So You Think You're A Freak ( Hulk romance )

The Doctor Will See You Now

Zafrina had gone through all of the magazines and pamphlets in the infirmary. 3 days of being comatose had left her unable to feasibly sleep her first night after waking up. Pacing had become her friend, though not an unwelcome one. Her body was tense and sore from the lack of movement, and walking, even in a confined area, helped oil the joints, so to speak.

Around 4am, she got the urge run, but having promised not to leave this room for her first night conscious in it, she kept pinching her thigh and redirecting herself away from the door. As easy as it would be to just open the door and leave, she wasn't stupid. She didn't know the layout of this aircraft, and even then, they were probably thousands of feet up just making patterned patrols. Where would she go? From that high up, straight to the core of hell, probably.

She found occupation in disassembling the anatomical dioramas, setting aside the plastic organs and tapping the inside of the dummies with her claws playfully. What she couldn't understand was why she took Dr. Banner's request for her to behave so seriously. Maybe because he had told her that she was a quitter for trying to end her own life, and she was just so hardheaded that she felt the need to prove him wrong. Maybe because his touch was so gentle and soft, where no others had been in so long, and she felt grateful... Or maybe because he had bared part of his soul without meaning to. She chalked it up to canine intuition, but he had given her a look in his eyes, and in his words, an admittance that he had been to her level of despair at one point and yet was still here. The words, 'if you're anything like me, and I'm willing to bet you are...,' stuck with her...

She rolls the toy liver in her hands, wondering where the doctor was housed now that he had concocted the excuse of being susceptible to illness through her blood. She snorts. What, would she give him canine HIV? It wasn't as if she had been tested recently, but it also wasn't as if she had been allowed to hunt or even have a tussle in the old haystack in quite a while. She could barely even remember the last time she had been with a man. She could clearly remember the last time she was attracted to one, though.

A long time ago on a world far away... green eyes and long black hair across the hall behind a sparkling barrier. A youthful face with tired eyes and a mother to bring out the warmth in them every so often.

She starts placing the pieces back into the replica, wondering just how that kind woman and her beautiful son were doing now. She sighs, hating that she had found something to care about while she was caged up on that shining planet. Never again, though. She couldn't afford to care about anything now that she knew the world was against her...

Once the figures are back to their original states, she looks about for something else to occupy herself with. "This would be much easier in a proper outdoor pen at least..." she muses. She was honestly tired of looking at white walls. It seemed like everywhere she went, the prison had to be cold and white. Where were the old cobblestone cells and iron bars? The classic pit with a grate over the top? Why was unwilling containment so... boring?

She pauses in her movements, repeating that last thought in her head. Boring? She had never described imprisonment like that before. Infuriating, yes. Insulting. Torturous. Lonely...

Did it start being boring once someone spoke to her? Came to visit her and ask her about herself? Save her life? Scold her for endangering herself? Promise to come back? It had been 5 days since she was first introduced to Doctor Banner, and for 3 of those, she was teetering between life and death.

She sits on her bed, her gaze running over her wrists as her fingertips trace the veins that had been ripped open just days prior. A golden shimmer overtakes her irises, and with new eyes, she follows the lines of where her teeth had uprooted the tendons in her arm. It was nigh invisible to normal eyes, as Doctor Banner had stated, but her enhanced beast vision could see the scars clear as day no matter how faded. Her kind would forever be able to spot the evidence of her despair. She would always be able to tell...