The weirdest thing happened to Dufresne a while back. The weirdest thing in his life. He had been kidnapped by this rough looking guy who called himself Washington and claimed he didn’t want to hurt him as he had a knife to Dufresne’s throat.
He never would have thought something weirder could happen.
“I-I, um, you what??”
“Poisoned. I think. I feel….really off right now and to be completely honest I almost blacked out on my way here. There were... things? That came out of the sidewalks and I think some of them leeched some blood or sweat out of me. I’m not -woah...” Washington swayed in the doorway and caught himself on the frame. Shaking his head and blinking as if to clear his eyes he continued. “I’m pretty sure it was a hallucination but I feel really nauseous now. Do you think you can fix me, Doc?” David was standing in front of his office, hands on the door frame, seemingly holding himself up like that, sweating profusely with dilated eyes.
“You need to go to a hospital!” Dufresne exclaims as he sweeps in to grab a hold of David before he can fall over. He can feel David’s full body weight rest on him as he drags the other man inside the office and goes to look for his phone.
“No you can’t!” David exclaims from the seat he was dumped into. “It was the same bastard as last time. Flowers, damn him and his crew!” David briefly looked panicked, turning his head and finding a small trash can nearby he dove for it and vomited hard and loud.
“Oh man! Oh geez! Okay wait!” David could hear the fridge open over his gagging noises and cups clinking and then Doc was back with a big cup of water and a small cup of water. “Here. Take this small one and rinse out your mouth in the bathroom.”
Dufresne handed over the small cup which David hugged to his chest without attempting to raise it to his lips yet. He allowed Doc to help him up with one hand and lead him to the bathroom in the back of the office where Doc had a small apartment setup.
He ignored the popcorn dropping off the walls and down the ceiling, writing them off as irrational and probably, hopefully, hallucinations. He also tried really hard to ignore his melting reflection in the bathroom mirror as he tried to rinse his mouth out. He might be getting motion sickness. He gagged again but no vomit this time as he spilled a little bit of water down his chin and rinsed with what made it in his mouth.
Doc kept a tight grip on David as he swayed and spit the water into the sink. His aim was a bit off and some of it splashed onto the mirror and David was quick to apologize. “Damn, sorry Doc. I didn’t... I’m. It didn’t look so close.”
“Forget about it.” Doc replied quickly. “If... If you won’t go to the hospital I need to know your symptoms. I’m not a doctor but I do have the internet.”
David gave him a quick run down of everything that happened that night, stopping intermittently to make the room stop tilting and to gag lightly over the sink.
Washington had been at the usual haunt drinking at a bar when he suddenly didn’t feel great. Someone had spiked his drink but who and what didn’t become apparent until about an hour later. When it hit.
It started with a sped up heart rate and a splitting headache that Wash knew he didn’t have enough drink to warrant. When he started seeing spiders crawl over his hands and into the bar he knew something was wrong and he whipped around aggressively. Butch Flowers the only one who held his gaze long enough to smirk and raise an eyebrow at him.
“Something the matter, friend?” He purred. It was all Wash needed to bolt up... and immediately drop back to his chair, almost pushed down by gravity to the bar.
He eventually stumbled his way down the street remembering his travel path last time he got into it with Flowers that led to Doc’s place. His little studio apartment/office space.
Obviously he couldn’t go to the hospital for this. The doctors would have to get the police involved and Wash couldn’t get caught. Not after last time anyway, but his feud with Flowers was no one’s business besides his. And Flowers’ crew and Maine’s crew.
So it was a bit of a gang feud.
Two sects of the same gang.
The police could not get involved is the point Wash is trying to make here.
Doc let out a shaky breath and leaned back. He only wanted to know the symptoms and he got a pretty impressive backstory that he wanted nothing to do with. Yes, he got the symptoms, but now he has to go on with his daily life and pretend he doesn’t know the man he’s helping and was previously kidnapped by is a wanted gang member?? Okay. One thing at a time.
“Actually, I don’t even need the internet for this one. Sounds like you got spiked with some Belladonna.” Doc said softly, pulling out his phone anyway to look up how to treat it.
David groaned and reached for the cup of water Doc still held out to him. He took a long drink and when he could see straight...er, he asked, “What is that??”
“Uh..” Doc clicked and exited out of web pages. “Nightshade. You know, Deadly Nightshade berries? Sounds like he gave you either a concentrated dose of it or just straight up crushed some berries into your drink.”
David cursed under his breath as the tiles on the shower wall started to peel off and drip to the tub. “I knew the bartender was in Butch’s pocket. Last time I tip that bastard.” He finished the water with his eyes closed and started trying to fill it back from the tap in front of him.
Doc watched with heavy concern as David held the cup about 2 inches to the right of the stream of water and then tried to drink from the still empty cup.
“Damn.” Wash whispered. “Your water pressure sucks.”
“I got it. Stay still, try to avoid vomiting again, that could make things worse.” Doc took the cup from David and ran to the kitchen to fill it with filtered water and grab some supplies.
He returned a few minutes later with two cups, one of water and one of natural fruit juice, to find David on the floor of his bathroom, plucking at the base of the sink where the pipes disappeared into the wall.
He looked up, eyes still worriedly dilated and almost swimming as he tried to focus on Doc. “Your snakes are stuck in the flat space.” He blinked hard and didn’t actually open his eyes again. “My head hurts.”
Doc placed the cup of water directly into Wash’s hands and helped sit him up against the wall before turning the bathroom light off. “Drink. I doubt you have an auto-injector with Antilirium on hand so we gotta make do.” He pulled out a case of black pills and began opening some of them to pour into the cup of juice, making the bright liquid dark and black.
Dufresne wasn’t exactly expecting David to understand what he was saying right now besides “Drink” but David spoke up between sips of water and said “Antilirium is just as bad, man. You ever stab yourself in the thigh just to speed your heart rate up even more and sweat so much you feel like you’re melting? And then you vomit more and that’s it, if you’re lucky. If not you got-”
“That’s enough!” Doc semi-shouted, cutting David off before he could ramble and make himself dizzy again. “Drink your water, this could make you severely dehydrated. It’s a little late in the game but if you aren’t going to the hospital we need to soak up as much of that garbage as we can so I’m making you a juice with activated charcoal I had on hand and you need to drink all of this without puking.”
David looked up, as best he could, with an incredulous look, as best he could make, and even in the near dark of the room only lit with a small nightlight, Dufresne could see Wash’s eyes still swimming. Still, David continued marvelously with a scoff and “Why the hell do you have activated charcoal just ‘on hand’?”
Doc shrugged, a little frenzied, a little panicked. “What?? I brush my teeth with it sometimes!”
Wash knew better than to laugh so he cracked a shaky smile instead and toasted to Doc with his half empty water cup. Once he finished it completely he exchanged the cups with Doc and started on the charcoal/juice mix.
“This might...it might be too late to help but reading up on the belladonna, it might be okay. You, you seem strong enough to make it through as long as, um, Flowers wasn’t intending to kill you.”
Wash shook his head, holding up a finger as he finished drinking the concoction. He took a deep breath before he answered. “Flowers knows better than to try to kill me. More likely he just wants me out of commission for something. But he’ll have to do more than leech my blood with pavement suckers for that to happen.”
Doc gave him a moment as David seemed to puzzle through what he just said. “That....” David started, squinting in the dark and putting the empty juice cup down softly. “The leeches that came out of the sidewalk weren’t real, were they?”
Dufresne got up and refilled the water cup with some tap water quickly to hand off to Wash as he shook his head. “Probably not. I wasn’t with you at the time but I’m willing to bet they weren’t real.”
Wash took the cup but gasped, offended. “Why weren’t you with me? I thought we were friends, Doc?”
That caused a new round of stuttered half words from Dufresne as Wash eyed him curiously and drank his new cup of water slowly.
“I gotta. I gotta warn Maine that something’s up.” He declared suddenly, slamming the half empty water cup on the floor. It splashed out and onto the floor and David seemed not to notice as he tried to stand. The dizziness slammed into him and Dufresne barely caught him before David slammed his head against the tiled walls of the shower. “Jesus, the gravity is heavy on this planet.” His dilated pupils made him look innocent even with his usual crazed sleepless eyes.
“I know, bud, I know. Let’s get you somewhere soft.” He tried to half carry Washington to the room with his massage tables but Wash fought slightly against him.
“No no. If I get sick I need to be somewhere safe.”
“You are sick, Washington.” Doc told him softly, not fighting him.
“No I mean exorcism style. Gotta give up the ghost to the underworld.”
That threw Dufresne for a loop, he had to admit. But Wash was tugging against him and towards the bathtub. Which Dufresne helped him into before he snuggled up on his side, facing the wall and holding his stomach.
“Oh, you mean if you puke! You want to be near a drain.”
Wash looked over his shoulder a little irritated. “Tonight I die. Tomorrow I live.”
“Alright. I’ll be right back. Don’t move.” Dufresne waited a bit to make sure Wash wouldn’t say anything else or get up but he just turned back to the wall and curled in on himself further.
Doc moved quickly through the studio, rinsing the charcoal cup and washing his hands before getting a bigger water bottle for Wash to drink when he woke up periodically, and stopping to light some rose oil in the hallway outside of the bathroom. He turned on all his little nightlights so he could wander the studio freely without turning the harsh lights on and he grabbed a pillow from one of the massage beds before he returned for good back into the bathroom.
He could hear David muttering to himself quietly and Doc slipped the pillow into the tub and under his head. Wash went silent and loosened up just a bit so Doc continued and pressed the water bottle into the space between David’s stomach and his right hand, which curled around it possessively but he didn’t open his eyes or take a drink.
Doc kept an eye on David all throughout the night, even getting up once to refill the water bottle. It seemed at about 4am that the worst of it had passed.
When David finally woke up at about noon the next day he had a headache still and his mouth was dry but he no longer felt like puking. He did however have to pee like nobodies business.
When he realized he was in a bathtub he reasoned out that a toilet should be nearby.
What didn’t make sense here was the guy sleeping under the sink next to the bathroom door. He looked familiar.
“After.” Wash muttered as he turned to the toilet and peed the most he had ever peed in his life. His pee was a startling grayish color and he would have been worried if the guy under the sink hadn’t woken up right at that moment.
“Oh thank goodness, you’re up! Woah!” He averted his eyes quickly and almost banged his head on the sink trying to scramble out of the room.
“Hey, where-” Realization dawned on Wash. “Oh! Doc! I’m back at your place! What happened?” He finally stopped peeing and was able to get himself put back together somewhat and finish up, washing his hands as he yelled at Dufresne down the hall. “Did I come here last night? Oh... Was I poisoned?”
“Yup!” He heard Dufresne squeak from around the corner. “You uh, you had some Belladonna berries in your system and I think they may have passed thanks to the charcoal.”
Wash turned off the sink and walked out, drying his hands on his pants. “Okay cool, that explains the gray pee. Thanks Doc.”
“Woah woah, wait where are you going?” He put his hand on David’s arm as he started to make his way down the hall.
“Obviously I’ve gotta start planning on getting Flowers back for this.” He looked at Doc like he was crazy.
“Ooooh no you don’t. Get back in that bathtub and go back to sleep. I-I mean, go to my room and get in bed! I mean!” He panics a bit before taking a deep breath and saying, “Go, rest, wherever in the studio you want, but you aren’t leaving until I can check up on you and make sure you get some food in you.”
Wash was all ready to play the rough and tumble, gotta get moving, game but flashes of guilt for imposing on Doc made him soften. He unclenched his teeth and rolled his eyes. “Where’s the bed?”
“Down that way and to the right. I’ll wake you up for breakfa- uh, late lunch, when it’s done.”
“Thanks Doc.” If Dufresne thought Wash would sleep and not plan his retaliation, he was more naive than Wash thought. But still. Getting some food in him first wouldn’t hurt.
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