Day 60: Intercom, Dawn

[damned-intercom.livejournal.com]

When the intercom jingled at the crack of dawn, the tension and the estranged atmosphere seemed to have vanished overnight, replaced by an almost familiar burst of energy. The nurses began their routines with a hum and a spring to their step. The orderlies were offering smiles to staff and charges alike. Overall, the staff seemed settled comfortably into their morning work.

And finally...

"Good morning, everyone!" came the cheerful greeting. Veteran patients listening in could not mistake the voice as belonging to anyone but the Head Doctor. "Am I glad to be back! I hope you've been enjoying yourselves during my 'impromptu' vacation. I know I did!"

He chuckled like he had just relayed a joke.

"Welp! Let's get down to business, then, shall we? For breakfast, we'll be having scrumptious waffles with your choice of delicious toppings! We have syrup, butter, whipped cream, powdered sugar, cinnamon, jam, and for you health types, fresh fruits. We also have cereal available as well as an assortment of drinks. Sounds like something you can just sink your teeth into after a well-rested night in a comfortable room, am I right?"

Silence.

"In any case, be good now! I'll be seeing more of you...later."

With that promising remark, the intercom clicked off.

Comments

[complicatedliar]

There was a ceiling.

This fact alone told Loki that either (a) everything he knew about the universe and its internal workings - which was quite a bit, thank you very much - was in fact wrong or (b) something very odd had happened. Because he was as certain as one could be of anything in an uncertain universe that holes in the fabric of space and time did not come equipped with faintly stippled ceiling tiles in an unfortunate shade of eggshell.

And really, that was all right. Because it gave him something to think about other than why he had been swallowed by said hole in the fabric of space and time. Just approaching that subject made the inside of his head itch and something in the vicinity of his spleen boil with more rage than a single body could safely contain, so it was really best for everyone concerned - meaning Loki himself - that he had other problems to deal with.

Like the current state of his clothing. What the hell--

That thought was interrupted by a door opening, and a cheerful older woman that appeared to be human caroling in a chirpy voice that instantly set his teeth on edge: "Good morning Lawrence, I hope you're feeling better!"

Loki didn't so much stand as unfold himself, towering over the diminutive woman. He directed a faintly disapproving look at her iron-gray hair. "Excuse me?"

She repeated herself. Which was really twice as much good cheer as he could deal with on even a normal morning.

Just on instinct, he tried to mute her - a simple local time loop since it was early and he wasn't feeling all that creative what with all the existential disorientation - so she wouldn't interrupt his important train of thought with common annoyances like the presence of her face. Only it didn't work.

Loki frowned, and snapped his fingers impatiently as the woman repeated herself a third time, which was really approaching deserves-to-have-something-pointy-inserted-into-a-soft-part-of-her-anatomy territory.

His ability to use magic wasn't so much gone as... inaccessible.

That alone was enough to draw him up short and force him to reassess what little he knew of the situation. Something odd had happened, and now he was in a strange room, wearing clothing that most definitely was not his, being called by a name that wasn't his, and unable to access his magic. That all added up to... to...

Well, it all added up to an enormous void where more information needed to be deposited before he could safely say he knew what was going on. And it was annoying, yes. Very annoying. Particularly the bit where the horrid clothing had a smiley face on it, of all things. But it was also interesting, a new puzzle to be figured out, broken apart, and then reordered to his personal satisfaction.

The shift of mental gears happened in the blink of an eye. Loki gave the horrid woman the most ingratiating smile he could manage without injuring himself and said, "Yes, sorry. I was just... well, you know how it is when you've just woken."

She just ate it up. "It's all right, Lawrence. We're used to patients being a little confused when they first arrive. Come on, let's get you to the cafeteria. It's time for breakfast."

Patients. Now that was interesting, and already another new piece of information to add to his catalog. Loki allowed her to herd him from the tiny room and into the hallway, taking in everything as he went, and dutifully smiling and nodding at every inanity that fell from the woman's lips. He'd learned a long time ago that the easiest way to get what he wanted - information, favors, trouble for someone else, anything really - was to be agreeable.

At least on the surface.

[batgirlsteph.livejournal.com]

"Mmmm…. Five more minutes." Stephanie grumbled, turning to bury her face in the pillow and pulling the covers up over her head.

"Come on now, Miss Brown." The voice was patient, soft, and feminine, but definitely not the voice that Stephanie had been expecting to hear.

She turned back over, sitting up abruptly and blinking for a moment while her sleep-muddled brain processed her sudden movement. As she silently stared at the nurse addressing her and telling her that it was time for breakfast, Steph mentally went over what she remembered before waking up here. It didn't look like any sort of hospital that she'd been in before, despite the nurses uniform, and Stephanie had landed herself in hospitals more than she cared to admit. Her mom also worked in one and she'd been to see her mother at work quite a bit.

"Crap." She'd been running around as Batgirl. That was the last thing she remembered, and she definitely wasn't wearing any sort of mask or anything right now. Not that it would have mattered, since the nurse had called her by her name. Where was she and how did the people here know her name? No matter how she looked at it, this situation was definitely not good.

The nurse's eyebrows arched slightly at Stephanie's word choice. "Excuse me?"

"Huh?" Stephanie turned her attention back to the nurse. Had she said that out loud? "Oh! Oops. I meant, breakfast. Yum! What are we having today? Waffles? I really like waffles."

She was babbling and she knew it. But the continuous stream of words allowed her to observe the facility while providing the nurse with something of a distraction. Stephanie glanced around the room as she slid her feet into the waiting slippers and followed the nurse into the hallway. Might as well try the direct approach and see where it got her.

"So. Where are we again?"

"Landel's Institute, Miss Brown. Surely you haven't forgotten." The look that the nurse gave her was patient, almost patronizing.

"Nope!" Stephanie beamed at the nurse. "Just testing you."

Landel's Institute, huh? That sounded like some sort of mental hospital. Where there any other types of hospitals that were typically called "institutes"? If she was in a mental institute, this was going to be… interesting, to say the least. Had these people found her in the Batgirl suit? She didn't remember engaging in any sort of combat that could have knocked her out though.

[Heading over here (http://damned.livejournal.com/1206232.html?thread=81313752#t81313752)]

[slay]

The sound of a crackling intercom woke Buffy. Oh, God. She'd had this nightmare before. Any minute now the Mayor would show up and -- She blinked her eyes open. Huh? Okay … So, intercom, definitely not nightmare-confined. In fact, pretty much not nightmare-related at all. Unless the whole reality being a nightmare thing counted, in which case, hey, seemed to have that in spades. Which was funny, considering she was pretty positive that she remembered her bedroom not having a loudspeaker installed.

Oh, Hellmouth, how she'd missed you.

Option A, she processed as she climbed out of bed, carefully pacing around the room to examine it, was a weird shrimp-y Jonathan universe, where instead of Jonathan being awesome, it was more like … hello, Super Impris-o-Buffy. God, don't let it be a Jonathan universe. There were slippers waiting for her, and they were enough to draw her attention to--

Oh, double God. Her clothes. That was it. Whatever was responsible for this? Extra-slayed. Its fate was sealed. Sticking her in itchy, outdated smiley t-shirts and sweats was beyond evil. This was a whole new brand. Worse than anything she'd dealt with before.

An orderly came in and Buffy nearly jumped through the roof with surprise. Well, there went prison theory. She knew that uniform. Twice over she knew that look and--"Seriously? Again with the ooh boogly-boogly, seven years of you being loony in L.A. I'm not loony. And this is … tired. When you come up with something new, I'll start checking in. Capisce?"

And, she proceeded to do the logical, reasonable, beyond sane thing of blowing the woman off in favor of nosing around what appeared to be her desk. Or Crazy-Her's desk. Whatever. There was a journal lying there, and she started flipping through it, but the orderly stepped forward to take it from her.

"Okay, one? Grabby hands of rudeness. Not cool. Two? Fine. Keep it. I'll be here, waiting for my trip back to Sane-O Town and--"

"Mina, we've been over this. It's breakfast time, come on. Everyone is already out in the cafeteria waiting."

"Wait. Back up. Let's rewind and review. Mina? Not me. Not even a little me. Buffy. Buuuffyyyy. Say it with me--"

"Not this again," the orderly sighed, looking exasperated. Okay. Revising her feelings now. So, maybe this wasn't total redux of last year. They'd clearly stepped up their game. Which would … hopefully mean no surprise Joyce-shaped visits. She could learn to appreciate a lack of mom trauma. "Your name is Mina Winters. You're not a--a vampire slayer. You're a sick girl who's about to miss breakfast."

Buffy's stomach gave a grumbling at that. Her lips pursed. This was feeling suspiciously un-acid trippy. The Jonathan universe theory was coming back in full force, which would mean less isolation and waiting for her to be back in Sunnydale, and more … Mina Winters-ing. Did she just make fake-her into a verb? Oh well.

"Breakfast." She said it slowly, like she was trying to sort something out, and then nodded slowly. Right. Intercom. The promise of waffles. "Right. 'Cause the doc's back from sunny wherever the hell he's been." Score one for ingenuity, the nurse seemed to ease up at Buffy's behavior. Right. Any minute now she'd have to start being a total spaz just to keep this girl comfortable enough to help her figure out what in the name of great muppet-y Odin was going on here.

Craziness. In her life. Hah. Must be Tuesday. She finally let a ghost of a smile flicker over her lips, visibly humoring.

"Waffles ho. Lead the way, uh,"

"Suzy."

"Right! I knew that. I was just … Yep. Suzy."

[ to here ]

M8

[savagestray.livejournal.com]

It was harder this time, to differentiate reality from nightmare. He awoke to the feeling of blood on his hands, warm, slick, sticky bits of entrail clinging to him. Her face as he finally regained control, her voice tiny and weak as she spoke his name for the last time. And finally a scream, raw and broken. It was several seconds before he recognized the last voice as his own.

His heart was still racing when his eyes flicked open, pupils narrowing to tiny angry dots as he pushed himself up from the bed and threw the blankets aside. He might be in control now; the black dog's voice nothing but a quiet whisper in his ear, but last night...

They'd let him out. Someone flipped the switch, pushed him into the darkness where he sat cold and blind and helpless as the monster tried once more to tear her apart. Had it succeeded? Heine lost his balance, sudden nausea enough to make him grip the edge of the bed when he stood.

"Lily."

The word was followed by laughter, mocking and cruel and unmistakably that other presence.

Didn't you enjoy it? Nostalgic, wasn't it Master? I could never forget how her blood tastes or... You're not going to get upset, are you? It's their fault. Even you have to know that. They let me out. You want to get wild, get revenge, then let's teach them a lesson. Let's get the hell out of here. You need me if you think you'll ever be free again.

That was easy enough to believe. Even if he hated it, that much was true. He shook his head, stalking toward the door to the room. Locked, of course.

You want to fuck 'em over as much as I do! They're just as bad as that crazy bitch of a mother-

"Shut up. Shut up!" he growled aloud, picking up the nearest chair and flinging it as hard as he could into the far wall. Next was the desk at the end of his bed, kicked at until it gave or his foot started to bleed, whichever came first. With no target, he slammed his hand into it as hard as he could, bones cracking beneath the surface with the effort, but he didn't care. They'd manipulated him. Pulled his strings like a goddamn puppet on a string and fuck if he was going to just sit here and let it all happen again. Lily. Was she alive or dead? The memory of her lifeless body, was it new? Old? He wasn't sure of anything anymore.

Re: M8

[damned-nurses.livejournal.com]

The door to his room immediately swung open and in walked a young woman, stiff and starched in all white as she tried to keep a smiling expression below her worried brow.

"What is going on in here? Oh my G--!" She gasped into her manicured hand and quickly stuck her head outside the door and called on another coworker to bring her a few orderlies, just in case this mess grew out of her control.

"It's alright," she said softly, not wanting to the patient, staying under door frame with her hands open and harmless. It wouldn't do to antagonize him further and push him into a corner. He had just arrived and the first day rarely went according to plan. "It's okay. You're in a safe place, no one is going to hurt you, Alex--Listen to me." her words were more forceful this time as she tried to catch the man's attention and keep him from hurting himself further.

"Why don't you come sit back down on your bed quietly, alright? And then we'll worry about what's wrong, okay?" Frankly, she wasn't too optimistic about the end result of this, but as long as she received back up before it got too ugly...

Re: M8

[savagestray.livejournal.com]

When the door flew open, Heine's first reaction was to bolt for it, though he had to backpedal a few steps when he saw it was a woman. The muscles on his arms twitched with barely contained frustration. It was like she fucking knew he couldn't touch her.

Just do it already. Look how weak she is!

"Safe?" he laughed once, a mad half-smile on his lips. Safe was not forcing their test subjects to slaughter one another. Safe was not locking them all up like animals. And it sure as fuck wasn't all those goddamn sirens and strange shit they'd pulled last night.

Don't let her talk to you like that. Let me help you Master. It's the only way you'll get out.

"Get the hell out of my way," he growled, hesitating only a second before he charged the door, aiming for a gap between her legs and the doorframe and shielding himself as though he were leaping through flames and not past a young woman in scrubs. If he could make it out into the hall-

Then what? They sure as hell aren't going to open the doors for us.

[damned-nurses.livejournal.com]

"Alex, listen to me. There's no--" That was the end of negotiations. The young man came at her and her words dried up in her mouth. The woman's first reaction was to curl her arms around her chest like a shield, but it inevitably let Alex out into the hallway.

He wouldn't be getting far, though. Her back-up, three orderlies and a wary nurse, blocked both hallway exits. The patient was cornered. There was nowhere to run, so she tried one more time to placate him. The young woman didn't appreciate having to sedate scared patients, even the violent ones.

"Come back into your room," she asked with a calm and steady voice. "I don't want to sedate you. Let's just go back inside, treat your hand, and then you can have breakfast with everyone else, alright?"

[savagestray.livejournal.com]

He rolled by the woman, scrambling back to his feet once he reached the open hallway. The blood was pounding in his head now, a steady pulse that beat faster and faster.

They're the ones that did this. You want revenge, take it on them! Tear them apart!

The hall was blocked in both directions and while it seemed like a dead end, a handful of nurses was hardly enough to intimidate him. The soldiers at least, had weapons. While the orderlies were a lot bigger than Heine, he'd taken down genetically altered monsters twice his own size.

He ignored the nurse's voice, turning a hard right as he rushed at the nearest orderly on that side. Weapons or no, he attacked, fingers and hands like claws as he reached for the soft flesh around the neck, face, and eyes. And if fingers couldn't tear skin? That's what teeth were for.

[damned-nurses.livejournal.com]

The two nurses took a few steps back out of the way of the beginning fray as they were trained and watched, grim-faced from resignation as to how this would all turn out. One drugged patient and the possibility of an injured orderly.

The man beside Alex's target moved closer to intercept the attack. One of the patient's hands made it to the orderly's neck, an elbow struck the second man in the cheekbone before two pairs of large hands tried to grab for the patient's flailing limbs, shoulders, body, anything that would neutralize Alex.

It was hard to tell from her angle if the young man's nails had reached its destination. The pop from the elbow would certainly swell like a balloon. It certainly hadn't deterred the orderlies in the least, but adrenaline would certainly do that for anyone. She had hoped Alex would be the only one she'd have to treat, but that wasn't look too promising the longer this struggle continued. With that thought in mind, the nurse brought out a syringe and waited for them to drop him.

The third orderly moved in place behind Alex to sweep his legs and let the other two drive him to the floor with four hundred pounds of weight.

[savagestray.livejournal.com]

On an ordinary day, Heine could move among trained thugs and street toughs with a wealth of experience and not bat an eyelash. He could take down a dozen men in succession before the first hit the ground. But whether the staff here were faster than the mafia bastards he was used to or if he'd become slower, the result was the same.

While he felt his elbow connect with the orderly's face, before he could follow up with a kick or try to gouge the man's eyes out, an arm grabbed his shoulder, another coming up behind to knock his feet out from under him. His back hit the floor first with a jarring shock, but Heine was already struggling to get back up. His thin frame against 3 large men didn't seem enough to make a difference, so he lashed out as best he could, hoping if he could sink his teeth into one of the arms gripping his shoulders.

[damned-nurses.livejournal.com]

"Christ!" One of the men yelled when he felt the sharp pressure of teeth pincer his thick forearm. They all knew better than to pull away, but it was still hard to watch while the man had to wait in pain for the second orderly to try and force his jaws to release. Whether forcibly or voluntarily, it wouldn't matter in a moment as the nurse readied her sedative.

She came up to their struggling pile, syringe in hand, and waited until one of the patient's arms was seized and securely neutralized. It wouldn't do to have their needles breaking in obstinate limbs; they would never gain control of any fight.

Out of habit, she wet a small spot on his arm and tried to work as quickly and efficiently as possible. She had no wish to get an elbow to the face either. "Alex, this is a sedative. It'll calm you down." Her assurance was more hurried than it should have been, but this needed to end now. Courtesy could wait a bit. "There won't be any lasting effects..." With that, the nurse pushed the needle sharply into his arm and began slowly pressing down on the plunger.

[savagestray.livejournal.com]

Once he had flesh in his jaws, instinct took over. He clamped down, but before he could jerk his head to the side and tear the skin away, someone was holding his head, trying to get him to open his mouth. While he wasn't about to let go, it did make it infinitely more difficult to see just what the nurse was giving him to "calm him down."

He didn't feel the needle as it entered, but he felt the strange warm feeling and a sort of sluggishness creeping into him that was hard to explain. It was still a good minute or two before he stopped struggling, a slow bitter fight to the end before his jaw finally released, blood sticky and trying on the corner of his mouth as his head fell back against the tile floor with an odd-sounding thunk that seemed to echo, drowning out the steady pounding of his heartbeat.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was sure he really did want to keep fighting, tear them all up and leave this hall nothing but a bloody spatter and barely distinguishable limbs, but all he could manage was one last growl before he lost that thought too. His mind was growing fuzzy and if he'd had the coherent thought left to wonder about it, he'd be fairly certain he'd never felt quite like this before. Alcohol, drugs, it'd never affected him before. This was definitely new.