psychoshenanigans | Accord // Canon

He's actually sitting up when Robin finds him, legs hanging over the edge of the bed like he's considering getting up and going somewhere. But he's slumped, looking tired, so he's probably been in that spot for a while now. Whatever his original reason for moving, he's since given up on it.

His eyes are up to meet Robin's when he wanders on in, though--his subtle version of a return greeting. At least he's feeling present enough to manage that much.

"You look better," is the first thing that Robin says to him, put a little at-ease by the fact that it's an honest observation. He breaks eye contact for a moment to set his delivery down on the bed and pull the covers around a little, almost more of a mental preparation than anything.

"You planning on going somewhere?" He sounds half-teasing, half-curious about it, sitting comfortably down in what's become sort of a usual place next to Coil.

His eyebrows raise a little when he sees that Robin's carrying something, leaning to look, but the curiosity only lasts for about a second. It's like the effort to care is too much. He doesn't have the energy to spare, so the interest almost immediately slumps out of him.

He answers with an apathetic shake of his head.

"Ah, well."

The curiosity would have been quickly dissolved anyway. He picks it back up and unscrews the lid, trying to hand the thing over to Coil. It's some kind of soup--seems legit. That's what you feed sick people, after all. That and, well, Coil has the whole no-tongue thing going on. It seemed doubly appropriate.

"Up to eating yet?" He sounds less teasing about that one. He doesn't know if Coil could really manage the complexities of the container how he is, but it's polite (or something) to ask.

He takes the container, lifting it so he can give the contents a sniff. It seems harmless and edible enough, and he knows that he logically must be hungry. It's pretty obvious that he's considering it, at least.

But, again, it's also pretty obvious that the interest doesn't last long. Eating is an effort on the best of days, and now... it seems like a chore that he simply doesn't have the energy for. Or the will, if he's perfectly honest with himself.

Shaking his head or shrugging seems stupid, though. So, instead, he doesn't say anything at all.

He was fairly well-settled into the silence before, but he's even getting used to this. Whether or not Coil wants to eat is not his concern. Getting him to intake enough calories to continue breathing, is. It's a simple job, and (un)fortunately for Coil, Robin likes simple jobs.

"Otherwise I'm just going to feed you myself, and then it'll be all weird when you think back on it a few weeks from now." He waves his hand, dismissively. "Might even be weird now." A vague threat. The choice is his.

Ugh. He knows Robin well enough by now to be certain that it's not an idle threat. And the thought of not only how awkward it would be, but also the mental image of trying to either fight or work with something like that and choking, makes it a very effective one.

He straightens up a little with a sigh, rubbing his eye with the heel of one hand. Like he's trying to wake himself up, rally the energy to make the attempt.

And he shrugs. Maybe. He'll try.

It's a start. Robin will accept it for now.

"'Attaboy."

He brings his feet up, tucking them under his legs, sitting rather permanently and cross-legged in his place on the bed. He isn't facing him exactly, but he's tilted in that direction.

"Hey, I was thinking..." He starts, content to let the previous subject drop for a moment, "You haven't really had a chance to check up on that journal yet, have you?"

And, with something else to think about, he'll let that container sit in his lap. He'll get around to it. At some point. Probably.

Lowering his hand from his eye so he can look over at Robin and then glance around for wherever his journal could have gone, he shakes his head. He'd been avoiding it, actually.

Though it's more of a mixed message than anything, Robin reaches over and takes the container from him, putting the lid back. Tight enough not to leak everywhere if it tips, loose enough to be an easy open.

And then he puts it back where Coil had it. Just being preemptive.

"I figured. There are a couple of things you might want to know about, then."

Good thinking, Robin. He's managing to keep the thing balanced for now, but he's really having enough trouble keeping himself balanced upright, at the moment.

Especially when his attention entirely leaves it in order to fix Robin with a tentative look. He's uneasy. With how little he is invested in anything around here, if there is something he should actually be notified about, it's probably not something particularly good.

Good? Bad? It more just... is.

"For starters, Adel is..." he pauses here. He knows the truth, but respects him enough to keep up the lie. "Dead. And he admitted to killing you a while ago, more or less."

That seems like the big one. Might as well get it out of the way.

Ah... and here's why closing the container was necessary--Robin might as well have physically struck him.

He gasps, and the breath just kind of sticks in his lungs. Absolutely electrified with anxiety, every part of that little bit of news hits him hard. And then, in a slow repetition, hits him again.

Adel is dead. That means... it means so many things, all of which pull open a deeper sinking pit in his stomach. And he admitted to killing him. He admitted... that could mean...

The breath finally falls out of him when his ribs begin to burn, scraping out a tense voiceless sound. Adel died. He was so close, squandered the opportunity, and now...

Eye darting now as he mentally rakes over the sudden tangle of thoughts, his hand leaves the container in his lap and goes to press against the side of his head, fingers curling.

Adel, the vessel, is either consumed and conquered or gone. He could have taken it--he almost had--and now...

"Hey, hey!" That's not what he'd imagined would happen--sure, maybe it's kind of a touchy subject, but there's no reason for Coil to go and start having an anxiety attack on him.

He turns forward and reaches out for Coil's wrist, wrapping his own hand around it and trying to pull it away from his head. "Calm down. One thing at a time."

He tries to tug his wrist away from Robin, and then alternately switches tactics and uses the hold to suddenly lever himself out of bed. Which, is a really thoughtless move, being that he hardly has the strength to keep himself on his feet, let alone actually get anywhere. He manages to scoot off the edge of the bed and his feet make it to the floor, but hoisting himself up doesn't go exactly as he'd hoped. He ends up relying on Robin's grip instead of fighting it to keep himself from immediately pitching forward.

...He doesn't even know where he's trying to go.

He at least ducks forward himself, to grab the container before it rolls right off of Coil's lap. It's quickly set aside in the chaotic momentum of things, and if he wasn't so damn strong, Coil may very well have just fallen over.

But in the gap where he's left half-standing, Robin gets up himself and steadies Coil by the shoulders.

"Coil."

It's just his name, something simple while he guides Coil back into sitting down on the edge of the bed. "Take it easy."

He's distraught--that's really the only word for it. Not meeting Robin's eyes, instead sort of staring through his chest, he just... fails to grapple with this in a rational manner. But he can't do anything about it. There are all these things that he needs to be up and doing right now, trying to salvage this disaster while he can, and he can't even wrestle himself onto his own feet.

And oh the frustration. The dismay of someone unable to speak, someone who died and can't go back to fix what he failed, stuck in a prison, tired and sick and unwinding...

Well, that's not working. He's compelled to just... grab him, hold him still. But that won't work; he knows what it's like when someone's spinning around in their own head like that. He'd need time, and patience on Robin's part.

Unfortunately, he's not that patient, and he doesn't feel like spending the time waiting. So he goes for something stronger.

And smacks the back of his head. Pretty hard.

"Knock it off." Then, a little nicer, as he kneels down in front of him. "Come on, focus."

...It's funny how well that works.

With a surprised blink, stillness sort of shudders through him--wavering on his feet but suddenly no longer trying to flee. The sharp contact, the order, it gets through to him before his mind even has time to agree. He just automatically obeys because Robin tells him to, and then he works on getting a hold of himself on the inside.

It takes him a minute or so, but he finally forces himself to take a breath-- an even one.

And people say violence never solves anything.

"Better."

He just sort of... stays there, watching Coil's face and waiting with what patience he has (that would have been all used up trying to keep Coil from going into complete panic mode) for him to at least appear a little calmer on the surface.

Yeah, okay. So many letting him know about the death thing--maybe he should have thought a little more about whether or not that was still a touchy subject. But he had to tell him at some point. He probably would have started asking questions eventually.

Which is about where he starts to get an idea. Who the hell knows if Coil would go along with it, but... might as well ask.

"Would it help if you could tell me?"

He taps at his own temples a couple times. Coil remembers--he must remember--that time he showed him why he liked music. It's really the same thing, just operating in a slightly different way. He'd be searching instead of showing.

And then there are the times when a mental connection seems completely unnecessary to know exactly what's going through his head. It's all there on his face, the steps of thought played out one by one on his features.

He focuses up a little when he realizes what Robin is suggesting, actually meeting his gaze, with surprise pulling around the edges of his eye. Then, immediately after, there's wariness. Unwillingness, brow slanting down a little. He's so private, obsessively protective of everything in his mind. Everything. And if he's already lost the right to trust his own voice, why should he trust himself with the opportunity to communicate with even greater detail?

But his eye darts a little too much, betraying him. He's tired, he's sick and confused... so, with great reluctance, some part of him is actually considering it.

He can see the conflict. He knows what he thinks is right, but even if Coil tells him, who's he to say he'd be able to do anything about it (he's already done a poor job on that count)? He thinks it might help, but he's not the one who was near panic a second ago.

So with the harsher blow already forgotten, he carefully reaches forward to brush some of that hair away from Coil's face and graze his fingertips over his skin.

"It's your choice. Maybe not now?" He sounds genuine enough, that strange smile on his face, "I just want to help you settle."

He moves a little away from the touch without any real thought behind it. Just his natural avoidant tendencies reacting while the rest of his mind is busy over Robin's offer... but then he's given an out.

He nods vaguely. Maybe later.

Maybe later, he'll touch minds. Maybe later, he'll eat.

Right now, he wants to sit back down, reaching back clumsily for the edge of the bed.

He lets him sit. Guides him down a little, eventually returning to his place beside him as well. He ends up putting the container back in Coil's hands, even if he doesn't want it.

"That's really the big thing." He starts to continue like nothing really happened, because that at least seems the polite thing to do. "Some people have moved around." Tek's face fell off, Michael went blind, all that stuff.

He's more put together now, but he shifts to pull his legs up under him, getting a little smaller. He needs to think.

...He needs to think. There's been too much reaction, too little thought.

Focus, like Robin said.

Taking another measured breath, balancing the container in one hand while he rubs his eye with the other, he forces some sense of order on himself. Kicking his brain until thoughts start to sort and fall into lines.

Finally, something clicks. It's small, but it's a place to start--and that is considerably more than he'd had before. Looking up again, he glances around, waves his hand in a vague searching gesture. He wants his notebook. For the first time in... quite a while, he wants to write something.

What's he gesturing about? He's looking for something...? Oh!

"You want to write?" he figures out, "Yeah, hang on."

Robin gets to his feet, looking around a little himself. There's a lot of paper in this room, but that book should be around somewhere. Maybe on the table... He keeps his search pretty quick and ends up finding it with relatively little trouble. Something to write with isn't hard to find either.

He brings them back to Coil and takes his seat again, curious what he's actually worked up the want to write.

Well... his mind hasn't gone very far from its earlier preoccupation. But, it's dealing with it in a more reasonable way, at least. And the process of getting a pen in his hand, putting it to paper and spelling out a thought, is a ritual that he hasn't really run through yet in this... new chapter of his life.

It's familiar. Just a little normalizing.

'When?' he scribbles down. And then, even though the answer seems obvious, he still has to ask, 'He didn't come back?'

To which Robin feels a sort of pang of guilt, but he immediately buries it. Adel is dealing with something that's his own business now. And hey, if Coil came back, maybe...

"Not yet..." He says, but then immediately retracts that for an addition. "If he's going to come back at all."

Then he thinks back towards the other question, "But I guess it would have been... a little under a couple of weeks ago?"

Accord // Canon

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