ArchivedLogs:Nothing Comes Cheap

Nothing Comes Cheap
Dramatis Personae Hive, Jim, Masque, Shelby
In Absentia	2013-03-13 UnMasquing
Location <NYC> 214 {Jim} - Sunrise Apartments - Clinton
Jim's apartment is not big, the living room area L-shaped with the entrance at one end and a kitchenette found at the other. Furnished by a scuffed wooden curb-found coffee table, a saggy green couch upholstered in a scratchy burlap material and two chairs, the habitat manages to just barely function as a one bedroom rather than a studio by merit of a walk-in closet sized bedroom you would have to cross through to reach his cramped bathroom. In here, water damage stains the walls. As does rust, around the showerhead in the cramped shower stall. Jim is making coffee. Again. He's gone about some semblance of house cleaning, which in this case has amounted to piling all the bloody rags soaked through by Masque's blood and crammed them into a garbage sack, then scrubbed up the worst stains. He's done his dishes - all five or six that he owns - and put them away. And then FILLS the doorway to his bedroom to announce: "I want my arm fixed before she gets here." Masque still has a Hive riding shotgun in his brain. He's been quiet. Largely unobtrusive. But that niggling lingering sense of being /watched/ remains. The subtle whispers of voices underlying thoughts. MAYBE Masque is losing his mind. It serves Masque right--it's a fair trade, right? Losing his mind in return for picking on harmless little girls. Little girls who are, even now, approaching Jim's front door. Shelby is a frothy mix of nerves and grrr as she plants herself on the nonexistent welcome mat. Her jacket is zipped up, left sleeve dangling empty, right arm crooked around a paper grocery bag. That means she has to kick at the door to announce her presence but since she is wearing Giant Tiger-brand knock-off Ugg boots, it is more a scuffscuffscuff than a proper bambam. He wouldn't be surprised if he WAS going mad. This is the longest Masque has stayed in a place that wasn't a single room and adjoining bedroom or abandoned tunnels in years, and he is making himself /comfortable/. He's made absolutely no attempt to contribute to household chores, rather unsurprisingly, only providing /more/ of a mess. At least he's none too talkative, spending most of his time just out of sight, around a corner, staring at something or another. Listening? Every now and then there's a look over his shoulder. And somewhat more rarely, Jim will just find him staring at him. Right now, though, something else has caught his attention-- he's sitting on the couch in that raggedy and murky street-scented red coat, hood down, reading a newspaper. It's already a few days old, but it's not like he keeps up. He seems utterly intrigued by one article in particular, eyes scanning its text rapidly and hungrily. << Hello, little spy. How much trouble did you get into, exactly... >> Then comes the interruption from Jim, and he snaps his head up again. Then a knock. Too late! "... The world hates trees. That's why they're disappearing, y'know." For all /practical/ purposes, Jim has been ignoring Masque as he goes about his business. Cleaning. Coffeeing. SMOKING. He mutters a curse when Shelby's announcement arrives, not at all sure /himself/ how exactly to perform this whole exchange but damned if he's not going to charge into headlong like he is. "Funny," he says around the cigarette in his mouth, teeth bared on the one side, "Since a tree could have killed you by now if it wanted." Hi, Shelby! His blue-eyed stare for Masque had been hard as flint - when he opens the door (after disengaging about six different variety of locks that came PREINSTALLED when he moved in; a paranoiac's special!), they're warm and amused and casual, "Hey, kid. What'd ya bring me?" He's exacting /tolls/ while letting her through the door. Amiable-mugging! << Fucking dragon. Get this over with. Get back to life. >> rises in Masque's mind, almost like he thought it himself. Though it comes with an increase in the soft jumble of OtherThoughts beneath, and is rather strong in its compulsion. To /un/melt, for once. "What do you think? Febreze like you asked, duuuh." Shelby is all too happy to offload the bag on Jim, since she requires her hand to unzip her jacket. There's also a little potted cactus wrapped in crinkly plastic, because hope springs eternal in the teenage heart, and one of those rotisserie chickens in a plastic shell with a side of potato salad, because hey, it's not every day a guy delivers up the person she hates most. This deserves rewards. And speaking of, she is squinting around to look for... "Hey, asshole!" With a rustle of paper, Jim's guest moves aside his reading material for later, propping himself up with elbows on his knees. Masque's head, still very much +1 Dragon, is angled ever so slightly with Shelby's entrance, his more functional eye locking on her without thought. Well, a little thought. But not particlarly his own ones. "Street rat." He grates back, albeit somewhat absentmindedly. Not exactly /nice/ words, but he's definitely lacking some of that hatred Shelby may have seen just about /emanating/ from him before. That's not to say he's being /nice/, but whatever he's feeling is being felt in a very passive way indeed. Pressing one (ungloved!) hand to the side of his face at the increase of noise that he doesn't know what the hell it is, he lifts himself off of the couch one limb as a time, bandaged foot halfway to dragging. Let's get this over with. HHghghhhghGH. Jim takes the packages with his better arm - the once-warped one is slightly less warped for the plant-training he's been putting it through all day, though it doesn't look NOT-creepy, segmented up to the elbow in two slender sapling-soft branches that twist together in makeshift radius and ulna bones that he's tied together with twine roughly where his wrist should be. The branches that fork out from here have been slowly working their way into effectively fingers. It's a skeletaltree monstrosity, but it's been slowly gaining function. He wields it casually though - maybe he LIKES it that way. He leans against the wall and, keeping a sharp corner of his eye on the proceedings, begins to RIFFLE through his prezzies. Mmmm chicken. MMM CACTUS. Shelby, who has yet to notice Jim's abnormal arm due to her focus on Masque, narrows her eyes to slits as the creepydude gets to his feet. With that standing up comes a spike in anxiety and a shuffling backwards that /would/ hide her behind Jim except he's leaning against the wall. Jerk. "Jesus," she comments, "what the fuck did Hive /do/ to him? Chop his balls off?" This is not the friendly neighborhood crazy person she ran into on the street--this is a shambling zombie. Jim is flicked a nervous glance, like, c'mon dude, is it safe to have this guy awake and without gloves and "Holy /shit/ did he fuck your arm up? You /asshole/." This time she /means/ it, and the eyes that shift back to Masque do so with a definite increase of aggression. << mmmchicken >> surfaces briefly in Masque's mind, before this is tamped down. << Fuck no right /finish/, get the fuck out. >> Though this comes, softer, with a, << (hungry. chicken. hungry hungry hungry.) >> There are creeping mental fingers prying at Shelby's mind. At Jim's. Soft and barely noticeable, just a slight pressure, a faint weight dragging down thoughts faintly-briefly. It withdraws at the mention of Hive's name. << Shhh no stop calm chill fuck just stay chill. Quiet. Chill. Just want to get this over with. >> This slips into Shelby's mind alone, whispersoft quite unlike Hive's usual bludgeoning. Hive's voice /is/ there though. It's just -- muted, buried in a chorus of voices speaking in tandem. Just like that, things in Masque's brain come to a complete and utter stop. Save for those whispers. Save for that /weight/. Chicken? << ... No, no no no. /No chicken/. >> The fighting starts. The sorting, the tugging and the /testing/ thoughts as if he had been mentally treading /very/ thin ice and hadn't been aware of it until far too deep into the lake. His head dips lower, he stops in his tracks, and the idle look at Shelby darkens into an unmistakable glare above slowly gritting teeth and tightening facial muscles. When he speaks up again, it is barely more than a growl. "... 'Hive'?" On the outside, Jim is picking his teeth idly and watching same as ever. On the inside: his blood has run instantly /cold/ beneath those little mind pickings. << --fuck, she outed us. That's it. His god damn /paranoid/ mind is going to latch onto it and cling, he probably barely trusts his own mind on a good day. /Okay/, go with it. Think fast. >> "Nah, just shot him in the foot." When Shelby backs up near him, he might not be a shelter to hide behind, but he does toss an arm around her shoulders and steps forward, hauling her along with him. << Christ, it's like I'm talking in third person. I am /not/ the craziest person in this room. >> "Guess he put a hole in his hand with a thorn. Let's go, I want him outta my house." He leans his head to the side to ask drolly of Masque, "Unless his highness has any other demands." << C'mon, Hivey... >> Inclining Hive's name is practically a summon: let's see you work, bro. Whisperchorus Hive is /somewhat/ familiar--Shelby's memories of the rooftop, of a furry cheek against her shoulder and a muppet head in her lap, fingers in scruffy hair--but the teenager is rather /too/ independent to tolerate any prying well. Agitation helps too, and adrenaline firing on all cylinders. There is a mental swat at those fingers, entirely reflexive. SMACK! << JesusfuckingchristoncrutchesHive >> is all she manages before calm chill quiet takes over and the tension bleeds from Shelby's shoulders as Jim urges her forward. She drags her feet a little. Takes a breath. Releases it. Eyes Masque. "Forget it," she grumps, "yeah. Whatever. Let's just get this over with. You want your eye back, dude? I can't do shit about the foot. Or the hand." The dragon on the twisted man's face twitches, jaws gaping and smoke puffing from its nostrils to tangle with its mustache. << Hive his name is Hive >> it's quiet and disgruntled, slotting itself in among that fighting with a lingering sense of ugh-fuck-get-this-over-with. << Eye, yes, get rid of this fucking dragon get this done get out of this shithole. >> It's thoughts, but it's thoughts that come with pressure -- /Yes, let's do this/ --- pushing back against that tugging-testing. Do this. Fix it and get out of here. Ugh. Fuck. The whispers are increasingly disgruntled. "I would /very much/ like my eye back." The words are drawn out from Masque's throat slowly, carefully, making sure every one of them is one that he knows the maker's address to. He is quiet for a moment, eyes darting between Jim and Shelby's faces with visible uncertainty. << I am NOT >> a thought starts, only to be interrupted by another one of unknown origin. He tries again, nose wrinkling and eyes narrowing with effort. << I AM NOT A FOOL. >> He starts forward then, toward Shelby, limping gait and moving facedragon and all. No words, just his hands rising steadily in front of him to grab for Shelby's arm if he is allowed close enough. To... help? Even he himself doesn't seem quite sure, thoughts jumbled and indiscriminately culled, his own or not. The amount of anger in that skull, though, is most definitely crawling through the cracks and attempting to stay. << I WILL KILL THEM ONLY /AFTERWARDS/. >> Jim can only take this so far before it's down to trust. << And who'm I trusting, exactly? >> He rests his good hand near the small of his back - where his gun sits under his coat. << One wrong move. >> Shelby's arm is in its sling, fastened to her chest and not easily grabbed. She is leery of extending it towards Masque, see. As he reaches forward, she is cringing back into Jim's side, trying to become one with nature. He is big, she is not, and crass as she can be there's something marked as ~*~SAFE~*~ around him...if she were the sparkles and unicorns type. "Poof, you can see. Magic," she flat-blusters, dramatic effect lost in nerves as her arm is seized. But the dragon is twisting down, curling over Masque's cheeks, moving down his neck, over his arm, his wrist and voila, she is now the proud owner of a dragon-decorated sling--soon to be unnecessary, with luck. << You're trusting us, >> slips into Jim's mind, and though it comes in a softchimed chorus of voices Hive's is distinctly prominent among it. Those quiet niggling whispers at the back of Masque's mind are -- a lot quieter, actually, suddenly. But there is something /else/ considerably more noticeable, something that squeezes down in a vice-hard /clamp/ around Masque's mind, teeth biting down and holding on tight and those angry thoughts battened down. Not quashed so much as held down to squirm and fight against a sudden heavy mental /shackle/. << NO FUCKING KILLING ANYONE, >> is a distinctly /cranky/ thought that rises unbidden from Masque's mind. << Fix. Them. Now. >> This time it's not a subtle suggestion, it's a /compulsion/ that /kicks/ Masque into gear to repair the damage. Light! Masque's previously obscured eye shuts tight when its function is restored, drawing deep wrinkles across that side of his face with the tightening muscles. His open eye's pupil shrinks, and zones in on Shelby's face, now, while his uninjured hand holds tightly onto her sling-wrapped arm. But he's not interested in /that/. His other hand, hurridly bandaged, reaches right for her neck instead, bloodied palm in the middle of outstretched, bony, trembling-with-anticipation-and-force-of-willpower fingers. But he stops. Just a hair's breadth away from Shelby's skin. His closed eye opens, jaw relaxes, and the reaching hand-- reaches for the sling, instead, to help expose the arm he so desperately needs to fix right now. "You are. The lowest. Possible. Lifeform." This is breathed out in a hiss to no one in particular, teeth biting down on his lower lip /so hard/ it looks like he might bite right through it. << These tricks do NOT come /cheap/. HIVE. >> His own thoughts come on slowly, through pressure and obstacles. << I will find you, I will remember your name, and I will find you and I will remember, and I will kill you and you will be glad to die after I will /remember and FIND YOU/. >> Wordlessly, Jim's gun is in hand through a single practiced motion when Masque goes for Shelby's throat. He could have made it. Before he reaches her, his finger is pulling up short just a sixteenth inch of pressure shy of cutting this party short. And he doesn't. And Masque's hand stops on its own. << Not 'we'. >> He watches down the length of his arm, one eye partly squinted shut to perfect his arm. << Just you. >> He lowers he gun. "Yeah, I get that a lot." The gun isn't the only threat here. Shelby might be in a panic of << ohgodohgodohgod >> that is small and pathetic and scared but there is also the << ohnoyoudon'tyoufucker >> side which is bunching the muscles in her thigh and lifting a knee. Unfortunately, she has less control than Jim. /Fortunately/, since she is hunched over and twisted, her aim is atrocious and her leg sort of just curls up as if she were lifting her skirts and eeking at a mouse. Her dragon bares its teeth in a silent hiss at the man. She's shaking and baring her teeth too. "Less lip-flapping, more fixing, guy," she burbles through a throat gone tight. << you >> Hive echoes this to Shelby and Jim both in soft uncertainty, /picking/ at this concept like he -- doesn't quite get it? << don't shoot us, >> would under normal circumstances probably come with a 'fuck' or an 'asshole' but here it lacks snark or even cranky and is just a blunt-firm statement. Because ow. << Nothing comes cheap, >> bubbles up in Masque's mind alone. It's almost tired, the repetition: << You'll find us/remember us/kill us. But first you'll /fix this/. >> It's a heavy bludgeon of force, gripping Masque firm and tight against anger and struggling. Compelling. No death. No mangling. No hurting. Only putting the mangled flesh /back/ the way it came. << NOW. >> is a stronger push. Hive is not patient. "Masque." Even his own name is spat out with scornful abhorrence, left over from what isn't already raking through his brain. Inwardly, there's a response from Hive, and it shows in the way that his attention fades to nothing for a moment. But something about it calms him. His mind slips back to the state it was before, compliant and passive. In the background, there begins a list. First names and last names - always in pairs - street names, specific years and cities, school names and workplaces. Anything to keep from thinking anything he doesn't mean to as his eyes refocus and he does exactly what he was brought here to do. Shelby's disfigured arm, once exposed, is grabbed forcefully, but only so as to be precise. The fingers of Masque's uninjured hand slide along it, grabbing and twisting it once more. This time, the right way around. It takes a while and feels almost /wrong/, but with effort, the arm is starting to very much look like its old self again, fingers suddenly remarkably gentle once the worst of the damage has been undone. With the adrenaline-burning immediacy slowly fading, Jim is soaking in the really disconcerting idea that Hive's /probably/ been able to hear any possible thing he's been thinking since he left. Though it's been hours, how much constant stimulus can one mind process from so many at once -- << Don't give me a reason to. >> Is he hovering behind Shelby? No way. He's not a hoverer. He's just... standing with his shoulder touching the back of her shoulder. He has to make sure she's... still there.. Yep. Count 'em. Shelby Count: One. << You. You, Hive. You're Hive, right? C'mon, dude. You're not /this/ sick fuck. You're /you/. >> At the moment, Masque is slightly scarier than the collective speaking into her mind but Shelby can spare a little ohgodno for Hive as well. She has plenty. She also has the memories to back up that insistence--the feeling of books at her back and Hive sitting beside her on the floor, not a date but oooh she's feeling the date vibes, head in lap, weed baggie flung at a couch, snark snark snark snark. Even the snark is nicer to think about than what's going on in her arm--or /gentle/ touches from Masque. /Those/ are enough to squick /anyone/ out. Repaired fingers bunch hard and sudden into a fist and she leeeeans into Jim. Sturdy, solid Jim. Who has a gun. YAY. "Don't get too friendly, asshole. You still got Jim to do." << Still got Jim to do, >> is echoed in /reinforcement/. Hive is leaning /hard/ on the Fix Shelby button, but Jim is next in line as soon as Shelby's arm is redone. Hive isn't probing any further beneath Masque's stream of whitenoise, more intently focused on shoving the man to complete his work. Properly. << you, >> is echoed again, and this time it summons up -- a whole host of different faces. Most unfamiliar. A few rescuees seen around the apartments. A few more familiar -- Flicker, Eric. Masque. But those memories in Shelby's mind are /latched/ on to, prying mental fingers teasing them out to the forefront. Quietly poking at them in exploration. Books and weed and head on lap and All The Snark. It's an art! Masque's doing what he can but unscrewing an arm is decidedly more difficult than the reverse. He manages, though, tendons reconnecting properly and muscles reshaped. He's barely even looking at the arm as he finishes his work, seething hatred showing clearly in his eyes, unfocused. Until... until he looks up at Jim. His bandaged hand lets go of Shelby's arm to reveal white imprints of his fingers below, slowly returning to their normal colour. That same hand then grabs the gun, his movement slow and predictable, thumb covering the barrel to push it /away/. "Your arm." He demands, voice flat. << You--. >> Jim grits back. His perception is the same as Shelby's in some ways, others different. And blunt. Shabby, all bony wrists and stupid hair, crashed drooling on his couch in a darkness broken by New York nightlight shining through the windows (-'I fell off the wagon'-) with elbows and knees stuck out. << --piss me off. >> He collects Shelby away with a pat on her shoulder and a kind of... gather-gather-gathering up of her, already using his teeth to pull off the twine keeping his mangled arm held together. It slowly swallows up the remaining treebark and shifts back into mangled human flesh. It will still likely be a bit /tougher/ to sculpt, but it will. Trust, huh. Yeah. That. << Not 'us'. I've never met an 'us' I trusted. Just a couple 'me's. >> He re holsters his gun and holds out his arm. Shelby has plenty o' faces to throw back too but not a one of them are Hive--the twins in their room, potcactus with Jim on the other bed and HIVE beside her while Bastian blushes and Shane grins, Flicker on the computer with HIVE in his lap, Dusk bending over her wrist with HIVE holding out a glass of orange juice. Mel HIVE Jax HIVE Ryan HIVE. << You you you oh thank the fucking gods my ARM >> She is also easily distracted, because there will be art and music and she can move her arm and oh hey Jim. She scuttles behind the man upon being gathered, but keeps close. Watching, eyes narrowed. << Do it quick, >> comes again with the force of command. Working through Jim's arm. Putting it back right, tough treebarkflesh and all. << Fucking topiary, >> is also grumbled, while Hive works through Masque. He ignores the hatred that bubbles there, focusing only on his vicegrip of control. Much like with Shelby, with Jim these memories are taken. Teased out to the forefront of mind. The mental touch that turns them over (and over, and over) is quiet and slow. Savoring. << -- fucking watching me sleep this is some Twilight shit, >> grumbles into Jim and Shelby's minds. It's still a chorus, still a litany of voices underlaid with a host of thoughts, but it's, well, a cranky one. Jim's arm is handled with considerably less finesse, if only because he is rushed to and it takes more force to work with. Masque's eyes stay on it and it alone as he presses fingers and palm into it, occasionally giving a twitch of his shoulder in otherwise contained frustration. A minute or so later of resculpting and looping of constant recitation in his mind and he is done. << ... 1977, Ylena Wilkinson, John Wilkinson, Pennyfarth Lane, 1978-- >> A pause, as he stands, work finished. << Out of this shithole. >> The thought echoes from before- not quite his own voice but adopted as such for the sake of the accuracy it has, now. Jim and Shelby? They have simply ceased to matter. He's whips around at once, heading straight for the door in as confident a stride as he can manage. He is getting out of here and he's tracking this asshole if it is the last thing he does. << It better if I say I was only in my underwear? >> Jim snarks to mask over the whoof of relief he feels at hearing a little Hiveian /assholery/. Also, there is someone locking hands around one of his /two/ most favorite wrists, and he's shot men for that. He's shot /this/ man for that. And it's probably a better idea to focus on the situation, the girl's safe - << not just safe, she's got her freakin' arm, I don't think I actually /expected/ that to WORK I was pretty sure this was all just going to get ugly and then uglier. >> And Hive - well. Jim isn't much of a giver, when memories and thoughts get tugged up in his mind his first thought is to /buck/ loose. But the subject matter... (Hive through a film of bar smoke, backlit by big screens running the game, his vicious grin; sitting over their uneaten breakfasts the day they blackmailed those construction officials; ...slumped over in the passenger side seat, saying-) An awkward sharp /twinge/ spikes in his chest. Maybe he's going to finally have that heartattack he's been courting since he started his job. He lets the memories get turned over like touchstones, and once his arm is done and Masque is leaving, he tightens his jaw and glances at Shelby. Just to make sure she's -- yep. Still there. Still a fucking teenager. Christ save him. "Y'alright, kid?" << It's about fucking /time/. >> That would be Shelby, acting as if Hive hasn't been lurking during this entire encounter. She is watching with a closeness as Masque works his magic on Jim's arm and the swearing is every bit as reassuring as seeing flesh and bone popped sickeningly back into place. Good thing she has a cast iron stomach because watching all of this is /gross/. She wisely opts to remain silent through the remainder of the process too and stays that way until after Masque has made for the door, hugging her precious arm to her chest. Just in case. "...yeah." What should be jubilation is instead rather numb. A look is exchanged with Jim, somber and more than a little what the fuck. She opens her mouth--surely this is when she thanks him/them/dissolves into girly tears/puts on a brave face/grills him/kicks him in the shin. Maybe she does do all of those things, on the inside. What she says, however, is: "So. Chicken?" There's touch -- it's brief but it's noticeable, a pulse of mental pressure that ripples through Shelby and Jim's minds as Masque heads out. But then Masque is gone, and the pressure with him, leaving mental silence in his wake. Jim rubs his face. And then the side of his head at the temple. It squishes up the eye on that side, watching Masque leave. << -man i'd rather have a blindfold on that guy and turn him loose back at his hotel, he's gonna know where I live. This is a mess. >> Maybe he's supposed to also be grateful for his arm and scoop up Shelby in a bear hug for getting his life back. "Yeah." He digs out the chicken.