entrancelogs | knocked the wind out of my soul [open]

He tries to follow. Really, he does. But the doctor keeps looking over his shoulder, and Tim has to keep making sure he's not in the scope of his vision whenever he does. He loses sight of him, inevitably, cursing quietly under his breath when he turns a corner and Jay isn't there. Did he leave? Can't have. The doctor had such a tight grip on him. How would he have gotten out?

He starts prowling the perimeter of the common areas, trying to time it so he can slip into the halls for the individual rooms when someone isn't looking. But after the third failure, all he gets is confinement to his room.

His room. Alone. The bolt locking firmly into place behind him, a familiar, sick feeling curling up tight in his throat.

With no doctor, and no Jay.

Georgia should follow his lead. That's not even lying, that's just... avoiding a confrontation that would lead to lying. And she means to. If she had the perfect control she prefers to have, she would have. But she's already so on edge from being in a hospital so like the CDC labs that the lab coat catches her off guard and she freezes, fear flickering across her face as she just stares, shrinking back.

The doctor notices. He frowns and turns towards them, looking first at George and then at Tim. "Is he bothering you, Georgia?"

He doesn't know anything. She wishes that were surprising, but honestly she suspected as much. He's being used, and people in power don't usually give their pawns much information. Still, it's disappointing. It would be nice if things were easy for once.

"Not someone you know personally, probably. You're a telepath. They wouldn't risk it." She frowns. "Who have you talked to?"

There's probably about fifty minutes left in the event, at most. Still, a lot can happen in fifty minutes, and the last thing he wants is for Tim or anyone to come out of this with a lobotomy because Jay wasn't fast enough.

Jay steps back into the radius of the event.

He's barefoot again, wearing what amounts to white pajamas again, and he's at the end of the hallway. Quickly, he ducks behind a storage cabinet a few feet away from the edge of the event until he's convinced the way is clear.

Once the sound of footsteps finally clears, he peeks through the nearest doorway, peering into the common area. Nobody he recognizes.

A nurse rounds the corner, and Jay scrambles back behind the cabinet.

The way clears again, and Jay has a terrible idea. The closet's unlocked. There are bottles, some labeled by hand and some by machine, but what's on the upper shelves are what's important. Jay sneaks a clean, white coat off the top of the stack.

The legs of his scrubs are still visible--the coat's far from floor-length--but maybe it won't be quite as obvious he's not supposed to be here. He should be good unless somebody either recognizes his face or looks closely enough to spot the scrubs underneath. Both of which aren't exactly unlikely. Great.

Still, while the hallway's clear, Jay peers into each room. There's a window in every door, though many are covered by a sliding hatch with a hole for a padlock. Thankfully, nobody's locked any of them shut.

Nobody Jay knows, nobody, nobody, a few people but none he knows, another stranger, somebody who doesn't even look like he's breathing, nobody, Tim.

It looks like the window's one-way, so it's not going to do him any good. He raps on the door several times in quick succession, sounding like an impatient woodpecker. "Hey. Hey, Tim," he whispers, watching the end of the hallway out of the corner of his eye.

Edited 2017-09-27 15:34 (UTC)

There's nowhere else to go. No window. No means to climbing, clawing his way out. With no guarantee that he can, he can't risk trying to make a break for it, raising a ruckus. He'll end up fucking - straitjacketed and sealed in some solitary confinement, for the safety of himself and others, so he isn't a danger to anyone. Violent episodes, right?

Right.

He curls in the corner. It's an easy instinct to resurrect. Where else is he going to go? Where else could he go? Head ducking, burying his face into the peaks of his knees drawn up to his chest. Just wait it out. Wait it out. It'll be over. It can't last forever. It can't last forever.

He doesn't have his prescription in here. How long is it going to last.

When there's the quiet tin-rattle of knuckles tapping against the door, the breathy whisper of someone calling his name, a spurt of adrenaline bolts into his system. Shit. He's already started hearing things, hasn't he? Already started bending beneath the weight of this kind of environment, needling away at his brain, peeling away what remains of his sanity. Jay can't have gotten out of the clutches of that doctor - not with how determined the latter was to get him away from Tim. There's no other possibility. Even if he did escape -

If he did escape, what would he be doing here?

He clamps both hands over his head and squeezes his eyes shut.

It isn't real. Don't let it be real.

"I didn't..." There it is, now. The shame, drooping his shoulders. Bowing his head. You just sat nice and quiet in your corner, Timothy, didn't you? Didn't bother trying to pry. Did exactly as you were told like a good little boy. Looking for answers just wasn't on your radar.

Even if those answers might have finally soothed years-old wounds.

"People kept saying 'no,' or that - there was no news." One hand creeps up to cling at his arm, wrapping halfway around himself. "Eventually, I guess I stopped...asking."

He learned there was no point in it.

Goddamnit. It doesn't help that she's a miserable fucking actor, apparently - because she's not really had to, because she's completely off-balance, because she's not accustomed to having to lie for any reason whatsoever, because that's not what she does.

She looks scared, staring at the doctor as he flits past, and Tim can't just sweep in and try to cultivate a lie that someone will believe, because he's in the same goddamn boat as her. He's unreliable. He's fucking - crazy, right? Can't trust anything the crazy says.

"I can - I'll g - I'll go," he stammers. Maybe overselling it somewhat, but if he can get the doctor's attention on him instead, it'll be worth it. He can take whatever they might intend to throw at him, for being a bad influence.

"No!" Georgia straightens, trying to force down the panic. It doesn't exactly work, but she can at least fake it. She may not be a liar, but she's good at showing confidence she doesn't feel. She just has to hope her eyes aren't projecting just how terrified she really is. She never learned to control them living her life behind dark glasses.

"Fuck this. No. He's not bothering me." Anger. She can do anger. It's better than fear and panic any day. "And this place is a human rights violation. Do you have any idea how sued your asses will be once my readers hear about this?"

The doctor flips some pages on his clipboard. "Would these be your Wonderland readers or your... zombie blog this time?"

She freezes again. "Excuse me?"

The doctor shakes his head. "You make the same threat every day, Georgia. But you're not a journalist. You're just a very sick woman who needs help."

Goddamnit.

Tim could almost groan aloud at the slip-up. She's not supposed to mention shit like that - and of course, there's a whole fucking file on her. A file on every single one of them. This would be her "delusion," tailored to unhinge her sense of reality until she's lost wholly in this false dream, at least until it stops clinging to them.

"It was my fault," he blurts, once more trying to intercede. Draw the ire to him. "I asked her about it. I was - I think I was one of her readers. Used to comment every day. Lot of site traffic, you know?"

He's the one perpetuating the "delusion." He's the problem here. So just take care of him, and leave her out of it.

There's no answer. He looks in through the window; Tim's still curled on the ground, knees pulled up near his head.

Either Tim doesn't hear Jay, or he's ignoring him.

Eyes darting back to the ends of the hallway (nobody yet), Jay grits his teeth and knocks directly on the window.

"Tim."

Another tap on the window, knuckles to glass. This time it's persistent enough for him to look up. A pale face peering through the glaze of the glass, unmistakable. He has to give his head a shake, blink hard, try to dispel the shroud of unreality - but he's still there.

He's supposed to have left. He's supposed to have left. That's what he does. Isn't it?

Tim scrambles upright. The worst that happens is the disappointment at having been proven right - and disappointment he's well used to. The breath hitches in his lungs a heartbeat before he can say it aloud -

"Jay?"

Jay nods--Who else would it be? The doctors would have just opened the door, right?--and checks back over his shoulder.

He draws closer to the window, still trying to keep his voice low. "Look, the door's padlocked from the outside." He grabs the lock, knocking it against the door for emphasis. "I'm gonna try and get it--wait."

He hears footsteps. After a moment, they fade into the distance.

"I'm gonna try and get the door open." He grimaces. "And if I screw up, this thing should be over in...forty minutes, about."

"I know it was a long time ago, but if you can remember who those people were, I might be able to dig up more information." She has more leads to follow. Tim doesn't need to know about all of them. But she'll always take any more she can get.

In any case, this is about getting Tim on her side. He might not have paid attention before, but now maybe he will.

"Get out of here," Tim hisses. The longer Jay talks, the more it sounds like his kind of ill-advised stupidity - and the less Tim wants to indulge that. "What the hell're you doing?"

What part of Tim needs saving - and since when did Jay start giving a damn?

Why should he?

"I don't...I could try asking. Looking back, but..." But it was never about him. It was never - why would it be? He's used to all of it being about him, a little too much. His issues. His inability to control his powers. His frustrations manifesting in the world, in the minds of others. His lack of self-discipline.

His problem.

And she was just...the collateral. Wasn't she?

"What was her name?" Don't let it eat at you. Be useful while you still can. "If I can...if there's something I can do, if there's some way I can - I can help..."

Tim tells him to get out, save himself first, and for a split second, he's tempted.

A lot can happen in forty minutes, though. Sure, Wonderland brings you back if you die, but things seem fuzzier when it comes to, y'know, permanent neurological damage. This place is happy enough to fix a gunshot wound in the side, but what about a hole in the head?

~~And he's not abandoning Tim a second time.~~

So, what's he doing?

"Finding the key and getting you out," Jay hisses back. "This whole thing cuts out ten feet down the hall, so we just need to get down there, and--"

Footsteps again, closer this time.

Jay ducks away from the window, snapping the latch shut before sprinting back toward his old hiding spot behind the storage cabinet. The echoing footfalls from earlier solidify into the click-tap of high-heeled shoes, and there's a squeaking, clattering sound that might be a rolling cart.

From his hiding spot, Jay can hear a woman's voice. It's not one he recognizes. "Dinner, Timothy."

Jay's pulse speeds up. Is that all she brought him?

And what's his plan, huh? Steal a key off a doctor? Yeah, 'cause that should go over real well. The most he can do is comply and hope that Jay doesn't do something stupid - like ambush the nurse who's brought him food and, presumably, medication that is the exact opposite of what he should be taking given his current prescription. If he'd had to guess - some horrendous cocktail of antipsychotics, antidepressants, psychoactive drugs. The same sort of combination that did little for him in his old room, besides make his fingertips go jittery and his teeth chatter and his vision go spotty.

Withdrawal from his own prescription combined with an introduction of something as foreign as that into his system is bound to go over well for just about everyone. He could try spitting them out, but that might not work - not if they've wised up to him being a little troublemaker, huh?

He's not Timothy, not just some scared little boy huddled in the corner of the room anymore.

Running right up to the door would be the sort of thing that might be frowned upon. Maybe get him a look of disapproval, and - five minutes, while the nurse makes rounds to other rooms, while she leaves him alone so he can have a think about what he's done.

It has to be enough. He just needs her gone.

Tim bolts forward, knuckles slamming into the metal of the latch. Is it common for their patients (victims) to act this way, when it's time for dinner?

He has no idea. But it's a risk he's willing to take if it gets Jay out.

There's an echoing slam, enough to startle Jay into peering out from behind the cabinet.

The nurse must have recoiled from the noise, because as Jay catches sight of her, she trips backwards into the cart, sending it skittering back against the wall. The food (or whatever passes for food here) looks mostly intact, but Jay watches as a couple of small bottles shatter against the tile floor, leaving puddles of liquid and broken glass.

"Timothy!" she scolds, catching her balance.

After a moment, she moves to face the far end of the hall, and Jay flattens himself once more behind the cabinet.

There's a squeal, a rattle, and more footsteps. She's got the cart, and she's heading in Jay's direction.

It worked.

She's heading off. No food for people who misbehave and take the hardworking personnel off guard, huh? Good. Good. Tim rocks back, breathing hard, flexing his hand with a bracing pull of fingertips inward and out again. It aches, but it's nothing he can't handle. He's had worse.

He's always had worse.

He just has to hope that Jay had the presence of mind to fucking leave instead of sticking around and risking being caught, but since when has Jay had the presence of mind to do anything remotely strategic?

She's coming this way. Jay has a few options here: He can stay where he is and hope she doesn't spot him. He can step a couple feet backwards and out of the event.

Or he can get the keys.

As she steps in front of the cabinet, Jay lunges forward, wrapping one hand around her mouth and another around her wrist and tugging her back toward the wall. She tries to scream, tries to yank herself away, but for once, Jay's actually stronger.

This might be undermined by the fact that Jay just realized he's been repeating, "Sorry, sorry, sorry..." under his breath since he grabbed her.

"Look, just..." This is only barely working, and Jay knows it. "Just give me the keys, and you'll be fine."

Whatever the fuck is happening out there, Tim has no clue. There's the scrape and clang of the cart banging against the wall, murmured voices, but trying to grab at the latch yields nothing but further bruised knuckles and scratched fingertips. it's clear that something just happened. Hell if he knows what.

"Jay?" The word is hissed, whispered between clenched teeth. "Jay!"

The nurse must have heard, because the muffled noise she makes into his hand sounds an awful lot like "Jay?"

"Shh-shh, yes, it's me," Jay hisses, unsure how much longer he'll be able to keep this up. "I'm just here for Tim. I don't want--I don't want anyone to get hurt, I just--give me the keys."

She shifts, and he can hear them, rattling inside the left pocket of her skirt.

After a long silence, she nods, reaches into her pocket with her free hand, and elbows Jay hard in the stomach.

He doubles over instinctively, but goddamnit he's not giving up yet. He reaches for her pocket as she pulls away, and he just barely manages to feel cold metal against his fingers before the edge of the pocket pulls his wrist at an unnatural angle.

"Let me go!" she shouts loud enough for every guard, doctor, and probably patient in the building to hear. Jay feels something collide with his face (fist? elbow?) and she's off like a shot.

But--Jay realizes, half-sprawled on the tile floor--he's got the keys.

Someone's coming, someone's obviously coming, so he has to work fast. He scrambles over to Tim's door, shoving the first key he grabs into the lock before realizing they're all (thank god) numbered by room.

That's definitely the sound of a struggle out there. Tim presses his ear to the door, ignoring the way it chills at the skin of his cheek. There's the shuffle of feet, and then something that sounds suspiciously like a struggle. Slippershod feet shifting across the bleached tile, the clatter of the cart wheels rolling haphazardly as people bump into them, and then -

"Let me go!"

Running footsteps bolt past his door. Tim jerks back with such force that he ends up flat on his ass. But the jangle of keys rattling in the lock is unmistakable.

Son of a bitch.

He really did it.

No one else would be unlocking his door now if that weren't the case.

Regardless, Tim can't keep the disbelief from his voice as he says it again, louder: "Jay?

Jay takes a split second to peer through the window--Yep, still me somehow.--before matching the key number to Tim's door.

He talks as he fumbles with the padlock, an anxious mutter barely audible above the scraping metal of the lock against the door latch. "We don't have much time, but we don't have to--have to get far."

The padlock clicks open, and Jay finally tries to remember how to breathe like a normal person. Lock out of the way, latch slid open, door heavier than he expected, but he has to get it open, now, before the voices echoing off the walls get any closer.

The opens with a creak, and Jay's already
thinking about a little boy in a white room, begging the strange man to be quiet and leave him alone
reaching for Tim's arm. "We gotta go now, c'mon--"

Georgia turns, shooting him a glare. "Tim." He's trying to help. But she doesn't want him to sacrifice himself for her. And she definitely doesn't want him lying for her. "Look, the point is, everything's fine. You're the only one bothering me. Just let us go about our business."

knocked the wind out of my soul [open]

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cw internalized ableism

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locks hospital keys in car

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knocked the wind out of my soul [open]

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cw internalized ableism

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*locks hospital keys in car*

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locks hospital keys in car