ArchivedLogs:Layouts

Layouts
Dramatis Personae Hive, Melinda
In Absentia	2014-02-11 '
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/J.M. Investigations 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 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. Through the door in back of the lobby is a large workshop space, spacious drafting tables, a number of glass-topped desks though only one of them 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 smaller offices; one stands open and unfurnished, the other, closed, has been given -- no name plaque, yet. Just a tacked-up piece of paper reading "J.M. Investigations". Early afternoon finds Hive's office quiet. The door between waiting room and workshop is open, intermittent clicks of his mouse sounding from the back room. Plans for the Commons are spread across a trio of monitors. Hive is folded into his desk chair, one leg tucked beneath him and one knee crooked up towards his chest, in old faded jeans, heavy workboots, deep red and gold Theta Tau sweatshirt hanging loose on his gaunt frame. He goes back to amend his work often, shaky hands frequently misclicking and redoing his measurements. There's a can of some variety of protein drink close at hand, open and still mostly full, that he sips from at intervals. Another cold day settles sunnily at least upon New York City, forcing Melinda to bundle up once more as she transitions between her in store duty and the afternoon break in her split shift schedule. Today, she makes her way to Rang Phueng Design wearing a gray-blue wool coat, a long gray skirt hanging down to her feet below that, split up to the knee on both sides, black leggings underneath. A long, fiery orange scarf wraps around her neck a few times loosely, with an off set red beret on her head. Her cheeks are rosy with both exertion and cold as she makes her way across the front entry way. Her stride slows though, when her eyes fall on Hive's form, a shyness welling up inside her. He knows, she thinks, quietly, granted, before either of us knew I was going to keep it. She takes a deep breath and stuffs down the fear of running headlong into heartbreak - and as many other thoughts as possible - as she crosses the rest of the distance to him. "Hey. How's it going?" Eyes shift quickly to the protein drink, then back to Hive's face. Curious/worry is also present, but hushed. "Yo." Hive's greeting comes without actually turning; he doesn't look up from his screen, at first, though there's an absent heavy press of his mind up against Melinda's. His shoulders tighten further at the question, and he shrugs quickly. "Design's coming along," he eventually grunts, finally swivelling his desk chair to face Melinda. His heavily hooded eyes lift to her, sunken into gaunt cheeks. His eyes flick down to Mel's stomach briefly, then back up to her face. "How you feeling?" Melinda almost leans instinctively into the mental contact, guarded, but acknowledging of it. She sets down her purse and starts to unwrap herself, shedding her layers on a nearby chair. "Oh, I don't know if it is the weather or the baby, but things are just... starting to ache." The statement is less about complaining and a somewhat weird fascination with how her body is contorting during process. Annoyed, but fascinated. "I'm okay." She crosses the remaining distance between them, studying him as she moves before letting her gaze flick over to the monitors. Her mind dwells on the state of his features as she tries to casually wrap an arm around his shoulders. It's intentional. Poor telepaths, the yawn and stretch must be an even bigger joke to them. "Think this is about the point almost everyone's looking forward to spring." Hive leans into the contact, bony shoulders far bonier than usual beneath the baggy fabric of his sweatshirt. His eyes are drooping back into their usual half-closed state as his head tips up against Melinda's arm in a sleepy loll. "When's /your/ lease up? I'm prioritizing residences by -- who needs to move quickest. Some people are pretty boned anyway. One group at the Lofts has to be out this month so --" He grimaces. "Nothing to do about /that/. But. Still. Triage. -- If you're aching I have a fucking crate of ibuprofen. If you --" He trails off, eyes shifting closed. "I appreciate the thought, but I can't take anything while pregnant - something about fetal development or some such." Melinda turns a little and bows her head to press a kiss to Hive's forehead, inhaling the scent of his hair while she's there. "I'm stuck with massages and not-hot baths." Both things unfortunately seem to tie into her sex drive, several rather racy thoughts bubbling to the surface. She forcibly reminds herself she cannot lay on her belly anymore and turns her attention to Hive's other question. "Lease is up in April. It's fine to get everyone else settled first. No one is intending to evict anyone in my apartment. Makes perfect sense - what you're doing." Her fingers work into Hive's hair, her eyes trying to focus on the lines and diagrams on the screen. << Damned pregnancy brain. Let me know if you need me to take a hike. It's a mess in here. >> "Mmn. Shitty." Hive's eyes don't open. He soaks in the hug. The kiss. The corner of his mouth twitches up. "I'll get you some bubbles for those then. The baths. Not the --" Again he breaks off, slowly starting to move but then just slouching back in against Mel. He gives a small snort, genuinely amused. "Man I work with Dusk. I can work through pretty much all brainporn." His head turns, rubbing up gently against Melinda's fingers as he finally opens his eyes again. "So house. You sticking with same roomates? Paring down? Anything you're dying for me to put in?" "Simultaneously paring down and expanding," Melinda states, showing no desire to pull away. Aside from Micah's comfort the other night, this is the closest she's been to another human being in a while and loves every minute of it. "Kate and Nzinga are great roommates, but would prefer not to be in the same apartment as a newborn. Tove is staying. He's offered to do childcare and housekeeping in the place of rent, and I've decided to pay him something on top of that - which we will hammer out later." She does try to imagine bubbles with a massage, but fails to find it enticing. "Anyway. Need three bedrooms, if possible. Enough kitchen to handle two people for now. Anything bigger can be done in the building's kitchen, right? Would love a huge bathtub, but that's more of a luxury than anything. Um. Yeah." Here, her brain just sort of mutes for a moment, debating the size of tubs out there, claw foot versus one with jets, seems to have just put her to sleep for a moment, mentally. When it does wake up, she's dwelling on when she's going to move and what shape she's going to be in for moving, dreading the thought of packing and moving at eight months pregnant - and hopefully getting everything settled by the time the kid comes and oh shit she's never going to sleep again. She closes her eyes and leans a little more against Hive. "Is there something I'm forgetting? I got the bathroom, kitchen, bedroom number. I... like gathering space. Maybe a breakfast nook for eating in and about the kitchen and a living room taking up whatever pseudo-dining room space I could have had?" "Three? Okay. Three bedrooms. Right." Hive opens his eyes, but still doesn't exactly pull /away/, at Mel's lack of inclination. He wriggles a little bit more upright. "You wanna drag a chair closer? There's -- fff. Chairs. I swear. I have furniture. I pretend that some day I'm going to hire someone." He gestures around the room towards a couple of the other empty chairs at the empty tables around. He reaches out, first for his protein shake which he takes another very small sip of, grimacing before putting it back down, and then for his mouse. He pulls up a different set of designs. House, already in half-completed stages, though it starts reshaping itself as he mutters to himself. "Kitchen, three bedrooms, bathroom, living room. Can make the kitchen big enough for a breakfast nook. Can make the bathroom big enough for the king of all bathubs. -- Do you have particular opinions on overall layout?" His head tips back against her, hair flopping against her clothes with the motion as his brows raise. /Because/, his expression is saying, /he/ has /so/ many opinions on layout. "-- Little bit of storage space or you're going to hate life. I mean, past that --" He shrugs a shoulder. "You've got all the basics for /living/. Other rooms we're talking about getting into more space extra rent and that's a personal choice. Some people want more stuff. The common house is getting a big place for laundry but I can carve people out space in their homes if they want too. Space for /whatever/. Laundry room, TV room, exercise room, helicopter launch pad, /I/ don't fucking care, it's just. New York. Space is still a goddamn premium." "Sitting - is probably best." Melinda agrees with a small sigh. She idly begins day dreaming of a hammock that magically appears any time she needs to sit down, one that catches her and cradles her into the correct position and holds her there gently. She doesn't really move so much as gauge the numbness in her feet and possibly the swelling in her ankles, if such a thing can be done mentally. Instead, she finds herself staring down at him as he looks up at him, a smile pulling at her lips, eyes darting here and there to notice the hair, the look in his eyes, the cant of his brows, his lips. "Bless you and that lovely brain of yours. Yes. Storage is an important thing, and having a baby may necessitate having a small washer dyer stacked unit." She purses her lips as she thinks, finally tearing her gaze away from his face and glancing at the model he has open. "No. I don't really care about the layout. You could stack the blasted thing in a corner, all three rooms on top of each other and I wouldn't care. Whatever is most convenient for the whole is all that matters. And specialty rooms?" Her mind shifts to how much her life is going to cost once she has someone dependant on her. Sure, she's got a good job and her parents are helping her out a little, but barebones seems far more sensible. "Don't think I need anything special. Quiet is probably the most important thing, if that is a thing on Manhattan." "Day I figure out how to extend mind-reading powers to the furniture I will /really/ make a killing at this business." Hive's mouth hooks upwards into a crooked smile at this thought. He lifts a hand, rubbing at his temples briefly and then rolling his head back towards the screen as he starts to rearrange the display there. "Not sure you'd love me much for stacking your rooms on top of each other when you had to navigate three flights of stairs every day with a baby but I will do what I can about economizing space for finances' sake." He hooks his arm around his knee as his other hand works, still somewhat shakily on his mouse; eventually he drops his left hand down to the keyboard to tap there too while he speaks. "OK. So the living room and kitchen adjoin and there'll be a little multipurpose /space/ adjoining that you can use for storage or whatever and it has a small nook with hook-ups for stackable washer-dryer now. You're getting a lot of closets. SmallThings tend to accumulate hella /stuff/. Besides, organization makes /everyone's/ life less miserable. Everyone's getting lots of --" His eyes squeeze shut for a moment, breath exhaled sharply. "... maybe Ryan will soundproof for us." "Are we going to be paying him a fee for that?" Melinda asks, amused. She watches Hive work for a while, then releases him slowly, arm pulling away and fingers trailing across his shoulders before she's finally free. She heads over to one of the other tables, grabbing not one but two chairs. She slides one up to Hive's side, then places the other one opposite it. The process of lowering herself into the chair is slow, her mind registering the back ache as she starts to bend, the ache a little sharp at first, but lessening the more she settles. Once the weight is off her feet, they rejoice. Those limbs are eventually pulled up onto the other chair, careful to keep the soles of her feet off the seat, giving her a little more purchase to lean back. She turns her attention back to the screens and considers. "Yeah. A flat layout would be most convenient, but I've done stairs for so long, I don't know if it would be a huge hassle. Plus, the distance between the kid and late night visitors may also help give uninterrupted sleep. Eh. I can make pretty much anything work." "You want stairs, then? Cuz this is going to be half of a duplex I can make it the lower half or I can make it the left or right half." Hive shrugs a shoulder, hand sliding down off his mouse for a while. "Would be good to keep sounds away from the kid if you had visitors while they were sleeping. Though I bet Ryan /would/ actually soundproof the nursery if you asked. Mmm." For the moment he stops with the redesigning, fingers curling around his can of protein drink instead, but then dropping away from that too as the tremor in his hand grows worse. He swivels in his chair to face Melinda, propping elbow on his desk and resting his head in his palm. "Think we got the essentials covered, then. I can send you updates in case you want anything changed as I get the details finalized." Melinda's brows furrow, watching his hands for a moment, then searching his face. "You doing okay, Hive?" She reaches out to brush some hair away from his face and lightly touch his cheek. "Mngh," Hive answers in a grumble. "Fucking headache." He presses his cheek into the touch. "You had lunch?" "Not yet. Was going to see if you wanted to order something or go out." Mel gives a little smile and presses her palm against his cheek, thumb rubbing against the ridge of his brow bone. Hive minimizes the housing plans, pulling up Foodler instead. "What're you in the mood for. My treat." His eye closes briefly, a small shiver running through him at Melinda's touch. "You think we can find pickles and ice cream on Foodler?" Melinda jokes quietly, the thought of the two together not at all inspiring happy thoughts in her stomach. "Chili or curry. Hell, burritos sound nice, too; I'm kind of in the mood for oozing refried beans and cheese." << Though, chili spiced shrimp also sounds nice. >> While her mind may be jumping to twenty different random cuisines, << Crab rangoons also good, >> she limits her verbalized choices to the first few things, scooting in a little closer to look at the menu on the screen. Her elbow moves over his shoulder and her arm slides down his back, fingers moving to work gently against his neck muscles. "Maaan, you're gonna make /me/ puke." Hive tips his head forward, slowly relaxing as Mel's fingers press against his muscles. The massage derails him, somewhat; it takes a while before he remembers to click through to pull up a menu for Mexican on the screen. "Burritos sound great, though. I would be all over that. Maybe tres leches cake. No freaking pickles and ice cream though. But hella cheese." "And here I thought you said you could handle pregnancy brain." Melinda laughs softly and keeps massaging, also helps poke the food order into happening so that they both can eat lunch.