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Well, you can't just chicken out now. You got the needle out. He gave you that speech. Max gave you her own speech. It would be wrong to not give him something.
You grab onto his wrist and, with his guidance, you find the right vein to stick the syringe into. It slides in way too easily as if the syringe itself WANTS to be injected into someone. Given the act it's a very potent and rare anomalous liquid, it might as well have a will of its own.
You push down on the plunger. His veins greedily drink up the royal purple fluid flowing into his body with a yearning, begging need. You can even see it glowing in his veins as you push down a little bit harder on the plunger. A wide, ecstatic smile forces itself across Benjamin's face like a stone cracking underneath intense pressure.
...
You can't do it. Once the syringe is half empty, you pull it out with a bit too much force. Blood begins to freely dribble out of the small hole in Benjamin's forearm and for a moment, neither Max or Benjamin know how to react to you chickening out at the last moment.
You realize that the blood trickling out of his wound is a caramel brown. A mutation, if only cosmetic considering he's not immediately dead, appearing THAT quickly? It slowly turns back to red over a few seconds but yeesh, you expected it to be more subtle with a half injection.
[HIGH RAPPORT] Benjamin doesn't even seem particularly upset at this half assed injection. He simply closes his eyes for a moment and takes a deep breath in and out. He then immediately puts on a cheery smile. "Ah well. Can't really blame you. That kind of stuff must be rare. Maybe my body isn't ready for the full injection and you hesitated. Who knows."
He pulls out a small kid-sized bandaid that's only usable for tiny wounds from his pocket and plasters it over the injection site. "We'll see what happens from here, I suppose! Max, glasses, please?"
Max hesitantly gives him his glasses, which he promptly puts on. "Well, let's get going, huh?" Wow, he's really taking this in stride, huh? Guess he and Casey share the same attitude when it comes to problems or tough situations: Just carry on with your life.
For a moment, you swear you seem something superimposed over him. A glimpse of a spark, of his perspective, manifested.
Dull brown feathers crawling all over his arms that are stained a deep, dark crimson. Small, stunted owl-like wings growing out of his back. A tattered, heavily burnt lab coat loosely draped over his shoulders. Dark crimson flecks of blood clinging to his messy brown hair. His glasses are shattered and coated in soot and ash. Yet despite this, he's smiling without a care in the world..
As quickly as it appears, it vanishes, leaving only normal old Benjamin. You'd say that you only managed to see it for a few seconds at most but the fact it was as detailed as it was shocked you. Maruyama only had a single object in his hand and his psyche couldn't even properly imagine what it was.
