Broken Souls

Chapter 9

=Justice Regents Clinic=

Meláni watched Grail pace around the room back and forth, side to side, corner to corner. "Boss, you need to get out of this room at least in the hall where you have more room to move."

Efiáltis, who had also been watching Grail, gave Meláni a surprised look; he hadn't expected the artist to have any useful suggestions.  Maybe he should have after all he had been Grail's right hand for years now.  "Brother Meláni is right, talk to us or move somewhere you really have room to pace."

Stavrós leans against the wall watching Grail with half closed sockets.  "Wearing out the floors isn't going to make him less stubborn.  Why don't you find what motivates him? If it isn't a positive feeling, or self centered like avoiding pain or wanting to heal, what motivated him clearly, something did for him to have kept going long enough to get that badly injured. After all he could have done this at home and avoided injury just lay down somewhere and let the multiverse survive or not without him."

Cyan shrugs, sitting on his beanbag with his laptop properly hacking something he shouldn't be again.  "Stavrós has a point but we don't have enough data on him to guess his motivations."

Láthos shakes his head at all of them, not even looking up from his knitting. "You are forgetting that compassion, pity, and duty mostly come from the negative side of the balance.  He may not care about himself anymore but that doesn't stop him caring about the pain of others."

Efiáltis grimaced, "Fox that is sad and I don't want to force him out by twisting his emotions like that his compassion has been used against him for far too long."

Grail nods, "I actually agree with Efiáltis for once we may actually have to wait for Nightmare."

Stavrós huffs in annoyance and unwraps a chocolate bar. "There has got to be something he likes enough to wake up for if only by virtue of him not hating it.  I mean isn't a lack of negative as close to a positive as he can manage with his emotions maimed the way they are."

That actually had Grail rushing to a trashcan and gagging.  While his wings fluttered in distress.

Efiáltis frowns at Stavrós, "great now he finally gets it.  Do you really think stressing out Grail with something like that when we can't fix it is a good idea."

Stavrós sighs, walks over and waves the chocolate in front of Error's nasal cavity.  "How was I supposed to know he hadn't dealt with it emotionally? I am not one of the empaths in the room."

Meláni watches Stavrós with mild curiosity, "why are you doing that?"

Stavrós shrugs, "it always works to wake me up even when I don't want to so worth a try.  At least it doesn't hurt anything if it doesn't work."

Meláni starts to say something probably something derogatory when he is cut off by everyone in the room being tightly bound in glowing blue strings as Error's sockets snap open as he regards the chocolate inches from his face.

Efiáltis snorts softly "we should have tired that months ago. I just didn't think it would work when he didn't react to Láthos's coffee."

Error snagged the chocolate bar and pulled it into his mouth with his tongues regarding them all with unfocused eyelights.  His strings slackened around Efiáltis slowly.

Grail watches looking queasy and profoundly confused, "you mean to tell me all it took to wake him up is chocolate?"

Stavrós gasps offended, "I don't just carry around any old chocolate.  Only the quality gourmet organic fair trade salty dark chocolate with no additives, stabilizers, or preservatives!"

"Stavrós is as picky about his chocolate as Láthos is about coffee.  Or your pet is about paints, brother surely you have noticed?" Efiáltis watches Error watch them.

Error snorts and sets up bones creaking and popping unpleasantly.  "Coffee really? Once you get hooked on that stuff you can't function without it. Seeing Reaper and Sci strung out when they couldn't get theirs was warning enough to never touch the stuff."

Láthos gasps and clutches his mug closer. "Heresy, foul slander coffee is life!"

Grail coughs and starts laughing, he had no idea how they did it but Efiáltis and his squad could turn even a dire situation into a comedy.  "I have to agree with you both once you start it is an addiction hard to function without.  It is also the nectar of life when you have long hours of paperwork."

Cyan stares at the strings with annoyance, "do you mind I was researching a really cute guy I met at the store the other day.  The rest of you may know who your soulmates are but some of us are still single."

Meláni turns his head to look at Cyan, "Boss has a soulmate and didn't tell me?"

Grail stares at Cyan confused, "I was single the last time I bothered to think about it."

Cyan just smirks and shakes his head, "if you haven't figured it out yet I am not telling you."

Stavrós shrugs, "I married my chocolate stash."

Láthos and Efiáltis snicker at that and nod having stood as witnesses at the wedding while encouraging the very confused minister by dropping g into an offering bowl every few lines.

Meláni scratches the back of his skull looking troubled, "I think I am single I mean if I wasn't I would have written it down right or sketched a picture of them with a note?"

Error rolls his eyelights, "tYpicAl inK no MatTer tHe muLtiveRse he hAs thE mEmoRy oF a bRaiN dAmaGed goLdfiSh."

"You married your chocolate stash? Is that even legal?  Wait, don't you eat your chocolate?"  Grail looks like he might be ill again.

Meláni blinks, "Boss I think that is normal.  Haven't you ever had someone ea..." before he could finish his sentence Láthos gagged Meláni.

"Thank you love, and no, Stavrós's marriage isn't legally or spiritually binding. I checked before letting him go through with it.  The wedding pictures are hilarious though."  Efiáltis starts to untangle himself while shooting Meláni angry glares.  "Ignore Meláni brother, you do not need to know what is normal in marriage until you are married.  I will get you a book as an engagement gift."

Error grunts abruptly letting everyone but Meláni go. " tYpicAl NiGhtMarE."

"I am glad I share some good habits with my counterpart." Efiáltis smiles, not bothered in the least.

Grail rolls his eyelights, "Efiáltis do you really think I don't know about sex at our age?"

Efiáltis kisses Láthos on the cheek and stands up, "do chat with our guest dear I have to go kill Meláni for corrupting my baby brother."

Meláni not being completely stupid squirms falls over and tries to inch worm his way out of there managing to knock himself out by running into the door headfirst.

"Efiáltis you do know they explained where babies come from the first time the JR council tried to get me to marry, right?" Grail watched his right hand henchmen brain himself and shook his head.  "Frankly, unless they were my soulmate I haven't been interested but I read up to avoid problems."

"sMarTeR tHan DrEam thEN.  bLuE haD tO gIve HiM tHe TalK." They all looked back at Error as he got up bones and joints popping, creaking, grinding, and clattering alarmingly.

Cyan stands with a slight front, "are you sure you should be moving around you just woke up?"

Error just gives him a dead look and walks over to look at Láthos's knitting.