Logs:Freaking Out

Freaking Out
cn: discussion of complicated consent situations
Dramatis Personae Hive, Matt	2021-12-02 "{Thank gods you don't think it's a cheat code.}"
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. Matt's powers precede him, stretched to the absolute limit of his range and feeling delicately around Hive's. His mind is quiet and focused, his concern a distant pale thing dwarfed by the complicated thought processes that make it relevant to him. << Knock, knock, >> comes a few seconds before he lets himself in. His Portal hoodie is unzipped, a seafoam green tee underneath with the graphic of an immense white whale, his blue jeans worn and comfortable but not threadbare and riddled with holes. The ripple of grief when his eyes pass over the board game shelves is quiet, too, and he sets it delicately aside. He toes off his shoes and nudges them aside with one socked foot as he unslings the black satchel he'd been carrying over one shoulder (the zipper tag is shaped like a 20-sided die, in case the patch reading "Bag of Holding" was too subtle). << Do you want me to take the wheel? >> Hive has, for the moment, shrunk back down to one, though at the feel of Matt's approach there's a brief repeat of the erratic ballooning that has been characterizing him all day. Just a quick outward swell that soon recedes. Hive Prime is curled up in the corner of the couch, wrapped in a soft blanket, a mug of coffee gone cold on the table in front of him; his holo-projector is set up in front of him, several different windows open -- multiple browser windows, his email, a complicated set of blueprints with a number of in-progress calculations being worked out on them -- none of which he's paying any mind, instead staring down with slightly puffy and reddened eyes at a blood-spattered copy of the Book of Mormon. He doesn't look up when Matt enters, though the heavy touch of his mind to the other man's is a clear acknowledgment. "M'not drunk." He turns a page, slow. "You want coffee." "Mm. You are swerving a bit, all the same." But Matt does not press the point, only leans gently back into the press at his mind. << So it goes. >> He takes the long way to the kitchen, sweeping up Hive's mug and giving the man's shoulder a gentle squeeze before he proceeds on to start a fresh pot of coffee. He steal sidelong glances at Hive all the while, appraising, taking in his posture, the work, the book, the pressure his own grief shunted aside once more. Caffeine on its way, he wanders back and balances himself on the arm of the couch. "{I can curb my nosy bitch tendencies and just sit with you, but if you feel up to talking about it, I'm eager to listen.}" Hive closes the book, his finger tucked between the pages where he's been reading. He slumps down further where he's sitting, half lost in the folds of his blanket as he sinks down against the arm of the couch, his head resting against the side of Matt's leg. He's not much of an enigma, the very next words out of his mouth: "{-- I slept with DJ.}" The answer comes with another shivering flux of outward growth that he reins back in, slowly. This reply evinces no immediate reaction from Matt other than surprise. "Not what I was expecting," he admits equably. Somewhere down in the glassy depths of his mind, meanwhile, the arcane mechanics of his emotional processing tick away, slow and methodical. "{Did he hurt you?}" This is exceedingly--and, to anyone who knows him as well as Hive does, deceptively--mild. He conquers the barrage of half-formed questions and attending speculation that threaten to follow, draws a deliberate breath instead, and waits. "{Hurt me?}" Hive prickles at the question reflexively. "{Why would you think --}" This breaks off sharply. He clenches one fist hard into his blankets, his breathing slower. There's a stretch of silence. Then, quiet: "{It wasn't like that. Shit just gets messy, with me.}" Matt subsides a little, unruffled and unhurried. "{There is more than one way people hurt each other, no? It can happen unintended--especially when shit gets messy.}" Something lights up in another corner of his mind as he gradually works up to an empathic response. "{And with him it is messy even without this--}" He taps the side of Hive's head gently before settling a hand on his friend's shoulder. "{Did you talk? Before or after.}" "{We -- tried.}" Hive flushes deep, shakes his head. "{Before and after. Kinda just ended in fucking both ways. Shit.}" He lifts a hand, scrunches fingers into his hair. "{He's manic as hell, if anyone should have been thinking this through, it -- that was my job.}" Another brief psionic spasm. There's something rawer in Hive's voice with the repetition, "{That was my job.}" He swallows, half-turns to look up at Matt. "{It just gets so tangled. There's a dozen fucking reasons I don't -- tsss. And when we're us he's so goddamn intense. The fuck does what I want even mean when it's all tied up in someone else's wanting -- you know?}" "{I imagine he was already you at the outset, so really...}" Matt's other hand turns up, the gesture small, kind of helpless. "{You were manic as hell, though I appreciate that probably doesn't make it any less complicated--then or now.}" Finally, a whisper of tender protectiveness creeps into his somewhat flat mindscape. "{I know.}" He deftly sidesteps the tangent just waiting to spin itself off of this. "{I don't think there is any one easy answer. Maybe there is none at all, but if there is, only you and the someone else can discover it, together. If that is something you both care to do.}" He hesitates and makes an obscure mental adjustment, the complex bounds of his care expanding haphazardly. "{How is he handling it? As far as you could tell.}" "{I don't know if I care to -- I didn't want this. I just wanted him to -- not be so alone.}" Hive's fingers trace a habitual path along the side of his head, then drop to curl against Matt's knee. "{Fuck if I know. He's so much like him and then -- not at all. I can't tell. Dawson would have been freaking the fuck out. He was worrying about being rude to Skye but he seemed -- okay.}" He frowns. "{Crazy, but okay. I'm the one freaking the fuck out.}" He sounds extremely indignant about this fact. "{I'm glad you were there for him, but I'm sorry it ended up happening a way you didn't want, reductive as that may be.}" Matt kneads Hive's bony shoulder absently. "{I think that's cause enough to freak the fuck out, even if he weren't--well. So much yet not at all like Dawson.}" He tilts his head, the only outwardly expression of a grief suddenly compounded with a flash of Sera's joy, bright and sincere and so, so achingly like the Sera they lost. His next slow breath doesn't quite dismiss that tangle, but he returns his attention decisively to Hive all the same. "{You don't have to know if or how to talk to him right now. Or ever, really, though you're like to remain in each others' lives for better or for worse, and I imagine you'd both prefer 'better' for yourselves and the other.}" He quirks one eyebrow. << {...whether or not that happens to be a meaningful distinction at any given moment.} >> "{I want to be in his life.}" That part is firm, at least. "{When we're together it's just --}" Under Matt's hand, Hive's shoulder lifts and falls. "{How do you deal with it? Being there for her, when...}" This trails off, a little helplessly. "{I feel like I fuck it up in different ways every time I see him.}" "{Not particularly well.}" Matt's tone is light, and there's little in the way of guilt beneath it, only somewhat irritated dismay. "{I like to think I am kind, and respectful, and engaged, but that's not even the bare minimum I owe a child under my care for any reason. She wants so much more, and I'm not sure I'm capable of giving it.}" His tension is palpable, but his hand resumes its kneading. "{I've been an awful enough big brother to the siblings I actually grew up with, I haven't a clue what to do with Sera, and I loathe the man she wants me to be.}" A sudden mirth bubbles up through him. "{At least I can't read her mind.}" << {I can't read her mind,} >> he echoes to himself, as if he hadn't actually considered that before. "{But maybe you have to involve the other person in order to deal with it, even if you can.}" "{No? You've taught yourself to give a lot that doesn't come naturally. Why not this time?}" Hive's snort after this is irritable. One finger taps at his temple. "{This shit should be a cheat code, instead it's just complicated bullshit garbage. I'm shit at talking to people.}" He grimaces up at Matt. "{Maybe you should, too.}" "{Thank gods you don't think it's a cheat code.}" Though Matt is mostly just bemused, there's genuine relief in him too. "{I'd have to slap you silly if you ended up like Charles.}" Hive's suggestion does not come as a surprise, and he meets it wearily and warily. "{I haven't even got an excuse, I'm brilliant at talking to people. Only I'm worried I'll fuck it up again...}" << {...because I'm a fucking psycho who's fooled everyone, including myself, into thinking I give a shit.} >> He hasn't actually moved at all, but he leans harder into Hive's presence--for just a moment. "{I should, anyway, no?}" He's quiet just a moment, smoothing the fear and frustration away. "{What if we both did?} Accountability buddies?" "{You give a shit.}" Hive's grin is thin and crooked, sharp with amusement. "{I'm a telepath, remember? I know these things. I cheat.}" The amusement bleeds off into something a little heavier, tired but accepting. "Fuck. One day, why can't we buddy up on some shit that's fun. {Learn a new language. Instead of cancer and --} yeah. Sure. Long as you can put up with a few more freakouts before this gets easier." Matt rolls his eyes, and though he does not laugh his answering amusement is plain enough to Hive. "You know what, we should do a fun team-up. You want to learn a language? Weaving? Scrimshaw? We can workshop this." His enthusiasm, at least, seems to happen organically. "I'm a high school teacher who specializes in out-of-control powers. I get paid to deal with freakouts." << {Well. Actually...} >> He emits a thoughtful "hm" as that thought filters down into the convoluted processes far below the surface of his now somewhat messy thoughts. "{You may have to put up with a few, yourself.}"