ArchivedLogs:Getting Through

Getting Through
Dramatis Personae Flicker, Hive, Lucien	2015-03-02 "This isn't a game." (Part of future past TP.)
Location <NYC> The Unicomplex - Harbor Commons - Lower East Side
Flicker and Hive split the basement in this apartment; coming down the stairs emerges into an open expanse of shared space, with a pair of desks on opposite walls and large cabinets holding an enormous library of board and card games. The bookshelves here are packed predominantly with sci-fi and fantasy as well as a mass of roleplaying sourcebooks. The walls are eclectically decorated. A replica of Arya Stark's Needle, a few bright-colored but anachronistically somewhat morbid paintings of Jax's, a Mega Man X poster, a stained-glass suncatcher hung in the window and a collage of feathers framed on one wall. Up near the ceiling there's a large square hanging frame strung with netting -- a nearly ceiling-wide sort of hammock though it's hard to immediately discern how to access it. A side door leads to the bathroom, small but neat in pale stone tile. Towards the back there are walls dividing off the actual sleeping areas, tiny-cosy rooms mostly only large enough for the bed-dresser-closet combinations they contain. It's generally easy to figure out which one of the bedrooms is Hive's from the large amount of /clutter/ contrasting Flicker's perpetually tidy space. Flicker's full bed can be folded up into a recess in the wall, while Hive's larger queen hangs from the ceiling by sturdy black chains. For once, Hive's room is neat. Flicker's had plenty of time to clean it. Hive hasn't exactly been messing it back up. Even so Flicker is tidying right now -- a little compulsively. Maybe a lot compulsively. Dusting the dresser. Vacuuming. Music is playing down here. Uptown Funk. Loudly. Given it's the middle of the day and no-one else is home to be bothered by it -- well, okay. The only other person home, anyway, isn't going to be bothered by it. Hive definitely doesn't seem bothered. Nope. In bed. On bed, anyway. Vacant and glassy-eyed. The vacuuming washes over him. The music washes over him. "Gotta be far gone," Flicker laments. To his vacuum cleaner. "Anyone with a soul can't help but dance to this." Resolutely, Hive continues staring blankly at the ceiling. Undaunted, Flicker continues his vacuuming. To the /beat/. A beat which is soon interrupted by the chiming of the doorbell. Buzzing of the doorbell? How does Geekhaus's front door bell signal its occupants, anyway? It is doing so, currently. Nothing so demure as a chime. Instead it's a brief few measures of the random encounter theme from Final Fantasy VI that sounds through the house upon pressing the doorbell. Though Flicker's in the basement it summons him to the front door in short order. Shutting off the vacuum (but not the music). Flitting up the stairs to grab the door. He's in an oversides knit blue-on-grey striped sweater, brown corduroys, socks. Kind of pale-raccoon-eyed tired face. Tentative smile. Polite. Lucien is outside. No smile. Hands in the pockets of his dark peacoat, a green scarf draped around his neck, dark jeans, black boots. "Flicker." His head inclines in a very small nod. "Forgive the intrusion. If Hive was in I was hoping I might have a word." Flicker's smile falters. Fades. His mouth thins, head dipping. He leans up against the doorframe. Gives a small shake of head. "Uh -- uh." Blink -- blink. "Yeah, Hive's in." He's not moving from the doorway. "Don't think he's feeling conversational." "Ah -- yes. Apologies, I had heard as much." The dip of Lucien's brows is faintly concerned. "That was what I had come about, in fact. I understand that Hive's current condition is complicated -- I was hoping it might be possible for me to get through to him." Flicker's eyes widen. His breath catches. Posture straightens. Before another word he pulls the door open wider, waves his hand to invite Lucien inside. "Don't think that's going to be easy. But if you think you can manage it --" The hope in his voice is restrained. He locks the door behind Lucien and gestures to the basement door. Lucien slips inside, shedding his coat and scarf and shoes by the door. "I do not imagine it will be easy, no." His tone is very mild as he heads towards the stairs. "I can make no promises. But I will try." --- Trying, as it turns out, takes quite some time. Quite a lot of hours of time -- in which the loud music is switched /off/, thankyouverymuch. In which quite a lot of tea is consumed. In which Matt is called in for a while for support. In which Lucien is getting progressively shakier. Paler. A little shorter and snappier as morning slides into afternoon and edges towards evening, on the rare occasions he actually speaks. It isn't exciting work. A lot of sitting. Not a lot else. It gives Flicker plenty of time to go about life, anyway. Some fetching of tea. Disappearing from the house to get to class. And come back. With food, even. Hovering. Trying not to hover and get a paper done instead. Slip in whether Lucien needs a break or not so that he can make sure he's getting food into the both of them, getting Hive to the bathroom. Go back to Totally Not Hovering. Playing League of Legends. Studying. But, okay, he's hovering. Not exciting work and it /takes/ hours (and tea) (and exhaustion) before the vast deep churn of Hive's mind(s) begin to take /note/ of all the prodding at them. Outwardly, there's been no change. But into the glassy calm pool of Lucien's mind something slips, probes, eases in deep. It doesn't feel like much, really; wouldn't feel like anything at all, in a mind less wholly in /tune/ with itself. Just one more piece being added to the giant world-spanning (time-spanning) puzzle Hive has built for himself. Lucien's breath catches sharp. A hiss, irritable, at once displeased and /triumphant/. "{/There/ you are.}" His own mind is quick to latch on to that intrusion, that feeling; there's not much he can to do /shake/ it, to resist it, but he can poke back at it, follow along its threads to its source and /tug/ in hard. (Where he's still Not-Hovering, Flicker glances up from his textbook. Eyes brighter. Only for a moment. Then back to his work; but he's breathing just a little faster, now. His own mind has filled itself with sharp edges. Profanity. A lot of sarcasm.) There's a shiver, a brief mental ripple that trembles back in answer to the tug. The feeling that comes to bear in the room feels like curiosity, feels like a lot of eyes settling watchfully, feels like a breath drawn in and held expectantly. << There you are, >> whispers up in Lucien's mind -- he's resisting the urge to steel himself, to shut down, to close in tighter and flare up in pain. Instead just -- /tug/, tug, tug, mind pulling at mind even as his hand closes around Hive's. Tight grip. One he is not about to relinquish. << Hive. >> This time Flicker abandons all pretense of studying. He turns aside from his desk to blip to Hive's doorway. Lean against it. /His/ breath is held in outward physical echo of that sensation. Too-tense-muscles, too-bright-eyes. In his mind a rope. Anchored, knotted, firm. The words that murmur back to them doesn't sound much like Hive. Doesn't sound much like /anyone/, anything, not a voice but a sigh, a rustle of wind through leaves, a dry shuffling of papers. << We are. >> Not entirely affirmative but not entirely questioning either, soft and musing. Thoughtful. There's a small /batting/ at the rope. Playful? Curious? << (We) >> definitely includes Flicker and Lucien, this time, << are. >> "You are. Here. I rather need you to be here." Small prickles of sensation ripple like pinpricks up Hive's limbs, Lucien's fingers squeezing tighter around the telepath's. His mind pulls in at Hive's again, resisting that /we/. "/You/." An image of Hive, a /feeling/ of Hive (irritating) (uncouth) (/brilliant/) (troublesome) that he holds strong in his thoughts. "You are here." Flicker's fingers curl tight against the doorframe. It's a harder thing to resist, for him. He sinks into it, at first, accepting the /we/ unthinking until Lucien's voice pulls him back to -- << /You/. >> Almost angrily. Fiercer, certainly. Harder. The batted rope reforms into a chain, heavier, less inclined to /move/. << This isn't a game. >> The rustle grows louder. A dry scraping of dead leaves across concrete. The rattle of gravel kicked over itself. << (We/you/I.) >> Curious, again. Something curls sharp hard claws around the chain. Drags itself up -- up -- In Lucien's hand, Hive's fingers grip /back/. The shift of his eyes towards Flicker's is very slow. << ... not a game. >> His grip tightens. In his eyes there's a brighter glimmer; his lips part on a very small squeak of sound that doesn't quite make a /word/. It comes with a ripple again, keening and hurt and twisting deep in both the other men's minds. Slowly, unsteadily, shaky and discoordinated, Hive sits up. A ghost of a smile touches Lucien's lips. "Welcome back," is spoken soft and mild. From a telepath twined into his /brain/ there is no hiding the soft undertone: << For now, at least. >> His hand doesn't release Hive's. Neither does his /mind/, its firm-clenched grip on what threads of the telepath's questing mind he has gripped and held fast. "Not a game, no. But we do need to talk. I hear you're the man to see, about this city's future."