Hot Chocolate and a Soft Cot PV Syl & Selim Finished

"I am the designer of my own catastrophe."

Selim... or, Hisoka, looked up at the mention of a nurse. Nurses were adults, he was scared of adults. He stopped in his tracks, shrinking into himself as fear took over. Memories flashing before his fear-filled eyes as he looked at the man who most would find comforting perhaps.

Heart pounding, he took a step back, hands clutching at his forearms, nails creating furrows in his scarred skin.

Spots danced across his vision as he tried to control his breathing, which had picked up with the new surge of adrenaline ravaging his exhausted, and worn body.

"I-."

His skin felt tight as the collective memories of his fractured psyche funnelled into him, making the child feel as if his own body was closing in on him. His sensitivity skyrocketed, the touch of the taller boy leading him to his proverbial doom feeling like scalding water dashing against his skin.

He pulled away, heart seeming to skip a beat, though not yet causing him a heart attack that would snuff out his darkened life. He shrunk back to the floor, closing off once more as he curled into an upright fetal position.

His jaw clenched until his teeth felt like stones digging into his mouth. His fingers twitching with the resited urge to claw at his pale skin.

He said nothing, though his mind swamped with whispers and voices that seemed to be talking to him like physical people, yet remaining unheard, and unseen by the two likely observing his form.

' You should've expected this, little dove. This is what happens when you try to accept one's help. They lead you to strife they see as goodwill. They are not us, they do not know our fears, the nightmares that claw at our skull...' The Cruel One crooned to him, sounding as if he were whispering in his ear with a mocking sort of patronization.

He felt a sense of someone's fingers gliding across his pron form, making him tense abruptly, eyes shot wide in terror unseen as his face had been hidden from view.

'Tsk, tsk. Seems you're stuck, with an adult. Those 'grown-ups' we can do nothing against. Too young to help ourselves, too young to be noticed, to be recognized.' The voice let out a dark chuckle, gliding around his shrunken form, his protective ball that did nothing to shield him against his own mind. 'Another betrayal waiting to happen. Another mistake made, fears unlocked to haunt our mind and crowd our vision with eldritch terrors. They're going to grab you, an attempt to 'help' only to make things worse.' The Cruel One hissed.

' Of course, you can't truly escape it. You can't run from this stone and motor prison, the professors and staff will always be here. You can't escape them, more their fake gazes of concern... because you're trapped... trapped in your own skin...'

'And you don't have the guts to cut your way out of your cage.'

Laughter echoed around him, and the boy futily clutched his hands over his ears, eyes leaking with tears of pain... another day, another nightmare.

Hexcode= #507091

Witnessing Hisoka's withdrawal, curling up into a ball on the floor and clutching his ears, Sylvain sought to comfort him as soon as possible. Ignoring the questions of the nurse at first, Sylvain curled up next to Hisoka in an attempt to hold his hands. Pulling them away from his ears gently, Sylvain spoke. "Hisoka," he said softly trying to regain the boy's attention.

He would squeeze the boys hands tight in a pulse. They were still freezing cold. The coat had done so little to warm him that Sylvain grew even more concerned. Pulling Hisoka in closer to himself, cautious not to hurt him or fight him if he offered resistance, Sylvain offered his warmth in the form of a hug.

"Nurse Brumby," Sylvain said gracefully, nearer to losing his calm. Whether holding Hisoka, or nursing his own wounds from the attempt to hold the poor soul Syl would still advocate for his safety and health. "I found him by the lake, spilling tea and freezing to death."

There were tears gathering in Syl's eyes as he spoke. He was afraid for the boy but understood so little beyond the cold pain he radiated. "You have to do something," he cried out to Kelsey, clutching that much tighter. It certainly felt as though a life depended on it.

Whispering more quietly to Hisoka, Sylvain would not let go unless forced to, and even then he would give Hisoka the love he needed to struggle through this. "Please don't go away." He wiped the tears from his own eyes regaining his composure. "I wouldn't leave you then and I won't leave you now."

@Kelsey Brumby @Selim Faust

The sick kid wasn't really speaking, barely standing. Luckily, the other kid had a lot to say. He said the kid's name was Hisoka, and cuddled up with him when he huddled on the floor. A bed would have been a better place to huddle, but alright. He heard freezing to death-- it was snowing outside and the temperatures reached some pretty heavy lows in this area. Kneeling down to look at them better, Kels furrowed his brow as he noted the details. Under the coat, he wasn't wearing much. Parts of his skin that used to be exposed were bright red, and he was shivering and breathing shallowly-- it certainly looked like hypothermia.

Really, there was a very simple solution. Pepperup Potion had a nearly instant warming up effect, it was perfect for occasions like this. But first, he could get rid of the wetness on the clothes from the tea and the snow which was certainly making the two more uncomfortable. Pulling out his wand, he waved it in front of him gently but precisely, "Aer Calidus." The spell was meant for this precise thing, and the wetness would not only evaporate, but they would both feel warm air like a summer's breeze flow around them.

While the two struggled fitfully, there was indeed something Kels could do, and it was better if he did it quickly. Naturally, he already had plenty of the potion brewed, so it would only be a matter of going and grabbing it from the nurses' station.

"It's alright, kid. Don't panic. I'll go get some potion, you try an' get'im on a bed, okay?" He instructed the prefect, though it didn't look like this Hisoka kid was all too ready to listen to instruction himself. Whether they made it on the bed or not, Kels would still move to go to the cabinet if he wasn't stopped.

"I am the designer of my own catastrophe."

AS he was touched the small boy flinched violently as if struck, going deathly still as his hands were forced away from his ears. His breathing hitched, pulse beating swiftly in time with his rapidly thudding heart. He trembled violently, not daring to move, as if he were a rabbit freezing at the sight of a preditor.

The words of his escort cut through the haze, he let out a sharp breath, still as tense as a bowstring. He was the picture of pure terror.

'Tick, tock, tick, tock. The clock is ticking and tocking, it's going to run out soon, and then all sanity will be lost to the abyss.'

He shuddered at the words, and jerked back violently as the spell to warm and dry him was cast, the sudden change in temperature shocking him like a high-voltage fence.

His fractured mind scrambled to keep up with what was happening in light of the fear that distorted everything around him.



That fragment of a sentence that came through his mental chaos was enough to jolt him back with a burst of horror. He tensed, pressing himself against the wall abruptly, terrified, watery eyes alight with frantic desperation even as the Cruel One's laughs echoed in his skull.

"No potion! Please, don't. I don't want to hurt again, promise to be good-." The words streamed out of his mouth in a rush of childish pleading, as if he were trying to backtrack and avoid some sort of unfathomable punishment. Why it was tied to potions, who knew, but at the rate the boy's fear was escalating he was going to give himself a heart attack (Not literally... probably).

His form shaking like a leaf, 'Hisoka' curled tighter into a ball, like a frightened hedgehog.

"Please no, 'promise to be good-" He blubbered, tensing as if waiting for a blow. Though it was doubtful anyone in the room showed signs of striking him.

Half-caught in a lucid memory, Hisoka barely knew what was going on, all he knew is that potions were bad, and were usually followed by pain. Half his mind thought he was back in the compound, half scrambled around for an explanation as to why it was in what seemed to be a castle with two strangers watching him.

The boy rocked back and forth, shaking and muttering broken, barely-comprehensible pleas for forgiveness.

Honestly, he was a mess. Trapped in his own mind as things he couldn't understand churned around his perception of reality.

A boy obviously showing signs that there was something wrong in his life.

Acting like a flighty dove.

Hexcode= #507091

As Hisoka grew more rigid, his body tensing from threats perceived or real, Sylvain would only let his grasp loosen a bit. He was unprepared to let go after having come so far, but it seemed ill advised to cling so tightly to someone in so much pain. They laid there, curled up on the floor, though Syl wouldn't budge an inch if Hisoka was unwilling to move. As far as Sylvain was concerned, they might as well be expoximised at the hip, and short of Hisoka's disapproval Syl had it set in his heart to be his guardian.

Careful not to hurt his ward, Syl's heart beating faster and faster as his grasp on Hisoka grew more or less uncertain, the lad would do his best to comply with the Nurse's instructions while keeping the boy safe from whatever he deemed unsafe. Seemingly the potion Brumby had suggested he take. "Hisoka," Syl said gently, shaking his own head to remove the hair form his eyes to meet the boy's own gaze head on. "Can you help me get us to one of the beds?" A skeptical smile would spread across his face as he offered the boy retreat to somewhere more comfortable. There was no way Sylvain could lift him up without his consent. "They look soft and comfy." An honest assessment given the nature of the cold flagstone floor.

Confidence that he was doing the right thing quickly dissipated however. Once the freezing boy he clung to cried out that he would be good, everything about his "helping" had immediately felt wrong. Looking to Kelsey for encouragement, Sylvain's eyes would silently ask the question his mouth wouldn't, "Am I doing the right thing?" At the same time, his brain leapt ahead of his mouth, answering the question for himself. "I'll drink it first," he said, uncertain if it would change Faust's mind but confident that it might help the poor soul see reason.

"I'll drink it first and show you that there is nothing to be afraid of."

@Kelsey Brumby @Selim Faust

Just as he was on his way to his supplies, the kid called Hisoka piped up, wailing about how afraid he was to take a potion. It was far from the only time he was told to think up a different treatment based on level of comfort with the first one he prescribed, but he wasn't exactly used to hearing such sorrowful remarks from little kids. The panic in his voice broke Kels' heart, as it was likely to do over and over again every time he heard a sad kid. This one was likely already delirious, and the last thing he wanted to do was convince him to do something he didn't want to.

"Heeeeey, it's okay." Kels would turn right back around, his hands up like negotiating a hostage situation.

It kinda felt like it was, the way the poor prefect looked up at Kels with no idea how to proceed. Kels came over too, regardless of whether Hisoka had stood up to go to the beds at that point or was still curled into a ball on the floor. He was at least not freezing to death anymore, but he was certainly still cold on the inside. There were ways to help that which weren't the usual potion though, one his mum had used for him all the time.

"Nah, there's no need fer that." Kels said, gingerly patting Sylvain on the shoulder for having the right spirit, but the wrong answer. "How about'a nice cup'a hot chocolate instead, huh? Rest yer bones and I'll brew some up."

If neither of them needed him imminently, he try a second time to go back to his desk, this time with a different mission in mind.

"I am the designer of my own catastrophe."

The kid was already at the point of hyperventilation, the condition wasn't really life-threatening, per say. For if the brain shut down from the lack of air his body would inactively begin breathing at a normal rate again, giving the mind the oxygen it needed. Despite that fact, watching someone hyperventilate was not very pleasant unless one observing it was a sadist.

The boy's mind and sight swam in his bout of delirium, panic attack throwing everything swiftly into a twisting whirlpool of fear. Curling up together his nails dug into his skin without remorse as streams of half-formed sentences cascaded out of his mouth in a torrent of confusion.

Panic fed panic, his warped sight growing even more disorienting in light of the fresh tears of primal fear imposing upon his vision like funhouse mirrors.

Fragments of words cut through the haze as the pressure of the poor boy clinging to him went largely unnoticed due to his degrading sense of reality.



As if dunked underwater, any other noise became warped and distant as the sound of blood dominated his sense of hearing. Confusion messing everything up more, the boy showed no outward sight of comprehending what was spoken.



Everything seemed to grow fainter, edges of conscious thought becoming fuzzy. He heard nothing of the boy beside him, caught up in the rapids of his mind and the hastened noise of his breathing trying to match the quick pace of his thudding heartbeat.



'Okay-'

His brain desperately tried to right itself, the fearfully delirious boy tried to search for the source of the word, head jerkily snapping up, his unfocused, wide-eyed gaze tried to pinpoint what his brain was searching for. The dimming vision of his hues unable to decern who the shadowy, blurred figure in his vague line of sight was.



His mind scrambled to grasp onto the familiar words, the words bending and blurring in his mental space. His body desperately tried to gain control of itself, the beating of his pulse seeming to shift his vision's dark edges oddly. His exhausted state bowed his head once more, and he stopped speaking, eyelids drooping as his forehead went back to its position of resting on his needs. For a brief moment, the world around him faded into darkness, a brief moment making itself known where the boy seemed to lack any reaction to his surroundings.

Unconsciousness took him as the lack of air grabbed hold. After a few moments, his breathing slowed gradually... and returned to its normal pace.

He'd wake up soon enough, not even a lack of consciousness blocked his mind from cooking up its usual nightmares in light of the sudden inactivity in his mind palace. For a bride moment though, there was peace, perhaps a chance for the remaining two in the room to speak without worrying about the panicking child that was the focal point of the situation.

The frame of the boy had gone eerily limp, much like a corpse, but the rising and falling of his chest broke the illusion easily upon a second glance.

Hexcode= #507091

"Is he..." Sylvain gasped as he paused, completely distraught as his first instinct to shake the unconscious Hisoka was pushed aside by his fear of hurting the boy came hurdling to the forefront. "Dead?"

"Maybe he's not far from it actually," he thought as he noticed the rising and falling of the boy's chest. It was plenty enough to relieve him of the immediate stress. Lying flat on the floor for a moment, finally releasing the Selim-sicle from what could only be described as the koala hug of life, Sylvain gave his own exasperated sigh before using his lower body strength to drag Selim over to a bed and foist him up into it with a grunt.

Kelsey, having disappeared behind his desk would be the target of a few new questions. All of them fired off in rapid succession, the Eagle's blue showing through all of the worry. "What's happening to him? Is he going to be okay? Am I going to be okay? Are you going to give him a potion now? Did you say you had hot chocolate?" That last question seemed to stem the tide of inquiries, the rush of adrenaline wearing off as his fingers began feeling noticeably jittery. Sylvain sat at Hisoka's feet and pulled a blanket over the both of them.

Hot chocolate sounded great right now.

@

By the time he got back to the two, the sick kid was thankfully on the bed, but he had passed out cold. The frantic prefect beside him was asking questions, the poor thing, to which Kels just shook his head quietly, and did the age-old test of checking Hisoka's temperature with his hand. He definitely wasn't in a good state of health, but rest was the best thing for it, so he was at least headed down the right path. Gently, he set the hot chocolate concoction to the side, as it had been brewed in a wide-set beaker on a Bunsen burner over by his desk. There was a small towel to keep the table from getting a burn mark from the hot glass underside.

"Ahh... slow down, skipper." Kels said, batting at the air in front of him as if trying to get rid of the questions before they could hit him. "Yer pal here is catchin' pneumonia. It's what happens when yer too cold fer too long... basically. It can be real bad, t'sooner he gets rest t'better."

With that, he went back to his desk, having pardoned himself with a single finger (the universal sign for 'wait a sec') and grabbed his own thermos to empty the choco-cauldron into. He also brought three mugs, because of course he was going to be having some of it too. He continued to talk while he was in earshot though, busying himself with setting up but also trying to calm down the kid who just survived an emergency situation.

"I don't give potions to people what don't want 'em. Rest an' a hot drink will help him even out. The human body gots lots of healing properties on its own without magic." And to the last question, he handed over one of the mugs that he poured hot chocolate into. "Here y'go, bud, take it easy, chillax."

He'd grab a chair from an empty bedside to sit beside the prefect until he calmed down, as well as keep an eye on Hisoka's condition until he was sure there wouldn't be any new developments. Possibly warm him up with another spell if it seemed he was still too cold. Until then, he sipped on a mug of his own, the thermos and last empty mug staying on the bedside until it was needed.

"Y'did a good job bringin' him here as quick as y'did." Kels added, smiling. "I'm worried about why he was out there like that in t'first place..."