Logs:Blunt Instrument

Blunt Instrument
Dramatis Personae Hive, Polaris	2021-04-21 "That -- sounds familiar."
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. The sun has only set a little while ago, and the air feels just a touch chill for late April, but not unpleasantly so for most. Outside in the park below, a sizeable vigil to has finally dispersed, the small knots of lingering mourners drifting away in twos and threes to supper. Polaris is making her own slow way up the stairs, her head light with hunger even though she had just been distributing food and beverages at the vigil. She's still dressed from work--black jeans, black motorcycle jacket and her usual assortment of steel accessories--smelling richly of coffee. Her head is crowded: anger and sadness and weariness all frazzling at the edges with powerful craving for a cigarette and a drink, and the bright elegiac notes of "Balm" from Ryan Black's Shelter. When the song in her mind reaches the chorus she joins it aloud, though so softly that likely no one but Hive hears it in any event. "Each life we lose will steal a breath of wind from out our sails; there is no balm in Gilead, but we will still prevail." She stops at apartment 403 and thunks her forehead against the door by way of a knock. The door cracks open a moment later. Hive shuffles away from it slow, a hunch in his shoulders and his socked feet quiet on the wood floor. He's casually dressed in faded old jeans and a baggy Cornell sweatshirt, his hair grown long and shaggy around his ears. "Blessed day." The rough crackle in his voice joins with the creak of the futon as he dumps himself back into it. "Y'want pumpkin soup? I got pumpkin soup." His hand waves vaguely in the direction of the stove. The huff of Polaris's breath may not quite come out as a laugh, but tired bemusement bubbles clear and luminous through her troubled thoughts. "Under His Eye," she replies. "They missed out, not getting that song on their soundtrack" She crouches to remove her heavy boots. "Pumpkin soup sounds amazing, thank you." << Shoulda eaten before I left Evolve (had shit to do) God fucking dammit, fuck the police... >> She shrugs out of her jacket, a fitted black t-shirt beneath it with two horseshoe magnets overlapping to form a simple heart shape. Dragging herself into the kitchen, she takes down a bowl, then hesitates. "You want some, too?" She lifts the lid from the soup pot and inhales appreciatively. << Damn, I gotta learn to cook like this guy. >> "Still got two seasons to go. Maybe they can license it for when someone dies tragically in their inevitable revolution." Hive shakes his head, settling back with elbow propped on the arm of the futon and his chin in his palm. Though he picks up his remote, he doesn't switch anything back on, TV hovering on the HBO home screen. "Why bother. I'm not gonna stop having leftovers any time soon." His eyes skate toward the windows, jaw tightening. "Probably won't run out of vigils there either." "Je--" Polaris winces and bites back the blasphemy. "Jeepers creepers!" Almost manages to keep her chuckle internal at how silly her non-curse sounds. "How the heck did they milk that many seasons out of it?" << Word choice, Lorna... >> She glances back at Hive, eyes lingering on his motionless hand for a searching, worried moment. << Gotta try to get him out more. It's like he's drifting... >> Trying to steer her mind to solid tasks at hand, she fills her bowl with soup and rattles around for a spoon. "I do appreciate your leftovers. But like, I gotta convince my housemates I'm one of the cool white girls." << ...and impress my future husband? (wife?) Husband. (Master.) >> Her right thumb passes over the silver CTR ring on her index finger. "I wanna fight back. There's so darned many fights, but God..." She shuffles over to settle beside Hive, warm bowl cradled between cold hands. "So hard to stick to feeding folks and doing de-escalation trainings." "Excessive amount of slow-mo." The corner of Hive's mouth twitches. "I dunno if your future Eternal Spouse would be impressed by my cooking. Guess if they're a long term New York Mormon and not a recent Midwest transplant." His eyes shift to track Polaris as she leaves the kitchen, though the rest of him stays a motionless heap. "Tss. What. You itching to get hands on? That --" There's a small break, a small hitch of breath. "-- sounds familiar." "My Eternal Spouse will have to get used to food with flavor if they wanna live with me. And get used to keeping kosher, too." << Would Wendy even wanna live with me if I marry a Saint? >> A twinge of sorrow, sharp and strong, ripples through her. Her breath catches, just for a fraction of a second, at Hive's words. "Used to get very hands on. S'what landed us in Prometheus. Kinda took a break after that, but now..." << There's other labs out there. >> This thought has the oddly deliberate quality of the ones she intends--still somewhat clumsily--for Hive. << Y'all get folks out. Before ours (Blackburn, just say Blackburn) Before Blackburn...you got folks out. >> "Lucky for you Saints are used to all kinds of rules." Hive's finger taps lightly against the remote. Too lightly to actually press any of the buttons; the cursor wobbles but nothing else on the screen changes. << Before Blackburn -- >> His mindvoice is hammer-heavy as it thuds into Polaris's mind. << Before Blackburn, we did a lot. >> There's something dissonant on the we, there, just a crackling husk with not much beneath. << Harder, now. >> Polaris's eyes skate over to the remote in Hive's hand, but she does not reach for it, does not even think to reach for it. She does want to curl up against him, but pushes that aside. Her flinch at the pressure-pain of Hive's telepathy is minute, the reflexive discomfort it once brought long since faded. << We heard about it. (Flicker the one-man motherfucking cavalry...) On the inside. Was all that kept me going some days. >> A hyper-vivid memory flashes through her mind: she's half dragging Jamie, Wendy close beside her, Flicker's bright unique bioelectric signature darting in the periphery of her senses as she shields the huddled group of mutants with a phalanx of broken cell doors. "Sorry," she murmurs, stirring her soup slowly. << There's no replacing him. You think--can it be done, without him? >> Hive breathes out in a slow and shaky exhale. "Fuck. He really was." He lifts his hand. Digs knuckles hard against the hollow of one eye. << Shit. I don't know. A fucking decade. A dozen and change labs. He -- >> He hitches briefly on that word, a little too forced, the remote dropping from his fingers to fall against his knee and then to the couch cushion. << -- been there for every one. We'd been there for every one. Have to rethink a whole lot. Probably not with the people we got, I guess. Dunno. I wouldn't know where to fucking start. >> << Jesus Christ... >> The shake of Polaris's head is not exactly incredulous, a vague wordless wondering beneath on whether it would ever feel normal to hear something like that. << You can recruit? I guess most of us aren't really eager leap back into the jaws of... >> Her own jaw clenches, hard. She finally does reach for Hive, just a hand on his shoulder, the pressure gentle. << You got me. (I'm not just a blunt instrument.) And Wendy doesn't fight, but she's great at figuring out how to do shit. >> A glimpse of DJ, there and gone. Her hand tightens fractionally beneath a wash of grief. << There's no replacing him. >> Firmly. << But there must be other ways. >> Hive's shoulder is tightly clenched beneath Polaris's hand. His eyes flick briefly in her direction. "These days who fucking knows." On the bitter edge of his words an image flashes through her mind, almost-but-not-quite Flicker, sitting across a table at Evolve in a flannel and neat-trimmed beard. He swallows hard, curls fingers against his knee. << Should talk to Jax. Ryan. They mastermind this shit. We -- I -- am just a blunt instrument. If there's other ways -- it's hard to see right now. >> Hive's vision of DJ brings Polaris closer to tears than her own did. She blinks them back and, dropping her hand, swallows a spoonful of soup--difficult despite her hunger. << Even if he wanted to...(does Prometheus exist in his world) >> "No one could ever replace him." Her legs curl up beneath her on the couch, her posture pulling inward. << Sometimes you need blunt instruments. (There is a bomb in Gilead, and we must still prevail...) I'm versatile. >> She finally up the remote and scrolls down to select The Nevers ("New episode!", the app helpfully informs them), glancing sidelong at Hive as the progress bar loads on the screen. << I'll talk to them. We'll-- >> There's some ambiguity in the first person plural, but what actually startles her momentarily out of that thought is a flare of faith, small yet bright, like a star. << --we'll find a way. >>