ArchivedLogs:Refuge

Refuge
Dramatis Personae Bruce, Hive, Hulk	2015-09-13 "Please, /please/ get people away from me before it--"
Location <NYC> Buddha Bodai Kosher Vegan - Chinatown
This small restaurant tucked into a snarl of shops on the southern end of Mulberry Street probably does not draw many tourists. Beneath a large red sign advertising the name of the establishment and its vegan fare in both English and Chinese, the glass storefront offers a very limited view inside, much obstructed by posters, menus, tall refrigerator, and a bizarre diorama that includes a fake white peacock. Inside, the surprisingly capacious and well-lit venue sports tastefully subtle decorations in red and gold. White tableware waits on red lacquered tables flanked with glossy black chairs, all arranged in neat, cozy clusters. The artwork on the walls depict stylized bodhi trees, lotuses, mudras, and dharma wheels. Equally pleasant, the scent of the dim sum in which the restaurant specializes. It's not too busy in here, in the in-between hours of Sunday afternoon. Not quite lunch, not quite dinner; though outside the narrow streets are packed with people taking advantage of the pleasantly mild weather in here the tables are only a third full. Tucked off in the back one table has been occupied by a pair of men, though one (darker-skinned, darker-haired, dressed in a rumpled FDNY paramedic uniform) is just in the process of leaving some money on the table and getting up to leave in something of a hurry. The other stays behind, very much not in any hurry. Hive is in jeans, a pale blue denim shirt worn unbuttoned over a white undershirt, sleeves rolled up above skinny elbows. His shaggy hair falls down over his face, knobby fingers deftly wielding a pair of chopsticks to pluck a crispy taro roll out of a basket and nibble on a piece. He leans down, after, to retrieve a slender red laptop from his bag, flip it open to turn it on. There's a distinct slouch in his posture as is fingers run over the screen. Bruce, clad in a pale blue Oxford shirt and charcoal trousers, slips in through the door that the departing paramedic opens, bowing to the hostess as he enters. Calm and serene, his mind echoes with the recent memory of incense and mantras. The hostess smiles and returns the bow. "{Welcome! Just came from temple again?}" she asks in Mandarin. "{You are very devout!}" "{Ah, thank you.}" Though his Mandarin carries a noticeable American accent, it remains entirely comprehensible. "{Maybe not so much devout as needing any extra help I can...}" He trails off as he spots Hive. A hiccup of wordless anxiety interrupts the calm of of his thoughts. "{...get. Very sorry, can I speak to that gentlemen for just a moment, please?}" The hostess nods and bows, handing him the menu. "{Go on, sit wherever you like.}" Bruce clutches the menu in both hands and approaches Hive's table. "Hello?" It's not a question, exactly. << What am I doing? >> his thoughts roil with nervous energy. But then, "May I join you?" Hive has folded his laptop over its keyboard, turning it for now into a tablet instead. In lieu of keyboard a holographic display has spread across half his table; it seems to be the bare bones of a house of some kind. Hive is fiddling with the dimensions of one of the rooms, using a stylus to write notes straight in the air. He doesn't glance up when Bruce approaches. One booted foot stretches out to nudge Joshua's recently vacated chair out from the table. With his other hand he slides a basket of barbecued "pork" buns over towards Bruce. "Thank you," Bruce mutters, accepting the seat offered him. He opens the menu and fiddles with the quick-order card, eyes skidding down the rows of checkboxes without really taking any of it in. "How are you?" His voice quivers with the fear rising in his mind. << Stay calm. Stay calm. >> He drops a hand into the pocket of his trouser and fishes out a mala. "Thank you...for the recommendation. This is my favorite restaurant now." Hive's fingers move over his display, eyes still not lifting. "I'm quite fond." He sets his stylus down, now, reaching to turn over a teacup and pour Bruce out a steaming cup of tea. Slides that across to the other man, as well. "Why did you come sit here?" Curious, rather than accusatory. Bruce reaches out for the teacup, curls his hands around it without letting go of the mala. "Thank you." He blows gently over the surface of the tea. "I ah...I'm not actually altogether sure." He pushes up his glasses, frowning. "I've been having a bit of a difficult time. Looking for refuge, I guess." He takes a sip of the tea, and the tumult in his mind subsides a little. << But you fear us. >> In Bruce's mind Hive's voices are quiet as well; they echo in mild and pensive chorus. "You're certainly welcome at my table." Underlying this, at the same time: << ...for all the peace it might bring. >> A little wry, a subtle soft hint of Bruce's own nervous fear echoed back beneath Hive's words. After this, Hive is quiet. "Refuge. From who?" "I do," Bruce agrees, one shoulder hitching up. He marks a few boxes on the quick order menu at more or less random and hands it to a passing server. << Not half as much as I fear myself. >> An inward shudder of laughter suddenly breaks into his nervousness, though without banishing it altogether. "Rather overwrought, that. But it's true." His eyes study the holographic blueprint beneath Hive's hands. "I seek refuge from myself. Mind you, I do not demand or expect it from you--from anyone." His gaze drops to the amber liquid in his cup. << I'm just tired of tiptoeing around myself, yet terrified of what might happen if I stop. >> That thought comes with a blurry, dissociated recollection of his consciousness slipping out from under him as he stood beside a great stone fountain. "Mmm." Hive's lips curl upward. Just a little. He has a very small chuckle that echoes Bruce's shudder of laughter, his own soft and a little tired. His eyes lower to his holographic structure, knuckles lifting to drag against shadowed eyes. << Escaping yourself is not always such a blessing. >> He picks his stylus back up -- not working, now, just fidgeting with it restlessly between calloused fingers. "That seems a little uncomfortable. There's a lot of ways to escape the world, if you have to. You kind of have to live with /you/ forever. Hiding from yourself doesn't seem sustainable." "I agree--on both counts." Bruce heaves a faint sigh. "I imagine that escaping from myself is what started my problem in the first place." Another memory, bright and hard-edged: a man looming huge over him, yelling, hand upraised. It ends as abruptly as it began, banished by a mental sleight of hand that Bruce has clearly practiced much. "I'm working to find a more long-term solution--for the symptom, at least." With a remarkable amount of mental discipline, he keeps his thoughts anchored to the table, the tea, the holograph, the lotus beads between his fingers. "But this'll have to do for now. It will pass." Hive clenches his fingers around his stylus. << Will it? >> His mind flutters softly against Bruce's, a faint curious lick of mental touch as he reaches for his own tea. "Are you just going to meditate until you're not a danger to yourself anymore, then?" His fingers uncurl towards Bruce's mug. "We may need more tea. I've been a danger to the world a long-ass time and no amount of mindfulness makes /that/ go away." Bruce's mind, order and discipline notwithstanding, begins to spiral down into panic at the mental touch. << Don't let me fall! >> The plea comes organically as he squeezes his eyes shut and digs the knuckles of one hand into his temple. His sense of self has slipped just a fraction, and beneath the troubled surface of his thoughts roils something else, colossal and confused and decidedly /not/ Bruce. The wordless droning of the Heart Mantra starts up, however, and the struggling subsides once more. Bruce does not open his eyes. When he speaks he does so in a flat, soft voice, "I'm going to meditate until I find a way to divest myself of...of /that./" The stronger mental touch from Hive is reflexive, now, at that plea. A firmer bolstering hand reaching out at Bruce's panic -- supportive, yes, but /enveloping/, a heavier blanketing mind wrapping itself around Bruce's with an almost casual ease. Mental fingers close in, smoothing at the uneasy surface of Bruce's thoughts even as they gather those thoughts /in/ to themselves. Absorb them, /become/ them. Calmer, perhaps, but an oddly constricted enforced sort of calm. It comes from within Bruce and doesn't all at the same time. The voice that speaks in Bruce's mind now -- is his own? Is not his own? << Won't fall. >> Hive plucks up another barbecue bun. Nibbles at it slowly. His eyebrows have raised slightly. "Did you pick up a hitchhiker?" With the same reflexive touch his mind is reaching for /that/ roiling confusion, too, wrapping strong tendrils around it to pull that quietly in, too. "Seems less like fearing yourself and more like fearing --" His hand turns up as his mind pulls the other more solidly into itself. << What's inside you. >> Bruce sucks in a sharp breath, drops one hand to clutch the edge of the table--teacup oddly steady in the other. "What..." He does open his eyes now, staring at Hive perplexed. As the beginnings of his dissociation fade away, though, his calm returns in some measure. "Hitchhiker? I don't think so, though--it's possible." His fear stirs again, his thoughts stretching out for statistics he did not know: the prevalence of parasitic telepathy or parasitic metamorphism, and so on. "And yes--of course it's what's inside me. I can only assume it's some part of me, lost and twisted and--ugh." He shakes his head. "This is all guesswork, I have no idea what's really happening in here." As Hive reaches below the surface of Bruce's mind, the disturbance there slams into garish focus: another entity, not fully conscious but struggling toward it inexpertly. Childlike. Passionate. Not altogether human. This entity does not seem to comprehend Hive's presence as Bruce does, but, clinging to him like a lifeline, follows him up toward consciousness. "It's possible." Hive's knuckles press against his lips, brows still raised as Bruce reaches for those statistics. << ... Think those numbers have grown sharply, this past year. >> It's a thought that surfaces once more, Bruce's thought and not-his-thought all at once, dry and wryly amused in time with the faint smile ghosting across Hive's face. "Would you like to know what's happening?" Hive's smile is vanishing. His mental touch shifts, pressing thoughtfully back against the feeling that clings to him. Yielding, softer, there's less of him there to grip on to for a moment, dissipating and re-forming as a gentle cushioning presence more than a grasping one. Somewhere inside, a wordless questioning brushes up against that struggling presence, Hive's mental touch nudging back in quiet exploration. Bruce furrows his brows in concentration. "Grown sharply? What do you mean..." A memory appears like a card leaping from a riffled deck: Hive's speaking voice, soft and even, 'I forget which mind is mine.' << You? Is that-- >> He manages, in the midst of confusion and distress, to indicate the turbulence in his subconscious. << --/you?!/ No. It can't-- >> He grits his teeth. "I--yes, I would like to know, but now might not be the best...time..." Where Hive nudges, the semi-conscious entity shoves back, blind and frantic and immensely willful. Its sole reply, also wordless, consists only of a desire to get out. "Oh no," Bruce whispers, low and urgent, his eyes losing focus as he struggles--and fails--to maintain his calm. He's rapidly predicting probable escape routes for those nearby--Hive, the hostess, the servers, the few other patrons--and getting ready to hurl himself out of their way. "Please, /please/ get people away from me before it--" His words trail off into a shriek. His body distends, rapidly increasing in mass, tearing through his clothing and darkening to a rich green. The server returning with his food screams, as well. The table top snaps beneath his grip in a spray of dust and splinters and the teacup in his other hand shatters, somewhat less spectacular but no less messy. His ragged scream ends as he loses consciousness and the other mind in him wakes, roaring in agony and confusion. The chair collapses under his bulk and the two halves of the table fall away uselessly, spilling food and tea everywhere. When the transformation has completed, the enormous green man sitting in the wreck of the furniture blinks up into the light and flinches away from the horrified screams of the others in the restaurant. Hive's breath catches, sharply. His chair scrapes back against the floor as he pushes himself away from the crumbling wreck of his food. His holographic house sinks down with the falling table and then vanishes as his laptop drops along with the broken table. Hive's head bows, shoulders tensed hard as though bracing against the fear and panic in the room. It's a panic that isn't lasting. At least not outwardly. Rather swiftly, in fact, the people in the restaurant are calming. Other patrons are -- in odd unison -- electing to fall into quiet. Return to eating their meal without sparing any more glances for the colossol green man who has just appeared. The people who /work/ in the restaurant /are/ sparing them attention -- mostly, though, only to come over and busy themselves with bringing new place settings, new tea, starting to clean. Hive's hands are just a little bit shaky as he dusts off his laptop. His mind still curls around the other man's. Steadier. Less shaky by far than his hands are. He sets his laptop aside on his backpack, sliding down from chair to floor, since their table is gone. Their very quiet server seems perfectly willing to set the tray of food on the floor. Hive wraps his arms around his knees. The breath he pulls in is slow. "... are you hungry?" The green titan stares around him, watching the servers move suspiciously. His thoughts still do not form words, yet have a certain indescribable concreteness. He thinks that someone might make loud noises and hurt him, as happened in his last clear memory of this world--the police officers and their guns, though he had no names for these things. When Hive speaks, however, his attention snaps back to the man sitting across from him. "Hulk /hungry./" Loud but not exactly a shout, there's a hint of a rising intonation in his words, almost like a question. But his eyes do follow the food laid out on the floor between them, and it does not take telepathy to discern his interest in it. His immense hand lifts a steamer full of dumplings easily between index finger and thumb. For a moment he looks like he might just dump the entire thing into his mouth, but he hesitates. Looks down at Hive, eyes narrowing fractionally. He notes the trembling. The wash of concern from him is immediate and immense, unqualified by calculations for his own needs and undiluted by notions of social distance. "YOU hungry?" He leans forward, holding the tray out to Hive. There's a very slight widening of Hive's eyes. He glances towards the front of the restaurant; after a moment, someone goes to turn the sign in the window to the CLOSED side. The next breath he takes is a little easier. The tension in his shoulders eases. There's a small curl of smile that passes across his face, there for a moment and then gone. "Yeah, actually, I am. But there's plenty of food, you can eat those, it's fine. Here." He plucks one of the dumplings from the tray, leaves the rest. "Have those." He reaches for the fresh teapot they've been brought. Lifts it to pour out a cup. He starts to pass the cup towards Hulk but -- then thinks better of it. Takes the cup for himself and instead opens the top of the whole pot, setting the pot down in front of the other man. "Careful, it's hot. That's you, then? Hulk?" Hulk watches Hive eat, and then finally /does/ upend the steamer into his mouth, shaking it a little to dislodge the ones that stick to it. "Taste good!" he exclaims before he is properly done chewing, and is already lifting the teapot by the time Hive warns him. He eyes the tea, frowning. He has a distinct and specific understanding that hot equals burning, and burning equals bad. Now he does not quite not know what to do with it. The question of his identity, however, confounds him not at all. "Hulk!" He strikes his chest with a fist--not hard, but his massive lungs do resonate with the blow. "Hulk strong! Hulk protect." Neither pride nor doubt accompanies these declarations. He lifts the teapot, sniffs at it cautiously, and takes a sip. Grins hugely. "Strong, yeah. I can see that." Hive polishes off his own dumpling, licking at his fingertips after. He picks up his teacup with a far steadier hand, sipping at it cautiously as well. "That's not always an easy job. Sometimes I've had to do it, too. What do you protect?" "Hulk protect tiny friend!" He holds his palm level to the floor, indicating a height of perhaps three feet. His memory of said friend feels remarkably vague--only the barest impression of a frail, terrified child--and brings with it a current of seething fury. His voice booms in the enclosed space, "HULK NOT LET BAD MAN HURT FRIENDS!" "Tiny friend." Hive's voice is a little distant as he takes another sip of tea. His minds -- their minds, fragmented/conjoined as they are -- are thinking back. Bruce's flash of memory of that looming man, yelling, upraised hand; he calls it back (Bruce calls it back), this time not banishing it so quickly. << ... that man -- is/not here? >> It isn't a question that comes /from/ Hive so much as surfaces, twinned, in Bruce and Hulk's minds in parallel. Externally, Hive holds out another container. Soft taro balls, crisp-fried. "Nobody /here/ is going to hurt you. Or your friends. Where is your friend now?" Bruce's mind, semi-conscious, recoils from the memory, but this time it remains and plays itself out. He is three years old, building a huge, complex, radially symmetric structure with Lincoln Logs. His father is shouting in the next room, his mother crying, their words indistinct. He rises, uncertain, pushes the door open. His father whirls around, his face red and twisted with rage. "Get out. Back to your room!" Young Bruce looks past his father to the woman sitting on the bed sobbing. "But mommy's hurt." "I'll show you hurt, you little freak." His father closes the distance between them in two strides. Bruce backs away, but the man has taken him by the arm with one hand, the other rearing back to strike. "NO!" Hulk, in the present, slams his fist down on the floor. The entire restaurant rattles as though in a curiously brief earthquake. A couple of paintings come out askew. "MAKE BAD MAN GO AWAY!" He calms a bit, perhaps at the offer of food or perhaps at the reassurance, and takes the steamer of taro balls. Sniffs. He does not answer Hive's question, does not know how to answer it. His friend is always and never with him, for reasons he can in no way comprehend. Hive's eyes close. His shoulders tense again, fingers bracing down against the shaking floor. His other hand grips his mug of tea -- though shaking again as he is, the tea sloshes down over his knuckles. << (gone)(gone)(gone) >> is a quiet echo in their minds, << gone, he's gone >> -- "He's gone," and as Hive says it it becomes true, the memories pushed back away, tamped down again with a firm mental hand. "Forgive me, we're just trying to -- understand --" The throb of pain that pulses in Hive's temples echoes dully in the Hulk's own head, in Bruce's, a muted ache that takes a while to fade. "... what it is that you want." Frown. "Or need." Though he says the words aloud, the mental connection offers up this intention for him, projecting meaning even before he has given it voice. << Gone... >> Bruce echoes from his nightmarish half-sleep. << Can't hurt us anymore. >> The Hulk relaxes as quickly as he angered, and downs the taro balls. "Hulk want more /this!/" By which he evidently means the steamer he has just emptied. His other hand rubs his own head, but his eyes studies Hive, as well, intuiting the pain's second-hand provenance. "Who hurt you?" His thick, heavy brows knit severely. "Hulk protect!" "Okay. Another's on its way." Somewhere else in the restaurant the bizarrely calm staff is getting back to work. Hive's hand lifts, fingers kneading at his temple. His eyes lift to meet Hulk's, widening slightly. Then softening back into their default half-lidded state. "It's a headache. It'll --" << pass, >> the word finishes in shared mental space automatically, a refrain so commonly spoken it comes out on autopilot. The shared mental space also gives lie to the words, though; by now it never really passes. Hive drains the rest of his tea, sets the cup back down on the floor. "I'm not sure what to do right now," he admits, frankly. "I want to talk to you, but I also want to talk to your friend. I don't know if it's possible to do both. At least not --" Frown. Hulk's broad, hyper-muscular shoulders slump a little. "Hulk stop yelling now," he says--softly, by the standards of his stentorian voice. "Not make your head hurt more." Following Hive's example, he upends the teapot into his mouth and sets it down on the floor with startling delicacy. "You can talk to Hulk. Hulk listen." But then, head tilting. "Hulk's tiny friend?" Again he references the size of that friend with a gesture. "You know how to find?" "Thank you." Hive's smile is a little tired, but his voice -- and the mental feeling that accompanies the words -- are genuine, as Hulk's voice softens. "I found your friend, yeah. He kind of grew up, though." He mirrors Hulk's gesture -- though taller, nearer to Hive's own size. "But it's complicated. I think you two are -- sharing a mind. A body. When you're here, he's inside you, and when he's here, you're inside him." Hulk tilts his head quizzically. "Tiny friend...big now?" He finds this idea completely baffling. Then, even more incredulously, "Share body. Strong, like Hulk?" Looking down at his bulging pectoral muscles, his mind spins on this for a moment. He pokes at his sternum with one massive index finger. "Hulk...not understand," he says at last. "But Hulk still protect?" "Strong -- in different ways, maybe." Hive rubs a hand against the side of his face. A server comes, now, with another steamer of taro buns. Hive picks them up to offer them straight to Hulk. "I think you two maybe should work to protect each other. There's more kinds of ways to get hurt than just violence. And friends -- friends look out for each other, right? That goes for you /and/ for him. At least," there's a small press of Hive's lips, here, "it should." Hulk happily accepts the fresh taro buns, which again go down in more or less one gulp. "Tiny friend...protect Hulk?" he asks without sarcasm or incredulity, though certainly he has trouble imagining how the small child of his memory--for he still thinks of Bruce so--could protect /him./ For a moment he also comes up blank at the thought of getting hurt without violence, but then his brows lift up as he comprehends. Stretches out a finger to touch Hive's forehead. "Like that. Not get hit, but still hurt." He nods. "Hulk look out for friends." In the clean, unambiguous realm of his thought, he cannot find a way to understand how it might work in the other direction. Even so, he adds, hesitantly, "/You/ look out for Hulk?" Hive's eyes roll upward, slightly crossed as he follows the path of the large finger to his forehead. "Y-- yeah. Like that. Or like making someone sad, you know? There's just -- different ways. To hurt." At the last question, the entire restaurant pulls in a sharp breath in unison. Across their minds, a very clear: << Well, fuck. >> Outwardly, Hive nods, slow. Swallows. "I'll try." His fingers curl back around his knee. "Where do you go, when you're not --" Their minds fill in more conceptually than semantically; here, /this world/, offered in a feeling of presence: the solid hard warmth of Hive's forehead beneath his finger. The smell of the taro buns. The delicate taste of tea. The everpresent city white-noise of traffic, voices, pigeons, wind through tall buildings. The heavy groundedness of being in /control/ of a body. Hulk looks around the restaurant, then back at Hive. He has a startlingly clear mental concept of /this world/, but virtually no grasp at all of the alternative. "Hulk.../here./" He points at his enormous chest. A faint wrinkle in the heavy overhang of his brows marks a slow work of mentally sifting through his experiences until he happens upon the shock of waking, so recent in memory. "Sometimes Hulk /not/ here. Hulk not understand where." He can barely even summon it in his mind: a vast, dark void, without shape or form. The very concrete way in which he thinks makes it easy to trace this back to the corresponding semiotic space in his mind, a scattered limbo of half-lost childhood memories into which Bruce has fallen instead. Hive's shoulders settle more heavily. "It's -- inside. Your mind. Minds -- fff." His knuckles dig slow and heavy at his temple. "Your friend is there, now. If I bring him back to talk to him, you'll go back there." Hulk's expression goes from thoughtful concentration to distaste. "Hulk not like it /there./" But then, in sudden unhappy realization. "Tiny friend not like it, either?" Though not conscious enough to express his own opinion on the matter, Bruce's nightmarish half-sleep certainly does not inspire much confidence that he enjoys that state. Without any inward hesitation, Hulk nods. "Hulk strong. Not afraid of dark place." "I don't think he likes it much," Hive agrees reluctantly. Where his mind wraps around and into Bruces, it tugs, gently, upward. Where it blankets around Hulk's, eases back. << I'll try to stay with you -- as best I can. >> He doesn't sound entirely certain. << And hopefully you won't have to stay so long, now. >> Hulk accepts his return to the memory limbo with struggle. His trust in Hive leaves no room for worry. Bruce's emerging consciousness feels like a flailing, fluttering thing as Hive pulls it upward. The moment of awareness comes with an abrupt but orderly sense of expansion, like a Hoberman sphere unfolding to perfectly fill the mental space that the Hulk simultaneously vacates. The change of their body comes in somewhat less orderly fashion, but no less rapidly. It /hurts./ Bruce--as naked as the Hulk had been--gasps and curls up into a fetal ball as his mind clicks into place, all connections re-established. He emits a thin, groggy moan and forces his eyes open. "What..." /His/ confusion is not long-lived, as his mind checks his current surrounds against his last memories and comes to an admirably rapid and accurate conclusion. "Oh no. Hulk--it got out." Dark brown eyes scan the restaurant frantically. "Is anyone hurt?" Hive shakes his head, his knuckles still rubbing at his temple. He sheds the faded denim shirt he wears, offering it over to Bruce. "/He/." His gruff voice is firm, on this. "Not it. Nobody's hurt except the table. Probably my laptop. I didn't check." The grimace that crosses his face at this thought is short-lived. "We talked." Fluttering across the surface of Bruce's mind, there's a faint echo -- a rush of concern, huge and strong and whole and compassionate. "He was worried I'd be hungry." Bruce accepts the shirt gratefully, shrugging it on; it will not quite button all the way up on him. He looks at the table, then at the food laid out between them. His brows furrow deeply. "You /talked/ to--him?" He does not seem to have any particular attachment in the area of Hulk's pronoun, and switches it without more than a passing thought filing this information away: << Hulk presents as male. >> "He was worried. About you." Flat, faintly disbelieving yet not really questioning. He hasn't stopped frowning. "You didn't need to..." His hand makes a vague flattening-down gesture. "...with your mind? To keep him from becoming violent?" << Previous incident highly volatile /prior/ to introduction of Hulk. Inclination to violence possibly circumstantial. >> "I -- didn't actually ask Hulk's pronouns," Hive realizes with a small frown. "But appears male, yes. We talked. Thinks of you as -- their friend. Concerned about protecting you. Worried about you. And me. Don't think they're generally /inclined/ towards violence, just --" Hive's arms wrap around his chest, curling bony fingers around his opposite biceps. "Scared. Doesn't want anyone to hurt -- y'all." A small smile flits across his face. "Liked the tea. And the taro buns." Bruce blinks, but then, just as off-handedly methodical as before, notes: << Hulk gender presentation unknown. >> "Friend? But how? We don't even...we're not--" He fumbles for words. "--/acquainted?/" But even as he speaks the word he begins to doubt it. << I knew the name before I'd heard the audio on the news casts. I /remembered/ the name... >> He does not bother voicing this, explicitly because he expects that Hive has heard it, but continues the line of thought aloud, "Either we have had communication in the distant past, or they are an introject from some obscure media I cannot specifically recall. But now we're..." He tugs at the hem of the shirt. << I really need to invest in specialized baselayers if this is going to become a regular occurrence. >> His head shakes, tousled black hair bouncing. "Look, I'm...somewhat relieved I'm not stuck in here with an indiscriminately violent beast, but they're still a giant green...monster. That's all most people will ever see, no matter how gentle or how angry they are." << Also, wanted by the NYPD. >> "And I didn't get the impression, based on the videos, that they're overly well-equipped to deal with that." "... I happen to know some people who -- have experience with. Clothing folks with. Unusual physical needs." Both of Hive's hands have moved to his temples, now, fingertips kneading slowly there. Some remote part of his brain is probing deeper into Bruce's, searching -- something. That darker inside space, questing after where Hulk may have slipped off to, now. "That's all /most/ people will ever see," he agrees. Through his teeth. His eyes squeeze shut. The impressions that brush up against Bruce's mind, now, are relayed echoes of Hulk's mental feelings. Clear and distinct, somehow childlike. Strong feelings without a great deal of /abstraction/. "I don't think they're very well-equipped to deal with -- a lot of things. As much as they want to protect you -- I have a feeling they could use that, just as much." Deep in the recesses of their mental space, below the conscious realm filled now with Bruce's vividly geometric thought processes, the Hulk's mind drifts in a void filled with fragments of memories and half-forgotten dreams. He only shows signs of awareness in response to Hive's proximity, but without words or even identifiable emotions. Just a kind of comforted familiarity. Bruce, if he can even sense this operation, gives no token. /His/ thoughts race. << Probable that early childhood trauma generated Hulk as protector figure. Explains childlike mentality and high-stress situations as trigger. Implications unfortunate. >> "How do I protect someone who displaces me by their very existence? I have to learn to control the change." << We have to,>> some part of him corrects, weakly. Hive shakes his head. Slips his wallet out of his pocket even before the approach of a server -- who is arriving a moment later with the bill. Sort of with the bill; silent, they take Hive's card without ever actually giving him the folder. "That," he says, "I wish I knew how to help you with. Therapy? Practice? I'm used to having lots of people in my head, but not -- not like --" His fingers flick towards Bruce's head. "Do you -- want to get. Somewhere. Out. Of here. Somewhere else. With clothes, maybe. Home." "I'll pay for the...damages." Bruce produces his own credit card and looks around for the broken table and chair, but they had long since been cleared away. "If the proprietors are even aware of it at the moment? They seem remarkably blase about all this." << And I can hazard a guess as to why. >> "I'll figure something out." << We will? >> He sighs. "I can get home, though...clothes would probably be a good idea if I want to make it there without getting arrested." Then, bowing his head. "Thank you." "They're -- really not paying attention. I had them put the table and shit on my tab. You have enough crap to worry about right now." Hive leans over to tuck his laptop back into his backpack, reclaiming his check and card when they are returned. The sum at the bottom of the check is -- considerably more than the meal. Considerably more, really, than replacing the table and chair probably will cost, too. The tip he leaves is rather large, as well. He is a little wobbly as he gets to his feet, legs kind of stiff as he unfolds from his seat on the floor. "Clothes -- right. Fff. Just a..." << sec. >> Bruce nods, getting to his feet with considerable difficulty, though perhaps less for sitting on the floor too long than the contortions his body has recently undergone. He tugs the shirt down again, self-conscious even though no one in the restaurant spares his state of relative undress a second glance. "Stay calm. Practice. Study. But first, clothing." This, muttered, more to himself than Hive, "One thing at a time."