snowblindrpg | Event: Consolidation Theory, Part Four and Five

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Event: Consolidation Theory, Part Four and Five

Characters: red-marked characters and their new friends
Location: ???
Date: Morning 354, Morning and Day 355
Summary: A quiet morning and a confusing morning, or maybe they're both, or maybe they're neither.
Warnings: gore, psychological horror, warn for specifics in the subject lines

Part Four OOC Post
Part Five OOC Post

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[Stephen's apparently lost in thought when House arrives at his cell, his gaze focused on some distant, invisible point. He looks up, brow furrowing, mouth pursing in disgust. Without answering the suggestion, he gives a little shake of his head and starts listing off the drug names he'd read on his bracelet the day before by rote, anisomycin among them. He's watching House to see if there's any glimmer of recognition.]

[House stares at Stephen for a long moment. Maybe he shouldn't have asked the other doctor. They've both been through something like this before. House is only holding up better at the moment because he's physically free to move around and this place is disgusting. For all the horror of that, it's something different than sterile white walls or the makeshift, bloodstained world of the tower.

He starts to say something else, but then there's anisomycin.]

Someone's been getting into the nasty antibiotics. Or memory drugs. That'd explain why you kids can't remember tearing us or yourselves apart.

That's the only one I recognize, too.

[Stephen would be interested to know that, considering that for him this place is all sterile white walls. And, well, bloodstains now, at least on himself.]

Multiple injections throughout what I assume was the afternoon apparently induced delusions, nausea...and....

[He gestures at House. He doesn't look especially contrite. Maybe that's because it's House. Maybe it's because he's watching this conversation unfold like a movie of someone else's life.]

You're the neurologists. What could induce apparent insanity? It was like you guys had the movie version of rabies. Chewing on people, scratching yourselves, scratching each other. One of you tried climbing the walls. We're seeing different things at a minimum. Describe the cell you're in.

[House isn't going to quibble over the other man treating him like crap. They don't like each other. He's not expecting sympathy.]

Methamphetamine, LSD, active intervention via nanomachines to alter dopamine levels, but then why bother injecting us with anything....

[He sounds almost lazy about it as he starts listing off the obvious culprits; those are all blatantly obvious. He halts mid-sentence, looking a little more alert than he has since House started talking to him. He looks around the cell, brow furrowed.]

White walls, white floor. Sink and toilet in that alcove; the water's warm--the air's warm--

[Though it wasn't the point of this exercise, Stephen seems to be focusing more closely now, describing in a little more detail bit by bit.]

The bed's built into the wall, not the worst I've slept in. And then there's this...blue...shield across this end.

[House tilts his head and immediately regrets it. Still.]

Interesting. You're in the middle of a dank-ass cell that's covered in mold, cold and wet, but at least not freezing. No doors from what I can see.

[He steps in through the entryway.]

Either your perception's screwed up or mine is. And considering how grody the rest of the accommodations in Snowhell are...

[Stephen's eyes widen and he looks around again more sharply. If it's an illusion, though, it doesn't fall away just because he's been told about it.]

Interesting.

[He can agree on that much, at least. He closely watches House step through the barrier, reaching out a hand to test its solidity once the other man is through. It still feels like a wall to him when he presses his palm against it.]

That makes more sense, yeah. Also sounds like a handy way to keep a bunch of people contained when you don't have any, you know. Doors on the cells.

...The hell kind of filth have I been sitting and sleeping in?

[And he's back, folks, with the thought of just how much more filthy he must be than he realizes.]

[House gestures to the front of his clothes, which are covered in dried muck and mold.]

One of you idiots kept trying to climb the walls last night and wiped your hands off on me when you couldn't do it.

There's also a possibility we're existing in just slightly different states. In which case, your cells might really be white and shiny with forcefields, while at the same time being moldy and dank with no doors. Quantum bullshit is fun, huh?

Oh, if it's just quantum filth, that's alright, then.

[He gets the meaning, though. Stephen gently touches the wall; looks at his own fingers as he rubs them together. Nothing, to his eye.]

Did they give you anything at all? This place already looked pristine to me before the drugs.

[House squints. His memories are... blurred. He'd been taken. Static. There had been static and he'd panicked. They'd been in the cells, and then-

He raises a hand to his neck, fingers lightly brushing just above the bruises from the collar.]

They injected us with something.

[Don't let the memories consume you. Detach. Detach.

House swallows and lowers his hand marginally to press hard on the painful bruise and small cuts ringing his neck. He hisses, drawing in a sharp breath. The pain has brought him back to the present, at least.]

It was a dank-ass moldy joint before they injected us.

Edited 2018-05-01 05:31 (UTC)

[Stephen's gaze goes immediately to House's wrist, and then to the other when he fails to spot a bracelet there. So. Injections, but not labeled like "patients." His eyes widen when he catches what House is doing to himself, but Stephen swallows down his protest. Looks away.]

I don't suppose you found a door.

Yep.

[Focus on the physical, on the here and now. Don't get locked up in your own head.]

Electronic lock, and I haven't seen a key card. The one time Miller's ID might be useful, and Thomas had to go and leave it in his other pants.

[Stephen lets out a short, high, painful little bark of laughter.]

Of course. Of course they wouldn't let you loose if there was any way out.

Nothing's ever easy. So, those bracelets you've got change at all between now and when you first got 'em? Might give us a clue if Miller's actually planning to change the parameters for the next round.

[Embarrassingly, Stephen hadn't thought to check that. He does now, squinting at the label, muttering unfamiliar names under his breath.]

It's the same. Maybe it's a different parameter he's going to change. Or maybe he's just shit at the scientific method.

My money's on that second one. [House falls quiet for a moment, just looking at the man in the cell. They're not friends. They don't even like each other. But this is the second time they've been trapped in hell together. The older doctor rubs a thumb across his forehead, one of the few areas on his face that wasn't specifically injured.]

You know how this goes. We wait for the connection to outside. That's how the game works. We get the connection and we try to get out before they make us kill each other.

[You missed the singalong this time, House.]

Assuming you aren't the sum total of the outside 'help' we're getting.

[This is what worries him, when he's lucid enough to worry instead of to retreat entirely from the situation. It's not following the right pattern.]

We're not. There'll be a link to outside. Tablets, a video feed, something. I have Quark checking with his Sparrow App for anything. America should be- [Oh, screw it.] America's got a hacking app he's checking with, too.

Since when?

[Why wasn't he told about this? He's on the shadow network, isn't he; what other secret club does he have to join in order to get these kinds of details? He blows out a breath; nods to himself. Tries to convince himself of what House is saying.]

That's the pattern so far, yes.

Since always. [He's choosing to answer that 'since when' as regards to the pattern, but that may not be entirely obvious.]

I'll let you know if I find anything. Try not to die before we get out.

[Stephen narrows his eyes. Right, ask America directly...if he ever has a chance to talk to America again.]

Well, if they haven't managed to kill me by injecting toxic antibiotics into my hippocampus yet....

[That's actually a thought. He's not sure if they did inject anything into his brain itself.]

Cool. Sounds like you're set.

[He turns and starts to walk off, but as he does so, he whistles loudly.

It's "Killer Queen."]

Edited 2018-05-15 03:45 (UTC)

[Stephen lets his head drop back against the wall as he listens to House's whistling getting farther away. He sucks in a deep breath, slowly and deliberately letting it out again.

Screw this. Screw all of this.]

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Event: Consolidation Theory, Part Four and Five

B | cw: derealization; references to delusions and parasites likely

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cw: injections

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