[e]verything burns.

[&Ismirshalen]

In this room, time seemed to lose all meaning. The word time did not exist in this alternate universe. Time was swallowed by a bitter entity, silence. Silence dominated this dimension. Silence ate away at the corners of all matter. The silence was painful, it was loving, it was hateful, it was unforgiving, it was peaceful.

Ismirshalen allowed himself to be enveloped by this silence. It filled the hollow, empty parts of his soul that were crying in agony and allowed him to simply sit there and stare at the floor, which no longer held any meaning for him.

He felt numb. Comfortably numb. His eyes were glazed and puffy, trickling out tears that he was no longer aware of and no longer cared about. The tears were like puss, oozing from an open wound.

And then suddenly, sound invaded his alternate universe. It was so unexpected that at first he did not realize it was there. But then his mind snapped back into reality.

A sob escaped his throat when he heard the therapist speak. He had to grip his chest to keep his heart from falling apart like broken china.

Of course, it took him a moment to decipher the French. When he understood the words, he actually checked to see if he was indeed missing half of his face. A sigh of relief escaped him when he found everything was where it should be.

But then he realized something was very wrong about what the Frenchman had said.

"N-no," he said, his voice stuttering and hoarse from lack of use. "My face is whole. Do you not see my whole face…? Vincent…?" He bit his lip. He hadn't thought he'd be able to actually speak with the man again. Forget the unfortunate circumstances. He reached out to touch the guy's arm, perhaps wake him up more. Maybe that was why he'd thought Izzy only had half a face. Maybe he was just tired.

[VinnNAY]

Vincent stared blankly at the British man. His gaze and black, searching eyes asking the question ‘what?’. There was no need for words in this case. Vincent was knocked up with medication and the bullet wound to the head was cause for some (Momentary) translation problems.

“Vous êtes mélancolique… Pourquoi?” Vincent asked touching his tears while observing the clean room which he could only see half of. It wasn’t bothering him all that much. He was more concerned about Ismirshalen than with himself currently. Or at least the half of him he could see. He could only worry about and hope for the other half. Funny how not so long ago half an Izzy would be a good thing to him.

He felt the guard’s frosty skin (Vincent laughed when he did because he could only imagine how much warm coffee Ismirshalen was chugging before this). However, the feeling was delayed not only because he wasn’t feeling much at the moment but because he had to reach out and touch the missing part of Izzy that touched him to check if it was still there. He was relieved to find it still was. His little failed circus act won after all and this made him smile for real. The real cost for a life is a leg and a brain and a little chest pain. Wait… that was bad, his chest was starting to hurt.

[&Ismirshalen]

Ismirshalen's face crumpled as the therapist looked at him with blank eyes. Finally realizing what was wrong. He clenched his teeth, closed his eyes, and pulled his thin eyebrows together. Shaking under the man's touch. The fact that the fingers on his cheek were warm, were alive, didn’t do much to soothe him. They just reminded him more of what could have been.

"J'ai ruiné vous," he choked out, his grip on the man's arm tightening involuntarily. "J'ai ruiné vous." He'd let this man get shot. He hadn't done anything when that bastard redhead had been about to pull the trigger. He'd just sat there. He'd just sat there, and told himself everything was just a nightmare. He'd chosen to believe in his fantasies rather than reality. And this man had risked his life to save his.

"Pourquoi? Pourquoi?!"

He couldn’t understand why the guy was suddenly laughing. He didn’t try to understand. He was reminded of when he'd last heard him laugh-- before, in the therapist's bedroom, when he'd teased him about his wife. When he'd asked him why Ismirshalen hated the French.

"Je ne déteste pas les françaises," he finally answered, though now the therapist probably wouldn’t remember what he was talking about. "Je déteste me."

He couldn’t keep his tears a silent storm any longer. His body racked with his sobs. He buried his face in Dr.DeVrais's hurting chest. Maybe all it needed was a little precipitation.

[VinnNAY]

The sudden wave of emotions emanating off of the guard were very stimulating. He even attempted to speak French with that silly English accent. It was enough to keep his grin going (The English accent, that is). His limited amount of thoughts still weren’t running smoothly, though. The (French) brain is an interesting thing. So was the English brain and the way it makes its owner freak out (Look who‘s talking). Vincent wasn’t entirely sure what had made the man snap but he did. Maybe he shouldn’t have laughed, it scared him, too.

“Non…” Vincent whispered to the bawling man on his chest. “Non… Je t'aime bien et les Anglais sont bons, aussi.…” Izzy was crushing his lungs in all his grace so he stopped there and just let the guy drain himself. (Clogged drain!? TRY VINN-O!). While he was pinned down he realized there was a hole in his skull. How cool was that? He reached his hand up from Ismirshalen’s shaking back to touch the indent on his forehead but jerked it away quickly from the raw flesh. Vincent was relearning all sort of things he momentarily forgot, like: getting shot hurts just as much as love.

[&Ismirshalen]

Oddly enough, the therapist's words were soothing. He had thought anything out of the man's mouth would only make him hurt worse. But it had an opposite effect. It didn’t make him any happier or anything like that, but it stopped him from snapping into billions of little pieces like Humpty Dumpty.

It was a few more minutes before the racking sobs finally started coming to a halt. He brought his face up from the therapist's chest, realizing that he had probably been impairing the man's ability to breathe. The rims of his eyes were an ugly red in color, and when he put his fingers to them they gave off dull throbs of pain. Crying hurt now. His heart hurt now. He still wanted to cry. But at the moment he felt as if he wouldn’t be able to ever again.

He looked at Dr. DeVrais's damaged head. There was a load of bandaging wrapped around the spot where the bullet had entered it. But Ismirshalen could still see what it had used to look like from memory. He could see the blood that had spattered the man's face. In fact, the white shirt he was wearing right then was covered with the guy's bloodstains. Izzy hadn't made an attempt to remove it. Which was uncharacteristic for him, because he was extremely squeamish about the sight of blood. If he could be granted one wish, he'd wish the bullet wound right off of Dr. DeVrais's skull and put it on his own forehead.

Je regrette," he whispered.

Not long after he said this, the door to the room opened and the same doctor that had questioned him previously walked in. Probably thinking something along the lines of 'I knew it! They were an angry couple!'. Of course after the response he'd gotten from the Brit before he didn’t voice this opinion out loud. Instead he walked over to the opposite end of the therapist's bed and addressed Izzy.

"We tried to tell you a few things before you came rushing up here," he started, giving the man who was obviously not in the mood for such things an accusing glare. "But you didn’t give us a chance to finish. Anyway. This man here, Mr. DeVrais, is extremely lucky to be alive."

"Lucky," the guard repeated softly.

As if he hadn't been interrupted, the doctor continued. "So, considering all t'hat he's been through, it's not surprising t'hat he has some new… disabilities. For one, he can no longer walk on his right leg. He will need a cane, or something of the likes. Second, due to the shot in the head, he's going to suffer from some temporary mental disability such as being unable to remember certain things, and he might experience some migraines."

"He can't see half of the world," Izzy mumbled, now staring at his own disabled leg with a strange sort of mortified fascination.

"Really?" Well than, I'm afraid to say t'hat's permanent."

Ismirshalen didn’t like this doctor. He felt his face starting to burn red. He felt like he was being accused of what had happened to Dr. DeVrais. Which was terrible, because he felt he should be accused. But from this man, it hurt.

"Just go," he growled angrily. Not long after, the door slammed.

Ismirshalen turned his tortured gaze back to the therapist.

He repeated what the doctor said in French.

The bullet had been meant for him.

[VinnNAY]

“Accepté,” Vincent mumbled/nodded in reply to Ismirshalen‘s apology, sinking in the hospital‘s white bed and blending in like a Russian soldier. The sharp pain from his head that was spreading throughout his body rapidly was beginning to make him more of his bitter self. Not that he was going to be tremendously bitter for the rest of his life or anything, it‘s just how Vinny was. Bitter.

With Vincent’s new profound sense of ‘clarity’ he was horrified to find his own blood on the other’s shirt. What happened? Of course he remembered but he wasn’t there for half of it due to a traumatizing shot to the noodle. He would have continued pondering but… You know.

“Ca va?” He asked the other after examining his puffy-red face which was also examining him. This was like the moment of realization. Vincent was a sack of blood and Ismirshalen was old. However, they were both two unattractive European men. They were like wine. You need an acquired taste to actually like them (Not that this analogy works because Vincent cannot get drunk off of European men).

Vincent was half-sleeping through the doctor’s English drabble. He couldn’t help but to remark upon the fact that he found it to be such a strange language. All these rough “th” sounds that he couldn‘t dream of saying. It was always so amusing how they could make that sound but not a proper “r” (Beats German).

Vincent could only nod to what Ismirshalen was telling him. It was slightly horrifying but canes were totally trendy now.

[&Ismirshalen]

Ismirshalen had to look away from Dr. DeVrais before he could answer. He wasn’t going to bullshit the man. He couldn’t even bullshit himself lately.

" Ça va très mal," he murmured softly, finally looking down at the blood on his shirt. It was dried up and brown. He didn’t care. This lack of emotion slightly frightened him, but he figured he would be normal again… eventually. Was was normal, anyway? Was it even natural for someone to give such a damn about their appearance? Like.. his face… Izzy bit his lip and touched the raw puncture marks on his cheek where the brass knuckles had bit deep. His hand shook. He realized he no longer had the money to pay for plastic surgery to fix these new disfigurements.

The only money he had was in his pockets. He'd started out with a few hundred dollars, but after paying for both their tickets to Hell he was now down to less than a hundred.

His house. Burned.

Ismirshalen leaned against the wall and pressed his hands to his forehead. He tried to will these thoughts from his mind. He could think about this stuff later. If he allowed himself to right now he would explode. And possibly commit suicide right in front of the therapist.

" Ça va?" he asked Dr. DeVrais, rubbing his temples. Izzy looked at the man. He seemed a little sharper than he was before. The Brit wondered how much pain the man was in, and grimaced at the thought. Plus the Frenchman didn’t look too happy about the news on the cane.

"Je regrette," he said again. He had the feeling that if the Frenchman let him, he'd keep on saying sorry for hours without feeling as if he'd said it enough. " Je vais acheter une canne pour vous."

[VinnNAY]

[[Get Vinny a pink cane]]



“Ca va,” He lied.

If Vincent’s arms weren’t strapped by tubes to the liquid that was keeping him alive he would have slapped the half of the boy he could see for apologizing so much. But he was, so he just pretended to smile and waved a hand and said, like the smart ass he was, “You flatter me so.” Maybe if he said one of his English catchphrases the guy would stop with it and let him actually apologize for bringing him there in the first place and not doing his job properly. His head still hurt like a motherfucker, though, so he would have to wait until he came back with his dumb cane. That is, if he wasn’t having a migraine then. His life had suddenly become so much more complicated…

He had come to start accepting and appreciating bilateral symmetry over the time he had awoken. Everyone has a good and a bad side. For Ismirshalen’s sake he was hoping that his left side was his good side. Or was it his right side? He was seeing out of his left eye so he figured humans see like mirrors… He never really thought of things like this. Funny how from now on all of his patients will be recognized by the side of their face he could see. But hey, now he could date ugly girls. They’re nice.

[&Ismirshalen]

Ismirshalen grimaced at the therapist's obvious lie. Be he realized it was probably better that the man didn’t tell him exactly how he was feeling. Because if he did that then the emotionally unstable brunet might do something stupid like drown himself in one of the hospital sinks or jump off the roof. Neither of those routes were very healthy.

The sudden English phrase caught him by surprise, and it took him a moment of looking around the room for whoever had just entered for him to realize the Frenchman had said it. He stared at the therapist for a moment. A slight smile came to his face. It was a sad smile, but it was still a smile.

"No, you flatter me," he murmured in reply. When Dr. DeVrais didn’t respond, the guard wondered if maybe the guy was having a seizure. But on closer inspection, he saw the man had just fallen asleep.

Getting shot in the head is a tiring experience.

Without a word, Ismirshalen left the room. He exited the building and went to sit in the snazzy rental car he had bought. Night had fallen over Oxford. He had thought it would never come. This day had seemed to be endless. In fact, it felt like weeks had passed since he and the therapist had gotten off the plane. His heart ached when he thought about before. If he could go back in time, he'd to anything to prevent this Hellish outcome to occur.

He'd have jumped in front of the gun himself. No, he wouldn’t have even let himself get into such a pathetic position in the first place. He never thought he could hate himself to such an extent as he hated himself now. With a groan, he rested his feverish skull on the steering wheel. Loathe to let himself rest. A full mug of coffee rested in the cup holder, and he drank from it periodically. His blood boiled in his veins from all of the caffeine; he felt as if he had been rubbed back and forth on a cheese grater until he was nothing more than a raw nerve.

Sleep. It was a silly word. A stupid action. People who hated themselves didn’t need sleep. People who let other people get shot didn’t need sleep. Ismirshalen didn’t need sleep.

Trying to take his mind off of such things, he pulled down the overhead mirror and examined his face. At the first sight of it he slammed the mirror back up in horror. Pulled it back down after he managed to calm down. Mostly it was bruised. However, the area around his right eye had been hit hard enough to puncture his skin. The band-aid he'd put on earlier covered his right eye so he couldn’t see exactly how bad it was.

This was depressing. If he lingered on this any longer he'd kill himself.

Ismirshalen tilted his head forward and parted his hair. Saw what he had been expecting and fearing to see. The bald spot had eaten away at more of his scalp. A cold fingers crept down his spine. It was getting to be so big that he was going to have to name it.

"Your name is Scalpy," he muttered in half-asleep tones. "Now please do me a bloody favor and fuck off."

Realizing that talking to your bald spot was not a very healthy thing to do, he slammed the mirror again. His gaze traveled lazily around the car, and came to rest upon an object sitting on the passenger seat. His hat. It'd fallen off of the therapist's head when he had been shot. Ismirshalen picked it up carefully. One side of it was soaked in blood from where it had landed on the ground.

It was funny how not but a day ago he had been insanely driven by the urge to retrieve this thing. He had been driven by blind need, and by hatred for the Frenchman for taking away such a thing, his precious. Hatred even at his butler for putting him in that position. Now he hated himself. Now, he couldn’t understand why those things had ever motivated him before. He couldn’t understand much of anything anymore. A soft laugh escaped his throat, but it was more of a sob than a laugh. A day ago he would have grabbed the hat and ran back home, eager with thoughts of never having to face the therapist again. Now he didn’t have a home. He had nothing. Nothing, except for the therapist. The guy he had hated. Everything else had been blown away. Even the therapist had almost been blown away.

His hands trembled. He placed the bloody hat over his head.

A few minutes later, he was asleep.

***

The next day, he drove to a specialty shop that happened to specialize in canes. They were expensive canes. But their price didn’t bother him any more than it had when he had been packing the pounds of cash. Now he only had a hundred dollars or so. Right now, he was in the mood to spend all of his money. Of course, later he would probably look back on this moment and want to kill himself. But he was on a caffeine rush. When he'd woken up that morning he'd been thoroughly pissed that he'd let himself fall asleep. Just the fact that he was even able to do such normal things like that again made him even more pissed, except in a way that was happy.

If that made any sense at all. Sense was the antonym of Ismirshalen's word of the day today.

He walked out of the store with a Barbie-brand pink cane that sported a plethora of hearts. It had a bow. And a card attached with the name 'Vincent DeVrais' printed upon it.

Give him a break. He needed to add some humor to his life.

An hour later he was entering room 213 with the present in his arms. Now he was truly penniless, as he had given his leftover cash to a homeless boy on the street [at least he'd looked homeless to Izzy, but then again anyone who wasn’t sporting gold studded top-of-the-line clothing he thought was homeless]. This fact had not yet sank into his system. It would later. The caffeine was still stimulating his emotions in a positive manner.

Of course, being in the company of the man who had gotten himself shot for him kind of lowered his spirits back down. He wasn’t bawling yet, though. Think positive… Right.

Ismirshalen placed the cane at the edge of Dr. DeVrais's bed and sat down in the chair, waiting for him to wake up. He was still wearing the bloody t-shirt from yesterday. He also had on the blood-stained hat. He kind of looked like a zombie from the darkest pits of the earth. Nice face. Not.

[VinnNAY]

“Qu'est-ce que c'est ca?”

Exactly. What was that? He uncomfortably wakes with a migraine about ten minutes after Izzy arrives to see a jarring pink baton next to him. What did he do to deserve this? What did he do to Ismirshalen? Or had the guard just lost the rest of his brittle mind?

“Combien est-ce utile?”

Vincent was doomed. Surely doomed. He would actually never walk again. He leaned back, putting a hand over his face and pinched this area between his eyes. Someone should just brutally shank his temple and kill him. Someone shoot him! The “cane” wasn’t even long enough to support a short man. Did Ismirshalen really look down upon people so much to the point were everyone becomes small and insignificant?

How could he care about people like this? You’d think he had a fetish with the crazies or something. Yes he’s had sex with his patients before with their consent but that is beyond the point. He could only pray Ismirshalen still had money enough for the plane ride back. Vincent didn’t even know where his pockets were. On his clothes of course. But where were his clothes?

[]