ArchivedLogs:Keep Struggling

Keep Struggling
Dramatis Personae Hive, Isra, Lucien, Matt, Steve, Tag
In Absentia	2016-09-27 "{Believe me, his face has not been punched nearly often enough.}"
Location <NYC> {Workhaus} - Harbor Commons - Lower East Side
The wide entryway leads into a semicircular sitting area with plush modular chairs, sofas, and huge beanbags arranged around two low tables. The bright, open expanse of the house fans back and out from here, executed in stunning industrial style with extremely conservative usage of rough stone walls. Through a door on the right is a library boasting an eclectic but extensive collection of books, a cozy reading nook, as well as a state-of-the-art computer work station. Opposite this is a media room with a projector mounted overhead and a formidable sound system on all sides, the windows still admitting plenty of light when the blackout curtains are pulled back. Beyond the sitting area, toward the back of the house and separated from adjacent areas only by plentiful black granite counters, are a pair of kitchens, each stocked with their own appliances, cookware, servingware, and utensils. Adjoining the (vegan and kosher) kitchen on the right is a simple dining room with a long oval table and chairs designed to accommodate a range of body shapes. On the other side, tucked between the general-purpose kitchen and the media center, is a guest room and a full bath. At the center of the entire house is a cylindrical elevator shaft of steel and glass with two floating stairways coiled around it like an immense double helix. Both elevator and stairs lead down out of sight and up to a circular landing joined to the second storey wings by walkways that leave the space above the sitting area open. Above the kitchens is a sun-drenched split-level recess, the lower half a conservatory enclosed by glass and the upper half a rooftop garden. The whole is walled with glass and lets in copious quantities of natural light softened by lush greenery. Workhaus is a bright chaos tonight, cheery and loud and well-lit. Ego Likeness is playing on the sound system and many rounds of Soul Calibur over in the media room; scattered around various clusters of people a few different games are underway. Evolution on the dining table, Scrabble in the library, a raucous and heavily punctuated with laughter game of Funemployed in the recessed sitting area. There might have been a game going on in the conservatory but at the moment it's just lingering people, snacking and chatting. Up above them, the garden is less lively -- still twinkling, though, its shrubs and squat trees strung around and through with star- and dragonfly-shaped fairylights that cast plenty enough illumination. Hive is settled up here, an angular solitary figure folded into a wiry lime-green basket chair. There is a cigarette slowly burning to a stub between long calloused fingers and a vacant sort of distance in his half-lidded eyes. Barefoot, he is dressed in faded jeans and a black corduroy button-up worn open over a plain blue v-neck tee. In the oval sitting area, Steve perched on the couch and meditatively fiddling with a card that reads 'HELP WANTED: My Job.' He wears a bright yellow t-shirt with a skeletal T-rex dancing above the word FOSSIL spelled out in bones, crisp indigo jeans, and a crooked smile on his face. All of the other players have already made their cases, save one. Sitting beside him, Lucien has taken his time and looks faintly pleased with himself. "I think we can all agree," says Lucien mildly, laying out a qualification card that reads 'Hot Mess', "that one would need to be a bit of a mess to want to be Captain America -- and I am indisputably that. Volunteering for this position demonstrates perhaps not the /best/ judgement..." The next card reads 'Poor Judgement.' "...but I do also have a long history of making truly heinous decisions. In the course of a career as Captain America, of course, one would quickly accumulate a vast number of difficulties." He lays down 'Every Problem Ever.' "With which I am also intimately familiar. But fortunately I have a qualification that is unique at this somewhat diverse table, one that lets all of these problems glance off of me with little effect." One corner of his mouth tugs ever so faintly upward, /almost/ a smile. "Why, as a white man I could go out there tonight and punch a police officer right in his most deserving face and walk away without fear of legal repercussion because of my --" And here he speaks the word precisely as he reveals his last qualification card, "-- Privilege." Tag slides off of his beanbag and partially /under/ the coffee table, seized with a fit of giggling. Isra merely lifts an eyebrow and allows a "Well played, Sir," with a fangy smile. Matt is laughing behind his hand, slumping over onto his brother once he had recovered. says, heaving a dramatic sigh and slumping over onto his brother. "And I was /so sure/ I had something going as a topless, dragon-riding, monocle-wearing Cap candidate." Steve is blushing rather fiercely and grinning as he lays the 'My Job' card down on Lucien's long column of Job cards, which include 'Cheerleader', 'Astronaut', 'Venture Capitalist', and 'Gangster.' "Congratulations, Captain Tessier. I think you win. In fact, you made such a brilliant case for that last position..." He turns around and picks up his iconic shield, polished bright in its classical red, white and blue today, presenting it solemnly to Lucien. "...you get to be Captain America for the remainder of the evening." He shuffles his cards together and deposits them back into the box, rising with his mug (black, decorated with the pattern of the shield he had just handed over). "Great game, everyone, but I'm going to take a break." He departs from the cheerful chatter that erupts in his wake, drifting through the kitchen to refill his mug with homemade watermelon soda, then ascends the stairs into the conservatory and, finally, up into the quiet open air of the rooftop garden adjoining it. Lowering himself into a chair beside Hive, he gingerly but somewhat matter-of-factly removes the cigarette (mostly filter now) from the other man's hand before the brand reaches flesh. Hive is still as Steve arrives, quiet and unresisting when the cigarette is plucked from his hand. His eyes stay unfocused, and it takes a few moments before he shifts -- reaching out towards Steve. The impulse there completes itself somewhat seamlessly in Steve's mind, the other man's arm shifting to close the distance between them as well; Hive snags the watermelon soda, settling back with the mug. The sip that he takes (cold, sweet, slightly fizzy, startlingly intense in its watermelon flavor) washes down clear and vivid over Steve's senses. Steve surrenders his mug without hesitation, closing his eyes with a smile at the taste of its contents. He leans back in his chair, the fingers of one hand unconsciously massaging the knuckles of the other. A quick flash of memory through him -- more proprioception than vision or even touch -- of his fist slamming into a man's sternum, the wet crunch of bones snapping under the impact. He sucks in a deep breath and lets it back out, calm but firmly pushing the memory back down. "More people should clock that motherfucker." The small twitch of Hive's smile is quick, accompanied by the faintest mental tug that draws the memory back into focus. "{Believe me, his face has not been punched nearly often enough.}" "{Somehow I'm having a hard time imagining he doesn't get punched every day.}" Steve's voice is the soft murmur one might use when talking to oneself. << But then, perhaps that is not often enough? >> He yields to the tug, lets the memory play out more fully: Eric fallen, his wounds mending, stretching his hand out, smiling. Steve's fury simmers in the background of the recollection, and he fights to keep it from creeping into his present consciousness. The simmering fury is reflected, echoed quietly in the twinned half of their mind. It is mirrored against another fizzy wash of watermelon, sweet and cold; it's mirrored, too, against a similarly bubbly ripple of amusement surfacing between them. << (not often enough) >>, slips back in Steve's own voice. And aloud, quiet: "Jax cut his balls off once." << {Also well-deserved.} >> Hive doesn't fight the anger, just lets it marinate between them, something twisting a little sharp and sick inside them before settling down again. Steve's eyes widen just a fraction, cringing inwardly but also bubbling with quiet amusement. "Did he know they'd grow back?" He also stops fighting his anger, settling down into it and into Hive. << Still, what he said...maybe he's right. I'm not doing enough. I see the writing on the wall but I just don't know how to stop it from coming. >> Disjointed flashes of dingy prison camps half blanketed in snow, gaunt faces peering from between bars. "Dude rolls out of his kid's bedroom in the morning, I'm not sure he was much caring." Hive's tone is light, but the sparks of his anger flickering through their mind are bright. He reaches back out, passes the mug of soda back off to Steve once more. He slouches back into his seat, eyes slipping half-closed, distant once more. A faint shudder passes through his shoulders at the flashes of memory -- though likewise he doesn't fight them. Just lets them flash through him, his breathing slowing faintly. In his own mind there are flashes -- not memory but someone else's eyes, across the city, currently watching video clips recapping last night's spectacle of a debate. << Enough. >> Hive turns this idea over pensively. "What could enough even be?" << What if... >> This trails off, though, uneasy and unfinished. Steve's amusement dies abruptly, and he sits up. "His bed -- he was /sleeping/ with Shane?" His thoughts are briefly incoherent, but beneath it he isn't quite as surprised as he thought he might be. He draws a deep breath, leans into the unfinished thought. << There is no 'enough', but if I can do more. Let me. Help me. >> "{Yeah, he -- wait didn't we already punch him over this?}" Hive's brows lift just slightly. His hand lifts, too, fingers scruffing through his mop of hair, rubbing slow against the side of his head. << Sometimes, >> he admits wryly -- somewhere inside them there's a ballooning ripple, mental scape expanding in a swift and hungry tide << sometimes, it feels like it would be so easy. To do more. See things going so ugly and just -- >> There's another faint memory that surfaces, a quiet background thought reminding Steve of Eric's helpful /resilience/. << /Nudge/ it my way. But do you know where the line is? Between enough and too much? >> "{That was for /dating/ Shane,}" Steve's voice is soft and steady now, his anger quieting without subsiding. He raises the mug and takes a slow sip. His eyelids flutter with the network's sudden expansion, but it does not disturb him, exactly. He flexes a sense still relatively new to him, a kind of mental proprioception, feeling for the shapes and boundaries of their innerspace. << No, >> he admits. Then, tilting his head -- although he does not actually turn to look at Hive -- he examines the memory of him remembering Eric's ability mid-fight. Turns it over and over, until he is sure that no one ever even told him Eric was a mutant, much less one with such spectacularly fast healing. He doesn't quite know how to feel about it, though -- it /was/ just remembering, after all. What of it? << No, we don't. >> Hive closes his eyes, cheeks puffing out, breath slowly pushed out through pursed lips. "S'the question, isn't it?" << Could have all the power in the fucking world to change it how we want but -- >> Something inside them is twisting, roiling -- there are his own flashes of memory, brief, keenly pained. Camps, too; dingy, slushy grey snow trod over icy ground, a singed black bowler hat fluttering down to land on the icy packed dirt, air alive with electricity and blood. His cheeks suck in. "But." Steve's perplexity at the flashes of Hive's memory turn to a kind of cold horror as he gently pursues them for context. But even as he remembers the future that was, he feels no less bewildered. He does not know how to process even the memories themselves, much less their implications for the ethical conundrum at hand. "{But, to be honest, even changing the world as one singular man, without powers, or with very limited ones...}" A rapid-fire series of snapshots from Captain America's wildly successful war bond circuit and the mass destruction the U.S. military brought to bear on various Axis cities -- some in grainy black-and-white archival footage, others in Steve's own starkly vivid recollection. "{...Even that is not so straight-forward.}" He draws a shaky breath. << Maybe it is impossible to say how much is too much, or how little is not enough, in the general case. It is a struggle enough to know whether what we're doing is right, if we can even know that. >> Hive's settling is more mental than physical, bony shoulders still taut even as his mind eases gently in and around the quick flicker of Steve's memories. Taking them, feeling them, reliving them in the same vivid recollection. << Then, >> softly, << we keep struggling. >>