Rey stirred the oatmeal in his bowl silently, making a face at the consistency of the substance, but finally spooning up a small amount and trying it. It wasn't too bad...not exactly what one would consider high quality, but at least not nauseating. He picked up the bowl and ate a little more, studying the tray in front of him as he did. The meal he'd been brought a few minutes earlier was typical hospital fare...the lumpy oatmeal, toast with a couple different flavors of jelly, milk, juice, and a cup of what he assumed to be peaches. It wasn't the first time he'd ever eaten institutional breakfast and, unless there were some kind of miraculous happening within the next day, it wouldn't be his last, either.
While he ate, Rey turned his eyes down to the white tile floor, wincing slightly at the few small spots of blood on the ground in front of the bathroom door, where Dave had bled after the fight. He figured a janitor would be along at some point during the day to clean it up...until then, it served as a visual aid of the fact that things in his life had gone wrong.
Of all the ways I thought I could've ended up in this business, getting driven insane by losing a match wasn't way up on the list...
He sighed softly as he thought about what his dear friend Eddie would have said about this situation. Probably something a little bit on the disparaging side, if he were going to be honest about it. Eddie had always been a little too fast-witted for his mouth to keep up with...among other things. For all his flaws and for all the hell they'd put each other through, though...Rey wished he could pick up a phone and call his old friend now.
Calling anyone would have been a joy, though. Even with Dave's presence, Rey was feeling a strange sort of unease with this place. Despite being told the date by Dave the previous day, he still felt a little out of sorts. He had no frame of reference beyond what he'd been told, and that still threw him off a little, made things seem somehow more sinister than they were. At least he did know it was morning from looking outside his window.
He finished off everything on the tray in silence, not able to even hear any motion in the hallway outside his door, and pushed aside the rolling table, scooting off to sit on the edge of the bed, swinging his legs a moment, then hopping onto the floor, walking over to the bathroom door, stepping carefully over the bit of blood, and going to the sink, turning on the water and washing his hands briefly, glancing around the bathroom a moment and frowning when he wasn't able to locate a toothbrush immediately. He considered that for a moment, then headed back into his room, going over to the panel at the head of his bed, hesitating a second before reaching out to push the small red button.
After a few seconds, a somewhat harried-sounding male came onto the line. "Yes?"
"Um...this is, uh, Rey...um, I was wondering if I could get a toothbrush or something...?" He chewed his lip some, not sure why he felt nervous about communicating directly with the nurses' station. Probably just the unfamiliarity of the situation.
"Oh...oh, oh, right, right...sorry, Mr. Mysterio, we'll have one sent right away."
"Uh, thank you..." Rey replied, blinking a moment, then shrugging and stepping away, sitting back on the bed and squirming a bit, brushing at his pajama top a little and frowning when he saw that there was a little bit of a brownish stain at the bottom of it...probably also blood. He shook his head slightly, looking back up at the door as it started to come open, and a young man with a mop of frizzy ginger hair stepped in, holding a small plastic tray with several items wrapped in plastic bags.
"Here you are, sir, sorry we forgot to get those to you this morning."
"No problem, man. It has kind of been a weird morning, I guess." Rey took the tray from the young man, watching as he scurried back to the door and knocked almost frantically, shooting out the door the instant it opened a crack. Rey blinked after him for a moment, then shook his head and turned slightly to set the tray down, going through the items inside. No surprises from this either...a plain white toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, some shampoo and deoderant, and a comb. Rey chuckled quietly as he reached up to touch his buzzed-short hair, setting the comb on the rolling table and picking up the rest of the items, heading back into the bathroom with them. He stepped inside and set the tray down on the floor, then turned his gaze to the shower. He barely even thought before reaching down to pull off the top and step out of his bottoms, setting them aside since he didn't have a clean pair just yet. He took the tiny shampoo bottle out of the tray and stepped into the shower, reaching out to slide the small knob to the side marked for hot water.
It took him a couple of minutes to get the temperature right, but finally he stepped back into the stream and tilted his head back, enjoying the feel of the heat and steam around him. He just stood for a moment, letting his mind go blank and just feeling, thinking that if there were only the scent of Angie's pumpkin candles and the sounds of his children playing downstairs, that he could be home right then. Finally though, he let out a sigh and stepped back, pouring a little of the thin shampoo into his hand and scrubbing at his hair, using a little more to wash himself off, wincing as he suddenly realized how sore his arms were after being held down by Dave that morning. He turned his arms over and probed each of them slightly, seeing that there were already slight bruises forming.
Well, I guess it's my own fault for overreacting to a bad dream like some little kid or something. I mean, honestly, what the hell could I have been thinking? Kane paralyzing me with a wave of his hand, reading my mind...that's completely ridiculous. He's not a MONSTER, for God's sakes. ...okay, well, he IS a monster, but he's not THAT kind of monster. About the worst he could do would be to kick my ass in the parking lot or something like that.
Rey shook his head again as he tilted his head back into the spray, closing his eyes, then stepping forward and turning off the water, wiping some of the beads of water away from his arms and front and stepping over to the sink, giving the bathroom a cursory examination for any towels, but figuring correctly that there were none about. Whoever did the stocking and cleaning in this hospital must have either been new or needed to be fired immediately. Rey crouched down to the tray and took out the toothbrush, shedding it of it's plastic wrapper and leaving it behind in the tray, opening up the toothpaste and squeezing some onto the brush, then leaning over the sink and starting to scrub at his teeth, making a face. His gums felt a bit more sensitive than usual, as though he were brushing too hard, but that was probably due to the cheap hospital toothpaste. Maybe he could see about getting Dave to bring him something better.
"Hello?" There was a faint knock on the door, from a male voice he didn't recognize. "Mr. Mysterio, are you in there?"
Rey quickly spit into the sink. "Yeah, gimme a minute!" He turned on the water and cupped his hands together under the stream, gathering some and using it to rinse his mouth, repeating the process twice before turning off the water and hurriedly pulling his clothing back on, feeling grateful he was already mostly dried off. He then stepped over and opened the door again, looking out, and seeing another male nurse standing there, this one a black man with a shaved head. "Hi..."
"Hi, Mr. Mysterio. I've got you a change of clothes here..." the man said, holding out a set of folded white clothing to him.
"Oh, great...thank you..." Rey said, taking the clothes and starting to move back into the bathroom.
"And once you're changed, I'm going to be taking you down to the scan room for an MRI. Dr. Asheville was able to shift a few things around to get you in already."
"Wow. He must be good at what he does, then." Rey nodded again, then retreated behind the bathroom door, setting the clothes down and stripping out of his dirty ones again, pulling on the fresh outfit. It was exactly the same as the other one, but at least this one was clean, so that was a step in the right direction. He hesitated a minute, then opened the door again. "What should I do with the dirty ones?"
"Oh, just leave them, the cleaning crew will probably come through while you're out."
Rey nodded. "Could you have them bring some towels up, too? I didn't have any this morning."
The man nodded quickly. "Yeah, we'll make sure they do that. All right..." He stepped back to let Rey come in, and went over to the door, where a wheelchair with a seatbelt was waiting. "Right this way, sir."
"Do I need that?" Rey asked, raising an eyebrow. "I mean, there's nothing wrong with my legs."
"Just standard hospital procedure, Mr. Mysterio. We have some patients who tend to run off if we aren't careful with them, so everyone is transferred from their rooms this way."
Rey kept his eyebrow up at that statement, but moved over and hesitantly moved to sit down, shifting a bit uncomfortably in the seat. The nurse stepped around and leaned down, loosely fastening the seatbelt over his lap, then stepped back around and gripped the handles. "All right, Mr. Mysterio, we're on our way."
"Just call me Rey, man, it's all good." Rey gripped the armrests lightly as he was turned and pulled backwards as the nurse knocked at the door, and it came open, and the two of them headed out into the hallway for what seemed to Rey to be the first time.