Day 52: Intercom, Dawn

[damned_intercom]

There was no telling if the next announcement came hours or minutes after the previous one, but regardless of that, it did come on with the onset of dawn. Like clockwork, like always, someone was there to greet the half-groggy patients as they woke up in their beds

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M110

[angeritself]

Something foul. Something foul was waking him up. Something in the air, sound or a smell, sound, like someone needed to learn to cover her mouth, did she want to get him sick, did she want him to catch a cold and die?

Heiwajima Shizuo did not, exactly, think that. He wasn't conscious enough, lucid enough, for even that small kick into fury. It served to wake him sour, a scowl already playing at his lips. The more important question should have been, who the hell was in his apartment? A sense of that disruption had hit him, so his eyes opened narrow. The ceiling. The feel of the bed, whether the pillow under head head or the sheets, the blanket. It felt different.

Shizuo sat up, pushing away the coverings with a surly hand, confronted now with the white walls. The other bed. The desk, drawers closet. The drab gray uniform on his body. He'd been in the hospital enough to get a vague sense of familiarity from this, but not all of it. Something still struck as off; the odor behind the medicine. Things weren't always so clear, when he went from enraged to calm again -- names and faces blurred in the mania, so it wasn't actually too bizarre for him to wake in hospital clothes, unsure of how he'd gotten there.

But, with a stunning level of observation, well outside his usual, Shizuo grasped a few things immediately: 1) he wasn't injured, so why would he be in a hospital? 2) these weren't hospital clothes, those felt different; 3) this wasn't a hospital. He felt it, understood it, like an itch, like the entire thing reeked of machinations and if plots were involved, there was one man one flea and after that thought struck, it was too late.

"...the hell," he muttered, raking a hand through his hair, hand tightening into a fist before finishing, knuckles scraping skull. Shizuo stood, looking over the desk. No sign of his sunglasses. Walked over to the closet, every muscle tense, throbbing, waiting. Swung open the door (it did not threaten to separate from its hinges), greeted with gray and gray and gray, some of it smiling. Those little yellow faces. His head tilted, just so, to one side.

"Do you think this is funny?" he asked, apparently of the shirts, or the closet, or the room. His voice a low simmer. "Is this funny? Do I look like I'm smiling?"

Looking down at the shirt he wore, that damn face, smiling. A vein twitched above his left eye. When he grabbed the front of his shirt, it should have torn right off. It didn't. It was too late for practical thoughts that might wonder why, why did he have to pull it over his head to get the ugly thing off, and throw it into the closet. (It should have been too late, but it prickled, as if behind his eyelids, something caught--). Shizuo stepped back, turned, marched over to the drawers -- and began, after seeing their contents, to violently rip them out, tossing them into the door that lead into the room. At some point, he'd begun shouting.

"WHAT THE HELL IS SO FUNNY, HUH? WHERE THE HELL AM I, WHERE THE HELL ARE MY CLOTHES?!"

The last drawer crashed into the door, and with a well-placed fist, Shizuo bounded over the bed. The desk drawer flew into the opposite wall, slamming down onto the mirroring desk. Panting, oddly tired, though these should have been tantamount to pillows, to pebbles. After tipping over the desk (where it fell against the bed), he started on dismantling the closet. Grabbing hold of the rod from which the clothes hung, Shizuo began to try to pull it free. Heaving, twisting, yanking, increasingly conscious of the screws that held it in place; the rod did not give, but the room's door opened. Or, tried: it took an effort for the nurse to push it, as the door had to fight and nudge aside the collected drawers.

At the sound, Shizuo turned. Having given up on the rod, he clutched three hangers in one hand and two in the other. "Who are you?! It's just like that coward to send someone else! Where is he? WHERE THE HELL IS THE DAMN FLEA?!"

[damned_nurses]

Even with the heavy, unbreakable door that was in place between the room and the hallway, this new patient's screaming could be heard loud and clear. It was possible that some of his roommates could even hear the ruckus he was making, as a steady rhythm of banging that could only be caused by tossed furniture was added to the racket.

The nurse who had been assigned to this room and this patient found herself sighing as she lingered outside of the door. She was going to have to steel herself, and even called two orderlies over to stand close-by.

There was a good chance that that violence would get turned on her, and yet she had handled problem patients in the past. She would be fine.

Nodding, she turned the knob and found that the door had been barricaded, at least somewhat. It wasn't so severe that she couldn't apply more strength and force the drawers back until the door was open, but...

She remained in the doorway, watching the newcomer with a level expression. "Mr. Peace" -- and wasn't that an unfortunate last name? -- "whatever you're looking for, it doesn't seem to be here. Would you mind coming with me now?"

[ Court ]

[angeritself]

When angry (like a burr, stuck and sticking, this doesn't feel the same), to say that Shizuo had a low comprehension level would be to make a vast understatement. The situation was already confusing enough, with not a single thing as it should be. It took a moment for the name she had called him to sink in, to filter through the haze (not as thick as he knew it), and another moment to realize that she'd said it like it was his name.

A beat passed in which Shizuo, wielding hangers (three shirts, one coat, one sweatshirt), shirtless, stared at the nurse. No sense, nonsense, it didn't make a damn bit of sense, not a single fucking whit of it, not a bit, with an incoherent shout, he freed his right hand of its two hangers (coat and sweatshirt) by flinging them across the room.

"Who the hell is Mr. Peace? Do you think calling me Mr. Peace like I'm somebody else will make me forgive you? I get it, I fucking get it."

His teeth bore in a wide, enraged grin. "That flea told you I was this Mr. Peace, now I'm here, with these shitty clothes in this shitty room, with a shitty woman like you acting like this is all NORMAL, LIKE THIS COULD BE FUCKING NORMAL, WHY THE HELL WOULD I FOLLOW YOU, HUUUH? TELL THAT FUCKING FLEA I'LL RIP OUT HIS BONES, THEN I'LL SHOVE THEM BACK AND RIP THEM OUT AGAIN!"

Shizuo charged, hand brought back into a fist which he'd every intention of connecting. Or, maybe he'd grab her by the front and shake some answers out of her. Whichever. (The fact a choice seemed to exist, that--)

[damned_nurses]

The lack of a shirt hadn't bothered her too much. That wasn't too out of the ordinary. Some patients saw the face printed on the uniforms as some sort of threat (she didn't quite understand why, but they were mentally ill), and so they refused to wear the clothing until they were forced. The fact that he was holding clothes hangers (with the clothing still on them) was more abnormal, but--

Either way, Mr. Peace didn't waste any time in trying to use those as projectiles. One got close to hitting her, but she managed to duck out of the way in time. But before she could get a word in edgewise, he started with the shouting again.

"Just listen," she attempted, but the patient continued babbling on about a flea (what was that?), and then came the foul language and the raised tone. "Stop it!" she demanded. What he was saying was completely out of hand, with threats to top it all off. He wasn't threatening her, but before long his fists were doing the talking.

The nurse was prepared, though, and she ducked out of the room the second he started to run for her. "Get him!" she snapped at the orderlies, and the two rushed to block the doorway, both prepared to catch the patient in their strong grips and restrain him.

[angeritself]

Get him, that was familiar, that he knew, years and years and years of them picking fights, guys with something to prove, wanting to fight, pulling bats and knives and iron knuckles, not giving two shits that he hated violence hated violence! Shizuo's momentum slowed at the sight of the two men, but not for long, not really, a target was a target and he'd figured them out, all of them, the whole damn place.

Get him, they wanted to get him violent, like everyone wanted to get him violent, not caring what he wanted. He'd said it before (not that he remembered) and he'd say it again: just because they wanted him violent meant he shouldn't give in and get violent, didn't mean he wouldn't get violent, he'd get violent and beat them within an inch of their lives, within a centimenter, a fucking millimeter, and then he'd beat them again! There wasn't enough time or space to shout this, or anything but a garbled thing that might have been IHATE VIO before he was swinging one fist at one man, and aiming to crash his elbow into the other.

[damned_nurses]

The attacks that should have caused the orderlies to double over in pain did hardly any damage at all. The male nurses refused to budge, both standing there like brick walls as they allowed the patient to attempt his onslaught. Each one let out a small grunt of pain, but that was the extent of it -- almost as if their skin was armor instead of flesh.

When the patient's elbow hit the one, he reached out and grabbed for his arm, pulling it into an impossibly tight grip. With that arm restrained, it was easier for the other orderly to move around behind Shizuo and grab the second limb.

"It'll be easier if you calm down now," one said, a final chance being given to the rowdy patient. The nurse, meanwhile, stayed outside of the room, waiting for their signal.

[angeritself]

The other side of the fence: it was enough to give Shizuo a proper, stalling shock. For his fist to hit skin that felt like brick, to not cause pain but only feel it, as if he were the typical human. It wasn't that Shizuo took pride in his strength, that he adored or cherished it, that right now, he missed it. But, neither his body nor his mind could comprehend this, this, his arm wrenched back, his arms held, by strength greater than his.

What? A stupor, but through it, that sense, the prickling, the shred of logic no one, certainly not Shizuo, knew he possessed. What was this place? Monsters to hold the monster who, how, why, how, too many questions, too many words, only one answer made sense, had to be the flea, the damn flea, had found this place to hold him, but he wouldn't be held.

"You want me to calm down?" he asked, voice not level, reverberating with rage, as if a plucked string whose note kept on in violent vibrato. "You get me violent and grab me, like you're gonna put me away, or worse, and I shouldn't think it's a threat, ehh? You make me violent, and I'm supposed to calm down, no WAY-"

Impossibly tight grip, but hell if Shizuo didn't try. Didn't slam his head back, into one man's face, didn't try to swing all of his weight down (and let his arms strain, strain), to furiously try and bodily crash into the other, and if that didn't work he'd kick and kick and kick, he'd kill them! Kill them, then hunt down Izaya and kill him, too!

[damned_nurses]

"No one is making you violent," the nurse responded as she moved back into the room, watching the patient as he still tried to force himself out of the orderlies' iron grips. She sighed and shook her head, wondering what it was that caused so many of the new arrivals to react this way. She understood that the situation was disorienting, but fighting against the people who were trying to help them would do no good.

The two men were forced to endure a few painful hits, but they were trained to take the damage without letting go, and so that was what they did. The nurse had to watch carefully for an opening, waiting for Mr. Peace to be distracted enough that she could swoop in with the syringe that she had already procured and uncapped.

Eventually, the opening was there, and she followed protocol, aiming the needle for his arm. It took only a second or two for the sedative to enter his system, and she removed the needle just as quickly.

"You can let him go now," she said, expression worn, and so they did.

[angeritself]

Always something, always something -- but, in truth, Shizuo didn't have that persecution complex. He knew where the blame lay. That could have been it, what weakened him here, though the new sense, suspicious, itch, did not argue this fury, that of held down and misnamed, mistreated, in some fashion imprisoned, within walls, arms, words, mind games.

He struggled, body and mind both unable to grasp its futility (mind unable to grasp that it could grasp, in a dimension other than his anger's insane logic), and squirmed, helpless in a way he never had been. In this situation, like this, it wasn't a relief. Not as the needle pierced and he could feel it, muscles tensing and jerking still at the sudden, surprising pain. Nostalgic. Dimly, he understood what they intended to do; flashes of memory, police lights coloring his face, metal restraints (as if holding back a beast) holding him against the fence, words like elephant tranquilizer, and Shizuo feeling nothing.

This must have been what it should have felt like. Like years ago, when he'd shattered his pelvis and the anesthesia worked (now, he never went to the hospital, now, he never needed surgery that intensive, to have to go under -- a lucky thing, the gas probably wouldn't work). But instead of falling asleep, everything sagged. A haze of a completely different kind suffused him, dulling mind and senses, in a way not at all like fury. Its effectiveness shocked him back into a dull calm, which coupled with the drugs, served to put him, briefly, completely out of his head.

Shizuo felt aware, distantly, of a hot, damp spot on the back of his head, and a throb. There were words drifting over,

bleeding

shirt on,

and a pressure on his arm that lead him further into the room. His foot caught, tripped on a drawer's corner, and he nearly fell. A woman (that woman, a muted furrow in his brow) steadied him, guided his arms through a gray shirt. mess you've made tsking, the door opening onto a strange hallway. He found his lips moving, shaping a muttered "Sorry" , as if she was Tom-san, as if she deserved it. His stomach twisted unhappily, but that was all.

that's better, Mr. Peace, so for

milk

his feet dragged and his thoughts, with gradual cohesion, stirred, chafing beneath that which had not faded below the syringe's plunge: the odor, the lifting of the hairs on his neck and knuckles, the understanding, feeling and gut more than word, that this something everything was wrong wrong wrong screwy fucked up screwy distorted wrong but for right now, for this moment, he dragged his feet.

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