1582/We Have to Stop Meeting Like This

We Have to Stop Meeting Like This
Date of Scene:	21 May 2024
Location:	Mitakihara General Hospital
Synopsis:	Takashi comes to see his brother in the hospital, and his brother is mostly there.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Takashi Agera
Tinyplot:	Sunset of Sora

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Mamoru Chiba has posed:
It's Tuesday, the day after the evening that Mamoru woke up. It's morning, but having woken up is a big improvement, so Mamoru's not alone but he's also not being attended by a whole crew. Nephrite's here, but Mamoru's kind of out of it.

More than kind of, really. He's got a couple of IVs going, and there's a bandage around his head holding on the bandages on his chin and cheek, there's a cocoon of bandages on his left shoulder and arm, and there's a mitten-ball of bandages on his right hand and wrist. Everywhere visible that's not bandaged is too-pink and puffy, like a really bad sunburn.

"You're still here?" comes his voice from the bed, sounding dubious and drifty.

"I'm still here," says Nephrite, putting a hand on Mamoru's ankle and squeezing briefly. "Do you want me to leave my hand there?" he asks as he's pocketing his phone.

"If you're staying."

Nephrite leaves his hand there.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi steps out of one of Obsidian's Doors - there's one in the hospital, so there's no reason to spend his own energy with a clumsy locational teleport. To any mundanes it would look like he just walked casually out of a supply closet on Mamoru's floor - he'd gotten the room location through a contact.

    But he's here as Takashi Agera not Riventon - there's a worried look on his face, he knocks on the door, waits a moment, and then opens it before anyone else can get to the door. The bespectacled, silver haired half-Swedish teen pokes his head in first. "Hey 'Neph." he says. "I heard Mamoru was awake." Then he turns and looks at Mamoru. "Well, maybe he's less awake than I was lead to believe."

    He's trying to look unworried, but for someone who grew up with him like Mamoru did the signs of worry are there - in his eyes, behind the mask, there's concern. "Can I have a moment with him?" Takashi asks Nephrite. "You can stand right outside, I'm not going to be doing anything other than talking."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Taka~" says Mamoru without turning his head. "I'm told I'm here in person. And you are also here."

Nephrite sighs, surveys Takashi for a moment, then gets up and squeezes Mamoru's ankle again. "I'll be right outside the door," he tells the prince in the hospital bed, letting go. "I'll come back in when you two are done catching up."

Tossing his head to flip his hair back without making it a Homura move, Nephrite says tiredly, "Might end up being Naru who comes in, depending on how long you're here. He's stable, just loopy. Having a difficult time with reality, but he's on a lot of painkillers and is missing half his senses. Fortunately that means it's hard to get him upset."

"I'm right here," Mamoru says, and it sounds amused, if distant.

"Sometimes I even think I can hear his voice~" Nephrite teases Mamoru, but there's worry there, too.

"Jerk," Mamoru says affectionately.

Nephrite glances at Takashi one more time, then slips out the door and closes it behind him.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi shakes his head after Nephrite leaves. "We really have to stop meeting like this. One of us in a hospital bed, the situation is one I can do without continuing to see." He says, taking a deep breath.

    "Especially you with burns all over. What is it with you and fire, anyways?" he asks, ad his hand comes down to grip the side of the bed Mamoru's laying in tightly - in a tight grip that belies his concern and frustration too.

    "So, on a scale of one to ten, how lucid are you? I'm worried about you but... okay this is probably not the best thing to say to the guy laying in a hospital bed because of her, but I'm worried about Sunbreaker too - and anybody else who gets in her way. This is... highly uncharacteristic. She's also not answering calls or texts or anything."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I woke up an amount of time ago that is probably not a lot of time, but I can't keep very good track?" Mamoru says, his voice carrying a breathless sort of flatness that means he's talking around pain. "So maybe 6 or 7? Before you came a nurse came and said there would be--"

He stops talking because he started to move his head, which tugged at his face and shoulder, and he's grimacing now. "Hhh. She's not... in control. Of herself. She is in there. But only inside. She took me away from me, Takakun. All my everything, she made me look at her and took everything while she burned me. And before it was gone I felt her and--"

He just breathes for a second. Just breathes, and the heart monitor is complaining. He swallows. "She wants to be stopped. She is. So powerful. Much more than Hematite, so much more."

Just breathing again. "I like her too."

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi winces. He winces for the sake of a lot of things. For Mamoru's current state, for the pain, for the way he's talking. "Yeah, I figured she let the Dark Energy get ahold of her." He sighs. After all of the warnings. "Reports are she's not really... discriminating, friend or foe."

    "...and yeah, I know she's strong. She's bugging out all of my readings whenever she's just in some sector of a city. And she's gotten the attention of the Board of Directors, too." he says.

    "So... she wants to be stopped, she's not in control of herself. But what did she take from you, I don't quite... follow. Probably the drugs they have you on, though."

    "Or I'm still getting over closing that portal." he says. "I'm... really glad you're alive, Mamoru-kun." he says, the mention of the portal bringing back flashes of half-remembered moments, someone else's memories he has to shake off.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Everything. All my magic, my -- I can't tell where the guys are. I can't feel anything, I couldn't show you anything if I wanted to. I can't feel the earth. I can't heal myself. I can't even-- I can't even tell I'm here. Touching anybody, there's nothing," Mamoru says, trying not to sound as raw as he feels, and managing it by the end. He sounds a little like he sounded, now, when he was trying to cope with a death curse following him around -- dissociating.

If he's not here, the different kinds of pain are happening to someone else, and he can deal with the rest of what he's trying to deal with on autopilot.

"Thanks. I'm glad you're alive too," he says, and on his face and in his voice, there's a little ghost of a smile. "In general. And in specific how did you close that portal? If you're still getting over it."

Redirect!

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi's eyes go more than a little wide. "Guh. She took your powers and made you 'normal'." he says. And the way he says it, the distaste on the word 'normal' - it's intense. Because of how he feels about that, and about power. She's done more than that, taken away feelings and connections Takashi has never had and has no reference for, but losing powers... that he can at least fathom.

    "The portal? Sounds like I closed it the same way Sunbreaker closed you off from your powers." He pauses. "I drank it. Do not recommend, honestly."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"You drank from an unattended cup," Mamoru sighs out, long. "Tsk. What did it do that you're getting over? Unless it was just bad magic tasted bad."

He's not addressing 'she made you normal'. His left hand opens and closes where it lies on the bed; his eyes close; he swallows again, and it's thick. He tries to disentangle himself again, but it's easier when he doesn't have to think about something, it's easier when he's--

--sometimes it's easier.

"I mean only if you want to say. Also..." he starts to trail off, and half-focuses on the ceiling tiles, and then says, "I can't heal myself, Takashi-kun, the burns are bad. Everyone's going to team up. I would get the hell out of town if you don't want to get accidentally purified in the blast zone."

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi sighs. "It's not just bad energy. It's something about the nature of it. The memories, I think, that she tried to share, I got something of it. Jumbled, bits and peices. Comes up mostly in nightmares, now." He admits. "Keep waking up finding I've sleep-bounced to the Dusk Zone again, probably because I feel safer there than in the dorm." he says, slowly. Takashi is one of a handful of people who'd find the weird nature of the Dusk Zone more safe.

    Then he's quiet and looks down for a moment. "Damn, I've never known you to be cut off like that, but you also look beat to hell. I can't imagine people are happy. It's like she didn't learn anything from taking that girl." he says. "Except... you said she wants to stop, she's not in control, right? You know how Dark Energy can make other people do things that aren't them. Enough of it and you act counter to your own nature; it's not about breaking inhibitions, it can just make you do bad things on its own if you're not careful." Mamoru knows Takashi well enough to know that the 'other people' and 'not careful' qualifiers are there to point out that he, personally, is certainly never affected by the energy he wields.

    "I told her to be careful, you know. I really tried to work with her. But she is a whole magazine subscription of issues. Different than a lot of the ones who work under me. The chip on her shoulder is the size of the Cliffs of Dover." he notes. "Anyways, it's not her. And it's also certainly not Obsidian. It's not our style, it's too escalationist. I don't want to have this blow back on everyone affiliated with the company, either." He means himself primarily and his group secondarily.

    "But if it's not her choice, you probably just have to beat the energy out of her. Like a youma. She should survive the purification, she's a unicorn or something. Those are supposed to be pure anyways, right?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"She's survived purification before," Mamoru says tiredly. "She'll survive it again. Don't worry. I told Moon it wasn't Sunny in control. They'll do their best to just beat her up and make her spit it out."

He starts to lift his arm and that's a terrible idea; the heart monitor protests again when he tenses all up from the initial pain, and it takes him a minute to make himself calm down again. "Come visit me again after, after I feel better okay? I'm--"

He sucks in a breath, starts breathing shallowly. "Be here a while."

That's when the door gets pushed open, and Nephrite's there, but so's a nurse, businesslike and professionally apologetic. "I'm sorry, sir," she tells Takashi, "it's time to change Chiba-san's bandages." She comes over and adjusts something on the IV machine, and it's maybe five seconds before Mamoru relaxes. Nephrite stays out of the room.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi hasn't really... been around people who have to stay in hospital for long periods of time. "You... should text me when you feel up to seeing me. Or just texting me." He doesn't like seeing Mamoru in this state, and it's clear. It's not a dislike for Mamoru, but the opposite.

    Since the nurse comes in, he can't be fully open, but instead opts for saying "I'm going to see if I can get your stuff back." he says. "I'll be careful, no fighting." he adds, expecting Mamoru to stop him.

    "Take care of him, I know you will but... I had to say it." Takashi says to Nephrite on the way out the door.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
That's a really spacy smile Takashi gets in response, and then the nurse is telling Mamoru something about not turning his head stop that.

Nephrite moves out of Takashi's way, and he nods. "Take care of yourself, too," he says -- and it doesn't sound like he doesn't mean it, at least. He settles himself to lean against the wall with his arms crossed, waiting for either Naru to show up or the nurse to be done...

They all have a lot they don't say.