ArchivedLogs:Off the Clock

Off the Clock
Dramatis Personae Melinda, Sebastian, Shane
In Absentia	2013-04-05 '
Location <NYC> Montagues - SoHo
Montagues harkens back to the day when SoHo was filled to the brim with artists, with its mismatched furniture, all plush and decorated heavily with carved wood, but remains trendy enough to keep its newer patrons by making sure that furniture is clean, in good repair and inviting. The antique tables all have been reinforced to seem less creaky. The real draw of the cafe is the smell: fresh roasted coffee mingles with perfectly steeped teas. Spices from crisp pastries mingle with the tang of clotted cream but don't overwhelm too much the scent of chalk on the menu boards. Melinda is at work! This in and of itself is normal. What is not normal is that she is wearing jeans and a tee shirt, complete with a spring weight canvas jacket, set on keeping the chill of the slow waking spring off her shoulders. Her hair is messily braided and her face is a touch paler than normal. She is seated at a table with a steaming cup of coffee in front of her and a flaky pastry that shows signs of nibbling. When she reaches for her cup of coffee, bands around her wrist indicate that she was recently hospitalized. She is actually working on paperwork in a large wingbacked arm chair, fiddling with forms and letting out a soft breath as she rubs at the side of one of her temples, dispassionately. The forms themselves are not getting filled out. She just doesn't seem all that motivated. What forms are they? Worker's compensation? Legal liability forms about workplace injuries? Oh my. The door opens. The teenagers who come through are familiar faces (or -- a familiar face, cloned?) at Montagues, although Shane usually stays in the back; familiar or not some of the /patrons/ give them odd-wary-uncomfortable-hostile glances even though the employees take them in stride. Shane is in bland workclothes, jeans, plain black t-shirt, a dark peacoat over top. Sebastian is a bit more colourful in yellow jeans and a pink tee with a large monarch butterfly on it, a yellow Fluttershy hoodie on top. He also has a backpack, heavily laden. "Someone hurt you?" Shane's eying the bracelets with a frown as he wanders towards Melinda rather than towards the kitchen. His teeth clack together, chompchomp. "Want me to bite 'em?" "Do you mind if I sit?" Sebastian is quieter. Not teethchompy. He moves towards a nearby chair, but doesn't take it yet. "Are you okay?" "Oh, no... no." Melinda shakes her head and raises her hand to gesture a pause, a movement that soon turns into a stretch and a yawn. "No. I just -" She pauses again and considers, a bit fuzzy on the conversation. "It's just the aftermath of a de-hiving." She smiles at Shane sleepily and shrugs a little. "I mean, you can bite him if you want to, but really, it's probably better that he did let me go, if this is ... what follows, you know?" She turns to look at Sebastian and nods solemnly. "Please do. I am a little bit lonely without the company." At this, she taps at her temple meaningfully. "How are you two?" "Oh! Oh right I forgot that --" Sebastian's nose wrinkles. Shane's, too. "He only had us like a day. Wasn't so bad. Slept off the headache in the harbor. You alright? I think some --" "-- of the others are pretty much still unconscious, Pa said." Sebastian frowns as he unslings his backpack to take the seat. "But mostly just the ones who were -- I don't know, it had been a month? More?" "More." Shane scoots around behind Melinda's chair to lean his elbows against it. And rub at her temples FOR her. "-- Can I bite him anyway, he's /hot/." "You don't /bite/ people that you li -- oh." Suddenly Sebastian blushes. "I mean I guess maybe sometimes you do." Melinda oohs and leans back against the chair, melting under Shane's ministrations. Her eyes close and she is quiet, lips moving as she attempts to say something before saying something louder. "He only had me for about three and a half weeks... so I don't know." She inhales deeply and cracks her eyes open. "I just ... Icollapsedhere, so they sent me to the hospital. I've got forms to figure ou.. I mean fill out now. They gave me morphine." And she smiling. "It's probably not all out of my system and I know I should be home in bed, but forms. And coffee. And there's no food at home." She tilts her head up to look at Shane. "How you bite Hive is between you and him - consensual shit and all. I can no longer gauge his .. interest." "Woah, they gave you morphine? Fuckit, I'm getting Hived for longer," Shane decides. He still rubs at Melinda's temples. Sebastian's nose wrinkles. "That's a terrible reason. Do you need help with the forms?" He is leaning down to open his backpack, but he waves a hand at Melinda's forms. "Hive would never let me bite him." Shane /huffs/ this exaggerated like it is such a burden. "He has standards." Sebastian manages a small smile at this crack. Shane clacks his teeth at Sebastian. CHOMPchomp. "-- Wait, uh, are you -- /interested/? In Hive?" "Yes," Melinda replies quickly to Shane and then looks over at Sebastian with a still sleepy smile. "Oh, that would be lovely. I mean, I should... I mean, it's a silly time for me to work on them. I really just stopped by to pick up the forms, but it'd be easier just to turn them in." She glances at them. They are soo far away on the table right there. She'd have to sit up again to reach them. "You're probably going to have to ask me all the questions anyway." She pauses and looks up at Shane. "Are you working today?" It's less of a question of whether he should be /working/ right now as a question about what day of the week it is. "Wait, yes, like you're interested? In that motherfucker?" Shane doesn't /actually/ say motherfucker like an insult. He might as well have called Hive by name. "What, he's --" Sebastian frowns only a second or so into this defense. "-- Hive." "Well, yeah." Shane shrugs. "I mean he's rad, I just thought you were into Jim. I thought --" "-- /he/ was into --" Sebastian is frowning more. He leans forward, taking the forms off the table. "He's working this afternoon. We're early." "Needed caffeine," Shane says with a wrinkle of his nose. He brushes a stray wisp of hair back from Melinda's head, rubbing more at her temples. "Maybe I'm just into motherfuc... I mean people like Jim and Hive." Mel admits quietly, not really defending herself, but noting wryly. "Don't swear so much after admitting you work here, Shane. Bad for business." Even if they do keep him away from the customers in the back. "Can you get me a cup of chai?" she asks, completely forgetting about the mug still steaming on the table by where her forms used to be. They contain information about head injuries. Apparently, she hit her head when she collapsed, which is going to pay for her headscan, luckily. There's also a doctor's note about how she needs to come back in a week at the latest to get another head scan to make sure that there was no other damage or bleeding resulting from the fall or the migraine that instigated the fall. "You are an amazing human being, Shane. Your fingers are like magic." "Not a human being," Shane says absently, "but I've heard that about my fingers a lot. You're the first girl I've heard it from, though." Sebastian /blushes/. His cheeks are turning purple. "Do you not want that coffee?" He nods towards the coffee already on the table, and roots in his bag for a pen. "/I'm/ taking it if you don't. Mel, you know your customers are freaking New Yorkers? They've probably heard the word fuck before. Besides, you can just deny knowing me. I never talk to them." Sebastian scrubs his knuckles at his face with a wince. "What he means is sorry. Um. Address?" He's filled out her name already. "I don't think there's anything wrong with -- I mean Jim and Hive are nice." "I dunno about /nice/ but they're /cool/. I mean okay they're both sort of losers," Shane says, "but they're the kind of people who'll have your /back/ and /that's/ cool. Are you like, dating them now?" "Hey. I'm your boss, you can drink my coffee if you want to," Melinda replies sternly before continuing, "and not swear if I ask you to. Of course you're a human, dumbass. You're just a human plus shark. Better for swimming and fishing." She exhales and returns to topic, "but they are paying us not to say fuck. It's like unspoken courtesy shit." Except it's spoken when bosses tell subordinates not to do something. She shakes her head gently at the topic and falls silent. "I am only interested. Neither of them seem interested. I mean, maybe, but no. And I haven't seen Hive yet. I'm not the kind that goes and hunts people down - so I guess I'm waiting for him to be somewhere I am first? I don't know." She looks over at Sebastian. "How's Shelby? I haven't seen her in a while. Oh, probably unconscious now. I guess that's a moot question. Sorry." She then tells him her address. "I forgot, you haven't been to my place. You should come by sometime. We can have coffee." Shane wrinkles his nose. "Yes'm," he says, though he says it with a /scowl/, "-- but I can't even say fuck when I'm not on the clock yet?" "Tell him he can't say it /ever/," Sebastian suggests with a small smile. One that fades at the question of Shelby. "I -- probably unconscious," he agrees, distinct worry crossing his expression. He fills in the information, asks the next of whatever sorts of questions these forms have. Birthday, probably. Phone number. It's all sort of rote. "I should -- I guess I can't text her if she's unconscious." "You can text Peter he can harass the fuck out of her like a giant fu -- /freaking/ spaz, sorry." Shane actually does sound sorry for this correction, even if he neglected to even /notice/ the first slip. "I'll tell Hive to go find /you/. Then he'll be somewhere you are." Look, he's even dropping one hand (the other sliding down to rub at the back of Melinda's neck instead) to get his phone out. "You don't have to tell him to do anything. This probably has him pretty messed up too, right?" Melinda reaches a hand up to touch Shane's gently, aware of both the caution necessary to touch sharkskin, and the teen's tendencies for touch consent. "But thank you, for the swearing thing. I know it's a stupid rule, but it is what it is." Whatever Mel might have told Shane about her coffee, she's now reaching for it and taking sips, providing Bastian with information about her life when he asks her questions. "She might be awake by now, hun. I am, after all." If loopy. She takes another sip then offers the mug up to Shane for sharing. It's the least she can do since he's now massaging her neck. Mmmm... Strong fingers. Shane is pretty comfortable, at least, with this touch when already mid-massage; his hand does still, though mostly out of concern for not scuffing Mel's by brushing it the wrong way. "We haven't seen him. But he's /probably/ a giant mess. Might be he'd /like/ some harassing anyway." "Probably would," Sebastian says quieter, "though he might not admit it." "Guess he'll have Flicker, anyway." Shane's fingers press a little more at Mel's neck, this time more like a mid-massage nudge. "Are you and Jim going to marry Flicker, too, because he and Hive have the kind of epic bromance thing going on." "It'd be a shame to break it up," Sebastian agrees, almost sounding amused. Almost. "You think she'll be awake?" Fret. His teeth dig against his lip. "I mean yeah you are." "Text her anyway, Sebastian. Girls like thoughtful concerned messages to wake up to." Melinda inhales deeply and wrinkles her nose. "I don't know. I'm not going to marry Jim. I don't know why I'd marry Jim and Flicker." She settles the coffee in her lap as she thinks, eyes half lidded. "Guys, please don't go around telling everyone I'm marrying Jim. He'll never speak to me again. Or telling Hive I want to marry him. I really don't want to marry anyone. I'm just... in a place, where I want to figure out stuff. And sometimes, figuring out stuff means just figuring out what feelings people have, not trying to ask more from them. They're just people I like being around. And who knows what will happen with it..." she trails off her rambling into another distracted silence. "Jim and Flicker /and/ Hive," Shane says, with a grin. He pats Melinda on the shoulders, patpatpat, then ducks around front to steal her coffee and take a sip. "I'm not telling anyone shit," he assures her, though. "Yeah," Sebastian speaks in more of a quiet mutter, "you'd have to actually talk to someone for that." Shane's expression twists down into a frown. "M'getting your chai." He stomps off towards the counter to order. Sebastian rubs a finger at his temples, and continues down the list of questions. Melinda nods and smiles to Shane. "Thank you, hun," she replies, leaving Sebastian to make his comments without her opinion.