Simon Monroe (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
irishrotter) wrote2015-01-24 10:52 am
irishrotter) wrote2015-01-24 10:52 am
(no subject)
1. CW: depression, suicidal ideation, drug use
You're 27 years old and you've long stopped caring whether you live or die. You didn't know today would be the day, but you suspected this year might be the year. Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Richey Edwards; none of them made it further than this, so why should you? Why would you?
You're broke and jobless and you've been sleeping on a mate's couch for a week because you can't bring yourself to slink back to your folks' place again just yet. When he brings home a party, complete with party favors, you don't even bother to ask what's in the bag. You're so fucking miserable that it doesn't matter -- at this point, anything is likely to make each breath hurt a little less. So you toss the last few pounds you have at him, and when he gives you a few pills, you swallow them without question.
The world kicks, then blurs, going just a little bit softer around the edges. You want to cry with relief. You want more. A pretty fellow flirts with you for a bit, offers you something powdery, and it's making your sinuses burn a moment later. That, you realize instantly, was a mistake: the pain is less but the fear and the anger are more, more, more, and you feel like your skin is being scraped away. You find yourself clinging to the nearest person; you're not even sure if it's a real person or not. But someone laughs and says, "Here, this will help," and passes you a needle and a bit of rubber tubing.
Even in your current state, this is familiar to you, and you know there will be a kind of comfort in the sleepy, swaying torpor at the other end of it. Despite your shaking hands, you tie the tube around your arm and guide the needle into your wrist, because your forearms are already both shot and useless. When you push the plunger, there it is: the rush of cold in your veins, and then beautiful, spreading nothingness. You tug the tubing off and toss the syringe away somewhere and fall back onto the couch, closing your eyes, letting the waters close over you and pull you deeper, deeper...
At some point, it occurs to you in a dim and distant way that you've gone too far. You've been here before -- five times you've been snatched from the jaws of death -- and for just a few seconds, you fight to make this the sixth. You try to pull a breath into your lungs, you try to make your heart go again--
You stop fighting. And it is, quite honestly, the greatest relief you've ever known.
2. CW: medical experimentation, electrocution
It's four months after you first woke up that they ask if they can keep experimenting on you; the incongruity of this won't strike you until later. It's true that they haven't been doing much lately, not since you started speaking again. They come into your cell every day and haul you off to get the daily IV and round of readings, and you know they watch you more often than not, but mostly they've just been talking to you so far. Helping you remember who you were before.
Today is different, in a way that makes you very anxious. Today, they take you into the OR and they strap you back into the gurney you first woke up in, tied down from head to toe, arms forced out to the sides. A little sandy-haired man -- John, your mind supplies -- starts to do something to the top of your head, although you can't see or feel what it might be. For all you really know, he's drilling holes, although you try not to think that way. John is the nice one. You want to trust him.
"We're going to stimulate the parts of your brain that have reacted to the drug," he says in his calm, soothing English accent. "Get some readings."
You try not to be scared, but your voice quavers anyway when you ask, "Is all this necessary, John?" You're not sure you understand, but they're going to do something to your brain, and that's all you have left.
"It is, Simon," he murmurs. "Part of the healing process." He smiles at you and you try to smile back, but you don't think it works. You hear more than feel him pat you on the shoulder, and then he hurries off to the other room, and you're alone and afraid. You take a deep breath that doesn't help anything--
"Starting the procedure now," John's voice says over the speaker, tinny and distant--
--and the electric current hits you like a truck, searing through your body and your brain.
You're 27 years old and you've long stopped caring whether you live or die. You didn't know today would be the day, but you suspected this year might be the year. Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Richey Edwards; none of them made it further than this, so why should you? Why would you?
You're broke and jobless and you've been sleeping on a mate's couch for a week because you can't bring yourself to slink back to your folks' place again just yet. When he brings home a party, complete with party favors, you don't even bother to ask what's in the bag. You're so fucking miserable that it doesn't matter -- at this point, anything is likely to make each breath hurt a little less. So you toss the last few pounds you have at him, and when he gives you a few pills, you swallow them without question.
The world kicks, then blurs, going just a little bit softer around the edges. You want to cry with relief. You want more. A pretty fellow flirts with you for a bit, offers you something powdery, and it's making your sinuses burn a moment later. That, you realize instantly, was a mistake: the pain is less but the fear and the anger are more, more, more, and you feel like your skin is being scraped away. You find yourself clinging to the nearest person; you're not even sure if it's a real person or not. But someone laughs and says, "Here, this will help," and passes you a needle and a bit of rubber tubing.
Even in your current state, this is familiar to you, and you know there will be a kind of comfort in the sleepy, swaying torpor at the other end of it. Despite your shaking hands, you tie the tube around your arm and guide the needle into your wrist, because your forearms are already both shot and useless. When you push the plunger, there it is: the rush of cold in your veins, and then beautiful, spreading nothingness. You tug the tubing off and toss the syringe away somewhere and fall back onto the couch, closing your eyes, letting the waters close over you and pull you deeper, deeper...
At some point, it occurs to you in a dim and distant way that you've gone too far. You've been here before -- five times you've been snatched from the jaws of death -- and for just a few seconds, you fight to make this the sixth. You try to pull a breath into your lungs, you try to make your heart go again--
You stop fighting. And it is, quite honestly, the greatest relief you've ever known.
2. CW: medical experimentation, electrocution
It's four months after you first woke up that they ask if they can keep experimenting on you; the incongruity of this won't strike you until later. It's true that they haven't been doing much lately, not since you started speaking again. They come into your cell every day and haul you off to get the daily IV and round of readings, and you know they watch you more often than not, but mostly they've just been talking to you so far. Helping you remember who you were before.
Today is different, in a way that makes you very anxious. Today, they take you into the OR and they strap you back into the gurney you first woke up in, tied down from head to toe, arms forced out to the sides. A little sandy-haired man -- John, your mind supplies -- starts to do something to the top of your head, although you can't see or feel what it might be. For all you really know, he's drilling holes, although you try not to think that way. John is the nice one. You want to trust him.
"We're going to stimulate the parts of your brain that have reacted to the drug," he says in his calm, soothing English accent. "Get some readings."
You try not to be scared, but your voice quavers anyway when you ask, "Is all this necessary, John?" You're not sure you understand, but they're going to do something to your brain, and that's all you have left.
"It is, Simon," he murmurs. "Part of the healing process." He smiles at you and you try to smile back, but you don't think it works. You hear more than feel him pat you on the shoulder, and then he hurries off to the other room, and you're alone and afraid. You take a deep breath that doesn't help anything--
"Starting the procedure now," John's voice says over the speaker, tinny and distant--
--and the electric current hits you like a truck, searing through your body and your brain.