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Dogen had never liked the annual gala.
There were always way too many people there. The room got too hot, and there were too many smells, and sometimes people would have too many drinks and then the chatter would get way too loud and rattle the inside of Dogen's skull. His earplugs helped, but not enough.
He didn't like the suit he had to wear. It was uncomfortable, and stuffy, and it pinched everywhere that his usual tracksuit was loose and cozy. He got to wear his fancy formal hat with it, and that almost made up for it, but not quite.
He didn't much care for the food. Not knowing what he was going to eat always made him kind of anxious. Sometimes it was ok, but often they'd serve some kind of weird fancy dish, and the taste or the smell or (usually) the texture of it would put him off. He tended to just stick to the bread they put out in little bowls, if he had any appetite to begin with.
They were little things, really. And he could usually handle one or two little things ok. But everything combined became too much very, very quickly. He really didn't like the gala. Everybody else seemed to love it, and Dogen couldn’t fathom why. But he went every year anyway, because apparently it was The Done Thing, despite the fact that even on a good year the noise and the smells and the small talk would leave him exhausted for days afterwards.
And this wasn’t even a good year, because this year he had a migraine.
He should have seen it coming. They happened, not often, but often enough that he knew all of the warning signs by heart. The aura (that was what it was called, the little flickering spots in his vision that meant bad times ahead the same way a spot of blood on a handkerchief did), the difficulty focusing, and then nausea and a headache that hurt so bad he could do nothing but clutch at his skull and wait for it to end.
But he'd been distracted - had chalked it up to just nerves, with the gala looming. It wasn't until he was sitting around a table in his stuffy suit with a handful of people he hardly knew and the first wave hit him that he realised. (And he should have excused himself right then and there - but his thoughts were swimming through a skull filled with thick treacle, and he couldn't think straight.)
Someone was at his shoulder, asking him something. He wasn’t sure what they said - wasn’t totally sure what he said in response. They poured something into his glass. His stomach churned as the sour smell of it hit his nose. Red wine. Why had they given him wine? He hated wine.
He felt sick. He wanted to leave, but the nausea was keeping him pinned to his seat. He wasn’t even sure if he could stand right now. The pain had started, sharp and throbbing in the right side of his head. A drilling pain - and suddenly he couldn’t shake the horrible mental image of a drill whirring against the side of his skull. He could almost see little bits splattering out onto the table; red, then white, then pink once it got far enough in -
The buzz of the room had gone quiet. Somebody was giving a speech, he thought, but he couldn’t make out the words. The lights in here were way too bright. The glint of his silverware was burning his eyes. His hands were sweaty as he gripped the sides of his chair.
Maybe he could just wait it out. Weather the storm for a few hours and then slink back to his office and collapse onto his futon and wait for everything to stop hurting. He grit his teeth. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt -
A cry of pain jolted him out of his thoughts.
He looked up, starting. The people around the table were clutching at their heads. One of them lurched to their feet, trying to stagger away. A plate smashed to the floor. Dogen flinched at the noise, and the wine glass in front of him burst.
Someone screamed. Dogen watched the growing red stain on the white tablecloth, and distantly realised he was about to lose control.
He panicked, and then did quickly his best not to panic - that wouldn't help, he had to keep this under wraps, he had to focus. There was a low chatter of alarm rising in the room. He pressed his hands over his ears, squeezing his eyes shut - don't panic, get a grip, why was everything so loud -
There was a hand on his shoulder, solid and firm, and a gentle voice cut through the noise.
"C'mon, let's get you some air."
The evening outside in the quarry was cool and humid. Dogen took deep breaths, and tried to stop his hands from shaking.
Raz was beside him on the edge of the landing pad. He sat a few feet away, giving Dogen his space but close enough for comfort. It was quiet out here - no noise except the lapping water below and the shf-shf of fabric as Raz swung his leg back and forth. And Raz's thoughts were quiet, too, his mental presence a comfortable, unimpeachable silence.
Dogen tried to focus on the stillness, letting his breath out as slowly as he could manage with his heart pounding like this. He could feel his own energy crackling around him, making his teeth buzz and his head feel so full it could burst. Fleetingly, he was glad for his partner’s thick skull. The pressure probably would have been unbearable for anyone else, but Raz didn't seem bothered at all.
He shuddered, digging his hands into his sleeves and making a small noise behind his teeth. Next to him, Raz shifted.
"You ok?"
"It hurts," Dogen managed.
Raz's face crumpled. "Oh, buddy. You want a hug?"
Dogen screwed his eyes shut, and nodded.
Hugs were always a risky proposition. Physical contact in general was. He couldn't stand light touches, especially not when he was all wound up like this. They itched so bad they burned.
But Raz understood. He curled himself against Dogen's side, wrapping a long arm around Dogen's shoulders and squeezing him tightly. His grip was firm, a deep, dull pressure. Dogen let his head fall against Raz, breathing deeply and focusing on the comforting sensation of the other man's weight against him.
His head still felt like it was going to split apart, but the hug, the pressure, made it easier to focus. He could push the pain aside and work through the steps of getting himself back under control, the visualisations he used to keep this violent, fathomless power under wraps. In his head, it was like a huge engine, belching heat and steam. (He’d used to think of it like a bomb, instead. But according to his psychotherapist, it was better to use more neutral, less violent imagery.)
There are ten valves, one for each finger. Can you see them? You need to shut them down, one by one. Curl your thumb into your palm - that’s one. Your index finger is two…
Slowly, step by step and piece by piece, he managed to rein it back in. The energy roiling around his head dulled, and simmered down, and he gradually, gradually folded it back into himself. It wasn’t gone, when he was finished, just dormant. He could never turn the engine off (could never remove the bomb strapped to his chest). But he’d been living with this itching, buzzing static behind his eyeballs his whole life, to the point where it was little more than background radiation.
Dogen took a deep breath, letting it out through his nose. It was manageable. And, more importantly, he wasn't in danger of giving anyone nearby a cranial fracture. That was progress.
Raz’s chin brushed against the top of his head.
"Better?"
"A little. Head's still killing me."
Raz gave a low hum that rumbled through where his chest pressed against Dogen’s own. "You've got your meds in your desk drawer, right? If you want, I can go and-"
"No need." Another familiar voice rang out behind them. "I got you covered."
It was Lili. Despite himself, Dogen smiled. It was impossible not to when Lili was around.
He felt Raz's aura brighten next to him as Lili ruffled his hair, then stepped around to place a kiss against Dogen's temple.
"Here." She pressed a handful of tablets into his palm, and handed him a cup of water. It was plastic - all his cups were, glass was too much of a risk. They'd all gone out once and bought a load of new cups and other things for their shared apartment, and Lili got one with sunflowers and Raz got one with whales on and Dogen got one with a little kitten playing with a ball of yarn. The yarn went around and around and around the cup, and when he was stressed Dogen would trace his finger all the way along it, turning the cup between his hands, and it would help calm him down. It was his favourite. His smile grew a little wider. Lili had remembered.
Oh - he was getting distracted again.
Lili brought him out of his wandering thoughts. She gently curled his fingers around the pills, giving him a meaningful look. "C'mon. You'll feel better."
He knocked them back with a mouthful of water, then sipped the rest slowly with his knees up to his chest, trying to force down the nausea. He'd feel worse if he didn't drink. He should be able to eat something as well in a few hours, once the pills had kicked in. Right now even the thought of food made his stomach turn.
Food. The dinner. The gala. A thought suddenly hit him, and his blood turned to ice. He looked to Lili, eyes wide.
“Did I… hurt anyone?”
Lili immediately shook her head. “No. You’re fine.” She paused. “Well, Harrison passed out, but someone caught him before he hit the floor.”
Raz snickered. He quickly turned it into a cough when Lili glared at him.
Dogen’s hands were shaking. He knew Lili wouldn’t lie to him, but he’d heard someone scream back there, and now the sound was ringing in his ears. The screaming was always the worst part.
“You promise?” he rasped.
Lili nodded. “I promise.”
Behind his eyelids, Dogen could see clutching, twitching hands and flashes of wet pink. He curled in on himself, and Raz squeezed him a little tighter.
He hadn’t messed up. Not this time. He was ok.
Nobody was sure if blastokinesis was unique to the Boole family. Most all of the work done on it had been by (and about) his grandfather Compton. It had skipped a generation - his mom wasn’t psychic at all, and Sam had only inherited their grandfather’s zoolinguialism. As far as everybody knew, it was just the two of them - Compton, and him.
He didn’t miss the way Agent Mentalis would look at him, sometimes. Like another test subject. But maybe it was better than the way everybody else would look at him, like he was a ticking time bomb, one bad day away from exploding (and it wasn’t true, he had a handle on it, he didn’t have accidents any more, why couldn’t they see that?).
Lili’s hand found his own, on top of his knee. She laced their fingers together and gave a reassuring squeeze.
Well. Almost everybody else.
The painkillers were finally starting to work. The pain was becoming duller, the pressure against the side of his skull slowly lessening. It didn’t hurt to blink any more.
Raz and Lili were chatting to each other, the gentle ripple of telepathic communication passing back and forth over his head. He caught a few snippets - from Lili's end, at least.
- talk to Hollis about seating arrangements… I know, but that's no excuse… Hah! I'd trade you, any day…
He let it fade into the background as the tension slowly bled from his body. He was soaked in sweat, all down his back, and the evening had started to get cold. He’d have been shivering if Raz wasn’t still wrapped around him, keeping him warm. As it was, he was comfortable. But he knew he couldn’t stay here the whole night.
He shifted, straightening up a little. Lili caught his eye with a smile.
"How you feeling? Better?"
"A little," Dogen said. "I should go rest." He paused, his eyes drifting back towards the Motherlobe, towards the distant sound of the gala. "Um, you can... head back in, if you want."
Lili snorted. "No way. This is the best excuse I've had to ditch in years."
"Oh. OK." Dogen frowned. "That's too bad. Your dress is really pretty."
"Aww! Thank you, Dogen." Lili laughed, and again, it was impossible not to smile. "You're such a charmer."
Raz leant expectantly into the corner of Dogen's vision.
"Oh," Dogen said after a moment. "You look fine too, Raz."
Raz pouted. "Fine?" he said, as Lili cackled.
Dogen took a moment to think about it. Words were still tough, trickling slowly through his brain, and Raz waited patiently while he pieced the sentence together. "It's just a suit. And it's the same one you always wear," he said decisively. "So it's not really special."
Lili snorted, and reached up to kiss the downturned corner of Raz's mouth. "Well I think you look just fine, too," she said. Then she got to her feet. "C'mon, Dogen, let's get you somewhere you can lie down."
Dogen mumbled his thanks as the two of them gently lifted him to his feet. The movement made his headache spike again, and he screwed his eyes shut, leaning on Lili's arm as pain throbbed in his temple.
Raz made a worried noise. "Want me to teleport us back home?"
"I think that would make me puke." Dogen drew in a long breath through his nose, and forced his eyes open. "I can manage the walk to the office. It's not too far."
Raz came on one side of him, Lili on the other, and they slowly made their way arm-in-arm back through the corridors of the Motherlobe.
"I think I still have some snacks in the fridge," Lili mused. "Forget those losers, we should throw our own party! Make the most of the fancy clothes, right, Dogen?"
Dogen shook his head. "You do that, but I'm getting out of this suit as soon as I can. It's way too stuffy."
Raz took a moment to appraise him; then nodded. "Yeah," he said, "I think the hoodie suits you better, anyway."