ArchivedLogs:Slowing Down

Slowing Down
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Melinda	2014-02-24 (Set in the wake of birthday dinner.)
Location <NYC> The Roost - Village Lofts - East Village
Dusk's bedroom is a messy place as might be expected, cluttered with books and clothing, forgotten dishes, boxes of Magic cards, other miscellany. His bed is not 'bed' so much as 'mattress on the floor'; though there /is/ a full bed against the opposite wall, it's neatly made and has been untouched for a while. His desk holds the desktop -- somewhat literally. /Far/ more elaborate of a setup than his lack-of-bed, the desk /itself/, with see-through glass body and softly glowing lights inside, has been configured to /be/ the computer case. Closer inspection of a pair of small decorative aquariums sitting to either side of its three monitors finds them to /also/ be computer cases, their inner workings submerged in a pale blue liquid on a bed of aquarium pebbles alongside plastic plants and little plastic castles or fake coral. Melinda's birthday celebration fills the evening with thick and hearty pasta, bright conversation, and a few awkward moments that just cannot be helped, given the nature of the group involved. As the night winds down and the food is finished and stored, most people begin trickling home and to bed, some with more force than others. Melinda herself is asked to stay. When everyone else has left, she follows Dusk into his room, pausing in her forward motion to turn abruptly to peer at the fish tanks, a small smile on her lips. "So, that went well - about as well as can be expected." She grows a little quiet as she finishes, a wrinkle of concern marring her forehead. She turns to look at Dusk and gives a dry laugh. "Kind of feel like I should apologize to Jax and Micah about Shane." "Apologize?" Dusk quirks his brows upward, leaning back against the glowing computer desk with his hands splayed out against its surface. "What, for getting pregnant? I don't think that's something you owe anyone else -- well, anything for. Explanation, apology. Shane's just. Got a lot of his own crap to deal with. That's -- not on you." He stretches a wing out, brushing it lightly against Melinda's arm on the way past her to nudge the door closed with a wingtip. "Tonight shouldn't be for stressing about Shane anyway, c'mon. There was -- there was delicious food and everything. You know how often Hive cooks, that's like a present all to itself. Way more than if /I/ tried, I swear I've fucked up ramen before." Mel's eyes follow Dusk's wing motion, smiling a little when the velvety surface rubs against her briefly. She looks back up to the man attached to those wings and sidles a little closer, pressing gently against his side. "Yeah, I just have way too much going on inside my head most all of the time these days and a vast majority of it is tainted by the fact that I have way too many hormones coursing through my system." She rests her forehead against his shoulder and exhales. "I won't bore you with the details. You're right. The food was excellent. Hive is amazing. I am definitely touched that he went to all that trouble for me. He barely looked like he could stand for most of it." Dusk's wing pulls back inward, wrapping around Melinda when she presses in against him. He rubs slowly at her back, head tipping downward to press his lips against the top of her head. "He -- could barely stand for most of it." He acknowledges this a little reluctantly, wing tightening very slightly in its warm grip around her. "I kind of have a dilemma now because I don't want to ruin your birthday with shitty news. It's been a nice evening. But I do kind of need to tell you --" He exhales slowly, breath warm against Mel's hair. Melinda stiffens a little, sliding an arm around his waist and hugging closer to him. "Oh." She's outwardly quiet, unwittingly exposing Hive a mind full of horrifically depressive conclusions that she leaps to automatically, before falling into a numb silence. "I'm too old for unspoiled birthday. Hell, most people lose that luxury once they hit puberty. You should tell me. The curiosity is going to keep me guessing until you do anyway." She turns her head and pulls back just a little to meet his eyes, albeit briefly. Worry sculpts the shape of her face, making her expression heavier. "I mean, it's been kind of clear for a while now that something's been up with him. Went for kind of a -- battery of tests recently to try and figure out exactly what once it was -- obviously more than just the usual brain-exhaustion from overtaxing --" Dusk shakes his head, wing still rubbing slowly at Melinda's back; his grip slackens just enough to allow her the room to pull back. He leans a little more heavily against the desk, hip rested up against it. "They found a tumor. In his head. Malignant. It's pretty -- serious, he's going to need surgery soon. Probably radiation. Still needs to work with Dr. Toure and his oncologist on finalizing -- treatment plans." Melinda nods slowly, her gaze locked on Dusk's mouth as she makes out the words and lets them sink in. Quiet sorrow wells up inside her and cuts off most thought, the feelings more exaggerated than normal. Her eyelids redden around the rim and her nose starts to pinken as well, her eyelashes capturing excess moisture as she blinks rapidly to keep tears at bay. "Oh. Dr. Toure. He's ... he's good right? At what he does? He's always struck me as very personable and patient at least." Soon, she's pulling close again, resting half of her face against his shoulder again. "If there's anything I can do to help," she starts quietly, and then falls silent. "He's um -- yeah. He's one of the best. I mean, if you have to go get yourself a brain tumor pretty much at least knowing Dr. Toure is like. Up there with the best people on earth /to/ know so that's a whole stack of points in Hive's favour anyway." Dusk draws in a slow breath, shaking his head once. "As for help -- I don't know, we're probably going to be needing --" He frowns, shrugging the wing that isn't around Melinda slowly. "Where the tumor is in his brain it's been fucking with a lot of things. Language processing, memory. Motor skills. Keeping his balance, remembering where his freaking limbs are. And he's going to have a shitton of doctor's appointments and hospital time dealing with this and he really hates hospitals and doctors so probably just -- people. To help stay -- grounded and not freaking the hell out." His wing squeezes in a little tighter, a small twitch of smile pulling upward at the corner of his mouth as he admits: "... even if we're kind of all freaking the hell out." "Absolutely freaking the fuck out," Melinda admits in the quiet that follows Dusk's comment. She draws in a deep breath and squeezes her eyes shut. "I will be as available as possible. I've got my own doctor appointments picking up because of the third trimester, but as soon as the baby comes, I'll have all the free time in the world - at least from work commitments. Though, I have a feeling he won't want to hear a kid crying all the time..." She shakes her head and swallows hard. "Nothing ever really slows down, does it?" "I don't know. Maybe baby-minds are quieter. I wonder. Haven't really spent a lot of time around infants. I'll have to ask him once the kid's here," Dusk muses thoughtfully. "Must be interesting. Most people don't have a chance to talk to infants till they're old enough to sign -- or I guess speak," he adds with a crooked grin, "for most of you people." He draws in a longer breath at the last question, wing pulling Melinda in closer. His hand lifts, fingertips tracing up along her arm as his lips press to her forehead. "On its own? Nah. Pretty sure life'd just keep barreling way the fuck out of control. I think you kind of just have to grab a bit of time and slow it down /yourself/, here and there." "And I will be absolutely sleep deprived, so we'll be the two quietest minds of all our friends for a while anyway." Melinda chuckles quietly, letting her mind wander. "I fully intend to use sign language in the beginning. I will need to take some classes to get ready, but it's amazing, in every video where the kid is still too young to talk, they can express with sign language so much. I'd love to expose the kid to every language I can get my hands on, but sign language seems the most useful." When Dusk starts speaking of slowing down, it takes her a moment to hear it, nervousness energy starting to build in her fingertips and feet. She does stop speaking when he starts, her attention shifting to his hand as he touches her arm. She is slow to move, but her hands slide gently up his chest to rest lightly against his neck, her eyes darting about quickly, taking in his features. "Grab it, huh?" She smiles faintly, studying his expression as she slides her fingers up and into the hair on the back of his head. "I could probably do that." "I can help with that, if you like," Dusk offers lightly. "Learning to sign, I mean. It's not really a topic that comes up all that much but it /is/ my first language. And I got pretty used to offering crash-courses at the height of -- zombie everything." His eyes flick towards the door and then back to Melinda with some amusement. "Though this kid's going to have /no/ shortage of other languages floating around if you want to get them started on something /else/ young, too. Just gotta watch who they're speaking to or you're going to end up with a toddler with very /foul-mouthed/ Thai." His smile curls wider as Melinda's hands move against his chest; his muscles tense faintly, pressing slightly into the touch. He curls a hand against her waist, fingers sliding to the small of her back. His other hand lifts to cup the side of her face, head dipping to press his lips softly to Mel's. "-- well. /That/, I can help with, too." "Good. I need all your help." Melinda kisses him back gently, pressing her nose against his as nervous energy starts to fill her mouth with words again. "Because I've got fifteen to twenty pounds of stuff inside my body that wasn't there before, pressing up against my internal organs and keeping me from even know what is really going on down there." She gives a little smile and winces a little and exhales and shakes her head. "And no laughing at the granny panties." "No laughing." Though Dusk's agreement comes with a quiet touch of amusement anyway. He returns the kiss a little bit more firmly, this time. He takes a step away from the desk, guiding Melinda back towards his mattress. "S'okay, we've got time to figure out. We're slowing down, after all." Melinda returns Dusk's kiss, pressing hard and a little bit desperately to his mouth before pulling her hands off him. She shifts to raise a finger, begging him to give her a minute, as she grips one arm with her other hand. She purses her lips as she looks at the goal, the mattress on the floor, then smiles at Dusk for his patience. She uses her grip on his arm to balance herself as she slowly drops to one knee, then the other, knee-walking further onto the surface before planting her hands on the surface and dropping her hips to rest near her ankles. "Okay. I am ready. Sex me, baby."