Chapter Text
A knock at the bathroom door pulled you out of your racing thoughts. “Hey, you in there?” came the voice of your roommate. “It’s like 9, we’re going to be late!” Shit, you quickly realized that it was a Monday, and you and your roommate were due at work in less than 30 minutes. You threw water in your face, and thought about an excuse.
“Sorry! Slept in, will be ready in 10! Sorry, Rio.” You tried to speak normally, but your heart was pounding. Luckily, you thought, he will chalk up your panicky voice to the late hour.
“Don’t call me that! He pushes up his glasses. You’re going to get us fired! Miss Cheadle is already doing us a favor by letting us work in the lab.”
He was right. This wasn’t a good look. You can figure out what happened to you last night after you made it to work.
Hurriedly brushing your teeth and hair, you shot back across the hall. Stuffing on some slacks and a blouse, you grabbed your bag, phone, and glasses from beside your bed.
As you entered the kitchen, you noticed your roommate waiting by the door with a stern look on his face. Tidy and neat in his dark blue suit and a light blue tie, he carried his briefcase over his shoulder. Brown eyes peered at you over his spectacles disapprovingly. You pushed past him, out the door and headed to the center of Yorknew City, where the Hunter HQ and its associated facilities were located.
Leorio’s disapproving look did not wane, which made for a very uncomfortable commute. However, halfway through the subway ride, your stomach growled. Leorio huffed, pulled an apple out of his bag and handed it to you. “He acts like an ass sometimes, but he has a good heart,” you thought. You smiled and thanked him. Leorio nodded in acknowledgement before returning to his news scroll. You bit into the apple, enjoying the sweet taste.
As you chewed you found yourself thinking of the man from your nightmares. Your cheeks heated as you thought of the pleasure and pain, guiltily wondering who he had been. Would you see him again? Was he near now? You scanned the faces on the subway.
The sting in your back made you grateful that you commuted standing on the crowded train. You worried how Leorio would react if he saw the marks . Would he freak out if you told him about that visceral, awful dream?. The train slid to a stop. As you began to push your way out the door, an older gentleman entered the train brushing past you. You yelped as your back burst into sharp, stinging pain. Several paces ahead of you, Leorio whipped his head around to see you had fallen to your knees. He hurried to your side, squatting beside you. “What the hell!? Are you okay?!” he yell-whispered. Your eyes filled with tears. When you didn’t reply fast enough, he gritted his teeth and guided you to your feet. “Come on. Let’s go.”
Leorio lead you out of the subway station. You tried to think of an excuse for making a huge scene. As you rushed to think of something, more tears welled up. You weren’t sure if it was from the lingering pain, the stress of not knowing what happened, or some toxic combination of the two. As tears streamed down your face, you felt a hand on your shoulder.
“What happened?”
You shook your head.
“Let’s get out of here. We can talk at the office.”
You nodded and made the shaky walk across from the station to your lab. From the outside, it looked like a regular office building, with “DISEASE SOLUTIONS” in generic lettering above the glass doors. You swiped your card and made your way to your desk, keeping your head down the whole way.
While Leorio retrieved some aspirin, you cleaned your face in the bathroom sink. Peeking out from under your sleeve, the two scabbed lines on your wrist still looked red and raw. You covered the wounds when Leorio’s footsteps echoed down the tile hall, after living together for a year, you’d grown fond of his distinctly noisy pattern. Around a year and a half ago, you met him as a coworker. What started as an unfriendly working relationship quickly blossomed into an efficient team. It was his rock-solid reliability that convinced you to not only move in with him, but also resign your lease. Although your interests and purposes for being at the lab were different, you had both found a mentor in Miss Cheadle.
Leorio wanted to become a doctor. He had passed the Hunter Exam just shortly before coming to work at the lab, a feat that you begrudgingly admired him for. You had been vying to take the exam for years now, but Miss Cheadle had requested you wait until you conquered the 4 principles of Nen. You were no stranger to nen, although you struggled to master it. Having a Hunter farther, even a dead beat one, gave you some special privileges. However, Leorio was able to pass without knowing so much as the existence of Nen, causing you to doubt your mentor’s advice. Though you were forever grateful to her for giving you purpose after your dad had disappeared, you choked on her restraint.
As Leorio arrived at your small cubicle, you took a deep breath. He looked at you expectantly, and you prefaced your explanation by making him promise to keep everything a secret. This wasn’t the first time he’d kept secrets for you, but you knew this would be especially difficult. You swallowed hard and turned your back to him and lifted your shirt.
A sharp gasp, and a few expletives later, you felt his breath on your back as he gently examined the cut. “What the fuck did you get up to last night? Were you at the Gulch again?” He lightly touched the stitches. “And when did you have time to go to the ER? The apposition on these are flawless.”
“I’m not sure what happened. I swear I wasn’t out last night, I remember going to bed.”
He looked at you in disbelief.
“I swear I went to bed last night! …I…had this really weird dream.” You explained the nightmare, omitting the more sensual parts. “Do you think that was real? I mean…how could I get hurt, and go to the doctor without remembering anything? You would have noticed me leaving, right? ” The tone of your voice dispelled his initial accusation.
Leorio wrinkled his brow. “If that really happened, how did you end up back in the apartment, and not left for dead? I mean, why would they clean you up like that? Are you sure they were asking about your dad?”
You nodded, and pulled your shirt back down. Rolling back your sleeve, you showed him your wrist.
“2 lines… The number two? Or maybe eleven? Do you remember them doing this to you?”
“No…I just noticed this when I woke up this morning.” You felt fatigue wash over you. Today was going to be tough.
Noticing your sudden deflation, Leorio frowned. “I’ll grab you some tea. You’re going to need it to get through today. Let’s try to figure this out when we get home.”
You smiled. He knew you can barely tolerate caffeine- after getting coffee together one of the first times you hung out outside of work, and your proceeding uninterrupted tirade of unfiltered thoughts, you had made your intolerance for the substance very clear. He returned with the steaming beverage.
“Drink up, doctor’s orders!”
In the meantime, you focused on getting your shit together for your meeting with Miss Cheadle later today. She was the most perceptive person you knew. With her nose for the peculiar, she would know something is up if your performance suffered. You cleared your mind, and filled your head with thoughts of the lab duties.
Staring at an excel sheet of uncleaned data, you felt your mind wander to your failure to master nen at the same speed as your friend. Hatsu was particularly difficult. Frustrated, you pictured the aura pouring out of you the way Leorio showed you.. Perhaps, if you had been better, you wouldn’t have gotten yourself into…whatever had happened last night.
Who was that guy anyway? For that matter, why did he enjoy toying with you?
As the clock ticked closer to your meeting time, you pushed the thoughts from your head. You needed to ask Miss Cheadle about moving to the mental disease lab, a subset of your current lab. You wanted to explore psychology and help people who needed to get around their mental blocks.
“How am I supposed to help people when I can’t help myself?”
Shaking the question from your consciousness and focused on your empathetic nature making you a good candidate. You saw people as more than test subjects. You cared about their outcomes, not just the data they provided. You made friends easily, although close friends were harder to come by. Leorio was the exception. A feeling of gratitude washed over you as you headed to Cheadle’s office.
When you arrived at the door to her office, you found a note.
ALL AFTERNOON MEETINGS HAVE BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO AN EMERGENCY AT HUNTER HQ
Huh, that’s strange but at least you wouldn’t have to explain why you couldn’t sit down without wincing.
You walked back to your desk, silently thanking whatever luck you had come by. The hours ticked by as you finished your work. Leorio stopped by a few more times. Though he was concealing his concern well, you could read him like a book. Still, you would be worried if the situation was reversed. He was also interested in what had drawn Cheadle away. Zodiac meetings were rare, if that is indeed what this was. What had warranted this one? Everyone in the association knew that these meetings often preceded major news in the media.
Even though you had more than enough to keep you busy, you were ashamed how many times you caught your mind wandering. As it drifted to man in your dream,fear slipped away and curiosity crept in'.
No. Not a dream, you corrected yourself. A Nightmare.