Night 64: X-Ray Room

[damned_intercom]

As soon as the patients entered the dark room, the first thing they might have noticed were a couple of short bursts of static from the intercom. But no voices or cryptic messages greeted them.

Instead, their eyes would undoubtedly be drawn toward the strange picture of a human stomach carefully painted onto the southern wall, its paint casting an eerie green glow that cut into the darkness.

Although the artist had done their best to make the picture as clear as possible, they had apparently decided to leave a sharp kitchen knife perched on X-Ray table to compensate the patients for their troubles. Hopefully whoever picked it up would be able to make good use of it and the clue created for them.

Comments

[oyaji]

"Oh, uh, you're--I mean, nothing! I was just looking for any other cuts, that's all!" Four savaged gowns later, Wild Tiger had to start the worst part of this because it was going to hurt and the last thing the blond probably wanted was more of that. "Okay, this is gonna sting, sorry..."

He took a few wipes, cleaned off his own bloodied hands, before he very quickly cleaned the skin around the cut to disinfect anything lethal. All the while, the older man mumbled apologies one after another to compensate for the abuse. He then wadded up some clean cloth and used another strip to bind the cloth around the wound and hopefully stifled the blood flow. It was a bit hard to tie it while his hands shook terribly, but eventually he got it secured as tight as he could without completely cutting off circulation.

The second leg was a bit easier since he had found his rhythm (Hopefully they wouldn't be making a habit out of this just to keep his basic first aid training sharp).

[baniichan]

The warning wasn't really necessary, since Barnaby figured a lot of this was going to hurt regardless. Still, he braced himself, and managed to stay silent outside of the quick, shallow breaths he couldn't control.

Though he became aware of some other voices in the room with them, Barnaby couldn't find the energy to worry about how many people may have been watching this sad spectacle. Instead, his head remained propped against the pillow as it slowly lolled toward the side. Maybe it was his imagination, but there was a strange green light emitting from the southern part of the room. For the life of him, he couldn't figure out why. He just knew that he was cold, and his heart was beating far too fast for his liking.

"Where are we?" he suddenly asked, his voice tight.

[oyaji]

"We're in the X-Ray Room. I told you I'd get us here!" Though whether it had been the better course of action instead of running Barnaby back to his room, he would never know. At the mention of the room, however, he was reminded of the whole point as to why they were even here. His amber eyes were finally torn off Barnaby as he glanced around the large room. Wild Tiger was immediately drawn to the same thing his partner had been. There, on the other wall, was a eerie green glow that reminded him of neon, even if the subject was a bit avant garde. It was the shape of a stomach with a butterfly in it. It didn't register immediately, but his eyes eventually grew wide when the implication set in.

"B-Bunny, there's, uh, well... There's this picture on the wall and it's uhh sort of... Well, kind of a... stomach... With a bug--A butterfly... in it." Wild Tiger wondered just how literal this was supposed to be taken.

[baniichan]

Barnaby squinted as he tried to process this new piece of information. That sounded more like a sick joke than some kind of clue. Still, his mind raced to piece together the riddle. If someone had indeed painted something inside a human organ in the X-Ray room, and they were supposed to use that somehow, then...

Gritting his teeth, Barnaby pressed his palms into the table and began to push himself up into a sitting position with a strained grunt. "If we could get to the equipment--"

Before he realized it, he gave into the strange weight pressing down on his bones, and his head fell back against the pillow. Blinking rapidly, he did his best to fight against the darkness that fogged his vision, but it was starting to be come difficult to tell whether his eyes were open or not. In the end, letting them slide shut was far too easy.

[freewill]

[From here.]

Castiel stepped up next to Kobayashi, uncertain if the man had even noticed his earlier entrance. Chances were that he hadn't, seeing how he'd been preoccupied with an injured friend. Castiel saw that his roommate had managed to bandage both of Barnaby's legs, which made it clear that he was at least somewhat experienced with life or death situations like this.

Not that he had truly believed most of what Kobayashi had told him about his life even before now.

That wasn't important at the moment, though, and so Castiel didn't focus on it, instead nodding up to the wall. All of them had been given the chance to take it in by now. "What do you make of it?" he asked after a pause.

[oyaji]

"Ahh--!" Wild Tiger flinched at the sudden voice that came up beside him. "Wh--Cas?!" Where the hell had he come from? The older man thought he had been sitting in with a friend tonight. A bit more aware of his surroundings now that he wasn't focused on Barnaby, he realized there were a few more new faces that had entered the room. All of them seemed much more well adjusted than the two Heroes sworn to protect them. It was a bitter pill to swallow as he looked back down at his injured partner sullenly.

"Make of what? What're you--?" Eventually, he stopped fussing over the blond and looked up at Cas who was staring at the wall covered in toxic green paint. His amber eyes came back to lock on Castiel with the most scandalized and offended face he could muster under these conditions. "Are you being serious?! Yeah, I'll give you an opinion once I'm sure my partner here sitting in his own blood isn't gonna die from shock! In fact," Kotetsu paused to give his roommate a once over. "Give me your coat!"

[baniichan]

Kotetsu could be awfully loud sometimes.

As obnoxious as it was, though, this wasn't always a bad thing. Barnaby focused on the man's rumbling voice as he complained at the unfortunate soul who had managed to wander over to them while Kotetsu was operating on Hero mode. It gave Barnaby something to concentrate on, at least.

Still, he hated that he had to stay confined to this cold table when he'd originally come here to scour for clues. Even worse, he doubted Kotetsu would tear himself from his side as long as he could barely sit up without getting slammed with another bout of dizziness. Honestly, it was hard to tell how much of it was just from blood loss, and how much of it was that on top of feeling weak from that illness and using his power. But as long as there was any doubt, Barnaby knew his partner wouldn't leave him.

What a waste of time for everyone involved, he hazily thought to himself. Turning his head toward the voices, Barnaby swallowed hard between shallow breaths, and tried to identify the newcomer.

[freewill]

It was the first time in a long time that he'd been called "Cas" in a genuine way. While he hadn't known what to make of the nickname at first, it had become something familiar at this point, and that was enough to take him by surprise.

Not that the feeling lasted long, because soon he was being lambasted by Kobayashi for trying to focus on the subject at hand when his friend was in a bad state. Castiel glanced down at Barnaby, who seemed to only be vaguely aware of his surroundings, and frowned. "My apologies. From what I was able to determine, I thought you'd stabilized him."

The fact of the matter was that this would all be pointless if they didn't get to the bottom of this clue, so they couldn't let injuries get in the way. Castiel could feel some blood from his reopened wound dripping down his arm, and the pain in his shoulder was throbbing and insistent, but that didn't meant that he'd lost the ability to think rationally.

Still, he didn't mind handing over his coat if it would help Kobayashi to calm down, and so with some pained effort he got the garment off his shoulders and then handed it over. With only the standard-issue shirt on under the coat, his own injury was clear from the blood that had soaked through the gray fabric, not to mention the slivers of it sliding down his bare skin toward his elbow. "If we don't determine what that image is telling us, then he'll have endured this wounds for nothing," he said pointedly.

[oyaji]

Wild Tiger simply huffed at Castiel's excuse, not really wanting to put anymore energy into yelling. It wasn't really doing much to help anyone except himself and he needed to be a little more concerned with Barnaby than taking his frustration out on his roommate. The man had given him his coat hadn't he?

"Thanks," he mumbled as he laid it over his partner, doing what he could to help the young man stay warm. So close to him, the former Hero realized just how much Barnaby was struggling to keep his eyes open. "Hey!" he called to him, grabbing him by his jaw and rolling his head back over to where he could see. "You need to stay awake, okay? If you're in shock--" Which Wild Tiger knew from his temperature alone. "--sleeping is not gonna help! Bunny, open yer eyes!"

Tapping his face helped a bit to keep him a bit more lucid, but Castiel's comment left a bitter taste in his mouth as he stared down at the blond. It was hard to think about the long-term when the short-term was a chaotic mess. "I know, but..." Sighing, the older man eventually played along and looked back up at the wall.

"Okay, obviously that damn doctor bugged people with something." The more he stared at it, the more he thought he could feel something actually fluttering inside his stomach. It just nerves, he told himself. Tired muscles twitched and adrenaline made the stomach flutter, that was all! "So that cold or whatever's spreading around's gotta be the butterfly, right?" A bug, a cold, they were synonyms after all. "But why in the stomach? Is it a stomach flu?" Well, if that was right, it certainly made sense after all the nastiness he had been throwing up lately.

[baniichan]

Barnaby felt the added weight of someone's coat being draped over him. It took a few moments, but he realized he'd seen it before during their outing with Castiel a couple of nights ago. The person standing with them must have been Kotetsu's roommate, and he'd donated his coat to help keep him warm.

It was easy to just sink into the table and let Kotetsu handle things, especially with how much effort it took to keep track of the chaos going on around them. Thankfully, he felt his partner's calloused fingers grip onto jaw as the man tapped at his face to keep him alert. Barnaby knew perfectly well why it was foolish to let himself relax too much, so he gave a sudden nod to let Kotetsu he was listening.

As he did his best to stay informed of what was happening around him, Barnaby caught bits of and pieces of the discussion at hand. They were talking about the clue, but none of them seemed to know what to make of it. "The X-ray machine," he managed to say, as if it might help tie everything together.

[gald_digger]

[from here]

All she had to do was start up a conversation with those men and convince them to work together. For someone as cute and sociable as Anise, it was a piece of cake. Probably.

When she neared the table, however, Anise realized she knew the man lying on it. They'd met just earlier that day, even! What a coincidence. He looked seriously hurt, though the men with him seemed to have provided first aid.

Well, this was one way to break the ice. With a loud, somewhat dramatic gasp, Anise rushed to the blond's side. "Barnaby! Oh no, what happened?" Up close, he looked pretty bad. How much blood did he lose already? Even if his state had created an opportunity for her, Anise hoped he wasn't in serious trouble, especially when he was already sick on top of being hurt.

Once she had gotten a good look at Barnaby, Anise looked up from the table to the two standing nearby. "Sorry, um... I'm a friend," she offered by way of explanation for them. She made a bit of a show of being timid around the larger men, fidgeting a little before continuing. "Were you just talking about the X-ray machine? We kind of wanted to use it too. Do you think we could work together?" They wouldn't say no to a (cute) friend of a friend, right?

[oyaji]

Wild Tiger couldn't tell if this little girl was simply a delusional fan or if the two of them had actually met in the institute, though the latter still didn't exclude the possibility she was delusional (this was a mental hospital after all). Still, there was a comfort in knowing some people knew of them--Well, knew of Barnaby. They weren't completely isolated here, even if they still had a different burden to bear as Heroes--Speaking of which! How had she gotten here without so much as a scratch?!

His head swiveled to the left to catch the other patients who had just come in. The older man couldn't believe they would lead a girl into danger like that, even if they had been protecting her at every turn.

"Uh, well..." Wild Tiger looked down at his partner who was thankfully lucid enough to be looking too. He didn't want to move him, but both Castiel and this little girl had a point. They were all already here, so they might as well get what they all came for. It was going to benefit everyone, not just a few. "Alright, but does anyone know how to use the machine?" He didn't want them to accidentally fry Barnaby, especially after he just got the blood clotting.

[freewill]

Having someone to ponder over the clue with was a help, and Castiel continued to examine the drawing as he considered Kobayashi's words. A stomach flu... But he knew for a fact that more than his stomach had been affected. Still, maybe it was something that originated there, but spread throughout the whole body? Humans could be very susceptible to certain viruses, and some of those viruses were very deadly and very clever.

Barnaby spoke up, clearly only half-conscious, and yet he was obviously following along well enough to add to the conversation. Of course, the X-Ray machine. It was used to see inside a human's body, so it would be best if they could get a look for themselves.

Almost as if in response to that, a girl ran forward, apparently worried on Barnaby's behalf. Castiel didn't know her, so he remained quiet for a moment, listening to her request. He certainly wouldn't mind some help, seeing how he had no idea how to use one of these machines. Apparently, neither did Kobayashi.

"I wouldn't mind," he added after a moment, "provided that someone knows what they're doing." This was not his area of expertise, so he had no choice but to rely on someone else in this case. Luckily, an offer had been made, which took away the humiliation of having to outright ask someone for help.