ArchivedLogs:Lack Of Communication

Lack Of Communication
Dramatis Personae Hive, Micah
In Absentia	13 April 2014 Hive isn't really willing to ask questions. (Part of the Perfectus TP.)
Location <NYC> Rang Phueng Design – SoHo
Located on the third floor of a narrow brick-faced office building in SoHo, the lobby of Rang Phueng Design is a comfortable place to wait. There are a number of paintings hung on the walls, brightly colored though somewhat fantastical cityscapes. A large aquarium on one wall, clean and carefully tended, hosts brightly colored marine life swimming through a number of plants and coral. The table amid all the large cheerfully blue-and-silverygrey microsuede couches has a sampling of architectural magazines as well as popular ones, magazines and newspapers generally actually up to date. The receptionist desk is a large black wood one, though it is unmanned. Off to the side a small table has a little refreshment stand set up, a Keurig coffeemachine with a large selection of tea-coffee-cocoa choices and a minifridge beneath the table with juice and water and soda. Through the door in back of the lobby is an enormous workshop space, wide and airy. Spacious drafting tables take up much of the center of the room, a number of glass-topped desks edging the sides though only one of them against the back windows actually boasts a computer. Walls painted white and paneled in glass turn most of the wallspace into whiteboard, generally covered with notes and measurements. The back wall's large windows look out onto the streets. Two side doors lead to office space at the side. One leads off to an office space that, though comfortably large, is dwarfed by the workshop beside it; currently unfurnished, it is just a bare empty sweep of potential uses. The other door, has been given -- no name plaque, yet. Just a tacked-up piece of paper reading "J.M. Investigations". The past couple days have been quiet, in Micah's mind. Hive's presence has been muted, a barely noticeable background murmur lodged somewhere into the back of the other man's thoughts. But over the connection it's been slowly growing -- waking up. Uncomfortably, unhappily, a shaky /tremor/ like his clamped-down control walling off the leakage between him and Micah is slipping. Cracking, shaking. And what's been bleeding through the slowly-widening cracks throughout the afternoon and evening has been -- mostly pain. Probably not unexpected, the throb of headache. The queasy-nausea. But past this there's a growing sense of /unease/, anxiety-stress-worry. Sick-unhappy -- fear? Though it keeps being /shoved/ back (futilely) beneath a gritted sort of /resolve/ that he's Totally Not Going To Bother Micah with this. Which. Of course. Just makes him think of Micah all the more. It might /be/ this resolve that is kind of /irritating/ the connection between them more. /Chafing/ at it like an open sore. Hive's totally-not-bothering-Micah impression serves as a rather effective Micah summons. He shows up with bags of lunch from a nearby street vendor in hope of getting Hive to eat while he is there. He has, very notably, had the vendor tie the plastic bags off in tight knots so that they'll need to be ripped open to access the food. That way he couldn't accidentally...do anything to it before Hive is /watching/ him. He walks in with crutches, but looks like his gait is rather even and steady now, better even from what it looked like just this morning. The sensations of pain and discomfort in Micah's mind are also lessened. He knocks at the office door. "Hive. It's Micah." Hive is tucked into the back of his office, dressed still in largely the same clothes he was wearing the day before -- plain white undershirt, jeans, though today he's tossed on a blue denim shirt over top. He's off in the side room, where the futon mattresses have been laid, draped over one of them with his thin red laptop resting on his stomach, though he isn't paying much attention to it, eyes scrunched closed and his hands pressed against them. << Fuck are you doing here, >> grumbles across their connection, pretty much at the exact same time an almost absent mental image identifies his location in the office. << You were thinkin' 'bout not botherin' me really hard. Which makes me think y'need t'bother me for somethin'. So I brought lunch. I had the vendor tie it off tight, so I can't've done anythin' to it. >> Micah wanders back into Hive's office. He's still dressed in thrift shop finery: navy henley and faded jeans. The degree of muss to his hair has steadily increased since morning. "It's just street vendor Pad Thai. Nothin' fancy. But it was nearby. S'Flicker here? I won't hang 'round too long if not." He deposits the plastic bag on Hive's desk before backing away to sit in a chair across from him. Hive doesn't answer the question of bothering Micah straightaway. He shakes his head, though, at the thought -- or /smell/ -- of food, the wash of nausea that stirs in him easily felt through the mental connection and its steadily eroding shielding. << (not hungry) >> he isn't really intentionally answering Micah; just reflexively inwardly recoiling at the notion of lunch and instead wondering, puzzled, "-- won't hang around if Flicker's not --?" His hands thud down off his eyes to fall against his keyboard. His eyes crack open, head rolling to one side to regard Micah, and the distance between them, with a /frown/. Slowly he pushes down whatever feelings were starting to surface, asking instead: "How're you holding up?" "I'll just...put this in the 'fridge for if y'feel a little better later. Have you asked your doc about maybe gettin' some anti-nausea meds. t'help you eat more?" Micah collects the bag and stows it away as advertised. "Remember the part where I might be brain-wired t'take people in for the Perfectus folks? If you're here alone, I won't...stay for long. Ain't safe." He settles back into the chair, leaning his crutches up against Hive's desk. "I'm okay. Got t'see Rasa t'day. Ze's over at the Clinic. Ze...wanted nothin' t'do with this leg, so. Kate's fixed up hir lung an' started growin' a new leg on hir. Might take a few days t'finish. But Corey was there, too, so spent the mornin' sittin' near t'him. Did more for makin' this leg work than anythin' else has." He turns his eyes back up from his lap to regard Hive. "How're /you/ holdin' up?" There's a sharp flare of irritation that spikes, harsh and /angry/ across the shared plane of their mental landscape and just /stays/, throbbing there in a dull knot of sudden fury that twines in and then -- grips. It grips and /holds/, the mental connection very neatly, very abruptly, mental /control/; with an almost /lazy/ flex of psionic muscle coiling outward Hive's mind is very firmly doing what he rarely cares to and clamping down on Micah -- who will very shortly find himself on his feet again, at Hive's will rather than his own. Walking Micah across the small room, stooping him to (conscientiously! -- it's /Flicker's/ side of the room) remove his shoes and lie him down on Flicker's futon mattress. Hive's words come out of Micah's mouth: "I /remember/, Micah. What the /fuck/ do you think I'm in your fucking brain for." He rolls Micah over on his side, to face Hive's mattress, now. "Exactly how far do you think you'd even get, trying shit." There's still anger there, coiled sick-hurt-cold and easily felt between them. On /his/ mattress Hive just looks blank; bony-thin arms flopped limp and shaking against his chest, his sunken-shadowed eyes mostly closed. "You of all fucking people --" It's out of his own mouth this time, just barely whispered. "Honey, I know. This is...irritatin' the heck outta everybody, an' I /apologise/. I'm tryin' not t'be alone with anybody with special abilities. /'Specially/ not the ones I /know/ they know about an' /want/. Not for very long. Just in case. I been...fudgin' that just a /little/ with Jax, but. It's just...hard," Micah replies to the irritation coming over the connection, then slumps down in his seat, suddenly looking rather tired. Micah brings his hands up to rub at his eyes as if he needs to help them focus after all of...that. "That was incredibly unnecessary. An' I don't know, hon. That's the whole point. I /don't/ know. /I/ might not need t'do much if I'm just...signallin' one of those squads of super-cultists who've been able t'take down the likes of Dusk an' Ion /t'gether/. I just...couldn't stand for any of y'all t'get hurt an' have it be my fault, okay?" "Fuck you." It's soft, still. The anger doesn't exactly subside, just churns into an unhappy roiling /mess/ of sick and /hurt/ and -- terrified? that is, very abruptly, bubbling over with all of the scared-stressed feelings he's been shoving down all day. "/Fuck/ you, Micah, I don't --" Hive's words trail off, faltering into a fumbling knot in his throat -- a fumbling knot in his /mind/ -- either or both of these too hard to unravel and finish this sentence. His mind finishes /for/ him, though it's a /jumble/, a tumultuous storm left for Micah to sort through. The daily doses of Dusk's blood that /had/ been keeping his health largely in check, cut off with Dusk's kidnapping. The immediate and rather severe downward turn in his health that came with not just the end of this assistance but the constant far-reaching exercise of his abilities that accompanied the search-and-rescue. The past few days spent, mostly, in here, trying to come to terms with his declining brain function. Worsening motor skills. More limited mobility. The clawing sense of fear-helplessness that he's been trying to push back, waffling over whether or not to call Micah in equal parts because Micah has A Lot On His Plate and because /Hive/ is -- kind of terrified. The cold-angry-/hurt/-(scared) at Micah's implication that Hive needs Flicker here to /protect/ him -- kiiind of making him sharply rethink asking for help. That he might have expected the implication from a lot of other people, but --. It's a swirl of thoughts that mingle and overlap, none of them really forming into words so much as just -- there for Micah to pick through, bared through connection that Hive is either no longer willing or able to shield. Eventually he just lifts his hands, pressing his palms against his eyes again. "Fine. Don't be alone with me, then. Get the fuck out of my office, Micah." Micah winces as much at the mental tumult as at anything Hive is /saying/. "Hive, just...stop. Stop for a minute. An' work out...what y'needed t'tell me, please. I can...try t'help. I /came/ t'help." His head shakes. "Did you not...just hear what I said? It's not /you/, it's /everyone/. I'm tryin' not t'be alone around /anyone/. The only reason I wanted Flicker here was for y'all t'be able t'protect /each other/. Y'know how we've been tellin' folks /not/ t'go out alone? It's the same idea, only with the added bonus that I might be sendin' up /signals/ t'these psychos of /who/ t'come hurt. 'Cause I've /got/ 'em alone an' found the time where they aren't stayin' in safe numbers." He rubs his fingers into his temples. "I haven't gone /home/. I haven't visited /Dusk/. I had m'self under /guard/ just t'go t'my /work/ so I could see Rasa. 'Cause /I'm/ a danger t'everyone. Potentially. This is...so not about you." Micah hauls himself up to sitting with a wave of dizzy-nausea, stubbornly blinking away tears as he pulls his shoes back on and ties them. He goes to stand up and eyes his crutches across the room. Takes a moment to get to his knees with a wince, placing his right leg so that it can do the lion's share of the work in hauling him up, hands pressed one to the floor and one to his knee to help him get there, ponderous and staggering slightly. He cringes, then just bites down on his lip to fight back other expressions of pain and discomfort. Stepping across the room incredibly slowly, he grabs for the chair as soon as he can get to it, using his arms to help stay upright as he circles the chair to collect his crutches from the other side. There are more thoughts coiling-swirling in Hive's mind, scared-sick if unspoken; no idea how he's going to /manage/ things like getting to work anymore, getting /anywhere/ anymore, no idea /who/ but Micah to talk to about his steadily slipping control over his own body. His eyes are wet when he drops his hands again, his breathing shaky and Micah's nausea reflexively triggering a stronger wave of his own. His eyes just fix up on the ceiling, though; the hard swallow he forces down his throat comes with an internal one, too, mentally forcing down the hungry surge of longing that is trying to claw its way up. His fingers twitch inwards, clamping in to clench into the denim of his shirt, and for all the /mental/ tumult, outwardly he is silent. As Micah gathers his crutches, slipping his arms into place on them, he sorts through the thoughts coming from Hive. "Hive. I /can/ help you with that. I can get you a rental wheelchair in one drive t'my storage unit. You could /borrow/ mine, even...s'nicer an' lighter an' you're more my size. An' we can order you a power scooter. Your needs aren't so serious that y'need anythin' but the bottom-line cheaper versions. Y'can rent-to-own or y'can buy a new one outright. With my vendor discount, sellin' one t'you at cost, I could prob'ly do for under $700. I'd thought...maybe 'bout goin' over this with you before, s'just somethin'. Told me you'd prob'ly be too proud or stubborn t'listen. Don't know where I got /that/ idea." Finally situated, he heads toward the door as ordered. "You know where t'find me. Ain't like we can't have this conversation...wherever I am. It was just. Good t'see you for a little while. An' I wanted t'bring you food, even if I wasn't sure you'd even try t'eat it." The fierce hungry longing is ratcheting higher, as Micah moves away. And then is firmly /shoved/ back downwards. Hive closes his eyes, tears slipping from them to slide sideways down into his hair. In Micah's mind walls are rebuilding themselves; it's kind of a /struggle/, slow and exhausted, sealing off the mental connection between them to make it once more one-way, with only a final unhappy: << Lock the front door behind you. >> "I said I couldn't stay /long/. I didn't say y'had t'kick me out after five minutes. This is /your/ decision, not mine." The limp has returned to the left leg as Micah makes his way out the door, throwing the lock as he is asked. "Love you. Y'don't have t'keep doin' this," serves as a farewell.