Doctors
Day 5 of @erejeanweek - Healing/Doctors
It was a story parents had been telling their children for decades. The story of the hospital that was hidden deep in the forest where a doctor would carry out the most abhorrent surgeries and experiments on anyone dumb enough to wander too close.
For the first few years of his youth Jean had believed every word his mother whispered to him about the hidden hospital when she tucked him into bed at night. Had believed the older boys and girls who claimed to have seen it, the old brick walls covered in ivy, the cracked, blind windows. Some even claimed to have seen the doctor himself, a short man with dark hair who was never seen without a surgical mask and rubber gloves, always ready to continue his ghastly experiments.
Once or twice Jean even heard about the other things that moved around the hospital come dusk, disfigured animals and other creatures one could only assume had been human at some point. Those stories had been told by pale, wide-eyed children hissing at them to not make the same mistake, to not go searching for the hospital lest they wanted to risk never returning home.
After a while Jean understood that the horror stories about the hidden hospital and the sadistic doctor had all been made up. Made up by concerned parents to keep them out of the woods, made up by bored kids wanting to scare their friends and the younger children. And as he grew up he forgot all about the hospital that had scared him in his youth, forgot about the supposed experiments carried out deep in the woods and instead turned to more practical matters.
Until he met Eren. Eren who was more beautiful and vibrant and alive than anyone Jean had ever met in the small village he called home. Eren who made Jean fall for him fast and turned the one summer they got to spent together into the most magical experience of Jean’s life, breaking through the grey day to day of Jean’s apprenticeship and teaching him things about life and love and lust Jean had never believed possible.
Eren who told him his father would leave again come winter to offer his services to another village, taking Eren and Jean’s newly awoken heart with him.
When Eren told him about his father's plan, eyes and cheeks red from crying, it felt like Jean's world was collapsing, the ground shaking beneath his feet only to fall away from him. And behind the sudden terror and grief gripping him tightly an old memory stirred.
"My mum told me another story about the doctor!" Connie's voice was hushed but shaking with excitement. "She said there once was a pair of young lovers who loved each other more than life. But their parents wanted to keep them apart. They arranged for them to be married to different people and the lovers had no choice but to obey their parents' will."
Gasping and mumbling all around as Connie took the time for a dramatic pause.
"But the night before the ceremonies were to be held they ran away together, deep into the woods until they found the hospital. And within, the doctor." Another pause but this time the children hushed each other when either of them wanted to speak up or ask what happened to the lovers, giving Connie time to build the suspense even more.
"The lovers told him about their suffering and he saw how deeply they loved each other. Of course he did not have the power to change the will of their parents or the fact they were to be married to strangers come morning. But he suggested an intervention that would allow them to be together, even while they were being pulled apart."
Slowly the first kids began to understand where the story was headed while others struggled to follow, unable to imagine what kind of horrible intervention it was the doctor was proposing. But when none of them said a word Connie continued and his voice was barely above a whisper.
"Desperate as they were the young couple agreed to have the surgery done. The doctor started with the young man, cutting open his chest and prying apart his ribs so he could cut out his beating heart. Then he did the same to the woman, until both of their chests were hollow and empty. Then he ... exchanged their hearts. Sewing his into her chest and hers into his."
More gasping, horrified cries and protests, but Connie pressed on.
"That's how it happened, how he exchanged the lovers' hearts so they could always be together."
"Did they ... did they survive?", asked a pale girl with dark pigtails. Connie nodded solemnly.
"Oh, they survived the surgery. But the young woman's new husband was terribly jealous of the man whose heart was now beating in his bride's chest. He snuck out one night, barely a week after their wedding, and stabbed a dagger straight through the young man's chest so he would never tempt his wife to become unfaithful to him. But as the young man died, slowly bleeding out in the tavern, so did the young woman whose heart had been pierced by the dagger. The doctor's promise had been kept. They had stayed connected until their last shared breath, when both their hearts gave out."
"And you really think this hospital is somewhere out there in the woods?", Eren asked once Jean had finished his story, his explanations about the hospital and the little doctor parents had been telling their children about for decades. Jean worried his lower lip between his teeth. It was bitten almost bloody by now. He shrugged.
"I don't know", he finally whispered because who was he to decide whether the hospital was really just a scary story to keep the children of the village in line? What if it wasn't? "But I know that I can't go back. I can't just go back to my life the way it was before and pretend you never happened."
It was quiet between them for a while, Eren's red rimmed eyes studying Jean in the warm afternoon sun. He was so beautiful, so full of live, even struck with grief. Even desperately searching for exits he could not find.
Jean knew that even if he asked Eren to stay, his father would never allow it. He was too dependent on his son to help him with his work, travelling from town to town. Besides they both knew that even if Eren found a way to stay they would not have the happy future together they had tricked themselves into believing in over the summer.
Jean's parents expected him to give them grandchildren one day, they expected him to carry on the legacy of his father's shop and raise his own children to do the same. As it had been in their family for generations.
But if they really did find the old hospital deep in the woods, if they could talk to the little doctor and ask for his help ... maybe he could offer them a way to stay connected for the rest of their lives. And even if they had no other future together than drawing their last breaths at the same moment, then it would still be worth it.
The one to break the silence after a long while, when the sun had already moved enough to dip his face in shadows, was Eren.
"Let's do it right now", he murmured, bright, bright eyes finding Jean's. They held the same determination Jean had fallen irrevocably in love with months ago. "If that place exists let's go find it right now."
He got up from where they were sitting underneath the oak tree and wiped his fingers on his rough trousers. Then he held out his hand for Jean. Without hesitation, without even thinking, Jean took it.
~
They reached the hospital long after midnight, first having followed the paths deeper into the forest than Jean had ever dared, then making their way through the underbrush where human's barely tread. But Eren's determination kept them going along with the tales of his childhood Jean recalled for his lover, trying to decipher hints of where to turn, in which direction they had the best chances of finding what they were looking for.
After hours of searching in the darkness, when Jean was close to giving up, finally willing to admit that the stories he remembered were nothing more than that, the brick walls covered in ivy appeared in front of them, trees parting to give way to a massive building with two sprawling wings and a centre part with a huge main portal.
Jean's steps came to a halt at the sight of the hospital, mouth forming quiet words of disbelief as he stared up the thick walls, taking in the blind windows and only partly decked roof. Some of the tiles had fallen and burst all over the ground next to the building.
"It's true", he whispered and his knees began to buckle and shake, "it's all true..."
He remembered the other stories, the ones about disfigured creatures roaming the grounds, about horrible experiments carried out in the basement, and his heart leapt all the way into his throat.
Eren looked at him, eyes flicking between Jean and the building in front of them, before gently tugging him along towards the main portal, the only entry they could see. He had not let go of Jean's hand since first grabbing it to help him stand after their conversation. Despite his inner refusal Jean let himself be tugged along, squeezing Eren's fingers tightly as they pressed on.
It didn't take long for two figures to appear from the darkness, framing the entryway. They were tall and looked like regular men but something about them was off, something to do with their proportions or their faces, with their too pronounced jaw lines and too straight noses. The longer Jean looked at them, eyes flicking between them, the harder it was for him to tell what about their appearance caused the growing discomfort at the pit of his stomach.
They came to a halt at a mostly safe distance, right at the bottom of the few stairs leading up to the portal.
"We want to speak to the doctor", Eren called out, his voice even and loud enough to be thrown back at them from the walls almost surrounding them. "We're interested in a certain ... procedure."
For a long moment the ... guards, Jean supposed, didn't react.
Then, as if on a silent order, they both reached out at the same moment to grab one door handle each, pulling open the heavy wings of the portal with a deafening screech that echoed deep into the cavernous corridors of the hospital. Jean had to suppress a violent shudder at the noise, nails digging into Eren's fingers, the only anchor he could find that very moment.
Then Eren was already tugging him along again, up the worn down steps towards the dark maw of the building.
Jean tried to not look at the guards as they passed them, huge figures towering over them, but his eyes still flicked up to their partly hidden faces, trying to catch a glimpse of their gazes ... and failing. Where he had expected to meet stern eyes he only found hollow darkness within empty sockets.
His heart thumped against his ribs and he almost tripped over his own feet, quickly stumbling after Eren into the building, away from the looming figures with their empty faces.
"Did you see that?", he hissed as soon as the doors had closed behind them with the same bone chilling noise from before. "Did you ... they ... their eyes..."
"Yes", Eren hummed back, attentive gaze already taking in their new surroundings while Jean was still trying to get his shivering under control.
"It means we're in the right place."
For a moment that gave Jean pause. Of course they were in the right place. How many hospitals deep in the woods could there be for them to find the wrong one? But then he understood what Eren really meant and his heart thumped heavily in his chest once more. As a boy he had never heard a story about the guards at the gates of the hospital. But then again what place would be guarded by blind giants with these strange, non-human proportions to their bodies?
If the doctor really existed, if this was were he lived and conducted his experiments, then the guards must be part of those. A sign they had come to the right place to seek for help.
Taking a deep breath that only made him slightly less jittery Jean allowed himself to look around as well. They were standing in an ample entrance hall that was only sparsely lit by the moonlight filtering in through tall windows, blind and cracked. The patterns of the floor tiles must have been beautiful once, Jean could make out vague shapes of vines and colourful flowers, but most of them were cracked and covered in thick layers of dirt and dust.
Right across from the door they had wandered through were two enormous staircases laid out with old, dark carpet, winding their mirrored way into the upper levels of the building. Behind those an arrangement of what must have once been beautiful stained glass windows Jean had only seen the likeness of once before when he visited the cathedral of the capitol with his mother. Now those windows were splintered and dusty, barely letting through any of the moonlight.
Far above them, under the distant, dark ceiling, hung a chandelier with burnt out candles. It looked strangely asymmetrical, as if parts of it had fallen off, and Jean felt the urge to step out from underneath it lest another cluster of sanded glass took this opportunity to rain down on them.
Eren didn't seem to share his concern. His gaze was flicking around the entrance hall, peeking down the adjacent corridors to both sides, before shaking his head with a grumble.
"Doctor!", he called out, sudden and loud enough for Jean to jump next to him. "We have a job for you! Come out! Let's talk!"
While the echoes of Eren's voice slowly grew quieter Jean was still shaking where he stood, not even the touch of his lover's fingers intertwined with his own able to keep him calm anymore.
For a long time there was no answer, only the deafening silence of the old hospital pressing down on them from all sides. Jean caught a quiet, terrified part of himself hoping the building would stay silent. That he would never have to face the doctor, never see for himself what this figure he had only known from scary stories all his life was truly capable of.
But that would mean they had come here for nothing. Worse yet, that would mean Eren would leave and Jean would have nothing to remind him of their summer together but his own memories, for the rest of their lives. That seemed like a much more cruel fate than facing down some hermit doctor in a dusty old hospital.
Next to him Eren seemed to get more agitated the longer they were waiting for something to happen in the oppressive silence of the entrance hall. He began to tug Jean forward, left and right across the dusty old floors, without ever being able to choose a direction to head into. How could they tell where exactly in this sprawling building the man they were looking for was hiding?
So after a while of aborted tugging and turning Eren came to an abrupt stop and took another deep breath.
"We know you're here!", he shouted, this time loud enough Jean could swear he heard the chandelier far above their heads clink and rattle. "Show yourself! You have two new patients!"
How surreal, Jean thought while watching Eren shout for the doctor, that he would ever find himself in the situation to willingly become a patient in the hospital deep in the woods. He regarded the absurdity of the situation with a detached kind of interest and slowly felt himself slip away. The longer they waited the less real their situation seemed until at one point Jean was close to bursting into laughter for no reason at all.
But all that disappeared when he heard the muffled noise of steps on carpeted stairs and his eyes found a small figure descent the staircase to their left. From one second to the other Jean was back inside his body, back in the entrance hall of the hospital, about to face down what could only be the doctor.
The man who appeared at the upper landing of the stairs was indeed of a short figure, his body hidden behind a floor length surgical gown and a white apron, both carrying dark stains Jean didn't want to think about too much. He was wearing gloves as well that covered his hands and forearms all the way up to his elbows, the upper parts the same pristine white while the fingers and palms were stained in a similar fashion as the apron.
His hair was hidden under a surgical cap, his mouth and nose covered by a white mask and there was a strange piece of equipment strapped in front of one eye. An array of meticulously cut lenses in different sizes, all layered atop one another, making the eye that peered at them from behind them seem huge and owlish as it blinked at them. If it hadn't been for all of the blood covering the man the lenses would have made him look almost comical. Like this it only worsened his appearance, made him look even more horrifying.
He didn't say anything until he had reached the bottom of the stairs where he deftly removed one of the gloves - Jean could swear he saw the fresh blood glisten in the moonlight - before pulling the mask away from his face, letting it snap under his chin. His nose was wrinkled and his lips pursed as he studied them for a moment, then clicked his tongue at them like an impatient mother.
"Two noisy patients", he commented and his voice was low and gravelly, much more so than Jean would have expected looking at his mostly unassuming form. "Say brat, do you scream like that wherever you go? There are people here trying to recover."
For some reason those words sent a cold shiver down Jean's spine. Standing in this old hospital was already frightening enough even if one assumed it was empty. But to think some of the old rooms were actually inhabited by patients this very moment? That they were not alone here with the doctor and his nightmarish guards? He had not considered that before, as deserted as the place looked, but for some reason it made him feel uneasy. Even more so than he had already been.
"Sorry, I must have missed the reception. Would you be so kind and point me to it?" Eren's words were dripping with sarcasm and Jean was this close to slapping a hand over his lover's mouth before he could say anything else that might get them in trouble. But the doctor only huffed, whether in annoyance or amusement Jean could not tell.
"Careful", he growled at Eren before his sharp grey eyes flicked over at Jean, both the normal one and the disgustingly enlarged one behind the many lenses. "Why are you here?"
Jean swallowed at being addressed this directly but the tightness in his throat didn't want to disappear. He forced himself to speak either way.
"We heard you can offer certain ... procedures. For couples."
Grey eyes wandered between them, studying Eren's cocky face closely before returning to Jean's, taking a close look at his cheek bones, the shape of his nose, the arc of his lips. Like he were studying an interesting specimen, curious but detached.
"You'll have to be more specific", the doctor said, his voice even. Behind his thin lips his teeth were shimmering white and perfectly aligned. Jean was still searching for the right words, for a description of what they had come here for that didn't make him want to turn on his heels and run home without looking back, when Eren was already speaking.
"The heart exchange", he blurted and how his voice could sound so even and assured Jean would never understand. But he was endlessly grateful for it still. "A transplantation. His heart in my chest, my heart in his."
When he said it like that, with such confidence and trust, such certainty, Jean remembered why they had agreed on the idea in the first place. For a moment not even the doctor's knowing grin could scare him.
"Ahh, that kind of procedure. An interesting choice. Only made by the ... truly desperate ones."
Without warning the doctor reached out then, grabbing Eren's chin with his bare hand and slowly turning his head from side to side, studying him even more closely. For a moment Jean could feel his lover tense beside him and he had a feeling Eren might slap the doctor's hand away any second now.
But instead of showing any protest Eren allowed the shorter man to study his face for an uncomfortably long time. When the doctor finally let go he was wearing a subtly pleased expression, nodding to himself.
"You two will do nicely. I can give you what you're looking for. Connect your fates until you share your very last breath."
Something inside Jean's chest fluttered at that promise. Maybe his heart was excited as he was for its new home inside the man he loved.
"Thank you", he breathed, eyes flicking over to Eren who seemed just as elated as Jean felt. It had been worth it, their search through the woods, Eren's insistence to press on for both their sakes. No matter how unsure the future was, this was their chance to set it right the only way they could and ensure they would stay together.
"Now ... the only thing left to discuss before we start: Payment."
The single word settled heavily in Jean's stomach, sending cold trembles along his arms. Payment? None of the stories he ever heard as a kid had ever involved any form of payment. As far as he knew the doctor was looking for volunteers, not customers. But maybe the stories had not been entirely accurate. Or maybe the doctor had changed his policies over the years.
"Payment?", Jean repeated, voice quiet, unsure. "We ... we don't have anything. We didn't bring anything we could offer you, I'm..."
"Oh, don't you worry", the doctor cooed in a tone of voice that seemed entirely unbefitting to how he had presented himself before, his attention turning back on Jean. Before he could twist away that hand had grabbed his chin as well, tilting his head so the doctor could peer straight into his eyes, inspecting them through the layers of lenses in front of his face.
"You have plenty to pay me with, young boy..."
~
They left the hospital early in the morning two days later, the procedure they had come for a success. Jean could feel himself getting stronger each hour, the familiar rhythm of Eren's heart in his chest thrumming him along. Hidden deep in the woods they had forged a connection that would outlast their physical separation, that would hold them together even as they set out on different paths for their lives.
The price the doctor had asked of them was nothing compared to what they had gained, a kind of payment they had both been happy to grant the doctor in exchange for carrying out the procedure as planned.
When the heavy doors of the hospital fell shut behind them Jean glanced up at the guard to his right. He was not surprised to find a familiar green eye looking down at him, a gaze he had caught countless times over the summer. When Jean turned his head to look at the other guard a single eye looked blankly back at him, warm honey he had known from mirrors all his life glistening in the morning sun.
A small price to pay, he reminded himself as Eren tugged him away from the hospital and towards the treeline, for love.
~
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