More Between Us, Chapter 27.2/? "Mental Exam"
Chapter 27.2/? "Mental Exam"
Day 10
“How about the day of the week?” That was another one that Peter would be purely guessing at.
XXX
“Um…” Sylar’s face scrunched up some as he thought. “Sat- no, Sunday. It’s Sunday!” He got out in a rush, relieved he remembered and praying that effort was enough, but still Peter kept up.
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Peter followed up with, “What’s today’s full date - day, month, year, everything?” The order of the questions was important. The mind was trained to focus on small things and go bigger. Requiring the largest unit (the year) for his first question and going progressively smaller required mental agility that was simple for someone in possession of all their faculties, but was difficult for someone operating at reduced capacity. The trick, with Sylar, was going to be telling when he was refusing to answer because he was intentionally difficult and when he was refusing to answer because he couldn’t manage it. So Peter watched him carefully, attentively, trying to read him. Peter noted that his own ability to concentrate was already being taxed by the task, which was a simple questionnaire he’d administered scores of times in the past.
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Blinking once, he nodded once jerkily. Okay, obviously that’s the pattern, but I don’t…I don’t get it. Its pissing me off! “Sunday, December, Winter…uh…” he replied, his words delivered as a recital, not including the year as he still couldn’t name it. He felt something dripping slowly down his left wrist and glanced at it as it had tickled a bit. A wet washcloth. Oh yeah! At least I remembered something.
“What year is it?” his gaze went back up to Peter’s, wishing he were looking at a lovely, kind, soft-voiced black woman for some reason, one who’d stuck up for him and kept her promises. Of course her name was fuzzy at the moment, too. Sylar regretted that. /”I’d like to try a memory exercise.”/ Or maybe he wished for his mother and her red coats, manicured nails and pearl necklaces. Hell, maybe even his one-time tattooed lover with her long brown-blonde hair and revealed, tan skin. There were two other faces, both feminine, but they didn’t jump to assist him even though he wished they would. One was another named ‘Mom’…how strange.
XXX
He is way more messed up than I thought. Peter shifted to being less cranky and more gentle with Sylar, getting a better idea that a lot of the man’s recent uncooperativeness was due to impaired mental state rather than deliberate. Peter let go of his irritation at Sylar’s ‘stubbornness’. He reached out slowly and carefully took the washcloth from Sylar’s hand, then put it in the water, swished it around a little and wrung it out.
“I don’t know. I guess I should have asked before. But let’s see if we can figure it out.” His voice softened up, too, like they were having a quiet, introspective conversation just between the two of them. It was a relaxed tone and Peter’s body relaxed with it. He wrung the cloth out clumsily a second time, shaking off errant drops. “When I first came here, you said you’d been here for years.” He lifted the cloth up, leaning in, pausing his dialogue to watch Sylar carefully and see if he’d allow Peter to clean him up. “Tilt your head a little here. You missed a spot under your jaw.”
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Again, he was relieved, unexpectedly, by Peter’s response. Okay…okay…He tried to calm himself from the brief interrogation he’d managed to pass. Still he felt like there were things he was forgetting about his situation. Peter took away the washcloth, rinsing and squeezing it as best he could and that was fine with Sylar. Oh, wait…did that mean…? Yes, it did. Sylar’s eyes widened as he leaned back a fraction of an inch as the other man drew closer. He’s really going to clean me? That’s…that’s…Concussion or not, he couldn’t think of a word to describe this oddity. He ignored his instinct to move back and give the man more couch space.
He swallowed and exhaled a forceful breath before angling his head back. It left his eyes unable to follow the man, but Peter moved in again and gently rubbed the cloth over the spot just to the left side under his chin. How’d I get dirt there? He thought, trying, for some reason, to focus on that other than the sudden warmth flooding his body. It felt weird to be so purposefully exposed, literally baring his throat. It felt so very nice, though.
The meds began to kick in so he grew more relaxed, fighting to keep his awareness and self-defensive nature up to speed. He listened muzzily to the soft scraping sound of the cloth on his significantly dark, thicker stubble, swallowing again from Peter’s singular focus.
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Peter went on conversationally like he was talking with someone familiar and friendly, “You had to have left at the end of 2009 so that would make this … what?” Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve lived in the future. Even if this time it’s a fake future.
“The next questions I’m supposed to ask are about location. I know you and I had a disagreement about that before, but it’s not important. What’s important is where you think we are.” And that you can give me a location, a sequence, that shows some awareness of where you’ve been recently. “What country are we in?”
“How about state?”
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“Left…” Left? I didn’t leave anything. Who would have noticed? It’s not like they keep great tabs on me. Did Matt squeal? 2009 was a long time ago, Pete. “Um…” with his head tilted up, Peter probably missed his blinking as he calculated. I dunno….Don’t really care to be honest. Sylar held back his hum of approval on being pampered. It felt good.
He came out of it a bit when asked about the country, frowning. For some reason it struck him as a trick question. “United States,” he answered a bit quizzically. Sylar was remembering Illusions of Hawaii in Mexico. Hallucinations, dreams, nightmares, comas and illusions were still things that came to his mind despite being powerless for so long. Since Peter was busy he decided to test to be sure, flexing his fingers and attempting to access that part of his brain to move the blanket Peter had placed on the back of his chair. No luck, not that he expected any.
A second time the question sounded like Peter knew more than Sylar did somehow. He had mentioned an argument. “New York, this is my apartment.” He asserted that a little stronger because he was sure this was his apartment.
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“Do you remember the neighborhood, the district or the names of any buildings around here, like the one we’re in? Do you know the mailing address for your apartment? What is it?” I’m supposed to be keeping track of his points for this, too. But … fuck it.
XXX
This was seriously taxing Sylar in every way, everything but the grooming, that is. “I don’t…” he growled, leaving off in frustration, tempted to duck away from the contact on his face to make a point of his displeasure in the questioning.
XXX
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Peter soothed, wringing out the cloth and tilting his head one way and then the other, examining each side of Sylar’s face as best he could without getting up. He looked okay, other than splotchy bruises and a healthy growth of bristle. They’d at least gotten off the blood, which had been worst around his chin and neck. His hair was a mess, but that was hardly fatal, nor worth trying to steer an unsteady Sylar into the shower. I ought to bring over that electric razor for his face. I think I’ll do that tomorrow morning.
“These are supposed to be kind of hard questions,” Peter said. For someone in your condition. For anyone without brain problems going on, they’re really easy, which is exactly what the test is for - to tell the difference. You’re not faking on me, are you? Peter considered that, but couldn’t see what purpose Sylar could have in it. True, Peter might be suckered into treating him more nicely, but that was hardly a big deal. If anything, Peter felt that should that be true, he was the one who should feel embarrassed that he was such an asshole that his patients had to resort to conniving and manipulation to get good treatment.
He shook off that line of thought, saying, “This next one throws almost everybody at some point, unless they’re really focused and don’t have any distractions. I want you to count backwards from one hundred by sevens, until I tell you to stop. So that’s from one hundred to ninety-three, then …” His mind briefly blanked on him. Um ... “Eighty-six,” he struggled out. I am going to be shit for scoring this. But he doesn’t need to know that. “And so on. So start at one hundred and count backwards by seven.” Peter worked his scene presence, acting professional and attentive. For the moment he set the washcloth in the bowl to soak while he leaned back and gave Sylar some room to think.
Next step - getting his shirt off, or finishing the MMSE? Probably need to finish the MMSE. Don’t distract your patient in the middle of the assessment.
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Sylar blinked, bringing his chin down after a time of Peter’s ceased hygiene, face to face with the man again. You’re not distracting at all, Peter, practically sitting in my lap. The longer the touching (or near touching) had gone on, the harder it was getting not to blush; so far he’d dodged that bullet. He wasn’t looking forward to whatever next test that was tricky as apparently he’d been struggling with the lead-up, semi-normal questions. “No more sponge bath?” he asked wistfully, disappointed, but Peter pulled back.
He sighed. He didn’t see the point of any of this. A concussion was a concussion and he hadn’t been attempting to cover up his symptoms - they were what they were; painful, ugly and obvious. And right now, his head was splitting. Peter had given him a few freebies in the questions, “One hundred, ninety-three, eighty-six…” A look at his recall of times-tables, quite out of practice, was in order. Eighty-six divided by…no, no. Eighty-six minus seven is… A single tap of his finger against his opposite hand, “Seventy-eight…”
Formulation was difficult; he managed a few more, “Seventy-one…” That one was easier. “…Sixty-four…fifty-....” One more he found himself trailing off into Lostville. He felt the urge to joke, ‘What was the question?’ And then maybe, ‘I was distracted by you petting and staring at me’. Make no mistake, Peter’s mere presence, here, now, given the circumstances, given the way the medic was…well, caring for him; it served to make Sylar uncomfortable in forgotten ways.
In a new twist, it occurred to him that he was being led around like a trained monkey. Irony had struck again. Next he’ll have me recite the alphabet backwards and touch my nose while standing on one foot. “Oh, I get it. Ha ha,” he said of the testing, his voice dry, eyes suddenly annoyed.
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‘No more sponge bath’. He liked that? Or is he just messing with me? Peter mulled that over as Sylar struggled through the serial sevens. Peter wasn’t that fond of it as a test because himself, and so many others, had difficulty with it completely sober and intact. I think he scored two or four, depending on whether you count the ones I told him. Those aren’t supposed to count. So two, I guess. That’s pretty in-line with everything else. I think he’s scoring down near the bottom of moderate. ‘Moderate’ was not a good thing. It meant pretty damn fucked up, which matched with Sylar’s symptoms of ‘has difficulty walking’, ‘has trouble holding a conversation unless nothing whatsoever otherwise is going on’, ‘sleeps a lot’, and the most important part as far as Peter was concerned, ‘can’t manage self-care’. There was no way Peter could leave Sylar to his own devices.
Peter noted Sylar’s shifting expression and decided to pause the test for a moment. If Sylar was truly finding the questions arduous, then mental fatigue and irritation were likely. Peter was in no position to walk away or force Sylar to cooperate. He didn’t even have much in the way of tools of persuasion.
He reached over to take Sylar’s nearer hand. “Let me take a look at your hand while you tell me what it is you ‘get’. There’re only two more sets of questions on the test. We’re almost done.” He eyed the bandages. Sylar would probably be better off without them, now that the injuries had scabbed over fully.
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A thought bubbled up and out as Peter’s rougher, warm hand took Sylar’s, even though he had lingering annoyance and frustrations. Dealing in his common ground of gray, the mid-way between serious and jesting, he asked, “Does this mean we’re serious if we’re at hand-holding stage?” Gee…there’s a thought. Either about holding hands or ‘getting serious’ with Peter Petrelli. Sylar meanwhile watched Peter tend to his hand, peeling off the band-aids with uncommon gentleness. Who knew that would feel so nice? And coming from him…Who knew?
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Peter glanced up at Sylar with an almost perfectly blank face, no emotion whatsoever on it. He exhaled carefully and ducked his head back down to look at what he was doing. He wanted rather badly to give Sylar a ‘oh really?’ look, or an ‘are you serious?’ face. He wanted to tell Sylar irritably to scoot over. They didn’t have to be almost on top of each other here, which had bothered Peter a little all along, but made his skin prickle now at Sylar’s insinuation.
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“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were filming this as a ‘You Got Punk’d’ joke to show your fellow heroes. Pretty funny, I bet. They’ve probably still got footage or at least records of even more ‘fun stuff’ somewhere.” Sylar rolled his eyes, “That would explain things about…this,” he gestured between them, with his free hand, of course, to signify Peter’s current nursing.
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But there was a second level to the comments. He’s soft-balling it to me - maybe unintentionally. Hand-holding, insecure about my motives - he wants to know why I’m being friendly. He wants me to tell him to back off so that he’s the wounded party being ordered away. That way he’s not responsible. He wants a reassurance that I’m not going to screw him over.
A distant memory came to him of one of his classes for being a paramedic, where the instructor took a session to talk about ethics and the tremendous trust the public put in EMTs, allowing them to strip someone naked, damage property and deal with them, stranger-to-stranger, in some of the most intimate ways. Sylar knows he’s concussed. He doesn’t want to be taken advantage of. That’s the big deal with trying to get me out of here. It’s not that he doesn’t know he needs help. He doesn’t trust me.
Peter looked up again and said slowly, “You have an injury that I’m taking very seriously, Sylar. That’s why I’m here. That’s the explanation for all of this,” he said, making a brief duplicate of Sylar’s earlier gesture between them. “No jokes, no stunts, I’m not laughing.”
Peter worked his skills of removing tape and bandages without pulling at the skin too much, then raised Sylar’s hand to look at it, turning it back and forth. “Yeah, you’ll be fine without the bandages, as long as you’re not doing anything to get your hands dirty. Let me see the other one.”
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Sylar stared him down with forgotten fervor. So long as I don’t get my hands dirty?! “No!” he proclaimed loudly, snatching his hands back. “You son of a bitch,” he blurted out on top of that. Peter had had hold of a band-aid which Sylar had just assisted in removing with a swiftness - the skin tingled and burned and strangely itched in the aftermath. Trying to rub it in now, huh? I’m just the crazy murderer who can’t keep his hands CLEAN is that it? Is that it?
The move tilted his torso away from Peter, who he kept his eyes on, wary that he might have placed himself in danger just by being contrary, offended and protective. All that crap he talks about behaving myself, oh, I see how it is. Part of him seriously longed to scoot away and whack at Peter with his feet. But we covered this before…I’m the filthy one. Because someone had to make you look good, Petrelli, someone has to. You think I don’t know how hard blood-stains are to remove? No fucking wonder no one can see me under all that blood…
It takes two to tango, Peter, he thought viciously of the man’s weird kink of playing ‘house’, his gaze turning into a deadly glare, he hoped it would fool Peter enough into staying away. Or maybe apologizing, one of the two…Um…isn’t he kind of…correct in thinking you’re a filthy low-life? Yes, but he won’t sleep with one of those. Keeping the status quo and all that.
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Peter’s hands came up immediately, first as a visible release of Sylar’s hand, showing that he wasn’t trying to hold him or grab after him. On the heels of the curse, they came up higher, looking like ‘I surrender’ but actually just getting them between the two of them to ward off possible blows. Peter leaned back in equal to Sylar, but he had nowhere to go as the arm of the couch reminded him.
Both men watched the other with utmost wariness, but when Sylar stiffened to turn his look into his usual formidable glare, Peter looked away and let his guard down. He let his hands sink to his lap and slumped towards the back of the couch, oddly sure that Sylar wasn’t going to follow up his look with an assault. Peter sighed.
Was it something I did? Something I said? Dirty hands? He’s talked about that before, that my family doesn’t want to get our hands dirty. I am so tired of fighting with him. He’s so defensive. I just want to … He wanted something that was well and gone forever, and that wasn’t just because of being trapped here. He wanted to go home, but not only were vital people missing from ‘home’, but all the illusions of safety and warmth and trust had been stripped away from there. Some nearly barren apartment with a bed shoved in the corner seemed like the only substitute.
If I’m tired, he has to be exhausted. Maybe I should just drop it, not finish the exam, not give him a physical assessment, and let it go? It’s why I didn’t do it yesterday, either. I can’t do it without his cooperation. As he said, I’m in no position. Peter looked over kind of forlornly at Sylar having one hand bandaged and one not. Peter dropped the bandage he’d accidentally torn off, putting it with the others that had been more carefully removed. His eyes rose to Sylar’s face, then dropped again. He knew he was giving off some subordinate body language here, but he didn’t care. Maybe it would help - to put Sylar in control - but mainly Peter just felt defeated.
He tried again, like he always did. He sat up a little and extended his left hand slowly and partway, palm mostly up and tilted. He looked up at Sylar, asking as clearly as he could with his face messed up as it was. “Sylar, let me finish, okay?” he asked softly. “I don’t understand what I just did to make you angry.”
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Sylar’s ego was quickly boosted when Peter not only obeyed, but reacted defensively. He straightened his shoulders and puffed up a bit. The great Peter Petrelli was afraid of him. That’s right! I can say no, too…Don’t know why, but I can. Don’t know why I even did that…I’m still a murderer and no one’s happy about that. If anything he should be angry, not me. That crashed his mood. Finding out, being reminded rather, that he didn’t have a leg or crutch to stand on when it came to feeling wronged when he was the guilty party was always a fun trip.
Of course Peter wasn’t cowed completely, looking towards Sylar’s hands with a strange face. Ugh. The empath made another attempt, moving slowly and carefully which helped. It was funny that now, Sylar wasn’t worried about a violent response from Peter; he worried about the exchange of words, not blows. Sylar scanned Peter’s face, very open and needy from what he could see around the man’s wounds.
With an exaggerated sigh, mostly to remind him who was in charge, Sylar placed his hand “in” Peter’s, allowing him to finish after the man claimed not to understand. Sylar believed him - otherwise, Peter would have been ramming the ‘Killer!’ bat down his throat most relentlessly. Was it even possible Peter hadn’t meant anything by it, seeing that he’d failed to understand the effect of his words?
“Doesn’t matter; its old news,” was his answer, assuming Peter was asking for one. While Peter worked, his head somewhat down, his eyes down, anyway, Sylar watched the man’s swollen-shut eye. He waited a few beats before adding, “You should make yourself an ice eye-patch for that,” nodding towards Peter. He’d been about to say ‘we should make you…’ but that just sounded…odd or forward.
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Peter picked quietly at the bandages, unwrapping them slowly while he tried to decide if he should back off and let Sylar rest, or try to wrap up the mini mental state exam so he had a complete result set to work with.
He looked up at Sylar’s last statement to see what he was referring to. The man’s sightline was clear enough. Peter smiled a little. “And then I could put a hook on my gimp hand here,” he said with a flourish of his mostly useless right, “and be a pirate.” He started chuckling at the silly mental image. “Arr,” he said with a lot of humor, but not much volume.
An idea struck him and he grinned, adopting an even more outlandish accent to say, “All fear the Dread Pirate Petrelli, scourge of the high seas!” The floor could be our ocean, and the couch our trusty boat, ship, vessel, whatever. He gave a few short but very sincere laughs before going back to a normal voice and accent, saying, “Now I am laughing, and it’s all your fault, you know?”
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Sylar laughed along with him, a quick bark of humor at first about the hook hand. “Peter Pirate,” he said, and that thought amused him more still, dissolving him into chuckles. “You are not that terrifying,” Sylar informed him after they’d finished laughing. Scourge of the specials maybe. “And I don’t think you have enough beard going on for it yet.” Poking fun that Peter was too cute to play a fearsome pirate? Yes.
He allowed a grin to color his face as Peter ‘blamed’ him for the laughter - Peter had started it. That would be something new, to be blamed for someone laughing, not crying or screaming or similar. That part was incredibly nice. I should try making him laugh. He doesn’t do it often even when he’s in a good mood, but…I could probably do it. If I could manage my…darker jokes; I think they’re funny, you’d think he’d understand them, being a medic and all. And being someone who’s had my ability. Serial killer jokes - takes one to know one?
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He smiled and had some more chuckles to himself as he finished with Sylar’s other hand. This time he made no comment whatsoever about it - clean, dirty, nothing. Mostly sober, he looked up to say, “Okay, listen. I’ve got two choices here. One - I can stop asking you these questions and let you get some rest. Or two - you can put up with just two more sets of questions and then I’m done with them.” For today. He exhaled rapidly and added, “I don’t know if you know what I’m getting out of your answers, but this is helping me understand what I need to do for you.”
He thought about trying to pitch it harder and make a bigger attempt to persuade Sylar to answer, but decided not to. Sylar knew how tired and uncooperative he was feeling; Peter didn’t. A sales pitch would only make him dig in his heels. He wants control - give him control. Let him play captain for a while.
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The meds were kicking in; the laugh they’d shared had relaxed him. Sylar did want to rest, had been wanting to for some time now. The soup also put him into nap-mode. Being drilled and upset with very little background reasoning hadn’t helped anything, let alone the test. He took a moment to think, somehow socially aware that he could take a moment to think, factoring things in.
Sylar wondered if Peter was even getting accurate results for this ‘test’ of his. Was he even in the right frame of body or mind to be taking a test? I don’t think there’s much else you can do for me regardless of any answers, Peter, given the nature of the injury, but whatever.
“You can finish,” he replied softly, looking Peter over with interest once again. An incredibly strange little man, Peter. One who was infecting Sylar with a horrid case of moodiness as their time spent together went on; he suspected it would only get worse. It happened when people got close.
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Peter smiled. He was cheered by Sylar joining him in laughter. It relaxed him even if he couldn’t rule out the possibility of saying the wrong word and setting Sylar off again, like he’d apparently done earlier. Some things we’ll just have to learn to deal with, with each other. “All right. These are easier questions, promise.” Peter held up his left arm and pointed at his watch. “What’s the general name for this thing strapped to my wrist here?”
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It took him an additional second to answer because he’d glanced up to Peter, double checking that he was, well, serious. “Wristwatch,” was the amused answer. Like I could forget that one. I even remember that when I forget. Which…happens way more than you’d think…
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He glanced at the shelves over the couch and leaned in to pull out a slender, blue volume. “Again, I don’t need the title - just the generic word for what this thing is.” The usual object to hold up for identification (other than a watch) was a pencil, which Peter was supposed to have to score the test, and to use in some of the standard steps to check ability to follow directions. Peter was going to skip the ‘follow directions’ part altogether. Or rather, putting together from other things Sylar had done, Peter was going to say ‘can follow two-step instructions, but probably not three’.
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Peter removed “Chemicals and You” from the shelf and Sylar’s brain was automatically looking for patterns, connections between the wristwatch (broken) and the book. “That’s my book.” He was still entertained by his companion and the fact that he was entertained at all made him feel much better. He assumed it was because amusement generally came when he was somehow ahead of the pack, or Peter in this case.
It was dawning on him, far too slowly, that he was running this little two-man circus.
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Peter put the book back and considered the next question with a small frown of concentration. He was supposed to ask a series of basic orientation questions, like ‘who is the president’, ‘where are you’, ‘what were you doing before your injury’, or ‘what’s your mother’s name’, but most of those were problematic. Faced with the mental hurdle of figuring out which ones wouldn’t upset his patient, Peter opted to ditch. I can just imagine him answering ‘you’ if I asked who the last president was. The memory of being the president gave Peter a slight shudder. He jerked his thoughts away from that, shrugging off the unpleasant sensation and stuffing all the other memories from that day back into a box he didn’t want opened. He opted to simplify to a single orientation question: “Tell me your birthday. And if that’s more personal than you want to give out, then tell me mine. You mentioned it earlier.” Another thing I don’t want to think about: how he knows that.
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Whatever he’d been waiting for, it hadn’t been that question. The first thing to run through him was ‘Why do you need to know?’ No, he doesn’t. He’s asking for the test, for ‘my health’ I’m sure. Peter was right; that was personal and he didn’t know why it was as personal as it was. He watched Peter while he tried to make up his mind - his own birthday or Peter’s? Sylar supposed he was worried about catching flack when his birthday rolled around. “Uh, December 23rd is your birthday.” Well, that came awful easily.
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Continued...