Logs:Of Stress and Sensitivities (Or, Medice, Cura Te Ipsum)

Of Stress and Sensitivities (Or, Medice, Cura Te Ipsum)
Dramatis Personae Gaétan, Harm, Kavalam	2023-11-05 "Where have you been medicking, Jersey?"
Location texts & <NYC> Tessier Residence - Upstairs - Greenwich Village
13 october 2023. (Gaétan --> Harm): 🎸? (Gaétan --> Harm): There's no mandolin emoji but you down to jam this weekend? (Harm --> Gaétan): Oh no (Harm --> Gaétan): Sorry I'm really busy this weekend 20 october 2023. (Gaétan --> Harm): Yo there's a pretty weird art festival in White Plains Sunday, I can give you a ride if you're down. (Harm --> Gaétan): I'm volunteering Sunday 😔 (Gaétan --> Harm): You are volunteering forever when are you going to rest. (Gaétan --> Harm): Senior year is for slacking you're doing it wrong. (Harm --> Gaétan): I know but it's really important (Harm --> Gaétan): Anyway you've seen my grades I can't afford senioritis 😭 (Gaétan --> Harm): Taking a break sometimes is good for your grades (Gaétan --> Harm): [photograph of Sera holding an extremely haunted-looking statue of something that might be a clown or might be a pig and definitely looks murderous] (Gaétan --> Harm): [photograph of Nanami wearing a hat covered in multi-headed taxidermy birds] (Gaétan --> Harm): [photograph... that might be overlook-able but Kavalam has on glasses whose frames may be made out of teeth] (Gaétan --> Harm): I don't know if I can say 'you're missing out' or not but I have definitely found some weird-ass shit to add to Nanami's Freakish Stuffie Cache. (Harm --> Gaétan): 🪼 (Harm --> Gaétan): Oh crap I need to finish Nanami's present! (Harm --> Gaétan): And I see Sera is finally joining us (Harm --> Gaétan): If she needs a broom I can hook her up (Harm --> Gaétan): Say hi to everyone for me❣️ 28 october 2023. (Gaétan --> Harm): You want to get coffee, I feel like I haven't seen you in five years (Harm --> Gaétan): Wasn't my birthday like last month 😭 (Harm --> Gaétan): It does feel like 5 years though (Harm --> Gaétan): Rain check on the coffee 🎃☕ (Gaétan --> Harm): How tf am I supposed to remember that far back (Gaétan --> Harm): Asking questions about what we did a whole lifetime ago (Gaétan --> Harm): Seriously though are you doing okay? (Harm --> Gaétan): I'm a healer, I'm an expert in okay (Harm --> Gaétan): And I have a team taking care of me (Harm --> Gaétan): It's just been a lot (Harm --> Gaétan): Also seriously though, let's hang out soon (Gaétan --> Harm): I don't think that actually tracks (Gaétan --> Harm): All the medics I know are shit at self care (Gaétan --> Harm): I'm holding you to "soon" though 4 november 2023. (Gaétan --> Harm): Actually I have no idea wtf soon is. If you make me come out to Westchester though I'll… (Gaétan --> Harm): still be your friend but, I'll complain (Gaétan --> Harm): Coffee, though? Or kombucha or whatever tf the preferred drink of your people is? (Harm --> Gaétan): Can I come by your place? (Harm --> Gaétan): After my shift tomorrow (Harm --> Gaétan): Also, can the coffee have booze in it? (Gaétan --> Harm): Yeah sure I'll be around (Gaétan --> Harm): And we have so much booze here. Some of it could have coffee in it. (Harm --> Gaétan): ❤️ --- <NYC> Tessier Residence - Upstairs - Greenwich Village The upper floor of this apartment holds the bedrooms; one master bedroom and three smaller ones. One has been converted to a lounge, couches and /more/ books and a large desk by its window. The other two smaller bedrooms upstairs, in strange departure from the rest of the house's style, seem decorated more with younger occupants in mind. One of them, styled largely in purples and blues, has a pair of twin beds with matching butterfly-patterned bedspreads and a similar fabric for the window curtains; a wealth of stuffed toys is neatly arranged on both. The other is very green, its bedspread green-and-black striped; the walls are covered with a host of movie posters. Between the two bedrooms stands a bathroom, cheerfully decorated with colourful mosaic fish in its tiles. It's Sunday evening before Harm finally appears in Gaétan's doorway. They're looking startlingly normal in a purple corduroy jacket, a heather green t-shirt with a pale crescent moon screen printed on the chest, and straight-leg blue jeans. Their hair is mussed and in need of a trim, their eyes have a sort of dazed look, and their shoulders are drooping under the weight of a much-patched hemp backpack on one side and a battered medic bag on the other. "Sorry, um." They pause, searching for words. "The day ran kind of long. I would have texted, but I didn't have signal." "How have you not had signal? Where have you been medicking, Jersey?" Gaétan is flopped on his futon, unstartlingly normal in a gray checked shirt unbuttoned over green tee, jeans. He's sitting up and setting aside his Kindle as Harm appears, turning an intent frown toward them. "You look awful. Do you need the booze first?" "Yes." Harm is still kind of just hovering in the doorway, though it doesn't look like hesitation or uncertainty so much as just inertia. "Not...Jersey." They blush, and finally seem to remember what doors are for and actually steps inside. "Booze. Would be nice." They lower their backpack slowly to the floor, then the medic pack. "I was in Jabalia." Then, at a slight delay, their head ducking slightly, "In the north of Gaza." "That's almost as bad as Jersey. The flippancy is likely reflex; Gaétan does not look nearly as glib as he sounds. He's gotten to his feet at the request for booze but then just frozen, staring at Harm -- the medic pack -- Harm. "Are you --" From his slightly sharper-shifting tone this sounds very like it was about to finish in crazy, but then he's looking again at his friend's face. His shoulders ease in their tense set, and he gestures to the futon in invitation. His voice has softened when he finishes, "-- okay?" "That is very-much worse than Jersey." Coming nearly overlapping Gaétan's own reply this is too immediate to be a 'correction' to the other boy. Kavalam is -- has been -- sprawled across Gaétan's bed with his laptop in front of him. Don't Starve is paused now, though, and he's reaching to Gaé's nightstand to pull a bottle of coconut rum out from the cabinet. His tone is mild as he gets up to offer the bottle to Harm, though his eyes narrowed behind his glasses are critical. "Are you crazy?" Despite having just unburdened themself of the literal load they were carrying, Harm looks even more weighed down at the questions. "This is why I didn't want to..." It's unclear if they get distracted by Kavalam's appearance, the bottle he's offering, or just plain exhaustion. In any event they do swipe the rum from Kavalam before dropping heavily down to the futon. "If it's crazy to want to help the way I know best, then yeah. I'm crazy." From someone else, at some other time, that might sound defiant or adversarial. Right now, Harm just sounds tired and flat as they unscrew the cap and drink straight from the bottle. "I'm there with Joshua and --" This time they definitely break off intentionally, shoulders tensing, and it sounds a little defensive when they divert to, "We have a team, and he teleports us away if the scene gets too dangerous. I have been okay, actually. Mostly. Until this weekend." Gaétan's brows tick just slightly up, but he bites his tongue as he plops back down onto the futon beside Harm. "Joshua --" He's glancing to Kavalam with a complicated shift of expression. It ends in a kind of blank stare down at his hands. "-- is solid," sounds kind of a reluctant acknowledgement. "Who else is on your team? What happened this weekend?" Kavalam has returned to the bed, sitting down cross-legged atop it and propping his elbows on his knees. His fingers steeple beneath his chin as his brows pinch inward. "Haven't they been bombing Jabalia all weekend?" His frown at Harm is very scrutinizing, as if he expects to see some evidence of said bombing on their person. His tone is still very severe when he continues: "That man owes me a Pokémon. Tell him he cannot get you all bombed." "They've been bombing Jabalia all week. But yesterday -- last night --" Harm takes another swig of rum, wincing at the burn and holding the bottle out to Gaétan. "It's so much worse than the news here says. But we're needed most after the airstrikes. The IDF isn't interested in blowing up craters." They look down at their hands, examining clean, short-clipped nails minutely. "Leo. You know, Leo Concepcion. And Mirror. And." Their shoulders hunch in tight. "They didn't tell me, but. Lily Allred." Gaétan is nodding with a surprising complacency at this first name, but his shoulders have tightened and eyes widened slightly at Mirror. It's Lily, though, who makes his brows shoot up. He blinks, takes a slug from the bottle. "That -- seems like a shitty thing to spring on you." "Isn't Mr. Joshua --" Kavalam is beginning uncertainly, but this question cuts off at Harm's news. His frown is growing more severe. "Can you tell them you would like a team replacement?" Harm pulls their knees up to their chest and wraps their arms around their shins, the huddled position making them look somehow both small and lanky. "Leo said -- we're more than the horrible things Prometheus made us do. And that's true, but she is not like us, she's a shitfuck --" Their voice is shaking with a rage they rarely show, and the rage doesn't fade when their shoulders slump. "-- with an M.D. Joshua can get us places other aid workers can't, or at least get there faster. She could help us save a lot of lives. Has," they correct reluctantly, "helped us save a lot of lives." "She's not really." It doesn't sound like a defense -- just kind of thoughtful. Gaétan offers the rum back to Harm. He's sitting up a little straighter as Harm huddles, arm propped on the back of the futon as he turns to his friend. "I mean, she wasn't there to -- Prometheus would still be standing without her. They could have killed her for that, too." His eyes drop, fingers curling down hard against his knee. "That doesn't mean you need to feel comfortable working with her. Just -- a lot of people made hard choices in there, you know? I hope we're more than that." "Some big talk for a flatscan." Kavalam's tone is sharper, here, than his usual offhand cheek, something uncharacteristically bitter in his words. "How many of them do you think it is fine for her to torture, then?" Harm takes the rum back and kind of just stares at it. "I know we're more than that, I know she is too, I literally just said she's helping us save lives." This all comes out in a rush. They look like they want to go on, but drinks deep first, passing the bottle to Kavalam. "I'm not fucking stupid, I'm just upset. She hurt people I love and the fact that she did it 'for a good cause' doesn't like, un-traumatize my girlfriend." Gaétan's eyes cut sharp to Kavalam, his jaw briefly tightening. If he's about to say something he holds it back, letting out a slow breath as the tension eases from his expression. "Right. Yeah," he says, quiet and much more level than before. "I shouldn't have -- I'm sorry." He slouches forward, elbows resting on his knees. "This all just sounds like -- a lot for you to be dealing with." Where was Harm passing the bottle? There is definitely not anyone on the bed anymore. Was there ever? "I feel a little crazy, like." Harm is staring hard at the floor. "My team thinks she's fine and you think she's fine. Naomi doesn't, but I don't actually know what Dr. Allred did to either of you in there, and she didn't do anything bad to me, personally." They down probably more rum than they should and hand the bottle back to Gaetan. "Am I just being too sensitive? It's like I had a lot of time to worry about her this weekend, but now I can't stop. I guess..." They settle their chin on their knees. "...it's easier than thinking about the schools they bombed." Gaétan is fairly studiously looking ahead of himself, too, eyes fixed vaguely on the wall. His fingers lace together, tips pressing hard at the dips in his knuckles. "I didn't," his voice is aggressively mild, here, "say she was fine. Or that you're stupid. Or --" His lips compress, and he waves the bottle away. "Look, you went through hell. You're going through hell. I don't think it's too sensitive to feel some kinda way about it." "Oh. I just thought you were..." Harm frowns down at the bottle. "I thought Leo was defending her, too. Maybe he wasn't, either. Maybe I am stupid." They ruffle their free hand through their hair. "I'm sorry for snapping at you. Like I said, I don't actually know what happened to you and you don't have to tell me, but I'm sure talking about her is more stressful for you than it is for me." Their speech is starting to grow sloppy. "I didn't wanna bring her up at all. Not to you, not to Naomi, not anyone who was there." "Think you're under a kinda insane amount of stress. Snapping -- happens." Gaétan still isn't looking at Harm, though. His fingers unlace and lace back together, and he shakes his head once. "I'm fine. I get why you didn't want to bring her up, though, it's --" His hand turns up in a small shrug. "A lot. I think it makes sense you're all going to -- be. Sensitive." He flicks a small glance sideways to Harm. "Feel like you should take a couple more breaks, though. If you've been at school all week and doing that all of every weekend you're gonna burn out." Probably there is still nobody else in the room. Probably. But, at some point during this exchange a glass of water has found its way onto the table in front of Harm. "I wasn't really planning to talk about the war, either." Someone has trained Harm very well, because without giving any indication they consciously noticed the glass of water at all, they reach for it automatically and gulp down a good amount before setting it back. "I just wanted..." They scrunch their brows as though they'd lost their train of thought. "You know where I grew up is...like, I've never had a 'normal' life, whatever that means. And I feel more and more like maybe I never will. Which. Makes it easier to throw myself into this kind of thing." They purse their lips and look at their medic bag. "You're probably right about taking more breaks." They give a tired, lopsided smile. "But. You know. Maybe when there's fewer airstrikes."