Night 57: M61-M70 Hallway
[M64]Hijikata finished his meal just as the doors unlocked themselves. Strange, that there were none of the usual announcements, but he wasn't going to take the time to dwell on it. He had a mission to accomplish. Setting the lighter down on the desk for the time being, he went back to his box and began pulling out the few things he was certain to
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So did he keep that information to himself or was he forthcoming? He didn't really need to make Max any more nervous than he already was on his own, did he? And that had probably been nothing. They were bound to be safe in the patient rooms anyway, so why get the other man worked up for no reason? "No, the hallways were pretty clear, thankfully. I took a while because I was waiting for a few other patients to drop off some supplies in my room."
But he was here now and that was what mattered, right? Peter unscrewed the top of the hydrogen peroxide bottle and then placed a small piece of gauze to the top. Then he turned it over, allowing it to soak the gauze. A cotton ball would have been better, but beggars couldn't be choosers.
Right as he was moving over to apply some of it to Max's wounds, however, the intercom went off. It was Aguilar who spoke and he seemed legitimately angry over something. A rogue soldier, huh? Well, if they had someone on the inside who was helping them out, that was definitely something to celebrate. "It's about time something went our way," he remarked without thinking.
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"What kind of supplies? Was it all medical?" Max vaguely recalled that ZEX had a plan to blow up a door or something ages ago... god, it was weird to think of all the bizarre fantasies he'd gotten into while he was here. Maybe Peter was up to similar plans? It was probably none of his business, really, but he was curious in spite of himself.
He looked up to the ceiling when Aguilar started speaking, trying to place the voice and remember. It was all so hazy for him now... a military takeover, and he was obviously the leader, and apparently there was some kind of dissent amidst the ranks? ZEX had never paid much attention to the radio broadcasts, assuming they were elaborate traps, and now Max wasn't sure what to make of them. Maybe ZEX had just been paranoid, but he really didn't know enough to say for sure.
"You think they'll try to help us? Get us out of here?" Peter seemed to think it was a good thing, so Max decided to latch on to that. He was a better follower than a leader, after all. "What do you think they'll be able to do?"
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Either way, Max's mental state meant that Peter had even more reason to be here. He couldn't help with any of that, but he could keep the guy company and make sure that he didn't head out into the halls and get hurt. Max didn't seem to have any intention of doing that, thankfully.
"Well, I think they'll try to help, but it all depends on if they're found or not. Now that Aguilar's looking, whoever it is has to be really careful." Peter remembered how Marc had apparently been badly injured by Landel. There was no reason to think that Aguilar would be any less ruthless if he located a traitor. Peter hoped that whoever it was stayed safe and that no one ratted them out.
"Anyway, yeah, it was all medical supplies," he explained, returning to Max's earlier question. "So just sit still and I'll try to get this over with as quickly as I can. You probably already know, but it's going to sting a little." Peter moved a little closer to the other man, the soaked piece of gauze in hand.
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"Aren't those kind of hard to find?" Max watched what Peter was doing curiously, although he couldn't help but tense a little at the warning that it would sting. ZEX's unfamiliarity with the human body had left him too sensitive to pain (and pleasure), and there was no reason for Max to feel the same way, and yet... "I didn't see anything in the medical wing last night..." Except the drugs he'd taken, and they hadn't even given him a decent high. What a total rip-off.
He flinched at a sudden sharp sting of pain beneath his upper arm, and he told himself it had to be his imagination. Maybe it was just a muscle twinge, it was not any kind of imaginary creature. It wasn't. Desperate to distract himself, he let out a shaky breath and tried to laugh. "They're sort of weird looking, huh? I mean, some of these..." He gestured vaguely to indicate the cuts along his arms. "I don't even know what could make some of them, heh..." Well, that hadn't made him feel any better.
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"I haven't been to the medical wing myself, but the girl who delivered the supplies told me where to go, so they must be there somewhere." Chances were that Max just hadn't gotten far enough with his searching to actually find any useful supplies. Still, this was the first Peter had even heard of the man going out last night. It made sense, of course; there was no way he could stay in his room all the time. Still, it was one more piece added to the puzzle. What if they'd captured Max while he was there and brainwashed him that way?
What an eerie thought.
The way Max flinched was impossible for someone like Peter, who had a trained eye, to miss. "Hey, are you all right?" he asked, reaching out to put his free hand on the man's shoulder in a comforting gesture. Being given the chance to offer an explanation for the cuts only made it harder for him to hold back his theories. Max seemed to trust him pretty well by now, so maybe it was okay to bring it up. "Is it possible that you did some of that to yourself? You know, when you were upset about something, maybe?"
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Peter saw him flinch, and Max laughed nervously. "Uh, it's just... I dunno, my arm hurt all of a sudden. You didn't touch it, right?" He was maybe starting to worry a little. The sensation and feeling of motion around him was intensifying, along with that aura of hostility towards him, and his arm hurt, and if he was sane and invisible things were still clawing at him...
"I mean... before, sometimes I'd get cuts at night and I'd never see what did them, but... I'm better now, so I should be fine..." Hoping that Peter would agree with him, since then he'd have to be right, of course. His suggestion made sense. "I mean, it could be possible I did it... I don't know why I'd do something like that, but I wasn't really sane before, so maybe... maybe I just told myself it was something else, when it was really..." He trailed off as he tried to put it all together. This really didn't make sense either way.
His cheek stung all of a sudden, and he winced. Another cut...? No, that couldn't be it. There hadn't been anything near his face... there had to be another explanation...
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The fact that Max had tried out those drugs last night was both worrying and telling. What if that was what had caused this whole thing? It was impossible for Peter to know when he'd only met the man earlier today, but he had to wonder if this was going to be permanent. He was going to check on Max tomorrow over the bulletin, that was for sure.
Peter didn't think he'd touched the man's arm, which meant that he was having sudden pain for no perceivable reason. Not good, in other words. What could be causing such a thing? Unless he had some sort of internal affliction, which was far beyond Peter's ability to deal with.
"Yeah, that... that might be it," Peter said after a pause. He carefully placed a hand on the man's shoulder, both as a comfort and a test. "Does it hurt when I do that...?" Did Max have some sort of sensitivity to touch? If so, that could imply a number of other things, but Peter needed to work out what he was dealing with first.
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Peter didn't seem disturbed at all, so maybe he hadn't seen it... maybe it was just a muscle twinge. That had to be it. He was not getting torn up by invisible monsters... he was not seeing things. He definitely was not hallucinating because he was sane now. He might have done way too many drugs before he came here, but there were certain things that just did not happen. Invisible monsters were one of those things.
When Peter touched him, he couldn't help a slight sigh. It felt nice to be touched, and even though he quickly scrambled to qualify that in his head that it wasn't because he was a xenophile like ZEX or anything, he couldn't deny that it was nice to have contact with another person. One that presumably knew what to do and could thus take the entire matter out of his hands. Max did not do well in these kind of situations alone.
"Uh, no... not really." There were no cuts there, as far as he was aware. Yet. He barely stopped himself from saying that it actually felt sort of nice. "I don't... well, there probably aren't cuts there, anyway. For now, hee hee." Nervous giggling. "Wouldn't it be weird if there really were invisible creatures attacking me... what would you even do about that?" His laughing was getting a little hysterical now.
And a sudden sting made him pause and wince. He looked down at his hand, where he could make out a new line against his skin in the dark. Even with his limited vision, he could see something welling out of the dark scratch. He held it up to Peter, and it was getting a little difficult to slow his breathing now.
"Was that there before?" Please say it was.
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Before Peter could answer the first question (which probably would have been something along the line of "we'd deal with it somehow"), he was distracted by the look of pain that overtook the other man's features. He quickly glanced down, catching only the tail end of what had happened. Still, there was no denying it. That wound had just opened up all on its own.
So much for trying to explain this away as self-harm or hallucination or any of those other things. No, Max was legitimately being wounded completely out of nowhere, or by something that couldn't be seen. Peter didn't think it was the latter so much as some sort of bizarre affliction.
"...No, it wasn't," he admitted with a frown. He dropped his hand from Max's shoulder and then carefully moved the gauze in his other hand to the newly opened cut. "I'll bandage it in a second." He couldn't explain what had just happened, but he could at least see to the wounds. Peter was disturbed by all of this, but he was going to do his best to not let that show on his face.
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"What do you think it was?" Max was sort of trying not to hyperventilate, but he had to admit he was not giving it his best effort. What if the invisible things were watching him right now? They had to be, what did they even look like? God, what else could they do to him? They hadn't killed him yet, but who knew what they wanted? Maybe it'd just get worse and worse and then he'd just explode in a fountain of gore in front of Peter and he was feeling a little lightheaded. "You don't think it was a monster, do you? I don't know what did it, it wasn't me, I didn't do it, but I didn't see anything..."
His voice cracked a little. "I didn't see anything..."
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"Just take a few deep breaths, Max," he said, reaching out to grab a roll of bandages from his duffel bag. He carefully started to unwrap them as he kept his gaze on the other man. The last thing Max would want right now was to feel alone, which was why Peter made sure to never take his eyes off of him.
"I don't think it was a monster," he continued, speaking slowly and clearly so that his words got through to Max. "I didn't see anything. It's probably something that those military guys did to you." Not that Peter knew what that could even be, but the idea that Max had been experimented on or drugged made a whole lot more sense than there being an invisible monster hiding in his room.
He gently reached for the man's hand and started to bandage it with all the care he'd been taught to utilize as a nurse. This would both hide the wound away and make Max feel like he was being cared for, so that was a plus. It wasn't much, but it would hopefully help. "You're safe, all right? I'm right here," he assured the man, speaking softly.
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Max had been wondering that ever since he'd gotten here. Did he really deserve this after everything he'd done? Surely this punishment was somewhat extreme, wasn't it?
Peter didn't seem scared, and Max tried to focus on that. Peter knew what he was doing, he could trust him. Still it was hard not to focus on the idea of invisible creatures chewing on his flesh. How could he defend himself against something like that? Peter held his hand and he was bandaging it and he didn't seem frightened. Max just needed to try and keep that in mind. Although, he hadn't seen any scratches appear on Peter, after all...
"How can we stop them?" He trusted Peter when he said he was safe, of course, but having some kind of plan of action would be real comforting right about now.
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There were still so many other cuts, though, and he knew there wasn't going to be time to see to them all. It wasn't necessarily needed in most cases, but at this point he figured it would be best to just tend to Max as best he could to help him feel at ease.
"I think... I think it might just be something that's happening to you. Maybe they gave you a strange drug that's causing your body to get wounded randomly, but I don't think there's anyone invisible around." Peter would know; he'd been invisible himself. He'd learned the tricks of the trade, so to speak, and from Claude -- who'd been hiding from the world for years. He wondered if coming clean about that to Max would make the man feel better or worse, but in the end decided against it.
"I don't know how to stop it," he admitted, "but I'll do my best to patch you up." He grabbed some more gauze and soaked it with the peroxide, leaning forward to start dabbing it over the scratches that he had easiest access to.
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"So... my body's just... sort of cutting itself from the inside out?" Oh god, that was even worse! His visions of just exploding in front of Peter returned, all the more gruesome. "Oh my god, oh my god..." If Peter wasn't here, maybe this would have made sense as some weird delusion about him hurting himself or something, but Peter WAS here. Peter saw this happening, and all the explanations for it were terrifying. Why was this happening to him?
"Why would they do this to me? What did I ever do to them?" In something of a self-pitying tone, and even as he said it, he knew there wouldn't be a good answer, but the unfairness of this galled him. He didn't deserve to have random horrors visited upon him for no reason! He didn't deserve this, how could it be happening to him anyway? This didn't make any sense. "Do you think it's happening to anyone else? Have you ever seen it happen to anyone else?"
A new cut along his upper arm made him wince and lose his train of thought. That never stopped stinging! He breathed hard for a few seconds, trying to remember what he was talking about, and at least Peter was still here. Maybe he couldn't stop it, but at least he could make sure they didn't get infected or anything. That was something right?
"Thanks for doing this for me, thank you." Maybe babbling just a little. "I don't, I'm not really good at doing this kind of thing myself..."
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"Well, I don't know for sure if that's it. I'm just guessing," Peter quickly informed the man. It seemed that his explanation was just making the man feel more anxious, which was the opposite of what he'd been hoping to accomplish there. Still, even if Max was having a minor panic attack at this point, Peter knew that he needed to keep his cool. He could tell that his heart rate was starting to escalate at this point, but there was no sign of it on his face.
Really, he could have lied to the man, said that he'd seen it before and he was sure it would be fine. But that wasn't the sort of lie that was going to make things better in the end. It might calm the man down in the moment, but when he realized that Peter had just been trying to spare his feelings, it wouldn't be good. So he decided to be honest. "This is the first time I've seen it. I don't know why they would do something like this, but we're just going to have to try and find out."
How they were going to do that was as much of a mystery to Peter as it was to Max, but... Well, they could try and track down his medical file here, right? Maybe there would be a note about it in there. That couldn't happen tonight, but maybe in the future Max could look into that.
Another cut opened itself up along the man's arm, forcing Peter to hold back a wince as he put his hands on either of Max's shoulders. "You don't have to thank me. Just try to take a few deep breaths and calm down and I'll take care of you as best I can." With that message delivered, he pulled back and grabbed for more gauze, intending to clean out all of the scratches that needed it.
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