touches on future dreams.
Location <NYC> The Unicomplex - Harbor Commons - Lower East Side
Flicker and Hive split the basement in this apartment; coming down the stairs emerges into an open expanse of shared space, with a pair of desks on opposite walls and large cabinets holding an enormous library of board and card games. The bookshelves here are packed predominantly with sci-fi and fantasy as well as a mass of roleplaying sourcebooks. The walls are eclectically decorated. A replica of Arya Stark's Needle, a few bright-colored but anachronistically somewhat morbid paintings of Jax's, a Mega Man X poster, a stained-glass suncatcher hung in the window and a collage of feathers framed on one wall. Up near the ceiling there's a large square hanging frame strung with netting -- a nearly ceiling-wide sort of hammock though it's hard to immediately discern how to access it. A side door leads to the bathroom, small but neat in pale stone tile. Towards the back there are walls dividing off the actual sleeping areas, tiny-cosy rooms mostly only large enough for the bed-dresser-closet combinations they contain. It's generally easy to figure out which one of the bedrooms is Hive's from the large amount of /clutter/ contrasting Flicker's perpetually tidy space. Flicker's full bed can be folded up into a recess in the wall, while Hive's larger queen hangs from the ceiling by sturdy black chains. Hive's days have not been particularly interesting, lately. With radiotherapy still underway each morning and scheduled to continue two weeks more after this, his afternoons have often been taken up with getting done what work he /can/ do and then falling asleep for a long nap until dinnertime. It's this latter that he's just waking /up/ from, scrubbing slowly at his eyes as he uncurls from the large beanbag near his desk. He's been tucked into a ball there, in jeans and undershirt. The seams of the beanbag cover have pressed lines into his cheek, and he rubs at these with the heel of his hand, eyes slowly narrowing over at his desk where his cellphone is flashing with unread messages. For a moment his automatic groggy-just-woke-up scowl deepens, aimed at the phone like it has wronged him, but then he just slumps backwards into the beanbag again. There's other sounds in the basement now. It was quiet, maybe, when Hive fell asleep but somewhere in the interval the room has acquired a Flicker. His backpack is propped against the side of his desk, his guard uniform hanging from a hanger hooked onto the cords of the ceiling-hammock. In the interval between school and work his attention is captured by the highly critical task of tending his growing Minecraft replica of the Commons. The stirring from across the room has him wheeling his chair around to face Hive's beanbag. A flick of eyes darts from telepath to telephone and back. A moment later a flick of motion darting across the room has the phone dropping down with a small thump onto the beanbag just beside Hive. Flicker is draped back in his chair almost as though he never left it, except for how he's brushing fingers down against the slightly rumpled front of his polo shirt. "Pho?" As greetings go it lacks polish, maybe. He's exited his game window, though, pulling up a browser with Seamless, where he's already finding their favourite Vietnamese delivery. As greetings go it has all the things Hive loves most. Directness. Purpose. An offer of food. He lets his eyes slide closed again, groping beside himself for the phone when it magically /appears/, though then he just holds it against his chest without actually looking at its message. "Pho," he agrees, smile twitching at his lips. "Sounds pretty fucking perfect." "Read your mind." One finger flicks against the scroll wheel of the mouse. Click, click, click. "You looked like you were having pho dreams." "/Khhh/." The breath Hive exhales at this is either laughter or a /hiss/, it's hard to tell. But the next moment his phone is flying across the room on a trajectory aimed for -- well, okay, he /means/ to aim for the head but his coordination these days means prooobably more like the computer, whoops. At least he doesn't throw very /hard/. "I was having -- dreams." He sounds /puzzled/ by this. "My own dreams." "Limeade?" Much like with the restaurant itself, Flicker's ordering the limeade already. He's just added it to their list when the phone comes flying towards him. He barely even seems to turn and look when his hand reaches up from the mouse to nab the phone casually out of the air. "When'd /that/ happen last?" "Sparkling." Hive shakes his head, unsurprised when Flicker saves his phone from its impending computer collision. His eyes close again. "Can't remember. Can't say I /miss/ all the --" His jaw tightens, lips thinning and his shoulders curling in on themselves. For a moment his breathing grows shakier, but it evens out as he finishes, only, "... everyone fantasizing about our gruesome /deaths/." "Yep." Evidently that was what Flicker'd already chosen, because he's finalizing the order, clicking submit. He picks Hive's phone back up once he's done, blipping back across the room to settle himself in the beanbag beside the other man. He sets the phone neatly down on Hive's chest, snorting and flopping back as well to stare up at the ceiling. "But we're alive." Automatically, Hive shifts in closer to Flicker, a slight adjustment that nestles his shoulder up against his roommate's truncated one. "Some of us are more alive than others," he grumbles, hand slowly lifting to rub against his scarred head. "But we're alive. Which raises the question..." "Raises a couple." There's a shift of motion at Flicker's side, just as automatically /trying/ to curl his arm around Hive. Failing. He bonks his head lightly down against the telepath's instead. "Just wait and see, I guess." There's a long quiet, then. His cheek shifts, slowly brushing against the most recent of the scars as well. Softer: "Would you /want/ to know?" Hive turns his head inward, resting more solidly against Flicker's side. His breathing is growing shakier again, his eyes scrunching tight. "I..." He swallows. Doesn't answer. Flicker shifts, turning enough to wrap his good arm around Hive's back and hold him closer. His cheek presses to the top of Hive's head, fingers kneading slowly between bony shoulderblades. Swallows, too. And doesn't let go.