damned_institute | Day 66: Breakfast

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Day 66: Breakfast

What Guy had seen on that scan resulted in some mixed feelings. While he had expected to find something in Claude, seeing how he was sick, it hadn't been quite the same as what they'd seen when they had scanned that other ill patient two nights ago. What did that mean? It was possible that the shape of it just looked different because of where it was in Claude's stomach, but Guy couldn't help but feel that there was a deeper meaning to it.

Yet another thing that he didn't understand, then. With a sigh, he got himself up out of bed and went searching immediately for the single leaf that he'd taken from the X-ray room last night. It was stored carefully in his possessions box, which meant that he didn't have to worry too much about that.

While he wanted to quickly sketch the leaf's general shape to post on the bulletin, Guy wasn't given that chance, as his nurse showed up before he could even grab for his journal. He had to relent and let her lead him to the cafeteria for breakfast. While Guy considered stopping by the bulletin to leave a note, that could wait until after he ate. He suspected that Anise or Luke would try to find him as soon as possible to tell him about their findings, so leaving a note for them would be redundant.

He did need to ask about the clue from last night and see if anyone else had further insight on it, but that might be something Claude wanted to do, seeing how he had a better idea of who that baptist was and what it all might signify.

After collecting a small amount of food onto a plate, Guy took a seat near the cafeteria's entrance, keeping an eye out for any of his friends so he could flag them down as they walked in.

[For Anise and Claude.]

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"Yes, you said," Gabriel agreed with a nod. "I'll definitely be keeping an eye out." He frowned a little. "What kind of influence did it have on you? Visions? Illusions? Dreams?" He followed Skulduggery's gaze downward to the sausage and then back up again, the question in his gaze.

That flickered and Gabe looked down again, pushing his partly-eaten sausage across his plate. "It did. And very, very carefully. One of my brother's friends is very skilled with a blade and another has a talent for healing, enough to close the wound afterward." Gabriel managed to smile, but it was a weak one. He'd seen a lot. He'd seen war, seen people bleed out on the battlefield, seen what wasn't left when angels died.

But watching Kratos cut into Castiel like that, knowing that all he could do was lend Castiel his own strength, was going to stay with Gabriel for a long, long time. "My job was keeping him calm and able during. We didn't have any appropriate anaesthetic."

"Auditory hallucinations," Skulduggery added to the list with a brief shake of his head. "Materials in the food that shouldn't be there. Hair, dead flesh, what have you. Of course, that wouldn't be a problem if... well," he managed a faint chuckle, "if I was used to eating in the first place." He didn't mind admitting it for now. It wasn't as if the knowledge could potentially be used against him.

An involuntary shudder ran through Skulduggery's obstinate body at Gabe's explanation. He'd seen a lot worse as well, of course, but something about suddenly and vividly being able to imagine the pain involved was not sitting very well with the former skeleton. "Well, if it worked, I'm sure he's grateful now," Skulduggery said. "Can you describe the butterfly?"

It was an odd question in such a serious situation. But if any part of Skulduggery recognized that, it wasn't sharing the information with his conscious mind just then.

Ah. That explained why Skulduggery kept looking at the sausage the way he was. "That would make it difficult to eat, yes," Gabriel agreed with a rueful smile. Though that did make him wonder just what Skulduggery had been, if he hadn't needed to eat. Even angels, though they didn't need to eat, did. Then again, Gabriel had found it odd yesterday too. "But you should," he added. "You're going to need as much strength as Landel is willing to offer you."

Then the Archangel paused, looking seriously into Skulduggery's eyes. "I can do better," he said quietly after a moment, and reached for the napkin and the pen clipped to the front of his shirt. (As he pulled it off, it raised his T-shirt a bit--enough to see the cord of Skulduggery's rosary under the collar. Rachel had objected to his having it around his wrist; something about getting it tangled in things and getting in the way.) He wasn't nearly as good an artist as some of his siblings, but his skill would more than suffice. With painstaking patience to keep the napkin from tearing, Gabe sketched the butterfly, side-on so as to show the wing. "Why?" he asked. "Is there some relevance to the shape?"

Skulduggery couldn't argue with that. He hadn't been nearly as graceful as usual last night, even taking into account that he wasn't in complete control of his body just yet; hunger was weakening him too much. At the very least, Skulduggery knew he needed to drink something. Now it was just a matter of the detective being impractically stubborn, and that never led to good places, hypocritical or otherwise.

Skulduggery sighed. "Yes, I should. Would you mind explaining how to swallow?" Two people had tried by that point and neither of them had been particularly helpful - not that Skulduggery could blame them. It would be like trying to explain how a skeleton felt pain. "I realize it's fairly straightforward, but anything would help. Anything apart from 'it just happens.' That's becoming quite wearisome."

He saw the rosary in the brief second of the pen being pulled off the shirt, but he didn't comment on it just yet. His attention was taken up with watching the man draw, but the resulting butterfly shape - nice and detailed, fortunately - wasn't ringing any bells. "You never know," Skulduggery murmured as he picked up the napkin to examine it. "Landel could be taking all of his technology from other realities. Someone here might recognize it."

After another few moments, Skulduggery folded up the napkin and put it in his pocket, looking back up at Gabe. "Now then. You're not religious, but you make and use rosaries like only the most devout I've ever met, and you believe in God. You look very young, but you don't speak or act your age. If I wasn't a very good detective, I would say you're hiding something." A good detective didn't need to say what they knew to be fact.

"Maybe I am acting my age and I just don't look it," Gabriel suggested with a trace if impishness. It was the truth, but it also implied enough for Skulduggery to draw his own conclusions. Gabe didn't want to have to lie if he could help it. (Michael was so much better at this.)

That didn't mean the Archangel wasn't going to take the opportunity to change the subject--sort of, at least, given that the other topic revolved around Skulduggery's not being precisely human. Gabriel nodded to himself for a moment, turning that problem over, and then finally stood and pulled his chair around to the other side of the table, next to Skulduggery's.

"It's a rather strange muscle reflex," he said. "It might be easier if you tried not to think about it, and let your instincts take over. But here--feel me swallow, okay? It might help if you knew what you were trying to do. If I may ...?" He touched Skulduggery's hand, looking up at Skul with all the earnestness of someone who wanted nothing more than to help.

That possibility was certainly where Skulduggery had been heading with his train of thought. The problem was, any sorcerer from his world who'd lived even a little longer than the average human didn't really believe in God. It was just absurd to imagine from the viewpoint of someone who might be considered a god themselves by said average human. Skulduggery had never really cared one way or the other, but given that the Faceless Ones' existence was more or less a fact now, he was leaning towards atheism himself.

Gabe clearly wasn't interested in talking about it, so Skulduggery let it slide for the moment. All that was clear right now was that they came from different realities, anyway.

There was a wry smile in Skulduggery's tone as Gabe joined him on the other side of the table. "My instincts are a little rusty," he commented. A few centuries could do that to a person. "But please do." It would have been difficult to say no to a face like that even if Skulduggery hadn't needed the demonstration.

That made Gabriel want to ask, very badly, just what Skulduggery had been if his physical instincts were so forgotten. He had obviously been human, but wasn't any longer. So what could he have turned into? With alternate realities, it could have been a great many things more than Gabriel might have considered.

But asking ran the risk of drawing attention back to the fact that Gabe wasn't human either, and Skulduggery might have asked in return--a question Gabe wasn't willing (or able) to answer directly.

So Gabe only smiled instead and took Skulduggery's hand, raising it to his own throat. He watched the other man's face as he swallowed, a few times and with decent timing in-between to give Skulduggery a chance to compare each one.

Edited 2012-09-17 01:41 (UTC)

The first thing the former skeleton noticed was that even though swallowing was supposed to be an activity that forced food down, something in Gabe's throat was bobbing up. The Adam's Apple, presumably. It wasn't helping. The second thing he noticed was that each time Gabe swallowed, his breathing momentarily stopped. That, Skulduggery chided himself, should have been obvious; but something about the realization clicked. It almost shone through on his face, causing his eyes to widen slightly.

The whole process was an automatic reflex, but initiating it was what had been causing trouble. Skulduggery just needed to stop thinking in terms of operating a mannequin - as he did his skeleton - and let natural brain functions take over. 'Instincts,' as Gabe said. Skulduggery no longer knew every nook and cranny of his body, and right now, maybe that was for the best.

With that in mind, Skulduggery took his hand back and returned his attention to his plate. Cutting off a piece of sausage was the simple part now, especially after working with so many fiddly bits of string the day before. He hesitated with the fork just outside his mouth, giving it a look as if he was silently threatening it, before he tried eating it.

He didn't swallow immediately; first, the detective tried to pick out any unfamiliar taste or texture. That was difficult, considering any taste would probably be unfamiliar. But even after a few moments, Skulduggery was still swirling the food around with his tongue. The taste had finally hit him, and... Skulduggery didn't mind taking a moment to savor it. He'd missed this, he realized with a small jolt. Even after all this time, he still remembered the taste of sausage.

After that, swallowing was laughably easy.

The light of realisation in Skulduggery's eyes was so bright as to make Gabriel beam back at him. He let Skulduggery take back his hand, and to keep the man from feeling as though he was under a spotlight the Archangel pulled his plate over to resume his own meal. Suddenly, he felt hungrier than he had been.

Quite happily Gabriel dug into his breakfast, keeping an eye on Skulduggery just in case the man had any trouble. But apparently the demonstration had helped, because Skul didn't at just one experimental bite. Gabriel grinned at him. "Better?"

It was obvious the man had been having trouble, and now he wasn't. Gabe had felt satisfaction in a job well done, and pride in a student learning well, but neither had before left that warm glow in his stomach before. They were nice feelings, in a human body.

"Yes." There was still a modicum of surprise in his tone, but Skulduggery was already trying a sip of water now. It was harder than swallowing food - mostly because he'd worked out a pattern of biting and chewing beforehand - but at least now he knew how to avoid that painful coughing fit from before. Skulduggery had also forgotten just how bland and tasteless the clear liquid was, and that didn't help.

He did notice how the water almost instantly began soothing the inside of his throat, though. Almost like one of Professor Grouse's healing touches, when the sorcerer felt like admitting to Skulduggery that reducing his pain was possible. The detective had no idea how parched he'd been until that moment; but then, he hadn't had a single sip for two days now. It was another thing he really should have realized, but at least he was making progress.

He swallowed down another small sip, fervently hoping that anything unexpected in the food was a thing of the past. "Thank you."

It wasn't until Skulduggery reached for his glass that Gabe realised that if the man hadn't been able to swallow, he might not have been drinking. The Archangel had seen dehydrated people before--when better to guard someone than when they're alone, in danger, needing guidance to a rescue team?--so even though he had no first-hand experience, he did know that drinking too fast was a bad idea.

So he kept a close eye on the man, worried for a moment, and then relaxed when it became clear Skulduggery wasn't about to start gulping the water down uncontrollably.

"You're quite welcome," Gabe said cheerfully. "Just don't drink too fast, okay? If you haven't been able to take much water it's not going to be good for you to have too much all at once.

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Day 66: Breakfast

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