Chapter Text
The restrained tubes of pure light shine harsh against his vision, and it burns, but he cannot look away. To turn his head, whether for a second or a lifetime, would be to lose what shields him from unwanted realities.
Things float. Illuminated dust mites that dance to impress nobody; the beams of the fake sun that make their stage; grey dots and purple imprints from the backs of his eyes. All hope to wash away what sticks and sinks, viscously black, into every part of him that it can reach, be that the ridges of his protective shell or the fragile flesh that hides inside it.
From within, a movement emerges. Just the stirrings of one at first, then the desire for it to grow, then the flit flit flit from synapse to synapse made sluggish by suppressed expectation, by his awareness of limbs long overworked. Surely, it pleads, this will be a start. Muscles can tense, ease, and he can get what he wants. So his body listens.
As though it will sear his skin to ashes if he gets too close, he reaches from tar for the sheet of energy that faces him.
It leaves him be, merely coating his hands in sterile, reassuring white. He smiles.
The two pass by each other in the elephantine expanse of the patient lounge sometimes. Given the paths they have taken in the courses of their stays, it is impossible for them not to, though less so now than it ever was. One has been hurtled to a halt, and the other is there to observe how he copes with the proverbial whiplash.
Tucked underneath that other's left wing is a notebook, shut but poised for any warning signs. In the right, tied to a diluted ray, is a golden ball, like that which took him to the dream that put an end to any ambition - of the great (tumbling into a marathon's victory) and the small (rising from bed come morning) - that he might have once had. It glints as the one he watches douses with it, near their shared ground. His clawed feet are planted firmly into the floor, waiting for an unknown result. The smallest of shifts back up through a weary neck, and the focus is on gilded reflections that bounce to each other. Dub's face, showing what has caught up with him; Dr Wood's, obscured and simplified.
Nothing else of note occurs with the ball before it is pulled back into its string. Perhaps the doctor, too, has to change what he deems important.
The book is whipped out, the pencil scraping through its cage and onto the page to make a point. The reverse of what's just been flipped over the top is filled with incomprehensible cursive, dark on blinding white, and, from what little his brain can translate, upside down at that. He catches a mirror of his name, surrounded by a shorter quotation; a lament that none of the usual methods are working for him, no doubt. All else is lost to him...
bar one thing. Near the bottom - what would otherwise be the bottom, rather - of the notes is a sketch. A carbon outline of the bird, holding a talon larger than he is. Its ends point towards a shape of a patient, aimed straight towards their heart.
Before he can work out why his own just stilled like that, or who the target really is, the drawing is whisked away. Attentions are re-transferred, from turtle to the one in turn moving from here to the other side of the room. Dub doesn't retract his gaze until Wood has wandered out of sight.
There's little purpose in fighting the long, thin needle that pumps chemicals through his heavy-with-burden head, into his system. He's reminded them he's straight edge before, and they disregarded him twice. Why protest when his voice is of even less importance?
He hears someone in the background telling him that this had to be the last resort, but already it's starting to set in, pumping them out in favour of a soft buzz. It's as though a fly, no, tens of flies have whisked into the room, through open doors and ear cavities to smooth the creases away. Their filthy legs press down to tickle and irritate, never in the same place twice, but he can't bring himself to mind, as he doesn't feel as deadened anymore. More hollow now that the bugs are out of his body. He can feel his lungs swell like cheap shopping bags, his body lift with flight, and he's aware that he's inexplicably on the ceiling.
It's all reversed from what it should be. He knows the carpet, its tint of chlorine and faded denim, but from up here it's as red as what his back is now up against. Everything is; it seeps from the centre up along where he was, turning the sheets dull pink. The human doesn't seem to notice that he has risen and that so much crimson has taken his place. No wonder, for they are occupied just now: Dr Wood has entered the room, and the pair are in a fervent discussion of some sort, ignoring what's gushing through canvas shoes and tail feathers.
When talk reaches its quietest point, he sees the beak of the smaller turn suddenly up to watch him from below. A scraping motion is made, of one scrap of grey in the opposite palm, and for the first time he notices the insects have gone, and that things far sharper and more precise are pinning him to the prickling heights. As it turns out when he checks, they're claws, pushing right through his wrists, and one more tight across his chest, and he knows he should be in pain or in the grip of a scream, but there's no sound or sensation to be had.
By now, the bed is soaked through, and the only others have been swallowed whole. Whether the ceiling starts to fall towards the rising quilt, emblazoned with a bird's footprint of its own, or if that rushes towards him, he cannot say. The end result is the same either way: him reappearing on the other side to too-bright electric bulbs and the concern on his therapist's face. As far as he can see, Wood is gone.
They ask earnestly if he's okay. He says nothing.
When the toxins have been flushed, they make him dream. They always do that.
He's in the usual place, on the wrong side of the grandfather clock. The sea surrounds him from all angles, as do the shadowed teeth of the sharks. Those are new. He regards their snarls and jet-black spikes of eyes with a mistimed comfort. If he cannot drown in this counter-astral plane, at least something's on hand to consume his carcass.
But as he thinks it, their threat is struck out, crossed through from the inside: one of the same spurs as before clatters out from the closest one, shredding it to pieces. The torrent of bubbles from the retreating rest sends it floating away before he can get a good look at it, and its wake seems to grow a semblance of colour - which?
Seconds later, there's a terrible noise, like the upshoot of a raging bonfire, but how can there be fire in water at all, let alone where such little light can pass through? He gets an answer when he's caught in a current, swirling him around to find that the clock has been torn into a perfect three. Another claw is responsible, surging up; bits of fluff detach from it during the ascent. He knows they're his, yet he's sure he survived the laceration intact.
In the waves that lap around him, clearer than before, he can see the people he's let down, the concepts that mock him. One bubble holds the faceless lady, detaching her toy turtle from its silver key; another, his owner, the one who still hasn't come back. One by one, they swirl, pool around him. Also one by one, they pop. More of the barbed feet float in their stead, piercing through or up against at all angles, and each adds a glimmer to the world.
Only the silhouette remains dark, one that he notices halfway through is the one giving them all to him. It swims in a slow butterfly stroke, a silver thread in the free hand.
When all he can see is brown on brown on brown, covering him up, the sound of something being unplugged seems to rip them off in one mighty sweep. Looking ahead, there are three more tears, but this time on the edge of the dream itself, and the water - now cruor - pours through the holes it left. He is caught in the downward pull, reaching the solid, steady bottom before it does, wet, but tasting the damp air, finally able to breathe.
Safe.
It's little trouble to awaken, find himself looking at the ceiling again. No need to move yet. He is at peace here.
And he knows who will help him get there again. He manages to sneak out when the therapist isn't looking, move back into the hall. Dr Wood is there as usual, continuing his earlier study, hypothesis and method unclear though they are.
Dub wobbles along the floor, unwelcomingly blue (he has had quite enough of blue for the time), to sit next to him.
The writing stops for a second as he turns towards him, then resumes where he left off. The one he was waiting by does the same, head darting back and forth between the two and ending on their best equivalent of a sceptical glare. He doesn't budge. They haven't seen the talons, felt their influence. They wouldn't know.
One step is done. Wood moves on, walking up to the next one on rotation. Dub follows. He won't be deterred. He has to know. This has to be a sign. The cycle continues the way a moon would pass over the sky: counter-clockwise, pausing every so often, and only halfway around before either star or asteroid has to make way for the other.
It's when they get to the place where the turtle would have met him before that the clash occurs, and only because he happens to plant himself on the wrong side compared to how they used to be arranged. The doctor pulls him up by the shoulders and asks, confusion mixing with slight distraction, why he's following him.
"You can save me," he replies.
Emptied of explanation, devoid of awareness of time, he finds himself back on the bed, facing a familiar friend. The tubes of pure light, still kept back by weakened potential, burn his eyes, and he cannot look away. He focuses instead on the cracks, the trapped moths, the flaws in the glass.
Things are new. White now seems so... bland. So ineffectual to shake off what sticks to him and covers his mouth and limbs and reason. It only adds to the mess, if anything, cloying amongst clumping, absences of different senses alternating up his arms. Once he has his new protection, he's sure it will disappear. He just has to wait for it.
From without, a movement emerges. The sway of an opening door, a thump behind him, the approach of a raven with a task completed and a next phase to initiate. They told each other all sorts of things, Wood and he; they made each a part of the other. A blot flies past his face, and something rests on his neck. When he puts the Plan into effect, a whisper plays in his ear, he will be the first and only to be spared. His mind listens.
He stares back at the blank slate, reaches for the miniature claw tied to his throat, and squeezes hard enough for it to slice into his hand.
The vision in front of him corrects itself, slithering into a beautiful ocean red. He smiles.