Logs:Flickers

Flickers
Dramatis Personae DJ, Hive, Steve
In Absentia	2021-10-13 << What the heck could I say to him? >>
Location <NYC> Central Park - The Ramble
It's quiet, this morning, cool and crisp and clear. The sun is still working its way up in the sky but that's little discouragement to a certain contingent of parkgoers -- the determined joggers with or without their dogs, the hopeful birdwatchers, the birds themselves, of course, in the trees and out over the lake. Hive -- too gaunt, too scruffy, long hair tied back in a short ponytail -- isn't really dressed for exercise this morning; he's got no dog, no binoculars, just a thermos held between bony fingers. There's a pedal-assist e-bike resting up against the side of the large rock he's perched himself on, helmet hung over its handebars. He's dressed adequately enough for the chill, fleece lined canvas jacket, thick jeans, boots, but he shivers intermittently all the same. He's staring off past the path, through the trees in the direction of the lake. There's a flash of yellow flitting between the trees, there for a moment then gone. His eyes follow it as long as it is in sight, then return to the boughs where they sway in the breeze. He turns his thermos idly between his hands. Turns it again. Doesn't drink. His leg bounces, jittery; his shoulders hunch a little further in his slightly-too-big jacket. DJ can be felt before he can be seen, most likely -- a bright flash as well, his mind vibrant with a mix of hypervigilance and wonder. Tracking each passerby with a habitual keen alertness; tracking the birds with a warm sense of pleasure. A downy woodpecker on a nearby pine tree, a rose-breasted grosbeak just lighting on a hickory. His pace is already fairly unhurried but he slows further still when he sees Hive. The sharp yearning that rises in his mind is automatic, instinctual; it's twinned with a deeper ache that dislodges the delight of a moment ago as neatly as if it hadn't been there at all. << go I should go I should go, >> he's thinking, even as almost without thinking he's drawing nearer. Steve is jogging -- slow, by his standards, but easily outpacing others out for their morning runs -- along the path from the other directions. His bone-deep exhaustion does not show on his face or in his easy strides but muffles his unquiet thoughts. Without the shield, he feels exposed, though less afraid being injured in a fight than the possibility of one catching him unawares. He's dreading the organizer briefing in the evening but needing the work that will come with it. He's really wishing he could get drunk tonight. He's thinking about Dawson well before he catches the bright wing of the flicker, and well before he spots DJ, his mind hitching even if his steps do not. << Shoulda talked to him before now, >> Bucky's voice admonishes him from the back of his head, << Should at least say hi. >> He's only just decided to do that when he comes far enough down the trail to see Hive. Now his steps do falter. << What he must be going through now. What the next few days are gonna be like for him. What the heck could I say to him? >> He slows to a normal jogging pace and coasts to a stop near the boulder, nodding to both men. "Good morning." He sounds confident and not at all as at a loss as he feels. << Fuck, >> Hive's voice echoes in DJ's mind before the other man's steps start to slow. His mind presses hungrily back into that yearning, stretching out to find the well-worn comfortable channels to fit itself into. "Fuck," comes aloud, this time, when Steve comes into sight as well; the incipient connection drops before fully forming, his hand lifting to press knuckles hard against his eyes. He stares back off into the trees when he lowers his hand, his shoulders still hunched. "The fuck is good about it." DJ's gasp is quick and audible -- not at the intrusion but when Hive pulls back. He bows his head, but continues all the same, fetching up against the side of the rock and giving Steve a small nod. The question gets an earnest contemplation; DJ sifts through and discards several inadequate or outright terrible possibilities (ranging from << sun's out >> to << too cold >> to << world hasn't ended >> << we're not being hunted >> to << his Dawson died today (that's a bad one) >>. "I saw a kingfisher on the way here," he replies, finally, "and a sharp-shinned hawk." << Does he care about the birds? >> << I care about the birds. >> and softer, disconnected, << he looks cold. >> It's a struggle not to remove his warm flannel and offer it. A struggle, too, to look over at Steve after this, tip his head up in a deliberately casual nod. "Morning." Steve's frown may suggest he's also contemplating the question, but what's going on behind his brows is more of a frenetic dialogue. << It's aspirational? That's condescending. Is there anything good about it? Probably -- >> He drags this debate to a stop with, << He deserves better than a platitude. >> "I'm sure there's plenty of good for plenty of folks, but what I meant was just --" He starts to run a hand through his wind-tossed but startlingly dry hair, then stops without really understanding why. "I don't know." << I should go/Don't be rude. >> His nod to DJ was probably meant to be casual but it just looks excessively solemn. "Can't speak for the rest of the day, either. But I pray you find some solace along the way," to Hive, and then to DJ, "and more. Good?" His intonation lifts far more than he'd intended, and he only finishes the thought at a delay, "Birds." It's Hive's turn to gasp -- more of a hiss, short and irritable through clenched teeth, though given this comes at DJ's impulse to offer his flannel it may not be immediately apparent what's prompted it. He curls further into himself, gripping his thermos tighter and scowling down at his boots. "Fuck you," he says -- maybe to his boots. "And your fucking -- birds." He finally does pop open the lid of the thermos, rich coffee smell wafting into the cold air before he takes a sip. "The hell solace is there to find in a bunch of goddamn bleeding hearts tripping over themselves to pretend like he was important to them. Most of them didn't even know him they just want to pretend this means something. And you --" He bites back his words here, teeth grinding for a moment. Swallows the end of the sentence in another gulp of coffee. Doesn't look up at either of the others. "You going?" Wryly, "I think the Lower East Side's the last place I want to be this week." DJ is trying to shove back nearly a year of stares, questions, hey aren't you that --, people looking at him like they've seen a ghost, Oh, Dawson also used to --, faces he feels like he should recognize and who recognize him, a city he haunts and is haunted by. "Figured I'd just..." He hadn't actually gotten farther in planning out his day than the birds, truth be told, a restlessness carrying him out of his current rented room and out here as if -- as if drawn here, really, but he's trying not think about that, too. "Are you going to be speaking?" This is to Steve, now, suddenly curious. << seems like a Very Dignified kind of event -- but that'd be for Cap not for Steve -- maybe he'll just want to be Steve today -- oh a flicker! -- no don't look at it look at the catbird instead -- >> "I guess it's kind of a. Mutant-heavy sort of day. But you were -- close." Steve -- never really stopped frowning, though he is thoughtful now. "Well, not necessarily in the actions. Or the ah, bleeding hearts, well-meaning or not. Think the organizers --" He bites his lower lip. << Their family. >> " -- figure a lot of them are the folks you might actually find solace with. Need solace themselves." The rapidfire flash of his hyper-vivid memories are from the actions last year, the chants and the gas and the burning police station and the furious anguished faces of his friends -- their friends. This time he conquers the impulse before his hand even lifts toward his head. "I'm going. Not giving any speeches. I'll be with the Care Bears." Then quickly adds, "The wellness team. We were close, but --" << -- the cops aren't itching to gun me down in the street -- >> His next breath comes unsteady. "-- if the organizers want me to speak, they'll ask." "The fuck would you have to say, anyway?" Hive's voice is sharper, now, attention riveting in on Steve abruptly. His hand slides down off his knees, his thermos clanging against the rock he sits on. "If they asked. That -- what. He loved you and you -- liked the free therapy? Were enjoying getting your rocks off too much to think about what it was doing to him? You had to have seen," some of the sharpness has bled away into something closer to pleading, "how could you not have seen?" The flare of Steve's anger is quick -- fists clenching and unclenching -- but everything that comes after is not, deliberate only in part. << Stand down, Rogers. He don't mean it. >> It's still a moment before his breathing slows again. "I loved him." His voice is mostly even though too forced to sound calm. "You know that. We talked about it -- you know that, too -- and neither of us knew what was best." << "{I never had a thought that you would be careless with him.} >> It's hard to say whether this is a memory or if the other half of his internal dialogue has suddenly switched to Lucien's voice and diction. << But was I? >> His pulse speeds again, his memories tumbling sharp and disjointed through times he knew he'd hurt Dawson, and the many, many times he might have, trying not to speculate whether he actually had. "Maybe," he says at last, a little more curtly now, his accent slipping, "I'd'a seen better if I could read minds." DJ tenses reflexively when Steve's fists clench, his posture straightening just a touch. He doesn't quite settle back when no blow comes, eyes darting warily between the other two men. His thoughts have strayed to a different Steve, here in New York and another world away, with an ache so fierce for a moment it blots out the rest of the disorganized chaos of his thoughts. He catches himself before he slips too far down the road of wondering what Some Other Life would have been like where he hadn't gotten married and instead -- His head shakes, gaze dropping quickly from Steve and Hive both. There's a strong urge to just vanish that he pushes back down. << Do you need to read minds not to hurt people -- messed up world that'd be -- >> Though here his thoughts have darted to a luxuriously-appointed dungeon cell, to the weeks of angry blowback that followed. "Does reading minds help?" There's another Hive's voice in his head, rough and wry, << Shit, all this time and people still surprise me. >> "Of course not, it's not a fucking cheat code," Hive snaps. "And where the fuck did loving him get, then? Alone and desperate and throwing himself at the fucking copbots just to -- fuck." There are tears bright in his eyes, glimmering but not quite spilling over. He slides down off the rock he's been sitting on, dragging his bike up, thermos forgotten. "I'm sorry, man," he tells DJ, "you traded one goddamn hell world for another." "It may not be a cheat --" Steve doesn't quite stumble over the phrase but can't suppress the lift in his tone. "-- code, but how can it not give you some insight on --" He does not expect to choke up there, but swallows the sob fiercely. Doesn't flinch at Hive's question, either, though his eyes drop to the boulder, only to snap back up. "What do you -- just to what? To keep others from harm?" But his thoughts are spinning along that line, anyway, wordlessly churning at the idea he did send Dawson ultimately to his death. His expression does something complicated, not wholly attached to the horror and pain of that realization. It's a struggle for him to speak again. "I know I hurt him. Thought I'd have time --" The rage does not leave him. It just deftly adjusts its aim. He opens his mouth, but the emptiness that's always in the back of his head has opened wide and there are no more words, not even thoughts beyond a quiet, pleading << no >>. Far away, his body turns. Stumbles back to the path. Takes off, and is gone around the bend in the space of a breath.