ArchivedLogs:Neurochemistry

Neurochemistry
Dramatis Personae Lucien, Dusk, Hive, Micah, Jackson, Jim
In Absentia	8 September 2013 Lucien puts Hive and Jim back together again.
Location <NYC> 403 {Geekhaus} - Village Lofts - East Village
There's kind of a college-dorm feel to this place, though some of its occupants have left college behind. Entering the apartment finds visitors greeted by the perpetually messy living room, a mismatched assortment of couches and chairs (and milk crates) surrounding the wide table in the center. The wall holds a range of posters; some political, some sporty, some from video games, and a string of white lights strung over the kitchen doorway might be a holdover from Christmas. The kitchen adjacent is just as cluttered, its table unfit for eating due to its perpetual covering of books, papers, cereal boxes, projects; the fridge is usually sparsely populated. Ketchup. Beer. Not a lot of food. There are two bedrooms here, split between the four people; the fold-out couch in the living room (often folded out!) suggests that at least one of them does not actually claim a room as their own. It’s been a long -- well, it /should/ have been a long hour, but with /two/ people to work on and damage rather more extensive than the /last/ time he worked on Hive, one hour has stretched to two. As two creeps in towards the third, Lucien is looking considerably more drained than he was when he arrived. He’s shed the suit jacket and vest that were relics of his previous engagement, pared down to slacks and a largely unbuttoned dress shirt, sleeveless white undershirt beneath. He’s been working in the bedroom, typical enough for his general line of work! But today has just taken a seat perched on an upturned milk crate, leaning somewhat exhausted against the side of Hive’s bed. He’s a little shaky, in posture, a lot pale, colour drained from his face, but otherwise seems largely -- tired, but alright. The work he’s been doing has been hard to /see/. A lot of sitting around silently, hand tucked into Hive’s or Jim’s. Easier, perhaps, to /feel/, though even that took a good long while to be noticeable. Slowly repairing the severed connections and damaged pathways -- Hive’s first, simpler due to /familiarity/ with it. Jim’s, only once Hive is functional enough to help /find/ the man inside the plant. But, invisible or not, progress is made, slowly and surely. For a while now, Lucien has seemed half-asleep; still, quiet, eyes half-closed. Eventually he straightens, pushing himself upright with a small frown. His knuckles rub against his temple in a slow grind. “-- Do you have water.” His voice is quiet, and a little flat. Out in the living room, Dusk is Totally Not Fretting about any of this. His laptop provides convenient distraction, and he’s been largely focused on this save for smoke breaks rather more frequent than usual. Intermittently he drifts towards the bedroom to check inside, but mostly he stays draped over his favourite armchair, in jeans and no shirt and a very intent frown that is /totally/ for the code he is working on and not at all for the brain-repair happening in the next room. The large (glowing!) headphones on his ears only help add to the shutting-out-the-world look, though the frequent concerned glances he shoots towards the bedroom somewhat mitigate this. Hive hasn’t moved, much, brain-fixing or no brain-fixing. He is still curled up in bed next to Jim, though he’s shifted to lying down (head pillowed against Jim’s BARKY thigh.) There’s still a stabbing pulse of pain pounding in his skull, likely none too pleasant for Lucien to be sharing, but his eyes have lost their glassy vacancy, and occasionally he even /moves/ of his own volition. << Of course -- >> His mindvoice has returned to its usual painful intrusiveness, a sharp knifetwist cutting into the minds of the others in the apartment. Only for a moment, though, before he remembers to continue in his /actual/ voice: “-- course we have water who the fuck doesn’t have water this is New York not gorram Sudan.” Yep. Still Hive. He also makes absolutely no move to get up and /get/ water. Just curls in a little tighter on himself, eyes shifting from Lucien to the door. Micah has been flitting around the apartment through this entire process, busy rather than /just/ fretting. He is dressed in an olive green T-shirt depicting a Darwin-inspired sketch of finches with technological upgrades, a number of spots of stitching closing up small holes and tears above its front hem. His faded jeans are, likewise, sprinkled with colourful patches. His hair is a tousled mess that gives the impression of just having crawled out of bed. He has been picking up tasks as he runs across them, assisting with food preparation, giving out a positive /wealth/ of hugs, tidying messes. Glasses of drink and cool rags for brows have also been offered repeatedly, but multiple states of semi-coma and deep concentration have rendered many of the offers fruitless. “Do we have water?” Micah repeats with a hint of amusement, appearing in the doorway with a chilled glass like he /teleported/ there with it, summoned by the request itself. It helps that he already had it in hand for his latest round of checking in on folks, but /might/ give more of the impression of overly-attentive wait staff. He holds the glass out, practically placing it in Lucien's hand for him. “Hey, Hive. You're talkin' with your face again. That's good.” Jackson is in the kitchen, because -- of /course/ he is in the kitchen. First to scrub it down /thoroughly/ before starting to cook -- a high incidence of Asian food around Geekhaus means who /knows/ what parts of the kitchen are Lucien-safe. And then to prepare actual food -- corn chowder with chives and basil, ginger scones, a zucchini salad. His attention has been largely /on/ food preparation -- Totally Not Fretting, either! Staying productive helps with that. He is dressed brightly -- cheerful yellow Little Miss Sunshine t-shirt, purple capris striped with black. The sharp catch of his breath that comes when Hive speaks comes -- not with the painful stab of mental voice where it might be /expected/, but with the actual /sound/ of Hive’s voice subsequently. << -- Oh thank God, >> in Jackson’s mind has more the tone of a /genuine/ prayer rather than a simple exclamation. “Luci, you work miracles.” In the living room, Dusk flinches, wings tightening against his back. And then returns to work -- though this time with a small smile on his lips. Lucien accepts the glass of water gratefully, slumping slightly forward to rest, for a moment, against /Micah/ before he straightens stiffly. He doesn’t immediately answer, just sips slow and long at the water and then holds the chill glass against one of his temples. “Miracle implies some form of divinity. I do not think I can lay claim quite so high.” He keeps the glass pressed to his head, his eyes squeezing slowly shut. “Forgive me. I have cut into all your afternoons significantly. I did not expect --” His head shakes. “You were,” he tells Hive a touch ruefully, “in considerably worse shape than I had expected. And his mind --” His eyes shift to Jim. “Is a challenge.” “How many of your clients,” Hive’s eyes flick up towards Lucien’s face, a very faint smile tugging at his lips, “call you a god.” His eyes close, too. His mind pushes outward, /pressing/ uncomfortably at the others around him, but it withdraws soon. “Mngh,” he answers Micah, expression shifting into a grimace. “Yeah, I --” He twitches, fingers curling in hard against Jim’s knee. “-- Thanks.” It’s gruff, and a little uncertain. He opens his eyes to look back towards the door, frowning outwards towards where Jackson is somewhere beyond. “-- Gonna make things harder, though. No idea, now, when we can --” His head shakes. Out of habit, Micah's hand moves to the back of Lucien's neck when the other man leans against him, rubbing gently. “Hm. You do kinda lay on hands an' bring us our friends back. S'pretty miracle-/like/ if nothin' else. Jim's /always/ a challenge,” he teases with a playful upward curl of his lips. “Anythin' else I can get you? Either of you?” He turns to regard Hive, including him in the offer. “Ain't makin' nothin' harder. S'makin' it more likely that you get t'/be/ here. An’ t'keep helpin an’ be able t'handle the folks as get rescued after. That's no small matter. Shouldn't've let it get t'that point.” His expression softens following this, however. “Jax's got soup'n such on. You want somethin' t'drink? Headache meds, maybe?” Jackson is already ladling out a bowl of soup, even before waiting to hear if it is /wanted/. His mind is straying, with Hive’s comment, already quietly mulling over how much more difficult planning logistics will /be/ without Hive’s inside information. It takes a moment longer and a concerted force of will to drag himself back to the present, a brief twinge of guilt surfacing in his mind. “-- Not havin’ /you/ in my life’d make /everything/ a sight harder, honey-honey. I mean. As /you/. As Hive. Not as -- a weapon. M’sorry, I should’ve been payin’ you better mind long before this.” He slips into the bedroom to set the bowl of chowder down on the nightstand, tapping Lucien lightly on the shoulder. “S’food. Y’should eat it.” Micah’s hand on the back of Lucien’s neck is met with a good deal of discomfort. Too exhausted to keep in check the emotional spillage that leaks over by default, Micah is treated to an unpleasant dose of Lucien’s current state. A heavy drag of exhaustion, a smattering of nausea, a dizzy disorientation. A blinding headache pounding somewhere behind his eyes. “He can, I imagine, be both. He seems a -- useful weapon to have in your arsenal.” He takes another long drink of water, draining the glass nearly empty. “He could do with some headache medicine, yes. Something -- strong. You might,” he adds, softer, to his glass, “want to take the day off tomorrow as well.” He is slow to shift his attention to Jax, frowning at the bowl as though not entirely certain of its purpose, but after a pause he reaches out to take it. “Food. Yes. Thank you. -- Why /did/ things reach this point, if it is not too presumptuous of me to ask?” “Some. Morphine.” Hive’s eyes close again. “Like maybe if you could just shoot some heroin. Straight into my -- brain. I would not -- say no.” His teeth clench down, muscles curling in tighter; he breathes out a sharp snort, lips twitching up into an incongruous smile. There’s a rough /jostle/ of his mind against Jax’s, poking at those more pragmatically-minded thoughts. “Pfft. I make a better weapon than friend. You /have/ plenty of friends. You need me --” His shoulder hitches upwards. “-- loaded.” His teeth grind, slightly, at Lucien’s question. “-- When you come do this free of charge. /Then/ you’ll probably be in a place where you get to ask that question.” Stubbornly, Micah's fingers stroke at the back of Lucien's neck a few more times, until the other man straightens. He winces slightly as he pulls his hand back. “Y'feel like comin' out of several hours of heavy anaesthesia,” he admits quietly. “Thought it might be somethin' like that. Got a /small/ stash of acetaminophen-codeine pills, if y'can take those?” An index finger raises to his lips, tapping against them. “S'totally illegal t'share prescription meds., so don't tell anybody, though.” This is said with a lopsided grin, knowing full well how much worse activities of dubious legality everyone in the room has gotten involved in. He fishes around in his pocket for a small prescription bottle, which he walks over to Hive. “Jax's right, though. Shouldn't ever have gotten t'this point. Ain't okay t'push yourself this far.” He also retrieves a glass of water that had been placed at the bedside for Hive, though it is no longer very cold. “Uh oh. You guys are totally going to get busted, y’never know who’s keeping tabs on your --” Jackson tips his head toward the pill bottle. “Trespasses.” He moves over to the side of the bed, kneeling down on the floor beside Lucien’s milk-crate seat to reach up and take Hive’s hand, squeezing it once tight. “You -- are pretty much irreplaceable on m’team, that’s true. But you’re /definitely/ irreplaceable in my life. Think you’re sellin’ yourself way too short if you don’t think you make a good friend. I don’t know what I’d --” He hesitates, pressing his cheek down against Hive’s knuckles. “-- You need a vacation. The world’ll still need saving when you’re through.” His lips press together thinly at Hive’s answer to Lucien, head turning to glance over Lucien with a slow furrow of brow. “Hive, that ain’t -- m’sorry, Luci. It ain’t -- /presumptuous/, just. Everything lately’s been seven different kindsa screwed up.” Lucien’s smile actually eases, at Hive’s answer. He exhales quietly, setting his bowl of soup down in his lap, his shoulders relaxing down into a tired droop. “Sorry --” It’s a soft murmur, reflexive; he lifts his hand to brush it against Micah’s, a soft flush of soothing warmth spreading from the touch in a sort of apology for the previous unpleasantness. His hand drops back to his bowl, rather shaky as he picks up his spoon. “Oh, it was incredibly presumptuous,” he allows lightly, “I have quite a large measure of curiosity. But I /am/ --” His lips curl upwards, faintly, “-- here on business. Different, I suppose, than my usual clients. They tend to treat me more like a therapist than a -- surgeon.” He leans back, an exhausted slump against the nightstand, and for the moment doesn’t attempt braving his shaking hand to actually /eat/ the soup. “This kind of appointment is -- both so much more and so much less intimate than I am used to. I am rarely so deep into my clients’ heads.” "Not a fucking weapon," Jim's voice slowly drags out, raw, from the depths of the plantform he's sunk into. Grown into an odd bleak garden ornament shaped like a man stooped over with its face in its hands, it's offputting hearing breathing slowly begin to occur from a tree. There's a crackling sound, a thin woody creak, as slowly one hand lowers to thump down on Hive's head. "Just. Skinny. Asshole." It takes a moment after this before he gradually lifts his head, blue eyes set in a face of rough grey bark roll along the faces present. Landing last, haggard and hard, on Lucien. It's hard to make out much of his thoughts still so deeply aligned to green-roots-deep-earth, much less suss them up from his expression. But an awkward mental clench of inner roots finds... Well of course, he'd be gone now. << He fix you then? >> He'll -- say hi in a minute. Surely. But priority is a little slow to kickstart just yet. << Fixed you too. For a -- given value of /fixed/, Treebeard. >> But there’s relief that shivers out in a shaky soft breath when Jim speaks, and Hive’s cheek presses down a little more firmly against Jim’s leg, the tension clenched in his muscles easing when Jim’s hand comes down onto his head. He opens his eyes, then, drifting across to settle on Lucien as well with a slow drawing in of breath. Looking at the pallor of his face, at his shaking hands. His fingers knead at Jim’s knee in mindless tactile pressing. << Think we were vegetables. He’s good at what he does. >> It doesn’t come in tone of apology or even of defense. Just a tired -- it is what it is. Slowly, Hive loosens his grip on Jim’s knee to lift his hand and claim the pill bottle from Micah, squinting at its label. “I’ll keep my lips sealed, man, I would take fucking /anything/ right now that’d make this --” One of his eyes scrunches up tight. “Fucking bullshit -- someone’s drilling into my gorram --” It takes a moment more before he acknowledges, quieter, this time to everyone present rather than just Jim: << -- Might almost have died. >> He grips the bottle tight, though he doesn’t yet open it; he pushes against Jim’s leg like he’s /trying/ to sit up, but then slumps heavily back down instead. “Intimate. You even know how to be intimate, man?” It’s not said derisively but with genuine questioning. Jax’s suggestion of vacation, though, /does/ earn a derisive snort. “Yeah. Think I’ve just blown my vacation fund on this --” He waves the pill bottle towards Lucien. “How long you been here for, anyway?” Micah shakes his head, both at the apology and the loaded touch from Lucien, actually tugging his hand away quickly this time—as if this instance were the painful one. “No...y'don't have t'do that. I can handle feelin' a little bit of what you're feelin', hon. Don't gotta cover it over with.../that/ all the time. You're tired an' already used up enough of what you do without kid-glovin' at me.” A warm little smile accompanies the admonishment, however. “Hey, now! Jim's talkin', too! An' makin' sense. See, Hive? You are both peoplefriend an' treefriend. Don't make us start singin' sappy songs about it 'cause y'know we /could/.” This last he adds with a pat of Jax's shoulder. “Good t'hear from you, too, Jim. Anythin' we can get you? Not sure exactly...when you're in that form.” His hand closes over Hive's at the broadcast thought about dying, just holding it for a moment before his other hand presses down and pulls the lid off of the pill bottle. “These things are impossible enough t'open when you /aren't/ recoverin' from having a cement truck run through your brain,” Micah's voice is softer, tone less playful for a moment. He shakes his head at the talk of funding issues. “We can help with that, hon, don't worry about it yet. S'pretty much...medical expenses. Wanna keep you around a little longer an' all.” Hive's hand receives a last squeeze before Micah fishes a pill out of the opened bottle and holds it out to him. “Oh, man, I got /so/ many Disney songs in my repertoire we could be singin’ for you for a /while/.” Jackson’s smile brightens, quick and warm, when Jim speaks. He gets up, leaning in to drop light kisses on the top of both Hive /and/ Jim’s heads before stepping back away from the bed. “-- Water? Fertilizer?” A soft glow blossoms around one of his hands; he turns it upward, the light coalescing into a small glowing ball over his palm. “Sunlight?” << -- Three hours. >> Jax can’t /stop/ this answer from surfacing with a somewhat dismayed inner twinge. Outwardly only a shake of his head, a quiet laugh: “Honey-honey, don’t worry about that just now, aright? We can take care of --” His eye flicks towards Lucien, a touch of colour flushing into his cheeks. “-- Surgery. Though I think you’re kinda like a surgeon an’ a therapist /and/ a friend all smooshed into one --” << don’t say package don’t say package >> Lucien turns his wrist over, glancing down at his watch. “Two hours -- twenty three minutes.” So, alright, three hours in /billing/ time. His lips press together thinly, at Hive’s question; his eyes drop to examine his corn chowder with evident keen interest. He lifts the bowl tentatively; there’s still a shake to his hands as he picks up the spoon for a first sip, and he dips his head carefully, trying hard not to spill on his undoubtedly expensive clothes. “I know how to make people feel like they have had an intimate experience. To most, that is as much as they need.” His eyes mostly linger on -- other people’s hands. Hive’s holding Jim’s. Micah’s patting Jax’s shoulder. The glow around Jax’s. He lowers his gaze to his bowl again, focusing quietly on eating. One small bite at a time. "'m a fuckin' houseplant, kid." It is /really hard/ for Jim not to call Micah 'kid', though raggedly as he might husk out the words it's benign with a kind of loose bear-swipe of a hand in Micah's direction like omg sit down, "Don't exactly need a…" ohgod, sunlight. "-lot. /Christ/, Jax." THIS last part he sounds a little put upon because it's very hard not to close his eyes and /lean/ towards the light he produces, small spring-shoots open leaves to absorb it in their panels. << That wasn't randomly cruel or anything. >> He thinks blandly at Hive, the scrubbing of his fingers into the telepath's hair, plant matter crunching and snapping softly as he moves further. It might kind of /look/ like he's dragging Hive up into sitting by his god damn hair, if you didn't see how his other hand was hooking down under Hive's armpit to prop him up against Jim's shoulder. There. FIXED. "Yeah, get off it, pretty boy," he grunts at Lucien absently, not /yet/ able to look at him as he is making sure fuckinggoddamn Hive doesn't just slump off again before he takes his god damn medicine. "You're in the wrong god damn company to come off above it." He jumps his eyes from Lucien to /Micah/, then Jax (sunny, sunny Jax. Internally there might have been a reflexive << argh gaaaay >> when he gets headkissed but somehow it didn't end up getting said out loud.) The shakiness and pale coloring isn't missed, though it's only taken in with the brief reflective assessment his job has made second nature. << Wonder if he even broke a sweat breaking Murph. >> That's not to Hive. Just himself, and has a sick sort of genuine curiosity. "Sorry," he sighs out, just... by the way. While scrubbing the back of his neck, having to drag up an eyebrow to actually /look/ Lucien in the eyes when he looks to his face,"--'bout your brother." << Probably not. Gets a lot more practice hurting people than he does fixing them. Lots of people -- >> Though he doesn’t really /mean/ to, his words here come with a quiet press of attention-shift, flicking briefly towards Jax and then back to Lucien, << -- ‘d pay good money for that. Kinda more of a niche market, what he’s doing for me. >> “-- Yeah, but. Doesn’t tell me much about what /you/ need.” Hive wriggles himself up a little, helping Jim with his hauling. His fingers close around the pill, looking down at his hand for a moment as though not /quite/ sure what to do with it. His eyes cut over to Lucien, brows raising slightly. “-- illicit prescription drugs?” he offers, holding his hand up. “You don’t look in the /greatest/ shape yourself.” “He's not kiddin', either,” Micah assures with a smile at Jax's Disney-thon threat. Lucien's answer to Hive's intimacy question fills Micah's thoughts up with giving him /all the hugs/. But he just watches him eat soup for a moment instead. “Dunno. Some houseplants are finicky! Maybe y'needed, like, a,” his finger makes gun-triggery motions toward Jim, “/mister/ or somethin'. How am I t'know?” Fortunately, Jim and Hive's conversation is largely /silent/ and spares Micah some blushing. “/That/ would be your illicit prescription drug,” he reminds Hive, pushing the water glass at him again. “If he needs illicit prescription drugs, I can get him one after you take yours.” His head shakes, eyes seeking out the ceiling, betraying his feeling /kind/ of ridiculously like a drug pusher after all of that. “An' /then/ we can see t'maybe gettin' you t'eat a thing, too. Jax made deliciousness.” “Y’gonna add ‘dealer’ to your list of titles, honey-honey?” Jackson bonks his forehead against Micah’s shoulder, amusement in his voice. “Don’t know if there’s a snappy three-letter acronym for that, though.” Almost unthinkingly, he shifts closer to Lucien, hand moving to Lucien’s to steady the shaking bowl. The light, meanwhile, grows, a hovering globe of it that floats closer to Jim and hovers there, warm and sunny. “-- We /have/ a mister, here.” This comes with a brief glimmer of laughter in his voice, too. “S’in Dusk’s room, he used to --” The laughter fades, his brow furrowing as shadows blossom in his thoughts. “Could fill it. Spritz.” His hand curls against Lucien’s a little bit more steadily, gaze dropping down to rest on him. “Do kinda look like you could use --” He hesitates; in his mind his worry isn’t really for Lucien’s current exhaustion so much as the past few /months/. But it is much easier to just focus on the concrete and so his fretting just comes out in a mild, “-- Y’gonna need to rest a spell, or somethin’?” For Jax just as with Micah, the contact comes with a wash of unpleasantness that Lucien does not bother to quell. His hand does steady, though, resting in the other man’s with a small twitch of smile that is almost relieved. “Don’t /you/ need your own painkillers, Micah?” He shakes his head at the offer, glancing over towards his discarded jacket. He sets his spoon down, leaning down to pick it up. “Thank you, no. Mine comes -- a good deal stronger.” It takes some digging in an inside pocket of the jacket before he retrieves a very small plastic bag, a small quantity of grainy white powder inside it. His hand drops, though; he looks to Jim with a blankly inscrutable look at the mention of his brother. “{Thank you.}” It is very quiet; the slight tremor of his hand beneath Jax’s grows. “What I need, Hive --” His head shakes, slightly. “I do not think is here. But I have.” His words are slightly /clipped/, now, crisp and precise as he picks his spoon back up for another bite of soup, “Known. Intimacy. Perhaps not as profligately as some.” "Swallow it," Jim grunts at Hive, if he needs help figuring out what to /do/ with those pills. Just - muttered, while scrubbing his face with his hands, stooping over again. It sheds bits of treebark on the bed. His own mind remains bleak and hard; deep greenwood thickening into tentacles, rippling deep underground - he watches Jackson hover by Lucien, and this is all his mind has to offer. Churning. As Jackson's smile rises and falls, Jim eventually just closes his eyes and leans back against - well there's probably no bedframe, but there's probably a /wall/. Once propped, he anchors down with a slow outward spiderwebbing creep of vines that claim the wall and possibly some Hiveparts. He slowly shakes his head 'no' to MISTING. << Christ. >> "You wanna know what you can do?" He points a finger - AT MICAH. It's all very Lord Swampthing. Like, YOU. "You can sit down. Jesus, no one's gonna die if you people," JAX, he spears a look at him, "fucking relax. I'll tell you what you can do with your -- profligate /intimacy/." Sss, he presses his palm against the side of his head, gritting his teeth. All Mr. Sunshine. (Even if Mmmm. Sunshine. The leaves of his vines favor Jax's minisun heavily, extending towards it.) His eyes are still centered on Micah when they open again, scanning him up and down briefly. "/So/. Mickey." << This kid. -- Quis custodiet ipsos custodes. >> A common phrase from Jim's mind, with its accompaniment: << And who cares for the fucking caregivers. Christ I hate this shit. >> "How the fuck're /you/ doing, man?" He'll just SHOVE a Hive under one arm. There. That's where he belongs. Hive’s eyebrows hike upward, at the baggie Lucien procures; it’s accompanied by a small curl of smile and a greater /sagging/ against Jim’s side. “-- Sorry, Micah.” He holds his hand back out, pill held on one palm. “If we’re going to be breaking laws might as well break them /properly/. -- /They/ might die if they sit down. Fret themselves to death. They have a /problem/.” He’s -- just not going to acknowledge the intense /worry/ that furrows his own brow. << Look after each other, I guess. Or we all do. You know, they -- >> Hive doesn’t finish this train of thought. His eyes skip between Jax and Micah, and then he closes them, resting his head to one side against Jim. “Have known.” He repeats Lucien’s words a little more quietly. “-- But now?” Micah's lips quirk over to one side. “You /clearly/ haven't spent enough time around the medical-academic community, Jax. It would obviously be Illicit Pharmaceutical Agent. Which TLA's easily.” He shakes his head in answer to Lucien's question. “No, these are just kinda...leftovers? They always give me more'n I need. My pain tolerance is pretty high... Just. Get more if I actually /need/ 'em for somethin'.” His gaze tracks to the baggie, lips pressing together in the beginnings of a frown, but saying nothing on the matter. “Just tryin' t'make sure y'all nearly-braindeathed people are set up okay since you’re /clearly/ not t'be trusted t'judge that for yourselves. 'Least not /all/ the time.” His eyes flick back over to Jim. “I'm mostly full up on frettin' about people over-extendin' themselves t'death, t'be perfectly honest.” Micah shepherds the pill from Hive's hand back into the bottle, using the side of his own hand. The bottle finds itself back in his pocket. “Will you all /please/ be careful with the unregulated stuff? You're already kinda...headscrambled. So take it easy, okay?” He gives Hive a narrow-eyed look. “An' you're eatin' somethin'. It's required.” With that, he slips out of the room for a moment, just long enough to fetch another bowl of soup and spoon to bring to Hive's bedside. “Clearly. Gotta spend more time with your folks, brush up on my acronyming.” Jackson’s teeth clench for a moment at the spill of feeling from Lucien, but he doesn’t move. He does frown, faintly, at the bag, but the frown soon disappears. “Food first, yeah. After that --” He shrugs. “After that, whatever.” His fingers squeeze a little tighter against Lucien’s. He leans forward, pressing a kiss to Lucien’s temple. “Don’t gotta be past-tense, honey-honey,” he murmurs, quiet. “Eat up. I’ll --” He smiles, a little wry, at Jim. “-- go sit down.” Although he’ll probably actually go do more /dishes/. His sunny glowing lantern stays where it is as he trails back out to the living room. “I am not sure,” Lucien’s answer in return is the same quiet murmur as Jax, “that I am /capable/ of it --” His hand turns over, in Jax’s, squeezing back gently, this time with a soft flush of warmth replacing the queasy-headachey-exhaustion spilling over from him. “Thank you. Go. Sit.” He turns his attention back to his soup, taking a few more slow bites. “Do not worry,” he assures Micah. “I would not expend all that energy repairing his mind just to fry it again. At least -- not permanently. Small bouts of brain-frying are sometimes.” He squeezes his eyes shut tight. “Welcome.” A small smile curls against his lips. “Though if you would like a reprieve from your inveterate fretting,” he offers this lightly, one hand turning up in invitation, “I can manage quite a bit of relaxation even without pharmaceuticals.” His eyes open again to focus on Jim. “Though I would like -- before I scramble my own -- to take a look at you one more time. It might be a touch easier now that you are awake.” "Yeah, well," Jim is sort of saying to Hive, sort of Micah and Jackson, sort of some deep inward /hobo-mutter/, "After a certain point I guess frettings more for the fretter's sake than the person they're fretting for. 'Cause it makes /my/ ass agitated as hell. /Might/ be easier." Said with eyes rolling open and zoning on Lucien with a gradual dilation of pupils. For depth perception. "If you work on things that need a god damn -- nervous system. I sorta straddle the animal-and-vegetable line. All the same, I'm gonna take a pass, gorgeous. /Deep/ as all this shit is, I've personally had about enough 'intimacy' to last me. - No offense, kid, but you're starting to look like a beautiful corpse." << ...Guess it wasn't really possible to /ask/ if I wanted some fucking work done to start. >> His eyes drop down to the baggie as well, the heated angry throb in his head or hard knot clenching in his gut not really visible amongst the other usual frown lines that tug at the scar dragging down the side of his face. A nice dark (earth)bar, he's thinking. A cool (rainwater)beer. The silence of (deep forest)smokescreen privacy, cigarettes burning down in faded lamp light. It blots out other things, writhing deeper in the dark. << You get hooked on that shit and you got no room to get on my case for hitting up a bar. >> It's not really telling him he can't. But /is/ just PUTTIN that out there. While Jim sunbathes, eyes lazily closing for a moment. << No, >> Hive says, blunt and entirely unapologetic, << It wasn't. You might have gone planty forever. Might have died. >> Though in his mind these two things seem largely equivalent, and come with more certainty than "might" would imply. << Wasn't enough of you for /me/ to drag back on my own. You want to go that route, you do it on your own gorram watch. >> "Go sit," he agrees to Jax, "both of you -- fucking -- go. Chill the fuck out. Crisis over. You can't help us /rest/ any faster." He does struggle a little more upright, reaching to take the bowl in stiff uncertain hands and start eating, slowly. Jim's caution is met with a mental eyeroll in the form of flickers of various anti-drug ads. Treebeard. My anti-drug. << Thanks, dad. Don't know how I lived without your mossy ass in my life. >> Though there is, perhaps, a bit of a twinge of ache in these words that render them somewhat less snide than they otherwise would have been. Once Hive takes the bowl, Micah does back off on his fussing. Hive gets a fond (gentle!) hair-tousling before he turns away, however. “No, thank you...to...either of those. I’m rather attached t’my ability t’think straight an’ choose what I’m gonna fret over,” he declines Lucien’s offer, his voice sounding a little tired. “Hugs are happenin’ now, by the way. Just, fair warnin’.” With that, he wraps an arm around Lucien’s shoulders, bringing his mouth close to Lucien’s ear. “You take care of him /and/ you /both/, you got it? Condition of me leavin’ an’ sittin’.” He straightens, gesturing toward the door before following the gesture out of it. For a moment, Micah starts toward the kitchen to lend assistance to Jax, then he stops himself with a headshake. Instead, he climbs onto the arm of the chair where Dusk had taken up residence with his laptop. He nudges him in the shoulder with his forehead, rather like a cat demanding attention in spite of the ‘oh, were you working?’ factor. But, definitely sitting now, at least. Jax /does/ eyeroll, his is external in time with his small twitch of smile. << Yeah. For /our/ sakes. Next time we’ll leave him to die. >> It’s sort of /weary/-fond, his hand squeezing briefly at the doorway to Hive’s room, gaze flicking over the others before he vanishes to drop himself down onto the couch. “Lookit you, bein’ all productive,” he says this lightly to Dusk, his arm draping over his eyes. “The rest of us are just uselessly fretting.” It’s said with more amusement than exasperation, his thoughts coloured -- more with the same sort of patience for Jim’s crotchety-ness that he regards /Spencer/ with when he is fighting bedtime. “Oh, this,” Lucien says drily, “is not real fretting. This is --” He regards his bowl thoughtfully, spoon tapping briefly against it. “Aftercare. And you might not have needed it, Mr. Morgan, but your companion certainly did.” His tone is quiet, and his glassy-calm mental scape every bit as unreadably neutral as his expression is outwardly. “Thank you,” he adds, to Jax and Micah with a small tip of his head. “I sometimes get the impression /many/ around here would be doing a good deal worse off without your --” He pauses to take a small bite of soup. “Fretting.” His arm lifts, curling around Micah’s shoulders in a tight but brief return of the hug; the slight tip of his head to the side at Micah’s whispering brushes up briefly against Micah’s mouth with a very /light/ touch of happy warmth, a soft flutter that fades almost as soon as it arrives. “I do my best,” he answers quietly. Dusk scrunches up his face at Micah’s headbutting, closing his laptop lid with a /sigh/ but lifting a hand to /scritch/ at Micah’s head. Hello, kitty. He pulls one side of his headphones back off his ear, looking over the other two. “All clear?” "Good thing I didn't say anything about my companion then, isn't it." Only Jim's mouth moves, and a faint compression somewhere in his mossy-leafy central mass that would be the breath necessary to speak. Through vocals made partly of plant fibers it's a low scratchy-rustling voice. "-an' hear you /snarking/ out there Jackie!" << I wouldn't have fucking-- died. >> He shoots back reflexively. Crankily. But he's looking down the great chasm within his mind, in the slow ponderous manner of branches in a wind. And he's thinking very hard for a moment about just why they call a comatose human a /vegetable/... A great part of him slumps inwardly. On the single present moment, where deep roots still ground him. Sink in hard and tighten down to his own mooring. << 'm not going anywhere, hero. >> Except for somewhere that his own head isn't throbbing like a lightning pulse. "I'm having a god damn nap." Said all 'like a NORMAL' person. Even if normal for Jim involves a gradual stilling of breath. A slowing of heartbeat. But the enroach of forests stop short of his mind. Much as he's tempted to sink in fully, he remains close, in mind, to that raw socket where Hive once dwelled. The vines will likely follow suit. "But it's so cute when he snarks. He has so little practice at it." There's a brief heavy /press/ of Hive's mind to Jim's, pushing in in reflexive seeking of -- something. It comes with a hungry /ache/ that fades as he pulls back sharply. The mental withdrawal is timed with a closer sinking in of his weight against Jim's. "Think we'd /all/ be somewhere ugly without them," he agrees, quiet and tired. And then silences, to focus on finishing his soup, bite by slow bite. "Yeah. Nap. Think we're all --" Though his eyes are drifting to the baggie in Lucien's lap, "about due for one."