leftwithmybones | [For Rogue]

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rogue

[For Rogue]

McCoy's been tending to his garden. It's been flourishing for a while now and he's got a good variety out there. He's got tomatoes of three different vaccines in various stages and while none are ready to harvest, he's out there with a microscope he's stolen from the lab, his medkit, and his notebook.

For all that he's a doctor, his research has been getting him good positions all his life, even with his divorce and his father's death weighing on him. The island ought to be no different and he's devoting himself to it best as he can.

He leans away from the latest slide to make a couple of notes about the progress and that's when he sees Rogue. "Well, then, didn't know I was having visitors over."

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"Bend both of 'em if you're really inclined," McCoy replies. Rogue's got a way of making the south in the boy really come out and he bites on his cheek to try and stop the accent from taking over, but hell, what's the harm in it. "You want a drink?"

Rogue shook her head a little, then pushed her hair tightly behind her ears so it wouldn't fall in her face.

"Ah'd best not. It-" She blinked a few times and glanced over her shoulder, just briefly, before she looked back at McCoy as though she were trying very hard to focus on remembering he was there. Or perhaps where she was.

McCoy watches her and wipes down his hands on a spare rag he's got lying around, cataloguing her movements. He still remembers the other month when he had to sedate her. "It what?" he prods.

"What?" she said, then gave a tiny start. She'd been speaking. She dragged a hand over her face.

"Doc, Ah need help."

McCoy gets to his feet and watches her warily, closing the distance between them. "Let's go inside, why don't we," he offers, raising a brow and trying to ease her along. "Get some privacy, and all."

"Sh- sure," she said, wrapping her arms around herself, one hand unconsciously moving in a circle over her own shoulder. She let him guide her toward the door, distractedly.

He's getting worried. McCoy follows after her and opens the door so she can get inside. At this rate, he's almost thinking that he needs someone around just in case something goes wrong. "So, what're you here for?"

She sat without noticing where, knees tucked together, lines of her body so tight and compressed it looked like she was physically trying to hold herself together.

"Emam's been doin'- she's been doin' great work with me, 'n Ah know what's rattlin' around up in there now, the part that Ah didn't before 'n so it's.... it's like Ahc'n try 'n manage it but." She pressed her fingertips to her eyelids, and shook her head a little for a longer moment than she meant to. She dropped the hand and looked pleadingly up at McCoy.

"Now it's whispers, all the time. I'm not- no one else is takin' over, but there're these voices, 'n sometimes Ah think I'm seein' something outta the corner of my eye that ain't there 'n- all the meditation in the world ain't makin' it go away."

She was fasting, more or less, to boot, if only because she was too distracted to remember to eat and when she did remember, she had no appetite. She was looking gaunt, and didn't like it. She'd never been so thin.

"'n Ah don't know what to do. Ah don't know what to do, anymore."

"How much do you sleep at night?" he asks as he starts to put together a little something. It's not drugs, but it's tea that he's lacing with liquor. It's a start, as far as he's concerned. He needs to hear more and there's a small part of his mind, the one trained in the psychology of being trapped with too many people, that is perking up after a long retreat away.

"Can't tell," Rogue said. "Far as I know, a few hours. Sometimes five, but not more'n that."

"Well, see, that'd be my first recommendation." McCoy thinks of her as a friend and so he's going to be honest. She might want help, but he's going to give it to her best as he can, his way. "I'd put together a cocktail of sedatives and monitor your REM patterns to see if you're getting restful sleep."

"Leonard, this ain't caused by lack o'sleep," she said quietly.

"That's just a side effect, or a symptom. 'n sleep- real sleep- that's when I'm... That's when the residual psyches left up here have the best shot o'grabbin' hold o'the wheel."

"So sleep is when your mind lets its guard down and you get vulnerable." Huh. McCoy nods and glances through the vials of all his test drugs. Most of them aren't where he needs them to be, despite Jean's help, but they're getting there slowly. "Obviously this is new to me, so I need you to tell me what usually counteracts this so I can mimic the effect."

Rogue stared at him.

"...telepathic walls put up to block 'em," she said, and swallowed. She kept her fingers interlaced so her hands wouldn't shake.

"N- nothin' else has ever- meditation used t'help me focus but now it's." She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and when she opened them again, she was spending so much energy not looking anywhere but at McCoy that she was clearly trying to avoid seeing something else.

"It doesn't work. It's all the time, conversations of whispers or people talkin' at me, 'n sometimes it's clear and sometimes it's not but I don't- can't stop it."

The immediate thing he thinks is that he's got to get his research on brain grafts out, because this seems to be a problem that might be solved with a well-placed wall. "What about chemicals to simulate a wall? You ever tried that?"

She shook her head no, eyes slipping back to the place her fingers were twining and twisting together.

"No, you don't think it'll work or no you haven't tried anything like that before?" He's prodding and yeah, maybe he's being a little blunt, but he can't do anything if he doesn't have any answers. "I'm trying to help," he pleads.

"No," she said, looking up at him, "I've never taken anything chemical." She dragged a hand over her face.

"'m sorry, doc, 'm just... h-havin' trouble focusing."

"It's okay," he promises, reaching over to press a hand to her shoulder, clasping on lightly. "It's not your fault and I don't expect you to be instantly better on account of seeking help, though I am glad you are. Would you be willing to take something chemical? I could start working on a cocktail."

"I'll do anything," she whispered.

"At this point? Oh, Lord, anything." She hated how she sounded, weak and needy, desperate and grasping and not at all an X-Man, but there wasn't anything for it. She was those things, all of them, and she needed to not be, any longer.

"Okay, then here's the deal," he says, already putting together ideas in his head. "I need you to stay here for the next few days. If you don't sleep, that's fine, I'll stay up with you. If you do sleep, I'm gonna monitor your vital signs. I'll need bloodwork and I'm gonna start mixing up sedatives, blockers for your brain, and I'm gonna talk to Jean about your unique DNA."

Rogue nodded, and managed to look up at him and meet his gaze as she did.

"All right. You c'n talk t'Emma Frost, too, if you need to, she's been... tryin' ta help."

McCoy can't even help his wry laugh at that. "I'm not laughing at your troubles, Rogue, really," he says, right off the bat. "But isn't Emma the one that Jean has a heavy load of issues with?"

"That'd be her," Rogue said tiredly, "but she's got a lot of experience with villains, and I've got a whole host of 'em upstairs, so she's who I went to."

"Well, if it helps you, she and I will talk," is what McCoy has to say on the matter. It doesn't matter to him who he needs to talk to. Rogue is a friend and a damn good one. "You know I'd do anything for you, yeah?"

Rogue lifted her face to meet McCoy's, then leaned forward and put her arms around his shoulder, head ducked, and nodded a little.

"Thank you."

McCoy steps forward to duck two fingers under her chin, trying to get her to look up before this goes into a much more awkward place. "Hey," he prompts, letting his fingers fall away. "You'd do the same for me, right?"

"Ah wouldn't know where t'start," she said, smiling weakly, "but I'd sure's shoot try."

"See?" he says, a little smug, but he feels good in that he's getting some results. "I'll talk to Emma and I'll talk to Jean and we'll see what we come up with, okay?"

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[For Rogue]

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