ArchivedLogs:Pocketful of Sunshine

Pocketful of Sunshine
Dramatis Personae Hive, Jackson, Shelby
In Absentia	2013-06-07 With no angst whatsoever. Score!
Location <NYC> Village Lofts - Rooftop - East Village
It tends to be windy, up here, but the presence of plastic table and folding chairs suggests that nevertheless building residents occasionally make their way out to this rooftop. With a good view of Tompkins Square Park less than a block away it's a good spot for city-watching. There's a railing around the edge, though it might be possible (if /unwise/) to climb over it to the narrow concrete ledges beyond and from there to the fire escape. Centrally, someone has broken down crates and constructed a small raised-bed garden up here, barren in winter but filled in three other seasons with a small assortment of herbs and vegetables. School's out for summer! Or at least until the solstice when classes resume again. But regardless there is vacation NOW and it is as much vacation for teachers as it is for students. Jackson, right now, is /totally/ vacating. He is too vacated to even be upright; he's currently draped (perhaps in not the /safest/ of perches) along the concrete wall ridging one side of the roof. Barefoot, in a bright yellow Little Miss Sunshine t-shirt and green capri pants, he has his usual glitter-bright makeup (shimmery green) but lacks his usual vivid /hair/; his head has been shaved down to the skin, leaving it still-decorated with a large tattoo spread across his skull. (A chimera of sorts, for those who look; faintly coloured veined dragonfly wings, a large black panther's body, triple-heads of a goat, a dragon, and an eagle, a segmented barbed scorpion's tail.) On the table up here there is food -- also of /sorts/; there's a plate of cupcakes (half are blueberry-stuffed lemon cupcakes; half are raspberry tiramisu dosed with a rather copious amount of amaretto); there's a pitcher of lemonade, there are chips and salsa. It's not /very/ food. In terms of any kind of /nutritional/ value. BUT. Currently Jax has one arm draped across his eye, one leg dangling down to the outside of the roof. In the hot summery late-afternoon sun he's also faintly glowing, a dim halo of light that surrounds him. Sort of surrounds him; it constantly /shifts/, rearranging itself lazily. Sometimes it grows branches. Sometimes it grows /wings/. "... taking the kids climbing this weekend," he is informing the SKY. "Or maybe the beach. -- Are there any beaches /with/ climbing?" He sounds very hopeful about this. "Fuck if I know." Shelby has made some serious inroads on those cupcakes. /Serious/. /Inroads/. It's probably fortunate she opted to go street chic today, with the low slung capri-length sweat pants--JUICY emblazoned across her ass in saucy pink--and a loose white t-shirt that leaves one bony, freckled shoulder bare. Also bare are her feet, but her sneakers are nearby. Waiting for her toenails to dry--she's curled on the bench seat, one foot hoisted up to dab a dark cobalt shade of polish on teeny tiny nails. Dab dab dab. There's a girls night out planned for this evening, she clearly believes in preparing early. "Maybe if you built a sand castle big enough," she muses as she straightens up, dips the brush in the bottle and shoots a glance towards Jax. "Getting 'em to make it'd probably keep 'em busy for /hours/." "Spence'd do it," Hive offers. "He can't sit still for hours for /anything/ -- except building shit. I'm corrupting him," he informs Jackson. Because making an architect-in-training is totally the /worst/ kind of influence Hive might be having on children, clearly. TOTALLY THE WORST -- please ignore the six-pack of beer /he's/ brought up to the roof. Ooooor the joint he is currently in the process of /rolling/. "Actually, though, yeah, there are some /kickass/ spots near the water but you have to go upstate a bit more." He reaches for chips once he has licked and sealed his paper. Chips and a hefty dose of salsa. "The twins'd wreck the shit of out climbing a sand castle, though." His lips curl up into a smile at this mental image. "You going out clubbing with that on your ass?" It doesn't sound like a criticism. It sounds kind of entertained. "Upstate is /far/," Jackson whines at this. "Screw it, we'll beach. Y'all want to beach?" His arm shifts off of his eyes, hand skimming over bare scalp -- newly shaved today the feel after a whole fall-winter-spring full of HAIR is a novelty! -- and then dropping to rest on his chest. "Corrupt him all the way to Cornell and I'll thank you for it." His hand lifts, then. And streeeeetches out towards the table, making grabbyhands for a cupcake. The cupcakes are far /away/. "I'll steal Ryan's car and take everyone." The kids are all SMALL they can squish in a backseat right? "Oh, man, I'm supposed to go out dancing tonight, /too/. I didn't think. About. Clothes." He turns his head to eye Shelby's nailpolishing with consideration. Shelby bends over her foot again. The pinky nail is always a special challenge. She curls up to get as close as she can and purses her lips as she dabs with care. "...m'goin' out without /anything/ on my ass." This is a lie. "Or maybe a skirt. Dunno. Might steal B's rainbow dress, bet it'd look hot on me. Don't have a swim suit though." For beaching. Nail-painting accomplished, she blows on her toes to speed drying, then caps the bottle and uncurls. The joint is eyed with the same interest Jax is showing for both cupcakes and cobalt. "I fry in the sun anyway," she says as she swings her legs over the bench, snags one of the few remaining lemon cupcakes--her favorite, apparently--and trots her juicy self over to deposit it in Jax's grabbyhand. "Keep thinking maybe one day all my freckles'll grow together and I'll be tan." "That dress was pretty awesome." Hive is less helpful when it comes to delivering Jax's WISHES. Even though he's the telepath. At the grabbyhand, /he/ gets up to -- deposit the /joint/. On Jax's chest, because his hand is full of cupcake now. "Could get you a swimsuit. Or you could be like me, and lie under an umbrella drinking beer and refusing to participate in /happiness/. Happiness seems like a /lot/ of effort, dude. All that sand and splashing around." "Doubt he'd mind at all if you took it. S'long as it gets back eventually, he's kinda in love with that thing." Jackson's smile brightens when he is delivered cupcake. Score! Though the joint mostly just gets a puzzled look. He picks it up, squints at it, /trades/ it to Shelby like payment for her cupcake delivery. "S'alright, I'm sure Spence'll be happy to hold down the splashing-around fort. -- Does the sun make your freckles, like --" His fingers clench together and then spread out in a kind of mimicry of /explosion/. Demonstratively, his hand grows its /own/ smattering of freckles, too! They spread. EXPLODING across the back of his hand (as one of the few untattooed parts of him that would even /show/ this explosion.) "... you want a swimsuit? I mean, even if y'don't beach tomorrow, like. There's the whole summer. I guarantee you if y'spend any summer-time with the twins you'll /find/ your way to water sooner or later. The heat kills them, they just kind of SOAK instead." "/Or/," Shelby proposes, "I could go /naked/ /and/ drink beer /and/ make out with you under an umbrella." She's just covering all of her bases here. "If I did that, you'd totally see some freckle explosions. It's /exactly/ like that." This last is for Jax, offered up with a grin in return for the joint--which, it should be noted, is seized with relish. Not for the marijuana but because it means she has reason to poke at Hive "in search of" a lighter. "I don't even really swim good," she admits as poking shifts to patting of the pockets. "Guess they could try to teach me though." "New York doesn't really do /that/ kind of beach," Hive answers Shelby, amused. He /squirms/ at her lightersearch (more clear evidence he was toootally lying about Not Being Ticklish) but her search will produce a lighter! In a large side pocket of his shorts. "Umbrellas and kisses, though, sure. I'll make sure to stock up on the serious sunscreen though. /Just/ for you." His naturally tan complexion deals with the sun a good deal better. "I'm pretty sure learning to swim is kind of mandatory if you want to stay friends with them." He's eying Jax's hand, though, with an amused expression. "Dude, /that's/ not a freckle /explosion/, c'mon, I know you can do explosion better than that." Jax is CHOMPING into cupcake, spilling a trickle of blueberry compote against his cheek with the first large bite. "-- the twins usually swim naked but, uh, usually only in places where -- I mean everyone clears the heck /away/ when they're around /anyway/ so people don't stick around to notice /that/. Too busy freaking out over /landsharks/." His tongue darts out, licking blueberry from the corner of his mouth though there is still a purplish trail of sauce where one tiny blueberry rolled down his cheek and onto the roof. The freckles at the back of his hand keep spreading until they have covered his whole hand in a ruddy /tan/. And then the colour continues, shifting out to tint the glow around him freckly-red. And then continuing further! The red brightens, fierce-hot looking, and then BURSTS out into a sudden FLASH of explosive -- nothingness, really. The light does flashbang! itself right into Hive's FACE though. But soundless, (largely) heatless, no teeth to the pseudo-explosion. "Where y'dancing tonight?" He's back to looking at nailpolish. His own toes are sadly bare. Lighter secured--and taken with perhaps some unnecessary groping of leg through pocket--Shelby settles down to fire up the joint. << Only if you rub it on me too, >> she shoots via direct line, with a rather coy look at the telepath, re: sunscreen. Maybe she is checking his ability to blush as well as squirm--or it could be she's Jax's partner in crime, distracting him from the looming frecklesplosion for maximum surprise factor. "Good way to score your own private beach," she muses after the obligatory drag and hold of smoke. There's barely a shimmer of the stuff when she releases her breath and offers it over to Hive--provided he hasn't fainted. "...Evolve, I think. S'better for Rasa. Me'n Kris can pass." Hive might blush; it's hard to tell with the sudden EXPLOSION eating his face. It's a good thing he doesn't have his joint anymore or it'd probably be sent flying potentially off the roof, with the way his hands /fly/ up as if batting at the light will protect him from it. "Jesusfucking/Christ/," he splutters, startled when he takes a stumbling step backwards. As though he did not just /goad/ the photokinetic into exploding at him. He is still breathing a little too hard when the light fades away and he reaches to SHAKE Jax's shoulder. Admittedly carefully. He does not really want Jax falling straight /off/ the roof. He snags the joint to take a long hit. "Fuckinghell nearly made me piss myself -- who the fuck is Kris." Look he met like /seventeen million/ teenagers at the dance and most /all/ of them were Shane's date, these things are hard to keep straight. With this startled distraction it takes a moment -- only once he finally exhales and passes the joint back to Shelby -- before he blinks over at her. << … >> Even in silence his mental touch is not /comfortable/, a quick squeeze that -- comes with a flash of image, long bony fingers rubbing over skinny-freckly back. "Classmate," Jackson answers -- /smugly/! -- on the subject of Kris. Probably smug for the nearly-making-him-piss-himself and not for having the answer to this question. "Fridays are good at Evolve. Kinda like 'em better'n Saturday even, s'more packed but their DJs aren't usually as good." He drops a hand to CLING to the wall when he's shaken. Just in case. He shoves the rest of his cupcake in his mouth, hungrily. "Should come by in the morning," he tells Shelby, "see if we can't go out and rustle you up a swimsuit." Shelby joins Jax in smugging. Not that she has /cause/ but it's contagious--as is the grin she offers up to Hive's blank look. It wobbles only slightly with the twinge caused by that mental image and when she recovers, she shoots back her own copycat image. Except it consists of Shelby on her back. Also wearing that same smug expression. Shameless. "Kris is cool. She's the one that sprung for the dress," she adds on. "You gonna buy the suit?" Yeah, she's going to work that angle! What of it? Except she's already mentally cataloguing how much of her available budget she can toss towards beach wear. The disadvantage of growing up street means she's figuring...a lot of it. Five grand will last forever, right? This time, Hive /does/ blush, no explosion to cover it up. He slumps down to rest his elbows on the wall by Jax's head. It doesn't take long before he's shifting, though, to free up one hand to rub at Jax's COLORFUL smooth head. "Get Kris to buy you a swimsuit, she's the one dropping ten million dollars on a freaking dress." Rubrubrub. It's hard to STOP once he has started. "Shelby, this is New York. You could blow that five grand in a week. That's, like. One month's rent around here. -- Oh, /fuck/," he is suddenly remembering, "it's June, isn't it. I should, uh, probably. Pay Flicker for /mine/." WHOOPS. "Been June for a /week/, honey-honey," Jackson answers. His eye closes at the headrubbing, a smile lingering on his face. "Yeah, OK, but you know, an actual steady paycheck goes a long way towards that rent thing, you," He cracks his eye open to squint up at Hive, "don't even /have/ an excuse anymore, I know Io's paying you." This draws his smile into further amusement. "-- /and/ me. /And/ Bastian. He is going to be the sugar daddy of our entire building." His hand finally wipes blueberry away from his cheek, and he licks it off his palm, sucking icing from his fingertips afterwards. "Hey, m'giving you a job, that's /like/ buying you a swimsuit, right?" There is no escape, Hive. Mental-Shelby /squirms/--coincidentally in time to the rubbing he is subjecting Jax to. Should one look over at the teen though, she's all innocence. If innocence exists when one is taking a drag from a joint. Hold, hold, hold... She breathes out and extends her arm towards them, so they can partake as well. "Y'know I asked Doc for a job? That bastard told me there wouldn't be anything 'til the clinic was built." She seems more amused than put out. /Thank you/, marijuana. "Maybe I'll just stick with naked, save my money up for rent. When y'think I have to have first and last, Jax?" "When you move in," Hive answers, and then turns his head to squint-look over at her. "-- you moving in?" He snags the joint, mirroring her long drag and hold. And offering it to Jax as his head returns to. Rub! Smooooooth. Baldhead. His fingers trace unthinkingly against the outline of the hybridmonster on Jax's skull. "Maybe I should build the thing faster," he offers with a small laugh. "Make sure /everyone/ has /all/ the jobs. Though if I rush it it'll fall down on everyone." He demonstrates fallingdownoneveryone with a SPLAT of hand against Jax's head. "We doing naked tomorrow? Because I am down." "/Beach/ tomorrow," Jackson corrects, "whether there's naked or not is, I guess, up to the lot of you. -- I don't think," he adds this with something amused. But proudly amused, "that Bastian asked him for a job. What I hear, he just /told/ Io that Io was gonna hire him." His head butts up against Hive's hand, rubbing /back/. He takes the joint obligingly from Hive. And promptly passes it right along back to Shelby. His expression is /already/ pretty happy-contented just baking in the sun. "When you move in," he agrees with Hive's assessment. "Think Shane's got a bit stashed away too. Should be alright till /all/ y'all start getting paid on the regular." "Gettin' the place next to Jax's. You want a key?" Because she's not /giving them out/ without /cause/ and guess who still doesn't have a Geekhaus key? That's right. Shelby. Which is why Hive is being challenged, with a small sidelong smile and a look that says 'wut?'. She accepts the joint but with her mood already happily fuzzily, she opts instead to hold its tip to Hive's lips. Seeing as how he is occupied, hands-wise. "Maybe while they're busy in the water we can have naked time," she suggests before Jax steals her attention. "Seriously? /Damn/, way to go, B. I'll have to remember that. Just /tell/ him. I still want a car..." "Seriously," Hive agrees, leaning forward to accept the hit, drawing a long pull from it, and then, "-- woah /seriously/?" His eyes widen slightly. He looks from Shelby to Jax to Shelby again. "I mean, /sweet/. Isn't that place like another three-bedroom?" He sounds a little wistful. THREE whole bedrooms. "Fuck my place I'm stealing yours." "Three bedroom, yeah. S'gonna be her and the twins and maybe a friend, they'll probably rival Ryan's place for partying." Which Jax sounds /totally thrilled/ about really! Actually, he sounds far less concerned about this than a parent probably /should/ be. What worry there might be about Teenagers Leaving Home is mitigated by the fact that they will be literally next door. So there is that. "I already told the boys I was /stealing/ their room. Turn it into a studio for the summer. Rent it out. Somethin'." Jax's eye closes again, hand returning to drape over his eye once more. "Everyone can have whatever naked time they want but I'm totally drawing y'all all some /clothes/ if someone sends cops after you. Beach time is /so/ not gettin' interrupted by jailtime, aright? "Fuck no, s'mine. Eye-stabbing, remember? But if you're nice maybe you can stay over sometime." Shelby draws the joint back and wanders off towards the chips'n'salsa as she finishes it up. Just in time for the munchies to hit. "No jailtime," she calls over her shoulder, "don't wanna get sand all up in there anyway!" And then she descends on the foodstuffs. Nevermind that she has to squeeze into a teeny dress later, or will be dancing. There is food and she intends to eat all of it! At least until they intervene.