Less than an hour to go until he finishes his voluntary coverage shift.
Normally, Nick would not be counting down: but then again, who likes coming into work for an extra shift, and on a Saturday? And it has been a particularly terrible Saturday, one in which he has bounced between floors because the Emergency Department is short handed today, and one in which he has had to explain once or twice to other staff the difference between a counselor and a social worker, despite the fact that they all tend to be lumped into one large Supportive Mental Health Services amalgam.
He is back up on his floor now, recently emerged from a session with a dialysis patient. The Palliative Care unit is probably the most friendly looking in the entire hospital, painted a bright robin's egg blue and lined with windows.
Right now it smells a bit like a dialysis unit; his patient is tucked away in one of the corner rooms that one reaches shortly after they leave the elevator. Nick is standing outside this room with a pen and a piece of paper, which he eschews in favor of one of the rolling computer carts he has spied and darts toward before one of the RNs can get to it.
He has an office: the catch here is that people know they can find him in his office. So he does his documentation out here, types away. The scent that lingers about the place he has long since learned to ignore. And that is how Ned will find him soon: their running into each other sooner or later was inevitable, really.
Ned
"Half the time I'm pretty sure, stuff like this was just coincidence."
It's what greets Nick, in his office, when the 'kid' stops by. Finished up with his previous patient, there were linens to collect, dishes to put away and some things to empty on this floor. Short-handed was an understatement in their line of work. Half the time, you couldn't hope to catch a sick day, because you were elbow deep in someone else's shift as often as they were in yours. Ned had the comfort of knowing most of the hospital at this point, not because he was trained but because the Doctors, Nurses and other workers favourite phrase was
I need your help for a minute.
Which usually went an hour or more over when you were meant to be clocked out.
He's standing in the doorway of the office, tucked inside his usual black scrubs, shoulder leaning against the frame, arms tucked up firmly, crossed over his chest, staring with those dark circles both of them are familiar with after a bit of sleep deprivation. He was young. He could handle it.
"Then I remember, what else is possible and suddenly moments like these don't just make sense, but they become boringly predictable."
Nicholas Hyde
Nicholas does not look up immediately; he is in The Zone, nearly finished with typing up his encounter and mental state exam, and so his eyes do not immediately find Ned as the kid appears in his door. The office is small, and his chair is nearest the door: on the other side of his desk and farther away, an overstuffed and overlarge arm chair just in front of the window, through which bars of fading light slant to fall along the floor. Two other chairs, the sort of metal and faux leather affairs that one typically finds in offices, are set along the wall.
There are a few plants that are perched on the desk and the smallest of trees that has been set on an end table near the window. They enliven the place, which otherwise would look the way every other hospital office does, save for the one concession to Nick's personal life that is a framed photo of himself and Pen, tucked in a corner near the computer screen.
He recognizes Ned's voice though he cannot immediately place it, and so after a few seconds he swerves his chair around to face the door. Perhaps he is a touch pleased, and Ned can see that through the surprise that colors his expression first. A smile pulls at the corner of Nick's mouth. "You're too young for ennui, Ned."
Nick, who does not have to perform the same sort of grunt work often given to orderlies, is wearing a light blue striped dress shirt and dress pants. He doesn't generally have to touch his clients. He has slid the computer away, and he gestures toward one of the chairs. "You can come in and sit down, if you want. I'm just finishing up." A glance darts to the clock; perhaps he will even get out on time.
Ned
"World moves at a pace these days, that says "too young' is hard to keep up, past your first decade. Besides...common and mundane stuff like jobs, money and careers-" He flashes a hand around at the hospital, eyes bouncing out into the hallway where the patients rest.
"Just about all of it, kind of feels obsolete in the face of Phenomenal cosmic power."
Ned's glance remains out in the hall, seemingly testing to see whether there are any Doctors or nurses nearby that might require him or need his assistance. A lazy saturday indeed, as the bodies in the hall are minimal, leaving him time to break and relax. He plucks a protein bar out of one of his pockets, stepping into the office to occupy one of the chairs.
"So even higher up the food chain of our little members only club, you still have to work a job?" He bites into the protein bar.Winces slightly at the taste. Nourishment, rather than pleasure.
Nicholas Hyde
Nick doesn't miss the way Ned's gaze sweeps the hall before he steps inside; this is in fact what prompts him to shut the door after Ned as the young man enters his office. He's the sort of man who is friendly with most people he works with in the hospital, and he is well aware of the demands placed on orderlies (and how underappreciated they often are, because they tell him so). The heavy slab of wood settles into place with a click as it latches.
The hallowed hush of Nick is more evident here in this space than it was at the party, where he was seated next to Pen and Andrés, who both feel stronger than he does and whose resonances are more demanding, alluring things. He has never minded this, and yet here and now, this sense of Sanctity pervades the place, as though Ned has just stepped into a churchyard soaked in dew and pale morning.
"Have to isn't the phrase I would choose," Nick says, and he has leaned back in his chair which, damnably ergonomic in design as it is, remains firm in its cradling of his spine rather than creaking back as he would like. "It supplements my Awakened work. I choose to be here."
The wince does not go unnoticed; wordlessly, Nick ducks his head down and opens one of the drawers of his desk, from which he draws a bowl; inside the bowl are apples. He sets this on the desk in front of Ned and does not spend needless words on invitation. Instead, his eyes fix on the boy again and he says, "It sounds as though you're questioning the role your job plays in your life at this point, though."
Ned
"Not really. I know the role I have here. It also affords me rent, a place to stay and a chance to study Life at a micro and macro level. I'd have to put into a half dozen years of medical degree work and effort just to be able to get the sort of hands on experimenting and perceptual work I can get in this job."
He shrugs, the protein bar consumed with several more quick bites, before he's reaching apologetically for an apple.
"Not as much a choice, as an option to bolster what I had been growing frustrated with in school." Been. He used to be in college. Not anymore. The wrapped for the protein bar finds the waste bin, after a brief glance around for it's location.
"I'm not as far removed from-" He motions around at the Hospital again, from within their sanctified little room "-all this as I suspect those of you with access to...well, abilities that can change. Alter. Re-define. I imagine I'll get there, but for now, this serves a learning purpose."
He bites into the apple. Leans forward, elbows to knees, chewing quickly.
Nicholas Hyde
Nicholas listens, with the air of someone who spends most of his day listening to other people tell him about themselves. This is to say: he is very good at it, and his eyes are focused and attentive but they don't stare, and there's frequently this sort of gentle good humor that creeps into his expression at things Ned says. He reflects emotion when appropriate, and that had been threads his eyebrows together for a brief moment.
He, too, has reached for one of the apples. The way he bites it and chews is much slower, more thoughtful, parallel ruminations to the way his mind is turning over his thoughts and Ned's words.
"I think removal from it is also a choice," Nick says. "Not necessarily the wrong one, for everyone. Personally, I question the usefulness of withdrawing from the world if you're to alter it."
There is this other thoughtful, appraising glance of the young man in front of him. "You strike me as a pragmatic guy, Ned. Are you getting what you want so far from what you're trying to learn?"
Ned
"If I'd known this was going to be a Psych eval, I would have prepped more."
It's a joke but Ned doesn't laugh. It wasn't that sort of joke. He offers a quick smile that doesn't make it into his eyes and bites into his apple again, his own thoughts turning Nick's question over in his head.
"To be honest, given how dangerous, threatening this whole existence we're part of, is I would find it difficult to really continue to be part of it for very long. I'm imagining some point when the time comes for me to pack up and pull back. Which won't be difficult, all things considered. Until then, I'm learning as much as possible..."
Another bite. Another round of chewing. The Apple's half gone.
"I'm getting everything I think I need which...well is as much as I want and probably less than I need. This sort of 'Belief makes life, makes power, makes right' that we operate on...where-in our abilities require a firmness of thought that can't really be faked or replicated. It pushes you to make decisions. To formulate ideas and concepts. Mine were put in place when I emerged..." Awakened "...and have been developing rather comfortably in that pragmatic sense since then."
He shrugs. He has yet to lay a solid eye on Nick, since he entered. Glances, catching of the eyes when the older man speaks but nothing absolute or overly attentive.
"I suppose, I'm getting what I need, so that I can be enough of a Reality Deviant, to get what I want."
Nicholas Hyde
Nick doesn't laugh either, but he does smile. There is a sweeping, encompassing sort of gesture around the office: Ned did catch him at work, after all. His time on the clock isn't up just yet (and even if it were, there's a good chance that this is how Nick would be handling this conversation anyway, and most of his conversations with others.)
"It can be threatening and dangerous," he tells Ned, and something in this, in his expression, is utterly earnest, "but it isn't only that." A beat. "Or, more appropriately, that's not all there is."
Nick's reactions, behind his subtle mirroring of Ned's, are a difficult thing to pin down. There are moments where his gaze lingers, or where his eyes wander to perhaps soften whatever impression Ned might have of being under scrutiny, but these are the only tells of anything he might think about what Ned is saying.
"So do you have a clear idea of what you want, then?"
Ned
"Sure. To make sure I'm safe and by extension, for everyone else to be safe too."
Ned's polished off most of the apple, bitten it down to the barest core, the thinnest remains. Seeds poke through where flesh is left over and he leaves them in place, tossing the piece into the waste bin he knows he'll probably have to empty out at some point in the very near future.
"I helped put a Ghost to rest a while back. An honest to whatever, Ghost. It possessed some dead guy, who attacked Margot and I. Zombie. A Zombie. There are TV shows running around with that sort of premise and I'm living it. The thought Zombies and Ghosts are real...makes you wonder what else is, right?" A brow perks. He's actually smirking at this point. This was the joke he was willing to laugh about.
"I get the feeling, hitting the ground running was the point. Making sure what I want, allows room for growing up as quick as I can, so I can start wanting better things than 'Just being safe'. That'll do for now though..."
He climbs up to his feet, the trash bin plucked up along the way, offered out toward Nick for his own apple core should the man choose to deposit it.
"Wars, Technocrats, Ghosts, Zombies, People who summon demons, witches, Mad scientists, reality altering power. Way I figure it, the world's got plenty of options. I can want just about anything given enough time. So I'm content wanting what I need..."
He smiles. Something genuine or...at least believable.
"There's a Doctor somewhere probably aching to order me around some. I better get back to it."
Nicholas Hyde
Nicholas, after a moment's hesitation, does deposit his apple core in the wastebin; the gesture carries the uneasiness of a man who is uncomfortable with other people doing things for him.
And here, he can share the joke, because Nick himself perhaps had this realization a long time ago. "If someone has thought of it somewhere, it's real," he says, this pronouncement in the casual manner of someone who understands that Rule 34 translates beyond the internet and its dark underbelly of fetish fanfiction. "It sounds like you're off to a good start."
He smiles, too, and leans over to knock the door handle down, to crack open the exit. "If you need anything, you know where to find me. Don't work too hard." Ah yes: he did notice the dark circles beneath the kid's eyes. The suggestion is only just tinged with irony, because he knows that these sorts of words are precisely what everyone expects from a counselor, and he also knows how very unlikely Ned is to stop working too hard.
And he cracks his knuckles, and returns to his laptop and immerses himself once more in the conversation he'd had earlier that afternoon, a pool of water so deep he was unable to see the bottom.
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