I had a lovely week. As you may have gathered from my use of the word lovely, I spent most of it with Nathaniel. But I am getting ahead of myself. Last time I wrote we were still in 69s car, all covered in blood (especially Discord), riding along the highway to Puyallup. Just before, we had dropped off the Italian at his hotel in Downtown. He took the book. Before handing it over Discord wanted to know what he was going to do with it, since we didn’t want to encounter another entity like the one we just fought at the TFS office. DeSomething told us not to worry about it. He was going to go back to Italy immediately anyways. But he might contact us in the future if he ever needs a similar kind of job done around here again. Hell, I hope not! But then again, I feel kind of good about what we did actually. Taking down a Blood Spirit, as these things seem to be called, might have generated some good Karma for once.
When we arrived at the apartment block I was actually quite nervous. I had sent Nathaniel messages, letting him know that a friend of mine had gotten hurt badly and I was going to bring him. But also Romeo had gotten so fucked up from whatever drugs he took that we couldn’t leave him in the car. And then even Hunt0rKill0r69 decided that he needed a break and would join us visiting my nurse. I let Nathaniel know that now three guys were coming with me. He just answered with “K”. I hoped so badly that it would really be okay with him. And actually, when he opened the door and let us in he seemed perfectly fine with it. I tried my best to act as if Nathaniel was nothing more than my usual medic, and he too didn’t give away much about the nature of our relationship, but I think we didn’t do very well, given the fact that Discord started to whisper and gesture to the heavily drugged Romeo with a wide grin on his face.
As usual Nathaniel was doing a great job. Discord, after first having been sent to take a shower, and I got the best medical treatment. Romeo, seeming a danger to himself, mumbling about blood and switching between erratic excitement and anxiety, got sedated, and we all got offered that we could stay over night to rest and heal. 69 went home, but Discord decided to stay and sleep on the medical bed in the living room. Romeo, half knocked out, stayed the night on the couch. And I got cleaned up and stayed with Nathaniel in his room. It was only afternoon when the others dozed off, so we had a lot of time to actually talk. To my surprise he didn’t ask any questions about the guys, or the blood. For a moment I thought he was going to, but then he didn’t. Instead we talked about him. I asked him why he hadn’t become a Doctor. I mean, for fucks sake, he’s brilliant with all this medical stuff. First he laughed answering: “And who would have paid for that?”. But then he told me about his sister. I knew he had had one. He had told me about losing her the night I told him about my Mom, but nothing more.
Kaylee was two years older than Nathaniel. When he was eight she got sick. When he was 10 she was moved to the hospital permanently. The next four years Nathaniel spent most of his time outside of school there. Kaylee always kept her hopes and spirits up and talked about going back to school and meeting her friends again. She wanted to study and do her homework so she wouldn’t fall back. Nathaniel taught himself everything of every subject up to her grade, maybe more, so that he could help her with it. That’s why he got to skip a year in Junior High, and later another one in High School. I really don’t know why he keeps putting up with my stupid ass! Anyways, he also said, that while the Doctors were the ones sweeping by with the big updates and facts every now and then, it was the nurses who really made a difference during Kaylee’s years in the hospital. They were the ones who knew the treatment plans in and out. Who noticed when things were going south, or when something changed for the better. Also they were the ones who actually knew the patients and their families. It was them who took what little time they had in their busy schedules to cheer up Kaylee when she had a bad day. A nurse discovered that the new treatment didn’t work as it should, way before the doctors even came back to have a look at it. It was a nurse who comforted their mother after the doctor had dropped the news that there was nothing more he could do and then left. And a nurse administered first aid when Kailees heart finally failed, even though she couldn’t stabilize her for long.
So it was never his plan to become a Doctor. Even though he really loves to do their job as well and teaches himself all the shit they usually don’t let the nurses do. “I am lucky I get to practice on you!”, he added with a grin and then kissed me.
The next morning I had no choice but to stay around. I mean, I had to keep an eye on the guys and everything. Discord had put two and two together; with Romeo on the couch, him on the medical bed, and no further bed-like furniture in the living room, where did I stay? “Did you sleep well?”, he asked with a big fat grin. “I had a great night.”, I answered, maybe actually blushing a bit, but doing my best to hide it. Since Discord was obviously onto us, made fun of it, but not in a malicious way, we just gave up on hiding our… thing - whatever you wanna call it. One might think in 2072 it should be fine to be in a gay, and/or inter-racial relationship, but you wouldn’t believe the shit people get for either of it.
But I really don’t think that Romeo has caught on to it. Not even when Nathaniel held my hand for a moment right in front of him he seemed to notice. The guy really gives a new meaning to the word oblivious! And yet, he did notice the weasel.
Both well recovered, Discord and Romeo left after coffee. I stayed behind to help Nathaniel clean up the place, and we were just finished, getting comfortable on the couch and talking about the Russian book I was reading, when I got a call from Romeo. Discord was in the call as well.
“There’s a robot weasel in my room!”, was how he greeted us. Holly hell, what did he smoke now?! I turned the call to loud speaker and let Nathaniel, who had moved to the kitchen counter to make himself a cup of tea listen in, in case Romeo needed some medical aid. In hindsight, I should really be more careful, but a robot weasel didn’t sound as if it was related in any way to a job.
In a quick ramble Romeo described how he got home to find his front door unlocked, the mess on his floor having been moved around, and a weird smell in his room. Seeing the footage of his room, the weird smell did not surprise me the least. Him noticing that the chaos on his floor was different than before did though. Anyways, he also saw his AR deco simply vanishing in front of his eyes, therefore he scanned for devices, and actually found one in a pile of clothing on the ground. When he had poked the pile with his vacuum cleaner tube it had attacked him!
“If it is a robot weasel, can’t you hack it and switch it off?”, I ask. Romeo goes into the matrix, and we can see everything he sees in there. And for real, the weasel is here as well! The icon, looking a bit like a baseball teams logo, who chose a ferret to be their mascot, immediately attacks. So does the real weasel as well. I can’t quite follow the stuff that’s going on in the matrix, but given Romeos screaming and kicking, the real thing has bitten him in the leg and is holding on tightly. He manages to push it off, and it runs and hides under his bed. “You should really get a rabies shot!”, I pass on from Nathaniel, who is still listening from the kitchen.
Instead, Romeo digs up an open bag of chips from somewhere and throws them over into the weasels vicinity. A peace offer. The weasel sniffs at it, but isn’t too interested. “Aren’t these things meat eaters?”, Discord asks. “What’s in those food boxes next to the clothing pile on your right?”
“I don’t know”, Romeo replies. “I did not order it.” Is he really just telling us that the weasel ordered itself some food? Given the content - mostly fish and meats - it seems that way! Offering this meal to the creature turns out to be more fruitful. It happily munches on some of the meats, and Romeo decides to leave it to do it’s thing and go watch some TV. I guess he’s got a new room mate now. If I hadn’t seen it myself I would swear he hallucinated that shit! But I am glad that I can just hang up and go back to being with Nathaniel.
And that’s pretty much what I did until now. He had to work in-between, just some day shifts this week, and I got to pick up my formfitting armour on the 15th - finally. But when Nathaniel wasn’t at the hospital, I was with him. I actually took him on a date one evening. Just a movie and having drinks at a club, but still.
I will spare you with any more details, but it was a good week. And since our last jobs paid well I didn’t have to worry about starving and shit. But today I will have to go back to my place. Nathaniel’s got a night shift coming up - which means that he will be gone for over 36 hours, and I should start looking for a new job. After all I can’t expect them to just keep falling into my lap, I guess.