[Open] Huzzah for legs

[shinra_dog]

Reno is feeling much healed now - unfortunately due to Muraki's care, but you can't choose your savior he supposes. Though being in debt to the man rubs him the wrong way

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[silvereyedphage]

Once Reno reaches the basement lab, he'll find the door to the cellar hallway cracked open. When he pushes the door open, Muraki is seated at the desk in the front office, poring over a thick, leather-bound tome lying open on the desk top and jotting something in a notebook. Hearing his patient approach, he lays the notebook on top of the book and looks up. "Ah, come to have the last of your stitches removed?" he asks.

[shinra_dog]

"Yep," Reno says, sounding like it couldn't come too soon. "I know the drill."

He climbs up onto a papered examining table and removes his shirt so Muraki can get to his shoulders and torso, where the worst injuries were. bow chicka bow wow... Xd

"Say, doc - one other thing."

[silvereyedphage]

Muraki manages to keep his professional decorum, as he approaches his patient, carrying a pair of surgical scissors, a pair of tweezers and a metal bowl, which he sets down on the end of the table. But he'd be lying if he didn't admit to himself that Reno is a very fine-looking young man. "So, how have you been feeling? Still some residual pain?" he asks, setting to work, carefully snipping the stitches and cutting them into easy to remove segments. But he glances up from his work to look Reno in the face, as he asks, "One thing such as...?"

[shinra_dog]

Reno's generally got a high pain tolerance, and his pride as a Turk would normally have him saying he was fine. But the pain meds were so fun - whether or not he really needed them.

"I could do with a few more pills," he says after a moment of thought. His eye twitches as the shears slide against his skin - he'll never get used to that. "But I wanted t' ask ya, think I can get a sleep aid too?"

[silvereyedphage]

"Mmm, I've been trying to wean you off the painkillers, since they can be a bit addictive, but I'll give you a few extras as you need them," he replies, dropping the cut segments of surgical thread into the bowl. "Have you has this trouble sleeping because of the pain, or might I ask if it's something else?" he asks, glancing up at Reno's face.

[shinra_dog]

Addictive... most definitely.

Reno's eye twitches again at that last question. Damn nosy doctors. "It's actually the narcotics. They're givin' me weird dreams." He's only half lying - he's been having nightmares for quite some time now. But the painkillers have made them exceedingly vivid.

"I need somethin' t' suppress it, yo. An' since I can't drink much while on these meds..."

[silvereyedphage]

He chuckles gently, but there's a note of empathy. "I know exactly how you feel: I won't describe the particulars, but I've been the one who's gone under the knife to save my life, and I've been through the treatment that follows. I can't give you a sedative since that would clash with the painkillers, but I can prescribe something milder that won't cause any nasty reactions.

"But you're not the only one having strange dreams: I think the heat we've had has gotten to me at night. I've had some unpleasant ones myself..."

[shinra_dog]

Reno stares at Muraki as he works. "You, havin' nightmares?" he asks skeptically. But he's also curious, and surprisingly, willing to listen.

[silvereyedphage]

"I have my own horrors in the closet, things from my troubled past that don't like to stay quiet," he admits. "But there was one night in particular, when something presented itself which I knew wasn't anything creeping out of a back corner of my own psyche..."

Just a tantalizing hint, nothing more, at least for now...

[shinra_dog]

Reno stares Muraki suspiciously. He doesn't like to admit that the man might have feelings and be haunted by past mistakes, very much like the Turk. But also, he wonders if that little "something" is a shared experience.

"Wait - this recent?" he asks.

[silvereyedphage]

"As recent as a week ago," he says, removing the last of the stitches and reaching for a pad of cotton wool and a bottle of peroxide to swab the pits left behind. "I don't dream often, and I have a certain level of control over my dreams, most of the time. But this time, I didn't have that luxury. I dreamt of a dark cavern, some strange spirit speaking to me, a demon king of some sort..." His eyes grow distant and a note of something like fear ticks in them momentarily. Hard to imagine a man like this being afraid of something...

[shinra_dog]

The peroxide is cold, and Reno shivers - but it's more from the description of Muraki's "dream."

He debates commenting on this - he'd hate to have to actually work with this sorry excuse of a man - but the curiosity is killing him. Especially over the ... was that fear in Muraki's eyes?

Reno leans forward and with a low, self-assured voice, whispers in the doctor's ear, "Morgoth?"

[silvereyedphage]

He stares at him, incredulous, wary, even concerned. "Who told you this name... How did you hear of it?" he asks, his voice lowered, as if trying to avoid being overheard. "Names have power, and for some beings of certain levels of power, saying their name can attract their attention."

[shinra_dog]

Reno really enjoys seeing the doctor unnerved. Even though he knows Muraki's probably right, and he should maybe be less nonchalant. But for now, he'll soak in the fun of being 'in the know.'

"I've seen him as well," he admits. "I've found that cavern, too - though I doubt I could easily find it on my own now."

[silvereyedphage]

"A place like some dark palace? Some infernal throne room, tenanted by a dark figure, more frightening than your worst mental image of the Lord of Darkness?" he asks, his voice oddly hushed. "I've stood in that very place myself..." And the look on his face speaks volumes more than his words would.

[shinra_dog]

Reno stares at Muraki for a moment, his face unreadable - something he's learned from Rufus.

His thoughts being: Eurgh, so it's true. I'm somehow now related t' him.

"Exactly," he says. "Did 'e say he had a task for you?"