ArchivedLogs:Onlookers

Onlookers
Dramatis Personae Hive, Jim, Flicker
In Absentia	2013-12-29 Takes place during Jax's arrest.
Location <NYC> Tompkins Square Park - East Village
Small but popular, this tree-lined park is a perfect centerpiece to the eclectic neighborhood it resides in. Home to a number of playgrounds and courts from handball to basketball, it also houses a dog park and chess tables, providing excellent space for people watching -- especially during its frequent and often eccentric festivals, from Wigstock to its yearly Allen Ginsberg tribute Howl festival. It's actually surprisingly pleasant out, for December; this winter so far has had a few bitter days but been on the whole mild and today is no exception. Intermittently drizzly though that's stopped for the moment, high 40s now that late afternoon has had the day reach peak warmth. The off-and-on /wet/ means the park's not crowded anyway, though; Flicker's commandeered a swingset, though at the moment he's not swinging. Dressed in khakis, long-sleeved pale blue turtleneck under a black and grey cable-knit sweater, light waterproof windbreaker unzipped over top, his sneakers rest on his skateboard on the mulch and he rocks himself absently to and fro. His head is tipped back, eyes scanning the sky; ever since Horus disappeared he's found himself looking skyward a /lot/ with a lingering sort of hopefulness. Beside him Hive isn't really looking anywhere. His head is thunked down against the chain of his swing, eyes closed and a cigarette unlit and drooping from his lips. His ratty old duct-taped sneakers are untied, his jeans faded and threadbare, his black canvas jacket fraying at its edges, Columbia sweatshirt zipped up underneath. He flicks his lighter restlessly in his fingers. The occasional sharper exhale, almost-laugh, twitch of lips, pained /wince/ from Flicker suggests to those who know Hive that they're probably having a conversation despite Hive's sleepy-faced look, but whatever it is, it goes on in silence. "Don't tell me I'm the first to the party." Jim's voice thumps into this silent moment between the two young men like a slung mud clod at their feet. Coming up behind them, his approach is hardly stealthy; his worn out loafers squelch in the wet grass beneath the tattered hem of his kilt, his corduroy jacket makes quiet zip-zip sounds when his elbows swing against the sides of his torso. His mind isn't loud with the general internal monologue the casual passerby might have, but it's distinctly /present/ all the same with the creak and clench of deep roots and yawning stretch of green leaves laced with latin mantra. It's not enough to fully mask a far less humorous spike of - bracing? unease? "Khhh," is Hive's answer to this, timed with the snnkt-hiss flick of lighter in his hand. His eyes don't open, his posture does not pull out of his slump. His head shifts -- not enough to look at Jim or even turn that way. it spills the untidy mess of stubby ponytail his hair has grown long enough for down into the hood of his sweatshirt. Flicker is more responsive, twisting around to twine the chains of his swing across each other as he rotates to face Jim. He removes one hand from the chain, holding it out in a fist to Jim for knuckletap. "Dusk started the party already." Maybe it's a joke of some sort? But he doesn't look particularly amused, just a tired heavy /weight/ to his usually warm expression. "Ffff," Hive eloquently replies to this. He digs his cigarettes out of his jacket pocket, holding the crumpled mostly-empty pack up to Jim in offering. One of Jim's many dour frown-lines cautiously rumples deeper between his brows, like he's /suspicious/ somehow, forward momentum not canceled but slowing. Not before his misshapen gnarl of knuckles bumps up heavily with Flicker's. He snags the pack from Hive, some formless mental dread slowly sinking in << christ help us, these motions we go through >>. "We not goin' up?" The 'we' is... casually nonnegotiable. At least in his mind; it's hunkered stubborndeep and intractable. He lips himself out a cigarette and, while lighting it, reaches out to swat at Hive's nubby ponytail. << - not exactly had a lot of time past few months to get it cut - >> "In a bit," Flicker assures Jim, with a halfhearted twitch of a smile that falters and fades away before really appearing. "Dusk's just -- he needs a --" He eyes the pack of cigarettes, briefly, and then looks sharply away back up to the sky. "Oh and Jax hasn't even started baking so -- you know how he is, it'll be --" His hand returns to the chain, curling tightly around it. Hive shakes his head sharp and twitchy, flicking the ponytail away from Jim's hand at the swat. "Ffff." Now he /actually/ lights his cigarette, hand a little shaky as he does it. He drops his lighter -- almost back into his jacket pocket; in the end it sort of /misses/, falling into his lap instead. "S'a fucking. Playground, man. Isn't playing what -- you do on birthdays, shit, I don't know what happens in /America/ on these things." Watching Flicker's hands curled around the chain, Jim outwardly seems to be only half-paying attention when he reaches out to catch the dropped lighter off Hive's lap. Inwardly, it's a little harder to affect nonchalance; it's clenching like a stomach cramp. And puts a weightier meaning behind the absent lean that twines a forearm and fist around one side of Hive's swing chain, hanging his weight there while he leans over to cram the lighter into the pocket Hive had been aiming for, "If this is your sad idea of playing, you got no room to talk." His cigarette bobbles out the side of his mouth when his lips move, and he plucks it loose with a thumb and forefinger to blow smoke at the iron sky. Like spiderwebs thickening between branches, questions are brewing, complicating, building up one one another. What comes from his mouth: "--I forgot your present." In that... he hasn't managed to pick one up yet. Flicker laughs, short and quick with a shake of his head. "Oh. We're not doing presents so much." "Yeeeah, Dusk already got on /that/ boat and kind of went /way/ the hell overboard, we're all -- full up on --" Hive pauses for a drag of cigarette, pauses again to ash it down against the mulch. He rocks to the side with the shift of his swing when Jim's weight hangs against his chain; his head slips off the chain to thunk down against Jim's side instead, and he does not bother to right himself. Instead, a slow hiss of breath, his eyes still closed but his mind abruptly acutely more keenly listening than it had just been. "... the fuck." Flicker is sitting bolt upright; there's a sudden /rush/ of vehicles descending down the street, traffic abruptly heavier than the previous steady trickle it had been. Heavier and more distinctive, rather than the usual New York assortment of taxis and black sedans and the scattering of actual private vehicles, now there's a rush of blue and white. A pair of patrol cars, a bigger pair of ESU trucks, and one heavy armored HAMMER bearcat all -- descending on the Lofts. Silent, except for the rumble of their engines, no lights or sirens switched on. "-- No," he whispers immediately, bright green eyes suddenly wide. "... Shit." Hive's tugging his phone from his pocket, but Flicker is already vanishing, a ghosting blur of silhouette disappearing from the park to track off towards the apartments. "Flick-," Jim doesn't dare raise his voice to /call/ after the rapidly departing young man, the arm he'd absently tossed kind of... /on/ Hive's head, sort of around it suddenly twisted hard and tense. << - fuck if they see someone /mutanting/ around after them someone's gonna get fucking shot again -.>> The distraction drops his barriers, exposing a mind sprung into a rapid rundown. << - cop cars; not just HAMMER - that make this local? The lab goobers wouldn't drag the po-po into an abduction what the fuck fuck FUCK what the FUCK is going on - >> "Hivey." His gruff voice is flat and steady. "We gotta fall back." "S'-- warning Dusk, I can't. Reach him from here not on my own. But --" Hive's teeth grind slowly. He lowers the phone to his lap, his eyes slowly unhappily opening to /look/ towards the vehicles whose minds he can already hear. There's a sick unhappy resignation in his face; his eyes close again. "But it doesn't fucking matter he can't /go/ anywhere they'd shoot him out of the fucking sky." He looks down at his phone, unlocking it to slowly thumb through his contacts. "Just. Gotta. Call a lawyer, I guess. And sit here and fucking watch, I'm -- getting real good at that." "/Don't/." Jim murmurs through his teeth, when Hive's eyes move towards the vehicles, "Don't you dare. If even a few of them notice, they might think they're under attack. Can't fucking--" Absurdly, he's still finding it in him to casually smoke, leaning against Hive's side with fingers slowly curling into a white knuckles fist in the material of Hive's jacket. "-risk it." << Christ. Don't even know /who/ they're after this time. Think fast - the kids do something? Dusk get caught on... fucking camera somewhere? Real god damn confident they got the right, showing up in broad daylight. >> His laughter is hard and bitter, "You and me both, buddy." << Almost fucking easier having it happen to you, then watch it happen to someone else. - You picking up on what they want? >> This is -- more firmly directed towards Hive. Though in a vague organic side-step in the telepaths direction, as a lingering echo of the days they'd shared too much mental space. Hive's cigarette is forgotten, pinched between forefinger and thumb at his side where his elbow curls loosely against the swing's chain. His head still rests against Jim's side, his (still /far/ too) bony shoulders tensed, hard. "Not," he agrees with Jim's murmur, "those HAMMER motherfuckers are trained to -- if they even feel a /poke/ --" His head shakes, a few strands of dark hair loosening from his untidy half-assed ponytail as the shake of his head rubs up against Jim's jacket. << They're -- this morning, there was -- that fucking HAMMER motherfucker finally bit it, maybe they're coming to -- >> He shakes his head as the dark-clad SWAT team pours out of the trucks, a few military-uniformed HAMMER soldiers exiting theirs too to flood into the building. "Can't fucking feel them from here I need your brain. Not to -- do shit just I can't even /listen/ fuck it's too far I can't fucking hear." His tone is ragged, edged with unhappy strain. << Rogers. >> A pale scarred face, asking about reports of /telepathic interference/ in the tunnels, a sterile transparent cell and a clench of (..nox...) - << Yeah. That guy. I heard. Was that us? >> All other thoughts are settled colder and harder and yanked away from any further thoughts, fist churning tight then loose then tight again at Hive's shoulder. It's those parts of a mind no one ever wants exposed, the doubt we have in ourselves, our friends, our reality. << C'mon, Jimmy. Let him in. Boost his signal - if they're taking everyone this could be your only chance to get a hint of where they're going--. >> << Selfish /bastard/, you don't know that. We might not even need to know, might find out pretty damn /quick/. >> << Times up, Jimmy. Do or die. >> And above it all, he's thinking of a cold evening street corner, standing outside of a bar where music and laughter could be heard just inside. All the loneliness in the world so easily cured by just walking through that door. How easy that first step -- "No." He says, clenching harder, breath coming in shorter angrier huffs against the rain. Sucking hard at his cigarette and ashing so hard he knocks loose his cherry. "Let's wait." << Us. >> Hive doesn't echo this in affirmation but in a sharp hard /burst/ of annoyed negation that stabs into Jim's mind. << No. No fucking 'us' -- >> His breath hisses out quickly. His shoulder clenches up at the deliberation from Jim, but it's that last mental image that eases it back down. His hand lifts, fingers resting lightly, for a moment, over Jim's. "Yeah," he agrees, heavy and ragged, fingers squeezing inward. He stands, abruptly, cigarette still in one hand and phone scooped up out of his lap in the other. "Can get closer at the least." Meandering out of the playground -- there's already a small cluster of pedestrians rubbernecking at the park's edge, just across the street from the building, and his slouchy-casual saunter is aiming to join them. One of Jim's eyes winces half-shut at the sharper intensity of Hive's answer. Maybe he's supposed to be relieved with the moment of decision passed, but he's only sick and frustrated and hard, - << it's on you, y'know, jimmy. if you're wrong. >> As scrappy and ragged as the two of them are in their worn out clothes and taut features, they may as well be a pair of methheads out for a paranoid lookie loo. Jim mutters as they draw nearer, "Gimme your light, I'm out." << The hell does that mean. No fucking 'us'. >> His eyes spring back and forth amongst the cars as they merge with the trickling crowd at the edge of the curb. << Dude got shot trying to kill zombies. News says. >> But Hive's unhappily clenched and uncomfortable with this answer, fingers clenching tighter around his phone as well. His eyes narrow on the building as he slots himself into a spot leaning up against a bit of fence surrounding the park. His legs cross loosely, posture slouching in against the fence, and he digs his lighter out of his pocket. Flicks it a few times to himself before /actually/ offering Jim a light. "Not my damn fault you always. Pop your fucking -- cherry around me." His brows are slowly furrowing as he filters through the minds around them, focuses on the building. << Here about Rogers' death, >> he confirms, now distracted. His teeth grind again. << News says. >> Jim braces himself against Hive's mental clenching the way one might brace themselves reflexively against a gale-force wind. << So why aren't we /happy/. >> "S'what you get for winding me up." He slouches the way men of a certain age and heavy-shouldered build gravitate towards, fetching a hip up against the fence alongside Hive and leaning an elbow on the edge of the fence as well. With body facing the telepath, the position requires his head be turned sideways to watch the action. His brows screw up more towards the inside than the outside - it's a very James Dean expression. Especially with the cigarette he's re-lighting. << ...what's going on, Hivey. >> << Fff. Got a warrant. Legit and everything, 'least that means no disappearing people. Probably. >> Hive settles into a heavy slump, his sneakers sliding against the sidewalk, long since worn-down of any of their traction. "Can't help it, I'm just that --" He freezes here though, stark /confusion/ suddenly slamming down into his expression. His cigarette falls from his fingers to the ground. "No, no that's. That's not right why are they no. That's --" He's muttering this to himself now, shaking his head quickly. /Puzzled/, still somewhat more in denial than anything else. << -- S'gotta be some kind of fucking. Setup why are they taking /him/. >> There's an abrupt icy chill over Hive's words here, his previous resignation that this is just the normal /legitimate/ course of things fled in the face of just a sudden clawing fear. "/No/ --" This time it's louder enough to actually draw a few looks, a harsh ragged exclamation that comes with a heavy pressure digging up against Jim's mind. << They're going to take him I need -- fuck no they can't he didn't fucking /do it/. >> "-Hivey." Jim's hiss comes out hoarse and soft, the profound /lack/ of understanding for what's going on tearing at the walls behind an ever harder voice informing himself that right now, that doesn't even matter, does it. DEAL. << /Hivey/. >> << the hell is going on, we gotta get back. >> The fear is contagious, the pressure of Hive's mind powerful, and mental multitasking starts to fragment. His thoughts are plainer, unvarnished and undefended - but bare where he flat-out opts to abandon as best he can anything but the situation right here and now. /Battening/ in and making a counter-pressure at the parameters of his mind to brace up (against?) Hive's. It creaks ominously beneath the weight. He's trying to work a loose arm around Hive's back, gripping him subtly hard in case -- << in case he tries to run in. >> Hive does not get back. He does slump in against Jim when that arm works around him, his breathing a little raggeder. The doors to the Lofts are opening again, the large team of SWAT officers holding submachine guns at the /ready/ -- some of them trained on their sole prisoner, very brightly /flagrantly/ colourful amidst his sea of dark uniforms. << This is -- wrong I don't know what they're fucking pulling he /didn't fucking/ -- jesus fucking /Christ/ he's not a murderer. >> Those mental claws dig in harder, seeking, now. Over in his armed escort, Jax flinches, stumbling for a second. /More/ of the machine guns come to bear on him at this sudden faltering. << ... can't let him go alone, >> Hive is saying desperately, << I don't know what the fuck they're doing with him. >> Any part of Jim that had been trying to withdraw goes slack with... it's hard to call it shock, the way it rises up like an acid inside, dissolving some vital fire as it goes. He stands frozen, an arm fixed around Hive as his eyes follow that one colorful figure coming out of the building. << Don't. >> He shoves back at Hive, shoves and pulls, as his other arm shifts around to grip Hive as well. Pulling him in tighter like he wants to hide him away, without ever taking his eyes off that one figure. Not the guns. Not the men carrying him. Just the colors. He's thinking of a different time; of Murphy's smoke-filled car and a different raid on this same street. This same FRONT ROW seat. Only they'd taken Hive then -- << that's me. the fucking audience. Don't you /dare/, Hive. Game's changed. They know about you. Don't you fucking dare. >> << Don't need them, >> Hive's voice is pleading as he very much does /not/ watch. Guns and handcuffs, hand on head, pushing down into car. << Don't need them I can just take /him/. Stay with him he doesn't have to go /alone/. >> His face is scrunched up, turning in against Jim's jacket; those mental claws are pushing in deeper and harder but it's a /slow/ process with no juice behind it. He flinches as the vehicle engines rumble back to life. << No. >> So much is swollen /behind/ the word in Jim, that they don't know how long all of this would take, how long Hive would then /need/ to keep him, that Hive's mind isn't yet recovered from his last strain, we'll do it another way, not like /this/ -- but it's all in just one word, stronger and more steady with its repetition. Answering each of Hive's please with that same single gritted word. << No. >> He watches for both of them, hard solid roots giving something for Hive to sink into, to /put/ himself against, standing up to it as best he can. Hanging on. And waiting it out. Hive's claws dig in further, hard and digging against those solid roots, worming unhappily to try and find a way in. The squadron of cars pulls away; it's easy to tell, perhaps, when they have passed out of Hive's range because his prying cuts off abruptly, breath hissing out in a sharp gasp as he sags in against Jim. In physical presence his weight is practically insignificant, a loose slump of skin and bones without much else to flesh them out; in mental presence it comes down in a strong solid blanket of heavy firm earth, packing in and around those roots without any longer /tearing/ at them. For a few heartbeats he is silent, breathing shaky and ragged. Until, finally, he struggles upright and looks towards the building. "... guess no birthday cupcakes, then." It's all a sense of dug in roots, like toes sunk in against ground loss only at a very great effort, Jim withstands with a weathered familiarity. And lets out a ragged breath of relief when the digging fades, sagging loose and heavy (around; encircling; protective) against Hive's mind. Relief... and pained - because now the moment has passed. And now there's nothing left to do but live with the decision. His head is still turned in the direction the vehicles have pulled away in. "What the fuck just happened, Hive." Hive just shakes his head, at first. His shoulders tighten against the stares of the dispersing crowd, some watching the departing vehicles, some watching /Hive/ where he abruptly seemed so much /less/ curious-gawker than the rest. He shoves his hands into his pockets, shouldering past a pair of speculating college-aged women and starting across the street back towards the building. "Fuck if I know." << Picked him up for Malthus's murder. Motherfucker won't eat a goddamn burger and they're going to try and pin this on him. >> Jim has a healthy does of New York asshole at the ready, staring right back at the gawkers like they're pissing him off. He's fallen in vaguely behind Hive, cigarette flicked at the street to bounce off a parked car's front head light, cramming his hands in his pockets. Bluntly asking, << The fuck aren't you telling me. >> All heavy unapologetic suspicion. He can manage it simultaneously with worry and directionless anger and protectiveness. It's a gift. << He didn't fucking do it. >> It's snipped back, tense and not /angry/ so much as just unhappy. Uncomfortable. Hive's keys jingle on a retractable lanyard clipped to a beltloop; he stretches the electronic fob out to let them into the building, kicking the door open wider kind of /like/ holding it for Jim. Just without the holding. A little extra window of time to follow him inside. Keys open the elevator, too. But once inside he just /stares/ at the buttons like he doesn't even know where to go from here. He slumps back against the rear railing, palms coming up to dig hard against his eyes. "Fuck," he whispers. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." Dogging along at people's heels is practically Jim's preferred form of locomotion; he thumps aside the door with a shoulder and shadows along at a gait that /is/ angry. Not at Hive specifically but for how close their minds are pressed he's not making much effort to spare him either. << You sound damn sure about that. >> There it is, again - that suspicion. Not like it needs to read between many lines, Hive isn't exactly putting a lot of effort into prevaricating. "Hive." The telepath slumping against the rail leaves him open for Jim to place a palm against either side of Hive's head, leaning in to /press/ his forehead to Hive's. As if he could slurp out the answers in this way. Or shelter the other's mind. Or be at an easy position to start /shaking/ him. "Hivey, talk to me." "I'm really --" Here in the elevator Hive just drops into a rough whisper, his eyes closing and his head pressing back to Jim's. His hands lift, fingers fisting up into the lapels of Jim's corduroy jacket. "-- /really/ fucking sure about that. Fff. I need a --" His mind presses in /hungrily/ against Jim's, pulling back only with a concerted effort. "... gorram smoke. I don't. Know how to --" << talk to you, none of this. None of these are /my/ goddamn words to say. >> Jim only moves one hand - and hits the button for the /top/ floor. << --rooftop. not dealing with fucking public eye. >> And then puts his hand back to the side of Hive's temple, curiously gentle for how wired his mind and muscles are clenched in. "Dude. I just saw," he grinds down his teeth, baring the lower row as he fights to withstand the hungry pressure lashing against his thoughts - battling to give them enough surface to rail against. Battling to not /want/ it, too. To be able to grip him back, to enfold him, to /clench/- hhaah. He breaths HARD when the pressure subsides again, "--Jax get loaded up in a fucking squad car. At GUN point. Unless this is some bigger plan I don't know about?" He leans back a fraction of an inch and /bonks/ his head against Hive's. "I don't give a /shit/ who's words these are." Quieter, the harder spine of the private investigator murmurs unkindly - << You do something stupid enough other people start to notice, you lose your fucking right to privacy. >> Hive closes his eyes, nodding in acceptance of Rooftop. "Never a goddamn plan. People just -- fucking. Struggling for every goddamn step I don't think they care what /road/ they're on." His hands lift, scrunching through his hair, pressing down hard at the scars at the sides of his head. "Cigarette first. And then --" He doesn't finish this thought. Just turns his eyes upward, weight falling back in a heavy slump.