ArchivedLogs:Tea And Cookies

Tea And Cookies
Dramatis Personae Jackson, Micah, Doug	16 February 2014 Registration woes. With refreshments!
Location <NYC> 303 {Lighthaus} - Village Lofts - East Village
This apartment is cheerful, in its way -- 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 living room, small, though its sparse furniture and lack of clutter give it a more open feel. The decor is subdued and minimalist; black and white is the dominant theme, with occasional splashes of deep crimson to offset the monochrome, though of late myriad bright-coloured dragonflies swarm across the living room wall. The couch and armchair are upholstered in black corduroy, the low wide coffee table central is black wood and glass-topped, and a few large pillowy beanbags provide additional seating by the large windows that dominate the back wall. The living room and kitchen both hold a rather inordinate number of lamps in addition to the ceiling lights; standing lamps, small lamps on each counter, large sunlights in the corner. More often than not, they're largely all turned on, too. 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. Standing in front of the partition between living and cooking area is a large fish tank: one lone Betta, blood-red, swims regally among several species of black and silver fish. A hallway beyond the kitchen leads further into the apartment. Another bathroom stands just into the hall and the farthest door leads to the apartment's final bedroom, the door usually kept shut to hold in the acrid fumes of turpentine and paints from within. With a holiday on Monday and no classes to teach, Jackson is enjoying a quiet night of -- catching up on homework. Which today is working on one of his series of portraits. Zombie, still; oil paintings can be kind of a /long/-haul to complete. There's soft violin music coming from behind the twins' closed bedroom door, lively strains of one of Shane's favourite Wieniawski pieces, and with Spencer having a sleepover at a friend's house on the holiday-evening Jackson has been engrossed in his painting for long enough that by now his /eye/ is perhaps starting to /blur/. At least it seems that way, as he takes a step back from his canvas, scrunching his eye shut tight and letting his hand fall briefly to his side, fingers curling in against his brush; he holds it flat against his palm, gripped somewhat more like a weapon than a pencil, palette balanced against his right hand. The easel has been set up today by the windows; formless colours shift and dance around him in hues right now of browns and greys. The painting on the easel is nearing completion, Zombie leaning forward with an animated expression on his face, in labcoat and an xkcd 'my normal approach is useless here' t-shirt, elbow propped on knee holding up a small test tube in his opposite hand, tucked down in one of the Mendel Clinic labs where he's evidently been working. Jax is dressed casually, faded paint-splattered jeans fraying at their hems, old Rainbow Brite t-shirt underneath an equally old Xavier's sweatshirt with sleeves pushed up over his elbows, stripy toe socks with little smiley faces on each toe. His hair is black at its roots and bone-white at its tips but in between fades from deep purple through to a pale blue and his tattoos, freshly redone, freshly /healed/, finally are looking vivid-bright without the aid of any illusion at all. On the table beside him there is a very large plate of cookies. Half of them citrus and half of them spicy dark chocolate. Presumably he put them there to nibble at before he got caught up in painting and forgot entirely about their existence. It's kind of noticeable that he's forgotten their existence; by now his pallor is -- well, pale. He's scrutinizing his painting critically. And looking faintly wobbly while he does. He rocks forward, though, to tweak at it some more, the light around him shifting slow as he works. Micah has been camped out, propped in the corner of the couch with his knitting. The Bedtime Bear baby blanket is coming along nicely with the extra attention it has been afforded lately, enough of the blue-white-yellow pattern formed now to be fairly identifiable to anyone who is familiar with Care Bears in general. His hair is nighttime-mussed, clothing casual with his Doctor Hooves T-shirt over a lighter blue henley, patched bluejeans, and socks that have 'I <3 <3 the Doctor' written on them. At the end of a row, Micah sticks his knitting needles into a yarn ball for safe keeping and a hand-stretching break. As he works the tension out of his fingers, he looks over to Jax. His brow furrows and he tucks the knitting away in his pack, which is in turn tucked under the coffee table. Wandering into the kitchen, Micah returns with his own small plate of cookies and two glasses of almond milk. “Hey, hon. Break time. Put some sugar in you.” He leans forward to kiss Jax's cheek and offer the milk. In the hall, a figure moves towards the door to 303. Doug is not a zombie, but he's kind of moving like one, a thoughtful expression on his face as he meanders down the hall. Dressed in jeans and a blue long-sleeved shirt with the Blue Lantern logo on the chest, he has one hand curled loosely around something, and his new phone in the other. Which seems to be the source of his thoughtfulness, as he frowns deeply and slides it into his back pocket before knocking firmly on the door. "Think m'gonna see if I can do Ryan too. Next maybe. Now that he's out /anyway/ an' all." Jax is still slowly dabbing at a shadow of Zombie's cheek as he says this but then he rocks back, hand trembling slightly as he lowers it and his eye scrunching tight shut again. He hums happily at the kiss, setting the palette down on his stool so that he can accept the milk. "Oh. Ohgosh Oh/gosh/ I think I might pass out." He comes to this realization very /abruptly/, suddenly resting a hand on Micah's shoulder and taking a gulp of the almond milk. "When did -- when was /dinner/ when did I -- gosh. Oh door!" He doesn't immediately get the door. He gulps at the milk again and nabs a cookie from the plate between two fingers, his paintbrush still held in the same palm. He crunches the cookie down quickly first and /then/ flitting off, bouncy and admittedly still kiiind of wobbly, towards the door. He peeks out the viewhole, throwing the locks open momentarily. "Hihi!" Music is still playing from the bedroom. "We got cookies." "Don't think Ryan'd have any objections t'you doin' 'im," Micah quips readily, his eyebrows lifting subtly. "Y'should sit down. S'been long enough since dinner that y'need a snack an' you've been standin' an' workin' an' concentratin' long enough that-- I can get that!" Micah loses time with finding a spot on the coffee table (and a coaster) to deposit his cookies and almond milk on. It turns out that even a wobbly Jax is a bit faster than he is, arriving to the door several seconds before he does. In lieu of door opening, Micah puts an arm around Jax's shoulders. "Oh, hi, Doug! C'mon in. We do have cookies. I can get y'some after Jax sits down." This last is reinforced with physically leading his husband to the couch. "Hey." Doug's voice is sort of limp when Jax opens the door, although he offers a smile. "I was bringing Sebastian some data I crunched over the weekend," he says, entering the apartment and toeing off his red low-top sneakers. He holds up his curled hand to exhibit the memory stick there. "Thought he might like to look at it before we go back to the mines." He grins a little more solid, particularly when cookies are offered, and he nods. "Cookies sound good," he says. "I'm out of junk food upstairs." The painting gets a long look, the teenager's eyebrows knitting slightly. "That's really good," he says to Jax, his eyebrows unknotting to lift a bit. "When did you start that?" "Oh/gosh/ you're terrible /paint/ I meant -- /paint/." Jackson blushes deep crimson at Micah's quip, with the result that upon opening the door he's already furiously red. "Oh -- Bastian's -- actually over at the Tower already," he says apologetically to Doug, "I guess there's somethin' he's -- I don't know he works a lot." He is shooting Micah a /Look/ as he's shepherded off towards the couch but he certainly doesn't resist, sinking down onto it with an exhausted sigh. "Ohgosh. If you're gonna make me sit can you freeze my palette? Pretty please? Jus' -- wrap it in plastic wrap an' stick it. Somewhere. In the freezer?" He leans forward to nab himself another cookie, setting the milk down on a coaster and frowning at the paintbrush still in his hand like he's no longer sure what to do with it. "Y'can leave the -- the um. Computer -- that's a computer thing right?" He blushes deeper crimson here. "Stick thing. Y'can leave the stick thing here though I'll tell him t'swing by your place when he gets back -- or t'morrow some time, he ain't got class. So's he can talk t'you about it. Um cookies is citrus or spicy-chocolate." Hopefully the fact that one is pale and one is dark makes it easy to tell which is which on the large plate. His hand is a little shaky as he waves his own (citrus!) cookie towards his not-/quite/-done painting. "Um. 'bout a month ago, give or take." Micah giggles a little at Jax's blushing and floundering, clearly not troubled by the /Look/. Once the door is closed and Jax is seated, he takes the paintbrush out of the other man's hand. "I can freeze it. An' grab drinks or anythin' from the kitchen if folks want, while I'm there?" He stows the brush to await cleaning, collecting the palette and delivering it to the kitchen for wrapping and safe-keeping in the freezer. "Yeah, B tends t'live over at the office when he isn't at school. Have t'call 'im an' remind 'im t'/leave/ sometimes. Gets a little lost in 'is work." Doug's face tightens a bit when it's revealed Bastian's not at home, and a bit of color blooms in his ears before he nods a bit firmly. "Yeah. It's easy to get wrapped up in stuff there," he says. "If I didn't have school, I'd never leave." He grabs one of each kind of cookie, setting the memory stick next to the plate. "I'll take tea, it it's ready," he says, with a hopeful lift of his eyebrows. "If not, water's fine." He finds a spot on the couch and sinks into it, exhaling heavily. "You started that a month ago?" he repeats, glancing from Jax to the painting. Then he wrinkles his nose, biting into a cookie and chewing carefully. "I guess it's been a while since I've been down here. It's really good." "Ohgosh tea are we havin' tea /can/ we be havin' tea?" Jackson perks up on the couch like a hopeful puppy before slumping right back down again. "Can I have tea with /chocolate/ in?" His hazy aura of colours finally fades away, replaced instead by a simple misty-pale silvery glow that just clings faintly to his skin. "Oh -- oh yeah but usually it lives in my bedroom so it ain't, uh. I mean y'probably wouldn't'a seed it before. Just kinda wanted a change'a scenery t'night and two-thirds'a the boys is out so I commandeered the livin' room. S'part'a a series. Gonna be a show -- eventually. Some day." He finishes his cookie and takes /another/ before folding his legs up beneath himself. 'Sorry', he signs, at Doug's change of expression. "B can get hard t'pin down. Kinda a workaholic." He tips his head against the couch, rolling his gaze over towards the kitchen with a smile. "Thanks, hon. Think I got a bit -- wrapped up. -- Oh! Did Micah tell you he was gonna start consulting on -- y'all's project, I think! Maybe other stuff too but I think t'was that car-thing that. That -- that started it off." Once the art supplies are all tucked safely away, Micah fetches a glass of water for Doug. "Chocolate tea... I think we have a chocolate oolong right now. With the little bit of toasted coconut in. S'that sound good?" He heads back into the kitchen to fill the tea kettle and start it heating before rifling through the tea cabinet for the appropriate container. "Don't think I've told too many folks since I ain't started up yet. But, yeah...the self-drivin' car thing? B was tellin' me about it an' I asked if they'd thought of a way t'make it so that drivers with physical disabilities could use it...folks as wouldn't be able t'drive a car themselves otherwise, y'know? So I'll just be helpin' with some ideas an' practical bits on the design an' how t'interface it with folks who have different movement patterns." "You'll have to let me know when you have the show," Doug says to Jax, offering a lift of one corner of his mouth. "I mean, I'm not any great art critic, but I like your stuff. I'll totally come out and support it." He takes another bite of cookie, chewing it as he shakes his head at Jax's apology. "It's just par for my week," he says with a hollow sort of chuckle. "I'm really off-balance or something. Got a bad line of code running." He takes another bite, and makes a surprised sort of noise when Micah's consultant status is revealed. "I hadn't heard," he admits, working his tongue along his teeth to pick up stray cookie. "That's really cool. But you'll totally be distracted pretty much all the time in there." He huffs a soft laugh. "I think that's how Stark ropes people in. Just...dazzle them with awesome toys, and never let them leave." "This whole thing feels kinda bizarre an' different for me," Jax admits with a crooked grin. "I mean, y'saw New York go technicolour, that's usually more up my alley. Bright an' surreal an' full'a phantasms. This is just -- people bein' people, it's makin' my brain cramp." His nose crinkles up a bit, and he shrugs a shoulder. "S'a neat exercise though. An' the show should be -- s'a portrait series'a mutants, m'sure it'll --" His head bows, and he shrugs. He tips his gaze over towards Doug. "What's got you off-balance? I mean --" He blushes again. "Ohgosh I guess last time I saw you you'd -- this whole /week's/ been pretty rough for you already ain't it?" He squirms in his seat to face Doug a little better, but looks back towards Micah with a brighter smile. "/Oh/, that sounds /perfect/, honey-honey. -- Stark can't keep 'im, though. Y'all have one'a my boys /already/." "Aha, gotcha!" Micah resurfaces from the cabinet with a green and gold tin in hand...which probably wasn't engaging in enough evasive manoeuvres for the exclamation, but sometimes it is hard to find just the container one is looking for in a full cabinet. "It's still just a side venture. I've got so many appointments in dif'rent places all the time, I'm pretty used t'listenin' t'the thousands of alarms I got set on m'phone at any one point. Should be safe." He busies himself with measuring out appropriate quantities of tea and setting it to steep once the water is hot enough. Speaking of phones and timers, one of those gets set to let him know when the tea is ready. He wanders back into the living room while he waits. "You doin' okay?" is directed at Doug with a tilt of his head, eyebrows drawing down with concern. "I don't know," Doug says to Micah, lifting his eyebrows. "Stark's toys are pretty seductive. Especially when you get to touch 'em." He chuckles, and polishes off his first cookie, dusting his fingers lightly. "But Sebastian would probably run interference, anyway. So yeah. Probably safe." He grimaces at Jackson's and subsequently Micah's question, and lifts a hand. "Eh," he says, oh-so-eloquently. "The mugging was probably the highlight of my week. I got locked out of an important lab because I was two minutes late, and then this whole registration business..." he exhales heavily, and bites into his second cookie, speaking around the mouthful. "It prompted a strangely uncomfortable conversation with my folks this weekend." "Oh -- oh." Jax's teeth sink down against his lip, his eye widening. "Did your folks not know about you?" His brows pull together. "Er, I mean, do they know about you /now/? Er -- well. Will they? Gosh. I don't even. I mean, you're an adult I guess there ain't no reason they'd have to -- this is all real odd." He licks cookie crumbs from his fingers and then reaches for a -- fourth? Fifth? More cookie. His head shakes. "I got it lucky in some ways. /So/ very out t'ain't no way registration could change nothin' for me, really. -- You gonna be okay? I mean, things with your family gonna be okay?" Micah blushes faintly at Doug's precise choice of descriptors, though he chuckles, as well. “Ohgosh, yeah, I was sorry t'hear about that. You all healed up an' got your things replaced an' cancelled an' whatnot as needed doin' okay? Apparently s'been goin' around lately. Dusk's wing was all torn up the other day intervenin' in what started as a muggin' an' turned into a...'let's beat up the physical mutant' thing from the sound of it.” There's a grumble to his voice by the end of the last sentence. “Did...your family not know about your abilities yet? Wow, that's heavy. You plannin' t'register?” Micah's questions are interrupted by his pocket vibrating. He thumbs the alarm off and returns to the kitchen to fetch the three mugs of tea out to the living room. One, two, three, each mug meets with a coaster on the coffee table. He settles himself on the couch at Jax's other side, claiming a chocolate cookie and his almond milk while he waits for the tea to cool to a more drinkable temperature. "I think mine was just a garden-variety mugging," Doug says to Micah, wrinkling his nose. "But that sucks about Dusk. Some assholes were throwing rocks at him, the other night. When we met that Indian girl." He purses his lips as he considers that. "People really suck, sometimes." The questions about his parents get delayed by more cookie munching and the claiming of his tea mug. "Dad's having a hard time of it," he says with a lift of his shoulder. "The work he's been doing or something...my being a mutant would futz that up somehow." He grimaces, and lifts a shoulder. "They'll get over it eventually. But I had to tell them. Dad was all hot about all of us getting tested, and I figured I'd rather he hear it from me than from some technician." The question about whether he'll register or not gets an exasperated noise. "I have to," he says, sipping at his tea and grimacing at the heat on his tongue. "I'm on a government-funded scholarship, and eligible for Selective Service. I'm pretty sure I'll /have/ to be registered, for those." The colour in Jax's cheeks deepens. He polishes off his cookie happily, licking crumbs out of his palm. "Is -- pretty heavy," he admits, reaching out to drops his hand onto Doug's knee and squeeze gently. "This whole things has been a stress and a half, think it's forcin' -- a whole lotta folks to deal with some issues they weren't exactly in a place to be takin' on quite yet." His head shakes, brows rumpling inwards as he eyes the mug with an impatient fidget, a small twitch in his fingertips. "I think everyone's gotta be registered. Though I'm," he admits with a sheepish duck of his head, "kinda considering skippin' out on it for now. For all the uh good that'll do me. Just. For the heck of it." Micah listens quietly for some time, hands busied with cookie dunking and nibbling. “People sure like t'throw things 'round here. Took a couple rocks m'self when everyone was accusin' Jax of startin' that plague on purpose. An' all the boys ended up in fights. 'Least...it's only a real few people who are still makin' fusses at me ever. Haven't been any /rocks/ since he got out.” Another pause is taken to sip at his almond milk. “Oh/gosh/. They're gonna mess up /his/ work just because he's /related/ t'someone with the X-gene? Or is it that they're gonna make 'im get tested? Will it be okay if he comes back negative? That's just...even /more/ ridiculous than discriminatin' against people with special abilities t'discriminate against their /families/, too.” He circles a fisted hand over his heart. “For all of it. For you an' everyone havin' t'deal with this.” Jax's announcement soon has Micah chewing at his lip. “I'll support whatever y'wanna do, honey, but...people are gonna notice /real/ quick if y'don't. /I'll/ register, so we can do financial things all in my name an' that shouldn't be as much of a hassle as it'd be t'most folks. But whatever legal things they can bring t'bear on you, they're like t'do.” He follows this up with a relatively calm bite of cookie and swallow of almond milk. Doug chuffs a noise that might be laugh-like at Jax’s comments, and drops his hand to cover the older man’s. “I just wasn’t thinking about the long-term implications,” he admits, and there’s a bit of rue in his tone as he lifts his mug to take another sip of tea. “Things are likely to be changing rapidly for me, in the near future.” He manages a half-smile, and shakes his head at Micah. “My dad...a lot of his work…” he wrinkles his nose. “It’s complicated, but he could lose some grant money if people thought he’d misrepresented himself. And that’s what he’s really upset about.” He listens to Micah’s plan for getting around Jax registering with a bit of a smile, and then he sighs wistfully. “Gosh. I can’t wait ‘till I have someone like that.” He grins, then, and rolls his eyes. “I don’t think the cats are loyal enough to commit red tape shenani…” he trails off, a light coming on somewhere deep in his eyes. “Huh.” "Dusk jus' makes such a huge /target/. He gets stuff chucked at him a whole lot. These days we ain't gettin' throwed-things so much as -- a whooole lotta unusual mail. Though Ryan's got it /even/ worse." Jax's nose wrinkles up at that. "Some days I feel like we should -- decontaminate the mailboxes real thorough before he even touches his." He bites down on his lip, brows furrowing as he shakes his head. "I don't think anyone could really do nothin' to your Pa's work for real on account'a you bein' you, but folks can sure give him /hassle/ for it. I mean. Socially, like. Just. /He's/ just giving /you/ hassle if he's saying his work's /actually/ gonna get ruined over it, I'd -- wager." His brow creases deeper. "But -- what kinda flak he'll get from people just being jerks is another question, I ain't lived at home for a decade an' /my/ folks still get fussed at." He shrugs, hands fidgeting restlessly with his shirt before he leans forward to swipe his milk and down the rest of it in a quick gulp. "The world's pretty ridiculous, unfortunately. Jus' bein' born with a mutant -- parent or sibling or -- I don't know. Life can be pretty rough just be association. An' now with registration it's gonna be that much easier t'discriminate against everyone just for -- bein' in the same family as mutants so." He shrugs, uncomfortably. "I know it's dumb. An' ain't gonna change nothin'. But /I'm/ dumb." His cheeks flush deep red. "An' I'm an anarchist I'm used t'doin' dumb stuff that don't change nothin'. Just don't even feel right being /part/ of this system. It's going to ruin a lotta people's lives. -- Huh what?" "Sounds like a whole lotta government mess... Imagine that's gonna be the worst of it. 'Cause even if they don't release the registration information outside, sure enough they're gonna share it with other government agencies.” Micah makes a face down at his cookie before finishing it off. “Oh...yeah, the mail's been bizarre. Just weird hate mail's a /good/ day. An'...poor Dusk's just obvious from a /distance/ with his wings when they ain't all scrunched under a trenchcoat or the like.” His head shakes at Jax's last comments and he sets his remaining almond milk back on its coaster to free his hands. Which promptly take hold of Jax's. “I don't know why y'gotta say stuff like that all the time. Y'ain't no kinda dumb. Y'do things 'cause y'see somethin' that's wrong an' y'wanna do /somethin'/ about it, even if it's only changin' your own actions or somethin' in your own life. 'Cause sometimes that's all y'/can/ do. It ain't dumb. Occasionally...imprudent, maybe. Or just counter t'your own best interests. But not dumb.” He lifts Jax's hands to his lips, brushing a kiss to the back of one. “So ain't no cause t'keep sayin' it.” Doug’s expression is deeply thoughtful, and he rubs at his chin. “Not dumb,” he agrees with Micah. “Fearless, maybe. When you have to be. Which is good.” He lapses into more thoughtful silence, finally pursing his lips and shaking his head. “Never mind,” he says to Jackson, offering a wan smile. “It was a crazy thought, and probably wouldn’t do anyone any good.” He flutters his fingers in the air. “I was considering how hard it would be to throw the entire registration process into enough turmoil as to render it impractical.” He grimaces. “But I don’t know what good that would do.” "-- Which is most'a the time, really. He ain't big on /hiding/ the coat's jus'. Cuz it's /cold/. Think people forget how much /skin/ those have." Jax gives a small shiver just /thinking/ about the surface area of giant wings in this weather, with a quick glance towards the window. He sets his glass back down when it's empty, slipping his hands into Micah's with a deeper blush still. The silvery glow around him tints reddish. His head bows, colourful shaggy-floppy hair spilling down to cover his eyes. "I jus' -- people've always told me -- I mean, I ain't real good at --" His nose crinkles up, and he fidgets slightly where he sits, teeth sinking down against his lower lip. "Sorry, I just --" He shakes his head quickly; his hair shakes back and immediately falls right back into his eyes. "-- How?" he asks Doug, instead. "I mean, what would you do? 'cuz'a this thing's countrywide. I can't imagine it'd be easy t'put a wrench in it." Not that he sounds particularly opposed to the idea. Micah looks curious about Doug's proposal as well, but cautiously so. “Careful, Doug. If you do /anythin'/ related t'this. S'a whole heap a hurt likely t'come back at you. So have a care how y'do things if y'do things.” He gives Jax's hands a squeeze where they rest in his own. “People try t'say you're an evil terrorist plottin' the destruction of humanity. Don't make it true, neither. You’re just too hard on yourself all the time.” With another little kiss to the back of the /other/ hand, he releases Jax's hands finally and takes up his tea, sipping at the cooler liquid. Doug mmms lightly at Jax’s question, and taps his chin. “Well, I was thinking I could modify some software I’ve got, and turn it into a virus, of sorts. Put it in the system, and let it eat everything they’ve got connected to registration.” He frowns, and shakes his head. “But I’m not sure how feasible something like that would actually be. I’d have to talk to Dusk or B about it, and see what they think.” He smiles encouragingly at Micah. “Don’t worry,” he says. “Before I did anything, I’d make sure I had it planned for every contingency. I’m a cyber-ninja, but this will require extra attention.” He shrugs. “If I even do it. Like I said, I need some input from my fellow computer geeks.” "/Don't/ --" Jackson shakes his head slightly, though with his curtain of hair across his eyes it's hard to tell where he's looking on this; the pinkish-red tinge his glow adopted when his blush deepened turns redder. "-- bring B into this, he's crazy-brilliant for sure an' m'sure if anyone could pull it off, the three of you -- but /this/ kinda thing, y'all could go to jail for-/ever/ so even if he wants to I'm kinda going to have to play the dad card here. Because, I mean, there's protest and then there's /protest/, you know? An' I sure ain't gonna tell you an' Dusk /not/ to because you know the kinda stuff /I/ get up to. Sometimes direct action is just --" He waves a hand vaguely in the air. "But he's jus' sixteen. Kinda should have a few years'a normal life 'fore he's signing up for the kinda protest where they throw away the key if you get caught at it. And this /is/ -- that kind." “Ohgosh. I don't know about all that kinda thing, but it /does/ sound mad-dangerous. I mean, how can y'ever plan for /every/ contingency? What if they've got their own folks with special abilities workin' the other side? Y'can never /really/ plan for those.” Micah nods agreement with Jax. “No pullin' minors into this kinda game. I'd recommend strongly against it t'you an' Dusk, but at least you're adults t'be makin' your own decisions. Get the...real sick feelin' in the pit of m'stomach at the thought of B goin' anywhere /near/ that kinda thing.” He shivers a little, as if the room just grew colder, and cups his hands tighter around his tea mug. Perhaps a few more sips will still the shivering. “Okay,” Doug says, nodding at the directive. “I won’t bring it up to him. I’m not even sure I’m going to bring it up to Dusk, yet.” He wrinkles his nose. “Like you said, it’s crazy dangerous, and I really /don’t/ know what good it would do. It’s just an idea.” He sighs, then, raising a hand to rub at his eyes. “I guess I’m just feeling…” he lets that hang there, his gaze hidden behind his fingers. "Halim's still in government custody," Jackson says, soft and thoughtful almost half to himself, the red paling back to a faint pink. "Though I don't even know if he's still alive at this point. Much less where he's at." He leans forward to finally pick up his tea, sipping at it slowly, hair still curtained over his eyes though this doesn't seem to impede his vision nearly as much as it should. His other hand moves to Micah's back, rubbing there gently at the older man's shivering. He takes another slow sip of tea, exhaling heavily down into it. "Yeah," he agrees heavily with Doug's unfinished statement. "Frustratin', sometimes. Just want to go do /something/ but I don't never got the first idea what." “It's hard. Knowin' about all the awful things goin' on an' not always havin' anythin' y'can do about it.” Micah presses back into Jax's hand, steadying between the touch and the warmth of his tea. “Y'do a lot, Jax. It just...takes some time t'find the right thing t'do, the right way t'go about it, an' the resources t'pull it off. An' the waitin' is incredibly difficult. But y'do so much with so little.” Freeing one hand from his cup, he first musses Jax's hair and then brushes it out of the other man's eyes. “It may not always seem like it, but it's sure appreciated.” “I’m getting a bit tired of being frustrated,” Doug says, low enough that it’s probably meant for himself. Or not, as he looks up and offers a lopsided grin. “And I always have ideas. It’s just that most of them aren’t very smart.” He chuckles, and takes a couple of gulps of tea, almost emptying his mug. “But. I didn’t mean to come down and be all gloomy. I really did just want to drop off that memory stick for B.” He leans forward to set the tea cup on the coffee table, sliding to the edge of the couch. “I should probably get back upstairs and see if I can make up for missing that lab.” Jax's eye meets Micah's with an appreciative look, when his hair is pushed back; he turns his head very slightly to press his face against the other man's fingertips. "Waitin's hard. Findin' the right thing's hard. Helps, though, t'have folks around through it." His hand rubs again at Micah's back, fingers pressing in gentle and firm He takes a deeper drink of his tea, offering Doug a warm smile. "Oh, gosh, I know that feel. But maybe we'll come up with somethin'. I mean, this, all this -- it's had a whole lotta opposition too so takin' a stand against it -- it won't be /alone/." He sets his mug between his knees, reaching over to squeeze at Doug's shoulder as the other man moves to stand. "I'll make sure B gets the -- stickthing. He'll prob'ly be by when he gets home. Or t'morrow if it's real late. 'Night, honey-honey." Micah's fingertips trace along Jax's jaw softly, his shoulders rolling back into Jax's touch for a moment. Then he stands as Doug readies himself to head home, setting his tea back on the coffee table. “If there's one thing we got goin' 'round here it's that no one's /alone/ on these things. We'll just have t'see what progresses an' where we fit as things move forward.” He offers a hand to the other man to help him up. “G'night, hon. Don't get into anythin' too crazy with those computers of yours.” “Well, when you figure out a plan, I want in,” Doug says, leaning into Jax’s shoulder-squeeze before he accepts Micah’s hand and hoists himself up. “I might not be able to be in a fight, but I can do what I can.” He grins, and claps Micah on the shoulder lightly. “Thanks for the tea and cookies. I need to remember to come down for those more often.” He grins, and heads for the door, pushing his feet into his sneakers and wiggling down into them. “Hah. I’m still moving data between my backups and the new machine,” he says. “Crazy will have to wait.” He offers another wave, and then he’s gone, the door closing softly behind him.