Tweak

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Tweak says, "I woke up singing top cat!"

{BUFFY} vampire slayer (i_diedtwice) wrote in we_coexist,
@ 2011-01-02 01:08:00

Entry tags:

buffy summers, in arkham, john watson

The Tragic Case of Buffy Summers (Narrative/Open!)
Buffy Summers spent the majority of her time at Arkham Asylum in a catatonic state. Each day a pair of orderlies would bring her out into the commons, seating her at a table. The young woman spent hours in her chair completely motionless, frozen with her face arranged in a troubled expression. She looked so concerned, so deep in thought until, usually another patient with a sense of humor, took her arms and posed her ridiculously-- positions Buffy could hold the entire day until she was put back in her cell for the night.

Most days Buffy was silent. There were rare occasions, however, when the slayer would say some meaningless phrase, repeated over the course of the day. Phrases like, My skin should crack and peel, or, Don't give me songs. Sometimes she merely repeated what was said to her.

Every two hours, a nurse would attend to the slayer, taking a needle to her arm and injecting her with an unknown substance. Except today.

Today, Buffy was left alone in the commons for four hours. After missing two doses of the drug cocktail she was regularly given, her eyes fluttered open as if waking for the first time. She placed a hand on her head suffering from throbbing pain and intense light sensitivity. For the first time since Buffy had been placed in the asylum she was able to process her surroundings, of the people next to her. She looked down at the white linen clothing she wore, unable to recall when she'd been dressed.

"Where am I?" Only after she asked did the slayer power through her migraine to see if someone nearby could answer her question.

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i_blog
2011-01-02 10:21 pm UTC (link)

Watson refrained from pointing out that they all probably felt that they weren't meant to be there - the sane ones because they truly weren't, the crazy because of whatever delusions had brought them inside. The 'asleep' response, though? That sounded familiar. Her story was like his own and, because of it, he believed this girl.

"I was asleep too. I was in the back of a van, and then I blacked out." John smiled what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "You know, it does them no good to hold us any longer than is necessary. There's the expense, for one thing, and why hold healthy people when the ill need the spaces?"

They were the words of comfort that Watson had been repeating to himself since he'd arrived. The doctors weren't idiots. "We're probably just here for observation. A few days, and we'll be out."

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i_diedtwice
2011-01-03 02:53 am UTC (link)

Buffy gave John a look. They may have been comforting words to him but Buffy had been turned into a rat, almost burned at the stake, possessed and otherwise enchanted one too many times to believe that The City was simply going to let them go after a couple more days. If they were in a hospital-- that kind of hospital-- trying to explain the situation coming out of a head-splitting drug haze wasn't going to help her credibility.

"I'm not sticking around to find out."

Buffy sounded very sure of herself until she tried to stand. Thanks to the lack of medication the room span wildly and the slayer shut her eyes until the feeling stopped. Buffy felt weak and instantly recognized it as sedatives. It would be days before it wore off and her powers returned.

She slowly opened her eyes to look at him trying to think of something she might say to convince him to come with, for his own sake, that wouldn't sound paranoid or completely insane. "If you were here for observation, they wouldn't have waited to take you until you were blacked out in a van."

That was the best she could come up with. Nothing anywhere near her trademark witticisms. Her mind was still too hazy for that.

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i_blog
2011-01-03 03:40 am UTC (link)

Yikes. As Buffy swayed on her feet, John pushed himself up to his own. Without thinking about it, he reached out to try and take her arm. Of course, he was also a little woozy, but his own dosage was low enough to allow decent motor skills. "Hey," he said, "are you alright?"

Which was a ridiculous question, really. Of course she wasn't alright. She wasn't alright, and she seemed to have every inclination of running off. He had to say something to calm her.

John weighed several different responses before settling on the simplest: the truth. "Well, to be fair, I was strapped into a whole load of explosives at the time. It was a message for my flatmate; long story. We could be here for observation, to check for trauma or shock." The next question died in his throat - how did you ask a young woman if she'd experienced anything particularly awful prior to arrival in the hospital?

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i_diedtwice
2011-01-03 05:34 pm UTC (link)

Buffy let him help. She needed his support more than she realized when she first stood up. One of her hands rested on his shoulder as she steadied herself. Her fingernails were short, but well maintained. Though she was heavily drugged, there was strength in her hands and in her arm, and a boldness with which she trusted him.

And when John told her the remaining details, Buffy frowned. One, because being strapped to explosives were never a good thing and two, because she suspected the hospital might be the least of the slightly older man's problems.

"What city were you in? When you were pulled out of the van, I mean."

Buffy watched him very intently, or as intently as she could for feeling like such a train wreck, and secretly prayed the next words out of his mouth were going to be The City. She motioned with her head that she wanted to start walking for the door. She hadn't moved because she wasn't going to get nearly as far unless he agreed to help.

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i_blog
2011-01-03 11:58 pm UTC (link)

"I was in London when I went into the van. I didn't get a good look around when I came out - the next thing I knew, I was in a hospital bed here. I thought I'd lost a limb, honestly. Imagine my relief when they were all still attached." John tried to make light of the situation for Buffy's benefit, because she seemed very serious and very concerned.

At the head-bob towards the door, Watson began walking slowly in that direction. Very slowly, but if the younger woman seemed capable of going faster, he'd increase his pace.

"I'm John Watson, by the by - I'm a doctor. Not this sort of doctor," he indicated the room with a roll of his eyes, "but an army doctor. Emergency medicine. If you start feeling ill, please let me know. I might be able to help."

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i_diedtwice
2011-01-04 12:53 am UTC (link)

"Buffy Summers," she replied. "...If I can just get a good look around I might be able to come up with something. I don't know what hospitals are like in London, I'm sure they're all hospital-y, but it's different here."

It made her feel better that he was an army doctor. She needed someone who wouldn't panic in a fight. If nothing else he'd at least seen the end result. Though she started very slowly, with each step she got a little quicker and more certain of herself.

Unfortunately, the door ahead of them was opened by orderlies before they made it. Two very, very large men who zeroed in on the two patients right away. One of them immediately barked into an intercom, "Code red! Code red! The Slayer is lucid! I repeat! The Slayer is lucid!"

The first orderly barreled toward them while the second, once he finished calling for back up, quickly followed. Buffy let go of John instantly, bracing herself for a fight. The first orderly attempted to tackle her but the blonde, who was only 120 pounds soaking wet with a large dinner, managed to dodge and then trip him. The orderly's body slid a good four feet before crashing into plastic chairs.

Buffy spared one desperate second to look at John having only two to react to the next orderly.

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i_blog
2011-01-04 05:47 am UTC (link)

Suddenly a lot of things were happening in a very short span of time. The medical staff, panicked for no reason that John could readily identify, were shouting something about a 'slayer' (what was a slayer, anyway?) and lunging about like rugby players. Not. On. Watson found himself torn between two instincts: the instinct to protect the poor, heavily drugged young woman, and the instinct to treat the medical staff as rational people.

So, he compromised.

"Hey." John barked at the remaining orderly as he tried to slide himself into the path between Buffy and the much larger man. "Let's just calm down. She hasn't made any trouble - there's no need to use force."

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i_diedtwice
2011-01-04 06:04 am UTC (link)

When the orderly responded to John it became immediately clear that one, he spoke very slowly to John as a mental patient and not a doctor, and two, besides one quick glance the orderly was very careful to keep John's eye contact, "Sir, I need to step away from the girl very calmly, and very slowly."

Buffy was normally much quicker. She'd turned to face John when the orderly who'd tripped behind her moved as slowly and quietly as he could to grab Buffy in a bear hug from behind. The Slayer cried out and then knocked her head as hard as she could backwards into the face of the orderly. The orderly dropped her to attend to his bleeding nose, while Buffy herself saw stars flash across her vision.

Before she could think about bolting (which in her condition would have been a joke) there were four more orderlies at the door with a nurse behind them. Buffy's face fell. She was just long enough to distract her from the orderly that pushed past John to tackle her to the floor. They both fell with a painful smack.

Buffy fought valiantly, and though a couple of her kicks and punches landed, they lacked the supernatural strength she needed to make a real impact. Suddenly there were four large men holding her down. The nurse attended to the orderly with the bleeding nose first, "Keep her still!"

The remaining orderly watched John carefully for signs that he might interfere.

When the nurse unsheathed his needle, Buffy renewed her struggle. "No! Please, no! Please!" If they wanted her still, she'd do her best to be otherwise.

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i_blog
2011-01-04 06:23 am UTC (link)

John knew when he was outnumbered; he knew that fighting with the orderlies and nurse would only end with him in a drugged stupor. Still, he felt an immediate and overwhelming urge to take a swing. "And we're meant to be the mad ones," he said, perhaps a little louder than was strictly called-for. "She was fine until you frightened her. Was that honestly necessary?"

He clenched his fists but managed to control himself as the pile of grown men swarmed the girl. Barbaric. A complete overreaction. Even if he'd misjudged and she were mad.

Watson felt his faith in the asylum's medical staff ebbing a little.

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i_diedtwice
2011-01-04 06:35 am UTC (link)

The orderly in front of John crossed his arms as though he didn't approve of the patient's tone in the slightest. The nurse readied the drug cocktail in his needle before crouching down next to the slayer and injecting the entire dosage. Buffy cried out one last time but the strength that remained quickly began to drain from her limbs. She stopped struggling.

The orderlies lifted the girl back into the seat they always placed her. The nurse let out a sigh of relief: crisis averted. Buffy blinked a few times, inhaling and exhaling until she fell back into a comatose state. Unmoving and unspeaking.

The nurse glanced at his watch and set a timer on the digital face for two hours. Then the small team left. The Slayer wasn't going to be able to escape now.

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i_blog
2011-01-06 12:04 am UTC (link)

John stared back levelly at the orderly. It was a calm, unintimidated, disappointed stare, and he held it until it verged on uncomfortable. Then he turned and made his way back to the table. When he got out, he told himself, he’d have a word with the organization that was responsible for oversight of the hospital. Until then? He’d sit with the poor girl. Drugged as she was, she probably wouldn’t notice, but it would make him feel better.

It was the only thing John could think of to do.

He slipped back into the chair and watched the orderlies. Sherlock would have found some exploitable weakness by now. John? John observed the way they carried their weight and the way they glanced around the room. Not trained fighters, but they’d clearly had experience in dealing with trouble. He exhaled through his nose, a huff of disgust.

Sloppy. It was one thing to handle a difficult patient and another entirely to create a difficult patient by frightening them.

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i_diedtwice
2011-01-06 03:22 am UTC (link)

It was the drugs, not her mental health, that put Buffy in a catatonic state. Normally the catatonia was something that health professionals tried to cure or limit with medicine, not recreate. But it was the only way they could keep the Slayer contained with any certainty. Even without her powers, the Slayer while not being smart was certainly prone to clever. Arkahm couldn’t risk it.

So she sat in the chair perfectly still. And two hours later a nurse came to give the Slayer another injection.

The next two hours went the same, as they always did, except with four minutes left Buffy’s eyes fluttered softly. After how many days of being pumped with chemicals the Slayer was either developing a resistance or learning how to fight it.

Three minutes now. It wouldn’t be enough time to move before the staff came in again. Buffy hadn't moved yet, but the vacant look in her eye had been replaced with awareness. She was trying.

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i_blog
2011-01-06 11:59 pm UTC (link)

The first time the nurse had come back, John had tried to ask what was wrong with Buffy. He genuinely wanted to understand what illness could require that level of sedation - was she dangerous? Violent? She hadn't seemed it, but he didn't have a lot of information to go on. He could've been wrong.

The nurse had patronized him, giving him a vague reply. 'She's ill,' or something like it. He didn't appreciate being brushed off - even if he were in for shock, he wasn't an idiot. If they couldn't tell that he had his wits about him, they were terrible medical professionals. He hadn't argued, though. He hadn't wanted to get dosed with whatever they were injecting into Buffy.

John had been telling stories, off and on. He was completely aware that the girl across from him wasn't paying attention; with the medication Buffy was on, he might as well have been talking to himself. It didn't matter. When he wasn't watching the other patients or the hospital staff, he was recounting whatever tales came to mind. Ghost stories from childhood, tales of his medical school days, and autobiographical reminiscences about his time rooming with Sherlock.

It was during one of his talkative spells that he noticed a change in Buffy's expression. "So then he borrowed my mobile and---" Hmm. The vacant stare wasn't so vacant anymore. Watson halted his story immediately and glanced at the door. No orderlies, but that didn't mean they wouldn't be rounding the corner soon. He'd been paying attention to the medication schedule, but he hadn't thought to measure the time it took to get from his room to the lounge. Why should he? That morning, there hadn't been a reason.

The fact that Holmes would've counted his steps didn't make Watson feel any better.

"How do you feel about risk-taking?" John whispered.

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i_diedtwice
2011-01-07 01:05 am UTC (link)

She'd had dreams, hallucinations. Sometimes she remembered things from her past. Other times stories of a Victorian Sherlock Holmes and John Watson were solving cases. Then there were flashes back to the asylum. Buffy tried hard to hold onto the memories of these dreams but they faded quickly. There would be no prophetic help or insight--

Just images of a tall man wearing a deerstalker and a shorter, rounder man following him faithfully. Buffy caught glimpses of tv adaptations occasionally, but she barely got through high school French-- she hadn't read the stories.

Her mouth opened minimally as if to reply, but she wasn't quite able to speak yet. Buffy was trying to make meaning out of the drug induced images fading from her memory. None of it made sense and the headache leftover from the drugs was excruciating.

There was a slight nod of her head in response.

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i_blog
2011-01-07 02:36 am UTC (link)

"Good." John whispered. If she was willing? Watson was happy to give his plan a try. He wasn't certain what had come over him, because he knew what he was about to do was reckless and unlikely to work, but he also knew he hadn't much time. The day was winding to a close, and there was no guarantee that she'd be there in the morning. The moment was passing - if he was going to take the opportunity, he'd have to do it now. "I think I can carry you if I have to, but it'll play better if you can stumble along a little. Hold onto me, keep your head down, and look ill."

He knew where he was headed - a janitor's closet a few doors down from the lounge. As a positive, it was near the restrooms, which gave them a plausible excuse for being up and about. As a negative? They now had about two minutes to get there, and the route involved walking down a stretch of open hallway.

John got up, reached for Buffy with both hands, and tried to hoist her to her feet. If he got her up? He'd slip under one of her arms and start for the door.

He hadn't thought as far as what he'd do once they'd reached the closet. Hide, and then what? It didn't matter. He knew he wanted to speak to someone lucid and sane(ish), and the only way to do that was to take some chances.

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i_diedtwice
2011-01-07 02:49 am UTC (link)

At first Buffy wasn't able to do much. Thankfully she was a petite woman. A soldier like John had probably worn more weight in kevlar and gear than what the slayer weighed.

But slowly her feet started to move. It wasn't hard to look sick, she felt sick. The room was spinning and being on the move wasn't helping that. But she did her best not to be dead weight and somehow, miraculously, they'd made it into the closet unseen by anyone who was unmedicated and self aware.

"Watson?"

Was that his name? She remembered John. Did he say John Watson or had that been a part of the drug trip? The words were still a little slurred.

"...like inthe ... Sherlock..."

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i_blog
2011-01-07 03:07 am UTC (link)

Chalk one up to minor miracles - in spite of all obstacles, they'd found their way to a hiding place. John honestly hadn't been prepared for success, so he couldn't help but smile as he barred the door with a cleaning cart. It was mad, running and hiding from the nurses, but they were in a madhouse. When in Rome.

As the sound of his name, Watson turned around. Why was she asking about his -- oh. Oh. "You were listening. I'm sorry, that probably made for fairly grisly entertainment. Yes, Sherlock. He's my flatmate. A 'consulting detective,' and before you say it, yes. I know that's not a real occupation. He does it anyway."

John kept his voice down - just barely over a whisper, as he was trying to listen for signs of commotion in the hallway.

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