ArchivedLogs:Foot in Mouth, Coffee in Mouth

Foot in Mouth, Coffee in Mouth
Dramatis Personae Billy, Hive
In Absentia	2014-06-17 Billy and Hive are forced together in a crowded coffee shop. Words are spoken, and thoughts are ...spoken.
Location <NYC> Montagues - SoHo
Montagues harkens back to the day when SoHo was filled to the brim with artists, with its mismatched furniture, all plush and decorated heavily with carved wood, but remains trendy enough to keep its newer patrons by making sure that furniture is clean, in good repair and inviting. The antique tables all have been reinforced to seem less creaky. The real draw of the cafe is the smell: fresh roasted coffee mingles with perfectly steeped teas. Spices from crisp pastries mingle with the tang of clotted cream but don't overwhelm too much the scent of chalk on the menu boards. It's crowded in the coffeeshop this afternoon, the city sweltering and muggy and a flock of people gravitating towards the cool relief of air conditioning. The bustle means that table space is in high demand and short supply -- which probably contributes to a few of the dirty Looks Hive is earning himself, sitting all alone in a plush armchair in the corner near the window -- there's a wide coffee table in front of him that would make great lunchtime space for the /other/ two armchairs clustered around it, but currently the table is quite cluttered. The young man is kind of sickly-emaciated looking with his t-shirt (it has a picture of a Death Star and underneath reads 'ceci n'est pas une lune') and faded jeans both hanging far too loose on a very bony frame, sunken-shadowed eyes, a noticeable /jitter/ to very unsteady hands -- and perhaps it's /this/ that has discouraged people from giving him too much crap about the fact that he's spread laptop and notebook and a lot of wide sweeps of thin onionskin paper covered in sketched-out building designs all across the table. Or maybe it's just the permanent /scowl/ he's wearing. At the moment he has directed his scowl away from his laptop screen (it has more developed building-blueprints on the screen) to the nearly-empty cup of coffee beside it. Then the line at the counter. His hand lifts, rubbing against his temple with a faintly headachey wince. The headache is /possibly/ not helped by the crowd -- a loud chaotic soup of overheard surface-thoughts from those around the room that jangle noisily against the telepath's mental senses. The warm scent of dark roast and exotic tea cuts out around the almost-white haired Billy, standing out in the richly colored cafe in all pale and fading linen clothes. On a hot day like this, he can’t help but leave a vague, void chemical-smell in his wake as he cruises around for a nice place to sit. He holds a reusable travel mug tightly in one hand, the other clutching his little white canvas messenger bag. He does two loops around before zeroing in, mentally guilting himself for interrupting anyone in such obvious deep thought and concentration. “Can I steal a little room from you?” He offers his biggest, whitest smile to Hive and gestures to the tiniest bit of the table he could ever think to gesture to. “If not, that’s okay, too. You look like you’re working on something important.” His eyebrows tilt up helplessly, betraying any confident facade he may have been putting on. His thoughts aren’t complicated. He can’t imagine being forced back out into that sun. He fidgets with the umbrella tucked under his arm, waiting to be told his fate. Hive drags his eyes up slowly, teeth grinding in a slow crrrrk of sound. His hand shifts back from his temple, fingertips scrubbing along the side of his head through his short scruff of black hair. His slanted eyes are hooded, lazily half-closed as his gaze flicks between Billy and the table, Billy and the table, like he's /weighing/ something. "I do?" He questions this before bothering to give an /answer/, mouth hooking up at one side in a thin smile as he glances down to his work. "Shit no I pretty much just don't want to go back out in the fucking -- it's goddamn --" He waves a hand vaguely towards the window. Towards /Outside/. The hand scrubs against his cheek afterwards. Eventually he exhales sharply and leans forward over his thin red laptop to drag some of the onionskin into more of a /pile/ than a /sprawl/, freeing up one corner of the table. "You don't have any. Fff. Tylenol or some shit. In that bag. Do you?" Billy shakes his head as he sets his bag on the space, lowering to sit on the rug in a natural motion. He doesn’t have any qualms about sitting on the floor. It’s not as if he can get dirty. “No, it doesn’t work on me,” he shifts his eyes to the people around him before reaching out to get a nearby woman’s attention. His eyes get bigger and wetter, “I’m so sorry. Do you have anything for a headache?” They end up having a whole asinine conversation about headaches. Apparently, Billy gets them really bad when he eats anything with MSG. The woman forgets all about the friend she was with and likewise, for a few minutes it would appear as though Billy forgot all about Hive. When all is said and done, the young man in white reaches out with an open palm and offers Hive two fat pills. Hive's eyes skate from the other armchairs to Billy sitting on the floor, brows lifting. His nose twitches, slightly, teeth grinding against each other once more. He looks back down at his computer, hand returning to his mouse until Billy procures the pills. "Oh/shit/ thanks. You're a gorram lifesaver. My next stop was going to be fucking -- decapitation." He leans forward to scoop the pills out of Billy's hand. His /own/ hand is shaking badly enough that one of the pills drops out and to the table; he swipes at it again to deliver both pills hastily to his mouth and down them with a swallow of cold coffee. "You could try that if pills don't work. Never gone through with it myself but I /imagine/ it'd be effective." Billy doesn’t miss a beat, unloading a small stack of books and his little white macbook air with its Slytherin decal, “Decapitation? Second best to just avoiding Chinese take-out.” He doesn’t miss the shaky hands, but doesn’t ask. “Besides, I don’t think I’m strong enough to get my whole head off.” He makes happy eye-contact, popping open his computer. Hive glances over at the books in open nosy curiosity. A brief smile pushes through to dissipate his habitual scowl when he glances to the Slytherin decal, and he slumps back in his seat with a little more relaxation, hands returning to press in at his temples. "Nah, man, you need machinery for that. Guillotine. Chop-chop. That, or you could recruit assistance? S'fucking New York, I'm sure there's /some/ psychopath out there just /itching/ to decapitate someone. Man though I gotta say that sounds like a shitty existence. No Chinese takeout? That's one of life's greatest pleasures. Know some good MSG-free places though. S'this one place down on Canal Street -- /I'd/ decapitate someone for some of their hot pot." The books are school texts. Nothing too terribly interesting. Apparently, Billy is childhood education. "I feel like that's something you'd have to build yourself, " he mumbles skeptically, quietly pulling up a few endless text pdf's. "Oh, yeah? I'll have to check them out!" He won't, though. The lie is harmless. His dietary restrictions are just too complicated. He'd say as much, but he doesn't want to sound rude. "Wait." Blink, blink. "Are you trying to get me to pay you to decapitate me with Chinese food, now?" He laughs. Laughing comes easy to him. The woman who gave them the aspirin is leaving. She makes sure to wave goodbye to Billy. "Possibly. /Some/ fucking SCA nerd out there has to have built a guillotine. Maybe -- maybe not a working one," Hive allows with a short exhaled laugh, "that might put a little too much realism into LARPing." He leans forward again to scoop his nearly-empty coffee back up, the cup unsteady in his hands but thankfully there's too little left for it to spill. "No, no, no, you're backwards. I'm trying to pay /you/ to decapitate me. That bag," he admits regretfully, glancing to Billy's messenger bag, "doesn't look big enough for an axe though." 'What makes you think I need an axe?' Billy thinks but doesn't say. He regrets the thought immediately, looking down as if at his computer. The keyboard is white and blank. "Ah. Uh. Sorry, no deal. Now there are LARPers involved. Too many witnesses or whatever." He eyes the shaky hands again, smile gradually returning, "Maybe you should lay off the coffee." "You already said you weren't strong enough to get your whole head off. I know I'm scrawny but it's still probably going to take more than bare hands. How would /you/ do it, then?" Hive answers the unspoken thought as casually as if it /had/ been aloud. His lips twitch, hands clenching tighter around his mug. "Fff. I'd drop dead in a fucking week, I am powered almost exclusively by caffeine and spite. Be a tiring life living off /just/ the latter." Billy starts as if he might say any number of things. He could burn him just by doing something like licking his hand and touching him with it. If they spent enough time together, he could give him cancer. He’s trained in the many hypothetical applications of his powers, after all. “I’d probably do it by accident.” He tells the truth, not picking up on the implication of mind-reading, believing himself to be enough of an open book. In taking a swig of his coffee, he burns himself and gives a little start. “Me, too,” he chokes out, fanning his lips. In the cup, the coffee starts to lose it’s color. This happens after every sip. "Already /have/ cancer," Hive says this with a small twitch of smirk, eyes dropping down to (skeletal-bony) arms, (twitchy unsteady) hands, "you'd be too fucking late there. Besides, I was talking about /decapitation/, not killing me. I don't want goddamn cancer to get rid of a fucking headache. Doesn't work anyway, trust me. No. For a headache cure you gotta make death quick and simple." Hive points a forefinger towards Billy, cocking his thumb like a trigger with a small click of tongue against teeth. "Yeah, you look like a /real/ spiteful motherfucker. Maybe you just hide it well? -- Small sips, dude." Billy goes through a range of alarm, hurt, and guilt. Settling on feeling guilty is another thing that comes easily to him. His thoughts speed up before they slow down, whirling about how he probably is very spiteful, getting down on himself in really only a way that a truly selfless person could. And then, he swells about Hive having cancer. Billy eats that up with a spoon, tears rushing to his eyes but thankfully, stopping there. He looks down at his coffee, holding it with both hands down. "Thanks," he mumbles, taking a small sip as instructed. "Dude --" Hive's brows hike up further and further. He gulps down the last of his coffee and sets his mug down with a clatter. "Are you Catholic? I have a friend. /So/ goddamn Catholic. It's just like a constant fucking stream of self-flagellation, he even /thinks/ he might've /looked/ at somebody wrong /oh/ boy it's guilt all week." His head shakes, his hands lacing together against his stomach. "Why are you so upset? /I'm/ not that fucking upset and I kinda /like/ myself. You don't even freaking know me from Adam. You know how many people you don't know are dying of cancer right the hell now? It's a lot. Really not worth the emotion there's probably real shit in your life you could cry about if you're so inclined." Billy hesitates, "I- No, I-I'm Quaker," is all he says, blinking. He doesn't know how he's supposed to defend his own thoughts. Either way, this guy is probably right. "Sorry," he gives his head a shake. "My mother had cancer." ... "It just really sucks." He does his best to pull it together and redeem himself. He thinks about something calm. Something soothing. Wiping away a tear before it can fall, he thinks about the color white. Where the little droplet falls on the table, the nicely stained wood loses its pigment. "Oh, shit." Now it's Hive's turn to look -- if not really /guilty/ at least briefly apologetic. "I'm sorry man, I know how shitty that -- I lost my dad to it when I was younger too. It's rough." His hand runs against the side of his head, fingers pressing down into the short scruff of hair, and for a moment he just looks kind of awkwardly at a loss. He picks up a napkin off the table beside him, leaning forward to offer it to Billy when the tear falls. There's another small hitch of brows at the bleached table, but for the moment now /he/ doesn't ask. Billy takes the napkin, albeit very sheepishly. Thankfully, the water show seems to be over and he doesn't really need it, anymore. Pitifully, he shrug-gestures towards his computer, "I have to finish this stupid lesson plan." His tone suggests that it isn't a task he's necessarily up for, anymore ...y'know, morale-wise. "You teach?" Hive's brows raise curiously, but that's as far as he pries. He settles back into focus on his own work, eyes shifting back to his computer. "Yeah, I've got a deadline on this shit, too. And fuck if I'm not out of caffeine." Standing up seems to be kind of a /process/ for him, a slow wobbly unfolding of shaky limbs, a while spent holding on to the back of his chair to make sure he has his balance before scooping up his empty mug. "You'll be aright. Enough caffeine'll get you through anything." And then he's making his way slow and careful towards the counter, to get a refill on his coffee so that Work can resume. “Nah, that’s just what I’m in school for,” Billy looks down and away, “Yeah. That’s like, Science, right?” He holds his travel mug up in a half-hearted salute before delving into his work, happy enough to work quietly beside Hive when he returns.