ArchivedLogs:Worth Telling

Worth Telling
Dramatis Personae Jim, Hive, Micah, Jackson, Flicker
In Absentia	17 February 2014 Dinner with Hive and a distinct lack of news. (Set later in the evening after the hospital.)
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, with a wide variety of menu to cater to specialized diets as well. Well-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. With the New York dusk comes the dull blue shadows between the buildings; bitter New York is doing what New York does best - it sulks in slush with its usual arrangement of rogue manic cheer. Someone tied a red balloon to a news box outside Home; a few scraps of outdated Christmas wrapping paper strewn the gutter and somewhere up the street, two well-dressed children are having a loud trashy argument about a pair of shoes. Jim stands amongst it all like a dirt clod, brown tweed and hair a little dirty, he must have been on his /way towards/ the sewers instead of up from when he received Hive's text, for the notable /lack/ of underworld miasma. He's glowering up at the balloon with a scowl that fires darts, and finally he extracts a set of his office keys to saw through the string like he's /mad/ at it. And then drags it inside Home with him. The smell is warm, of pancake batter and eggs and syrup. The crowd is relatively thin, two old grannies in black leather jackets. A very bookish young man in spectacles. Two teenage girls that look half asleep in the corner. Jim ignores /all/ of them in his search for another party. Hive is part of this other party, gathered around a largish table today rather than a booth. He is slumped in a seat beside Flicker; he's shed down most of his outdoor gear though he's left on a fleecey-soft deep red cap with the Greek letters Theta Tau in gold on the front, pulled down low over his ears. His head is dropped into his folded arms, bony shoulders hunched up where he's drooped over his menu. He's ordered coffee already in whatever time he's already been sitting here with the others, but hasn't yet touched it. He's otherwise dressed typically, baggy Grumpy Bear sweatshirt, heavy boots, faded tattered jeans. He doesn't look up at Jim's arrival, just stays slumped over on the table. Perhaps /sleeping/. Flicker does look up, bright smile typical, though there's a more shadowed look to his green eyes. He waves Jim over, nudging a spare chair out with a toe. He's dressed typically for him, as well; typically /neat/ in khakis, long-sleeved blue polo beneath a black cable-knit sweater, coat draped over the back of his chair. "How many things can you put in an omelette before the eggs just give up on holding it together, do you think? -- You brought a balloon!" This brightens his smile even further. Micah is seated on Hive's other side, expression somewhere between concerned and simply /tired/. His hair is late-in-the-day mussed combined with having just been under a wool hat on the way over. A brief stop home has him in not-work clothes: Batsignal hoodie worn over a powder blue Totoro face T-shirt, rainbow patchy jeans, and hiking boots. His neon orange crutches are lashed together in their nylon holster and hanging from the back of his chair. One hand reaches out to rub at Hive's back, now that the telepath has flopped over the table. "Depends how many eggs are in the omelette," he provides in answer to Flicker's question, his other hand lifting to wave in greeting to Jim when Flicker draws attention to the man. Jackson is probably the /easiest/ of the party to spot, bright all over. His hair is multicoloured, fading from black to purple to several shades of blue to bone white, makeup glittery blue, skirt long and decorated in peacocky shades of paisley over black leggings, shimmery purple Doc Martens, long bell-sleeved black shirt with black-purple-blue 'believe in faeries' t-shirt over top and rainbow-striped hoodie over that, bright multicoloured armwarmers, enormous mirror-lensed sunglasses with purple-chrome frames. He sits between Micah and the empty seat, fidgeting with his menu and bouncing with a restless energy, lifting a hand to curl glittery nails to Jim when Flicker waves. "... I always put too much things in my scramble so it's more Stuff than tofu but that ain't really an omelette. Only jus' a giant mess. Hive-honey y'gotta wake up an' eat a food. Jim's here. He -- brought you a balloon." A balloon which is changing colours, its red growing black and purple swirls through it. <<-yeah fucking right, Hivey, you'll sleep in public the day I stop being nosey. >> Jim is thinking /at/ Hive as he draws into range. Even /while/ thinking of trying to fish around in Hive's deadman pockets to steal his wallet. Probably not, since he's flanked in on either side by << his bodyguards. >> "Yeah, just don't get all french and tragic about it," he shoves the bombling-bouncing MULTI-COLORED balloon at Flicker... to free up his hands so he can climb out of his jacket, interrupting the approaching waitress with the word "Coffee." before she has a chance to even ask him his drink preference. In his otherwise immobile features, his blue eyes rove restlessly, from the shadows in Flicker's face, to Micah's rubbing hand on Hive's back, the old familiar pit clenching in his center. He drops into the seat beside Jax, both fists pressed on the table, "So who died." << and dear fucking god tell me someone didn't actually die that'd be just perfect. >> "Fuck you I'm asleep," Hive grumbles down into the pillow of his folded arms, still not lifting his head. And in French, as Flicker takes the balloon, "{Your /face/ is pretty tragic, man.} -- Micah'd be a shitty bodyguard he's like a buck twenty soaking wet and a cripple and I don't think he throws a punch any better than I do. Jax is the one they pay for that shit. Jax, you want to be my bodyguard? I can be your -- long lost pal." Beneath Micah's hand, his back tightens uncomfortably at the question of dying. "You did, motherfucker. Weren't you at that party?" Flicker takes the balloon, shifting Hive's jacket enough that he can tie the balloon-string to the back of Hive's chair. "Nobody died," he answers, soft but firm as he tugs at the string gently to make sure it's relatively secure. "Though Hive's /going/ to if he goes another day without eating, your funeral was his last meal. Eggs benedict? Home fries?" Hive nods at these suggestions. Pulls his hat down further over his eyes, and stifles a yawn against his arm. "-- Florentine," he amends. "Not feeling very. Meaty." "I dunno, I kinda like tofu scramble so full of other stuff that there's a good /crunch/ to contrast with the softness of the tofu. I'm gettin' mixed berry pancakes with a side of cheesy-garlic grits an' some orange juice," Micah announces because surely everyone wants to know what he's eating. Food is that exciting. "Awful talkative an'...kinda insultin' for a sleepin' guy." For all that he doesn't look terribly offended, though he does wince a bit at the use of the word 'cripple'. "Nobody died," he echoes, as if the reassurance is necessary. His hand presses more firmly in its circles on Hive's back. "Only if y'gonna match what the Clinic's payin' me for salary an' benefits, Al," Jackson answers Hive lightly. "Then I'll do all the bodyguardin' you want. Oh grits I always want grits." He worries at a lipring with his teeth, looking down over his menu and flipping it over. Then back over again indecisively. "Oh he's had /plenty/'a practice bein' insulting, he can be insultin' in his sleep no problem, m'sure." He leans over past Micah to thwap Hive on the head with his menu. "Don't get a pass on it, though, so watch your tongue. S'my husband you're sleep-dissin'." The outwardly teasing reprimand comes with an inward sharper prickle of concern << no dying no dying /no dying/ >> that he /chokes/ back down in an effort to /make/ it stay teasing-light. He bounces restlessly in his seat again, the next smile that touches his face quicker and more genuine in his typical hummingbird-flit from one thought to the next. "-- gosh it's been months an' I still get tickled every time I get t'say that. Husband-husband-husband. Jim you're still lookin' spry for a dead guy." There's a flat stare given round the table from Jim as the consensus that no, in fact, no one has died comes in. "...Great. /Good/ t'know." For some reason it fails to bring him /comfort/. Then again, it's Jim - if he's ever really comfortable something may well be grievously wrong with him. He's watching Micah's hand on Hive's back over the top of his menu with something pitching sharper in his chest - the exact shape of it blunting with a inwardly brutal mental folding; cramming into a mental obscurity of quivery ancient leaves and kind of angry latin and a press at /himself/ of << chrissakes jimmy look at them dead on their god damn feet. >> "Don't use that fucking French language-of-love bullshit on me. Y'just can't see it yet, Jax, this old cadaver's rotting from the inside out." And he means to just leave it at that. He feels himself entirely intend to. At which point, leaning back from the menu to squint at the text he gravels bluntly, "So you gonna fucking tell me what's going on or do I start guessing." Or stalking. "I don't think that was love," Flicker says apologetically to Jim, "I think he just called you ugly." "/With/ love." Hive says this angrily into his arms. "/Fuck/ you what's going on is we're eating fucking breakfast." His hands come up defensively to protect his head from Jax's vicious attack, flinching down from it with a sharp twitch as though the small thwap genuinely hurt. "Fuck you too every damn person at this fucking table's a goddamn cripple one way or another." He slowly pushes himself a little bit more upright, wobbly-struggly with the motion, and lifts shaking hands to also-slowly fold the soft edge of his cap back away from his eyes so that he can /see/ again. Then promptly slump right back down against the table, though this time at least it's with chin propped on arms rather than just faceplanting into them. "S'nothing to fucking tell," he grouches, hand lifting to slide fingers beneath the edge of his cap where -- probably there should at some point be choppy-shaggy hair sticking out. But isn't. He doesn't push the cap up at all; it stays down over his ears, but when his fingers trace their habitual path against the side of his head they just rasp with a soft whisper of skin on skin. "-- Not. For a few days yet." His teeth grind slowly, eyes lifting briefly to Flicker in something almost imploring before they just close again. Flicker reaches over to straighten one folded-up edge of the cap where Hive's fingers have turned it in crooked. "S'been a lot of doctoring. Few more days till test results come back though." Micah waves Jax's menu away, though a little slow on the uptake--he does this /after/ Jax has already made contact with Hive's head. "Oh, don't bop 'im in the /head/, Jax. I know he's kiddin'." He chuckles a little at Jax's repetition. "Overprotective /husband/. This is what happens when y'marry the hired muscle y'know..." And the chuckles descend into giggles, briefly. They end abruptly with Hive's wobbly movement. "How 'bout we get y'some juice t'get some sugar in you while we're waitin' on food, Hive? Y'look like Jax after a late shift at the Clinic with the not-eatin' wobbles." His hand stops moving for just a moment when Hive says there's nothing to tell. "Honey, you've gotta...actually tell folks what's goin' on eventually. At least your /friends/." "S'my job t'be overprotective. Kinda literally. Hard t'jus' turn that off. An' oh-gosh s'kinda true ain't it 'tween the lotta us we're jus' chock /full'a/ holes an' --" Jackson presses his knuckles to his lips, stifling a laugh, "-- forget of-sound-body there sure ain't a one of us here of sound /mind/ do that count?" He bites down on his lip harder when Hive denies there being anything to tell, though he doesn't contradict this. Just frowns, and lets Hive and Flicker give what answer they will. He sets his menu down on the table, glittery fingernails tapping against it rapidly. His thumb curls inward, brushing slowly against the missing stump where his last finger should be. "Yeah well, just for that I'm not joining your fucking boyband." Jim rocks back in his seat and /glares/ amongst the array of lean young men seated before him in all his blocky-bodied, thick-necked, unshaven and /grizzled/ glory. The deep scar worming down the side of his face drags out a possibly unintended sneer when his face pulls tight, as they talk amongst themselves. His coffee arrives and he needn't look at it to curl his mangled hand around it. Sitting silently, watching the movement of Jax's thumb during his first sip. "-a lot of doctoring," he repeats, low enough that it may as well be to himself. Raises eyes to watch the imploring look Hive gives Flicker. His fingers tighten around his cup. Pulse thudding in each latin verse. "How /much/ doctoring. What tests." "Hey my mind's the gorram soundest it's the rest of you that're mad as loons." Hive drops his hand, letting Flicker tuck his cap back into place. "I think you'd make a good drummer," Flicker tells Jim quietly. "Dusk's already bass though." "/Eventually/." Over the banter, Hive snaps this abruptly back to Micah sharp and annoyed. "Eventually like when /I/ even /know/ something worth fucking /telling/." He slumps forward further, shoulders coiling up tight. "Until then there's not a fucking -- goddamn thing to." His shoulders tremble, head bowing back into his folded arms. "Can we just not. It's just sitting and fucking waiting. Why the hell would I have to just make all my /friends/ -- sit and fucking -- waiting is fucking hell, man. Once something's fucking /going/ on I'll. -- I'll. I'll." This cuts off, the trembling of his shoulders worsening an his words faltering into a familiar /fumbling/ until he gives up the struggle for words altogether. There's a jarring mental /push/ outwards, /scraping/ harsh claws across the others' minds in a rasp that, while it comes without the benefit of language, has an angry-abrasive /feel/ that feels a lot like a mental middle finger. Another brief sense of struggle, reaching for words for a moment before he gives up, instead lapsing back into the nonverbal communication of just blunt-force shoving concepts through with all his usual sledgehammer-delicacy, all the more /refined/ today by a twisting-sick panic and a crushing heavy dose of post-operative pain. (It /should/ be being helped along by some heavy-duty pain meds, given that he's had a hole drilled into his skull. It /isn't/, given that he has no one available to play psionic babysitter and doesn't, therefore, tend to take anything more intoxicating than an ibuprofen. Probably Dusk will get some good mileage later on out of his prescription.) << (CAN WE) (JUST) >> << (SHUT. UP.) >> << (EAT.) >> "Oh, not t'worry, s'kinda endearin'," Micah assures Jax with a little smile. "Also flat-out sanity's borin' an' generally overrated." He grins at Jim. "We're startin' a band? S'Ryan in?" A sigh pushes past his lips heavily at Hive's response, eyebrows dragged down and together with worry as the telepath loses his words once more. His hand stops its circling, just resting heavily on Hive's back as if supporting him physically. "We can eat. Order, at least. I'll order you juice. 'Til things get here." He doesn't push anything else. "Ryan's too much a bigshot, but if we're lucky he'll let us open for him some time." Jax stops, head ducking with an abrupt /cringe/ at the sudden slamming-crushing pressure in his head; his fingers lift, raking into his colourful hair as his palms press to his temples. "W-oah. OK. Food -- first?" He looks up hopefully to catch the attention of their waitress. "I don't think /none/'a us been overly burdened with an excess'a sanity." "You think this hasn't been waiting /already/, without - gnnnngh," Jim had a perfectly good dry-terse thing going on before he's also clenching in, leaning his gritted face down to press his forehead into his palm. Where shielding buckles under pressure, the man within the snarl of roots is, in some corner of his mind, seizing fast on the edge of the table, throwing it aside in a shower of cups and cutlery, getting it out of the WAY to (memory: a bench at night, the smell of Thai food; a memory: the face of a text message, a wash of ice flakes through the heart with such simple words on a screen '-they shot people-' '-i cant feel him-'; a bony shape collapsed in a stoop, numbly tapping at a cell phone surface) do… something. Takegrabshelter. Probably rash, possibly violent. PROBABLY embarrassing. It roils together, the responding echo of panic and frustration, and just shoves back at Hive's mind, digs in. Looks from Hive's hat, to Flicker at one side of Hive, Micah at the other, and then down at the table, something giving out in his shoulders and pulling tighter in his jaw. When the waitress heads over, he hands over his menu to (AT) her with a shake of his head - no order, kthx, he's got coffee, "Psh, speak for yourself, Jackie. I'm not even with you people." There are claws, curling out, curling /in/, digging hard at the minds around him with an oddly /gentle/ whisper of words, soft-sussurating in bizarre contrast to the digging-painful mental barbs hooking-shredding their way into his friends' minds. << waiting-waiting-waiting so-much-fucking /waiting/ wait -- >> Hive's eyes tick upwards. Latch on to the waitress. The mental claws vanish, abruptly. He lifts his hands, clamping both of them down against the sides of his cap, squeezing in hard as he lets a slow breath hiss out. "Oh. Man Bria hey wow." He even summons up a smile from somewhere, wan and shaky as he drags a hand downward and turns over his menu. "'kai get my usual?" And then slumps right back down against the table. To wait for his dinner.