EchosSweet
He'd promised they would see each other again, and Nataniel kept his promises. After depositing an injured Narcissus outside the hospital doors, he'd only had to survive the evening before he could go into work the next day and very casually and unobtrusively check the clipboard for signed in patients. There was only a small scattering of people who'd checked in around the time he'd left Narcissus, so from there, it was only a matter of asking the nurse at the desk about a "lavender haired boy" who'd been dropped off.
She was way too pleased to give directions to one of "sweet baby Basyl's" friends to visit his room, and Nataniel thought for sure, given her tone and familiarity with the boy, she must know him. Good. He'd known Narcissus was a doctor. He had to work somewhere. There was no reason it couldn't be this hospital. The same one Natanial worked at. But more importantly-
Basyl. His name was Basyl.
An odd name for a man. But he was an odd person, so perhaps fitting.
Nataniel was careful to observe only from afar. When he asked the nurses on Narcissus'- Basyl's- floor about his condition, they assured him that Basyl would be fine. The gouges were deep and gruesome to behold, but they were not life threatening. He would likely return to work the following week, but they encouraged him to visit, anyway. Basyl's mother was in and out often, and the boy still had his graduation exams to study for, but he'd surely appreciate the company of a friend-
Because they only ever very rarely saw him with friends, or heard him speak of them. He mostly just seemed to have alliances among his classmates, but was too jittery, maybe, to have any close friends among them.
Yeah, Nataniel could definitely see that.
Despite their encouragement, he kept away. "Nataniel" was a stranger to Basyl, and for now, it would be more convenient for it to stay that way, while Nat learned more about the civilian life of his new friend. Basyl recovered and returned to work-
And calling it work was extremely gratuitous, Nataniel thought. Basyl wasn't a doctor. He was just a med student that happened to be very close to graduating. Narcissus had lied-
But he tried to be reasonable. Given the circumstances at the time, it was just easier to say, "I'm a doctor," than to explain more than that. Nataniel would try not to hold it against him. Fortunately, they were not in the same field, so ultimately had very little to do with each other. Basyl almost never ran into him by accident, so it was only ever Nat, peering in the other man's direction at every chance he got, seeking out warm olive skin and messy lavender waves from down the hallway.
Nat could watch from as far away as he needed, for as long as he needed, until it seemed appropriate to do otherwise. And it wasn't until months after their powered run-in against the youma that it finally seemed beneficial to do so.
