#anyways. i also have to get my syringes from the pharmacy i pick up my T at instead of planned parenthood and they give me different shit—

[werewolfoffeverswamp]

^DOING T SHOTS WHEN UR AFRAID OF NEEDLES AND DONT LIKE IT I DONT LIKE IT OUCHIEEE I HATE IT BUT I LOVE BEING ON TESTOSTERONE AUGHHHHH IM SO SCARED

[itsc]

someone stole bear’s insulin and syringes off my front step yesterday before I could go pick them up and its been such an unbelievable amount of bullshit to deal with lol. I tried to get his normal vet to send the prescription to my pharmacy so i could just go Pick It Up, and they called me back to tell me they absolutely NEEDED to do a glucosamine test before they could approve the prescription which they didnt need to approve it literally 4 days ago. both scripts were still valid! i’m p sure it was just to make sure i have actually been giving bear insulin. anyway they wanted me to physically bring him in for this test yesterday that was going to cost either $90 or $130 (they couldnt tell me exactly...???), plus $60 on top of that for the visit fee, and this would require me to drive in my absolutely broken down car for 20 minutes each way to a usually crowded shopping center during a pandemic, spend either $150 or $190 before the usual $90 that insulin + 100 syringes runs for him, ????????

I told them that I, like many people, have been recently laid off, and they were like “ya thats why we got you a quote ahead of time”

then after i was like “i mean i guess if i have literally no other choice to get my cat the supplies he needs to not have a diabetic episode! i will go put myself and others at risk since yall are holding this over my head! :)” they were like “oh btw we cant get the script filled at your regular pharmacy so you still have to order it”

like cool cool ok so it can get stolen again? do i have to sleep in front of my apartment to make sure i physically receive it? since fedex emailed me yesterday morning shortly before my package was delivered to say that required signatures have been waived bc of covid-19, which is why they just.... left the box.. not even inside my apartment door gate, which every other mail carrier knows how to open, for someone to grab in the 40 mins it took for me to finish the call i was on and go around the block. lol !

I filed a claim with fedex, had a meltdown, called my mom, called my old vet in GA, and they agreed to approve the script if i sent it to them,

then i spent 40 minutes on the phone with chewy trying to make sure the insulin would be over-nighted, they said they were actually going to re-send the order for free and would call me back,

I called and cancelled at bear’s regular vet, never got a call back from chewy, and have now received two separate emails telling me they are ABOUT to mail out the order and giving me a 6-8 day delivery estimate, which is stressful also since the insulin has to be over-nighted or else it will go bad

like i know that delivery/shipment services are overloaded and having a really awful time right now but like. if this is more than a week late it will turn into a medical emergency for my pet and im stressed!!!!! 

[purkinje-effect]

The Anatomy of Melancholy, 24

Table of Contents. Go to previous. Go to next.

Let’s have some climax. If it’s any indicator of content, AO3 updates included bumping from “Mature” to “Explicit” and removing “No warnings apply” leaving only “Chose not to use warnings.” This chapter is... incredibly messy. It gets messier. Enjoy.

The next morning, ‘Choly took to a little relaxation. Formally speaking, he still had one more day before he had to go speak to Jared, and the rooftop appointments came in the afternoon. After breakfast, he took his coffee with him to his garden, to investigate what use he had for the stuff he had accidentally-on-purpose taken from the assembly plant the night before. He��d always enjoyed tending a garden, and even in light of the exact nature of what grew in this one, he pastime satisfied him regardless.

I had wanted to test out the viability of coaxing brain fungus to soak up the hallucinogenic compounds by bedding them with dung, he thought to himself. He set down his coffee on the table and rolled up his sleeves before he got started. “Let’s see here...”

With a small, rusty garden trowel one of the raiders had brought him a month ago, he freshened up the surface of the bucket of the manure. It had dried out a bit overnight, yet scraping back the top layer of crust didn’t stir up fumes. He got a few scoops spread out in an empty end of one of the pans, intending to transplant them over into the fertilized substrate as he got it mixed more thoroughly into the soil, but a discovery stopped him short, and he stared into the bucket at length. A piece of him turned off in that moment, and wouldn’t light back up for days.

I know it’s a bit dried out, but I have got to be hallucinating this.

In a pocket in the manure lay a clutch of about twenty rice-sized, cream-colored long eggs. The longer he stared, the more he noticed that some of them had hatched overnight. With a hand to his mouth, he slowly accepted he had become the proud owner of a fistful of first instar Bloatfly larva. Not all too different from the lichinka which typically accompanied the vapors of Jet, these milky white larva had a distinctly segmented body and sleekly tapered ends elated to glut on the stuff in which they’d been bedded. A Bloatfly couldn’t have laid the eggs more than a few hours before ‘Choly had taken the manure. He transferred the clutch into a tin can and continued with each pot and tray until he’d exhausted the bucket, sweating all the while as he tried to ignore rather than process his opportunity. He paused only long enough to frown at the small shrubs with their darkly colored leaves, robbed of their delicate lavender flowers, before he moved on to other endeavors in the way of self-care.

The chemist permitted the entangling weft of thought, fumes or not, as their lyric carried him throughout the ritual of tending the various plants and fungi in his garden and downstairs into the lab with his tin can of pets. Using the divided compartments of a syringe carton to line up the plunger ends of a batch of the lowest gauge needle he could locate in the pharmacy, with them he prepared another batch of cyclohubeine darts from his Melancholy’s salt stores. He gently washed the larvae’s food off them with a bit of clean water, and set them in a deep bin with a bed of gauze so he could work with a shallow Volkmann spoon to deposit them in the syringes. As he sealed off each dose of maggot therapy with a tiny bubble of air for the captive, he nearly felt outright jealousy for the raider outfit, for being able to experience this artistry fresh. Even if the larvae didn’t last to the afternoon, he could gauge the time frame of such a craft in the future. Holding one up to the light, in the syringe he could see the larva still writhe a bit, demonstrating the chem hadn’t killed it outright. He just hoped he’d left them enough air.

The whole notion surprisingly bestilled him, although unmitigated by Jet as he worked. It didn’t even strike him to waste one of his two remaining ampuoles for the task until he’d already finished, and he knew he’d need at least one to push through his upcoming showmanship display so he felt no regret. Stimpak syringes did not accompany the four cases of Bloatfly Syringe he crafted, but perhaps under more intimate circumstances, he could later test the viability of putting the larvae in a proper full Psycho dose. He laughed to himself as he added them to his suspender cases, and patted them with biting enthusiasm.

The more he sat there, the longer he replayed the fantasy in his mind. He knew it was pure fantasy, but he entertained it anyway because the mere idea of it sated him so uniquely. With the Psycho laced out into darts, the alkaloid compounds would undoubtedly exhibit bursts of potency, with a higher risk of necrosis, which the... stowaway could so graciously dispatch. Ideally, he’d unload the entire batch he’d just crafted into Jared, but the raider leader had never once come up top for any of ‘Choly’s Syringer displays. He grinned dryly to himself, staring off into space with utmost resolution.

“Maybe I’ll get lucky.”

“...Sir?” Angel came up at a caution. “You’ve ten minutes before for your rooftop appointment.”

‘Choly returned to the time of day, and his cataracted eyes trailed up to his Mister Handy.

“Thank you, Angel. ...Time got away from me.” He nearly didn’t trust his hazy recollection of what had transpired that morning, but had no other explanation for why he’d have been in the lab. Angel had escorted him into the elevator, but he still readied himself with a syringe of Calmex to the antecubital fold. He also took one of the two remaining ampuoles of Jet and handed back the empty vessel to Angel. “You don’t normally accompany me. Pleasantly unexpected.”

“I’ll return downstairs if you’d rather. ...Do you steel yourself for the task like this every time?”

“Not so thoroughly in the past, no.” ‘Choly re-checked his suspender cases to confirm in his repeated disbelief that he had, in fact, let himself prepare what he thought he had, and he swallowed with a dry mouth. He had gotten lucky that Jared hadn’t put his hand on any of his custom made darts when taking some from him, but somehow he regretted not having had the time to craft any Berserk Syringes to test everything at once which Berries-and-Jet Carey had devised. The familiar haptic delights tickled at him, and he welcomed the chill of the tranquilizer washing over him. He petted at the barrel of his rifle as the pocket doors opened and Angel wheeled him out. “Though, perhaps, I should have included the Jet before now. It does wonders for my reflexes. It’s fine for you to come.”

“Forgive me for saying so, but I feel this line of work might be more hazardous for your health than you let yourself notice,” it worried, pausing before the rooftop exit. “Since you’ve returned, you’ve gotten... desperate to function, to say the least. I can’t force an improvement in your choices, but I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t voice that I... I worry for you, Sir. You’ll find something that will make all this easier, but none of it is... this. When you fill yourself with all this poison, you become a different man from the one I tended to two hundred years ago. You’ve come right unhinged.”

“Give a man a façade, and he’ll show you who he really is,” he murmured with a hollow grin. “Let me out there, Angel. I have work to do.”

The Handy tucked its optical sensors in close a moment before complying.

“Far be it for me to stand between a man and... honest work...”

Unlike the times before it, ‘Choly left off the burlap hood, and he wore his delight on his face, to see Jerry had made good on her promise. She, Lonnie, and Gristle all stood atop the assembly plant. Jerry had disengaged her armor to make herself an easier target, and the empty metal exoskeleton stood nearby at the ready. When they noticed their beloved chemist had arrived, they straightened up in a line, folded their hands behind themselves, and puffed up their chests in anticipation.

“Never seen you out of your armor,” ‘Choly jeered with a hand cupped to his mouth.

“Fuck off, Chemist. I brought the best of the best. Now give us the best of the best.”

“Thank you for coming to my demonstration, ladies and gentlemen.” The longer the chems soaked into him, the more modulated his tone waxed. Somehow, he savored having to yell what he said next for the distance between them. “In case Jerry has not yet disclosed what we’re here today for, I have cooked a batch of Psycho, and I need to test the potency of the batch. It’s a chem with more than one component! Understand me well, that you will not like it if you don’t take both! Stay still if you know what’s good for you. I’m a good shot, but I’m going to have to have to fire twice apiece.”

“Stop jabberin’ and get on with it!” Lonnie growled. He’d heard so much talk of the dark-haired heavy-set woman who did the outfit’s turret repairs, but like Jared, she rarely came out of hiding either. He opted to lovingly give her the fig, and she not-so-lovingly flipped him off.

He loaded one of the cases of normal cyclohubeine-Stimpak dart pairs, and squared up to his three targets. As he went down the line from Jerry to Lonnie to Gristle, the Jet fumes took full hold and the weight of the act lifted from him. Then he sat back in his chair to admire the results, only to think surely he was hallucinating to see Jared approaching his favorite three raiders.

Jerry hissed in satisfaction and returned to her power armor to keep anyone from yanking it, and once it had re-conformed to her body she yelled in furious delight. She punched a significant dent in a support leg of the tower, and started cackling. The white-mohawked Gristle grabbed Lonnie by the shoulders and picked her up with the intent to throw her, but she roared and grabbed him by the arms and flipped the arrangement over his head so that she was the one lifting him. And she threw him across the rooftop.

“Enough!” Jared yelled at them. He turned to ‘Choly. “You’re a day early. Busy little bee. You’d better have enough to go around!”

The chemist whet his lips, wide eyed, and shakily produced the other case of cyclohubeine-Stimpak. He surreptitiously removed the Stimpak Syringes from the load order, and squared up to double-dose Jared who welcomed it with arms wide. Shortly after this double-shot, the whole spectacle had gotten the attention of the entire outfit, and suddenly ‘Choly had dozens of targets.

“More than enough to go around,” ‘Choly repeated with affected glee, where everyone could hear. “Everyone! How about some free samples! Today only!”

'Choly rearranged a few cases to alternate the Bloatfly Syringes with Endangerol, and he unloaded the rest of his supply of cyclohubeine to whomever he could hit in the same fashion. All the while Jared had stood frozen in some manner of dazed rigor. On his last two rounds, he doubled up Bloatfly Syringes to nail the sitting duck a second time. The fourth dart reanimated him, and he screamed a string of rasping affirmations, overwhelmed with the numbing surge of power. Out of nowhere, the roughhousing escalated when Lonnie barreled into Jerry and shoved the power armor-clad raider off the roof.

“LET’S SEE IF POWER ARMOR REALLY WORKS!” Lonnie cackled. “IF IT DOESN’T-- OH WELL, SOMEBODY ELSE CAN HAVE IT.”

Maybe he didn’t need a separate Berserk Syringe formula after all.

Lonnie, Gristle, ‘Choly, and several of the still sober raiders, all glanced over the edge of their respective roofs. Anticlimactically, the power armor had done as designed and righted Jerry so that she landed on her feet, and in the process the frame of the armor absorbed all the fall shock. Blood trickled down her face, and she roared a string of slurs up at the spectators. ‘Choly backed off, worried she had her Fatman on her. When she stormed off at street level to destroy things with her fists, and ‘Choly had no more chems to hand out, everyone lost interest in the whole to-do, and those who’d gotten doped up returned inside to get the most out of their high... and beat the shit out of each other.

As everyone dispersed, and ‘Choly was about to retire inside as well, a raider ran up to Gristle on the roof. The chemist watched but couldn’t hear. The young man’s disappointment to have missed out on a showmanship display, but he waved his hands all around trying to disseminate information to his incredibly high and incredibly aggressive superior. The only thing ‘Choly heard of the whole charade was Gristle blurting out a violently gleeful desire for a cowboy hat.

Whatever the scout had had to say got Jared’s attention and the murderously inebriated raider boss loomed over him. After the scout trembled through recounting what ‘Choly imagined was the same information, Jared ordered Gristle and the scout and the pair went running. The boss snapped to glare at ‘Choly and pointed at him with absolute guttural, frothing authority.

“COME TO MY OFFICE, CHEMIST. RIGHT THE FUCK NOW. URGENT.”

“Shit,” ‘Choly whispered to Angel, nodding to Jared with a pliant smile.

Once inside, Angel asked him, “You administered more than just what you advertised, didn’t you, Sir.”

“Faaar more than advertised,” he sweated. “And I can’t wait for the Psycho to wear off, or they’ll know something’s up.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“Reading my mind.”

Once at street level they rounded to enter the assembly plant. They rushed inside when the nuclear engine of a vehicle combusted, and after a moment they recognized it had not been spontaneous--Jerry still stormed about at street level, demolishing cars.

“Hopefully she’ll have that out of her system by the time we’re done in here.”

“Truly, Sir. Truly.”

When they got to the foreman’s office, Jared sat on the couch in the corner, a feverish sweat streaking his white face paint.

“Melancholy...” Jared laughed with exhaustion. Already in the half hour it had taken for ‘Choly to come see him, the chemist could tell a quadruple dose of Psycho had begun to outright rot him alive inside-out. Suddenly, Jared no longer felt like the threat here, and the chemist set his rifle on a wheelchair footrest, in the space between his seat, to free his trembling hands. “Melancholy, come here.”

‘Choly guided himself over by the handrims. Angel stayed glued right behind him, but it stayed quiet. He felt so small as the ramifications of his actions forced him to witness them up close and personal. The halo of the Jet vapors still lingered, informing him of what must without question be writhing and consuming Jared’s deliquescing insides, and all penitence quickly sublimated into unrelenting jealousy.

Jared choked down a tickle in his throat and gnashed his teeth a bit in a smile.

“I’m sure you witnessed the little... exchange on the rooftop before I called you over... Freddie says he spotted the fortuneteller. The woman with the Sight! Can you believe it! I didn’t have to find her. She came to me! I sent Gristle to collect her. You’ll get to meet her. Finally you’ll have to believe me...”

At a loss for words, ‘Choly leaned nearer at a caution, wringing his hands in his lap.

“That... that’s fantastic. --So how was your first experience of fresh Psycho?”

“I have never felt more alive... I...” He coughed, and didn’t notice the blood on his hand from it. “I must admit I never really could handle my Psycho. Caught up in the moment, I definitely... overindulged...” Another coughing fit, and this time he noticed, but was too exhausted to do anything about it. “You know, Jet wasn’t the only chem she said could light up her Sight--it was just her chem of choice...”

The irony wouldn’t quit him, that in administering the Bloatfly Syringes, he’d acted out a twisted self-fulfilling prophecy from his own Jet trails. He squirmed in place, producing a kerchief. Jared took it in a distant delirium, to pat his face dry, but he wiped the blood off his hand on his pants. The morally-sedated chemist wished more than anything to experience this all vicariously, and stay by the raider leader’s side as the chemicals took their course, but he knew he couldn’t.

“--Say, you don’t have anything for a stomachache, would you, Melancholy? I feel like my stomach’s practically eating itself...”

Now sweating himself, he nodded, shaking, and he motioned for Angel, who produced what ‘Choly described to Jared as its owner spoke.

“I call it-- Melancholia. During my military service, my nerves were so bad I couldn’t keep down food. It works like a meal replacement, and it calms the stomach.” ‘Choly uncorked the dark bottle for Jared and handed it to him. “I swear by it. ...Sorry the chems earlier did such a number on you,” he blurted out, his head starting to throb.

“That’s on me, chemist.” A single chug slacked Jared’s face with relief, and he readily exhausted the bottle in a matter of minutes. “My fault for... trusting you...”

As ‘Choly watched, Jared passed out quickly from fatigue and opiate overdose. Flighty, the chemist took the history book from his desk, then patted him down, desperate to find what was rightfully his. He unfastened the pistol holster and took the whole thing when he found the Nagant at Jared’s waist, then helped the unconscious man to recline across the couch. Before he left, he felt for a pulse at Jared’s neck, and when he found none, a chill gnawed at him not knowing if any one thing he’d done to the man had killed him, or if it had been the sum effect of the different opiates. In an almost parental wistfulness, he hoped the larvae would at least make a good meal from Jared.

They exited the assembly plant, and on the way back to the pharmacy, ‘Choly’s eyes darted every which way in the worry he was being watched. Upon returning inside, he panicked to collect everything he possibly could store in Angel of value, in the hopes of escaping Lexington in the middle of the night, but the stress intermingled with a hangover cascaded into narcolepsy. His last recurring thought as he passed out in his chair, his mind chanted ad nauseam:

What have I done?

Go to Next »»»

[sunflowerseedsandscience]

Someday Your Child May Cry

Previous: Question | Preparations | Irrational | Confession | Collateral | Thoughtless | Interrupted | Recovering | Irresponsible | Possibility | Devastation | Confrontation | Generous

14. Confirmation

Autopsying and identifying every single body recovered from the hangar at El Rico Air Force Base takes three full days and an entire team of pathologists. By the end of it, Scully’s feet are covered in blisters in spite of her comfortable shoes, and she’s relatively certain that the cramps in her neck, back, and shoulders are going to be with her for at least a week.

(She's also had to leave the table to vomit in the bathroom three times today alone. She could put it down to the horror of having to autopsy the bodies of small children who had been burned alive, but, she’s never gotten sick over an autopsy before, and anyway, she’d been nauseous before she’d even picked up her scalpel on the first day.)

Two weeks ago, Scully would have whispered her suspicions in Mulder’s ear, savoring his excitement over the idea that this time, it might work… but right now, even though he’s been buzzing around the morgue constantly, getting underfoot, it feels like there’s miles of empty space in between them. Scully assumes that all of Mulder’s attention is focused on waiting to find out whether or not any of the remains will be identified as having belonged to Diana Fowley (they won’t, of course), and it’s unlikely he has any space in his head for her just now.

When the last victim has finally been identified, Scully peels back her gloves, tosses them into the biohazard bin, and approaches Mulder, who is leaning against the wall near the door, having given up his restless pacing at last.

“She’s not here, Mulder,” she sighs. “None of these bodies were hers. You’re sure she went to the hangar when she left you?”

“Completely,” he says. Scully nods and looks down.

“Well, then… either this all happened before she arrived, or… she found some way to escape it.” She pauses.  “The smoking man isn’t here, either.” Mulder scowls.

“Doesn’t mean anything, Scully,” he says stubbornly. “So if you’re gonna start in on that crap again, you can just-” Scully holds up her hands, forestalling him.

“Mulder, I don’t want to fight with you,” she says. “I just want to go home, wash this stink off of me, and sleep.” She rubs at her neck as Mulder continues to glower at her. Another surge of nausea begins churning in her gut, and she knows she needs to get away from him before he realizes anything is wrong. “We’ve got an early meeting with Spender, Skinner, and Kersh tomorrow morning. I suggest you go home and try to sleep, too.” She turns and walks quickly away before he can say anything else, and makes it to the toilet in the changing room just in time.

Scully doesn’t go and find Mulder before she leaves the morgue; she doesn’t have the stamina to get drawn into another argument just now, not when the hurt of his accusation and his dismissal of her at the Gunmen’s is still so fresh. She buys a pregnancy test at the pharmacy near her apartment and uses it as soon as she gets home.

It’s positive.

Scully picks up the phone, about to call Mulder... when suddenly, his voice sounds in her head again, telling her that she’s wrong, telling her she’s making all of it personal.

Very slowly, she puts the phone back down.

———————————

They’re busy reclaiming their office when Mulder’s cell phone rings, and much to his surprise, it’s Frohike. He and the Gunmen hadn’t exactly parted on the best of terms after the scene in their offices over a week ago, when, according to Frohike, he’d behaved like “a self-righteous, self-centered, stubborn son of a bitch.”

“Mulder, we need you to get over here,” Frohike says, his voice grim. “Bring Scully with you.”

“What’s going on, Melvin?” Mulder asks.

“We’ve done some more digging, and we found something that we think you should see. Both of you.”

A half hour later, the five of them are standing in a semicircle around one of the Gunmen’s computers. On the screen is what appears to be a hospital hallway.

“What is this?” asks Mulder, frowning.

“This is from a security camera at Holy Cross Memorial Hospital,” says Byers. “Where Agent Fowley was taken after she was shot last summer.” Mulder scowls.

“Come on, guys, not this again,” he grouses, but Byers talks over him.

“This footage is from the hallway outside of her room in the ICU,” he says. “The day that she was admitted.” He leans over and sets the footage rolling with a click of the mouse, and Mulder heaves a sigh and turns his attention to the screen.

For about a minute, there’s nothing but the normal bustle of a hospital corridor, nurses rushing this way and that, doctors carrying charts, and the occasional visitor. But then, at the top of the screen, two figures come into view, walking towards the camera, their faces completely visible for ten full seconds before they turn left and enter Diana’s room. The one on the right, whose face is completely unfamiliar to Mulder, is built like a linebacker.

The one on the left is unmistakably C.G.B. Spender.

Byers reaches down and clicks the mouse again, fast-forwarding the recording.

“They stay in there for maybe five minutes,” he says as he returns the recording to normal speed. “And when they leave, Spender is on his cell phone, and the tall one is clearly slipping something into his pocket.” He pauses the tape and, with several more clicks of the mouse, he zooms in on the man’s right hand, which is tucking a cylindrical object out of sight.

“That’s a syringe,” says Scully. “They gave her something while they were in there.” Byers nods.

“We think,” says Frohike, watching Mulder carefully, “that they slipped her something to speed up her recovery, and that’s why she got better so quickly.” Byers shuts off the computer monitor and stands, turning to face Mulder.

Everyone in the room is waiting for him to speak... but the realization that he’s just come to is even worse than the truth that Scully had been trying so hard to convince him of.

“It was her,” he says, almost to himself. “She told them.” He looks up at Scully, barely able to meet her eyes as the guilt crashes through him. She merely looks perplexed for a moment... but then, understanding breaks, her face going from confused to horrified to downright furious in seconds.

“You told her?” Scully’s anger fairly explodes outward at him, and it’s all he can do to keep from cowering under the intensity of it.

“It slipped out,” he says, fully aware of how pathetic of an excuse it is. “I didn’t mean to. I knew it was a mistake the second I said it.” Scully opens her mouth to speak, but her rage seems to be beyond words. She turns sharply on her heel and races for the door. Mulder has just enough time to see the identical looks of disgust on all three of the Gunmen’s faces before he turns and races after her.

“Scully, wait!” he calls, as he runs out of the door and sees her striding down the sidewalk towards her car. He doesn’t think she’ll listen, but quite suddenly, she turns and charges at him.

“How could you, Mulder?” she shouts. “I didn’t even tell my own mother what we were doing, and you, you go and tell some woman I don’t even know?” She’s so livid that she actually reaches out and shoves at his shoulder. “And then you treat me like I’m nothing more than a petulant, jealous girlfriend when I have the audacity to question her loyalties? And I was right, Mulder! She was with them all along, and you refused to see it!”

“I know you were right, Scully,” he says. “I know that now. But you have to understand, I didn’t want to believe it. I couldn’t believe that of her, not after-” He cuts himself off. This is the final secret, the one he’s never told her, at first because it didn’t seem important... and later, because he knew how hurt she’d be that he’d kept it from her for so long.

“After what, Mulder?” Scully asks. “What possible reason could you have to trust her that much?” Mulder looks down, the shame of it all pressing heavily on him. He’s failed her so thoroughly that maybe, just maybe, he can’t possibly hurt her any worse.

“Diana is my ex-wife, Scully,” he says quietly. And when he looks up and sees her face, he knows immediately that he was wrong, that his capacity to inflict pain onto the people he loves may well be limitless. She says nothing, and he doesn’t try to call her back as she turns and rushes back to her car, climbing in and taking off so fast that the tires actually squeal. 

His shoulders slumped, Mulder digs his cell phone out of his pocket and calls for a cab.

[augbro]

Okay, probably gonna get ranty here, so fair warning. A month ago Cory went to grab me more needles from the pharmacy for my testosterone shots. He went with photographs of the exact product packaging I needed, complete with item numbers. The idea was that he'd pick up whatever they had on hand. The lady at the pharmacy offered to order us a box of both the 22 gage draw needle+syringe and the smaller 25g sharp for subcutaneous injection. These were the ones my endocrinologist wanted me to use, and the ones I was shown how to give myself shots with by the nurse on duty at my endocrinologist's practice. Cory didn't double check the labels when he picked them up, because the idea that they'd order NOT what we had provided specific product numbers for didn't cross either of our minds. Which is why we were baffled when I went to take my shot on Sunday and opened up the boxes only to find these weird as shit safety 25g + syringe combo packages and 18g draw sharps. So, there are a few problems with this. The first is that the 18g draw sharp is twice as thick as the 22g one I usually use, to the point that I'm very concerned that piercing the membrane of my depo-testosterone vial will make a permanent opening in it, which means that if it is ever standing in a position that isn't perfectly upright, it will leak everywhere. That's bad! The second problem actually answered a question I'd previously had--I constantly hear trans men talk about how they wasted like a third of a shot because it came shooting back out after they removed the needle from their skin. I've been doing subcutaneous shots for 12 weeks without wasting a single drop, and the process for keeping it from doing that seems pretty simple. And then I took shot 13! So here's the deal. These dumb safety 25g needles have a weird apparatus on the tip that allows you to immediately snap a guard down over the sharp upon removing it from your skin. I don't question their effectiveness, but I do question why they are needed at all. Never once have I pulled the needle out of my stomach and then immediately stabbed myself with it. You pull it out, you pop the cap on it, you toss it in the sharps bin. You put a little Bandaid over your puncture so you don't get a little pinprick stain of blood on your white heavy metal baseball style shirt in a weird place. The End. And on top of being kind of redundant, it has another stupid design flaw that I'm pretty sure is responsible for like half my shot immediately exiting my body as soon as I pulled the needle out. The sharp's packaging indicates that it is 16mm long, which is the same length as my regular sharp. However, the stupid cover apparatus actually overlaps the needle quite a bit even when pulled all the way back, and seems to actually cover a small portion of the 16mm of supposedly usable needle length. So you can't actually push it in as deep as you can with the good ones, which means it's a shorter trip for the testosterone to exit the way it came in, which is kind of the opposite of what I need to happen. Anyhow, I think the thing that's the most frustrating in all of this is that we ordered a lot of something specific, and they decided that these ones would be better without consulting Cory and ordered them anyways and now I have a year's worth of something that I didn't want, something that I can't really use without fucking up the multiline membrane on my T vial and something that outright sucks. And I had to wait like 2 weeks for it to get here. I also don't know what the policy is for returning a ton of loose needles, but I guess Cory's about to find out when he heads to the pharmacy to ask what happened tonight. The lessons learned here are: 1)always check the item number on the box when you're buying needles in bulk BEFORE you pay for them and 2) if you're using the God awful safety 25g sharps and have noticed that you lose a lot of your shot every week, consider switching to ones without the guard. You will waste less and I sincerely doubt that you will accidentally stab yourself or a loved one with them.

[lovecrafts-iranon]

1. I guess it’s a bit of a hoarding thing in that my tiny studio apartment has hundreds and hundreds of books that I’m not planning on giving up. Most of them are in boxes because I’m still working on putting the bookshelves together. I don’t have any need to keep all the wrappers and used syringes and tissues and stuff all over the floor though.

I don’t have the time or energy to do tasks.

When I get home from anywhere including work, the grocery store, or some other errand, I immediately lie down and rest for at least an hour or longer, browsing tumblr or reddit. I used to not even know I did this because I would kind of forget afterwards because my brain is pretty foggy when I get home. Kind of same when I arrive at work. It is enormously stressful and unpleasant to try to counteract this and I fail half the time when I try anyways so I don’t. I generally also spend some time both in the parking lot of my work and in my parking lot at home in the same state before driving home or entering my house. I often sit in the parking lot to a grocery store or pharmacy for a half hour before entering as well. This... recovery period? eats up a lot of my time, but I feel worse if I try to stop it and grab those extra minutes and I don’t want to suffer.

It is hard to mentally prepare myself to do a task. To make it as stress free for my brain, I bargain with myself along the lines of, “you can read a webcomic page first, then do the task, then read another page.” This is my biggest productivity booster ever actually even though it means I get things done really slowly. Before, I tried making myself do an hour of tasks a day set by a timer, I tried the pomodoro method, I tried every anti procrastination method I read about or could think of but nothing worked. With the webcomic thing at least I can get my rent paid and my work tasks done and not fall even further.

I generally also study for the tech certification that I was pursuing as much as possible, using that same webcomic idea. I would do one study unit and then one task.

When I try to just do things without this bargaining and frequent breaks I just end up quitting and can’t will myself to do anymore.

Tasks are a small unit of work, like getting gas or picking up twenty items off the floor or putting the laundry into the washer.

Naturally, though this is as fast as I can go and an improvement over no methods at all, I am very slow to do anything. This is compounded by my not having much time after work because I try to sleep eleven hours a day. I am tired all the time and if I sleep less than that I am even more tired, causing misery and suffering which is what I want to avoid. I only have time/energy most days to do one or two tasks, so I do whatever is most urgent and leave unimportant things like the trash layer alone.

2. I work as a night auditor at a hotel. I work full time and sometimes get overtime in the form of working six or seven nights a week instead of five. Showing up on time at 11PM is not a problem for me. I do not change my sleeping habits on my days off except to sleep in a bit as that would cause suffering, which I want to avoid. Before applying for night auditor jobs, I did a lot of research into what easy to acquire job has the most free time and least human contact. I hate working with people, hate coworkers, hate customers, hate talking to people face to face in general. And of course doing tasks is not playing video games or reading and is therefore suffering, so I wanted to minimize the amount of actual work at my job. The best things about my job are that I am the only employee there, there are few customers, and the large amount of downtime, which I use to psych myself up to do the work tasks one after another until the night is over. I hate doing the actual work but I know that every other job has more work and I need to support myself because I sure as hell don’t want to live with somebody else. When I briefly had roommates I was the roommate from hell due to all my mental issues and my lack of cleaning, and I hated every minute of it. I would listen at my door for my roommates to be gone from the common area before leaving that apartment. I also feel like having mess, even extreme mess like maggots and mold, is preferable to having social pressure from people nearby to clean it up, which is unbearable.

The problem with my job is the pay. I have medical debt from a couple psych ward visits that I have been slowly paying off and I would like to be able to have an emergency fund and donate more. However the main thing I want is to be able to afford somebody to come in while I am gone (because in-person human contact is suffering) and do all my tasks for me. Then I would have real free time to do stuff that is fun, not just time where I psych myself up to do the next task. And all the tasks piling up around me would actually get done rather than staying on my shoulders forever. I thought a night shift NOC job was my ticket to happiness but I have been informed that there is not actually downtime at that job, meaning I would go insane in a month from the stress and suffering and get fired, like I did when I tried to work fast food. Now it seems there is no ticket to happiness and I am doomed to live like this forever. Suffering forever.

@bpd-anon and anyone else dealing with executive dysfunction-based mess. disclaimer over this post that it’s mostly just “stuff that’s helped me, you may or may not have tried it, i’m not gonna pretend I know the road to salvation because I’m not there yet.”

Keep reading

[inexchangeforyoursoul]

chapter... 9? will need to open a new document because scroling down too far and then up to find the point I left off before all the fragments start is getting annoying

now... let me waste an hour figuring out a title for this one on the fanfic sites

“You know... you made my bed, and this is probably rude of me to say,” she muses while assessing the captain's cabin where she will apparently spend training time, which is to say, a lot of time in the foreseeable future, “but... I have the greatest itch to tidy up this mess right now.”

The desk, dresser, bed and bookshelves are doing fine, but anything below that... there's barely room to maneuver in there if the goal is to not step into anything. It's cluttered with all kinds of junk; clothes, maps and papers, a notebook, some of the thickest tomes she's ever seen, at least three chests, various surgical instruments -that better not be a syringe and scalpel poking out from behind that bag,- and just... dirt and dust everywhere, which are likely remnants of various herbs and powders he's fiddling around with down here. Because, no matter how stale the hot air is inside, there's just not enough “musty attic” to kill off the distinctive “consulting room” that engulfs the place; stepping inside was like hitting a solid wall made of heat and pharmacy. Law really ought to vent in here sometimes.

“Forget about that. Get rid of the bag and let's start already; we've wasted tons of time,” is all he has to say to that while making some room himself by kicking some stuff to the side.

She sighs and drops the bag of clothes on his bed. Of which she's a little jealous of because of its size. Doing so, she spots another shiny item at the corner of said object.

“Oh, 10 Belly...” she murmurs once having it in her hand. Flipping it around, it seems a little unusual. “Hey, I have one of these lying around, too” she says once realizing that it's a rather unique one from about three years ago. No idea what kind of anniversary it was anymore, but the tail got a fancy makeover.

Taking interest in her statement, he stops fiddling around with what it seems to be wooden building blocks and takes a look himself.

“Ah,” he says with the realization, taking it from her; “must have fallen off the case.”

With that, he squats down and lifts a small blanket off a suitcase that has some more change lying on it. Picking them all up and opening the object reveals... at least a hundred, -but rather twice as many with some pockets hidden from view,- coins and bills, and just by seeing some examples of the latter, they all seem to be unusual.

She crouches down next to him to take a better look. “... you... collect these?”

“As you can see? Yes.” he answers, slipping them each behind likely home made leather strip pockets. Getting to the last one, which is the coin she jut found, he takes an identical piece out for comparison's sake; the one he held in his hand seems to be in a worse shape, so he puts the coin he just took out back where it came from and tries to put the other in a nonexistent pocket. Goddamn lady jeans.

Concise summary of Kat: “Nerd.”

“I'm no nerd,” he assures her, downing the coin in an actual pocket at last.

“Not to be that person, Law, but the only thing nerdier than a surgeon collecting commemorative money in his underwater dungeon is the guy in speedo building gigantic robots next door and being really enthusiastic about it.” Having said that and seeing his unimpressed expression, she pulls a nonchalant shrug.

He's just rolling his eyes at that.

“You act as if I just ate the last cookie in your jar,” she sighs, shaking her head, then stands up. “Being nerdy is not a bad thing, you nerd.” Turning around, she decides to see what he's been meddling with on the dresser.

“Are you saying this because you are a nerd, too?” he asks, also getting back onto his feet.

“Darn straight I am,” she informs him, turning back with two finger guns before walking backwards to her current stop.

“...” Should have expected a similar answer by now. He's not even mad, neither at her, or himself.

She leans onto the piece of furniture to survey what's there. What appeared to be building blocks from afar seem to be small wooden boxes with tiny hook locks to make sure they stay closed; some almost too small for any use, others big enough to hold a thick necklace or so easily. Judging by the worn labels, he probably kept raw material for medication in them; likely to be totally empty right now. There's also a couple of untouched note blocks and some other stuff that seems to be broken, plus tiny objects like a small syringe tube. “So... what exactly will be my task here?” she asks, drumming on the hard wood with her fingers. Doing that she notes that he also should wipe the surface; the fingers of her right hand are now covered in more or less fine dust.

“First, you'll just try and switch around stuff from one of these,” he pulls a note block to one end of the surface, “to another.” Putting another block of paper notes in front of her, he places a pocket watch that hasn't ticked for who knows how long on top.

Simple enough; cannot cause too much harm to the paper, either. “... and this until I don't make see-through paper, then some more?”

“Exactly,” he nods.

She sighs. Monotony is one of her greatest enemies... it shouldn't take that long to get it right, though? Right...?

Not quite. After about 5 hours of fooling around, she's sitting on his bed opposing the chest of drawers, resting her head on an elbow. She's managed to bore herself to nirvana next to the insufferable heat and low buzzing of the submarine and not even think of what he's supposed to do while swatting the pocket watch around, doing the same thing, and making the same mistake, over and over. Sometimes she takes the other hand to lean on and continues like that; the occasional other thought that surfaces is of what to draw or paint next time she's free. Which feels like a time that will never come. The upper sections of the unruly paper blocks must be minutes away from getting ground into the finest powder by now; she managed not to decimate shit about thrice. That's where the counter was two hours ago at least, before she gave up on life.

Law, meanwhile, has been reading a book at his desk; a bit earlier he stopped and started writing something rather furiously. Even before he left for those and just watched her, he didn't say a thing. It's been really quiet, which is usually nice, but under these circumstances she'd rather have at least more background noise than the occasional page turn, deep breath, and the hum of... whatever is nearby, probably an engine.

As the gears in her head start turning again a bit while thinking about this, he puts his pen down, sorts the paper sheets, then stands up. Crossing the gap between her and the target practice for the first time works like a magic charm, and she snaps out of her coma enough to stop doing what she's been told a while ago. Words are yet to be an option, but her moan is enough of a question to him.

“Going out to eat,” he informs her while picking up his hat that she has put down next to her ages ago. Before he leaves, he stops in the doorway to turn back to her, which brings some much needed fresh(er) air: “Are you not hungry? It's half past two.”

She grumbles, rubbing her eyes. “Will be fine till a late brunch... slash dinner.” This power practice business has been rather taxing now that she's regained control over her senses.

“Alright, will be back soon. Try not to slack off too much.” With that, he closes the door and she's left alone.

The second she cannot hear the clanking of the stairs, she leans back onto the bed. This sucks. Goddamn. There's no progress, either; she has probably more problems other than energy management, but hell if she has the slightest idea what it may be.

She looks to the side with the view to the sea; there is only a few schools of really tiny fish to be seen. More interesting is the wobbly book pile next to the bed, and especially the one that slid its way onto it. She reaches out to grab that one.

A book on the respiratory system. Wild. She flips through it; as expected, there are some illustrations inside. Including stuff like blackened lungs and cancer, how to cut open one's throat in an emergency, cysts, thrombosis and other lovely ailments; one of the first ones is an overview of the human body, though, with the skeleton, muscles, and skin in six images. She stops at the three pairs of pages to get a better look; been a while since she's seen any of these, might as well revise a bit.

Memorizing where the humeral muscles connect and how the shoulder blade looks again, the book is getting really heavy while holding it above. She starts lowering it ever so slightly, until it finally hits her temples; at this point, it's impossible to read. Or even see anything. Everything else is also rather hard right now; she doesn't feel like moving and just lets the book slip down her head. The pages are nice and cool, the room is still unnecessarily warm. At least she's used enough to the air to be unable to smell the antiseptic anymore. She could use some more lighting, it's rather dark in here... book with lighter half still on her head notwithstanding. If she had the willpower to stand up, she'd look for another switch. But she doesn't, and makes the mistake of closing her eyes for more than a moment.

Law enters again ten minutes later, and immediately sighs in resignation. He should have known...

Stepping over, he takes the book off his-her face. He considers waking her, but if she's done in enough to fall asleep, that wouldn't be of much benefit anyway. It's not even much of a surprise; the power is not meant for extended use, after all, be it a small Room or a big one. Having said that, he checks on the book- he studied the case studies in the back last week, but what she could gather from any of this? A mystery.

Having no better idea, he leaves and kicks a bag into the doorway to let physics do its thing; the room has been needing more oxygen for an hour and now that he stepped inside, it's also been way too hot in there. Even for him. Or his temporal body. Thinking about it, the stuff he's wearing is rather thin, while his clothes on her... oh well. She really has all the rights to be knocked out. Should have done this earlier.

Stepping outside, he takes a deep breath. He hasn't come up since  they arrived; it's nice and sunny with a breeze out. Being in the shadow of the Thousand Sunny makes it rather chilly, though, especially after the sauna inside; so he boards the allied ship instead. Leaning onto the railing, he can hear someone approach; it's Robin with her last cup of coffee for the day.

“Out alone? Where'd you leave little-big Miss Kat?” she inquires before sipping.

“KO'd herself on my bed while practicing as soon as I took my eyes off her,” he says while enjoying the sunshine on his back.

She chuckles and puts the coffee and newspaper down on the nearby table. “She's an amusing girl.”

“That she is.” He sighs. Amusing is one way to put it; not a ditz, thankfully. Speaking of amusement, though, there was that word she said when she was ranting outside her house... what was it again... goddammit. “By the way, Nico-ya, do you know what a... 'trogomite' or whatever is?”

He's never seen Robin laugh that hard.

[purkinje-effect]

The Anatomy of Melancholy, 14

Table of Contents Go to first. Go to previous. Go to next.

Updated 2019.01.29. Minor name tweaks.

Pretty hard surveillance tw on this one, ah. And you get a cookie if you can spot the historical conspiracy reference.

Melancholy locked the pharmacy's front door behind himself, then wheeled to the back and took the elevator to the second floor. As he exited the car, Angel came from the break room about the same time, and stopped him in the lounge area.

"Ah, Sir!" It paused, genuinely confused. "Did you just come from downstairs? I was just thinking I needed to check on you. How did your little rooftop rendezvous go with your chums, ha ha!"

"--About that." 'Choly chewed at his lip and eyed his Handy-bot. He favored pushing past it in the belief it would follow. "I know it's a bit early, but could I bother you for a bit of dinner? Really, anything will do."

"Good that you're open to variety," Angel replied, right behind him as expected, "for we haven't got it. I'm afraid all we have left is Halloween candy, a few boxes of Instamash, and BlamCo Mac. Really, we should consider replenishing our pantry next you feel up to it. Perhaps a trip to the grocer's is in order, hm? You did outfit me with this dandy harness, and update my hydraulics, so that I might facilitate that kind of endeavor, after all." It held up two boxes, a red and gold square one and a thin flat teal one. "Would you rather the potatoes or the macaronis?"

"Mm. The macaronis."

While it put back the square box and commenced preparation of the other, it hummed a jaunty vaguely-British tune which its owner couldn't quite place. 'Choly set down his syringer and hood on the table, and with a lump in his throat, he watched the robot.

"Angel, I've been giving it some thought. About how Defense Intelligence Agency gifted me with you when I first came over. I... I know the DIA used you to spy on me. That it wasn't just nationalization effort to adjust me to culture and language. I also know the DIA fell with the rest of the government. We can talk more openly now, don't you think? Being honest with you is going to help us both help each other. Sure, the mandatory name change didn’t fool anybody: everyone still all thought I was a Russian spy or something. But really? They approached me, offered me the position at Deenwood. Part of transplanting key Asian experts into the US military, best I can tell. What can I say? I get bribed easily with promise of access to big toys. But really. All I was hiding was chem trafficking. Lots and lots of chem trafficking."

"I know, Sir."

"--Hawthorne and I--" The chemist cringed and glazed over. "Wait, what?"

"I know all about you and Mister Hawthorne's business practices. I didn't report any of that because it's not what I was programmed to identify and report. They cared only how you handled confidential information. My objections to your proclivities have always wholly been in my interest of preserving your health and quality of life, Sir." It stopped a moment to let the saucepan boil on the hot plate, but readily resumed stirring it as needed. "I am still transmitting this to proper authorities, mind."

The inability to process Angel's response elicited a strange smile.

"Yes, of course. You're likely transmitting to skeletons, but I understand."

He nearly related that Communism had lost, but so had Capitalism. It didn't serve to argue no clear winner when in the nuclear exchange, everyone had lost. His head hurt, between the goings-on with Jared and learning his robot had concealed this level of self-awareness from him from the beginning. In attempting transparency so his activities would come as no surprise, he could have never expected his robot to reciprocate such honesty.

Back when he trafficked chems under the paranoia of crossing the DIA's scrutiny, he'd taught himself enough robotics to defuse what bugging technology he could identify, such that these variably sophisticated sensors transmitted all-clear, where simply disabling them would have drawn attention to any tampering. Yet, even now the remnants of his robotics knowledge would benefit him, to perform maintenance on this stunning testament to the longevity of General Atomics craftsmanship.

Still, the possibility nagged in the back of his head, that Angel's transmissions might ever amount to conflict. He'd discounted the possibility of an existing surviving population, after all. He could get all manner of things wrong, including the radio death of the DIA. He'd have to do something about the bugging equipment, to sate his paranoia. Regardless, it relieved him that his cyclomorphine research had only come up between him and his business partner within the month leading up to the apocalypse. The nature of the chems he had skimmed hadn't stimulated his Handy to rat him out, but provided that it ever determined that any of the military compounds he'd formulated had left the compound...

Worst of all, he understood with horror, was the likelihood he was entirely right about the demise of the Agency. The only thing that had kept him in line after his American conscription was the threat of surveillance. Who now existed in this wasteland save himself compassionate enough to mitigate his moral compass for him? He doubted even he could keep himself from acting out on fantasies any longer, the more he recognized them trickling into mundane waking world. Of any aspect of this creeping reality, that terrified him most: more than the ghouls, more than the mutated insects, more than anything else he had not yet encountered that his imagination could not reliably fabricate. Who had the audacity to grant him self-agency?

Angel, presenting its owner a bowl of creamy reconstituted pasta, startled him from his waking nightmare.

"Bh--hoze--" He found himself frowning as he rapidly and repeatedly retraced his platysmal scar. Angel joined the bowl with a shot glass and the near-empty bottle of whiskey, and he poured himself a glass with his head hung. "Thanks, Angel."

"Sorry to startle you. You were most lost in thought."

"Doesn't change a thing." He favored eating over starting with the liquor for once. After a few bites, he cleared his throat. "So, I suppose I should explain my sudden willing openness. I have a job now. Salaried. I might still pick at the by-commission rooftop sales on the side, if it goes smoothly."

"My stars! What exciting news." Angel's movements seemed lyrical and airy a moment before it shifted to a scattered panic. "When do you start! Oh, oh dear. We've nothing for you to take for lunch! We must--"

"Angel. Angel, it's all right." 'Choly snapped his fingers a few times, then continued eating. "Stay with me. Maybe once I get Jared the information he needs, we can make a trip out of the pharmacy. That way, I can draft a laundry list of what all we need to scavenge for."

"Apologies, Sir. I'm just..." It idled beside him with its tendril-limbs curled up close. "I'm so eager for both of us. You've no idea how elated I am that I can foster vocational habits in you again. Tend to you, like... before. The normality of routine--that's the cement you need to get back to your old self. Ha ha!"

"Mmh. Makes two of us." He washed down the cardboardesque pasty mouthful with half the shot and, with a sigh, absently tapped his spoon in the dish. "I doubt the lab here would be suitable for the scale of distillation he described. Don't much like the idea of that much manure in the pharmacy, anyway. You're fond of reminding me not to bring home my work with me, and I think we can both agree that this building is very much becoming my home now. I don't think you need to remind me to leave that elsewhere."

"I haven't the slightest what you're on about, but manure? Yes, I'm quite glad we're in agreement that it doesn't belong indoors."

"Talking aloud. Imagine it doesn't make much sense. Mm mmh." He finished off the serving and shot glass, and sat back in thought. "I surveyed the assembly plant before I returned, and I think there's a good place there to set up a vat-style rig. Lots of pipes to make use of. Maybe... maybe refining a few water heaters...." With a sniff, he adjusted his glasses and glanced down to his Pip-Boy. "I'm going to get working on my invoice. Thank you for dinner."

"Of course, Mister Carey!" It cleared the table for him.

"I'm going to have to fix that one of these days," 'Choly mumbled to himself as he wandered off in the chair to nurture a Berries-induced engineering conflagration.

Taking stock as he navigated the building, he absently annotated in his Pip-Boy with blind keyless keystrokes, and as he went, he cross-referenced these against a more coherent draft he composed for Jared. In his ramble, he listed off various possible equipment which they could combined into a small-scale substitute for the mechanisms by which to load the crate of empty inhalers he had on hand in the pharmacy lab. To sustain the chem habit Jared sought to cultivate, there would have to be a tacit recycling effort of paraphernalia until they could locate more actuators. Too, he requested minimal opposition from Jared's crew as he toured Lexington, endearing that the city must already belong to the raider boss, or inevitably that it would. Something of this new world civility tickled 'Choly, and he guarded any potential conflict with the raiders by asking permission to scout the Super Duper Mart. Self-serving, he also tacked on a postscript that Jared's crew supply him with large quantities of Abraxo cleaner, to make possible synthesizing fresh Mentats of any variety, and he cited the need to stay sharp for the task at hand. By the end of the evening, he read it all over one more time and transcribed it onto a piece of card stock packaging, then shoved the results in the capsule pipeline.

He sank into his seat at Eleanor's desk and slumped his head along his outstretched arms. He popped a few painkillers in his mouth and chewed them mindlessly, and washed it down with the stale coffee he'd forgotten on the desk at some point. The familiar post-Berries headache crawled across his skull, but he hardly cursed it. The brain was just like a muscle in some regards, after all--running a marathon is a very different thing for someone who's prepared at length for it as opposed to someone who dashes from start to finish without even stretching beforehand. The habit would return. He'd gladly nurse it.

As he started to drift off, radio static echoed in Eleanor's office. Bewildered, he squinted and rubbed at his head as he pushed the button on the intercom.

"Chemist--" The caller was Jared. "You expect me to read this novel when you've got a working comm?"

'Choly grunted and resumed leaning on the desk. He hadn't expected Jared to come himself.

"I can hear your awful face paint loud and clear." He stiffened, double checking whether the button was depressed for automatic two-way chat, or if he'd simply held it a moment to check the caller. He swallowed hard and pushed the button again, hoping Jared hadn't heard that. "Sorry. I have more than a bit of a headache right now. And this is the first I knew that restoring power to the building had also restored the intercom."

"Fuck you're longwinded." Jared paused at length. "It's always the quiet ones. Ugh."

"Apologies. I was just trying to be thorough. Operating on the presumption that our correspondences over the invoice would all be written word, I just figured that a comprehensive list of everything that came to mind would limit how much time got wasted. I'm guessing you've had a chance to look it over?"

"Yeah, I got it. Flattery will get you everywhere in my town. You have the most unnervingly good handwriting I've ever seen, but I still can't believe I'm reading this right. You want in the SDM? You really are crazy. I'm not wasting warm bodies on that, but far be it for me to turn down the proposition of you spreading around any profit to be had of your confidence that you can manage it. Try not to die before we even get started. And get me some Sugar Bombs while you're at it."

Even Jared thought it a terrible plan to try to scavenge the grocer's for food reserves. 'Choly would have to think things through for certain, and he hid his anxiety over it behind a tiny chuckle.

"Heh, I can do that. What... about the other things I mentioned?"

"You've gone from asking for cash to asking for a metric fuckton of soap. That's marginally more sane than most of the things you've said today, but even that's pushing it. We're going in the right direction. Yeah, I've got a lead on where to load up on Abraxo, but remember. I'm only interested in Mentats as far as they're helpful to distilling my Jet. My project takes priority over any of your unrelated fun, and don't forget it." Jared snorted. "Still, you're going to have to let me try some of these infamous Berries you won't shut up about."

"Oh, for certain." 'Choly rubbed at his temples, his voice strained. "I swear by them. Only way I got through my military contract."

When Jared had nothing to say for a little too long, 'Choly realized that had been entirely the wrong thing to say.

"You a fuckin Brotherhood defector? That takes balls."

"Oh, I, no. The actual military. I'm a Pharm Corps chemist. Nine years, eight months, for Anchorage."

That had been an even worse thing to say.

"--I grow impatient with this conversation, chemist. Give me a few days to gather up what you've requested. Answer your damn comm when I come knocking." Jared snarled. "You're really starting to piss me off. If you're gonna get high like this all the time, at least journal your trips so they're useful to more than just you, all right?"

This time, 'Choly remained silent for a bit. Had he heard the raider right?

"You... want a transcript of my high?" 'Choly licked his lips and held in a breath as he stared at his Pip-Boy. "I... I can absolutely do that. You're in luck that that's... already an habituation of mine."

"All right. Now that, I like to hear. Expect to share. Both... experience and goods. Heh." At first, 'Choly had thought that was the end of it, but then Jared came back with somewhat sarcastic enthusiasm. "Let me know how your grocery trip goes."

"For certain."

When the intercom stayed idle for several minutes, relief oozed out of him, and he slouched back in the chair with a groan. He removed his glasses and dug his fingers into his eyelids. He could appreciate that Jared was on board with his plan, and that the raider was willing to accommodate interests that ran in direct tangent to the grand scheme. But, this conversation also solidified the contract into something tangible and unable to ignore. The chemist had a job again. Responsibilities. Someone he had to answer to. On the other hand, this also meant more of the building worked than he thought previous. If he intended to set foot outside the pharmacy, he was going to have to throw together a sign for the intercom, so that anyone who came calling would know he wasn't just blowing them off.

In the mean time, he took to the couch in Eleanor's office and passed out halfway through disrobing.

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[purkinje-effect]

The Anatomy of Melancholy, 13

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Updated 2019.01.29. Minor name tweaks. Uhh, Jared TW.

With a simple hand wave as Jared turned back inside the foreman’s office, Barb and Hewlett knew to wheel Melancholy up the long bar grate ramp that traced the far side of the assembly line floor. ‘Choly knew better than to contest whether he propel himself or they propel him--Jared had not only easily forty warm bodies in his stead, but also a number of active turrets. Once the two raiders had delivered him to their boss, they fell back to the steel mezzanine to remain on call.

“Good to finally meet you.” The painted black man took a seat himself in the segmented office chair and flipped the tails of his sleeveless leather coat out from under him. “What’s your name?”

“You can call me Melancholy,” he fumbled, still clutching his syringer. The whole automotive plant hung in a stale, metallic rot. ‘Choly couldn’t say he’d seen this man’s face perching in rank on the car plant’s roof. “And you’re... Jared.”

“Melancholy? Huh. Not gonna ask how you came about that one, but I’m also not gonna question it.” Jared stroked at yesterday’s stubble and squinted at him. “No, it can’t be a coincidence, you being in a chair like that. Tell me, friend... How’s your experience with Jet?”

The chemist wasn’t sure what the wheelchair had to do with anything. His cowl concealed how genuinely baffled he was by Jared’s comment, unable to tell if it meant anything at all.

“Lot of effort just to place a work order. I can get you some, if you hook me up with the resources and space to manufacture it, if that’s what you’re asking. My lab’s not currently set up for Jet. Not ideally, anyway.”

He hadn’t himself ever distilled Jet, but he’d helped a retainer who’d used him and Hawthorne as a middleman enough times to know the basics.

Jared’s eyes widened a bit and he crossed his arms slowly.

“Now that’s a reply I wasn’t expecting. What kind of resources we talking?”

The lack of probability in this encounter boxed ‘Choly’s ears a bit. Everything felt at once both covertly coded and non sequitur.

“Brahmin manure. Lots of it. And every plastic container you can find.”

“Sounds pretty simple.”

“Oh, it’s really--not,” he saved, realizing he nearly let the entrepreneurial edge slip past him. But then it sank in Jared had no objections to brahmin and 'Choly hemmed a bit. “Brahmin are cows with entrails mutated by tainted feed before the war. I don’t know how many of those have survived. Regular cows aren’t going to work.” When Jared grew visibly irritated, ‘Choly coughed. “And even if you could find me brahmin, it’s honestly quite sophisticated to distill Jet. Takes a lot of precise measurements. And, by extension, the means of metering doses into ampuoles.”

“You must be quite the chemist. I’m impressed. My outfit thinks you’re a real showman.” Jared kicked his feet up on the file cabinetry next to him, and casually flicked out a switchblade from some pocket, to pick at his fingernails. “I don’t know what rock you crawled out from under, but brahmin are the only cattle that survived the war. We can discuss nitpicking details later. But first, back to the actual type of answer I was expecting...” After a while of trying to stay calm, he jammed down the switchblade in the arm of the chair and left it. “What kind of experiences do you have with taking Jet?”

‘Choly’s eyes glazed a bit at even trying to recall his recent fly-blown veneer. He sniffed.

“Gives me some interesting inspiration. I don’t dabble with it much. More of a Berries fellow, personally.”

“Berries?” That got the raider leader’s attention. “What kind of berries?”

“Berry Mentats,” ‘Choly elaborated, more self-conscious by the minute. “They’re far more potent than typical Mentats. Taste better, too, if you ask me. I’ve got a wide selection of things I can get for you. Stuff I can guarantee you haven’t heard of since before the world ended.”

“And what’s stopping me and my outfit from storming that dandy little ‘pharmacy’ of yours and just taking it all for ourselves?”

“You need someone to cook the stuff, don’t you?” A muffled giggle came from him, an attempt to cut the stress of having his new home threatened like that. “...Besides, I don’t have all the components I need. I have most of them, for most things, but I will guarantee you, very little of what’s stocked in that building is viable without a chemistry degree to revitalize it.”

Jared began to rock in the chair impatiently, then stared deadpan at him.

“Melancholy, that hood is starting to piss me off. Take it off.”

“Why? I like it.” The momentary lapse of better judgment folded the wad of canvas into his lap in concession. Jared was still staring, and ‘Choly trembled. “I--”

“You are a scrawny little fucker, you know that?”

“I--” ‘Choly wheezed, still unable to read the guy. “Yeah. No shit.”

“And you keep derailing me. Pay attention. Are you fucking high right now?”

“I’m fond of sampling the goods, yes.” He caressed his cheek with the side of the copper barrel of his blowgun, and looked to Jared thoughtfully. “I’m paying attention. I just don’t get what you’re trying to get at. Are you afraid to ask outright? I mean, it’s impossible to waste my time right now. I was about to deliver the day’s chems, when your folks grabbed me. That caught me by surprise. I never would have thought I’d get ambushed on a roof.”

“Like that, did ya? Gonna have to tell Lonnie how it worked so well, even you were impressed by it. Couldn’t say no, could ya?” Jared grinned at him. “Does Jet give you the sight? Or those Berries? What do they make you see? Are you seeing anything right now? Is that what’s got you so weird right now?”

Sight? Was ‘Choly supposed to understand?

“Mentats and Jet are a... most unsavory pairing.” His voice cracked a bit, and he glanced down to his dart cases. “At least, in my personal experience.”

Jared stopped grinning, his glare intense.

“Do... does what you see with them ever, like. Actually end up happening?”

“Fuck, I wish--” In an instant, ‘Choly clamped a hand over his own mouth, writhing in an ache of just imagining his vapors manifesting in reality. He squinted and squirmed lower in his chair to prevent a grunted moan from escaping between his fingers. He unclenched and melted backwards a bit, heels fast in the stirrups of the chair to steady himself, trying to save face. With every statement escaping his lips, he wondered why his mental filter culled some idiot commentary while permitting others that seemed just as poor in taste. “...What, do yours?”

“That’s between me and them,” Jared muttered. He rose abruptly and began to pace with restless rigor and a ragged breath. Suddenly he pointed at ‘Choly from across the room with a near glower. “You draft up a list of what you’re gonna need to cook stuff for me. Be as precise as you’re bullshitting me that you need to be. I’ll make it happen. This whole fucking town needs to be swimming in Jet.”

“I can do that. Not sure what you intend to do with that much cow shit, but-- hm.” ‘Choly stroked at the blow gun, conniving. “Delivery. Now there’s a word with several flavors. Jet, as I’m sure you know it, is an inhalant. A vapor. Would it be weird of me, to posit the intrigue of edibles, or even... inject-ables?”

“What, no! One thing at a time, you ass. Don’t derail me. You get Jet flowing through this place, and maybe we can talk about getting you set up to toy with experimenting with other chems. ...I gotta ask, though. The rumor’s too strong.” The blow gun drooped. “Why cash?”

“Everyone keeps trying to convince me no one uses cash anymore, but when I don’t budge on my prices, it still ends up lining my pockets. I don’t understand.”

“Gotta wipe your ass with somethin’, I guess.”

That definitely got under ‘Choly’s skin, and he clenched his teeth a moment.

“What should be my asking price? Should it be in caps?”

“That’s the sane and normal thing to demand.” Jared didn’t like this, his brow knitted wild and tight. “God, how high are you? What else is there but Nuka caps?”

“Maybe I ought to go by Rip Van Winkle, rather than Melancholy. If all this has been a trip, I hope it kills me.” ‘Choly looked to Jared, eyes dull but pleasant. “Maybe it did kill me. Trapped in my last hit for eternity.”

“...Well--” Jared squirmed just enough ‘Choly could see it. “I’d like to say it’s been a pleasure, but. You are so fucking weird. I can’t tell yet if I like you or hate you.”

“You’re going to end up doing both, I assure you.”

“--No, more like it’s been real.” Jared chuckled at his own inside joke, but shut up abruptly when ‘Choly hadn’t left yet. “Get out of here and take inventory of your shit. I’ll send somebody to collect your... shopping list around midnight. Leave it in your... capsule pipe or somethin’. Hey Hewlett, Barb.” When they came into the office, he waved them at ‘Choly. “Take Melancholy back to his pharmacy.”

Barb leaped at the opportunity to terrorize him again, snatching the chair handles with a lunatic glimmer in her saucer-wide eyes. He imagined she had to have been grinning like a Cheshire under that kerchief.

“You ready to ride like hell? ...You look miserable with the hood off, dreg.”

“I. I know. ...Before I go, can we make the rounds of the assembly floor? I need to plan out some things for Jared, and I think there might be some useful equipment here for what he’s contracting me for.”

“Whatever.” Hewlett grunted, hitting his handrim wheel with her bat, not unlike a rider spurring a horse. “Get goin’.”

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