Chapter Text
Lee woke under the distinct impression that he was having a heart attack.
Unlikely though it might have been, at only the ripe age of twenty-two, there could be no other explanation behind the sensation of his heart literally about to explode out of his chest. He shot up from his pile of blankets, spine curving forward as his chest heaved and gasped.
He fumbled around for his phone to call an ambulance, before remembering it was somewhere at the bottom of a river two states over. Fleeing home hadn’t been a carefully exercised or well thought-out plan, but he’d been desperate to cut all ties from that life, including anything that could be tracked to him. Of course, he could see how that might’ve been a little brash, now that he was about to die on the floor of some rotting office building.
Under normal circumstances, Lee didn’t mind the dark. A month ago, he would take solace in the dark shroud of his bedroom at the end of the day, simply relieved it was over, at least for a time. His bedroom was nothing but a memory now, and when he jerked out of his nightmares it felt like the darkness had fangs.
His hand finally found purchase around the flashlight he kept tucked under the bunched up coat he used as a pillow, and his shaking fingers couldn’t flick the switch on fast enough.
Lee’s eyes darted feverishly around the faded, crumbling wall-dividers and cubicles. The broken windows where long tendrils of ivy and mildew had laid claim on the dilapidated building. It was hard to estimate how long it’d been abandoned for, but judging by the extent of utter decay it was in, it had to have been at least a decade if not longer.
His breathing gradually slowed and evened as he came back to himself, and he internally patted himself on the back for not wasting what precious little remained of his rescue inhaler. What he was supposed to do when it finally ran out, he had no idea. Die, probably.
As if on cue, a cough rattled out of his chest, his lungs constricting tightly against the force of it. The dampness in the air and the seasons shifting from winter to spring wasn’t making life any easier, that was for fucking sure.
If he tried to lay back down it’d be more difficult to breathe, so Lee abandoned any ideas of going back to sleep. He shoved off the heap of musty old blankets, felt every joint in his arms and legs pop as he pushed himself into a standing position. Then, ignoring the audible wheeze in his lungs, jerked up the zipper of his hoodie and crammed both hands in his pockets before stalking away.
Being a homeless vagrant was, all in all, sincerely fucking awful. If he had to put it into words.
When he was much younger, his dad used to drive him through town in the red pickup, and never missed an opportunity to point out to him the ‘bottom feeders’ if they drove past one. By his definition, that was anyone sitting on a curb with a piece of cardboard asking for anything they could spare, whether it was money, or work, or just something to eat. Maybe it was God’s sick idea of a joke then, that everything he currently owned had been stolen out of some old guy’s shopping cart, from underneath a highway overpass.
He’d been caught in the act red-handed, elbow-deep digging through all this guy’s earthly possessions. As if it was alright, the old man just offered Lee a bottle of water and asked if he had somewhere warm and dry to sleep. As if he wasn’t the one wearing three winter coats and missing two fingers on his right hand. And all Lee could think to do in return was knock over the shopping cart and run away. Because what did that make him, if he accepted charity from bottom feeders?
The sound of his shuffling feet echoed off the walls of the vacant building. The beam of his flashlight cut through the darkness like a knife, catching particles of dust and cobwebs. He’d been squatting in this place a week now, but he felt no less like it was his first time walking through it as he followed the winding maze of filing cabinets and overturned desks.
Lee narrowly avoided faceplanting into the floor after tripping over some fallen ceiling tiles, cursing loud enough to send some nearby rats scurrying away. Ice filled his veins as he swung the flashlight around, face crumpled with anxiety as he made sure no one aside from the family of rodents had heard him. To Lee’s knowledge, nobody aside from himself had been sheltering in the offices since he’d arrived, but it was a big building. During the dark hours, he often wondered if he was really alone.
A chill crawled down his spine at the thought, which he chose to ignore. His options were limited to wandering aimlessly outdoors in thirty degree weather without a coat, or hiding under his stolen blankets, alone with his thoughts. Or, exploring this freaky fucking building, at the risk of falling through some random pit in the floor to his untimely death.
The choice wasn’t even really a choice. He trudged onwards.
He pondered the consequences of asbestos inhalation as a moderate (debatably severe) asthmatic while shoving past doors and meandering down long stretches of hallway that seemed to go on forever. And then, eventually, found himself stopped in his tracks.
Lee froze the way prey animals did when they sensed a threat. His heart thudded a steadily increasing tempo against his ribs, and in an act of self preservation, he turned off his flashlight.
There was something…glowing. At the other end of the office. He squinted to make out what it was, but between the panic clouding his vision and the distance, he couldn’t tell.
It had to be another person, but Lee had been stomping around the place for nearly an hour without encountering anyone. Maybe it was some sort of trap, set to lure him in so they could slip a knife between his ribs and be done with him.
A voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like his dad’s called him a pussy.
Lee took several measured steps towards the glow, even though every fiber of his being screamed at him to do otherwise. His expression went taut, lips drawn in a thin line and eyes narrowing as he slowly approached.
“What the fuck…even is this?” He mumbled to no one but himself. The confusion etched across his features became washed in the dancing, technicolor glow.
It didn’t make any sense. The building didn’t have any power.
Lee stared down at a clunky desktop monitor now squarely in front of him, an off-white, dated piece of tech torn somewhere out of the 90s. There was an audible low-pitch hum produced by the fans working inside the old relic.
He reached out a hand and felt the static beneath his fingers when he brushed the screen.
Dread coiled in his stomach. Something in his gut told him there was something horribly wrong about all of this. The building was too empty for how well it should have accommodated squatters like him. Computers didn’t just run on their own. Someone was trying to pull the wool over his eyes in a way that couldn’t be interpreted as anything but sinister.
Lee’s black eyes reflected the loading screen menu for a video game. The Amazing Digital Circus, the title splashed across the screen in cheerful bubble-text.
Fear momentarily forgotten in place of morbid curiosity, he considered the red and yellow pixel stripes of a circus tent. Then his gaze drifted lower, across the desk, and settled on the virtual reality headset waiting beside the monitor. Almost like an open invitation.
What he did next wouldn’t surprise anyone.
27 days after entering the amazing digital circus
Lee had never liked bunnies.
He’d never liked watching his dad shoot them out of their backyard with the BB gun. It didn’t usually kill them, but his dad laughed at the sound they made when he did it. When they were shot, they made a sound like a baby screaming, and Lee couldn’t figure out why anyone would ever find that funny.
He liked them even less now, since it seemed like they were all he dreamed about lately. He could hardly close his eyes anymore without seeing it. That goddamned fucking purple rabbit with the big yellow fucking eyes.
The bunny that stared at him from across the lawn now wasn’t purple, and its eyes were only an uncomprehending shade of brown, but Lee desperately wished it would fuck off anyway. He was having a little more trouble than usual conveying that particular sentiment, preoccupied with trying not to die.
The remaining fumes of his rescue inhaler had vanished last week during an episode that probably had something to do with all the white, fluffy pollen currently drifting through the air above his sprawled out body. His chest spasmed on each painful drag of an inhale. No matter how hard he worked, it seemed like every breath reaped less and less reward.
It wasn’t his first rodeo. The last time he’d ignored his symptoms for this long, he’d ended up in the ICU for a week with a tube down his throat. He was about to tread a line that couldn’t be uncrossed once he was over it. It should have filled him with panic, but it didn’t.
His vision went in and out, in and out. His focus drifted between his purple fingertips and that stupid bunny. Its ears twitched, watching him.
The lights and sirens of an ambulance finally scared it away, sending it darting into a bush. Good riddance, he thought, until he became busy with trying to swing at the paramedics that wrestled him onto a cot.
He barely remembered the ride to the hospital, but it must’ve gotten a little rowdy, because by the time they were moving him onto a stretcher he was already in four-point restraints. People swarmed into the room, tugging off his clothes and putting stickers on his chest, forcing a mask over his nose and shoving needles in his arms.
“John Doe, male in his early to mid-twenties, found in severe respiratory distress and hypoxic on scene satting at seventy-five percent without oxygen, cyanosis noted in both distal extremities. We tried putting him on ten litres via non-rebreather, at which point he became extremely combative. His heart rate is tachy at one-thirty-five, respirations at forty a minute, blood pressure one-eleven over seventy. Alert and oriented times zero.” One of the paramedics rattled off this report somewhere near his left ear.
Some half-balding, middle-aged asshole in scrubs approached the bed and looked down his nose at him.
“What’s your name?” He asked, glasses flashing under hospital fluorescents.
“Fuck,” Lee wheezed, “You.”
“If you can’t give me a name, then you can’t give me a reason not to intubate you in two minutes. Respiratory will be here in less than that.” The doctor countered, his countenance flat and unimpressed by Lee’s struggle against the restraints.
“Fuck. Fuck,” He gasped, hit by a surge of panic that had him nearly passing out again. “Leeroy…Mateo. Do not…fucking contact…my family.” He snarled the last part, chest expanding.
The doctor gave a wave of his hand, turning to exit the room. “Good. Fine. You can give the rest of your medical history to Dr. Hensley.”
The next hour is spent under the interrogation of several dipshit ER residents and a tired-looking respiratory therapist, who begs him not to make her life any more difficult than it already is while hooking him up to an albuterol treatment. They release him from his restraints only after he promises not to throw any punches at staff. The most irritating and recurring character throughout this whole production was his nurse.
She was a mess of eyebags and blondeish hair barely contained to a lopsided braid. Freckles populated nearly every inch of her pale skin.
“Hi Leeroy,” She greeted him for the eighteenth time in less than half an hour. “Okay, so the doctor ordered another litre of saline because your labs are showing you’re pretty dehydrated, so I’ll just–”
“I don’t want anymore fucking fluids.” Lee had meant to pack more heat behind the words, but he was tired. He hadn’t noticed her hooking the first bag up to his IV, or else he would’ve bit her head off sooner.
She blinked her over-large, green eyes at him, like she’d been born yesterday. “Why?”
Lee lifted his head up off the stretcher so he could glare at her. “I don’t have to give you a reason why. I have the right to refuse.”
His nurse stood there, frozen with the bag of saline in hand like she wasn’t sure what to do with it.
“What, is it your first day or something?” He drawled, quirking an eyebrow in an attempt to rile her.
She opened her mouth, and closed it. “Well, I mean. Yeah.”
It was Lee’s turn to be stunned, caught so off guard by the admission that he choked out a laugh.
“Holy shit. How in the fuck did I get saddled with you?” He chuckled, lips sharpening into a cruel smile.
He expected to watch her squirm, maybe tuck tail and run to tell the doctor, but she crossed her arms.
“I should be the one asking you that,” Her voice had lost its grating, performative softness. “You think I wanted you as my first patient off of orientation? The other four new-grad nurses have three patients between them right now and I have five. My charge nurse hates me, I’m pretty sure the guy next door is going to code before my shift ends, and now you’re pulling this shit.” The words piled one after the other, the facade slipping as her true colors began to shine through.
Lee decided in that instant that he liked her more than any nurse he’d had before. She was honest, and Lee hated liars. It hardly mattered though, because his breathing treatment had finished ten minutes ago.
“I’ll just get out of your hair then,” He sighed, wincing at the soreness in his chest as he sat up from the stretcher. “Don’t bother with the AMA paperwork. I’m sure I can find my way out.”
He stood up with the intent of leaving, thoroughly irritated to find the nurse blocking his path to the door. She held her arms akimbo, alarm written plain across her features.
“Just–hang on a second. Wait, okay? You can’t leave yet.” She sputtered.
Lee’s patience could only be stretched so thin. “Listen, you’ve been a real fucking delight. But I feel like a million bucks, so really there’s no point in me sticking around,” He tried to move around her, but she only moved with him.
“You–you can’t leave,” She was clearly struggling to string the correct sentence together. “You’ve been placed under a twenty-four hour behavioral health hold.”
For the second time in less than ten minutes, she had him at a near loss for words.
Lee was not an idiot, he’d done this dance many times before. He knew better than to hesitate when he answered ‘no’ to those stupid triage questions they asked everyone who checked into the ER.
Do you feel safe around yourself and others? Have you had any recent thoughts of suicide or self harm?
“I think you’re confusing me for one of your other patients,” He seethed, eyes dragging down to the badge hanging at the neckline of her scrub top. “Sarah. So, why don’t you just let me go before I cause a big scene that’s going to cost you a lot of paperwork on your first day, hmm?”
He’d moved in close, standing nearly toe to toe with the woman to intimidate her, but Sarah’s expression never faltered.
“Actually, Leeroy. I’m not confusing you for one of my other patients,” She countered levelly. “You were pretty out of it when you got here, so maybe you forgot. Do you remember what you told the paramedics when they arrived on scene to help you?”
Lee’s stomach took a sharp plummet, but he'd be damned if he gave that away. So he sneered as well as he could manage, even though it gnawed at him not knowing. Him and his stupid fucking mouth. How bad could it have really been?
“I wasn’t getting enough oxygen to my brain, so whatever I said, I didn’t mean. You can’t hold me here against my will because of something I said when I wasn’t even lucid,” Lee argued, the confidence in his tone slipping. They couldn’t, could they?
Sarah bit her bottom lip, hesitating as she formulated her response.
“The attending physician petitioned you. I legally can’t let you leave the premises until you’ve seen social work and been evaluated by a psychiatrist.”
Lee snapped, “I’m not fucking suicidal.”
The nurse looked briefly stricken by that, before her face smoothed into something more professionally neutral. “I don’t think I said anything about you being suicidal, did I?” She pointed out softly.
Him and his stupid fucking mouth.
Lee didn’t have enough time to wonder if this was considered enough of a direct admission to get him put in one of those white padded rooms with no windows. He realized that it was now or never, and seized the opportunity to use his size advantage to push past his nurse with brute force. He didn’t waste time watching her topple onto her hands and knees as she shouted for someone to get security, he was already down the hall at that point.
He barreled past a few other bewildered white-coats and scrubs, before making it as far as the ambulance bay. That was where he met a small army of people in police uniform shouting at him to sit down on the ground. Lee liked to keep everyone on their toes, so he simply ignored that request and made a beeline for the busy street. He was probably only a step away from oncoming traffic when he learned what it felt like to be tased.
His cheek met the hard concrete, but he managed to stay conscious while four officers kept him pinned to the ground. Then they were hauling him onto another stretcher and strapping restraints around his wrists and ankles. He screamed the most colorful profanity he could come up with and spit at anyone who got close enough for it to land. It hardly felt like enough to get back at them.
And then he was in that room again, and all the doctors had filed back in to watch the spectacle. Sarah stood there in the corner by the computer, charting away quietly while the resident doctors made their clinical remarks.
The bald asshole doctor from before looked like he’d seen enough.
“Give him point five of Haldol. That should calm him down until psych gets here,” He didn’t look at Sarah as he issued the order, but she nodded once and ducked out of the room.
Lee was gripped by a sudden wave of terror.
“What? What is that? You can’t just pump me full of drugs without my consent you fucking scumbag,” He howled, thrashing against the restraints like it might make a difference.
The attending physician issued him a look of thinly veiled disgust.
“You should feel lucky. The fine for assaulting a nurse is no small sum. I did encourage her to pursue legal action against you, but it seems like she’s willing to let it go if you behave,” The doctor informed him laconically, adjusting his glasses. “So you’ll get the haldol, and you’ll be a calm, cooperative patient for the next twenty-four hours until you’re no longer this hospital’s problem.”
It’s an ugly emotion that boils under the surface of his skin, something blurred between the lines of rage and anguish, and as much as he wanted to unleash it on the world, he found his will to do so drain out of him with the slow push of a syringe hooked up to his IV. Sarah didn’t utter a single word as the medication went through his system, and for some reason that bothered him immensely.
“So? You aren’t going to rub it in my face?” Lee croaked, his eyelids drooping dangerously.
Sarah’s earnest, green eyes met his own. “What?” She seemed genuinely baffled.
“You being fucking right, or whatever. Getting one over on me.” It was probably the medicine that had him saying it, but he said it regardless. “Pretty clever trick. So, what did I say to the paramedics anyway?”
Her hands were busy with unscrewing the syringe from his IV port.
“According to them, a lot.” She mumbled, face screwing up. He wondered if maybe she cared a little too much, for someone who was supposed to survive in her profession. “But to boil it down, you just wanted them to leave you to die.”
Lee thought maybe it was a small form of mercy, that this was all he had to know.
“Huh. Alright,” He conceded, staring unfocused at the ceiling. She must have dimmed the lights at some point.
“Leeroy?”
“Don’t call me that. It’s Lee.”
“Lee. Your parents are listed as emergency contacts in your chart. You’re sure you don’t want me to call them?”
His eyes stung. Part of him wanted to let them close and give into sleep, but that purple rabbit was probably waiting for him.
“Please, don’t.” Lee begged quietly.
For a few seconds the room was silent, and he wondered if she’d left.
“Okay, I won’t. No one else I can call?”
“No one.”
Sarah’s voice peters in and out of existence as it's overcome by the dull roar of sleep. His dreams are invaded by a flying pair of dentures in a top hat and a frog with a pink bowtie. And of course, that ugly, purple rabbit, with the stupidly long ears and pink overalls. It was his own voice that left its mouth when it spoke, but he had no control over what he was saying. In the end, it was all just a bunch of noise and color manufactured by his REM cycle, but that didn’t explain why it stuck with him after he roused from sleep.
Apparently ten hours had gone by without incident. Sarah was gone, replaced by some haggy old dayshift nurse who seemed less than amused by his antics. She didn’t even crack a smile when he asked if she was going to spoon-feed him breakfast, which probably meant the restraints weren’t coming off anytime soon.
The psychiatrist eventually came to see him, as well as social work, but he pays them the same treatment. He plead the fifth when they asked about his current living situation, as well as his relationship with his family. The severe-looking psychiatrist was more than willing to let him evade these questions, but the social worker is less lenient. She tried giving him a list of shelters with open beds, and Lee told her where she could shove it.
His twenty-four hour sojourn in the emergency room was nearing its end. They’d let him out of the restraints finally, so he could wolf down a few stale sandwiches from the pantry. He counted down the minutes till freedom.
It was quarter past six and only ten away from liberty when Sarah poked her head through the curtain.
She smiled when she saw him, and he would’ve thought she looked relieved if he didn’t know any better.
“Lee! Oh thank god, I’m glad I caught you,” She cheered.
He was frozen mid-bite of a turkey sandwich. “I–you–what?” He sent crumbs flying everywhere, nearly choking on dry bread.
Sarah snuck into the room, shutting the curtain behind her as she did. Judging by her attire, she’d probably just clocked in for her shift. She was wearing a carhartt jacket and a long, pink scarf tied into a bow around her neck. The sight of it sent a pang of something through him, but he had no idea why.
“Your discharge is already in, which is why I wasn't sure you’d still be here. But look, I brought you a couple of things,” She explained, which is when she pushed an enormous tote into his unexpecting arms, practically bursting at the seams. As he peered down at it, he could see that it was full of clean clothes, a new coat, and toiletries.
He blinked out of his stupor, ready to immediately object, “Oh no, I am not some charity case for you to just–”
“For the love of god just shut up. You’re going to take it,” Sarah interjected hotly, untying her scarf. “And you’re going to call the number I put in the bag if you need anything, and you’re going to go to the address I wrote down for you, because I work there on weekends, and if I don’t see you there I am going to hunt you down, and–and make you. Got it!?”
And while she was busy issuing these demands, her hands worked on looping that long, pink scarf around his neck.
He wasn’t sure if he’d ever been so humiliated, or so seen by anyone in his whole life.
“Do you have brain damage or something?!” Lee stammered, his face transitioning between seven different shades of red. “This is borderline harassment.”
Sarah gave him a rueful grin as she finished tying the scarf into a bow. He was too preoccupied with gaping at her to notice.
“Well, it’s like you said. You’re saddled with me, buddy.”
Lee thought it was surely the other way around, but for some reason, he didn’t want to change her mind.