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 Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 1:31 pm
Finn couldn’t move. Well, he could, but the only way he’d found so far to keep from accidentally henshining was to stay still, and Kaatje hadn’t killed him for breaking the house rules yet, but she definitely would if all his power fluctuations made curious negaversers start poking around Florence Court. So, here he was, lying on his side on the couch, watching Spongebob and waiting for the sun to go down.
No one knew how to get to the Cauldron, short of dying. “I’m sorry,” said Finn. “I ******** up.”
You tried, said Menachem, which was a sort of nice consolation to the fact that the only way out of this was looking like taking his own life. Maybe, Finn thought, Leah would rise to the occasion and be a good knight of Babylon. Mistral and Alexandria and Mimisbrunnr could look out for her.
There was a knock on the door. “It’s open,” called Finn. He hoped it wasn’t Kaatje, because she was probably just here to mock him if it was.
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 1:35 pm
Nick wasn't Finn's doctor. Or anyone's doctor. He was a clinic doctor during his residency, but he was also trying to move laterally to surgery, so that meant less than nothing, too. That didn't mean he could excuse himself from concern for his friends, especially not a good friend like Finn. He got off shift and, after checking on Tallulah in the common area, headed upstairs to Finn's. "You look terrible," he said, shutting the door behind him. It was an understatement; Finn looked like death, what with the eerie blue glow leaking out from his eyes and fingernails and--well, everywhere.
He crouched by Finn's head, the stethoscope in his lab coat pocket clunking on the hardwood. "If things are this bad, you could've come to me," he chided. "We share a wall." And Nick owed Finn his life, anyway--such as it was--for getting him away from the Negaverse. "Anyway. Do you mind if I take a look? I promise I won't do anything weird or invasive."
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 1:35 pm
Well, if Nick wasn’t a sight for sore eyes. Finn smiled and waved his friend in, trying to move as little as possible. “Um, yeah, Doc,” he said, pretty sure that Nick was just being nice and Finn looked worse than terrible. He hadn’t properly slept in days. He was leaking more light than the actual lamp. “Do your worst. Best. Whatever. I think all this weird mystical stuff might be beyond the reach of modern medicine.”
“Didn’t want to bother you,” Finn added after a moment, trying to retain whatever dignity he had left. He’d gotten himself into this situation and honestly didn’t think there was much good Nick could to do help, which was less commentary on his friend’s medical skills and more on Finn’s condition.
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 1:36 pm
Nick privately thought so too, but saying so would make him a s**t friend. "Modern medicine can do some pretty miraculous things," he informed Finn. "If nothing else, I have access to better drugs than you. Is your name legally Finn Derouen?"
He took Finn's pulse three times, in the end; every time, it seemed more unbelievable. Finn had a fever that made Nick want to dump him in an ice bath. His breathing was shallow, he was leaking light from his extremities and his eyes, and if his pupils were responding to light Nick couldn't tell, which sucked and was lame because it was sort of an important factor. He sat back on his heels, idly rubbing his left temple as he thought. "Any pain or weakness, trouble sleeping? That sort of thing?" To put it politely, he was stumped. "And all of this because you have a second... What? In your chest?"
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 1:37 pm
Finn didn’t doubt that modern medicine had significant advantages over a whole lot of things - for example, it was a hell of a lot better than neglect - but Menachem made an indignant noise. Your Earth medicine is barbaric. Finn decided not to repeat the commentary for Nick’s benefit - he was grateful for the help. “Yes,” he said. “Finn Derouen. If anyone tries to tell you it’s Huckleberry, they’re misinformed.”
Even in his current state, he was glad to have gotten rid of that disaster of a legal name. “Yes pain, yes weakness, I haven’t slept for more than about an hour at a time in three days,” said Finn, ticking the symptoms off on his fingers. “I’ve had a migraine for a week. Uh.”
He figured he’d better explain exactly what they were dealing with. “Starseed,” said Finn, sighing. If Nick had kept even some of his memories from his time as Spinel, life would be so much easier, but as the case was, he hadn’t. “It’s this little glowing crystal inside your chest - basically a physical embodiment of the soul? So everything that makes you you - your life force, your personality, your powers - are stored in your starseed. And right now, I have mine and my ancestor’s in there, and that’s what’s making everything go weird and awful.”
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 1:42 pm
"Huckleberry," Nick repeated, quirking an eyebrow. It was ludicrous, as a suggestion for a name. His younger sister was named Chenoeh, and even he would've known to doubt Huckleberry was someone's real name. "I'm not that dense, am I?"
He listened attentively to Finn's explanation, making eye contact even as he texted in a prescription--thank god for the modern era, he had an app for almost everything. While he was sure at least part of what Finn was saying was true, he doubted that everything that made Nick Wellington who he was was stored inside a rock in his chest. For one thing, he'd seen X-rays of his chest. No rock. "I'm going to get you painkillers and some serious fever reducers," he said instead. "Clarifying question: are you hearing voices, seeing things, anything like that? Because if you are, that's outside my prescribing privileges and I would have to take you to the hospital. Which I want to do anyway, because..."
He paused, and it was unintentionally ominous. "Last time I saw symptoms like this, it was MRSA and the patient died in eight hours."
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 7:23 pm
“No,” said Finn, realizing even in his exhausted state that the joke had not landed right. “You’re not dense. I mean, my name actually was Huckleberry. It was on my birth certificate and everything. Finn was my middle name growing up. I had the Huckleberry part legally dropped when I was eighteen. Also, I was kicked out of the Boy Scouts like six months shy of Eagle for getting caught kissing a boy behind a tent at Jamboree. Now you know everything sordid and embarrassing about me and we can cut our palms and be blood brothers.” He sighed. “Seriously I do not think you are dense, okay?”
MRSA? Finn frowned. “So, like, I am hearing a voice,” he said, “But I know exactly where it’s coming from and I’m pretty sure it’s like the most normal part of this entire experience. I definitely don’t have MRSA - you heard the bit about the magic, right?” This, to a guy he had just assured he was most certainly not insane.
Although the bit about dying in eight hours was kind of scary. “Okay,” said Finn. “I’m going to sort this out tonight or I’m going to die trying.”
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 11:46 pm
“I don’t think you have MRSA,” said Nick patiently. He was going to gloss over the instinctive irritation at Finn’s sort of condescending blood brothers joke--Finn likely hadn’t meant it that way, and he was in pain and really tired, from Nick’s understanding of the situation. He ran a hand over his hair and put on his best bedside manner smile. “I heard the bit about the magic, but Finn, I have seen x-rays of my rib cage. There is no… glowing crystal, there.” The whole thing sounded uncomfortably religious. “I’m fairly sure the crystallized source of the human soul would have been noted during my anatomy courses.”
Maybe that was also a little bit snippy. He sighed. “I’m not angry at you, and I believe you, but you’re telling me there’s a rock in my chest, and your chest, and the chest of everyone I know. Did you believe that right off?”
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 11:47 pm
Finn sighed - he and Nick were both, more or less, men of science. Finn, lately, had been getting a bit weird and mystical, but he still believed in climate change and gravity and evolution. He wasn’t completely off the boat yet. “They don’t show up on X-rays. They’re not, like, a physical thing until you actually take them out of someone’s chest, as far as I’m aware. Exchange of matter and energy or whatever.”
“I didn’t believe it at first,” he admitted. Finn couldn’t remember when he’d first learned about starseeds, but he knew that it required something of a paradigm shift before you could take them seriously. “But they’re real. I’ve seen mine. You don’t remember, but you’ve touched mine.”
It occurred to him too late that if something about this conversation was going to trigger Nick, it would be that detail.
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 11:47 pm
The memory surfaced in a flash, horrific and half-fogged, details gone but the broad strokes there: the red haired woman whose name he didn’t know, Babylon passed out on the ground, and in his hand a blue-shining starseed--when it faded, his hand was flat on Finn’s chest, fingertips pressing against his sternum. Nick had no idea how it got there, didn’t remember the smooth, muscle-memory motion of reaching for someone’s starseed, didn’t remember whether his intentions had been good. But he knew that this was something that he had done as Spinel. A hundred hundred times.
“s**t,” said Nick, and he lurched to his feet and away. He pressed his hands to his chest, one clenched around the wrist of the other tight enough to bruise. That would keep him from doing anything to harm Finn. Wouldn’t it? “s**t. s**t s**t s**t. Finn, I wouldn’t. You know I wouldn’t. I don’t. I don’t have to do that anymore. I’m, s**t. s**t. I’m not like that.”
He was better than that. He was better than killing his friends--but the fact remained, he didn’t know the context of that memory, which was even now fading so quickly he couldn’t recall the details. He didn’t know what he’d done, wasn’t sure he wanted to know, but the fact remained: he’d just tried to grab Finn’s starseed, and only the fact of Finn’s very, very corporeal sternum had prevented him. “********,” he said. He couldn’t breathe.
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 11:47 pm
It all happened fast. Really, really fast. Finn didn’t even realized why Nick’s hands had gone to his sternum until he was already staggering away, and then it was all a matter of context. He’d remembered - something. Finn wasn’t going to ask what, because he’d already done enough harm and didn’t want to make things worse.
But mostly because he could figure out, based on context, what Nick had been thinking about. “Hey, man,” he said calmly. “I know you’re not like that. I know you’re not. You can’t even do that anymore, so calm down, okay?”
He took a few deep breaths, in and out, in hopes of getting Nick to copy him, which was a lot considering Finn was a total invalid laid up on his own sofa and unwilling to move. “Nick, it’s okay, okay? You’re okay. I know you’d never do anything to hurt me.”
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 11:47 pm
If his panic attacks were logical, Nick thought--between waves of s**t s**t s**t and what have you done--he would have an easier time dealing with them. But his panic attacks were not logical, and even knowing that he could not grab Finn’s starseed if he wanted to was not enough to level his breathing. The half-memory taunted him and he needed to remember, needed to know, but it was like trying to grab hold of something infinitesimally small; it kept slipping through his fingers.
He couldn’t do it anymore, but how many times had he done it? How many times had he pulled someone’s soul out of their body and--Nick scraped his hands over his head and tried to breathe deeply, in for four seconds, hold for six, exhale for eight, hold for two, and again. “I don’t know what I’ve done,” he said, through lips that barely moved. “I don’t remember it, I don’t remember any of what I did when I was corrupt, I just keep dreaming about it. She’s always there. In my head. Both of them, always there. What have I done?”
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 11:48 pm
Finn hauled himself off the couch, and his glamour flickered for a moment, his t-shirt becoming Babylon’s coat for a second and then he was Finn again. He crossed over to Nick and knelt beside him, not touching, just there. “Hey, buddy,” said Finn, putting a hand on the floor for balance. He could deduce that one of the women must be Avalon, but then, he had no idea who the other might be. Maybe he could skirt that knowledge.
“Hey,” said Finn again. “It’s scary, yeah? It’s scary to not remember things. We’ve talked about this before, remember?” He sure did. There’d been uneaten burgers and Tallulah had accused him of breaking her boyfriend. “You didn’t take my starseed, okay?” he said, rocking forward a little on his toes. “Does that make you feel better if I tell you that you didn’t take it?”
There was no way for him to know if this was going to work, but Finn pressed on, his head spinning. “Avalon took my starseed out of my chest that night. Not you. You took it from her and you put it back in and that was when I knew you were my friend and things were going to be okay, yeah?” This did not make up for the hundreds of starseeds Spinel had taken while he was actively corrupt, Finn thought guiltily, but he couldn’t be faulted for trying, right?
“You did some awful stuff,” said Finn, trying to preempt the argument he knew was coming. “Some awful, shitty stuff. And forgetting about it doesn’t make it go away but you’re doing so much good now and it’s okay, okay?” He had to stop short of offering Nick absolution - that was not a power Finn had.
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 11:48 pm
“Your glamor is flickering,” said Nick, “you didn’t tell me your glamor was flickering.” He wasn’t going to move, he thought, he was going to stay put. He was better than that and he would always be better than that now. He was free of the corrupting influence of chaos and Finn, at least, didn’t hold it against him. “Okay,” he said, and then, “okay.”
His heart was still pounding in his chest, for all the world like it needed to escape. He was monstrous there, but he didn’t have to be monstrous now. No one would make him be. “I’m only allowed to leave and transform when observed,” he said, bitterly. How much good could he be doing? “But. I’m sorry.” He should not be freaking out. Finn was probably literally dying.
“If you don’t solve this tonight, I’ve called in a prescription for you,” he said. “Painkillers and something to knock the fever down. If you have to go out, please consider taking off the cape and the coat. Or not going out.” He rubbed his temples, unsure of what to even say. “And, uh. I hope your ancestor appreciates this?”
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 11:48 pm
“Oh,” said Finn, like he was surprised to notice that his glamour was flickering, even though he wasn’t. “It is. Um, I didn’t think that was important.” He had enough actual, physical symptoms that Nick was fretting over that something so completely magical hadn’t even seemed worth bringing up. It was a distraction. An oddity. It was inconvenient, but-
But who was he kidding. It was a completely horrible symptom. He was losing control over one of his most basic voluntary magical reflexes and if that wasn’t a sign of something sinister then he didn’t know what was. “Thanks, bro,” said Finn, reaching out and giving Nick’s shoulder a friendly squeeze. He felt bad, because he understood his frustration at not being allowed to patrol on his own, but he also understood why the system was set up that way.
So he was just going to kind of gloss over the subject and if he survived the next week he’d see about sorting things out there.
Your chivalry is the stuff of legends, said Menachem, probably sarcastically. Finn snorted.
“He’s grateful, yeah,” he said, getting to his feet. He made his way back to the couch, glamour flickering again. “So, I’ll just, uh, lie here and try not to die.”
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