Freedom (3/?)
Apr. 6th, 2005 02:08 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
rainweaver13.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
vigorliTitle: Freedom 3/?
Author: Rainweaver13
Pairing: Viggo/Orlando/some Sean
Summary: A highly trained empath's first case is a shattered mystery man.
Rating/Warnings: Slightly sci-fi AU. Suitable for adults who can deal with adult language.
Disclaimer: This is complete fiction. To the best of my knowledge, neither Orlando nor Sean Bean are empaths, nor has Viggo ever been a battered amnesiac. It's something I dreamed up. It has no relation to reality, and I'm not making any money from it.
Bloom, Orlando, Emp. C1
Case #723, John Doe 439
Case notes
Medical has been instructed to reduce his tranquilizing medications during the day by 20 percent beginning this morning. Also, I'm to be informed when it's time for his meals. Beginning today, I plan to eat with him for a while, if possible.
Early morning records show a largely uneventful evening. One outbreak of apparent nightmares, with screaming and physical lashing about, beginning at 2:48 a.m. Stilled by sedative dart.
Good morning, John Doe.
Bloom, Orlando, Emp. C1
Case #723, John Doe 439
Session 3.1
I arrive a good half-hour before his morning meal is scheduled, because I want to try to read him as he awakens. I spent several hours last night in our library, digging through old texts, following leads through indices and card catalogs, trying to figure out what might be wrong with John Doe. More importantly, trying to find out if there's a known way to help him.
I got nowhere, but then I didn't really expect to get anywhere in that short a time. Searching for information is a tedious, mind-numbing task. Some of the oldest medics say there was a time, before the Burst, when searching out information was as simple as typing in a request on a typewriter. The information you wanted would magically appear on a machine. My mind knows that this is true - this magic was called computing - but my heart has a hard time believing anything like that ever existed. Reliable electricity is an almost magical thing now. We live in what we're told is a mixed technology world. But it's the only world I've ever known, and I find the idea of magic information machines and trains that rode on air and all the tales the old-timers tell to be suspicious at best.
But I've digressed. Note to self: Delete previous section from record when I transcribe.
John Doe is beginning to stir, and it's time to take a baseline reading on his emotions. He is groggy - to be expected from sleep and the sedative at 3 a.m. - but behind the grogginess is something flickering but constant. I open farther and finally identify it as hope. As he wakes the hope is strong, growing stronger until the point when he opens his eyes.
I feel it crash, like a physical blow, leaving me for a few breaths almost nauseated. I pull back, away from his emotions, and settle myself with slow, deep, calming breaths. When I open my eyes again, he has sat up on his mattress and is staring at me. I smile to see that he's wearing the paper pajamas.
This is something new in a routine he's grown accustomed to, and I can feel his wariness as he climbs to his feet, staggering slightly, and crosses to the blue door on one side of the room. He keeps glancing over his shoulder at me, and curiosity sparks amid the overall resignation he feels. He places both hands on the blue door, a well-trained dog,
After a moment the door opens and a burly watcher allows him into the small bathroom. The door is closed, but the watcher stays with him, and I can feel his resigned resentment of that even though he's out of visual range.
A watcher brings in two identical food trays while he's in the bathroom. "How does he usually eat?" I ask, since there are no tables and no chairs other than the one I bring in for myself.
"Sitting on the floor," the watcher says. "What he eats. Not much."
"Bring us in a low table, big enough for both trays."
The watcher gives me a "your funeral" kind of look, but vanishes and returns a while later with a small low table. We arrange the two trays on it along with two plastic cups of water, and I dismiss him. I hope I'm doing the right thing. This is a man who stabbed himself six times before they could get to him the one time they gave him a metal fork with his meal. I seat myself cross-legged on one side of the table and wait.
When he stumbles out of the bathroom, his hair is damp and tangled and he's projecting angry frustration. I look over and can tell there was apparently some difficulty with shaving, since one strip is clear on an otherwise heavily stubbled jaw. He reaches the middle of the room and glares at me, brows drawing down in a heavy frown.
"Good morning," I say, as easily and pleasantly as I can, projecting calm and welcome. The confusion that ripples off him at that simple greeting is almost amusing.
"I'd like to eat with you." I try to keep my sentences simple. I gesture toward the trays. He's boiling with uncertainty and suspicion. "Will you join me?"
I start to lift the thick plastic covers off my food, all things that can be eaten with fingers or using warm tortillas. I very carefully don't look at him as I pick up a small ripe tomato and pop it into my mouth, savoring the sweetly tart flavor. Tearing off a piece of tortilla, I use it to scoop up a mouthful of cheesy scrambled eggs, letting my eyes fall half-closed as I savor the taste. I also let a trickle of my enjoyment broadcast to him, just a whisper-touch.
A rustle of paper warns me and I open my eyes to find him settling awkwardly across from me. He studies the food and I touch his mind. Ahh... there's the reason he won't eat. He thinks the drugs are in the food.
"Can you understand me?" I ask, slowly and clearly.
Haunted blue eyes search mine for a long moment before he nods slowly, hesitantly.
"Everything I say?"
His gaze never leaves mine. He shakes his head and I taste regret.
"But some things."
He nods, uncertain.
"Are you afraid to eat the food?" I keep myself as open to him as I can without risking his noticing my presence. I point to the food, then try to mime fear - eyes wide, hands up, palms warding it away.
He almost, almost smiles as he nods, and it seems to hurt him.
"You have to eat, or you will be fed invasively." A brief flurry of fear. "Do you know what that means?"
Head shake.
"A tube will be put down your nose into your stomach." I watched him carefully, and feel the panic bubbling off him like a boiling pot. I try to mime the idea of a nasogastric tube, letting myself broadcast the image, the discomfort, the need for more medication. "Food will be put in that way."
His eyes are wide and faint tremors are rattling through his body. He looks down at the tray as if it were a deadly enemy.
"It's just food," I say, soothing. "See... I'll eat it. Watch." I take the covers off his food and help myself to a few bites, making sure to take some of each item. "See? It's fine."
His jaw is tight as steel, but he reaches a shaking hand to the food and takes a bite, clearly expecting to pass out or die at any moment. When neither happens, he takes another, then takes a third from my plate, watching my face carefully as he does. I simply smile at him and reach past his arm to sneak a tomato from his plate.
At that, he smiles. It's the first unguarded smile I've seen, and it changes his face. For a heartbeat, the fear, anger, suspicion and frustration take back seat in his mind and he tastes of a pleasant calmness.
I wonder if I've just seen my first glimpse of the real John Doe.
Bloom, Orlando, Emp. C1
Case #723, John Doe 439
Session 3.3
He ate almost half his lunch, and drank both his own water and mine. I've ordered that a plastic gallon of water and a cup be left in his room at all times. Medical wanted to argue, but as Primary Empath I make his final decisions. He can hardly drown himself in a gallon of water, and it's clear the man is thirsty. Many of the medications he's on - anti-depressants, anti-psychotics - cause severe thirst. No wonder he thinks we're trying to harm him.
He's awake as I enter his room. Clearly, cutting back on the trank dosage is allowing him more clarity. But I need to see about finding him some way to spend his time. Simply sitting and staring out the window is not ultimately productive.
"Good afternoon," I say, projecting calm and welcome. "I've brought your writing goods."
I cross the room slowly, pausing at the end of his mattress rather than invade his safe side, and extend today's paper and crayon. Two crayons. Brown and red. He unfolds from his corner and eases forward to take the offering from me, immediately retreating to his corner to begin to write.
I go back to my chair and wait, opened as fully as I dare to him, trying to understand.
5
Five times he's been here, with the brown hair and the white clothes. And the melting eyes. But I don't look, don't care, can't care. Don't trust the ones in uniforms, Ian said, the ones who all dress alike. They want to hurt you, they want to take you apart to see what makes you work. Stay away from the ones in uniform. And he wears white clothes like the ones with the drugs and the ones with the needles. Don't trust.
But but but but but but but but but but bu bu b
I'm tired and scared Ian I'm tired and I don't know how much longer I can not trust Ian why can I remember you and nobody else? Not even me? Who am I? Why should I not trust? I want to eat and sleep, real eat and real sleep and not be afraid and know who I am why can't I know who I am?
I can understand him. Brown eyes. Brown like this color. Brown. I understand him, sometimes. Some words. Some. Maybe he knows who I am. Maybe he can tell me. but don't trust. Don't trust. They wnt to hrt you... Hurt. Hurt.
(switch colors to red) HURT HURT HURT STAB HURT SCREAMRAPEHUR TPAINHURTHURTSTOP PLEASESTOPSCREAM SCREAMSCREAMPLEASEHURT PLEASESTOP PLEASESTOP PLEASEPLEASE PLEASEPLEASE PLEASE-
Bloom, Orlando, Emp. C1
Case #723, John Doe 439
Session 3.3B
He is jittery, unsettled, all through the writing and I get impressions of a small group of people, fearful, determined, and a vague image of a man with white hair and piercing blue eyes, stern. Then more fear and frustration until he abruptly shifts into a completely different headspace and I'm almost overwhelmed by a jumble of images, of knives entering flesh, skin burning, violent sex, blood, screaming, agony, death and I can feel myself being pulled into his trauma. By the time I manage to drag myself free of his quagmire, he's fallen over on one side but his hand is still working, still scrawling, now writing on the padded flooring.
I close my empathy down to the barest minimum, take a few calming breaths, and try to project calm as I cross the room toward him.
"John," I say when I'm still two steps away, and repeat it after another step, firmly, "John."
Still he writes, the same scrawl again and again.
I drop to my haunches and reach out cautiously to touch his hand, a firm but non-constricting touch. "John, come back."
No response, so I repeat it, adding a light mental nudge. "John, come back."
And just like that, his hand slows. He stares at the red crayon as if it were a viper. "No," he says, very clearly. "No."
I pick up the crayon and slide it out of sight in one of my cavernous pockets. "No," I agree. "No more red."
He stares at me, tremors running through him like earthquake aftershocks. I study him, the shaggy hair, the thin face, the intensely blue eyes, and wonder what in the hell happened to this man to give him those horrendous memories. He's breathing hard, as if he's run a sprint, but it's slowing now, and he looks down at the scrawls on the paper, on the padding. He touches a long, slender finger to one scrawl, looks up at me, takes a deep breath and works hard to force out a sound.
"Bleesch."
His face is so open, so needy, so desperate for me to understand, and I don't get it. I look down at where his finger is resting and study the lines as if they were a puzzle my life depended on. For several minutes we sit like that, and finally his finger begins to slide away and I can feel his hope beginning to die, when I have a sudden idea. If I took his writing and looked at it backwards, sorta ....
PLIS. It said PLIS. And he said Bleesch. It was please.
"Please," I almost shout it, and he startles and scuttles backwards, but then he smiles and nods. "Bleesch."
"Oh yes, John, I will do my best to help you, please."
"Bleesch."
"Please."
It is our first real communication.
Author: Rainweaver13
Pairing: Viggo/Orlando/some Sean
Summary: A highly trained empath's first case is a shattered mystery man.
Rating/Warnings: Slightly sci-fi AU. Suitable for adults who can deal with adult language.
Disclaimer: This is complete fiction. To the best of my knowledge, neither Orlando nor Sean Bean are empaths, nor has Viggo ever been a battered amnesiac. It's something I dreamed up. It has no relation to reality, and I'm not making any money from it.
Bloom, Orlando, Emp. C1
Case #723, John Doe 439
Case notes
Medical has been instructed to reduce his tranquilizing medications during the day by 20 percent beginning this morning. Also, I'm to be informed when it's time for his meals. Beginning today, I plan to eat with him for a while, if possible.
Early morning records show a largely uneventful evening. One outbreak of apparent nightmares, with screaming and physical lashing about, beginning at 2:48 a.m. Stilled by sedative dart.
Good morning, John Doe.
Bloom, Orlando, Emp. C1
Case #723, John Doe 439
Session 3.1
I arrive a good half-hour before his morning meal is scheduled, because I want to try to read him as he awakens. I spent several hours last night in our library, digging through old texts, following leads through indices and card catalogs, trying to figure out what might be wrong with John Doe. More importantly, trying to find out if there's a known way to help him.
I got nowhere, but then I didn't really expect to get anywhere in that short a time. Searching for information is a tedious, mind-numbing task. Some of the oldest medics say there was a time, before the Burst, when searching out information was as simple as typing in a request on a typewriter. The information you wanted would magically appear on a machine. My mind knows that this is true - this magic was called computing - but my heart has a hard time believing anything like that ever existed. Reliable electricity is an almost magical thing now. We live in what we're told is a mixed technology world. But it's the only world I've ever known, and I find the idea of magic information machines and trains that rode on air and all the tales the old-timers tell to be suspicious at best.
But I've digressed. Note to self: Delete previous section from record when I transcribe.
John Doe is beginning to stir, and it's time to take a baseline reading on his emotions. He is groggy - to be expected from sleep and the sedative at 3 a.m. - but behind the grogginess is something flickering but constant. I open farther and finally identify it as hope. As he wakes the hope is strong, growing stronger until the point when he opens his eyes.
I feel it crash, like a physical blow, leaving me for a few breaths almost nauseated. I pull back, away from his emotions, and settle myself with slow, deep, calming breaths. When I open my eyes again, he has sat up on his mattress and is staring at me. I smile to see that he's wearing the paper pajamas.
This is something new in a routine he's grown accustomed to, and I can feel his wariness as he climbs to his feet, staggering slightly, and crosses to the blue door on one side of the room. He keeps glancing over his shoulder at me, and curiosity sparks amid the overall resignation he feels. He places both hands on the blue door, a well-trained dog,
After a moment the door opens and a burly watcher allows him into the small bathroom. The door is closed, but the watcher stays with him, and I can feel his resigned resentment of that even though he's out of visual range.
A watcher brings in two identical food trays while he's in the bathroom. "How does he usually eat?" I ask, since there are no tables and no chairs other than the one I bring in for myself.
"Sitting on the floor," the watcher says. "What he eats. Not much."
"Bring us in a low table, big enough for both trays."
The watcher gives me a "your funeral" kind of look, but vanishes and returns a while later with a small low table. We arrange the two trays on it along with two plastic cups of water, and I dismiss him. I hope I'm doing the right thing. This is a man who stabbed himself six times before they could get to him the one time they gave him a metal fork with his meal. I seat myself cross-legged on one side of the table and wait.
When he stumbles out of the bathroom, his hair is damp and tangled and he's projecting angry frustration. I look over and can tell there was apparently some difficulty with shaving, since one strip is clear on an otherwise heavily stubbled jaw. He reaches the middle of the room and glares at me, brows drawing down in a heavy frown.
"Good morning," I say, as easily and pleasantly as I can, projecting calm and welcome. The confusion that ripples off him at that simple greeting is almost amusing.
"I'd like to eat with you." I try to keep my sentences simple. I gesture toward the trays. He's boiling with uncertainty and suspicion. "Will you join me?"
I start to lift the thick plastic covers off my food, all things that can be eaten with fingers or using warm tortillas. I very carefully don't look at him as I pick up a small ripe tomato and pop it into my mouth, savoring the sweetly tart flavor. Tearing off a piece of tortilla, I use it to scoop up a mouthful of cheesy scrambled eggs, letting my eyes fall half-closed as I savor the taste. I also let a trickle of my enjoyment broadcast to him, just a whisper-touch.
A rustle of paper warns me and I open my eyes to find him settling awkwardly across from me. He studies the food and I touch his mind. Ahh... there's the reason he won't eat. He thinks the drugs are in the food.
"Can you understand me?" I ask, slowly and clearly.
Haunted blue eyes search mine for a long moment before he nods slowly, hesitantly.
"Everything I say?"
His gaze never leaves mine. He shakes his head and I taste regret.
"But some things."
He nods, uncertain.
"Are you afraid to eat the food?" I keep myself as open to him as I can without risking his noticing my presence. I point to the food, then try to mime fear - eyes wide, hands up, palms warding it away.
He almost, almost smiles as he nods, and it seems to hurt him.
"You have to eat, or you will be fed invasively." A brief flurry of fear. "Do you know what that means?"
Head shake.
"A tube will be put down your nose into your stomach." I watched him carefully, and feel the panic bubbling off him like a boiling pot. I try to mime the idea of a nasogastric tube, letting myself broadcast the image, the discomfort, the need for more medication. "Food will be put in that way."
His eyes are wide and faint tremors are rattling through his body. He looks down at the tray as if it were a deadly enemy.
"It's just food," I say, soothing. "See... I'll eat it. Watch." I take the covers off his food and help myself to a few bites, making sure to take some of each item. "See? It's fine."
His jaw is tight as steel, but he reaches a shaking hand to the food and takes a bite, clearly expecting to pass out or die at any moment. When neither happens, he takes another, then takes a third from my plate, watching my face carefully as he does. I simply smile at him and reach past his arm to sneak a tomato from his plate.
At that, he smiles. It's the first unguarded smile I've seen, and it changes his face. For a heartbeat, the fear, anger, suspicion and frustration take back seat in his mind and he tastes of a pleasant calmness.
I wonder if I've just seen my first glimpse of the real John Doe.
Bloom, Orlando, Emp. C1
Case #723, John Doe 439
Session 3.3
He ate almost half his lunch, and drank both his own water and mine. I've ordered that a plastic gallon of water and a cup be left in his room at all times. Medical wanted to argue, but as Primary Empath I make his final decisions. He can hardly drown himself in a gallon of water, and it's clear the man is thirsty. Many of the medications he's on - anti-depressants, anti-psychotics - cause severe thirst. No wonder he thinks we're trying to harm him.
He's awake as I enter his room. Clearly, cutting back on the trank dosage is allowing him more clarity. But I need to see about finding him some way to spend his time. Simply sitting and staring out the window is not ultimately productive.
"Good afternoon," I say, projecting calm and welcome. "I've brought your writing goods."
I cross the room slowly, pausing at the end of his mattress rather than invade his safe side, and extend today's paper and crayon. Two crayons. Brown and red. He unfolds from his corner and eases forward to take the offering from me, immediately retreating to his corner to begin to write.
I go back to my chair and wait, opened as fully as I dare to him, trying to understand.
5
Five times he's been here, with the brown hair and the white clothes. And the melting eyes. But I don't look, don't care, can't care. Don't trust the ones in uniforms, Ian said, the ones who all dress alike. They want to hurt you, they want to take you apart to see what makes you work. Stay away from the ones in uniform. And he wears white clothes like the ones with the drugs and the ones with the needles. Don't trust.
But but but but but but but but but but bu bu b
I'm tired and scared Ian I'm tired and I don't know how much longer I can not trust Ian why can I remember you and nobody else? Not even me? Who am I? Why should I not trust? I want to eat and sleep, real eat and real sleep and not be afraid and know who I am why can't I know who I am?
I can understand him. Brown eyes. Brown like this color. Brown. I understand him, sometimes. Some words. Some. Maybe he knows who I am. Maybe he can tell me. but don't trust. Don't trust. They wnt to hrt you... Hurt. Hurt.
(switch colors to red) HURT HURT HURT STAB HURT SCREAMRAPEHUR TPAINHURTHURTSTOP PLEASESTOPSCREAM SCREAMSCREAMPLEASEHURT PLEASESTOP PLEASESTOP PLEASEPLEASE PLEASEPLEASE PLEASE-
Bloom, Orlando, Emp. C1
Case #723, John Doe 439
Session 3.3B
He is jittery, unsettled, all through the writing and I get impressions of a small group of people, fearful, determined, and a vague image of a man with white hair and piercing blue eyes, stern. Then more fear and frustration until he abruptly shifts into a completely different headspace and I'm almost overwhelmed by a jumble of images, of knives entering flesh, skin burning, violent sex, blood, screaming, agony, death and I can feel myself being pulled into his trauma. By the time I manage to drag myself free of his quagmire, he's fallen over on one side but his hand is still working, still scrawling, now writing on the padded flooring.
I close my empathy down to the barest minimum, take a few calming breaths, and try to project calm as I cross the room toward him.
"John," I say when I'm still two steps away, and repeat it after another step, firmly, "John."
Still he writes, the same scrawl again and again.
I drop to my haunches and reach out cautiously to touch his hand, a firm but non-constricting touch. "John, come back."
No response, so I repeat it, adding a light mental nudge. "John, come back."
And just like that, his hand slows. He stares at the red crayon as if it were a viper. "No," he says, very clearly. "No."
I pick up the crayon and slide it out of sight in one of my cavernous pockets. "No," I agree. "No more red."
He stares at me, tremors running through him like earthquake aftershocks. I study him, the shaggy hair, the thin face, the intensely blue eyes, and wonder what in the hell happened to this man to give him those horrendous memories. He's breathing hard, as if he's run a sprint, but it's slowing now, and he looks down at the scrawls on the paper, on the padding. He touches a long, slender finger to one scrawl, looks up at me, takes a deep breath and works hard to force out a sound.
"Bleesch."
His face is so open, so needy, so desperate for me to understand, and I don't get it. I look down at where his finger is resting and study the lines as if they were a puzzle my life depended on. For several minutes we sit like that, and finally his finger begins to slide away and I can feel his hope beginning to die, when I have a sudden idea. If I took his writing and looked at it backwards, sorta ....
PLIS. It said PLIS. And he said Bleesch. It was please.
"Please," I almost shout it, and he startles and scuttles backwards, but then he smiles and nods. "Bleesch."
"Oh yes, John, I will do my best to help you, please."
"Bleesch."
"Please."
It is our first real communication.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-04-06 07:21 pm (UTC)I still am impressed with the way you write his madness
no subject
Date: 2005-04-06 07:31 pm (UTC)I am so very hooked on this fic! I practically pounced on this update and I really should be working!
no subject
Date: 2005-04-06 09:05 pm (UTC)Am so happy they've got the communication at last!
This is wonderful, and entirely intriguing. Love it. xxx
<333
no subject
Date: 2005-04-06 10:15 pm (UTC)