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4 years.
It had been 4 years since Collei had been put in this wretched place.
At first she was all alone in a cold, solitary cell. It was scary, but it was quiet. Maybe she felt lonely at first, but spending days on end being operated on really hardened her heart. Feeling hopeless and alone for all those months, she eventually got used to it. Besides, whatever Dottore was doing was keeping her illness in check for the most part, so that was good… right?
She didn’t want to die, after all.
About two months ago she got moved into a cell with another kid. A kid with a giant hat hiding navy hair. He didn’t want much to do with her at first. They were both used to being alone, and angry at the world. There wasn’t much to talk about anyway. It also seemed neither of them were intent on starting idle conversation. So for a while, they hardly noticed each others’ presence.
Collei started to notice when the other boy started disappearing more and more, spending more time in the lab than even her. She was grateful it wasn’t her, but she felt bad for the boy. She knew what it felt like. She knew what it meant to have attracted Dottore’s gaze.
She shuddered thinking about it.
One day the boy had come back, clearly distraught. He threw his hat off to the side, and she heard the thud of him dropping onto the bed. That was that, Collei thought. Maybe he was having a bad day. Best leave him alone then.
That was until she heard light sniveling coming from below.
Collei had cried multiple times since coming here. She’d often wake from night terrors or, on her worst days, start hopelessly begging whatever deity would listen for any kind of help at all. ‘Please, help me! Won’t anyone help me, please! What did I do to deserve this….?’
There were a few times the navy-haired boy had walked in on this pitiful sight. It was embarrassing, but she was too tired to care anymore.
However, she’d never heard that boy cry even once. She’d never heard anything beyond winces and grunts, the occasional tired sigh or scoff or even a groan after a rather painful surgery. But never crying. Never complaining. Never anything like this.
She crawled down from the top of the bunk, sitting on the floor in front of the boy who was hidden mostly under the covers, facing the wall. She was worried, but really she didn’t know how to say it. She wasn’t used to… interacting with others.
“What are you crying for?” Were the cold words that ended up leaving her mouth.
The boy didn’t answer for a bit. She didn’t expect him to. But eventually, strangled words left his throat.
“...What’s it to you?”
Suddenly Collei was realizing this was the first time she was hearing his voice.
She backed down a little, sort of fiddling with her thumbs. “It’s…. I…. well, I’ve just… never heard you cry before.” She started off with a simple truth. It wasn’t like she could word what she was feeling right now. What was she supposed to say, ‘I was worried about you?’ Never in a million years.
“Yeah well forget you ever did.”
Collei thought that would be the end of the conversation, when she heard a rather violent wince from the boy. Unable to contain her concern, she rushed back over and removed the blanket in one swift movement.
The boy was sitting under the blankets, trying to sew his own wound shut in the dark.
“What the hell?” He hissed. “I’m busy, can’t you see that?”
“Yeah, I can see! I can see that you’re an idiot! Are you doing that with your non-dominant hand? Step aside, kid, let me do it.” She nudged him off to the side, taking the needle from him.
“I don’t need your help,” The boy said, but didn’t stop her. Normally Collei would’ve asked herself why she was even helping, but deep down she knew why, and it was awfully selfish. If this boy died or got too injured for surgery, she’d have to go back in there. And she did NOT want that. Like it or not, she needed Dottore’s new ‘favourite’ alive and well. Well… as well as he could be in this place.
Besides, a part of her liked the company.
“There, all done,” Collei said decidedly with a final snip of the thread. “How does it feel?”
The boy moved his arm, and surprisingly, the stitches didn’t come loose. “....Huh.”
“I’ve been here way longer than you, I’ve had to do that plenty of times,” She mentioned with her arms crossed. By his expression she realized how braggy that had come off, so she cleared her throat and put her arms back at her sides. “Or… something like that.”
After a prolonged silence, Collei spoke again, without really knowing why. “...My name is Collei.”
The boy just stared at her blankly, and under the weight of his gaze she was suddenly feeling self-conscious. Maybe trying to get acquainted with this boy was a mistake. He had this rather pretentious vibe to him after all, he probably didn’t want anything to do with dusty, sickly girls like her.
But after a few seconds, he sighed and turned his head. “....I don’t have a name.”
“What?” Collei prodded with a scoff. “You can’t just… not have a name.”
“I don’t,” The boy half-snapped. “...Well.. I do. They gave me a name when I got here, but I guess I’m… sort of still getting used to it. It’s Scaramouche.”
Scaramouche… huh. Not a bad name, but if it was given by those psychos Collei wouldn’t want to use it either.
“Scaramouche… Well… what’s… your deal?”
“Excuse me?”
His glare startled her, so she tried to backtrack. “I mean, what do they, like, do to you? You’ve only been here for four months but you’re already hardened and pissy as if you’ve been here for years like I have. It’s… well, that’s a pushy question, forget I asked it.”
“No,” Scaramouche waved her worry down. “I might as well tell someone the story. There’s no one else to listen.”
He hugged his knees to his chest. “They want to turn me into a god.”
“Seriously?” Collei couldn’t hide the scoff in her voice as she leaned in, as if getting closer would make it any less unbelievable. “They think they can do that?”
“Yeah. They apparently love me soooo much, and I’m the ‘only one who can handle it’ and my ‘pain tolerance is beyond impressive’. It’s… stupid. But I don’t know. It kind of makes me feel… special?” He winced at his own tone. “God, imagine getting stockholm syndrome in this place. I need to get out of here quick.”
Collei cracked a smile, but it was more out of pity than anything. She knew probably second to him how obsessed those guys were with pain tolerance. They kept trying to feed her some bullshit to make her resist less during surgeries. ‘We really need to raise your pain tolerance’, they’d tell her. Thinking about it made her blood boil.
Well, now that Scaramouche told his crazy story, Collei sort of felt obligated to tell hers. She didn’t… really want to, but she
had
asked his, so it was really her own fault. She guessed she just hadn’t expected him to answer when she asked.
She sucked in a breath, and began to speak again. “Before you came along, I was in the lab the most. They… loved me for some reason. They did all kinds of tests and surgeries to see how they could ‘play with my illness’.”
Scaramouche’s face fell immediately. “Illness?”
“Uh, yeah. I was born with it. It’s kinda terminal….” Watching worry consume Scaramouche’s expression had Collei feeling kind of guilty, (mostly weirded out, but still guilty,) so she cleared her throat. “...in… some cases. But… it hasn’t been a problem for a while. I guess the Doctor is making a lot of progress on fixing it.”
Scaramouche deflated with relief almost instantly, like an old birthday balloon. “So you’re not going to die?”
“Not anytime soon.”
“.....Good.”
Collei didn’t know what to say after that, so they sort of just… went to their separate bunks and went to sleep. Maybe that was just a fluke, she thought. He was probably just having a terrible day and felt especially vulnerable. It would be best if she left him alone and pretended nothing had happened. Going back to the way they were would be best for both of them.
“Good morning,” Scaramouche told her while she was climbing down the ladder the next morning.
She sort of just… stared blankly at him, not knowing what to say. This was… new, to say the least.
“Good morning,” She said back.
And he kind of smiled. Tried to, at least. She could tell it wasn’t genuine. But she didn’t take it personally. There was little reason to smile in this place.
From there, they grew closer over the following years. They’d talk more, and they’d bond over how much they hated the world. Collei learned more about Scaramouche, and in turn, she felt more comfortable sharing more about herself. Misery loves company, as they say. As time went on they felt sort of like siblings. In a place like this, they only had each other. They were forced to spend all their time with each other, to witness each other’s worst moments, to comfort each other at their lowest. Collei came to knew him better, and with time she learned a few things about him.
First of all, Scaramouche was really protective. He treated her like a fragile little doll that’ll break at the touch of a nail, coddling and comforting her every moment he was out of the lab. He held her at night during her worst days like she’d crumple up and wither away if he let go for a second. It was… a little belittling, in nicer terms, but she sort of knew his intentions were pure. Besides, he worked his ass off trying to keep her out of the lab. Maybe it was selfish, but she wasn’t going to stop him.
The next thing she noticed was that Scaramouche was really stubborn. He tended to put her over him in certain situations. On days when Collei was tired from night terrors the day before, or just when she was in a bad mental state, he would always offer to take her place should Dottore or Pantalone come to pick her up. Whether or not he was sick, injured, or just got out of a 40 hour surgery, he would beg to have another turn when they came to collect her.
She also noticed he would happily tend to her wounds, but wouldn’t even let her touch his. It’s not her responsibility, he’d say. But her wounds are his? What kind of logic is that?
“I can handle it better,” He claimed when she brought up these concerns with him. He hadn’t meant to sound condescending, she could tell, but the words still stung. “High pain tolerance, remember? It’s nothing to me. Just keep yourself alive.”
Well, obviously. She was as afraid of death as the next person. It wasn’t like she planned on dying.
Another thing she noticed was how similar their views were. They both believed the same thing: this wretched world is full of cruelty and there’s no one who can help them. Scaramouche had been abandoned by his mother at birth, and Collei had been discarded by parents who didn’t want to deal with a sick child at an age younger than 10. While she’d been… an experiment here for much longer than Scaramouche, this place was basically all she’d known. He’d been in the system for longer and had seen the horrors of many different homes. Maybe it was unhealthy for him to reinforce her beliefs that humankind was made up of two-faced liars and any effort to be nice was purely fake and egotistical, but at the same time she was sort of glad she wasn’t the only one who felt this way. They were both victims of this mortal plane’s suffering. On their worst days, the two would even distrust each other.
As they went from acquaintances to friends, they started to develop a dynamic. By the time they were as close as siblings they started to bicker like siblings as well. They’d insult each other and squabble over minor things, but in the end they cared for each other more than anyone else. They’d often have long, meaningful discussions late into the night, relishing in each other’s company. They’d spend hours discussing heavy topics like, whether or not there was any god, whether or not life was worth living, or what they’d do if they ever got out of here.
On her worst days, Collei would tell you that no good god would let her suffer like this after all her begging. On her best days, she’d tell you that maybe someone was looking after her if they cared enough to send her Scaramouche.
He was… sort of a saviour to her. A protector. The only one in this world willing to do anything, anything at all to help her. Proof there was still hope.
If they ever got out of here together, they decided, they’d flee the city and live together as siblings, alone in the woods where no one could hurt them. That plan was probably the only thing giving her hope at this point.
It had been a week or so since Collei had been brought into the lab. She guessed they’d been super focused on getting the most difficult parts of Scaramouche’s surgeries done, because he’d been disappearing so often it was like she hardly ever saw him anymore.
It had been late afternoon on the sixth day that Collei noticed her breathing was starting to get a little weird.
She didn’t think much of it, but damn it took her by surprise. It had been a while since her illness was a problem. Usually Dottore was doing something weird to keep it in check. As much as she hated being in there so much, she hadn’t taken into account that maybe going to the lab once or twice was better for her than she’d thought.
There were two things she hated more than anything. Dottore’s whacko surgeries, and being a victim to her stupid chronic illness.
How cruel of the universe to make her choose.
That night, she went to bed early, hoping to sleep away the tightness in her chest and the numbness in her limbs. Laying down made the weight of her body more apparent. Everything felt heavy, and achey, like her mattress had some special properties that doubled gravity when she tried to lay down, tethering her to the sheets. She was out pretty quickly after her head hit the pillow, but the few moments she spent waiting for sleep to come were miserable to the bone.
The night dragged on, transitioning from hours of dreamless nothing into fiery nightmares. It was flashes of painful memories, nothing she’d be able to recall once she woke, just a cacophony of jumbled emotions, all negative. It was hot, so hot, she could feel the weight of the heat beckoning her limbs toward the ground as voiceless cries escaped her chapped lips. Her throat felt numb, unable to form words, her feelings trapped in her chest. Her skin was sticky and uncomfortable, like velcro brushing against her bones. It was wet and hot, but she couldn’t tell if there was liquid coating her skin or if her skin was the liquid and it was melting off of her body.
It was around 3:00 in the morning when she was shaken awake by the shoulder.
Her magenta eyes slid open, her surroundings blurry but slowly clearing as she strained her vision to focus, the piercing pain beneath her temples making its protest known.
Scaramouche was the first thing that greeted her vision, his face awkwardly close to hers, enough to make out that every square inch of it was coated in worry so great it teetered on fear.
“You were coughing,” Scaramouche sputtered his explanation, his words exasperated as if still processing the situation. “A-a lot. You were coughing a lot. And sweating.”
Collei took a moment to get herself together and assess her surroundings. Okay, first of all, she was still in bed, where she’d fallen asleep the night before. However, the blankets she’d been too immobile to burrow under were now draped over her trembling frame. Next, she noticed one of Scaramouche’s sleeves was torn off. She was about to ask about that, when she saw him lean forward and an odd piece of fabric was clearing the sweat from her forehead. Alright, that answered that question.
What was weirdly the last thing she noticed was how awful she felt.
She couldn’t even lift a finger, her limbs heavy and unusable as if she was magnetized to the bed. Pins and needles danced under her skin everywhere from her shoulders to the tips of her fingers, from her hips to the tips of her toes. She couldn’t move, and that was scary, but what was scarier was that she couldn’t breathe . Her chest ached the most out of any part of her body, and it felt like there was some barrier keeping her breath trapped just beneath her throat. Her lungs felt heavy, like there was something trapped in there, pounding, like a caged animal fighting to escape.
She knew coughing would do nothing but waste her energy, and once she started she wouldn’t be able to stop for a long while, but she wasn’t able to weigh her options much before that theory was being proven true as wet hacks forced their way up her lungs. The force of the fit chewed up what little strength she had left, and she had to squeeze her eyes shut to try and quell the merry-go-round in her head. Her weak body was so numb she couldn’t feel the circles being rubbed into her back, but she was able to tell that she was being lifted gently into a sitting position, with a calloused hand supporting her neck.
It felt like forever until she was able to breathe again, and saying she was after that would be a dubious statement, but she had at least gained back the strength to open her eyes and focus on her surroundings. Scaramouche was in front of her again, even closer (if that was even possible), the pity in his gaze searing into her soul. If there had been any nuance in whether his earlier expression was concern or fear, it had vanished completely as his face transitioned into full-blown terror. It startled Collei once she was able to process it. Sure, her cough sounded bad, even she could tell, but was it really that bad?
“That went on for a long time,” Scaramouche pointed out, which, yeah, Collei knew, she was there for that. She would’ve made some sarcastic quip if it weren’t for 1: how exhausted she was, and 2: her concern at how terrified Scaramouche looked.
Worry was one thing, but she could hear his breathing from here. Regardless of how awkwardly close he was, the fact that she could hear his heavy breaths-- which nearly resembled panting-- was cause for concern.
“I’m okay,” Collei whispered, her voice hoarse in the aftermath of the assassination that was that coughing fit.
“You’re not,” Scaramouche said pointedly, his tone almost angry. “You’re not okay. You’re in danger.”
Collei didn’t really know what to say to that, so she didn’t. His words were so sharp she would’ve been inclined to apologize if she was sorry. But she wasn’t going to act sorry if she didn’t do anything wrong, and as far as she could tell, she didn’t.
“You’re such a worrywart,” She mocked. “I love how emo you act while you’re the softest person ever.”
Scaramouche didn’t respond at all to her teasing, so she lowered her smirk and shifted her gaze.
“It’s just a cough,” She continued in a softer tone. “Nothing I haven’t dealt with before. It’s probably just my illness acting up.”
When she looked back, she’d realized she’d made a mistake by using this logic because he somehow got more panicked.
“Your illness? You said that wasn’t a problem.” Scaramouche’s tone was growing sharper, to the point where Collei couldn’t tell if he was actually angry at her now. “You lied to me.” A sudden shift deemed the confusion irrelevant as his voice lowered, reducing to sounding just… hurt. “You… lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie to you,” Collei said softly. Hearing her own tone made her cringe. Why was she the one having to be comforting right now? She was the one hacking up a lung just a moment ago!
She didn’t pause to ponder this, carrying the same tone into the rest of her explanation. “Dottore had been suppressing my symptoms, so it wasn’t for a while. But, I haven’t been in the lab for a while, so… I guess he hadn’t gotten the chance to do that lately.”
Scaramouche absolutely melted at this, his face falling so drastically Collei was convinced it’d hit the floor.
“Why do you look so guilty?” She raised an eyebrow, not sugarcoating her exasperation. “It’s not like you want to take up all of Dottore’s time. In fact, I’m not sure if I’d rather be sick and miserable than get cut up in there .”
“I want you to be in there,” Scaramouche said firmly. It was… an outrageous statement out of context, but his expression was solid. He really believed this. “Even if it hurts you. I want you to be alive.”
A smirk tugged at the corner of Collei’s lips. “You really weren’t excluding yourself when you said everyone was selfish. We both know you want me alive for your sake, not for mine.” His expression still remained determined at this. He wasn’t backing down or making excuses. He didn’t… pretend to be ‘good’ like others would. Collei respected him for that. “But, I guess it makes me happy you care about me so much. That way I can tease you and call you a softie.”
“Tch… not a softie,” Scaramouche hid under his hat, turning away from her. Finally, he was humouring her teasing again. It seemed Collei had found the solution to his odd behaviour. It’s hard to be so worried about the safety of someone who’s well enough to smile and joke around. If Collei was convinced nothing was wrong, that conviction might rub off on her worried cellmate too.
“So what do I do?” Scaramouche asked, the question sudden and vague enough for Collei to instinctively return an imploring look. “How do I… fix it? How do I make you better?”
“You can’t,” Collei said bluntly. “I’ll just be coughing and sick for a while.”
“No,” Scaramouche shook his head, as if disagreeing would make it not true. He lowered his head to press his ear to her chest. “I hear it. In your lungs, in your breathing. In your cough. There’s something there. How do we get it out? How do we make it stop?”
“It’s not that serious…. It’ll go away…”
“It is serious!” Scaramouche’s outburst was so violent it almost put little tears into the corners of his eyes. He took a moment to let his expression melt before lowering his tone. “It is serious. It won’t go away. I know. You’ll die. We have to stop it.”
“I just need rest,” Collei huffed, tired of arguing, using whatever muscles were still working to lie back down. “Give it some time.”
“We don’t have time,” Scaramouche argued, his tone growing more urgent. Trying to tune him out and shut her eyes was clearly a mistake, because the frantic boy then grabbed her by the shoulder and tore her away from the pillow. “Don’t die!”
“I’m not dying, I’m sleeping!” Collei returned the emphatic volume.
“That’s too close! If you sleep it might turn into dying!”
“Not sure it works that way, chief.” She laid back down. “If I don’t get any rest, that’ll just make me worse.”
“Really?” He asked, his tone… genuine. Like he really didn’t know that.
“....Yes. Have you… not been sick before?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Not often,” He admitted. “I have a good immune system. That’s why they like me. My body’s very resilient.”
“Well, mine’s not,” Collei said bluntly, “So I need to rest. That’ll help. We can figure out how to… fix it, when my head’s not as cloudy.”
The stubborn Scaramouche did not seem very happy with this response, but he didn’t stop her from laying back down and closing her eyes.
She drifted into a fuzzy, dreamless sleep of pure white. No nightmares, no nothing. Just white. It was something Collei would definitely be thankful for when she woke.
Which actually came quite soon because she was being shaken awake an hour later.
“Whaaat?” She slurred sleepily, opening an eye enough to see Scaramouche deflate with relief.
“You were like,,, breathing quieter. I thought you were dying. I dunno.”
“What.” Her tone was dry and tired.
“Well, I don’t know! Your eyes were closed and you weren’t moving.”
“Because I was sleeping!”
“That’s also symptoms of being dead, they look really close!!”
Collei just groaned, regretting it as it made her cough violently again. They were just as rough as before, if not moreso, and just as unsatisfying. Every time it felt like the gunk was finally leaving her throat, more would come up and block her airways even further.
Even over the coughs, she could hear the audible whimper Scaramouche was probably trying to suppress. This time she couldn’t blame him. It sounded like she was genuinely choking.
“Before you say anything,” She managed to choke out, trying not to gag as she felt the mucus she gulped back lodge itself in her throat, “I’m alive. I’m still breathing. I’ve survived colds this bad before.”
“Colds??” Scaramouche was full-on irate now, clearly frustrated he wasn’t getting the response he was looking for. “It’s not just a cold, colds don’t sound like that!”
“They do for me!”
“That’s even worse!”
Dramatically, Scaramouche threw himself back against the wall, bringing his knees to his chest. “You’re not taking this as seriously as I am and it makes me angry. You could die. That cough means you’re dying.”
“Feels like you’ve never met a chronically ill kid because this cough is just part of that.”
Scaramouche seemed to be even more riled up at that.
“....Just let me rest, or I’ll never get better.”
“Rest….” He scoffed, hiding under his hat. “Rest forever, more like. I won’t let you leave me. We’re going to escape together. You promised.”
When he removed his hat and looked at her, he said something she wasn’t expecting.
“I hate liars.”
Collei didn’t know what to say to that. She wasn’t a liar-- at least she didn’t want to be. But what was she supposed to say? Yeah, you’re right, I’m dying? If she did, THEN she’d be a liar. Scaramouche should be thankful she isn’t.
For fuck’s sake, Collei was woken up another hour later.
“What!?” She snapped.
“Sorry,” Was all Scaramouche said. He looked… scared. Just… pure fear. None of his earlier exasperation, frustration, stubbornness… just… scared.
Collei didn’t say anything back to that.
When Collei next woke she felt… a lot better. Almost miraculously better, actually. She sat up, she could actually move. Her limbs felt so light, and she could-- she could breathe!! How long had she slept for to feel this much better? Days? Did she even care? She was fine now.
“Scara--! Scara, I feel better, I’m--”
When Collei jolted up to greet her cellmate, she realized it wasn’t just those two in the room. Towering beside him, with a hand on his shoulder and a sickening smirk, was Dottore, who was brandishing a syringe with the other hand.
“I’m sorry,” Scaramouche whispered.
Collei felt so betrayed.