[ Len remembers becoming intimate with his own insides once, months and months before showing up here, lying on a table in a strange room. The last thing he'd seen was a flash of blue light at that old drive-in and then nothing, until he was roused by an uncomfortable tugging in his midsection, squinting into the brightly-lit operating theatre as his fingers fumbled to reach his abdomen. He was cold, so when something hot and wet began spilling down his sides and splattering onto the floor he knew it was blood. The Auto-Doc executing the procedure had tutted, moved his hands away, and upped the anesthetic until he fell out again.
All this...all this was similar enough that it left him shivering in the aftermath. Invasive and violent, disorienting and unnecessarily cruel. When he's finally capable of wiping the sweat from his eyes, adjusting to the dim lighting and shadowy surrounds, he starts to shakily get to his feet and finds himself overwhelmed with a wave of nausea that leads to dry heaving, nothing in his stomach to expel. He swears quietly and slowly makes his way to the edge, until he can see another body, another victim who-
Is still alive.
He's careful on the approach, aware of his own vulnerability and recognizing the man on the ground as he closes the distance. Hell, he can't even imagine how bad it must be without being able to see on top of it all, so it's the obvious choice to reach for him, in arm's reach just as Matthew snaps and lashes out. ]
Whoa, hey- [ The other man catches him right in the chest with his shoulder as he lunges, and it knocks the wind out of him before he hoarsely manages: ] Matthew, it's me, it's Len-
listen,,,,,, (tw: descriptive body horror)
All this...all this was similar enough that it left him shivering in the aftermath. Invasive and violent, disorienting and unnecessarily cruel. When he's finally capable of wiping the sweat from his eyes, adjusting to the dim lighting and shadowy surrounds, he starts to shakily get to his feet and finds himself overwhelmed with a wave of nausea that leads to dry heaving, nothing in his stomach to expel. He swears quietly and slowly makes his way to the edge, until he can see another body, another victim who-
Is still alive.
He's careful on the approach, aware of his own vulnerability and recognizing the man on the ground as he closes the distance. Hell, he can't even imagine how bad it must be without being able to see on top of it all, so it's the obvious choice to reach for him, in arm's reach just as Matthew snaps and lashes out. ]
Whoa, hey- [ The other man catches him right in the chest with his shoulder as he lunges, and it knocks the wind out of him before he hoarsely manages: ] Matthew, it's me, it's Len-