milliways_bar | (no subject)

A certain poet who's been in the bar all day spots Lehi, and does indeed wish to interrupt.

He wanders over, dressed in a poofysweater and clutching a notebook in his arms, looking rather younger than his 25 years. Pretty little D'Artagnan has shrunk himself down almost as tiny as a wren and is sleeping on one of his shoulders.

"...Ana?"

He blinked up at that, then smiled, "Miniver, have a seat, been a while." Well, sort of. One of those time-pretzel things y'know.

A waitrat was flagged down and another jar of applemash ordered. It was tradition to drink it out of jam jars, it was just how it worked.

"How've you been?"

"Oh jeeze. Complicated," Miniver answers as he gratefully takes a seat. "Like I've been on the top of the world and the bottom and shit so... heh. How about you?"

He gently scoops his teenybird off his shoulder and holds the dozing kestrel in cupped hands, stroking his back feathers with one thumb and letting Lehi see him better.

D'aww! Tinybird!

He smiled, reaching out to stroke the bird's head gently, "None too bad on my end of things I suppose. Same as always." And he was right back to chipping away carefully at the shard of obsidian he was working with, "Anything I should know about? Well, y'know, anything you feel like sharing?"

Miniver glances at the notebook he placed on the table.

"I dunno... kinda. D'you mind?" He doesn't like imposing problems on people who have other things to worry about, especially when he can handle it on his own, really he can. But it'd be nice to talk to someone. And Ana's always been so good to him.

He tilted his head, glancing up at Miniver then, setting the tools and the soon-to-be arrowhead aside for the moment, "Don't mind at all. Shoot."

Miniver keeps petting his teenybird as he talks. "Well... so... I talked to Toki and Pickles and Guppy and we looked in this book about stuff and like... they think um... they think I got one of those... things where your head's kinda messed up. And I mean, it ain't anything too serious, and Pickles and I have this system we're gonna work on so I don't ever have to take freak-pills or anything... but jeeze... it's like... man, I got something they got a name for. And it's so great of Pickles to be cool with it and wanna help me deal with it and stuff, but fuck... it's one thing to be a loser or an asshole or a moody bitch, it's another thing to have a disease that makes you that way. Even though I know it don't make me any different, I'm still just me like I've always been, but it's kinda degrading to know part of what makes me me can be written off and filed away as some kinda disorder."

Babbly Miniver is babbly and ranty and clearly very, very troubled by this.

Lehi just tilted his head, listening, sliding both the plate of cookies (mostly chocolate chip) and the jam-jar of applemash (when it arrived) towards Miniver.

What he said was: "I can see where you're coming from. Sort of like losing some of your history, or finding out that it's always been told wrong."

Miniver takes the applemash and drinks, and picks up one of the cookies but only nibbles at it, mousey and barely interested in food.

"Yeah... See, Pickles has this really great thing... he's having me take this journal around and write in it stuff that seems to... uh... to make my brain get all, y'know, that thing. Whatever. So then I can see in writing patterns of thoughts or stuff I do or whatever that seems to like... set it off, or make it worse, or something, and I can understand it and work around that kinda thing. But still... still... it's just kinda like a kick in the stomach that suddenly I got this label and Jesus I'm a fucking real crazy person. Even if it ain't something that's so bad I gotta see a doctor for it, it's bad enough that it's something I could explain in big words and I just don't like it. I don't like thinking I got any right to have that kind of excuse when I get all moody and whiny and shit. I don't like writing off my real great bursts of creativity and productivity as a side-effect of some imbalance. It's like... what am I, a person or a fuckin' chemical plant that don't work like it oughta? What if people find out?"

He hasn't even said the name of what it is that's wrong with him. He's that scared of people knowing and categorizing him under some steriotype.

Ana probably wouldn't know anyway. Labels like that weren't the People's kind of thing, they were the white man's kind of thing.

He shrugged, "Could be both." He shook his head then, scooching his chair around so that he could ruffle Miniver's hair, arm settling around the other's shoulders once he had, "You don't like the label come up with a new one. People have been doing that for years, it's how they keep 'discovering' new 'problems'" Yup, air quotes and everything.

Miniver leans against him and closes his eyes, moving to hold the still-sleeping teenybird in his lap.

"Toki figured it out," he continues, "because he's got it, too. I guess maybe people think about that kinda thing differently in his time... maybe even in the time I live in now... but it's still..." Pause. "D'you look at me and see someone sick and broken?" He doesn't want to be That Kind Of Person. He doesn't want to be someone people look at and pity, or shy away from like a walking plague-bearer.

He huffed at that, amused, really, arm still looped around Miniver's shoulders, not about to disrupt the leaning, leaning was good.

"Why would I? You're still the same person you've always been, at least as long as I've known you."

Which was really just another way of saying: 'don't be stupid, labels don't change who you are'

Miniver smiles tensely and gratefully, his eyes misting over.

"So does it change, then?" he asks, his voice a bit thick in his throat. "Is it not anymore really bad to say they got a word for something that makes your brain sometimes do stuff it shouldn't?"

There was a small shrug, careful not to jostle Miniver too much, "Well, there's always someone who'll say it is, doesn't mean they're right."

He was of the opinion that most people with the label-making, and the ostracizing due to labellings were just morons and their opinions didn't mean much.

"So..." He pauses. "So if I tell you the name of it... okay... so like... they figure I might be um, bipolar. But like, this kinda bipolar that's not as extreme as other kinds?" He looks up at Lehi with those sad blue eyes, tears gathering at the corners of them. "D'you think I'm really sick and fucked up now?"

"Oh, s'that all it is?" Another slight shrug, "I can make you some tea, get you the herbs to make it yourself, that'll help even things out a little. If you like."

That would be a 'no.'

He blinks, and wibbles a little.

"Really?"

Little mousepoet looks adorably about to cry. He's so set in the expectation that giving a name to something wrong with your head makes you tainted scum, Lehi's acceptance, as slight and easy as it may be, is really deeply touching to him.

Another small smile, giving the ends of Miniver's hair a gentle tug, "C'mon, the People have been handling this kind of thing with plant-bits for ages, it's nothing new."

Another slight shrug, "Not saying it's a cure, but it'll help a little, and sometimes a little is all you need, right?"

Miniver sniffs, and quickly uses a sleeve to catch a tear or two that slips onto his cheeks.

"That'd be..." He pauses to take a brief moment and a deep breath to try ro keep his composure. "That'd be too great, Ana, really. I'd... I'd really love that. Thanks."

Another small smile, leaning over to kiss the top of Miniver's head, since it was right there and all, "You're welcome kiddo. And you let me know if one mix doesn't help, we'll try something else, adjust the levels, all about finding the right balance, what works for one person might not work for another."

Miniver carefully sets his little sleepybird on the table and gives Lehi a tight, clingy hug.

D'Artagnan, after a few seconds of being without shoulder or hand to nest on, blinks awake with an idly discontented squawk. Taking scope of the situation, though, he recognizes his maker delightedly, recognizes his "mother" in one of his moods, fluffs his feathers out, and grows himself to eagle-size. Thus rather more huggable and person-friendly, he hops nearer to Miniver and Lehi, and cranes his neck forward, nipping and giving soft chirps and whistles and coos and screechy-squeaks of affection and comfort to them both.

Miniver smiles at the lovely kestrel, no longer so teeny and sleepy, and keeps tight hold on Lehi.

"Y'know... Ana... I just... I ain't got words for how good you are to me." He still sounds a bit choked up, but he's determined not to let himself cry.

He beamed at the bird, reaching down to scritch Dart's head, arm still looped around Miniver, not about to let up with the hug until the other was ready to.

There was another smile at the statement, shaking his head, "It's what I do." And the smile went crooked, "But you're welcome."

The pretty kestrel, who has CLEARLY been tended well by Miniver, flutters excitedly to be seeing his maker again, and nips and fluffs and hops at Lehi.

Miniver watches his bird with a bright smile, and lets his arms slip into a loose hold, no longer clinging but keeping close. Then after a minute of watching Dart get reacquainted with Lehi, he picks up his applemash jar and finishes the stuff off.

"D'you think I oughta tell other people I'm really close to?" he asks, sounding a lot more relaxed. "I mean... is it a god thing, to be this okay with it?"

He grinned again, offering a hand for Dart to step up on, "C'mere you."

And to Miniver he said, "Don't know, I think it's just a People thing. Really though? It's up to you who to tell, if you think they'll look down on you for it or whatever, they don't need to know, if you think they'll be able to help if things get bad, well, those are the ones who need to know."

"...that's a good idea," Miniver says, smiling easily and letting his body practically mold itself against Lehi's. Miniver's lucky -- he may be naturally overemotional, but the amount of that that's due to dysfunctional brain chemistry is relatively low compared to the majority of people with the same kind of imbalance, and he's lived his whole life without any kind of support for when things get REALLY bad. He's a lot tougher than he knows or seems. Just knowing there are people who will put up with him and hold on and listen to him when he gets all crazyfucked emotional is a luxury that defies descriptions of decadence.

Dart, meanwhile, shrinks himself down just a little as he flapps onto Lehi's hand, giving happy chirrups as he clings to his maker.

He smiled, moving the bird up to his shoulder, even a teeny-bird would fit up there, his other arm was now looped around Miniver's waist, not at all minding the squishiness, "I do have good ideas, you know, once in a while."

The tone was wholly amused, really, because, well, why not?

Miniver chuckles softly. Dart settles between them and fusses with both their hair.

"You have good ideas plenty often. Think it comes with being a god."

He shrugged, "Pretty sure it just comes with experience. 'Course, I wouldn't have gotten so much experience if it weren't for being a near-immortal legend-god. Huh. Guess it's kind of a case of 'pay no attention to that man behind the curtain'"