[Rylok]

(Takes place after Jon gets Matt into the car, convincing Matt to go to the hospital instead of Cora's)

June 28, 4:03 pm

In the eye of a hurricane there is quiet. So it was with the man in the quarantine ward. He wasn’t sick, but it was the only ICU bed for St. John’s Medical that provided the security that Mi5 had demanded for this very special case. In the ward, only approved people were allowed to visit. All of them were Mi5 or specially selected medical staff. They were all emergency room workers, pulled off their regular duties to continue attending to the strangest and most disturbing trauma any of them had witnessed. Speculations ran rampant between the nurses. He was a victim of gang violence. He had been hit by a truck in a targeted hit and run. He was tortured. So many speculations kept flowing, providing the winds of doubt and chaos that buffeted the doctors. They were beside themselves to try and explain how a man who had lost so much blood was surviving, much less healing. Doctor Choprakani had wanted to include her findings in a research paper, only to find it marked “TOP SECRET” and locked behind government red tape. She was fascinated with the fact that the man had no recognizable blood type. His nutritionist was frustrated with the five thousand calorie diet that was barely sustaining the man’s weight. Even those unconnected with the case found themselves caught in the storm of speculation. Who was the man who warranted twenty-four seven armed guards both inside and outside of his room?

But, in the eye of the hurricane, there is peace. Matthew Cox knew nothing of the chaos surrounding him or what chain of events were unfolding as he slept in a medically induced coma. Bandages mummified him: arms and right leg, head, and ribs all supported some form of rigid, supportive gear. The bones weren’t just broken, they were fragmented. And yet they healed. His left leg was covered in lacerations, some bone deep. It too, was mummified. The IV line that gave him medications and fluids was ported into his femoral vein. A feeding tube gave him what nutrition his battered body could take. Again, a baffled gastroenterologist had no explanation for how an organ beaten to bleeding was functional within a week. When he was no longer on Death’s door, the medical coma was slowly lifted. Days of weaning him off of medication eventually produced a tangible result: a flutter of eyelids, a muffled cry of pain, and a wince of a hand.

[Niklaus Schmidt]

The past couple hours had been a blur. He'd been at work when he'd received the call. He'd left without a word to anyone, not that that had mattered. He was sure everyone had heard within minutes of his mad dash out the door. He had hardly any recollection of what he did next. Pace the parking garage near Baby for a while, aimlessly, purposefully, needing to run off the energy welling within him, wanting to punch something yet having nothing to. Panic. Anger. Rage. Disbelief. Threatened tears held back by sheer stubbornness.

He knew where they said Matt was. He knew he needed to get to the hospital. But was there a rush? Not worth anything if he couldn't get there safely. Yet even if he did, would he be able to go in to see Matt? Or would he be under a surgeon's knife? Would he be cognizant? They said no? He thought? Maybe? He'd been hit by a bloody truck! Hit and run! He had almost marched in to see if he could find a way to get someone to hack a government camera system so he could use this energy then realized how stupid and had screamed as he marched right back to Baby, slipping into the car, barely paying attention to her purr to life. His hands ran over the smooth steering wheel, turning around it, gripping hard then releasing when he could hold on no longer and then he squealed out of the space.

He couldn't recall the drive. He'd just ended up at the doors to the emergency room and gone in demanding to see Matthew Cox. He may have been a little too demanding. He was asked to calm down, which had only made him more insistent, describing the situation, the call, even finally shedding a few of those tears through the frustration and then throwing himself into the waiting room chair like a petulant child when he was told for the nth time he had to wait.

But wait he did. Leaning forward, face in hands. Leaning back, arms crossed. Some very temporary angled position with one leg over the arm of a chair. Pacing. Sitting more. Looking at the time on his phone.

When someone spoke to him, he jumped up, which startled the girl. In other circumstances, he might have smiled sheepishly. Now, he just stared, waiting for her to lead him back. She was telling him about Matt. He tried to listen, yet he simply nodded until finally he was being led back.

He stopped in the door at the sight of Matt in his current state. Something inside him now wanted to run, to go the other way, to undo the last few moments. Matt would heal, wouldn't he? He had to. That bloody mutant wolf junk. If he hadn't come right away, if he'd waited.... Surely he'd be taking Matt home, wouldn't have had to see this, to imagine--

Klaus' fists clenched and jaw stressed as he steeled himself, focusing instead on the hum of rage at the driver, at the circumstances, at all the various people he had come to place blame on then stepped inside, walking to the chair, sitting down. This wasn't about him. This was about Matt. About Matt not waking up without anyone there. Revenge could come later. A million things he could do.

Just you wait.

((Maybe corny, but c'mon, had to keep the Hamilton going. XD))

[Rylok]

There were so many answers to the question “how did I get here?” Primary among them was the God-damned werewolves. They had surrounded him, cornered him, destroyed him. They were first in line to bear responsibility for the agonies he was suffering. The next in line was Jon. And Cora, if he was going to be honest with himself. Wizards. Witches. Magic users had controlled him, twisted his will, turned him from who he was into something that served their purpose. Jon’s hatred for him had incapacitated him and left him vulnerable to attack. Cora’s...not hatred. Not love, as much as he thought that had been what they shared. Her binding herself to him had weakened his will and changed him. It had been under orders, at first. Other magic users had ordered her to kill him. And she had. She’d killed Matthew Cox as surely as if she had shot him through the heart. She killed his humanity, twisting him into a shadow of herself: an obedient servant. Except she hadn’t completed the process, left him lost and undone, unspun from the fabric of humanity and unwoven from the magical world, just a thread of chaos and devotion that she feared and rejected. Fuck her. After that the blame stood tall on the scientists. They’d really begun the process of changing him, figuratively and literally. They’d warped him from God’s creation to man’s, stolen his humanity, stolen his future and his hopes. And finally, most damningly and most damned, he had only himself to blame. He had given himself over in his pride. He had allowed everyone else to manipulate, twist, and change him, piece by piece until he was no longer human. He was here now. There was no going back. He was here, a mutant. A weapon. He couldn’t wield himself, and he wasn’t going back to the magical world. Suffer not a witch to live, Scripture said. And he wouldn’t. God had turned his back on Matthew. He was the most damned of the condemned. Maybe...just maybe, he could save himself from God’s wrath through service to His creation. A weapon cannot wield itself. Mutants were made for war. It was time humanity had a weapon to fight back against the magic users, the werewolves, the goblins, and demons that came from hell. Maybe he was one of them, but then again, maybe a fallen angel could redeem itself if it served humanity. How could he willingly submit and show that he wasn’t having a lark at them? Talk less, maybe...smile more. Agree with them and not let them know it was his soul he was fighting for. Maybe. Hopefully they would accept him.

Time had lost meaning to Matt. There was only the pain, the drifting, and the anger. His radar sense was sporadic and hazy. Nothing was coming in clearly. Additionally, his sense of smell was conspicuously absent, replaced with the ever-present scent of copper and blood. The only sense that was left to him was hearing. There were two steady heartbeats always; occasionally others came in, accompanied by light touches or changes in the fluids and medications keeping him drifting. There was almost always one close by. Stressed. Or angry. Grieving? Matt was certain that this was someone from his past. Without his radar or his nose, without words, he wasn’t sure who it was. He suspected Klaus from the breathing and sub audible vocal tics. Matt tried to reach, but was hampered by a foreign weight. The pain took over where the numbness lifted and Matt groaned a second time, stronger. He tried to turn his head to Klaus. His head felt so heavy.

”Kch-“ he made a harsh sound over the breathing tube down his throat.

(Hid my Hamilton. I’m sure you saw it lol)