Emrys Damian had been found on the sidewalk in a deep puddle of his own blood at three in the morning that very morning, seven hours ago by a drunk. The man happened to be walking home and slipped in Emrys’ blood and landed on his legs. The drunk would have thought that Emrys was dead except that he cried out from the edge of his awareness.

Emrys now lay on the dull blue sheets of the hospital bed with several lines of IV running liquids into him. One was pumping him with blood, replenishing all of the blood he’d lost, the crimson liquid dripping slowly down the tube. The other two were both very clear liquids, one water, the other a medication, dripping slowly to numb the pain. It didn’t work, Emrys could feel everything.

The blind man had the bed in a half way position, not entirely sitting up but not entirely lying down either. He had a sheet pulled to his waist and sat entirely nude, only visible waist up. His entire chest was wrapped and padded in bandages. In some spots the blood had seeped through and stood brilliant red against the gauzy white. His back had been terribly damaged, though nothing needing stitches, rather it looked like road rash. The chest had been a problem to stitch closed because it’s hard to stitch over scar tissue and his chest had been nothing but a mat of scars. His face and arms had some bandages and bruises, his ankles were in terrible condition, cut down to the bone. That would take a good deal of time to heal.

Emrys didn’t have his blind fold on. It had fallen off when Logan had been dragging him over the sidewalk. They were white. It looked like there was a thin white skin over his eyes, a faint shade of blue beneath. There was nothing human in the shape of those eyes, they're narrow, sharp at both corners. Mounds of scars wrapped around his eyes, across the bridge of his nose, smooth, etched. It was no wonder why he’d hid them. The doctors had also discovered his pointed ears. Both were chalked up to birth deformality because Emrys would not open his lips and speak to them. He had not told them who had attacked him, what had happened, nothing. They’d gotten his name from his ID card, found the previous scaring in his medical records had been caused in a fire. It was the most they knew. Some doctors and nurses were beginning to think he was blind and mute. And maybe death since he never responded in the slightest.

He was waiting. For an initiate doctor. Someone to tell about his attacker, the magic used on him. Someone to tell that he was a healer and could heal his own wounds with time once he regained his strength and the wounds were not so severe.

Sin wa having a very odd day, people were cooperating with him. Of coarse the unnish boy has no idea he's been bending people's will with magic he isn't aware of. It had started when he'd gone to see Em and no one was there at a time when he normally should be.

Questions in and around that dorm had gotten him no where until finally someone suggested he talk with administration. Normally he would have balked no one in that office ever took him seriously in any way. Today though something told him to go. Much to his shock and initial delight he'd gotten cooperation. His mood quickly shifted when it was bad news. Em was in the hospital, what for?

The second question could only be answered by the hospital. That had taken a while but he did get cooperation there eventually as well. Through no falut of his own one of the nurses came to believe Em was his brother. While Sin doesn't lie, he certainly won't discourage people form what they chose to believe, the nurse believed he was Em's brother and now he was getting somewhere. What could it hurt?

He was warned, warned some more and warned again about Em's condition, by the first nurse, a doctor, and the charge nurse on Em's floor. Still it didn't quite prepare him for when they led him into Em's room and left him there. He stood speechless for quite some time. Who would do this...to Em?

Emrys heard someone, assumed it was another doctor, and he sealed his lips closed, holding his bruised and bandaged hands over his lap and lowered his head stubornly, closeing his eyes and turning his head to the side, his long-ish black hair falling over his eyes. He'd been doing this everytime a doctor entered. It made him wonder why they'd think that he was deaf. How can he be deaf if he lowers his head each time that he hears them?

Emrys kept his face down, his lips sealed. The doctor announced Sinister's pressance out of habbit, without thinking the Emrys may or may not be deaf. This suprised Emrys, as he'd for a moment assumed that they'd finally sent in a nurse or doctor to check on him that happened to be innish. He's been searching. And he'd felt. Sin? Could the boy have some power? Could he be initiate and hiding it from Emrys the way the blind man was hiding it from him? Or did he simply not know?

When the doctors footsteps faded, Emrys lifted his face just a little, showing one side of his face, the scars around his odd shaped eye, still closed.

"Sin?" The raspy voice is weaker, more raspy.

"Yes, they were confused and so they let me see you. One of the nurses has in her head I'm your brother. I myself don't see the resemblance." Sinister tells his friend.

He didn't want to talk too much, make Em strain himself trying to answer questions, instead he just pulled a chair over to the bed. "Can I do anything for you?' was the only thing the boy asked.

"Your brother?" This elicted a horse grunt from Emrys, a sound that was supossed to be a laugh but it hurt to laugh. It hurt to grunt, but he wanted to give a reaction, for himself and for Sinister. His chest ached and when Sinister moved a chair closer, he turned his face again so that his eyes were more hidden.

He slowly turned his head then, showing the entire strip of smooth scar over his eyes. Ugly scars. Emrys opened his eyes, afraid for a moment that he might scare Sinister with what they looked like. The odd long shape, the color under the veil of white. Pretty, but not human at all.

Can I do anything for you?

"Get me a blindfold? Anything. A towel or an ace wrap. Anything." Everyone had already seen the scars. It seems that hiding his eyes is a self security sort of thing.

Sinister got up and found him a towel of suitable size. "You want help with this?" He asked. The scars themselves do not frighten Sin. Seeing that Em is hurt had been startling, but the more he thinks on it Sin becomes rather disturbed to think this sort of thing has happend to Em more than once before.

"Don't try to talk more than you have to, we can talk later." says he is talking more to talk really, he wonders how long Em had been laying here alone.

Seven hours. Not so very long. This time, he's got company. Last time he'd gone home and ignored it, but last time hadn't been so bad as this time. Last time he hadn't gotten angry and the boy hadn't beaten him so badly. Last time he'd lay in his dorm room for four days alone before trying to get up.

He nodded to Sinister's instruction not to speak more then was necissary, taking the orders from a fourteen year old. A very smart fourteen year old who happened to be worrying at least a little about him on a personal level rather then a clinical level. He was more then a little thankful for that. He hadn't realized how much he truely missed having a person to care for him until that moment. The last he'd allowed so close had been Barnwen.

He lifted his arms to take the towel and found that at this particular moment he could not reach much higher then taking his arms away from his sides. He didn't try, but rather let his hand fall slowly to his lap. "Yes, please."

"Tell me if I tie it on too tight then." Sinister says taking the towel and gingerly putting it on. one of the doctors came in as he finished and checked the I.V.'s.
He made some notations on the chart and left. Sinister found it very strange.

"Are they...." he fumbled for words, "They don't know you can talk, do they?" the boy asked. There was something very strange about this but he couldn't hammer it down and he didn't want to make Em talk too much.

Emrys listened to the doctor, whinced slightly when the IV's shifted in his arm slightly. He held very still to let Sin tie the towl around his head, hiding the scars and the eyes and even the top of his ears. He turned his head towards the doctor and kept his lips sealed closed.

When the doctor left, he allowed himself to feel an imense amount of security with the towel now hiding his scars and his eyes. Everything so inhuman about himself. Soemthing about exposing that to every doctor that came in or out made him feel vunerable.

"No." He replied, trying to think of a reason why he would not talk to the doctors aside from the fact that he couldn't talk about his wounds to an unnish doctor.

"Is something wrong?" Sinister asked, he was at a loss on what he was even trying to ask really....obviously something was wrong or Em wouldn't be here. Sinister meant about the doctors though. "I mean if there is a problem with the doctors you have maybe I can help you get another one?" he asks, he still can't figure this out, very frustrating to a boy as smart as Sin.

"I would like another. This man...he," He paused and swallowed, trying to clear the constant hurt from his throat. "He just doesn't cooperate. He comes in and he leaves. Like he just did." He fronwned. Maybe if he was lucky the doctor that Sin found might be an innitiate doctor. Then he could really tell him what happened to him and that if he could get out of critical condition from there, he could heal himself.

"Thankyou," he comented about the towel being put over his eyes.

"I'll be back soon." Sinister promises Em.

He makes his way back to the nurse who first helped him, she seems to know a great deal about how the hospital operates. He tells her about his "concerns" over Em's care. He also explains that he is worried he won't be able to get anything done about it because of his age, he is not old enough to help make medical decissions afterall. He is still letting her believe Em's his brother of coarse.

She in turn takes Sinister to the hospital security center, there are camera that monitor what goes on in the hospital. The nurse gets the security people to play back the tapes for Em's room. Sure enough they confirm the doctor assigned to Em is really only going through the motions. The nurse suggests that she can takes the tapes to the hospital administrator and have him assign a new doctor. She explains she isn't possitive it will work, but she is willing to try. Sinister agrees to let her.

She promises to let him know something within the hour. Sinister goes back to Em's room to wait. "I don't know how this will play out." he says as he comes back, I have a nurse helping me try to get you another doctor, we just have to wait and see, should hear something within the hour." he explains.

Less than an hour passes when the nurse shows up with a different doctor.

Maybe the administrator knows something that he shouldn't know, or maybe he simply understands more about Emrys' behavior then Sinister does, because he understands what he is, whatever the maybe might turn out to be, they got it right on the first try. Emrys had been sure he'd have to cancal doctors two or three times before being satified with an initiate person. This first doctor seemed to have some inkling of magic in him.

Emrys retracted his search and lay/sat in silence with Sinister in the room while to doctor introduced himself. When the nurse left he expressed his suspician that Emrys and Sinister were not related by telling them how little they looked alike and smileing, winking once at Sin.

Emrys turned to face him as he inquired to what exactly was with the towel being over Emrys' face. "I've a few scars I don't usually leave uncovered," he replied. First doctor to hear Emrys speak. He seemed suprised and scratched off both deaf and mute from the chart.

Emrys would talk to the doctor later. For now he nodded and thanked the man quietly. Then he turned his head around in almost the direction of Sin. "Thank you." He said for the second time today. "What...What made you come?"

"I couldn't find you. So I set about trying to and now I have." Sinister said as if it were the simplest thing in the world. "Of coarse shortly I have to go or I'll miss classes for the evening." he pointed out. Sinister wouldn't mind staying but he wasn't allowed to miss classes, not wothout a doctor's note of some sort.

"I'll come again tommorow though. Can I do anything else for you at the moment?" he asks his friend.

"I see." He replied, as if that simplest thing in the world made every amount of sense. One day when he is feeling better he'll probably remember to ask Sinister exactly how he'd tracked Emrys down, though the blind man suspected it wasn't that hard. But how would he know really, he'd visited someone in the hospital about as often as he'd been visited.

"No." Emrys replied. He tried to reach up and touch the towel that Sinister had tied around his face like a make shift blindfold. "You've done a lot." He leaned his head back against the pillow and worked his fingers over the fabric of the bed. "Thanks." It wasn't really that Sin had done a lot so much as what little he had done had meant a lot.

"I didn't really do much. Do you want me to bring you anything tommorow when I come? It must be awefully boring to just sit here with all the charming hospital staff coming in and out." Sinister asks. He's pacing around a it he must leave or risk being late, but he doesn't want to seem like he's in a hurry to go when he sisn't. He's simply nervous and feels a bit guilty he'll have to leave his friend alone.

"Your really going to come back tomorrow then?" Suprise for Emrys. He really didn't expect Sinister too come back. To say he would yes, but to actually do it. Well, he didn't expect much of people anymore. He nods. "Then books. Top of the stack. There more recent." The books on the tops of the stacks were the newer ones. "Thanks Sin." He could hear him moving about, struggled to sit up a little higher and gave up. "Go get to class."

((hope it isn't an issue that I'm charging ahead to the next day. ))

The following morning Sinister came back to the hospital. He had his backpack today laden with things for Em. The nurse on duty led him in and let Em know he had a visitor. Sin didn't know if she realized Em knew that already, probably not.

He pulled a chair by the bed again and set the back pack on it. He unzipped it. "I've brought your books. I hope you don't mind I brought you some clothes too, eventually they'll let you leave, I figureed you should have them on hand for when they do. I brought a cane and a blindfold too." He untied the cane from where he'd lashed it to his backpack and propped it by the bed.

"How is the new doctor?" he asked.

The nurse mentioned to Sin that Emrys seemed to be easier to deal with since Sin had come yesterday and helped switch his doctors. She commented that he'd actually started talking to his attending nurses and the doctor, what a stubborn guy he was. What a cute boy Sin was. Poor Sin.

Emrys smiled weakly when he heard his cane get proped against the bed. The sound was hollow even though the wood was solid. All of his canes were solid. He reached out and found it with his hand, whincing when his scrapped up fingers touched it. He rubbed the top, sniffed the air and sighed.

"I can usually smell what wood it is." The scent of medicines and sick people had been wrecking his nose. The doctor had replaced the bulky towel with an ace wrap bandage over his eyes so that he could rest. Any normal Meds would not have helped as well as the sleep spell the doctor had placed on him. For now, he would leave the ace wrap, later he would need his blindfold. "Thank you Sin. How was your class?" He still sounded just as terrible. To be expected.

((Not one bit.))

"It went well." Sinister answered. "What have the doctors told you about how long you'll be staying? Will you be needing anything else?" he asks. He hasn't asked at all about what happened, he figures if Em wants him to know he'll volunteer the information.

He hs noticed Em still sounds horrible, but he does feel better having heard from the nurse that he's been more active.

"They want to keep me for a while. He doesn't know how long." He tugged at the sheets, pulling them up higher around his waist, though yesterday he was naked and today he wore a pair of paper-like scrubs pants issued by the hospital. He pulled the blankets up past his ankles. They were heavily wrapped in fesh bandages, bleeding just enough to spot the bandage with red. The ones over the rest of his body had been changed too but spotted red. "Until at least I can walk."

"I don't think I'll need anything else." He replied quietly. He tried to reach up and push back hair but his motion was constricted. He dropped his hand back down. He still thanked God that he hadn't invited Sin along that night. What would that boy have done to Sinister's small body if he could do this to a grown man? A looked passed his face and he tried to cover it. A soft cry escaped his lips and he lifted his hand, moved it closer to Sin's, dropped it on the bed.

Sinister took his hand very gently. " Is anyone looking after your hair, you can hardly move. It might get messy, keep after the nurses to brush it for you." he says mostly thinking out loud. He wishes he could do something more for his friend, but he is rather powerless. (as far as he knows) He's very frustrated by the situation.

"Should anything be done about your assignments then? I'd hate to think you won't be able to make them up." he says still holding Em's hand.

Emrys shook his head. "They cleaned it and brushed it back last night. It's just....it dries like this," falling in his face he means. His bandaged hand closes around Sinister's fingers. The scars, that aren't covered by bandage, are as smooth as they look. He really needed this, someone to hold his hand and let him know that while the whole world is cruel, not everyone in it is.

"They let me take extra classes after hours with them to make up the missed classes last time," he replied slowly. The long sentance had taken it's toll on his throat and he coughed, this hurt his chest and he raised the arm with the IV's stuck through them to touch the bandages. "The doctor says I should not be trying to study anyways. He says I need to relax."

Actually, the doctor told him to do as he see fit as long as he remained relaxed. Upon learning that Emrys was a healer, he resolved to help bring him down from his critical condition and help the healer fix himself in a slow enough manner as to not look suspicious.

Sinister doesn't have a cruel bone in his body, someone else in that family seems to have gotten all the cruelty genes. "Oh my, I'm talking to much. You'll strain yourself. Am I preventing you from resting? You can nod, unless it hurts more then talking." Sinister said. He was concerned his visits might do more harm than good now. the boy feels very sorry, sorry that he can't do more.

Emrys rolled his head to the side against the pillow to turn in Sinister's direction. He managed a wane smile that, while the smile was weak, it really would have reached his eyes if Sinister could only see them. "No. I'm resting fine." He frowned. It really did hurt to speak, but not nearly half as much as it hurt to move. "Why are you an orphan Sin? Your a sweet boy." He continued to frown. "Maybe I can get them to give me a wheel chair. We'll go to the beach."

"Why are you an orphan Sin? You're a sweet boy." Em said to him.

It was strange. He never really talked about it, and no one really asked him. "I only had a mother, and one day she never came home from work." He said. It was the truth but he did not voice more than that. What happened to his mother, no one knew. Why was he an orphan? He didn't know that either, he didn't know if something had happened to his mother or if she simply had enough of the burdens of single parent hood. Sometimes when he got very lonely the questions burned within him.

He still held Em's hand. Of coarse he was a sweet boy, a good boy, he had to be. He had to be good, sweet, and smart, he's made himself, it had always been a goal of his not to get bitter and jaded like the other orphans. He wasn't going to let happiness evade him and so he maintained his cheery disposition and possitive outlook, it helped him stay strong.

Emrys listend to the short explination and wondered how old Sinister was when his mother never came home. She moved his thumb over Sin's hand once, twice, then fell so still he may have gone to sleep. Not died, because that obnoxious monitor machine still beeped periodically with his heart rate. Finally he sucked in a low breath.

"I think I was an orphan too. At least for a little bit. Then my mother took me in."

Mother being his foster mother, or really the woman who found him in the condition he'd been in and healed him slowly with her mortal, non magical talents.

"You should rest, we can talk more when you get stronger."Sin reminds him quietly. Though really this is a subject that Sin would rather avoid, it hurts to think about. It's the other reason he goes by Sinister, why carry a name given by someone's who's gone....a name it saddens him to hear on the lips of others?

"Just rest I'll sit till it's lunch time, then I'll go to the caffeteria." He tells Em, lunch isn't for a few hours yet. The boy is very concerned by all this though, he wants to stay, he wants to help, and so he hopes maybe just his presence will help.

Talking would help. But if Sin doesn't want to talk, Emrys wouldn't talk. He lay back against the pillow and turned his head straight as if to watch the wall through the blindfold. His lips moved once or twice, as if her were talking, but he didn't say anything outloud.

Finally, after a good while of this, the silence, Emrys' fingers began to loosen around Sinister's hand, his lips slacken a little. He looked gone, but the persistant beeping continued. He hurt, but as he drifted to sleep, his mind stopped working and his magic started to black away the pain.

Sinister felt Em's grip losen, heard his breathing grow more shallow. After a short time his own did as well and he drifted off himself. A nurse came in a draped a blanket on him. He slept longer than he'd meant to, slet through lunch and it was now 2 o'clock his little watch alarm wasreminding him. He needed to leave for class soon.

Em heard the watch beeping too. "Sorry," Sinister apologizes," I have to head to class. I'll come tommorow in the afternoon." he promises. He notices the nurses have left Em's lunch tray of to the side for him. "Would you like this lunch tray befoe I go?' he asks.

Emrys stired, turned his head to Sin's direction slowly. After sleeping, he felt weaker, stiffer. He attempted to move his ankles, even though the doctor had told him not to do so, and when he couldn't do more then wiggle one toe of his left foot he sighed and gave up. His fingers tightened around Sinister's then loosened and let go to allow Sin to leave.

He nodded about the tray of food. He didn't feel like eating, but he needed too, as a healer he knew this. "Does your case worker know your running between the college and the hospital?" His voice was horse and beyond the usual rasp again. Sleep does that to you. His only sounds worse because his vocal cords were already ruined. "You don't have to spend your free time here." He wanted him too, but he didn't want him to feel he needed too.

"Shelly is out with strep throat, I'm being juggeled on other peoples case loads till she's back, I don't think I'll be noticed unless I burn Keaton to the ground." Sinister told Em as he helped by situating the tray. "I'll be back tommorow, I've been keeping up with my studies, you needn't worry." he assured his friend. Then he excused himself once more and darted off to class, full of energy after his nap.

Emrys nodded, approving that Sin was not skipping out on his studies. It was a good thing. He'd have felt a little guilty if the boy was slacking because he was here in the hospital. He listened to him leave, then reached out to touch and find the lunch tray.

He barely ate but managed to get down some of the slimy hospital jell-o and a small jar of mixed fruit. Then the doctor came and he drugged him heavily for the evening and night.

(Plodding ahead a bit here, tell me if you wish it changed oh coolest person alive and I will do so)

Sinister came and went everyday for ten days. He had gotten in the habbit of bringing Em some sort of treat everyday. Near as he could figure hospital food was worse fare than orphanage food.

Today when he arrived he had icecream, a pint of choclate chip, in a little cooler. Em was slowly recovering, or so it seemed to unnish Sin, actually he was recoverign rather rapidly, but Sinister isn't well versed in medicine or patience so to him it has been slow and tedious. While Em eats the icecream Sin sits with his laptop doing his homework until Em is finished and wants to talk. It has become a bit of a routine.

Sinister may never know exactly how little those treats had to do with his progression in being happier. Or as happy as the solemn Emrys can become. What really had been cheering him up little by little was the daily sound of Sinister...or anyone for that matter....tapping away at the keyboard of the laptop. Someone being there in the room with him.

"Sinister," he said after a long time of silence and only as much icecream as he could handle, because it wasn't often he ate sweets. "Is your Case worker feeling better?" Because the last time they'd spoken of her, she'd been ill. He sounded stronger. His voice was still raspy but he definatly sounded better. His ankles weren't healed yet enough to walk.

"Oh yes she's fine now, though she has a bunch of new people on her case load because while she was sick one of the supervisors quit in her office. She still calls me everyday though. She knows I'm up here." the boy says still plinking away at his keys.

Perodically he can be heard to mumble about bits of coding as he works. "Did you need anymore books brought round?" he asks around his typing.

Emrys nodded. "I'm glad she knows." Some reason, he's always so conscience about whether Sin's case worker would disapprove of his being around a man, alone in rooms with that man, alone in rooms with a man apparently so pron to danger and so paranoid. Yes, Emrys knows he's paranoid.

"I havn't been doing much reading, but thank you." Actually, he'd been doing a lot of sleeping. It was good to let his own magic take over his body and heal him.

"Well as long as you get lots of rest and don't get bored." Sinister says moving on to his next set of homework. "Shelly knows, she wonders why I don't have more friends my age sometimes, then she remembers I don't go to school with any."

"Maybe soon they'll let me take you for some fresh air in a wheelchair. There's a nice garden downstairs, it smells good. " he says to his friend.

"Maybe. I'll talk to the doctor. I'm getting sick of sitting here in this bed." He sounded sick of everything all together. While Sin would sit there and work on his assignments, Emrys would sit with his head back, his breathing so shallow he might have been asleep. The tension in his face often said he wasn't.

He spent a lot of that time thinking. Since Sinister had mentioned the orphan thing, since he'd brought up the subject of parents, Emrys hadn't stopped thinking about his own history. Those little parts that he usually tried to ignore.

"Maybe in a few weeks, He'll let us go to the beach."

" I dunno how you aren't stir crazy, I would be. I don't even know what to do, to liven things up a bit for you, but not too lively. " he said. He really wish he could do something more, but he was at a loss.

He might have been able to let him watch movies on the lap top or play a game, but he was blind.....Computers are not a medium designed to be used with ease by the blind. Something Sinister was currently writing a term paper on.