Tinkerbelle Pt. 3
Title: The Lost Boys
Author: silver_sixpence
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Post-Vam
Disclaimer: Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away -- Philip K. Dick
Summary: How do you deal with a pain you can't explain? How can you face those tangible ghosts when you know it's only a memory dream?
Author's Note: I wasn't expecting to write another one but, of course, it seems that the plot wasn't done with me yet. Sequel to Neverland and Tinkerbelle.
The Lost Boys
Blank, was the first thing he thought, looking at the entrance of the Holly Ayn Black Counseling Center. The asylum’s benefactor must have had a considerable amount of wealth judging from the building’s façade. Everything was state of the art. Not a speck of dust anywhere. They must have kept their patients the same way they facilities. Spotless, clean. Peacefully subdued under mind numbing antipsychotics. Mistress Black must be proud.
Ville blinked. The moon was hot and full, her pale face skirting away behind a dark veil of clouds. It was time. He untangled himself from his post in the branches of an oak tree and stealthily crawled to the ground. Untucking a dead leaf from his hair he blew on the sapling until the west wind picked up, carrying the scent of black honeysuckle and myrrh. He made sure shoes completed his transformation-he had forgotten them the last time and was given hell for it.
The attending nurse looked up when he opened the door-and frowned when her eyes fell on his gloved hands. After watching him make his annual trip to the hospital they had formed a relationship of sorts, even if she did not consciously remember it. He performed the same ritual he observed that other humans had done. He asked to see the patient. She asked if he was a relative. He wasn’t. And on went the banter as she questioned him in her sharp, suspicious manner. To her he was a queer specimen, a threat to all of those residing in the center and especially to the patient in question, so of course she would not let him see the human. But eventually, with some handy mental cajoling on his part, she did.
She led him down the hallways and corridors that were as familiar to him as his own skin. As they neared their destination, he removed all of his nonexistent personal articles before she asked him to. When she looked at him as if to ask if he had done this before, Ville smiled demurely and she left it alone. When they came to their destination she lectured him on what to say and what not to say. Speak slowly and clearly, never raise your voice. Do not to talk to too long or ask too daunting questions, his concentration is shaky. If he doesn’t answer your questions just move on and most of all: Do not. Mention. Faeries.
Finally she stepped outside. With the nurse waiting just down the hall, whether to make sure the strange guest wouldn’t kill her patient or vice versa, they were as alone as they could be.
Ville unglamoured himself and looked at Bam, then at the small band that shackled his wrist. In small indifferent type it read ‘Brandon Cole Margera. Male: 35 yrs old. Schizophrenia.’
The feelings never failed him every time his eyes stilled upon the human, and he felt them even now as he looked upon the battered form huddled in the corner. But this time, just like the last time and the time before, his emotions were dulled by the sadness that drenched his heart seeing the frailty his past lover was reduced too. Bam’s body couldn’t fill out the smallest of the hospital’s pristine white clothes. His shoulder blades stabbed through the starched fabric like dead desert bones, and his stomach was a hollow pit beneath the cage of his ribs. His skin was almost nonexistent, transparent in some places and scratched raw in others, and held an unearthly pallor that dared to rival Ville’s own. Most disconcerting of all were his eyes. Those dark ultramarine blues were fogged over like someone had smeared milk over the irises. When Ville neared and leaned down to take his wrist between his fingers-and Bam didn’t move, didn’t do a thing as if he wasn’t there, as if he had never existed-he felt a ghost of a pulse.
He was dying.
“Bam? Bam, can you hear me?” Faded eyes cracked opened then shut under the dizzying wave of antipsychotics. Even so the human managed an agitated nod, but the motion was done as if he heard the command from far away, or perhaps from inside his head. Ville leaned in closer, so close he could feel his breath on his cheek and smell the chemicals under his skin and Bam did nothing, still.
“Do you know me?” Ville thought he saw a flicker of recognition in the human’s eyes but the moment dulled and passed. The faerie crawled back and shoved his hands in his hair, ready to rip out his locks and scream. He was crazy from the waiting, from his mistakes, from dreaming dreams that would never materialize. He should have never come in the first place-it only prevented the wound in his heart from healing. He should go now but as unbearable it was to stay now that he was here he found it impossible to leave. The faerie wiped at his eyes, brighter than the first leaves of Spring and wished that his love’s dark blues would come alive. Even underneath the drugs there was no trace of recognition, and even thought he was unsurprised Ville’s gaze was full of regret.
His mind reached out, back to the time when he had last abandoned the surface dweller to what was hoped to be a quick and painful death by nature’s harsh ways. Many human seasons had birthed and died since then, but even after he had pointedly let him go, he had watched over him. He couldn’t help it. What else was he to do?
Ville was very much aware of Bam’s human companion he was with when he first came to the meadow-Ryan was his name? Yes, that was it. After his friend had mysteriously disappeared, the human Ryan came back to the grove for six years like clockwork but Bam was a damned soul when he managed to find him come year number seven. His human was covered in earth, mewling like a forlorn kitten without its mother’s milk, clawing at the ground until his hands were scratched raw and blood ran under his fingernails. A feint sickly sweet scent permeated the air around him, like he took a bath in syrup or hadn’t washed in days or both. He was bawling, drowning in an endless depression, suffering the deepest, unthinkable loss. All sense of space and time was unknown to him; it did not matter. All he felt was the empty pit in his chest where his heart used to be. Immediately Bam was rushed hospital.
He was a dedicated soul, that Ryan, he’d give him that, and briefly Ville was pleased that Bam had caring friends in his human life.
Had caring friends. The shred of happiness that flowered and bloomed in his heart wilted.
Bam’s brief stay in the hospital was a blur of activity, full of doctors and nurses moving this way and that. Clothed in the safety of darkness, Ville watched as Ryan and two other humans-the anxious blonde woman and somber rotund man by her side had to be Bam’s birth parents-fearfully looked on as doctors ruled out the possibilities. After a number of tests the only thing the doctors could conclude was that Bam was all right. He looked strange, rather good for his age actually, like he hadn’t aged a day. There were a few cuts and bruises, some minor scrapes but he was fine. Physically. His mental state was altogether a different matter.
When Bam’s friends and family checked him into Holly Ayn Black’s Counseling Center they never knew that he wouldn’t out.
Bam’s loved ones had visited every day, at first. All of them. It wasn’t long before the numbers started dwindling, trickling down until the powerful flood of love was reduced to a pitiful stream. And one day, even Ryan stopped making his appearance. In a few years Bam had become a footnote in the book of their lives, small and forgotten.
He had treated Bam that way too, hadn’t he?
Ville brushed back Bam’s hair tenderly, wanting to wail and cry out at the misery. Their unhappy fate was due to his insensitive actions. Hadn’t they suffered enough from his faults? Now, as he sat before human companion lamenting things past, he wondered what to say.
“Bam. Bam, I’m sorry. Please,” he pleaded, cupping his human’s cherubic face in his palms. He pressed their foreheads together and whispered a desperate prayer against his lips.
“Come back to me.”
With a harsh gasp those blind eyes snapped into focus.
And Ville was afraid because Bam saw him, could see right through him with those blazing eyes that gave his life reason and kindled his existence. For a moment he didn’t respond, caught up in years of dreaming that maybe someday if he hoped enough-and now that it was finally happening…
Bam was the one who brought them together, took Ville’s face between his hands and joined their mouths as if they had never been a day apart. Ville didn’t even try to hold himself together as he hiccupped against his human’s lips and broke down crying. He cupped the back of Bam’s neck as a wave of urgency overtook him, trying too keep their teeth from clacking together as he forced himself inside deeper, never wanting to part again. Even when he managed to break away he couldn’t breathe for fear of waking up. It had been so long.
“Ville,” Bam’s voice was so weak and raw, a tiny echo of its former throaty timber, and Ville almost fell apart all over again. His hand clamped around the faerie’s tightly, too tightly for someone in a delirium, a shaking thumb running over the back of his fingers just like always. Ville couldn’t keep his hands to himself, tracing Bam’s face with the edge of his fingers. He had to keep touching him, to know he was real, to know that his human would never disappear from his clutches again. Bam’s sudden return was even more disorienting than his departure and Ville couldn’t believe that this was real.
“Your memories…” came back. They came back. But how? Not that it mattered. The fact that he was holding Bam, right here in his arms, awake…it was more than he would have asked for.
“You’re real. I knew you were real.” Bam’s beaming face faltered for a moment, then frowned. He looked around curiously, his eyes stopping on a stretcher in the corner of the room. “…I’m in a mental ward?”
“Your friend. Ryan. He, ah-” What were the best words for it? “He wanted to protect you.” Bam’s eyes darted back to him gravely.
“Is that why you gave me the drink?”
“What?”
“To protect me?”
“Either that…or I would have been forced to kill you. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t bear it if I was the one that took your life. I was so weak. I thought if you forgot about our world-about me-you could go back to your old way of life. But I never thought your family would have abandoned you like this. If I had known-I should have killed you! I should have killed you!” he sobbed. Bam pulled him into his arms and clutched him, sobbing and crying, as if his revelation meant nothing to him. When Bam passed his fingers over the length of the faerie’s ears Ville muffled something against lap that he couldn’t hear.
“What did you say?”
“My name.”
“What?”
“You didn’t say my name! You could have stopped me-you know my name but you never used it. Ever. Why?” Bam smiled as if the answer was as simple as daylight and gathered Ville’s hands in his own.
“I trusted you Ville. I wanted you to stop of your own free will. If I said your name it wouldn’t have mattered if you wanted to or not, you would have obeyed regardless. But if you stopped by yourself you would have shown that you trusted me…that you cared for me.
“Ville,” Bam took in a shaky breath that stretched his whole body thin. “Do you still want me? Do you still-” Ville switched his grip until he was the one holding Bam in his arms, head resting against his heart.
“I never knew how deep my feelings ran until you were gone, empty from my hands.” The answer must have sufficed when he felt Bam smiling against his neck.
“Come. I’m taking you home.” He made a move to stand, ready to beat feet out of the hospital when Bam’s bony grip on his arm stilled him. The knowledge in his eyes scared him.
“No. Ville, no-we can’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look at me,” Ville looked at Bam’s skeletal frame, his ashen flesh, the red staining the rim of his glassy eyes. His muscles barely registered the weight in his arms and Bam was shivering and in pain, his chest rising and falling with noticeable effort. “We can’t go back. We can’t ever go back.”
They would never be together. He didn’t want to face it, had thought they could escape it for an instant even. They had lived the dream for a while but when it came down to it at then end of the day all they were left with were strips of a gilded nightmare crumbling around them. How could fate be so cruel? Slowly, Bam slid the faeries palm down his body to cover the swirling vine tattoo his lower belly. The symbol of the bond he shared with Ville. Ville looked at him fearfully and shook his head, knowing he would resent the next words his human would speak.
“I’m going.”
Ville leaned back against the wall just as his knees buckled under him. No. No. He couldn’t. He had just gotten him back. Did he know what he was asking? He couldn’t do this to him. He would come after him before he-
“Ville,” Bam stated calmly but tightly. Too late Ville realized that he was crushing Bam’s arm with fury. He released his hold and was to find a bruise already darkening there, slices of red where his talons cut through the flesh. With remorse Ville ran his lips over the wounds and tried to ignore the emotions swarming his brain.
“Do you think our love has the power to do anything? Can it make me stay with you? Forever?” Ville nodded, his heart in his throat, tears scorching trenches down his cheeks. “Then, please. Take me with you.”
Ville swallowed the lump that had twisted in his throat. He couldn’t believe he was doing this. “Say my name. Please. Just once.”
“Ville Hermanni Valo.” Ville shivered as he felt it stirring inside his blood. The overpowering need to obey, to give in and fall under the sweet rapture of another. The power to subjugate him could come from anyone who wielded his name but power like this-the beautiful mastery and control that he couldn’t ignore, didn’t want to ignore-came from only someone you loved. As Bam’s voice formed the syllables of his name he relished the sound and submitted willingly, waiting for Bam’s command to override his will. His hand cupped Bam’s cheeks, smoothing back hair. His whisper was heady and low with anticipation.
“Yes?”
“Love me.” The skin around Ville’s eyes crinkled when his lips pulled into a tearful, beautiful smile.
“Always.”
As a warm glowing light formed around them, Bam’s released his last breath as he felt Ville’s lips brush against his.
* * *
“Great,” the head nurse groaned and sat back from the form she was filling out, her manicured nails going up to massage her temples. Kathy, the new nurse, stopped typing. She looked at the clock above her computer, a perfectly plucked eyebrow raise in inquiry.
“Something wrong, Robin?”
“It drug time for the Margera boy. You’re new so you get the short straw. Have you ever handled him before?” Kathy shook her head and wondered why this Margera would require more handling than the usual crowd. The head bitch in charge threw her head back in an unsympathetic chortle. “Pfft, well, you’re going to find out soon enough. It’s about time you get it over with.” Robin got up and walked to a small file cabinet, digging for something. She came back with a clipboard and a small plastic cup of multicolored pills, their colors grossly parodying candy.
“Three hundred milligrams of Xanax. Make sure he takes them. And if he acts up give him some Atavan. It’ll knock him right out.”
“But don’t we distribute the drugs at the same time? When we watch the patients come to the front desk?”
“Margera’s special. Plus you can’t trust him. He hides his pills. And while you’re up why don’t you do start rounds.” Robin’s eyes raked up and down her form with a shameless look that questioned her competence. “You sure you can do this, hon?”
Kathy squared her shoulders and stood up to the challenge. She snatched the small parcel from Robin. “I’ve got it.” She started off, the sound of her Crocs scuffing against the linoleum signaling her departure.
“Hmph. Oh, and watch out,” Robin called around the corner, effectively stopping her in her tracks. The nurse paused for dramatic effect. “He bites.”
Kathy swallowed and paid her no mind, setting her mind towards her duty. It wasn’t long before she came to the room designated on the chart. Room 4263. She took a breath to ground herself.
“Checks,” she called out and opened the unlocked door, taking a swift survey of the room with one glance.
But that still didn’t prepare her for what she saw.
The hospital’s white clothes were folded up neatly on the floor with the patient’s bracelet sitting on top. A body was huddled in the far corner with the arms calmly wrapped around itself, naked as a newborn in repose. The room was cold, but she was positive that wasn’t the reason why the body’s skin held a bluish tinge.
Forget the pills. Kathy ran like wildfire out into the hallway, screaming for help. She went back inside and grabbed his shoulder-and snatched it away just as quickly for fear that life could be snuffed out so quickly. She yelled again, hoping Robin or someone, anybody would get off their lazy ass and help her deal with this mess. Her eyes jumped back to the patient, scanning for clues. There were no obvious cuts, no blood, no signs of strangulation on his neck. There was nothing sharp in the room. Did he just…? Knowing it was wrong but unable to shake the impulse she unraveled his limbs and turned him over.
She didn’t know much about the patient except for the one time he ran away. She was doing rounds that day, checking in on the others when the patient was dragged in. The two huge guards that flanked either side of him did nothing to prevent him from lashing out-nor did his restraints. Fatigued and dirty from three days of freedom, Brandon was haggard and empty. Amidst the yelling and screaming he spat at one of his captors and managed to take all of them down and scrambled on his on his stomach towards the door. One of the men yanked him back by the hair, pulling so the chords in throat popped out. The patient’s eyes burned in fury when the sedative came in sight. He fought again, the clothes he was wearing gathering up and exposing the intricate design on his belly.
The tattoo. The tattoo on his stomach was gone.