2019-09-09 - A Brood of Chickens

Ignacio, overall, is not widely regarded as the screw up that he lets on to be. A decent guy whose brain and life has slowly been turned into a haphazard soup over the last seven years. A few weeks ago Finch proposed to him (an idea, not like that, c'mon folks) to let her heal his leg and asked him to try, please, kick the opioids after he'd ODd at work in the privacy of his own shame and failings to keep his shit together.

Since then he's tried to make it work; tried to stay busy. Tried to stay moving and trying to find some other way to make the static stop. Dreams have started to slowly become a nonsensical torment of flashbacks and anxieties sometimes waking up screaming and lying, catching his breath to say "It was a bug... well it was a really big bug, okay?"

Staying busy and trying to make his girlfriend have less to worry about has become a fulltime job, which, while Tobin, Julia, and August have been understanding of while he's working on recovery does not pay rent either making life at home a bit hard.

He just cannot juggle it all and something will have to give eventually.
One of those somethings was a firm grip on reality when Finch started falling through that shrub he he started getting carried off by that damn bird that was her... mom's... mirror shade? He needs to write a fun lexicon for this and considers maybe do that this afternoon.

The next thing he needs to do is stop siting there on the floor of the kitchen holding his head and sweating through his shirt.
Breathe. First step is just... Breathe.
Why is making a sandwich suddenly so damn hard to do?!

Finch went out to feed Canary and give a little TLC to Gertrude and Puff, her pet bushes. Yeah, so she has pet bushes. They helped her in tough situations! And Canary is a chicken. Don't ask. She comes back in with Miss Mags on her shoulder, the little rat wearing a prairie bonnet and gingham apron courtesy of Gran's sewing skills. The little woman hums a tune happily as she strides down the hall towards the kitchen, because a glass of sweet tea sounds perfect right about now.

She freezes at the sight of Ignacio on the floor in a state of distress, and Magdalena is set quickly on the kitchen table before Finch drops to her knees beside him, hands on his shoulders. "Figgy?" she whispers. "What is it? What's wrong? I'm here."

Ignacio sits, good knee pulled up just rubbing his temples and keeping his self as reigned in as he can. The hand makes contact and there's a jolt in his head picking up surface thoughts: concern, fear, confusion. It's snapping him out of the pit of chaos that keeps trying to take over things.

What he didn't have last time this started to happen 1050 days ago was support. Not like this. A tangible anchor and some purpose to grab on to. One hand drops from his temple to rest on hers and he could lie... but he's not. Not that he's great at not lying to himself even. "I'm..." He sqeezes her hand before he says fine with that unfixed look. His head rests against the back of the cabinets. "My brain feels like that... little ball in a rattlecan of spraypaint, Pajarito." Sniffing, eyelashes damp he can't help but let a shaky laugh come up from his chest with a half grin, "It's so... fucking loud." There's a tremor in his hand from energy building up like static in his skin and the imprint of the world yelling to both get in and get out.

He's smiling but his eyes hole that truth thatwill belay anything he tries to tell her but the one truth, "I'm scared."

Finch moves her hands to his face, holding it gently, meeting his eyes. Her spirit snakes out in tendrils to see if there is anything she can fix for him, searching, probing, needing to stop his suffering because he deserves better than this. And that is what his empathy relates to him from her, radiating off her in waves. "I'm scared too. But we're going to get through this, Ig, together. Ok?" She strokes his cheek gently with her thumb and leans in to kiss his forehead gently. "Tell me what it feels like, exactly. Maybe we need to so some research."

Ignacio holds on and focuses on step one; the scary part: look at her and tell her the truth.
Breathe. We're breathing. Okay, hard part started. Exhaling is pretty good too when he remembers to do that again.

So much new information motes of concept, energy pulling through the power lines making a riot of buzzing noise. Feelings, impressions and images flowing without a check system. The ability to feel everything without a filter as the drug induced haze continuously retreats from his system leaving nerves and reception raw and exposed. The problem is he is physically unaltered from any sort of usual state but for systems processing so much more fucking information over his neural network leaving him shivering from sensory overload in a decidedly bad way.

His weight rests against the cabinets and for now? Right no there's place in her hands pulling him consistently to now.... The neighbor turns on their washer pulling a surge- NO. HERE. demands the heat from her hands and here he is trying to stay focused.

Tired he asks, "Have you ever... felt a lie current rip through you like a wire toughing a light switch plate wrong? a.... migraine with lights and a loud room full of people hearing every. conversation... and being able to make sense of just... none of it? Th-th-the whole... world is t-talking and it won't sssssshut the fuck up Finch. And I promised... you... I wouldn't go back to the meds..." He winces with his eyes watering up taking a deep breath letting his glance swim up to the ceiling, "I dunno what to make it ssstop. And there''s... I see... that bird... all the birds Finch. I can feel all of them laying there." And the words drift in and out of Spanish whether he realizes it or not. His eyes close and he falls still, tears sliding down his cheeks too tired for all the damn emotions pushing through him. His soul is damn tired and exhaustion is just kicking his ass.

The world is talking to him. Finch frowns, grimaces, and then she grabs his hands to pull him to his feet. "Come with me," she says sternly. On the way down the hall she opens a closet and grabs some heavy wool blankets, and in the hall bath a first aid kid she knows has earplugs. Then she is pulling him out the door, and with the wave of one hand, Puff the magic smoke bush is animated to help bolster him on his other side. The grounds of Mallard House are huge, and they back up to a whole lot of nothing but forest at the far end. No nearby neighbors, no nearby homes or roads.

They reach the edge of the property and she and Puff set Ignacio down under a low-hanging tree branch. Finch throws the blankets over the branch, to make a little tent of sorts out there, and then she climbs in with him as Puff puts down roots to stand guard. She opens the first aid kit and offers him the ear plugs. "We can see if the dark and quiet can help, away from things?"

Ignacio hasn't the energy to argue, but enough trust not to try. Hand grips hers, pulling himself up he folds hard and the bush along at a slow limp.

Movement is trying, but with the determination unique to the chronically inconvenienced he follows.

Not knowing what her game is here he waits to see. And for now hands onto Ms. Mags until-

A tired as shit half grin forms relieved in just not getting a lecture for failing top manage. She's never done so... okay once. That one was entirely deserved. He muses, "Pajarito, you made me a tent. "

Finch settles down behind him to gently rub his shoulders and try to help him relax. "Of course I made you a tent. If the world is harassing you, we'll fucking shut it out. Is it better way out here, or worse?" she asks, in concern, as Miss Mags snuffles at his chin as if the little rat is also trying to help him relax.

Ignacio sprawls on the blanket under the tent and just closes his eyes putting the earplugs in with unsteady hands. When did this happen that he went from being in control of himself and the world around him to being a speed bump? The rat crawls up on his chest and blind he pats around and finds Finch's hand and just lays silent holding it for a long while. Sometimes life is hard to hang onto.

The answer comes a murmured "Todo es mejor contigo." He pulls her hand over and holds it to his chest and nods. Further away from electric, people, everything. Not her though. Some elements he's not keen on escaping. Quietly he wonders after 20 minutes of silence and trying to wind down, "I'm thinking we migh need to cut back." He pauses furrowing his brow and squeezing her hand. "Not... us. The thins. From teh other side. This ... warp on reality."

"Warp on reality?" Finch's question is a soft whisper, treating him like she would treat someone with a migraine. "Ig, what is going on? I don't think these are withdrawl symptoms. It's more like...the drugs were suppressing something else." She squeezes his hand and strokes it with her free one. In the 20 minutes, Mags has curled up to sleep over his beating heart.

Ignacio holds one hand of hers to his chest. Ms. Mags walks around his t-shirt with her tiny rat feet. His free hand lifting a finger for her to chase around. Small normalcy. "It's... why I stayed on em. Took care of all my problems. Maybe not, ya know, gracefully. Kept all... this quiet after the accident." The world feels softer here, quieter and there's a difference.

"I think there's a relationship. Been... studyin ya know. When you proliferate the warp on reality the... Them. They get stronger. like... a name gives something power. By using something we make things stronger and we feel them when we do it but like... Some people Alex is right are just not thinking okay but what's this cost." Opening his eyes dark like glass, he asks her with that fear in his face, "What if that's what's hurting you?"

Finch looks at him, dim in the dark tent, and strokes his hair. "No one knows for sure. But I think, maybe, you're more like me than you realize. Or maybe more like Roen. He can feel people's thoughts, and stuff like that. Talk to them even, in their heads. You should try, try to think to me. It's like a muscle, glimmer, it atrophies if you neglect it too long."

Ignacio murmurs with a tired half grin, and that look in the squint of bloodshot eyes, "I'm pretty cute but I ain't that good lookin." there's that wink for her. There's a concerned fuoorw and he watches her carefully. Squints. OH GOD HE SQUINTS SUPER HARD!

It's like he's trying to crush her with his eyelashes <Squiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiint> ... okay he might give himself a migraine doing this or sprain his brain. "Ow~!* owowowowow"

Yeah okay maybe not right now. His molars grind together as he fails to connect with any thread of the signal. Weird the other day there was effortless intent, but now? Not even close.

Finch watches him struggle and her heart feels like it's breaking. Then she frowns and thinks about everything she knows about Glimmer and how it works. It's not overly much, but she does know a bit. "When you do things, when you've been able to do them before. Were you actually, you know, trying to get that specific result?" she asks curiously.

His breath tightens in his chest forged of defeat, and rage, and all the futility of not being who and what he should have been. This ugly side of him beneath the lies of all that is fine; everything he tries to keep as far away from Finch as possible. And then tapping into that feeling projects, without intent to her like a god damn high bean searchlight: Every disappointment and self-damning feelings that focus into one vision of running in what might be tar grappling him and dragging him into some great metaphor of utility. Simply put, the harder he tries the greater he seems to fail.

And he can feel it. Every surface emotion from her like pressing his cheek to it and listening until it's his own. The question confuses him enough to sigh and admit, "I dunno. Have I ever done shit before? Maybe... a couple of times. When I got pissed at... this group thing and ...maybe PT but that could have been anything. ? That one I dunno about. I guess Roen said I did but I think it was him more than me."

Oh the weight of all that hurt in him. Finch's eyes well up with tears, and she realizes he has no idea he's doing anything at all. He's just doing it, while thinking about why he can't do it. She tests her theory with a distraction, leaning down to kiss him quite forcefully, while thinking loudly at him, "You are trying too hard dummy. This is me, Finch, talking to your brain, because you're connecting us, without knowing you're connecting us."

There's a squeak and Ms. Mags crawls out f the way between and up Finch's sleeve. Rodent awareness is sometimes the duty of the rodent herself.

Ignacio, is not a complex person, he just over-complicates things as is if some great acrobatic social labyrinth serves as well as armor and entertainment. So many nonsensical walls built up and Finch just steps over them and brings them down with one gesture he sinks his heart into. Comedicly there is, in the frustrations in the back of his head, that tar stops lashing out, stills... and bubbles once.

"Maybe we've just always been connected." Yeah. The man's a published author for a reason and that's because he can say shit like that and mean it. The kiss breaks and the connection gets fuzzy, falters, but holds. "Woah thiiiiis is messed up." His hand tightens around hers and he makes the mistake of looking around which only makes his fucking head swim. Yup. Looking forward. Let's just watch Finch. It's easier, and frankly a better view.

Finch's tears turn into a smile and a short laugh as it works. When things go fuzzy she puts her hands on his face again to keep them looking at each other. <<That's it. Just focus on me. Just one thing in here, me. This is all you, Figgy. You're a mental glimmerer. It's why you could hear the electricity, and the neighbors. They weren't loud, you were just tapped into it. Now we know. Now Roen can teach you how to shut out the things you need to.>>

Scary as hell. This is the only phrase that so accurately but inadequately explain the experience of having your mind and your feelings being pried open like a walnut, though one could suppose that works too. He pays perfectly still holding into her hand and trying not to have a panic attack.

Everyone has two faces, and the second people made to protect the first. There's so much he's not proud of evident now that maybe if he can bullshit long enough the better put together part of him will become truth. Then again Finch hasn't kicked him out of her tent for being a mess, and that? That's the thought he's holding onto now while it slowly dawns on him that this attunement is not likely to just go the fuck away like getting through rehab or waiting for withdrawals to leave his system. This is systemic.

Reaching up he pulls her to him in a tight hug and just anchors himself to right now and tries to find that feeling that makes shit stand still again right up until, "Ah! There's a rat in my eye. Mags...Thanks" As her fluffy self crawls across Finch's shoulder and up onto his head. Look, she's helping! This is the broken part right? Does tstanding on him with stubby lefs dount as a hug?

Finch holds him, the warmth of her own spirit glimmer just soaking in his presence, reflected through the mental connection. It's how she sees him, beautiful and good, trying harder than anyone she knows, doing good by those he cares about. He sees and feels the pure joy she experiences when he walks into a room, the laughter he brings to her with his smartass comments, the hope she has for him to be happy.

Ignacio can't feel the signal in the lines and the world, slowly has been dying down until it's just them. No neighbors, no lines, no drugs, and no pain in his leg. There's only them, Ms Mags, and some ... denizins of nature.

And there's left this feeling overwhelming and proud? It feels and tastes of the memories of how he saw the world before he was disassembled; some strange and wonderful effortless joy. His arms tighten around her without squeezing her. "Love you too, Finch. We're gonna figure out how... to fix this right?" He takes a deep breath and holds her like his armed murderbird she is who will fight the rest of the fucking world if he fails to talk it down... and forwarn them she's gonna whoop their ass. "Is my head going to pick up static forever?"

"I don't think so," Finch murmurs quietly into his hair. "I don't think it's that way for the boss. I think he can teach you how to tune things out." The L word doesn't go unnoticed, but she just presses a kiss to his temple in response, acknowledgement. "And yeah, we're going to fix this, and we're going to fix the curse for me too. Maybe we can take a trip up to the loony bin and talk to Great Auntie Starling."

Ignacio brushes his fingers through her hair just welcoming the moment of peace. She doesn't have to say anything he doesn't already know given his particular phrasing. His fingers pause in the blue sea that is her hair today and says "Uhhhh maaaaaybe I should talk to boss first..." He pauses thinking back, "Oooor possibly also other boss before going to visit a bin of loons." He pauses angling for the bird joke to break up teh fear and intensity "Is that the collective noun for them? A bin?"

"I have no idea, but I'll google it for you later, baby," Finch murmurs. "I think I want Itz and the boss with us too in case anything happens while we're there. Sound good?" She strokes his hair which Mags is playing in, making a little nest in the middle for herself.

The smile stretches with easy that only reprieve from constant screaming can bring. "Would you believe me if I said anyhting with you sounds pretty great... except going into a hospital filled with high anxiety strung out folks without a coffee filter wrapped around my head."

"Maybe the boss can help with that. We'll have to see, Ig. In the meantime, I can go get the actual tent out of the garage. We can camp out here for a bit until your head gets square again?" Finch offers quietly, stroking his cheek once more, and looking at him with all sorts of love in her dark eyes.

Ignacio considers the option. His apartment building withteh crazy wiring and all the neighbors... the haunted house... or here. Damn. Super tough call on that one. "It's not too cold yet. Es de leche. Could stay out here but I'd say maybe grab Mgs' portable condo in case... Nature gets... natury." That look though. It's a look like that that makes him forgive himsef a bit. Even he reasons he can't have a person like this look at him like that if he's all that bad... Oh shit is this thing still on??! His eyes get huge and there is that faint look of embarassment. "ou know wat I realized when we were attacked by bird mom?"

Finch gathers up the rat in her hands, kissing Mags' wiggly little nose. "She'll stay inside, with Gran. I don't like her out here if I'm not awake. Plus she's little, she gets cold easier. I have proper camping gear in the garage, from all my field research trips. I even have a godseye propane heater for if it gets cold. I can go get the stuff and bring Mags back if you're ok here alone for fifteen minutes or so?"

She tilts her head to the side at his final question, grinning that the connection is still up between them. <<What did you realize?>> she asks with her brain, working that glimmer muscle he's drugged out of commission for so long.

Ignacio is as embarassed as he's able to be which is not very but, yup, he's eating that one, but also with no real shame. "I realized while it was scary as hell- and that did fucking hurt," which comes out more of a hoit in a thick lean on his home dialect, "Made me really think there at the end? Maybe... maybe we can do anything. So first? Maybe I talk to August an' Tobin and see if they can give me some help on this. And then? We go visit your mama y tia and see what wecan find out. Keep tryin to find somethin new to jsut... break whateeeever this is on this damn house cause I also realized I'd really like us to stick around a while, ya know? I ain't ready to lose that and not to some woman with bad feet."

"I don't want to lose you either, Ig. I think I'm in this for the long haul," Finch admits. Is this how it happened to the generations that came before her? Wanting to not make another generation, but dammit, falling in love with someone they simply couldn't live without?

Yup. And that's where the disaster that is the whirlwind called Act II usually tries to ruin everything with ghosts and curses and health problems and unknown elements that were never planned on in Act I. Ignacio's an author you'd think he knows this stuff, but life isn't always like a book and sometimes this is a very good thing.

That half smile, revivvified some holds steadfast. "Right. No running away from.. the veil, curses, baking," wait, baking!? "We'll run up on it like we did the bird and... find a new plan. A good... tactical, long term plan... which may also involve you learning Spanish so you can be entertained when my family goes off like a telenovella."

That gets a chuckle out of Finch. "Right, ok I'll start Spanish on Duo Lingo. They are really gonna freak that your girl is pasty white, aren't they? I mean I think I am. No idea who my dad is. Maybe I can get mom to finally tell me when we go up there."

Ignacio snickers and shakes his head, "Eeeh, nah. I mean Europe can get pretty pasty. My family ain't exactly from the coast so." He pauses and replies too honestly, "My dad will likely flip his shit at me cause you can't cook... but we've also established my father is an asshole... who has a passion for cooking so... So long as you're not from New Jersey," he pauses squinting an eye, "or Manchester" Because the state of fotball club loyalty matters, "I don't expect an issue...but I still don't care. This??? Your approval matters, not his."

Finch gives him a warm smile. "Good, then you stay put, I'm going to go put Mags in her house, get Gran to load up a picnic basket with sandwiches for us, and get the camping gear. Puff can help me carry it back. You rest." She kisses his forehead, sets Mags on her shoulder, and rushes out.