ArchivedLogs:Fourth of July, Adult-side

Fourth of July, Adult-side
Nominally.
Dramatis Personae Hive, Jackson, Jim, Micah, Ryan
In Absentia	2013-07-04 Semi-ish-sort of concurrent with kids' table party.
Location <NYC> Village Lofts - Rooftop - East Village
It tends to be windy, up here, but the presence of plastic table and folding chairs suggests that nevertheless building residents occasionally make their way out to this rooftop. With a good view of Tompkins Square Park less than a block away it's a good spot for city-watching. There's a railing around the edge, though it might be possible (if /unwise/) to climb over it to the narrow concrete ledges beyond and from there to the fire escape. Centrally, someone has broken down crates and constructed a small raised-bed garden up here, barren in winter but filled in three other seasons with a small assortment of herbs and vegetables. The concrete wall that rings the roof has been decorated, painted in vivid bright shades by some artistic hand to add colourful cheer to the rooftop. The mural shifts in terrain One wall sports a beach, flecked with grass and seashells and driftwood and shore birds. Beach transitions into meadow, colourful with wildflowers and butterflies and dragonflies; meadow shifts into snow-capped mountains, subsides into piedmont and sprouts into a verdant forest on the fourth, alive with animals. It's -- still ungodly hot! Ohno. Hot. The heat has not /improved/ with the presence of grills on the roof, a trio of them (two are cooking meats; the third has been reserved for veggie-products only) that are providing EVEN MORE HEAT. The presence of many people on the roof is /also/ probably not helping! But it is a holiday and SO. There is merriment. Someone's brought up an extra folding table, laden with the non-grilled side of foods (pretty typical cookout-fare, salads and cole slaw and fruit and lemonade and iced tea and BOOZE and cookies and cupcakes) and. Also. a box of tiny paper American flags on tiny wooden sticks. Admittedly, many of them have been drawn on. Or chewed on. And yet. On the far side of the roof from the food there is a sprinkler! Getting some of the roof very wet. Providing some relief from the heat. There's /also/ a box of sparklers and as the sun starts to fade, some of them are even getting lit! Jax has one, spitting blue sparks merrily from the end of its stick. He is wielding it with one hand, his other tending black bean burgers and grilled corn on one of the grills. He's dressed in a light blue sarong with puffy white cloud-print, no shirt, large mirrored sunglasses. The sparks that dance off the end are not disappearing as they should; instead they turn into tiny blue dragonflies to wing off over the edge of the roof. Hive is not doing anything nearly so productive. He's perched at the edge of the roof, straddling it as he lights up a cigarette. He is also in the ranks of the Not Very Clothed, ragged cut-off denim shorts and no shirt, and he's frowning off the edge of the roof, searching the street around the building. Searching the sky around the building. "You could probably," he tells Jax, "burn that whole box of flags with just that one sparkler." Jim lumbers through the door to the roof with his hands crammed in his pockets, using shoulder to shove his way into the sweater. The heat doesn't seem to affect him any more than the cold of winter had - he's just gone a little /tropical/. His flaky-fibrous skin is a bit more palmy-fibrous, humid-loving /fern/ sprigs poking out of his gray hair, bemused grimace cast over the party twisted up in the scar down his face. He's wearing a kilt - the Whomping Willow kilt from the farm, though more tatty from use now, and a hawaiian shirt. He doesn't LOOK at Hive or Jax - he's just gravitating towards them, making a pass by the food table to grab... a lemonade. His back thumps up alongside shirtless Hive. "-shirtless trashy yellow people burning our flags." He's reaching towards Hive. For his CIGARETTE. And jerks a chin at Jax. Grimly. Important smoke-stealing business. Also grilling: Ryan, the hippie-vegan placed in charge of delivering edible meat to the carnivorous residents of the Lofts. Oh, the irony: it is already BAD anarchy to celebrate the Fourth of July, so why not factor in barbecuing endeavors to push the gauge through the roof (much as the temperature has put them there physically!)? Joining the contingent of Hot Shirtless Boys, he too stripped to a minimum of shorts patterned after the American flag and an apron that reads, "Vegetarian: Indian word for Bad Hunter" to complete his ensemble. Attention distracted by the large set of speakers hauled out to the roof, his thumb runs circles around the touchpad of his iPod while poking at butchered pieces of chicken with a metal prong. "They're stealing our jobs, too," Jax informs Jim gravely from behind his grill. He waggles his sparkler in Hive's direction, and then steps over to place it in the telepath's hand. "Do you want a corn? I put. Truffle salt. On one. We'll see if it is delicious." He returns to the grill to poke at one of the ears of corn. Meanwhile, Ryan's arm tattoos are shifting, gingko leaves colouring themselves in in holiday-appropriate red, white, and blue. "Your jobs, your women." Hive /has/ been leaning over to wave the sparkler towards the box of flags but then he straightens. Thunks sideways against Jim. And in lieu of offering cigarette, offers sputtering blue sparkler. JABBING it in Jim's direction. "I'll light your fucking /roots/ on fire, dude. -- Ryan, I should take a picture." He's patting at his pockets for his cellphone. "Don't think I've seen you this fucking patriotic since that congressman's daughter wanted to bone you." "Try it," Jim raises a palm, held out facing Hive like RIGHT HERE, BUDDY. Of course... his palm is also currently plant-rough and ragged. His other hand is setting down his friggin /non-alcoholic/-you-bastard drink and still chasing after Hive's cigarette. "Hey, crooner," he's calling this to Ryan. "Y'wanna fry me up somethin' medium-rare? This plants goin' carnivorous t'night. -- YES. He wants a corn. He wants three. Fucker never eats enough." Ryan settles on a song- appropriately country, and managing to fit in all /three/ stereotypical topics of a cheating wife, an old pickup truck, and a loyal canine. Whistling along, he waves smoke from his face, eyeing the meat he tries not to (inevitably) burn to a crisp. For Hive, he raises a middle finger. "Would ya? And then post it to my twitter. I'm trying to expand my fanbase." Sly grin plastered on his face, he turns to Jim. "...medium-rare? Look, I can do bloody-fuckin'-wet, or shoe-leather-crispy. Take your pick." Yep: hopeless. "Ryan, I don't think the moral majority types are gonna fall for it." Jackson rolls two halves of corn off the grill onto a plate, moving to put them on -- Jim's lap! He can share with Hive. "Turn it over, Ryan," he advises. "He doesn't," he tells Jim, too amused to really be apologetic, "actually know how to cook, we just stand him there to look pretty." Hive snaps a picture of Ryan on his cellphone. "Yeah sure I'm gonna post it. Happy fucking 2013rd birthday, America," he informs Ryan. "On your Twitter -- hey can you grow a fucking pitcher plant, I'll shove some hamburger in there." Hive jabs the sputtering end of his sparkler towards Jim's flaky hand. TaptapTAP, a shower of sparks bapping up against his palm. "You kidding, all I've been doing lately is eating, the fuck else is there to do when it's this hot. Sit around. Lie in front of a fan. Order lots of takeout." "I'm not growing you a fucking pitcher plant, you're not /shoving/ any god damn meat in me," While Hive continues to fend him off with FIRE, Jim picks up a cob of corn with his bare hand and brandishes it low it at him like it's a SWITCHBLADE. That he is mugging the telepath with. (That or he's trying to hand it to him.) "How're the kids, Jacky. Ry? Biz?" He isn't taking his eyes off his victim, so it feels bizarrely like a tense stand off rather than a barbecue. Maybe Jim's gone feral hobo on them all. Ryan stages the photo with same pose that he received Hive's initial commentary: middle finger held high, because fuck you, moral majority. Shoulder blades protruding as he rolls out a bare-skinned shrug, he trades his prongs for a wooden-handled spatula to /flip/ the slabs of animal flesh as instructed. "Hey, Jim, I thought Hive stuffed you full of meat /all/ the time. Ain't that part of being hitched?" His brows raise in a waggle, before he blurts out, "Man, splinter dick must /suck/," at Hive. Payback! And that is how grown men bicker, where the adults separate themselves from the teens, Jackson behind the grill, /cooking/, Ryan behind another, /burning/ and looking pretty. Hive atop the edge of the roof. Jim just arrived. Clothing is spare, snark is not. Jax is TOTALLY SO CLOTHED okay no he just has a lightweight sarong folded and wrapped at knee-length, and not much else. Sunglasses, if those count as clothes. Also a grill currently full of corn and black bean burgers, though there are other skewers of veggies waiting for cooking. Ryan is manning the meat grill, Lord only knows why. Also the gingko leaves tattood on Ryan's arm have turned RED WHITE AND BLUE. Patriotically. Because the anarchists Really Love America. "The kids are -- uh." Jackson squints across the roof, waving his spatula. The kids are over there. With sparklers. Cigarettes. Pot. "-- I think Shane was trying to light his cigarette on Desi's sparkler." His nose wrinkles. "He /looks/ like he's still got his face intact though." His lips twitch at Ryan's commentary, a flush of colour entering his cheeks. "-- They're not married," he tells Ryan, "they're living in sin." "Pffft, you /love/ it," Hive says this with a HIP THRUST. And another /bat/ of his lit sparkler at Jim's hand. He makes chompy biting teeth towards the grilled corn. "-- Shit that does smell delicious -- how about a venus flytrap?" Micah wanders through the door late, hair still wet from a quick shower to get grease and the worst of the garage smell off of himself before joining the group. Automotive emergencies tend to occur /more frequently/ on holidays! Because people drive long distances in the heat with vehicles that...probably shouldn't. He is dressed about the same as always. Patched jeans. White T-shirt with a T-rex jubilantly showing off a pair of adaptive reaching aids under the heading "UNSTOPPABLE!". He bounces toward the group by the grills, waving. "Hiii, guys! Sorry. That took /way/ longer than Jake advertised when he called me in." Sneaky sidesteps find him closer to Jax to sneak a peck on the cheek. This also brings him closer to the smokiness of Ryan's...cooking attempts. "Um. Is somethin' burnin'?" Jim jabs the corn cob at Hive's biteyface, angled where all the juicy kernels can be properly sunk into, swatting lazily at the swiping sparkler in loose BEAR swipes. But he's got his EYES locked on Hive's cigarette. Perhaps they can make an exchange here. "The singer's burning my /choice/ cut," he doesn't actually know what cut it is. It could be a slab of chuck roast for all Jim knows, "and Jax's kids - well, nah, Shane's better with his face not on fire." Presumably, this is how Jims say hello to Micah's. "I can make a flytrap. And take your god damn fingers off." Hand to god, Jim is just shy of tackling Hive and hauling him off his LOFTY PERCH. Hive can just /feel/ it in his brain-bones. Jackson bounces on his toes when Micah appears, turning his head to return the peck, light on Micah's cheek. "Iii think," he says, "that you should take over that grill, Ryan's /massacring/ some cows I think it's bad enough they gotta die once." He pokes at his grill. "Y'want some corn? Hive's supposed to tell me if s'good but he's busy -- uh --" He /eyes/ Hive and Jim, mouth curled up into an amused smile. "-- Shoving his meat into Jim. You really want his fingers in you, man?" Hive /wiggles/ fingers towards Jim. And baps again with the sprinkler. "/Micah/ thank god look this asshole --" But the end of his Jimcomplaint is aborted; instead he takes a snapping bite of corn. CRUNCH. He shifts the sparkler probably none too safely, dangling from his fingers down towards his leg, so that he can give Jim his cigarette in exchange for attacking him with delicious corn. "s'face has been on fire he gets better. -- Oh my god, yes, truffle salt. This is basically like orgasm in corn form." "No, nothing is burning," grunts a defensive Ryan, frantically turning over the charred pieces of meat he's since neglected. "And if it /is/ it's cuz I'm distracted by the bad soap-opera in the corner," he murmurs, pointing the end of his spatula at Hive and Jim, and not, the burnt food he plans to pass off on everyone later. He volunteered for that which he doesn't it for a /reason/. Arm alive with the most colorful and /animate/ tattoo, he tries to thrust off his barbecuing utensils on Micah per Jackson's suggestion. "Yeah, here, /you/ take this." Wear the apron too! So he can strut shirtless. True to form, Micah giggles at Jax's description of Ryan's grilling. "I can definitely take over as needed. Kinda abandoned helpin' out earlier with the sudden work day... An' can't have Jim dealin' with charcoal for food." He scoots over to Ryan, taking over as much control of the task as he'll relinquish. The combined colourful commentaries from Jax and Hive coax a faint blush across his cheeks. "Though I can usually handle cookin' with one hand an' eatin' with the other, if you got deliciousness just sittin' over there, Jax. Kinda forgot to lunch." "Didn't say he wouldn't get better, said his face is already better /without/," Jim makes Hive put the cigarette directly IN his FACE, closing his lips down on it and talking through the opposite side of his mouth, "You're a lifesave, Mickey." It makes the scar running down his cheek twist and pull in sneery snarls. He has left the corn cob crammed in Hive's face when he bites it, like a luau swine and is working his ass up onto the rail alongside the telepath. Watch out, he's wearing a kilt. One stiff breeze and it's possible someone's getting a show. It's okay, there's not an overabundance of clothing on this roof ANYWAY. "I got so much deliciousness and I am more'n happy to put it in your mouch," Jackson says cheerfully. "Ryan, eat a burger." He slides a bean pattie onto one plate, a corn onto the other. "'sides, that's the /best/ soap opera in the corner. Jim an' Hive are pretty much my favourite couple." He lays new skewers of fresh vegetables on the grill to start the process over again. The corn he delivers to Mucah. "Don't tell me that, you skip meals an' I'll jus' make sure you got /ten/ times as much t'eat now." There's laughter in his voice, watching the others and then continuing to tend his vegetables.