Sublime Awakenings

Sublime Awakenings: Chapter 55


Todd slumped farther into his seat in the fourth floor waiting room of the City Central Hospital, stifling a yawn behind his hand as he looked to the clock on the wall. It read nearly midnight, making it an hour and forty odd minutes he'd been here in his blood-speckled night clothes. The pants weren't so bad because they were red flannel, but the Shenandoah Shakespeare shirt was white, aside from the black text that read: 'We do it with the lights on'.

Johnny had been released from the intensive care unit and moved to a regular room for recuperation nearly an hour ago. As soon as he had regained consciousness, several police officers and an official from the DHMI had gone in to have a chat with him: a chat that Todd figured would end in his immediate release, as was usual for Johnny. It was actually surprising that he was being treated and questioned at all. He usually managed to slip through the hands of society's authorities like a slimy slug-like thing with an immunity to salt. However, it wasn't as though that, or the fact that Johnny wouldn't have stayed dead even if the club had killed him, stopped Todd from feeling bad about it.

He still didn't know if he had overreacted to the break in. Johnny had visited him by way of broken window plenty when he was a kid, but it had never been completely safe, and he had moved to the institution before he might have stopped being afraid, had it continued. Plus, for the past few weeks Johnny had been acting differently toward him, more suspicious and mechanical. Todd knew from both research and experience that those were bad signs, signs that, for many serial killers, meant that they were distancing themselves in preparation for a kill. So he had tried his best to avoid Johnny until the mood would hopefully pass, even though he wasn't sure what had caused it to be directed at him to begin with.

A frown tugged his lips downward. With Johnny it could really be anything; he paid more attention to the trivial details of social interaction than anyone Todd had ever meet, which was saying a lot. He also had scary and dangerous delusions of wall monsters and figments that urged him to kill, along with mood swings and memory problems. In all honesty, he had given up truly trying to understand the maniac years ago, instead taking the more practical route of learning to adapt to the strange patterns of his behavior to minimize potential harm. But that too, didn't mean he didn't care. And it obviously hadn't worked out very well this time.

"Hey there, Squeegee!" Elize dropped into the seat beside him in her more solid form and passed him a cup of chocolate truffle coffee, which had been her personal favorite when she had lived. "I saw Letta in the hall, and she said to tell you that she and her friend were going back home for the night, but to call if you need her. Brian and the kid are still at the nurse's office."

"O-oh. Thanks … Elize. I didn't know you were here." He took the cup slowly.

"Just got here." She looked away from his face, letting some of her loose, wavy coal hair hide part of her own in shame. "Sorry about Johnny. I was … well, I was sort of busy, and I thought I'd locked him in pretty tight."

"What? Locked him in?"

"Yeah. I'm not supposed to let him go gallivanting around on his own, but staying alone with him in that shack isn't exactly conductive to my mental health. It's just as bad as being attached twenty-four-seven, so to speak, to one of the worst souls in Hell, really." Elize paused to consider. "Well, not the absolute worst. I've known worse than Johnny. There's this pimpley little fucker named Jimmy, and you wouldn't believe- anyway, you get the point. So, I hit him over the head with a crowbar and locked him in one of the lower torture chambers." She smirked at the look of shock on his face. "Oh, you shouldn't feel bad, by the way. I do it nearly every time I need some peace."

"But, isn't that … I don't know … bad for him?"

"Eh. He gets brain-damaged sometimes, but it always mends after a while. Back to its usual level, that is." He still looked disturbed, but she continued, "Anyhow, the chamber seemed pretty sturdy, and there was only one exit, but I guess there could have been rust. The network under his house is really old. Did you know that?"

He shook his head as he took a tentative taste of the drink, not quite trusting it because of it's origins in the coffee machine around the corner.

"Yeah. The house itself has been there for at least a hundred years too … except that it's fallen apart a lot over that time, and whoever lived there used hack-repairs. Now most of the original building is either nearly rotten or has been replaced with cheep scraps and plywood."

"How do you know that?"

"I've been bored out of my disembodied mind, so I started trying to make the shack resemble an actual house. Seriously, though, it'd be easier to tear the place down and start again. Johnny's against that method, of course." Elize rolled her eyes. Johnny seemed to be against all her better ideas as a matter of principle. "Anyway, some of the older materials were engraved with dates for around a hundred years ago."

"Creepy." He took another sip. "I don't think my parents' house is that old."

"Neither do I. Or any other houses on that block."

"So, what does that mean?"

"Probably nothing. Besides that the previous owners were just as poor as Johnny, and never got around to rebuilding like their neighbors. Even though the other houses are newer, there have probably been houses on those lots for at least two hundred years. I know they started rebuilding on the smaller crash sites before fifty years had passed since The Rogue Impact. Of course, I wasn't alive for that." She paused to reflect. "Damn, I've been dead for a long time."

"Oh." Slouching down even more, Todd tried not to think about that. Even though the history books said that radiation levels had been low at most sites, less than fifty years was … not very long to wait. No wonder that whole section of town had such low property value. It had to have dissipated by the time his family moved there, though.

She laughed and crossed her legs. "What do you think it means?"

"I dunno. Don't you think the labyrinth of torture chambers is just a little unusual?"

"Oh. Well, duh. Maybe they were just as deranged too."

"Hum. But they'd also have to be more … competent, I guess. And focused. And really, really dedicated."

"Some people are, you know."

"Yeah. Organized killers. That's actually very scary." Maybe scarier that Johnny. From what he had read in one of Brian's books on abnormal psychology, there were two main types of serial killers: the organized and the disorganized. The first group generally had above average intelligence, blended in well with society and took great care to organize their crimes and leave little evidence. The second, like Johnny, killed on impulse or opportunistically, often leaving the body at the scene and often having very few friends and many more mental problems.

"Yeah. But whoever that guy was, he's gotta be in Hell by now, so no worries, right?"

He raised a brow. "In Hell where you live? So, do yo have to deal with people like that a lot?"

"Oh, no. They have their own special section for the most part. And I mostly work in Heaven, but sometimes I have to escort them to The Pit when they first arrive. Some of my least fond dates have started that way …."

"The … Pit? Really?" He cringed at her last sentence, but decided that he didn't particularly want more information about that part.

"Heh. Yeah. It's the most torturous part of Hell, designed for the truly terrible ones." She patted Todd on the shoulder. That kid, he really needed to light up. "Most of Hell isn't really about torture, aside from the self-inflicted kind, but some people … well, they're so far gone that they really can't feel anything outside themselves and their wants. They've got no empathy. So, the demons make them relive what they've done to other people from the victim's perspective until they do actually feel it."

"Does that work?"

" … sometimes. It takes a while, and there's no guarantee, but from what I hear, it's the best method. Well, more like the only method for most of them."

With a nod, he looked down at his coffee, now only half-full. "I'm not sure if that's really good or really horrific."

"I've come to think that some things are both; most things if you look at them closely enough. Black and white are really only colors; they don't really work as a model of values."

"Maybe." He continued to stare at the coffee, but before he could give her words the proper contemplation they deserved, a clearing throat interpreted. Looking up, he saw Brian and a drowsy Leon standing at the entrance. "Hey."

Brian forced a smile. "The police are finished for now if you'd like to speak with him."

"Johnny?" He found himself cringing again. Still, it was probably better to get it over with rather than have Johnny jump to conclusions, so he stood reluctantly. "Alright."

"You don't have to."

"No. I think I need to." When Brian touched his shoulder on the way out, he smiled back nervously, then headed back down the hall near the elevators, to room number 407. Before opening the door, he took a steadying breath.

Johnny's hands gripped the metal railings of the hospital bed harder when the door to his room was opened once again. If it was the nurse wanting him to take more pain medication again, he was going to split her skull open with the first movable thing he could get his hands on … even if it was a tissue.

The door closed behind Todd even though he would have rather it not when he let the knob go, and he found himself taking a few steps away from Johnny before either of them had said a word. His expression didn't bode well. "H-hey, Nny."

"Squee!" Johnny's face softened a little when he saw that it was Squee and not the nurse, although he was still fairly pissed. "You hit me, didn't you? You know how I hate sleep, goddammit!"

"Uh, yeah, Nny. I'm really sorry about the sleep. I just wanted … you woke me up from a kind of nightmare and I didn't know if-" He sighed, irritated with himself and the situation. What he really needed right now was a freezy to calm the homicidal anger. "What were you doing there anyway?"

Suddenly, Johnny's face scrunched up as though he could smell the stench of the body-clogged tunnel that led to Squee's basement. "You!" he sneered, "You tried to steal him from me!"

"What?" The word was forced up Todd's throat and out of his mouth, and it sounded dry, almost more like a cough. There was no way … Johnny couldn't know.

"That kid! Leon! My son! You took him, and they're trying to give him to useless, meat-bag strangers. And you, my ever-faithful little 'friend' didn't even tell me!"

"How did you-"

"The fucking beaver told me. The beaver!" Johnny threw his hands into the air, wishing that one of them was holding a knife. "But it doesn't matter how I know! You tried to steal him, and you will admit it, or … or I'll take your toes! I'll hang you by them until they get gangrene and rot away. You can't walk without your precious toes! Did you know that?"

Todd shook his head, and wondered for a second if he might be causing damage with how much he'd been doing it lately. "Steal him? Johnny, he was never yours. You didn't even know he existed."

"That's beside the point! You should have told me! How could you not tell me that I have a fucking kid?"

"How could I not?" He had been trying to keep his voice calm before, but now it was starting to rise with his own anger. In the back of his mind, the small part of himself that always felt as though it was watching traumatic events instead of experiencing them first-hand was a little dumbfounded. Usually he suppressed hostile feelings, especially when they were aroused by Johnny. "What the hell are you going to do with a kid when you can't even take care of yourself? What was I supposed to do, just say, 'here ya go Nny, try to make sure that he eats at least once a week, and oh yeah, have fun traumatizing him beyond any semblance of humanity! And please don't ignore him or torture him to death when every time you look at him all you see is your own failings staring at you from broken window of the ruins of what could have been your life!' Well, I'm not going to do that! "

Johnny's teeth ground together unevenly because of the random chips on top and bottom. "And just how the fucking hell do you know what I see when I look at him?"

"Because I have to hear you rant about that shit that crawls around in the holes it's eaten in your brain all the time! Because between you and my parents, I've lived that life, and no one deserves that. That's how they end up like you." Todd's voice faltered and his chest ached a little, but he didn't back down. "I'm not going to let that happen to another child."

"You ungrateful little shit! I tell you those things for your own fucking good, but do you listen? Does anyone ever really listen?" He sat up as straight as he could as his voice grew lower and deeper. "And just how're you going to keep me from him? Huh?"

For a few seconds, all Todd could do was gape. Those last words had been so petty. That wasn't unusual with Johnny in itself, but there was something else. It was condescending and teasing, sort of like a playground bully that also happened to be the teacher's pet. That, he'd never heard from Johnny before. "I … I'll tell the courts what you do. And if they don't believe me, then … I'll take Lee and run."

"Arg!" Johnny rocked forward onto his knees and then his feet. Then he leaped up from the bed, shooting across the room to grab Squee around the neck, pressing his back into the wall with a slam. The sudden movement caused him to feel dizzy and even a bit nauseous, but he did his best to ignore that for the time being."I should have killed you for real as soon as it became apparent that you were turning into one of them! The beaver tried to warn me! All this time, I've tried to defend you, and now look! Well, your satanic little boyfriend isn't here now, is he?"

Todd's hands tightened on Johnny's wrists so that his knuckles turned white as he pried the hands from his neck with adrenaline pumping through his veins. "You're weak Johnny. Blood lose does that." After pulling the arms apart, he kicked him in the abdomen, sending him tumbling backwards before shoving him harshly back onto the small bed. "And I'm not one of your random, petrified victims anymore." His voice was darker, more sinister than he had ever heard himself, but he ignored the small spike of fear that caused, instead reaching for the IV that hung loosely from the bag of fluid to the left of the bed.

Johnny stared up at him with wide, shocked eyes as the long needle was brought to his neck, and Squee pushed him flat on the bed with his other hand on his chest. Some of the anger subsided. Maybe the dizziness was causing him to hallucinate? "So what, you're gonna kill me now? Again?"

"If I have to." Todd met his eyes dead on as he pressed the needle forward ever so slightly. "As many times as I have to." Johnny's hand moved up to grip his arm as the dripping needle broke his skin to shed a few drops of his blood, but it did little good. He seemed to has wasted all his energy with the failed attack. Todd leaned down slightly lower as his voice dropped. "I really recommend that you sleep on this. What I did was for Leon's own good. If you care about him at all, you'll see that he's better off without you."

The sedative slowly took affect, confining Johnny's conscious mind to its questionably mortal casing, and Todd caught the hand that had held his arm as it fell. He lay it on Johnny's chest, and stepped back. Again he stared silently as the heat in his veins faded, and the reality of what he had just done demanded his attention. When his eyes started to sting, he left the room, walking down the hall at a brisk pace. He didn't bother to stop at the open indenture that was the waiting room, instead going right for the nearest restroom.

He marched right up to the row of sinks with mirrors above each one, scanning the area on his way. Just as he'd hoped, there was no one else. The tears could fall here, and no one would have to know that they had or why. He took a shaky breath as the warm, emotionally polluted salt-water ran down his cheeks and over the curves of his lips.

As always, he was torn between watching his reflection and looking away. In was a stupid habit, really, crying in front of mirrors, but seemed to amplify the feelings so that they were felt and purged faster. It was almost like sharing the pain with someone who would never judge or tell. It felt purifying, like a type of psychological baptism.

But it had its drawbacks as well, like reminding him of how much he happened to resemble his mother. Not that his father wasn't there, and not that he would have been better. Superficially, his complexion, hair and eye color had come from Mark, while his lips, nose and basic facial structure was much more like Jennifer's. The superficial elements weren't the ones that bothered him. It was something else, something harder to place. Maybe it was just him, but it seemed most apparent when he was crying … probably because she had done it so often. Whenever her eyes hadn't been dulled with the drugs, they had been large and shiny and haunted, just like his own. Though hers were blue and his were brown, the similarities ran deeper, were more prominent at times like this, if you knew what to look for.

He sighed and pushed those useless thoughts away. His problem now was Johnny and what he would do when he inevitably woke up and got free. Was he really going to kidnap an alien-possessed seven year old and hit the streets? He didn't know, but he desperately hoped that it wouldn't come to that. He could probably evade Johnny if it came down to it, but he didn't really know how to live on the streets, and he was pretty sure he wouldn't like the process of learning. There had to be something, some way to make Johnny understand. A slightly broken laugh escaped him when he remembered what Elize had said about torturing the empathy into them. The laughter was instinctively silenced when the restroom door opened.

"Todd?" Pepito eased into the room with a smooth, careful motion, trying to keep his presence unobtrusive.

"Pepito? What …" Todd wiped his eyes with the back of his hand as he turned around to face Pepito instead of their reflected images. "What are you-"

"Elize called my house to report in about Johnny."

"Oh. So …"

"Mother and I were in the waiting room, and I saw you shoot past. I wasn't sure if you'd want me in here, or if I should give you a few minutes, but it's pretty late, and-" He took a few steps closer. "Are you okay?"

Todd forced a nod. "Dandy." He laughed a little when Pepito raised a brow at the word choice, though it sounded a bit like a sob.

When Pepito moved again, Todd stayed in place, allowing him to rest a hand on his shoulder. "Is it because you talked to Johnny, or because you missed the eighteenth hole when you tried to putt his head?"

"Ha." His laugh was weak. "I think it's the first one."

"Figures. I was hoping I could just give you advice on your back-swing." Squeezing his shoulder, Pepito gave him a small smile. "What happened in there?"

"Ug. Nothing. Nothing good." Todd let out a deep breath. "We sort of screamed at each other, and he tried to chock me, and I stabbed him in the neck with an IV needle."

"Really?"

He nodded, somewhat ashamed despite Pepito impressed tone. "It was … I was really not too nice. But he knew about Leon. That's why he broke in at Brian's. He wanted his … his son, and I couldn't … I can't let him just-"

"Shh." Pepito pulled him into a loose embrace. "I know, Amigo. It's not your fault."

"You always say that."

"Because it's always true."

"Always?" He huffed a laugh. "I find that hard to believe."

"Yes, well … this isn't your fault. You have a right to defend yourself. I, for one, am pretty proud of you."

"I think I just made it worse.

"I doubt it."

"The thing with Leon, I mean, by fighting with him. And … the way he looked at me at the end … it was like he didn't even know who I am."

"Todd, he's completely crazy. There's no way you could always watch your step perfectly with him, and you shouldn't have to." His hand ran up and down Todd's back slowly as a few tears landed on the sleeve of his shirt. "And of course he's going to think distorted things about you eventually; his whole world is distorted."

"I know, but … I'm an idiot."

"Don't say that."

"I can't help it. I don't know why I couldn't just keep my mouth shut … it's been bottled up for so long. And he … I care what he thinks, even if it's stupid because he … he's like … I don't know ..."

"Family?"

A sort sob racked his body and he wrapped his own arms around Pepito as well. "Oh, God, how did that happen?"

"Time, isolation … investment in one of the few emotional constants in your life." He shook his head, not really wanting to think about the specifics because he knew it was close to how Todd had finally come around to being his own friend. "I'm sorry. He'll … he'll probably get over it, you know, eventually."

Todd sniffled, then felt his face flush at how pathetic he was being. "He still can't have a kid."

"No."

"It wouldn't work, and by that I don't just mean it be would dysfunctional."

"I know, Amigo. You don't need to convince me."

"What am I going to do?" he asked in a weak voice. "What if he comes back? I … I told him we would run away."

Pepito frowned. "Well, I don't think you should do that. You're always welcome at my house. He can't break in there. In any case, Johnny shouldn't be bothering you for a while. He's going to be taking a small vacation at the DHMI until he cools his under-active mind of some of those distortions."

"What? Really? But, Johnny doesn't get noticed … ever. You said so yourself."

"True, but …." Pepito's fingers moved up to play with the chain around the back of Todd's neck. "I have some pull with those who run the System. Enough to keep him secure until he no longer wishes to harm you, anyway."

"But I thought you said his job was really important."

"Yes, the job itself is, but there are other waste locks. His role isn't so important that they can't pick up his slack for a while. That job comes with a lot of stress, and they all need breaks every now and then."

"That's good. Thank you." He looked to Pepito with immense relief, but it faded as he really thought about it. "You don't think he can get free somehow? They … they don't know how dangerous he really is."

Pepito was quiet for a moment, wondering if Todd would take it better if he could tell him the whole truth: that keeping Johnny wasn't just a favor from the System to Pepito. It was an automatic defense of the Prophet. "How about you come home with me? You can stay all weekend; longer if he hasn't calmed down."

"What about Leon? "

"Leon too. And we'll get Elize to make sure Johnny knows so that he won't go back to Brian's. Okay?"

"Okay. I … I'll have to ask Brian."

"I'm sure Madre can convince him it's best." Pepito tightened the hug for a few seconds before stepping back and taking Todd by the hand to lead him out of the bathroom. "Don't worry, Todd. By the time he gets out, he might not even remember any of it."

"Remember … Pep, wait!" Todd grabbed the wall that separated the small hall of the entrance from the rest of the bathroom as he was guided by it, then used their linked hands to pull Pepito back a little. Now that the immediate stress of the situation had faded, he felt like he was seeing it more clearly. "He knows about Leon. How does he know? Besides me, you and your father are the only other people that know, and know Johnny, right? Zim was there when Bitters told me, but I don't think it meant anything to him. He's never met Johnny, and I don't think he ever told Dib about that part. And I didn't tell anyone."

"Well, I certainly didn't, and Father hasn't spoken with him in weeks." Pepito frowned again as he leaned against the wall. "I don't think anyone else knows."

"Bitters knew."

He nodded. "Yes, but she's dead."

"We think she's dead … just like we thought Zim was dead, but there's no body."

"That's a bit of a stretch, Amigo, but okay. Why would she just drop by to tell him that? She wanted Leon to live out the rest of his human life, not be killed by Johnny."

"I don't know." Todd let himself fall back against the opposite wall, across from Pepito. "Maybe he just figured it out on his own. Do you think he could do that? He said that new figment, Waffles, told him."

"Well, you know I don't have the most confidence in Johnny's mental capabilities, but Leon does look like him a little. Enough to notice subconsciously, I guess, assuming Johnny looked more like him when he was younger, before he became a miserable wreak." He shrugged. "Elize said that he's been talking to the figment more and more."

"Is that good or bad?"

"She thinks it's good, that it's a personification of his conscious or something. He's been killing and having outbursts less since he's been listening to it."

"Pep, I'm not sure Johnny has a conscious. Not the usual kind, anyway. His conscious tells him to pay for things after the person selling them is already dead, but not to not kill them to begin with."

"Yeah. That's why I think it's actually from the Administration. Sent to keep him grounded, you know? To reduce the damage to an acceptable level."

"But taking Leon couldn't be a part of that, could it? Wouldn't the System want to keep him away from innocent children if it's trying to minimize the damage? And the figment; have you ever seen it?"

"By 'it', do you mean the beaver or the figment?" He continued when Todd's brow creased. "Elize said that the beaver is real, as in a real baby beaver. I haven't seen it, though. He hasn't been over to my house much. And I'd probably have to read his mind to really see it how he does." Pepito nearly cringed at the thought. "And I've found that I like humans a lot more if I limit the use of that particular skill to mostly necessary things."

Todd nodded slowly. That made sense, actually. In the past, Johnny's figments had always been attached to real life objects; however …. "Is it … alive?"

"Last time I checked with Elize, which was about a week ago. I'm surprised you don't know more about this than I do. You see him more."

"Yeah, well, I've … sorta been avoiding him because he's been acting so off. And keeping a live animal is very not like him. When I was a kid, he used to grind them up and use them to stuff dolls." He reached to take Pepito's hand back into his own when his eyes flashed red. "Don't. He's asleep."

"I wasn't. I already know how fucked up he is. But I'll get Father to check with the System for sure about 'Waffles'." When Todd nodded, he squeezed his hand and pushed off the wall. "Come on."

END CHAPTER!
Notes:

-The Rogue Impact is an event that occurred in the SubAwake universe around 2050AD. The remains of a rogue, busted up planetary system and gathered debris came in from outside the elliptic on a crash coarse with Earth. Because of the positioning, it wasn't discovered far ahead of time, but Earth still managed to divert the biggest bits. Smaller pieces rained down, striking the surface in various places around the globe, causing environmental damage and setting the progress of civilization back a little.
This near--apocalypse that set back progress and caused some loss/distortion of culture (usually to a ridiculously uneven degree) kind of thing is an old Scifi troupe that is hinted at/parodied in IZ. It will come up (and be explained) more later.