Logs:Differently Sheltered

Differently Sheltered
Dramatis Personae Ryan, Skye	2023-11-20 "You want a house?"
Location <PRV> VL 403 {Geekhaus} - East Village
This is a small, two-bedroom apartment, the living room semi-open to the kitchen and dining area, a single bathroom situated between the doors to the bedrooms. The common areas are beautifully appointed with solid, matching handmade wooden furniture in intricate geometric mosaics. The kitchen table is ringed with coordinated but not identical chairs, two of them modular with low scooped backs, designed with winged bodies in mind. The wide, low coffee table fits neatly into the corner of a modular sectional couch, and the immense television is enthroned in an entertainment center that also houses various consoles and video games. The walls are lined with bookshelves laden with comics, roleplaying supplements, board games, speculative fiction, and a grab-bag of technical texts. The walls in between are adorned with some framed posters of classical science fiction and fantasy media along with a few pieces of gorgeous if unusual original art. Geekhaus is usually pretty quiet these days. Left to her own (extensive) (awesome) devices, Skye keeps to her room for the most part, and though the kitchen gets messier and cleaner in fits and starts the living room is virtually untouched. She's in there now, dressed in an oversized black hoodie with Rising Tide's crashing-wave-anarchy symbol in red, black leggings, and fluffy pink-and-cream house socks. Reclining in her luxurious chair, she's bathed in the cool light of her many monitors, an extensive custom holographic input interface curved around her, though all she's doing with it at the moment is scrolling. And scrolling, and scrolling, the flick of her fingertips casual but her focus intent on the arcane text file in front of her. A pair of massive headphones around her neck are piping cheerful chiptunes quietly into her hair (grown out long, now, and loose) rather than loudly into her ears. There's no knock at the apartment door but there is a Signal notification, Ryan's text consisting only of "👋🏽 ". Ryan is waiting outside in custom hybrid wheelchair with a matte black frame and (at least currently) red cushions. Dressed in a gauzy black button-down over a skin-tight red tank, slim black trousers notably less-skin tight than his usual preference with zippers running the entire length of the outseam, and black ten-eye lace-up boots with long zippers on their insides. He's removed his jacket (red and black denim adorned with a wealth of patches) and is fiddling restlessly with its zipper where it's folded in his lap. The Signal chat Skye had open blinks for her attention, and she doesn't even bother checking her security system, just waves interface and file away in one gesture and darts out of her room as Matrix code pours down to cover all of her screens. She pulls the door open and starts forward, then realizes perhaps she doesn't have enough space to negotiate a hug through the doorway, or maybe that he doesn't have a (visible) bodyguard, but whatever the reason she's waving him in with a quickness instead. "Fuck," she says eloquently as she closes the door behind him, the single word crowded with relief and anger and loneliness and joy. Now she's bending to reach for him, but hesitates half-way and kind of hovers. "Is it okay if — can I hug you? Do I need to be gentle? I can be gentle." The words jangle loud with worry and guilt and self-consciousness. Ryan's eyes go just a little wider at that greeting, but he ducks his head and pushes himself inside, only offering an answering: "Fuck," once the door is closed. His brows scrunch, his smile a little more tentative than is usual. "Shit, y'ain't gonna crush me." He's saying this as he reaches an arm up to complete this hug -- fiercer, harder than might be quite comfortable at this angle -- but when he pulls away it's with a sharp gasp. "... fucking hell I think you broke my spine." Skye's startled "oof" when Ryan hugs her is touched with pain, but she squeezes him back just as fiercely. She turns her face against his shoulder, which doesn't really muffle the hitched breath that speaks a different kind of pain, that makes her fingers curl in tighter. She lets go reluctantly, and her breathing has evened out just enough to stutter again at his exclamation. "See, that's what you get for underestimating my gains." Though there's just a trace of stubborn worry in the midst of all this bravado, she doesn't dignify it with any further anxious questions. "I missed you, jackass. You want coffee?" She glances in the direction of the kitchen, brows furrowing critically. "Or booze? I have so much booze." "What if," Ryan is suggesting very seriously, "we put the booze in the coffee." He is grimacing just a little as he navigates the living room, pulling up to one side of the couch so that he can use the arm to lever himself out of the chair and promptly thump back down onto the sofa. "Missed you, too. It's been --" His grimace deepens and his head rolls back against the couch cushion. Then to the side, eyes sweeping the disused living room with a growing frown. "... you even live here, still?" "Shit. You're a genius!" Skye threads her fingers into her hair — only remembering her headphones then, lifting them from her neck and hanging them over the handle of her bedroom door as she passes. She's heading to the kitchen to start the coffee and then nudge around the bottles of liquor clustered on the counter. At Ryan's question she looks over at the living room and gives a noncommittal "eh" full of weariness and heartbreak. "I guess I've been spending a lot of time at Mom's. And I roll with the Freaktown Safety Squad sometimes. But this is still where I store my organic vessel, otherwise." Notably, that isn't a "yes", and there's a sardonic, self-deprecating amusement to her summary of her life currently. She picks up a bottle of Blackbeard's spiced rum and tilts it to judge the level, then wanders into the living room with it. "Are you going to stay? In New York, I mean. For a while at least?" She's nervous and hopeful and embarrassed, and tries to cover it, looking down at the bottle she's rolling between her hands. "I think I've been swigging this straight from the bottle, but if you don't mind that, it does go good with coffee." In answer Ryan just reaches a hand out, making a small grabby motion for the bottle. Coffee, what coffee? Probably there will still be some rum left by the time the coffee is ready. "Makes sense," he says of her non-answer, "we are past the season for living with this many ghosts." He's giving a small eh at her question, his exhale sharp. "Can't go home till my security team clears it, anyway. Which might be never with all the bomb threats. Seems extravagant to buy a new house already but probably living somewhere people don't know my address yet would be good. If I get a new house, though," he promises, "it'll be in New York. How's your ma?" Skye uncaps the bottle and takes a gulp herself (if she wasn't sure before, she sure has swigged from it now!) before passing it to Ryan. "Yeah. Hive hasn't even been back, and I don't blame him. You know he's been crashing with Renowned Human X-Geneticist Charles Xavier?" She may not blame him, but she's certainly not delighted with the situation, either. "Again, I guess. But, you know, consciously this time. Way nicer room." Her fingers twitch and she shoves both hands into the front pocket of her hoodie. "'Extravagant'? Please, you're already so behind the curve, you're practically homeless by rich people standards. Extravagant would be like, buying an island. Where are you staying, anyway? Or is this like an opsec situation. If you tell me your security team will send someone to make me forget." She pulls in a deep breath and looks up at the ceiling. "She's…not great but, you know. Alive." There's weariness and sorrow and fear there, but she's made her peace with each, as much as she can. "Her housemates are taking great care of her, honestly. She wants me to move in with them, which like…there just isn't enough room. Also, she wouldn't let me do drugs, or cook, or use the Internet, probably. " Ryan's complete lack of spittake as he swigs at the rum suggests that he had some previous inkling of Hive's current living situation. He gulps deep, wincing nevertheless at the mention of Xavier. "Hey, he's done one whole terrorism now, he's -- almost kind of tolerable." He grips the bottle tight but does not take another gulp. "... Flicker's baby brothers just enrolled." For this news, he passes Skye the bottle back, and the mention of Jiaying's restrictions puts a rueful smile on his face. "Okay, the internet part I understand." He's looking contemplatively at Skye, though. "You gonna move out? -- You want to move out?" Skye's eyebrows lift up, up, up. "Oh my God, did they end up in the labs, too? Did their parents even notice?!" Horror, rage, and a deep, familiar ache. She does not look at the closed door of the currently unoccupied bedroom. Just tips the bottle back, swallows, then does it again before handing the bottle back. "Shit. I was kind of low-key thinking I'd stick it out until Hive has a more permanent place. Help him move out so he doesn't have to come back here when that happens." She shrugs. "But I don't think it's good for me to stay here alone. Like, I hadn't really thought of it that way until you said, but I'm pretty uh. Ungrounded? Something." "Ffff no their parents just -- I don't fucking know. Maybe they're doing penance or some shit by not being complete evil hosebeasts to their remaining mutant kids. One of them has some kinda light power. Shadow power. Jax is --" Ryan waves a hand vaguely in the air. "Giving some kinda coaching in how to be a good nightmare." He has set his phone down in his lap but now he turns the screen back on, swiping through Redfin kind of lazily. "Doesn't sound good. Hive can afford a damn moving company. You want a house?" Skye blows out a long breath of mostly relief, but plenty of anger, still. "Man, if they're in high school now…they never even met him. S'fucked up. At least they're in good hands now — is he going back to work? Jax, I mean." She drifts back into the kitchen and returns with two mugs of coffee and a carton of oat milk (no sugar, but the rum is pretty sweet) that she somewhat clumsily deposits on the coffee table. Maybe she should have eaten something before she started chugging rum. She drops heavily onto the couch beside Ryan and peers at his screen. "A house? Jesus, I barely know what to do with a living room. Though maybe," she's musing, though not very hopefully, "I would if it weren't this living room. Are you offering to buy me a house, Ryan Black? While you're homeless yourself." "He's not teaching this term but he's meeting with his advisees again and -- I guess shadow-kid, too. Half back to work. I'm just glad he's --" Ryan's jaw tightens and there's a brief slip or fear and regret that spills out from his words. He pours the rum generously into his coffee. "I like to consider myself differently sheltered. Shit, have you been out to Luci's hotel, s'the swankest place I've ever been homeless. -- Could be a condo," he offers, brighter, "look, this one's got a great roof deck and -- shit, right next to the police station, nevermind." He's swiping again. "... at this price I think that one must be haunted, too, you want to trade for different ghosts? Oh damn, waterfront view?" He's waggling the phone temptingly in Skye's direction. Skye's lips compress and she presses her shoulder against Ryan's in silent solidarity at that spill of fear. She doctors her own coffee liberally with milk and somewhat conservatively with rum. "Oh yeah, I've been seeing clients there, it's pretty awesome. I probably wouldn't want to live there, though, and I'm not even famous." She studies the haunted waterfront property. "I'm not into living alone either, so if the ghosts are chill I could use the company. But with my luck they'd be like. Shitty racist ghosts who leave their ectoplasm all over the place or constantly try to debate me about dialectical materialism or something." "There's no chill ghosts only filter on here," Ryan is complaining with a small huff. He swigs at his coffee, fingers clenched hard around the mug. "If you're in the new-roommate market I'd offer for you to move in with me, but nobody should have to deal with that level of absolute insanity." His finger flicks idly against the side of his phone case and he leans back against Skye. "-- Though I shouldn't assume, new house doesn't mean new roommate. No fucking idea when that motherfucker will be on his feet again, though." He stares down into the coffee, brows wrinkling. "Feel like I still have no fucking idea where we go from here." After another gulp: "Guess we could work on dismantling the rest of the prison system." Skye curls her legs up onto the couch and pulls one of the soft fleece blankets (Aperture Science!) over, offering Ryan half of it. "Nobody has to except you, but nobody should have to deal with that alone, either." This is kind of wistful, kind of worried. "Living with you sounds really appealing right about now, and maybe that's 'cause I've been here alone since the raid, and —" She chokes up unexpectedly, in a confusing tumble of grief and terror, and draws a slow, steady breath before continuing. "Obviously I don't know what living with you is really like, but if that's a serious-ish offer I'm down to talk about it, anyway." She drinks deep, then refills the mug with more rum. "Shit, I'm down to talk about what stuff we break next, too, but we're not actually even done dismantling Prometheus yet." She glances over at her open door. "I've been chasing some loose ends, and I keep meaning to compare notes with B, but…" She can't finish the sentence, but maybe the sharp stab of grief is explanation enough. "Damn. Why does the fucking empire have to be so hard to burn down?" Ryan pulls the fleece over his lap, shifting to adjust a little more comfortably. "Living with me only sounds appealing until some paparazzo is picking apart your life to prove we're secret lovers and a horde of stans have vowed to kill you and the guards have to check your van for explosives any time you want to go somewhere but," he's a little wry here, "it's a serious offer." He shifts the mug to his other hand and curls his arm around Skye's shoulders. "Nobody ever thought we'd do this much dismantling, and here we are. Rest of America's only a matter of time."