ArchivedLogs:Kinks and Ethics

Kinks and Ethics
Dramatis Personae Hive, Melinda
In Absentia	2013-04-25 '
Location <NYC> 403 {Geekhaus} - Village Lofts - East Village
There's kind of a college-dorm feel to this place, though some of its occupants have left college behind. Entering the apartment finds visitors greeted by the perpetually messy living room, a mismatched assortment of couches and chairs (and milk crates) surrounding the wide table in the center. The wall holds a range of posters; some political, some sporty, some from video games, and a string of white lights strung over the kitchen doorway might be a holdover from Christmas. The kitchen adjacent is just as cluttered, its table unfit for eating due to its perpetual covering of books, papers, cereal boxes, projects; the fridge is usually sparsely populated. Ketchup. Beer. Not a lot of food. There are two bedrooms here, split between the four people; the fold-out couch in the living room (often folded out!) suggests that at least one of them does not actually claim a room as their own. After work, Melinda runs home, changes her clothes, zips off to the grocery store, and then arrives at the Lofts in enough time that the sun is still in the sky when she arrives. She's very layered today, as it is hard to tell exactly how warm the night will be, with a white tank top under a loose knit lightweight sweater, with a jacket over the top and jeans below. She's wearing sneakers too! Her finger is just about to hit the bell to GeekHaus, when someone else opens the door to leave. She shoots the individual a smile before sliding in the entryway without a word, taking off for the stairs before the resident (if said person is a resident) is able to say anything. She trundles on up to the correct level and knocks on the door. It's so much more convenient than doorbell buzzing. There is an answer from inside the apartment before the door even opens. Not quite an answer, actually; there's a ghostly-brief shimmer of a person, there and then gone and then down the hall and then gone and then suddenly there again, apologetic and a little flustered with his backpack slung over one shoulder: "/Woah/ hey Mel I almost didn't see you Hive said you were coming but I didn't know /now/ I'm just running out for groceries because we have ketchup and beer and that's about all, um, you want anything?" Flicker is taking out his keys as he asks all this, unlocking the door for Melinda and then pocketing the keys again. "Oh! Hi Flicker." It takes Melinda a moment to adjust to the appearance of the teleporter, her smiling faltering only a second in the face of his run on speech. "Well, I just went to the store and got some stuff to make a hot pot. There's plenty of everything for everyone, but I guess drinks would be good if you're still going out." She reaches out and opens the door, amusement growing in her eyes. "Maybe dessert?" "I'm /on/ it I will be the king of drinks and desserts." Flicker leans in, giving Mel a brief peck on the cheek, and then vanishes again. Blip-blip-blip and then he is out of sight. Whooosh. Inside the apartment, things are kind of sort of neater than usual although slowly decaying back into a state of mess. Hive is dressed much like his usual, shabby faded jeans, a brown t-shirt with a pair of hedgehogs staring at a third hedgehog who has tipped a can of blue paint over itself. He's sitting on an upturned milk crate, leaning over the table where his laptop is set up with two external monitors attached. There are blueprints on the screen, though over top the window has a browser full of pictures; some construction site, heavy equipment, a lot of construction workers. "That was qui --" He turns on his seat as the door opens: "/Oh/ hey, Mel. Hey!" For a moment, he smiles, quick. "We're going to have a party," he tells her. "I just decided that so you're the first person to know. I don't know when it's going to be yet. Maybe this weekend? You down?" Melinda steps into the apartment and slips off her shoes, doing a small creature check before closing the door behind her. She looks up at Hive and is pleasantly surprised to see him sitting up, dressed and working on his computer. She smiles a little wider, one eyebrow arching upwards as she listens to him speak. "A party? Sure. Sounds great. I'm all day shifts now and weekends off, so I'll be around." << Barring emergencies at the cafe. Ohhh.. promotion. It's exciting. >> She heads toward the kitchen, a little wary of the condition, but steeled to have to clean her way into some pots to cook with. "I brought hot pot stuff for dinner, hope that's not too presumptuous of me." Pause. "Is there a reason for the party, or just because you want a party?" "Hoshit. You got free nights /and/ weekends now? Maybe we should have /all/ the parties. Parties /every/ weekend." Hive gets up, meandering after Melinda towards the kitchen, his fingers raking through his hair. He offers her a one-armed squeeze of hug, skinnybony, and then actually sets /himself/ at the sink to actually -- do dishes. There's kind of a pile of them. "There's been like a fucking /explosion/ of excitement from downstairs. Twins came back last night. Guess things are kind of a mess right now figuring shit out but I think that's good overall. Deserves a party, yeah? Congrats on the promotion, by the way." Melinda hugs Hive with one arm around his back, the other hand resting on his chest as she briefly lays her head on his shoulder. When he heads off to the dishes, she requests, "Can I have a cutting board?" Because that's likely in the sink pile. She starts setting out veggies on the counter, making a pile of ones that need to be rinsed and ones she can just start peeling and cutting. "Oh, shit, really? That's terrific. Man, I missed those kids. It was so weird having them gone." The barista cum cafe manager is pleased, relief adding a sort of nervous energy to her movements. She calms herself down though, breathing deep and realizing that the immediate family has a lot to talk about before the next circle of loved ones can jump in. She starts hunting the drawers for a good knife. "Thanks. it's a little bit of a transition time, but this gives me so much more free time and I don't have to run open mic anymore, once the new assistant manager gets the hang of it." "Man thank god I feel like your open mic was great but attracted a lot of fucking crazyass kids. Maybe it's an artist thing, you think it's an artist thing? Artists are fucking crazy." Hive scrubs a cutting board clean, rinsing it and kind of splattering himself with a spray of water. The sink is too full to manage /not/ spraying while rinsing. "Was shitty having them gone. Maybe they'll have worked things out in time to party this weekend. If not, though, next weekend. /This/ weekend maybe we can, like. Have beer." "Works for me. I'm just glad to have a schedule where I can drink and sleep it off for once, without having to deal with shit the next day." Mel take the cutting board and the knife she finds and starts to get to work on the mushrooms and carrots. "I hope things go well. It'd be good for all of them if they could just reconnect and talk to each other -- and yes. Artists are generally kind of batshit, especially the ones who have to sell their amazing talents to people who don't believe them. Jax is only representative of the saner half of the population." "Maaan, if Jax is a barometer of safety, the art world is boned." Hive is amused, if fondly so. "Right, so, what you're saying is, the future plan for Mel includes filling you with /all the booze/?" He glances back over one shoulder towards the fridge. "I think we got you covered." Scrubscrub. He's steadily getting a little bit more splattered. DampHive. "So, promotion, that's rad. What else is news?" Sex with Jim pops into Mel's head pretty quickly, but she stuffs it back down. "Oh, I'm trying to get back in the swing of things with Helping Hands. I feel like I've been away from there for quite a while." Melinda glances over in Hive's direction and laughs quietly at his state. "You're kind of bad at that -- or are you trying to combine your sink duties with your shower time?" She extracts a large pot from the clean pile and sets it on the stove. She pulls out a couple of boxes of broth from her bag next, emptying them into the pot. "How about you? What are you up to these days? You do seem to have a good deal more energy than last time I saw you." "Yeeah OK I'm shitty at it but hey I'm pretty dusty, I could use the bath." Hive just smirks as she points out his sink failings, and lifts a hand to flick fingers in her direction, sending a few droplets of water scattering Mel-wards. "Yeah, I kinda. My head was fucked /up/, you know? Know a guy who -- can do pretty intense shit with brains. He straightened it out. -- Was I a dick to you? I'm sorry if I was a dick to you." He looks a little wry. "More than usual, I mean." And then another smirk, perhaaaaps at Mel's Jim-memory. "Though I think we /did/ establish you have a predilection for assholes." "Hey, I'm clean! Don't sinkshower me!" Melinda holds up one hand to block the sprinkle as she finishes dumping broth into the pot. She supplements the flavor of the liquid with stock from a jar. "Yes, terrible taste in men. Like jerks and assholes. What am I going to do?" She gives up joking to look more serious as she shucks garlic from their husks. "No. You were okay, a bit of a headache, but okay. I just fed you sandwiches and we talked. I did hear that you were a jerk. Did you get that situation fixed up?" This is Mel, very distinctly not lecturing Hive on his encounter with Shelby, but curious about it all the same. Somewhat tactful, no? "Clean, but you're /dry/. I am remedying that. Kitchen is the splash zone, you should've prepared." Although Hive is too busy grimacing at a particularly stubbornly-burned pan and scrubbing it hard to flick Mel any more. "Do? Like jerks and assholes, I guess. That's not such a bad thing. You can't just live on a steady diet of sugar." Frown. "-- Unless you're Jax." He quiets, with a deeper front for a moment. "I don't know," he admits. "I don't know what fixed up is. The twins are back. I don't know what's going to happen with Bastian and Shelby. I guess for /fixed/ I'll have to wait and see." "I wouldn't blame her at all if she didn't take him back - but that wasn't really what I cared about." Melinda opens her mouth to explain, but her brain talks her out of it. << Man, I do not need to ask him about the awkwardness of having a teenager in love with him. >> She instead leans over and starts pulling out the individually wrapped selections of meat. "Teenagers. They'll figure themselves and each other out with time. Young romance was never easy for anyone. Hell, I wasn't sure who or what I was attracted to when I was their age." Mel's mind begins to drift back to the topic of romance. "But now? I'm developing a type. I don't know. Maybe I just like my men full of piss and vinegar. I like my truth blunt too, so maybe that's a part of it." She starts stealing clean bowls out of the drying rack and begins to fill them with slices of meat for later cooking. She keeps her mind very well schooled on her work, not wanting to cut her fingers while cutting, but also not expose Hive to what else she likes in men. "Her? Mmm. I wouldn't blame /him/ if he didn't take her back. They both fucked that up. I fucked that up. I don't think there's a single person in that equation who didn't fuck up." Hive exhales heavily, scrubbing wet fingers through his hair. His hand drops, back to finish the last couple plates in the sink. "I don't think she's in love, just --" He shrugs. And washes plates. His mouth curls up into a crooked smile. "Shit, some days I'm /still/ not sure who or what I'm attracted to." He finishes the last plate, setting it on the drying rack and shaking water off his hands into the sink. "There's blunt and then there's hard. I don't think I'm good at toeing that line. Glad there's some people who like it, though." "I tend to just allow myself to experience attraction on a person by person basis." There's a sigh as Mel attempts to rub her nose with the bend of her wrist, as her fingers are covered in raw meat juice and her nose itches. "Besides, with the number of kinks out there, I'm relatively sure every personality type has someone who is drawn to it." She continues slicing carefully. "I just happen to be drawn to yours." Hive's smile lingers. He wipes his hands against his jeans, turning to lean against the sink counter, studying Melinda quietly. "I've never been someone's kink before," he says eventually, and it's kind of amused, kind of light. His eyes are twinkling, anyway. "I think I like it. You can use me for my assholery any day." "Ha! Just don't turn belligerent on me, and we'll be all set. I'll get off on your sarcasm and wit... and -- well." Melinda pauses in her cutting and eyes Hive for a long moment. "And what do you get out of this? Am I supposed to be your caffeine supplier now? Or shall I just come make you dinner more often?" She smiles a little brighter and turns back to her meat cutting, humming to herself a little to distract her brain. "I don't think I've ever really quantified my friends in terms of what I get out of them," Hive says, wryly. "Though I do tend to quantify people i /don't/ like that way to gauge if they're worth keeping around. Uh. That's probably shitty of me but." He shrugs. "Not that I'm saying /no/ to caffeine and dinner but I'd still want you here even if you only mooched my food and objectified me for my jerkishness." He reaches out, resting one hand over her knife hand to stay its cutting. "I mean, I don't know. Maybe I'm just fetishizing you. Maybe I really dig a woman with morals." "Oh, baby, your morals are really getting me hot under the collar. I'm totally going to snark at you so you'll feel it too, baby." Melinda's voice drops to a lusty alto, her eyes half lidded in a cheeky sultry expression, her hands moving the last of the meat into its particular bowl. "Come on and read the drivers manual to me. Let me know how to make a left hand turn correctly and when it is /legal/ to perform a u-turn." She grins and then laughs as she makes her way to the sink to wash her hands and the cutting board and the knife. "See? You know me so well. Shit, I'm getting turned on right now." Hive's tone is dry, his smirk -- well, smirky. He stands side for Mel to get to the sink, but then slips into place behind her, hands -- still kind of damp -- sliding around her waist. "Talk ethically to me, Mel." His head tips forward, resting against her shoulder. And then he snorts. "Though I guess Jiminy Cricket is not the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to sex." Not that that's /stopping/ him from brushing her hair back slightly with his /cheek/, freeing up room to press lips to her neck. "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to throw off the chains of ... oh," Melinda's recitation falters when Hive's lips touch her neck, her eyes flutter closed. "I mean dissolve the political bands which have connected them to another..." She leans back against him. "Mmm and to assume the ... damn it." She laughs a little and shakes her head. "Now I can't tell if you're distracting me or if my memory of old political documents is fading. Quick. Say something bluntly honest. It'll help me figure out whether it's distraction or old age." "I never learned that shit, I'm not even fucking American," Hive admits. And then, "Liking assholes is probably bad for you." Which, again, doesn't stop the kiss that comes next, pressed to the hollow behind Mel's ear. "Well then," Melinda considers quietly, "I'll just have to be sure to only be with assholes who are sensitive to my high morals and standards and remind them constantly of the wrongness and detriments to being too much of an asshole to their friends and loved ones." Mel's hands flick a little water off before moving out of the sink. One rests over Hive's arms across her midsection while the other reaches back to spread more dampness in his hair." "So you'll pull me back if I cross the asshole /line/?" Hive's lips curl up into a smirk, again. But only for a moment. In the next moment he is lifting his head, shifting a little bit forward, a little bit up, to press his mouth to Melinda's. "Of course," Melinda mutters quietly as Hive's mouth draws closer, pressing her lips against his, maintaining the contact for a heart beat or two before breaking the kiss, turning her head a little further, then pursuing another kiss. One of Hive's hands lifts, moving to Melinda's side to turn her a little further, pull her a little closer. He accepts the second kiss, deepens it, pressing forward to press Mel against the counter. Behind them, a bedroom door opens. "Hey did we haaahshit," is Dusk's only contribution to things before he is closing the door again, disappearing back inside. A quiet chuckle sounds in Hive's throat. He kisses Melinda again. Mel kisses him back, once or twice more, similar amusement in her mind if not her throat. << We are technically making dinner - and Flicker will be back from the store soon. >> She makes a soft reluctant noise and pulls back to smile at him. "Continue later?" Hive squeezes Melinda for a moment, and then pulls back. "Mmm. Later," he agrees. He glances over the food. "How can I help?" "Well..." It takes Melinda a few minutes to pull her head back into dinner mode, but she manages eventually. She works along side Hive to make sure all of the ingredients are prepped and all the sauces ready before Flicker returns and Dusk is coaxed back out of his room. Dinner is delicious.