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This early in the morning, the life lounge was more or less empty, save for one person, whom everyone else passing through had taken great care to avoid disturbing. Or maybe he hadn't even noticed them. Lucky was, after all, asleep.

A styrofoam cup of cold coffee teetered dangerously on the edge of the table. He'd fallen asleep almost as soon as he'd set it down. Still reeling from the shock of the Sahara, and still confined to a wheelchair thanks to the paralyzing venom of the centipedes, he'd more or less confined himself to the labs for about two days now. Tinkering and planning gave him something else to do than face the reality of things. And when he had pushed himself to the point of exhaustion, he dreamed of nothing at all. It was the best he could hope for.

At times his fingers twitched, not unlike the way dogs 'ran' in their sleep. It only served to draw attention to the fact that the bandages had finally come off his left hand, leaving a fresh scar of a familiar archaic monogram in their place.

The hand underneath hers went still.

"Hn?" It took a few seconds for Lucky to make the leap back into awareness. There was a fuzzy sort of shape right in front of him, gradually coming into focus as he did. He put together the pieces as they registered - the leer, the smile, the hair, the fingers tracing the scar tissue µ. He didn't have the upward mobility to jump; but he startled. Mimsy seemed to have a sixth sense for creeping him out, and yet he was loathe to give up a chance to talk to someone, anyone.

< Look what the cat dragged in, > Song observed flatly, making her displeasure obvious. < Then chewed up, choked on, and spat back up again. >

"Mimsy?" Lucky tried to ignore his weapon's vitriol, still confused by the sincerity she had been showing lately. Even trying to protect him in the desert. It was so much easier to convince himself she was against him when she wasn't. Only when someone pushed did he have the strength to push back, it seemed. Once he had found the strength to openly defy Mimsy. Only once.

His eyes followed her hand warily to the discouragement written across his. A promise they had made without even knowing who they were. He had forgotten. But maybe that was why, in all this time, he had suffered her branding in relative silence.

Or maybe her insinuation he was going crazy had been more effective than she could have imagined.

"You, uh, you look happy," he ventured at the sight of her smile. The derisive tone had withered since the fight weeks ago. He placed his right hand on the wheel of his chair, as if clinging to the comfort of a tangible exit strategy he didn't have the last few times.

That was not exactly the way he would have put it. Lucky lifted the hand to give his new scar a quick once-over with a tight-lipped expression. Maybe he might have mention who had bandaged it up, if he wasn't so sure he'd see the same symbol carved the whole way up his arm the next time he came to. That game was over, and the tally went to Mimsy. Sometimes it was better to admit defeat early on.

"Paralysis," he explained with a certain amount of futility to Mimsy's side as she rummaged around. "They say the venom vill not vear off for -"

He was interrupted by her generous offer.

But it wasn't like he could just say no. So he mumbled something that might have been a very pathetic sort of thanks, and held the coffee cup uneasily in front of him. Whatever kept her happy kept him safe, for now. Her very presence had him wide awake with no extra caffeine necessary these days. She'd changed. Or maybe he had. It was hard to tell.

All the while, he kept his eyes trained carefully on her.

< Are you sure she didn't slip anything into it? You are in a laboratory. >

The cup had been halfway to his lips when he did a mental double-take and stopped it short, as if he'd had a sudden thought. His brain moved quickly to change the subject so as to maintain the illusion.

"The bugs," he interjected suddenly. He'd been thinking about them a lot, because he'd still be able to walk if he'd never met them. "In the desert. They looked like the titans."