ArchivedLogs:The Place For Mess

The Place For Mess
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Hive, Shelby, Ian
In Absentia	2013-06-09 (Set after the girls go home.)
Location <NYC> 403 {Geekhaus} - Village Lofts - East Village
There's kind of a college-dorm feel to this place, though some of its occupants have left college behind. Entering the apartment finds visitors greeted by the perpetually messy living room, a mismatched assortment of couches and chairs (and milk crates) surrounding the wide table in the center. The wall holds a range of posters; some political, some sporty, some from video games, and a string of white lights strung over the kitchen doorway might be a holdover from Christmas. The kitchen adjacent is just as cluttered, its table unfit for eating due to its perpetual covering of books, papers, cereal boxes, projects; the fridge is usually sparsely populated. Ketchup. Beer. Not a lot of food. There are two bedrooms here, split between the four people; the fold-out couch in the living room (often folded out!) suggests that at least one of them does not actually claim a room as their own. It's probably not difficult to pinpoint the exact moment Shelby re-enters the Village Lofts. It's the same moment in which mental images of GIANT FUCKING HUMAN-WASPS also enter the telepathic space of the Lofts' residents. Kris is...well, Kris is probably /rudely/ shoved at Jax's apartment, before Shelby pulls open the stairwell doors--too impatient to wait for elevator--and begins to climb stairs. She's dressed as she was when venturing out in Bastian's precious rainbow sparkle minidress, red sneakers, streaked makeup...okay the makeup is not as pristine as it had been. Nor is her hair sleek and pretty. It's ratty and frizzed and looks as if she's been rolling around on a naked mattress. As the stairwell door slams open and she comes hurrying out, she's already projecting the summons: << ...Hive? Hive. Need/want/where are you? Ohmigod there were fucking bugs bugs bigger than me there were /bugs/ and they fucking /had/ me... >> << Woah. >> This doesn't come from Hive's slamming-painful mindvoice; it comes from Ian's much less stabbing one, a cool quiet brush of mental feeling just before the door opens. Dusk is opening it, letting out a spill of shadow that slips away! Down the hall and up the stairs. "-- He's upstairs," Dusk clarifies for Shelby as he gestures her in. "Smoke break -- Ian's --" He waves a hand towards the ceiling. "Playing fetch. Um. You kind of look --" He frowns, wings drooping slightly lower against his bare back. "...like /you/ need a smoke break." << Oh god. >> Shelby's long since grown accustomed to Ian's shadowy ways but she's in an odd frame of mind and ends up doing an odd sort of jittery dance around the shadow river. It leads her into the apartment, at least, where she subjects Dusk to a look of mingled exasperation and frazzled nerves. "Like /shit/," she suggests, "I look like /shit/ because I got /stabbed/ and /drugged/ and when I woke up there were /giant bugs all around me/, I swear to god I'm not crazy, it /happened/, Kris can tell you and I just..." Her hands are opening and closing. Flex flex. "...I need. A drink. Heroin? You got any heroin? Vodka? I think, maybe...beer?" Plaintive-hopeful. "Wait, you got /what/?" Dusk, not privy to the telepathic stream, has apparently only been informed as much as ‘Shelby is here'. "Stabbed -- what the shit, are you -- uh." His hand lifts halfway towards her, drops back to his side. He flexes a wing, stretching it out instead to brush fuzzy-soft against her arm, and then slips away to the kitchen. "Got beer /and/ vodka do you have a preference?" << /Don't/ have heroin, that's fucking -- >> "-- stupid," shifts from whipcrack-mindvoice to gruff-dry spoken one as Hive trudges back inside. His hands are shoved in the pockets of his faded jeans, his shirt just a plain white sleeveless undershirt. "Giant wasps. You sure you haven't been --" His hand mimes a NEEDLE in his vein, "-- already?" But even with this question he is moving to loop an arm around her shoulders, his squeeze -- brief, but tight. "Proooobably vodka," he suggests to Dusk. By the open door there are shadows coalescing. Halfway coalescing. /Enough/ coalesced to nudge the door closed before disappearing into the bedroom. << Wasps. Like the giant ants? >> "Vodka," Shelby busts out, oh so enthusiastic. Even the fresh stab of getting smacked in the brain by Hivevoice doesn't dim /that/. Or the burst of relief felt when he's there and she can turn into the less fuzzy-soft comfort of his arm. If she weren't so rattled, she'd likely have something sharp to say in return but... "You /wish/." Fail retort is fail. She gets a double fistful of t-shirt and shivers at him. With her mind relaying the imagery, she lets it all out: "Wasps. He had wasps. He...Ivan. There were three and they looked like /women/ except /wasps/. Rasa stayed but Kris...Kris got me out, Rasa said go. She /stayed/. They /took/ us. They /touched/ me, they had to...oh god, they touched me, I think I wasn't awake for that but..." Where's that vodka? "We gotta go back, Ivan was fucking /crazy/ like all bug-brain and Rasa was acting like it was cool but it's /not/, they got his /brain/, Hive." "Is Rasa," Hive's wondering sort of vaguely /curious/, "by any chance an idiot?" He steers Shelby towards the couch to sit, arm still around her shoulders. "... wasps." He seems a little bemused by this. "This fucking city." Dusk has gotten a squat glass out of one cabinet but now he's frowning at the others. At least until Ian returns from the bedroom -- this time not in shadow form, just his sort of mousy-plain self, now clad in jeans and a blue-and-green striped t-shirt. Admittedly with some stray wisps of darkness coiling their way around his legs. He also has a bottle of vodka, a quarter emptied, in his hands. He lifts it to wiggle it towards Dusk, and then sets it down on the table in front of Shelby. "No bugs here," he assures her. "Even the small kind. I think they're all scared of Dusk." Thiiis part may or may not be a lie. "N-no." Shelby manages a thin tremor of voice that tries for laughter, falls sadly short. "She's the smart one. Fucking wasps, man. Like.../look/." Once settled on the couch, with her shoulder against Hive's ribs, she hikes up the already short hem of her skirt to bare her thigh. This is probably what she meant by stabbed--there's a raised red welt, with an angry weeping sore in the middle where presumably there was some stinger action. She prods at the swollen edges...and then allows herself to be distracted by booze. No sooner is the bottle placed on the table then she grabs it, making that not-really-a-laugh sound again. The alcohol sloshes around inside, courtesy of a shaky hand, until she wedges the bottle between her knees to unscrew the cap. "Yeah, I guess..." A quick glance sweeps the apartment. "I guess he's. Pretty scary. Fuck. I'm sorry. I just...I woke up and they were /there/. "But they're not here," she mumbles, more to herself than the others. "I just. Need a minute." Ian disappears, when that welt is seen. Not, admittedly, in the literal sense that some of Hive's roommates are prone to doing. Just slips off towards the bathroom, returning soon to hand a folded-up washcloth to Hive -- cold and damp -- and then join Dusk in the kitchen. Hive takes the cloth, nudging the hem of Shelby's dress up again, though for no more titillating reason than to lay the cool cloth against the welt. "Take a minute. Take an hour. Don't know why you're apologizing," he says, "that's fucked up as hell." There's a moment of silence, his expression briefly distracted before he shakes his head with a slight mutter, "... right. Not home." Apparently to himself more than Shelby; he's patting his pockets down afterwards but frowns at their lack of whatever he is looking for. "-- The wasps /have/ your friends?" Shelby grits her teeth and hisses a breath out as cold and damp is applied. Her leg twitches. She follows both by lifting the bottle for a drink straight from the mouth. The swallow is large and followed by a wheeze, complete with slitted, watering eyes. Then she slumps against Hive again, cradling the vodka and taking some steadiness from that presence. "For being a fucking mess." The apology. Explanation rather than excuse, and one she's able to voice with less teeth-chattering. "Yeah...yeah. Rasa. Ivan. They're both still there. Me and Kris left. It was insane. Like, /seriously/. They had this...this /bedroom/ set up. And Ivan was..." Time is taken for another nip from the bottle but memory is filling in the gaps for the resident telepaths. The bedroom. Ivan's glassy-eyed blankness and nudity, the hovering trio of wasp ladies cowering away from the shrieking teenager. Shelby swallows hard, past the sting of the liquor, and opens her eyes to focus on...let's see...the coffee table is preferable to playing out those images. That'll do. "Ate his brain," she reiterates. "Sorry, it's really shitty vodka." Ian glances over to Shelby at that hiss, with a sheepish curl of smile. He is busy mixing together -- paste! Baking soda. Water. Meat tenderizer? Omnom. "I thought he ate bug brains." Dusk frowns, a little confused. He's stealing Ian's paste, heading back to the living room. "Lemme see that welt. This'll help." "Also, make you tastier for eating," Ian adds, from the kitchen. Dusk scowls over at him, baring sharp fangs before looking back to Shelby's leg. "Where was this place? We should, uh. Maybe. Go get him." Hive's fingers drum against his knee. "Them. /Uh/. You can stay here. Drink all Ian's shitty vodka. Be a fucking mess for a while. This --" He waves a hand around the cluttered apartment, "is pretty much the place for mess anyway." << Best vodka, >> Shelby thinks, clutching the bottle possessively but not without a thread of amusement--a good sign, that. "I'll live. Ivan is...if there's a /lot/ of bugs, like bees, or...I guess if they're big. They kind've. Take over his head. It's all the noise, I guess? I dunno, I'm not...I do /easy/ shit." << ...and thank God for that, ugh. >> The vodka is transferred to one hand so the other can lift the cloth to expose the sting site for Dusk and his ministrations. The banter is helping. It always does. "S'okay," she calls to Ian, "he's had a taste already and didn't like it." While the self-appointed medic does his thing, she drops her head to Hive's shoulder. << Dunno. I was...I was even /more/ a mess. When we got out. Kris'd know. Don't go, please? Just stay. She'll call the school. I want you/mypeople/this/the world to go away. >> "Pfft, that's a crock of bullshit, you had his blood up for days after he had a bit of you in him." Ian calls this over the sound of the running sink, washing baking soda off his hands. Dusk's cheeks flush slightly but he doesn't /deny/ this. He carefully spreads a layer of white paste over the welt, a little cool, a little tingly. "Guess I can kind of understand /that/." Hive sounds a little wry. "Not always easy to filter out a lot of --" He shrugs. Settles back against the couch a little more, resting one foot against the edge of the table. His fingers trace absently against Shelby's shoulder. "Alright. If Kris'll call the school --" Another shrug. "My plans today were pretty much get drunk /anyway/." "That's his plans /every/ weekend," Ian confides, drying his hands against his pants and heading back to the living room. "-- But not till I get back. I'll even bring slightly-less-shitty vodka." "Bring slightly less shitty /rum/," Dusk says instead. "I dunno, vodka has more of that holy-shit-giant-fucking-wasps feel to it. You know," Ian cheerfully informs them as he goes to rustle up socks and shoes from his bedroom, "some dude in Japan made, like, fucking wasp-/infused/ vodka." "... what the fuck, Japan." Hive grimaces at the ceiling. "Alcohol with just the faintest notes of rotting flesh." "... Rum," Dusk requests again. More /emphatically/. What the fuck indeed. Suddenly the bottle is less welcome. Shelby disengages from Hive-leaning long enough to stretch over Dusk's arm and wind to set it back on the table. "Rum," she agrees as she flops back against her bony pillow. Her eyes shift from the pasty stuff being plastered on her leg to Dusk's heightened color to Hive--curious. << For real or am I being fucked with? >> If anything was going to distract the teenager... "Can we get drunk together?" is her next inquiry, this one slightly more wistful. The shakes are gone, the breathless feeling is gone--she's lightweight enough that those two large swallows of vodka are creating a pleasant buzz on an empty stomach. Visions of horror!bugs are slowly being replaced. A bed. People /in/ that bed. Cuddling. Okay, yes, and maybe some inappropriate gropings. She's an "affectionate" drunk and knows few ways to block out the world out large. "For real -- wait, which part of that?" Hive glances to Dusk and then to Ian, his smile quick and crooked. "Cuz there's /totally/ wasp-vodka." Obviously the most important part of all that exchange. "... the hell is my fucking wallet," Ian is grumbling in the bedroom; still a little flushed, Dusk rolls his eyes and gets up to procure said wallet from where it is buried beneath a Shadowrun sourcebook and a sweatshirt on an upturned crate. "Ohright." Ian nabs the wallet from the floor after Dusk tosses it towards the bedroom. "He can't get drunk without a /chaperone/," he informs Shelby, passing by the couch en route to the front door to muss /both/ her and Hive's hair in turn, "but I'll be back tonight. With rum. And Chinese?" This is more a question than a concrete plan. "Thai," Dusk objects, even as Hive votes, "Indian." "With Thaindianese," Ian corrects himself. "Drunk when Ian gets back," Hive kind of grumble-agrees. "But cuddling I can do /without/ a brain-sitter." "Ugh. People are seriously fucked up," Shelby mumble-grumbles. Wasp-vodka. God damn it, world. What are you doing. Eyes are closed and head is tilted into hair-mussing before she thumps against Hive's shoulder again. "You don't trust me to chaperone?" She then immediately answers the question herself when she poses the /true/ question, point blank, to the unfortunate Dusk: "So did you just like, become a little like me ‘cause you bit me or did it turn you on?" Her arm loops across Hive's waist but she keeps her chin turned to bicep to watch the winged man. "‘Cause it /was/ pretty hot. I mean...biting. Y'know. Maybe not the blood part. Do you bite?" Presumably that last inquiry is for Hive, though her eyes have closed again while she relaxes into the determined distraction of buzz and inappropriate nosiness. No wasps. No worrying. Just her peeps. "Can you turn his brain off when it starts eating the building?" It's a rhetorical question, because Ian is grabbing his backpack and heading OUT. Dusk settles down onto an armchair, sideways with his wings draped over the arm and legs hooked over the opposite. The color in his cheeks rises again. He looks up at the ceiling. "I don't bite," Hive shakes his head, hand trailing down against Shelby's arm to eventually curl his arm around her waist instead. "Uh, not usually. /Should/ I? Guess I could branch out. Take a tip from this motherfucker." He flicks his free hand towards Dusk. "He pretty much gets the most action out of anyone in this house anyway so he must be doing something right." "Ian has a girlfriend," Dusk points out in mild objection. "... you /still/ get laid more." It's a small apartment. Hive KNOWS. The blush is actually fading, now. Dusk quirks a small smile towards the ceiling. "-- I don't get more like you," he finally answers Shelby. "I get more like me." Hive's voice drops lower. Though not /actually/ low enough Dusk still can't hear: "It turns him on." Should he is answered via demonstration, with Shelby turning her head just enough to allow her to pinch the fleshiest part of his upper arm between her teeth. Pinch. She might have advanced further but... << Ian has a girlfriend? >> Stop the presses! Or maybe she already knew that and had since forgotten. Whichever, she's left looking between the two of them, blinking. "...seriously? Isn't he like...huh. Good for him." She settles again--after remembering her original purpose for shifting, and nipping Hive again near the slope between shoulder and neck--with eyes closed. It might not be surprising that hearing the not-really-a-whisper also leaves her smiling faintly, her first proper smile since arriving. "Should've made a move, dude. I wouldn't've said no. God knows I could use it," she says, while tensing her arm around her current cuddlee. It isn't entirely a possessive or innocent move, however... Because her hand starts wandering, wiggling fingers tickling up his ribs. << Where's the off switch? >> "Jesus, he /did/ rub off on you," Hive says in answer to the biting. "Yeah, Ian has a girlfriend. I mean, one /besides/ Dusk." "-- Isn't he like --?" Dusk chuffs at this, wings stretching for a moment and then pulling back. "Tch. I'm more like his mistress." The second nip doesn't get teasing in response; it gets a shiver, Hive's head tilting to one side. "You should see the fucking goth chicks he brings home, full of Anne Rice and want him to bite them /while/ he /augh/fuckno that is not /off/." He is squirming abruptly at the ticklefingers, /twitching/ away from Shelby with a noise halfway between laugh and /yelp/. "... you turned on?" Dusk asks, with a slow spread of smile towards greater amusement. Shelby does not pursue, but only because the compress on her leg is drying and moving around pulls at the skin. Which she discovers this--after trying to keep up the tickling in spite of evasion--she falls back against the cushions and winces. Crumbly bits of baking soda are scratched at, though she avoids the center. That itch of discomfort lends a keen and desperate edge to her conversational abilities--the teen is clinging /with conviction/ to light and amusing. "/So/ turned on," she confides to Dusk, "guess he likes being chewed on after all. /And/ tickled. Y'know there's some guys who can get off on nothing but being tickled?" Don't ask her how she knows. Or...at least don't pry on /that/ memory. It involves IHOP, a gang of much older teenagers and far too much liquor. "There's people who can get off on fucking anything," Hive says with a snort. He settles back again when Shelby does, hooking a leg lazily over her knee. His eyes flick to the scratching. << Should get some ice for that, >> hammers over to Dusk, << keep the swelling down more /and/ stop her fucking thinking about it. Jesus. Wasps. >> "I am so not one of them, though. Tickling," he informs Shelby of this very /seriously/ while -- leaning in to nip at the side of her neck, "means /war/." "I mean, you know what they say. All's fair in war and --" Dusk swings his legs over the edge of the chair with a wince that is less acute than it might be were he not well used to Hive's mind-attacks, "-- fucking." He stands, heading back to the kitchen to retrieve ice from the freezer, drop it in a ziploc bag, wrap a dishtowel around it. "There's /definitely/ people who get off to just biting." "I kinda like war," Shelby admits. She's caught by the nibbling, frozen in the act of reaching for the vodka again. Instead she opts to tilt her head and let that reaching hand fall to Hive's leg. "War should be decided by fucking. There'd probably be /more/ of it but it'd be more fun." Between the two of them, they have succeeded in diverting her attention. Hooded eyes track Dusk towards the kitchen and curled hand squeezes Hiveleg. "If Dusk's Ian's mistress, does that mean Flicker's yours?" "Fuck that, this whole freaking house is my mistress... es." Hive's hand falls to rest over Shelby's. "Flicker's just, like, /first/ mistress." His lips brush against Shelby's neck, a little bit softer -- for a moment, before another quick nip. "... I'm pretty sure war's already historically been pretty heavily about fucking." His fingers brush softer against her leg, before he just drops his head back against the couch, hooking his leg a little closer to bring her in nearer him. "/About/. But not decided by. There's the problem." Dusk tosses the bag of ice over to Hive. Maybe AT Hive WHO KNOWS. "I'm going out. You all had better have done some serious cuddling by the time I get back." "That's totally the problem," Shelby says, admittedly with an absent-minded tone. Something about being hooked in closer and nipped at. She shivers, she tucks herself in against Hive and she angles her head to begin setting small kiss along the curve of his jaw. Ice pack is /ignored/. "Have fun," she bids Dusk without looking over. Too busy reaching up, see, to turn Hive's lips towards hers. "...I better be first mistress when you're kissing me."