this is already a bad start.

yes, it’s to conduct an examination, why else would he be here? no, he has no idea why he’s not on the book as expected. no, he already has security clearance, and yes he has his identification. it keeps sevan tied up at reception for far longer than need be, and he takes the stairs two at a time when it looks like there might be a line for the elevator. he hates this building. badly designed.

deep breaths. he can’t let it get him angry. he’s being waited on.

sevan lets himself into the exam room in a quiet flurry of activity, putting down the starbucks cup on the nearest counter and putting down his bag, shedding his coat, opening the door again to flick the door indicator to ‘in use’ before he says so much as a single word. it’s focus, he likes to think, but mostly people just call it getting too absorbed in the details to notice something staring him in the face.

“i’m sorry i’m late,” he says by way of greeting, voice soft. bedside manner, he always has to remind himself, and the small smile that finds his lips is an attempt to look a little less flustered. his voice has an unusual lilt to it over and above the accent, a faintly musical quality under the twist of shyness. “i got somewhat hung up at security. i’m sevan,” a little wave as he secures his cuffs with sleeve bands, pulls on the nitrile gloves, “and i work for a private clinic contracted with the initiative. i’m afraid i don’t know what to call you, all i was given was an identification number.”

the counter is rapidly becoming a neatly-arrayed display of medical instruments, tourniquet by cannula by vials, the unrolled fabric case of surgical steel tools. “i gather you’re quite used to physicals and the like, is that right? do you have any problems with needles?

lazarus

he’s expecting a name, but the repeated serial number is a surprise. “if that’s what you’re comfortable with, then that’s what i’ll call you. it’s nice to meet you.” his tone is calming, a gentle timbre he finds works best on jittery patients. not that sevan could call this young man jittery so much as... guarded.

possibly psychogenic retrograde amnesia, the file had said. unconfirmed reasons. little sign of head trauma. it’s not the reason sevan is here, but it’s something that concerns him nonetheless.

“alright, then.” the last object laid on the counter is a large, heavy hidebound book, older than either of them, which is turned to a page of sevan’s choice. he sets a petri dish in the centre of it and then takes up the tourniquet, walking over to lazarus slowly. “i don’t know if you’re aware of the specifics of why i’m here today, nineteen, but i want to take a cell sample to confirm something that i was told about in your medical notes. the best sample to take is of your blood, so i’m going to take three vials of it. i can run a quick test with what i collect and we can see where we go from there.”

his touch is careful but firm as he prepares lazarus’ arm for the tourniquet and applies it. “just tell me if you need me to stop at any point.”

lazarus

he is a master of the light touch, of the procedure executed so delicately that one barely notices. his fingers are warm through the blue nitrile, a thumb’s pressure on the inside of the elbow as he preps the area, inserts the tap on the young man’s veins and sticks it down with tape. the vac-tube is attached quickly. usually on those with healing factors the suppressant in the sterilising wipe would give ample time, but he can see proliferation already, cells that try to climb the treated surface of the hypodermic needle and fail.

the file mentioned this, but that doesn’t stop it from being slightly unsettling.

“so speak to me, nineteen,” he invites gently. he knows that it probably won’t bear much fruit, but just a minor mental distraction is enough. “i gather you haven’t had much experience of the wider world until recently. is kingsport very overwhelming for you?”

already time to change the vial, so he does, laying the mostly-full glass tube of blood in the dish with the discarded paper wrappers of the wipe and needle, on the rolling stand at his elbow. “is there anything that you like to do? eat?”

lazarus

sevan is familiar with damage in all of its forms.

the response does little to faze or frustrate him. he simply listens, absently thinks back to the numbers on the lung function tests at the sound of the breath. the pale amber eyes rest on the young man with a look of what is almost curiosity. “but to parse it in a way that makes sense to you, you have to divide it down, is that it?”

he’s read them, of course, the historic studies on feral children and their absolute failure to socialise after their periods of deprivation. a few on child soldiers and lasting trauma. there’s little on children found in labs, but the relevant material is none too inspiring of hope. “what about people? they aren’t so elegantly organised into clusters, sometimes. are you alright around groups, or would you rather be by yourself?”

the answer is almost a non-sequitur, but he nods slowly. “you’re kept very busy, then. is that something you feel at ease with?” sevan himself is left deeply unsettled by the fact that such a young man, held together with a healing factor and not much else, is in active service rather than in full-time rehabilitation. it’s not his place to tell the intiative how to run their organisation, but god would he like to. “i’m just trying to understand if you have... anything that you do outside of run operations, sleep and eat. and attend your medical appointments.”

the last, smallest vial is changed into the needle with little affort, and sevan is already laying the second on the open grimoire and murmuring a few words over it, drawing intricate patterns through the air with his fingertips like this is simply another clinical procedure. it is, as far as he’s concerned, and the sigil that hangs above the pages in glittering motes of light is left as it begins to form to coalesce. sevan’s attention is off his patient no longer than a second.

“are you familiar with what classifies someone as a metahuman, nineteen? a ‘mutant’?”

lazarus