The Universe's Mixer

He felt ... kind of uncomfortable. He felt like he had fallen asleep in his van, and was just waking up after a night of sleeping in a vehicle that was meant for driving, and not meant for sleeping in. Cracking open an eye, Oz surveyed his van and frowned as he struggled up to a sitting position.

A quick check in the rear view mirror showed him -- himself. Dressed in what he considered his “Mexico” clothes, and not the asylum uniform that he had gone to sleep in. Or that he had thought he had gone to sleep in.

"Weird." Oz told the van. "Really weird." He turned around in his seat and checked behind him, his guitar was there, the clothes he had had with him on his Mexico adventure. Which begged the question -- was he back in Mexico? Had he had some sort of dream?

A glance out the window of the van showed an unfamiliar cityscape that was very not Mexico looking.

He didn’t feel .. panic. Not quite. But he did feel the wolf, just sort of nosing around the edges of his consciousness. The wolf was not a supper happy camper at the moment, and hey, Oz didn’t blame him, Oz himself was feeling a bit out of sorts himself. And deep, deep, deep down, he was almost glad to feel the wolf was back. He didn’t like the beast, but at least it meant whatever medicine he had been on was out of his system.

Spying the keys in the ignition of the van, he turned the vehicle on. Time to go exploring and see if he could find some answers.

When Lorne got back to his room, there was a nurse waiting there. He started to explain to her about ditching the iv, leaving out the part about the singing cat, but she handed him a file folder and his purple suit and hat, and told him he was being released.

"Mr. Lorne," she'd said, "you're free to go. It seems today is your last day with us."

Lorne had never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

He thanked her, called her sugar, and set about getting dressed and making sure he had everything he'd arrived with. He was still fuzzy on how he'd arrived here, and without the iv, Lorne remembered that Arkham was something out of Batman.

That was troubling.

But as soon as he tied the knot on his very expensive, very Italian, very bright yellow silk tie, Lorne forgot all about that and felt like a whole new demon. He hoped Jake and Jennifer were alright, but he didn't know anything about anyone else here. The iv had seen to that. Lorne simply felt carefree and ready to go. Maybe find Angel.

He took the paperwork off the bed, putting the purple fedora on his head with a flourish, and noticed a little object under the folder, and a note.

The object was a phone, but when Lorne turned it on, it was much fancier than the ones he was used to. It had tinier buttons, and a keypad like a keyboard. When he turned it on, it directed him to an internet page.

"Egad," the demon mused. "What'll they think of next. I have tiny internet!"

He immediately tried to contact Angel Investigations, but the number didn't exist. Also troubling.

"Ehhh. Rats."

Lorne grabbed the note, on his way out of his room now, a slight spring in his step even if there was a big of worry in his heart. He opened it, and couldn't help but wonder.

It was an address. It directed him to go to the address as soon as he could.

Lorne really wished he had tall, dark, and forehead with him right now. What if someone wanted to hurt him? Lately that'd been happening a lot. First Geo's crew, then Holtz blowing up the bar.

Once out the front door of the asylum, Lorne found a cab waiting. He handed the cabby, who, bless his heart, didn't bat an eye at Lorne's green skin, the address.

"Ohhh. Sweet! I love this place," the guy said.
"Yeah? What's there to love?"
"Oh, you'll see, buddy. You'll see!"

Willing to at least trust that he wouldn't get hurt, based on the warm, happy vibes he was getting from the cabby, Lorne spent the ride in anticipation. Where was he going? Why the new phone?

"Here it is," the cabby said, pulling up to an alley.
"An alley?"
"Nope. Down and to the left. See the red light?"
"Sure do. Hey, thanks for the lift."
"Not a problem. Arkham pays us really well for giving you guys rides. Take care."

Lorne nodded, getting out of the cab and looking around at the alley.

"Down and to the left we go, then..."

Lorne found a key in the door. It had a green letter 'L' keyring on it. Lorne figured that meant to turn it. He hoped he didn't explode.

"Oh. My. Stars. And also I think someone else's stars."

Lorne pocketed the key, looking around at an exact copy of Caritas. Exact. Except without vampire hunter damage. He went straight to the bar, humming, and started to fix himself a Sea Breeze. The phone in his pocket started to ring, and the ringtone was the theme to 'Cabaret.'

"Hello?"
A voice on the other end informed him that this place was his, and meant to be a sanctuary. Just like the one in LA had been.
"That's just fine with me, peaches. Just one question. Who's this?"

The line went dead.

16 days. Max must have made quite a mess by now. That damn dog probably had chewed up half of the supplies, and someone was going to pay for it. It took two weeks, but Frank had figured a way out.

The insane girl that talked to invisible friends was nice enough to give The Punisher a doctor's pass card. It was not in itself a means to escape, but it did provide access. Access to supply rooms, to stairwells, and most importantly to privacy. While not his typical loadout, Frank now had a scalpel made into a spear, several bottles of heavy sedatives, syringes and most importantly a map of the place in his mind.

The Punisher walked calmly through the common room trying not to raise any alarm. He pressed his back against a door marked Staff Only. The electronic lock opened with a faint click and he fled into the service corridor. A muffled oompfh could barely be heard in the next room as an orderly was treated to nap time by a spinning heel kick.

It was now or never.

It started when he woke to the sound of the door of his room opening. Orderlies, Crowley assumed. Probably came back to give him more of that glorious sedative that made him sleep. He’d mostly behaved, even when the sedative and drugs wore off. It was strange that they let them wear off. Stranger still when a second orderly entered with a bucket and a sponge and started wiping the script that surround the doorframe, off.

Curious. Since the gradual wear of the drugs eased, Crowley understood where he was. He didn’t understand why he was there, but he sat up on his bed, mostly annoyed that his glorious sleep had been interrupted but now curious as to what was going on.

( There was little harm in asking, so he did. )

Hannibal stood at the window of the room he had long ago rented from Norman Bates. He could not see Arkham Asylum from this very spot, but he knew instinctively where it was. His mind was focused there, though his eyes were not.

The City had taken him in and kept him prisoner. For what purpose, he still did not know. He was fairly sure that there had been many many others in there with him. He had never once seen any of them, but he had heard them. He would be willing to swear that he had felt River, though the absurdity of that would cause him to never speak such out loud.

Doctors and nurses had kept him on drugs that didn't stay in his system like they wanted them to. He was still quite aware despite what they'd put into him, and remembered his stay completely. He was very unhappy with being kept so, but could he harbor ill will toward The City itself? Such a rudimentary and unfathoming being as it was? It was clearly not keeping all of them indefinitely. Hannibal himself had captured bodies for use in study, and other things. Could he then turn around an in a hypocritical statement say that he could not be used for the same goals?

No.

But that didn't mean he had to be happy about it.

He had awoken here, in Bates Motel, as if nothing had gone awry. In his bed, staring at the ceiling. With no memory of the time between the asylum gates and the door of his room. Perhaps there had been no time between. Perhaps he had been placed here as surely as he had been taken from here.

The reigning problem for Hannibal currently was River Tam. He could not get back in to Arkham, no matter what he tried. Walking in proved useless, climbing the gates yielded nothing. Despite knowing there previously were comings and goings from the asylum, he could not go in where he had been before. There was some sort of barrier, he thought. Something pushing him away. He was not one to continue where he knew it was useless, so he had turned his back on the place. Angrily, he'd returned to his room here. Where there was no other guest, where there was no Norman.

To wait.

In the beginning, there was nothing.

A sea of black, both opaque and velvety. No light, no shine, no breath of life.

Until a hand dared protest and it grunted as it slapped itself onto the absent floor and heaved its body up. With a gasp for breath, Paprika tossed her head up and grabbed onto the floor with a second grip. She felt as if her legs were fluid, as though a heavy wind or an inky sea was moving them and tugging her away from the black rocks.

But she pulled herself up and grunting again, she forced her upper body onto the surface and crawled forward. And when she could feel her legs, she pushed her knees onto the ground and forced herself up.

When she looked up, a slam echoed into the darkness, and she gasped as she hurried forward, crying, "Wait, wait!!" making a dash towards oblivion. She mustn't have ran for a long time, she knew, but dreams were strange places with a bizarre time pace. Before she knew it, the wall was upon her, and she slammed onto it with an audible thud but she didn't give up. Raising her fist, she slammed it against the surface in front of her. ( Open up! I said, open up-- )

Jack was dreaming.

It was warm and colourful.
And the Doctor was there, his Doctor.
So was the Master.


Was it a nightmare, he couldn't tell. It didn't feel like it, he didn't want to leave.

He was floating, flying, happy as can be.

Martha and Micky and Rose.
Canary Wharf.

Lions and Tiger and Bears, oh my.


No, not dream.
Jack was hallucinating.

He was in his cell where they kept him, experiments and drugs, tests and questions.

But no answers to be given.

She'd always been the shy, quiet kind of girl - not big on conversation, or having large quantities of friends. She was content with her awkwardness, and liked to think she inherited it from Charlie. She'd never considered it to be flaw, let alone an 'issue' of any kind - heck, if it was, Renee would have sorted her out in the blink of an eye. She was just plain old boring Bella...at least she thought she was.

They always talked in hushed whispers, scribbling on clipboards, dosing her up with all different kinds of pills. But it was the looks that really got to her, because they stared at her like something was...wrong with her. Seriously wrong. Like she had some kind of contagious disease or something.

"Excuse me," She had asked. "Why am I here?"

The nurse smiled. "Oh, bless you child" She said as she patted her hand, and walked off.

It was lunch time, and despite being told that she needed to 'get some sunlight', she sat glumly in the cafeteria, staring into a bowl of rather unappetizing spaghettio's, which were accompanied by fluorescent green rubber, that was supposed to be jello. Just looking at it made her feel green, and she sighed, wondering if anyone else felt the same way.

Mrs. Coulter was ill.

It seemed to start at day one, when doctors came to first inspect her. She was pale and shivering in the corner, her forehead damp with cold sweat. The poor woman sobbed when she begged them not to hurt her or put those needles in her. It was quickly apparent that this woman was helpless and did not need restraining. She was quick to obey orders, and submitted like a good vapid girl. The days continued, and her condition appeared to take a strange turn. Her symptoms bordered to catatonia, with her rigid limbs and obliviousness. She wouldn't make eye contact and was completely quiet. Yet her physical examination were negative. Then finally she was just mostly asleep. She was allowed to be alone.

( She was asleep when the last nurse left. Minutes passed, until Mrs. Coulter's eyes flew open. )

The escape attempt had been days in the making. First, the Doctor had needed to locate the storeroom where the patients' personal effects were stored. Then he'd waited for it to be opened, given that he had no tools to pick the lock. Finally, jackpot: a new patient had been admitted and, in the three minute window during which access was possible, the Doctor snuck in and stole back his things. Once he had his screwdriver? Getting into the staff changing room was much easier. Sure, he could've tried to talk his way in, but he felt that would've been too suspicious. They'd have upped his dose, and that would've greatly hurt any future attempts.

Two sets of scrubs, coats, and badges later, the Doctor was ready. It would be nice to say that he'd picked Fred as a partner in his escape because he was fond of her, or because he was worried. True, he was worried about her, but he also didn't want their captors to get their hands on her work.

( It was dangerous. And, if the right people were to see it, they'd be dangerous. )

He missed his guitar, he missed his guitar a lot. In fact at the moment Oz was sitting on a bench in the hallway and moving his fingers like he was playing chords. Yes, it was an imaginary guitar, that he was playing, but he wanted to do something, and acting like he was playing an imaginary guitar was doing something. And focusing on moving his fingers over those imaginary chords more or less kept him from thinking about last night.

Last night he had tried to get the wolf to come out and hadn't been able to. There was irony there, Oz could acknowledge that. Whatever they had him on here, it was keeping the wolf very much at bay. To think, he had traveled all the way to Tibet to learn the basics of being able to keep the beast inside him under wraps, and all it took was some sort of cocktail of drugs. Who knew. Or maybe he should have guessed, because the wolf could be tranquilized, so it wasn't like modern medicine didn't have an effect on it.

Sitting on the bench, Oz glanced up and looked around. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to be out here, or if this was some sort of loitering. But the bench had been in the hall, and what were benches for if not to be sat upon? So when he had wandered out of his room and down the hall and seen the bench, he had decided to sit. The scenery hadn't changed that much from what he saw in his room, but it was nice to get out of the room he had been spending his time in.

But right, time to focus on the imaginary chords on his imaginary guitar. The nice thing about playing an imaginary guitar was that he could nail that imaginary E flat, diminished ninth chord.

Fred had been busy since the last whitewashing. The hero and the damsel were back on the horse, and this time the hero had no face, no hair, nothing particularly identifiable. Sure, that might have been strange, but Fred was beginning to think that the staff was copying her figures. She didn’t like that they would know her story, that they might try to tell it or retell it. She didn’t like it one bit, so she stopped making the hero look like anyone in particular. The equations and bits of writing around it, on the other hand, seemed more intricate. There was a confidence that hadn’t been there before, or maybe an acceptance? The lettering wasn’t as shaky; the lines more defined.

Fred looked clean, just washed up, and she seemed to be a little more comfortable? Or more she didn’t feel so very alone. Harry had been a bit of a boon, and she was even thinking of leaving her room for a meal outside again. She might have to eat on her own, but it would be outside-ish. She was even considering making her way out of the building completely to the courtyard, which would have been a definite change of pace.

For now, though, she was busy working out an energy exchange that might allow for transportation between two places. It was what she imagined the rudimentary physics that allowed for the Star Trek transporters, but there had to be something more to it that she just wasn’t seeing. Harry had inspired her to think of this as well. Mass/matter transport and the power it would take...

( This could work. )

There were few things to know about Death. She had very few rules. Those she did have she was known to break. For example, everyone dies. Eventually. As a rule, once it was your time Death ushered you gently into the afterlife. But sometimes-- very so often-- Death sometimes bent that rule. She'd bent that rule for an entire race of beings, in fact.

And as another general rule Death did not interfere. Except when she did. There wasn't any rhyme or reason to when Death decided to pop up, only that sometimes she did. Sometimes she even gave gifts. Like Jesse's scarf. The Texan god was easy enough to spot. Even when he was supposed to merely human-- thanks to the scarf Death had knit him-- he still lit up the room, in his way.

Death sat down next to him in a chair, still wearing the black cotton version of all the other patient's clothes. She put her grey, unliving hand over his. Her smile was apologetic. "How're you doing, Jesse?"

Dr. Simon was making the rounds. He hadn't seen Dr. Strange since their last meeting, but he suspected the man was working hard to help the patients. Unless he had slipped back into talking about his strange obsession with doormen. Or just the one named Mu. Dr. Simon was still trying to figure out why anyone would want to be part of an immortal fishing hole, not that he'd ever been to a fishing hole. He supposed it could be pleasant and calming.

At the moment, Dr. Simon was out in the courtyard. There had been an incident recently with an armed patient, but it had been settled. Dr. Simon had warned the staff that sporks were evil; while they may be efficient and decrease clutter, sporks were certainly acts against nature in their hybridized form. Chop sticks were much cleaner. The staff had told Dr. Simon in no uncertain terms that chop sticks were more dangerous than sporks. That had been that.

The good doctor walked slowly along the outer part of the courtyard, watching the patients, making sure they were interacting well when they did interact. It seemed to be a nice calm place, and Dr. Simon was rather happy to be out of the building proper. He was beginning to get restless; something didn't feel right, as if he'd forgotten something. He knew it couldn't have been leaving the oven or the iron on as he had neither. No, he felt as if he weren't complete. It was a disturbing feeling no matter the source, so he hoped that helping one of the patients would ease that unsettling/disturbed feeling.

The world spun and refused to stop.

Haku didn't know what had happened exactly, but he instinctively recognized the symptoms of a curse. He struggled to focus his thoughts, but his mind refused. He struggled to stand, to shake his head, to snap at that annoying pressure wrapped tight around his jaw like a - oh, it was a muzzle, he blearily realized, made of bits of metal and fabric that could be easily torn if he could just -

But his muscles wouldn't obey. His eyes rolled wildly, taking in his impersonal surroundings. Claws scratched weakly at a smooth floor, finding no purchase. Even if he could get his feet to listen properly, there were other restraints to deal with, though they seemed unneccessary. He couldn't even stand, let alone run or fly.

There were voices, too, but they sounded far away and Haku didn't bother to try and hear what they were saying. They were likely the cause of this curse, so they'd have to be dealt with eventually, but he knew better than to try and fight them while they had control over him. The first step - the first step was - was -

Something was pricking him under his scales.

Haku wanted to snap at it. His jaw twitched and the muscles in his neck clenched with the effort of twisting, but he barely moved. Even his tail, normally barely under his conscious control and much more prone to reacting violently than the rest of him, couldn't deter the sharp little pokes in his flank. Part of his mind could tell that something foreign was inside of him, as damaging a pollutant as oil in the Kohaku River. He couldn't figure out what it was, though, and it became impossible to try as it wrapped around his thoughts and drew them under.

And then it didn't matter what was happening because the world spun the other way, and Haku tumbled into the darkness like a pebble cast into the sea.

Sweeney wasn’t happy, but he was surprisingly calm for someone who had been denied his cigarettes and booze. Instead he chewed on a piece of rolled up paper that he’d previously inscribed the words “Fuck Bran” repeatedly in purple crayon on. He fumbled through the cards in his hand, organizing, strategizing, all without looking up from his cards or giving any indication on his face as to what was in his hand.

He transferred his hand of cards to his left hand completely and brought his right hand up to fiddle with the rolled up paper between his teeth. Sweeney pulled it out as if to speak, narrowed his brow, put it back between his teeth and fiddled with the cards again.

( He knew where he was without a clue how he got there. )

The demon known colloquially as Crowley, was confused. First of all, he was on a bed. Which, while in and of itself wasn’t strange - he liked to sleep a great deal, it was that he wasn’t in his own bed. That much registered with him. Except where he was, was clouded. He didn’t know how he got there at all. When he tried to sit up, he ended up flopping back down. It was hard to sit up. Exhausting even.

( Clasping his hands on the bed, slowly, he inclined his body back into a sitting position. )

"Hey, so how was your weekend?"

River kept her eyes shut, even though she knew they'd made some kind of mistake. That, or--also a possibility--she'd developed an immunity to one of the drugs they were giving her. Two orderlies were in here, moving her around so she could get washed up. They would undo her restraints, stand her up, give her a quick shower, and put her back the way she was, complete with the needles in her arm.

The orderly who was being asked about his weekend wasn't going to tell the one doing the asking that he'd spent the weekend getting stoned, and was still baked when he'd come to work this morning. River knew, then, that he'd screwed up her dosage. What would happen would be his fault.

"Oh, it was cool," the guy said. "Y'know. Hung out. What did you do?"

The second orderly undid the restraint that held her legs, then lifted her off of the gurney. River let her head loll to one side.

"Me and the wife went down to the museum with the kids," the other answered. "There's some dinosaur exhibit going on they've been begging me to see. Wasn't too bad."

She didn't open her eyes, she just listened. The shower started and she could feel the water, and the stoner orderly holding her up by the arms. They kept chattering, and River progressively took more of her weight on herself, until she was standing on her own.

She sighed loudly, and opened her eyes. The two men looked a little stunned.

"I'm sorry," she said, meaning it. Then she knocked their heads together and watched them fall into an unconscious ball on the floor. She knew she had only minutes before someone realized what was going on, so she grabbed a hospital gown from the chair, wrapped it around herself, tied it, and ran.

An alarm went off when she hit the stairwell to leave the floor.

A bulky orderly was waiting at the door of the floor two below, and River kicked him hard, then hit him with the heel of her hand. She kept running, mumbling under her breath about the number of steps from her point of origin, and how far it might be to the door...

When she saw someone coming, she hid, climbing up into the ceiling and holding onto the sprinkler.

She waited.

Something was missing. Dinah knew it the instant her eyes opened. She tried her voice and, while she could manage to croak out some words, she didn't seem to have access to her canary cry. Panic coursed through her, as she remembered another time when she'd lost her cry. Her hands were bound to the bed, but she struggled against the bonds to get to her stomach. When nothing gave way, she glanced down. For a second, she thought she saw a trail of blood, felt the phantom pains of being gutted so long ago.

"Breathe, Dinah," she muttered to herself.

When she was able to fight through the memories, she took stock of things. As far as she could tell, there was no pain, save for the cloth restraints that bit into her skin. But she'd felt worse. Far worse. There was no cut trailing from her collar to her waist, no broken bones, and nothing else damaged except for her voice.

It was only after a few days of nurses visiting her room and shoving pills down her throat that Dinah started to piece things together. The pills had muddled her mind, so she couldn't quite place how she'd gotten here. They also must have suppressed her vocal chords, because she felt no sign of damage beyond the fact that she just couldn't use them properly. It took a few more days for her to remind herself to focus on one of the nurse's ID tags when they entered to give her a meal and her daily dose of medicine. Arkham. But why? How? Something must have gone very wrong with her last mission, but she couldn't remember the details of the mission or how she might have ended up here.

Dinah realized that the only way out was to play along for the time being. She needed to earn their trust so she could get out of the restraints.

Once she began to play along, Dinah was allowed the freedom to walk around her room, and to take the meds on her own instead of having them forced down her throat. This allowed her to hide them under her tongue, so that slowly she regained her wits. The next step in the plan was simple. She needed to find a way to get a message out to Oracle. Barring that, she needed to break out of Arkham.

After all, how hard could it be? It seemed someone was always breaking out of Arkham... Somehow, the thought brought her little comfort.



A few days later, Dinah paced her room. They'd finally released her from her restraints, though they had yet to let her out of the room. She'd started to piece things together during her time of solitude. She'd decided that this couldn't be Arkham. Not really. After all, Barbara had eyes all over Gotham. If Dinah had mistakenly ended up in Arkham, Barbara would have already sent a team to extract her.

So if this wasn't Arkham, then where was she? Who was behind it, and why? The who and why were perhaps more important, but Dinah didn't like this sense of being trapped somewhere without any idea as to where she actually was.

And that was always where her thoughts fell right back into the same loop. She might have been able to get out of taking a few of the pills they gave to her, but she hadn't been able to miss every dose, and there was still whatever they injected into her every few hours. All of that served to keep her mind in a perpetual state of confusion, as though the answers were right there, and yet she couldn't quite reach far enough.

The door opened and a kind-faced nurse grinned at her.

"You've been such a model patient lately, dear. The doctors have decided to allow you out for arts and crafts." Her voice indicated that Dinah was receiving a great treat.

Dinah stared at the woman as if she was, well, mad. Arts and crafts? She didn't paint, crochet, or anything else one might find in an arts and crafts class. She opened her mouth to tell the woman this, and then realized that this was her chance to get out of the room and hopefully learn more about her surroundings.

"Great," she said with a strained smile.

The nurse led her down the hallway, which oddly enough did look like one of Arkham's hallways. Dinah frowned, though she reassured herself that anyone could have recreated the design of the building. If they really wanted to make her believe she was inside Arkham, there's no telling what they might have done to pull this off.

It still didn't quite add up, but Dinah's thoughts were distracted as the nurse deposited her in the arts and crafts room in front of an easel. Dinah glanced around the room at the rest of the patients, some of whom were painting away happily and some of whom seemed just as perturbed as she was to be shoved into this situation.

She sighed and picked up a paint brush, forcing a grin. The nurse seemed satisfied with this and patted her on the shoulder.

"Have fun, honey. Someone will be back to collect you in an hour for lunch."

The nurse gone, Dinah took the chance to look around at her surroundings. From the view out of the one tiny window in the room, she would guess they were on the third or fourth floor. The room had one exit, and it was flanked by large orderlies. If she was at full strength and not drugged, she could easily have taken them out. But for now, she would just have to content herself to watch and learn more.

There was weird, Weird, and Sunnydale Weird -- and Oz tended to roll with all of the forms of weird that the universe threw at him in the same way. He'd think about what had just happened, re-arrange the way he looked at reality a bit if need be (often the explanation that something Sunnydale Weird was going on made things make a lot more sense) and then nod and sometimes say; "oh" or "I see." or "well that makes things make more sense." He rarely said this last one -- figuring in most cases that his "oh," or "I see" covered all that.

So when he woke up in a strange room, wearing strange clothes, his firs reaction had been ... "oh.".

He had been in Mexico. And now -- he wasn't sure.

So. When the going got tough, Oz tended to take off. But the door to the room he had found himself in was locked ... which was problematic. Memories of the Initiative were rather fresh in Oz's mind, and he had almost expected thinking that about that would make the wolf break out of the cage that Oz worked so hard at keeping it in -- so Oz did what he thought was best.

He sat down on the floor,and worked really hard at thinking calm thoughts, and on meditating. (He wasn't sure where he was. And he figured the wolf might be helpful in getting out of here -- but the thing with he wolf was, that once it was let out it was hard to rein it back in, until it was ready). So for now -- it was time to mediate.