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Oh s**t? He picked up!!? Okay, okay, what do I tell him?! The ******** do I explain any of this?!? Maybe—-

‘What has one eye and can’t see out the other?’

No, that’s terrible — that’s the worst — and I have no punchline for it! Saying ‘this guy’ is ******** pointless without the visuals—

Maybe—

“I’m going to put the next ******** who tries to be nice about how they try’n touch me through a ceiling, Borax.“ He didn’t mean to come off so tersely, not to Adam. The way the rageful, rapid fire speech felt so utterly opposite to his run on thoughts. Floaty things that they were, high as he felt on all the aftermath that came with adrenaline rushes and dopamine dumps. The happy little endorphins that were, truthfully, failing to do ******** all about the sort of pain that made him want to twitch his hand through the nearest chest and end someone entirely.

He was going to buy them flowers — tomorrow — let them revoke his free sandwich card — tomorrow, definitely. N’then he’d come back and apologize like always! But right now? In this moment?

“And I don’t wanna do Nicholas that way. He’s a really sweet tech — got the whole — wife n’ kids n’ s**t going on — and the Joy twins know better n’t come near me till I’m less — uhm — ********..“ He lost his train of thought, fickle as it was. Because neither of the women’s names were Joy, they weren’t twins, either. It was really just the pair of women’s shade of hair and their peppy, upbeat demeanor that’d made him think that up!

“Usually I’m better about hospitals. I ******** swear.” And for a second, when he paid attention to the line, to everything that existed beyond the dizzying red ache that had settled over his body, he swore he heard sounds of breathing other than Adam's own — “When it’s just me? Most of the time…but like…” and wow — it sucked to blink with only the one eye —

“Are you with someone?” Suddenly considerate, scared, pleading — for Adam to drop it all — unless ‘it all’ was Emmy? He almost didn’t want to know, but Adam had called him ‘Albite’ so it had to be someone familiar and — okay — yeah — tablet — business line — “Did I mention I’m in our infirmary…” smaller, softer, the words wrapped around a wince of an noise. The sounds of him sighing and shifting as he settled atop whatever starchy mix of sheet over plastic atop beeping bed he’d been allowed to perch upon like a wary tiger.

I really hate the smell of antiseptics — it never washes out of my memories —

“Oh, hey — great — he’s gonna get a kick outta this…” A cracked half laugh that died slow on his tongue as he worried over the amount of apology flowers, charcuterie baskets, and knife boards he’d be handing out later. Items that all steadily climbed up and up and up in number of persons they were owed to, while he wondered muddily what it would take to make someone like *Tincan* forgive him for ******** up his good time — or his bad time — or —

Whichever was better for the pair? He didn’t question it. The depths of the pair, impossible to know, even harder to think about. Especially around all the spotty pain-shadows that lingered in the periphery of his right-eyed view.

It made him jumpier, more-so than the hurt, the utter lack of everything on his left — swaddled as it was — swaddled as it would stay. Because he’d be ******** damned if someone in and peeled off all his slapped together work and — gods — what if all the nothing in his head fell out to streak the ground the same color of Faustites bleakest bouts of bile?! If everything inside of him matched what he remembered of his husbands everything?!

It’d be poetic, right? I could write a poem about it. Or maybe Tama. Stamped with a cat print as proof — he has the cutest toe beans —

“I don’t think they can heal this easy—“ Voicing his coalescing fear after a long stretch of nothing, a pause which meant so little to him when he was always just as happy to talk to himself within four empty walls as he was the nearest breathing body. He preferred the attention, and yet, with its lack? He would meander on, black hole sucking up a solar system, bearing its teeth at all the nearest passing stars. Telling them to ******** off with every ounce of body language he possessed as he hunched over the tablet a little more, “— not that I’m helping with that. Ah’m definitely not! I should just let them —“ A tug-of-war with himself; that dreadful little yes, no, yes, no, yes! The way it all seemed unending unless he had a referee to call the tie breaker for him.

“After you guys get here, yeah? Being paranoid and in pain is ******** exhausting…” He was sure they’d find him, or hang up, or not? He'd wait - or he wouldn’t — and Dilaudid really did sound the same as Laudanum if he thought about the two words hard enough, which? ******** hilarious that it all reminded him of a dish Aramis liked and he found disgusting — the hell was it? Oh! Île Flottante!

“Don’ wanna—“ and wow, okay, even to his own ears that s**t sounded childishly pouty! Three parts pain, two parts whatever they’d given him earlier finally kicking in. It took him far longer than it should’ve to realize they were gone off the line, longer still to hang up after the fact; marveling for how the tablet thinned down into a slender little pen topped with starseed-shaped crystal. The device as thin as the shift of shadows he couldn't quite make sense whenever he tried to look beyond the bridge of where his nose met the white splash of thickly wrapped, compacted gauze, that they'd been clamoring to change -- if only he'd let them -- and he would've! He swore!

Save for how he'd had more than enough of being touched for the moment. Not when the mounting pressure, that'd once been piercing, was so disorientingly dulled now. When all else he could think of was the dizzying blurr of everything happening all at once as he'd dumped himself into the infirmary with Headache still hissing in his ear; wretched, buzzing nails across his senses. The humming maddening as the memory on loop of Faustite. He couldn't help but tense for it, like waiting for a world of fluorescents to burst overhead. It'd taken effort to *not* swat at the people who were decidedly not bugs--

To not pick at the strips of layers of---

Oh, and there were people now! Albite startled slightly, a single auburn splash of pinprick-pupil slipping up to gauge who, and what -- catching sight of Borax's lips, the look on the mans face. Deadpan and blunt. Not quite demanding, just asking the obvious. It would've helped if he knew ******** how to answer in a way that made sense, instead of staring dumb, running his tongue over lips that suddenly felt too dry. <******** up." An answer lacking substance in all ways, however honest and true it was. "Royally." And he didn't sound sure if he was talking about the scenario that had happened just before he'd called Borax? Or about many months worth of problems wearing his name. "S'lot to sort through..."

“Jus’ the eye—“ middle fingers to the Senshi at Borax’s side, because those still worked just fine! And he was happy for it, even if he had to tilt his head slightly jussst to make sure he could see himself giving Tincan' both. "And Idunwanna...yet..." Oh, yes, the petulance was real, perforating the edges of whatever emotion he'd wanted to hold onto. Filling his thoughts with holes like a fast flowing sieve. "Not till ********--" He blew a breath, knew laying down most likely meant sleeping, didn't want that!! Notyetnotyetnotyet. "Figure out how t'explain..." terse, because there was no good explanation, because it all felt *wrong*!!! Some trick of a lie, some creature wearing his boys *everything* --

"That I found Faustite."

At what cost? At what loss? Was it worth it to have done this all alone, hmm?!

"I'd shove you down if you weren't hooked up to the monitors," Tincalconite retorted to the birds flipped his way. He'd dealt with more belligerent people stronger than Albite on worse drugs. Sure, Albite was bigger than he was by virtue of muscularity, but Tincalconite was prepared to go toe-to-toe if he had to. Wouldn't be the first time he got a black eye or broken wrist in the line of duty.

He flipped Albite off in turn, instead.

Settling his weight into an easier, more relaxed stance, Tincalconite folded his arms across his chest and stared through Albite's explanations. This was not the first time he'd heard a bloodied war story. It would not be the last. He reflexively picked through it in his mind, looking for the inconsistencies the cops would be looking for later.

Only, he doubted the cops would be looking for him later, here. Either himself or Albite. He'd gotten the impression that people in the Negaverse tended to melt away when law enforcement got involved. Fine by him. There was no love lost between Tincalconite and Destiny City's finest, who he often had to pry off of suspects or victims so that he could do his ******** job keeping them alive.

Incredulity made Tincalconite raise both of his eyebrows toward the ceiling when he'd heard all of it. "He ******** stabbed you?" There was a surge of giddy schadenfreude that he did well to keep hidden behind the question. He wished he had popcorn.