Terrestrial Alien ✔

Chapter 64: Testing, Testing

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The testing begins the next morning.

As Bennett retrieves Seth from the small, monitored room they'd left him in to sleep, so too does Marlowe knock on Joshua's door to retrieve him. Yards of concrete separate the two, yet as Seth blinks groggily awake, and as Joshua turns his head at the sound of the knock, they both feel the absence of the other in a keen, twisting pang.

Marlowe waits for a moment for a reply. When they don't receive one, they unlock the door and enter on their own, cautiously ducking inside.

"Joshua?"

Marlowe stops a step in the doorway as the light clicks on, illuminating the room and Joshua on his bed. He's already seated upright, his hair tousled and his clothes rumpled, the same clothes he'd worn into the institution last night. The change of clothes the facility had provided him along with the room have been tossed vehemently over the ground and left to collect cold dust.

Joshua raises his gaze to Marlowe with a hollow, heavy look. Dark circles weigh under his eyes, and a dull burning fog sits in the back of his brain, behind every blink. He hasn't slept at all.

He had tried, for a bit. 

That said, his nerves had already been rubbed raw explaining everything to Marlowe, and his head wouldn't stop running in circles, even after the light had shut off.

As soon as Marlowe had left, he regretted everything he'd admitted almost immediately. He shouldn't have shared so much with Marlowe; he's not used to sharing so much with another person, let alone an almost-stranger. Was it a good idea? Can he really trust Marlowe? He doesn't know, and it's eating him up inside. He'd been desperate for help, eager to snatch up Marlowe's offer before it disappeared. But was he too eager?

As he'd laid there on his back that night, staring up at the dark ceiling, he realised something more. Something more corrosive to his last strings of composure. He realised that it was the first time he'd tried sleeping apart from Sundo since before... everything. And he missed him. He missed him something awful, and the feeling still hasn't faded. It's like an empty hole between his lungs, and he had struggled to breathe around it as the darkness of the small room had pressed in on him.

He'd thought of everything he hadn't wanted to. He couldn't breathe, and he couldn't sleep.

Marlowe regards him now quietly, a subdued expression settling over them. Taking in Joshua's raggled look and the clothes thrown on the ground, Marlowe hesitates for a prolonged moment.

"I hate to tell you this..." They say finally, "but you're going to have to change into those." Marlowe drops their gaze to the discarded scrubs.

That's what the clothes look like, in all honesty. Recycled, gray hospital scrubs. Joshua looks at them in disgust.

"I can't even keep my own clothes? Anything else you'd like to take from me while you're at it? You've already taken my freedom, and you've taken Sundo. So by all means." Joshua glowers across the room at the assistant scientist.

His bitterness simmers just beneath the surface, escaping through the cracks his sleeplessness has left in his composure. Marlowe stands at the door, staring him down with a carefully guarded expression.

With the same sort of careful diplomacy, Marlowe says, "I know this has to be difficult for you, you made that clear last night. I completely understand. I promised I'd try to help you, Joshua, but I can't do much unless you cooperate. You have to change into those, then we can get you something to eat and we can start the day."