Chapter 38: Waiting there
"Mr Masters."
Vlad started at Bianco's voice, which had just dragged him out of his writing plan – an essay on innovation and entrepreneurship in new businesses. He blinked, unsure of how long he'd been sitting at his little table, working, and half-rose from his seat – only to sit back down awkwardly.
"Director! I, uh, I wasn't expecting... It's been a while since you last visited."
The older man gave him a tired smile.
"...Indeed. There were a few... incidents... in Florida. Nothing grave, barely any injuries, but it took a while to sort out. I had to go down there in person."
The director paused. Vlad took that time to look Bianco over: he did look exhausted and his left hand shook a bit, even when he wasn't doing anything with it.
"No matter, you don't have to worry about it. I've been told you were doing better yet again?'
Vlad's eyes trailed away from the shuddering hand, back to Bianco's face – and his skin looked almost papery, with darker spots the younger man hadn't noticed before. Typical of older people, yes... But he didn't think Bianco had looked quite that old when he'd dropped by about a month ago.
He almost wanted to ask if the director was alright, himself.
Still, Bianco's health wasn't the matter right now – Vlad's was. He ought to answer the question.
"I'm... not as bad as I've been. Mostly I'm doing better. Still the occasional fever, but..."
Vlad shrugged, unsure of what counted as baseline anymore. He knew it wasn't what he lived through – and hoped it wouldn't stay the norm for him – but the time before the accident was slipping through his fingers. He'd been sick before, he knew that...
He couldn't really remember what it was like to be sick like a normal person, how often it used to happen, how easy – uncomfortable, but easy – it used to be.
"I've made decent progress on my correspondence course since last time. Might actually graduate sometime in the next decade."
Bianco didn't comment on his little joke – perhaps because the older man could feel it wasn't much of a joke, all things considered. Instead, he cautiously reached for the second chair – Ziad had gotten it for himself after Vlad had started using the purple chair at his desk/table – and sat.
"At one point, the doctors and Nurse Moore-Hamoud were worried about you. Not just your health, you understand..."
Vlad's health had been abysmal on average during the last two years, so mentioning worry over that was hardly necessary – even more so when it had started getting relatively better.
it helped when you weren't flatlining several times a month
"...but also about your mental fortitude. It has to be difficult, surviving on the brink of agony as you have for so long, of course, but that's not all of it, is it? You haven't... Well. You've been stuck here for months on end, with little to do and almost no social interactions. Then, what happened with Nurse Porter..."
you're the ghost right? the one doing all this to Vlad
Bianco shook his head and sighed.
"They found blood in your bathroom a couple of times. And I don't mean the kind of blood you occasionally throw up, Mr Masters. They... We were worried you had taken to hurting yourself."
Vlad found himself blinking – slowly, unsure of what to say. Unwilling to talk about it, yet the circumstances didn't allow for evasion.
Lies, then.
"Oh."
It was technically true. Less so now that he had a better grip on his transformation, but it still happened, and more than that... It had happened a great many times. Most people did not cut off the tip of their ears because they were too pointed.
Vlad, of course, wasn't doing it because he wanted to hurt – he'd had enough of that with his health alone, thank you very much – but he still was doing it to himself.
if he didn't if he let them see if they understood
He could withstand it, these days. He'd been through much worse than a few minutes of pain and blood, waiting for everything to heal back up as if nothing had happened.
Not doing it... Well. Either he'd risk being discovered he had no idea what might happen then what they'd decide what they'd believe and he couldn't couldn't couldn't couldn't couldn't let that happen not again not after June who was gone and not after Jack and Maddie hadn't even come to see him once in the hospital when they didn't even know or it would mean stopping practice, and Vlad was almost certain by now that not using his powers caused a build-up of ecto-energy and then his health always took a turn for the worse, which wasn't an option.
In the end, if it was between risking a fate worse than death by being found out, going back to the necrosis and the heart attacks and the erratic bursts of uncontrollable powers, or having to cut and pierce and tear out small parts of his body on occasion? Vlad knew what would hurt him less.
"I don't. I swear, Director, I... maybe I slipped and cut myself once, I don't... I didn't want to call for that, it was nothing, there wasn't even that much blood, barely more than a scratch! They, the staff has better things to do and I'm not totally helpless..."
Vlad had learned to hide the evidence of what he was of what he did to himself by now. If Ziad or another nurse had found blood in the bathroom more than that one time – blood he hadn't noticed, blood he hadn't cleaned away – it couldn't have been much of it. Drops, perhaps.
More, and he'd have seen and taken care of it.
The director remained silent for a moment, unknown thoughts rushing behind his old eyes.
"I believe you, Vlad. You should have called, but... I guess that's part of it. Always being reliant on someone, being unable to take care of yourself... I suppose you might have grown si... tired of it."
Vlad noted the use of his first name – was it the first time Bianco called him that? He thought so.
Maybe it meant the older man did believe him.
"Still. I've been told you were tired, lately. More so than you should be, considering how your health has changed for the better. Maybe you don't sleep very well?"
The answer was, evidently, in all the late nights Vlad spent practicing his powers and managing the leftovers. He was tired, because he didn't sleep as much as the staff thought he did.
He could hardly say that, though.
Vlad did want to say he had no problem sleeping – he actually didn't, when there wasn't a fever keeping him up and down – but perhaps he shouldn't. It would be a good explanation.
It still wasn't true. He slept well, when he wanted. He just... had more important things to do in the dark of the night, that was all it was. Besides, he could sleep well because he was tiring himself out in the evenings, because he wasn't only withering away at his desk all day and doing nothing else. Because his ectoplasm wasn't messing too much with his health, and that would remain true only as long as he did use his powers. Because the nightmares only came when the fevers struck.
Again, this wasn't something Vlad could actually tell the director.
He couldn't help but gulp as he opened his mouth without an explanation, real or otherwise, to offer.
"I..."
Vlad trailed off. Didn't know what to say.
Bianco gave him a thin, encouraging smile.
"It would be understandable. You have lived through a traumatic event and a debilitating illness, Mr Masters. You are allowed nightmares, I believe."
It almost sounded like the older man was talking from experience. Vlad wondered if, perhaps, Bianco's job had ever brought him nightmares, too. If it was the only thing he'd brought back from various incidents with ghosts, or if there had been worse consequences along the way.
The director looked much older than before, Vlad was growing more and more certain of it.
He also had no answer for Bianco, and still remained silent, barely looking at the older man.
couldn't say yes couldn't say no
"Jack these calculations aren't right" "banzai!" a flash of green pain something burns stuck in his own corpse hurts "a story of the cold deads clutching to life their nails grating against their coffin" "clear!" shock again "clear!" shock June scared and uncomprehending "you could see the ribcage through translucent skin" the scissors' tips gleaming reflecting the red light of his eyes had to needed to couldn't not
there were nightmares but not all the time and they weren't the reason for his current tiredness
Bianco didn't push more – not for now, at least – and moved on.
"Is that your work so far?"
He stood up to give a closer look at the table and the essay plan Vlad had almost finished elaborating. Against the wall, the manuals and other books June had gotten for him. The few letters from the university, in a sci-fi novel – the ones from his parents were up on the shelf next to his bed. A notepad with several pages of notes scribbled on it.
Vlad also had a few personal clothes in the tote bag from his parents, and that was about it for his personal belongings.
the scissors the dental forceps hidden in the wall the copy of his medical file in the mattress the fangs behind the sink
the scrubbed blood he could still see on the wall when he shifted his eyes
Vlad smiled unconvincingly:
"I don't have much else to do."
He'd finished all of June's novels, and had even read some twice.
Bianco nodded at nothing in particular, visibly thinking.
"...Yes, it could help if you had more choices, other things to do. If anything, the opportunity to do something else once in a while."
The older man blinked – looked back at Vlad, considering.
" I did want to offer you a job opportunity, at some point... Or to work with you and your friends, had you decided to become independent. Bringing technology into our field might be the future of ghost defense. I don't think... We haven't told you where you are staying, have we? Not beyond the clinic, I mean."
"...Not really, no? I didn't think you wanted outsiders to know where it is."
Bianco's organization was a secret – it stood to reason that the location of its clinic would be well-kept and not given to every civilian who had the bad luck of needing its services.
"Oh, no, I'm not telling you in which state we are right now, only what's in the rest of the building, Mr Masters. This is actually our headquarters, the infirmary section if you want. To treat all injuries related to ghosts that we can't explain to a proper hospital. Most of our patients are our own employees, as it is. Perhaps... twenty percent are victims such as yourself?"
Except Vlad wasn't a victim of ghosts, not really.
Jack's fault
Bianco continued, unaware of Vlad's thoughts on the matter.
"Since this is our headquarters, my private collection is also here, two floors up. I've gotten it copied and shipped from Spain in order to create a library on ghostly matters. Obviously, it's more historical and occult than scientific, but if you are interested..."
Vlad gasped.
"Are you... Are you saying you'd let me..."
The director shrugged.
"Why not? We do need a more complete understanding of what we are against, and you are someone who proved a more scientific approach to ectoplasm is in fact possible. I can understand if you don't want anything to do with it, after... after your accident, but if you are still interested... You could bring us a different point of view on methods we know to work as far as the occult goes, but that we don't actually understand. Maybe you would even be able to bring us something new, progress, change. There's no reason not to let you have a look at our library."
The older man paused – waiting for a rebuke, perhaps – before adding, somewhat carefully:
"Also, considering what happened to you... It might be better for you to know as much about ghosts as possible. The way the ectoplasm bonded with you... You might attract them, or even be targeted the moment you step out of this clinic. Or maybe not, but we can't know that until the time comes... And there's that ghost, too. The one who used you as a host. It's entirely possible that he'll come back for you one day. It could get dangerous."
The director had no idea how right and wrong he was at the same time, and Vlad forced himself to smile. He did want to see that collection – ectology was still important to him, and now... Now, with what he was, it had become not only interesting, but necessary for him to know about ghosts.
"I could really?"
Bianco, who had no reason to doubt his sincerity, smiled back.
"Yes, you could. On days you are feeling well, when you want to. As long as one of our agents escorts you around headquarters and you don't wander off, none of it would cause a problem."
Centuries of info compiled by occult experts of the kind Vlad had never seen...
He and Jack and Maddie had only been semi-broke college students who had access to what existed near them and not much else. The Fentons, Jack's family, had a long family tradition of ghost hunting, but they weren't exactly the kind to leave detailed accounts. Maddie had become interested in ectology because she'd found a research paper in her physics studies that alluded to the existence of several planes of existence. Vlad had wandered there from the sociological aspects of an afterlife through various cultures, a hobby entirely disconnected from his chemistry bachelor.
"I... Yes, of course, Director, of course I'm interested. I could..."
He could learn so much.
"I'm not saying every day, I still have to work on that business degree, but I want to see your collection, please! It's... I don't even know what to say..."
it might tell him the truth of what he was how much of him was a ghost if there had been others like him if ghosts were really dead monsters stuck on their skins and that was why
he doubted it if he'd been a true ghost they'd have realized by now
but still
