ArchivedLogs:Raindrops

Raindrops
Dramatis Personae Flicker, Hive, Laura
In Absentia	2014-12-22 '
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. The city is dreary-wet-cold, today. Grey and on-and-off rainy. Chilldamp, murky, ugly. Which isn't /stopping/ the relentless press of Holiday Cheer that marches on, this time of year. As if their previous all-night-long Solstice Party wasn't /enough/ decorating, Hive and Flicker are down here in the park today, where the dreary grey is being combatted by a riot of bright light, decorations on all the trees and sculptures and lightposts, a concert happening in the center of the park with a small light /show/ going on in time with the music. Flicker is dressed for the cold, bundled snug in coat-scarf-hat. Mittens. Warm thick lined waterproof boots -- the better with which to currently /stomp/ in a particularly large puddle as he pushes Hive through the park, twirling his friend's wheelchair straight through the puddle as well. "S'like a scavenger hunt all over. Make up for all the stars you lost." Hive is very bundled, too. You can't really /see/ much of the telepath under all the bundling, layers and layers and /blankets/. What you can see is a sliver of narrowed eyes, a /scowling/ pale gaunt face. His wheelchair is /way/ more visible than he is -- it looks like it could /be/ part of the light show, trimmed out in brilliant cheerful EL wire to make it look like some kind of festive holiday TRON lightcycle version of Santa's sleigh. Someone has added jingle bells to its back, even. Not that this stops his ceaseless scowling. His mind is alert, open, picking up on the surface thoughts of the people in the park around them as Flicker takes them splashing through. "... guess I'm losing /all/ of mine these days, huh." Laura has found use for a piece of new equipment, the umbrella, and she has her's held against a shoulder with both hands as she makes her way through the rain that falls down to earth. There should never be a reason to hide from the holiday festivities. No matter how many years may pass Laura has always found joy in the lights and the colours. her thoughts however are never that far from herself, there is a rhythm and a count to her thoughts. '1,2,3, step left, 1,2,3, step right, look at the beautiful lights." An odd countenance that has become such a part of her daily life. "So we'll just have to dream you up some news ones. Better ones than these, maybe." Flicker's chin bops down lightly against the top of Hive's head. His path through the park is erratic -- going out of his /way/ to skid the glowing wheelchair through puddles in the park. One skidding-splash sprays gritty cold water up towards Laura, and he pulls the chair back with a sheepish dip of his head and a very fierce blush. "Oh -- shoot, I'm -- really --" He cuts himself off sharply, lifting a hand to circle a fist over his heart. "Apologies, miss." Though there's a quiet-breathless tinge of laughter still left in his voice despite the evident sincerity in his /expression/. "Oh! Wait. I met you." "Kind of sick of dreaming." Hive slouches down further in his chair -- each successive splashing seems to be met with a /deeper/ scowl. /Glare/, grimace. His fingers curl tightly against the armrests of his chair. He huffs out a short sharp breath when they pull up short in front of Laura, turning that same scowl on /her/ now instead of the world at large. "... the fuck." His hand lifts, knuckles pressing to his eyes. "S'not a dance." Laura flinches back as the cold water hits her pant leg, "Hay now." she calls over before taking the time to see who may have caused the offending water, she recovers quickly, "Oh, sorry. No its ok." she quickly changes her tone to one of humor. "Yea we met at a coffee shop if I recall correctly," that is all she gets out before Hive's words cause her to take half a step back. "/Right/ right." This reminder makes Flicker's smile light up brighter and wider. "Right. Did I get your name? I don't know if I got your name. I'm Flicker, this is --" Though he stops short of introducing Hive. Instead he gives the other man a puzzled look. "... dance? Are we dancing? We /could/, there's music." His hand has moved from the handlebar of Hive's wheelchair to the other man's shoulder, squeezing slowly. In his mind there are images. The sleek knife-silhouette of the Mendel Clinic cutting its elegant figure against the sky. The buildings of the Commons, sprouting from the ground like they were grown from it. Hive's expression, intent and focused surrounded by the holo-projection of one of his newest creations. << You're full of it. You'll never be sick of dreaming. >> "Not dancing." Hive's tone is sharp, and kind of irritable. Kind of confused? His brows have furrowed, his hand scrubbing against his eyes as his head shakes. "I thought..." He slumps back down, shoulders settling heavily. "There's music," he agrees. "The fucking /lights/ are dancing. Guess we could. Who's this." He gestures to Laura, since Flicker seems to know her. His teeth crrrrreak-grind togehter at the images in Flicker's mind, but then, slowly, the tension in his jaw softens. His hand lifts, resting -- shakily, trembling -- over Flicker's and squeezing once before dropping back to his lap. Laura is not entirely sure how to take the irritation of Hive, on one hand he seems to be mostly directed towards Flicker, on the other hand she seems to have been caught in the crossfire. She does that only sensible thing she can think of, and thats to smile; smile and offer herself in introduction, "I'm Laura... your friend and I bumped into one another I think at the Evolve, though I can't remember what the conversation had been about." Or what his name had been, jumpy, teleporty, what was the name? "Can dance if you want to," Flicker replies glibly. His mind can't /help/ but fill in: << Can leave your friends behind. 'Cuz your friends don't dance, and if they don't dance, then they're no friends of mine. >> His head bops along just slightly to the unheard mental soundtrack. "Oh, we just met the other day. Me and Jax. He had satyrs." He fills in a mental image there, too, the dancing faery-creatures Jax had summoned up. "Flair. And ports." "/Flicker/." This is sharper than before. More irritable. Hive's bony knuckles have lifted again to dig at his hollow-shadowed eye once more. "Jegus fucking Christ he /just/ goddamn told you his fucking name /two seconds ago/ jumpy-fucking-teleporty, what the fucking shit. It's not hard. /Flicker/." His teeth are grinding again. "Thats right, with the little fary creatures that were about. That was an interesting time." Hive's words get a bit of a start from laura though she dosn't go about prying into what he may have been talking about. Though she is wary of the apparently irritable man. She is rather positive that she hadn't been talking out loud and goes back over her conversation to make sure, checking the time on her watch, good still the right time, 34 seconds 35 seconds. "Anyhow, so what brights you two out tonight? enjoying the weather?" << Hive -- >> It's not exactly a /warning/ tone in Flicker's mind so much as a concerned one. Orienting Hive /here/ -- << Can't do that she wasn't /speaking/. >> "Flicker," he acknowledges, out loud, warm smile faltering only a moment before returning bright as before. "That's me, right. The weather is --" He turns a hand up, catching raindrops against a mittened palm. "Yeah. I guess we were enjoying it." << Splish. >> His voice is amused, brightly so. "The rain, the lights. /I'm/ enjoying, anyway, and dragging this one out with me." "I don't care it's still annoying as fuck," Hive grumbles, aloud. The question about the weather does not make him any /less/ grumbly. He does not answer it with Flicker's cheer. "You fucking serious. It's freezing and rainy. Are you enjoying the weather?" Laura gives a little shrug, she is off balance with this conversation and not sure if Hive is genuinely hostile or if perhaps she had done something to upset him so. Either way she wants to talk with Flicker, she enjoyed their conversation before and isn't quite ready to give up on things. "Could be a bit warmer.. or colder, but I don't mind the rain, it gives me a chance to take out my umbrella and count the drops as they fall past. So yes, yes I think I am enjoying the weather." Flicker's fingers curl in against Hive's shoulder again. His smile doesn't fade, easy, warm, but there's an uncomfortable /twinge/ in his mind, wavering awkwardly between polite conversation and wanting to get Hive out of a conversation he's clearly not happy in. Externally, he just settles down, leaning a little bit against the wheelchair. "-- Count the drops?" He says this with a quiet chuckle. "Sounds like poetry." "Sounds like someone who needs new hobbies." Hive's bony shoulder is tense under Flicker's hand. The heel of his hand rubs against his temple. His eyes scrunch up, his scowl very /abruptly/ dissolving into just something heavy and pained. "... can we go home." And there it goes, so much for trying to have a friendly conversation in the rain, but alas the fates seem to have other plans in mind, or so goes the musings of Laura's mind as she smiles back at the two, "its ok... maybe we can catch up another time, Id love to grab a cup of coffee or anything." Best to leave now before the uncomfortable partings get too uncomfortable, "by." she says quickly with a smile and turns in the rain to walk off through the drops as they continue to fall about her. "Right, maybe, but I don't have --" Flicker trails off as Laura walks away, a deep blush filling his cheeks. His mind finishes for him -- can't really make plans to catch up another time when she didn't stop to exchange any contact information. He brushes this aside with a mental shrug, concerned thoughts shifting back to Hive. "Yeah. Yeah, of course, man." Though he's going to take the /long/ way back through the park. They didn't quite see /all/ the lights just yet.