taken | edward nygma x reader
warnings: drugs, violence, suicidal ideation, abuse
notes: i mean, y’all wanted him back, didn’t ya?
PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE | PART FOUR | PART FIVE
Vaguely, she remembered someone handing her a doggy bag, and being driven to the precinct, where she was promptly handcuffed to a cot. She was vastly unimpressed with this treatment, and made it a point to everyone who so much as walked into the med bay. “What the fuck is this? Shouldn’t I be at, I don’t know… A real hospital?” [Y/N] inquired unhappily, rattling her cuffs around - just to annoy her caretakers, of course.
Unfortunately, Dr. Thompkins was the one watching over her, for the most part, and she was very close to smacking her patient for being so insufferable.“You’re under 48-hour suicide watch. They brought you here, because they thought this was the best place to keep you safe, as well as the people around you,” Lee explained, peeling off a pair of thick, plastic gloves with practiced monotony.
[Y/N] tried to cross her arms, but was restricted by the metal cuffs. A discontented scowl made its across her face, she settled again for making as much noise as physically possible with her restraints. “Yeah, yeah - I get it,” She deadpanned, staring blankly ahead of her, “Aren’t they better prepared to deal with suicidal patients at, I don’t know… A real hospital?”
Lee wasn’t pleased, “The order came from a higher authority - I had nothing to do with it. Evidently, my medical opinion doesn’t matter.” She scrutinized her patient for a moment. “How are you feeling?”
The detained woman stopped rattling just long enough to think past her own indignance. A higher authority? It was obvious who that was, regardless of how vague the title. What did he gain from her being at the precinct? What did she lose by being at the precinct? “What higher authority? Why do they want me here?” She was starting to sound like a paranoid addict - which, she was, but that didn’t mean she had to admit it. “I’m terrible. Thank you for asking. How are you? Why am I here?”
Dr. Thompkins’ face grew more serious, and she pulled a stool up next to the bed. “I’m just fine, [Y/N],” She replied, her brow knotted tightly together, “It’s not really my place to question orders - I do it anyways, but that doesn’t mean I get answers.” The doctor gazed over the other woman, observing her anxious, unfocused expression and jittery movements. She was suicidal - that much seemed obvious, but what was going on beneath, if anything? “You are here, because you seemed very intent on killing yourself not even a few hours ago, to the point where you were fighting the cops and were tased. You are here, because we need to watch over you, and make sure you are safe. Do you understand, or are you worried about something else?”
[Y/N] gritted her teeth at the inquisition, goosebumps rising along her limbs. What did he want? What was his plan? What did he gain from this? She shouldn’t say anything. It wasn’t secure here - or anywhere, really. She shouldn’t say anything. She should say nothing. Not anything, not anything, nothing. Words flew from her lips before she could stop them, “Something else.”
Lee leaned closer to her patient, resting a careful, tender hand on top of the other woman’s. Clearly, there was something wrong, and her charge did not feel safe enough to say what that was. She gripped lightly, trying to draw her attention. “The door is closed - are you afraid of someone seeing you? Or is it something else?”
A short silence. “Something else.”
“The handcuffs are in place to keep you here, so we can watch you, and to help make sure you won’t hurt yourself,” She explained, “Are they too tight? Or is it something else?”
The doctor searched for more things that could be wrong, running over the situation in her head. She blinked, her eyes catching sight of a small pendant around [Y/N]’s neck - a tiny, no-nonsense heart that rested easily near her sternum. Extending from another cord was a shiny cross. Briefly, she checked the area for burns from the earlier tasing. “... Is it your girlfriend? She tried to see you, but we couldn’t get clearance. We sent Chrysanthemum home, and will be calling periodically to check on her. Is that worrying you? Or is it something else?”
The patient’s fingers curled into a fist, her nails digging into her palms. “... Yes.”
“I can try to get her clearance again, if you want to see her. It will probably go through if I make a case for you. Is that what you want?”
Her answer was immediate, “No. Keep her away.”
Dr. Thompkins was obviously troubled with her vehement demand, and tried once again to wrap her mind around it. What higher authority? Why do they want me here? “Is someone trying to hurt you? Is someone trying to hurt Chryss?”
[YN]’s tongue wrestled with itself, but she couldn’t bring herself to say the thing that was screaming at her temporal lobe. She wanted to tell her. It would be so easy. Who would it put in danger? Her lover? Her doctor? Her old coworkers? Herself, least importantly?
Lee didn’t need a response. She pulled her phone from her pocket, swiftly selecting a number and waiting to hear the series of rings - or better yet, an actual reply. No one would pick up.
She called three times to find no answer.
A door opened to their right, an alert-looking officer striding in. “Dr. Thompkins,” He called, an urgent look on his face, “They need you out there. I was sent in to watch the patient.”
The medical professional glanced between her coworker and her charge, concern creating valleys across her smooth face. She leaned in towards the other woman, giving her hand a squeeze. “I’ll be right back. Yell if you need anything.”
[Y/N]’s heart dropped, a renewed sense of dread washing over her like a tidal wave. As Lee rose from her seat to leave the room, she made a grab for her arm, but the cuffs ceased her movements. She nearly whimpered to see the door swing closed behind the doctor. Her attention redirected to the nameless man she was placed in the care of, a snarl painting itself onto her visage. “Don’t you fucking try anything, cocksucker.”
The man’s mind was adrift with conflict, with confusion, but he had been given orders, and it was his duty as a cop to fulfill them. His face steeled, and he crossed the room to her side, smothering a scream with his palm as he fumbled with a syringe. He tried to keep quiet, tried to keep his trap shut, but it wasn’t in his nature to cause distress in an otherwise harmless person. “I’m really sorry about this,” The officer stuttered, his hand making its way towards the meaty part of her thigh, where he inserted the needle
She did not immediately quiet, like he’d seen in movies and tv, but his ‘superiors’ had warned him about this. He simply kept his hand pressed to her mouth, his free arm stopping her from struggling too much. After only about a minute and a half, he felt the woman in his grasp slowly decompress, and fall lax. The man removed his hands from her personage, taking a step back to observe. It was incredibly unnerving - her eyes were open, though half lidded, and it was easy to pretend she was awake.
Except she still was, barely.
A gurgle rose up from [Y/N]’s throat, and her head lolled to the side, lips parted just slightly. The cop panicked, reaching forward to cover her mouth again. Briefly, he felt her fingers start to curl around his wrist, and he relented.
[Y/N] was fading fast, and had she the mental capacity to feel afraid, she would, but the strongest part of her knew that something had to be done. She had things she needed to say, topics she needed to address - there was a very, very tiny allotment of seconds in which to speak. Operating her tongue had been getting increasingly hard over the past few months, but never before had she been so thoroughly tranquilized that she literally couldn’t talk. Finally, with her mouth stuffed full of rubik's cubes, and her muscles full of cotton balls, she managed to slur out, “He’s gonna hurt me.”
The officer almost screamed himself, hearing the words that she had to say. He panicked four times over, trying to shake the woman awake. A door opened behind them, and his voice lowered to a frantic whisper, “Who? Who?” But she was too far gone this time, her eyes glazed over to meet the figure that entered into the room.
[Y/N] woke up probably twelve hours later, her body wrapped in slimey, icy tendrils and her hair wrenched back. She screamed, squirming away from the tentacles that swarmed her figure, but they only pulled her tighter.
The foreign limbs were scaly and had the strength of 1,000 men, tugging her deeper into their coils with every passing second - no matter how hard she struggled. And they grasped around her throat, coveting every fragile, raspy breath that she tried to draw.
Minutes passed by, though they seemed like hours, and she couldn’t help but feel that her life should have ended several moments before. She was choking, she was unable to breathe, but she still lived, she still struggled. It was just another nightmare that she couldn’t wake from.
Except she was awake - sort of.
Eventually, it occurred to her that someone was speaking - a nearby voice, a cruel, smooth tone. She knew who it was, but who was it? Her consciousness would not allow her to access that part of her memory. The voice continued, rattling on about things she could not comprehend, and all she could do was listen as the tendrils fell away from her body.
“Are you coherent now? Nod if you understand.”
[Y/N] wasn’t sure what coherent meant, still seeing the tails of snakes in the corners of the room. She nodded anyways, breathing heavily against the soft fabric below her. It didn’t feel like her bed.
The other person hummed, a vague sound of disbelief. “If you could see yourself right now, you’d understand why I doubt your coherency very much. It’ll just be a few minutes now.”
None of their words quite held in her perforated headspace, just as they failed to before. She watched the bodies of reptiles creep about the floorboards, her eyes trailing behind each creature. One of them moved close to the bed, winding up the leg of a rustic-looking chair and across the lap of a long, thin man who sat with his ankle atop the opposite knee. The woman almost cried to see the snake disappear behind his figure, and desperately waited for it to return. They almost felt like friends now. She wondered what its name was.
How strange that something so sinister had become an emblem of consistency in her otherwise tumultuous life?
She ran her tongue around the cottony caverns of her mouth, staring just past Edward onto the ornate wallpaper behind him. Her voice was croaky as she spoke, “Am I allowed to ask why I’m here?”
He’d been reading a newspaper, which he folded carefully and placed on the bedside table. His hands clasped together, a quirky little grin etched onto his cheeks. “You may ask whatever you wish - you’re a guest in the mayor’s house, after all.”
[Y/N] narrowed her eyes, the wallpaper still holding her rapt attention. “Why am I here, then?”
“You’re on suicide watch, and the precinct no longer felt that they could care for you,” Ed started, idly checking his watch, “You should be thankful. This was the best alternative.”
She was quickly becoming annoyed, and made a move to sit up before realizing that she’d been strapped - on her stomach, spread-eagle - to the bed she lay on. This distracted her from his vague explanation, if only briefly. “Does the mayor normally let his guests be held captive by his employees?”
“You misunderstand - you’re technically being hospitalized.”
“Yes, because you are the best ‘medical professional’ to watch over a suicidal woman,” [Y/N] deadpanned, “What do you mean by alternative? Where else would I have gone? A real behavioral center? A real hospital?”
“Well, they did mean to send you to Arkham-”
“Arkham?” The female shrieked, lifting her upper body off the mattress to the best of her ability, “I’m not a fucking criminal, Nygma. They would never send me there. I’m not insane, either, unlike your sorry ass.”
Edward’s face cinched dangerously, and he uncrossed his legs, leaning closer to impose on [Y/N]’s space. “You’d do good to watch where you throw words like that - you just might hurt someone’s feelings,” He warned, “And if I remember correctly - you disrupted public peace, assaulted a police officer, and resisted arrest. This town cares little for the mentally unstable, and they’d think little of you as well.”
“You and I both know that’s not true. I want to see a lawyer. There’s no legal way for you to keep me here,” She rattled, grasping at straws that she knew would only be ripped away from her.
“No self-respecting lawyer in Gotham would represent you against the mayor,” Ed countered, “They think of him as a saint for sheltering a poor, suicidal woman rather than letting her rot in the asylum. They think of him as an advocate.”
Frantically, she looked for an argument - as if her fate wasn’t already sealed. Just as she was about to open her mouth, the head of a snake crawled out of his sleeve, its body extending gracefully to the bed. She was immediately entranced by the movement, watching intently as it moved towards her.
The reptile slithered up to her face, greeting [Y/N] with a familiar smile, and she smiled in return, her lips parting over her teeth. It responded by pushing past her gums, pressing down her throat until she swallowed it whole.
Edward watched in amazement as the woman before him choked and gagged on nothing, a deep chuckle rising up from his chest. “Ketamine is a hell of a drug, isn’t it? A perfectly safe tranquilizer - given that you don’t mind the hallucinations upon waking.” He reached forward to wipe the drool from the side of her cheek, and she visibly cringed away from him.
The female breathed heavily, tears welling up in her sinuses as she tried to recover. “You’re the fucking devil, Edward,” She droned, unable to find the energy needed to curse him out like she really wanted to.
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