goddamngrenades | Voicemail 2.0

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voicemail

Voicemail 2.0

You have reached the voice mail system of Officer Taylor Murray.

When you are finished recording, just hang up or press pound for more options.

To request a locksmith or report a crime, press one.

To hear these options in Spanish, press dos.

To send a verbal confirmation of a written command, press three.

To send a written confirmation of a verbal command, press four.

For delivery options, press five.

To page this person, press six.

To locate your nearest operator, press seven.

To leave a call back number, press eight. 

To repeat this message, press nine.

Press zero for other options.

To mark this message as urgent, press eleven.

Thank you for calling, have a nice day.

BEEP

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He attempts to shrink even further in. Why is York insisting on crowding him all the time? Doesn't he have any concept of space? Scratch scratch scratch. Where are the damn doctors? Someone needs to patch York up. York needs help.

Okay that's not the usual response to comforting- but then this whole situation is more than a little unusual and Mal's a private guy and York is letting his own issues cloud the matter so. Slowly, since an immediate withdrawal might kick off compliance and they don't need that, he leans back into his own space. Just as gradually he lets his arm rest on the back of the chair rather than on Malcolm. he can't get him to quit scratching without touching him and right now that just- seems like a bad idea.

Names. Which name are they calling?

"Smith." Oh great they've got at least an hour, then. Fantastic.

Well, if it felt at all comforting instead of panicky and crowding and like not enough space, maybe he'd react as if it was comforting. But comfort isn't something he damn well deserves in the first place.

What's the point of even being here? Unless they can somehow help? But 'help' has tended to not be very helpful lately.

If he makes this an emergency, he could speed this up. That's tempting.

God he did not miss waiting rooms. At leat in the army if you got shot you got seen immediately. Here it's just...wait till someone can see you. And everyone is sick. Part of him wonders if he couldn't hustle things along by flashing a badge but that's kind of waht he's trying to avoid, here.

"If I did something drastic," he mutters from behind his knees, "they would see us sooner, right?" He could do drastic. He's very much willing to do drastic.

"Drastic how and- Mal everyone's got the same sickness you do and I'm fine. Got a bump on the head and a sore knee." He can wait. They can wait.

A small nod. Right. Right, he's being selfish. So bloody selfish. How dare he think he's got it worse than anyone else here? And York's fine to tough it out himself, even if he shouldn't have to.

He can wait patiently. He's always had an abundance of patience for these kind of things, unless there's something more urgent that needs doing. Not the case here, obviously.

He's getting twitchy. Needs something. That table covered in tablets is just so messy. So messy. How can anyone find anything to read like that? Malcolm practically slithers out of his seat, like he wants to keep all extraneous movements to himself, like he wants to not be noticed. At least that part of it is always right. They aren't even in any order. The dates are all skewed, all the topics are mismatched. Needs organized. He has got to organize them.

At first he doesn't notice. Tired, winded- soemthing. He's half there and half not when Mal slips away and starts. After the first muttered 'what the hell' from his right, though, he can't help but notice that someone's fucking with the stacks of news and info tablets. Futuristic pamphlets, really.

And that someone is Malcolm.

"...Mal. What are you doing?"

"Mess." It's a mess. Nobody's going to be able to find anything, and he hates a messy room, a messy living area, a messy workspace.

At first he gets them all in one pile, by date, oldest to newest, all straightened out in a stack, meticulous. Good. ...Then he frowns. Would it be easier if it was newest to oldest? He has to take it apart, restack it. There.

...No, no, but that's too big. He has to sort it out by topic, style, publisher. Take the stack apart again.

"...What are you doing." Less a question more a- something to say because this doesn't make sense. It's not bothering anyone but it is worrying. Mal's tidy, sure, mal keeps a clean house, runs a tight ship but this?

this is bizzarre.

If he could stop, he would, because he knows this is ridiculous. It's one thing to want something to do with his hands that isn't scratching, but really? Really, now is the time for one of this obsessive little bouts to crop up? (Maybe it's stress. Maybe inordinate amounts of stress brings it on. He might have to bring it up with Whiskey.)

"Tidying." Obviously. "Sorry."

"Is this normal?" He hasn't been- no he has but he hasn't seen things quite like this before. What hasn't he seen?

"No." At least he's cognisant of the fact that this is some unusual cropping up of his damnable obsessive side-effect at the worst possible time. The past few times he hasn't been entirely aware until it's gone on longer.

Someone bored of waiting and uncaring of his antics tries to take one of the tablets away. He freezes and makes an undignified noise, reaching for it. They're going to mess up his system--

"Mal-" He reaches out, squeezing his shoulder. "Let the man read."

Everyone's tense, everyone's bored, but that noise was- he hates crowding Mal right now. he does. But he tugs him back anyway, tryign to get him to sit still.

"They'll be out of order. Date and topic. It's a system." He motions to the pile and straightens one of them. Straightens again, even though it's already straight. But is it? He has to make sure, and what if he made a mistake and something's out of order? Maybe he needs to go through them again.

But York's trying to ease him back. What if it's not right? If this is what his stupid fucking leg reduces him to, maybe they should just take the damn thing when they look him over. "Easier to find everything," he mumbles.

"Breathe, boo." He tries to tug him back, tries to get him into the chair so they can sit and wait and be miserable without causing a scene. "It's a very nice system, but what point is there to trying to find something easy if they can't take what they want when they find it."

"But it's easier." He's pulled back. Into his seat. But he can't sit still. He's twitchy, squirms in his seat, squirms and is unsettled. "You might want to keep hold of me until this passes. Just in a subtle way?"

"Define subtle. You don't really like- contact when you're not in the mood for it." Hence the very light albiet firm grip on his shoulder and nothing else.

"What I like," he says through grit teeth, closing his eyes and mentally shuffling through them, hands making the motions, "and what I need don't always overlap."

"...I don't want to be something you don't- like." But fine. He puts an arm around Malcolm's shoulders, holding him in the chair, eyes on the far wall.

"...Thank you." This sucks. This is all pretty terrible. He's cringing inwardly, and he might be cringing outwardly, and he might just have to bury his face in York's shoulder even through all of his squirming and attempts to leave and go back to organizing organizing organizing the mess can't have a mess fix the mess put it all in order god damn it these thoughts need to go away.

"Deep breaths, boo." he murmurs, reachign around to curl his fingers around Malcolm's. Squeezes them. "Remind me to teach you how to knit later. It might help. It might not."

"Later," he echoes. He's starting to think that 'later' isn't a very good measurement of time. But every time he moves, York is there to reel him back in. Until it passes. He slumps. So much energy gone to waste today. And he hasn't even had lunch.

"I'll make a nice big supper for both of us." Wait. ...Shit. "Once I rebuild the kitchen. I'm sorry. The oven door was sticking, and I--don't...know." That he doesn't know a lot of things that go on with or in his own body is getting real fucking old now.

"We'll order in." Like it's nothing. Like he's not wincing back what is probably a mild concussion or worrying about the swelling in his knee. Like it's all gonna be okay because if he acts like it is, he will be. "Some veggie stir fry from that place you like."

"Maybe." It'd be better if he hadn't put them in this situation at all, but apparently he's just not allowed to control his body. "What a waste all this is. I'm sorry."

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