damned_institute | Disciplinary Therapy Room 4 [M-U for Phoenix Wright]

The lights were bright in here - bright enough to burn through Phoenix's eyelids and reach his brain as a dull, inescapable red haze. He slitted one open on instinct before hissing a breath through his teeth and pressing it shut again, brain wobbling drunkenly under the weight of the spare impressions it was starting to pick up. None of it matched anything he'd woken up to before, not the smell of disinfectant and the hum of electric bulbs, nor the fact that he was sitting back in . . .

Is this a dentist's chair? Did I fall asleep at . . .? He gave a tired, preoccupied noise, rolling his shoulders. Or meaning to - something held his wrists down tight when they pressed up with the motion.

That woke him up, finally. He pitched forward, jerking to a halt with less than a foot between his back and the seat, even as he searched the spotless, pale room rummaging for his last memory through the cluttered mess of still here and who's there and oh God what's going to-.

Dinner, silent as usual, and then passing a little time reading. His nurse coming in, all smiles and 'how did you like dinner, Mr. Appleby's, and him barely having a chance to look up before she tugged up his sleeve in a surprisingly direct movement and-

He stopped, staring without focus at the counter off to his right, clean and gleaming and perfectly medical. His first thought wasn't a word, like 'torture' or 'experiments' or even the euphemistic 'studies.' It was Edgeworth, those darting distracted looks like stress fractures in the smooth surface of his focus, and his fingertips sliding back from the near-invisible point scar at the nape of his neck.

When he remembered to breathe again, it was slower, and he swallowed before speaking in a voice somehow, miraculously, devoid of a quaver. "Where are you."

Edited 2009-03-05 21:34 (UTC)

The doctor said nothing in response, instead hitting the play button on the small tape recorder in his right hand.

"You can see it, can't you, Mr. Nick? You can see the 'lock' on that person’s heart."

He laughed as he clicked off the recorder. "Such a cute child, Miss Pearl Fey. And quite talented, no? Yes, indeed." The doctor put the recorder down on a table, and walked over to Phoenix. While he kept his face out of his subject's field of vision, he held out the magatama. "I believe she granted some power to you, with one of these, did she not? If I recall correctly, its original owner was - why, it was your assistant, Maya."

He tossed it in the air, catching it in his palm. As he continued speaking, he continued tossing and catching the object. "And this proved useful to you...oh, yes. So many cases where this little jewel revealed the truth about a person's secrets."

The doctor caught the magatama one last time. You could hear the smirk in his words. "Do you miss it?"

They knew.

Whoever made the decisions here, whoever mattered, they knew. Knew his name, what he did, where he came from, the identities of everyone around him. More than that, they knew details, jealously-guarded facts he'd been loathe to reveal to all but his closest of friends. Information they shouldn't have any way of - forget the information, they had recordings.

It should have been impossible.

He watched the glimmering bit of stone twist and turn in the light, forcing himself to steady. They don't have Maya or Pearl, he reminded himself, and tried to ignore the way his mental voice tried to tack on a grim yet. His hand went white-knuckled on the armrest at the question, though, and at the teeth in the smile behind it. He knew that tone. He'd heard it too many times already in his life. It was the tone that felt, with absolute certainty, that it stood on the brink of a truth that he wouldn't like. It had never seemed so deadly in a courtroom, though, as it did now.

The silence seemed long and echoing and endless, and at last he answered, infection perfectly serious. "I miss what I did with it." He looked up the starched white sleeve, only to find it stretched past his peripheral vision. There wasn't a point in lying or evading the truth with these people, not for things as simple as this. "But I miss a lot of things from home."

Edited 2009-03-05 22:46 (UTC)

The doctor laughed. "Such a glib answer, missing lots of things from home. I should have expected no less from you, Phoenix Wright. But I didn't ask about those other things. I asked whether you missed this." He tossed the magatama one last time before moving away, sliding it into his pocket.

He moved away from his subject, towards a table near the back of the room. He began working, the glassware in his hands making clinking noises as he worked, and a faint chemical smell began to permeate the room. "I'm sure you're wondering by now what's going to happen, no? Don't worry, I don't intend to recreate the experiment that was done on your dear friend Miles Edgeworth." There was an emphasis on the words 'dear friend' that was almost a sneer.

"Ah, that should just about do it," he said, mixing the last of the chemicals and beginning to fill a set of syringes with them. He placed them on a tray, then walked back toward Phoenix. "Now, then. Most of the visual centers in one's brain are located towards what a layman would call the back. However, I don't think the phenomena you saw can be classified the same way."

Phoenix sat back slowly, as if he were expecting the back of the chair to have erupted in spikes since he'd last rested against it. The percuss of the doctor's shoes on the hard floor echoed at even intervals from the walls, and Phoenix tried to make sense of the subsequent noise. He remained belligerently silent at the jab, though the fingers still flexing on the chair probably gave him away. The restraints remained solid, though - all of them, some tugging at his ankles confirmed.

The reassurance was anything but. All it told him was not to expect the devil he knew, though he hadn't been particularly worried about that in the first place. The staff at Landel's didn't seem like the types to repeat themselves. That was too predictable, too easy to learn from. That left the question, though, of what exactly they'd planned. The challenge of the question distracted him from the silent threat of the situation, if only briefly. Phoenix would be the first person to admit that he didn't know a lot about the nuts and bolts of hard science, so all of this talk of brains and visual centers was a little beyond him. He had the same few vague memories of high school biology that he guessed everyone did, but not much more than that.

"Classified?" he replied, listening to the unhurried crescendo of footsteps. Whatever he was carrying, the scent was sweet and strange, and it sparked a brief brilliant memory more than half a decade old: a young man with ruddy-brown hair and serious eyes, the faint smell of solvents hanging around him like an aura. He bit back a shiver, though that didn't stop his gut from sinking - that wasn't the thing to remember, not now. They didn't take people in here to kill them. "You have a theory, then?"

The doctor chose to ignore the question of what was in those particular syringes. His subject would be finding out soon enough, and he didn't want to spoil the surprise.

"If I didn't have a theory, you wouldn't be in that chair right now." The doctor bristled just slightly, but continued. "Now, there are quite a few centers in the brain that play roles in human emotion. The amygdala is associated with anger, the nucleus accumbens with pleasure..."

He laughed again, almost maniacally. "Mr. Wright, did you know that there are also areas of the brain that are involved in deception?"

Small hairs at the back of Phoenix's neck pricked on cue, and he tugged a little less discreetly at the straps, aware that he was starting to chafe at his wrists and not caring. Yeah, there's a part of my brain involved in wanting to get the hell out of here, too. It's called 'all of it', the last vestiges of 'brave and stupid' piped up. He looked around the chair - nothing, even if he could have reached it - but his eyes kept coming back to the gleaming steel tray and the neat row of syringes.

The facts were there, clacking against each other, never quite matching. There was just one little piece that would make everything fit together, and he couldn't find it, lost in the clutter of terror that rose higher the more he woke up from the sedation. He tried taking a deep breath. It didn't help - he couldn't stop looking at the tray, at the incongruity of it. That wasn't equipment for brain surgery. There wasn't an X-ray or any of those other big pieces of imaging equipment in this room. All he had was needles. Why was he still talking about brains?

"I-" he stuttered before he could catch himself, and tensed reflexively, forcing his eyes up at the doctor and glaring. "I don't see what that has to do with the magatama."

"It has everything to do with it...in terms of applying actual science to how it works." Again, that smirk, even if Phoenix couldn't see it.

"You must be wondering by now, no? Why I haven't taken you for an MRI, or a CT scan? Well, you see, I don't need to. No, I don't even need to make a single incision, or disturb that spiky hair you're so proud of. Isn't that good?"

The doctor moved in, taking one syringe from the tray. "Now, sit back for me, Phoenix. I'd hate to miss - the parts of the brain I'm after aren't hard to get to through the eye socket, but if I miss, this could be painful."

It would be painful regardless, but the doctor didn't feel the need to share that.

Eight inches, something tinny and automatic told Phoenix as the needle flashed into view, that part of him that sorted through the unmoving facts of autopsy reports and murder weapons while the rest focused on people. The epiphany came together half a second before the revelation, but he jerked reflexively backwards at the words 'eye socket' regardless, head shaking minutely side to side, as if he could possibly make any argument or give any evidence that would get him out of this room.

It didn't work like this. It wasn't supposed to work like this; there was always something at the last minute (needle maybe an inch from his face now, moving straight for his eye, and he felt himself lock into the cornered-animal paralysis that was the only alternative to giving in to the horror hitching in his chest and thrashing and screaming) some shout some revelation (should be yelling should be fighting but that needle's not going to stop and do you really want to see what a sharp steel point can do to your eyeball if you start jerking around with it in your-) someone back from the dead something-

The point glided just inside his field of vision, pricked hot and sudden just under his eyebrow for a deceptively simple moment before the long, silver thread of it pivoted in the unfocused space between his eyes and-

The first noise couldn't be called a scream, precisely, it was too guttural and unfocused for that. Phoenix forced himself to keep looking forward after he blinked - like someone just awakened from a nightmare, trusting neither the corners of the room nor the darkness inside their eyelids. The incoherent, wordless pain settled to a more discrete, burning tightness, along with a dull pressure somewhere just behind his forehead, like a sinus headache but all wrong. He felt the muscles in his legs jumping under the strain of keeping everything above his shoulders perfectly still. The footboard didn't even rattle.

A 'no' had dragged itself from the noise before Phoenix could stop it, then another, and he clenched his teeth against the beg he could already feel working its way up through his throat.

The positioning was perfect, despite Phoenix's slight movements during that yell. One had to adjust for such a thing, after all; it was a good thing that he had planned for that in advance.

"What was that? An objection? I'm afraid it's been overruled already," the doctor said, smirking as he began slowly sliding the needle the rest of the way into its position. "In case you're curious, I'll be working on your anterior cingulate gyrus today. As I said before, it's one of the areas in the brain that's been pinpointed in deception in functional MRI studies."

He moved to hold the cylinder of the syringe with one hand as he pushed down on the plunger with the other. "I suspect this area was active when you were seeing those...Psyche-Locks, was the term you used? Oh. And this may sting just a bit," he said. "Fortunately, your brain doesn't directly feel much pain, usually."

Something back in his head gave a little, snapping 'click' that was too small to be so abhorrent; Phoenix shuddered, one of those bone-deep, skin-crawling shudders that took the rest of his remaining self-control to keep contained. He couldn't move, though, not with that thing in his head (the thought made him feel dizzy and hot and sick in a way he wouldn't have even been able to explain), not if he wanted to-

The next part of the thought flickered out, like radio static obscuring the second half of the sentence. He moved . . . and . . . The idea stood alone, accompanied by only the maddening, harrowing thought that there had to be more and he couldn't name it. The doctor was talking again, and the tone was explanation but the words were all but meaningless, a few nouns peppered in a sea of incomprehensible syllables. Phoenix tried to stutter out a question, and heard a flat, halting 'wha-'that he barely recognized as his own voice. Then as soon as it had come on, it cleared and everything flooded back - the doctor referring to Psyche-Locks, the needle blessedly still.

If, he realized. The thing he hadn't been able to remember was 'if.' He hadn't been able to put down a consequence. He'd forgotten that consequences even existed.

His eyes were watering, spilling fresh and hot down the sides of his face whenever he blinked. It had to be the pain.

"What-" he whispered, and as soon as he'd whispered it kindled, that humming, bright clarity that he hadn't felt in days. He felt his voice die in his throat.

"Hm? What was that, Mr. Wright?" The doctor asked the question in a tone that was more of a taunt than anything else. He finished the injection, withdrawing the needle slowly. "There. Only a few more to go. But I like to do these things one side at a time."

He put the empty syringe on another tray, the clang of metal hitting metal echoing through the room. He then took the second syringe, this one containing a gold-colored substance, and briefly held it up so that Phoenix could see it. "The first was preparing you for what's in this one. This is where the magic will happen."

He set the syringe back down, then took a wet cloth and gently wiped the tear stains from Phoenix's cheeks. "Now, close your eyes," he said. "I can't use the same injection site twice."

There was an unwelcome intimacy in the light press and smooth of the cloth, guided by a hand that had been sticking a needle into his head seconds ago, and Phoenix finally flinched against the incongruity of it. But those fingers were so close, and it seemed so incautious; the thought of lunging forward and twisting his head and biting flashed into being before Phoenix could stop it. He'd heard stories, of course - the police always had stories about a friend who was partners with a guy whose cousin over in Detroit had lost half a thumb when he got sloppy shoving a guy into a car. He couldn't believe he'd even considered it.

It wouldn't get him out of this chair, though, or out of this room. It wouldn't get rid of the thin, radiating line of pain up behind his eye, or the dull, hedachey pressure over it. It would just make that hand behind the needle a little less precise. He remembered even those few seconds of disorientation, that place where words and effects had been less than shadows, and swallowed against a parched throat.

One side at a time, he'd said. This wasn't even half over. The closest thing he'd come to winning this fight would be outlasting it.

"I thought this was science, not magic," he replied, murmur a little hoarse, at last closing his eyes and bracing himself.

"There's a kind of magic in science," the doctor mused as he ripped open the packaging of an alcohol pad and swiped it across Phoenix's eyelid. "The way one's neurons can rewire themselves just a little when given the right prodding could almost be called magical. If, of course, one believed in that kind of thing."

The doctor threw the used alcohol pad into a nearby trash bin, then reached for the needle. He pulled the skin of the eyelid taut, feeling the small ocular muscles jerk under the slight pressure. That was all right. It wouldn't affect things.

"Now. Hold still again." The doctor didn't bother with warnings this time, quickly finding the spot he wanted and smoothly sliding the needle in.
"

That, on the other hand, was a scream, and it didn't stop nearly so quickly as his first outburst.

If Phoenix had been perfectly objective about it, he would have realized that the initial impulse was shock and fear much more more than it was pain. He would have realized that the point of the needle, while painful, wasn't much worse than the first had been. Unfortunately, nobody is perfectly objective about even a centimeter of steel pinning their eyelid onto their eyeball.

He tried to backpedal against the seat on instinct, even though he knew there was no way to get any further back. But moving forward wasn't a consideration, and moving to the side . . . no, he wasn't moving to the side. Even the thrashing, incoherently terrified thing that kept trying to fight its way into the driver's seat of his consciousness knew that much.

The doctor smoothly injected the gold liquid, then removed the needle. A single drop of blood appeared where the needle had been. He didn't bother wiping it away, not yet.

"Now, really, Phoenix, are you trying to make me miss? You realize this is delicate work. If I miss even by a millimeter..." He paused for effect as he tossed the second used syringe onto the tray. It clattered loudly, as if it were a thunderclap in the otherwise silent room.

"I slip here - " he tapped on Phoenix's forehead as he spoke - "and you can't speak in coherent sentences." He tapped a different spot. "I slip here, and your working memory doesn't work as well as it should, if at all." A third spot. "And you really don't want me to slip here. That's the spot they used back in the old days when giving patients lobotomies."

He moved away, taking the third needle as he did. "Now, I could live with myself if there was an accident. We have nice little forms for writing them up and everything. But I suspect that certain other people you know wouldn't be so accepting of an accident you caused yourself."

For a second, once the needle was out, Phoenix actually felt a wash of relief. That was it, then. Half over, maybe. Even if it wasn't, he knew a little more of what to expect, now.

The sudden, crushing impact against the whole side of his head sent him buckling in on himself, throbbing in his skull in dull waves that spiked in time with the rise and fall of the doctor's voice. He couldn't stop listening, though. He'd never been able to make himself stop listening. He'd guessed at some of that already, but the illustration served its purpose. The doctor wanted him to know that he knew what he could do, and he knew how to do it.

"I get the point," he managed shortly, grimacing as he did. Even moving his jaw sent fresh waves in motion, strong enough that he was starting to feel sick from it. Everything in him was lurching in a frantic off-balance chaos, heart racing, lungs jumping and pulling the occasional jerky half-gasp he'd given up on trying to control, and now his stomach threatening mutiny any second now.

You're not going to die, he told himself harshly, making an effort at straightening again. You're getting out of here. He opened his good eye, staring at the ground and catching his breath, then tried the other. It stung and teared from the headache and the blood; he barely felt the latter at this point. You're getting out of here in one- He blinked once to clear it, then a second time, harder than before. -piece- No amount of blinking changed the way that half of his field of vision faded into indistinct blurs of gray and light-haloes, almost half of his body and the chair melted into dark watercolor obscurity.

His head whipped up to look at the doctor, and the light and motion sent something sour up the back of his throat that he barely managed to bite and swallow back. It was the same - half the world dimmed to indistinguishable shadows and rainbows, the other half immaculately crisp, down to the perfect point of the next needle. He turned his head - not in aversion, but to fix the doctor with his one good eye, now narrowed in a quiet, desperate snarl. "Don't."

Edited 2009-03-08 18:06 (UTC)

The doctor laughed incredulously. "I'm sorry, I must have misheard you. 'Don't.'? I'm afraid you really don't have a choice in the matter." He sighed, then, as if talking to a petulant child. "I was hoping you wouldn't make me have to do this," he said, setting the needle down. He walked away for a moment, coming back a moment later with a head restraint. From a distance, it looked not unlike the headset one would see used in an optometrist's office, though this one was harsh metal and intended for much different uses. He attached it firmly to the left side of the chair first.

"I'm sorry it had to come to this," he said, in a tone that only indicated the opposite, before turning Phoenix's head firmly forward and fitting the chin and forehead straps. "I really am. It's so much easier when the subjects are cooperative."

He attached the restraint to the right side of the chair. It clinked into place loudly. "I don't suggest you struggle further. Unless you like paralytic drugs?"

He didn't wait for the response before taking the needle in hand again and moving to Phoenix's left eye, ever-so-slowly sliding it into the eye socket.

There had been times in his life when Phoenix had felt helpless. But in all of them, he had been able to focus somewhere else, to make up the difference in some vague, tangential way. And in all of them, he had never been alone.

Mia had told him that he didn't need that anymore. She'd told him that she trusted him to stand on his own. A man from the future who knew him too well had told him that he wouldn't last three months on his own before his career came crashing down around his ears.

Phoenix chose to believe an old friend over a near-stranger.

"Where-" He paused, taking a few irregular, shaky breaths, until he was sure his voice wouldn't crack. If this was the same as the other side, he wasn't going to be coherent for much longer. "Where's the benefit in making me blind?"

He knew that he wouldn't have even been able to ask a question as simple as that if it weren't for the fact that his focus was now taken away from keeping stock-still, from making sure those ominous promises didn't become reality. It was somehow worse than anything else, to be grateful for the restraints. As if they were a mercy.

"When did I ever say anything about making you go blind?" The doctor asked that in a rather patronizing tone. "Oh, I realize the vision in your left eye is just a bit blurred at the moment, but it will return to normal. You've no need to worry about that." He smirked as he finished pushing the needle into place. Of course, he was minimizing the current state of the situation, but he was being truthful when he said that it should clear up in short order.

"Now, as I was asking before. That ability you had, the Psyche-Lock ability. I realize you won't be able to answer me right away, but humor me with the question. You never really answered the question of whether you missed it or not."

He laughed as he pushed down on the plunger. "I suppose that answer doesn't really matter now, but I'm just curious to what it truly was."

Again, that feeling, equal parts comfort and something almost like gratitude; this time Phoenix couldn't help but feel briefly angry with himself for it a millisecond later. Even if the reassurance hadn't been necessary, gratitude was almost as good as giving up.

Even held motionless, he held still as he could at that other little 'click,' and in an awful way it was easier. Every shift of his head washed a new coat of agony around the inside of his skull. He couldn't stop the sounds, but he could be still, and keep the light where it was. He imagined he felt the same dull press again, like a knuckle in the bone above his eye. It was getting hard to tell, fading into a sort of dense, impassable muddle. At the same time, it almost seemed like he'd be able to just take a step back from it, if he let himself. The doctor sounded a bit like a voice on a television already, clear but possible to tune out.

Reflexively, he twisted a wrist sideways in the restraint, goaded on by the laughter until the friction on his skin and the press of small bones together could at least consider competing with everything in his head. He shivered back into his skin, realizing that the needle was already pulling back out. No fainting. He wasn't going to be unconscious in this room if he could help it.

". . . yes," he answered lowly, pressing his eyes shut without prompting. If he'd at any point considered saying more, the renewed clenching of his stomach quelled that quickly.

"Interesting..." And the answer was interesting. Of course, he wasn't going to explain why he'd asked. Wright was smart and would figure it out. If not now, then soon enough.

Instead, he chose to play on that arm movement. "On the one hand, you're still trying to resist, but on the other, you're cooperating. What is that, hm? You think that I won't finish this, or that I'll hurry, if you play the good patient? But you don't like that, either, the idea that you're going along with it in any way."

He reached for another cloth, wiping away tears, then for a second alcohol pad, tearing it open. "That, I think, is more interesting than the answer to the question. What do you think? Not that I expect you'll actually answer," he added as he swabbed Phoenix's eyelid.

The doctor didn't warn him this time, instead, taking that fourth needle and placing it - just a little more roughly than before. Not enough to change the accuracy, but...just enough.

That was the question - where necessity ended and surrender began; if the division even mattered so much. Phoenix wondered for a dizzy moment if maybe he wouldn't have been able to tell the difference more clearly when all of this had started. How certain would he have been of where that line in the sand was drawn, just a handful of minutes ago?

The sudden jab cut short the thought before he could trace out the answer, and he cringed back in a motion that wasn't more than shoulders and knees, yelping a short, strained note that strangled itself just as quickly as it began. He could feel the sweat on his temples, running down the tense arch of his back, and didn't wonder where it had come from. Every fiber of him was trembling with a feverish, tense energy, exhaustion and dread combined. He knew what was coming, and it was like staring down the barrel of a gun.

But it hadn't gone off yet.

"You know already," he hissed, and against odds, against every conceivable reason, a stiff, delirious rictus of a grin flickered at the corner of his mouth. He'd be a good patient. He'd prove a theory right. Because this doctor knew him. He knew everything. He probably knew more about Phoenix's life than the man himself. And if he knew all that, he knew that with this much at stake Phoenix would do what it took to keep himself working. He knew that he wouldn't- no.

He knew that he couldn't stop fighting.

"Do I?" The doctor's thumb rested on the plunger. "Do I really know so much? I'm not a god, or a telepath. If you would like to think I am, that's your call."

With that, he pushed down on the plunger, injecting that gold liquid, and withdrew the needle. For a second time, blood welled up where the needle had been. "You did surprise me just then. Of course, I had expected a fight. I had also expected the threat of a malpractice suit, just the way your friend Miles did. I read that report; he spoke more than you did, at first. I suppose your silence was because he told you everything."

The doctor smirked. "Open your eyes, Phoenix. I have one last thing to show you." He wasn't sure this would work, but suspected it might. He held out a picture that the man would surely recognize; a girl dressed in white, red hair flowing down her back, and a too-innocent smile on her face.

"How many do you see? And you should know exactly what I'm asking about."

Gathering the willpower to open his eyes again took longer than Phoenix would have liked, and his only consolation was the fact that he didn't vomit or pass out in that time. But after what might have been seconds or might have been minutes, he managed to squint at whatever was being presented to him. The first eye was already starting to clear, and when he squinted he finally made out the details of the photograph. His memory filled in what his eyes neglected, so seamlessly that he almost imagined for a second that he could see clearly. It wasn't difficult. That picture had been in his wallet for half a year. There was only one girl in the photo.

It could be a girl who'd found him convenient and resented him for not obligingly dying once she had tired of him, a girl who thought him nothing more than an easy mark, gullible and naive and utterly disposable. Or it could be a different girl, a girl who'd seen something lovable in him. The girl who, even after that, let him wander in the shadow of a killer with nothing more than the vague intention to intervene once a crisis had already happened.

But he knew that it was a picture, and pictures could always be another girl - a girl who was light and poetry, who tripped along like a doe and smelled like lily-of-the-valley, a girl who left careless little tails of pink yarn hanging from a bag in her room and giggled while she shooed away a curious hand. Pictures were only so real.

He wondered, for a brief mad moment, how many men he'd see in a picture of Miles.

The shaking hadn't stopped. He looked up at the doctor - or at least, the white blur behind the photograph - and at length managed a scratchy, near-inaudible, "three."

Edited 2009-03-09 03:37 (UTC)

"So few..." The doctor nodded, stepping to one side to make a note on a chart. It wouldn't be perfect, not with looking at a picture rather than looking at a person with things to hide. And of course, the formula had to be modified; it would be nice if it could work on staff, so he could use himself as a guide, but such things weren't allowed.

"I see," the man said, finally. "I had expected you would see a few more, but that's all right. The girl is dead, bless her soul; they do say that the dead keep very few secrets. Or perhaps they keep so many that you're only seeing what's on the surface. Either way, I know that it works, at least." There was a strange emphasis on the words 'bless her soul', a faint accent to them that suggested the words were only mocking her.

He moved to undo the head restraint now, careful to stay just out of sight and out of reach. "I do wish I could stay all night, to see how things develop, but.."

Once it was loose, the doctor threw it to the side, carelessly, and pushed Phoenix's head forward. "Do be careful, now. You don't have your assistants to help you," he said, feeling along the cervical vertebrae. He swabbed it down, briefly, then with something of a flourish, injected another, smaller syringe, carrying a measured dose of sedatives.

"Any final words, before I bid you goodnight?"

So few . . . so few what? Phoenix knew that he would've gotten this by now, if he was in better shape. The talk of secrets could have been cryptic nonsense - with Landel's people he wouldn't have expected anything less - but at the same time that wasn't enough.

He sagged forward, grateful to be shielded at least a little from the light, and winced at the pinprick into his neck. It didn't seem so deep, though, not after all of that.

. . . only seeing what's on the surface.

It all clicked into place with an abrupt, merciless finality: the magatama, his eyes, the questions, deception, Pearl, Dahlia, Maya, everything. The doctor was a buzzing fly now. He lunged forward suddenly, at the photo carelessly put aside, laid atop the used needles on the tray.

"Who are you," he demanded, voice fierce and decisive.

It was only a picture, a picture of a slim, pretty, undeniably dead girl, centered in a slowly narrowing field of vision. Something shimmered on the glossy surface, and Phoenix mistook it for another light-halo until it glinted red and gold against the silver. Again, and he could swear he heard the slither and clank of steel; he recoiled on instinct and it crept out of the paper, metal links like the vines of a terrible flower blooming red-gold again and again, broadening as they crept over spent syringes and cascaded down from the tray like a waterfall, fast and clattering. One shot out and clanged like a bell against the sink. One began twining up around the light, dripping locks like fruit. And one slithered up the chair as Phoenix tried to scramble back, wrapped itself around his neck, and clenched in a whipcrack that brought down the silent, soundless black.

Ah-hah! Now that - the look in Phoenix's eyes right before he fell unconscious - that was what he had been expecting. He smiled, one last long, self-satisfied smirk. The doctor checked his subject's pulse and breathing before loosing the other restraints. The needles went into a sharps bin on one side of the room.

He reached out for the picture, then decided against taking it. They could make more copies of it easily, at any rate. It could serve as a reminder.

"I'm no one, Phoenix," he said, answering the question before unlocking the door and quickly leaving. Someone would be coming soon, he was sure.

[from here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/586685.html?thread=48325309#t48325309)]

Miles let his sword fall to the ground with a loud clatter as he ran into the room. The combined smell of chemicals and blood turned his stomach a second time, but he ignored that. He leaned down, checking for pulse and breathing, and let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding when he realized that both were still there, and still steady. It was only then that he noticed the two puncture wounds, still bleeding lightly. He'd take care of those once Phoenix was conscious. Anyone touching those eyes right now would only be viewed as a threat.

"Phoenix. Wake up. I'm -- we're here," he said. "Come on. Wake up."

Edited 2009-03-10 01:08 (UTC)

There wasn't a dream to wake from, just a long, impossible trek upwards, like wading upstream. Phoenix tried to look at whoever was saying his name on instinct, wincing back with a strained, low noise of pain as his eyes started to sting and water all over again. The most vital facts fell back into place quickly: still the same chair, the same room if the light was anything to go by, head not throbbing as badly (even though that wasn't saying much). It was only when he realized that he wasn't being held down that the pressure on his wrist even meant anything. It was a hand, curled firm around his forearm, and he cringed back from it on instinct before a third or fourth excruciating blink cleared enough of the blood out of his eyes to make sense of it. The color of the cuff was the only thing that mattered.

"Miles?" He managed a flinching glance upward, even though it meant looking much too directly at the light; seeing his face seemed more important than avoiding yet another resurgence from the headache. Almost as an afterthought, he raised his free hand to wipe back the newest track of tears, though it smeared and clung on his cheek. Still in the same sedated haze, he glanced at the heel of his hand. The skin was shining strangely, stained faintly pinkish. For the moment, it wasn't much more than vaguely, unexpectedly concerning.

Entering the room was more difficult than Javert had expected. He almost balked in the doorway as the harsh lighting and sharp smell seemed to fill his senses again, and he would almost certainly would have stopped were it not for the fact that Kunzite was right behind him and what was left of his pride was at stake.

Forcing himself through the door, he headed almost immediately to the side; it appeared as if Edgeworth knew the young man in the chair well, and he was probably a more reassuring presence than Javert would ever be. Instead, he occupied himself with trying to fight back the waves of nausea and keep an eye on their surroundings. He had hardly gotten a good look at the room the last time he was here, but he was sure there would be items of value here, even if he didn't know what half of them were.

Edgeworth nodded to the others, giving them each a look that said 'I'll handle him, you take care of the rest.' That look was tempered with a knowing empathy in Javert's case; it had to be just as hard for him to be here as it was for himself. Even now, when he should have been relieved, that relief was tempered by the fact that this room had been the site of so many atrocities. He had to choke down another wave of nervousness and nausea before he was able to speak again.

"It's me, Phoenix." He forced a look that wasn't quite a smile - this room wasn't for smiling - and moved away just long enough to change the angle of the lowest-hanging light so it wouldn't be directly in his face. While he was away, he took another damp cloth, ready to use it when needed.

A moment later, he was back at Phoenix's side. "Do you think you can stand, or do you need a few minutes more to get your bearings? I'm taking you downstairs. My room is closest. I'll leave everything else here to my colleagues."

He didn't ask the big questions - the ones of what they'd done, why, what they had said. Those could wait. Instead, he focused on gently wiping away the mix of tears and blood with his right hand, while the fingers of his left found Phoenix's and gave them a squeeze.

It was impossible not to relax a little, then. It was over. It was actually over. Even if there were two virtual strangers in the room to see him starting and cringing like a beaten dog, that was an acceptable trade for the averted light and Edgeworth. He closed his eyes at the touch, more on instinct than as a conscious choice, and felt his gut sink as he remembered. He'd gone along with it. He'd shut his mouth and closed his eyes and let it happen, and now there was something in his head he was never going to get away from.

He knew the justifications already. They were good counterarguments; he was sure that if he tried to condemn himself, Edgeworth would use at least one of them. 'Fighting wouldn't have stopped it anyway.' 'The fact that you cooperated means you can still think and speak and see.' But he'd never really know for certain if that was true, if by some impossible chance he could have turned things around. It was insane, of course. But he'd done incredible things before.

"I can get that far," he answered quietly as he returned the grasp, looking up again and finding it easier to focus, if no more comfortable. He wasn't sure if that was the truth or a lie, but he was determined to do everything he could to make it the former. He glanced aside, half-thinking to see who else had come in the room, but the picture on the tray caught his eye first. A picture of a pretty girl, not a mark on her.

He reached out, perhaps on nothing more than impulse, and pocketed it.

He waited for Edgeworth to finish, then pulled himself up, braced heavily on the arm of the chair. One foot to the ground, then the other. He'd actually levered his weight up over unstable knees before the world tipped one way and everything inside his skull swung opposite. He fumbled, caught the one stable thing still in reach and found himself clinging to Edgeworth's coat, forehead pressed against his shoulder, riding out another spike.

"If we run into a monster, I'll get sick on it. It'll be a distraction," he muttered, tone muted but faintly wry, once everything had steadied out again. He would have laughed, but he knew that if he started now it would be hysterical. The quip was empty, brittle bravado, but it lashed him to the illusion of control, and that was good enough. He could say something earnest once he had the luxury of risking turning into a wreck.

Kunzite had taken up the rear, stopping only to pick up Edgeworth's sword. He tossed it toward himself, catching the blade so as to turn it around and present the hilt to its owner. On seeing the way his silver-haired companion was comforting the prisoner, however, he realized the trio had lost a fighter; no matter, he thought, once more flipping the weapon and catching its hilt casually, I shall care for the weapon for now and return it to you when the time is right.

Edgeworth and the young man exchanged some words, most of which Kunzite ignored as he walked around the room. The smells that hit him were sterile and incredibly clean, something he'd not experienced since his days as Shin, and even then those memories were cloudy at best. Faint hints of the treatments he underwent to be brainwashed by Landel's began to trickle forth, but the room...the apparatuses...they were different, and they did not trigger any unusual responses in the swordsman. Nevertheless, a small pang of familiarity tried to force its way into him, one which he fought with considerable strength.

To preoccupy himself in the meantime, Kunzite walked over to the tray and picked up the small vial that lay haphazardly on the tray. The liquid within was clear and flowed easily; it could be water, for all he knew, but despite his lack of medical knowledge, the Shitennou leader recognized a drug when he saw it. Metal boxes hung from the walls, each with doors and peculiar locks in the middle; they must house something valuable to be stored in such an unorthodox manner, Kunzite thought to himself. Indeed, aside from the vial, no other objects of interest could be seen.

"The youth raises a good point," Kunzite interjected. "I should follow behind you and make sure any disturbances are dealt with while you make your way to your quarters. Javert, if it is acceptable I shall leave you to ransacking this room. I may return later, or investigate the pharmacy on the other side of the floor."

Working alone? Javert had few problems with that, especially now that he was armed. He nodded sharply, brushing away the momentary doubt that came with the thought of having to remain by himself in this room. A stupid, childish thought; one that didn't bear thinking. It was clear by now that there was nobody else present.

"It is best if you did," he said, already glancing at the rest of the room. There seemed to be precious few items lying around to be be easily taken, which was something of a pity; nevertheless, he was sure he could find something of value here. He prided himself on being rather more creative than Trevelyan seemed willing to give him credit for.

"Take care, all of you," he added awkwardly. "M. Kunzite, I will probably head to the pharmacy myself after I have examined this room more thoroughly. I trust I will see you there soon."

Well, if Phoenix was still able to make sarcastic comments, that meant whatever they had done hadn't changed his personality. That was a relief in and of itself, and he sighed softly. I never thought I'd be glad to hear you make a snarky comment, Wright, but I am now. I know it's probably bravado and you trying to save some face, but...I'm still glad.

"Thank you," Miles said, looking at both of them with gratitude written all over his face. "Please don't stay here too long, M. Javert. I don't think anyone else is here, but I think it best that no one tarries here too long. Also, thank you for the escort, Kunzite. I think we'll be fine once we make it downstairs, so we won't keep you."

He carefully wrapped one arm under Phoenix's shoulders. "If we're all ready, then..." Miles nodded once and then began walking towards the door, making sure with each step that Phoenix was still all right.

[out to here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/586685.html)]

Javert took a deep breath as the door swung shut behind them. He was being childish; there was nobody here, and certainly any doctors still present would have a difficult time getting him back in the chair, armed as he was.

Still, it took him a few moments before he could rally himself sufficiently to search the room. The payoff was disappointing, to say the least; what drawers were present seemed locked, and no amount of battering at them could open them. Lockpicking was out of the question, as he had no tools and certainly nothing with which to improvise.

All that was left was the tray, some glassware, and a bin that sounded like it contained needles when he rattled it. All of it went into his pillowcase; he was no expert when it came to modern medicine, but he knew Faust was, if he was still around, and there had to be more than a few doctors within these walls. There had to be something they could deduce from this.

One last glance around the room, then Javert left. Now to the pharmacy.

Disciplinary Therapy Room 4 [M-U for Phoenix Wright]

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