He watched them as they talked amoung themselves, about how rhis was unfair, or that sucked, or if they wanted this treatment they wouldve stayed home, and other small comments about how much they hated the lab. Or the doctors. They got an hour or so before lights out and most of them were trusted with a common room, that only had a sofa in there, that connected to "sleeping chambers", as Wilcox called them. It was like he wanted to give the kids fuels for jokes he was a robot, or alien. Frankly, Nathaniel even found some of them funny, Virgil did a really good impression of the doctor. Even Sam laughed.
As the group would wind down for the night, most of them renoved their jumpsuits, Nathanial stayed in his since he had nothing else to wear and Star wasn't eager on giving him anything else. They were lucky enough they got to soicalize and have twenty minutes for lunch. In fact the larger joke was that most of the lab was somehow unhuman, just because of how much they seemed to not understand about teenagers otside of being smaller adults.
Nathaniel, still barely a teenager himself, watched the younger ones during this time. Mostly he just listened, like Sam, but her reasons where because she had little idea what was being said in English.
"If I wanted to be worked so hard. I could've stayed home," was Ty's main complaint tonight.
"So you keep saying, man. Feels like gym class times a thousand today. I think he's pushing us harder on purpose."
"It's not so bad..." three words and Nathaniel had all eyes on him from his spot on the end of the sofa. "I mean, it's just pain that gose with working out. It's not like any thing really hurts...right? Unless you pull something?"
And all eyes turned away again, annoyed at his stance on the subject. Shunning him for not agreeing with them. But then they'd still all sit together during food breaks, and thjs hour before lights out, after showering. Nathaniel hadn't felt so welcome and warm in a while.
After a few moments of silence, Virgil spoke next. "...I guess it could be worse..."
But their agreement wavered and slowed with each day.