A/N: I was just telling myself that I was glad I had this story set to a pretty firm schedule- and then the holidays came up and it got pushed back. And then I got sick and it got pushed back again. But I'm back now and feeling better and hopefully I can pick things back up soon enough.
There was a split second where, in watching as the events unfolded in front of him, Joseph questioned what exact odds were against them in this moment.
And then he remembered where they were.
He remembered what kind of fucked up reality they were in.
And he remembered that all the odds were stacked against them in here.
"Joseph!"
There was hardly any space between him and the door.
So there was hardly any time in between seeing the first Haunted charge him and feeling the damn thing ram itself against him. There was hardly any time to think about running, let alone actually doing so.
The momentum from the tackling blow was enough to knock him away from the half-disarmed bomb.
And as Joseph suspected, the moment his weight was released from the pressure component, the whole thing went off as a hair trigger.
Everything happened so fast.
All in a matter of seconds- maybe even less.
Joseph felt the rush of heat first before he ever heard the rupturing sound of the explosive blowing itself to all Hell- and taking everyone in the room with it. In such a tight space, the explosion was loud and given his closer proximity to it, it was even louder; it filled his ears with a disorientating white noise and filled his head with a high-pitch ring that overwhelmed his senses.
It didn't really take much for the force of the explosion to catapult every body, every piece of furniture, any loose objects into all directions.
He couldn't say with honesty just what exactly he hit during that time, whether it be discarded furniture, old boxes, or a mix of both.
But Joseph felt his momentum break against one of the walls of the room and felt the sharp resulting pain flood every receptor in his brain.
He must've blacked out for a few seconds because he felt himself eventually come to; he was barely functional and mostly disoriented when he did.
The first thing he tried to do was breathe, trying to recover from the debilitating hit to his lungs, but Joseph mostly inhaled the rancid scent of sulfur and burnt flesh, which only caused him to choke instead. When he tried to move, to try and get a better breath of air, he felt a heavy weight sitting on top of him, keeping him pinned down. Hands moved to the weighted source and pushed back on it, immediately realizing that it was the body of one of the Haunted; which was more than likely also the source of the suffocating smell.
More than a little desperate to get away from the burnt smell of already rotting skin, Joseph shoved the corpse aside and untangled himself from the mutilated body. At this point, it wasn't just the fresh air that he wanted, but he didn't want any of the creature's blood on him either. He had gotten splattered enough by Haunted blood and the smell alone couldn't be washed out of his senses.
The sharp pain in his left arm was pushed off to be taken care of later as he worked himself out from the resulting debris pile around him.
There wasn't too much thankfully, just the battered remains of a dressing wall, the coffee table from before, and a few destroyed boxes. And he just needed to move enough to relieve the pressure of something digging into his already pained back.
Joseph groaned softly as his first attempt to move only brought up that same sharp pain in his back and now the evident stiffness across his shoulder-blades. There was a continuous pounding in his head and a sharp pain in his left ear; a possible eardrum rupture given his run of luck around here. A second and third attempt to move ended up more successful as he distanced himself further away from the Haunted's carcass.
A brief look over of the body revealed that the Haunted had taken a majority of the blow from the explosion, or at least a majority of the shrapnel. Most of the creature's back had been blown off, exposing a mess of now broken ribs that seemingly floated in a soup of stringy muscles and burnt tendons.
There had been no way of stopping the Haunted from grabbing him.
And there had been no way of stopping the bomb from exploding either.
And yet somehow, he managed to take out two birds with one stone.
Not exactly the best plan but given the limited situation and his lack of full control in the moment, at least he was still alive.
Which oddly enough was something that his body was not happy about at the moment.
"Kidman, you alright?" Joseph called, just barely hearing his own voice through the white noise in his ears. He slowly moved one hand to his left ear and felt the slickness against his glove, bringing his attention to the warm sensation trickling down his cheek. He wasn't surprised to find blood when he pulled his fingers away; hell, he had already called it, but he guessed some part of him had been holding on to blind luck.
Which meant that even if Kidman responded to him, there was little chance that he would actually hear her.
Looking at the blood on his fingertips now, Joseph took note of something sticking out from his left palm. There was a moment of questioning before he slowly turned his hand to the side and watched as the object turned into the shape of a nail. It still took a few more seconds before the realization of it managed to break through the ringing in his head.
The Haunted hadn't taken all of the shrapnel after all.
Which meant there was a good chance this wasn't the only nail in his arm.
He had just barely managed to bring his left arm in when the Haunted tackled into him- just barely saving it from getting caught in the point-blank explosion. But given the nail in his palm and the now throbbing pain that was crippling his forearm, Joseph was beginning to realize that that wasn't the case. And with a sense of reluctance, he brought his left arm forward to place an injury to the pain.
The top of his forearm, from the back of his hand to the cuff of his sleeve, was corroded and burnt; the flayed skin just barely hanging on, still alive.
The explosion had been a quick burst of heat, but he had been close enough to have it essentially blow the top layer of skin off of his arm- leaving the layers underneath exposed and equally red and pink. It was both painful and numb in two combining sensations, with the pain stirring up every time the heat of the burn kicked in. There was very little blood, which was good and bad; he didn't have to worry about additional blood loss, but the risk of infection was all too present.
It wasn't exactly the greatest injury to have here, but as far as he could tell, his left arm hadn't been completely blown off in the explosion- which technically it should've been.
He couldn't curl his fingers into his palm without sharp pain from the nail, but for the most part he could still move them and his wrist.
So far, so good with still having a functional arm.
But when he carefully turned his arm to get a better angle on the burn, Joseph realized that things didn't exactly stop there. Along with the nail punctured through his palm, he had several more impaled down the length of his forearm.
Two more nails were sticking clean through as well, with the head on one side of his arm and the pointed end sticking out the other. They were both further down his forearm, which meant that they had luckily missed hitting and/or piercing the artery in his wrist.
There was another nail that had managed to pierce through just a portion of skin, sitting under a few layers rather than going clean through flesh and muscle. That one was bleeding fairly profusely, spilling thick red droplets down his forearm.
None of them were fatal, by sheer fucking luck.
He would be fine for the time being; he had more important things to focus on.
Joseph attempted to push himself up, knowing well getting to his feet in this condition would be near impossible, but also knowing that he needed to check on Kidman. Given that he didn't hear a response, which was expected, he needed to make sure that she was alright; that she hadn't been as close as he had been to the explosion.
A heavy hand on his shoulder caught him mid-action and pushed him back down though.
"Easy," an equally heavy voice spoke, one that Joseph easily identified as being Sebastian's. The heaviness to it was probably the only reason he was able to hear it, let alone identify it. "You're looking pretty roughed up- Jesus, I'm gone for forty seconds and you both nearly get yourselves blown up."
That phrase certainly did not take long to come back around on them.
(Although it had definitely been longer than just forty seconds this time.)
Sure as hell though, he didn't hear the man approach him at all.
"That's usually how it goes, right?" Joseph replied, hearing his own voice muffled under the continuous static of white noise in his ears. He kept his left arm tucked close to his chest and pushed his glasses up with his right hand; he carefully pinched the bridge of his nose in an attempt to qualm the raging pain in his head. Jesus, there were too many things going on, too many things for him to focus on- and he could barely hold a straight thought. "Is Kidman alright?"
"Yeah, just a little dazed but nothing bad," Sebastian answered. "She was more worried about you."
Part of him would agree with that, but that didn't mean that Kidman wasn't out of the explosive-range either.
She had to have gotten tossed around just as much- maybe even more considering she hadn't been close to a wall of any kind.
"We're alive at least," Joseph remarked, rubbing at his eyes now before he pulled his glasses back into place. At this point, he was just so tired of everything; he just wanted to put the matter behind them and be quick about picking up where they had left off before.
"Yeah, that's a word for it," Sebastian replied, not sounding the least bit convinced by his remark. The man looked over his own shoulder for a moment- more than likely looking back to check on Kidman, who was still out of sight for the time being. "What happened in here?"
He didn't hear anything that would act as a response to the question but given that Sebastian was still looking over his shoulder and occasionally nodding, Joseph could only assume that Kidman was answering. Which was good thing. He wasn't sure if he could recall the previous events clearly, or accurately at this moment- or at all for that fact. Given he couldn't hear anything the woman was saying, he went with his gut that she was telling things from her point of view- which was probably more than he'd be able to say anyways.
"Alright, that answers some things," Sebastian spoke as he turned back to him. "You got anything to say?"
"I got hit in the middle of the disarm," Joseph answered, groaning some as he moved just enough to take some weight off of his lower back; he felt Sebastian squeeze his shoulder in response. "Pre-release on the exposed combustion elements turned the whole thing into a hair trigger; the whole thing went off almost immediately."
"So how the hell did you not get blown apart by it?" Sebastian pressed.
Joseph gestured to the Haunted carcasses nearby. "They took most of the initial explosion as well as most of the shrapnel," he answered, before he touched at his left arm, feeling the pain slowly turning numb at this point. "Still took a good chunk of it myself though."
"Let me see."
He reluctantly allowed for the Lead Detective to see his partially burnt arm and watched as Sebastian carefully gripped him around the elbow and wrist. Joseph tried not to flinch as Sebastian straightened his arm out to get a better look at it. He had no doubts that the man immediately honed in on the burns, but there was evident surprise when Sebastian turned his arm and spotted the nails.
"It's not as bad as it looks," Joseph assured, although he doubted Sebastian believed him. "The burn is the worst part of it. The nails managed to miss any and all vital areas; the risk of infection is the only concern they bring."
Sebastian gave his arm a few more look-overs but seemed dissatisfied regardless. "You're lucky you didn't lose your arm," he remarked.
"You don't have to tell me."
It was his non-dominant arm at the very least and the injuries weren't as bad as they could've been.
He could be sitting here with an arm half blown off after all.
(He would take the risk of infection over that any day.)
"Think you can stand?" Sebastian questioned.
The ringing in his head had dulled some but the white noise in one ear was still prevalent- although he doubted it would screw too much with his balance. Just as well, he had regained movement and feeling back into his limbs for the most part. It was just a matter of if he wanted to move, in which the answer was no- but regardless, that answer was irrelevant.
"I should be fine," Joseph replied, as he started to pick himself up, using the pieces of debris and broken furniture around him as leverage. He felt Sebastian grab him by the right arm as the man helped pull him to his feet instead, allowing Joseph to use him for balance once he was upright again. It felt like his body hated him for the action as pain throbbed up and down his spine, but he couldn't just sit around for longer than needed.
Even if the thought of throwing up crossed his mind and stomach once or twice now.
Sebastian squeezed his shoulder once more, keeping a relatively firm grip on it now. "You sure you're alright?" the man repeated. It used to not be often for the Lead Detective to show concern, or to not be easily swayed by a simple answer. But as of late, it was getting harder to convince the man that things were okay. Then again, with everything the two of them had been through, Joseph wasn't surprised that Sebastian didn't take his bullshit anymore. "You didn't take a few nails to the head, did you?"
It could've been a joke or genuine concern; at this point it was sort of hard to tell.
And his head was throbbing too much for him to care for which it was
"I didn't check but it's a possibility," Joseph remarked, much to the other man's dismay. He happened to catch a glimpse of Kidman approaching them and decided to change the subject before Sebastian could counter his response. "Hey, you alright?"
If it was possible for Kidman to look even more stressed out, she certainly did now.
There seemed to be a few more tears in her shirt and there was even a faint singed burn that ran up the front of it.
Kidman had a few bright red patches on her chin, neck, and cheeks; which implied that she had been close enough to get heat from the explosion without taking severe damage from it. It was sure to be painful still however, especially on top of her previous injuries. Burns and bruises were sure not to mix will together.
"Just... wondering how much worse things are going to get from here," Kidman remarked as she ran a hand through her hair. "It feels like everywhere we go, we're running into something that's trying to kill us- and right now, it's getting a little repetitive."
"It's keeping us on our toes at least," Joseph spoke.
"I still don't like it," Kidman reaffirmed, before she gestured to the doorway behind them. "By the way, we dealt with all that bullshit just to get a door that goes back to the front hall."
Joseph didn't exactly see Kidman inspect the now open threshold- hell, he had sort of forgotten about it in the midst of everything. But she must've checked it out while he was talking to Sebastian and trying to get his bearings back. At least he knew that there was no sense in looking at it himself. And that there had been some truth in Kidman's phrasing of having to deal with all of this bullshit.
It was a bad sign that they had ran into yet another door that went nowhere.
Despite complaining about the size of this mansion, they were beginning to run out of options.
"So, essentially a shortcut," Kidman finished.
"So, basically useless," Sebastian replied.
"Yeah."
Joseph snorted slightly at their odd trade of words and watched as Sebastian stepped away as he started towards the door himself. More than likely, the Lead wanted to see for himself where exactly the door ended up at; after all, the front hall wasn't exactly that big to begin with.
Kidman watched as Sebastian left before she turned back to him- and it was hard to miss the look of concern that briefly touched her features. "... Glad to see you didn't get blown into little pieces."
Joseph quietly chuckled at the classic response. "Thankfully no, but I did get filled with little pieces," he replied, briefly showing off his shrapnel-damaged arm. By all accounts, especially given how things had happened, he got off real easy and pretty lucky. A few burns and a few punctures from some loose nails were not the worst that could have happened to him.
Especially given the now deceased Haunted's condition.
"Jesus," Kidman exhaled, before she moved her hands to take his arm with careful ease, "let me see."
Joseph watched as she turned the limb carefully, making sure that she didn't unintentionally pull or snag one of the exposed nails. She turned his arm side to side, getting a full examination of it. It showed off that most of the mess from the injury was just sulfur from the explosion and a little bit of blood where the nails had gone in.
Once he had the chance to clean it up, the injuries more than likely wouldn't look like much of anything.
It was just the mess of sulfur, dust, and panic that made it seem worse.
"Maybe we should've just shot it," she remarked.
"Maybe," he repeated, "- although technically we saved bullets this way."
Kidman made a sort of scoffing sound in her throat, as if the exchange of one bullet to avoid an explosion would hardly count as saving ammo. She carefully moved to take his injured hand in her grasp now, careful with how she held it. She didn't move it around like she had done to his arm, choosing instead to examine it from the position Joseph held it at; no doubt she had finally taken note of the nail impaled through the center of his palm. And even when she did turn it over to see the nail at its full extent, it was more because of him moving it rather than her.
"I'm sure there's a joke to be made here somewhere," Kidman spoke.
"I only ask that you don't make it," Joseph replied.
"The joke makes itself," Kidman assured, before she looked back as Sebastian stepped back through the once boarded-up doorway. "So where are we standing in terms of searching this mansion? We know nothing's down here, and nothing's out that door except places we've already searched. We're at yet another dead-end in here."
Frustration was easy to hear in Kidman's voice, and it was a frustration that they were all sharing at this point. Just how much more of this place could they search? And just how much danger would they be putting themselves into by doing so?
"Did you find anything in the master bedroom?" Joseph asked, hoping they still had a chance at something here.
"Yeah, there was another one of those head experiment things in there," Sebastian answered, as he stepped back into the room and regrouped with them. "I didn't get a chance to look it over or do anything with it yet."
"And you didn't want to mention that until now?" Kidman pressed.
"Sort of had more pressing matters to attend to, like you two deciding to blow yourselves up."
Joseph moved a hand to rub at the back of his neck, definitely feeling the tight pull of the muscles under his skin now- which was enough to convince him to overlook giving a response to Sebastian's less than subtle jab. There was no telling just how hard he had hit that wall, but it felt like the pain was definitely beginning to settle in now. "Well, we have to get it done so we might as well get it over with as quick as we can."
As reluctant as they all were to put yet another needle into a living brain, at this point it couldn't exactly be avoided.
If they wanted to get out of here, which they did, it had to be done.
It wasn't exactly the greatest hoop to jump through but they had little choice in the matter.
"At least we have some understanding of how the process goes now," Joseph finished.
"Loosely," Sebastian reminded, before the man set his attention back on him. "You sure you're alright?"
If the question wasn't broad enough on its own...
"Yeah, this isn't exactly the worst thing that's happened to me so far," Joseph remarked, choosing to ignore the look Sebastian gave him in response. "Let's just get out of here and... let me get these nails out of my arm before we handle that brain thing."
Unfortunately, he couldn't recall seeing a bathroom anywhere in this place, which was odd. And the only other place he could think to wash the blood off in was the half-destroyed kitchen downstairs- and he really didn't want to go back into that room.
Worst-case scenario, it was still raining outside.
Which would unfortunately probably make it the cleanest water in this place.
"I think one of the conjoined bedrooms had a washing basin in it," Kidman continued, as though catching on to what he was thinking. "Or I guess you could just pull the nails out here-"
"We're at least leaving this room first," Sebastian reminded, ushering them to move.
The three of them had to work their way through the small, shell-shocked room, bypassing the mild destruction, and stepping over small debris, as well as the charred bodily remains from the former Haunted. It felt like it took them longer than it should've just for them to make it back out into the narrow corridor outside.
Kidman took point and lead them down the connecting hallway, minding her steps as she did so. Just like with the death trap from before, the explosion had been loud, and if there were any more Haunted left in this mansion, they would all be hording their way here.
It didn't hurt to be overly cautious, as they had learned enough of by this point.
They made it back to the main corridor without issue, and the continuous blanket of silence over the place pushed that they were still alive for the time being. It surely wouldn't last long but hopefully it would last long enough.
There was a shared consensus of hesitation in walking down towards the still open death trap. It continued to appear dormant for the time being, but there was no denying that none of them believed it to be fully disarmed either. And considering how gruesome of a death it would be, none of them were willing to take their chances with it.
Not again.
So maybe it was almost laughable how the three of them all consciously hugged the wall to their left, purposely avoiding the center of the corridor.
But this place had scarred them enough as it was.
Survival instincts were all that were keeping them alive.
(That and each other.)
Halfway down the corridor, still hugging the left wall, Joseph watched as Kidman came to a stop in front of them. He wanted to question her motive for doing so, but decided to wait and see if there had been something she had heard and he had missed. Instead, he watched as Kidman reached out and brushed her hand along the wall next to her.
It was a little odd but Joseph just assumed that she had saw something- maybe a second trigger for the trap in front of them.
And while he didn't want to think about that death trap regaining momentum again, he did.
And the thought alone was enough to have him pause as well, choosing to stay back while Kidman pushed forward a few steps.
Joseph watched as Kidman moved with her hand, clearly looking for something along the wall before she found it. He watched as part of the wall was seemingly pushed open as Kidman bore weight against it- revealing the piece to be a door instead.
One that they must've missed during their initial search of this place.
Then again, they didn't really get much of a chance to fully search this corridor before things went to shit, so Joseph wasn't all that surprised to see that they had missed a room. It didn't help that the door shared the same accents and trims as the wall around it, helping it to blend in almost seamlessly. The dim lighting of the hallway certainly helped in its favor too.
Kidman braced her left arm against the door and eased it open, all while she drew her gun free with the other hand.
If there had been anything on the other side, it would've kicked the door open by now- or at least it would've attempted to grab Kidman. But the woman didn't alert them to anything as she stepped completely inside of the dimly-lit room, disappearing from view for a few seconds.
Joseph heard Sebastian pull his gun loose behind him, and did the same.
"Kidman?" Joseph called after her, before he slowly moved to follow after her. Even if it was a seemingly empty room, he didn't like the quiet game that the woman was pulling on them. Not that Kidman was loud to begin with, but... a simple call out, or something would be better than waiting in dead silence. Especially given the open death trap in front of them.
But at the same time, it was possible that he just didn't hear her reply either.
By the time he made it to the open doorway, Joseph just about ran into Kidman on her way out.
"It's clear," Kidman started, holstering her gun before she gestured to the room behind her. "Not sure if this place still has running water, but you could probably wash up better in here."
It took a second to make sense of her words before Joseph slowly looked into the room behind her. And he was surprised to find that it appeared to be the master bathroom. Which only made the placement of it more odd considering that it was half-concealed, but again... this mansion wasn't exactly normal- even before this nightmare took it over.
"I'm not even going to question it," Kidman continued, as though agreeing that the timing was perfect, if not also odd.
Joseph stepped inside and looked the small room over, not surprised to find that it matched the same Victorian-era sort of theme that the rest of the mansion had going on. It had the basic bathroom essentials, while keeping an already water-filled washing basin on a pushing table to replace the non-functioning sink. At least, he was pretty certain that running water wasn't a possibility here- and even if it was, he didn't want to know what color it might come out of the pipes as, given how long it had been sitting in there.
Then again, there was no telling just how long the water in the washing basin had been there either.
But after practically swimming through that underground cave system, what worse could there be in this water?
It wasn't like he could exactly afford to be picky at the moment.
"Do you need someone to, you know," Kidman offered, before she made a brief yanking gesture with one hand- which was enough to get her point across.
"I'm fine," Joseph quickly assured, instinctively pulling his half-mutilated arm closer to him. While he wasn't exactly looking forward to stripping nails out of his own arm, he was certainly more comfortable doing it himself rather than letting someone else do it. Not that he didn't trust either Kidman or Sebastian to do it; he just simply didn't want them to. "They shouldn't be too bad of an issue, so I should be able to handle it well enough on my own."
'Should' being the operative word here.
"You want us to stand outside?" Kidman asked.
And Joseph appreciated her forward offer of giving him his own space to deal with the injury, and soon to be pain; it made it easier on him since now he didn't have to ask for the personal space. But he hated the idea of leaving the two of them outside with that death trap sitting there, taunting them the whole time.
"This is going to take me awhile to take care of," Joseph started, "if you two want to get ahead and take care of that brain puzzle, be my guest."
"And let you miss out on the fun?" Kidman retorted.
"We've hit zero for two with something happening every time we separate in this place," Sebastian reminded, clearly not convinced by the half-made offer. "Both of which have happened within the span of a couple minutes from each other."
It was hard to argue when Sebastian lead off with such a strong point.
Joseph wanted to say that it was all just coincidental, and that statistically they should be in the clear for the time being. After all, only so much bad luck could be against them in this place.
But he didn't exactly have anything to back up that train of thought.
And with his arm in the condition that it was, he didn't exactly have much to argue about safety in this place; safety in numbers was the only thing that had kept them alive for this long.
But at the same time, they needed to get that door open- and they had wasted enough time as it was.
"I'll be right down the hallway," Joseph spoke.
"Yeah just like you were right down the hallway when that bomb went off, or when that death trap went off," Sebastian pressed to remind him. And once more, it brought up their broken record.
But the longer they waited, the further that Doctor and the patient, Leslie, got away from them.
Joseph had yet to figure out the significance either of them played in this world but... at the moment, it didn't matter. He highly doubted either of them had combat training, or weapon training- or anything else that would help keep them alive in this place. And after witnessing some of the horrors this world held, he didn't want to see either doctor or patient become a victim here.
Especially after witnessing Leslie's close encounter with that box-headed creature in the catacombs.
And then almost witnessing it for himself.
"We want to get out of here, don't we?" Joseph asked.
"Yeah, preferably with everyone alive."
Sebastian was stubborn and a hard case to crack when he needed to be. Not that the man was completely out of line with his reasoning. It wasn't like they separated often, but it did seem like every time they did, something would happen to one or the other.
They couldn't have predicted the death trap.
And they couldn't have predicted those Haunted or that bomb going off.
Safety in numbers was the smartest way to go.
"Alright, you've made your point," Joseph started, knowing well when an argument was worth dropping. He and Sebastian could go back and forth on this for hours if they wanted to, like they use to, but they didn't exactly have the time. And despite his wanting to save time, he was wasting it just the same by arguing.
It didn't help that the shock and adrenaline from before were starting to wear off finally, allowing the pain from his arm to become more and more apparent- and the pain didn't take long to settle in. As bad as the burns on his left arm looked, they weren't deep enough to kill the nerves under his skin, which left them exposed and overly sensitive to anything as simple as a passing breeze.
He really needed to start ripping the nails out too.
"It's not a bad idea though," Kidman interjected, breaking her silence on the subject at hand; although her expression read well enough that she didn't want to get in between them. But seeing as she was stuck here just the same, her opinion needed to be heard as well. "Two birds, one stone," she offered.
"It's not happening," Sebastian rejected.
"Yeah well, we could've been done with the puzzle by now if we weren't standing around arguing about it," Kidman persisted. "The longer we're out here, the more space Dr. Jimenez and Leslie put between us. And I don't know about you, but doctor or no doctor, Jimenez doesn't seem like the kind to be trusted. I mean, how else would he know where to go in this place? I don't think it's a coincidence that he just happened to make a beeline for that door."
Joseph had little knowledge on who this Dr. Jimenez was, but given Kidman's words and Sebastian's responding frown, he had a feeling these two had more experience with the man. And, maybe it was a gut feeling, but it didn't seem like either of them had a good experience with him.
It was interesting to note that Kidman was showing off her detective skills for once- on her own accord at least.
An odd subject to suddenly go head to head with Sebastian on but... right now the whole thing regarding this Dr. Jimenez and Leslie was leaving them with more questions than answers.
There was a second of pause and Joseph watched the obvious train of thought go through Sebastian's head.
He was surprised that Kidman's remark had been enough to stall the Lead Detective out.
"Fine," Sebastian gave in, looking less than pleased by his own response, before the man turned back to him. "We'll deal with the brain puzzle while you're fixing yourself up. Do not leave this room; we'll come back and regroup with you when we're done. If something does happen, it won't take us long to get here."
Joseph wasn't even going to argue the man's tone.
Whatever got them back on track was fine by him.
"Sounds good to me," Joseph replied, "just be careful with that thing, alright?"
"We'll see."
There were still a few seconds of motionless hesitation before Sebastian stepped out of the room and started back down the corridor- Kidman quick to follow behind him. Despite the agreed upon decision, it was worth noting that neither of them seemed happy about it. Then again, they had both just agreed to sharing yet another experience of sticking a needle into a severed head, so... Not exactly something fun.
Joseph told himself to thank Kidman later as he eased the door partly closed before he made his way to push table.
The decorative mirror hanging on the wall in front of the washing bin already told him what he already knew; that he looked like shit after that explosion- well, he had looked like shit even before it, so it didn't really matter.
He touched one hand to left ear again, wincing as he did so, before he turned his head to see how the blood had made it down to his jaw just before it started to crystallize. There was a little more blood than he was expecting but he tried not to think about it. Joseph grabbed the small hand towel hanging up nearby and almost regretted the choice to ruin the seemingly hand-sewn pattern; he soaked it in the should-be clean water and used it to clean the blood from his face.
Once the blood was washed off, he noticed the small cut that had been hidden on his left cheek.
It must've been from a piece of wood- or maybe from a nail that just barely missed hitting him in the face.
It seemed like he was having equal parts good and bad luck here.
Once that had been taken care of, Joseph's second concern was with the nail in his palm, which had been throbbing nonstop now- just enough to almost make his entire hand feel numb by this point. He carefully maneuvered the fingers on his impaled hand and used them to tug off the glove on his right, which he set aside on the metal tray on the table. Flexing his naked hand, he brushed his fingers over the stuck nail head; he touched it twice before he felt confident that he could get it out in one go.
Getting his fingernails underneath the tight nail head, Joseph managed to ease it out just enough to get a better grip on it- and then yanked it out in one motion afterwards.
The resulting pain burned throughout his hand, causing his fingers to finally curl in on themselves.
It was an oddly familiar sort of pain; one he had gotten used to before.
One that would go away in a minute or two.
A quick examination of the nail itself showed that it was three-inches in length, which was what made the shrapnel effect so dangerous on explosives. There were places on the human body where even just a two-inch stab would be fatal. And with some high-energy explosives, the shrapnel could easily become lodged inside of a person, cutting them open from the inside.
At the very least, for his sake, the nail looked fairly clean; there was no rust or corrosion of some kind on it.
So while the issue of infection was still high, it wasn't nearly as bad at first glance.
Joseph dropped the nail onto the metal tray underneath the small washing bin and listened to the metallic clang that followed.
He could feel warm blood dripping out of his glove now and very carefully removed it; he set the now damaged glove aside with the other.
While he wasn't all that curious to see the injury, it was hard to avoid now that it was bleeding in front of him. It was a textbook, small-scale impalement wound; it left a fairly clean entry and exit, which was surprising given the circumstances. Heavy bruising was already setting in across the back of his hand- a clear reminder of just how fast the shrapnel had ejected during the denotation.
It certainty didn't take long for the injury to settle in and leave its mark.
Joseph moved to squeeze the injury, watching as more red droplets trickled out of it.
It hurt like a bitch but he knew it would be best to bleed the risk of infection out while he could.
He waited until the feeling in his hand came back before he turned his left arm over to inspect the rest of the nails.
There was no part of him that was looking forward to this, but he knew he had to do it.
Joseph started with the nail that had managed to pierce only through the surface skin and quickly pulled it out. It was sheer luck that the nail hadn't pierced any burnt skin, so it didn't hurt nearly as bad as he though it would. It could've easily ripped through the skin with no problem, leaving behind a small flayed area in its wake. It did leave behind a fairly open wound though, which bled more than he would've liked.
It was the second nail to be dropped onto the silver tray.
He was careful to clean the blood from both injuries, trying to avoid getting the open burns themselves wet.
It was almost difficult to watch the thick red droplets splash into the water basin; each drop just barely dispersing across the surface of the water.
There was some hesitation to take as Joseph examined the two nails that had impaled themselves through the meat of his forearm. Both of them were embedded in burnt skin, which only caused more complications for him. He managed to pull one of the nail heads out enough to get a grip on it, but in doing so had to strip a layer of skin that had been burnt over it.
He yanked it out as soon as he could keep a grip on it, just barely getting it out in one go.
The resulting pain was enough to cause him to curl his fingers and clench his fist, forcing him to wait for the numbness to subside.
There was another clang as he dropped that onto the tray as well.
Joseph had to take a minute or two break to get the shaking in his hands to finally stop, before he forced himself to continue.
Pulling out the last impaled nail resulted in a fourth metallic clang.
There was warm blood running down the length of his forearm now; each newly opened wound on his arm made sure to bleed out, dripping some onto the dirty tiled floor at his feet. It was all to get the infection out but... he was damn tired of seeing his own blood by this point.
Regardless, Joseph carefully ran his fingers along his forearm, searching still for more nail heads. He only knew of the four so far, but that didn't mean that there weren't more. And such theory was proven as he found yet another nail located close to his elbow; out of the four so far, that one hurt the most to remove.
And it made itself the fifth one to be dropped.
Part of him was almost regretting that he had passed up on Kidman's offer to do this, but he certainly couldn't put Kidman or Sebastian through this.
He checked his arm over once more before he used the mirror to his advantage- using it to look at the harder to see areas. Which was how he found the small tear in his sleeve about halfway up his bicep- which was also how he found another nail. This one was trickier to grab as it was pressed tight to the surface of his skin and hadn't exited out elsewhere.
But it was the sixth one he dropped once it had been freed.
Another careful search of his arm found that that had been the last of the nails.
Thankfully.
Sighing, Joseph took some time to let the pain settle and to let his hands stop shaking. The adrenaline was definitely gone now and the complete, unadulterated pain was quickly making itself at home. His left arm felt like it had been burnt, broken, and stabbed all at once; at this point, he was almost convinced that having it blown off would've been less painful.
Joseph reached up and rubbed at his neck once again, feeling the even tighter pull of his muscles now. It felt like he had whiplash or something of the sort- and he wasn't the least bit surprised by it. It hurt like hell when he tried to turn or move his head, which only caused the pain to spread down to his shoulders. He had felt the same back in the catacombs, after the initial falling through the floor only to collide right into solid stone.
It had cleared up then, so it would certainly clear up now as well.
He felt his fingers brush against something along the back of his neck and, out of current reflex, Joseph didn't hesitate with grabbing it. He didn't even think before he simply yanked at whatever it was, barely feeling something get pulled free from his neck- barely feeling the slight sting that came with the motion.
Instinctively, he dropped it onto the tray as well.
And it made the same clattering sound as the others.
Seven.
The sight of yet another nail didn't completely register to him- not immediately anyways.
It was the same as the nails before though; the same three-inch length where a majority of it had been implanted under his skin.
It took awhile for the whole thing to register, for Joseph to realize just what exactly he had done- just what exactly he had pulled out of his neck. And there was a split second of panic as fingers moved to where the now open wound was on his neck. The reoccurring thought here was that the Haunted didn't exactly take as much of the shrapnel blast as he had previously thought.
Which now meant that there was a good chance that this was not the only piece of shrapnel that had hit him.
Joseph could feel the warm trickle of blood rolling down the back of his neck now.
Already he could count himself lucky that the nail didn't hit a nerve or strike an artery on the way in. The nerve pain might take longer to settle in, but an artery shot would've been evident by now.
As bad as it was though, Joseph just wanted to push it from his mind.
He had enough things to worry about.
He needed to take things one at a time or else he'd risk losing focus on all of them- and right now, he had a lot of things he needed to stay focused on. A brief search turned up no other nails on his neck so maybe he was still leaning on good luck here. After all, he had gotten lucky with the cut on his cheek; so maybe only one nail had managed to catch him above the left arm.
Joseph moved to pick up the hand towel to bring it to his neck but was stopped as a sudden sharp pain in the back of his head exploded forward.
It was immediately debilitating- damn near taking most of his senses with it.
A wheezed gasp escaped him from the unprovoked attack and Joseph grabbed onto the pushing-table for balance; he found himself having to force himself to keep breathing, forcing each breath through clenched teeth. Despite everything he had experienced up until now, he had never felt a pain like this.
And as white-knuckled as his hands were, the pain didn't weaver in the slightest. It pounded relentlessly behind his eyes, feeling as though it was trying to push them out of their sockets. The pain remained in his head but managed to spread itself down his neck, across his shoulders, and further down his spine- flooding every nerve receptor available.
And despite how he tried to fight it, tried to resist it, Joseph felt that familiar sensation begin to wash over him.
He was going to pass out.
Just as soon as the thought so much as crossed his mind, he felt it get drowned out by white noise.