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Jebediah, still carrying a few cuts and burns on his face comes to the restaurant he always knows he can find his favorite vampire (just because he was the only one that Jebediah knows is not information that matters). He brings with him a photograph on what he's working on for Morbius since it isn't finished yet, but he may still show him the beginnings of the project because that was what could cheer him up, should Morbius need cheering up. Jeb was a very prepared boy!
So he wanders in, sleeves pulled down on his jacket, picture folded up in his pocket and hands tucked in as well, to hide all the marks there as well. He thinks that Morbius will likely scold him on fighting as well as Doug and Jay had. That seems like the thing a smart, reasonable Doctor Adult Vampire with degrees and things would do.
Jeb's vampire hunting senses are keenly honed, clearly. For here, in the restaurant, he finds Morbius, after a somewhat long stint of absence, actually. Not that Jebediah and Morbius were best friends, but there was an absence of the man from Jeb's life for at least two weeks.
Now he returns from wherever he was, sitting at Saganaki with a book, which honestly seems purely enjoyment based reading, judging be the lack of notebooks filling his table. The dark blue jacket he dons has a very high collar, which encircles and hides his face all the way to his nose and ears. At least it's winter and he can claim the cold, even if inside the restaurant it's rather nice.
The vampire glances upward as Jeb enters. A glance at first, though as he nears, those cuts and burn marks as squinted at as he sets his book down. Then again, at a closer inspection, Morbius seems gaunt.
"Mister Morbius!" Jebediah greets Morbius like a puppy having not seen his owner in a long time, which in puppy terms would be a day. Jebediah is much like a puppy, to the little shocky mutant, he has seen Morbius in one thousand infinity seven hundred million sixty four days. Not just two weeks. So the excited way he greets Morbius is increased by tenfold, eyes light up, smile so goddamn wide he might risk opening a healing wound in his cheek if it gets any wider.
His eyes narrow at Morbius' choice in outfit, he knew that his vampire friend was eccentric but they're inside. Is he still cold? Morbius also looks much more sickly than usual. "Mister Morbius. Are you sick? Do you have somethin'? Can vampires get sick? Ah can make you some of my mama's chicken noodle soup, will fix you right up." Jeb's tone turns from downright ecstatic to see the other man to worried, sounding a lot like an older brother might fussing over a baby sibling coming down with the sniffles.
A hand lifts, his knuckles look huge and skin puckered where it hangs on spindled fingers as Morbius gestures dismissively over Jeb's concern. "I'm fine, Jeb." His voice sounds hoarse and something in his accent is peculiar as well. The formation of certain letters is off. "You look like you need all of the noodle soup that you can get. What happened to you? Have you been putting iodine on those cuts?"
"No, you ain't. But you think Ah'm gonna be scared of whatever's happened to you." Jeb calls him out on that and when Morbius talks it does nothing to erase his concern for the other man. He takes the chair opposite of Morbius, picks it up so that it doesn't drag unpleasantly along the floor and sets it down right beside the other man, as if getting closer to him is gonna somehow heal him. "Ah… Ah just got in a fight and I lost. It were someone you know too… maybe why Ah hit him as hard as Ah did." He says, looking down at his lap like a chastised child and Morbius hasn't even dealt out any scolding yet.
If anything, getting closer will likely just rouse more uncertainty in the young man, as Morbius plucks at his high collar slightly with his fingertips. His papery looking skin some greyer than usual. "Then I will say that I am on the mend, and the only thing which would help me now is something I wouldn't take from you." If Jeb's going to call him out on it, then fine, Morbius isn't going to pretend like the boy doesn't see through his claim. Eyeing the mutant when he sits very close, there's an arch of an eyebrow at him. "You got into a fight with Mister Rosencrantz, then?" Since that's the only person he knows that Jeb and he have in common. Though it sounds like 'Nister Rosencrantz' the way he says it. "And he did that to you? On what basis?"
Jeb reaches for Morbius' sleeve, trying to drag his hand down for Jeb to see it better. He doesn't try to see what Morbius is hiding, but his hand at least isn't off limits if he hasn't got gloves over them is Jeb's logic here. If Morbius doesn't try to yank away from him, Jeb holds his hand out to examine it, testing the temperature against his own and frowning at how grey it looks. He won't release it either, when Morbius asks him about the fight. "Ah don't think he meant to do all of this to me. He said somethin' nasty about my brother so Ah shocked him but he just… absorbed it and that made me angrier so Ah punched him right in his dumb face and he just exploded, shattered all the lights. Ah took off my jacket and threw it over him and Ah got the worst of it. He just got a shiner."
Morbius allows his hand to be taken, though Jeb hasn't really touched Morbius before, so he doesn't have very much to judge from, unfortunately. He feels…old. Like an older person's papery skin, but tepid in temperature. The wicked looking retractable fingernails still look sharp, but show a little premature flaking around the edges. "You are worrying too much, Jebediah."
'You are 'orrying too nuch, Jedediah.'
"Wait, I thought that he was seeing your brother? Why would he say something nasty about him? Unless something went amiss?"
"No Ah ain't. You cain't even talk to me proper, somethin's wrong with you." Jeb insists, rubbing his thumb over each of the vampire's fingers, then turning his hand around palm up examine that side as well. He frames Morbius' hand in between both of his, rubbing it idly, dragging his fingers along Morbius' palm like he might be able to heal him somehow by massaging the sickness right out of his hand.
"He brought some flouncy lookin' man with him and Ah asked him if this was another man he was cheatin' on my brother with and if he'd learned how to care about someone without his dick and he said that he took care of my brother with his dick and then Ah hit him." Jeb explains while he fusses over the vampire's strange hand.
Morbius exhales a frustrated sound and looks Jebediah straight in the eye as he tries to pull his fingers from the young man's hand with a flitting wiggle of his own digits. "I'm healing, like yourself. It's simply taking a bit of time, and I'm wearing this because my appearance would not be comforting, but if I had to spend one more day indoors, I was going to begin climbing walls." Snappish and grumpy, but who isn't grumpy when they're sick?
The explanation of how Jeb started the fight causes Morbius' eyes to squint about the edges, like a wince. "Jebediah. You know that I do not approve of…the way that things have been handled between Mister Rosencrantz and I. However. You understand that there are ways that these things can be of a consentual choice. That was mean spirited." That all said, Morbius grunts and closes his book, setting the hard back on the table in front of him. "Though his reply definitely warranted a punch in the face."
"Well Ah certainly didn't tell you thinkin' you'd be real proud of me, Mister Morbius. Ah was just tellin' you the truth." Jebediah grumbles, likely in retaliation to the grumpy vampire snapping at him but it's grumbled… quiet and chastened, lacking any fire to it, allowing Morbius to take his hand back after it had been thoroughly fussed over though, the lack of touch just has Jebediah scooting closer, knee knocking against the vampires own as if Jebediah really thinks he can somehow make Morbius better through osmosis. Didn't Jay have a friend that could do something like that. "Ah don't like him. Ah don't like him because he don't like you and Ah don't like him because Ah'm afraid he might be sleepin' around on my brother and now Ah don't like him because he says nasty things 'bout my brother and also because he and his dumb flouncy friend just abandoned me after Ah protected him from the glass rain from hell that /he/ did and his stupid friend demands Ah give him free drinks so he ain't go tattle on me to my brother and Mister Roseandwhatever, he ain't tell him to shut up. Just left me. Just left me to pull glass out my face and got free drinks."
He's breathing heavily when he's done talking and the knee that was against Morbius own gets pulled up towards his chest with the other one. "And it made my brother real hurt when he learned. Ah should have lied to him. Ah shoulda…" He pushes his forehead against his knees. "Ah'm real good at just screwin' everythin' up all the time, Mister Morbius." He says, muffled into his jeans.
The contact does not bother Morbius once Jeb gives him his hand back and stops fretting so openly over his state. But then he starts in on what he's done and the circumstances surrounding it, and Morbius listens with a perplexed wrinkle knitted between his eyebrows. "You can not like him all you want, Jebediah. I certainly don't care for him very much myself for various reasons. He's impulsive, irrational, combative, rude, foul-mouthed, and is tragically young. I'm not disagreeing with any of that. And you showed incredible character, shielding him from the explosion. Good lord, look at you." One of those emaciated hands reaches up to pluck beneath Jeb's chin, getting a better look at the young man. "Lying to your family over things so minor are not worth the energy of lying. It's better than he knows the truth of what happened, don't you think? You didn't screw anything up. Seriously, Jebediah, are you cleaning these cuts properly? Infections can happen very suddenly if you're not careful."
Jeb pulls in a shaky breath when Morbius pulls his chin up and then he starts fussing over Jeb the same way Jeb had been fussing over him and despite all of Jebediah's stress, he smiles. It really feels almost like Jay or Sam fussing over him and Morbius had told him he showed incredible character, which sounds almost like 'I'm proud of you'. Jeb moves his knees back down, pressing one against Morbius' own. "Ah am. Ah am. Ah'm cleanin' em with alcohol when Ah remember to. Ah been workin' on somethin'."
And now he remembers the photograph in his wallet. He reaches into his pocket, leaning into Morbius when he does to pull the photograph out of his wallet. He hands it to Morbius, to show him the rather large plaque he's been working on with the different phases of the moon. "It's fer you but Ah ain't no where near done. When's yer birthday, Mister Morbius?"
There's that old familiar look that seems to say 'I don't know if I trust you when you say you're doing what you're doing, Jebediah'. It's usually accompanied by pinched lips from an older woman, but in this case, Morbius' lower face still cannot be seen, though it feels very much the same. "Very well. You find me if things seem to have trouble healing. I am still a doctor after all." Even if he's looking more like a patient these days.
Dropping his hand away from Jeb's chin and resting it on top of his book placidly, there's a careful peer at the photograph, taking care to not tip his collar too far forward and terrify Jeb with his appearance right now. "Moon phases? That's looking very well-proportioned, Jebediah. For me? Well, I'm afraid you will be waiting quite a long time for my birthday. November, the first. And yours, I suppose?"
"Ah /aaaam/-uh, Mister Morbius." Jebediah complains at Morbius when he gives him that look, he can tell enough from the eyes alone what kind of look it is. "Sometimes Ah ferget, when Ah'm workin' and stuff but Ah am takin' care of myself."
He smiles widely. "Of course, fer you. That's what friends are for, right? To do nice things for each other. What's the year, Ah ain't care how old you are, won't scare me none. Ah don't wanna wait til yer birthday to give it to ya, Ah wanna put the sky on the night you were born in the background. Ah might try to make it into a clock fer you. Ah have a friend Ah think could help me." He smiles wide. "But now Ah know yer birthday too and Ah can spoil you then. Mine? S'October 29th."
"Near to mine, then, hm." Morbius' upswept brows pop upward over the date of Jeb's birthday. There is a moment of hesitation when Jeb asks him for the year, but the explanation is given a curious look of interest. "That is…a very interesting proposition for an art project." Admitting his intrigue, Michael sighs and relents. "I was born in 1921. I'm not very old, considering some others I regularly speak with."
"Well my brother came up with that part. He's a genius, Jay is." Jebediah explains and then he smiles widely. "November first, 1921. You ain't even old at all, Mister Morbius. Ah thought you were gonna say 1784 or some BC time. That's old, you just like.. are like.. a dad age." He says, trying to put it into words he knows, that he doesn't think Morbius is insufferably old at all, in the most polite way he can think of. "No wonder you ain't like Elmo. He's little and dumb like me."
"Now there, you may have been a little too honest," Morbius admits when Jeb gives his brother his due credit for the idea, but the words are with an honest teasing tone. The mention of what age he might have expected rouses a hoarse sounding laugh up from the depths of the vampire's chest, eyes dropping back to the cover of his closed book. "Yes. I imagine that I'm not much older than your father would be. Elmo is dumb, and he is little, but you two are just as different as you are alike."
"Well, Ah had told him that Ah was thinking of putting constellations in the background and he gave me that idea, it's just.. just.." He's struggling to find the right word so he doesn't sound stupid. "an extension? Of my own idea." He thinks that sounds right. When he makes Morbius laugh, it only serves to widen Jeb's smile. He might have not found the right word but it made Morbius laugh. "You think so? Well Ah'm glad because you don't like Elmo. And Ah really like you, so Ah don't want to be anythin' like him."
"Mister Rosencrantz has his boons, I'm sure. Perhaps if not for the circumstances, you would have been friends. You seemed very sympathetic to him that first night after all." Michael feels the need to remind him. A weariness clings to the older man. Cranky but tired, he doesn't have the energy to fight at the moment.
"Extension is a word for it, yes," Morbius confirms mildly when Jeb seems uncertain over his word choice. "Addition. That's good work. It's really how any good work gets done. It is important to have a collaborator, in any business that you decide to embark upon." Morbius hums his thoughts on the matter, knowingly. "Someone who can see the opportunities that you might miss by being too close. Who makes you better, and raises you to heights you couldn't reach alone."
"Ah don't know. Ah'm sympathetic to everyone who's hurtin'. People hurt for different reason, Ah don't pretend to know what they are or pretend that their feelin's don't matter even if Ah don't always understand. Sometimes you jus' need someone to tell ya it's all gonna be okay." Jeb says with a shrug at the idea that Jeb and Elmo would be friends. "Ah think my brother will probably want us to be. Ah think he's probably real fond of Elmo. But Ah don't know. Ah don't want to be."
"Yeah, Ah'm lucky to have him. Ah've always been lucky to have him. Anyone who is around him, who gets to share in his light for a moment is lucky to have him." Jebediah's love and pride in his brother is loud. And probably pinpoints an exact reason for why Jebediah doesn't want to be friends with Elmo, with anyone who might give sanctity to their relationship. "Now, what happened to you? You ain't tell me yet. What do you need to get better? Blood? Ah got an excess of that."
"I can't say." Purely speculative on the matter of Elmo, Morbius carefully kneads his knuckle into his cornea, eyes closing wearily for a moment. "I don't know anything about your brother aside from you have high praise of him. And I know little of Mister Rosencrantz aside from—well. You are aware." That hand flicks itself out in dismissal. A tiredness clings to his every move and word. Peaceful, but weary.
"I would not ask for your blood, Jebediah," Michael murmurs peacefully. Sighing, he rolls his eyes upward, wondering out loud. "It sounds so ridiculous when I say it out loud…" agonizing on that fact for a lengthy moment, the sick man turns to Jeb and squares him with a look. "In the simplest terms, I ate something bad." That is a /gross/ oversimplification!
"You should be in bed, then, that's how you get better. And Ah didn't say you had to ask me for it. Ah could just give it to you. Ah remember in school they say we can survive without all of it. You could take a little if it will help you be less sick." Jebediah offers, smiling a little at the explanation because it does sound rather funny. "You shouldn't be drinkin' off just anythin' you find in the street, now, Mister Morbius. You don't know where it's been." He teases.
"I have been in bed for a week, Jebediah," Morbius hums, patiently. "I have spent whole spans of my life in bed, and I can tell you, from experience, that sometimes what a man needs most is a short walk about." Though the joke does seem to rouse a tiny whisper of a chuckle, harsh and rasping, not really much of a 'laugh' at all. "I know, I should have a better screening process, clearly. I will be all right. The healing process is very taxing, but things will come out well. I am honestly simply pleased that I am able to speak again."
"Well, you say it cain't be healed with soup or rest and you won't take my blood but you also won't show me your face. You've see mine, Mister Morbius, you really think you can scare me off with whatever you're hiding?" Jeb asks, inquisitive little thing that he is. "Ah'm not gonna get any less worried until you show me, you know."
"Do I really think that I can scare you off with it?" Morbius asks, leaning back in his chair while he considers the cut up young man for a lengthy moment. You sassy little shit. These Guthrie boys, I tell you. "Honestly? Yes. Yes I do. You and nearly everyone else who I pass, so I am attempting to be polite and spare them, and yourself, the details." His tone seems factual rather than yelling at him, or in any way terse. Morbius carries on the conversation very cordially. "It's also a matter of dignity. I don't precisely enjoy looking…" He drifts off, waving a hand lightly toward himself to signify whatever's going on there.
"Well, that.. doesn't make me any less worried but if you really think Ah'm just going to wet myself out here in public if Ah see ya, then Ah guess you're doing the right thing. Not like Ah'm already friends with a /vampire/ or anythin'." Jeb sasses lightly, pressing his knee a little more firmly against Morbius' own. His smile turns softer when Morbius mentions that he'd prefer he didn't look this way. "Ah'm sure you don't. That part Ah understand, but there are few things that you could do to make me think lowly of you, Mister Mobrius."
Sassy thing. Morbius' knee wobbles against Jeb's own when pushed, coming right back to where it was, comfortably leaning against the boy's limb. "If I show you why I sound peculiar, will you stop prodding? And before you ask, yes, I am taking all the precautions I need."
"Well, Ah think you should probably know the answer to that question yerself, Mister Morbius. Ah won't even ask what happened if you show me, since it sounds a lot like it ain't a story you want to tell ever again." Jebediah says leaning back. "Ah promise Ah won't run away screamin' none either. Ah'm a big boy, Ah can handle it."
Morbius gives him a look that seems not at all convinced of this fact, but he grunts anyway and begins unbuttoning the collar of his jacket. Pausing to give a glance around and make sure that nobody who works in the restaurant is going to see this flagrant health code violation. "So I should be prepared for a thousand and one further questions, is what you're saying, hmm?" Still, in a good humor over that fact. "I told you, I ate something that did not agree with me."
Opening up the collar of his coat, nearly like a flasher or something equally unseemly, Morbius shows Jeb that he is in fact also not wearing a shirt beneath his coat. Chafing, probably. His body has been focusing on healing internal issues, so the external are going to come much later on, which means it all will continue to look quite ghastly for a while.
For starters, Morbius is missing the skin on his face from just beneath his nose, all the way down his face. The elongated fangs of his upper jaw sticking out, bare and horrific to behold while muscle tries to knit itself together over the bone, then flesh. His lower jaw must have been just about blown right off, but it has been rebuilding itself, which is why he can speak, but while the sides have grown back in the bone bridging his lower jaw is still knitting, and his teeth are, well, not fully formed. Which explains why he sounds funny. There is some flesh reformed around his neck and up his jaw and cheeks, and the soft palate inside his mouth mostly, but things are inconsistent from there while they regrow at odd, unnatural manners. He has no lips to make sounds with, but he had a tongue now! So he can form most letters, it still sounds odd. Forget eating. Forget drinking. His throat itself looks raw and patchy, but it must have finished rebuilding itself, now trying to protect the regenerating insides with muscle and…skin? Some skin. But it looks wrong. All of it looks wrong.
Morbius only gives Jebediah a moment, then buttons himself back up, trying to salvage bits of his dignity.
"Jesus H Christ, Mister Morbius." Is Jebediah's gasped response, through the look of horror on his face, for the record, he does manage not to piss himself though it was dangerously close. "You cain't just take that out here, we're in a restaurant, you're gonna get the entirety of New York shut down." He says and looks like he's thinking about taking off his jacket and wrapping it around Morbius' face as well. "You been puttin' iodine on all of that? Seems like you need to be bathin' in it, drinking it probably straight from the bottle. Mixin' it with your fancy tea. Goddamn, Mister Morbius. Goddamn." No, this does not in fact, make Jebediah worry any less. "It's back to bed with you, immediately. You're gonna.. you're gonna catch somethin' bein' out here with all a' that out. Christ, Mister Morbius. Christ!"
Morbius' fingers carefully button his jacket back up while Jeb all but faints and thankfully doesn't wet himself in the middle of the restaurant. Whispering hurriedly as Jeb begins to blaspheme all over. "I tried to warn you, did I not?" How the hell is he speaking!? It's all just so much worse, now, somehow. "Iodi—this is a little beyond dabbing iodine, Jebediah." Then, a smidge self-consciously as he touches his own chest, smoothing the fabric down his front. "Believe it or not, this is quite a bit better. I may have dissolved a hole through my throat all the way to my sternum. Luckily, I had someone close who was able to purge what I ate and quickly try to feed me clean blood, and then the blood of someone with a healing factor. The progress has been painful but quicker than anticipated."
"It was a poor attempt at a joke, Mister Morbius. You look like shit, sir." Jebediah says lacking any kind of tact, he's honestly just astounded that Morbius was still standing and speaking after whatever had happened. "Well, don't you ever eat whatever you did /ever/ again, no matter how good it tasted. Ah'm going to go ahead and guess that it probably wasn't cake on your cheat day, looks like it might have been somethin' far more dangerous, like a grenade or lava straight from a volcano." Jebediah is trying to tease but it's coming out pinched not with fear but worry. "What helps you heal faster? What can be done to help you?"
"Not to splice words, Jebediah, but I rather feel like shit." Morbius admits in a wry whisper. "Lava straight from a volcano sounds about right, actually." A rasp of a chuckle slips from him and suddenly the man looks rather more tired than he did a moment ago. "It's grotesque, but my healing process is built around blood, though I still need to also eat and drink like a normal person, it's solely been through tubes, lately. Not terribly comfortable." But better than the turkey baster! "I'm getting the care that I need, Jebediah. Do not worry. I am in some good hands with a friend of mine who is well-practiced with horrible things like this." A friend? So not his timeshare boyfriend.