damned_institute | Day 68: Sun Room

Kratos regained consciousness with a low moan. Everything - particularly his side - ached, and his thoughts were still blurry as he managed to push himself up out of bed, his weak left arm trembling under the weight. The pain was vital, though: it told him that he was still alive, and that last night had not been some kind of terrifying, incredibly realistic dream. As he stared down at his arm and the neat, white bandage wrapped around his hand, he could almost feel the skin beginning to bubble again, distorting, cracking, his fingers fusing together--

Kratos shook his head sharply, trying to snap out of the memory. It was over. He was human. He'd just--he just needed some time. It would all be buried eventually, as everything else had. As he absentmindedly picked at the new bandage, though, a feeling in his gut told him otherwise, and almost without thinking, he lifted the cloth gently with a finger, revealing the crystal underneath.

He grimaced at the sight of the still-healing cuts, the skin cracked and raw around the brilliant blue of his new crystal. There was something strange, though, something that was out of place...Kratos frowned as he pushed more of the bandage aside, exposing more of his hand to the dim light in the room. There, gathering at the edges of the crystal: a green gleam where there ought to be none. His breath caught in his throat as he reached out and felt around the rim of the crystal. Rather than skin, smooth glass met his fingertips--no, crystal. As if it could sense the impending devastation and sought to spare him, his mind went blank as he stared down at his hand, fingers moving back and forth across the small patch of green as he tried to make sense of what had happened and what was happening to him.

"Kurtis? Oh no, what are you doing?" From seemingly nowhere, the nurse rushed over to his side and brushed his hand away before pulling the bandage back over the crystal. "You can't touch that while it's still healing, dear! Now, why don't you get up and have some lunch?" Still in shock, all Kratos could do was numbly follow her, and soon, he found himself sitting in the Sun Room, a bag lunch in front of him, with very little idea of how he'd gotten there.

Think. Move. Do something. Try as he might, though, his whole body seemed to be rebelling while it tried to sort out reality; all he could do was sit and stare at his lunch, the words chronic and crystallization and most importantly dying echoing through his head.

[Have fun, Lloyd.]

Lloyd's cheeks were still flushed from running around outside in the cold when he came back inside for lunch. Despite the chill in his skin, though, he felt better for having the chance to expend some of his energy and frustration in a makeshift game of soccer with Guy. His stomach growled when he accepted the sack lunch from his nurse - but even with hunger encouraging him to just wolf whatever he'd been given, he still pulled the sandwich out and pried it apart suspiciously once the nurse left him to his own devices.

Fish. He wasn't entirely sure what all had been mixed with it, but he could at least identify that the main ingredient was fish, with no hint of anything orange or red that might be tomato-related. Breakfast had been safe, too, and dinner the night before. Hopefully that would remain the case, with the one meal with tomato the exception.

Satisfied with his examination, the teen put his sandwich back together and took a bite of it as he wandered into the Sun Room. Not familiar, but not bad, and definitely appreciated. Thinking about heading over to the bulletin board to check for any new notes, he almost didn't scan the room.

His steps stopped when he spotted Kratos. Kratos, who never had showed up last night, leaving Lloyd just standing there waiting, when he'd been the one to ask Lloyd to meet him there in the first place. Now he was just sitting there, not even looking around, like he wasn't even thinking about looking for Lloyd even though he clearly had the chance.

With a huff of irritation, Lloyd crossed the room, setting his lunch on the table in the seat across from Kratos before sitting down. "Where were you last night?" he demanded without preamble. "I thought you wanted my help."

Something was off. Something was trying to catch his attention. He tried to push it aside as he waited for Kratos to respond.

Nudged along by his thoughts, Kratos had been drifting off into another flashback - this one again of bubbling skin and blinding pain - when Lloyd, possibly the last person he wanted to see, sat down across from him and jolted him back to reality.

He blinked, by instinct managing to keep his face impassively blank as he slowly filtered what Lloyd had said. "I..."

Right. He'd asked for his help in investigating that thing, whatever it was that Soma had found in that book. Of course he hadn't shown up - he'd spent the night chained to an operating table instead - but Kratos would rather die than admit what had happened to him: he didn't want to give Lloyd reason to go charging out on some kind of fool's mission, nor did he want (and perhaps more strongly than the other) his son's pity. The latter alone was enough to push his mind to clarity.

"I apologize. I did not intend to leave you waiting," Kratos said with a sigh. "Unfortunately, things became complicated last night." That was a good word for it: "complicated".

"Complicated?" Lloyd echoed the word with skepticism at first, until, with a frown, he actually thought about it. 'Complicated' could mean all sorts of things, especially coming from Kratos, but given what had happened to him last night... "Did you have problems with the doors sending you to different places, too?"

It would make sense. So much so that he felt like an idiot for jumping to another conclusion before it. Offering Kratos a somewhat chagrined half-shrug, he tried to back down as much mentally as he was verbally. If the other man had gotten stuck in that same door thing, no wonder he hadn't managed to meet up with Lloyd when and where he'd promised to be.

There had been problems with the doors again? What--actually, he didn't really care about the specifics. Lloyd had just provided him with a viable explanation for "complicated", and Kratos wasn't about to let it slip through his fingers, especially when he hadn't needed to do any work for it.

"Yes." He could have let the conversation end there, but there was nothing else to concern himself with other than his lunch when he had no appetite and his thoughts when he had none that wouldn't make him wish for the warm embrace of insanity. Lloyd, on the other hand, could be frustrating to deal with at times, but he could also be rather relieving - cathartic, even - and Kratos was willing to risk irritation for that possibility. "What did you end up doing in my absence?"

"I ran into Ishida, Inoue, and Karkat while I was waiting for you. Ishida told me you were going to be late, so we left to go take care of his plans first." Taking a bite of his sandwich, Lloyd chewed for a moment, then frowned, something bugging him about what he'd just said. "How did you know you were going to be late anyway? We didn't know the doors were messing up yet."

Still in somewhat contrite mood, he finished chewing and swallowed the rest of the food in his mouth (food that he'd talked around, yes), then nodded at the lunch sack sitting on the table in front of the older swordsman. "There's no tomatoes in it today," he said, reassuring in case it was needed. At least, there weren't any tomatoes unless they put something different in Kratos's sandwich than in Lloyd's.

"I had something to take care of first - something that came up later in the day. It was intended to be a quick errand, but as we both know, last night made things difficult." Kratos bowed his head slightly. "I apologize for not telling you beforehand; it slipped my mind." Thankfully, though, Lloyd hadn't been forced to spend the whole night on his own, and it sounded like they hadn't run into any significant trouble other than the doors malfunctioning. That could be considered satisfactory.

"Ah--right." As if noticing it for the first time, Kratos reached forward and picked up his lunch, opening the bag slowly and pulling out the sandwich. Normally, tuna was acceptable, but somehow, simply the smell of it seemed nauseating. Still, he had to attempt eating, even if he wasn't hungry, in order to keep up the facade of normality. He unwrapped the sandwich and took a bite.

The apology, combined with the difficulties Lloyd thought Kratos meant, was enough to mollify Lloyd. Kratos couldn't have had any way of knowing that he'd be delayed more than he planned, and he had sent Ishida to warn Lloyd. He'd probably done the best he could. "I see," he said. He took another bite of his sandwich, chewed, and swallowed. "Maybe we can try again tonight, then, or..."

The movement of Kratos's hands drew Lloyd's eye, a flash of white that- Wait, white? With a sudden frown, Lloyd focused on the bandage that hadn't been there before. "What happened to your hand?" he asked. Or was it his arm? It was hard to see how far the bandages went up with the sweatshirt his nurse had probably made him wear just like Lloyd's had covering most of his arm.

You'll be going outside today, Nigel. Don't you want to be warm?

[omg I'm so late]

"We could, but I have something else that I--" Kratos stopped abruptly as Lloyd took notice of the bandage on his hand. Normally, he might not have paid it any mind, but this particular injury made him much more self-conscious, especially because it hid what was about to become his next, dark secret.

Act calm. Whatever you do, no sudden movements.

"I was injured last night. Another fight."

It took most of his self-discipline to resist the urge to jerk his hand under the table, or at least twitch as if he'd thought of that prospect, but thankfully, Kratos was able to maintain his composure. The only sign that perhaps he'd been hoping that Lloyd would not catch the neat, white cloth wound around his hand and wrist was the way his jaw set and eyes hardened, as if daring Lloyd to even think about trying to pry further.

[Don't worry, it's okay.]

Lloyd caught the forbidding look on Kratos's face, but instead of being quelled, his own stubborn streak sparked in response. It ignited something rebellious in Lloyd that made him want to do the exact opposite of whatever Kratos wanted. He didn't know why. It just grated on him.

"Did you run into a monster?" he pressed. "Was it outside? Or did something get inside the institute?" He hadn't run into any monsters within the halls or rooms of Landel's, so it hadn't really occurred to him that anything dangerous might roam the halls on a regular basis.

"A monster," Kratos confirmed. He was telling the truth too, from a certain point of view--not only the doctor, but himself as well. It was probably partially just his imagination, but he could feel it lurking underneath his skin even now, waiting patiently, biding its time. It had had a taste of freedom after being sealed away by the Key Crest for so many years; now freed, it would not be so easily re-chained. A slip, the slightest mistake, and the flames unleashed last night would start--

He blinked, and the world suddenly righted itself; it occurred to him that he had been staring blankly at a spot on the wall over Lloyd's shoulder for who knew how long now, one hand still gripping his tuna sandwich. "--inside," Kratos grounded out, tearing his eyes away from the white wall that reminded him so vividly of the bright lights of the operation room and focusing instead back on his lunch.

The moment hadn't lasted that long, at least not from Lloyd's perspective, but still long enough that something had flagged him as wrong about that too-blank look. That wasn't just Kratos's usually aloof 'I'm too good to acknowledge you' stare, but something more distant, more not here. It unsettled Lloyd to see him stare off seemingly in the middle of forming a response. In spite of himself, the teen leaned forward, opened his mouth - then shut it when Kratos spoke.

Leaning back in his chair, Lloyd let his eyes scan Kratos again. The older man seemed to be back in the present.

But what had that been?

Still searching Kratos's face, Lloyd reached out to touch his hand - the bandaged one, though he kept his fingers from touching the bandages. He wanted to keep Kratos rooted here. Worry edged his voice. He wasn't used to Kratos being anything less an untouchable pillar of strength. Seeing him like this was unnerving. "Are you sure that you're all right?"

Usually, Kratos was able to keep his hyper-vigilant tendencies under control whenever people unexpectedly encroached his personal space, but when that space narrowed to the area around his left hand, it often didn't matter how much restraint he was able to exercise at the moment. In this case, that meant abruptly swatting Lloyd's hand away and then catching it sharply by the wrist in one lightning fast motion that suggested that he'd reacted unconsciously, purely on instinct. (It was a good thing he was holding his sandwich in his other hand, or else Lloyd might have found himself with a faceful of tuna as well...)

As his brain caught up with the rest of him, Kratos sighed. That had to be at least the third time something like this had happened here, and the second time he'd attacked Lloyd without thinking. Anna had always pointed out how twitchy he could be, and while he'd always brushed her off, he was starting to see just how unhealthy this habit was.

"Hm." Very slowly, his grip slacked, and he let his hand fall away. "I thought you had learned this particular lesson already." He had to downplay it, write it off; the whole point was to keep Lloyd blissfully unconcerned, and currently, he was doing a terrible job of it, but he had to keep trying until the bitter end.

Edited 2013-01-29 04:35 (UTC)

"Ah!" The noise Lloyd made was more from surprise than pain. Alarm jolted through him when he tried to jerk back, but couldn't because his wrist was suddenly trapped. He looked up at Kratos, eyes too-wide, but before he could form words past the shock, the grip loosened, then disappeared when Kratos dropped his hand.

The last thing he expected then was a lecture. A flush spread across Lloyd's cheeks at the pointed reminder that this wasn't the first time this had happened, that he'd been warned before.

Implying that this was his fault. It didn't occur to him that this was just a distraction, that Kratos was just dodging the topic. He pulled his hand back, rubbing his wrist, and shot Kratos a defensive scowl. "Hey, you only warned me about sneaking up on you! I wasn't sneaking up!"

There. This was, both ironically and pathetically, a more appropriate thread of conversation. Kratos smiled inwardly as Lloyd scowled at him, totally unappreciative of his unexpected move. "You didn't warn me," he said mildly, raising an eyebrow and allowing Lloyd's dark look to pass right over him, as all of Lloyd's scowls and glares usually did, or seemed to do.

He took a casual bite of his sandwich and managed to choke it down without looking like he was trying too hard. "If you were anyone else, I might have snapped your wrist just now." --or nearly stabbed him in the neck with a fork; that had happened too.

That justification did nothing to mollify Lloyd one bit. "What did you want me to say? 'Hey, Kratos, I'm going to touch your hand'?" If he winced a little bit at the thought of Kratos breaking his wrist, he tried to hide it with another mulish look. "You could see me reaching out for your hand. How much more warning do you need? You're the one who was always lecturing me about paying attention to things."

Then, almost as though to punctuate his words, he bit into his food. With his eyes, he dared Kratos to refute the piece of his own advice that Lloyd had thrown back at him.

"I don't--" Kratos caught himself, even as his mind finished the rest of his sentence for him: like people touching me, even when I can see it coming. That seemed too juvenile, even though he could reasonably consider it the truth. And even if he was able to appropriately dress it up, it was still too vulnerable of a revelation for Kratos to ever voice: Lloyd knew him only by his strengths for good reason.

"--Or you could just not reach for it at all," Kratos retorted. All of Lloyd's complaints were only serving to make him more self-conscious of his unfortunate habit, and it was starting to make him grouchy. He'd been through too much in the past twenty-four hours to patiently deal with this.

"I was just-" Lloyd cut himself off. He should have figured Kratos would reject any attempts he made at being empathetic with him. Had he forgotten who he was talking to here? Kratos didn't want to be his friend. He might have been willing to work with Lloyd to try to find a way to escape from this place, but that didn't mean he wanted anything more from Lloyd than that. They were enemies, after all.

The reminder still stung.

"Look, just answer the question. Are you going to be okay?" He let irritation mask any other feeling in his voice. "It matters to me, too, you know." Because they were trying to work together. Not because of anything else. That was it, and who needed any more reason than that?

He shoved away the feeling that it sounded like he was just trying to convince himself.

It matters to me, too, you know.

That was supposed to be reassuring, maybe even relieving - reassuring because it meant that Lloyd wasn't asking just to be polite, relieving because it meant Lloyd still cared even after all he'd been put through by his errant (and still anonymous) father. Instead, it made Kratos want to flinch, to pull away, to sharply remind his son that he had no business caring, not when they were enemies. They had a temporary truce here, true, but it didn't change the fact that they still stood on opposing sides back home.

--Or, at least, so Lloyd was supposed to think. It was supposed to be easy to be cool and detached, not a mental chore that, in his current state, Kratos was swiftly tiring of--tiring of, but still persisting in because the energy and resolve needed to attempt the alternative seemed even greater.

"I'm fine," he said flatly. "It's just a scratch. I've had worse." Three lies and no truths to be found there.

People were always supposed to tell the truth. That was what Dirk had always tried to teach him, and what he tried to live life assuming was always true. It wasn't true, though, and he knew that. People lied all the time, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for bad. Colette had lied, the Desians had lied, Genis and Raine had lied. Even he'd lied, though his lies didn't usually last very long before someone caught him out.

But even though he knew that people lied sometimes, he just couldn't bring himself to look at everything they said to see if they were telling the truth. He'd rather assume the best and be wrong than to assume the worst when they weren't lying at all.

Even so, he stared at Kratos for a very long, hard moment. He wasn't fine. The bandages made that a plain and blatant lie. The rest, though...

He didn't know. He didn't know if he trusted Kratos enough to believe he was telling the truth, and he didn't know if he wanted to have so little faith in someone. The silence stretched for another unhappy moment. Then he took a breath, and let it back out.

"All right." Dwarven vow number eighteen: It's better to be deceived that to deceive. The vows were there for times when he was in doubt, and he took refuge in them now. His Dad wouldn't have steered him wrong. "So, you're fine. What does that mean for you tonight? Do you want to try again?"

Day 68: Sun Room

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