Chapter Text
John profoundly doubts that the man who put the needle into the crook of his arm was actually a doctor, but he also hadn't done anything about it. Benign, unsuspecting compliance seems to be what everyone expects, and it's the easiest course of action. A warm, grateful good-bye to Fischler. Polite, diffidently charming small-talk with the driver of the car that had been offered. No comment as it had pulled up in front of a place that looked distinctly unlike a doctor's office. A thank you to the driver.
A brief stint in a waiting room, a quiet, empty place with vaulted ceilings and potted plants, ecru walls and polished wood floors. A woman in scrubs with a high, tight ponytail and a clipboard greets him, though she's brisk and professional. Then through to a narrow hallway and a darkened room at the end with an out-of-place operating table in the middle of it. The floor is carpeted, and there's a window, though the blinds are drawn. It's not an operating room, and he's not offered a gown or given any instruction by the woman with the clipboard. She indicates a chair beside the door and leaves him.
There's a defibrillator on the counter, the sort that hangs on the wall in shopping malls or train stations. So that's reassuring. At least there's that. There's a silver tray of glinting instruments, gauze and tape. A bright light is strung up over the table, but it's not on.
John takes a seat and shrugs out of his jacket, his hoodie. It's cool but not cold as he sits in a chair, waiting. He's struck by some half-memory of being sat beside a door, waiting for something else, and after a while he realizes that he's reminded of an old house in LA and sitting outside his father's office at fifteen. That had been after an impromptu and unlicensed bit of minor surgery. Then the man with the needle and that haziness, fog descending and blurring the edges of his awareness. John should be more nervous about this than he is, but there's a larger plan unfolding, and anyway, on the strength of whatever the hell he's been dosed with, it's hard to worry about anything.
The last of the hangover's wearing off just as the sedative starts to really kick in. John's heart rate and breathing slow and his limbs loosen, slacken against the armrests of the chair. The room darkens into oblivion. Rough hands, warm but ungentle, tug his t-shirt over his head, and there's a dizzying swoop of the room as he's pulled to his feet and half-dragged, half-lifted onto the operating table. Lying back, gravity pulls him hard against the padded surface. John's reminded briefly of his bed back aboard his space station. He turns his head to see someone pulling the case with Fischler's pacemaker out of the pocket of his jacket, still crumpled on the chair.
Probably none of these people are doctors, and there are a surprising number of them. The ponytailed woman, the man with the needle. Another pair of hands, someone who tugs his shoes off. His feet hang off the end of the table and this is funny for some reason, makes him think of walking, walking on Earth, getting used to wandering around again and how strange it had been, not to move in all three dimensions. Makes him think of going places and being places and reminds him—
"I've got a GPS implant. Umm. Behind my ear. Since I was in grade school." That'll have to come out. Good thing he remembered. "My dad didn't want us getting kidnapped." Oh, that's why that was funny. He laughs, but no one else does. Oh well. He's never been great at jokes.
There's an exchange of glances around the operating table.
"What fuck've you given him?"
"What I was s'posed to."
"How much?"
At some point John's brain has skipped ahead in time, because the people above him have acquired masks and someone's pulling a needle out of his shoulder. It gets jabbed back in, elsewhere, subcutaneous analgesic, and his chest is numb from collarbone to sternum, even as gloved fingers probe and poke at his left pectoral. One of the hands he can't keep track of swabs something cold and strange across his skin, the metallic smell of iodine being painted over his chest. He shivers and adds, "It's the left ear."
A hand catches his chin and John jerks away, abruptly frightened, panicked for a reason he can't seem to remember. There's a break in the line between his fears and their reasons, but he doesn't want anyone grabbing his face, his throat. His breathing starts to get away from him, but the same hand presses firm against his temple, holds him still to the table beneath it. "Turn your head, kid. C'mon. Hand me the—yeah, those. And get ready with the scalpel."
There's the buzz of a pair of clippers right behind his ear, and goosebumps shudder down the back of his neck, and there's suddenly a bare square inch or so behind his ear. The buzzing stops and latex-covered fingertips examine the place he'd indicated. There's a softly murmured curse word as the small capsule of surgical grade plastic housing a tiny GPS tag is discovered. "Scalpel."
John's aware that it's going to hurt, but it's a keen, cold sort of pain and he's not ready for it, and a voice that doesn't sound like his cries out sharply. The blade slits the skin behind his ear, and there's pressure, a twist of fingertips and then the soft ping of something dropping into a bowl. Blood leaks from behind his ear, pulses in a warm liquid line down his neck and into his hair. John makes a small, pathetic sound and gets shushed impatiently. It likely would've been less small and less pathetic if the whole room hadn't wavered and gone all watery, like he's suddenly underwater, lying flat on the bottom of the pool back home looking up. He inhales a lungful of cold, heavy water and passes out for a few moments in lieu of shushing.
Gauze has been crammed behind his ear and taped there by the time he surfaces, and the point of another needle (the same needle?) leaves his chest, lower down this time. Numbness seems to press at the muscles of his throat, and he swallows thickly, a lump of anxiety tightening behind his tongue.
Time skips again, from darkness into blinding light, night to day in the space of what's probably only a few minutes. The big bright light's come on overhead and he can't see, but he can feel hands pressing against his chest, can hear murmured consultations at the hazy edge of consciousness. A drop of pure silver light glints off the scalpel as it winks up at the border of his field of vision and then descends. The blade touches the underside of his collarbone and draws along, a line of icy red pain along his skin, and he arches his back and screams.
There's blood everywhere and a shouted argument, the sort that doctors aren't supposed to have. Hands pin him down, latex slipping against blood against skin and panic. Someone wrenches his arm away from his side, pries his fingers up from where they've gripped the side of the table, and another needle finds the inside of his arm. A warm flood of narcotic calm washes over the pain, but it still hurts and he's still bleeding, even as he feels his whole body go limp against the hands that hold his wrists, his shoulders, his face.
The world dissolves into rising and falling sensations, an inward and outward drift on the tide of John's own slow, laboured breathing. Every time he feels his chest fall, it's the slow agony of the scalpel that draws breath into him again, though he can't seem to connect the pain to the action he should take to make it stop. There's only the feeling of fingers being pushed beneath his skin, pushing and tugging at the muscle to make a place for the tiny computer. The room smells like metal and blood, and John's next aware of two lengths of wire being measured against his chest, necessary to run to his heart.
Another needle punches through the skin at junction of his collarbone and first rib, accessing the vein that will carry the electronic leads through to his heart. This, mercifully, is the last thing John can stand, and it's a combination of drugs and stark terror that pulls him down and away from the happenings on the operating table, drops him into darkness and silence.
When he comes around the first time, there's a thread pulling through his skin, stitching a three-inch scar closed. The second, the room is empty and the light is off and he can feel the numbness of the analgesic all through his chest beginning to fade and diminish, replaced by the aching white noise of pain all through his collarbone and shoulder. The third time, he's been shifted into a sitting position and the ponytailed woman is trying to thread one of his hands through the sleeve of his t-shirt. This hurts and he groans in protest, and overall he's not much help, but the scent of her perfume is vanilla and jasmine and reminds him of his mother. He tries to tell her so, but it doesn't come out right, and she's tugging his sweater on and draping his jacket around his shoulders by the time he loses hold of reality again.
Then there's a car window pressed against his forehead, cool and vibrating with the motion of the motorway passing beneath wheels. John's not sure who's driving, but it doesn't really seem to matter as long as it's not him. Greenery flashes past and there's someone in the backseat next to him. Some disconnected part of his brain thinks it's Alan, and he'd be glad to see Alan. He aches all over and Alan only ever wants to help. Alan would help. John stirs slightly and tries to figure out who it is, but when he turns his head, his hood is pulled up and something gets pressed against his mouth and nose, sweet and cloying and awful, like dead, rotting flowers.
John's unconscious when the car pulls into a private runway near the airport. When the car door opens, his seatbelt is the only thing that keeps him from toppling out and onto the tarmac, and he's hauled over the shoulders of someone much shorter but far stronger than he is and brought aboard a private plane. It's not as nice as his family's, though in more than a few ways it's strangely reminiscent of Tracy-One, with its sleek, clean lines and rich, modern colours. The front section of the plane is all heavy, plush seats and this is where John's deposited, blood leaking through the bandage on his chest and lightly spotting his t-shirt.
It's the deep, penetrating ache of the incision and the new implant that wakes him, though by the time it does, they've reached cruising altitude. The sky out the oval window in his eyeline is deep cerulean above and an ocean of rose-gold tinted clouds below, sunset.
There's a glass of water on the table in front of him, and it vibrates just slightly with the motion of the plane's engine. John's not sure how he got on a plane, but he's fairly sure where he's going. His throat's dry and he hurts, but with his good arm he shifts himself upright and reaches for it.
A hand reaches out—smooth skin and gold rings, a white shirt cuff beneath a dark jacket—pushes the glass closer. There's a dry chuckle and then, in greeting, "Johnathan."
His hand shakes as he takes the glass, but John steels himself for what needs to be done and looks up for just a moment, meets the Hood's gleaming green-gold eyes. "Actually," he manages, though he has to pause to take a long swallow of cold, clear water, "it's just John."