Chapter Text
The hospital was relatively quiet today. At-least more than it usually was.
Multi had just finished up with a rather frequent patient by the name of Haiper, he tugged his gloves gently off his hands, fetching out a fresh pair. He’d stuck his hands inside of the wolf to feel the keen, sharp canines a few minutes ago, and Multi quickly grew disgusted by the remnants he still felt on his hands. He’d been replacing his gloves every second despite already long ago disposing of the ones he had felt around the teeth of Haiper with, he could still feel it on his skin.
Multi grimaced, hurrying his way over to the bathroom for the tenth time this hour, fingers twitching at his sides as he sped-walk the whole way there.
Lunging the door open, he took heavy breaths, slamming it shut before immediately clenching his hands onto the base of the sink.
He stared at himself as he panted for a moment, frown deep, the purple under his eyes deeper. Multi’s eyes were wide open despite this, slightly more manic today. He let the sink run, yanking the fresh disposable glove off once more, pumping an unnecessary amount of soap onto his hands as he washed for what felt like forever, adding more and more, eyes going wider by the second.
The clock from the hallway ticked silently in the background, broodingly and almost mocking. He suddenly gasped, forcing the sink off with his elbow rather than his hands, otherwise he’d have to start the process all over again due to the germs of the handle. Multi didn’t feel clean yet, but he knew he should stop. He was on shift, and he knew he shouldn’t encourage his obsessions like this.
He shakily took a much needed deep breath, shutting his eyes for a moment, relaxing himself.
Multi laughed. Once. Then it bubbled up once more, a little creepier. He gripped his dreadlocks roughly, eyes shooting wide open once more. Fuck, he felt so gross. He needed to distract himself, to get away from this dirty feeling.
“Kurwa, this is… this is… ahaha…” Multi stumbled over his words as his entire being quivered, posture slouched. He pulled his sleeve over his hand, wrenching the bathroom handle with the material of his lab coat.
Aimlessly, he ground his jaw as he strolled around the building, nowhere to go but begging to have somewhere.
He stumbled into somebody.
Multi felt dizzy. Extremely so. His forehead hurt, they must’ve bumped theirs together. It was impossible for Multi to tell.
Black spots clouded his vision, a high pitched ringing filling his ear as his knees threatened to give out, buckling gently.
A pair of hands rested upon his shoulders, saving him, words being said softly that he wasn’t able to make out over the buzz in his ear.
After a moment, he came back to earth, met with a ginger haired girl a little too close to his face for comfort, raising a brow at him curiously, looking comically confused. Her unicorn horn surged gently into one of his locs, making it stick up. Multi frowned.
“Get your horn out of my hair.” Multi mumbled bluntly, not annoyed per se, she did help him — this girl was his saviour. From both his physical wellbeing and mental, saving him from the fall and distracting him from his compulsions.
Her eyebrows raised, “ah,” she hummed, taking her hands off his shoulders and dipping her head back a tad in an attempt to retract it, however, all this sufficed for was a pull on his loc, earning a soft grunt from him. “Did you actually tangle it?” Multi asked, displeased with the situation, eyes softened now, less wild. There was something oddly calming about the girl, he hadn’t even realised how his mind slowed.
“No, no! I’ve got this, it’ll be fixed in a jiffy, believe me!” She grinned, clearly having the confidence, bringing her fingers up to carefully shuffle the hair from her. Being successful, she placed her hands on her hips pridefully.
Multi snorted lightly, but gave her a small nod, placing his hands behind his back neatly. He supposed he should express his gratitude to her, “Thank you for catching me.”
The unicorn tilted her head, mimicking his gesture and bringing her own hands behind herself in a much less formal matter than his practised format. “You’re so very welcome… uhhh,” her eyes scanned his upper body to see if he had a name tag of some kind, squinting her eyes as she zeroed in on the name. “Dr. Multi.” She echoed, then met his eyes again, gleaming up at him.
“Mmm. And who might you be?” He might as well ask. Multi was unsure if she was simply a visitor, a new coworker or a patient. It was more than likely she had just been here to visit somebody, due to her clothes not being uniform, though he couldn’t see a reason as to why she’d be on this floor to find that someone — this floor was more for surgical measures, there wasn’t any rooms down here.
“Me…? You’re asking me?” The ginger giggled, her voice deliberately silky.
Multi sighed long and hard, facepalming a moment before replying. “…yeah. Yes I’m asking you.” He internally rolled his eyes. What a fucking attention seeker. Multi knew she was well aware he was asking her.
She giggled once more, raking her hot pink tinted golden framed sunglasses off the top of her head, the few strands slowly falling down onto her face as she folded the sunnies onto her pink suit.
“My name’s Katie, or… some people call me Sauce Boss!”
…
“I am not calling you that.” Multi answers tiredly, eyeing her up and down, clearly unimpressed by her antics. He continued to walk down the hall, cracking each joint in his fingers as he did, then finally rolling his neck.
“Where were you going in such a hurry to cause you to bump into me anyway?” Katie questioned, following close behind him uninvitedly with that childlike curiosity she seemed to carry.
“Ah, you know… doctors, right? Always looking for something to do,” Multi replied simply, shoulders softening as he gestured with his hands, continuing to walk with his neck slouched.
“How did you manage to crack every single joint in your fingers like that? I don’t believe I’ve ever seen somebody do each joint on every single finger before.” Katie inquired once more, staring at the ceiling as if it has answers as she trailed, swaying her finger around with the useless question.
She sure had a lot to say.
“Habit.” Multi responded, simply yet again — he never liked to give too much away, it was a habit of his to speak vaguely.
“Right.” Katie mumbled, as if she got it — she didn’t, it was obvious she was only pretending to understand.
“Where are ya headed, Mr. Multi?”
They continued to walk in silence after that, it seemed Katie either got the hint he wasn’t going to be responding much, or she simply decided to stop talking.
Given the impression he’d been building up on her, it was more likely to be the first than the latter. She seemed to have something to say all the time. It reminded him of his assistant, Quackity.
“Are you visiting someone here?” Multi suddenly broke the silence after a moment, stopping in his tracks in-front of the waiting room chairs. He sat down on one, patting the spot next to him to gesture her to do the same.
Katie followed suit a second after, taking her a moment to process before she realised what he was gesturing for her to do. She placed her hand behind her neck, itching gently at her nape. Multi noted the subject seemed to dull her previously uplifted mood.
“Yeah. It’s a long story…”
“Tell me about it,” Multi encouraged, leaning forward. He pressed his knuckle on his chin, dividing his close attention to her. She must’ve been lost earlier and ended up at the wrong floor.
“I teach kids karate, and there’s this one kid who’s a total pro at it! He’s real sweet, actually… the best. I’m not supposed to get attached, but…” Katie sighed, leaning her back further into the uncomfortable metal base the chair provided. “It’s hard not too. You think you won’t, that you’re stronger than that, but… then the kid gets cancer, and it’s all you can seem to think about.” She stared at the floor as she spoke, her voice cracking slightly, though she kept in any tears that may have threatened to spill from her eyes.
Multi listened to her, every word. He waited a moment to reply incase she had more to say, and partly to give himself time to conjure a suitable reply. He understands what it’s like to be attached. Multi is often cold, but the moment he allows anybody to get close to his heart, he traps them inside and never allows them space to even cross the thought of escaping.
He, himself, has a young patient he has grown attached to with cancer. Nacho. It didn’t happen often, especially not anymore with the mass amount of real time deaths he’s had to witness, but somehow, the boy had snaked his way into Multi’s heart.
He had a soft spot for kids.
“It’s hard not to get attached, especially in situations like this.” Multi’s face was relaxed the entire time he spoke, he wasn’t an expressive person at all when he was being professional. It was like a switch for him.
“I’m sure the kid would be ecstatic to see you. It’s nice of you to come. I can take you to his room, if you’d like,” he paused, watching Katie from the side as she kept her head tipped down.
“Do you know which room he’s located in?”
“Yeah, but I couldn’t… find it…” Katie admits sheepishly, pressing her lips together in a straight line, kicking her legs back and forth on the chair awkwardly.
“You struggle with directions?” Multi asked, not teasing, a question, tilting his head at her, dipping his down slightly lower as she had in order to meet her eye.
“Mhm.”
“Tell me, I’ll lead the way.”
“…Thanks, Multi.”