Hey, guys. Poi has a bad cold, so I said I'd make some butter-- but I couldn't, so I made some sour cream. Love y'all.
The thing you have to remember is, there's only one sure-fire cure for a cold-- and that's giving it to someone else.
The Cure
by Alestar
Debra Mann, age 23, declared negative today, on this ninth day of November. Negative as in, definitively unresponsive to treatment. As in, dead. There's a note, scribbled in pencil on the file, which mentions that she had some light scarring on her ankles, due to her dachshund, Puffer. There's also a coffee stain.
Dr. Hank McCoy bows his head, and speaks the words reserved for all the negatives.
"Unable are the Loved to die, for Love is Immortality."
Emily Dickinson will forgive him if the words fall numbly from his mouth. He flips the file over and shuffles it into the stack. J, K, L, M. A. L, M, N. L, M, N.
He stiffens as he hears the medlab doors whir open.
"Hey, Blue."
Hank looks up at the intruder. "Bobby. Can I help you?"
Bobby wanders over and leans against his desk, a few feet from where Hank stands, at the filing cabinet. "Nah. Jean wants to know if you're coming up for dinner."
Hank pulls out another file, flips it open, closes it, re-files it. "Tell her thank you, but no."
Bobby chuckles. "That's probably a good idea. It's Scott's night to cook, and I think we all remember the infamous mutant spaghetti massacre."
Hank nods absently.
"Well." After a beat, he says, with a lop-sided grin. "I'll get out of your way." His footsteps move away, and the medlab doors whir open again.
"Wait."
Bobby turns around, but Hank is still bent over his work, back turned. "Huh?"
"Anaximander, Robert. Born in Miletus, around 600, BCE. He drew the first recorded map of the world. Did you know that?"
Bobby laughs lightly. "I think I slept through ancient Greek map-makers."
"Ancient Greek philosophers. He was a student of Thales, the first Greek philosopher. He also introduced the gnomon to the Greeks. It's a device which allows one to measure large objects, such as the pyramids."
Hank's odd tone doesn't change, and Bobby's smile quirks a little in confusion. "What can I say, I slept alot."
"He proposed the idea that all matter is composed of apeiron-- which is a Greek word meaning, 'the indefinite,' and that it is divine, and surrounds and steers all things." He slides the last folder into the cabinet, and shuts it with a soft click. "Did you know that?"
"No, I, um. Hank, are you shaking?"
"He also hypothesized that man was originally similar t." A soft exhalation of air, then, and the sick thwump of furred hands and knees collapsing against the cold laboratory floor. "Bobby."
Bobby's eyes widen in shock, and then he dives down, beside Hank, grabs one arm. "Hank! Hank, what's wrong??"
Hank jerks his arm in Bobby's grasp but doesn't pull away. He closes his eyes.
"No. NO."
"No *what*? What's wrong?? Is there a--??" He gestures at Hank's head, gestures helplessly. "I'm gonna call up to Jean." He makes to stand, but Hank's large hand shoots up to bunch tightly, painfully in Bobby's shirt.
Bobby looks down, and Hank's stare is accusing. "BOBBY."
"Hank, what, I don't--" Hank begins to shake his head, not with intent, but blindly. No, no, no.
"Hank--" Bobby sinks his weight into the fur of Hank's body, pushes his hands around his face, holding it still. Hank's hands come up around Bobby's wrists, he is whirling in his bowed head.
There is SO much pain, so much loss. He can't fix it all. He can't heal it, he can't stop it. He can't even-- he thinks, madly-- he can't even look at it without breaking. There is nothing to be done. Can't, ever, is going, ANYWHERE.
Bobby shakes his own head, once, and whispers
"hank, you know i can't do this stuff, you know i don't know. please, hank. --sweetie, you gotta tell me. tell me what's wrong. tell me what you need. i'll do it, i'll get it, just tell me."
Tell me what you need, Bobby says-- and Hank raises his head. Bobby's wide, pleading eyes, a blue much lighter and clearer than his own. His own, thick with anger.
Tell me what you need. There is so much to need. Too much. Look at YOU.
Bobby's there, with his, hand, deep under Hank's shoulder, and he's saying, "tell me what you need." Because, you know, *good* *old* Bobby. Good old Hank. Good old-- Puffer. Hank looks up at his friend, the frightened, concerned eyes that he knows through and behind and sideways and out. And he thinks, half-thinks, hurting, what, what-- would it take-- *most* for him to give? Good old *Bobby*.
The hand bunched in Bobby's shirt loosens, moves up and bunches again at the collar and pulls down, bringing Bobby down-- his mouth flat on his. Hank surges upward; Bobby goes rigid with shock. His neck locks to pull back, but Hank holds tight and Bobby releases a breath into his mouth, and let's go, gives to Hank.
"hank."
Hank opens his mouth, asking, and Bobby pushes in. Bobby's hands catch at Hank's sides, then drag up to his collar, his jaw, and here we find it. A kiss between friends on the grave of thousands of people that Hank couldn't save. Hank grinds against him, and Bobby groans, pushing back. Hank finds his hand moving to the top button on Bobby's jeans, slipping it through, pulling it away . . .
. . and Hank opens his eyes.
He jumps back, slamming into the desk-- wide-eyed, but less wide-eyed than Bobby. He says, "Bobby." Bobby opens and shuts his mouth, breathing heavy. He looks at Hank, then down at himself, undone and obviously aroused, and then back at Hank. His face reddens. "Robert, I'm sorry, I don't know--what came over me, I'm sorry. Bobby--"
Bobby shakes his head, blindly, and climbs to his feet; Hank hears the quick lay of footsteps and the sighing open and shut of doors.
-end-