Chapter Twenty-Four
Warning: Chapter contains some gore. It's probably not that surprising. Enjoy! (The chapter, not the gore, unless that's your thing, idk). Also new Doctor gets revealed toniiiiiight. Hands up if you're as excited as I am~
Mid-August and summer had finally arrived in England, at least for a few days. The entire country was simultaneously complaining about the weather and shutting down all functioning in order to enjoy it. In that respect, St. Victoria's was no different.
The sun bore down on St. Victoria's neglected garden. Patients sprawled across the uncut grass, most of them enjoying the heat and fresh air, a certain few grumbling and hiding in the shadow of trees. A handful of the staff milled about, only half keeping an eye on their charges. With this heat, it was unlikely any of them would have the energy for grand escape plans, after all.
Alois' hand was slippery as he pulled Luka away from the larger group. Luka's was dry as a bone in his grip, but he chose not to notice that fact. He was choosing not to notice a lot of things these days.
There was a cluster of daisies a few feet from the wall. It was the sole splash of white upon the yellowing yard of grass. Alois made a beeline for the spot before anyone else could beat him to it, determined to have the sole pretty place in the garden for them. If that spot just happened to be out of earshot from all the others, it was a nice bonus.
"There are no bumblebees," Luka observed glumly.
"Good," Alois replied, sticking his tongue out. "You only like them because of the name. Any time one comes near you, you run away."
"Not true!" Luka objected, "I really like 'em! They have cool colours, and they're all fuzzy too. They're cool."
"You weren't saying that when that one stung you. Remember?"
"That wasn't even a bumblebee. That was a wasp." Luka pursed his lips, shaking his head. "It's those I don't like."
Alois liked that memory. It was one of his favourites of theirs. Luka had only been a few months younger than he looked now, and he wouldn't stop crying until Alois had held his hand for the sting to be sorted out. No one else had managed to make him stop crying, no matter how hard they had tried, if only for the sake of peace and quiet. It had sort of felt like having a special power. Alois had definitely felt special that day.
"Do they ever let you have honey here?" Luka asked curiously, tearing fistfuls of grass out of the ground.
"No," Alois snorted, "At least, you can't tell it was ever honey by the time it gets to you."
Alois fingered one of the daisies at his side. Its stem was furry to the touch, so thin his finger dwarfed it. He curled his forefinger until it encircled the stalk completely then tore it up from the mud. It took no strength - a flower that tiny would be pulled up with ease - but when he moved on to the next one, he still gave it an unnecessarily forceful yank. Soon enough he had an entire lapful of the flowers.
They didn't look as pretty now that he held them, Alois noticed. Discomfort was a squirming itch at the pit of his stomach, the ground beside him a mess of disturbed dirt.
"I know how you can make them pretty again, Jim!" Luka beamed. He was still tearing up fistfuls of grass from the ground, but no matter how much he ripped away, there was never any less there once his hand returned. Alois decided not to notice that either. "Make a pretty crown!"
Alois smiled.
They used to make each other those little crowns whenever they had time to spare and momentary peace of mind. Alois would make one and give it to Luka. Luka would make one and give it to him. They would wear them until the flower's stems snapped or one of the red-faced adults made them throw them away.
Alois pressed his fingernail into the bottom of the first flower's stem, piercing a large enough hole for the next daisy's stem to fit into it. Again and again, until his fingers were sticky and the flowers on his lap dwindled down to single digits.
"They're all so spindly, I don't know if it'll stay together long," Alois observed, deliberating over which of the flowers left was going to make the final cut. When Luka didn't respond, his attention was immediately pulled away from his task.
Luka always answered him.
Luka was still tearing the seemingly regenerating grass out of the ground but his focus was fixed across the garden. His face, still pudgy with youth, was thunderous. His eyes held more hate than Alois would have thought possible, lips drawl back in a snarl more befitting of an animal than a little boy. He bared his teeth as though ready to bite.
Alois' stomach dropped. Luka had never held an expression like that before. Despite the life they had led, there had never been enough hate in his heart to reflect on his face like that. Yet it was a familiar expression, none the less.
"L-Luka," Alois said on a breath, "Hey, look, which flower do you think will be strong enough to be the linking one?"
Luka answered this time, though it was the thread of a different conversation that he pulled at.
"He thinks he's better than us."
Alois' hands stilled, the daisy crown sitting limply in his lap. Across the stretch of grass, Ciel was sprawled out in the shade of a tree, pulling a sour face as though the nice weather was designed simply to annoy him. As always, he wasn't alone, Soma and Freckles on each side of him and chattering away to each other happily. Even as Ciel sat in resistant silence, he still looked like he belonged between them, so effortlessly one of the group.
Luka tore at the grass more viciously.
"Don't take it personally," Alois said with a flippancy he didn't feel, a smile that felt unnatural on his lips, "He thinks he's better than everyone."
"Why?" Luka asked, in that way children had. Questioning everything, tearing down the most complex of problems to one simple word.
Alois struggled to answer.
"He's not better than us," Luka asserted, voice sounding deeper than Alois remembered it. Memories couldn't be trusted, though. He was just remembering wrong. It was what was right in front of him that was the truth and he would trust that. "Just because Claude pays attention to him. He's not better than me -"
Alois' mouth was watery with sudden nausea. For a moment, the ground beneath him seemed to tilt, tried to tip him off of it. He just about caught himself from falling on to his side, clinging to fistfuls of grass as though they would keep him attached to earth. His head swam, the world slipping out of focus, out of solidity as though it were made of fresh and running paint, and he clenched his eyes shut as tight as they would go.
And as abruptly as it had begun, it ended.
"Jim, the crown," Luka said with a whine. His voice was soft and high again, not that shadow of adulthood that it had been moments before. His face was wiped clear of any anger, any hatred, just a pout as Alois crushed some of the crown's flower links between his shaking hands. He released the crown immediately, letting it drop limply back in to his lap.
"Don't -" Alois' voice cracked, his throat still thick with the threat of throwing up, "Don't say stuff like that, okay? He's ... He's my friend."
Luka gave a puzzled frown.
"Don't say what stuff?"
Alois didn't answer, looking out across the stretch of grass. Freckles had run off to her other friends, but Soma stayed with Ciel, chattering away and uncaring that he wasn't getting any response. Ciel was pretending to sleep, no doubt in hopes that Soma would shut up. Still, Alois thought, if he really wanted quiet, he would have just walked away.
There was an unpleasant queasiness twisting at Alois' stomach that had nothing to do with feeling ill. He knew what it was, but he rejected that feeling, replaced it by force with guilt, guilt on behalf of Luka's angry words.
"Where're you going?" Luka asked as Alois stood. When Alois didn't answer, he trailed reluctantly behind him, looking more and more upset as they walked over to the tree.
"Err, hi," Soma greeted with false friendliness. Soma didn't like him. He had never forgiven him for Ciel's eye. Did Ciel like him better, Alois wondered. He couldn't understand why he would. Soma was so false. False cheer, false niceties, false false false.
Stop it, Alois scolded himself, the guilt coiling tighter in his stomach.
"Hi," Alois replied. His discomfort rang clear.
"Jim, what about our flowers?" Luka whispered, as though worried the other two would hear him. Alois wished they would. "Someone's gonna take our spot."
Alois ignored him.
"Ahh, you've really caught the sun! Sit here for a bit, it's nice and cool." Soma grinned, patting the grass beside him. Alois struggled to see the strain in his smile but he knew it couldn't be genuine, not when it was directed at him. As the silence drew out, it dimmed slightly.
Ciel cracked his eye open a bit, just enough to avoid the full glare of the sunlight.
"It's too hot," Ciel said unprompted, as though Alois could do anything about the weather.
"He's moody because he's already got sunburn," Soma said in a mock whisper, sticking his tongue out when Ciel rolled his eye, "Oh, that's nice! Can I have a look?"
Soma reached for the flower crown.
"No, it's not for them!" Luka shrieked, eyes beginning to shine with the promise of tears. The expression twisted as soon as Alois looked back at him, however, and upset turned to aggression. The snarl was back, the voice unrecognizable as Luka's when he continued, "He doesn't deserve it. He's not better, he's not, he's not!"
Alois stumbled over his own feet as he moved as quickly as he could from Soma's outstretched hand. He saw Soma's face fall but the meaning of that didn't register at all. Soma was superfluous to him, always had been.
The guilt was a splinter burrowed too deep beneath his skin. Too difficult to get rid of, impossible to ignore, the pain a constant pin prick.
Ciel opened his eye fully now, propping himself up on his elbows. He glanced behind Alois with confusion, and Alois had a moment of hope. Ciel would see Luka. Ciel would talk to Luka and show Luka he wasn't bad. Luka wouldn't get scary like that anymore. Everything would be fixed.
But no, Alois realized, he was just looking to see why Alois had suddenly snapped around like that. Confusion, because he couldn't see anything.
"Alois," Ciel began, his voice so cautious Alois wanted to scream, "You've been sat in the sun too long. Sit in the shade for a bit. Cool off."
They were both staring at him now with what could have been concern. Luka had fallen so silent behind him that Alois wasn't sure he was even still there, but he dared not turn around to look again. Ciel was still shooting furtive looks behind him.
"Here," Alois said, not as steadily as he would have liked.
He offered the flower crown to Ciel. After a moment of hesitation, Ciel carefully took it from him, looking even more confused now. He opened his mouth to speak, probably to ask what the hell was wrong with Alois, so Alois turned on his heel and walked away as slowly as he could stand to.
He wasn't entirely surprised to find that Luka was no longer in the gardens.
Sweat beading on his forehead, Sebastian slumped against the wall and waited. The wrench hung limply from his hand.
His fifteenth short-lived job had been as a plumber. Good pay, generally unpleasant work. He had liked the technical aspect of it, so many different parts forming together to create a cohesive system, a guessing game of which minute area had become a fault that stopped all the other parts from working. But he hadn't liked when the guessing game became as predictable as a well-read book. If X was the issue, then Y was undoubtedly the problem. Day in, day out, until the monotony had rotted Sebastian's patience down to nothing. He had lasted six months in the job. A record for him, until now.
One thing he had taken from that job was a faultless knowledge of the older plumbing systems. Anything post-2010 would be like a foreign language he didn't speak, he was sure, but anything developed in the fifteen years before that was like revisiting an old friend.
Fortunately for him, and unfortunately for Agni, St. Victoria's had not had their plumbing system upgraded since 2002.
Lying at his feet were a dozen bolts in varying degrees of rust and two very important connecting pipes. Without those integral parts, the shower on the second floor of the residential building wouldn't work. Agni, after a morning spent slaving and sweating over supply order forms in an office without air conditioning and desperate for a shower now the work was done, would be discovering this unfair fact any moment now.
A small dose of karma, if nothing else.
Sebastian was happy to wait. He calculated at least fifteen to twenty minutes before Agni connected the dots and came down to the boiler room to see if he could sort out the shower issue. He wouldn't have a chance to do that before he would be faced with the more worrying issue of a locked door, a small room and an angry Sebastian with a wrench.
It was answers Sebastian wanted, not violence. But his temper was a simmering thing, needing the smallest of catalysts these days. He refused to let it control him - you're angrier than I ever was - and he was sure, in a desperate clutching at straws way, that if he just got the answer he needed, he would be able to reign himself in once again.
That all depended on Agni finally talking, however. Sebastian wasn't holding his breath. He had a lot of questions for Agni; why had he looked so guilty yesterday; what had he done to avoid being trapped on Ward V; but more than anything now, the question that had become constant background noise in his mind was this: why did you invite me here?
For the past months, Sebastian had given Agni the benefit of ignorance. Surely he didn't know what was really going on at St. Victoria's and what he had thrown Sebastian into, because if he did, then he would never have encouraged Sebastian to apply for a job there in the first place. Their friendship aside, Agni would never inflict a place like St. Victoria's on another person.
But he had. Had planted the idea in his head, encouraged it as it grew into a decision Sebastian would give anything to go back and change. He had even passed his application on to the Chairmen. Sebastian had thought nothing more of it than wondering if Agni was lonely in England, and sure the job would be entertaining enough for a month or two, he hadn't thought twice about coming to see an old friend.
Wrong, Sebastian thought now, hand tightening around the wrench, whatever reason he brought me here for, it wasn't out of sentiment.
He would find out just what that reason was now. Neither of them would be leaving the boiler room until he did.
Footsteps sounded from outside the door. The handle turned with an aged creak. Sebastian put his free hand just in front of his chest, stopping the door quietly before it could hit him and then, as Agni walked further inside the small room, he pushed it shut, the lock sliding into place with a loud click. Agni spun around, alarm bright in his eyes.
"Just me," Sebastian said, stepping forward. Unsurprisingly, that didn't seem to calm Agni's nerves. His eyes flicked to the wrench in Sebastian's hand. "Don't worry, it's easy to fix. Should only take, oh, ten minutes? I could use a second pair of hands though."
Eyes downcast and mouth set in a hard line, Agni wasn't even about to pretend he didn't know what was going on. Feigning ignorance had gotten him nowhere but in Sebastian's bad books. There was a resolution in him though, Sebastian could see, that he still wasn't going to give up any answers easily. That was a glimpse of the Agni he remembered. For all his readiness to bow his head, he had never been weak willed.
"Happy to help," Agni replied, a beat too late to seem natural.
They worked mostly in silence at first, save for a few quiet instructions from Sebastian. Now that he had finally succeeded in trapping Agni in a room with him, the questions he wanted to ask abandoned him. He knew what he wanted to know, but the words to get to those answers had all but evaporated from his tongue. Conversation had always come easily to him so long as it was meaningless. Meaningful things, things that would actually impact on him and his life, he struggled with those. Now the moment was there, he was almost afraid of the answer.
"Agni," Sebastian began, hands pausing as they moved a bolt back into place. "It's obvious you've ... done something you're ashamed of. I know you've been involved with Ward V; Doctor said so, and for all that he's as mad as a bag of cats, he's not much for lying, from what I've seen. He has no reason to lie about this. Whereas you have all the reason to."
Agni just looked at him steadily, silently.
"I'm not asking for gory details here. Whatever you did, it worked. Great. No judgement. Just tell me what it was, as little as you like, just the gist, so I can do it too." Sebastian let the wrench drop from his hand with a dull clank, shifting on his knees to be facing Agni fully. Agni was completely still. "That ward, those patients, I can't keep doing it. The idea of - of just, obeying their orders is becoming too easy to imagine. Agni, I don't want to end up like them. And I'm talking about both of them; the Ward V patients and the staff. But I am buckling here because I can't find another way."
Sebastian rose to be fully on his knees, reaching out to grab Agni's arm.
"You did. You got out, Agni, and you got out in one piece. How?"
Slowly, Agni removed Sebastian's hand from his arm. There was something entirely wooden about his movements, the way his voice sounded when he said, "You."
Agni had spoken so quietly that Sebastian was sure he had misheard. The moment drew on, a slow drag of dawning realization.
"Me." Sebastian sounded wooden himself now.
Agni finally faltered, unable to look Sebastian in the eye. The guilt was back. Oddly, it made him look tired, as though the effort of keeping it hidden for well over a year now had been so utterly exhausting.
It made him look like a different person, someone Sebastian didn't know.
"When I first came here, to England, no one would hire me. They're a xenophobic people, the English. I have a Masters in engineering but I was being turned away at the door for any relevant job I went in for. The money I'd saved ran out quickly. It got to the point where I had to choose between paying the rent and eating. I started applying for anything, regardless of whether I was over-qualified.
"When I answered the vacancy advert for St. Victoria's, I wasn't expecting any response. Jobs like this, you'd usually need all sorts of qualifications just to be allowed in the building, anywhere near the patients. Not to mention the training you'd have to undergo once you were taken on. But I did get a response; they wanted me to start immediately. It meant a roof over my head, a steady wage, I'd be earning my own way in the world. I didn't even question it, Sebastian, I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. So I came here."
Agni paused, choosing his next words carefully. Sebastian held his tongue and waited, hands shaking minutely in his lap.
"That should have been my first clue that something was wrong with this place. Mental health hospitals, places like this, they have all sorts of protocols in place, rules and regulations to follow about every little detail. Taking staff on - people who are going to be in charge of vulnerable and dangerous people - they need to run security checks, see if they have criminal records, at least a basic knowledge of nursing in some shape or form. But they didn't go through any of that with me. And all I thought was that I was lucky."
Agni gave a self-deprecating laugh, eyes still trained on the floor.
"I still remember the first ... I wouldn't call it a suspicion, but the first moment where I felt something wasn't right. There was a man who used to work here, his name was Aleister. Tanaka instructed him to show me around, so I saw a lot of him. He was the one who introduced me to the patients for the first time. And ... he was odd. He would pay little attention to the male patients, he would even ignore Beast and Freckles, but he wouldn't leave Wendy alone. It was never anything overt. He wouldn't touch her, from what I saw, but he made her very uncomfortable, and it didn't sit right with me. But that wasn't the thing that first struck me about St. Victoria's. It was when I tried to report it. The Chairmen were gone.
"A place like this, there had to be rules about that sort of thing. With three Chairmen, how could it be possible that all three were gone at the same time? And that was always the case, Sebastian. I kept trying to get to see them, one of them at least, but they were never here. It was like Angela was running the place. So ... I went to her. About Aleister. I told her about what I thought, what I'd seen, and she told me she'd take care of it. A few days later, she let me know that they'd fired him. I was glad, but ... It would be a while before I found out what had actually happened to him."
Sebastian's hands clenched, his legs aching from the awkward kneeling position he was in.
"As interesting as this all is, it's not what I want to know," he said, eerily calm, "What does this Aleister man have to do with me?"
"Sebastian, that's my point," Agni replied, finally looking at him, "He has everything to do with us. He is us. What happened to him, it's what can happen to us as soon as we step out of line. Don't you recognize the name? I know you know it. It was why we argued back then, wasn't it? You saw it in Soma's file. Aleister, Aleister Chambers."
Sebastian already had the denial ready to spit back at Agni, accusations of changing the subject, and did he think Sebastian was an idiot? But the name was familiar. And as he let himself be distracted, wondering all the while if that was Agni's goal, he remembered just where he had seen it before.
A file on Claude Faustus' desk. A record of Soma's only confinement in The Room. Punishment for the murder of an Orderly, Aleister Chambers.
"No, that," Sebastian struggled to find his words, shaking his head, "That makes no sense. The file said that Soma tricked Chambers into taking him outside and attacked him there. That's why Soma was put in The Room. He wasn't fired."
Agni hung his head again, a shame Sebastian was trying to understand in his eyes.
"They only decided that that had happened six months after Aleister was fired by Angela. Because ... because Soma and I became close in that time. Closer than I should have let us become. And when they saw that happening, they decided it was time to introduce me to Ward V."
Legs aching too much now, Sebastian sat fully on the floor, resigned to the fact that he was going nowhere any time soon. There were still bolts lying on the floor between them, the faulty plumbing long forgotten.
"They sent you to Ward V because of Soma," Sebastian said, needing to repeat the fact out loud.
"And they sent you to Ward V because of Ciel," Agni confirmed Sebastian's suspicion, "But it ... it's not a punishment, at least that's not how they intend it. And it's not so much because we developed some sort of relationship with a patient. It's not direct cause and effect. They always intend for us to end up on Ward V, but the wait, the ... initiation is supposed to be longer. Our sympathising with a patient so openly is what makes them think they're losing us in a way, or that's the impression I've gotten. It's when they think we're more on the patient's side than theirs that they throw is into Ward V ahead of schedule."
It made sense, in a warped sort of way. The main ward was straight-forward enough, a place where the staff could gauge their personalities, their empathy, how far they would be willing to go to help the patients. The main ward was the opening act. Ward V was the show, St. Victoria's pride. If they couldn't handle the main ward, like Agni's inability to hold his tongue about Aleister's inappropriate behaviour towards Wendy, then Ward V was a goal very far in the distance. But sympathy was one thing, whereas a genuine friendship, or something more as the case may be, was too dangerous to allow to develop. So Ward V was introduced prematurely, a heavy-handed attempt at initiating a change in them.
"You're asking me how I got out of Ward V unscathed, and the answer is that I didn't. No one does. The moment I saw that place, something inside of me just ... snapped. Those poor people, Sebastian. They're so helpless, caged up like animals. It's inhumane. And the things they expected me to do to them."
Agni's eyes screwed shut, words failing him. Even now, presumably a long time since he had been on Ward V, it still haunted him. It turned Sebastian's stomach, seeing such raw compassion from Agni. How it compared to the borderline disgust Sebastian felt whenever he looked at the Ward V patients and had to remind himself not to refer to them as Its.
"And did you do them?"
Agni opened his eyes slowly, jaw slack. Remembering. Regretting.
"Yes."
"By the time I was on Ward V, I already knew what this place was capable of. Peter disappearing, how they mutilated Joker, and then all of that with Finny. I was already well aware of what they could do to me," Sebastian said, voice flat, "But you weren't. What's your excuse, Agni? How did you justify following their orders?"
Agni seemed completely incapable of answering for a good few minutes, face falling at Sebastian's words. With all that build-up, perhaps he had hoped to avoid exactly that question, but Sebastian was pulling no punches anymore. Not now he knew what Agni had done, throwing him to the wolves without a care.
It was Agni's fault he was here, in this situation, being forced to make these decisions. All to save his own skin.
"They convinced me," Agni murmured after a few minutes of silence, so quietly Sebastian almost missed it.
"They convinced you," Sebastian parroted tonelessly.
"That it was what they needed. They were worse off than the other patients, so the treatment had to be more intense in order to have any effect, to get through to them at all." Agni couldn't meet his eyes again, staring down at his clenched hands with shame. "They didn't ask me to hurt them, not at first. I just had to restrain them, or rinse them down with a hose, just little things that made it easier to handle them."
The desensitization. Restraining, washing, cutting hair.
"But then, then it got worse. I know it's different now but back then they didn't have each of the patients in their own separate cubicle -" Sebastian couldn't help but scoff at the word choice, to Agni's annoyance, "- cage, then. On each side of the room, there was just one large one. So of course fights broke out between them. The first time it happened when I was there, they wanted me to break it up. I was hesitant - getting in the middle of a fight between two of them was to have a death wish - so I tried dousing them with water. It only distracted them for a few minutes, then they were back at each other again. If anything, they were more vicious now. They called Phipps and Grey down, and I knew that wasn't right, they were part of the psychiatric department. And they had, these, they were like police batons, and the two of them just attacked the patients. Beat them senseless, kept going long after the patients had stopped fighting back."
The sheer disgust Agni was feeling was making it difficult for him to even get the words out, Sebastian could tell, and even though it had been a long time ago, he still sounded as horrified by what he had saw now as he had been at the time.
"And then they gave me a baton, "for the future." It was all just so matter of fact, Sebastian. No one blinked an eye. No one said a word to the two of them about it. And I realized, that's because it was a matter of fact. That was what they did. They just hadn't been doing it in front of me."
Agni sat up then, the shame fading.
"I couldn't just let it lie."
Sebastian frowned, "What do you mean?"
"I'd had suspicions that something was wrong. At least in terms of health and safety, I had grounds to complain. But now I had the real proof I needed," Agni replied, "I'd seen brutality against the patients, basically had it confirmed that it was par for the course. So, I could report it to the authorities."
Sebastian sat up straight, attention finally pulled away from his own anger.
"You reported it?"
"Yes. As you know, it's more hassle than it's worth trying to dodge the red tape to leave the grounds without good reason and permission from the higher ups, and trying to leave right after that had happened would only be giving them warning enough to cover their tracks. So I wrote letters. I wrote to the local police, I wrote to social services, and I wrote to the only address I could find for the Chairmen."
"I'm imagining there's a but."
Agni met his eyes again, devoid of expression.
"But I woke up three days later to find two of the letters on my desk. The one to the police, and the one to social services. They had never been opened. And next to them, a reply from the third letter."
"What did it say?"
"'Your concerns will be taken into consideration.'"
"So they know," Sebastian said, more to himself than to Agni," The Chairmen know what's happening here."
"One of them does," Agni replied, "And they don't care."
Silence fell between them, each lost in their own thoughts.
Sebastian played idly with the wrench, twirling it around in one hand then passing it over to the other, letting himself focus on the cool metal in his hands rather than the implications of what Agni was telling him. Agni hadn't mentioned Tanaka or Undertaker by name then, so was it the unknown Third Chairman his letter had reached? If so, what did that mean about the other Chairmen? Did they know what was happening in their Institution, and if they did, did they care?
The two letters to the police and social services had been stopped before ever reaching their destination. That struck Sebastian more than the reply Agni had received. If anything, that had been the message the Third Chairman had been sending. That they had the power to do that, more power than the police or social services. An amazing foresight, or rather, they were watching Agni, watching what he was doing, and ready to retaliate in kind.
"You said they only decided Soma had killed Chambers six months after he was fired," Sebastian picked up the thread of conversation again, "What did you mean?"
Agni rubbed at his eyes wearily, exhausted by the entire conversation.
"I knew as soon as I first stepped foot in Ward V that Angela had lied. Aleister was there, in the cage, one of them. I don't know what they did to him but he wasn't the same man any more. They'd broken him, I suppose, though I don't understand what for. My guess would be that they were more interested in me and what I might do than they were with him by that point, so when I complained about him, they took the opportunity to get rid of him.
"The day I found the letters in my room, I didn't know what to do. I had a shift on the main ward so I just ... went. Got dressed, ate breakfast, went up to the ward and tried to forget all about the letters. It wasn't until gone noon that I realized something was wrong.
"Soma has never been an early riser, but he always gets up before twelve. Says he feels like his day is wasted if he isn't. But that day, twelve came and passed, and nothing. So I start to worry - what if he's sick, or upset about something and hiding away in his room? So I go over to see."
"He wasn't there," Sebastian guessed. Agni nodded.
"It doesn't even register at first. I'm just confused, wondering where he is. And then Ciel comes over. And, this was long before you knew him, he was ... different back then. He'd been at St. Victoria's awhile but not long enough. He was still angry, quick to a temper, hadn't learned to control himself yet. And he comes over to me, hostile as anything, and says, 'they took him last night.' And it's an accusation, Sebastian. I could hear him telling me that it was my fault. It hadn't even occurred to me yet, but as soon as he told me Soma was gone, it all just clicked."
"They took Soma to The Room to punish you for the letters," Sebastian said, "To warn you to stay in line."
Agni had a face like thunder then, the anger at least two years old but still as fresh as that day.
"I go to Angela, because if it's anyone, it's her. And she starts telling me this story, all these little details, she'd learnt it like a script. Aleister had never been fired, what was I talking about? Aleister had been murdered three days ago - the day I sent those letters - by Soma. Soma had lured him out into the gardens somehow. Once they were alone, he'd attacked him, stuck him in the neck with a pen he'd stolen from somewhere. By the time Angela and Ash came across them, poor Aleister was long dead. Soma was trying to make a run for it. But fortunately, they managed to catch him before he could escape. For the safety of everyone, Soma was put into solitary confinement, with considerations being made for him to be moved down to Ward V."
Sebastian closed his eyes, the pieces finally falling into place for him.
"You made a deal, didn't you, Agni?"
When Sebastian opened them, Agni was meeting his eyes shamelessly.
"Yes. And I'm so sorry for it, but I can't say I wouldn't do it again, if I had to repeat it all."
"What was the deal?" Sebastian asked, calmer than he felt.
And Agni explained, just as calmly, "I would keep my mouth shut. Soma would be returned to the main ward without any further harm done. I wouldn't be required to go to Ward V ever again. In exchange, I would ... I would bring someone else here, in my place. Someone who wouldn't make the same mistakes that I had."
"Me."
"You."
Silence fell between them again.
The same mistakes, he said. Showing compassion to the patients. Refusing to do harm to the patients. Developing a relationship with a particular patient. Well, one out of three was close enough, Sebastian supposed. Sebastian wasn't offended that Agni had believed him incapable enough of compassion to nominate him for the role. It was less Agni's opinion of him and more the fact that he was really the only friend Agni had. Had being the key word.
Sebastian rose to his feet, steadier than he felt.
"I am sorry, for what it's worth," Agni said as Sebastian made his way to the door, "I never thought you'd stay long enough for there to be consequences."
If Agni had just stayed silent, Sebastian would have walked out of the room without a word. There had been a stillness in his chest where anger had been bubbling away for weeks, but when Agni spoke again, with the flimsiest of justifications, the anger erupted.
Before he knew what he was doing, Sebastian had picked up the wrench again and swung it down at his still-kneeling friend. Agni only just dodged the attack, the wrench crashing into the wall beside his head. Plaster crumbled away in a white cloud, a web of cracks sunken deep into the surface of the wall.
Sebastian dropped the wrench, suddenly breathless. His chest heaved as he struggled to draw a breath but choked on every attempt, as though something was blocking his airway.
"Hit me, if it'll help," Agni said, kicking away the fallen wrench. He eyed Sebastian with swelling concern as his breathing became more and more laboured.
Hands balled into fists, it was only too tempting to throw a punch at Agni, but all Sebastian could think about was how smothering that tiny room was. There wasn't enough air in there. They had used it all up, sucked it away with revelations and betrayal. If he stayed there, he would suffocate, and maybe that was what Agni wanted. To have him die at St. Victoria's in Soma's place, in Agni's place.
"Sebastian, breathe." Agni had stood up, was taking Sebastian's hand and placing it on his own chest. It rose and fell in a steady rhythm beneath Sebastian's sweat slick hand. "You need to calm down. Just breathe me with, alright?"
Agni's touch was like a shock of cold water. No, like a shackle around his hand trapping him in the boiler room until all the air ran out, until the walls all crumbled and collapsed upon him from the hit of the wrench. He'd be buried like a secret, all of Agni's guilt gone in one fell swoop.
"Sebastian!" Agni called after him, recovering from the forceful shove. A moment too late, as Sebastian had already bolted for the door, fumbling with the lock he had done himself. His legs felt like rubber, barely able to carry him as he escaped from that suffocating room.
Not his bedroom, that was the first place Agni would go if he wanted to pursue him. Not the ward, he couldn't let Ciel see him in this state, pathetically gasping and afraid at nothing, everything. Sebastian just ran without a destination in mind, just away away away.
The garden.
He could hear the voices of the patients - Dagger shouting at Joker for something, Beast shouting back at Dagger, Dagger bemoaning being shouted at by his beloved sister, laughter from the rest - so turned the other way, slowing his run to a swift walk until he could no longer hear any voices.
He had come a distance, recognized the area. He was close to the window of the Ward V back room. Sebastian stopped where he was, dropping to the ground gracelessly, unwilling to stray any closer to that place.
His breathing was slowing down now. The breaths came easier to him. The panic that had descended on him like an inescapable fog was abating.
For something to do with his hands, he plucked at the grass, pulling fistfuls out and letting them float back down to the floor like falling confetti. Soon enough, the ground around him was patchy, broken strands of grass littered everywhere. By the time he was finding nothing but dirt to pull at, he was breathing slowly and steadily.
Hands caked with mud, Sebastian stood and made his way back to the residential building.
Ciel walked slower than was necessary, leaving several paces between himself and Dr. Faustus. It may well have been enough room for silence personified to walk with them, for all the words that had been shared between them since Claude had collected him from the garden.
Ciel had a visitor, a rare event at the institute. It had been seven months since Ann had last come to see him, something he hadn't even realized until today. She would be guilty, he knew, but he could hardly blame her for hating coming to St. Victoria's. Besides, her wedding had long since passed, so she was no doubt distracted by her new life of wedded bliss.
He was happy for her, in a detached sort of way. He hoped she was happy, in the same sort of way he hoped for a character he was fond of not to die by the end of the book, or to at least have a suitably poignant death scene.
The flower crown Alois had given him was still dangling from his hand, his fingers smudged with mud from holding it too long. He had almost considered putting it on, if only to see if it would startle a smile from Alois. Alois had fled too quickly for the thought to become anything more than a thought, though.
It was the first time Alois had spoken to him in weeks. It hadn't put any of his concerns at ease.
Claude slowed his pace to be in step with Ciel. Ciel resisted the temptation to drastically speed up.
"It was a shame you couldn't go to the wedding," Claude said, "I did try to arrange it, but I couldn't get the permission from the Chairmen. I hope your Aunt wasn't too disappointed."
The unsettling thing was that Claude had done his best to get Ciel to the wedding, as though extending some sort of olive branch. It was when he made efforts to be kind that Ciel was most ill at ease. He preferred outright malice. At least that was easy to decipher.
"I doubt I was missed," Ciel replied shortly, keeping his gaze straight ahead.
"I imagine she'll have brought pictures to show you," Claude guessed, and Ciel knew he wouldn't be far from the mark, "When you get fed up of looking at them, give me a sign and I'll say you need to get back to the ward."
Ciel bristled. That was far too spot on a gesture to make with him. It had been a while since he had been the focus of Claude's attention, he had forgotten how close to the crux of him Claude could be at times.
"Since you failed to get me to the wedding, why wouldn't I want to look at the pictures?" Ciel replied, just to be difficult. He knew he was condemning himself to at least an hour of pretending to care about bridesmaid's dresses and far too many angles of cutting the cake, but it was the price he was willing to pay to pretend Claude didn't have him as well pegged as he did.
Claude stopped walking, placing an unwelcome hand on Ciel's shoulder. Ciel froze immediately, angry at himself for giving Claude exactly the reaction he wanted.
"I am sorry. The Chairmen were almost on board, so long as I accompanied you, but ... then you had that little outburst in my office. I kept it as under wraps as possible, but very little happens here that at least one of the Chairmen don't hear about." Claude sounded genuinely apologetic. It made Ciel's skin crawl. "Should such an occasion arise again, I'll do my utmost to ensure that you can go, you have my word. But it would require co-operation from you too, Ciel. You'd have to be on your best behaviour."
Immediately, Ciel's thoughts went to Lizzie's wedding, only a few months away. December, he was sure, having reread that letter more times than he cared to admit. It was just like her to want a Winter wedding. But Claude didn't know about Lizzie's engagement, so surely Ciel was just imagining the suggestion of Claude's words.
"I'm hardly overwhelmed with invitations to social events. Next time I'm invited to a Gala Night, you'll be the first person I tell," Ciel replied cuttingly, shrugging Claude's hand off of him.
Claude didn't try to walk beside Ciel again, no reply to his words forthcoming.
Ciel wasn't stupid enough to think of that as any sort of win.
"You've gotten taller again!" Ann beamed as Ciel walked into the visiting room. She was the sole splash of colour in the dull cream-walled room. Her shock of red hair was piled high on her head in an elegant French knot, her crimson dress more suited to a fancy party than visiting family. It had no doubt been on a runway in Milan all of a week ago. Her shoes looked lethal, the heels closer to blades than anything else, but she walked in them effortlessly.
She hadn't changed at all.
"I would hope so," Ciel replied, letting a small smile show when he was sure his back was to Claude.
Ann gathered him in her arms, crushing him to her chest. Her heels made her even taller than she already was, his head level with her breasts. She found nothing but amusement when he flushed a red to match her dress and pulled away.
"Taller, but no more mature, clearly." She winked, softening the edge from the comment. She gave a cheery wave to Claude then pulled Ciel to sit at the furthest table, where no-one could over hear them without actively trying.
Her smile fell immediately.
"I'm so sorry I haven't come sooner."
From her expression, one would think she was confessing a terrible sin. No doubt that's exactly how she felt. Ciel knew what she wanted to hear - it's alright, I don't mind, I'm fine - but as easy as it would have been to say that, he didn't much feel like placating her guilt.
"You shouldn't feel obligated to come see me," he said instead, not bothering to keep the edge out of his voice.
She could take that one of two ways.
Please don't feel obligated to come see me. You have a life of your own, I understand.
I'm not an obligation. Either come or don't.
Even Ciel wasn't quite sure which one he was saying.
Ann didn't look particularly put out by the attitude, smiling sadly.
"How can I not?"
Ciel didn't know how to respond to that, so he didn't. Fortunately, Ann was never one for awkward silences, so quickly changed the topic.
"I have good news."
Ann was barely containing her smile now. It always threw Ciel off how quickly she could flip-flop between different subjects, different emotions, as though her thoughts were racing so quickly that the rest of her couldn't keep up. He knew he struggled to keep up.
"Oh?"
Ann shuffled her chair around the corner of the table to be sat beside him, taking hold of one of his hands. Her touch didn't make him cringe away as it would have done months before.
"I was dying to come tell you as soon as we found out but Arthur convinced me to wait. All things considered, we wanted to be sure it was certain before telling people." Ann squeezed his hand tightly, her smile a glowing thing. "And you're the first person I wanted to tell, so; we're pregnant."
Ciel's mouth worked silently for a moment too long, words just beyond his reach. When he regained his tongue, all he managed to say was, "Oh."
"Please, contain your joy," Ann chided, only half serious. She was too happy herself to find any unhappiness in anyone else, even though there was a spark of something negative in Ciel upon hearing those words.
"Sorry," Ciel shook his head, squeezing her hand in return, "It's just ... is it going to be alright? For you?"
It was only half a memory to him now - nights when Ann showed up at their Renbon home, inconsolable in the most silent of ways. She would be odd with him those times. Overly affectionate then terribly cold by turns. He hadn't understood at the time, too young to know about such things, but he was older now and saw it all with a new knowledge. His Father's awkward attempts at humour made more sense now. His Mother's own hollow sadness a twin to her sister's, which had baffled him at the time, was painfully obvious now too.
Ann's smile dimmed, but she seemed grateful for the question, for the uncharacteristic consideration.
"I wasn't alright at first. I'd told Arthur about the - well, he knew what to expect, or what not to expect, as the case may be. So when we found out, it ... wasn't exactly a happy thing. I was so sure I was going to lose it again. He just didn't want me to go through it again." Ann held his hand tighter, almost painfully. "But we've been given the all clear. I'm five months gone now, weekly doctor's visits, though they don't tell me anything I don't already know, of course. It's looking promising, Ciel."
Ciel choked back whatever that negativity inside of him was. He didn't understand it, but it had no place in this conversation, so he locked it away for later consideration. When he summoned up a smile, it wasn't entirely false.
"Then good. Just promise me one thing."
Ann cocked her head questioningly, "That's foreboding. What?"
"Let Arthur pick the name," Ciel replied, "I dread to think what the woman who named my toys things like Amadeus and Tron would call a baby."
"But it's such a wonderful blend of the old and modern!" Ann objected with a bark of laughter.
"Never mind kids on the playground beating them up, I'm fairly sure they'd beat themselves up with any name you picked."
"Fine, fine!" Ann laughed, in that unreserved way she had. He only ever saw anyone laugh like that when she came to visit him. "But you've got to promise me something too then."
Ciel managed not to frown.
Ann sensed his hesitation regardless. Slipping her fingers in between his, she leaned closer, glancing surreptitiously over at Claude. He was pointedly not looking at them in a way that made it obvious he had only just looked away.
"Promise me you'll come see them," Ann said, suddenly serious, "I'll talk to whoever I have to talk to here. I'll make any amount of arrangements I need to. But I want you to meet them. I want them to know you. I consider you as good as their brother already, and I want you involved as much as possible. I know you don't want to play happy families, you've made that clear, and I'm not going to force it if you don't want it. But just meet them, at least once. Please."
Ciel stared down at their joined hands. Even her fingernails were painted a bright red, the varnish sleek and unchipped, her nails manicured flawlessly. His were a mess in comparison, nails bitten right down to the skin. She squeezed his hand, encouraging a response, and he squeezed back.
"Ann, you know I can't promise that," he said, as gently as he could manage. It still came out sounding sharp, even to him.
Ann slid her hand free of his.
"You wouldn't even try?" she asked, downtrodden, "Because I would. I'd do anything I needed to on my side. But it'd be pointless if you didn't. Ciel, this place was never meant to be long term. Do you think I want to see you spend your life here?"
Ciel looked away, towards the door. Unintentionally, he caught Claude's eye. Hating himself for it, he gave the most subtle of nods.
Claude was over to them in an instant.
"I'm afraid we'll have to cut your visit short, Mrs. Durless. Ciel has an appointment at the infirmary for a check-up," Claude said, touching Ciel's shoulder lightly. Ciel didn't let himself freeze this time, resisted the urge to cringe away.
Ann's face shut down.
"He doesn't need to go to the infirmary. He's fine," she said shortly, "This is the first time I've been able to get visiting permission in seven months. I think you can give me another five minutes."
"I apologize for the inconvenience, but he really must keep this appointment," Claude replied smoothly, unfazed, "His health hasn't been the best recently and we need to make sure it's nothing more serious."
"Then I'll see to him," Ann challenged, standing up. In her heels, she easily matched Claude in height. "I treated him all the time when he was little. I'm sure I'm just as qualified as your physician. Lead the way."
"No," Ciel said before Claude could respond for him. Ann's face fell, something akin to betrayal flashing in her eyes. He ignored it, ignored the pang it caused in his chest. "Go home, Ann."
Ann stared at him, waiting for something. A hint that he was being coerced, possibly. He saw her eye the hand on his shoulder darkly. But no, she let it drop.
As Claude was leading him from the room, steering him by that unwelcome hand on his shoulder, Ann called out again.
"Did you read the letter?"
Claude's hand tensed. Ciel hadn't let him see the letter.
"Yes," Ciel replied, glancing back at her. That seemed to placate her, for some reason. "I didn't write a response. I'm not allowed pens."
"That's alright," Ann said, the smile returning, however dimmed. "Is there any message you want me to pass on to her?"
After a moment's thought, Ciel replied simply, "Tell her congratulations. And ... good luck."
"Luka, don't be like that."
Alois stood a distance away, feeling a trespasser in his own bedroom. Even if it was his room, he was unwelcome. Luka refused to look at him, curled up on the bed with his back to the rest of the room. He wasn't asleep. He was too visibly tensed up. He was just ignoring Alois, in a stony way much worse than a normal sulk.
"I'm sorry."
Alois stepped forward. One step, two step, then stopped. It wasn't that he was scared of Luka, not at all. Luka had never been the violent one of them, after all. He was just worried that, if he went straight over to Luka when Luka didn't want him to, then he might just disappear in the blink of an eye. As quickly as he had appeared, as silently as he moved at Alois' side, without a single chance for Alois to stop him from leaving.
Luka wasn't answering. He was refusing to hear him.
Alois tried a different tactic.
"Hey, how about a story, huh? I never finished telling you the one about the Piper's So -"
"You like him better than me," Luka mumbled softly, sadly.
Alois forced a little laugh, "Who, the Piper's Son? Never met him."
Luka didn't find it funny. He finally looked at Alois, glancing over his shoulder. There was none of the warmth that Alois always expected there. He almost looked hurt, but not quite.
"You like him better than me," Luka stated, brooking no argument, "I may as well not even be here."
That was difficult to answer, the voice in his head that Alois had come to loathe whispering but you're not. He shifted from one foot to the other restlessly, letting his focus be on the rough fibres of the carpet rubbing at the soles of his feet, the sound of the other patients just beyond his door, the warning rumble of a storm outside his window.
The heat was breaking so soon. Too soon.
"I honestly don't," Alois replied after a while, when he couldn't distract himself with anything else, "I've always loved you most."
Luka shook his head, a sharp motion that should have made his hair move, but it didn't.
"No. You came here, and you met him, and then you forgot all about me."
"Can I come over there?" Alois asked, only to be shot down with an immediate rejection. He felt too far away to be having this conversation. He needed to be closer, within touching distance, so he could grab Luka and stop him from disappearing again. "Luka, he's the only friend I've ever had here. Of course he matters. But not more than you. You're family. I love you more than anything."
Luka sat up, finally facing him properly. Small and cross-legged on the bed, he looked impossibly young. Younger than he ever would have been by now.
"Then prove it," Luka said - demanded, ordered, that tone was too familiar - with a cherubic little smile, "Take the other eye."
The request didn't even surprise Alois, for some reason. He had almost expected it. Closing his own eyes in exasperation more than anything else, he shook his head.
"No, Luka."
"But why not?" Luka whined, as though he had been denied sweets or a new toy, "You already took the first one."
"I said no, Luka." Alois had forgotten what it was like to be firm like this, to have the smallest inch of resolve in himself. The older of the two of them, he had always had to draw the line in the sand, decide the rules and enact them. For a moment, the briefest of moments, he was happy. But then Luka spoke again, and the illusion of their past selves shattered.
"So you do like him better!" Luka spat, hostility a weapon wielded too well, "I may as well not even be here!"
That was a threat, Alois knew, and he wished it didn't strike him as surely as it did. Luka knew exactly what to say, what to do, how to be, all to get in between the chinks in Alois' armour.
It wasn't fair. How could he stand a chance against that?
Alois snapped.
"Ciel, Ciel, Ciel, he's all you talk about now!" he yelled, no mind given to the people just beyond his door, "You're as bad as Claude! What, don't I matter to you now? Why is he all you care about now?! You're supposed to be for me!"
And as the words left Alois' mouth, they were parroted by Luka. They shouted in synch, matched in volume and venom, the voices mingling together until they sounded exactly the same.
When Alois ran out of steam, words trailing off into a frustrated sob, Luka carried on with swelling malice.
"You're useless. All you had to do was look after me and you couldn't even do that right. Failed and failed and failed, again and again and again. You do nothing but. You couldn't even keep Claude's attention. The second you got here, he was bored of you. And Ciel too, you don't think he's bored of you? You tried to replace me with him and you failed at that too. He's got other people, and so has Claude, but who have you got?"
Even if Alois could have had an answer to that, he was too choked by tears to give it, letting himself drop to the floor carelessly. His throat hurt from shouting, from crying, and all he could hear was Luka's hate.
"Leave 'im alone, he doesn't wanna know."
"I can't just ignore him. Look at the state he's in."
"No one. No one wants you. Look at you. Why would they? What could you possibly give them? You're useless, Jim."
Alois sobbed harder, finding it hard to draw a breath. He didn't hear his bedroom door open, nor the footsteps gingerly approaching him. He couldn't drag his eyes away from Luka. For a moment, he hoped the onslaught was done, as Luka's face was wiped clean of its anger. But no, Luka had one last blow to give.
"What is the point of you, Jim?"
And it hit home.
Alois buckled over, face stained a blotchy red and streaked with tears, a pained cry tearing itself from his weary throat. He barely noticed when he was pulled into a hug, his head pulled under Soma's chin, arms wound tightly around him.
"L - Luka..."
Joker watched them warily from the door, giving Soma a slow shake of the head. Soma just rubbed Alois' trembling back, unsure what else he could do.
Agni had not tried to talk to Sebastian again. Three days had passed since their talk in the boiler room and Sebastian hadn't seen hide nor hair of him. This time, it didn't bother him in the least. He wasn't sure he would be able to see Agni and not drive his fist as hard as he could into his stomach. He wasn't sure he would feel sorry about it if he did.
After calming down in the garden, Sebastian had just gone back to work. He had felt oddly numb about it all. What Agni had done, what he had learned about the Chairmen and their far-stretching reach. It wasn't a good kind of numb, though. It was the hopeless kind.
No way out, no way forward, a slow and sure stagnation.
Not even Ciel could help him now.
That realization was met with a grim sort of acceptance. All this time, Sebastian had been banking far more than he had realized on some miracle solution from Agni. It had been foolish, he saw now. If Agni had had that miracle solution then he wouldn't still be inside St. Victoria's walls.
It had been clutching at straws in the most pathetic of ways.
"Are you alright, Sebastian?" Doctor asked with a little frown, wheeling himself towards the Ward V door, "You seem quieter than usual."
Quieter. What was there left to say? Quiet was the best word for it. His mind was utterly silent now. No raging panic, no desperate scrambling for solutions that didn't exist. Just a calm stillness. It probably didn't bode well, but Sebastian couldn't quite find it in himself to care.
"I'm perfectly fine, Doctor," Sebastian replied a beat too late, smiling blankly.
If Doctor was unconvinced, he didn't say so, just returning the smile cheerfully.
Ward V was as unpleasant as ever. The smells, sights and sounds never quite lost their impact, no matter how many times Sebastian ended up there. His eyes were drawn to patient V8, the electroshock patient. No change since treatment. It still shrieked as balefully as always. Sebastian looked away in disgust as a trickle of pus ran from one of Its infected eyes.
"Good afternoon," Claude greeted them as they entered the ward fully. Sebastian didn't even have it in him to be perturbed at today's company. He wondered at that. When he stopped being annoyed at Claude's presence, something must really be wrong with him.
"Hello, Dr. Faustus," Doctor greeted somewhat stiffly.
Interdepartmental drama, Sebastian thought, what fun.
"Hello, Claude," Sebastian said, pleasantly enough. He accepted the gloves Claude gave him, slipping them on without a thought. Before, the itch of the talcum powder inside the gloves had bothered him for hours after taking them off. He didn't particularly mind it now, stretching the latex until it wrapped around each of his fingers without a crease.
"Patient V7 needs to be moved to the vacant compartment at the other end of the room. His current one has become a hazard, as you can see," Doctor explained, gesturing to the ruin of a cage. V7 was one of the violent ones, if the torn up lino and gouged walls were anything to go by. Even with Its nails trimmed down to the finger tips, It still found a way to cause a mess. "V7 is volatile, so two pairs of hands are going to be necessary in the moving. Dr. Faustus was so kind as to volunteer."
Doctor didn't sound all too happy about that. Nothing made Sebastian fonder of someone than mutual disdain of somebody else.
"As long as it's quick," Claude said, probably aware but just ignoring the somewhat hostile atmosphere, "I'll be needed back upstairs shortly."
"Well, let's crack on then!" Doctor exclaimed, only too happy to spend as little time with Claude as possible. Sebastian shared the sentiment, in a detached sort of way, so gladly took hold of one of the catch poles propped against the far wall.
Claude gave what might have been a sigh, inclining his head towards the trolley in the walkway.
"Fire hazard."
Doctor's smile was definitely forced now, "Sorry, sorry! From yesterday's session with V2. I was sure I'd put that away... Not to worry, it won't get in the way here. Just leave it."
Claude didn't argue, surprisingly enough, and followed Sebastian as they approached V7's enclosure. With a swipe over the panel, it beeped open, the clear plastic door swinging inwards.
Immediately, V7's attention was caught. It didn't come near them, eyeing them warily from the corner of Its enclosure. Blood was caked upon Its ruined fingers, a matching set with the impossibly deep gouges on the surface of the wall. How much force would have to be put in, Sebastian wondered, to make such a mark with blunt nails?
"You take left," Claude instructed beneath his breath, already moving to the right.
Sebastian did as he was told, straying slowly to the left, hands wrapped securely around the rod.
V7 gave a gurgling groan at their approach, Its back flat against the wall as though trying to phase through it. Its feet pushed into the floor, bracing Itself to move, but Claude was swifter. Before V7 could build up enough force to move, he had his catch pole secured around Its neck, forcing Its face into the floor.
V7 was subdued easily and without incident.
"Get the door," Claude instructed, wrestling V7 to Its feet. Now that It was caught, It quickly became distressed, fighting against the wire secured around Its neck. The more It struggled, the tighter the wire was pressed around Its throat. It didn't have the sense the make that connection, however, and so struggled more and more, tightening Its own noose.
Sebastian did as he was told, walking ahead of Claude and V7 to ensure their path was clear.
It was the blankness of his mind, he would realize later, that led him to make such a ridiculous mistake. It could be nothing short of pure idiocy that led him to give his back, not only to a patient, but to Claude Faustus.
He realized that mistake in the instant it took for V7 to struggle so violently, Claude lost his grip on the catch pole. Or so he would later claim, though Sebastian wouldn't believe him for a second. In that instant, V7 lunged forward, crashing into Sebastian's back with unexpected force. The same aggressive force It had used to gouge holes into the concrete wall with nothing but Its blunt and broken fingers.
Sebastian was pinned on his stomach, the wind knocked out of him. V7 was heavy, one of if not the largest of the Ward V patients, and all of that weight kept Sebastian trapped on the ground.
V7's hands smashed into his shoulders. A crushing blow, an audible crack, then a hot white flash of agony.
Sebastian couldn't stop the scream of pain that left him then. More than the pain, his shoulder just felt wrong, and he knew the best he could hope for was a dislocation.
The pain wiped clean the fog of blankness that had descended on him the past few days. With V7 on his back, Its fists a merciless assault, Sebastian woke up. And all he could do was choke on the panic.
Distantly, he heard Doctor yelling, genuine distress in his voice. Then Claude, his calm monotone, unapologetic as he watched on.
Sebastian may have yelled for help. He wasn't sure. His own voice seemed lost amidst the screeching of V7.
Another slamming fist, the sensation of something tearing. It didn't even hurt now. The actual pain didn't register with him, but the other feelings did. The popping of cartilage being forced out of place. The splintering of bone as it shattered. A spreading bruise, a black and purple cloud expanding across his vulnerable back.
My spine, Sebastian realized, It knows to go for my spine.
Something silver shone from the corner of Sebastian's eyes. Claude may not have moved to stop V7, but with a half-there smile, he moved away from the trolley and slid across the floor the means for Sebastian to stop V7 himself.
I can't -
V7 was screaming more wildly, only growing more and more aggravated as It continued Its assault. An assault too particular to be mindless. It knew what It was doing. It knew where It was hitting. It had known to wait until Sebastian's back was turned.
I can't -
The other patients were growing restless. They came to the front of their cages. They pressed their hands and their faces against the shatter-proof glass. There was a light in their eyes, a spark of life Sebastian hadn't seen before. Excitement. Hope. Justice. They yelled too, the spectators, the excited audience to Sebastian's death.
I can't die here!
Fear made him strong, if only for an instant. Struggling beneath the weight of V7, shifting his body left and right to dislodge the beast even the smallest amount, Sebastian managed to wriggle one of his arms free. The movement brought the pain back to life in his shoulders and he screamed with it, screamed as he stretched his shattered arm as far as it would go. Fingers scrabbling across the dirt-caked tiles, his nails scratching little gouges in the floor, he finally felt the cool surface of the handle.
It took all of his strength to close his hand around the hilt. As he pulled his arm back, so much more difficult than it had been to extend it in the first place, V7 seemed to realize his movements were not just a frail struggle. Its assault increased, frenzied, and Sebastian thought for a moment that it was pointless. He was broken, beyond any amount of will power or repair.
Then a kick from a spectator, an olive branch. V7 was dislodged from his back.
Sebastian didn't waste a moment.
Leaning all his weight on one elbow, Sebastian flung himself from the floor. V7 was already doubling back, getting ready to pounce again, but Sebastian was quicker. Both hands wrapped around the hilt of the knife, he drove it without hesitation into the side of V7's neck.
The skin may as well have been paper. It parted so easily beneath his blade. It shoulder have been harder, Sebastian thought, to kill a person. But it wasn't. The knife plunged through as easily as cutting butter. Then the blood. Hot, spilling from the wound relentlessly, spreading across the both of them. It was all over Sebastian. His hands, his clothes, his face. There was no end to it, it seemed to him.
V7 was looking him in the eyes. It opened Its mouth as if to speak, but all that came out was a gurgle of blood. Its eyes were brighter than Sebastian had ever seen. Knowing. He would see those eyes for a long time.
Slowly, as if time had become stuck, V7 toppled to the floor with the knife still jammed in Its throat. Around them, the patients had fallen silent. It was the quietest Ward V had ever been.
Until Sebastian screamed.