#{ 𝐃𝐀𝐘𝐍 *// shoshana liebowitz }

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Dayn was really trying his hardest to get some good nights sleep in, he was. But the incessant talking, the begging, the demanding of those things behind the wood of the gas station could be loud, and he understood why others stuck together - to keep each other sane.

After one particularly bad night, Dayn made the executive decision to go out and find any tools and wood he could find, as much as he could have, to board up the windows with the goal to muffle as much as possible. He grew up in a city and was no stranger to noises in the night, but this was a different beast. He had never craved a quiet night's sleep like this, not for a long time. This place was proving to be exhausting, and the limited free time he had around the schedule of the monsters at the doorsteps was not about to spent napping when there was much to do.

To his luck, Dayn did find a half used spool of twine that he could make some use out of, to tie together some of the wooden slats he had found in his trek around town, making his journey back to the station easier when he didn't have to carry them all individually. He had a pocketknife already, which was proving to be his best friend since he'd been here... until he slipped his hand and it sliced open his palm. He kept it sharp for his own protection, but it was a little too big for him to be able to just hold them together with a tight bandage and some patience, so off he went to see the medic.

A town like this had to have someone of that sort of knowledge, right?

Though he was used to it now, he had let out a sigh of relief at seeing that wooden statue hanging by the door, a sign of protection even if it was still gray daylight. "Hello?" he called, stepping through the door and looking down the hallways. He had to make quick work of trying to stop any blood, so his hand was tightly wrapped with one of his socks until he could find a doctor. *// @solidgrovnd

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Dayn was ready to pipe up and say hopefully that would change - but it would be the opposite here, no? Wasn't it technically a good thing that there weren't people here to fill the halls, meaning less people that had to suffer the same fates the rest of them were dealt? In selfish ways, though, it would have been nice to have others around, for emergencies. An ambulance crashing into Arcadia would be bad for those inside, sure, but they could sure use the help: the most practical use of that stupid trolley problem he'd ever seen.

His hand felt itchy as the skin was stitched back together, to the point he had to make a conscious effort not to touch it, to force that suggestion out of his mind. The last thing he needed was to make things worse and require more medical intervention when surely supplies and time were stretched thin enough as it were. Dayn was relieved they didn't press him further, another memory he wouldn't want to touch with a ten foot pole, if he could help it. An excuse to slow down and be a little lazy was welcome, even if there was a fear about those things being able to see them through the windows. They'd have to settle for covering windows with blankets until they could finish boarding them up.

"Oh, I'm Dayn," he introduced. They already sort of shook hands, so he'd abstain from that. "The twin's Joel. Just picture, like... longer hair. Kinder eyes. Worse posture, I think, and then you got it. Actually he ended up here after awhile, he got stuck in the woods with the weather and landed here. He was fine, though."

Shaw pretended to mull over the suggestion. In truth, the clinic had never had any real use for an expansion—supplies were always too scarce, and clinicians even more so—and their location being smack-dab in the middle of town had at least made the trips fairly quicker than most. It would be much more efficient if there were smaller stations at the fringes, in the sliver of boundary where town and wilderness met, but there again came the matter of supply. “That might be true,” they conceded, “There’s a lot of empty rooms. Just not enough things and people to supply it with.” Though Shaw had hoped, at least, that it would stay that way. They would not commit to growing roots in such a half-life.

I’m not really big on hospitals. He confessed, mid-suture, as Shaw continued working. It was not unexpected. Visits to the clinic were rarely met with enthusiasm, and Shaw would prefer that no visitors would come at all. It was true and even encouraged. No visitors was often a sign of a good day. A quiet day. When no thought would be afforded to the specter of creatures who had come alive in the night and no horrors to be treated for in the next morning. Where the progress of their days was measured only by the angles of their shadows in the sunlight, the dip of the sky against their skin. 

For now, though, work awaited. “That’s fair,” they conceded, sliding the needle through the last of the skin still left. They paused slightly to survey their handiwork, leaning back slightly. Once they were confident that the stitches would hold, Shaw gently dropped his hand. “Try to keep it dry for the next twenty-four hours. No handiwork,” they advised as they placed their supplies back into the tray. It was not the worst start to their morning, Shaw mused. A routine established. The laceration, at least, had been easier to treat than others. They moved to the corner of the room where the sink lay. “I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name,” they remarked, gaze still focused on the steady rivulet of water to wash the wound and the morning away, “And your twin’s name, too.” More names, then, to add to the clinic’s records. More bodies lying in wait.

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His tone felt bitter on his tongue - they were only trying to help. Constantly worried about this place getting the better of him somehow, something surely others in this town experienced similar feelings of, and here he was, letting his mood dictate his tone. Watch it, he thought, the annoyed voice in his head sounding a little too much like his father for his liking. They're trying to help you, don't be an asshole.

"I meant more, like, taking one of the empty storefronts over," he said. "I'm sure there's some old clothing store or laundromat that's out of commission that doesn't get much use anymore." The clinic wasn't far from Dayn at all, lucky for him, but Arcadia was still a reasonably sized town to him. He was used to a city of course, where nights were constantly punctuated by sirens, a guessing game to which was which judging from the pace of the frequency.

He let out a quiet hiss at the sting of the needle, preferring to look away from the sight of it. Eyes aimed up towards the ceiling, or even at their face. "I'm not really big on hospitals," he suddenly confessed. All it took was one unpleasant stay. Hindsight had him knowing it was the only option, but at the time, it was the last place he ever wanted to be. He had a hazy memory of staring up at a ceiling, not too dissimilar to this one, masked faces prodding at injuries, taking photos, and his fingers curled so tight around the metal bars of the bed he thought they would bend. Of course, in adulthood, he became more of a "figure it out" kind of man, where any injuries of his could be fixed with ice and superglue; he'd leave that out.

Shaw’s slight advice was met with the kind of crass delivery they’d most associated with people with years to his days, whose exhaustion crept in and carried words stripped of courtesy, instead. The slight poison of it felt almost displaced against the young man’s tongue, as if they hadn’t just exchanged barbs moments earlier. They could not orchestrate these moments if they tried. Their attempts at conversation would always come off too stilted. So they let the comment die in the air, joining the rest of the clinic’s perennial decay. Brushing away the awkwardness might have even come as a small mercy for them both. 

Back to work, then. Conversation back to the side of courtesy. The doctor, the clinic: objects of the same stock. Shaw was not so prideful as to think of themselves irreplaceable by any means—certainly not now with Ari’s presence, however bittersweet any addition to Arcadia might be—but if pain were to persist then it stood to reason that they should, too. “If such a store existed, I’m sure it would have been found by the scouts by now.” Now, of course, could be so arbitrary. Time had not worked as it once did and the world was only a ruin. Not much growing here save for the forest, the ranch, the greenhouse. Death in the center; living in the periphery. 

The wound cleaned, their focus now narrowed to the gash of the cut, and Shaw grabbed the makeshift suturing kit set aside. “Twins?” They began, piercing the torn flesh now with the needle. Distraction, again, by way of conversation. They were almost glad that the man should be so forthcoming, the change of pace almost refreshing. “Did you arrive here at the same time?” At least he had not come alone. Small mercies.

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His brows creased. "Well, I didn't exactly wake up today hoping I'd slice my skin open," he said. Besides, he'd had worse. Dayn usually didn't do that either - he's had that pocketknife for years now, sharpening it himself. It was a comforting kind of protection that he probably, realistically, hadn't needed. What were the odds something worse could happen? The cause of lots of his past problems was rotting in a jail cell anyway, so maybe the knife was more of a symbolic thing than anything else.

He didn't view it that way, though, and was glad he had it, even if it did hurt him. At least he knew he could cause some damage if he needed it to.

Dayn fixed his tone, knowing full well that if he needed stitches, he should have probably been nicer to the person that would be administering them. "I'm glad it's around, then," he said. Dayn usually was the kind to tough it out, and would have, if not for the location of the cut. "Maybe there's an old storefront somewhere?" he suggested. "Like, a miniature clinic." The world had those, they did exist... but it made him wonder how long they were in Arcadia, if they even knew about those. Dayn shook his head. "No, me and my brother. We're twins, so if you ever see some asshole that looks like me doing something he shouldn't, it's probably not me," he chuckled. "Except for now. This is the last time, definitely."

Strange, to find themselves so proud that they had pulled a chuckle out of the young man’s lips. But, Shaw reasoned, humor did not belong here. Too alien and intrusive in the house of sickness and necessity. It echoed briefly against the walls, and Shaw wished they could embed it there. That this place should hold more than mourning but laughter, too, even if it came only in disparate fragments. 

They nodded as he offered an explanation. Rookie mistake. “The blade of a knife can only be just as strong as the grip that holds it,” they said, putting on their gloves and echoing a butcher father’s rare wisdom. An irresponsible thing to have taught a seven-year-old, in retrospect, but Shaw had traded their knife for a scalpel just as he’d traded his daughter for gold. They shook the thought away, befuddled by the abrupt intrusion, but shook it off with practiced ease. “Find a way to be careful next time.” 

With deft hands, Shaw peeled the crude sock-bandage and placed it carefully on the opposite end of the tray with a sort of absent care. The sight of the wound had unsettled them, if only briefly, far too reminiscent of Nika’s own wound, lined and livid. But that had been more than a decade and a half ago and now Shaw knew better. “The clinic is… serviceable,” they remarked, uncapping the saline solution, “We make do.” Always only to make do. As had been their mantra, even as the supplies grew scarcer and the world moved despite, mocking in its indifference. “It might be a bit selfish to ask for a mobile clinic or an ambulance to get stuck in here, but…” a roll of their shoulders, “We all have our fantasies.” Some fantasies were more realistic than others. Turning over his hand lightly to reveal the depth of the injury, Shaw repeated, “The gas station.” An arch of their brow, curious. No one had stayed there for a while. “And you’re alone there now?”

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It took him a second for it to register, but he found himself chuckling at the joke. "Yeah, I guess I do," he said. Who was he to turn down a laugh, even a little one, especially with an open wound on his hand and a chip on his shoulder - though, he could imagine there were lots of people who felt similar in regards to the latter. Slivers of hope are what Dayn held onto for now, when he was alone in the gas station and blocking out any sound of those things in the night, while he was trying to sleep. Which, was hard enough as it was.

But, there were no remarks made about the dark circles under his eyes, so he'd take it. Dayn followed them back to wherever she led, observing the walls and other rooms as he went. A few that looked lived in. As clean as it could be without any true access to disinfectant that he'd imagine was required in hospitals - at least, the ones in the actual world. He'd imagine that by now, that had all been used up. It was difficult to tell how long this place had been like this, though, and he was almost afraid to ask.

"I was just cutting some string," he said. "I found some wood and I was going to use it to board up one of my windows - I'm up in the gas station - and tying them together seemed smart, but then the knife slipped. All I had on hand was the sock, but it's clean otherwise, I promise." Dayn sat down on the bed, glancing around. "This place looks smaller on the outside. Guess that it's a good thing it's not."

Mornings in the clinic had dragged on as of late. Time passed by slowly now, and though the past fifteen years had turned Shaw into a creature of habit, even they had lapses in their patience. Yearned to be somewhere different, perhaps. To spend mornings in a place where their wings did not feel so clipped and shriveled without the welcome weight of the sun. Certainly not here, where their most frequent company was only the leafless tree whose shadow swept the office. Stripped of leaves, the branches resembled barbed wire, sharp and twisted, the kind shrikes would use to impale their prey.

Hadn’t they learned? To wish for anything here was futile. It was especially hard to indulge when their living arrangements, in the grand scheme of things, had been somewhat of a luxury: an iron frame for a bed, an old mattress, and a windowless room. Yet sleep had been elusive, and they left the door ajar to let some of the light in. At least, Shaw thought, they had remembered not to sleep in their office this time.

It did not take long for someone to disrupt the quiet. A man’s voice bent through the halls, uninterrupted. No one else had roused. The responsibility fell squarely on their shoulders, as it had always been before the clinic became increasingly crowded, and they moved through the hall to follow the source of it. The source himself being a man, clutching his hand, which was in turn haphazardly tucked inside a sock fast turning crimson. 

“I’m guessing you need a hand.” They replied dryly and somewhat unbidden—Jude would have liked that joke, they thought, even if this man wouldn’t. Their bedside manner was slipping in their old age. An attempt at professionalism here then—“Follow me, the wards are this way,” they said, nodding down the hall. They did not wait for his response; instead, turning on their heel and trusting him to follow their trail.

When they got to the door, they gestured toward one of the vacant clinic beds for him to sit. “Can you tell me what happened?” They called back, having already moved to the side of the room where the supply cabinet lay and reached for the kit reserved for emergencies of this nature—cuts and lacerations had become far too frequent, especially during the onset of winter.