Michael Alton (affect) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2018-03-28 05:23:00 |
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Entry tags: | #october 2017, mike, mike x rebecca |
Who: Mike & Rebecca
What: Sickies
Where: Their home at Overlook Estates
When: October 11th, afternoon
Status: Complete
Warning: Angst, pain
Two days. Mike hadn't left the house because he knew it was coming. Another attack. If it didn't happen soon he'd throw caution to the wind and leave the house again but the first few days when his five weeks were up he usually stayed home, confined to his room or else moving around the house like a ghost. Terry checked in on him all the time if he was home, trying to cheer him up with various means that would have meant the world to Mike if he wasn't so deeply dug into his depression. He hated the wait more than he hated the attacks. It made him feel like the living dead, just waiting for the inevitable, constantly on alert while too depressed to really use his time for anything constructive.
Sometimes it took over a week before anything happened and he hoped that wasn't the case now. Two days already. He marked the dates on the calendar and waited because that was all he could do. He couldn't be alone during an attack, that was the the kicker. Someone needed to be there with him and give him a shot five seconds after it started. Any sooner and it wouldn't work. Mike had never understood the logistics of it but that was how it worked. Five seconds could feel like five hours when your body was convinced you were on fire. All he could do was keep the needle close and make sure he was within range of one of his parents or friends for when the warning signs started.
Terry was at work but Rebecca was working from home as she always did around this time. Mike had flopped down in the living room for a change and was listlessly watching a documentary when he felt the telltale signs of pins and needles in his arms. It was such a mixed bag of emotions. Terror and depression but also a sick sense of relief that it was there and in a few minutes it would be over. He snagged the bag with the needle in it and made a beeline for his mom's office. He didn't need to say anything at this point, the look on his face and the bag in his hand was enough for her to know.
Rebecca knew the timeframe of Mike's attacks down to a narrow window, but she tried to pace them so it could never become exactly predictable beyond a general week span. If they were too timely, it could either be suspicious or give Mike too much a feeling of control; if they were too spaced out, it could potentially lessen the impact of anticipatory dread, which she had an interest in tracking. It was a balance she had perfected, though she was never averse to adapting itf there was a reason that would be beneficial to her research.
When Michael entered her office, she looked up from her computer and rose. She took the bag from her son, taking out the case that held the syringe with his medicine to have it ready, her movements practiced and demeanor calm with experience. There was always that period of waiting between the first warning signs and the start. The drug, once administered after at least a few seconds had passed, would bring relief, but the pain was a necessary part of the experience.
She was less effusive than Terrence when it came to comfort and it didn't particularly matter to her, though it proved useful in building trust. She gave Michael's arm a gentle, reassuring squeeze and let her hand linger there, to be ready once it was time to administer the drug, her head tilted back as she looked up at him carefully as the seconds ticked away on the attack's imminent beginning.
It was better to deal with her than Terry when the attacks came. It always felt like Terry felt some of the pain too, the way he always got upset and emotional about it. Rebecca was calm and professional so Mike didn't feel that weird misplaced sense of guilt when she was the one around. He took a deep breath then nodded at her before moving back to sit on the couch. He wouldn't stay upright, he never did, and it was better to slide off a couch than go crashing into the floor. He appreciated that she didn't talk much. In a lot of other instances he preferred his father's company but the cooing and reassurances could be tiresome when he was just waiting for it to be over.
It hit a minute later and for those few long seconds before the injection, all he knew was pain. His body was on fire, his mind was blank save for some primal death wish - anything but this - and he couldn't even scream as the air was knocked out of him. It was weird how he always felt like he'd been dreaming afterward, like he'd seen things while he was 'under', felt things that didn't make sense. His eyes were closed but he saw Rebecca's face like a vibrating photograph rather than her actual presence.
Rebecca followed Michael to the couch, letting the silence settle between them. She had learned how to dole out platitudes to patients as needed, but Michael never seemed particularly responsive to them at this stage, so why bother? His father was better suited to do that anyway.
It was obvious when the attack began. Watching pain had never particularly moved her one way or the other: there were some who might derive pleasure from it, then some who were struck by sympathy. To her, it was simply another research tool. She had given Michael some space as the contortions of his body tended to end up with him on the ground. Kneeling at his side, she counted off to five before inserting the tip of the needle into his skin, depressing the plunger of the syringe. Even as the drug worked quickly, it tended to take him some moments to come back to himself. She studied him in a detached way as she went through the process of removing the needle from his arm, moving away briefly to dispose of the syringe. As far as she had perceived, no powers had awoken in Michael yet, but only time would tell.
It always took a few minutes. Sometimes Mike passed right out after the injection. The drug made him drowsy but it stopped the attack so he could live with that. He tended to sleep a lot for the next day or two after an attack and at this point he didn't know if it was only the drugs or also just sheer exhaustion. Awareness slowly crept back in this time and he found himself on the floor, surprise surprise, his head pressed against the couch cushions and tears streaming down his temples. He hated this but at least it was less humiliating when it happened in front of his mom. Poor Vicky had had to deal with it once and he'd barely been able to look her in the eyes afterward. He raised his head, squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. His body still hurt in a numb sort of way, like that ache after a cramp, part pain, part relief. "You must be so sick of this," he mumbled, not for the first time. It was always at this time that he didn't understand why his parents would willingly put themselves through this, adopting a sick kid only to watch him careen toward an early death.
Returning to Michael's side, Rebecca took a tissue from the box on the nearby side table, wiping away the tears that dampened his skin as she waited for him to come back to himself. She had seen this many times before and knew he was likely to either slip into sleep or depression in the aftermath of pain. At his words, she gently stroked his hair as she had been doing since he was a boy to soothe him. "Not at all. We knew we'd have to manage your condition and you're exactly the son we've always wanted," she said, since even if he hadn't voiced the rest, it was a well-trodden vein of thought. Her answer was true in its own way: she would have had no reason to adopt Michael if not to maintain his condition for the sake of the ongoing experiment. She had expected it to wear on Terrence more, but he had surprised her. He worried, certainly, and seemed pained in his own way when Michael was in pain, but he didn't seem to tire of taking care of their son either. "Do you want me to help you up?"
"No, just give me a minute," Mike said quietly and managed the faintest of smiles for her despite the crushing depression sinking in, mixed with that guilt and gratitude he always felt for his parents around this time. He was only alive because of them but at the same time they enabled him to do his own thing and around his attacks he was constantly reminded that one day he'd be on his own. Probably not completely but things would be more complicate healthcare wise when he got older. Without Terry and Rebecca he'd probably end up either dying without proper medication or killing himself to spare himself the pain. He sometimes had a feeling that was what his biological mother had ended up doing but it wasn't something they ever talked about. "Tell me something," he mumbled, fumbling until he found her hand. Rebecca wasn't the warmest person in his life, and she certainly came off as cold compared to Terry, but MIke loved her and sometimes her detached and calm nature was exactly what he needed. "Just... anything. What are you working on?"
"All right," Rebecca said, fingers still combing slowly through Michael's hair while he took the time he needed to recover himself. Over the years, she had at timed intervals increased the acuity of the pain he experienced as part of the experiment and would continue to do so. There would likely be a day when Michael's body could no longer handle the drug-induced attacks that came every few weeks. That part she couldn't predict, exactly, though she had always imagined it would be before the end of her own life, given the strain. They had lost subjects before that way, so Rebecca did take care so that it hadn't happened too soon. Once Michael spoke and his hand was in hers, she squeezed it gently. She loved her son, in a way, and comforting him now had no relevance to the experiment, so she indulged his question. "I'm working on my editorial notes for a colleague before they submit their article for publication. It's on the histopathological findings in brain tissue of patients with epilepsy," she said, her tone calm and even, "So it's a look at what structural impact there is on the brain by that disease."
It was so clinical and boring but that was exactly what Mike needed right now. He had closed his eyes while she talked, her voice was soothing and his breathing was slowly returning to its normal pace. He knew his symptoms were in some way related to epilepsy and while he didn't expect her to ever find a cure for Reiner's, he knew she kept up with the studies and that was comforting in its own way. He was still relieved she wasn't researching that right now, it was the last thing he wanted to talk about, pretty much ever. He just took the drugs he needed to take and tried to have fun with the time he had as he no longer indulged in the hope or anger that came with his death sentence. He'd been angry in his teens and admittedly that hadn't been long ago but these days he was mostly resigned to it which also meant he didn't want to talk about it. "I talked a guy once who believed epilepsy was just a way to talk to god," he muttered, opening his eyes and sniffling a little before smiling wryly. "His god speaks a pretty stupid language, right?"
Research into Reiner’s would certainly have value, if Michael actually had the disease; Rebecca every so often kept up the pretense anyway, though his reluctance to answer questions about it tended to be obvious. Mostly this provided a useful reason to take images of his brain and ask him more detailed series of questions that were useful to her actual research. The rest of the work she did tended to be secondary, though cultivating and maintaining relationships with other colleagues in her field tended to be useful. She had some genuine interest in whatever she assisted in, which usually intersected with information that might be pertinent to maintaining Michael's condition. At his words, she laughed softly. "His 'god' is likely a complex hallucination brought about by increased neural activity during his seizures," she said, looking back at Michael with a wry smile of her own. She gave his hand another squeeze before releasing it to offer him a tissue. "But yes, it would be a stupid language to choose."
Mike blew his nose and then stiffly brought his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. "Guess some people find comfort in it, it'd just annoy me though. Thinking there's a god out there who just doesn't care about us." He understood on some level though, maybe that faith was the only thing keeping some people going, that hope and belief that everything was happening for a reason. He'd seen it on some support message boards which was one of many reasons he couldn't connect with a lot of people who were also sick. That kind of delusion and living for an imaginary friend wasn't something he could relate to at all.
Rebecca preferred to make judgments based on what was concrete and provable. If anything, she believed in scientific inquiry. God was simply a human construct to be used as justification, threat, or whatever else was expedient, as far as she was concerned. As Michael shifted, she folded her hands in her lap. "Everyone has different coping mechanisms. I suppose I've never made it much of a secret that I don't believe in god, so maybe I denied that one to you," she said. "Though I know you're perfectly capable of coming to your own conclusions about things." Sometimes to her disapproval, though she largely allowed Michael to do what he would with what was left of his life outside of the framework of his illness.
"Don't worry, for a coping mechanism that one is pretty crappy," Mike told her with a faint smile. His muscles felt sore like he'd just done a full-body exercise, and in a way he supposed he had. Glancing back at the couch he slowly and stiffly moved to push himself up on the couch to get off the floor. "Can I sleep in here for a bit?" he mumbled, the thought of walking to the living room or his room a little too overwhelming. It wouldn't be the first time he passed out on her couch, there was something very comforting about sleeping with someone else in the room, even the sounds of her picking away on the keyboard were kind of nice.
Rebecca rose to her feet and watched Michael to make sure he would make it back up on the couch on his own, ready to help if necessary. For the most part, she tended to let him request assistance if he needed it, but she observed him all the same. "Of course," she said. Since he had fallen asleep here before, she kept a couple blankets on the back of the couch. Once he had settled himself back on the cushions, she pulled one of them free to drape over him. "Do you need anything else right now?" she asked. There was enough work left for her to do, so if not she would return to where she had left off.
"No," he replied, not because he didn't want anything but because while he felt like he could use some water it just seemed like too much effort to sit up to drink it. It could wait until he woke up, he'd be stiff and disoriented but better by then. "Thanks, mom." His eyes were already closed, the shot making him feel drowsy as his muscles relaxed and started recovering from what had happened.
"Get some rest, son," Rebecca said, smoothing Michael's hair back from his forehead and covering him with a blanket. Returning to her computer, she sat down and opened the encrypted file where she kept her experiment notes on Michael. As her son's breathing deepened and evened as he slipped into sleep, she logged the results of today's attack and her preliminary notes for next month. It had been some time since she had last increased the acuity of his pain by the next increment and since he had still yet to show progress, it was worth consideration.