savetheearth | Thought I heard them talking in their sleep yesterday [OPEN]

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Thought I heard them talking in their sleep yesterday [OPEN]

Who: L, Tony, Belle and OPEN to anyone who might want to come visit them.
Where: One of Locke City's bigger hospitals.
When: August 18- 19
What: Two idiots get in a fight. Belle is a good listener for Tony and talks L out of a rash decision. Also a catch-all for visitors on the 19th.
Warnings: Profanity, violence, feels, two guys displaying some
symptoms of PTSD.

Sometimes, people could afford to be selective about the hospital they were admitted to. Specialized clinics and treatment programs, top ratings, and individual needs were all carefully considered during the best of times. Specifically, when one had the luxury of time.

This was not such an occasion. With one patient bleeding out in critical condition and the other in a dissociative, violent state of psychological shock, the only things that really mattered about the hospital were that they could be speedily admitted and that the facility had enough departments to reasonably accommodate both physical trauma and fractured mental states. The honor had fallen to Locke City's largest and most complete hospital, where Tony Sparado and Lazarus Lawliet had been sedated, separated, and taken to different wards on different floors.

This was two days ago. Now, some things had improved; Tony's condition had stabilized and they were both keeping down food. Other things remained uncertain; L, grimly committed to not answering the Mafia's questions during their captivity, was still not talking.

Regardless of what the future held, both young men would remember Albero's hospitality for a long, long time.

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When he first arrived he slept a lot, or was simply unconscious a lot, not a whole lot of difference between the two states. L's little adventure in wandering off to start fights hadn't helped, either. Between the exertion of being tossed out of bed and the sedative they'd forced in him, Tony had sunk back into immovable slumber.

Thankfully by now he was no longer under as strong a pull, so when someone slips into the room to join him there's a small blip on his monitor. Acknowledgement that someone was in the room, at the very least, even if not fully awake to realize who just yet.

More time passes, and for a while it seemed the teen wouldn't stir again. However, eventually he does. A small rustle, his one good eye cracking open sleepily and his head flopping to the side just enough to see who his visitor was. Imagine his surprise when it wasn't one of the usual he'd come to expect, Richard, or Shou? He didn't now Cesar, but looking at him was very much like seeing a ghost. A distressed sound escaped him, and while he tried to pull away he didn't exactly get very far. Kid wasn't in the best shape for flight right now.

Hello please don't kidnap and murder him he'd really appreciate that not happening today.

"Easy, now," Cesar says, dropping his reader to one side and standing. Only a blind man would miss the younger man's distress, and the keening sound cuts through him like a knife. "Everything's alright. You're safe, now. You're in the hospital."

He's within a step of Tony's beside when he stops, unwittingly towering over him. Monitoring equipment reacts to the patient's every motion, and the room is bright and out of place in its cheer.

The heart monitor was going wild, Tony trying desperately to sink into (and hopefully through that would be great) his mattress to hide from the looming stranger. Reassuring words only went so far when one's mind was a panicked, drugged mess. Confused and distressed, his eye darted around wildly, either searching for an escape or trying to verify the man's claims.

Well, it certainly didn't look like the warehouse. It still didn't do much to ease his panic, but when his eye finally settled back on Cesar he seemed slightly more confused than he had before. "Who?"

Yes, just who are you and what are you doing in his room, guy?

Oh. The realization is like a balloon bursting in his skull, and he takes a step back, wincing at himself.

"Cesar." Another step, back towards his chair. "Cesar Sanchez-Ortiz, I'm Mosies' younger brother." He's so distracted that he almost doesn't remember that the words taste like barbs. Moises is dead. He was his brother, not 'is'.

The name wasn't any more familiar than the face, and Tony wasn't thinking well enough to decide if he'd seen Cesar in passing on the Network or not. He had to be from there, didn't he? That's the only thing that would make any sense.

Now it was Tony's turn for an internal oh. He blinked, slower than he thought was normal and actually much slower than was. The painkillers were a doozy, and left even simple muscular responses sluggish at best. He frowned, as well as he could considering the state his face was in, and struggled to sit up higher. Okay, well, that made more sense. "Ah," He rumbled through swollen lips, swallowed hard, then continued. "Not... that it does 'ny good, but, s'rry. 'Bout your brother."

He knew from personal experience that pity and apologies didn't help to ease grief, didn't bring those people back, sure as hell didn't fix anything. But sometimes that was all you had to offer. Hang on, he needs some water. Lucky they've taken to leaving a cup and pitcher for him.

Cesar can tell when the connection is made, and his throat hurts with a ghost of grief. He moves his head up and down, accepting the condolences with the gesture.

"You did everything you could," he says, watching him reach for the pitcher. He makes no move to help him, nor to meet his gaze. It's that damnable distance between him and most people these days that causes the former, and a guilt that he's trying to hide for the latter. His voice is low.

"More than everything, from what I've been led to understand." Torture. Pain. Fear. The incident almost killed him, and even as a failure it's something Cesar can't let go.

When all he could do was lay on the floor and bleed while they kicked and broke him, or snarl and try to bite fruitlessly when they went to take their frustrations out on someone else. Yeah, he supposed that was a correct assessment, even if it meant just about as much as 'sorry'. He knew worthless empty words when he heard them.

But sometimes that was all anyone had.

He struggled, fumbling inexpertly with tired and slow hands. Eventually he managed to slosh enough water into the cup to be considered a drink, the rest all over the bedside table. After a drink his parched throat felt better and his tongue less like sandpaper, maybe he could get a few more words out.

Cradling the cup on his lap, the one good eye swiveled up to try to read his face. Right now Tony lacked the mental prowess to pick out subtleties in demeanor and expression or he might have asked why Cesar wouldn't look at him. He just figured he was too much a mess. "Mm," It wasn't really agreement, just a noncommittal noise to indicate that he was still listening. He just had nothing really valuable to say in response.

Please continue, while Tony was currently a terrible host he didn't mind lending an ear. Even if it wasn't one that could follow very well right now.

Cesar does continue: he continues with silence. Water has spilled across the bedside table, and Cesar looks for a towel. He finds one and brings it over, mopping up the spill. The pitcher is returned to a dry surface.

Finally, Cesar speaks.

"I talked with the doctors." He steps back, standing by the bedside but not quite sitting back down, yet. "They won't tell me anything while I'm not a family member, but I know enough to know you'll be here a while. Is there anything that you need me to get for you? Anything at all?"

Silence was okay, sort of. Someone rustling around in silence was deeply disturbing in a way that was difficult for Tony to understand, much less articulate. So he settled on watching Cesar owlishly while he fussed around. The effect was even more owl-like with the way he had to turn his head to follow the man's motions once he passed out of sight range of his one good eye. It was strange, getting used to only having one usable eye. He tried not to think about it.

"They keep doin' that," He grumbles to himself. "How many times gotta tell 'em don' have any family..." More mumbling to himself, fussing with his IVs and at his bandages. Being awake too long meant thinking, going over his injuries on his own and growing increasingly distressed by everything he found. There wasn't much space left on him that didn't have a bruise, cut, or abrasion of some kind. His eye swung back up to watch Cesar and he shook his head just once to the side in a negative. "M'fine. Thanks though."

He doesn't have any family?

"Is there anyone you would like me to talk to, to let them know that you're here?" If he has no family, then who does he have? Cesar focuses on his one good eye while he speaks, keeping his pity behind a blank face. The kid already has enough going on without having to deal with the burden of reassuring him, too. (The fact that Cesar has one less family member in the world occurs to him, but he blots the thought out as strongly as he can.)

"They alr'dy know," There were a couple people who still cared if he ended up a stain on the side of the road. Thank goodness, or that would have been the case exactly. "Rich'rd brought me here, should be 'round." He leaned, as if trying to get a look around the corner as if expecting the guy to be there right now.

He wasn't, of course, but Tony still wasn't the most lucid, either. Kid wasn't completely alone, at least there was that. "What're you doin' here, 'ny way?"

Richard? Cesar's mind blanks, before he thinks of the man that had publicly sounded Lazarus' disappearance in the first place. He was one of the names Cesar had released early on. His name was Richard.

Shame. Faint nausea. Cesar buries the thoughts deep, and can't help but glance around guiltily when Tony looks.

"Ah," he says out loud, dragging his attention back to the bed. Now he sits in the chair he'd waited in, resting close to the edge. "I understand you were injured when you were in captivity with my--brother. I wanted to see if there was any way I could help."

It's what Moises would have wanted. Then again, Moises wouldn't have wanted Cesar to be responsible for the kid to have been there in the first place. Moises would have been ashamed. Even with his best efforts, Cesar can't quite keep all his thoughts from showing through his eyes.

One hell of a picture Cesar painted, wasn't it?

Fortunately the teenager is lacking in enough lucidity to catch the signs of distress and guilt, to him everything and nothing was normal, floating in a state of barely-aware as it was.

Tony thought about that for a tic, really all that could be done was already being done, but even so he did let a lazy, drunken smirk touch his lips. "You got a spare eye?" Of course, he was teasing, but that was really about all he could think of right now. He didn't want to talk to anyone on the network right now, didn't want to do much of anything other than sleep, really.

"You alrigh'?" While Tony couldn't pick up on the nuances of emotional expression, Cesar wore his anxiety like a coat right now, it was hard not to pick up that something was bothering him.

Tony's teasing is met with a strained but thoughtful look. Spare eye. He could make a prosthetic--? Maybe...

Tony's question pulled him out of his thoughts, and he's suddenly aware of how heavily his burdens are weighing every inch of him down. He straightens in his chair, lifting his face and voice to something more falsely neutral. "Yes, of course--" Excuse? "I was just wondering what had happened to your eye. Is there any way to save it?"

The eye wasn't completely gone, he wasn't sure how but it wasn't gone. Just very, very damaged, and really he'd like to keep it even if it wasn't ever going to heal back to normal again.

"Save it?" A dry, rueful sound that was more a cough than a laugh. He ground his teeth, winced at the pain that caused in his jaw and huffed in defeat. Even being irritated took too much energy. "Snake woman," A hissed tone of absolute loathing. "Put acid in it, make me suffer long's she could before I died." As much as he tried to hide it in his tone the way he hunched up and shivered betrayed the fact that even thinking about it was still troubling for the kid. Thoughtlessly he picked at the bandages, as if somehow by some miracle the sight had come back and he'd be in one piece again.

"... I see." And he does. His face could have been chiseled from stone, but there's nothing he can say or promise to him for now. It would be more cruel to get his hopes up for something Cesar already knows he's not an expert in, no matter his latest obsessions or wishful thoughts.

"I'll ask the doctors about acid injuries on my way out. Until then, you should probably rest."

His eyes linger on Tony's jaw. He saw the wince.

Best not to crush him further, for now. He was still hanging on the slim hope that maybe, someday, it would heal enough to be semi-useful again. Until then easier to cover and protect it so that it could have the chance to heal.

"Thanks," For both the offer to ask and letting him rest. "Say..." Added after a moment, eye swinging back up to watch Cesar's face. "For what it's worth, I know what it's like to lose family. Nothin' makes it better or easier but... hell I dunno what I'm sayin..."

He just trailed off there, lost. Cesar probably didn't want to talk about it, Tony wasn't keeping up well enough to even know what he wanted to say. Something comforting, maybe? He was trying, but it was like flailing around in molasses. No matter how much he fought he still wasn't getting anywhere.

Cesar is silent for a long pause, before he nods. He doesn't deserve this, but for now he's willing to set that aside long enough to not slap away Tony's attempt at reaching out to him. He won't reach back, but--hopefully he can let him down more gently than brushing him off outright.

"Thanks." Hoarse. Sincere. Then less roughly, "I appreciate the sentiment. My condolences for your family also."

His throat aches on the word 'condolences', and he understands the young man's difficulty a little more. What a hollow word.

Tony didn't expect him to reach back, he knew exactly how difficult this was. How you just wanted to pull away from everything and be left the hell alone, the quiet empty condolence was all he had to offer, unfortunately. And silent understanding.

He just gave a vague nod in response to the similar words, appreciated for their effort.

"Anyway, I'll let you go. I should probably get back to sleep anyway, my head's swimmin'."

When wasn't it, but he wasn't going to try to hang on to Cesar any longer than necessary. Guy had more than enough on his plate to spend time worrying about an idiot kid he didn't even know.

'Pulling away' is a good way of describing Cesar these days. He's a thousand miles away from every other person in his life, and is deep enough in the pain of it that he doesn't even realize what he's doing, let alone want to change it.

Cesar takes the cue and rises from his chair, setting the damp towel down on a nearby table. "Call me if you think of anything else that you need." He hesitates, and then produces a slip of paper marked with pen. "Here's my number." He drops the paper beside the towel, and then hesitates again.

This time he doesn't say anything more, stepping towards the door. "Get some rest. And send me a text when you leave the hospital."

He's skirting the edges of 'friendly' and 'concerned' as though the words had giant electrified shields around them: close, but not actually daring to touch.

A normal part of the grieving process. Tony had been there before, it was even harder when you were young and didn't quite understand why things like that could happen. Or that you couldn't let yourself be gone forever.

It lead to really bad decisions.

"Sure, thanks," He'd add it to his small collection of personal effects, whatever hadn't been destroyed anyway. "You look after yourself, yeah? And will do." Well... whenever he got access to a phone. The Mafia took his.

That was fine, it might be weird if he were too friendly. They didn't really know each other after all, they'd just been thrown into each other's lives due to a series of really unfortunate events.

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