Days are Dark (Kaveh Andari)

[Matthew Reid]

Arkham Asylum stood proudly against the backdrop of the lightening sun. The more modern buildings of Gotham City didn't dare impose on the grand asylum with it's tall stone walls that surrounded it and the impressive, intricate iron gates, above which was the name of the asylum. The gates creaked with every gust of the strong wind - unusual for this time of the year - though never opened; probably more accustomed to staying closed than opening and allowing entry or exit. Whether they were erected many decades ago to keep the sane out or the insane in was a question that continuously wormed its way through Doctor Reid's mind as he walked to the large gates and then beyond to the mansion in which he worked.

Usually there would have been a cheerfulness on his face which was vastly out of place in such surroundings. Today was different. Yesterday had been too, though there had still been at least a small amount of cheer on his features the day before. Sleep had been escaping his grasp for the last two nights and, despite being used to not sleeping too well, being up for over sixty hours - two and a half days - was not routine for Matthew. Quite the opposite, actually. He had never been awake for that long before and didn't particularly wish to have been awake for that long so far. It was lucky that the asylum seemed to have an abundance of cheap, high caffeine coffee, otherwise he would have probably passed out in one of the corridors.

Reaching the foreboding wooden doors of the asylum, Matthew glanced up before taking yet another sip of the coffee in his hand. His other hand rested on the bag that seemed to sleep against his hip. The empty hand raised to push his glassed back before he moved through the doors of this great - in size, if not in quality - establishment.

"Morning Doctor Reid."

Tired eyes looked at the person who'd greeted him and he smiled softly at Penny before giving a nod in greeting. At least she hadn't said that it was a good morning. That may have been cause for Matthew to question it.

"Don't forget your session with-"

"Raymond?" He questioned with a small smile, his voice barely loud enough to be considered audible. Penny glanced at the screen of her computer before looking at him and nodded with a cheerful expression.

"Evidently you already remember."

Matthew gave a small laugh and nodded before moving away from the receptionist and heading up to his office. Twenty minutes passed before he reached the dull, bland office and his coffee was almost finished. He supposed that he ought to stop drinking coffee in the vague hope that he wouldn't be addicted to it by the end of the day, though knew that if he stopped then he'd probably fall asleep and that was not the desired outcome at this point. He put his bag on his desk, placing his almost empty cup on the desk as he sat down and fought off the feeling of intense tiredness while logging into the computer which sat on his desk. Slowly, his eye lids fell over his eyes while he was waiting for the computer to load up his desktop and before he realised what was happening, Matthew found himself amongst the nightmarish creatures of his dream world...

[Kaveh Andari]

Like a great shadow looming up into the sky, casting its darkness down across the world, was Arkham Asylum. Its menacing brick walls towered over the life forms moving about outside the imposing gates of metal that creaked at the slightest movement of the wind. The sun behind it made Arkham look even more intimidating. But Kaveh Andari, psychiatrist at Arkham, didn't seem at all intimidated by them as he walked through the creaking gates and up towards the doors.

He walked past the front desk and was greeted by Penny, whom he greeted back with a smile. He was reminded that he had a session later that day at around noon, for which he thanked her and made his way down the halls towards his office. He traveled to the coffee maker and poured himself a cup, then resuming his walk to his office.

However, he stopped when he glanced into one of his fellow workers' offices. Mathew Reid's office. And Matthew Reid was fast asleep. Kaveh frowned a bit. How much would it take to wake him up? Should he even attempt to wake him up? He wondered to himself. He knew just knocking on the door and saying his name would wake Naveen up. But he also knew that Arvind slept like a rock and it took forever to get him up. Was Matthew Reid a light or heavy sleeper? Kaveh wondered.

He decided, after a bit of thought, to knock on the door, hopefully that would wake him up. And it would be the less startling approach to it. Holding his cup in one hand, Kaveh moved to the door and knocked, not too loud but not too softly either. "Doctor Reid?" He spoke up, not yet knowing that his fellow staff member didn't like titles.

[Matthew Reid]

As the nightmares swirled through his mind, obscuring his dream-vision with images and ideas that were definitely less than pleasant, he was roughly two seconds away from face-planting the table outside of his dream-world. The knocks did nothing to stir him, though made him more alert to someone else's presence which caused him to take note of the unfamiliar voice. The voice did awaken him and, somewhat startled by the fact that there would be someone here and talking, Matthew lifted his head out of his hand before realising how close he'd been to probably almost breaking his nose. It was probably quite fortunate that he'd been woken up, then. He glanced at his computer before looking at the doorway and realising that there was someone stood there. A blush burst through his cheeks, though the colour was somewhat soft, and he gave a small cough, trying to clear his throat from the somewhat sticky feeling which had clogged it up through sleep. He continued to look at the other doctor - Matthew was certain that he'd seen him around before - and he tried to ignore his own blush.

"Uh, can... Can I help you?"

Giving a another, smaller cough due to his voice breaking with unexpected use, Matthew glanced at his desk momentarily before looking back at the other man. He was slightly disorientated and a thudding pain began to form in his temples. Whether it was from being torn from sleep so soon after drifting off or from just being able to sleep recently, Matthew didn't know, though it barely mattered now. He pulled himself from his thoughts in an attempt at not seeming rude or distracted. It would do little to help him in the event that the man at the door actually wanted something other than his colleague to wake up. A thought crossed his mind that he should thank the man for waking him up, though soon brushed the thought away. Not that he wasn't grateful, but it would probably seem like a strange thing to thank someone for...

Moving to finish the coffee in the cup on his desk, Matthew waited for the answer to his question as he felt a second wave of strong tiredness wash over him with such force that he thought, for a moment and no longer, that he might fall back asleep. When it didn't happen, though, he merely smiled at the other man in what he hoped was a friendly way as his blush faded away slowly, though the burning feeling remained despite the lack of colour. Maybe he should apologise for being asleep...

((Notes: I keep rambling the fuck about nothing. Sorry! So sorry! I hope there's something here that you can work with... If not and you need me to edit then please tell me. Unfortunately tired Matthew does NOTHING AT ALL.))

[Kaveh Andari]

As the other staff member awoke from the doze he probably wasn't supposed to have had, Kaveh offered a faint smile. The doctor wondered, for a more than a fleeting moment, what was keeping the other from sleeping. He would have asked, but didn't really think it was his place to question it, considering the two of them had only talked this once. Maybe briefly once or twice before, but nothing really that gave Kaveh the right to pry into Matthew's life. The Indian man didn't seem to notice Matthew's blush, or if he did, he didn't show any signs that he had.

"Are you alright?" Kaveh asked, his eyebrows knitting together in concern. "I mean, considering you just fell asleep, even though you have coffee, means you're obviously very tired...but aside from that, are you alright?" In the back of his mind, Kaveh wondered if what he had just said made the sense he was hoping it made.

(Note: And it's done. Sucks. Muse was being a bitch. So ... two paragraphs. Sorry!!)

[Matthew Reid]

Nerves wriggled through Matthew's brain as paranoid thoughts followed them through, beginning with a very small thought that this man must think he was lazy, perhaps, or even bad at his job and ending with the thought that whatever happened Matthew would lose his job. Unable to rid himself of these thoughts, the doctor shifted slightly in his seat until he heard the other man's question. It was a good question, though as Matthew was thinking of what to say his colleague spoke again. He hadn't even considered pointing out the obvious but then, as he looked at the desk for possibly the third time since being woken up, he doubted he would have thought of something like that and now he was certain that over sixty hours without sleep was a very bad idea due to the fact that his hand appeared to be warping through the table. Sleep deprivation could do odd things to visual information given to the brain, which Matthew knew but had never experienced. It was mildly worrying in a way that really didn't seem to register in his mind at that moment in time.

A small number of minutes passed before the tired individual realised that he was staring at his hand and that there was someone else there. He looked back at his fellow doctor with a hint of a blush returning to his cheeks like a long-lost friend and coughed again while sitting up and trying very hard not to stare at his hand again. While it may have been interesting - or scary - to watch his own hand warping through the table like a bad acid trip, it was also highly unprofessional and he really needed to pay attention to the conversation at hand and so kept his gaze on the other man, though not looking the other man in the eye. Even in his mildly hallucinating state, he didn't feel comfortable with so much as trying for eye-contact.

"I, um... I'm... I'm fine, thanks... Thank you." Answered Matthew, his gaze turning back to his hand somewhat distractedly and he noticed with relief that it wasn't warping through the table again. He glanced at the other man, unable to decide whether he wanted to know what he was thinking at that moment or not, before his gaze turned back to his hand, feeling more comfortable with looking at that than anything else in the room. "S-Sorry about that. I... The sleep, I mean." He said quickly, letting his eyes turn back to the other man with a small smile once more as though trying to get the point across that he really was quite sorry. "What-" He cut himself off with a small cough before continuing, nerves beginning to get the best of him. "What about, um... About yourself?" He asked, trying to ignore the fact that out of the bottom of his eye he was sure he could now see the keys of the keyboard beginning to merge together across the small valley which separated each letter and number. It was beginning to get a bit weird and Matthew really couldn't stop himself from looking down at the keyboard with a frown, finding himself more confused when the keys all seemed to be rather normal...

((Notes: *Laughing so hard* I want to write sleep deprived Matthew more often. Small note here: one time, I was really tired and I looked at one of the posters in my room and I swear down the people were moving. It's My Chem holding a Kerrang! award for best video, I think, and I remember watching two of the members of MCR seemingly fighting over the award and I was just like 'shit, I'm on drugs' at the time... I think I know what it was, now. XD))