ArchivedLogs:Romantic Notions

Romantic Notions
Dramatis Personae Billy, Hive
In Absentia	2014-09-05 In which Billy and Hive elect to become super-villains.
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. The coffeeshop in the morning hours tends to be crowded, bustling, little table space and long lines. Hive, though, in his usual habit, has managed to commandeer a table all to himself -- this may be in equal parts because his table has been helpfully labeled with a little RESERVED nametag (hand written by one of the staff) and because his customary /scowl/ is eminently uninviting. He sits kind of floppily draped into a comfy armchair at a table near the door, dressed blandly in jeans faded and fraying at the hems, white undershirt, blue denim button-down unbuttoned over top, all the clothing rather ill-fitting and draped baggily on his bony frame. There's a fleecey soft cap pulled down over his head that is decidedly too warm for the muggy-hot weather outside, deep crimson with the letters Theta Tau embroidered in gold. Unlike his usual habit he isn't actually taking /up/ his entire table with a mess of papers and folders and tools and Computer and work. Just a plate with an untouched bowl of oatmeal and a large mug with a half-finished coffee. There's a Nook in a soft black cover in his lap, but he only looks down at it intermittently, eyes drifting away regularly to scan the shop rather than read his book. "Hi!" Scowl? What scowl? Billy just appears, steaming hot coffee in hand just beneath a big, pearly white smile. He shifts his heavy messenger bag further up his shoulder, chiming happily, "Long time no see!" Usually well put together, he wears a pair of slender, straight-leg slacks and a thin cream dress-shirt with scattered teenie-tiny embroidered flowers. Some of them are still a pale blue, but most are fading to grays and off-white and the front buttons are left undone, exposing some of his hairless, Vampiric-white chest. Checking his watch, Billy tilts his head, "Mind if I steal some of your table?" Just like old times! It takes a long slow moment for Hive to react, delayed like he's not entirely registering /words/. His head shifts, gaze dragging away from where he'd been staring out the window to settle, a little droopy, a little raccoon-eyed, on Billy. There's a faint shift of muscle at his jaw, a quiet creak of teeth grinding together, before finally he stretches out a leg to nudge at one of the chair legs opposite him. It doesn't quite /push/ the chair out, but the intention is there. "Been busy." His voice, habitually gruff, is a little creaky from disuse. "Sup." Not entirely dough-headed, Billy's smile falters some at Hive's state. Sitting down in a prim manner, he sets out his bag and coffee where he likes them, "Just getting all my ducks in a row with school. I'm finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, you know?" His voice squeaks up a little, "What-uh-sup with you?" The blonde tips his head into Hive's field of vision and sips his coffee inquisitively. "School. Right. Good." Hive's head bobs slowly, fingers twitching aimlessly against his ereader. It flips his page forward, and then back. "Flicker's just. Starting up again too. Last year -- of undergrad, anyway. Hella glad /I'm/ past all that." In answer to the question he just tips his head down, pulling back the soft cap to reveal a brand /new/ scar thick and ugly in a long line along his scalp, tiny red scabs still matted into his short fuzz of regrowing hair where the staples have just been removed. Billy regards the scar softly, "You're uh-like, up and about, though?" His eyes, bubbling up with unexpressed empathy, scan down over Hive's face. He ducks somewhat as if to draw Hive's head back up, "Does it hurt a lot?" "I'm. About. Up is questionable. Kinda get. Shuttled from one place to the next. Drives me crazy sitting in bed, you know?" Hive starts to replace his hat, though his shaky hand kind of fumbles this; the hat slips away to fall to his lap instead. He leaves it there, slumping back in his chair. "I had a bit of my skull sawed out to cut into my brain and pull bits out." He gives this answer with a crooked thin smile. "What do you think?" "May I?" Billy asks, moving to gently lift up the hat and help Hive with it if he's permitted, "My dad's getting me a car for my commute. If-if you ever need shuttling from like, a new face." He smiles, trying not to get baited into the snarky snark-fest, "Like if you need to pick up more interesting hats or anything!" "You don't like my hat?" Hive dips his head towards Billy, quietly accepting the assistance to get it back into place. The dry note is gone from his tone once he settles back again, regarding the other man with a curious look. "You serious, though? Because that's -- that'd be. I mean. Thank you. Flicker and Micah don't. Complain but it probably gets. Annoying." His head tips slightly, brows lifting in inquiry. "Commute? Thought you were at school in -- the city somewhere." "The hat's fine," Billy laughs, sitting back, "Of course, I'm serious. I like, never busy, anyway." He sips his coffee, "Student teaching. At Xavier's. And I still have two classes during all that so." The blonde bats a finger back and forth, "Commute. I'm pretty excited and terrified." "Oh. Hey. Xavier's. That should be." Hive's eyes close, shoulders sagging heavily. "Interesting. And tiring. Good." There's another long pause before he finally finishes, "-- luck. Terrified? S'old -- turf for you, though, right." "Thanks! Yeah, old turf, I guess," Billy agrees quietly. Admittedly, it was never really /his/ turf when he was a student there, "You should lean back, don't strain yourself on my account," He scrapes his bottom lip under his teeth as he watches in concern, "Do you think m-maybe you need to go home and rest?" He was about to open up a binder of work, but pauses mid-action. Hive slumps into his chair, fingers resting over his stomach lazily. "I'm resting fine here." His eyes open again, fixing on Billy thoughtfully. "Notice a lot of their alums end up back there. Are they just that good or is the rest of the world just that shitty?" Billy breathes out a surprised laugh, relaxing again as he flips open his papers. He sets out his laptop as well, "The rest of the world is just that shitty." His little macbook air opens automatically to a few hundred teacher-activity pinterest boards. "And I guess everyone and their mother probably dreams of becoming an-" X-Men. He stops himself and shakes his head, "It's a good place." "Superhero?" Hive finishes /this/ very dryly. "For how many times they've almost gotten Flicker killed..." His head bows, slowly. "... fewer times than /I/ almost have, I guess," he admits after this. "But anyone with superhero aspirations should see a therapist." His eyes lift again to Billy. "You don't have any. Romantic notions of. Saving the world do you?" "One germ at a time," Billy grins, raising his eyebrows, "I plan on teaching, if I can. And maybe going on to grad school, if I feel like it." He pauses, considering Hive, "You don't, do you? Or /did/ you, rather?" His pen drums lightly on the table as he drifts off into thought about what he's working on. "Disease kills a lot more people than." Something. Hive doesn't finish this thought, drifting off into quiet as his eyes close again. "Never been very. Romantic. Besides, look at me." He turns one bony hand upward, shaking fingers curling in towards his palm. "Who the fuck am I gonna save." "Are you-" Billy starts to ask about Hive's powers, but hesitates. They're mentally controlled, after all. "There are a lot of different ways to save someone. That aren't lifting them up out of a burning building and flying away with them. Just being yourself, sometimes." "Khhhh." It's a sharp /hiss/ but judging from the upward curl of Hive's lips it may be, actually, a surprised laugh. "Fuckton of people out there just. Desperately in need of a. Snarky fucking asshole to shit all over their day, I'm sure. But hey. You're ever hard-up for someone to be. Pessimistic at you, shoot me a text." Billy raises up both of his hands, "Obviously, I sat with you because that's what I needed." He suddenly grows very serious, pouting out his bottom lip, "I am really sensitive, though." As on queue, an email notification pops up on his computer. The gist is clear: all capital letters, a few mutant-related slurs. Billy marks it as spam quickly enough, and it vanishes. "I think we're looking at this the wrong way," he bounces back rather quickly, despite his earlier statement "I pass people on the street every day that I wish someone would shit on." This puts a brighter smile on Hive's face, briefly. The last part, anyway; maybe not so much the email. "You want that," he offers magnanimously, "you shoot me a text, too. I am so good at ruining people's day." Billy giggles, "I'm sure that'll beat bed rest. I think that would qualify as like, uh, villainy. Super-villainy." His smile widens, "Not that I'm judging." "If I had a moustache I'd twirl it." Hive does spin one finger. Kind of in the general vicinity of his face. Twirl. "And if /you/ send me after people you'll be like. The mastermind. Behind my evil campaign of snark." "I can't grow a mustache," Billy frowns, "And I'm too white to really hide in the shadows. I reflect like, all light sources. Light sources you don't even think are there. ...but there are maybe a couple of PTA's and school boards that I'd be willing to send you after." He laughs, "What should we call ourselves?" "Well, we can get you an underground lair. You have a vendetta against PTAs?" Hive smirks at this. "That's a new one. We'll be the fucking. Anti-PTA brigade." Billy rolls his eyes dramatically, "I've had uhm, some resistance trying to find an internship being, well, y'know." He smirks back, "In normal schools, anyway. That's great, too, though ...underground real estate is a buyer's market right now, I hear." "Oh, right. Won't somebody think of the children." Hive's eyes roll as well, cheeks puffing out as he exhales heavily. "Honestly have you been around little kids, they could /use/ the extra sanitizing." His nostrils flare, head tipping down to rest his chin on his chest. "Man, with the shitshow this city's been through the whole fucking place is a buyer's market. We got the land for the Commons for a goddamn song. So long as we were willing to clear the zombies off it ourselves." Billy hesitates, "Did you really do that?" His nose wrinkles up, "Clear away all of those, I mean?" He concentrates more on drinking his coffee than actual work, "I think once I want to buy property, I'll probably leave here. New York, I mean. Maybe move back to Connecticut. There just aren't as many zombies there."