Gun, With Occasional Pony

by Squeak-anon

In Which a Hospital Proves Hostile

Ch 8

In Which a Hospital Proves Hostile

I only remember small flashes from the ride to the hospital. There were crowds of OCs everywhere, far different from the /co/mpound. A few of them weren’t even ponies. I think I might have seen a shark in a corset, but I dearly hope I was just in shock.

There also may or may not have been a welcoming musical number.

In the dark, nightmarish haze I saw the colorful buildings and signs of the Plains as they rushed by, fading in and out along with my consciousness. A mumble of voices grazed the edge of my hearing, barely making it past the heavy labored sound of my own struggling breath. The last thing I remember before the darkness came for good, was the vague awareness that I was no longer with Sly, heading into the depths of a large, clean smelling building.

Beep.

A sound beat at the side of my brain, fighting for attention. My head swam as it attempted to sort out whether I was alive or not. After years of practice it’d gotten rather good at it.

The first few attempts to open my eyes were thwarted by the blindingly bright lights situated around the room. I felt a tickling sensation across my coat, I was wearing cloth of some kind. It’s not something you might normally notice, but when you regular attire consists of a hat and four horseshoes you tend to be a bit more aware of these things.

After a while my eyes got used to the light, and I was finally able to open them. I was in one of those terribly uncomfortable beds that all hospitals seem to have, back in one piece. The fact that there was a hospital at all threw me for a bit of a loop. In the OC there was really no need for such a place, you either died or you didn’t. If you didn’t you’d be fine in a couple of hours regardless of most things. But when in Rome accept their beds and free food. The room was done up in bright yellow, somewhat off putting as it was a close match to my own natural color. Along the top of the walls ran a roll of wallpaper on which small ponies danced back and forth in colorful displays of forced cheeriness. Maxie’s saddlebag was nowhere to be found. Out of reflex I reached up to see if my hat was still there, it was, and someone had put a small braid of flowers around the rim. The cloth I’d felt earlier proved to be a flannel hospital gown. It was covered in rainbows and pink bunnies.

Before I had a chance to toss it into the nearest bin the door opened with a soft creak. A nurse pony came in. She was a grey earth pony with a blue mane, wearing one of those headbands with the little aluminum circle at the top, the kind you always see on doctors but you’re never quiet sure what they’re for. She smiled as she saw me.

“Well somepony’s awake.” She put her forehooves on the edge of the bed and inspected me for a moment. “And you have a clean bill of health. Yay.”

I fidgeted for a moment. Of course I was alright. I had no doubt everyone in this hospital probably was. “Um....yeah. Hi, I’m-”

“Squeak, I know: Resident of the /co/mpound, earth pony, no notable special abilities or accoutrement's, previous fic-writer current private detective, fan of Doctor Whooves, favorite pony Fluttershy. Welcome to /Chat/tanooga General Hospital. ” She smiled again. “I’m Wisdom, nice to meet you.” She must have noticed my expression, because she added, “The Mods make a point of knowing who comes in and out of the Plains. From the /co/mpound especially. It’s easier to convert people when you know what they like.”

I decided to ignore how horribly creepy that was.

“Where’s Slywit?” I asked getting out of bed.

“Ohnonono!” She blocked my path, pushing me back down. “You need to rest! You’re hurt.”

I eyed her for a moment. “Um...no I’m not. You know how this works don’t you? Cartoon physics, I’m not dead so I’m fine.”

“No.” She put a hoof to my chest. “I mean hurt in here.”

I pushed her hoof away. “My ribs are fine. Now, if you excuse me this is getting a bit freaky. I’d like to find my friend now.”

The-not at all pompously named- Wisdom sighed and shook her head. “They really did a number on you didn’t they?”

“Oh, you mean whoever crashed a freaking train trying to kill me? Oh no that’s a regular Friday. Now let me out of here.”

I saw an expression flicker across her face, but it was gone before I could read it.

“Oh silly Squeak,can I call you Squeak?” She continued without waiting for a reply. “The train crash was an unfortunate accident. No one tries to kill anyone here in the Plains. What I mean is the /co/mpound. That awful place has made you distrustful, paranoid. But don’t worry, a few days here and I’ll have you right as Rainbow Dash.”

“A few days!?” I pushed passed her again. “Sorry lady, but I’m fine. What I need to do right now is find Sly and get the !@#! out of h-”

I paused.

“What the !@$!@ was that?”

Wisdom grinned that horrifying grin again. “Oh silly, that’s the word filter. It’s not used to you yet. So for now it converts all cursing to inaudible symbols. In a moment it will have calibrated to your voice though. Please be patient.”

“So, you mean I can’t say !@%@, !@#$#@ or !%@#%?”

She giggled. “Nope.”

“Not even !@#!!?”

“Oh most certainly not.”

I sighed. This place got more fun by the minute. “Well that’s bucking stupid.”

Wisdom clicked her hooves together. “There it goes!”

I stared down at my own mouth. “You’re paraspriting me, right?”

“And there it is again! Isn’t it wonderful?”

I put a hoof to my forehead. “Lady, you’ve got a weird-flanked definition of ‘Wonderful’.”

She shrugged. “To each his, her, it’s or any variation inbetween’s own.”

I gave myself a shake, trying to clear my head. I needed to get back on track. I need to find Sly, get out of this creepy hospital and find Lyra. Right.Now. I had a few choice, if slightly edited, words to share with her and I wasn’t going to give her any more of a head start because of some nurse playing without a full deck.

“Sorry, I’m checking myself out.”

I pushed past her and headed out the door. I heard her yelling behind me, but I really couldn’t have cared any less. There were a couple other nurses milling about, pushing patients in wheelchairs. They ranged from ponies, to popular characters from other fandoms. A large bipedal rabbit waved to me as I walked past her...or in this town ‘his, her or it’s or any variation inbetween’s’ room.

Squeaky, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.

I checked each room, looking for Slywit. I wondered how he was fairing in this strange place. If Celestia was merciful he’d still be unconscious.

I heard hoofsteps coming up behind me, and once again an annoyingly cheery Wisdom was at my side.

“You really should get back in bed you know. We only want what’s best for our patients.”

I sighed, rolling my eyes. “I’m telling you, I’m fine. What’s best for me is to find my

friend, and be on my way.”

She smiled a Stepford smile. “But, Squeak, I’m telling you, you need rest. Can’t you see we care about you?”

Care about me? Now that struck all the wrong chords. I’d known this lady for all of five and a half minutes. Only a small amount of people got the right to care about me, and they’d earned the same back. No one in this hospital, except Sly ,would give a fig pudding about me the second I stepped out of the Plains, I had no illusions about that. So the sooner we got our tails out of here the better.

I turned to look wisdom in the eye, she cowed a little under my gaze, but I didn’t care.

“Look, ‘Wisdom’ was it?”

She nodded, suddenly quiet.

“You may think you care about me. But you don’t, you really don’t, you don’t know me, and I don’t know you. Come to think of it I don’t really want to know you, because frankly you’re one of the creepiest ponies I’ve ever met, and I know some weirdflanked people. Now, you already know what I want. I want to get out of here. And it looks like you can’t really stop me, or you would have already, and you know what? I’m getting angry, you don’t like angry ponies do you?”

She shook her head.

“In that case you’d like to make me happy wouldn’t you?

She nodded.

“Good, so, why don’t you politely show me to Sly’s room and I don’t start throwing things. Deal?” I flashed a smile with perhaps a bit too much teeth.

She smiled back, a bit less happily than before. “Of course...um...friendship is indeed the best medicine. He’s on the fourteenth floor.” she pointed to a nearby elevator.

I stared at it for a moment.

“Let’s take the stairs.”

This turned out to be a terrible idea. The stairs were shaped like piano keys, every time my hoof hit one an annoyingly happy note would blare through the air along the tune of ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’ This went on for fourteen floors. It would almost have been tolerable if it weren’t for Wisdom’s humming along. I tried to tell her to shut up, but that simply made her hum louder.

If there was any small blessing, it was the fact that their weren’t any other ponies in the stairwell. I’d had enough multicolored happiness for one day. Terribly ironic I know, but this place made the actual Canon look like the a holocaust museum.

So fourteen torturous measures later I arrived on Sly’s floor. A large red door with a smiley face on it welcomed me. I tried to ignore the vague feeling I was walking into someone’s mouth as I pushed past it.

The floor was brightly painted-a big shock- with trees and rainbows plastered onto the walls at all angles. Above the hallways a sign read:

Special Patients(Well all our patients are special but theses are extra special.)

The font was a variation on Comic Sans, my old enemy.

I turned to Wisdom, who was humming the last few bars of the previous song while being as off-key as equinely possible.

“Special?”

“Oh....” Wisdom frowned. “I’m sorry we didn’t put you up here. It doesn’t mean you’re not special.” She placed a hoof on my chest again. “You’re special in your own way.”

I resisted the urge to shiver and batted her hoof away. “No! I mean, why is Sly in the ‘Special’ wing?”

“Oh.” She looked sightly put out. “Slywit, short for Sly Thaddeus Percival Wit resident of the /co/mpound, occupation, fic writer, fan of Doctor Whooves, favorite pony, Pinkie Pie, notable special abilities and accoutrement's: able to shift between the three pony breeds at random, recent acquisition of Alicorn abilities.”

“Is that’s why he’s here?”

“Of course silly, we have to treat three different bodies for one patient. That’s not easy you know,” she giggled.

“Right....” I took a step back. This nurse really wasn’t getting the fact that nopony really needed ‘Treatment’. Trying to explain it was just beating a dead horse, pun intended. “So, can you take me to his room?”

“Sure as bubblegum!” She made a little hop and bounded down the hall, humming once again. I rolled my eyes and resisted the urge to gag as I followed behind. The rooms were filled with all kinds of patients, the majority were alicorns, though I saw what may or may not have been a giant lizard and one of the minor fairy queens sharing a bit of jello. I fought down the creeping feeling of strangeness that prickled up my spine. This place was totally alien to me, in the /co/mpound the strangest thing we ever got was the occasional glimpse at one of the odder denizens of ponyville, normally an alicorn of some kind, almost never a non-pony and even more rarely something from outside the cannon. As I passed the room of a clockwork griffon I couldn’t help but feel a bit homesick.

This was one of the reasons I’d brought Sly along in the first place. I needed a ground, someone to anchor me to home, at my back to make sure the white rabbit wouldn’t lead me too far down. Hell. someone to make sure I came back up at all.

We turned the corner as Wisdom happily announced our destination. She opened the door and ushered me inside.

I froze in an instant.

Sly lay in bed. He was an earthpony, his mane flat and pale, his eyes looked at us in a melancholy way I’d never seen before. He looked as though he’d been bleached, the blue highlights of his mane were almost white, and his normal black a strange shade of grey.

“What is it now?...” he asked. “Nothing good I suspect.”

I was speechless for a moment.

“S-sly?”

“Oh...Squeak, hello. Here to see me? I was starting to think you wouldn’t, I mean, why bother?” He looked out the window for a moment, managing to look at the sunny day outside as though the sky were falling.“Call me Percival,” he groaned. “Sly is too ‘Happy’.”

He said the word ‘happy’ the way most ponies might say the word ‘tapeworm’. I was at a loss. Sly had always been such a happy pony, notorious for pranks and the occasional bit of mischief. It was the reason his cutie-mark was a jester’s cap. To see him look so dour in the middle of a hospital simply didn’t compute.

“What...did you....do to him?” I asked through my teeth.

“Hmmm?” Wisdom asked cheerily. “Oh, well he woke up before you did. With his abilities we couldn’t make the same allowances we made for you. So when he started to get belligerent we gave him a bit of poison joke. It keeps him an earthpony for the time being. Though there is a little teeny wheeny side effect. His mood changes instead. It seems now he’s in a bit of a slump. Poor thing.” She shook her head. “But it’s temporary. We will give him the antidote when his treatment is finis-”

I had her up against the wall before either of us knew what was happening.

“No. You will give it to him now,” I growled.

“Squeak, you’re being unreasonable,” she said, seemingly unperturbed by her position. “You said that seeing your friend would make you happy. I have complied, but I don’t see a smile.”

“Smile!?” I asked incredulously. “I asked to see Sly, my friend. Not some drugged up variation. I’ve never seen that pony in my life.”

“Life?” Sly sighed from behind me. “Don’t talk to me about life.”

“Fix him. Now.”

“Well that’s what we’re trying to do, you silly!” she managed to wiggle away from me and walk over to Sly’s bed. “He’s just as bad as you. But under our tender care you’ll both find your way back to happiness and tranquility. Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll enjoy your stay in Ponychan Plains.”

I felt the anger in my stomach boil over into rage.

“We’re not staying!” I screamed. “There’s nothing wrong with us! You’re insane, you can’t drug and keep us here!”

Wisdom pouted. “But it’s in your best interest I, and everyone in this hospital only wants to be your friend.”

“How is any of this friendly!?”

“Friends help friends. I’ve read about the /co/mpound. It’s not a nice place. We need to acclimate you for life in the Plains.”

“I don’t want a life in the plains! I want to do what I came here to do, a-”

“And just what are you here to do?” she asked, her normally happy demeanor suddenly gone.

The mood of the room suddenly shifted.

"I’m on a case,” I said simply. My anger slowly shifting into caution. I got the sinking feeling there was something else beneath her oblivious nurse act.

“What is this case?”

“I thought the ‘Mods made a point of knowing who comes in and out of the Plains,’” I said, mocking her cheery tone. “Shouldn’t you already know?”

“It seems not everything is on file.” She walked over to Sly’s bed and placed a hoof on his forehead. “Still, I’m glad it brought you here, every pony we can save from that horrid place is another good deed in a weary world.” She turned to me, her voice all aflutter again. “If you cooperate, and deal with our treatment you’ll find this will be a fun experience! So why don’t you tell me what that case of yours was about?”

“Why don’t you bite my flank?”

Her smile wavered.

“You really should be less hostile you know. It’s not very nice.”

“The world isn’t very nice...” Sly lamented from bed. “Why bother trying.”

I glanced back at him, then at wisdom.

“If you want me to be nice, perhaps you should try it sometime.” I put on my best poker face as I leaned against the table by Sly’s bed. “How about a deal, you turn Sly back to normal, and I tell you some of what you want to know.”

Wisdom put a hoof to her chin, making a show of pursing he lips in thought. “I’m not sure about that Squeak. Making deals is a terrible way for me to help. Does a therapist ever make deals with her patient?” She stepped away from Sly, comming closer until her nose was almost touching mine. “I’m sure you’ll open up to me in your own time. Meanwhile, Slywit-”

“Percival!”

“I’m sorry, Percival’s, treatment, will continue until we deem him fit to be returned to normal.”

I felt my jaw clench. “Well, what if I overpower you here, and take him?”

Wisdom chuckled. “That wouldn’t be very wise.” She paused. “Oh! Look at that! I made a funny!” She giggled. “Violence is not tolerated in the Plains. You’ll find that things can be solved much easier with simple cooperation and friendship.”

I felt a sudden pain in my rump, I whirled around to find a white nurse pony orderly. A split second later I noticed the large needle sticking out if my cutie mark.

Both she and the Wisdom smiled.

“Don’t worry Squeak, I’m sure you’ll enjoy your stay. Just relax, and remember, Love and Tolerance is the answer.”

I tried to lift my back hooves to buck out against either of them, but found my coordination was way off. I only ended up stumbling, I tried to catch myself, but my legs were like jello. Wisdom stopped my fall, leaning down so I fell over her back.

She turned her head and looked at me. “Shhhh, just go to sleep. There, there. I’ll tell you what. I’ll try to make it so you and Sly can share this room while you’re bring treated. Won’t that be fun? See, I can be you friend. Won’t that be nice?”

She said something else, but it descended into an inaudible mess as it hit my ears.

Oddly my last thought before I blacked out was:

How many times am I going to get drugged today?

Then nothing.

Comments

[Gabriel LaVedier]

"Gun, with occasional music" is one of my favorite novel. Jonathan Lethem is truly a great writer. I've gotta start reading this.

[Squeak-anon]

291618

I was reading it when I started the story. Loved it, hence the name. It's not a straight crossover, or adaptation, but I kept the noir of it I like to think.

I hope you enjoy it!

[Gabriel LaVedier]

292888

As long as you keep that noir in mind I'm sure it'll be great.

[CluelessDetective]

AMAZING!

[SlyWit]

As usual, I finish a chapter and want to just keep reading!

The sense of humor and adventure in this fic are top notch.

[Feurisson]

This is on indefinite hiatus with no chance of a new chapter coming in the next weeks, right?

[Wishdream]

Great story... Like always.
I want to read more.

[AppleTank]

derpicdn.net/img/2013/4/11/294318/large.png

[Cloudski-Raine]

Any chance this is ever going to be continued? I found this story last summer and have been absolutely dying with this cliffhanger feeling!

[Cloudski-Raine]

5873317 Please help me, I can't stop obsessing over this unfinished fic

[AppleTank]

7791226
Well, the peep's been gone forever, think they're doing tumblr stuff instead now. Not sure how I'm supposed to help. I'm just one incompetent.