subversion | [private] instead of stressed i lie here charmed.

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[private] instead of stressed i lie here charmed.

It's a kitchen, deserted except for Light, who's ... more collapsed than sat at the table. His arm is resting on the surface, and his head is pillowed on it; the other hand is touching a half-eaten piece of toast - perfectly square, spread thinly with some kind of golden-yellow jam, and at least an inch thick.

Over the last week or two, it's got harder and harder to keep his temper; he keeps blowing up at people. It's intolerable; the solution he's chosen is to use (not abuse) some of the prescription sedatives in his medicine cabinet. He's been careful; he's started on the lowest dose, intending to titrate upwards. Unfortunately he didn't anticipate how severe the interactions with his usual medication were likely to be.

He's literally fallen asleep at the table.

[[OOC: private to

stripesandheels.]]

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Why don't you try to remember for me what else there is, okay?

[On top of the pills, she grabs a bag of chips and a couple of apples, tucking them into vest pockets and going over to him, watching him for a moment longer then reaching out to take his hands.]

Up.

[As she takes his hands, there's the faintest tug away from her, and an incoherent protest under his breath: he can remember well enough, it's just that talking is hard.

In response to the order, he tries to push up from the chair; he really does. He's getting better, though; his eyes are wide open now, focusing with effort. His strings have been cut, and he doesn't care enough to push harder.]

Two of them. There's two.

Harder, Light, you can do this. You know you can do whatever you put your mind to. You're going to stand up and tell me the names of those pills, and if that's a little much for today, you'll tell me where I can find them.

[She pulls a little. He's bigger than her, but if he puts an arm around her shoulder and helps her, they could probably do it.]

Up.

[Another thing he doesn't care enough to crumple at, or to offer a bitter cascade of those barely-there laughs at: the suggestion that he can do whatever he wants. As she pulls on his arms, he leans forward, going with her; her hands are still around his wrists. Straining, because she's telling him to, and it's so much easier just to comply, he ends up standing, falling against the table; some of his hair lands in the jam. He doesn't notice.]

They're in my pocket.

[If she checks, she'll find two blister packs in his right trouser pocket, both marked in katakana and English. One is risperidone, an antipsychotic: tiny green tablets. The other is carbamazepine, a mood stabiliser: larger white tablets. The packs are both half-empty, and not the same ones he brought in his bag, when he arrived.

He's watching her like a child, all big, dark eyes, with, increasingly, more visible behind them.]

[She looks, and the guilt really sets in now, looking at his antipsychotics and his great big eyes. He isn't well, she'd known that and fucked with him anyways, and now he's sprawled on the table with lychee jam in his hair. Drugged, a tiny bit adorable, just as dangerous as ever. This is an even worse idea than the sex, but she has to help.

She slides the blister packs back into his pockets, fingers just brushing his leg through the trousers, and takes just one hand this time, pulling it up, trying to get that arm over her shoulders.]

You're doing so good. Lorazepam isn't safe to mix with just anything, kitten, but if we get you to bed, you might be able to sleep this off.

[Somehow, he does end up with one arm around her shoulders, and his head resting on hers. It's mildly unpleasant, to be bounced around from place to place and jarred and shaken when all he wants to do is lie down and close his eyes again and sleep. On the floor, if necessary, curled under the table.]

I know. I thought—

[No way to get that one out - that they've given him diazepam in the past, but he couldn't find it in his medicine cabinet. He'd known the relative strengths of the two, he'd known the interactions, but he really hadn't thought the lowest dosage would hit him this hard.]

[Walking gently enough to avoid cracking their heads together, with him all loose and relaxed, is rather painstakingly difficult, but she manages it. He's easy to patient with, when he's half incoherent and leaning up against her.]

Do you remember how much you've taken of each of them?

[She's sort of at a loss- her instincts say to pull him off everything until his system is less fucked, but arbitrary withdrawal from an antipsychotic is an incredibly stupid idea.]

[Tapering him off them would be the thing to do; the problem would be to get him to consent to it. It's a very slow process, but the motion itself brings him a little way out of the stupor; as they go, he becomes more able to slowly move himself.]

Morning, evening. One of each.

[He can still feel himself being pulled along, as if he's on wheels, as if his feet don't move of their own accord. And he's given away his secret, given it to her, and can't care.]

[And, she isn't sure she'd want to. She doesn't know his medical history, and whether or not the antipsychotics are, you know, to prevent psychotic episodes. As a rule, Matt supports continuing medicatiion. It's still hard to see him like this, though.]

Okay. I'm going to put you to bed, then go to the wish room and get a pharmaceutical textbook and read all about side effects and mixing and dosages. I'm way out of my league here, Light. This is pretty scary.

Not scary. 'm all right.

[It isn't quite what it sounds like: what he means is, you're not scary: switched off as he is, there's something comforting about the unthreatening presence of another, no matter who it might be. As he walks, his feet scuff on the carpet.]

You know the first thing we're going to do when we get you home? We're going to get that jam out of your hair, so you won't feel gross when you wake up.

[As though going off the tranquilizer will be pleasant, jam or not. She watches his feet, smiles, and scuffs along with him. Shuffle shuffle.]

You know if you do this long enough, you can build up an electric shock in your body. I used to do it all the time when it was dry out, then poke my best friend in the back of the neck, so he'd be zapped and jump.

Here. Not my hair.

[A clumsy brush of sticky fingers against her neck: no, the jam's here. It seems important that he correct her, if not that he be rendered a jam-free zone. Some of it smudges onto her; he doesn't mean anything by it, certainly nothing inappropriate. He still hasn't noticed the tiny blobs in his hair.]

Uh huh? Well, what about here?

[She reaches out, and tugs on one of the jammier locks, then wiggles freshly sticky fingers at him with a soft laugh.]

If you keep on painting the stuff all over me, I'll need to get cleaned up, too. As nice as that lychee smells.

Stupid jam.

[It still isn't angry, or irritated, or any of the other things you'd expect, considering that he has jam in his hair; there's a bit of a - something - as she pulls his hair, though; more of a puff of air than a grunt. Everything he's saying, for all that he's more coherent for walking, is still flat and slurring.]

Lychees are nice. Jam can fuck off. Gets everywhere.

You tell 'em, Light.

[She won't breathe a word of this to anyone, she decides as they round the final corner to his room. This is going to be their secret, even her favourite Matt won't hear a word about it from her.]

I've never had fresh lychees, you know. Only in icecream or in syrup from a tin.

Nice.

[Stumbling along beside her as he is, she might as well have said "have a nice day". But he responds, slowly looking from side to side to try and figure out which of the doors is his door, the one with the tiny mirror which isn't a mirror.]

They wouldn't be any good. Not abroad.

Maybe they'll be good here. Maybe you can show me one day. Maybe I'll find them, and bring them back to your room for you, so you'll be surrounded in nice things when you wake up.

[She didn't think following him would be useful for this reason, but she makes it to his door and tries the handle to see if it's locked.]

Nothing's nice here.

[The matter-of-fact nothingness of his voice renders that statement even sadder. At least the door isn't locked; Light was already half-gone when he left the room, hence the toast. The door swings open, letting them inside.

It's just like a mid-range hotel room with no window. Some books are piled at the side of the bed; some novels, some large-format non-fiction with pictures; nothing too complicated-looking. One wall is taken up by a wardrobe; all wooden slatted doors; behind them, the two-way mirror in the door is shielded by a small black curtain. A door in one corner leads off to the bathroom.

Light drops onto the bed as if he's just been shot, without even taking his shoes off. The approval's dim, faraway, but definitely there: this is the best thing to happen to him all day.]

[Matt takes his shoes off for him, one at a time, then checks to make sure all the buttons that should be undone are undone (don't leave unconscious people wearing restrictive clothing.) Then she goes to deal with the jam- a wet washcloth, applied to his hair and all the other sticky parts on both of them.

Last but not least she takes the pill packages back out of his pocket, and starts looking around the room for the original boxes. They might have more information on them that she can read, about just in cases.]

[As she loosens his clothes and wipes him over, he shifts a little, making half-asleep noises of protest - especially at the dampness in his hair. By now, he's vaguely aware that he doesn't like it; he just wants to sleep. And in this particular case, he'll be fine once he's slept it off; the interaction isn't that severe, though the chances are good he won't remember anything after the stupor set in. This is likely to be for her alone.

She'll find the boxes in the medicine cabinet, along with all the rest of what the mansion has seen fit to provide him with.]

[Matt gathers all of it into her arms (making a pouch with the front of her sweater, taking it back to the bed) and settles down next to him to set into reading. Her left hand toys absently with Light's hair, proprietary and soothing. She holds the box with the other.]

[Perhaps weirdly - or perhaps not - there's an infinitesimal shift of his head towards her hand, as she fiddles with his hair. He likes it; down where he's still aware he needs comforting, that's what it does.

It's fifteen hours before he stirs; people passing by outside, doors in the corridor opening and snapping closed. None of it disturbs him. Shifting and stretching as he regains something approximating consciousness, he becomes aware ... there's someone else there. Someone tucked at the bottom of the bed, against his legs; he rolls away, out of contact. Did he really? Again? He doesn't remember at all; his body and his thoughts are lead, and someone's lobotomised him with a white-hot kitchen knife, and his mouth is thick and sticking to itself; he's so thirsty. It's the worst hangover you can ever imagine.

"Who's there?" doesn't seem the suitable thing to ask, so instead he settles for something different, from beneath the quilt. He's too ill for panic or fury, thankfully, but he's not going to be happy.]

Hel - ow. [Slowly, still beneath the quilt, he draws his arms up and folds them over his head. His movements seem to lag.] Hello?

Hey. Don't try to talk, you could probably use some water.

[She scrambles up off his legs, puts down the book, sets the open jar of jam aside and licks the rest of it off her index finger, before planting a hand on the bed next to him and leaning over him to get to the dresser table. Stripes will loom into view as she reaches across him to get the glass.]

Can you drink yourself?

[Peering from beneath the quilt, he does see the stripes, and he sees her, and - no, oh, no no no. The first thing that comes to his mind, confused as it is, is that she drugged him. His words rasp over themselves, barely voiced; he wants her gone.]

What the hell are you doing here?

You collapsed in the kitchen. You mixed a lorazepam with risperidone and carbamazepine, and had a pretty serious reaction. You've been unconscious for more than fourteen hours, which means you're probably dehydrated. Drink the water.

[He's going to feel very sick for the next little while.]

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