I liked the quiet. It was comforting and gave me room to think. However, I did not like his quiet.
His watchful eyes seemed to make the silence a threatening sound.
I couldn't stand it. It was constant scrutiny accompanied by the feeling that he was always planning something behind that bandage's head of his. It was a relief when he finally tired, wrapping himself in the scratchy blankets before drifting off to sleep.
I sat on the floor yet again, a number of papers spread out in front of me containing the month's patients, their treatments, and the payments I had received from those.
Food and supplies were running dangerously low, the soup I had made earlier in the day being the last of the cans I had stashed in the cabinets, and the man before me taking most of the medical material I had left.
I tapped my chin with a pen methodically, mulling over the number of materials I needed, and what I could actually afford. It was tedious work, especially for someone like me, who was raised with minimal education and little to no understanding of math.
Perks of growing up in the undercity I suppose, I'm maybe smart in some senses but when it came to numbers I was still dumb as shit.
It was the sound of the man muttering that threw me out of my frustrated focus, beginning with the gentle scratch of nails on the ripped sheets of the rickety old bed. Then it grew to a twitch, a panicked scramble through sleep, and fearful words mumbled.
I stood quickly, not yet moving forward in hopes that his nightmares calm, but they don't. It gets worse, his hands thrashing in the blankets. I move forward on unsteady feet, my hands reaching out to try and wake the man.
His eyes shoot open before I can touch him. And a strangled gasp escaped his throat, breaking off into a sputtering cough. Then he speaks.
One word.
A name.
"Vander."
He shoots forward, his single, sleep blurred eye staring blindly around him. I place my hands on his shoulders, pushing against him lightly to try and steady him. His breath is rapid, desperate as if he has just come up for air after being underwater for too long.
Again, the name slips between his teeth. There's a sharp tone to it this time, some sort of blame behind the way he says it whereas the first time it has been coated in a layer of fear.
"Sir?" My voice slips through the dark, uncertainty clear in my wobbly words. His head snaps up towards mine, surprise crossing his features as though he didn't register the fact that my hands were pressed on his skin, attempting to ground him back to the real world.
It's enough to bring him out of his panicked frenzy.
His eye adjusts to the darkness, hands brushing along the edge of the bed, making sure he wasn't back in the suffocating waters of the river.
Vander.
I knew that name. But then again, who wouldn't know that name. Vander was a well-known man, though I had never met, or even seen, him before. I didn't get out much, only when and if necessary. I sure as hell have heard all about him though. The man of war and peace. The leader of the revolt against Piltover and now the keeper of peace between the two sides of the city. He had the fight to do whatever was needed to protect the people of the lanes, and the drive to make it happen. Well respected and rightfully so, he was the leader of the undercity.
So why was he such a source of discomfort for the man before me?
Though his breath had calmed, there was still an air of fear surrounding him, his uncovered eye still bouncing rapidly around the shadows of the walls as he searched for any sign of danger.
But it was just me. Just us.
