(Untitled)

[phoinikothrix]

Despite his hypochondriac's respect for them, Francis has never liked doctors, not really--the way they poke, and prod, and ask absurd questions before ushering him out the door with an ineffectual prescription written in a careless hand, only to roll their eyes at him when he returned a few days later complaining of some new malady.

Three days

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[artemiodes]

Francis has been fretting something awful. Camilla knows this - though to be fair, Francis is so often fretting over something that if one were to guess as much, one would have a fair chance of being correct. But this is something different, she thinks, something new. Dodge's overdose had horrified her friend, and she thinks she might be amused if Francis didn't seem so serious about it. It's rather sweet, really - she would think that he had a crush, but Dodge did not seem quite his type.

She's a bit surprised, then, to find him hunting through art books, of all things, as this isn't the usual sort of thing one does for a sick friend, even in the sometimes funny world of Francis-think. "What have you got here?" she asks idly as she sidles up beside him, taking the first of the brightly-colored art books off his stack and flipping through it.

[phoinikothrix]

"I do believe they call them books, darling," Francis replies with a tired half-smile. With all the time he's been spending in the Compound, he feels as though he's been neglecting one friend--one older and dearer, and less prone, he hopes despite all evidence to the contrary, to self-destruction--for another. "I told you I was thinking of finding something for Dodge. You wouldn't want to help, would you?"

[artemiodes]

Camilla rolls her eyes in an appropriately dramatic fashion, but she obediently picks a book from the top of the pile and perches on the arm of his chair. "What does he like?" From what she's heard about this strange new friend Francis', he's not the sort of guy that would usually imagine having much interest in fine art, but she supposes that her friend must know him best.

[phoinikothrix]

"I think he just likes art for art's sake," he says, leaning his head gently against Camilla's side to get a better look at the book open in her lap. "He doesn't seem that knowledgeable about it." It's not an insult, merely a statement of fact.

"He did seem rather taken with the Van Goghs in the gallery," he continued, more thoughtfully. "Then again, didn't Van Gogh go mad and slice off his ear or something? That's hardly a soothing image."

[alittleofboth]

Anthony had seen a lot of Francis over the last few days, and though they both knew plainly why the pair of them had taken a sudden interest in hanging around the Compound, neither of them had spoken to say more than hello. Anyone watching carefully might have even noticed the casual way the two of them seemed to be taking shifts - one with their eyes towards the clinic, one with their head buried in a book, nodding slightly to each other as each left and returned. If Francis was used to worrying, though, Anthony certainly was not - if anyone had asked, he would have denied his real reasons for lingering so often lately (though Guy, at least, had surely figured it out).

Now he flashed a cool, polite smile as Francis looked up from his mad collection of books. "Mr. Abernathy, hello," he said as he wandered over to the bookshelf. "Looking for something in particular?"

[phoinikothrix]

A flash of concern crossed Francis' face briefly at the older man's greeting, spurred mostly by the fact that there hadn't been much communication between the two aside from polite greetings.

"A gift for Dodge," he replied after a moment, relieved that Anthony hadn't, in fact, come bearing some sort of terrible news. "He must be terribly bored, cooped up in there."

[alittleofboth]

"How... novel," Anthony deadpanned, gazing at the stacks of books with a more understanding but no less skeptical eye. He picked up one - impressionists, not his favorite - and flipped through it absently. "I suppose it might take his mind off things."

Things. What a maddeningly understated word for such a dreadful week.

[phoinikothrix]

"That was what I was hoping," Francis replied, suppressing a sigh of disappointment at the dismissive way Anthony was rifling through the book in his hands. Perhaps the Impressionists were a bit overdone, but he'd thought it a strong contender.