Logs:Grim Prognoses

Grim Prognoses
Dramatis Personae Hive, Matt, Polaris
In Absentia DJ, Rasheed, Lucien	2024-11-05 *(Matt --> Hive): Sorry darling, I was busy manipulating this election the old fashioned way
Location texts & Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
It's around breakfast-time on Tuesday when Matt gets a text: (Hive --> Matt): Bro you'll never guess where I am (Matt --> Hive): At the polling place? (Matt --> Hive): At several dozen polling places (Hive --> Matt): Holy shit (Hive --> Matt): I had not even considered how much voter fraud I could be doing today (Hive --> Matt): Fuck you should've told me before I broke up with DJ we would have turned this nightmare ship RIGHT around (Matt --> Hive): Sorry darling, I was busy manipulating this election the old fashioned way (Matt --> Hive): Are you in Thailand? Or heading there? (Matt --> Hive): What happened with DJ? (Hive --> Matt): We're fucked up in the brain (Matt --> Hive): I've kind of put that together (Matt --> Hive): Are you back at Geekhaus? (Hive --> Matt): Ohhh (Hive --> Matt): Pff no even better (Matt --> Hive): L'Entente (Hive --> Matt): You are a shitty guesser why would I text YOU about that (Hive --> Matt): <selfie in a dimly-lit hospital room, head freshly shaved, very recognizable to Hospital Connoisseurs as part of Memorial Sloan Kettering> (Matt --> Hive): Oh gods when did this happen (Matt --> Hive): I'm on my way (Hive --> Matt): IDK. They're still doing hella tests to figure that out (Hive --> Matt): Weeks now, probably, this fucker is aggressive (Matt --> Hive): Weeks (Matt --> Hive): I'm calling Rasheed, unless he's already on it (Hive --> Matt): IDK I've been high since yesterd day. (Hive --> Matt): Feels like seven hundred doctors been through. Maybe he was one. (Hive --> Matt): you'd think probably I'd remember if so but then (Hive --> Matt): I have a goddamn brain tumor (Matt --> Hive): I'm sure they're parading students and residents in there on the regular (Matt --> Hive): Rare opportunity to look at such a "complex" case (Matt --> Hive): At least they're giving you the good shit (Hive --> Matt): I'm pretty sure Toure's published whole case studies just on the new types of surgery he invented to defuck my brain (Hive --> Matt): I'm a VERY exciting day for a lot of med students (Matt --> Hive): Goodness, it's officially been too long since I had cancer (Matt --> Hive): Nobody in reception even recognizes me! (Matt --> Hive): I doubt think they'll buy that I'm next of kin, either (Hive --> Matt): If you're in the market I've got some spare cancer I could lend you (Hive --> Matt): Been saving it up this season but for you. I'd share Evidently Matt's non-cancerous charm functioned as intended, because Hive can soon enough sense him making his all-too-confident way through the labyrinthine hallways of Memorial Sloan Kettering. His mind is unsettled, and he encourages the unpleasant fragmentary memories conjured up by this place to better obfuscate the glioblastoma survival rates he also knows too well, dwindling with each recurrence. The fear for Hive swirling around those merciless numbers are oddly difficult to separate from his also unwanted fear of Hive, of the unfathomable crushing horror that ended their very last rendezvous. With a determined push he submerges his worries beneath the flashing ripples of more immediate passing thoughts--in that moment, the number next to the door he's pushing open. He's in a charcoal pinstripe suit with an odd vest--plain, by his standards, just forest green with gray pinstripes--a fine broadcloth shirt in the palest lavender, a tie in black-and-green foliage scrollwork, and black derby shoes. The overstuffed messenger across his back doesn't really match his attire, its gray waxed canvas worn in precisely the shape of hardback roleplaying handbooks and labeled pointedly as a "Bag of Holding" beside a twenty-sided die logo. His bright green eyes briefly catch the light from out in the hallway to eerie effect before he closes the door quietly behind himself and hastens to Hive's bedside. "I was afraid they'd whisked you off to imaging again," he says softly, without preamble. "Have you got the official diagnosis yet?" Hive's mind is reaching for Matt's even before he gets inside, tendrils long and hungry bearing down and then snatching back. He is just sitting up when Matt arrives -- the fresh shave and hospital gown make him look sicklier, already, by far, than he was last Matt saw him. A good deal of that might just be context and unfortunate lighting; he does not look exhausted so much as irritable as he attempts to plump the thin pillows behind him. "Gonna whisk soon, you just caught me. I'm hoping this time as an exciting change they tell me I'm actually pregnant." Matt sets his bag down in a chair and smoothly intercepts the pillow-plumping operation, for which he's considerably better positioned. "Brain-pregnant? Throwing some Greek mythology in here just for my benefit, hm?" His brain has helpfully composed a rather gory birth of Athena, not from Hive's forehead but Jeff Goldblum's in the guise of Zeus. "I'm sure DJ would be properly mortified to have sired a brain baby out of wedlock. Unless it's Polaris's." His power uncoils from beneath the murky surface of his thoughts, stretching to palpate anxiously at Hive's as though he expects to feel the tumor that way. << I can give you some quiet if you want it. >> He's unzipped his bag to extract a tightly rolled baby blanket made of soft green faux fur that, shockingly, does not still smell like chemotherapy. It's too small to serve Hive for a blanket, but just right to drape over his shoulders and cover his arms without getting tangled in his IV lines. "I'm sorry," he murmurs as he fusses at the edge of the fluffy shawl. Hive tips his head to the side, cheek pinning Matt's hand against the blanket. "You can't," he groans, "they're already on the way to peer at this fucking lump again." He closes his eyes, hand lifting to rest over Matt's. At least for a short while, until the door opens again, this time to admit a pair of orderlies. "Might be a bit. You be here when they're done?" "I could hover sketchily in the hallway..." Matt frowns, trying to remember his reach from various imaging rooms his first recurrence after getting out of Prometheus, when he couldn't shake the terror of being stolen from his family again. But then, he hadn't needed to reach for his minder when Hive was with him. He leans against the bedside, half-sitting on the mattress where it folds into its chair configuration, content enough to let Hive keep his hand for a while. When the staff enter he leans over to kiss Hive's forehead before straightening up to make way for the wheelchair. "I'll be here," he promises, smiling quick and bright. "I've plenty of books to read." --- By the time Hive is returned to him, Matt has indeed gotten quite a lot of reading done and even a bit of work, to boot. Somewhere along a quiet stretch of mid-afternoon, his phone pings him again: (Polaris --> Matt): Hey, is Hive with you? (Polaris --> Matt): He's too high to make any sense and I'm worried (Matt --> Polaris): Oh yes, he's quite loopy, but I'm keeping an eye on him (Matt --> Polaris): He's taking this rather well, all things considered, though the drugs certainly don't hurt (Matt --> Polaris): I'll order some food once he's come down a bit. Shall I get something for you also? (Polaris --> Matt): Oh thank God (Polaris --> Matt): Sorry, it's just been a rough couple of days (Polaris --> Matt): I'm alright on food, but thanks man (Polaris --> Matt): I feel a lot better knowing you're there for him, you're like a pro at this (Matt --> Polaris): He would do no less for me, but I have got a BIT more experience 🤏 (Matt --> Polaris): Weird flex, but so it goes (Matt --> Polaris): I'll keep you posted --- Hive has been dozing, in and out half the evening. By the time he wakes up properly it's well into the night, and he fumbles at his phone to check the time and silence its many accusatory messages. He's squinting, blearily, at the news notifications popped up there, and his initial moment of confusion before his brain catches up slumps into an amused-exasperated snort. << Dude. >> THUMP, regardless of the pain of the touch and the lateness of the hour; his abrasive mental voice comes with an image of a chess board, unplayed but the white side ranks are set up in shambles. << Baby's first election manipulating and you really whiffed it. >> He's already shutting the phone back off, scratching brief at the tape around his IV port as he settles back in again for sleep. Though he was sleep-deprived well in advance, Matt has not been dozing. He has arranged the visitor's chairs and extra pillows such that he can recline in only moderate discomfort while he endlessly refreshes the vote counts on his laptop. Despite long familiarity with Hive's unpleasant mental speech, and despite bracing for it when he hears his friend stir, he flinches at the THUMP. He has a handful of comebacks half-composed, from witty to defensive to self-deprecating, but lets them all sink back beneath the meaningless garish static of red and blue in favor of, << I'm not pollaxed by any means, though the situation is unballotable all the same. >> He tries not to think about Lucien, but his traitorous mind has added a single white bishop to Hive's allegorical image -- upright, not on the board but beside it. He refreshes the page in front of him again but closes his eyes before it finishes loading. << I suppose I can take the absentee gloat as read. >>