Buck didn’t have terribly long to wait. Aniella seemed a little overwhelmed by her breakfast and the Cafeteria, and struggled to eat thanks to both her disfigured mouth and her powerful urge to hide it. She only had the toast and water she’d requested, then looked helplessly at the Roman.
The little vampire moved fluidly off the wall and guided his Ragdoll through the process of returning her tray. He led her out of the Cafeteria and went through the motions of her tour. First, the Gymnasium complex… then the Rec Room, the Music Room, the Great Hall, and finally, the Library. Through it all the girl was basically mute. She didn’t ask the Nurse any questions, responding with a simple ‘yes, sir,’ when asked if she understood the rules of each room and of the place in general. Or, in the instances where he asked if she had any questions, a simple ‘no.’
It was frustrating for the ancient man: he couldn’t decide if he’d frightened Aniella with his grim comments earlier, if the stress of all the men in her new home (himself included) was too much for her, or if the pain of her stitched-together skin was becoming too great. He kept his comments brief and sort of rushed through in a few places.
Once the tour was complete, Buck turned to his patient.
“Well, Aniella, that’s everything I need to show you. For the rest of the day, you’re free to wander the patient areas and explore as you please. Or, if you prefer, I can show you back to your room… and I think you might need some medication as well.”
This girl could not look at his face. Her dark eyes never got higher than the spot below his left collarbone where his name and rank were stitched in gold against the black fabric.
“My room, please…” she began, and hesitated for a moment before saying more softly, “…and the medicine.”
“Very well,” the Head Nurse replied, inclining his head… even though she didn’t see the gesture.
Buck led Aniella up the stairs near the Library, and stopped at the Nurse’s Station conveniently located just outside the stairwell. There he found Cadence waiting, demanding a dose of her own.
“I didn’t get my RD this morning,” she told him from the other side of the counter in her familiar ghost of a voice. “I got pain medicine instead… but I think I need the RD more.”
There was something in her one unbandaged eye, and her manner of standing, that made Buck stop and contemplate her. It had been five months since her last incident with one of the Institute’s males, and her blindness that morning could have been the beginning of a new trend. He made another mental Post-It note that Cadence should always be kept as far away from Dante as possible. For someone who claimed to be avoidant of attractive men, Cadie certainly was hyper-aware of them.
“All right, Cadence, let me check what you were given this morning, and I’ll see what I can do for you.” He turned returned his attention to Aniella and switched back to Italian. “One moment, please. It appears I have two patients in need of chemicals.”
On the touch-screen mounted to the counter in the Station, Buck keyed in his passcode and tapped his way to the Mutant’s file. (Really, what sort of species was Mutant, anyway? Everyone in Osmond’s was a mutant, somehow. He generally referred to her as a MetaHuman.) She’d had a generous dose of an exceptionally powerful painkiller, something called Zydrate from an Earth far different than his own. The good thing about Zydrate was that it didn’t act as a respiratory or CNS depressant, so Cadie could have safely received her morning sedative along with the narcotic. The other staff had simply withheld it to mess with the telekinetic’s head… a dangerous game, at best.
Cadie would get a half-dose of her usual sedative; she just needed a little relaxant to sustain her until a full dose this evening. It was something the Institute called reglocondiazipine, or RD. It had a strong calming and disconnecting effect without the lazy, dreamy sensation of standard human benzos. The Zydrate should still have been making her feel a little loopy… unless…
“Cadie?” the vampire asked, pausing with the tip of her needle pressed against the vial of sedative, “Did the pain medicine from earlier make you feel anxious or itchy at all?”
“No,” she said softly. “Very dizzy… kind of…loose? It’s hard to describe.”
Buck nodded, and continued with his predetermined course. It wasn’t an adverse reaction to the Zydrate making Cadence edgy. It was probably Dante… or possibly Jaxillian. The Raven-Man had been awfully chummy with the MetaHuman lately. The Head Nurse had been surprised Cadence had tolerated that closeness so well for so long. Perhaps it was a combination of the two rather than just one or the other; old stressors and new.
For Aniella, Buck rapidly procured a dose of something that was basically undead morphine. It would make her groggy as well as numb. Sweet sleep for a sweet, shy girl.
“Aniella,” the vampire said in Italian when he’d finished getting the two girls’ medicine out of the cabinet, “I’ll give yours to you first. Please follow me.”
Then, in English to the Meta, “Aniella is new and she’ll get her medicine first. If you’ll go to your room, I’ll be along with your dose shortly.”
Cadence did what Buck instructed, as did Aniella. It was always a good day when he got to deal mostly with delicate little women who obeyed him so nicely. And he’d had an excuse to smack the shit out of Greg! His spirits were high as he instructed Aniella to sit on her bed: the pain medicine she’d be getting wasn’t clean like Zydrate and he didn’t want her falling over when the wave broke. He’d almost been smiling as he’d slipped on thin rubber gloves, asking the Ragdoll to excuse his touch as he cupped her elbow to steady her arm for the shot.
That all changed as he attempted to push the needle into her vein. The loose, sewn-on skin actually slipped out of place and resulted in his stab going into muscle rather than vein.
It was the first time he’d ever missed.
“My apologies, Aniella,” he said, rather surprised and very faintly disgusted. “I won’t make that mistake twice.”
True to his word, Buck hit her vein easily on the second attempt. Any pain he’d caused with the errant needle prick should have been erased by the chemicals he delivered into her bloodstream. He watched the girl sigh, relax, saw her lids begin to droop.
“Thank you, Nurse Buck,” the Ragdoll breathed through her medicated haze.
“Your gratitude makes me uncomfortable,” the vampire replied as he re-capped her needle and stripped the latex gloves from his hands. “I am only doing my job… although speaking Italian again almost does make it a pleasure.”
Buck paused and gazed at the young Ragdoll for a few heartbeats. If she’d been able to look him in the face he probably would have graced her with a small smile. But she couldn’t, so he didn’t, and the moment passed.
“You will probably sleep for a while now. When you wake, come to the Cafeteria for dinner. If I do not see you there by seven, I will come to fetch you.”
Without another word, the vampire rose and exited Aniella’s room. He stopped at the Central Station to get another set of gauze pad and bandage for Cadence’s eye, as well as a half-dose of Zydrate. The Head Nurse had something he wanted to check.
So turn around, walk away,
Before you confuse the way we abuse each other,
If you're not afraid of getting hurt,
Then I'm not afraid of how much I hurt you.
Cadie didn’t see who else left the Cafeteria, or when. She really wouldn’t have really cared even if she could have watched. The pain medicine still had her feeling woozy and weak. Though she’d eaten what felt like enough food to sustain a small village for that day, her stomach was already rumbling with hunger and she grabbed another chocolate muffin to nibble as she shuffled down the hallway with her arm tucked in Jax’s.
The stress of being blind, hurt, and in physical contact with a being she tried to think of as nothing more than an ally was really starting to wear on the Mutant. She felt prickly, cranky, and anxious. It suddenly occurred to her that she hadn’t had her sedative and probably needed it.
“Jax,” she said in her usual whisper, “we need to check the Stations for nurses. I need my RD.”
The Raven cocked his head and turned one round, dark eye critically down at his telekinetic cohort. It was as if he suddenly realized that he’d shifted her hand to rest on the back of his and covered it with his other one, pinning her arm against the side of his ribcage. He loosened his grip and made the space between them a little bigger, shifting his arm so her hand was on the metal of his wrist restraint instead of against his skin.
“Thank you,” Cadie said softly, sighing a little in relief. Though he instinctively knew what was bothering her, his exact thoughts were generally a mystery to the young woman as he could not articulate them. It wasn’t the first time she’d contemplated asking Nurse Buck for one of the translators the nurses occasionally wore: if she could get her hands on one, Jax could talk in his own squaking Raven-speak and she’d be able to understand him.
The wish, in and of itself, made Cadence nervous all over again. She took a few deep, calming breaths and forced herself to concentrate on climbing the stairs in the darkness. After the first time she made a misstep and nearly fell, she took her hand away from Jax and had him hover near her as she navigated with a two-handed grasp on the railing. At the top of the stairs he opened the door for her, and made to take her arm again as they exited into the main hallway. Mercifilly, one of the nurses was standing at the Station by the top of the stairs.
“Jax,” he said with a slow smile. “Just the birdbrain I wanted to see. It’s time for your therapy session!”
Cadie couldn’t see, but she would have sworn she felt her companion stiffen at her elbow. She heard him sigh, and then he released his grasp on her forearm. She resisted the urge to sigh in relief, and allowed him to place her palm on the counter instead.
“Wait!” she said with as much loudness as she could muster. “I need my RD before you take him downstairs.”
She licked her cracked lips and took a step forward, feeling along the counter. Cadie heard the nurse huff and then move. The faint tapping noise told her that he was checking her medication administration record in the computer system.
“You had pain medicine three and a half hours ago. You can’t have any RD yet… sorry about your luck.”
He wasn’t sorry about her luck, he was glad he didn’t have to go to the trouble of drawing up a shot for her. The young woman didn’t need to see it on his face… she could hear it in his voice.
“Come on, Jax,” he said. “Don’t fight me this time.”
“But, wait,” Cadence whispered insistently. “Let him show me to my room before you take him. I’m blind today.”
The nurse gave a small, derisive chuckle. “Well that just sucks for you, Cadence. Jax is already late… if he doesn’t come along quietly, and right now, he’s going to get hurt.”
She heard the two males begin to move away from her, and when the Raven croaked, “See. You,” Cadie felt a painful tightness in her chest. She did her level best not to get attached to Jax but she needed him today… and the thought of him in pain always made her feel bad.
“I’ll come get you for dinner, just stay in your room when you get done,” the girl called as loudly as she could manage. “Remember I’m safe up here!”
Jax squawked once in reply, and the door to the stairwell clanged shut. Cadence was alone with the quiet and the hope that her helper would survive another brutal treatment. Again the tears began to well in Cadie’s eyes, and again they stung in the wound on her left lid. She took a deep breath and forced herself to move.
Her bony fingers felt their way along the counter to its end and then followed it around to the inside. She moved slowly, carefully, and eventually found her way to the chair that she knew would be situated in the little cutout desk. She pulled it out to the center of the Station and took a seat. Then Cadie closed her eye -even though she couldn’t see anything, it had been open- and began to spin.
Although it was amusing, this wasn’t just for fun. Cadie had learned long ago that this was an effective way to cure an episode of blindness. Round and round she went, until she was really dizzy, then came to a sudden stop and snapped her eye open. Sure enough, in an effort to help negate her vertigo, the vision had returned.
Sighted again, Cadie was suddenly too nervous to go walking about in search of another nurse: she might bump into Blondie, and the others wouldn’t give her any RD right now, anyway. She decided to wait in the Station, sitting in the chair with her back facing the hallway, until someone showed up to medicate her. She was in luck: Buck appeared with Ponytail Girl almost exactly half an hour later.
Cadie did as the Head Nurse instructed: she returned to her room to wait her turn. Buck was easy for her to deal with, for several reasons. He didn’t feel at all human. His skin was pale and hard and cool as marble. His voice was somehow melodic and soothing, almost hypnotic. He wasn’t entirely unattractive but often had an air of reserved arrogance that Cadie found off-putting. She’d also seen him do some pretty brutal shit to some of her fellow patients: the sight of him with his shirt shredded, the bright red of open wounds in garish contrast to his moonlight flesh, fangs bared at psychotic werewolf he was attempting to subdue was burned into her memory.
He was also very quick about… everything. Five whole minutes hadn’t passed before the vampire nurse showed up at her door, fresh bandages and full syringes in hand.
“All right, Cadence. I brought your medicine, but I’d also like to check on your wound.”
She was seated on her bed, and Buck dragged the small chair in her room over to the side of it so he could relax without getting too friendly. Always with her he was mindful of his physical presence: he didn’t touch her unless it was strictly necessary for treatment. Cadence assumed it was simply his high level of professionalism. The truth was that Buck loathed touching humans he didn’t intend to eat. It was rather like playing with raw pork. He put on a new pair of latex gloves.
“That’s fine,” the girl agreed in her usual muted tones.
Buck nodded and began to unwrap the MetaHuman’s gauze halo. He couldn’t help noticing how fine and dull her hair was, though it was exceptionally soft. She sat very still, her one good eye closed to help her escape the nearness of his presence. Although he was a vampire, cold and strange, his nimble fingers were awfully close to her face.
And then it was over, the gauze pad stained with Cadence’s own blood fluttering like a sad leaf down into her lap. Buck could smell it distinctly. Even though he wasn’t hungry the ancient vampire couldn’t help the small ache he felt in the top of his mouth. He could, however, push his natural impulse aside. The stitched bottom lid hadn’t healed at all, which filled the Roman with a sense of dread. The woman’s Meta nature dictated that she should have healed this wound halfway already. That she hadn’t could mean only that her body’s energy reserves were totally depleted despite the girl’s efforts to eat inhuman amounts of food.
He repressed a sigh as he reached for the numbing/antiseptic spray he’d brought with him. Cadie couldn’t read the petite nurse’s face unless he wanted her to, so she didn’t know if he disliked what he’d seen.
“Is it bad?” she mustered the courage to ask.
“Not especially,” Buck replied. “What worries me is that it hasn’t even started to heal yet.”
Cadence pressed her lips into a thin line. She knew what that meant just as well as her Nurse did. She was starving, energy reserves at zero. The Mutant didn’t need to be told; the empty feeling in the bottom of her stomach and the diffuse pain throughout her body clued her in to what was happening. Cadie looked up into Buck’s face, searching for a way out other than the one she knew was coming.
“They weren’t going to tell you, because they were worried you’d have an episode, but you’re getting a button installed tonight,” he said, in a rather regretful tone.
‘Button’ was clinical slang for a feeding tube, which would be installed just under her ribcage and wind its way directly into her stomach. In response, Cadie held out her arm, exposing the inside of her elbow… bruised and lumpy from a year’s worth of deliberately rough injections. Buck almost winced for her: if she’d been his patient out in Orrace, he’d have ordered ultrasound therapy to help soften those scars.
“RD. Now.”
Buck could hear the stress in her voice. She hadn’t whispered, she’d growled, and didn’t lick her lips because her teeth were gritted. With obliging rapidity he uncapped one of the two syringes in his hand. Cadie couldn’t be bothered to find his icy touch offensive on the back of her bicep as he steadied her arm with one hand. She loved getting injections from Buck because he was the gentlest and most precise with his needlework. He also didn’t force the medicine in, but pushed it gently over a few long moments. Though the Roman had only planned to give the Meta half a dose of the RD, he’d drawn up a full one and upon seeing her reaction to the feeding tube news, he generously gave her all of it.
Just like the Ragdoll had done, the MetaHuman sighed and relaxed as the medicine spread through her arm to her heart, and from there to her gifted brain and the rest of her body. She instantly felt more nonchalant about the whole feeding-tube business.
“It won’t be so bad, Cadence.” Buck reassured her as he reclaimed the bottle of antiseptic. She didn’t flinch or even really seem to notice as he slid a finger under her chin to steady her head, which had suddenly become slightly wobbly. “This is antiseptic and numbing medicine. It should feel nice, but it might sting a little at first.”
“Mmhmm,” the girl murmured with a small, soft smile. The RD they gave her here in the Institute really did work better than anything else she’d ever been given on Earth. It didn’t just make her too inebriated to think coherently. It actually seemed to remove her ability to care about what was happening around her. Buck’s digits under her chin to tilt back and steady her head should have made her distinctly uncomfortable, but she just closed her good eye and waited for the stinging spray.
It didn’t sting at all: it felt cool, soft, soothing. The hot ball of pain turned into a low smolder, fire dampened by rain, and her cracked lips parted to issue a deep sigh of relief.
“Feel nice?” the vampire asked, mildly amused, and was rewarded with another dreamy smile and a soft ‘mmhmm’ from the back of the girl’s throat.
Buck rewarded Cadence with a few more spritzes before he released her, and the girl made a sound that put him very much in mind of a purring cat. Thanks to both the RD and the ICD, Cadence didn’t even bother to try restraining her inappropriately happy responses to the lidocaine on her battered lid.
She sat quietly, eyes still closed as Buck replaced the thick pad over her left one and wound the gauze in place around her head again. He tied it off and sat back, reclaiming the two syringes.
“Now, since you seem to enjoy the lidocaine spray so much, I’ll give you a little more of the painkiller. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”
Cadie opened her mouth to protest, but Buck was so fast that his needle was in her vein before the sound took any discernible shape. The Zydrate traveled like a freight train through her slender form, and she thought that if a drug overdose was how she died, it would be a pleasant way to go. But the painkiller was clean and crisp: she was numb without being overly woozy. Still, she suddenly felt as if she could get some very deep, very restful sleep… if she just laid her head down on her pillow…
Buck seemed to sense the change in the girl. It was as if she’d completely forgotten about the feeding tube and wanted only to nap before lunch. They never had to worry about Cadie missing a meal: in no more than two hours, her stomach would wake her and demand that she attempt to fill it. He gathered the wrapping from the new gauze pad, the bloody used one, the old gauze and the used syringes before rising. As the vampire turned to grab the chair and drag it back to its place at Cadie’s vanity/desk, he felt the faint pressure of her painfully thin digits on his wrist. He froze. She’d never willingly touched his skin before.
Cadie was only dimly aware of what she was doing. She felt half-drunk, half-stoned and completely uninhibited. The Mutant was not herself, and that was the best excuse she could make for crossing that invisible line in such a bold manner. She was both fascinated and repulsed by the vampire nurse’s stony flesh. Her one green eye looked up into his face, searching for his golden gaze beneath the shadows of his tousled bangs. When their eyes met, Cadie found herself surprisingly unafraid: there was a strange and unearthly beauty to that shifting stare, and none of the menace she'd expected. Buck found only mild surprise: the Meta had already been a year in this place, and wouldn't have survived so long if she didn't possess some significant intestinal fortitude.
“Buck,” she said in a voice with more strength than the one she usually used, though her words were faintly slurred, “I know you don’t like it when we thank you, or say you’re kind… I get it, because you’re not always kind… sometimes you can’t be. I’ve seen you do some very unkind things. But when you want to… you can be gentle, and kind. So thank you for being kind to me today. I needed it.”
Cadie dropped her eyes and released his wrist, her voice growing quieter as she continued. “I won’t be mad about the feeding tube… if it makes me fat and strong.”
The Roman was put off-kilter by his patient’s sudden sincerity. He’d been caring for Cadie less than a year, and because of her aversions and his gender she’d never treated him with any sort of familiarity. Though she smelled and acted like a human, Cadence was something else. She was Meta; different, an addition, something alongside humanity. Despite her serious illness, she seemed to have that steel survivor’s core… it was only difficult to see because of her meek demeanor and waifish stature.
The Meta was a stark contrast to the ailing Ragdoll. Cadence just might survive this place, if she could ever get a handle on her out-of-control powers. Aniella, on the other hand, would be lucky to live out the next month. He smiled a very small smile at the ash-blonde, and replied with something like familiarity.
“We couldn’t make you fat if we tried, young lady. But strong is most definitely the point of the procedure. Now get some rest.”
Cadie nodded, burrowing down into the bed as the Head Nurse finally returned the chair to its place. He didn’t say anything else before leaving the room. He didn’t need to: the Meta was already breathing the slow rhythm of sleep.
The change in the light filtering through her window told Cadie she’d only slept a couple hours, but she felt incredibly rested. Chemicals still pulsed through her veins making her numb and loose in all places but one: her cramping, hollow stomach. She flung back her covers and forced herself upright. On top of being heavily medicated, she was lightheaded and weak with hunger. Each step was a struggle, both hands on the wall for balance, but she made it to the elevator. Strength, the vampire had promised her strength. Soon… but not now. Now she had to make it to the Cafeteria, and feed the gaping black hole in her face.
Progress was slow, but the girl gained the elevator. She nearly fell over when it started to drop, but regained her balance before it stopped and the doors slid open. Though it seemed like a short enough walk from the elevator to the Cafeteria, the girl had to fight for each inch. By the time she reached the doors she was shaky, sweaty and scared. Cadie didn’t know if she had it in her to actually get the food she’d need to live.
The door weighed a ton, and she barely got it open. The ash-blonde waif staggered to Darlene’s desk and albeit collapsed into the chair next to it.
“Darlene,” she whispered between panting breaths, “I’ve never asked you for anything, but today I sincerely need help getting food.”
The heavyset nurse raised an eyebrow and leaned forward. “We’re going to put a tube in you, you know. Lookit you, you’re literally about to starve to death.”
Cadence nodded, silently thanking Nurse Buck for leaking that little tidbit to her earlier. “It’s okay, as long as it makes me stronger… better. But unless you want to do it right now, I need a sandwich like nobody has ever needed a sandwich before.”
Darlene chuckled, and then grew serious. She clearly hadn’t expected the telekinetic to be so reasonable about the feeding tube. And then she shrugged, smiling faintly, as if to say ‘why not’.
“All right, Cadence. If you’re not going to fight us over the feeding tube, for now I’ll have one of the other nurses bring you a meal. I’ll help you to your table.”
Cadence nodded and began readying herself to rise, but Darlene held out a hand. “Wait.”
She opened the cabinet in the wall beside her desk -without getting up from her chair- and revealed a tiny fridge. From inside the hefty brunette retrieved a can of Sprite, a bottle of vanilla Ensure and a bottle of Pedialyte. She set them down in front of Cadie before reaching into a desk drawer and producing a Snickers bar and a pack of graham crackers.
“First, Pedialyte. Then the Ensure and the snacks. Then Sprite. Your food should be ready by then.” She turned her head to yell over Cadie’s shoulder. “Mike! C’mere!”
The mutant sipped her Pedialyte doggedly as Darlene rattled off a ridiculous list of high-fat, high-protein food for the nothing of a girl. Mike glanced at Cadence incredulously after Darlene had finished her long list, but nodded once and vanished into the kitchen. The orange drink disappeared and she ripped open the Sinckers bar with her teeth. It was so good, chocolatey and gooey, chased down with the thick vanilla protein shake. Cadie could almost feel the sugar entering her bloodstream. By the time she finished the last sips of her Sprite, she felt strong enough to make it to the nearest table… and Nurse Mike was bringing out her lunch. The first course was two thick slices of meatloaf smothered in mushroom gravy, huge servings of cream cheese and chive mashed potatoes, collard greens and black-eyed peas, a big slice of cornbread warm enough to melt its generous slather of butter, two yeast rolls and large glasses of both milk and sweet tea.
Cadence looked up at the two nurses, her one open eye wide and full of gratitude when she whispered, “Thank you.”
Then she set to methodically destroying her meal. Her focus was complete, almost Zen… the young mutant could have been in a professional eating contest. Both Darlene and Mike seemed rather astonished at the speed with which her first round disappeared, but the older woman gave the younger man a sage nod. Cadie’s second course was an amazing sub sandwich: pepperoni and salami, mozzarella cheese, Roma tomatoes, spinach, Kalamata olives, a little basil and a generous slather of mayo on both sides of the warm, crispy French bread. To drink there was a raspberry fizz -heavy on the syrup but without caffeine- and a big glass of ice water with lemon.
Halfway through inhaling her sub, Cadie looked up and realized someone had taken a seat at the table next to hers. The girl had hair a few shades lighter than the Mutant’s own: actual white to Cadie’s slivery-blonde. From the short distance she could also see that the other woman’s eyes were bloodred… and the other female had a distinctly sick and miserable look on her face.
Cadence was not normally the outgoing type, and wasn’t known to introduce herself to new patients… but the new girl who’d just come in seemed like she might need some assistance, and she was without a trailing nurse. The Mutant took a deep breath and spoke as loudly as she could force herself. (It was probably just loud enough for Simone to hear her over the din of the Cafeteria.)
“Excuse me, miss? I don’t mean to bother you, but do you need some help?”
