(Some time late in the night of Friday the 20th)
- (Hive --> Matt): Jesus fucking Christ
- (Matt --> Hive): Oh no, what happened?
- (Matt --> Hive): Do I need to eviscerate anyone?
- (Matt --> Hive): Is Chaz's crazy ex-boyfriend throwing pebbles at the wrong window?
- (Hive --> Matt): He comes back here, I might eviscerate him myself.
- (Hive --> Matt): It's not that, it's
- (Hive --> Matt): Jesus fucking Christ
- (Hive --> Matt): Dammit I can't text you a photo from my brain technology needs to catch the fuck up
- (Hive --> Matt): Oh I bet there's a kid here who can
- (Hive --> Matt): no that won't work
- (Hive --> Matt): Fuck
- (Cerebro --> Matt): Apparently this is what passes for technology catching the fuck up [attached: a photo of two young teenagers -- one small and skinny and Chinese and the other bold red-and-purple feathered with a furry dog's muzzle. They're standing, arms folded and heads bowed, by the Dawson Allred Memorial Beehives in the gardens.]
- (Matt --> Cerebro): Thank you!
- (Matt --> Cerebro): Though I think Hive might need to catch ME the fuck up
- (Matt --> Hive): Are you drunk?
- (Matt --> Hive): More to the point, are you getting drunk with the Sysadmin?
- (Matt --> Hive): Anyway, those kids do look kind of shady, but you might need to give me a little more context here
- (Hive --> Matt): Yes
- (Hive --> Matt): A little
- (Hive --> Matt): Kinda getting drunk AT the sysadmin, fucker is not drinking with me
- (Hive --> Matt): DJ gave them a card this summer but I did not think they'd here
- (Hive --> Matt): be here
- (Hive --> Matt): ffs they're already trying to convert Maya
- (Matt --> Hive): I'm so godsdamned curious about you and Sysadmin, but I'm even more curious how these kids earned your ire
- (Matt --> Hive): I was under the impression you handed out plenty of cards over the summer
- (Matt --> Hive): Wait, convert her?
- (Matt --> Hive): Oh, dear
- (Matt --> Hive): I have a bad feeling about this
- (Hive --> Matt): I told you I did not think they'd show the fuck up
- (Hive --> Matt): Joshua's probably drunker he had to be on a plane with them for four and a half fucking hours from Salt Lake
- (Hive --> Matt): no it's probably quicker than that
- (Hive --> Matt): In your fucking. sci fi. nonsense plane
- (Hive --> Matt): I do not know if they left his fucking parents alive and I Did not ask
- (Matt --> Hive): Mm. Some quick and dirty math says it's two and a half hours at the speed limit
- (Matt --> Hive): Shorter if they break the sound barrier
- (Matt --> Hive): Obviously
- (Matt --> Hive): Have you talked to them?
- (Matt --> Hive): The kids, not their Schrodinger's Parents
- (Matt --> Hive): Gods, but they look so young!
- (Hive --> Matt): They're goddamn babies
- (Hive --> Matt): thank god they are asleep now, small break from finding new gentiles to convert
- (Hive --> Matt): I haven't I'm not THAT drunk
- (Hive --> Matt): no wait I shoudln't be drunk and meet them that's bad
- (Hive --> Matt): He was so fucking young when I met him
- (Hive --> Matt): just as annoying, too, you skipped that phase
- (Matt --> Hive): You helpfully trained him up for me
- (Matt --> Hive): I might not have given him the time of day otherwise
- (Matt --> Hive): But he was worth it
- (Matt --> Hive): So, these kids could benefit from a suitably cranky mentor in how to exist outisde of Deseret
- (Matt --> Hive): Which doesn't have to be you
- (Matt --> Hive): But if you do want to meet them, I can be moral support
(There is no answer from Hive for the rest of the night, but some time after breakfast the next morning his next texts come)
- (Hive --> Matt): Fucking hell they are pondering whether they could baptize the hellfire out of Kyinha
- (Hive --> Matt): everyone else at this place is goddamn lucky not to be a telepath
- (Hive --> Matt): I should meet them
- (Hive --> Matt): Unfortunately I'm soiber again
- (Hive --> Matt): sboer
- (Hive --> Matt): S o b e r I stg I am
- (Hive --> Matt): sobriety does not fix this fucking tremor
- (Matt --> Hive): ❤️🩹
- (Matt --> Hive): I've found that sobriety rarely fixes anything
- (Matt --> Hive): But it's probably still better for meeting these stripling warriors
- (Matt --> Hive): When Kyinha fizzles out this winter, he should try to do it in front of them
- (Matt --> Hive): I'll be there soon to fortify you with coffee
- (Hive --> Matt): Fortify yourself you are not ready
- (Hive --> Matt): for this much Jesus
- (Hive --> Matt): Their goddamn Bird has Jesus
- (Matt --> Hive): You were not around Sera while she was studying for her Confirmation
- (Matt --> Hive): I'm multiplying that about tenfold
- (Matt --> Hive): Mind, I am caffeinating very heavily
- (Matt --> Hive): Wait, their bird?
- (Hive --> Matt): You are not ready for the fucking bird
- (Hive --> Matt): I swear Scott almost made an expression at it
- (Hive --> Matt): It probably didn't show but I could FEEL it trying to come out
- (Matt --> Hive): Spooky
- (Matt --> Hive): I can't wait to see the bird
- (Matt --> Hive): I will make so many expressions
- (Matt --> Hive): Should I track them down and lure them your way?
- (Matt --> Hive): I'll urge them to be on their best behivior
- (Hive --> Matt): what the fuck
- (Hive --> Matt): no
- (Hive --> Matt): I'm not ready for that shit
- (Hive --> Matt): Kyinha is reading the Book of Mormon now
- (Hive --> Matt): I feel like he's retroactively developing so many questions about Dawson
- (Matt --> Hive): Oh goodness, I'll track HIM down, then
- (Matt --> Hive): I want to see his face when he gets to "white and delightsome"
- (Matt --> Hive): Sorry, PURE and delightsome, but I'm pretty sure that whole passage is still pretty cringy
- (Matt --> Hive): I wonder how long I can dodge them
- (Hive --> Matt): I mean one of them has bright warning plumage but the other has this whole walks in darkness thing going on so it kind of cancels out
- (Hive --> Matt): ... actually the creeping shadows are PRETTY obvious too
- (Matt --> Hive): Oh gods that poor child
- (Matt --> Hive): I guess that goes for both, but at least their scriptures don't harp on feathers being evil
- (Matt --> Hive): I'm probably not a high-priority target for them anyway, being so white and delightsome already
- (Hive --> Matt): bruh
- (Hive --> Matt): bro
- (Hive --> Matt): friend
- (Hive --> Matt): you are a goddamn fucking witch
- (Matt --> Hive): Mm, but I'm a White Witch
- (Matt --> Hive): Who does no damning of gods or fucking of anyone whatsoever
- (Matt --> Hive): Not on campus, anyway
- (Matt --> Hive): Besides witch, you can't SEE the witchiness
- (Hive --> Matt): [This message consists only of a Tik-Tok, posted yesterday. It's Matt, in his typical-for-work dapper vest and slacks and jacket, wearing a large pointed witches hat and riding a broomstick like it's a hobby horse as he zooms out the door for the weekend. He's cackling like Oz's Wicked Witch: "Friday, my pretties!" and Nanami's slightly-amused slightly-exasperated face is superimposed in the corner as she silently points up towards the overlaid text in pink: 'how you stay this corny and not even be a math teacher?']
The very MOMENT Hive's signal begins to show the three dots that indicate Matt is typing, a second image comes through. This time it is Matt, here in jeans and a red tee shirt with a stylized snake twining around an aesthetic arrangement of arcane symbols and the words "BIHEXUAL WITCH", all in a pastel pink-purple-blue gradient, draped on Hive's borrowed couch hiding his terrible-pun-grin behind a loose splay of fingers.
- (Matt --> Hive): Come now, it's all just a bunch of hocus pocus 🎃
- (Matt --> Hive): Alright, they'll find out sooner or later
- (Matt --> Hive): Probably sooner
- (Matt --> Hive): But consider my extensive experience at rebuffing salvation
- (Hive --> Matt): Oh I've got no doubt you will somehow resist the very slick attempts by these 10 year olds to get you in the temple
- (Hive --> Matt): they might actually be 12
- (Hive --> Matt): I should tell DJ, he probably does not know
- (Hive --> Matt): fuck
- (Matt --> Hive): Oh gods
- (Matt --> Hive): Did he have his own version of these ones, too?
- (Matt --> Hive): The ill-conceived reproductive decisions mapped true for our family across the rift, but we're only five
- (Matt --> Hive): My offer of moral support extends to him, also
- (Hive --> Matt): He did
- (Hive --> Matt): The youngest one is internationally adopted which is giving me a fuckton more questions about the nature of the multiverse
- (Hive --> Matt): He doesn't seem to think that's weird at all because something something sealing something something eternal families
- (Hive --> Matt): But it's really fucking weird
- (Matt --> Hive): You weren't sealed to Dawson
- (Matt --> Hive): Who knows, maybe you were, in some universe out there
- (Matt --> Hive): (Chaz voice) But "destiny" is a more parsimonious explanation
- (Matt --> Hive): There's probably some abstruse quantum mechanical explanation for all this, and it's probably in the Pearl of Great Price somehow
There's a considerable delay this time before Hive's reply.
- (Hive --> Matt): shit
- (Hive --> Matt): if I ever meet the Hive who converted to fucking Mormonism I guess I'll have to thank him
- (Hive --> Matt): I'd punch him but if he's Mormon he probably works out
- (Hive --> Matt): I need a goddamn drink
- (Matt --> Hive): Maybe he didn't convert
- (Matt --> Hive): Maybe he platonically (or not) gay-Buddhist-married his Dawson
- (Matt --> Hive): You want company for that drink?
- (Hive --> Matt): Please
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