Logs:Scary Season

Scary Season
Dramatis Personae DJ/Dawson, Hive, Polaris
In Absentia Egg, Ion, Dusk, Tony, Mirror, Fury, Shane	2024-10-29 "I should have left a note."
Location <NYC> The Refuge - Staten Island
The swath of destruction that the dimensional anomaly carved here in 2020 has been swept away and transformed into a large compound, practically a neighborhood in its own right. Much of the grounds are given over to meticulously landscaped parkland. Here are manicured gardens abutting half-wild groves, playgrounds and playing fields, a swimming pool as well as a fishing pond, and even a few acres of farmland. The residences, from the founder's house to the miniature arcologies and the slightly larger guesthouse, are styled like abstract beehives. So, for that matter, is the vertical hydroponic farm that produces far more food than the earthbound fields. In fact, there is a great deal of beehive imagery throughout, and even absent specific styling, hexagons are still more common than squares or rectangles in the construction of spaces and objects, all of which are thoughtfully designed with an eye toward community and comfort. At the heart of the Refuge is the meetinghouse that crowns the hill where the 121st Precinct once stood: architecturally distinct from most LDS houses of worship, this one looks from afar like an abstract sculpture of a conch shell in gleaming white quartzite. The floor plan is built on a Fibonacci spiral with a relatively gentle rise in elevation for the first four quarter-arcs before shooting up into a steep organic spire that can be seen for miles around. Things have been a little quieter and a little more tense, around the Refuge. Life is still continuing more or less as usual, but the complete absence of their charismatic founder for over a week now has cast an uneasy worry over the community. Hive must be feeling it -- the many texts and missed calls DJ has are testament to his worries -- but where he's sitting right now on a bench beside a pond, he looks untroubled. He's in jeans, workboots, a pale denim workshirt, earbuds in his ears as he sits in silence. There's a commotion up at the house when DJ returns -- a prelude long before he actually makes it down to Hive, a lot of time spent working his way through greetings and explanations and blessings before he makes it to the shower, to change, to make his way -- slow, on foot -- down the hill. He looks haggard, and Hive can feel the stinging aches of several new injuries hiding behind his fresh button down and khakis. Even for him the frenetic disorder of his mind is jangling a lot, but at the moment it's not showing in his quiet expression as he takes a seat beside the other man in silence. Polaris had just one shift at Evolve today, but she's only now making her way down to the Refuge, trying earnestly if not very successfully to leave at least the work-related worries behind her. She descends from the sky exhausted and frazzled in a much-patched black canvas jacket, a red fitted t-shirt with horseshoe magnets overlapping in the shape of a heart, black fitted jeans, and chunky black boots. There's a bright red scarf looped around her neck, a battered messenger back slung around her back, and her jacket and belt and boots are decorated with a great deal of steel hardware she no longer needs for flying but which she still quite enjoys, aesthetically. The moment she recognizes DJ's bright unique bioelectric imprint is dramatic--to Hive, certainly, who can feel the rapid cascade of her relief-joy-anger-worry alongside an only half-verbalized prayer of gratitude, but also to anyone who might happen to be watching her accelerate and re-route. By the time she drops lightly to the ground beside her partners she's...not calm, but has her racing thoughts well enough in hand to stop them blaring too loudly to telepathic senses. They're still buzzing unsettled beneath the noise of her electromagnetic senses, dozens of questions overlapping and resolving finally into a determinedly quiet, "Are you okay?" Hive is not, at first, interrupting his quiet meditation, not even for this exciting return. There's a small quiver, though, the press of his mind reaching to fold in against DJ's and then pull back. He only actually stirs when Polaris descends, plucking an earbud out of his ear and cracking one eye open. "He's doing hella insanity. Please tell me you aren't, too." "I'm not doing insanity," DJ snaps before he can stop himself, and even as he's saying it his thoughts are spinning in so many different directions at once -- at least two of those involve a light amount of violence and several more involve sex. There's a frantic desperate search in some unrecognizable jungle that ended in blood; there's a lot more exhausting lengthy trips than is probably healthy; there's a continued fury that has never quite burned itself out, tight and resentful at being here at all and at the man who loved him (not him) (wrong him) so much that he destroyed the world to find him. He curls his hand under his legs, shaking his head hard. The anxieties aren't slowing -- insane, right, insane, too insane, this is rude this is probably exhausting, they should break up they should have broken up long ago this is selfish this is -- "... sorry. I'm -- tired. I should have." << We've invented these devices >> "Left a note." Polaris's reflexive << I'm not doing insanity! >> is about in time with DJ's but somewhat more believable, and attended by an equally reflexive << (am I doing insanity?) >> The evaluation that follows is somewhat disorganized but concludes that her unsettled agitation is largely circumstantial--for now. Probably she should be sleeping and eating more regularly, but when is that not true? "Nope. I'm at least 75% sane at the moment." Her wide eyes tick from Hive to DJ, linger there for a moment in silent appraisal. She can't read his thoughts, but she knows from crazy. "You should have, but sometimes it hits fast, even for people with slow-ass nervous systems." She finally sits down beside him, and swallows down several fretful questions in favor of, "If you're tired enough to sleep, that might be a good idea." Hive's skinny shoulders are curling inward, the sting clear on his face for a sharp moment even if Polaris can't hear the thoughts that put it there. He takes his other earbud out, takes the case from his pocket to put them both away. "You should both be sleeping and eating more," he grumbles. "Where the fuck did you go. I was this close to paying Mirror to cover for you at work." DJ blips out of his seat the moment Polaris sits down. Fierce blush in his cheeks. Fierce desire in his mind. The sharpsnap tug here (hold her / kiss her / fuck her) not. Really. More fierce than the clashing/competing (kill him / fuck him / take him) that pulls hard and vehement towards Hive. But just right now in the blur of manic delusion and how many days of sleep deprivation, he's lost track, this Polaris and the one that's his wife are very much dancing in and out of conflation in his mind. Less worried, then << (for now) >> about the violent intrusive thoughts or the desire for Hive -- for Polaris, though, a constantly shifting confusion about where the lines of propriety are. "I am very awake." He takes another step back, curls his arm around his chest. "I --" << am a danger to you >> << am so tired >> << (of all of this) >> << am an idiot for coming back >> << (they know that of course they know that) >> << tried to go back >> << (can't go back he's keeping you here) >> << should just end it >> << (don't be stupid) >> << they need you here >> << If you feel a little overwhelmed, take that as a good sign; it indicates that you can sense the magnitude of trust that God has placed in you >> << (some days really wish God would trust me a little less) >> << some YEARS >> << hahaha where didn't I go? >> << nice beaches there >> -- still, it's only a second later that he's continuing. "-- did you meet. Ion's kid." Polaris knows--more or less--why DJ pulled away before she's even clocked the color in his cheeks, and tries to pre-empt the irrational hurt she knew would tighten her chest. << (it's because he wantslovesrespects you dumbass) >> The twinge comes anyway, as does her answering blush, but she manages to keep her posture and expression steady. She's adding "bipolar synergy or whatever" to her list of current mania risk factors and assaying her own appetite with renewed determination if not much enthusiasm. A slow graceful flex of her power reaches down, grounding her in the unfathomably powerful thrum of the earth just in time to brace her against the jarring non-sequitur of a question. "Ion has a kid?" She's simultaneously delighted and horrified by the prospect, searching her memories of ne'ilah and of the memorial service. "Did he adopt an alien?" Hive's eyes fix just past where DJ has blipped, watching-not-watching the splash of the water against the mud. "Are you --" He puffs a sharp breath through his teeth. "Is that a joke?" "No!" DJ's reply is quick and defensive, irritable. Other convergences, now -- Dusk (warm, bright, tuxedo'd, laughing with a very gremlin-looking child by his side flushed, gaunt, t-shirt in bloody tatters, snarling). Ion (wide grin at the farmhouse table, both hands in the middle of some animated tale twirling the cranky director of SHIELD on the crowded rooftop). "... Dusk's kid," is the sharp clarification that comes unhelpfully out of this, "Ion's taking care of them now." Polaris wasn't slouching but she sits up straighter at this. "Dusk's--" The memory that springs to her mind first is a warm velvety soft wing curled around her as the fireworks slowly fade from her vision. Conveniently, her face was already flushed as she censors the rest of this scene with a quickness. Plenty of other images surface to replace it, but nothing in her involvement with their communities either broad or deep has ever suggested to her that he had a child. "Did he know about this kid?" "He didn't have a fucking kid." Hive's reply is just as quick. Just as irritable. He does, at least, look a little chagrined about it afterwards -- just a little, more tired than apologetic. His teeth grind, and when he looks away from the water he's looking at Polaris and not DJ. Then at neither of them, shivering in his thin workshirt and slumping in the bench as he thumps his head against its back and looks up to the sky. "Fuck. Not in this world he didn't." There's a psionic pressure starting once more to push down, slow and questioning against DJ's mind. "I can help with this. You probably should sleep." "No -- I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know," this has started out kind of a reply to the question of Dusk's kid, a defensive assertion of his shreds of sanity, his need for sleep, but now it's just a refrain DJ is stuck on -- two easy words because the enormity of the rest of it is too much to get out. It fades to a whisper, his arm clenched tighter against his chest, and then he gives up on trying. He pulls desperately at that pressure, tumbles into it and with it a week of -- (fracturing) a familiar gremlin face after Shane's memorial // catching up from across years and across worlds (jarring) calling on several connections to get him into the Genoshan wilderness only to find Nothing and barely make it back out alive (crumbling) Tony Stark, insufferably smug but still agonizingly probably right (flickering) increasingly frenzied searching. increasingly pointless searching. growing delusions / growing risks / the secondhand (firsthand) (echoed) memory of the loss that rent hive once / the growing certainty that if he didn't come back now he wouldn't come back at all / (the growing certainty (h/w)e won't do that again) -- everything. His breath shivers out slow. "... my Dusk," is what he manages, uncertainly, aloud. At Hive's offer Polaris goes still, hardly daring to look at DJ for fear he might vanish again. She can't feel the moment of telepathic entanglement, but under the circumstances she can spot the outwardly change in their demeanor and lets out the breath she was holding with a clumsy prayer of gratitude. Her relief brings back awareness of her briefly forgotten weariness. << Yessss tired is good. >> But even this silver lining to her long work day is tarnished by the reason Evolve is spinning out. In this chaotic--but not manic!--tumble of thoughts, she does not immediately parse DJ's next attempt at an explanation. A moment later the words slot into place alongside her complicated unsettled feelings and somewhat disjointed knowledge about the world whence DJ came. She looks up toward the spire of the meetinghouse, rising up steep over the spot where their worlds collided and rent apart again. "There's another rift." "-- You went to fucking Genosha," Hive is spitting this, incredulous, hurt, even while all the rest is tumbling into his awareness. Not nearly so rapid in his processing as DJ(&), all he manages to think is << (oh fuck) >> , a reflexive pull drawing the other men in, and he's rising to wrap his arms tight around them -- oddly only now, with this physical reassurance that they're here, back, with them, is the relief flooding to dwarfing his hurt. "Oh fuck." He's buried his face against DJ's neck and when his voice thuds against Polaris's mind it's a painful slam of feeling. << there was >> << (gone, now) >> and, unsure, unsettled, terrified, << ...could be again. >> "I'm sorry." It feels inadequate but they offer it anyway. Their touch is defter, a gentle addendum; what they know about the rift this summer and what they don't. Tony's speculation about the resonance between worlds and the possibility of targeting his home like they targeted Mojo World. For a time DJ leans into Hive's arms; for a time their breathing aligns. It jars when he pulls back and pulls in a quick and jagged breath. "I think I'm going to -- try and --" << (rest) >>, is finishing this, but there's only a flicker there, ghosting away towards the house. Polaris does not flinch. Certainly she's used to Hive's sledgehammer mindvoice, but this time she barely notices the pain, still too busy losing it over what he'd said with his physical voice. << The single most dangerous place for him on this entire planet and-- >> He wasn't being deliberately self-destructive, sometimes it's just hard to see past the mania. << (but would he have come back, if he'd found an open rift?) >> Her shoulders tighten, as does the grip of her power, twisting at the immensity of the geomagnetic field. It doesn't yield, just lifts her up and sets her delicately on her feet beside Hive. "Am I too much, now?" There's no blame in this, just a flash of DJ hastily putting himself out of reach, recontextualized in light of what he'd been looking for. She doesn't ask if she's extraneous, isn't even jealous, really. But it's the first time she's felt lonely with them. "Don't worry about me. We've got enough to worry about." As DJ(&) blurs away Hive is suddenly unsteady in their wake. He reaches a tremulous hand for the back of the bench but doesn't successfully catch himself there; instead he drops a knee, harder and ungainly with an uncomfortably heavy crack to kneelsit back. << Are you fucking kidding me right now, >> has snapped, in an instant, back to upset, to a prickly irascibility, his own pain (physical, where he just slammed his knee and where a throbbing headache is taking up nauseatingly abrupt residence) mingling so very pleasantly with the inherent stab of his voice. << Did you see (him/them), I'm not worried about you. >> comes overlaid/underlaid in Hive's stress and fear with his own memory perspective -- the growing certainty that if he didn't come back now he wouldn't come back at all / (the growing certainty (h/w)e won't do that again) -- and together with it the simultaneous (understanding) / (acknowledgement) that obviously she couldn't have. It doesn't really blunt the edges of his irritation, given the parts of his mania she could see, but he is settling himself down on the bench properly and mumbling a gruff and nonstabby audible "sorry". His hands scrub over his face, rub slowly at his temples. "This is all too fucking much." Polaris does wince when Hive hits his knee, even before she feels the pain. Her abrupt shift from concern to outrage at his reply to terror at the rest of his reply is a jagged crack of lightning-thunder through her mind. It might be leisurely beside mania at DJ's speed, but it leaves her reeling, and when she lets herself fall back to the bench it's buoyed smoothly by the unfailing strength of the earth. << I've been crazy my whole life, it doesn't look as scary to me >> comes with her (understanding) / (acknowledgement) that mania at DJ's speed--physical and mental--is disproportionately dangerous for its severity. Even if she did get pulled along into an episode of her own, she simply couldn't fly off to Genosha << (or another dimension) >> before her family even knew she was missing. It might be this analysis as much as his apology that mollifies her, but it also amplifies the fear. What she finally says aloud is just a low, vehement "fuck." She roots around in her bag and offers out a small bottle of Advil and a battered thermos covered with stickers. "That's not helping, shit." Hive's reply is sharp, his eyes narrowed and his palms pressing harder to his head. "It's scary when it's him. It's scary when it's you. The dangerous part is not that he's goddamn fast the dangerous part is that he's fucking crazy and he wants to fucking die. That is really fucking scary to me, okay? He could do it in Genosha. He could do it in his fucking bedroom. He could do it with a horde of cops in the Lower East --" He cuts off here with a choking hitch of breath, his palm pressing hard to his mouth for a second. He drops it, jittery, to his restlessly bouncing leg. He takes the Advil but ignores the thermos, downs it quick and dry. Starts patting at his pocket, digging there for a pack of cigarettes. "-- and it's scary to me that you think his fucking speed is the scary part while you're cycling up. This is all just really fucking scary." This time Polaris catches her knee-jerk reaction before it blossoms (pointlessly) (excessively) (concerningly) into anger. "I don't think it's the dangerous part." She keeps her voice carefully even. "I just think it makes all the other parts more dangerous. I also think you know way better than I do, especially when I'm elevated. I will keep an eye on that--" She bites back "but it doesn't necessarily mean I'm cycling up" because it's absurd and overconfident and probably not true and goes instead with, "--but it is fucking scary." She's unscrewed the thermos cap without quite realizing what she's doing, and stares balefully down into the rich fragrant coffee. "Tis the season." "Yeah." Hive slumps in against Polaris's side, shoulders sagging as he taps out a cigarette. "When is it not."