goddamngrenades | Voicemail 2.0

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voicemail

Voicemail 2.0

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"It was just the damn door." And now it's the damn door, some other appliances, a good deal of dishware... There are a lot of reactionary, terrible thoughts formulating in his head, none of which should ever let go of his tongue. But it's tempting.

"They should just sedate me for a time. So I don't do anything like...any of this for that while."

"Is this a 'they should' or an 'i would be more comfortable if' because if that's what you want? I'll talk to who I can to make it happen. If it's a 'keep you safe from me' thing then bite me." He snorts, pulling his arm off Malcolm now that he's calm and settled.

"The point is that I don't want to bite you. Biting in this context," as opposed to some other contexts he can think of, "is bad. If they could just put me under until there's a cure so I'm not a danger to anyone..." And it sounds comfortable. He won't have to think. He might not even dream, depending.

"Didn't answer my question." Malcolm is, now that he thinks on it, really fucking good at dodging straight questions. "Do you want to be sedated? Yes or no."

"If it's possible, then that would be wonderful." Sure, it'll probably be possible. But that's not really the question. "They won't find a medical reason to do it. Maybe something for any...future fits of rage, to drug me down. But they aren't going to just knock me out for god only knows how long until they can cure it." His voice goes quieter, more for the sake of not panicking people around him. "What if there isn't a cure? Like dystrophy? What if they don't find it, or it takes years and years of research?"

"Yes then. Okay." That he can work with. "I'll talk to the doctors."

Hell, it might slow the progression of the illness. It'd- be hell watching Mal all cold and still like Claire, like North, like everyone else that twitched and went still because of the ports but he-

If that's what he wants? York will make it happen.

Voice low and head tipped down, he murmurs. "Work's half done. I heard that someone had been working on it down below."

A fear grips him, a possibility he hadn't considered until just now. "What if something else can move me while I'm under? Something that isn't me. Something that slips between the cracks, while I'm...not exactly home. Is that crazy? Do I sound crazy? I sound crazy right now, don't I? But that's what they are, they're...crazy and beastly and ghastly. What if putting me under just lets whatever's inside of me take over?"

"Then we get you the booster, we get you home, and we get you fed." He shrugs. it's not that he's trying to be dismissive- he's trying to keep calm. Nothing good will come of him freaking out alongside Malcolm. Having clearly outlined notions will help with that.

He opens his mouth at the dismissal, then closes it again. York is being a rock. Cling to that. Don't go shooting off into crazy paranoid delusions. God, is that something else that's happening to him, or is he just winding himself up?

Malcolm's hand finds York's and holds on for his life and his sanity. Though his other hand goes back to scratching.

"Quit it." He murmurs but doesn't reach out to stop him. Squeezing the fingers in his hand instead with a little more force than is probably necissary but- it's fucking terrifying. This sickness. how out of his own head Malcolm had been. But they'll fix it. they have to. "It'll work out."

"I have to consider the possibility that it doesn't." But if it doesn't for him, then it doesn't for a lot of people. And that...is even worse. Probability says that it might mostly be the Immune left in that case.

"Thank you. For putting up with me." He'll try to still his scratching hand, letting it run on the arm of the chair instead.

"Nah. Not today. Today we're gonna be optimistic. We can be realists tomorrow." He tugs their joined hands up and presses a kiss to Malcolm's knuckles. "Not a burden. It never is."

"...I'll try." It's quiet, barely above a whisper. There's no way he can get his mind geared up for that sort of thinking, not with how jumbled up he is. In fact, he's at the very opposite of optimistic.

He normally would shy away from all of these little public displays of affection, but it seems monumentally important to him that York see that he still cares. That there's still love. That he appreciates York's very presence.

"I know you are. S'good." No one can just shut off that part of their brain- Malcolm has always been his kind of paranoid. If he wasn't asking these things, York would've been. it's a little easier that he gets to be the one not stewing on this shit.

But he'll keep the rest of his questions mostly to himself. Sit and wait. Wait and sit. At one point, he snaps, loudly, about the wait, shoots something about incompetency and a poorly constructed medical system to not be able to handle the load, even growls, but he doesn't destroy anything this time. Doesn't lose the time, either. Although once he settles back down again, he does recall the inclination to throw his entire chair at reception.

Best he can, York reins him in. Acts as a buffer- as a target so he won't upset anyone else. Makes light of it as much as he's able so no one else really- it's a powderkeg, everyone is irritable and the last time that happened Malcolm lost a leg so he's- so so damn grateful when they finally get called in.

The first thing--the first thing that Malcolm says when they get settled in is that York should get looked at first. Head injuries, have to be careful, after all. Just in case. York isn't even here for the bardo disease. He's just a - casualty. He's very clipped about it, short and to the point and doesn't want to look the doctor in the eye. Doesn't want to look York in the eye, either. All the little wounds between them can get tended to, all the cuts and the scraped below dried blood. The damage under it all.

They have to take him to the side to tend to him but, York gives Mal's hand one last squeeze before he's lead away. To Malcolm there's just the usual drawn blood, lotion for the scales, a scan- a shot.

A little regeneration for all the nicks on his hands, his feet. The damage to the synthetic flesh of his leg (from putting it through a god damn oven) is fixed up to the best of the nurse's ability with an address of a good touch-up mechanic to make it look brand new fresh on the body.

His stomach rolls. It's starting to appear that there's less and less of himself to his own body and his own mind. There's a weight that only gets heavier, a burden to everything that's happened, everything seen and done. How fucked up is it that he'd rather go back to a galactic war than be here, and be himself, right now?

Is this how it's going to be for the rest of his time here? The rest of his life? Isn't it more likely that it's going to get worse?

He's very tempted to go rooting around in all the drawers to find some needles or a scalpel or by some miracle a chem cube he can overclock--he doesn't move from where he's seated on the bed, but the temptation is there. He's stuck inside himself.

York gets his head regenerated and his leg patched up, a prescription of painkillers that he'll probably ignore. He'd rather be clear and ready than muzzed up and useless.

It is what it is. Mal's sick. Mal's sick, again, because of this place. Because the suit wasn't good enough or damn near antyhign else and this might not have a cure. This might be a stopgap. He might have to put a bullet in him.

They give York some time alone to breathe. To think. To shake out everything before he shuffles to Malcolm's room, knocking on the door. "Hey, boo."

There is only the barest inclination of his head as response. Everything's too cluttered, somehow too loud and too quiet, tense and hard to breathe. There's some lotion slathered down the spots that can be seen and the spots that can't. The lightest shade of a small bruise just beginning to form at the injection site. He is too small and greyscale compared to York's big bold light.

"...hey." He takes those few steps forward, reaching out for a moment before letting his hands drop back down to his side. Crouches instead to look up into Malcolm's face. Get a bead on how he's feeling. "You wanna go home?"

He can't quite manage frustration at the feeling of tears prickling. Never been one for tears, always one to hold them back even if they do come. Always have to suck it up, stiff lip, chin up.

Nothing comes out when he first opens his mouth. Yes is a possible answer. But how does he articulate what he wants in this moment? "I-" Take a breath, breathe. "Do you ever think," he starts again, carefully, though not without a waiver to it, "about stopping?"

"...Used to." He murmurs, voice low and soft and gentle. "And then I remember what it was like. Being stopped."

A lot of nothing.

A lot of cold. A lot of dark. A lot of numb- nothing. You are or you aren't. It's an absolute absence of everything that makes a person a person and he'd unwound in his own suit. The place he'd always expected to be in the last way he thought it'd ever happen.

"It's still...stopping. Stopping sounds nice." Maybe he can try again in another life. Maybe, with the kind of technology that's here, they could rebuild a new body, upload a fresh copy. Try again, but with everything untainted.

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