Logs:Cause to Doubt

Cause to Doubt
CN: discussion of chaotic drug use and non-fatal overdose
Dramatis Personae Hive, Matt
In Absentia	2021-06-08 "{Luci goes out of town and your life just falls apart, huh?}"
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. It's a fine summer's day, hot but not oppressively so. The streets of the village are bustling and Tompkins Square Park is full of music and color. Dressed in a moss green tee shirt with the graphic of a paler green snake with its eyes on an unsuspecting white songbird, gray cargo shorts, and faded black hiking sandals, Matt movies through the park with the confidence and ease of long familiarity. He stops for a few minutes by the chess tables to chat, watching one match with keen interest but no commentary despite playful cajoling from both players. Peeling away with smiles and spirited farewells, he meanders toward the Village Lofts, only hesitating once to stare fixedly at a small knot of people milling around a bench they've claimed. Then shoves his hands into his pockets and hastens onward. By the time he arrives at Geekhaus's door, his thoughts are a chaotic tumble of fear and shame and a desperate, clawing need. His power stretches outward, quiet and serpentine, though does nothing but coil sinuously around Hive's without pressing down. Belatedly and perhaps unnecessarily, he knocks. Hive has been easy to feel even long before Matt's arrival at his door, a faint but noticeable tangle of psionic power stretching several tendrils out through the building and beyond. It pulls a few of those tendrils back at Matt's touch but doesn't fully withdraw, just pulling tighter in on itself. << S'open, >> may or may not actually be cranky but in the knife-sharp slice into the other man's brain it feels it anyway. Hive himself looks much as he always does, skinny and pale and not scowling any more than his usual, curled up in a corner of the couch in jeans and a black tee shirt with a brightly colored outline drawing of Gunnerkrigg Court's Coyote, both kind of baggy on his frame. There's a cup of coffee gone cold on the table in front of him, a frozen underwater video game landscape on the television screen. Matt withdraws his power as he enters, toeing his sandals off without bothering to undo the straps (though it might well have gone faster and with less fiddling if he had). He glances at the screen. Then at Hive. Then heads for the kitchen. "{You want a fresh coffee?}" Though it's tea he's making for himself. << {Sorry about the state of my brain. I assume it's not much more fun from the outside than in here.} >> Some of the grating unpleasantness of his thoughts are--not exactly easing so much as growing distant. Not the craving, though, sharp and raw. "{Shit, yeah. Thanks.}" Hive sets the Switch controller aside, glaring at his half-empty mug. "{Man, how long since your last tea you sound like crap.}" The rhythm of making tea is so familiar to Matt he hardly needs to think his way through it, and he inserts coffee into this routine readily enough. He slips into the living room to snag Hive's mug and brings it to the sink. "{This morning...I think?}" A sudden flash of uncertainty as he gropes after the recollection of breakfast, which today might in fact have consisted of a generously sized screwdriver, heavy on the vodka. His hands carry on with the preparations. "{Maybe yesterday,}" he concedes, the shame returning, if still dull and distant. He slumps back against the counter and stares through as much as at the brewing beverages. "{Luci goes out of town and your life just falls apart, huh? Maybe you should set a tea alarm. This sounds dire.}" Hive closes his eyes, sinking down against the arm of his sofa. His toes wiggle out, tucking just under Cat's belly. "{Got some black bean soup in the fridge if you want. Maybe some papaya salad left. Not really sure.}" Matt winces, his mind skating away from a jittery fragmentary recollection--only an odd burning scent, a wash of fear, a sharp sting. "{Something like that.}" He glances at the refrigerator, not much fazed by the wave of nausea as he considers the prospect of food. At a significant delay, he shakes his head. "{Maybe after tea.}" So saying, he goes to decant the brews, adding more milk and sugar to his tea than he might otherwise before carrying the mugs back to the couch, Hive's undoctored. He slumps down, fighting off a cold, creeping dread. It's only after he's taken a sip of his tea that he says, very quietly and very deliberately, "{It's a bit more dire than missing the morning tea.}" Hive struggles upright, reaching for the coffee and grasping it close to his chest. He hasn't yet taken any -- just curled his hands tight around it, and tighter still when Matt speaks. One eye twitches, his nostrils flaring. "{Tell me you're not doing cancer again already. Not that there's ever good timing, but --}" Matt sucks in a sharp breath. "{No! No cancer.}" << {Yet,} >> his mind appends automatically, to his chagrin. Then, worse, << {Might help, though...} >> He takes a long gulp of his tea, but the sweat starting the bead on his forehead isn't all hot beverage-induced. "{Different kind of relapse.}" It's still another long moment before he manages, staring fixedly down into his mug, "{I overdosed.}" "Oh." Hive exhales, a visible relief in his expression. "{I mean, that sucks.}" He takes a sip from his coffee, shooting a somewhat expectant sidelong glance to Matt that slips away after a moment. His brows crease; he looks back to the frozen TV screen with a slight shift of his shoulders. "{When? I mean, you're --}" His knobbly fingers flick uncertainly in Matt's direction. "{Better now, though?}" Matt scrubs at his cheek with a burst of exaggerated irritation at the faint prickle of a spot he missed shaving. "{Last week.}" He's relieved if ever so slightly disoriented by Hive's reaction. "{I'm...well. Luci. Fixed the immediate problem.}" << It was a near thing, though, >> Lucien's voice in his memory is soft. "{He--I'm worried it'll happen again. I'd been clean for over a decade, but now.}" He takes a gulp of his tea. "{I don't know. Only, I'm scared, and I think I need help.}" "{Shit, he's a whole Leatherman of handy tools, isn't he?}" Hive slurps up a mouthful of coffee now. Wriggles a bit more upright, turning against the arm of the couch to better face Matt. "Help? {What level of help are we talking about? Is this like, sit with you next time so it doesn't happen again or --}" His finger taps at his temple. "{Sit with you so it doesn't happen again. Somewhere on that spectrum.}" "{I don't need to tell you how amazing my brother is, but...}" Matt does not turn to face Hive. "{...I can't keep making him handle this << --handle everything-- >> for me. I ought to've asked for help long before it got this bad.}" The cloying tangle of his shame is rising back up. "{I don't plan on there being a next time, but--well, I didn't plan on that last time, either.}" The vicious blast of his anger is almost wholly directed at himself and does not show on his face at all. He finally does look over at his friend, his shoulders pulling inward. "{I was mostly thinking the--actually sit with me end of the spectrum. The other end might be more convenient, but also unpleasant and maybe risky if it's just you.}" He takes another swallow of tea, both hands gripping the mug tight, expression still neutral. "{Though really, either way is a lot if it's--just you.}" His dread is returning, too, and he curls his legs up onto the couch cushions. "{I know I've other friends who would be amenable if I asked for support, but I'd almost rather go into rehab--as horrific and possibly dangerous as that would be--than explain that particular aspect of my sordid past right about now.}" Hive's eye twitches, slightly, at the first just you; the second comes with a subtle ripple fluttering the psionic tendrils around them. "{Well.}" His teeth grind, slow, before he takes another sip of coffee. "{I'm home plenty, if it's just company you need.}" His brows furrow, head waggling slowly to one side. "{Gotta be at least a couple other people you don't have to explain it to. People know what drugs are, dude. Like we've all met Ryan. Ryan's met Ryan.}" Matt's own ache when he fully processes what he said is deep and chaotic, tangled with the rest of his various miseries. He bows his head and takes a deep, steadying breath. << {I'm sorry.} >> He's quiet a moment more, his thumb rubbing slowly along the smooth inside curve of his mug handle. "{I don't really know what I need, but company seems--wise. Especially when the siblings are out.}" He pushes away the abrupt resurgence of that craving. His visage settles back into blankness as the overwhelming pressure of his emotions drain away again. "{I know I wouldn't need to explain drugs, though that wouldn't bother me.}" He peels one hand from his mug and turns it elegantly palm-up. "{But...Ryan knows how I am. Jax, too. Maybe this is uncharitable, but if they thought I was not in control of myself--it's not as if they need more cause to doubt me. Though I suppose,}" he adds a bit reluctantly, "{worse things could happen.}" "{You've had a hell of a time lately. I don't think they'd fault you much for slipping back into old habits.}" Hive's breath hisses out, sharp and hard between his teeth. "{Besides,}" this is just a little more bitter, "{it's not as if we got any shit coming up on our docket. If they do doubt you they have plenty of time to get the fuck over it before they'll need you back in action again, likely. Like, the fuck are they going to do without...}" His head shakes, quick. "{We've all had a hell of a time lately.}" Matt closes his eyes. << {Not the least him. I could have kept it together for them...} >> He breathes out in a long, slow stream. "{But no, you're right. I should have more faith in my friends, no? I'll be no help figuring anything out down the line if << --I'm dead-- >> I don't figure myself out first.}" He drains his tea. "{For now, though, can I just...watch you get eaten by sea monsters?}" This with a tip of his empty mug at the watery world on the screen. << {And get plastered. Again.} >> Despite his nausea, the hunger that surfaces in him now isn't for drugs--or at least not wholly. Hesitantly, "{...and maybe have some soup, too.}"