ArchivedLogs:Meeting Expectations

Meeting Expectations
Dramatis Personae Hive, Jim, Shelby
In Absentia	2013-05-26 '
Location Holland Farm - Georgia
The farmhouse itself is a large one, quintessentially farmlike in its large white expanse, huge wraparound porch, simple homey decor. /Quaint/, might be the word. The /farm/ itself is a large one; the approach to the house is lined with orchards up the long drive, peach trees flowering, now, not yet fruited. To the side, fields of corn; the vegetable garden out back is not a small plot but two /acres/ of crop, some for family consumption and others sold at market. There is a barn, though animals are not the main focus here. A few dairy cows, some chickens in their coop, a crotchety old rooster prone to hiding under the house's front stairs and pecking at ankles. Horses in the stables. Beyond the farm, stretching back away from its property, trees: they climb high up; where land stops being farmable in this little valley and starts being rockier and steeper they start to be less treeful. More scrubby. The climb here gets steep in places but the /view/ increasingly rewarding. Shelby is taking advantage of everyone scattering to gather big wood for the bonfire later, once it becomes dark. Taking advantage consists of putting on deodorant, grabbing a pack of smokes and lighter, and hightailing it out to the orchard where the Jim-tree has been planted. After three days in the country, she’s finally brave enough to go barefoot--though she’s avoiding the high grass--so she looks every bit the country girl in denim cut off shorts and a tank top as she cuts through the rows and rows of squat, gnarled trees. This time, as she approaches, she doesn’t call out. There’s a sleepy, humid haze in the air, a combination of sun, breeze and distant insect-song that encourages a napping atmosphere. No sense in waking up the pair she’s come to hang out with. But that doesn’t keep her from padding right on in close, either. Hive /is/ napping. He has strung a HAMMOCK up in Jim’s sturdy branches and he has tucked himself into it, and there he is. Zzz. He might not be snoring but there is a string of drool dripping its way out of the corner of his mouth down onto the mesh. He is also in shorts, frayed ragged denim probably borrowed from Jax; they’re held on to his skinny hips with a black canvas belt. No shirt. Just a kind of sticky sheen of bug spray because blech. Asleep in the humid-hot afternoon, for once he doesn’t reflexively /prickle/ at the feel of approaching mind. Just sleeps. And drools. In his /vulnerable state/, an invasion of vines has ensnared the connecting point of the hammock, creeping down from JimTree's slumbering shape and pouring along either side, and off the end in a green curtain. It isn’t quite a princess throne, such as SHE enjoyed, but Shelby stops long enough to admire the effect. Hey, she’s an artist! Even if the model is kind of skinny. And pale. Then she ambles on in closer, sliding the pack of cigarettes under the strap of her bra to free up her hands. One curls loose around a cluster of vines--hopefully that’s nothing crucial there, Jim--while the other hovers over Hive...and then begins lightly finger-walking down his chest and stomach. “Hey, Sleeping Beauty,” she stage whispers, “will you eat my brain if I wake you up with a kiss?” Hive shivers under the touch, shifting slightly in his sleep, his chest pressing up against her fingers. “Mmngh,” he mumbles in answer. Probably not really in answer. Probably just mumbles. His eyes are pressing tighter closed. Because it is /naptime/, dammit. /Actual/ answer -- for whatever value he can provide while mostly-asleep -- comes at a fuzzybrained delay. He turns his head, wiping his cheek against hammockmesh, and then tips it back vaguely in her direction. Eyes still closed. He might not be /very/ awake; there is a flutter of feeling more than words, mind pressing out against hers, a light touch that prickles and then subsides in time with him relaxing again in comfortable recognition. Well. Her brain isn’t eaten, at least not yet! Truth be told, Shelby was mentally braced for something a little more uncomfortable than just a light prickling. To the point of squeezing her eyes shut the moment that pressure is felt! When pain does /not/ develop, she opens one and then the other, radiating surprise...and then pleasure. She likes this development! Teasing walking fingers lift to stray briefly towards his chin, where she uses the pad of her thumb to clear away nap-drool. After she’s wiped her hand off on the seat of her shorts, she returns to playing with his skin, this time tracing feather-light circles over his stomach--and because she’s Shelby, each orbit strays dangerously near the waistband of his borrowed jeans. << ...augh so fucking cute... >> she’s thinking, with /far/ more tenderness than is evident in the cant of her grin. And seeing as how he’s all but presenting his cheek to her, she gets a good grip on those steadying vines and leans down to begin touching a line of damp kisses across his cheek on a course to sleepy lips. Rustle. Flutter. Possibly, that's just the wind ripping its way through the leaves forming the dappled canopy over their heads. The sense of something deep in the depths of sleepingPlant mind turns over; sleeping awake. It has what it wants; sun. earth. known voice. silence. zzxzzzxmrgle. There’s another shiver, and this time Hive stirs further. His chest tenses, which might be more impressive if there were any muscles there to flex; instead, just a bony-hard shift of sun-warmed tan skin. His hand shifts, lifting to rest fingers against her hand with a slow puzzled furrowing of brow that smooths out as his fingers curl around her wrist. His head shifts, slightly, at that line of kisses. Bringing his lips slowly closer into hers, until his mouth brushes up lightly against Shelby’s. There’s another light flutter of touch against her mind; it’s sort of whispery, a quiet echo of voices that are too soft-indistinct to make out. Above it, Hive’s, clearer: << … omnom. >> It’s probably rude to laugh while being kissed. Shelby saves it for brain-giggles only, a fizzy burble of amusement as she fits her lips over his. The kiss that follows is slow, exploratory rather than intense--a suitable fit to a slow, lazy day. << Oh noooo, >> she dramas, << my...wait...>> Cue an interruption of both kiss and defiant fingers trying to slip wrist restraint to continue their play. She draws back to study dark eyes with pale. “Is that...oh Jesus, did you have to come on vacation with /them/?” It’s difficult to say which is stronger, the dismay or the anger. She has plenty of both on Hive’s behalf. It might be rude, but Hive is chuckling, too. Out loud, even, if quiet and muffled because /mostly/ his mouth is occupied with kissing. His grip isn’t all that hard; it’s pretty easy to slip the loose circle of bony fingers around bony wrist. The chuckle fades into a quick tensing of jaw. Hive looks into Shelby’s eyes, then tilts his head back to look up, instead, at the Jimfoliage above them. His hand shifts, fingertips resting on the backs of Shelby’s knuckles, then slowly creeping their way up along her arm. “Yeah,” he answers, reluctantly, “I kind of did. I don’t -- I’m -- they’re walled off pretty hard. I’m still -- me, here.” At this his mind reaches out kind of lazily to poke at Jim’s. POKE. HEY. You still YOU? Just the faintest glint between between the eldritch cracks slitting horizontally to either side of Jim's rough-hewn face. Eyes that have drifted open only the slightest, reforming into things wet and blue from the briefest glimpse of a sphere initially green, like the inside of a sapling tree. Plant-matter equivalent of sensitive tissue. Eye whites and iris, deep pitted pupils overtake it, like spilled ink, and there are blank, hollow, /human/ eyes now staring out of the human semblance of Jim's face. Slllooooowwwww blink. << -- augh. >> /Tree/protest. It happens in eons. When waking from slumber, Jim moves at tectonic speeds and in plant motivations. Kudzu once enveloping only Hive's hammock makes a ripply-/rustle/ sound and begins to pour in growth off the sides of the hammock and rising up to sloooow-climb Shelby. Om nom. << - are you fucking. >> Another slow blink. << -macking. On the kid. Jesus. >> “Hmph,” is what Shelby vocalizes. Inside, it’s all <<(you deserve more)(a better vacation)(a break) ...What the fuck point is there in being a hero and rescuing all those people if you can’t catch a break? >> Then the hammock is set to swaying as she tries to figure out how to pull herself up /into/ it. Not the easiest proposition in an ordinary situation. Even more so when suddenly kudzu. “Hey Jim, uh...” Shelby craaaanes her head back from where she’s managed to tumble herself half over Hive. “...little help?” << No, >> Hive answers Jim, << she’s macking on me. >> He doesn’t sound particularly apologetic this time, kind of lazily contented with the current situation. << Maybe it’s a sort of mutual macking. I don’t know. I don’t think you’re wrong she needs friends. But we /are/ friends. >> Also kind of lazily /amused/ with the current situation, another chuckle prompted by Shelby’s attempts to climb into the hammock. He grimaces, rolling himself slightly to one side, and then oofs as she tumbles atop him. “Woahhey. Uh.” He wriggles a little more to counterbalance its sudden crazy-swaying. wiggling his arm out to curl it under Shelby. << People are out. But the ones who did it -- >> There’s a moment of mental silence as Hive works on getting them settled more stably in the hammock. << Gonna take some work. Or they’ll just do it /again/. >> << I can see that. >> Drops words to the forest floor. One. Then the next. Then the next. The silence ringing thick beyond this point isn't just slow time-lapse. It's the sense of hardening (growing; slow swelling outward of new buds, thickening, splitting, into gradual branches, young and green and then harder, stronger --) And then, splitting open like cracking earth -- << She made a move on me before, too. (like a fucking test.) Way to meet expectations. No wonder she thinks guys are predictable. (god dammit; everyone just forget they're still kids?) >> Crnkle. Blue eyes slowly close again. Stygian darkness resumes in increasing weight. << Have fun with that. >> Sorry Shelby. NO HELP COMES TO YOU. ZZZZ. Shelby is oblivious to the back and forth between tree and telepathy. She’s finding the whole fumble to get her settled in the hammock /hilarious/. There are more giggles. Real ones! Voiced out loud! It sounds ridiculous but for once she’s not really caring. There is Hive and his arm is beneath her, her head on his shoulder and--looking up--Jim has so thoughtfully provided a thicker canopy to shelter them from the sun. “Could just walk them all off a bridge,” she suggests when she has breath to do so again. The arm not trapped beneath her body curls over Hive’s chest, fingers shaping themselves to his opposite shoulder. Almost immediately, her eyes hood in the drowsiest of expressions. Ah, comfort. Security. Affection. And ignorance. A warm’n’fuzzy mix. << Could get used to this. If everything just stayed...this way. You guys. Like this, here. >> << Not a fuckng test, >> Hive answers, and there’s a kind of prickle underneath his words that suggests he is probably trying to be irritable about this but he’s sort of failing. << And I think you sometimes forget they’re also kind of not. Not everything is -- >> His slowness isn’t tree-slowness, just lazy napping-vacation-sunlight slowness. Nestling-slowness. << -- always fucking /terrible/. >> This time it does sound kind of irritable, although less at Jim and more at the underlying realization that he is, actually, surprised by admitting this. “-- could.” Hive sounds too sleepy about this suggestion to tell how seriously he’s taking it. His cheek tucks against her forehead. “Bigger than just them, though.” And then: “Fuck them, though. We’re on vacation. /You’re/ vacating.” Jim doesn't seem to be listening. His mind is just a rolling, churning slow-grown. Green and immensely heavy. There is possibly thoughts, but they're difficult to piece together /because/ they take so slow in forming, sounding more of thunder and pulsing with a stomach-clenched darkness deep in the heart of his trunk. … until it finally manifests, blunt-terse: << You love her? >> “Like hell I am,” Shelby says with a trace of the smug: she is /not/ vacating, she is /vacationing/. In fact... “/We’re/ vacationing. You guys...you earned it.” With her cheek warm against Hive’s shoulder, she looks up into the sun-dappled weave of leaves above them and smiles.”I’m just the lucky asshole who gets to enjoy it /with/ ya’ll.” She reaches up to curl a tiny-vine around her finger, the way some would coil a lock of hair. “If it was like all the time, I think maybe the country’d be cool. We could eat Jim’s peaches, hang out in the hammock...maybe get a puppy...” If there is one thing /any/ teenage girl is good at, it is daydreaming. << -- of course I fucking love her. >> It’s an answer kind of /startled/ out of Hive, reflexive more than conscious; Jim /isn’t/ Hive’d but he’s been comfortably nestling here enough that the mental walls between them are permeable, his boundaries fuzzy. He answers before thinking about answering and follows it up with a cranky-irritable prickling. << The fuck you even mean by that, we’re not picking out curtains together. I care about her. >> “Cherries,” Hive corrects, glancing up, “we’re taking Jim’s cherries.” Which makes him snicker, because he is twelve. “There’s seventeen billion goddamn dogs around here, I’m sure we could find you a puppy. You can have Skittles. Though I think he’s about a hundred by now.” He watches her curl the vine around her finger, and a corner of his mouth twitches. His eyes close. “Fine. We’re all vacationing. This place should come with room service. Some lemonade. Some --” He frowns. “Miracle Gro.” Jim gives no answer, positive or negative. But when Hive glances up at the sheltering branches above, a number of cherries /drop on him/. Or. Around him. It's not an exact science. Plop-plop... plopplp-plop. /Bing/ (one lucky jim!Berry thumps off Hive's forehead). This may be nature's way of saying fuck /you/ very much. His mind still hard-wooden but - the roiling thunder seems to be fading further to the background. Echoing through the timber. “/Peaches/,” Shelby argues, just to be contrary, “he had peach--holyfuckshit.” Cherry shower! /She/ is around Hive! Thank goodness it wasn’t peaches, though from the way she burrows against her hammockmate, one might think they were. When the shower ends, one cautious blue-green eyes opens to peek around--and then she unrolls from her pillbug impression to pick up one of the fruits. It is studied carefully. Has she ever had an unpickled cherry, that wasn’t out of a bottle? Probably not. It might as well be from another planet. “I think I’d maybe pay out my whole fun stash for a whirlpool tub right now,” she says on the subject of room service. A tentative bite is taken of cherry, more a pressing of teeth against its skin, followed by lip smacking as she finds the natural flavor rather different than the processed sort. “Jim...you taste funny.” Hive turns his face in towards the hammock, at this rain of cherries. There’s a faint tightening of his jaw, but it’s brief. What isn’t brief is the noticeable /withdrawing/ of his mental presence from Jim. It’s a quiet untethering that quietly pulls away the mental weight that has, since the rescue, just gotten /comfortable/ bolstered up against Jim’s mind. “Funny? You mean -- like cherries?” He’s been nomming them for a while. Though he doesn’t touch any of the ones he’s been newly bombarded with. “You should nap,” he tells Shelby. Which might just be because she interrupted /his/ and he wasn’t done yet. Like an elevation of soil held up by a retaining wall, when Hive mentally draws away, Jim's... corrodes and crumbles into the gap; at first... puzzled? Understanding is not the complicated series of human connections when it comes but it recognizes 'gone', growth reaching partways out into the vacuum. Poking. Searching, in a blind and bumbling fashion until it fades into a sigh through leaves. << Alright, meatbag. Have it your way. >> It takes even this long to register anything and, with bizarre punctuality, rises up dryly. << You can tell the princess. She wouldn't know taste if it bit her on the tit. >> Shelby tosses the nibbled cherry out of the hammock, where it will no doubt delight some pudgy field mouse. “/Real/ cherries are sweeter,” she insists before resuming cuddles, fitting herself to Hive with something that sounds suspiciously like a sigh of contentment. Her mind is taking on hints of white noise static, precursor to true sleepiness. It’s held off for the moment with the tactile pleasure of boywarmth. She touches the heel of her hand to his breastbone and lets her fingers curl to drag their tips over skin. “That your way of saying you like sleeping with me?” The question is quiet but pert, her glance upwards is sassy, but there’s something small and warm and rarely practiced behind both. It makes her smile a smaller thing, almost delicate. Before he has time to answer, she squeezes her eyes shut and adopts napping posture. << ...don’tbedumbdon’tbedumbdon’tbedumb... >> becomes her private(ha) litany, directed inward. "... Jim says you wouldn't know taste if it bit you in the tit," Hive dutifully relays. "I think he's sensitive about his berries." The poking growth finds nothing to reach out to, psionic presence hard to reach /for/ without innate aptitude in that direction. And from Hive right now there is only mental radio silence. The question earns a quiet exhale. But no further answer. Just a warm curl of lean tanned arm around Shelby's shoulders, posture relaxing back into lazy afternoon sleeps.