[text] @doctorsin [open]

[sulfa]

This is Wade. Doc Hicks and I wanted to put the word out that anyone who needs medical attention now or in the future can find one of us - I'm in Room 310 and Gene's camped out by the bonfire. We're in the process of establishing a clinic in the chapel vestry for the sick and injured. If you have any information on new medical developments from your time or have any medications from the future, please share them.

And lastly: if you go out into the woods, bring one of us along. That's what we're here for.

Comments

[evulsed]

How do you know? Have you died before?

[ Vanitas glances quickly up at him without raising his chin, sharp and accusatory through his thick eyelashes, before he refocuses on pulling a cracker out and bites through it. Like the water, it kickstarts the hunger, salt spreading out all over his tastebuds. It's only remembering what happened a moment ago that stops him putting the whole thing in his mouth. ]

cw vomit mention!!

[preseance]

Just the once that landed me here. But servin' in the capacity I do, I saw a lotta other folks pass on.

( many beneath his hands. he shakes his head to punctuate his statement, then gets up an' goes to refill the canteen from a bucket he an' wade hauled over the other day. when he returns it's with that an' a mop bucket. the canteen he offers back to vanitas. )

Careful, this time. Use it to wash the crackers down, Lord knows they're hard enough as it is.

( an' while he does that, gene troubles himself to clean up the mess on the floor. it's more water than vomit, but the acrid smell of stomach acid is still in the air an' he'd sooner not leave it for later. he mops up the mess an' then leaves the bucket at the end of the pews so he can wash it out later. )

[evulsed]

[ If they're unpalatable, Vanitas doesn't have the faintest idea of what would make them that way. They break on his teeth and the crunch is a far cry different from the crack of his jaw rattling together, or the grainy texture of sand on his tongue and caught in his cheeks. He doesn't actually say anything for a while, tracking Gene with his eyes, watching him clean up the mess without looking either apologetic or as though he's going to help.

But he isn't an idiot, so he does take it slow with the water the second time around, and only chances it once he's gone through three crackers and starting to feel— well, he doesn't know. Different. When his mouth is clear again, he says haughtily: ]

Well I have, and it wasn't anything like this.

[preseance]

( he raises an eyebrow to that admission. oddly, it don't surprise him much. you learn to look for trauma in little places in the hush an' quiet of a soul. an' this place is already so far beyond whatever reckonin' he might've once assumed of purgatory that he ain't about to question it. what's the benefit to lyin'?

even if he is, it says hell an' gone more about someone willin' to lie about the subject than it does about someone willin' to believe it. gene takes his seat back near the boy, an' tips his head towards him. )

Well, even then I reckon there's no guarantee that it'd be the same each time.

( to say nothin' of the bodies he's seen, red in the surf at gela or littered through the ardennes near st vith, he's also seen as many ghosts as there are trees in europe. deaths can be similar, but ain't no two the same in every respect. )

What were your other ones like? If'n you don't mind the askin'.

( now that the boy's choked down a sufficient amount of the crackers, gene takes out the last of his k-rat chocolate bars, breakin' off a piece to hold across the space between them. the sugar'll help, and the crackers will ensure it don't get absorbed too quick in his blood. )

[evulsed]

[ It's not something to brag about, exactly, but the fact that Vanitas has information— or at least some kind of previous experience in this arena makes him feel like he has an edge over other people. That said, he's never really sat and ruminated on his death. What it felt like to be something, and then fly apart, and be nothing.

Vanitas tracks Gene's face without blinking as he considers it, and then considers if he feels like answering the question or not. Finally, he reaches out to take the bar of chocolate, but doesn't eat it just yet. ]

Like sleeping.

[preseance]

( he doubts that's the whole of it, but the man won't press on none. some things, perhaps, are better left unsaid. he just sits back an' lets the boy decide what to do about that chocolate bar.

soft,)

Hope you found it a peaceable thing.

( before comin' here, obviously. )

[evulsed]

[ Vanitas snorts and rolls his eyes. ]

Peace.

[ He scoffs it like the very idea was utterly absurd, and it's more a reflection of this derisiveness than actual interest in what he's about to put in his mouth that has Vanitas finally pop the piece of chocolate.

He freezes, because like the water, the sensation is startling for how huge it is. It's nothing like the water or the crackers, and he stares across at Gene as if he's shocked to be poisoned. Where Vanitas doesn't chew, it just melts across his tongue, spreading a silky sweetness until he finally bites through the little block. The flavor intensifies, and the resulting tingle that shoots up into the base of his skull makes a shiver shoot down his spine. Vanitas raises his hand to his mouth, like a reflex, like he isn't sure if he should spit what's left of the chocolate out— but it just kind of hovers there.

It's probably the first honest, bewildered emotion he's showed since his arrival. ]

[preseance]

( goin' across europe like they did, they ran into a fair few souls who ain't never tried chocolate. their reactions rarely differ — ain't a man-jack among 'em who seems to dislike it. gene just sort of watches him with a bit of amusement turnin' up one corner of his mouth, soft an' fondly amused. )

Good stuff, ain't it?