ArchivedLogs:It's All in Your Head

It's All in Your Head
Dramatis Personae Micah, Hive, Jackson, Flicker
In Absentia	9 April 2014 A successful, but not very /good/, night. (Part of the Perfectus TP.)
Location <NYC> Rang Phueng Design – SoHo
Located on the third floor of a narrow brick-faced office building in SoHo, the lobby of Rang Phueng Design is a comfortable place to wait. There are a number of paintings hung on the walls, brightly colored though somewhat fantastical cityscapes. A large aquarium on one wall, clean and carefully tended, hosts brightly colored marine life swimming through a number of plants and coral. The table amid all the large cheerfully blue-and-silverygrey microsuede couches has a sampling of architectural magazines as well as popular ones, magazines and newspapers generally actually up to date. The receptionist desk is a large black wood one, though it is unmanned. Off to the side a small table has a little refreshment stand set up, a Keurig coffeemachine with a large selection of tea-coffee-cocoa choices and a minifridge beneath the table with juice and water and soda. Through the door in back of the lobby is an enormous workshop space, wide and airy. Spacious drafting tables take up much of the center of the room, a number of glass-topped desks edging the sides though only one of them against the back windows actually boasts a computer. Walls painted white and paneled in glass turn most of the wallspace into whiteboard, generally covered with notes and measurements. The back wall's large windows look out onto the streets. Two side doors lead to office space at the side. One leads off to an office space that, though comfortably large, is dwarfed by the workshop beside it; currently unfurnished, it is just a bare empty sweep of potential uses. The other door, has been given -- no name plaque, yet. Just a tacked-up piece of paper reading "J.M. Investigations". Micah has looked better. He is still in perfectly lovely clothing, cobalt-blue button-down over grey slacks, dress shoes on his feet. Well, his foot. And that other foot. That seems to be having trouble with /footing/, the leg attached to it failing to place it correctly in a tottering sort of Bambi-on-the-ice gait pattern. His bright orange forearm crutches are at the end of each arm, assisting him with not just falling on his /face/ as he alternates between his knee buckling every third step and just holding the joint rigidly in extension. Giving up, finally, he simply tries to keep the foot off of the ground, swinging along like a person with a /fracture/, sans cast. His hair is spiked about messily from its previous neat-combing, entire face a red, puffy mess of crying that hasn't completely stopped yet. As he reaches Hive's offices, he takes a sudden detour toward the bathroom. Followed by several minutes of retching. The closed doors to Hive's offices -- stay closed. But, after some minutes of this retching, they quietly unlock. And then stay closed. There's a slow /pressure/ that pushes up against Micah's mind, though. It's /heavy/, squeezing, pressing in in familiar thick blanketing that wraps its way around in firm hard /squeeze/. It's not particularly pleasant, granted, an increasingly hard push that settles in vicelike, but it's /familiar/ as it grips -- and grips, and grips, mental touch quietly /there/. Not actually saying anything. Just holding -- uncomfortably rather /too/ firm in its fierce-hard latch. It takes several more minutes of unpleasant sounds and a throughly empty stomach for Micah to finally creep-hop his way into the office, shirt unbuttoned and white sleeveless undershirt a little damp from where he splashed water...on, over, at?...his face. His mind clings to the latch of Hive's no matter how intense the pressure it exerts there. Though he doesn't quite /look/ at Hive when he comes into the office. He simply collapses onto the couch heavily and presses his face into his hands. Hive is -- a /little/ bit glassy-eyed, when Micah comes in, in the way that suggests he may not be /entirely/ all there. Unsurprising, given that the team is still /out/, somewhere. But some part of him is still very much here, bony-skinny and tucking in on the couch beside Micah in black denim shirt, carpenter jeans, a white undershirt. There are /prying/ mental fingers now, not latching so much as slipping in in hungry rooting, drinking in imagery and then -- almost /recoiling/ from what they find. His bony-thin arm curls around Micah's shoulders, a little fumbling-unsteady at first before it actually wraps around properly, pulling the other man in closer against him. His voice, when it slips in, has a quiet echoing ring to it. Many voices, many of them /familiar/. If fiercer than their usual, Jax's sunshine flaring /hot/ and violent, no laughter in Ryan's notes and only jangling discordance. << What do you need. >> Micah leans readily up against Hive...keeping the other man to his right side and that leg /far/ away from him. His face stays buried in his hands. There are too many answers to that question, ranging from a gagging feeling to slightly more verbal impressions all tumbled against each other. << (Jax)(a surgeon)(to close the Sublime centres)(Rasa)(to stop the kidnappings)(a brain scan)(to stay away)(to be here) >> Hive's fingers curl against Micah's shoulder. His head tips against Micah's, cheek pressing to the other man's hair. He listens to these answers in silence, hand slowly rubbing in against Micah's arm. Eventually he drops his hand, slowly struggling away and upwards to stumble over towards the small fridge at the side of the room and open it to retrieve a bottle of ginger ale. /Real/ ginger ale, the good fresh kind made with actual pieces of fresh ginger in. He returns to the couch with this in hand, settling back down beside Micah. << (how about)(we start)(here) >> presses in his wry mental suggestion, the rest of it still churning in maybe-too-overwhelming heavy background consideration. << (brain scan)? >> is the next thing he picks up on, uncertainly. The increased contact draws a small, strangled whimper from Micah's throat, though he makes no attempt to move away. << Okay...here. Maybe. >> The 'maybe' comes with a wash of intense-paranoid fear. << Can't go home. Can't go...anywhere. Might be a (spy)(danger)(drone)(sleeper agent)(evil Nazi leg). >> His hands move from his face, but only enough to curl into his hair, pulling at it roughly. << Heard His thoughts. Wants to use me to (steal)(kill)(maim)(betray) all of you. >> The rush of thoughts and feelings from Sublime that spilled over during his flesh-crafting, that he overheard in grabbing at the man's hand, all pour in unfiltered. The god complex. The worshippers. The hunger. The plans for Flicker and Hive and the twins and /everyone/...through Micah. Somehow. Hive moves his hand to the cap of the ginger ale, twisting it it, but somewhat shaky-weak as his hand is he -- doesn't actually manage to uncap it. One try, two tries, three tries, and he gives up in mild disgust. "-- /sleeper agent/." It's not dismissive, in tone, he's just echoing this theory a little bit /startled/. His mind presses back in against Micah's, mental claws curling back swift and smooth. Sharper and neater than they would be were he not already hiving so many in his team, they slide in neat and nimble and deep into Micah's mind, this time /actually/ latching in almost too quick to even /be/ shaken off; there's no moment of connection, though, stopping short of actually /hiving/ to just -- fix, searching. << How the fuck. Would you. Kill us all. >> << He wants to /take/ you all. Take your parts and your powers and just... >> Micah's thought ends in Grace with Dusk's eyes. The young man with Anole's arm. Sublime's hands on him /creating/ Rasa's leg fused to his own residual limb. << Information. Mind control. Betrayal. >> His mind is full of...opening gates and doors at Xavier's and the Brotherhood safe houses to let people from the Perfectus Church through them. Leading the same into the easier entrances of the Morlocks' lairs. His hands dropping sedative pills into Jax's tea, pushing a syringe full of tranquillisers into Shane's neck. The rear doors of his van closing with Spencer and Sera unconscious in the back of it. << I can't. I can't...I can't. >> Hive's mental claws sink in deeper, and linger a long while in silence. His shaking hands wring futilely at the cap of the ginger ale, and finally he just shoves the bottle at Micah with a grumpy mental suggestion to /drink/ it. Eventually his mind pulls back; his head shakes, one hand lifting to scrub across his short dark hair. << S'nobody in there but /you/, >> his chorusing mental voice informs Micah. << And /I/ fucking /know/ from mind control. Don't think you're likely to do any of that shit. >> Micah's hands just grip at the bottle as if they could /wring/ it. << Could you tell? If he'd...programmed me? If he can see me mind or control it or trigger me to... He was in my /body/, Hive. He /is/. In my. /Not/ my. He's. Here. >> One hand drops from the bottle to grab at his thigh, where it's not his. He cringes and almost gasps, the newly joined nerves raw and over-sensitised. << What's to keep him out of my head? He thought it. So clearly. All of you. /His/. Because of /me/. >> << He's not here any /more/. Rasa's, >> Hive's words have the slightly gritted feeling of speaking through his teeth, << a /telepath/. You're going to have to get /used/ to the feeling. Of people in your damn head. It's, >> and here there's something faintly raw, faintly tired, << a little bit hell. Drink the fucking ginger ale your stomach's -- >> His words break off; he draws in breath in a sudden sharp gasp, eyes scrunching up tight; his glazed-over eyes fix on a point ahead on the wall and for a moment his mind squeezes /hard/-sharp against Micah's, gripping tight as though clinging tight. There are distant background /feelings/, faraway, echoed through a filter of some part of Hive's mind very much not /here/ right now. Bright and burning and aching, the strain of something /bearing/ down against a shield wall, the stifled panic of water in lungs. His shoulder bears up against Micah's, slowly. << (queasy) >> finishes not in words but in an uncomfortable sense-suggestion of nausea that comes with a repeated nonverbal mental urging: << (drinkthefuckinggingerale). >> << Could you tell? Could you /tell/? If he'd done something to me? >> Micah's body, dehydrated from crying and vomiting, somehow finds more tears to sting his eyes. He gasps fractions of a second after Hive does, the sensations /third/-hand, but present for him, as well. Their combination with the external queasiness on top of his own nausea has him gagging again. He nods at the urging, simple commands almost /soothing/, reassuring. He forces himself to twist the cap off and trickle a small amount of the fluid into his mouth. << Maybe Lucien. If he can check, too. Make sure there aren't any...chemicals. Pathways. Things. >> The connections Micah has started drawing in his stressed brain have the feel of paranoid rantings, the panic at /these/ small possibilities somehow easier than handling the other panic that would overwhelm him. << (could tell) >> Hive begins, and then in words, << if there were someone else. I can't -- fff. >> He slumps back heavily against the couch. << There's nobody riding fucking shotgun in your head. Lucien'd need to check the /hardware/. Dude, you need to -- >> But then he's quiet, again. This time it doesn't come with any echoed feelings; there's just a stark tension from Hive. Something in his face is sickened; a shudder runs through him, hard and sudden, and then he relaxes, sinking in against Micah in something that's not quite /relief/ but still a release of some tension. << -- they're done. >> << Maybe not /now/. Maybe not /right/ now, but if he could. If he put a trigger in my head, how would... Maybe Lucien can check. >> As Micah brings the bottle to his lips again, his hand shakes enough to slosh the liquid in it, stirring up the ginger sediment. He actually manages to swallow a small portion. << What? >> His entire body tenses, emotionally and psychologically raw, startling at /everything/. << They're what? Are they okay? Are they dead? What happened? >> << Not dead. They're fine. Six captives. One might not make it. Joshua's trying his best. They're -- they're coming -- >> But here Hive trails off, too, struggling for words and losing them in just a wash off throbbing headache and fumbling confusion. He rubs, exhausted, at a temple, shaking his head and dragging his knees up towards his chest, the curl of his arm around his shins making his posture somehow younger as his eye closes and forehead thunks forward against his knees. << (can call) >> he agrees, together with a flickered mental image of Lucien. << (soon.)(morning.) >> << (i don't)(feel anyone)(but you) >> << Ohgood. Good. Joshua's good. >> There is a small sigh of relief, a subtle relaxing in some of the taut-coiled muscles in Micah's body. Small. He leans against Hive's side, head resting lolled against the other man's shoulder. << Should call. Could be...anything. Bad. Not here /now/. Not here /right now/. But could be. Bad. >> Something in Hive is fading. Exhausted, drained, quieting into a tired wilt at Micah's side. His hand drops down against the couch before it slowly manages to find its way around Micah's back. << We'll -- >> Maybe there's an end to that thought, but it never comes. His eyes stay closed, fingers brushing against the older man's side but then just curling down against his hip. And then he's just quiet, slipping into a tired slump back against the couch, half leaning back against Micah's side as -- maybe he drowses, after whatever unseen chaos the evening has held. Or maybe he just /waits/. Waits -- perhaps for some while. There's quite a bit to /do/, past making a getaway. And Hive is no doubt privy to all of it, in his drowsy powered-down state. The late night has grown quite a bit /later/ by the time there are -- footsteps, actually. Flicker is making kind of a /mundane/ entrance, for once, up the stairs and down the hall and it's clear enough /why/, as he comes trudging in, pale and shaky and only barely even standing -- mostly leaning heavily on a Jackson-crutch as they enter the office, both men similarly-dressed in X-uniform black (though Jax's, more battered-torn than Flicker's, is cheerfully /beadazzled/ in back with Funshine Bear's smiling sun.) Flicker, at least, does not appear to be in any way /hurt/ -- just pale and intensely /exhausted/ as he collapses wearily onto a couch; from the looks of Jax he's only in mildly better condition, trembly-tired, his skin clammy-cool when he drops down to kneel by the couch and lean in to press a kiss to Micah's knuckles. Given Micah's newfound Rasa-telepathy the touch -- likely /comes/ with a heavy dose of exhaustion-stress-/horror/, though it's too brief to carry much by way of coherent thoughts. In the intervening time, Micah has managed to...sit. And even finished not-quite-half of the little bottle of ginger ale! "Flicker," he says in a cracking bile-roughened voice as the man enters, then, "Jax." His voice is tangled up between relief and tear-choked. "S'everybody okay? Did they find...? Is there everyone?" His puffy-exhausted-red-dry eyes turn down to Jax with the telepathic input. Hive hasn't actually moved much either in the intervening time. Still slumped back against the couch, one arm wrapped around his shins, though his head has tipped back, glassy-vacant eyes focused up on the ceiling now rather than against the opposite wall. His mental touch -- doesn't really change as the others come in, but, well, it's been with /them/ all the while. If he even notices their arrival he doesn't make any move to show it -- but with their minds /part/ of his it's likely he /doesn't/ notice the transition from mental presence to physical presence. Flicker, for a moment, just shivers on the couch, boots dropped heavily against the floor and one arm slung across his chest. He struggles aaalmost up into a sitting position, but doesn't quite make it. "We got five out," he says, his voice heavy, something sick-tired woven through it. "I lost the last." "It wasn't your fault," Jackson says this with a tone that suggests it's not the /first/ time he's said it tonight and it probably won't be the /last/, "that man drove y'into a wall, s'a wonder we didn't lose y'both. Joshua tried but --" His lips press together tightly, knuckles driving in against his eye. "Dusk an' Rasa's out too. 'long with two others. Rasa'll be headin' back t'school, soon. We should, too. S'been a long night, honey-honey, an' I think we /all/ need sleep." His head tips back, eye fixing up on Micah's face with -- no small measure of worry that only increases as he searches puffy-exhausted-red-dry eyes. "How did you -- how did your. Thing. Go." "Oh...no. Sorry. Dusk an' Rasa?" Micah asks, still hoarse, half-sitting up further to listen to the others report. "Everybody else okay?" His eyes press closed at the mentions of Rasa and school, jaw tensing, very much looking like he /should/ be crying but he just...can't. Anymore. "Can't go t'the school. Can't...go anywhere. Not 'til Luci checks m'head for /things/." He shakes his head at Jax's question. "Not good. Not... Just 'bout every kinda not good. Found...John. Sublime. The guy from the centres. Ain't nothin' safe. None of it." His fingers grip against his-not-his thigh again, wincing again. "Things?" Flicker looks puzzled. "What things are in your head? Wait. They took /John Sublime/?" Now he seems a little incredulous. "That seems risky, he's -- kind of. A little famous." In answer to this, Hive only exhales. Slow and heavy, a sharp rasp of breath. It might almost be a laugh. His hands come up to drag against his face, and then fall back to his legs. "Everyone else is fine -- more or less fine," Jackson amends cautiously. "Little banged up, but fine. Dropped folks off at the clinic as needed. I mean, the folks we got /out/ ain't no ways fine, Micah, I don't even know how we're gonna /start/ gettin' them back to /fine/. What these people was doin' there --" He shudders, lifting his hands to run against the top of his bald head. He mirrors Flicker's puzzlement. "-- Your head? John -- what? Honey-honey, what -- what?" His eye drops to Micah's thigh at the wince, then lifts back up to his husband's face with a small uptick of anxiety, his hand dropping to the other man's knee. "Did they hurt --" This cuts off /very/ suddenly as his fingers brush inward. /Jerk/ back, suddenly, recoiling in a way he certainly never /has/ before with Micah's /prosthesis/, though not in disgust so much as a /startlement/ before he lowers his hand again. "-- Micah?" "John Sublime. Is /John/. Him-John. The leader of the /cult/. S'how they /know/ 'bout so many people an' their abilities an' where they live an' where they work an' what they /do/." Micah's eyes squeeze closed tightly, his head tipping back as if to regard the ceiling sightlessly. "I didn't think. I didn't think they'd...only known about me for /three days/. But he made me... I couldn't. Not. They'd've known why I was there. He /made/. A leg. With his /hands/. An' it's. Hirs an' I. Could /hear/ him. In my /head/. An' he's gonna use me t'take /all/ of you an' your powers an' I could /hear/ his plan to do it an' I just. Don't know how. If he's. In m'head or if. He can control me. Or if he put...a trigger in my brain or. If he can /spy/ on me. Or somethin'. With the...leg. I don't /know/. Hive said he couldn't hear nobody but I want Luci. To /check/. My head." Now Flicker /does/ struggle upright, green eyes opening wide. "No." His head shakes once, his tone -- hurt? /Confused/. "No, no, they helped us keep our apartment, they helped me with --" But slowly what he's saying sinks /in/, and he sinks back against the couch, pulling in a slow breath. "No." And now his brows pull together, confused once more as he looks back at Micah's slacks. "He made you a leg." His cheeks pull inwards, sucking in between his teeth. << Rasa's leg, >> Hive finally speaks up again in confirmation. << Micah, you need to get some fucking. /Sleep/ you're going goddamn crazy. >> "-- No." Jackson's initial reaction is much the same as Flicker's, a wide-eyed stark denial, "no, they just -- just /Monday/ got Shane off that -- that shopliftin' -- an' the eviction -- an' when me an' Dusk was --" His hand flies to his lips, fingers trembling as he repeats, a little more hollowly, "-- Dusk --" His eye drops downwards, fingers tracing very slowly against the fabric of Micah's slacks, brushing feather-light against his knee. "Micah." His voice is barely a whisper. "They really -- they really --" He rises up, abruptly, higher onto his knees, the thick material of his uniform creaking with the motion as he leans in, wraps his arms tight around his husband. His cheek presses to Micah's with the motion and his typically chaotic mindscape is a riot of sick-betrayal at the thought of the Sublime Foundation, denial. Anger, horror. Mental images (coloured, /jarringly/, /migraine-inducingly/, not in /normal/ mental imagery but in /Jackson's/ mental imagery, seeing the world /way/-too-bright, /way/-too-coloured) of the night, the mutilated-mangled prisoners they'd rescued, a burning fury that the so-very-helpful volunteers -- He presses a kiss to Micah's neck and /here/ at least there is only love, /fierce/, warm, enveloping, protective. "/Control/ you? Why would -- /how/ would -- honey-honey, why would you -- think that, why -- Hive, is he -- is that. Is there somethin' in his head?" Jackson asks, puzzled. "We can call Luci in to check, alright? But I think you -- I think you need some rest, okay?" "They helped as a /front/. T'be able t'/steal/ powers. Sublime is...mad. Power-hungry. Thinks he's a /god/." Micah bites his lip, cringing against the uncomfortable-tingling of the touch to his-not-his leg. "Mmn. Honey. You're thinkin'. Really loud. I can hear...touchin'. 'Cause of... It's how I know he /did/ somethin' t'me. He was thinkin' it when I touched 'im. That he was gonna have /all/ the power now. Hive. An' Flicker. An' the twins. An' /everybody/. 'Cause of me. He didn't choose t'do this t'me outta no kinda accident. He /did/ it 'cause he knows who I am an' he wants me t'bring all of you t'him. I /heard it/ from his /mind/." He reaches down to /yank/ at the fabric of his pants leg, pulling it up tug-tug-tug, so much more difficult to bare that leg than it was his prosthesis. The skin is a sick-swirl of shifting muddied colours. "How'm I s'posed t'sleep? They /cut/ a leg off a /child/ an' attached it t'me an' he did /somethin'/ t'me an' I can't...go anywhere. Y'can't /trust/ me." Flicker's head turns aside, a wash of nausea crossing over his face as Micah reveals the new leg. He starts to shimmer-vanish but then just slumps back, pale and exhausted, against the couch; a moment later he gets up to /walk/ across the room, weaving-unsteady, and retrieve himself a ginger ale from the fridge. He's silent as he heads back, tipping the ginger ale slowly over and back to muddle it, cracking it open to take a slow sip as he sinks, pale and wide-eyed, back down onto the couch. << Fuck else are you going to do. Jax already tried the not-sleeping thing. S'a crock of bullshit. >> Hive's eyes are still fixed on the ceiling, rather than Micah's leg. << I looked at your brain. Lucien'll look at it later. The fuck are you going to do, just sit in a corner and -- >> He trails off, fingers clenching against his knee. Sharp mental fingers curl in against Micah's mind. << I'll babysit your gorram brain if you're worried. If you don't trust you, trust /me/. >> "Thinking?" This is puzzled, a moment before, << /Rasa/, >> dawns on Jax with a sick sinking feeling; shortly after this the /also/ sick unhappy feeling that he can't even /touch/ his husband immediately precedes pulling /back/ from Micah, head bowing briefly and his expression oddly blank when he looks back up. "We'll call Kate. An' Corey. Micah-honey, after what they brung me back from, y'don't think they can help Rasa? An' everyone we brung outta there? An' we'll -- an' we'll call Luci for you an' -- an' Hive can keep /watch/. But please you need to -- you can't jus'. You was on /me/ to rest an' you can't even keep goin' like I can' an' you've had such a --" His lips press together thinly, his knuckles pressing to his lips. "We need to --" << (go home), >> his mind is pleading, hungry-desperate, exhausted. His gaze falls downwards, numbly taking in the muddied swirl of leg with a rising nausea that he chokes back. Fights the urge to wrap his arms around Micah again. Chokes back thoughts of Rasa, Dusk, the twins tucked away at school; his fingers against his legs, now, curl into fists. << (please)(can we)(just go)(home) >> His eye closes, opens again. Tears slowly away from the not-Micah-skin, lifts up to Micah's face. "... where will you go?" Micah pulls the fabric back over the offending limb at the nauseated looks. "Yes. I'm /worried/," he answers Hive, aloud, tone bitter. "Please. Keep as much a hold of m'brain as y'/can/. But /you/ gotta sleep sometime, too. So. I'm just gonna stay in m'van again 'til Luci can check. If both you /and/ him say there's nothin'...then maybe he's /just/ crazy enough t'think I'd /give/ you all to 'im for a /leg/. I just don't...how could he think...? My /sons/. I'd cut the other one /off/ for them. It doesn't seem like somethin' he'd just expect me t'/do/ without some kinda influence. Is all." His arms wrap around himself, fighting back a whimper as Jax pulls away. "Maybe they can help. Maybe they can help...part of a person each day. How long is that gonna /take/? How long 'til it's too healed an' too late? It took /several times/ with you, Jax. An' with Flicker. I just. I just want everybody t'be okay." He looks down at his lap. "If it helps hir. They can cut it off. I'll...keep it 'til the healers got enough energy t'do it. So it'll be...good. For hir. I don't know. Maybe that'll be better. T'put it /back/." "I don't know, but with her, and Corey, and Joshua -- together, maybe they can..." Flicker trails off, looking down at his ginger ale. He sucks his cheeks inward again. Hive's mental claws /press/ inward again. It's smooth and sharp once more, sinking in deep. They curl in firm and fast, slicing uncomfortable but strangely less painful than it should be with so many people already taken, just a shaky mental jarring as a jumble of minds are /added/ to Micah's own, tumbling in in what is currently, tonight, mostly a heavy additional dose of /exhaustion/ that soon settles into the background. It's -- possibly deliberate that Hive lets Jax's mind rise to the forefront among this; the pleading, desperate-hungry, the yearning-struggle to hold Micah, the begging to go home. << ... Dusk probably shouldn't be alone either. >> It's distant. Almost an afterthought. << Guess we can check in on him tomorrow. >> "Rasa's -- smaller, this --" Jax's hand drops back very lightly to rest on Micah's knee again. "S'your size now, it might -- I don't know 'zactly how Kate works. Might be better t'grow it back than reattach it, ain't -- hir size no more." His voice is quiet, outwardly, oddly calm over the inward mental tumult, a screaming chaos of unhappy mess that still wants to pull Micah close, curl up with him and just /hold/ him, get him /away/ from all this. "We'll get hir through this. We'll get them all through this. We'll get /you/ through this, okay? Once the others been took care'a we can get /this/ off you, too. An' heal it back up t'jus' be /your/ leg again. An' --" And here he trails off, biting down against his lip, starting to reach for Micah's hand but stopping again for fear of inundating the other man with another deluge of migraine-inducing Jackson-brain. The mention of Dusk puts another twinge of wrenching-yearning-pain that only adds to his fierce desire to -- hold. To go /home/. To whisk his family away from this safe and snug and warm. His hand lifts, knuckles pressing to his eye with a heavy grind, slightly achey with exhaustion. "I love you," he whispers. "Please. I don't want to leave you alone t'night." Micah does whimper this time, not at the sharp press from Hive's mind, but at the shoved-forward thoughts from Jax's. He reaches out to tug Jax closer again. "I /can't/," he argues, mostly at Hive. "I can't go t'the school. That's the /worst/ place for me t'be. What if he's got somethin' that'll take over my head as soon as I fall asleep? I can't put /all/ those kids in danger. That's the only...it's the /only/ safe place they have. I can't endanger that, not ever. I can handle one night of...prob'ly /not/ sleepin'. In m'van. For that. I'd done it for /months/ before, it ain't like it's awful. Please, I can't hurt those kids no more'n I've..." His head shakes, jaw clenching again with that look like tears should be coming but don't. "I love you, honey. I don't wanna hurt /you/, neither. Or our boys. It's...so late already it's almost mornin' as it /is/. Please." "/I/ need to sleep." Flicker sounds almost apologetic about this at the reminder of the lateness of the hour, dragging himself upwards off the couch with a wobble, a slow stagger as he starts towards the back. He drops a hand to Micah's shoulder in passing, squeezing gently, and then continuing off to disappear through the workshop where they've finally actually dragged futon mattresses up into Hive's side office. Hive presses his lips together thinly, and slowly shifts position on the couch to dig out his phone from his pocket. "M'emailing Lucien." Now Jax's arms do slide forward again, when he's tugged closer; they wrap around Micah, pulling back in in a closer tighter hug. << (need you) >> echoes fierce and warm in his mind, << (love you) >> and past that a bright-hot surge of protectiveness that shimmers out strong and sure as any of his shields. His head tips up, lips pressing to Micah's, and this contact brings more /immediacy/ than the filtered moderation of the connection Hive polices; a slamming draining dose of exhaustion, an almost painful-aching yearning; the thoughts past this come, as they often do, less in words and more in imagery. Curling up in Micah's arms. Warm hugs, warm skin, fierce kisses. He breaks off with a murmured, "'pologies," resting his head against Micah's shoulder. "S'just, long -- night, I --" << love you. >> Squeezing Jax tight, Micah leans in to kiss his brow. "Love you, too, honey. It's just...a handful of hours 'til maybe Luci'll check my head an' it'll be...just that I'm crazy an' Sublime is crazy an' everyone's crazy an' I'm paranoid. Okay? Y'can go back t'the school, there's...so many people. Or...maybe they wouldn't mind if we stayed /here/? With...Hive in my head an' all /three/ of you, maybe? Prob'ly with y'all aware I might go all the-third-flower-is-green on you at any minute. It might not be so bad if I we stay an' borrow your couch? An' y'all can just /subdue/ me if I do anythin' too off, yeah?" "Third flower --" Jackson gives Micah a /puzzled/ look at this statement. He shakes his head, as if to clear it of this confusing thought, and kisses Micah again. Deeper, longer. He presses Micah back against the couch, fingers curling in against the small of the older man's back. He pulls back before long, though, just squeezing Micah closer. "Couple hours," he agrees. "S'worse things'n holdin' you for a couple hours." Micah returns the kiss, then leans in to nuzzle the space where Jax's neck and shoulder meet, burying his face there. "Just hold on a couple hours. Make sure there ain't nothin'. In my head. That he ain't in me. Then maybe things can start to get back t'okay."