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 Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 5:54 pm
The sun had sunk from its high point in the sky, and it’s beams shone through in slits through closed blinds. Dancing in these scant beams of light were flecks of dust, which seemed oblivious to the overbearing melancholy that the room presented.
At the center of the room was a bed, though it lacked any sort of decoration. Just a mattress over a box spring, and the entire surface of the two covered in sterile plastic sheets. On that bed was a man, or what could be called a man, and huddled over him was yet another. This man had on large horn rimmed glasses, and he was quite stout. Something about him seemed square and methodical, and judging from his dress, and the strange way he carried himself, one could tell that he was a man of no small fortune.
Pacing at one end of the room was another man, who in contrast to the first seemed all too lean and rough around the edges. While he wore what looked like standard office wear, it seemed as if the man had slept in it the night before. His tie hung limply around his neck and his shirt was crumpled, while his face was covered with at least two days worth of unshaven stubble.
A hand ran through the tawny blonde hair, and tired brown eyes turned onto the stout man before him. He let out an awkward little cough, before finally speaking up.
“Do you think you’ll be able to do anything?” The lanky man’s voice sounded strained and tired, and his eyes kept darting from the man on the bed to the man in the glasses. “Is he going to be alright?”
“Hermmmmm….” The stout man have a tone that just oozed arrogance, and it was all too clear he was only trying to impress the blond man by feigning ignorance until the last moment, “I’m not sure. I’ve never dealt with such a…erm… Unique patient before.”
The blond man’s hands wrung themselves uncomfortably, and his eyes once more darted down to the man on the table.
“Just… Just do the best that you can. Pretend like the mirror isn’t there for now.” He wrung his hands once more, eyes darting to the window before back to the comatose man, “It should be fine if you ignore it… I think.”
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Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 6:09 pm
Not again. He was in limbo, between sleep and wakefulness. The same feeling was apparent - when he woke up next to Quinn, when he woke up next to Tepin--
He didn't want to open his eyes, and wake up next to Sydni being a godling. Or, heaven forbid, next to the twins. No, no, no. He wanted to go back to sleep. He wanted to ignore everything his senses were telling him.
Unfamiliar smells. Strange sounds. Different surroundings. He knew nothing good would come from opening his eyes, he knew it.
It was itchy, too. The gauze of bandages was rubbing against his skin, wound around his chest. God, he still ached, still smarted from getting his a** kicked; but the suffocating pressure that had been pushing against his breath was gone, now. It looked like Tepin and the twins had pulled through.
He shifted, testing his body's resistance to moving - grimaced, eyes squinting open. He was groggy, too groggy. The last thing he remembered was staring at his ceiling, and he'd probably fallen asleep. But this was more than that.
Oh good. Another ceiling. This one was even more boring than the last.
"Tepin?" He pushed himself up with a quiet grunt, rubbing a hand along the bandages that wrapped around his torso and across his cracked mirror. Something was off, about all this. The sharp smell of medicine and drugs was itching at his nose, he was too sluggish, he couldn't hear his girl or the twins, and god knows he would've been able to hear their voices from miles off.
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Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 6:22 pm
A surprised voice seemed to make a quiet exclamation, before the stout man pushed himself away from the bed. A small and smug smile was on his face, and he turned, feigning modesty, to the blond man.
“Looks as if it was a success,” As if he had not known all along how simple the procedure was, “He seems to be rearing to go already.” The heavy man let out a little chuckle at his own joke, before removing his surgical gloves and laying them on the bed.
“If something comes up, you know how to reach me.” He began to awkwardly waddle towards the door, while the blond man kept his attention fearfully plastered on Valeriu, “And remember about the payment.”
“Y-Yea…” The taller man, still staring at the boy, hardly even replied before the doctor left the room. He listened hesitantly as another door shut, before finally exhaling and pacing the room once more.
He was in trouble. Big trouble. While the doctor might have found it funny that this man would wake up so soon, Nathan found himself in a much larger mess than he had bargained for.
Now he was going to have to explain things. And explaining things, particularly these kinds of things, was particularly hard. Really, hopefully, the boy would just simply be too groggy to figure it out, and he could transport him back to his home with relatively little trouble.
But of course, that wouldn’t work. It was too easy, and all too convenient for it to work out.
“Uhm…” He glanced down at the boy on the bed, before rubbing his stubble awkwardly and taking a few steps to peer through the blinds. “How are you feeling?”
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Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 6:33 pm
He mentally swore, even as he jerked in surprise at the sudden voice, recoiling to press against the wall next to where he sat. He hadn't known there were people here! People so close!
Valeriu did not appreciate it when his ears and nose failed him. Blinking bemusedly at the stout little man, he watched the fellow leave, squinting dazedly between him and the other, taller man. His head felt really fuzzy, and for some reason the room was swimming - or that was just him leaning to and fro like a drunken sailor as he tried to stay in a seated and upright position.
It was harder than it looked. He finally decided the best course of action was to rest his dizzied head against the wall and hope the world would stop twirling around him like a damn ballerina.
He watched the stranger, warily - where was Tepin? Murphy, Seamus? And the stranger, he was familiar, but Valeriu couldn't place him right now. Where he'd seen that face before.
"I am fine," he answered unsuredly, and his voice was slurring too much. Well, he still hurt like the dickens, but he could breathe once again. That counted as fine, right? "Excuse me. But who are you?"
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Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 6:45 pm
Somehow, the man managed be the surprised that Valeiru had asked him such a question. The expression of shock quickly dropped into one of worry, and he shuffled his feet to turn away from the boy. But realizing that to be rude, he turned back, hazarding a small smile, before dropping it, and looking to the floor rather uncomfortably.
“Don’t worry about that,” His frown seemed anchored to his face, while his eyes darted all over the room, “It’s not important.”
He moved to take a step towards the boy, before thinking better of it and dropping his foot to the ground. Once more he looked at him, before nervously looking through the blinds for a final time.
“What is important is that we get you home. Your gilfriend will be worried.”
Girlfriend. That was the word that he had come to use for the strange girl that had moved in. He had seen every moment of it, from when she was but a wee child, until her current age. She, like the boy before him, must have been a part of The Game.
“Can you walk?” His tone almost seemed as if he were apologizing-- as if getting Valeriu medical attention was somehow the wrong thing to do. “Only to the car, of course…”
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Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 9:20 pm
Something was off. It nagged at him through the fuzz that coated his brain. The way the man seemed so agitated, how he paced like a trapped animal. And the smell, itching at his nose--
"Did you drug me?" he asked, and the confusion on his face quickly turned to outrage at the realization. Why he was so groggy, why he was so dizzy, why he couldn't think while the world spun. He clenched his fingers into the bed below him, pushing himself away from the wall and onto his own two feet. Too abrupt - if the world had been a merry-go-round before, it now spun like a top as he woozily tried to stay standing.
He could stand. Barely. But that didn't mean he was going anywhere just yet. He frowned at the man, crossed his arms, uncrossed them when he listed to the side, offbalanced.
"That v'as uncalled for," he grumbled. He hated drugs, disliked even taking painkillers.
But there was still something wrong, wrong, wrong about this situation. Tepin wasn't here - if she'd gotten him to this man, she would've stayed. He knew she would've. And his face, that face, the hair--
The hair.
His breath stopped, for a moment. There was no way he couldn't recognize that hair, and that face, those features. Had seen them in a photo, beside his parents.
"You," he murmured, as if he couldn't quite believe this was happening, ears pricking up speculatively. "You are Quinn's father. You are, aren't you?" he demanded, shaking off the slack to step forward, eyeing the man more critically.
The resemblance was strong, even beneath the ruggedness the man's face had taken on.
"I don't understand."
Confusion, suspicion, realization, surprise - and back to confusion. Story of his life.
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Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 10:50 pm
He fidgeted, trying to hold his ground at the man’s outrage.
“W-well, yes. I can’t imagine the surgery would go very well--” His voice began to get smaller and smaller, “If we didn’t.”
He shrunk back a bit when he was scolded, unwilling to argue the point with this person. Anyone but him, and he might have fought back, might have defended his honor… But in the face of this man alone, it was impossible.
And that was the precise reason why Valeriu needed to leave. Now. Nathan did not feel like talking to this boy, particularly with the information that he had about the child’s parents. He had done his part, saved Valeriu, and it was high time to disappear back into the shadows from whence he had came.
“Ha-ahhh.” So he knew more than he had thought. It was only natural, really, with all that information that Andrei had stored for him. He was an idiot for thinking that Valeriu wouldn’t figure it out. He had inherited more than just his charm from his mother, after all. “So you know about that.”
His hand gripped at the opposite arm’s shirtsleeves awkwardly, and he cast his eyes down for a second before looking back apologetically at the boy.
“Sorry about that,” As if Valeriu was the one he needed to apologize to, for running from his family, “Things happened. I can’t explain. I--” He shut his mouth, steadfastly looking towards the window.
He wanted to check one last time, and get the boy out of his home, and just drop all this nonsense. He wanted Valeriu to forget that he had even been here. This was a huge mess-- he had gone and brought the one person who shouldn’t know he existed into his home.
“But you really need to get back home,” Nathan sounded even more exhausted now, worn through by Valeriu’s probing questions, “Or that girl really will panic.”
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Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 11:04 pm
He wasn't going to move. No, in fact, Valeriu had solidified his stance - all one hundred, seventy-five pounds of muscle and teenager, refusing to leave. His tail lashed behind his feet, and he'd crossed his arms once more - this time, without falling over.
An ear twitched.
He frowned.
Kitty was not going to get in the car for drivies. He knew it was going to worry Tepin to kingdom come, and regretted it, so much - but here the man was. The mysterious man who Quinn had refused to talk about, who knew his parents.
This was the chance of a lifetime, and he wasn't going to let it go.
"I'm not leaving," he stated stubbornly. "You...You knew them, didn't you?" His voice floundered, just slightly. "My parents."
Unnerved, he ran a hand through his hair, staring more hesitantly at the other man. "I found things in the attic. Plans, v'eapons, pictures - you v'ere in them, v'ith them." He fiddled with the bandages on his chest, hands anxiously inspecting the material as his gaze dropped. Just like a kid - he wanted to know, but he didn't want to know.
"Tell me. V'hat...v'hat v'ork, v'ere they doing?"
If he knew, could confirm his suspicions -- he didn't know what he'd do. But he'd be another step closer to finding them.
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Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 1:25 pm
He refused to look at him. Just flat out refused. His eyes were glued to the old, scratched up hardwood flooring that grounded his bedroom. If he looked now, he would falter. If his eyes just happened to look at the boy, while thinking about what had happened…
He would crack for sure.
“I knew them.” There was no denying that. Hell, he’d probably even be unable to deny what they did for a living. But… Nathan took a deep sigh, looking up at the ceiling in defeat.
“I’ll tell you as much as I can--” He really looked tired. The entire effort of bringing Valeriu back to his home, the worry of the operation, and the fear of being caught were wearing on him like boulders, “But only if you go back home.”
The man took a few cautious steps, before opening the flimsy bedroom door, holding it wide open for the boy.
“We’ll walk and talk.”
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Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 3:24 pm
He looked between the man and the door, undecided. He was impatient, wanted to know everything now, now, now. To know the truth, so maybe he could better sleep at night. To stop wondering whether his parents were really good people.
To stop wondering whether they'd chosen to abandon him and his sister. That was his biggest fear since stumbling across the boxes in that attic; that they'd left, of their own volition. That it had all been a lie. He knew it was irrational, that they wouldn't have had two children if they didn't care--
But he still wondered.
"Fine," he conceded grudgingly, stepping towards the door. His legs wobbled and his head spun uncomfortably, but to his credit he didn't stumble until he reached the third floorboard. He ignored his clumsiness, and instead savored the ability to breathe somewhat easier.
"V'as that other man a doctor?" he wondered, peering warily through the door before stepping through. No more ambushes for him, no more getting caught off-guard. Drugged up as he was, he wasn't going to rush headlong into anything. "It is much easier to breathe, now."
Even if everything else still hurt. He tried not to fiddle with the stitches going across his body, but it was hard - they itched. They itched so bad.
He gave in, and scratched. Just a little bit. How much more could a head wound bleed, anyway?
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Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 5:46 pm
“Yes,” He replied, relief washing over his voice. He was glad to finally be moving in a somewhat safe direction, “He specializes in house calls that other doctors might be… ah, hesitant to touch.”
Closing the door behind Valeriu, he hazarded a glance to each of the blinds in the rest of the apartment, all the while carefully escorting the patient towards the front door.
“That’s good to hear. After what I had to pay, I‘d be pretty burnt out if it was for nothing-- Oh. Don’t. ” His frown made it clear that while he would rather that Valeriu not undo all the hard effort that the doctor had spent, he wasn’t going to scold him any more than he already had.
Carefully the man peered out the peephole before opening the door, fidgeting all the while. His eyes kept turning over the room behind him, over all the stacks of cardboard boxes and old newspapers.
“After you.”
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Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 5:58 pm
He stopped scratching reluctantly, burying his hands in the pockets of his jeans - by now, uncomfortably stiff with mud and bloodstains. He hadn't been able to wash them after the fight.
"Thanks." He ventured out the door, looking around, recognizing nothing. Someplace in Downers, but nowhere he knew. "For fixing me up. I v'as v'orried, a little." Just a little. "Street scalpers don't make the best surgeons," he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck with an uncomfortable laugh. "Acupuncture is one thing, but..." he trailed off, peering at the man in puzzlement.
"How do the Carnegie brothers know you, anyv'ay?"
It seemed a strange coincidence. Tepin had run, gotten the twins for help, and the twins had happened to know a man who knew a man who was a doctor? And he just so happened to be Quinn's father?
Too much of a coincidence. His gaze grew more speculative.
"They do, right?"
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Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 6:25 pm
Hurriedly, the man rushed to a boring little beige car. It had seen its better share of days, with many dents and paint badly scratched. The car itself looked as if it probably didn’t run very well, yet Nathan had to go through hoops to get the keys to unlock the darn thing properly.
“Probably a friend of a friend. You know how people can be when desperate.” He wasn’t lying, either. By some string of social ties, there was probably at least one line that linked to the Carnegie family, “Please, just get in the car. I want to get you back home before that girl has a heart attack.” And files a police report.
As if unwilling to listen to protests, he wormed his way over to the drivers side, spending an equally long time trying to get the door to open, before taking a few tries to close the door behind him. Despite how worse for wear the car looked, it started with relative ease. Only a few futile revs before the engine purred and sputtered to life.
He wanted to get this over, and fast.
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Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 6:44 pm
He did not want to get into the ratty little car. His livid glare at the contraption said so. Valeriu did not trust cars. Giant, metal deathtraps, just like Murphy's hellbike. He remembered his dad had a car, once; a tiny black thing that he'd proudly called his baby (Valeriu had been sickened). One day the man had driven out; the next day, he'd been involved in an accident, and the car was nothing more than a pile of crunched metal.
Valeriu wondered, now, if there really was an accident. Nonetheless, after seeing the metal box that was formerly his dad's pride and joy, he'd been scared to death of ever riding in another.
Still, he gingerly ducked his head, sliding into his seat. He automatically reached for the seatbelt, only to realize -- there was none. He settled for holding onto the edges of his seat. Securely. So securely his knuckles turned white, and the tip of his tail was furiously twitching in agitation.
He could very easily imagine a pale, beige little box matching the black box.
"Ah," he muttered, going so far as to fold his legs up to his chest. Despite how much he'd grown, he could still fit himself into the smallest and most uncomfortable of positions quite easily. "Makes sense. They probably know everybody in the city."
Hell, the twins were probably there to welcome every newborn child into the hospital ward with the way they floated around like social butterflies.
At the sound of the engine, his fur fluffed, and he dug his claws deeper into the cushion beneath him.
Safety first.
"So, v'hat is your name?" he insisted, frowning at the man. "I cannot keep calling you 'Quinn's father.'" Especially since every time he thought about Quinn it left another rock clattering around in his stomach.
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Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 7:08 pm
He frowned at the boy’s strange habits, but ignored them, instead opting to put the car into drive and carefully roll from the curb. The car seemed to drive well enough-- at least enough for Nathan to not notice anything strange about the ride.
“Nathan,” His eyes kept steady on the road, and he took a slow and careful turn at a corner, “And it’s still Vale, right?”
For a moment, he almost flicked over to look at the boy. It was hard to believe that this was the same Vale that played in the street with his son. So much had changed over the years-- Too much. It was better if he didn’t get involved again, but…
But--
“Look--” His eyes still focused on the road, and he came to a stop at an intersection, “Don’t tell Quinn. About all of this.”
Even if the two had stopped talking recently… It seemed that seeing someone’s long lost father would be a reason to start up communication.
“It’d only hurt him. He doesn’t need to think about all of this.”
He didn’t need more people to know about him. It was better to stay wrapped in anonymity.
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