Jiri was getting much better at telling dream from reality. Much. His roommate Alex (and all the wonderful personalities living in his head) had been helping on a nightly basis. The most important thing, they'd established, was to have rules:

1) Are you in a place you've been before?

2) Does being there make sense?

3) Do your memories of getting there make sense?

4) Is anyone in danger of serious bodily harm?

If you answered yes to any of these: behave, even if lizards start crawling out of the walls, because in a world with mutants that was not a litmus test for reality.

If you answered no to all four: congratulations! You're in funky dream land! Strap in and enjoy the ride.

He was in a random hospital. He was in a random hospital even though DocProf could have healed him faster. He was in a random hospital even though DocProf could have healed him faster because he'd been attacked by rapid Cafas fan girls. And he was in a hall way going for coffee, in the company of a nurse that dream!land had kindly informed him was at the end of her shift.

No, no, no, and no.

The burden of reality slipped from Jiri's shoulders, and shattered on the ground with nary a sound.

“Oh goodness,” the old woman said, placing a hand over her heart. “You startled me, dear.”

(S)he reached up to adjust her glasses, and discovered she didn't have any. What kind of lame old woman didn't have convenient prop glasses? Way to drop the ball, dream. Whatever.

The granny leaned in close, her eyes serious behind mild cataracts. “Maybe you can help me, dear. Maybe you can. There's a person in this hospital in grave, grave danger—I've seen it. My powers showed me. I must find them, before it's too late.”

Senile old woman or precog? Never-you-mind option C: teenage body snatcher spouting off the first thing that came to mind.

>>“Maybe you can help me, dear. Maybe you can. There's a person in this hospital in grave, grave danger—I've seen it. My powers showed me. I must find them, before it's too late.”

Juliette blinked at her, surprised. Had she fallen asleep and not realized? No, if she was asleep, the strong antiseptic smell wouldn't be assaulting her senses. Alright, so the woman was just strange. Off her meds, perhaps? Whatever it was, Juliette decided to just play along.

"Alright, then, where do you need to look?" Juliette asked the woman. She glanced around the crowded E.R., "do you have any idea who it is?"

The psychiatric ward wasn't all that far. Perhaps if she guided the woman enough, she could bring her there and drop her off. Then, she would still have enough time to get home before sunrise.

Having been in a psych ward before, Jiri knew the look of someone who thought he belonged in one. It was a special yes, whatever you say crinkle to the eyes, with a condescending right this way uplift at the edges of the mouth. For a moment (s)he experienced a numbing panic, a no no no not again.

And then the soothing tide of it's all a dream anyway washed over him again.

Well.

He had a few options, then.

1) Hop to a new body,

2) See how many people he could fit in their psych ward before the night was through, or

3) See how much casual insanity that Nurse McOffMyShift could take before she voluntarily committed herself.

...When he put it that way, there was really only one answer.

All of the Above it was, then.

The kindly old woman leaned in close, and whispered with such a pleasant tone that it might take a moment to grasp her meaning. “It's you, dear. You're the one in trouble. And it's only just begun.”

The next moment the old woman sagged over her walker, and all calm fled her expression. “Demons,” she said, her liver spotted hands shaking, “Oh sweet baby Jesus protect me, demons in my head--”

Meanwhile, a janitor down the hall jerked to new levels of alertness, his mop coming to a standstill. A slow, cheeky grin filled his face.

"Me?" Juliette questioned the woman as she spoke. Alright, this was getting strange.

Then suddenly, the woman dropped into her arms, her hands shaking wildly. Her voice changed as well, scared beyond belief. Juliette snapped her fingers in front of the woman, trying to distract her.

"Ma'am? Are you alright? Can you tell me what happened?" Juliette asked the woman calmly. Schizophrenia, perhaps? Or maybe Bipolar disorder. She had no real idea, recalling very little of her already limited knowledge of psychology.

She placed her hand on the woman's back and began to carefully help her down the hallway. "Not much further now," she told her softly as they walked towards the psych ward.

The little old lady did not protest, did not struggle. One might suspect that she rather liked the idea of going to a psych ward right now. It would be a comforting feeling, to talk with people who knew exactly what was wrong with her, who could give it a long diagnosis name with a short brand-name prescription to make sure it never happened again.

But as they passed by the janitor, whose head was bobbing along to music only he seemed to hear, he met her eyes. And there was something there she recognized, from the inside of her own head. An evil grin made physical.

The old woman jerked to a halt, not letting the nice nurse bring her a single step closer to that smile.

“Hello Clarice,” the janitor said, in just the tone of voice one might expect from a connoisseur of certain things.

The old woman—whose name was very much not Clarice, but that was hardly the point and both of them knew it—began to scream. Loudly.

“Tut tut, Ms. Nurse,” the janitor said. “Did you really think this was something so mundane as a little old lady misplacing a mental marble? Think again, my dear. And do remember to heed warnings from old women. It is the start to many a Grimm tale.”

At which point the janitor kicked over his mop bucket, sending a cascade of soapy gray froth down the titled floor.

Juliette narrowed her eyes at the janitor that was clearly not in his right mind either. Or maybe it was her. Yeah, that made more sense. She had finally lost it.

The janitor kicked over the mop bucket, coating the linoleum floors in the soapy liquid. She put her fingers to her temple. Yep, she had definitely lost it.

Maybe she wasn't really there? Maybe it was all a dream? No, the current situation was too weird for even her subconscious. Perhaps something or someone had a hand in it, then?

She glanced around at the patients that filled the ER, trying to peg one of them as the culprit of the strange behavior.

Well, it definitely wasn't the old woman. A psychiatrist had heard the commotion and had come to take her away. To where, Juliette guess probably the psych ward. She seemed happy to go, but who wouldn't? Even Juliette was considering sticking herself in there at that point.

She shook herself off, blinking at the janitor. She was probably just being paranoid. How long had it been since she had slept? Too long. Yep. That was it. She was just tired.

"Okay," she dragged out the syllables as she addressed the janitor, "thanks for the information, but I'm off. Which means I'm going to go home and sleep. No more crazy for me today, thanks."

In a dream of changing faces and voices and places, there was only one constant: Nurse VonUnamused. She was the center of all things, the focus, the nexus. If she thought that leaving the hospital would change the course of this river, she was about to get very soggy feet.

“Dear, my dear,” the janitor sang after her. “Do you really think this ends here? Sometimes the door is not the way out.”

With a cheerful whistle, he started mopping little sloshing waves after her.

The woman's shoulders slumped heavily as she let out an exasperated sigh. The janitor had begun to push the water at her shoes, which squished uncomfortably under her weight.

There was definitely something weird going on. Juliette had seen that specific janitor many time. Usually, he looked to be in a sour mood and didn't say a word to her. In that moment, he was calling her dear and using a sing-song voice. She pushed the hair that had fallen out of her loose pony tail back onto her head as she went over her options.

She could:
a) Ignore him completely and go home.
b) Check herself into the psych ward.
c) Go along with it. Whatever "it" was.

Despite the protest of her once healthy psyche, she chose option c.

"Alright, what's your deal?" She asked him with a harsh lilt to her voice as she took the bait.

She didn't even bother to escape his kiddie pool tidal waves. Those practical work shoes of hers were going to need a date with the hair dryer. Further proof that this was all just a dream.

“My deal,” the janitor pleasantly replied, with a mop push and a shoe slosh, “is that you don't listen. That's part of being a nurse, isn't it? Listen to your patients, figure out their needs, diagnose the symptoms to find the disease. You missed something, dear, about the size of Alice's rabbit hole.”

Slosh.

“Didn't listen to me, and here we are. Didn't listen to the little old lady, and here we are. Didn't listen to the poor kid that just wanted a cup of coffee, and here. We. Are.”

Slosh.

“Sure, you might be listening now, but are you really hearing?”

The kid. He brought up the kid.

Juliette glanced back to the little wardened off section of the E.R. where several people were trying to get the Jiri to wake up. He really shouldn't have passed out for that long from pain. Through the fog of her tired mind, she recalled the boy talking about a group of mutant fangirls causing his injuries. Maybe he was a mutant, too? That would explain the strange behaviour and why the janitor even knew about his quest for caffeine.

The cold from the mop water sent a shiver up her spine. She looked down to realize that he shoes were completely soaked through. Great. She stepped out of the puddle and addressed the janitor once again.

"So what do I need to listen to?" She asked him, "my ears are open."

“Get me. A cup. Of coffee,” the janitor said. “That's all I ever wanted. Not getting outed in an emergency room. Just coffee. Is that so… hard to...” The janitor swayed a little. Then looked vaguely confused. Then, rather intensely alarmed. This was followed by a rapid exclamation in a language that wasn't English.

Meanwhile, back in the ER, a certain Iranian teen was groggily coming around.

All the woman could really do in response what the janitor said was sigh. By that point, she wasn't even a little bit surprised that he was spouting words that could only make sense with a mutant ability. One, that, could only be connected to the Iranian-Irish boy she had just left behind.

The janitor continued to look incredibly alarmed, obviously not in on some gag or prank. The man dumped his mop back in the bucket and shouted something that was said in a voice that could only be used for profanities and walked away. It was likely difficult to want to keep cleaning after being possessed by a mutant teenage boy.

Juliette stood still for a moment, staring at the floor as soapy water pooled around the tiles, little bits of dirt giving evidence that the water hadn't been changed quite enough. After another extended minute of blank staring at the floor, Juliette eventually moved. She blinked the sleep from her eyes and shuffled her way to the staff lounge.

A few moments later, she carried a styrofoam cup filled with coffee in one hand; cream and sugar in the other. She pushed back the little curtain with a dripping, sneaker covered foot, and gestured to the nurse standing beside the bed that he could go. 

"Your coffee, your Highness."

The nurse looked slightly worse for wear, compared to when Jiri had last seen her.

Before he'd taken a nap.

“Umm,” the curly haired teen said, pushing himself up on his elbows as he was offered a steaming coffee cup. Which he took, after some darted glances down at her wetly squeaking sneakers. “Umm.”

He was pretty sure he was not asleep right now. Like, 99.4% sure. He'd never been this embarrassed in a dream and still had his pants on.

“Ummmm,” this eloquence turned into a sort of slurping-gurgle as he took a sip. Oww burn oww. “To be fair,” the teen said, easing himself up a bit straighter, and crossing his legs on the bed Indian-style. “I did warn you I had a condition.”

"Yes," Juliette replied, forcing her eyes not to roll, "a condition. It might have been helpful for you to outline the details." Or just not lead her to think that it was a medical condition rather than a mutant one. If she had been given some kind of indication, she might have treated him a little differently.

"You're free to go," she told him simply, making no effort to force any bedside-manner. The little black stood made a creaking noise as she sat down in an exhausted act of submission. "Drink the coffee, though. I have enough people to convince not to sue as it is."

So much for being finished with her shift. Both the woman and the janitor would likely need a talking to at least. At most, a good couple sessions of counselling. 

Jiri knew a dismissal when he heard one.

He knew an invitation to stay when he heard one, too.

Between her frill-less you're free to go and her chair-collapsed drink the coffee, he wasn't quite sure what she wanted him to do.

The teen sat quietly. And drank the coffee.

“So. Umm. You're off your shift, right. Could you give me a ride home? I'm pretty sure if I take the bus I'll fall asleep and half the city will burn down somehow. I'm talented like that.”

The nice thing about being sleep deprived? It was always a novelty listening to the stupid things that came out of your own mouth.

Jiri tilted the cup back, and drowned any other babbles that might want to come out.