(no subject)
Jun. 25th, 2006 09:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
river_meimeiFact: A guard's first priority is to keep everyone outside the cell safe. A guard's second priority is to keep the person in the cell safe.
(Fact: 'Safe' is a difficult term to quantify.)
Fact: River Tam, aided by her brother Simon, has in the past broken free from a highly secure Alliance facility, broken free from federal custody, and allegedly murdered multiple people. In none of these instances was she armed beforehand.
Fact: It is neither medically advisable nor procedurally sound to keep a prisoner under constant sedation for an indefinite length of time.
River throws up until her stomach is empty, and then dry-retches. Then she curls up, groggy and aching and trying not to shake, and waits for the sedative to wear off. She's still groggy when the door slams open, spilling too-bright light into the room, and five guards enter as she flinches back with a cry.
They're professional: the two that take hold of her handcuffed arms, the two that watch, the one that uncaps the syringe. Competant, and impersonal. No cruelty.
No kindness. Not when she cringes back; not when she draws herself upright and forces her face to a semblance of blank dignity; not when the needle goes into her vein and her dignity crumbles into silent tears. But no cruelty.
"She is to be treated at all times as armed and dangerous," a tall bronze-skinned woman says, staring at and through River. "No exceptions." --She never spoke a word.
They're right, in a way, River knows, because she could, she could--
(She won't.)
None of them meet her eyes.
There's no immediate effect. The guards leave, and River slumps onto her cot again and squeezes her eyes closed. Her fingers twist, working at the air, fretful and rapid.
Gradually, her fingers slow. Her shoulders slump.
Her arms are limp on the bed, now, and her head is heavy, though her eyes are open. The grogginess is gone.
Muscle relaxants, after all, are different from sedatives.
And time passes.
It's a while later that she starts weeping again, sobbing brokenly into her pillow.
And it's a while after that -- she's still crying -- when her teary eyes snap to the doorway, an instant before faint sounds become audible from the corridor outside.
(Fact: 'Safe' is a difficult term to quantify.)
Fact: River Tam, aided by her brother Simon, has in the past broken free from a highly secure Alliance facility, broken free from federal custody, and allegedly murdered multiple people. In none of these instances was she armed beforehand.
Fact: It is neither medically advisable nor procedurally sound to keep a prisoner under constant sedation for an indefinite length of time.
River throws up until her stomach is empty, and then dry-retches. Then she curls up, groggy and aching and trying not to shake, and waits for the sedative to wear off. She's still groggy when the door slams open, spilling too-bright light into the room, and five guards enter as she flinches back with a cry.
They're professional: the two that take hold of her handcuffed arms, the two that watch, the one that uncaps the syringe. Competant, and impersonal. No cruelty.
No kindness. Not when she cringes back; not when she draws herself upright and forces her face to a semblance of blank dignity; not when the needle goes into her vein and her dignity crumbles into silent tears. But no cruelty.
"She is to be treated at all times as armed and dangerous," a tall bronze-skinned woman says, staring at and through River. "No exceptions." --She never spoke a word.
They're right, in a way, River knows, because she could, she could--
(She won't.)
None of them meet her eyes.
There's no immediate effect. The guards leave, and River slumps onto her cot again and squeezes her eyes closed. Her fingers twist, working at the air, fretful and rapid.
Gradually, her fingers slow. Her shoulders slump.
Her arms are limp on the bed, now, and her head is heavy, though her eyes are open. The grogginess is gone.
Muscle relaxants, after all, are different from sedatives.
And time passes.
It's a while later that she starts weeping again, sobbing brokenly into her pillow.
And it's a while after that -- she's still crying -- when her teary eyes snap to the doorway, an instant before faint sounds become audible from the corridor outside.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-26 02:42 am (UTC)There are three sets of footfalls accompanying the voice (two cadenced, one sliding and dragging). Simon's voice is slurred, but the tone comes through clearly enough: helpless fury.
"...'f you'd listen -- idiots, all o' you -- 's isn't --"
The cell door slides open and Simon's voice gets briefly louder, and is then cut off by a shove that sends him staggering into the room, his hands spread to keep his balance.
He's woefully off-balance, and not just from the shove. His vest and the collar of his shirt hang open; his hair is falling into his eyes, which are glazed and slightly more dilated than they should be.
The guards say nothing. The door hisses shut, and locks almost silently.
Simon runs one shaking hand over his face.
"...River?"
no subject
Date: 2006-06-26 02:46 am (UTC)"Simon."
Her voice is trying to be reassuring, but it shakes. There are tears trembling in her eyes, but she never looks away from him.
"I'm fine. I, I'm right here."
no subject
Date: 2006-06-26 02:50 am (UTC)"River."
He closes his eyes, squeezes them shut in an attempt to banish the roiling black fog surrounding his vision, his thoughts.
"Gave me ... not sure what it was. Symptoms ... c'nsistent with hyoscine. Or sodium thiopental. Asked me. Things."
A pause. One hand wanders out unsteadily, rises as though to forestall anyone interrupting.
"Shh, shouldn' ... say anything. Monitoring. Got to be."
no subject
Date: 2006-06-26 02:56 am (UTC)The tears are spilling over again, sliding silently over her nose and into her tangled hair.
"Keep the neurons in your brain. They're watching, they're always watching. Simon."
Another twitch of one hand. River squeezes her eyes shut in despairing frustration, and immediately opens them again, staring at Simon with a leaden, unsurprised horror.
"Time to rest. Got a break. Shhhhhh."
Her voice cracks in spite of herself.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-26 03:09 am (UTC)"Didn't," he manages, "tell them. Anything they didn't already know."
It's the truth. The drug may break down any filter between conscious thought and vocalization, but keeping his conscious thought on the subject of River and the Academy and what was done to her ... well, he managed that without even trying for the better part of three years. Keeping it up for ... however many hours it was ...
He managed.
His hand comes up, and rests on the edge of the cot, and finds his sister's hand.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-26 03:11 am (UTC)"Not gonna. I know it."
Her hand tightens weakly on his.
"Time to sleep. I'll watch. You rest now."
no subject
Date: 2006-06-26 03:14 am (UTC)"Have to think. Figure this out."
no subject
Date: 2006-06-26 03:27 am (UTC)Well. She believes that they'll try.
Mostly, she even believes that they'll succeed. Mostly.
She's trying heartbreakingly hard to make that hope sound stronger and surer, to turn mostly and somehow into certainty. "Gonna come. Take us home."
A shaky breath, and a failed attempt at a smile. "Just might be a while."
Over three years, last time.
"You need to keep up your strength."
no subject
Date: 2006-06-26 03:34 am (UTC)A pause, and he hears his own words a moment too late. He pulls a hand across his face, closes it into a trembling loose fist, presses it hard against his mouth. "'m sorry. Sh'n't've said that. Di'n't mean to ... 'm sorry."
no subject
Date: 2006-06-26 03:37 am (UTC)"We'll." She swallows. Stronger, "We'll get through this."
She wants to believe it. She's trying to believe it.
She can't, quite, and it shows despite all her effort.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-26 03:44 am (UTC)It's so much more of a struggle than it should be to not say that aloud. The drug, of course. The symptoms are consistent.
He has to bite down on his hand to muffle it, and what comes out is a tiny shaken moan.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-26 03:57 am (UTC)"Simon, don't, no, don't--"
She tries to move again, and manages to get her free hand to shift an inch. Metal whispers against metal, as the links of her shackles slide. She couldn't reach him even if her muscles were functioning normally; the chain is short, too short for much movement. Too short for strangling.
River closes her eyes on hot tears, and swallows.
"You should get some rest."
no subject
Date: 2006-06-26 03:58 am (UTC)"I don't want to."
It's not a protest, just a quiet sad statement of fact.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-26 04:00 am (UTC)"Okay."
Her fingers shift against his hair, and still.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-26 04:02 am (UTC)His thumb moves across the back of her hand, in a slow soothing stroke.
If sitting here with her until they come to drag him away is all he can do, then that's what he'll do.