Disclaimer: Not my characters. Also not for profit. Also not particularly gay, astonishingly enough.

Notes: First publically-available YnM fic from me that isn't a drabble, woo! Largely because everything I've been able to think of for YnM was done years before I got into the fandom. But after writing a drabble series at the fuda100 LJ community, I was encouraged by several people to turn it into a real fic.
AU, as will be obvious by the end of the first chapter. How and why the situation is how it is, instead of the way it was in canon, is up to you - it's not the point anyway. ;)
New chapters, if all goes as planned, will be posted every couple of days until its completion.

The Room at the End of the Ward

The doctor barely looked over him before he was admitted; Hisoka could feel that he was puzzled and intrigued, but not surprised in the least. Everything checked out exactly as it had on the medical records that had been sent ahead. Hisoka might be young, only fourteen years old, but he knew what they said: everything was completely normal, except for the fact that he was apparently dying.

That was why they had come to this particular hospital, of course. It wasn't to make him better - his parents didn't care about that - it was because this government hospital specialized in medical mysteries. They'd find him interesting, and provide him with a comfortable place to live out his last days, out of his parents' sight. They'd like that.

"Misako will show you to your room, Hisoka," the doctor told him. "We're putting you on the ground floor, in the east wing. Your parents will bring your things the next time they come."

If they come, Hisoka thought. And what things? They'd just have kept him locked in the basement again if he recovered. There was no point in saying anything about it, though, so he just nodded and put his clothes back on to follow the nurse through the hallways. At least here, he'd probably have a bed.

Hospitals always echoed with remembered emotion, almost entirely unpleasant, but this was even worse than most. Pain and fear and confusion were nearly as stifling as a summer heat wave. Hopelessness and despair radiated from those rooms that were still occupied, as well. Perhaps the basement would have been preferable to this after all.

Misako put out a hand to steady him as he staggered. "Are you all right, Hisoka-kun? If you're feeling weak, I can bring a wheelchair..."

"No, I'm fine," Hisoka lied. "I felt a little light-headed. It happens a lot, but it passes." That was true anyway, and it didn't help him stay upright, but he was determined. If this hospital was the last place he was ever going to go, he wouldn't be pushed - he'd walk.

It was a relief, though, when they reached the room on his ward, and there was indeed a bed to lie down in. He couldn't remember how it had started, this inability to stand or move around much without his heartbeat quickening painfully and his breathing becoming labored. Low blood pressure, they said, but there was no explanation for it happening so suddenly, and no medication they'd tried had made any difference - in fact, they usually made it worse.

The nurse prattled on a bit about how this was his room now, and once he had his things, he could put pictures on the walls to make it feel more like home if he wanted to (because it might as well be now, Hisoka thought), and someone would be by later to get a few samples from him. Then she was gone, and Hisoka was alone with the emotions of a dozen other people, some of whom were probably dead already.

He was getting used to it after a couple of weeks, that crush of negative feelings. At first it had given him nightmares; he'd woken up sick and disoriented and thinking he had already died. Not yet.

To his surprise, they'd decided to take him off all of the medications other doctors and hospitals had decided to give him, so as to give him a fresh start and examine him without interference from external sources. Part of his current testing was less painful than most of those he'd endured - he was connected to several kinds of monitors and made to walk up and down the length of the long hallway a few times per day, so that they could record his body's reactions and compare them day to day. Perhaps it would help him to build up some strength, though initially it exhausted him.

It continued to exhaust him, unfortunately, but at least it was less dull than lying in the hospital bed, even when people brought him library books. He could feel things from within each room he passed, and sometimes when the doors were open, those inside would wave and say hello to him. There was the girl a couple years younger than him who was wasting away. There was the older man whose wife and daughter came to visit him almost every day; Hisoka didn't know what was wrong with him, but there was a feeling of imminent doom from all of them. There was the middle-aged woman who reminded him of what a mother should be like, who was crippled by unexplained pain but always gave him a shaky smile when she saw him out walking.

Then there was this room at the very end of the ward. The door always remained closed, and if anyone went in or out, it was never while Hisoka was awake. That in itself wasn't so strange, but the room emanated a feeling of... nothing. Not to say that it didn't emanate anything, which would have been normal and far less puzzling - it actually emanated the distinct feeling of stark, vast emptiness.

Hisoka never asked. It wasn't his place to ask. He just remained quietly curious, until one day he received an answer.

He was out for another walk down the hallway, and making his way back, when suddenly a wave of misery hit him, so suddenly that he couldn't help but cry out as he fell to his knees, clutching his head.

Misako, who was the nurse observing him that day as usual, knelt beside him hurriedly. "Hisoka-kun! What is it?"

"I... I..." He curled his arms tightly around himself - he felt as if he was falling apart. "...Hurts..."

"Where?"

He didn't think, just raised a trembling hand to his head as it turned unconsciously to look down the hallway. That was what it was - whoever was in that room was in terrible pain. More than physical pain, though there was that too now - a sudden stinging pain that made him clutch his hands together, whimpering.

Suddenly a buzzer sounded and lights flashed in the nurses' station, and Misako looked up. "Oh...! Hisoka-kun, there's an emergency - here, lean on me, we need to get out of the way..." She didn't wait for an answer before she slipped an arm around his waist and pulled him upright to get him out of the middle of the wide hallway. They made it to a doorway, then she let him sink to his knees again. "Are you feeling any better yet?"

"Uhhh...." Hisoka just moaned, and lifted his head to look up as several other nurses dashed past them down the hallway. They felt scared. ...He couldn't tell Misako, or anyone else here, that he was fine - it was just whoever was in that room at the end of the ward who needed help. They seemed to know anyway, because that's where the other nurses were headed, followed by the doctor on staff. "Just... let me catch my breath..."

They huddled there in the doorway for a little longer, and another commotion at the end of the hallway made Hisoka look up once more. There was the sound of wheels rattling on the floor, rushed footsteps and a feeling of panic. A gurney was wheeled past quickly, surrounded by a few of the nurses and a doctor barking orders into a cell phone.

An arm dangled limply off the side, covered with blood and trickling drops of red as the gurney passed. Hisoka looked up to see who it was that was in that room, and froze.

A fringe of dark hair fell over brilliant purple eyes as soft as velvet. Wet velvet - the man was crying.

The eyes met his, held his gaze for a moment, then the gurney passed and they were hidden from view behind a wall of white uniform.

The double-doors that marked the end of the ward crashed open as the man was wheeled out, then swung closed again. Everything was silent, including Hisoka. Misako looked after the frantic procession for a moment, then looked down at Hisoka again, taking a deep breath. "Are you feeling better now?"

Hisoka nodded slowly. He couldn't tear himself from the trail of red drops on the white tile, or the memory of those strange purple eyes.