Work Text:
Leg bone connected to the leg bone connected to the…
The halls never stopped winding, the lights never stopped flickering. To follow the path, roaming and roaming and roaming and roaming. Mundo never got lost, he knew it like every vein beneath the skin. Pulsing, strobing, the walls of the hospital breathed and he was the only one who could ever feel the way. Meaty fingers traced old cracks in the wall, his patients must've thought him so silly and sentimental.
Man of passions he was, a bit of a romantic, treasuring the tiles, the cracks, the tiles, the cracks.
Connected to the knee bone? Connected to the wrist bone, connected to the… knee bone.
Hanging from his mouth, a drool which was thick like tar spewing from a sewage pipe, spilled upon the white robes. His white robes, the white robes, his white robes. Doctors wore white, he was a doctor, he knew that doctors wore white. A light buzzed above him, it didn't bother Mundo, but glassy eyes shifted down to the body on the board. The board had wheels. The wheels were attached to the board attached to the body. The body groaned.
…Body bone connected to the body bone connected to the body bone.
He didn't like to hear groans, but groans were preferable to screaming. He hated the screaming, patients screamed when they were in a lot of pain. The only good news was that pain often meant more work.
Mundo likes more work.
In his throat, the pipe bulges as he hums to the tune in his head. There's a great many bones, it pays to remember the basics. Like rainwater down the gutter, cracks down the wall. The asylum took in a deep breath and he could feel it rumbling beneath his feet. Papers smeared with red, ink or blood or ink or blood, it didn't obscure the words but he couldn't quite focus his gaze enough to read them.
Eyes on the page, looking back at him, Zaun watched and it never slept. Doctors never slept either, and he was a doctor. Against a thumbprint, a little drawing of himself where one's name belongs. Mundo can write his name, it's pinned to his coat, but his face isn't pinned to his coat. Only his name.
It would be interesting if his face was pinned to his coat.
The body stirs, the patient stirs, the body, the patient.
Patient bone connected to the body bone, connected to the body bone, connected to the leg bone… to the…
Something creaks beneath purple-hued flesh, bubbling, brewing, juice in his skin and in his muscle. Boiling like water over a fire, shifting like clock hands in the windows of the houses he sees along the streets. Sometimes he sees Zaun's eyes peering back at him, and he always waves. They don't wave back. Slowly looking over at the patient, their head haphazardly wrapped in discarded linens that seemed like bandages if one squinted.
It had been a difficult surgery, even he would admit his tempered hands had some trouble. A lesser doctor would've surely called it, but he was a good doctor, a careful doctor, a patient doctor. Beneath linens, a good portion of the skull was missing, a careful portion of the skull, a patient portion of the skull.
"Shshshsshhh…" The muscle in his mouth is difficult to speak around, spittle hisses between lips chapped and tattered. He bites them sometimes, he does not realize it. His face isn't pinned to his coat, "Mundo tell patient to rest. Doctor orders very importanant." A clammy palm pats the shoulder, reassuring. It was important to be reassuring.
The asylum sighs.
The wheels move, Mundo moves. The halls never stopped winding, the lights never stopped flickering.