Logs:Ceci n'est pas une work call
| Ceci n'est pas une work call | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia | 2024-11-11 << 🍻? >> |
| Location
<NYC> Guest Room - Le Bonne Entente - Astoria - Queens | |
This is a "standard" guest room, the smallest on offer at here, but Le Bonne Entente's standards are quite high. Careful interior design makes the most of the limited space and keeps it from looking or feeling cramped even with a queen sized bed, nightstand, and a little sitting area complete with coffee table, love seat, and chair, all upholstered in blue velvet. The walls are a pale and soothing sea blue, largely unadorned except for a few small plant sconces and the art mirrors that make most of the copious natural light streaming in through the tall sliding glass doors that lead out to the small balcony. Though the toilet tucked into the hallway corner is fully enclosed, the rest of the bathroom is enclosed in only partially frosted glass that leaves sight lines open. The closet by the front door is not large, but outfitted with a clever organization system. Across from it, the expected minibar (with some less expected but very thoughtful amenities), minifridge, and mini-microwave are cleverly concealed in a sleek sideboard in the entryway. Hive's room is dark, curtains drawn, the lights mostly shut off save for a faint red glow coming from the bathroom stall. The slightly warmer glimmer of the intricate holographic structure around him provides, at least, enough illumination to safely navigate the room -- not that Hive is attempting to do so. He's sitting cross-legged on the bed, working somewhat intensely on adjustments to the developing library blueprints around him. He's dressed comfortably -- fleecey black pants, an ancient tee shirt reading "ceci n'est pas une lune' beneath an image of the Death Star. The door to his room is just cracked, pushed mostly all the way closed though the privacy latch is flipped across the jamb, being used as a temporary wedge to keep it from closing all the way. Though Scott keeps his thoughts to a low, guarded murmur, the hallway here is quiet enough that they may precede him anyway. Even with the door cracked he announces himself before entering, a polite double-knock on the jamb; he lets the door close quietly behind himself. He's dressed plainly -- boots, jeans, buffalo-checked flannel of an indeterminate color in this dim, buttoned up and tucked in; joining the red glow from the bathroom is a much fainter red glow behind his wraparound glasses, glancing around the room with perfunctory quickness. He has a brown paper grocery bag in one hand, which he holds up in silent offer/display for Hive, a faint grimness about, << 🍻? >> Out loud, as he steps a little closer to the holographic blueprints, he's saying, "Where's this going up?" << 🍻! >> thumps harder, harsher, against Scott's mind than even Hive's usual; even so it's easy enough to feel the grateful relief behind it. "Maybe nowhere. Theoretically Asheville, but there's gonna be a lot of bickering about post-Hurricane rebuilding priorities and it might take a while to --" He shakes his head and tucks his stylus behind his ear. "Feels to me like more reason than ever to invest in public services but who the fuck knows how it'll shake out. Promised 'em plans, though, so." He's looking away from the glow of the plans to Scott. "How's the school?" "Thank God," Scott is reaching into the paper bag for a six-pack of locally-brewed red IPA, which he settles carefully on the bed near Hive, "I didn't have any other ideas of what to bring." There is, in fact, something else in the grocery bag, a wintry scented candle Scott picked up out of desperation which he is simultaneously loath to admit, and amiably aware it would be ridiculous to not admit. << It's just called "Snowy Forest" and I don't know what the hell it smells like, >> he supplies as he's fishing a multitool out of his pocket for a bottle opener. Behind the glasses he is squinting at the building plans -- "Community center?" he guesses, before, "Library? Yeah, we'll see, but -- you know what they say, the best time to build a library is twenty years ago, the second best time is today." He cracks one bottle open and hands it over before he takes one for himself. Glances down at the bed in unnecessarily tortured indecision as to whether he should sit before he just pulls the upholstered chair over. How is the school? Scott's answer comes first in an unceremoniously compressed dump of bleak sentiment -- students who've been stewing in ennui or irritability or disagreeability since the election, faculty discussions in the lounge, substitutes in the art classroom Yet Again, though he then ties this up with, "Mm. Getting by as usual, I think. We're all glad to have some good news for a change." Hive takes the bottle and lifts it in salute. "I plan to spend a hell of a lot of the coming weeks drunk," he says, appreciative. He leans over, gesturing towards the candle curiously. "Library. An exciting race to see if they break ground first or if library systems get defunded first." He takes a long swig of his beer during this infodump; through it, his mind presses down heavy and questing against Scott's, pulling back only as he lowers the beer to his knee. "Kids got some good fucking news, they're gonna be laughing a long time off your exciting interdimensional trysts. Hey, if you're really lucky, MID will insert some dude with laser eyes to have a brief fling with their gang leader." His nail scratches at the edge of the beer label. "You talked to Jax yet? Pigs fucked him up. First damn thing he did back here was cook me breakfast, though." Scott lets out a short exhale, just shy of a sigh, as he reaches back into the bag to hand over the candle (green wax in a very prosaic jar, three wicks.) He massages at his temple with two fingers, careful to avoid his glasses, though he doesn't buckle too much with the weight of Hive's mental touch. "Hhgh," is not quite a sigh either, though this one is a little too heavy rather than too light, "Think I'm all tuckered out of exciting races right now." He tilts his head up off his supporting hand with a kind of sheepish oh-go-on grin -- "Yeah," doesn't quite end in a consonant, but Scott manages somehow to give it a clipped-off sound, "they're having a field day. Cerebro's making me compilations. I'll live." He hadn't considered MID at all yet, and though initially he's starting to laboriously decide what sort of portrayal would make him okay with this expy, he cuts this thought process in half with another non-sighed exhale, fondly musing that, << that sounds like Jax. >> "I called a couple times, but it's been going straight to voicemail. It's only been a couple days, I figure family comes before work. I can wait." "If you get yourself a brain tumor you can opt out of all the bullshit races." Hive's advice comes delivered very seriously. "May be one or two drawbacks but --" His bottle clicks lightly against his teeth as he takes his next gulp. "-- Cerebro's gonna rag you harder than all the damn kids, he's too fucking bored." He's flopping back against the pillows, kind of half-turned towards Scott. "Yeah he burns any phone the cops have had. Probably'll have a new one set up soon enough." He tips the bottle out indicatively toward the older man. "And don't be an idiot. Chaotic-ass life we've been having --" He shrugs. "You are family." "Hff." Also not a sigh but, this time, it almost borders on a laugh, as Scott gives serious consideration to this brain tumor thing, rather more seriously than he's granted it yet, when some combination of his disciplined psionic defenses and compartmentalization skills has kept the topic -- buried, if not out of his mind. He does not address it aloud -- "At least someone's having fun," he grumbles, though the gruffness of his tone doesn't trickle down to his thoughts, which are fondly (if unflatteringly) grouping Cerebro into a category of mostly students he's decided to label 'Meme Humor'. He rubs his fingers at his temple again, takes a slow sip of beer as if to water down the odd bitterness of abashment-gratitude-grief rising quietly in his mind, though they don't disturb the deliberately calm surface so much as they leech up from deeper down, spreading like fluorescent dyes. He sets the beer back down on his leg, gives Hive another head-tilt. "Okay," he says finally, "I'll call again." | |
