Event: Consolidation Theory, Part Four and Five

[snowblindmods]

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

Comments

[thewarningafter]

[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.]

[rubikscomplex]

[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?

[thewarningafter]

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.

cw: injections

[rubikscomplex]

[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.

cw: injections

[thewarningafter]

[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.

[rubikscomplex]

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.

[thewarningafter]

[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.

[rubikscomplex]

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.

[thewarningafter]

[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.

[rubikscomplex]

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.

[thewarningafter]

[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.]

[rubikscomplex]

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.

[thewarningafter]

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.

[rubikscomplex]

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.

[thewarningafter]

[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.]

[rubikscomplex]

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."]

[thewarningafter]

[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.]