Slight TW: overdose

– Code Blue –

I was alive.

That was the only thing that mattered.

My head was bleeding, sure, and I had broken bones, but it was nothing that my desk stash of ambrosia and nectar couldn't fix. In the business I was in, I always had to have an insurance policy.

Literally and figuratively.

I ate and drank, careful not to spontaneously combust myself, and leaned back against my chair. I closed my eyes and waited for the pounding, relentless headache to subside before I reopened my eyes and took in the room.

Clearly, there hadn't been much of a fight. I was down and out in a matter of seconds, although I couldn't remember exactly how I was incapacitated. I hardly remembered anything except for the feeling of being strangled nearly to death and the sound of my bones breaking upon impact with the wall.

A nice, me-shaped impression was left in the drywall, but the cement underneath was unfazed. When my eyes adjusted to the harshness of the lights, I saw Bucky on the floor in the corner of my office. I checked the time on my office clock and read eight-thirty in the evening. Last time I had seen the clock, it was five at night on June tenth. The date read June eleventh, meaning that I had been unconscious for more than an entire day.

I shook my head and began the climb up the ladder, away from my brother. I vowed to never use the basement office again as long as I lived, because it would forever be the place where I looked at the dead body of the last person I had left in the world. It further cemented the belief that I needed to move on, needed to forget about old Percy and move on with the new one.

I adjusted my tie and buttoned my jacket, hiding the blood stains on my crisp white shirt. I brushed the drywall dust from my shoulders and opened the door leading out from the basement office ladder. I had work to do, and fast. My deadline was fast approaching after my day spent as good as dead.

Once safely on the top floor of the building, I shut myself in my office and locked the double doors. I threw myself into my desk chair and logged into my computer to begin the tedious task at hand.

I was in charge of our attack itinerary.

I, too, asked if it was a real thing when it was assigned to me.

Apparently, it was real.

I had been given a list of available forces and told to maximize them to the best of my ability.

Basically, I had a bunch of nerds and ancient people on the list to fight a war with.

The nerds were ancient, too. Fantastic.

Some of them I even had to Google because I had never heard of them. The odds of that needing to happen were extremely low with how well versed I was with the ins and outs of the Greeks and Romans alike. Then, there were others I almost threw off the list entirely because it wouldn't be worth my time to even put them in Plan A.

Or B, or C, or D, all the way down to 13Z.

That many possible outcomes; even worse, those were the only foreseeable ones, and I had been searching for them for all of five minutes.

After an hour, I had drawn myself all the way to 1,328Z. 34,528 outcomes, and I had a plan for each one. I had been given no choice by my superiors, so there I sat, wasting my time.

Eventually, I was saved by the bell. Literally. An alarm sounded throughout the building, signaling an escape or an intrusion.

I began to watch the hallway cameras on my computer.

So far, I saw nothing out of the ordinary; just a lot of confused men walking through the corridors with confused expressions on their faces.

Then every camera went dark.

I gripped the armrests of my chair and pushed myself up, unlocking my cabinet doors and flinging them open. I loaded a gun and shoved it into my waistband, starting on a warpath to find the person at fault for setting off the alarm. The flashing red lights in the halls gave me a pounding headache from the healing head injury I had, but I forged on anyway. I was determined to figure it out.

I searched every hallway, every office, every closet, but eventually turned up empty handed. I returned to the seclusion of my office and picked my phone up from the cradle, gripping the receiver so tightly my knuckles turned white.

"Thorin, I want everyone in the conference room in two minutes or I will kill you all."

I slammed the phone back down, rubbing my temples and downing another gulp of nectar and four anti-pain tablets, swallowing them dry.

I walked with purpose to the conference room, the renewed confidence that came with pain medicine and nectar rushing through my veins.

"Who." I didn't bother to phrase it like a question, because they knew my already short fuse was dangerously close to being at the end. I scanned each of their faces, waiting for a reaction, but I didn't get anything from anyone.

"No one leaves until someone tells me what happened, because someone in here knows. Anyone that so much as thinks about that door leaves in a body bag."

Their expressions ranged widely; some wore confused, innocent looks, while others were angry, annoyed, or even slightly intimidated. Not that I cared. That was how it needed to be.

I sat there for half an hour in pure silence. No one spoke a word, no one moved a muscle; they were afraid to.

I stood and slammed my fists down on the oval shaped table.

"I will shoot all of you if no one tells me what that was. No one left, because you're all here. Who got in here, and who allowed it?"
One of the men that looked more intimidated than others raised his hand.
"I did, boss. I dropped something off to a friend-"

"No, no you didn't. Thanks for trying to save the rest, but it definitely wasn't you."

After another hour, I finally broke down.

"No one admits? Fine. Go. Just know that if it happens again, I'm going to kill you all if I don't get an explanation."

They slowly filed out and I watched them go. No one spoke a word.

I sighed and strode quickly to the security room to watch the security camera footage from the time the alarm sounded. The screens lined one entire wall, displaying the live video of all the cameras at once. Walking over to the wall, I rewound each one to the minutes before the alarm. I scrutinized them carefully, even though they were all in high definition. Faces were immensely clear and the tiniest of sounds could be picked up. In all fifty cameras, in the ten minutes surrounding the alarm, there was nothing out of the ordinary.
The alarm was either mistakenly tripped or someone had cleverly evaded all the cameras.

There was only one person able to do that, but he was dead. I had seen his corpse with my own eyes, and watched it with a sort of sadistic satisfaction.

There had been a time where I would've cried at my brother's death. After a time, though, I had made a choice and left other people behind.

Someone had learned to skip all the cameras and sensors throughout the building. I would go on a warpath to find out who was able to do that and maybe even learn from them.

My headache pulsated through my entire body, causing me to feel like someone was hitting me with a sledgehammer all over. I swallowed another pain pill and leaned back against my chair. My vision began to darken and continued to do so until I felt nothing.

A while later, I woke up to the sounds of beeping and the smell of bleach and sterile air. I opened my eyes and noticed that I was in a semi dark room, but even the small amount of light gave me a headache. I closed them again and took a deep breath, only to feel a rising panic when I couldn't draw a breath.

"Don't die or anything," a low voice commented from the corner. I couldn't turn my head and I didn't want to open my eyes, so all I had to go on was the sound of the voice. I tried to calm down and stop trying to breathe on my own, which only made me feel even more panicked once I finally tried it. I made a gagging sound that reminded me of a shoe being pulled out of mud. A tube down my throat supplied me with oxygen so I could live, but it really freaked me out.
"Honestly, I'd still care. Maybe."

I opened my eyes just in time to watch a shadowed figure walk out the door to the room. I looked for the call button, pushing it as fast as I could so I could get the uncomfortable tube out of my throat.
A nurse came in and removed the tube, handing me a glass of water. I lifted it to my lips and took a small sip, trying to ignore the soreness that came with my swallow.

"How are you feeling? You took a lot," she asked, and I shrugged.
"Okay, I guess." My voice came out scratchy and uneven. "What happened?"

"A man came in with you over his shoulder and you were having a seizure, and you threw up all over the back of his shirt. He said that his name was Thorin and you'd know whom he was talking about. You overdosed."

Thorin, of course. He would've been the only person even in that area of the building.

"Thanks. I'll make sure to talk to him."
The nurse smiled and left the room, leaving me alone. I sighed and looked around at the room I'd be staying in for the time being. A few chairs sat along the wall to my right, in the most dimly lit part of the room. That was where the voice had come from, I was sure of it.

Opposite the chairs, a recliner sat in the corner with a small coffee table next to it. A small stack of magazines on top of the coffee table was the only thing that even remotely humanized the room. Everything was stark white except for the baseboards lining the walls and the chairs. The bed, the sheets, the walls, even the small tray that could swing out over the bed was bright white. The smell of bleach and cleanliness was overpowering, on the verge of aggravating my headache even further.

I carefully took another sip of water from the glass, doing my best not to spill it all over myself.

Since Thorin had brought me in, I probably owed him a thank-you card. Or, if nothing else, a day of not yelling at him.

I hoped that my phone was in my pocket, and as I fished my hopes came true. I found my phone in the back pocket of my dress pants. Slowly and carefully, I adjusted my weight to pull it free from my pocket.

I dialed Thorin's number and waited as the rings came through.

"Hello?"
"Hi. Thanks for saving my life."

There was a short, awkward silence on the other end of the line.
"You're, uh, welcome."

I hung up to end the awkwardness of the conversation and tried to relax in bed. In the following boring hours, I was left with no choice but to lie in bed and watch TV. The best thing was a baseball game; apparently, the only things people in the hospital watched were golf, fishing shows, and baseball, because that was all there was to be found on the TV channels. I settled into my pillows, closing my eyes for periods of time to get a break from the stimulation. With my eyes closed, I focused on the periodic cracks of baseball bats and the steady beeps of my heart monitor. Pulling the bed sheets up to my chin, I began thinking about what the stay could mean for me. More than likely, I would be forced to stay away from work for a period of time. But, also more than likely, I wouldn't care. I had to get started on my assignments before deadlines hit and I would get in hot water. It wasn't fair that it was all dumped on me, the only one in the entire organization that maintained an actual career. Surely someone else could temporarily take over.

After a while undisturbed, a different nurse returned with another class of water and a new IV.

"How long will I be here?" I asked him, and he thought for a moment.
"Could be a while. You're going to be admitted to the psychiatric hospital for rehab and drug-free programs and things like that, since the grounds of your admission were drug related. The time you'll spend there is solely dependent on how much improvement you show."

I ran my fingers gently through my hair, processing the information.

"So I could be there for months?"
He shrugs, putting the IV on the tower and attaching it to the port in my arm.

"Potentially, yes. You had some pretty hard stuff in your system, so it will probably take longer to break and be a more difficult process. You had quite a bit of it in your system. Are you doing okay? When I was your age, I almost resorted to that, too. But I learned better because I was able to get help. I had a support system. I know what it's like, so please get help if you need it. I'm looking out for you, because I work in the psychiatric area three days a week."

I gave him a halfhearted smile, acknowledging his sudden care towards me. Not that I earned it, or deserved it, but I figured it would show basic human decency to acknowledge it.

The rest of the day, I was closely monitored in the ICU, with nurses coming in and out to check my vitals and the levels of the drug in my system. They changed my IV every so often to keep me hydrated and to flush the drug out.

I lay there for hours on end until they finally told me that I could transfer into my psychiatric ward room. The male nurse that had treated me so kindly earlier offered to take the suitcase that Thorin had later dropped off (as he told me) and help me unpack in my room.

The new room was even worse than the old one. The walls were plain white, so white that if I were to throw flour at it there wouldn't be a differentiation in color. The bed frame and bed sheets were white, the floor was white, even the small dresser in the corner was white.

"Do I get a mirror?" I asked, and the male nurse shook his head no.

"Safety hazard."

"Does the window open?"

"It cracks about three inches and it's bulletproof. Safety hazard."

"Can I get something to hang in here to make it a little less… white?"

"Um… sure. I can go out on my break and find something. What sort of things are you talking about?"

"A poster, maybe, like an ocean scene. Can you call Thorin back and tell him to bring me my books out of my office?"

He shrugged. "Probably. I'll see what I can do."

After informing me that it was "social time", meaning that patients were "encouraged" to be outside their rooms to wander the halls and grab snacks if they wanted, I decided to stay in my room for a bit. There definitely wasn't anyone that I would make a point to talk to, and there was probably no one that wanted to talk to me either. Being the newest and therefore not knowing how things worked, in the life I was involved in, that meant the bottom of the food chain. I was more prone to insults and scrutiny than any of the others there.

After a few minutes that consisted of me sitting in bed, my door closed and a glass of water at my lips nearly the entire time, I heard a knock at my door. There was definitely no one that needed to talk to me, so I decided to pretend like I wasn't there so maybe the person on the other side would go away.

"I know you're in there," a voice commented. I sighed, nearly inaudibly, and made my way slowly to the door. I opened it gently, surveying the boy on the other side.

He seemed a bit younger than me, though not by much, only maybe a year or two. He had long blond hair, green eyes, tan skin, and seemed athletic. He wore a hockey t-shirt from some travel team and a pair of shorts that ended just above his knees. He was the same height as me.

"Hi. You probably don't want to talk to me, and if you don't, you can slam the door in my face. My name's Elijah. What's yours? I saw that someone moved in down here and wanted to get to know you since your room is next to mine."

I studied him for a moment, deciding that I should at least make an effort to make my time there more pleasant. I gave him a smile and invited him inside.

"My name's Percy. I haven't met anyone else here yet. Are there adults here or just kids?"
"Just kids. Or anyone under eighteen, at least. Not to be nosy, but… what are you here for?"
I twiddled my thumbs and interlaced my fingers.

"Pain medicine overdose. Opioid."

"Oh. I'm a compulsive liar," he replied, answering the question for himself. "I'm telling the truth."

I smiled at what seemed like humor.

We talked about video games, and what school was like, and our friends, and teachers we liked and disliked. Already, it seemed like I had made a friend.

"Do you want to go into the lounge? My friend should be there. His name's Alondro. He's extremely fascinated with sports and every model of action figure ever created. He loves board games, too."

Together, we walked toward the lounge to meet Alondro. I noticed a boy, definitely younger than Elijah and I, playing with a set of action figures on a coffee table.

"Hey, Alondro! Come meet my new friend."

I took note of the way he had called me his friend instead of something like "the freak," or "the new kid." It seemed like everything would be fine; I would just get in, complete whatever training or programs I had to, and get out. I had a friend for my time within the building, but once I was outside, we would probably never talk again. I had to pacify myself with something within the harsh white walls of the psychiatric ward building.

We sat down at the small table with Alondro, who looked away quickly when he saw me with Elijah. He went back to playing with his action figures, seemingly simulating some kind of fight between characters. Glancing at the plastic figures, I saw Captain America in his left hand and Iron Man in his right. I couldn't bear to look at them much longer after figuring that out.

"Hi, Alondro," I offered quietly, looking over at him as he continued to play.

"Hi," he said in accented English.

"I probably should've mentioned that Alondro and I are both from Mexico. We get along, don't we?"

Alondro nodded, not looking up.

"Yep, we're tight, the two of us are."

Advantages come in all kinds of places; you just have to know where to look for them.

A/N: I finally have a free Sunday afternoon to get on this site and check on my stuff when I'm jumpscared with the fact that I haven't posted a chapter since October 2. Today is December 18. I am so sorry that I've literally somewhat forgotten about this. Basketball season is in full swing and my writing time is about zero minutes a week. From now on I promise to make a more conscious effort to write more to be able to post something because it's ridiculous that you've had to wait this long for another chapter. Please forgive me and don't hate me.