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.]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.]

[Light nearly throws up then and there just from what she's said; he draws himself up into a ball. He's not hearing this; the shame at hearing how much she knows is crushing, all his secrets in the open. There's a suggestion of tears prickling; it must be the reaction. Taking the glass without meeting her eyes, he sips at it for a moment, trying not to down the whole thing too fast.]

Must have been a room.

Sometimes, Mello puts me on citalopram, when things get bad. Not all the time, but after I started in with him- with Yagami, that is- it really fucked with me, you know?

[She reaches out for the bag of bread, and takes out a piece, tearing it in half and offering the bigger portion to him.]

Not that I should have let a teenaged guy with an addiction to painkillers that I sometimes fooled around with control what medications I was on.

[Slowly reaching out to take the bread, his hand wobbles slowly back and forth. Every thought more complicated than instinct is acid just now, but one of those instincts is telling him he can't afford to upset her. She knows too much, and who else might she tell, and where would he go? She's nothing like me. I'm unique. I'm special. I am.

Chin resting on his knees, his gaze drifts between the bread in his hand and her. It's still slow and staring, a little hesitant to respond.]

How long have you been here, Matt?

[He hates her.]

I found you in the kitchen a little under sixteen hours ago. We made it back slowly, I got the jam out of your hair, you slept. I've been in and out since- mostly in. Caught up on my sleep, and my reading.

It said that amnesia was a frequent side effect of this kind of overdose. Although you didn't really overdose, did you? Just cross-reacted.

[At first he reacts against the accusation, protesting too much; it's too subdued to be emphatic.]

I did not overdose. I'm not an idiot...

[Shifting to something else, catching up, watching her. He's mistrustful; doesn't quite believe her.]

Wait, I had jam in my hair? How did I get jam in my hair?

You went head first into your toast.

[She finishes her part of the bread, and reaches for an apple and a paring knife, cutting it into half, then into slices, coring it into a tupperware container that used to contain slices of cheese and grapes and now only has a few grape stems left in it. She got hungry while she was waiting. The first slice of apple, she offers to him.]

You didn't overdose, you probably just underestimated how hard it'd hit you, given what was already in your system. This stuff is easy to make mistakes like that with.

[The bread is still sitting on what's passing for his lap; the apple slice, though, he takes between two fingers and sucks on delicately, chasing juice from it.]

It was the lowest dosage. I was expecting it...

You waited all that time, though. Why? I mean, why all this?

[Her presence, looking after him, is a burden; useful, but sickening. You can't look after yourself, so I'll do it for you. There's something odd about it, too: disturbing.]

So that you'd wake up and fall into my arms, obviously, tell me you were wrong to be unkind and that you never want me to leave your bed again.

[She has a deadpan to rival L's. The goggles help with the expressionlessness. She dips a finger into the jam again, and licks it off, looking as smug as the cat that got into the cream.]

Alternatively, because I am fond of you and you scared me. I guess I had to know you were going to come out of it.

Ah, no, you're one of those? Wonderful.

[It doesn't even begin to sound as if he means it: it's groaned, collapsing backwards into the single pillow. The apple slice goes with him, slowly shredded between broken teeth.]

What I mean to say is, of course, that I'm grateful for your concern, but it's unnecessary. I would have been fine. Embarrassed, but fine.

Maybe, but like I said, I was scared, and you didn't see how bad you were.

[Slicing the rest of the apple, crawling up the bed a little to offer him the second piece, after he collapses and finishes the first.]

More water? Less light in the room?

[Taking the second apple slice, he eats it the same way as the first - tiny nibbles, like a squirrel. The room's already dim, with nothing but the bright bathroom light shining through the door. It's painful to look at, though.]

Less light sounds good.

[Even if he'd heard it in Japanese, he would have been no less aware of the irony. It's weird, her sitting there covered in jam (for all that she's not, he feels as if she is; as if she leaves tacky fingerprints on everything she touches), being so solicitous to him when she should hate him. He'd really like her gone, more than anything - but since she's here...]

You have a medicine cabinet in your room, do you?

Yeah, I do.

[She stands, clears the food off the bed and goes to the bathroom, stepping inside it to wash her hands before flicking the light off. Her footsteps sound out in the dark, and after a moment the mattress tips, as she climbs on.]

Why?

[Silence, before he replies, except for the tiny crunching apple sounds. In the dark, it's easier to ask things like this. There's no reason he shouldn't take advantage of her, after all - though through the headache and the mist, the suspicion chatters like monkeys: What's she getting out of this?]

I don't suppose there's any diazepam in it? [It's grudging, as if he'd really rather not ask. Such a ridiculous thing to ask, to ask her, but...] Ah, you're going to hit me now, right?

I'm going to ask why you think adventures with diazepam will go any better than what just happened.

[Curling up next to him on the bed.]

It isn't like you to make the same mistake twice.

It's far less powerful and easier to combine.

[And it's what he's been given in the past, even if he did spend the time drifting around in a hideous mental fog, and even if he'd been under constant medical supervision at the time. A stabbing pain goes through his temple as she moves on the bed; wincing in the dark, he shifts, ending up curled into himself on the edge of the mattress. As far away from her as he can get.]

Refining a process isn't - [ow, headache] - making the same mistake.

Do you really need to tranquilize yourself?

[She just slides closer, and rests her forehead against his back for a moment.]

You're so smart. It's- it'd be a shame, you know?

[private] instead of stressed i lie here charmed.

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