ArchivedLogs:Running Ragged

Running Ragged
Dramatis Personae Hive, Jim, Shane, Shelby, Daiki	2013-06-12 Just after here and housewarming, in the wake of Ian's death.
Location <NYC> 305 {Teenhaus} - Village Lofts - East Village
This apartment is bright and airy, its floor plan open and a plethora of windows providing it with an abundance of light. The tiny entrance hall opens into a small living room. Towards the back, a couple of doors lead off into bedrooms and bathroom, and to the right, the kitchen's tile is separated from the living room's dark hardwood floors by black countertops. Above the bedroom to one side, there is higher space; a ladder climbs up to a lofted area looking down on the living room. Another bathroom stands just into the hall and the farthest door leads to the apartment's final bedroom. Furnishings are more in line with broke students than established adults. Cast-off couches and chairs provide places to sit, and the walls have been decorated in a frequently-changed street art style that combines bright, layered colors with exaggerated proportions and abstract shapes. In the time between Bastian's departure and the arrival of Hive and Jim, Shelby has...not really moved very much. She and Shane remain curled on the floor together, her phone nearby. She has the other teen's head on her shoulder, her arms around him, and when his gills flare, she rouses herself enough to stroke them down with cold, unsteady fingers. The tears were thankfully short-lived but their legacy remains--red-rimmed eyes fixed on the front door as she waits, red-tipped nose and a clotted sound whenever she sniffs in to try to clear air passages. This apartment has all of the sads. Shane hasn't really moved, either. Still in blood-spattered jeans and contrastingly clean and cheerful Rainbow Brite tee (much too big for him, stolen from Jax). His arm curls back around Shelby, his eyes closed. Gills predictably occasionally flaring, though it quiets readily enough at the stroking. He hasn't been crying, expression just blank (and sort of unhealthily /dry/; between afternoon-shopping and police-questioning and sitting around staring at the wall it's been a /while/ since he found his way to water). But he's certainly doing his part to add to the sads in the morass of angergriefguilt that cloud his mental scape. The continued throbbing burn from the bandaged bullet-graze-wound at his side only adds to the FUN for approaching psionics. The door to the apartment jumps under a sudden hand seizing it. Then the door say THUMP. It's - less of a knock and more the sound of someone /running into it/ bodily when it doesn't open. "-/FUCK/." This would be Jim's voice. The journey here has been quiet; a flagged down taxi, /possibly/ a ravaging of both his own and Hive's wallet compiled enough to pay fare if with a skimpy tip to only poorly mollify the cabbie. Jim's mind has been steady in spite of its rawness, deeply entrenched like roots in soil, Hive's kept stored deep in a burrow beneath them, gripped to - or upon? - while he watches the broken city stream by the cab windows with its meaningless facade of worn stone and stoops, steps, sidewalk and brick, not a single specific word in his musing as it is a prolonged study of << this. fucking. city. >> /Now/ he's knocking, "Hey. You guys in?" << They're in, >> confirmation comes not just in these words but in a faintly echoed taste of the chaos of feeling from inside. Not full-force, just a muted rippled of feeling, soon to subside. There's a shift of mental background-noise, too, as they head towards the door -- it's been /quiet/ with all his river of minds freed but now there's a louder undercurrent /trickle/ making itself abruptly known. Flicker's warm optimism has a familiar feel to it, he's shared hivemind brainspace with Jim long enough, but whatever conversation he is having -- the words are cordoned-off, segmented away into privacy. The content is more than clear enough as surprise (oh-hello-you're-home!) melts into reflexive shaking-off melts into accepting welcoming-in melts into -- shock. Horror. Grief. The sads are only /expanding/. Despite this Hive's lean against Jim (he's been pretty listlessly stumbling along the whole way) bolsters just a little bit firmer once he has Flicker back with him, /too/. << Should get a fucking key, >> he -- doesn't really grumble. It's too emotionless to even hold much of his usual gruff. Shelby startles when the door rattles in its frame, hugging Shane to her even /harder/ and giving the entrance a wide-eyed look. It isn't until Jim's voice is heard that that flare of fear settles down--<<(they're here oh thank god thank you thank you)>>--and she leaves Shane against the couch to scramble for the door. The locks rattle as they're undone, the door thrown open and suddenly Jim is required to support the weight of two as she launches herself at Hive. Arms around neck, face against shoulder, Shelby clings like a clinging thing, hiding any shaking through locked muscles. << I thought it was you oh god I'm so sorry I thought you were dead oh Ian... >> Shane startles, too, evident in a sudden lengthening of claws, a sudden tightening of muscles. He slumps back against the couch. His knees draw up against his chest. He turns his head -- slightly, just slightly, to look over at Hive and. Mostly just hugs his knees to his chest, silent though a sudden drowning-heavy wave of guilt eclipses most everything else in his mind. A bodyweight's worth of Shelby adds itself to Hive? That's fine, Jim has two arms and a very tightly strung coil of reflexive protectiveness you wouldn't find hide or hair of on his /face/. Looking over Shelby's shoulder and into the apartment like it already annoys him, he's now got Hive /and/ Shelby bound up in his arms like two loaves of bread, mashing them together as he notices the sad little blue bundle curled by the couch. "In. C'mon." He's bodily transporting the mess of them in from the hall, using a heel to catch the door and knock it shut, vaguely awkward at first to find Flicker joining him, like wandering into someone's house uninvited and finding /someone else/ already in there, but so many 'other shoes' have dropped in the past month or so that... Fuck it. He issues the hivee-equivalent of a soft back-clap to the teleporter, mind-to-mind style, greeting-condolence-support(helpless frustration) bound up in it. Couch. That is where he is steering them. "Shaney," he said it like a question. Like a hello. Like a 'move over, we are annexing you.' << - just us, Hivey. >> He adds, solemn-hard. Hive weathers the clinging more than responds to it, reflexes still glazed. Sluggish. Slow. It takes him a moment even to tilt his head towards the sudden barnacle he has grown, watching Shelby with an almost puzzled crease of brows. "-- Not dead," he finally agrees, and this comes a little stilted, mind sluggish to return to /meat/space too, distant-distracted with a storm of /mental/ clinging. Nestling into Jim's deep-rooted presence, /tethering/ himself to Flicker's jittery-bright one. << (just you) >> is both acceptance and /affirmation/, sort of relieved, sort of /home/. And then he /shudders/, the sudden wash of guilt tipping past something too exhausted and overwrought to know /how/ to respond to any such things; it just trips gag reflex instead, knuckles curling up past Shelby to press hard to his lips as a nauseated look crosses his expression. "Fuck," is all he says, as he is steered. Shelby is likewise steered without noticing or protesting. When the couch appears--how did that get here?--she looses her grip long enough to settle before reeling the telepath in again. She too is suffering guilt but it's on a much lesser scale--nothing to compare with the wave put out by Shane, whose shoulder she curls a hand over even as she conducts a pained study of Hive's expression. "...thanks," she says when she thinks to speak, sparing a glance upwards for Jim. The edges of that single word are ragged and frayed, but the core is heartfelt. "What...what can I do? Is there anything I can do?" And throughout, her mind hums along: guilty gratitude, emotional nausea, anger, fear, grief all dancing to the tune of a deep-seated feeling that she still refuses to name. Shane's head turn to the side, cheek pressing to Shelby's knuckles against his shoulder. "Dusk's not OK," he finally tells Hive. Not /looking/ at the others, eyes focused ahead on the wall. He does move over, though, to allow Jim room to deposit his burdens. "You're here," he finally looks at Jim with this, and it sounds surprised. In a good way, insofar as his heavy tone can manage pleased. Which is -- only very slightly. But it's there. He tenses again at a rattle from the door. Keys, this time, so he is only /slightly/ tense; less tense even before the door opens, though. Daiki's presence countermands tension even through the closed door; /in/ the room it is more welcoming, still. The faint charismatic /pull/ from the teenager strengthens slightly when he looks around -- the tense faces, the bloodstained jeans. He locks the door behind him. His, "Hello," is soft. Polite. Reserved. Shane is on his feet quickly. Quick to move to Daiki, too -- first for a hug, tight and fierce, and then to hook his elbow and /steer/ him away into his bedroom, without another word. "Yeah," Jim agrees with Shane's statement. He's here. Maybe he even sounds surprised. Or just disgruntled. Distracted - or stunned. It's hard to tell, it all shapes itself as a Frown, positioning his double packages of living body on the couch. He pauses, a single moment to look long at Shelby's face, for her wounded little 'thanks', and on impulse hooks a brief hand around the back of her head to drag her face forward, mush it against his shoulder, muss her hair - how the fuck do people do this. How did we ever survive long enough to figure this shit out. Unthinking, he plants an awkward whiskery kiss to the part of her hair. And then he's heading for the kitchen to /help himself/ thanks. Or... try to. In the way all apartments share a similar layout, the familiarity is a deception. "Where's the fucking coffee." If she wants to help, she can riddle him /this/. Hive still looks rather nauseated as he sinks down onto the couch. Shane gets a FROWN in passing, an uncomfortable but heartfelt mental brush accompanying it -- wordless but the sentiment there is a muddled mix of concern, affection, and whatthefuck shuttup this wasn't your fault. "Do you. Even have coffee." He is glaring towards the kitchen, it had /better/ have coffee. "Probably coffee next door." Because even if Jax can't pay his freaking internet bill he is never short on sugar or caffeine. "Don't die," is what he tells £helby, in answer to her questions. He's watching Daiki enter (with the same brush of mental feeling. Probably a little MORE affectionate!), watching Daiki leave, and he grimaces to himself. "... don't go in that bedroom," he says to the others; it sounds like a warning. "Of /course/ he's here. Shit blew up, where else would he be?" That sounds sharper than Shelby likely intended--what she /means/ is Jim is going to be where his peeps need him. What comes out could be easily misinterpreted. But...with Daiki's arrival, that's less a concern. She summons a pale smile for the young man then returns to hanging on to Hive. Her fingers work into his hair and she rests brow to temple, eyes close. Even Jim's grumpy inquiry doesn't pull her out of that silent communion of I'm here, I'm not going anywhere. But she does say, "Cabinet beside the fridge. Stocked up yesterday." Then quiet...but short-lived. "...what? Why not?" Jim glances towards the forbidden door, maybe Daiki's presence had soothed an edge, /probably/, but it's somewhere in beyond the place that he's angry - because it's the forebrain /intellect/ that's angry. Angry and /staying/ angry. It's all back to the cabinet he's ransacking. He's a professional ransacker; he probably found the coffee at the same time as Shelby's answer, which means he makes a brief '/now/ she tells me' opening of palm that slaps down against his hip. It's rushed and jerky, all his movements. "-it's not /anyone's/ fucking fault." He says this out /loud/ - flat. Vicious. Like he's resuming an argument no one had actually been having. "-except for those trigger-happy-sh...kshh." He's just. Going to throw all of his angry-monkey aggression at pawing around on whatever variety of coffee-making apparatus is in the apartment until he can find a place to cram water and/or coffee grounds before he just starts /chewing/ them. The process slows him down enough to say, more steadily, with back turned to the other room, "...soon as this shit started happening. Someone was gonna get shot." Uttered low, through his bottom row of teeth, "-- just happened to be one of ours." He also has found a saucepan, or something like it. And this he's... carrying back into the living room. Setting down alongside Hive. In case he really does end up barking up whatever he'd last eaten. From the bedroom there is the sound of voices. Not in English. Shane's soft, Daiki's softer. There's also a quiet empathic /pull/. It's not strong, just yet, but it is -- there. It does little to blunt other emotions, instead just quietly layering over them an odd -- almost craving. If Daiki were a drug, people are getting a niggling /itch/. Hive closes his eyes, too, slumping back against the couch. His arm curls around Shelby's shoulders, though there's little else to the touch -- his posture stiff, muscles tensed. "Dangerous," is his answer (even if some inherent part of Daiki's mutation /makes/ this sound ridiculous on its surface. Dangerous, hah! Naw he is just so nice!); his eyes open to flick towards the closed bedroom door. His teeth clench, then unclench. "Definitely a lot of someones' fault. Just not --" His nostrils flare, a sharp breath chuffed out. Across the mental link a push can be felt. Pressing gently up against Daiki's mind and Shane's in turn. Like tasting. Licklicklick. He's also eying the saucepan; something in his odd pallor, his uncomfortable twist of lips, says its usefulness might not yet have passed. "Not Ian's," Shelby finishes softly. Or what counts for softly when one's been crying. Mostly her voice is raw, her throat aching with those still unshed. And, poor girl, she has no natural resistance to psychic pulls--Jim might feel the influence through Hive's perceptions, but she's ignorant. As she tucks an arm across Hive's chest, fingers curled over his opposite shoulder, her head turns and her eyes fix on the door closed between them and Shane. "Bastian went out. He didn't say where, or when he'd be back. Should maybe...check on him." Bastian? Shane? Daiki? She doesn't clarify. But for the moment, she remains where she is. A headache is gathering behind her eyes, dulling them, but she keeps them open. Watches Hive. Watches Jim puttering around. "It's not safe out there." "--ss." On his own, Jim probably would experience an out of place warmth in his crusty heart; but where Hive licks at the sweet, appealing taste in the next room over, the P.I. recoils at the bits of his mind firing affectionately on their own, /stamping/ at them as they come up. << Dangerous. .../christ/. You're telling me. Can even you shield from that? >> Read the glaring neon words between the lines - Can you shield /me/ from that? Or, a subtle glance to Shelby is flicked as he heads back towards the kitchen to rummage for coffee cups. << -or the kid? >> As he's coming back with coffee in whatever mismatched or possibly /disposable/ cups might be found in a teenager's summer home, he is focusing gruff, relentlessly on the need-be, his comfort offered, if you watch closely, is a wordless thing. Sitting down beside Shelby with an arm along the back of the couch almost territorially of the two sitting beneath its reach, "-- 's he answering his phone?" The SADS in the next room are increasing kind of drastically. At least, from Daiki; it's starkly easy to feel. From Shane they're contrarily subsiding, eclipsed instead by a fierce climbing burst of want-desire-need tangling into something cloying and hungry. He is, at least, /used/ to this, expecting it; even through the press he's starting to (trying to?) disengage. Insofar as it is possible which is: not very! Aside from the simple expedient measure of being Not There. The door opens. Shane slips out, closing it behind himself and leaving Daiki to deal with the bomb just dropped on him all on his own. His gills are fluttering wildly. He doesn't look at the others, but hurries off into /his/ room. Those feelings, though, are increasing, /too/. A tightening noose of -- what in normal circumstances should be love! And is currently twisted by hard ugly emotions into something harder and uglier itself. Hungry, possessive. Daiki's door locks. << Not really, no. >> Hive's answer is not the most highly reassuring, nor his expression, twisting up slowly. Lips compressed, eyes scrunched. But the next stab of his brain outward is harder, heavier. For Jim there is a sudden /fierce/ surge of mostly-just-pain. In the next room a quiet creak of body settling (slumping? falling?) onto mattress. The yanking rush of need ends more cleanly and quickly than it began. << S'not -- psionic. Exactly. Entirely. >> Hive's sort of /slurred/ mental speech is somewhat akin to mumbling. The tension in him doesn't really leave but he does sink back, somewhat. His arm tightens around Shelby's shoulder. He leans towards the coffee when Jim returns with it, /swiping/ one of the cups but then -- glaring at it. Because hot. Swiping gets it in his mouth no faster. His eyes slant back towards Shane's room, and then shift up to the ceiling. "Out? Why the fuck." His teeth clench. "It's hell out there." He pats his pocket -- possibly for his phone? Which probably Jim still has. In the end he just returns to glaring at his coffee cup. "Fucking tie all of you down." As things peak in the next room, Shelby's gaze strays more and more often. "Dunno," she says, absently. "He left just before you guys showed up. He was..." Need it be said? Probably not. Then the ties between Daiki and the minds in the living room are cut and her forehead rumples; no resistance is given to the tensing arm around her shoulders. When Jim settles beside them, she hooks a foot over his leg. "They need their dad," she says of the twins. Coffee is ignored in favor of turning gears in her mind--instincts honed from the street pushing her into survival mode. Hive's hair is smoothed down then rumpled again as she works her fingertips towards his scalp. "Need to...get everyone back here. Before it gets worse." Jim's face is partially obscured form Shelby as he itches an eyebrow, the hand pausing, knuckles /twisting/ as he bears, clenched, through the pain spearing through from Hive's mind - haah. I'd forgotten this shit sucks worse when you don't have a crowd in here. Less a complaint and more a slightly shaky /pat/ on the little node of Hive sunken in amongst his roots. << -poor kid. >> Somehow, the grim allowance of sympathy is directed not at Daiki alone, but Shane -- and Hive, too, for the mercenary end he has to make of it. Shelby. Everyone fucking involved. He drops down a hand onto Shelby's leg. Maybe he just wants to restrain her from trying to get up - probably simultaneous with Hive's threat to tie them down, as though they were, well... one mind. "If we don't know where he is," he says, not happy with it, but calm, "we're not doin' him any favors mindlessly wandering the streets lookin' for him." Hive's phone is magically produced when he looks for it; Jim scowling across the room over his own coffee as though unaware - or maybe just /apathetic/ - of his own motions. "Their dad. Yeah." Despite the agreement in the words, in Hive's mind there's just a swirl of worry: << Right. And who'll be there for /him/. >> It's just an idle question, already a host of faces jump to mind as he asks it -- but to a person they're all just as likely to be struggling right now /themselves/. Because who isn't. He sucks in coffee through his teeth, his eyes just fixing ahead until his phone is produced. But with it in his hand he just looks at it -- blank and confused. He unlocks it slowly. Stares at his contacts. "He's not an idiot," he says eventually. "He'll come back. We should." He looks over towards the kitchen. "Fuck. There enough food around here?" "Plenty, I went shopping yesterday. I can do the rest too, anyone needs it. I wasn't supposed to start my apprenticeship 'til next week. Jax, the twins, Horus, Parley, Dusk...everyone's gonna have to stay in." A little more steam for this planning thing builds. Shelby sniffs, wipes her wrist beneath her nose and that's that--the bricks are chocked in place, holding everything else but the practical back. "So I got plenty of time. Who you lookin' for, babe?" This is for Hive, whose phone is plucked from his hand so /she/ can scroll through the contacts. "You need to call anyone, Jim?" She glances sidelong at him, sizing him up--probably for plantgrowth. Yes. Definitely for plantgrowth. << ...god, missed him. >> << Who /wouldn't/ be there for him. >> Jim mutters almost less /to/ Hive and more just sharing the thought with him along a parallel course. The words are technically 'quis custodiet ipsos custodes?', repeated so often in times like these, but it warps in his mind to 'who cares for the fucking caretakers?' They can spot /each other/. Twins've got Jax, Jax's got you. You've got me and --. But all this is really getting sidetracked, isn't it. Deep beneath it, something roils, like nausea. A want for deep, earthy depth; trickle of water through the creeping shadows. Behind either of Shelby and Hive's heads, his arm drops down, laying across the back of Shelby's neck to take a handful of Hive's hair, giving it an absent shake. << Have a little faith, hero. >> The draped arm is dragging them into a more shared /clutch/ of the three of them, near enough his leafiness is a subtle green smell, all but fully human for the moment, dry-skinned and half his face scarred, and he distractedly clenches his jaw at her question, "-none that'd have phones." << -gh. She's growing up, in this world. Already older, in just a few fucking months- >> He closes his eyes as though the lights are too bright, dropping his head down over hers. And mutters through his teeth, oddly sullen, "- what're you apprenticing." Like just /hearing/ about it, and already he's /judging/ it. Watch, he'll say NO soon. and --. This trailing-off settles into a solid earthy /foundation/, finishing this thought not in words but in a quiet deep mental grounding, Hive's own churning emotions settling into something stabler beneath Jim's. "Hard to stay in," he says reluctantly, "Dusk can. Horus can. Twins, Parley, Jax -- got jobs to get to. Maybe between Micah and Ryan and --" There's a sharp inward twinge as he almost-suggests Ian's zipcar account and then remembers ohright, "-- we can rent more cars. Make sure people don't have to take the fucking subway anywhere." << Yeah. >> It's a heavy agreement; it comes with shadows of memory; meeting Flicker as a teenager, meeting Ian as a younger one. The twins. Jax. The way they've all changed. It dredges up something angry and protective that he tamps down; instead he shakes his head back against the hair-shaking, and slumps back against the couch, his shoulder settling up heavier against Shelby's. << This world does that. >> "Dusk," he finally remembers. "He's not home. Shane is -- shouldn't he be." Frown, at the cellphone in Shelby's hand. "Tattooing, at Jax's studio. He's gonna get me school credits for it." Shelby's look for Jim holds a warning: she /dares/ him to say anything about it. Consequences? All she need do is wiggle the toes of the foot hooked over his leg to make those clear. "S'money. And a job, if I don't go back." Her fingers work over the keys of Hive's phone--a text for Dusk, asking his whereabouts, the same for Sebastian. Then she tucks the phone away. Out of sight, out of mind. It leaves her free to support Hive in his slumping. She works an arm behind his shoulders, the other draped around his chest. Sideways hug. "Doc can send a car for B, it'll come out of the clinic money. Business expenses," she says, in a reasonable "I've got it all worked out" tone of voice. "Shane can catch a ride with him, and summer term starts next week anyway. We'll figure the rest out. Later." "Ksh," Jim's hand on Shelby's leg gives it a medium-intensity /smack/, dropping his head back, "listen t'you, being the gal with the plan. Y'wanna tattoo /me/ when this shit is over?" Oh ho, is that a rare snarl of approval dropped so unceremoniously onto her lap? He's not looking at her - more just restlessly scouring the apartment with his gaze as though contemplating how to best /fortify/ it, "I can hit a supplies run, too; my ugly face'll pass for human. How's the medicine cabinet? Toilet paper? Soap?" It's all autopilot; the necessities coming up on their own steadily; his own vicious protectiveness in him /isn't/ stamped down. It only narrows, distills, shedding the unnecessary like a meteor spearing through an atmosphere with all of its momentum tearing off into a burning tail streaming behind it - /cherishing/ the world of what 'was'; Hive lazy-drunk in a bar; never met him before there was shit but intent on the fact that there /had/ been a time when he'd been more innocent than even Shelby (-chasing her from an IHOP; laughing; her fleeing from the park at the sound of a gun going off-...) And he announces, abruptly, "-you still owe me a hat." << Yeah. It does. >> He agrees. << Doesn't mean I gotta be okay with it. >> "Look, Hivey," he adds, Next Item on the list, "If you wanna go make sure Jax'n all are alright, see if anyone downstairs knows what's up with the others, we can pull it t'gether up here. Get me a grocery list." "Right. Summer term. They'll have classes." This comes with a note of relief in Hive's tone, that much more time they'll be out of the city and out of the worry-zone. "She gave me a tattoo, once," he's saying this with a trace of distance to his voice; a passing memory of a sort of melty-looking flower gracing the inside of his wrist. It, also, holds the wistful tinge of a less complicated -- << shit, >> cuts into reminiscing, << that was only months ago. >> His arm curls further around Shelby's shoulders, squeezes tight. He stands slowly, a heavy weight to the motion. << No, >> comes in softer agreement with Jim, << I don't think there's a way to be OK with it. >> His hand scuffs through his hair, fingers tracing along the side of his skull. "Jax. Ryan and everyone. Josh and Parley and --" AND WHO. Their third roommate still leaves an odd << ?? >> in his mind, identification coming more in feel than in name. "I'll check. I'll make a list." He shoves his hands in his pockets as he slouches for the door. "Admit it, you're impressed." This for Jim, from Shelby--smug and pleased both to have won a compliment, even if it comes with a smack. Her head drops to Hive's shoulder next. "You guys can be my first real tattoos, once I get the hang of it without cheating," she promises. It'll be something to look forward to, for her as much as anything. A time when normal things can resume. But then Hive is moving to stand up, away from her, and she watches him go with wider eyes, with bent eyebrows. << Don't go/I guess you have to. >> "I'll be here. When you finish. You can...I'll make something." << Got a bed just an inflatable mattress but you can rest. Nap. Stay. >> Such pale bribes, to make him come back. His phone is held up to be taken before he can make it to the door, then she tucks herself under Jim's arm. "Be careful." Yes, even here. "Means you're gonna get a tattoo with me then, then, after all this, right?" Jim snipes after Hive like a /dart/, his arm dropping around Shelby's shoulders heavily and just... folding up his elbow to drop his hand heavily atop the side of her head. So easily a snark. Just a joke. And yet not. << /After/ all this. >> Because there'll be an 'after', asshole. If I gotta tear down every wall in the city. "Just." He's not getting up when Hive does; stomach twisting still, his mind is slipping gears running ragged with planning, but in body - running around mindlessly does no good. Hive's here - check. The kid's here - check. Coffee's here - check. The rest will have to wait. "Git me that list. They give the money, I'll rent a car - drive out on a run." << ...I'll stay here with her. >> Less a duty and more a immovable fact. "Not a bad idea," he's saying to Shelby, and she'd be able to feel the side of his jaw move as he speaks. "No one'd be able to /repair/ some ink quite like you, huh? What should I get done? 'F you're my artist." Hive only /grunts/ at the subject of tattoo. "You want to ink me, you can do it after you've had a few /years/ of practice. That shit's serious." He swipes the phone, leans in to kiss Shelby on the forehead. And then he heads out. In physical presence at least, even if in Jim’s mind his presence only /in/creases, settling in with stubborn solid /closeness/ to just -- be.