Chapter Text
Small Things
Chapter One: Small Things
Jasper knew he was really sick, okay. He did!… most of the time. He was trying though! Really! He was!… most of the time. It was hard okay! Some days… some days you just had to burry your head under your pillow and pretend the rude doctor who couldn’t be bothered to introduce himself didn’t exist. That was a perfect plan thankyouverymuch.
“Jasper.”
Oh, shit. That was Rex. And that was Kai shooing Doctor Rude out the door. That wasn’t really bad but Rex and Kai tended to bring Reason with them. Jasper didn’t want Reason. Jasper wanted to stay buried in his bedding until the end of days.
“Jas—”
“No,” there was a light tug on his pillow but Jasper only gripped it tighter, “don’t wanna.”
Hand on his shoulder. “C’mon. You’ve got meds to take.”
“Make me.”
The hand tightened its grip. “We don’t want to do that, Jasper, but we will if we have to. You know that. You are also the one who wanted to deal with fewer needles. That can’t be done unless you take your meds voluntarily.”
Dammit. Damn Reason to Hell and back. And dammit why was the heart rate monitor suddenly screeching at him? Because he’d worked himself halfway into a panic attack is why. Dammit!
“Easy Jas.” The grip on his shoulder turned into a hand rubbing circles. “It’s alright. How about you tell us why you’re trying to smother yourself with your pillow?”
That whiplashed angry panic straight into mortification. “’s too bright.”
There was a disappointed sigh. “You remember what you’re supposed do when anything’s too much?”
Jasper hated, hated, that that was a serious question. That it had to be a serious question because his memory was shoddy at best. He’d remembered though. He did! He just hadn’t been able to work his brain through the process of doing it. He tried to smoosh himself deeper between his mattress and pillow. “Supposed to tell someone.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because… because… Because because!” That made sense right?
“Alright, here’s the deal. We’ve got your eye-mask here and the lights dimmed. We get your eyes covered, and we get you through your meds, fluids, and nutrient goop. Then you can burrow yourself back under your pillow. Sound like a plan?”
Damn Reason. It sounded so simple when Rex said it. (He thought that was Rex anyway.) It wasn’t! Was it? Damn now his head hurt for non-bright reasons. Why did thinking have to hurt so much? You don’t have to think, he told himself. You just have to do what you’re told. It was a potentially dangerous mindset but sometimes it was all he had.
“Jasper? Alright?”
“Yeah. Okay.” Jasper squeezed his eyes shut as tight as he could and loosened the death grip on his pillow. “Okay.”
It was still too bright as Kai pulled the pillow away and Rex helped him sit up. A dark burgundy that burned behind his eyes and made him think of blood, gunshots, and clouds of drywall dust. It lingered there even after the heavy cloth was secured over his eyes. It took the tickle-hum of the back of the bed rising and hands setting him back against it for his breathing and heart rate to settle back down because nonopeandno.
“Jasper?”
Jasper pulled a sharp breath through his teeth. “I’m okay,” breathe. “I am.” The blindfold really did help. Sometimes it felt like that nice scrap of cloth was the only thing holding the broken pieces of his skull together and stopping the mush that used to be his brain from leaking out and making a horrible mess. It was already an internal mess. It didn’t need to be an outside one too. “Just give me my stupid drugs.”
Rex helps him take his stupid drugs while Kai and someone else fiddled around with medical junk in the background. Jasper thought Rex was better at helping than a lot of the actual staff. If only because Rex understood his stubborn need to do as much for himself as he could at any given time, even if it was only drinking down the stupid pills. It took a few tries to get some of them down. Tricky little bastards.
He was just about finished swapping between gross nutrient goop and not gross juice when one of them gently turned his arm over and started rubbing it with disinfectant. He tried to jerk his arm away and nearly spilled the juice cup in his other hand. “Hey! I thought no needles!”
The hand kept its firm grip. “Fewer isn’t none, Jasper.” Dammit Reason. Jasper tried to relax. He did! Really! But he could only sharply shake his head when asked “Can you keep your arm still?”
The part of him that would never cease to scream and rage at being tied down was at constant war with the part of him that screamed that the restraints were necessary; that he would hurt someone if he wasn’t restrained and he didn’t want to hurt anybody (most of the time). Knowing it was necessary didn’t stop it from feeling like his bones were trying to claw their way out of his skin when they secured the cuff on his wrist to the strap across with bed because his bones were trying crawl out of his skin. It was necessary, it was necessary, and he’d be even more freaked out if he wasn’t restrained because if he wasn’t restrained he could hurt somebody and he didn’t want to hurt anybody.
“You’re doing well, Jas.” That voice was familiar but it wasn’t Rex or Kai. Jasper immediately decided that he didn’t know who it was and was too out of it to try and identify it farther. No matter what the stupid twitch in his head said there was nothing else to rage about. Nope and no.
“Shut up.” He knocked back the rest of his stupid juice in one go and threw the stupid cup across the room. There was a heavy pause while everyone, Jasper included, tried to figure out if there was going to be more violence. He was going to stop thinking about violence before it started sounding like a good idea.
Somebody laughed. “If I try to get you to drink the rest of this goop are you going to throw it too?”
“Noooo.” He was going to dump it on his arm and make Kai start cleaning all over again.
“Hmm. I don’t think that was a ‘I’m going to be a good boy and drink my goop’ no.”
Jasper intended to cross his arms and give his best I’m-a-good-boy-how-could-you-doubt-me pout but his retrained wrist caught and for a few moments the world cracked sideways. All he could process was tieddownrestraineddangerthreatthreatthreat.
When he was capable of more than involuntary reactions to threatdangerthreat both his wrists were strapped down and someone was trying to do the same to his ankles. He aimed kick at them because why not before he let them attach the cuffs around his ankles to the strap at the end of the bed. Jasper really, really, didn’t want to really hurt the people who were trying to help him. And he knew they were trying to help… most of the time. That didn’t mean it was easy for him to just passively let them strap him down and ohshitfuckdamn his mouth tasted like blood. He groaned and let them push his shoulders back against the bed, which was now almost fully reclined.
“Jasper?”
“Who’d I bite?” He hated biting people. After the fact at least. He usually greatly enjoyed it during the act and tended to be quite pleased with himself immediately afterward. He was still pretty pleased that he bit The Liar though (and would likely do so again if ever given the opportunity.)
“Just your own lip, Jas. Here.” Someone carefully tilted his chin and dabbed his lip with a disinfectant wipe. Carefully, because he might decide biting was a brilliant idea at any moment. Jasper immediately negated the disinfectant by reflexively licking his lip.
The hands on his shoulders squeezed. They weren’t restraining but they didn’t manage comforting either. “We need to secure your shoulders, Jas.” Because he couldn’t be jerking around with a needle in his arm. It hurt. So he nodded and let them.
The harness that held him down was almost like wearing a backpack. It was a single strap that sat across the back of his neck, looped under his arms like backpack straps before looping back under the strap across his neck. The strap connecting the harness to the bed-frame could be lengthened or shortened depending on how much freedom of movement it was safe to give him. The whole restraint system was designed like that. As much freedom as was safe for everyone. (It was far more than Jasper thought he deserved. They should’ve tied him down and let his overburdened, overstressed, overstimulated nervous system kill him. But they didn’t.)
“What happened?” He asked before his head could spin too much.
Kai was prepping his arm again. “You had a strange combination of a panic attack and a seizure. It was mildly terrifying.”
“Sorry.”
“How many times are we going to have to keep telling you to quit apologizing for the program fucking up your brain?”
“Lots. Probably lots.” And there was needle number one. Ouch. Rex, he thought, it was usually Rex, gave him bunched up wads of his blankets to squeeze. “How many needles?”
“Just two. I can make it three and give you a nice painkiller for your head. It’ll make you a little drowsy and loopy though.”
“Please.” He’d take an extra needle and painkiller stoned over migraine puke anyway. Needles themselves weren’t really a problem anyway. The reason he didn’t like them had more to do with his desire to be an active participant in his own treatment. Considering his motor skills were shot to hell, he couldn’t give himself his own injections. Plus giving him something sharp, pointy, and stabby that he could stab people with was a reeeeally bad idea. Like really, really bad.
The last needle, the IV line, however was less than comfortable. The fluid was cold and thick and left him feeling like his blood was made of sewer sludge for hours afterward. (Or maybe minutes. His sense of time was pretty fucked up.) At least it didn’t hurt like it used to. It was awful, nasty, necessary shit that prevented him from turning into a real life dementor. He might not remember the airport disaster very well (liar) but that didn’t mean— no, no, nope, and no. He was not thinking about it. He. Was. Not.
“Alright Jasper? You’re shaking.”
“Cold.” It wasn’t a lie. He was fucking cold and the fucking IV bag was filling his veins with sludge but that wasn’t the main reason. And the others always knew when he was lying by omission. Whether or not they indulge or push him varies and he couldn’t figure out what made them push and what they’d let lie. He’d really, really like to not have to make words right now.
“You’ve got a mild fever.”
“I do?”
“By a degree and a half.”
“Oh. Can I uh…” Thing that you wrap around you to keep warm. He was currently twisting one in his hands. “Blankets!” Before he even managed to get the word out, people were swathing him in as many blankets as possible without disrupting the IV line. This was acceptable.
“I’m going to need to give you a fluid line if you’re going to keep throwing cups. It’s hard enough to keep you hydrated on a good day.”
“ ’s fine.” Drinking and throwing both required being unburied from his blankets and that was no. “Can I have my other hand back?” He wanted to snuggle his blankets.
“When we’re done with the IVs. I’d rather not risk having you yank it if your brain convinces you it’s a venomous snake again.”
“That only happened…” Oh shit was this embarrassing, “a few times…”
“Six times. Specifically a coral cobra, a water cobra, a Mexican jumping viper, a hognosed pit viper, a golden lancehead, and a burrowing asp, which you were insistent was trying to burrow into your arm and live there and eat you from the inside out. Med school doesn’t really teach you what to do when your patient is intent on defending you from their venomous IV drip.”
Jasper never wanted to hide under the bed more. The heat from his face probably could’ve risen his fever by several degrees. That… that was… fuck. He remembered that; trying to dig a snake out of his arm. It was a really weird sideways memory. Of course it was weird. He thought his IV was a snake trying to burrow into his arm and eat him.
He also remembered blinking and the bundle of tubing in Kai’s arms turning into a writhing mass of angry gold snakes. That had been an… interesting moment. It had made perfect sense that Those Doctors from Before would smuggle in highly venomous snakes under some sort of illusion to hurt Kai and of course They use a highly endangered species to do it because Evil. He remembered insisting that they not kill the snakes. That they had to take them back to their Snake Island and it wasn’t their fault They tried to use them was murder weapons.
All and all, it was better than thinking about Those Doctors pinning him down and sinking snake fangs into his arm.
Really, it was all Kai’s fault that the first thing he thought when there was a sharp stab in his arm was “Snake!”
Given the stifled chuckling surrounding him, that was another thing on a long list of things he didn’t mean to say out loud but he said out loud anyway.
“It’s his fault!” Jasper insisted. “If he hadn’t put snakes in my head then they wouldn’t’ve bit me!”
That was obviously the wrong thing to say because they only laughed harder.
“I’m going to translate that as ‘If he hadn’t mentioned snakes, I wouldn’t have thought of them when he stuck me with a needle.’”
“Yes!” They kept laughing. Jasper did his best to melt into his mattress while being effectively immobile. Since that was a miserable failure, he settled for sulking. “Fine. Laugh at my poor fucked up brain. See if I care.”
That was also obviously the wrong thing to say because everyone stopped laughing immediately and the air suddenly felt heavy. “What—”
“We’re sorry, Jas. It’s not— We really shouldn’t be laughing at you.”
“It’s fine. Really! It’s just—” Frustration built as he sputtered but words decided they didn’t want to exist. He wished they could poke at each other like they used to but he couldn’t find a way to make that thought into words that made sense.
“It’s okay, Jas.” One of them was petting his hair. It was nice. “It’s okay.”
It really, really wasn’t but it was nice to hear anyway. The hand kept running through his hair and Jasper kept carefully not thinking about who it belonged to. Rex and Kai were talking about him. He listened, it was his brain they were talking about anyway, even if it was basically static to him. His head didn’t hurt so much and he was content to listen and drowse until his brain and mouth remembered what words were.
-break-
Euan looked like he was going to cry as he ran his fingers through Jasper’s hair and Rex wanted nothing more than to kill some motherfuckers all over again and grind their bones to dust. Well, no, that wasn’t quite true. What he really wanted was to not have to keep Jasper strapped down to a bed but turning Stroud into six kinds of compost would feel pretty damn good.
Kai just looked murderous as he glared at some machine’s readout screen. Then again, that tended to be Kai’s default expression when dealing with the department’s left over medical staff; like the asshole doctor who’d decided that Jasper was his business today and refused to listen to Jasper’s on shift nurse or security officer, so they’d called Kai. Doctor Asshole was not pleased. Kai was murderous, especially considering Jasper’s obvious distress. Asshole had supposed seniority but Kai had backup; backup that was very good at glaring assholes with over-inflated superiority complexes into submission.
A number of the head doctors were only helping to avoid spending the rest of their lives in a military prison and need the fear of God or Django Whetū put into them on a regular basis to keep them in line, so murderous is often Rex’s mood when dealing with them as well. The nurses and orderlies tended to be easier to deal with and watching tiny Nurse Joy ripping into her former superiors was always pretty fun.
Attempting to coax more conversation out of Jasper proved fruitless. The frustrated sputtering that petered out into agitated silence spoke more of an inability to talk rather than refusal and after he’d settled down Rex wasn’t sure he was even aware they were talking to him. It was an aggravating situation all around because they’d yet to figure out why Jasper’s brain occasionally decided words weren’t a thing. All of the double-dosed specialists struggled with speech and communication but so far Jasper was the only one to lose his entire vocabulary for minutes to days at a time.
That Jasper was currently both conscious, mostly aware, and not reacting violently to Euan’s presence was a miracle. The last time Euan was in the room with Jasper conscious, Jasper flew into a vicious rage, struggling against his restraints and ranting about treason and betrayal until a violent seizure knocked him out. Rex couldn’t say what it was like to have your kid brother brainwashed to kill you but—
Ah, fuck it. Yes he did. Somewhere along the line Jasper had wormed his way into the small clump of people Rex called family. Sneaky little brat. At least Rex had the benefit of being able to regularly interact with Jasper without causing meltdowns. (Excluding days when Jasper was absolutely certain everything was Rex’s fault.)
Rex dragged a chair next to where Euan sat on Jasper’s bed, close enough to bump their knees together. He gave Rex a week smile before turning back to Jasper. “He’s doing well,” Rex said, “if a bit bored out of his skull. He’s made so many Pokemon jokes Nurse Joy is threatening to dye her hair bright pink. Really, it’s our own fault for assigning him a nurse named Joy and a security officer named Jenny on the same shift.” Euan nodded and grinned. That had been the reaction Rex was hoping for. It had be a very entertaining introduction to watch, even though they’d both had to watch from the observation room. Jasper had asked if they were serious six times and then laughed hysterically. It had been the first Jasper had laughed since this whole mess began.
“Getting his therapies and rehabilitation started will help a lot with that.” Kai rolled over on a stool while scowling at a clipboard. “The restraints might limit the physical therapies we can do but we can definitely start on fine motor skills and cognitive rehabilitation. I know being able to feed himself actual food with actual utensils would be a hell of a moral boost.”
“We could get him some kinetic sand,” Rex suggested. “Building and sculpting with it could help both those things.”
“He hates sand.” Euan whispered. The corner of his mouth twitched with remembered laughter. “Says it’s rough, irritating, and gets everywhere.”
“There’s different kinds with different textures.” Kai said with a thoughtful look. “Ones that feel more like dough or flour—”
“Oh my god. Flour. He’d throw it at us. He’d start a flour war. He’d give it such convoluted rules that he would be the only possible winner. It’d be a disaster and he’d be laughing the whole time.” Euan grinned. “We should totally do it.”
Rex agreed. Jasper laughing would totally worth the mess but Kai axed the idea immediately. “No fucking way. You all are not going to start a flour war in a room full of sensitive medical equipment.”
Dang. It sounded like a blast. “Guess we’ll stick to dough then.”
“Floof.”
“Floof?” They looked at each other and then down at Jasper, who was butting his head against Euan’s stilled hand like an unhappy kitten until it started petting him again. “Floof?”
“Floof!” Jasper sounded greatly pleased himself; possibly because he could talk again, even if it was a nonsense word but then he added, “Get me some floof.”
“Floof.” Kai repeated. “Alright. What is floof.”
“’s like modeling dough stuff but…” He tugged at the restraints a bit when they prevented him from gesturing like he wanted to but didn’t panic again. “It doesn’t dry out and it’s supposed to be really light and fluffy so it won’t damage anything when I throw it.”
“When not if? Are we operating under the assumption you’re going to throw anything we give you?”
“Seems like a good idea to me.”
“Probably.” Kai rubbed his temples. “Okay floof. We’ll need something stiffer too. And maybe a therapy putty.”
“I saw putty with googly eyes in a shop once. Can I get some of that? I want to make little google-eyed putty monsters.”
“When I have fewer reasons to worry about you swallowing little plastic things and choking yourself.”
Jasper pouted but otherwise didn’t complain. “Nurse Joy said we were getting tvs soon. Are we?”
“It’s true. We’ll have to filter content obviously but should help with boredom. Is there anything you want? We can start approving things now.”
“Blue’s Clues.”
“Blue’s Clues?” Kai raised an eyebrow and gave Rex and Euan his incredulous look since Jasper couldn’t see it anyway. Well, it likely wouldn’t have bright flashing lights or gunshot sounds.
“Uh huh.” Jasper looked pleased again instead of pouty. “It’s about teaching about thinking and stuff like that, yeah? And I have issues with that. Thinking I mean.”
Kai frowned and looked thoughtful. “Some of the others have been using learning toys in their therapies. Educational programing would be beneficial for the same reasons.”
“Jesse’s been enthusiastic about their Leapser. They’ve been demanding everyone get one.”
“How come I haven’t got one?”
“We’re working under the assumption you’ll throw everything across the room. Remember?”
“Fuck you.”
“Don’t worry, Jas. We’ll find you some less breakable toys.”
“And I’m going to fucking throw them at you.”
“We’re well aware. Now, quit pouting. I’m about to free you from the snakes.” Jaspers face went from petulant to baffled and then through six shades of red to a combination of all of the above as Kai and Joy took care of the IV lines.
They adjusted Jaspers restraints, lengthening the straps connecting his wrist and ankle cuffs to the bed and releasing his shoulders. Jasper used the slack to roll onto his side and burrow into a blanket nest with Kai’s help.
Euan pulled back, perhaps not wanting to push the miracle that let him stay by Jasper’s side any farther but Jasper grabbed his hand and put it back in his hair all but purring when petting resumed. “You are a cat,” Euan whispered. “A demanding little fluffy kitten.”
“Shut up.” The words slurred as if Jasper were talking in his sleep. “’s harder to not recognize you when you’re talkin.’”
Rex thought it be a good idea to pretend this conversation was normal. “Totally a purring kitten.”
“Maow” It was easy to pretend, with the restraints hidden under blankets, that Jasper was just sick with something normal, like a nasty strain of the flu and a migraine.
But it wasn’t true. Their little brother was strapped to a bed for very good reasons. Like bouts of psychosis, regularly of the homicidal variety, and violent night terrors that attempted to murder orderlies without Jasper even waking up. Brain and nerve damage made everything a challenge and some days that alone could incite violence ranging from stubborn resistance and throwing cups to attempting to seriously hurt himself or anyone he could reach. That was just from the double-dose of the department’s shit too. Add in having several clips worth of ammunition unloaded into his chest and throat and you got a whole other mess.
“The Magic School Bus.”
“Huh?”
“Tv shows. The Magic School Bus.”
That was a conversation from a good ten minutes ago with a great deal of other stimuli in between. That was usually too far back for Jasper to draw from without specific prompting. That was good. “Any other brilliant ideas?”
“Reading Rainbow… Too Cute!”
“Too… Cute?”
“‘The following program contains material that it too cute. Viewer discretion is advised.’ It’s about puppies and kittens and soft cute things.”
“You watch a show about cute kittens and puppies?”
Jasper turned red again. “Ziba likes it. And fluffy soft things are good stress relief, okay. Fluffy soft things make everything better.”
That was true. Unfortunately, they couldn’t bring in therapy animals around violent patients so, videos and fluffy toys would have to do. “We’ll have to make sure to get you some of that then.” Rex said. “You’ve been separated from your fellow kittens for quite some time. It’s understandable that you would miss them.”
“Maow.” Jasper stuck his tongue out at Rex before burrowing deeper into his blankets. “Done talking now. Sleepy. Hurt too much to earlier.”
“You can ask for help when you’re hurting Jasper.”
“Shuh-up. Sleeping.” Jasper capped the statement off with a less than convincing fake snore that led the others into equally convincing not-giggles.
“Sure Jas.” Rex had to grin when the only answer was another fake snore. Without Jasper to pester into revealing more about his health than he knew Rex asked Kai. “How is he? Really.”
“Well, yesterday he was screaming at us for treating him like a child and today he’s suggesting watching children’s shows. I’m not sure whether that’s progress or setback.”
“Call it progress.” Nurse Joy said. She’d commandeered Jasper’s bed tray to work with a tablet and clipboard while perched on a side-table. “I’d say yesterday and previous days’ responses were recognizing his cognitive impairment and being furious about it and today is recognizing his cognitive impairment and trying to do something about it.”
“Write that down. Looking for improvement is defiantly progress over sulking.”
“Already did, Doc.” Euan chose that moment to attempt to withdraw his hand again. Jasper snatched it back with swiftness beyond what he was usually capable of. “Been writing that down too. Don’t expect the sulking to change too much though. Unhappy kitten really is the best way to describe his general stable temperament.”
Euan smothered his giggles in his free hand and Rex had to bite his lip. “Some things don’t change.” Yeah, that was Jasper. An angry little kitten. However, he was a well trained, dangerous angry kitten with limited sanity. A well trained, dangerous kitten who was sleepily purring under the touch of someone whose eyes he usually attempted to claw out.
“I think he’s asleep.” Euan whispered. Jasper’s lack of response gave the statement credibility but then Nurse Joy said,
“Actually asleep or pretending to be so he can eavesdrop on us?”
“He’s been doing that?”
“They all have,” Kai said, “once they realized there were members of the staff who would withhold information or outright lie to them.”
“The assholes hate it.” Joy added. “The rest of us are encouraging their applied critical thinking.”
Kai grinned. “Of course we’re encouraging critical thinking. It’s going better than encouraging the assholes not to be assholes.”
“Are the assholes causing problems?”
“Not as many since you and Dad started turning up at random to scowl.”
“Glad to be of service.” Euan smiled. He took his hand back. Jasper didn’t react. Not even a sleepy mumble, proving that he was, indeed, asleep. “There’s not much else I can do.”
“Oi!” Rex kicked his idiot fiancé in the shin. “You help. You help a lot. Just because you can’t directly help Jasper as much as you wish you could doesn’t change how much you have done. For the others and for him.”
Euan scowled down at his knees. Kai scowled at him. “Am I going to have to kick you too? Oh! Better idea. I’ll have you go sit with Jesse for a bit and let them fanboy over you.”
“Jesse?” Raised eyebrow. “Fanboy? ME?”
“Jesse. Fanboy. You. You’re a national hero. Plus you personally restarted their heart. Twice. There’s a great deal of hero worship floating around. Deal with it.”
Euan dropped his face into his hands. “Hero worship.”
“National hero bit aside, all of the patients have seen or heard you verbally castrate the program doctors at least once—”
“The fuckers deserve it.”
“No one’s saying they don’t.”
“—AND,” Kai glared at them with a silent dare to interrupt again, “you’ve been one of the loudest voices speaking for them when they can’t do it themselves and, unless they’ve completely ditched reality for the day, they bloody well know it.”
Euan stared at them for several moments; his mouth opening and closing without sound.
“That’s it. Up you get.” Rex dragged Euan to his feet.
“Rex, the hell—” Was all he managed before Rex threw him out the door and shut it in his face. Euan glared at them from the other side of the observation window for several minutes before stomping off in an over-exaggerated huff.
Rex pressed his forehead against the door. “Alright.What’s worrying you about his fever that you don’t want to tell Euan?”
“It’s not a problem.” Nurse Joy’s attempt at chipper couldn’t have fallen more flat unless she toppled off her perch. “Really… probably.”
“…probably.”
Kai sighed. “Early on, one of the more physically stable patients had a fever go from mild to fatal in less than two hours. It’s never happened like that again but we all still get a little paranoid whenever someone has a temperature.”
“Technically everyone has a temperature.” Joy said.
“Shut up. You know what I mean.”
“You weren’t intending to lie to him, were you?”
“Nonono!” Nurse Joy hurriedly assured. “Just waiting for confirmation of the non-issue. We didn’t want to panic any more people than necessary.”
It would take at least an hour before he could convince Euan to leave anyway. It took two deep breaths for Rex to pull himself away from the door and steal Euan’s spot on the bed. Damn. Even blindfolded, sleeping Jasper looked like an overgrown twelve-year-old.
“Doctor ′Aukai please report to The Command Center. There is a matter that requires your attention.”
This facility actually had a place they referred to as The Command Center. That would never cease to be hilarious. When Rex looked up (before the announcement even finished) Kai had already vanished. Nurse Joy gave him a knowing look. “Sometimes I swear that man can teleport.”
“How’d he end up in charge of this place anyway?”
“Officially, he’s not. Unofficially, everybody that matters understands that he’s more competent than the official head doctor. There’s a good reason most of the patients have divided their treatment into Before Kai and After Kai. Most of them didn’t even know that the facility underwent a major management change until Kai started showing up.” She told him. “While we recognize that that might just be time and healing, we’re pretty sure Kai had a pretty big role in it. Euan too, and his little healing touches.”
“You know, there are chairs you can sit in now.” Which might be less precarious than an end-table that was likely not designed to support the weight of a grown woman.
“Nah. I’m good. Oh?” She looked more intently at the tablet screen. “Hello there. What’s this?”
That didn’t sound like a there’s a problem tone but… “What is it? Something wrong?”
“The company that makes floof also makes a kind of kinetic sand. Ooo, it looks fluffier than other brands too. I might have to order some.”
Rex relaxed. “You had me worried for a minute there. Kai’s going to axe anything that might make a mess if thrown.”
“For me, not Jasper. I have a bit of a collection. What? They’re all different. Don’t you judge me.”
“I’m not. No judging. No judging.” Not everybody’s stress relief involved shooting things or making craters in the desert.
“Good. This is a very stressful job, ya know.”
He was well aware. “I thought you were working over there.”
“I am. I’m researching materials to aide in patient therapies. I’ve already got a list of other possible modeling doughs to try since floof doesn’t really look sculptable. It does look fun and squishy though and this bucket comes with little animal molds. That’d be a good one, I think.” The look she gave him made Rex certain he was going to get suckered into some game involving little floof animals.
Jasper shifted in his sleep; his breathing and heart-rate increasing sharply enough to set off a monitoring device. Joy was off her perch and checking monitors in a heartbeat. Jasper jerked again, groaning and mumbling nonsense and thrashing against his sheets.
Touch helps. Remembered advice from long ago might not even apply to this situation but it was worth a shot. Rex lay his hand on Jasper’s shoulder. “It’s alright, Jasper. It’s okay. You’re safe.” Jasper only moaned and sobbed. His hands freed themselves from the confines of the blankets to tug at his hair. “Shit!”
Rex grabbed one of Jasper’s hands and Joy took the other. Together they worked his stiff fingers out of his hair and pinned his wrists to his sides while he struggled against him. Before they did, Officer Jenny and some orderly emerged from the observation room to untangle the blankets and get them out of the way. The orderly helped Joy secure Jasper’s wrist and Jenny helped Rex with the other. They then went to secure Jasper’s ankles.
Rex held his shoulders down as gently as he could while keeping him still. “It’s okay, Jas.” He knew he was repeating himself but he had no idea if Jasper could even hear him. “It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re safe.”
“Rex?” It was a quiet whimper between broken sobs but it was a response.
“That’s right, Jas. I’m here. It’s okay.”
“Safe? We’re… safe?”
“That’s right. We’re safe. Everyone’s safe.”
“Safe… Rex, I… I can’t—” The words trailed off into choking sobs.
“Shhh. It’s alright, Jas. You don’t have to do anything.”
Jasper didn’t respond again but Rex kept up a steady stream of reassurances until his thrashing deescalated into trembling and his sobs became turned into shaky, halting breaths. He didn’t react when Rex drew away and let Kai replace him. He didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing but he didn’t think his continued presence would make much difference and there was someone else who needed comfort now.
He found Euan sitting on the floor of the observation room, under the window, with his forehead against his knees. Rex sat next to him and pulled him into his arms. “He’s doing well.” Euan turned to look at him like he was a lunatic but Rex repeated himself. “He’s doing well.”
“Rex…”
“He’s doing well.” Maybe if he repeated it enough they’d both stop crying. “An episode or two or ten doesn’t change over all improvement. He’s taken interest in his own recovery and rehab. That’s major progress over his certainty that he was unfixable and trying was pointless. You were able to stay with him today because he made a cognitive choice not to recognize the nice familiar presence with him because he knew he would react irrationally if he did. That’s huge. He’s doing well.”
“I know. I know that. It’s just…”
“I know, Euan. I know. It’s hard to celebrate his victories while he’s still suffering but that’s what we need to do. Celebrate all the small victories. All the little things.” Like that goofy happy dance Jesse did whenever they beat a level in one of their games. (“The fuck else am I going to celebrate in this shithole?” They’d said when Rex caught them at it and asked. “I am going to celebrate every goddamned celebrate-able thing I find. Even if it’s grade school math. Hell, I’d’ve thrown a party when Ryan croaked if we weren’t all dying of the same shit.”)
Euan leaned heavily into Rex’s shoulder. “Little victories. Small things.”
Rex held him tighter. “Small things.”
Small things. A night without screaming. A day with minimal seizures or irrational rages. A day where he could remember his caretakers’ names after they’ve left the room and hold a conversation without losing its thread every five minutes. Every day he didn’t hide under his covers and beg to be sedated because every kind of stimulation was Too Much. A day where he could laugh…
But it was hard, so hard, when Jasper was hurting. When those small victories couldn’t do anything to help him now. They just had to remember, had to believe, that these moments of helplessness would pass. That there would be more small victories, small triumphs, small steps forward.
“Small things.”
“Small things.”
-break-
“It’s okay, Jasper. You’re okay. You’re safe.”
The words were really small, insignificant things when the world was cracked sideways and made up of ripped up puzzle pieces that were forcibly shoved in all the wrong places or couldn’t even be bothered to get shoved anywhere at all and just floated around in nowhere. Maybe that’s why they mattered so much. Small, insignificant, understandable things when everything big and meaningful was too cracked for him to put together. A small meaningless thing with all the meaning in the world because it was too small to get ripped up and smashed in broken places.
Maybe they weren’t even true. But the voice that said them believed them. Maybe the world was to sharp and broken for him to be certain what they meant but he could feel the meaning in them; soft comfort when everything was trying to pull him apart. Whether it was true or not he could fixate on that softness. He could hold it close. He could wrap himself around it and inside it and let it soothe what hurt it could.
A small thing. An insignificant thing. The most important thing. A good thing.
It was okay.
He was okay.
He was safe.