snowblindrpg | Event: Consolidation Theory, Part Four and Five

[ Will's response isn't quite so emotional as Mary's, but he does cock his head to the side in a pensive gesture. ]

What about the others? [ He asks, still in those soft and reasonable tones. ]

All you'll accomplish is hurting yourself, John. It won't protect anyone, because at the root of all of this, that is not something you control. It's not something any of us control.

[ Leaning forward, hands still hidden in his lap, he tried to catch the doctor's eyes. ]

This is Miller's show. He is calling the shots, and nothing we do to ourselves or others is in our control.

[It's selfish. That's what he's drawing from Will's remarks once they filter through. He's selfishly chaining himself in the aquarium bathroom again, drugging himself instead of trying to fight the voice in his head telling him to kill everyone with glowing eyes, the sinners, the ones who will destroy Norfinbury.

Catching John's eye isn't really an option at this point as he starts to withdraw further into himself.]

Resets. She reset things. She reset us. It was warm. She'll reset it again. No one was murdered. We just remember it.

[ Well, John wasn't entirely wrong. Will was willing to play a little low ball in order to try to keep the man from further harming himself. Just never mind the hypocrisy of the fact that this was coming from Will Graham of all people.

Listening to John, Will shook his head. ]

I don't know that we can rely on that, John. Everything I've heard from people only speaks about Miller. Miller himself appears to be speaking in terms of "I".

[ He didn't stop trying to catch Watson's eye, even as the man hid, this time he tried to hold out a branch of focus and control for Watson to grab hold of. It was a thing, flimsy branch but it was all Will had to work with at the moment. ]

What do you remember, of being here? Do you remember hearing anyone other than Miller?

[It does get him to look up again, but it's not at Will.]

Mary, Mary, quite contrary. How does your garden grow?

[John blinks a few times and shakes his head.]

She's not real. None of it's ever real. She's dead. She's always been dead. Did you see her? Did you ever see her in Norfinbury? [Had she been real there? He tries to remember seeing her talk to people. Maybe over the network? Mycroft. Mycroft, he used her. But that was in another reality? Maybe? House? Who did she talk to apart from him and Sherlock? Anyone? Was her name ever really in the Obituaries?]

[ Alright, this was a little off topic but Will's instincts told him to go with it for the moment. ]

Physically see her? No, I never had the pleasure. [ And he sounds genuine with that sentiment, not sarcastic. ]

But I spoke with her once. [ He offered. ] It was after our incredibly public spat.

[A part of him wonders if Will is humoring.]

No, no. No. Only lies have detail. [They're clearly words he's remembering and repeating. John shakes his head again.]

You're hurt. What are we talking about? [He's too scattered for this conversation. He's being useless to a man who doesn't even like him, but who's being kind, anyway. Why is Will being kind? He's been abused. Horribly abused. John finally pulls his gaze from Mary and looks over at the other man.]

Hallucinations. Delusions. Part of what they drugged us with last night. Dizzy. Nausea and vomiting. Anisomysin's toxic. [John slowly uncurls and looks down at his wrist. There's a hospital bracelet there with a listing of drugs that Will's never heard of except, possibly, the anisomysin.] Mr. Miller. He said he's trying to fix us.

Edited 2018-04-29 03:36 (UTC)

[ Again, Will waited patiently and let Watson work through his words. He could tell the man was having a hard time sticking to any one lane and Will didn't blame him one bit. Often times it was the only way the brain could survive the impossible. It would do Watson no favors to try to force the issue, so Will let him set the tone and course. ]

We were talking about what Miller is doing; to all of us. [ He was going to try to lead them back to Miller as the source of this misery, rather than allow it to become an us verse them situation.

When Watson exposed his bracelet, Will leaned forward to get a closer look. He tipped a little awkwardly and was forced to catch himself on his forearms, to avoid landing on his hands. ]

Anisomycin. [ He repeated the word, but then his brows furrowed at the other drugs listed. ] But ... that's the only one you share?

I dunno. Stephen, I think he... he might've listed it out. Can't remember. I should remember. [John raises a hand and knocks hard against his temple a few times, like it might actually shake something loose. Mostly it just makes his head ache.]

Different symptoms. We all had different symptoms. I was only dizzy, hallucinations and delusions. Tess. She was... I think she was throwing up. Tell her to drink water. Eat the food. Can you take her my food?

[There's an untouched tray of food sitting nearby.]

I tried to make a trap. Soap and things. Slip them up. Slip us up. They were static. The eyes are in the static. They're watching us.

[ At the words soap, Will's body helpfully provided him with the phantom taste of soap, water and blood in his mouth as toilet paper was force fed to him. His stomach flipped and he was forced to swallow down the sudden production of saliva; precursor to vomiting.

For both his sake and Watson's, luckily Will's fairly iron strong stomach held true and he didn't toss what was likely to be nothing, but it was the first time he'd had a near miss. It did possibly answer the question about where the soap had come from though.

Glancing towards the tray, Will was forced to shake his head. ]

I'm sorry, I don't think I can. [ He said, sounding legitimately regretful. He didn't want to shove the state of his hands in Watson's face, but he recognized that even trying to put the tray on his arms would be problematic. ]

What do you mean, there were eyes in the static?

Can you find someone who might be able to? [It's somehow desperately important now that he gets this food to Tess, whether she wants it or not. But then the eyes. The static and the eyes.]

It took over everything. Back... months? [Years? Days? No. Weeks? Maybe? It's so hard to keep track of time right now.] Before you. The static, it was covering everything. Everyone. Glitching in and out. It faded back. Then it came again. You had to choose: draw the eyes, mark out the eyes. Prophet eyes. It's how they assigned us. Prophet or Andromeda. We wanted to murder all of them. They were going to destroy Norfinbury. The only way to save it was to kill them all.

[And he's pulling back into himself as the memories threaten to overwhelm his sense of place here.]

[ Oh boy.

If he had the use of his fingers, Will would be scratching at the back of his head. But he doesn't and he just manages to remember this fact before his mitted hand connects with his head.

Talking to Watson is becoming both an emotional and a mental exercise. Though he doesn't mean too, the man is bleeding psychological details that Will can't help absorbing, and analyzing. The desperation to get food to Tess need in the caretaker to try to offset some measure of the guilt currently eating Watson alive. Then there was the way Watson explained what had happened but curled into himself; classic PTSD.

Will had suspected for a while now that John Watson was a man on the edge. It was part of what fascinated him about Watson's relationship with Hannibal and the fact that Hannibal appeared to be ... well not actively making it worse.

But how could you give back even a small measure of control, in a place like this? For the first time in their relationship, Will had witnessed even Hannibal driven to the edge of his tolerance; and Hannibal had an almost preternatural level of tolerance. ]

Watson! [ Will snapped the name out like a whip crack. He didn't feel good about it, but Watson was military; he'd be used to responding to authority even if his conscious mind was in turmoil.

When he -hopefully- had Watson's attention, Will continued in a softer but firm tone. ]

We need you, doctor. We need your experience, and your input. You have done nothing to harm us, but letting up now is NOT an option.

[ A breath and then his voice gentled. ]

I know it hurts, John and I know you're exhausted. I genuinely wish there was some way the rest of us could do this and you could sleep. But we can't afford to let you rest. It isn't fair and I am truly sorry for this. All I can offer is the assurance that you're not alone.

[Will might not feel the best about the tactic, but it's highly effective. John jerks his head up and all but snaps to attention where he's sitting, like a dog responding to its master. His gaze is still distant for a second or two, body responding before his brain catches up, but he does focus on the ex-profiler in the space of a few blinks.

The fact Will doesn't think he's done anything to harm the people here is almost laughable, but John can see where the man is driving. It's an argument the doctor has used to defend people time and time again in these situations from the people who are too upset about being tortured or killed. Or even on the people who had done the torturing and killing themselves. It's not an easy pill to swallow for himself.

Particularly not when he has the evidence of what he'd been party to sitting in front of him and roaming the halls. But he's needed. He needs to pull it together. Soldiers today. He can have his breakdown later when there's more privacy. He takes a few steadying breaths, closes his eyes and refocuses on Will once more. Mary is still at the corner of his vision, but he tries to ignore her for now.]

I dunno what input I can offer on drugs I've never heard of, sir. [He's latching onto his military training for mental stability here, not his medical training.] But Dr. Strange is very familiar with experimental protocols surrounding anisomycin. It's been shown to be able to inhibit memory reconsolidation in rats. Basically, the researchers trained rats to associate and audio cue with pain. They triggered the memory of that pain, injected the anisomycin into the brain, and the rats no longer reacted to the audio cue.

[ Inwardly Will winces a little at the 'Sir'. No one in their right mind would ever 'Sir' him, not given the trainwreck that was his entire being. Though he did command a certain respect on a crime scene and the police would respond to his requests/orders a lot of that came from a respect for Jack Crawford, rather than Will himself.

They responded but there weren't many 'Sirs' involved.

But then, Watson was most certainly not in his right mind at the moment. If the man needed to continue in the military vein (and Will could see that need) then Will would do his best to give him what he could hold on too. At least for now, until they got clear of this shitstorm and Watson could find comfort with Sherlock, or Hannibal.

He didn't snap, but he did firm up his tone and rocked back to his heels, squaring his shoulders so that he projected the body language of authority. Mostly he was drawing on a combination of Jack and Hannibal to mimic the posture; it certainly didn't belong on Will Graham.

Taking a breath, he gathered together his words and began to fire off questions. ]

So in your medical opinion, Miller is attempting to program our memories?

There is evidence of other drugs being used, but I can't recognize them. Tell me what they are.

Have you experienced or seen from others, any evidence of side-effects? I mean beyond the obvious failed component of this experiment, do we have any thread to follow what is being done to us; chemically speaking?

Program our memories, or reprogram our behavior associated with certain memories. Yes, sir.

[Will is going to have to suffer a little more 'sir'ing for the duration of this encounter.]

My bracelet lists the following drugs. [John reads them off.] The only one I recognize is anisomycin. Dr. Strange reported his list with similar results. It might be these are alternate names for drugs we're aware of or more advanced drugs that appeared after 2017.

Side-effects varied after initial injection procedures. We were taken one-by-one by the static, strapped to gurneys, and wheeled to the room at the end of the hall. Operating room resembles standard procedure room. No machines resembled the one identified in Building 279 while sinners were undergoing operations by converts. I was injected with three different drugs in the first session and subsequently taken for a second session involving the injection of four additional drugs. No bags were labeled to identify which drugs were given when.

Disequilibrium set in following my first session. Hallucination and delusion set in following my second. A number of patients on the block showed signs of hallucination and delusion, but this was not a universal symptom. Tess experienced symptoms of apparent vertigo, but no neurological effects. This may be the result of the different combinations of drugs we've been assigned.

Mr. Miller's given no explanation as to the the reason or necessity of the differences.

[ Each and every 'sir' was like a barb to his skin, but Will reminded himself that this was for Watson's sake.

Will took in the information Watson provided and started to build ... a very uncomfortable picture. But rather than answer his own question, he kept trying to draw on Watson's expertise. It was a deliberate choice, the only way he could offer the doctor some semblance of control, of usefulness to hang on too. ]

In your professional opinion, based upon your own experiences and what you've observed with the others; what is Miller trying to accomplish here?

Elimination of the lines. Possibly a fix to whatever coding exists that's damaged our own neural codes. From previous interactions, Mr. Miller also displays marked psychopathic and sadistic tendencies. He's unlikely to have chosen the safest means to meet his goals.

I anticipate he'll repeat tests with minor tweaks until he's satisfied the matter's been resolved.

[ It was good to hear that if Will could find Miller, he had a case for delivering some righteous violence. Provided Hannibal didn't get hold of the man first. ]

More likely to have gone for the most expedient and cost effective? [ It was a question, but something of a rhetorical one.

Watson was still drifting but at least he seemed to be a step back from trying to destroy his own joints; for the moment at least. Time to layer in a thread for the protector in the man to -hopefully- grasp on too. ]

Why not just kill us, or erase us?

[ A risk you might need to help us fight, John. ]

Where would his entertainment come from, sir?

[John's brows rise.]

[ The 'sir' still felt awkward, but Will did his best to hang on to the facade; for Watson's sake. ]

Fair point. [ He agreed, exhaling a slow breath and glancing upwards, thoughtfully. ] More evidence that all of this, from the very beginning, has been some kind of experiment.

And more evidence that we need to hang in there and make sure this gets ended. Once and for all.

[ He didn't say the words, but it was in his tone. Sorry, John. It's not rest time yet. ]

[The doctor nods after a long moment and closes his eyes. He can see how uncomfortable Will is, how uncomfortable all of this is for him--awkward fit for a bloke who doesn't do comfort. He's just patching what he can, probably wants to scurry away. Should do. For his own sanity.]

Understood. Think I've got a hold on things now. [Translation: I'm stable enough to carry on.] Any other questions?

[ It was uncomfortable and Will really was crap at any sort of long term comfort. At least in any traditional manner. He could shittalk with House all night, and he could draw Hannibal along through mental hallways of dark, destructive beauty.

But what normal people considered comforting? Utter and complete rubbish.

Recognizing that Watson was drawing a line in the conversation, Will nodded. ]

No further questions, at this time. [ He confirmed. ] But you should be prepared for other inquiries, as people keep investigating our circumstances.

[ Yes, perhaps he was hammering the point home a little excessively, but ... rubbish.

Will gave Watson one more nod and then moved away. ]

Event: Consolidation Theory, Part Four and Five

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cw: dissociation continues in a milder form

cw: dissociation continues in a milder form

cw: dissociation continues in a milder form

cw: dissociation continues in a milder form

cw: dissociation continues in a milder form

cw: dissociation continues in a milder form

cw: dissociation continues in a milder form

cw: dissociation continues in a milder form