This isn't Gerard's van, for this place reeks of a famished environment rather than fast food bags and faltering air fresheners, and while it's an improvement from that dingy place, I'm even more confused about my location than I was in the vehicle.

Capturing the details has always been my strength, though, and as I glance around the shimmering room, there is a whole array of things that could either heal me or kill me, so maybe I shouldn't have entered this profession so willingly, but it's nevertheless useful to know what surrounds you.

A cart as blank as the rest of the room waits in the corner for its employment, a plethora of tools boasting about how they'll paint incisions into my skin and turn me inside out like I'm in a clothing production factory, every pint of blood just a petty casualty to their forces.

I shouldn't be thinking about gore while I'm in a place such as this, more specifically a place whose whereabouts are unknown, because I've already passed out recently, and I don't need to do so again, as it might entail consequences even worse than before, and that might not be such a bad thing, but I don't want to wake up in a place such as this again with no recollection of where I am.

Yet I've never been so skilled at pushing thoughts from my mind, so I find myself indulging in the horrors of grime and blood and everything in between, the sensation posing as something a teenager encounters to feel falsely empowered, but nothing can last forever, and I find myself becoming bored with the replicated angst.

I move on to the blinds and windows, one blocking the other and further blocking me from seeing outside of it and gathering clues as to where I am and why I'm here, and though it's an inanimate object, I still shun it for being such an obstruction to my inferences.

The only sounds I hear are hushed behind a closed door that I can't transport myself to open effectively, a litany of shouting and business work and ugly sobbing at the loss of something whom I don't understand just as I don't understand this area, and those noises trigger me to do something about the sorrows cutting through people outside, but I can't do anything.

And perhaps worst of all, cords atrophy my skin until all I see is a forest, and to other people it's a normal procedure and the wires aren't that abundant, but with someone like me, someone who has never been inducted into a hospital, even one cord is enough to make me explode in fear of being chained to them forever.

The snapping of the door knob hurries me from my autopsy of the room, though I'm probably the one to be autopsied during this visit, and the implacable silence is vanquished.

"Pete?"

Alternatively, the person that steps through is not the beanie-clad Pete Wentz for whom I was hoping, but a woman shining with a smile and a white lab coat with a clipboard holstered by her chest like a gun that she'll utilize if I'm not compliant. "Actually, I'm Dr. Elisa Yao, and I'll be taking care of you during your stay."

My stay? That phrase is most correlated to hotels, but hotels don't supply razors and knives to their guests while tethering them to an extremely solid bed across from a tiny television that perhaps suggests indoctrination through media, and even this woman's title as a doctor doesn't fit with the setting of a hotel, so where is it that I'm staying? Definitely not a resort with these murky conditions.

"Um, hi," I greet, sidetracked by something other than her faulty answer. "Do you happen to know where I am?"

Elisa angles her head in a farce dialect, hyperbolizing the extent at which she's appalled by my stupidity. "Isn't it obvious?"

"I'd just like to be sure."

"I suppose seizure patients are typically confounded," Elisa mutters in the shallows of her breath, then looking back up at me as if I hadn't heard everything. "You're in a hospital."

"So you're saying I had a seizure?" I fidget in my restraints, suddenly on guard, and the doctor expeditiously attends to me to make sure I don't hurt myself again.

"Don't worry" — she surveys the clipboard to make certain that she knows my name — "Patrick. The person is unaware that they're experiencing a seizure while it's occurring."

"Isn't that terrifying?"

Elisa's brow tendus onto her forehead, a sort of challenging stance. "You tell me."

"I guess it was," I grant. "I was thrashing all around, and I could have injured someone because of that — luckily, I didn't, but I could've. Everything was blurry yet flashing at the same time, and weird sensations shot through me, sensations I have never witnessed before. Then I passed out, and that was blissful for me but not so much for my friends, so maybe I was selfish about that."

"Patrick, you're not selfish." Elisa's hand rests on the edge of the bed in some distant display of affection that I wish would go away along with these bland quarters. "If I were having a seizure, I would want to escape it, too."

"Yeah, but my friends were so scared for me, if I would survive."

The woman pats the bed again, monotonous and repetitive and terribly annoying. "They've been notified that you're okay."

Upon her response, I tilt my body upward on instinct of speeding through the hallway to exhume them, but I realize my mistake and recline slowly. "Then where are they?"

"They're sitting in the lobby until someone lets them in."

"May I see them?" I inquire eagerly.

"Sure, but I can only bring in one at a time. I'll choose randomly so you won't stress about decisions."

Stress is what brought this seizure upon me, and stress is what's going to bring another, but it's not like I get stressed over superficial things such as who visits me in the hospital room first, primarily because they'll no doubt all get a chance to do so at some time. Dallon is the only potential flame that could burn me, but he most likely won't volunteer to hover under any doctor's view, considering his cigarette addiction and obvious health problems because of it, so with that out of the way, there's really nothing that could stress me out.

Once Elisa exits the room to select a candidate to venture into my hospital chamber, the overwhelming urge to flee drowns me in mischief, but before I tear the cords away from me, I come to my senses and calm myself with the same breathing technique that Pete taught me when we first met.

The room has settled into the same boringness it was in when I first woke here, caking motionlessness all over me as I stare at the wall for no reason other than to occupy myself with something that I can think about, and this tedium is perpetuated until the door swings open with a new guest strapped to Elisa's side.

I am blessed, for the new person is not Dallon, but the absolute best variable for soothing my concerns: Pete.

Winning two identical smiles from Pete and me, Elisa sets her limbs on her hips in triumph for choosing the correct person to enter into the room and make sure that I'm all right, and her triumph expands at the sight of Pete so near to me all of the sudden.

"Patrick, are you okay? Did you hurt yourself? Are you going to need more medication?" Each question is peppered with a kiss to the pallid terrain of my skin, and that's where Elisa is bursting with triumph.

"You sound like a grieving housewife," I giggle as my speech labors to fortify itself against the route of Pete's kisses. "I'm fine."

"You two are so adorable!" Elisa squeals, almost dropping her clipboard but catching it at the last second to squeal some more.

A blush mollifies my complexion, ordering me to draw in my body to appear smaller and more innocent so as to not seem too daring against the woman, as if it's my fault what she said. This routine has become like lethargy of a mundane compression, but it's necessary to feel as though I reign over myself, even if that reign commands the squeezing of my bones.

Unnerved by Elisa's comment, Pete disregards it to palm me a plastic container with a crimson-stained cupcake primped inside. "Dallon wanted me to give this to you when Dr. Yao brought me here. He figured you deserved a Christmas treat."

Dallon? No, Pete must be mistaken. Dallon doesn't do these kinds of things for people, especially not me. Pete's just claiming that Dallon bought it when it was him, right? People do that to make others look good, so that must be the case. You don't receive presents from people you hate unless it's sabotage in some way, whether it's Dallon maligning me or attempting to persuade my favor towards him.

I definitely won't suppress myself, so I only thank Pete for his and Dallon's thoughtfulness and vow never to be poisoned by the dessert.

I do not belong to Dallon Weekes.

~~~~~

A/N: so the seizure is where I was going with this, but the last part makes no sense and is shit

current vibe: when I told myself I was going to sleep at nine o'clock but stayed up until eleven to outline a Brallon fic

~Dacooties