ArchivedLogs:The Price of Caring

The Price of Caring
Dramatis Personae Hive, Melinda
In Absentia	2013-01-28 Breakfast, sans tin foil hats.
Location <NYC> Home - Greenwich Village
Nestled into the heart of the Village, Home is an unobtrusive place, with an unobtrusive name to match. A nondescript storefront opens up into an equally nondescript cafe, plain tiled floors, an assortment of veneered tables with plain wooden chairs or booths with cracking vinyl benches. What it /does/ have to recommend it is the food, hearty solid breakfast and brunch served twenty-four hours a day. Known to locals and little frequented by tourists, its friendly serving staff tend to remember their regulars, giving the place a warm feel that lives up to its name. It's early, or maybe late depending on which way around you're taking your days. Hive is coming at this one backwards, tucked at a corner table with a LARGE pot of coffee and a wired look. He's getting out a laptop, opening it up to let it flicker quickly back to life. Its screen has diagrams, perhaps blueprints, images in progress of some sort of building. He's amending these in rapid /twitches/ of his mouse, clickclickclick. Clickclickclick. Occasionally he switches between this and The News, but that usually results in deep frowning and a return to actual work. "So." Melinda enters the establishment and looks around for a while, steadily unwinding a scarf from about her neck. She pulls off her hat and shakes out more precipitation from her hair. When she spots Hive, she bee lines in his direction and flops into the chair across from him, wadding up her upper outer gear in her lap. "So," she repeats, eyebrows climbing her brow expectantly. It's hard to tell if she's expected or invited, but she definitely stays where she is without asking Hive's permission. She doesn't really have much else to say, so she presses her lips into a purse as she grabs a menu and starts reading it over. "So, what's good here?" Hive's lips twitch, at Melinda's entrance, but he barely even looks up at first once she has seated herself. "Eggs benedict," he says, turning over the upside-down mug across from Melinda and pouring a second coffee. "And the French toast. Real maple syrup, man, most diners in this city use that fake table shit. Gross." "It's not maple syrup. It's flavored sugar water. I don't know how people get away with it, let alone prefer it to the real thing," Melinda considers and looks up at Hive. "What are you getting? Are you getting anything? We could share and have both sweet and savory." She sets down the menu and grabs the cup of coffee, giving it a quick sip before adding a little bit of sugar. She scrubs a hand over her face before leaning on her elbow and staring at Hive in a somewhat sleepy way. Her mind buzzes a bit though. How does one bring up telepathy? I know Shelby kind of outed him but it'snot like I wasn't completely sure of it before I brought up telepathy in general. Mostly I don't care, but it would be good to know for certain what kind of creepy Jim is and if I should be more aggressive in deterring him from bringing new flowers on the seventh... oh, gosh, did I tell Shelby the seventh? I should text her and remind her that open mic is on Thursdays, no matter what number of day i gave her. Haaa. I told her that Hive's gaaay. I wonder how he feels about that. "Eggs benedict," Hive says, with another quick flurry of clicks at his computer. "Maybe people's taste buds are broken. But you won't have to put up with that shit here. Only real stuff. They do have fruit syrups but those are good too. Cooked-down blueberries. Blackberries. If you swing that way." His twitching smile has curled a little wider. He takes a large gulp of his coffee, scrubbing a hand at his face, too. "That," he adds, /just/ slightly wry, "is how you bring up telepathy." "Well, at least that's how you bring it up with telepaths," Melinda ammends, brows rising. "Are you interested in splitting or are you good with just savory?" She sneaks a peek back at her menu as she lifts the cup to her lips. She considers rick-rolling him, but decides not to remember the lyrics and deal with rick-rolling herself. She gnaws on the side of her mouth as she decides to let Hive pick a topic if he wants to talk about any of that. "I'd eat the shit out of some French Toast," Hive answers, leaning back in his chair. He has a menu beside him, but it's closed. His fingers tap against it. "What did Shelby say to you?" "What did Shelby say to what?" Melinda blinks at Hive. "She said all the good ones are gay and that boys are stupid, and I said I was just guessing and you could be straight plus calling boys stupid won't help you land one." And I'm cleaning up all the horrible netspeak here, so you should thank me. There's a twinge of mental pain at the memory of the teen's texting skills. She nods and pushes the menu away again. "Okay, then we'll split the french toast and eggs benedict. I'm hungry. Did you order or should I flag someone?" "About telepathy," Hive clarifies, after all this, with knuckles scrubbing against his cheek again. "Not about my sexuality. I haven't ordered. Just coffee." He's looking up, glancing around for a nearby waiter, though he doesn't bother flagging one /himself/. "And man, don't I know it. Her texts made my eye twitch." Melinda lifts a hand when she thinks she has a waiter's eyecontact and smiles at them before looking back to Hive. "I think she does it on purpose," she admits in a conspiratory fashion. She draws in a breath and takes another moment to consider this. "Oh, well, I brought up the existence of telepaths," she draws in a deep breath, and then she volunteered how creepy it was that you could do that. I think. I was very tired at the time. "I think it's only creepy because she can't check out your ass without you noticing." Hive doesn't scrub at his face again. He just sinks his cheek down against his knuckles, one eye getting kind of squinted up as his cheek is pushed upwards. "Checking out asses is pretty par for the course," he says wryly. "You should hear some of the fucking brain-porn bored people get up to on the subway. It's murder on trying to read. -- I wouldn't be surprised if it's on purpose. I mean, I know some teenagers but that's the worst of them." He quiets as the waiter arrives, turning on a quick smile to deliver his order. And nudge the coffee pot for a refill. Melinda orders the opposite of Hive, a plate to split and a carafe of oj to wash the meal down. When the waiter wanders off, she glances over at Hive. "I don't suppose that tinfoil hats work at all?" She slips her silverware out of the paper napkin wrapping and glances down at it. "If they did, you'd never see me out of one. I don't think I like being in people's minds any more than they like me being there." Hive's silverware is still wrapped. He shuts the lid of his computer, sliding it aside and leaning his elbows onto the table. He props his head in his palms. "I mean, it's not just the porn. Sometimes the world's just fucking /depressing/." "Sadly, porn can be depressing too," Melinda notes as she opens the napkin further to spread it across her lap, pauses, puts it back on the table and takes her coat off first. "But yeah, I can imagine that the human mess is terrible to have thrust in your brain all the time." She considers asking about whether his brain goes numb to input after a while, but doesn't wish to probe too much. She wasn't actually supposed to know about all of this to start, so it's best not to be nosy. She's also considering what to do about the recommendation that Shelby gave, a little afraid of who she might have sent to the cafe when she's not there. "Recommendation?" Hive has no problems with nosy, apparently. "It doesn't really go numb, exactly. I mean, I always sort of hear things? But I learn to adjust. Like white noise. Play elevator music for long enough and you stop noticing it's there. It's harder with people I'm actually talking /to/ though. People I know. People having /really strong/ thoughts. Less background nose then and more like trying to ignore someone actually talking to you." "Ahh. So the problem is that you're too polite." Melinda winks at him, thinking that she can ignore who is talking to her whenever she likes - but doesn't. She does recognize the fault in this line of thought, but at least it was slightly amusing. "Oh, Shelby started texting me that she had an employee recommendation for the cafe that she thinks I should hire on account of the fact that we could both get beauty treatments of some type. She wants to cut off all her hair and dye it pink, I think, and she wants it for free." Which leave me holding whatever human baggage she leaves behind to make this happen. "Hah. Yeah. That's not a thing I get accused of all that often. I'll take it." Hive is digging palms at his eyes, rubbing hard for a moment and then relaxing. "-- Beauty treatments. What. Does that have to do with coffee, I'm confused." His lips twitch. "Then again, it's Shelby. I'm pretty much mostly confused there." "It's Shelby," Melinda shrugs and grabs the sugar canister and turns it slowly as she leans against the table, her mind quieting for the time being. "I am curious about Jim though. Do I actually need to worry about him knocking up teenagers?" she is thinking in designs now, imagining spilling the sugar and making little butterflies with her thumb. "I think you'd have to worry more about Jim getting teenagers knocked /out/ than knocked /up/," Hive says wryly, "guy's got a magnet for trouble and when you put that with Shelby, shit. They'll attract /all/ the bullets in New York. Haven't noticed any skeeve on him, though. Just a barrel full of gruff. Shelby's got a vivid imagination. Or a lot of ego. Thinks /everyone's/ perving on her." He frowns, slightly. "I mean, a girl on the streets, man, she's gotta have had plenty of cause to worry. But." He grimaces. Melinda nods and feels a little bad she can't help with that more. "But Jim's not a skeeve problem." She inhales deeply and closes her eyes. "I'm still not going to apologize to him for the beating. He deserved it." She yawns and works her fingernails against her scalp at the back of her head. She looks up and over to see the food coming and perks up. Anticipation of tastiness fills her gray matter. "I have noticed this trouble magnet thing. I have no clue what to do about that, but I will admit to a little bit a cold sweat when I see Shelby coming on a rough day." "Nah. Just an asshole problem." Although Hive says this more amused than actually insulting. "I'll bet he did. Shiiit, thanks." He's saying this to the waiter, together with a decidedly more cheerful grin as he sits up. He's already slicing his egg-ham-muffin concoction in half, so that he can scoop half of it -- and a portion of homefries -- onto... a coffee saucer. He slides it towards Melinda. "I dunno what to do. Don't most teenagers have school and jobs and shit? It's so much easier to get in trouble when you have craptons of time on your hands." His wry smile suggests this is a problem he knows firsthand. "Oh man, can you imagine Shelby trying to keep a job?" Melinda's eyes go wide as she considers the girl in her job, some how managing to blow up the espresso machine while strange pictures dance all over the room and abstract paintings menace the patrons. "I don't know. I'd kind of send her to school before I'd send her to employment." She coughs and smiles, dividing the french toast and stacking half upon the spare plate she asked for. She pushes it into the space between them and slides the egg benedict closer. She then lifts the pot to refill her cup of coffee, offering to do the same for Hive. "Nooot really," Hive admits, snorting. He nudges his coffee mug closer to Melinda, nodding a thanks. "I mean, okay, sure, I can /imagine/ it, it might end in blood." He pulls the French toast in beside his egg, spearing a piece of it and slicing it off to eat it with /relish/. "God, school. She'd get kicked out of a normal one. And I don't think I'd want to send her to the twins', sticking her all day with Shane seems like a /recipe/ for disaster." "Yes, well, maybe a school could break her of her awful textspeak." Melinda is definitely focusing on the eggs benedict as well. "But yes. I get it. Some people are just not really cut out for school," she adds sadly, thinking that this is why she gave Shane the undercover job, but looks up suddenly when she realizes Hive's listening. << He doesn't want his dad to know so he can help out with out Jax feeling bad about it, so please don't say anything. >> She's staaaring at him now. << Promise? >> Hive's smile flickers, fades, and he's quiet as he munches. Toast. Eggs, which he douses, along with his homefries, liberally in hot sauce rather than ketchup. He washes it down with some of the orange juice. "Maybe school's not cut out for some people," he mutters half under his breath, and his expression's a little sad, too. "Yeah." He sounds tired. "I'll be quiet. Fuck, God knows Jax could use the cash. And Shane --" He slices off another mouthful of toast. "Of course he'd try to help. S'a /good/ kid." He says this like it's pains him. "Either way, He cares," Melinda says of Shane, a small smile on her lips. She loses herself in the food for a while, cutting and munching. She does wash everything down with liberal amounts of the juice, not really bothering to mention sharing that with Hive. The longer she's quiet, the more a seed of exhaustion grows roots in the back of her mind. She reviews her schedule for the day and who she needs to call about work and who she needs to meet with for Helping Hands. Soon, she's doodling in her egg yolk. When she wakes from this revelry, she drinks more coffee to try and keep her brain moving. "Jeez. I think you need /all/ the coffee. Hive nudges the remainder of the pot towards Melinda. "Got a lot on your docket today? When do you get to /sleep/?" He's plowed through uch of his food fairly quickly, and there's a crooked smile on his lips. "That's the problem with caring. Takes up so much time." "We're in New York City, I figure if the city doesn't sleep, why should I?" Melinda smiles sleepily up at him and refills her cup. She finishes her eggmeatmuffin easily, but is dallying on the french toast. She takes another long drink. "I just don't know what to do with my time if I'm not busy. It's a failing, actually, but I don't tell anyone. Except you. Now. Anyway." She looks abashed and pushes her plate in and starts drinking more orange juice. "Busy is good anyway. There's so much to be done." She pauses and drinks the last of the juice and starts fishing around for her wallet. "Speaking of which, I should probably get to it." She pulls a twenty out. "Does this cover it?" She leaves the bill on the table, thinking of her half, but the math keeps getting blurry. "There /is/ a lot to get done. But. Thankfully. This city's /so full/ of people to do it." Which is obviously why, as Melinda gets ready to leave, Hive is pulling his computer back towards himself. To do work. "Oh, shit, uh. That more than -- here." Frowning. he pulls out his own wallet to glance at the food and tug out some smaller bills to hand back to Melinda. "See you. Take a nap or something." He's nudging the remainder of his food to one side, still kind of absently picking over it while he turns his attention back to Computering. "Hey, thanks." Melinda smiles and takes the change, stuffing it into her wallet and then begins the process of rebundling herself up. "I'll see you later, Hive. Thanks for the company." And with that, she's heading out, tugging her hat back on.