ArchivedLogs:Injection of Chaos

Injection of Chaos
Dramatis Personae Hive, Jackson, Shelby
In Absentia	2013-05-15 Set just after Razor-encounter.
Location <NYC> 303 {Holland} - Village Lofts - East Village
This apartment is cheerful, in its way -- bright and airy, its floor plan open and a plethora of windows providing it with an abundance of light. The tiny entrance hall opens into a living room, small, though its sparse furniture and lack of clutter give it a more open feel. The decor is subdued and minimalist; black and white is the dominant theme, with occasional splashes of deep crimson to offset the monochrome, though of late bright coloured sealife has made its way into being painted on the wall. The couch and armchair are upholstered in black corduroy, the low wide coffee table central is black wood and glass-topped, and a few large pillowy beanbags provide additional seating by the large windows that dominate the back wall. Towards the back, a couple of doors lead off into bedrooms and bathroom, and to the right, the kitchen's tile is separated from the living room's dark hardwood floors by black countertops. Above the bedroom to one side, there is higher space; a ladder climbs up to a lofted area looking down on the living room. Standing in front of the partition between living and cooking area is a large fish tank: one lone Betta, blood-red, swims regally among several species of black and silver fish. A hallway beyond the kitchen leads further into the apartment. Another bathroom stands just into the hall and the farthest door leads to the apartment's final bedroom, the door usually kept shut to hold in the acrid fumes of turpentine and paints from within. It's late in the evening. Jax's house does not, for once, smell like baking. It smells kind of acrid, really, turpentine and oil paint from his currently drying canvas, still not developed enough to really make out much picture past a wash of colours. Jax himself is seated on the floor, tucked into a beanbag chair by the window with every light in his living room -- and there are a lot of them -- on. His laptop is in front of him, his tablet in his lap, and he is frowning, tweaking the colours on an image of a pair of skulls, oddly striped, oddly distorted, both grinning toothily at a face in between. Taptaptap. His stylus is hard at work. Sprite is lounging on his feet, though at the moment the striped black cat kind of blends /in/ with the host of shadows that are swirling around his legs. Maybe Jax will see the limo that pulls up to the curb, maybe not--he does seem very focused on his work. But there it is! It opens and two people get out. Shelby, backpack in tow, and a much larger man who follows not far behind. She's moving fast, /fast/, taking the stairs two at a time instead of the elevator. He continues to follow. Then the key is rattling in the door and she shoulders it open, spinning almost immediately to slam it shut behind her and peep through the hole that is there for peeping. She has to go up onto her toes to do this. The backpack has been dropped without ceremony but lands lightly, almost empty. There's not much coherency to recommend her thoughts right now--they are a thunderstorm, all dark moving clouds full of pain, fear, guilt and pissed off. The gentleman who /had/ been following her eyes the number on the door...then turns to leave the way he came. << ... the fuck? >> This slams into Jax's head and Shelby's at the same time, a sharp hard /stab/ of mindvoice. GUESS FROM WHO. Jax doesn't see the limo down below, the approaching /feel/ of people through the hallway lights and the rattle of keys his first warning of incoming Shelby. He glances up startled, his eye wide and then immediately rather /less/ wide with a sudden cringing at that voice. << You're home. >> This is a little wry. There's curiosity beneath it but not one he's voicing. His brow is creasing, abrupt, and around him the swirl of shadows curls its creeping way up towards his beanbag. "... Shelby-honey? You -- what's -- what happened?" He's frowning at the door. "You OK?" For once--okay, it's probably happened before, but--Shelby is /glad/ for the brain-dagger. There is a part of her that wants to /grab/ it (and probably its owner) and just hang on. There is another part that uses the adrenaline coursing through her body to fast-build a brick wall around the source of the unhappy. Brick brick brick. "I...maybe fucked up." She pauses. "A lot." When she turns from the door, it exposes the way her cheek is swelling, colors vivid under pale freckled skin. A smudge of purple across the cheekbone is threatening the teen with a shiner. /Now/ she goes to the window, leaning over Jax to peer down at the limo. There is a smell. Around her. Maybe a little urine-y. Maybe a little blood-y. Maybe a /lot/ of sour sweat. "...they're going. Thank /fuck/." << Who? >> This is a little more wired. Alert. Somewhere, there are probably telepathic senses scanning the building kind of obsessively. But, while he's /listening/, Hive isn't /pressing/; past his sharp-hard mental voice there is no further intrusion of touch. << Yeah. I'm home. >> This is to Jax alone, answering wry curiosity with -- complete unhelpfulness. Flat. Bland. Jax turns his head, looking out the window with a deepening frown. At the limo. At Shelby's smell. He lifts his eyes from window to girl and it's probably a testament to worry that he is not immediately fidgety about not taking off her shoes. He nudges Sprite off his feet with a mrowr of protest, standing to head to the fridge and get a pack of frozen peas out of the freezer. This gets wrapped in a dishtowel and then offered to Shelby. "You're bruising," comes with an indicative flick of fingers towards her developing shiner. "Who was that? What -- happened?" The man leaving is Serano. That is probably easily read, both from him and from Shelby's own thoughts--it's hard to duck a direct question, even in one's own head. /Especially/ in one's own head. His number's now in her phone, even! But vying with that name is also a face, a crazy psycho bitch's face. And a sharp glimmer of silver, a corner of it snapshotted at the side of her visual memory--a straight razor, aimed at her eye. Bricks are just not enough. Shelby waits until the limo pulls away before she straightens up and turns to face Jax. The peas are accepted. Her hand's growing increasingly shaky but it helps the tremors to smush something between palm and face. "I, um. There was. She...she killed. My dealer. I need to..." Sit. Fwoomp, the air is pushed out of the beanbag again when her knees fold and she lands on it. "Sorry." << Whothefuck. >> This time it's sharper -- straight-razor sharp, even! Protective-edged. There's another rattle of key outside -- Hive has probably taken the stairs two at a time. He's barefoot already when he comes in, still in heavy work jeans, a plain black t-shirt. "Are you hurt," is his first question; his second, "-- who do I need to kill." "We ain't killing nobody." Jax's voice is firm but quiet, although his restless nervous energy is not, a flurry of tight-angry thoughts, a wash of concern. A fretting that can't decide if it's worried or hopeful that maybe this has something to do with the missing kids. A undercurrent thrum of anger: << dealer -- so stupid -- way better ways to -- >> that he is trying to keep tamped down before it rises further. He's getting a glass of water. Setting it down beside Shelby. "Your dealer," he echoes, crouching down beside her beanbag to look her over more carefully. "/Are/ you hurt?" Shelby winces. Just that. But she is already anticipating Hive's arrival, looking at the door before the keys are heard in the lock. The tremor in her arm gets worse. "I'm sorry," she repeats. "I fucked up. It was...Kris...no, he just...I said something dumb and he...he hit me but it was.../she/ was worse and I should've just waited but I /knew/ this guy and he's always cheap and now he's..." Dead. There are blood spatters on her sneakers. On her jeans, below the knees. Presumably none of it hers--except for the bruise rising on her cheek, she's only hurt on the inside. The emotional jumble is shifting into a blessed numbness, though. "Wrong place. Wrong time. She's fucking /crazy/." Miss O'Shaugnessy, she thinks. "I'm fine. I'm okay. I promise." "You're not okay," Hive answers this with a scowl, "what the fuck. Dude, if you needed a hookup Ryan, like, /doesn't/ fucking slash people's eyes out with razors." His hands are shoved into his pockets, where they are clenching into fists. "There's a lot of fucking scummy-ass dealers you, uh, should at least tell someone where you're fucking /going/ next time." His brows are creasing deeply, and he trudges over to scowl out the window instead. Jax winces slightly at the mention of slashing eyes out with razors, and looks at Shelby's face kind of intently. Like maybe the eye snuck off and got razored while he wasn't looking. "Shelby --" His hands scrunch into his hair. "Did the guy -- is someone going to -- did you call --" His fingers tighten, curling it into his fists. "-- Somebody /died/ they -- someone has to know." << Oh god, >> is in his mind, << we can't call Eric. /Again/. >> "I'm /okay/," Shelby insists with weak but palpable anger--displaced though it is. The shaking is pissing her off, see. She's tensing up to try to stop and it won't and damn it all. The glass of water is eyed but she doesn't dare reach for it yet, instead just keeping the peas clamped to her face. "It was...Kris needed...something special. Not like. Those kind've drugs. I was trying to do /something/." Something positive. She is fairly certain Ryan does not stock injectable estrogen. She is also fairly certain that they won't like her coming answer, leading her to look away from the people she very much wants to wrap herself around. "...n-no. They. Brought me back. They said...if. If I tell. And if they call." But there is one very thin silver lining to all of this: "I gave a fake name. They got my number but...we can change that, right?" "/Estrogen/ oh my fucking god," Hive says through his teeth. << Doesn't your school teach kids fucking /anything/ about sex ed jesus christ there's doctors there they can get fucking -- /Eloise/ is already /on/ fucking -- oh my /fucking god/ did some motherfucker just /die/ because you /assholes/ can't handle a comprehensive /health class/. >> Hive is, at least, directing his stream of incredulous anger to Jax and not Shelby. His fingers tighten at his sides. "-- Jax. I think you need to have a talk with this Kris person." His head tips forward, resting against the glass of the large windows. His gaze is still focused down on the city below. "Where did this happen." "We /have/ health class," Jax is answering Hive with a /wince/, pressing his palm to his temple and entirely forgetting to think this rather than say it. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Though there's a growing heat radiating from him. He stands, curling his arms against his chest and pacing away from Shelby towards the couch. "OK." Another deep breath, his quiet-calm voice a sharp contrast to the white-hot flare -- stress-anger-worry << why /now/ >> inside him. "OK. Yes. We can change your number. And you don't have to -- /I'll/ deal with the --" << ohgodcops >> "... won't let her hurt you," is quieter, and inside stress/anger/worry is battling for supremacy with a clenchy-desperate protectiveness: << not going to lose /another/ -- >> Jax exhales slowly. It's not really doing a lot to calm the flurry of emotions in him, exacerbated by far too little sleep and far too much stress in recent days. "But there's somebody /dead/ and we do gotta --" << ohgod/cops/ >> His eye closes. Opens again. "Shelby. You gotta promise me that you -- things like this, don't just go off and -- if anything had /happened/ to you --" "She needs it, okay? And she had a bunch've Xanax to trade. It wasn't a big deal, I've done shit like that before except that bitch decided she'd come in shooting /today/ and I was just there. It's this...there's...it's a frat house. They were. Cleaning it up. When they brought me back. She's...she does this thing. She can make more than one of herself. Like, copies. I think she killed everyone. Not just Greg. The guys." Much of her pissiness is replaced with low-grade guilt and nausea, however. Shelby lowers the peas and prods gingerly at her swollen cheek. It has gone numb, which is good, given the colors of the bruise involved. "...I should've texted. I know. I'm sorry," she adds, peeking up at Jax--and then flicking a look at Hive. "I would've hit the panic button but. I'm sorry. I won't. Maybe I should. Stay at school. For awhile." "The point," Hive says, still through his teeth, "isn't that she doesn't /need/ it the point is that /the school would fucking help her/ without the whole --" His fingers unfist, flicking towards Shelby. "... breathe, Jax." He moves away from the window, starting to flick off the myriad lights around the room. He starts with the sunlamps. "... that's freakish as hell. You should tell us -- I don't even fucking know. Whatever you know. To deal with the cops." His fingers scrunch through his hair in unconscious mirror of Jax. "/He's/ probably not going to say it, though, so I fucking will." He doesn't turn /all/ the lamps off -- just the brightest ones, and then returns to drop down to kneel beside Shelby. "Him letting you stay out here? Is a bigass fucking leap of faith for him. He takes /responsibility/ for you when he signs you out of that fucking school and you owe him the fucking respect to act like you have a shred of responsibility yourself. Not as his student but as his goddamn /friend/." His voice holds -- much the same hard-sharp edge that his mental one often does, although after this he kind of slumps against her beanbag, putting a hand to her knee and squeezing. Maybe too hard. "... because, /fuck/, Shelby. I don't think either of us could /take/ -- not right /now/, fuck me but I /would/ rip apart this entire fucking city." "We can get Kris the care she needs but -- I mean there's /doctors/ that'll -- she ain't the only student who's gone through it, there's -- safer routes." Jax presses his palm against his eyes. << Hive, this might not be the -- >> he is starting to say, but then reconsiders. There's a quiet easing, the mental equivalent of a sigh. His hands shake slightly. He tucks them beneath his arms. "Shelby. You can stay here. But Hive's -- right, you /gotta/ --" His cheeks puff out, and this time the sigh is an audible one. "-- trust me. I want you safe. But you gotta kinda work with me on that, okay?" He takes a half-step towards her, but then pulls back with a tightening of his shoulders. "I could...show you. I guess. It's really bad though. And she said she'd feed me my eyes, if...if there are cops. They want me to...if they call, I'm supposed to do shit for them. I really fucked up. I know I did, it was dumb, I just wanted to /do/ something and he had the hookup. I'm sorry, Jax. I...I will. I swear to god. Sc-school, here. Walking Obie. That's it. Don't be..." Pissed? Pissed works. When Hive's hand lands on her knee, Shelby--still shaking from shock--drops her unswollen cheek to his shoulder. The bag o' peas is cradled in her arm like a baby and her eyes shift towards their host. Her eyebrows are crooked in an arch that spells guilt. "It was dumb. I /do/ trust you. I do." "If they call," Hive says grimly, "you tell us." << /I'll/ feed them their own fucking eyes. >> This time it goes to both the others, harsh-hard-sharp even as his arm slips with contrasting gentleness around Shelby's shoulders. His fingers curl against her shoulder, squeezing her a little closer. << You okay? >> He's still sort of watching -- paying attention to that mental /energy/ of Jax's. Kind of warily. Kind of concerned. "She killed a bunch of people at a fucking /frat/ house, there's /going/ to be cops whether you call them or not." "Just wanted to do something," Jax echoes, and this sounds more tired than angry. His hands drop to his sides. "... know that feeling." It's a thought that comes with a resurgence of chaotically swirling feelings. Angry and stressed and a furious impotent frustration. << No, >> is his kind of /wired/ admission. A little /manic/-bright. << You want to go another round with the cops? >> He's maybe not too hopeful about this. He's also already pulling out his phone to text Ryan. "OK." This is quieter, to Shelby. "OK. We'll -- deal with the cops and you -- stay -- here tonight. I'll -- ohgodIhavework -- someone'll be here, though. Do you think they'll -- come /back/?" Shelby closes her eyes, a muscle jumping in her jaw as she fights the trembling. Tensing up helps a little, as does being squeezed against something. Even if that something is bony. Maybe because of it. Without a full awareness of the side effects of Jax's abilities, she is sadly oblivious to the concern--other than the guilt, which is strong enough to wipe away all reflexive defensive! They're right. She was wrong. After a few deep, cleansing breaths, some of that old Shelby resiliency is creeping back in. "She said she'd told him not to deal anymore. She...I don't think she liked him. Very much. He /was/ kind've a douche. You could...call it in. As a tip. Neighbors heard screams..." Her forehead creases. "I...yeah, okay. Um. No...no, I don't think so. Probably not." "OK. Give me something. Address. What frat house. We'll call. Jax, go to" << the fucking /roof/ before you burn your apartment down >> "work." Hive's cheek tips over to rest on Shelby's head. << No fucking way, take Ryan if you go. Or just let me call. You'll be late for work. >> "You," he says to Shelby, "should maybe fucking sleep." "OK." This is probably OK to the suggestion both spoken and mental. Jax slips over closer to the others, leaning in for -- no hug. Just a quick peck on the forehead, Shelby first then Hive. Probably a good thing it is quick; his skin is kind of uncomfortably hot. "Text me if you need anything. But I don't think --" He glances at Hive briefly. "-- that Hive's going nowhere." The address comes easily enough, passed over quickly. It's harder to say, "I'm sorry you guys have to clean this shit up for me." Shelby lets the peas--melting, now, starting to soak through the dishcloth--drop to her lap so she can reach out to flatten her hand against Hive's chest. Just that. << Tell him I mean it? I'm not just, like. Busted. He's too far away to hug. >> No sooner said than Jax comes closer--<< wowtelepathsworkfast >>--and she's able to tilt her head back to accept that kiss. It creates a squirm of awkward. Not her usual mode of affection, but... "...Jesus, you're burning up. Fuck. I...I'll be fine, yeah. Maybe. Stay up awhile. Watch some movies." Avoid sleep. << Get out of here before you fucking explode, >> Hive grumbles at Jax, but it comes with an undercutting of rather deep concern. And a grudging, << ... she really means it. >> "This hippie fucking asshole doesn't have a television. Let's put on my netflix." Up in the loft, probably. Where he can -- steal his /own/ wifi. His hand curls over top of Shelby's. Yeah. He's not going anywhere.