Insane Asylum (Part 1)
Title: Insane Asylum (Part 1)
Rating: M (just to be safe)
Pairing: Kirk/Spock (ish)
Disclaimer: If only...
Summary: Written for prompt here.
A/N: Also... I kinda have no experience in an asylum or mental hospital of any sort. Almost did once... but I went to California instead. ^^ (For real.) I based it off of media, mostly. (You may recognize some of the things if you've seen the movie that I haven't seen in a long time and can't remember the title of... Anger or something like that. Manic - that was it. Also drew a bit of inspiration from Girl, Interupted - book and movie.) AU, and a little slashy... er, well, at some points a little MORE than a little... ^^
The days begin early, and the first thing anyone does is head to the front desk to get their respective medications - plural, because most of the people here need to take more than one. And the nurses always check, too, if someone doesn’t swallow.
Kirk had tried cheeking once, on his first day, but quickly found out it wasn’t a good idea.
Nothing rebellious in a mental hospital was a good idea.
They ate breakfast as a group, in a room that looked relatively similar to his elementary cafeteria, complete with kindergarten colors and all. The food was… almost edible. Complaining wasn’t an option.
It was a lot like school, boarding school more so than public school, Kirk thought, because here students weren’t allowed to leave until they got better. And, of course, everyone was given drugs like three times a day - there were usually a few more at night, Kirk noticed. Probably something to help with sleep.
There were classes, too, all concerning some form of therapy. And there was recess, but Kirk figured playing basketball with shoes that required shoe laces that nobody was permitted to have didn’t make much sense, so when that time came he just sat on the sidelines and admired sweaty bodies moving against each other.
No one told him why he was there, just that there was something wrong with him. One nurse had gone so far as to say that he was fucked up or something along those lines, Kirk didn’t remember all of it because they’d had to call in security to pull him off. The drugs they had needled into him had worked fast, so the twenty-four hour isolated confinement hadn’t seemed quite so long, but he couldn’t remember much of what had happened.
He’d had to explain that in the group therapy sessions he’d been scheduled into everyday at three. It was just a bunch of kids sitting in a circle, crying about their woes of terrible teenage angst. Some were even more screwed up than him.
The doctor that led the group was a man, dark brown hair that was beginning to gray - which Kirk could understand, totally, what with this bunch - kind eyes, and a cynical smile that offset everything, like he’d seen too much but tried not to let it affect him. He was looking around the room, settling on Kirk. A new face, a new introduction.
“Okay, who wants to begin introductions?”
Everyone stayed silent, avoided eye-contact. The doctor sighed, muttered something less than polite under his breath.
“Alright, I suppose I will. I’m Doctor McCoy, and… I know it’s cliché as hell, but I’m gonna say it anyway: I can’t help you till you learn to help yourself.”
Kirk heard a giggle, two seats down from his left a green girl with reddish curls sending him flirtatious-slash-bedroom eyes. “I’m Gaila,” she said, still staring at him. “And I’m here because I like sex.” She frowned then. “So, really, I don’t know why I’m here at all.”
There was another girl sitting beside her, a dark-skinned beauty with long dark hair. Kirk found it hard not to stare. “I’m Uhura,” she stated, arms crossed. “And evidently I’m here because I’m too smart.”
Next was a too-cute Russian boy, with golden curls and pretty eyes. He was blushing the entire time. “I’m Pavel,” he said with a thick accent, keeping his face towards the floor. “I… I hev bed self-esteem. Or so I em told.”
There was an Asian boy beside him who put his arm around Pavel. “I’m Hikaru Sulu, and they sent me here because I’m eccentric. My family’s paranoid,” he explained with a shrug.
“I am Spock,” was the next one, a tall, thin, greenish boy with pointed ears. He didn’t elaborate further, even when the doctor tried to persuade him. Seemed like a friendly guy to Kirk.
There was an empty seat between Spock and the next guy, but they seemed to have similar backgrounds, if the whole green blood thing and pointed ears was any consideration.
“I am Nero,” he said politely, legs crossed and fingers gently laid over them. “I am here because I am a woman trapped in a man’s body and nobody understands me.”
And that really just left Kirk. “Uh…Hi, I’m James Kirk, and I… uh, really don’t know why I’m here.”
“Sure you do,” the doctor said. Everyone was staring at him now; he gripped his sleeves in his hands self-consciously.
“What happened to the nurse, Jim?”
Now he definitely had everyone’s attention. Jim shrugged, tried to make light of it. “He told me I was fucked up, so I fucked him up. And they put me here.”
McCoy nodded. “And why are you here?”
Jim stared at him. “I just told you.”
“No, Jim. You know what I mean. Why are you here?”
“Because I crashed my dad’s car?” he tried.
McCoy didn’t approve. “I’ve read your file. That happened when you were eleven. You’re seventeen. Why are you here now?”
The doctor stared at him. Jim didn’t like this feeling. “My mom,” he began, swallowing thickly. “She thought I was destroying my life or something.”
“And why would she think that, Jim?”
Jim sighed. Did he seriously have to go into detail?
“Would it perhaps be the unsafe sex? The substance abuse? The reckless driving? The self-”
“Look,” Jim interrupted before the doctor could say too much. “I’m a teenager, all of that’s normal. Okay, maybe I went a little over the top, but I’m not fucked up. And I’m not crazy. But try explaining that to my mom…”
McCoy smacked his hands together. Everyone stopped looking at Jim, now focused on the doctor. “Okay, we’re going to play a game now. I want each one of you to tell me, and the others, one thing that happened in your life that made you feel loved.”
Nero almost immediately raised his hand, fingernails a pretty red color that Jim didn’t notice before. “The first time Ayel told me he loved me for just being me.”
McCoy smiled awkwardly. “Okay, who’s next?”
Uhura smiled shyly. “Uh, when I was little, my mom used to read to me.”
“Excellent. Gaila?”
Gaila giggled. “The moment just before and just after orgasm.”
“…Right. Good example, Gaila. Pavel, Hikaru?”
Pavel blushed and answered quietly. “When eet snows and we are allowed to get ice cream.”
Hikaru looked wistful next to him. “My first antique sword. My father bought if for me.”
The room fell silent. Everyone looked between Spock and Kirk. McCoy waited.
“I do not feel emotions such as love, doctor,” Spock said, his back stiff and his face straight.
Jim hung his head over the back of his chair. What the hell was he going to say?
“Jim?” the doctor prompted. “Something that made you feel loved?”
Jim bit his lip, memories flashing back. He frowned, shrugged. “Can’t remember.” He gripped his sleeves tighter.
“Can’t remember or don’t want to share?”
Jim didn’t speak. He crossed his arms and watched his feet. No one asked him anymore questions.
-
Kirk shared his room with the solemn one. He was green and silent and meditated instead of slept, but otherwise not much of a nuisance.
Nurses creaked by every thirty minutes or so, shined a flashlight into the room to make sure everything was a-okay. They never said anything, just took a look around and left. No wonder they handed out sleeping pills.
Breakfast, Jim decided, was a torrid affair. And the break room only had one TV, set at whatever the nurses were watching. Cheesy hospital romance had never been Jim’s cup of tea, so he mostly just stared out the window like the homo catatonic species beside him, or watched the others in their daily activities.
Art was fun. They got to paint anything they wanted, though mostly the therapist-slash-teacher wanted them to paint something with meaning. Jim painted a black canvas, and when asked about it, told the teacher that it wasn’t finished, though he very much wished it was.
Purple and blue in opposite corners. The teacher said it didn’t look like it had meaning, that it looked more like a bruise. Jim told her it wasn’t finished.
Small splashes of white all over the canvas, some in patterns of constellations, most just random. The teacher came around again, asked what it meant, if it had meaning yet. Jim smiled kindly and politely told her.
“It’s my proof that I have sex in bed. My sheets are black.”
It was a good way to get rid of her, too bad she didn’t get the meaning of the joke.
-
They didn’t just have group sessions, it seemed. He met with his doctor on Fridays.
“Jim,” McCoy greeted, motioning to a chair opposite his own. “Have a seat.” He waited a few moments to speak again.
“How are your arms? Healing?”
Jim shifted awkwardly. “Yeah, they’re fine.”
“Can I see them?”
Jim’s fingers clenched around his sleeves. McCoy saw the action, didn’t press the issue.
“You know why you were moved back down here?”
“Cause I tried to kill myself?” Jim didn’t sound very convinced.
“Yes,” McCoy told him. “And because you wouldn’t cooperate. They said you were a loose-cannon. Do you believe them?”
“Do you?” Jim shot back.
“I think you’re just a troubled kid who needs help but you don’t know how to ask. Or maybe you’re too afraid to ask. I ain’t your stepdad kid, and I don’t plan on hurtin’ you.”
Jim froze. The doctor was trying to be comforting, could see it in his eyes, but Jim didn’t want… It wasn’t something he wanted to think about, not that.
“Look Jim, whatever he did to you, you’re gonna have to talk about it.”
“NO!”
McCoy jumped back in shock. He hadn’t expected that kind of reply, or much of any reply. And now the kid looked furious.
“Never talk about that bastard! He’s not my father! And he sure as hell will never be my stepdad! So shut up! Just shut up!”
There were tears that Jim was fighting back as he hid his face with both hands, started rocking as he drew up into himself.
“Shit,” McCoy muttered, running a hand through his hair. “Look, kid, I wasn’t trying to… I know how shitty stepdad’s can be. Mine was a pretty right bastard himself. But he’s only a temporary part of your life. You’re almost eighteen, right?”
“That’s not the point,” Jim snuffled. “It what he’s done - it’s not just temporary, it’s going to be there forever and there’s nothing I can do about it. Turning eighteen doesn’t make everything right.”
“I know, Jim,” McCoy said sadly, silently. “But it does let you start over.”
-
Jim tossed and turned that night, much to the annoyance of Spock, though he denied that he felt such things. He observed as his roommate slept, or thrashed, rather, in the throws of nightmare.
Kirk muttered, let out mewling cries of pain, threw his arms into the wall until his sleeves bled red. Spock watched and did not intervene.
Jim Kirk, it seemed, had serious daddy issues.
-
The next day at group therapy McCoy was polite, if a little miffed, much to Jim’s amusement.
“Sex on black sheets? Really, Jim?”
Jim shrugged half-heartedly. His arms were hurting him, but he didn’t let on. “She kept saying I didn’t know what I was doing. It’s her fault she couldn’t tell what constellation it was.”
Gaila sighed. “She said draw something with meaning,” she said, trying to be sexy in her little seat. “I painted a penis entering a vagina and she blushed like a virgin.”
“Okay,” McCoy clapped. Attention was set on him. “We’re going to talk about ourselves today, favorite things to do, favorite colors, things like that. I’ll start.” He cleared his throat. “Uh…I like… bourbon, color blue, playing cards, the Kentucky derby, peaches… Uh, something like that.”
Uhura laughed at him, but started soon after. “Languages, books, blue, family.”
Gaila smiled seductively. “Sex.”
Hikaru was next. “Swords, antiques, pirates, plants, flying.”
Chekov blushed in embarrassment. “Calculus and Russia.”
“Okay, this is good,” McCoy said, nodding. “Nero?”
Nero actually giggled. Jim shuddered. “I like… Ayel, of course, and ruffles and frills and silk. Lace, too, and pink. Skirts. And girls.”
“Ah huh,” McCoy swallowed. “Spock? Kirk?”
“I cannot feel like as it is a human preference, and Romulan, as it would seem, but if I were to choose… Vulcan. And silence.”
Good ol’ Spock. Only now, it was Jim’s turn. Was he always last?
“I… uh… old cars, driving fast. Red,” he added as he caught a spot on his sleeve. Hopefully this ended soon.
“Sharing is good,” McCoy said slowly with a smile, mocking his own words as he was sure his patients were. “Now we’re going to talk about things we don’t like. For instance, I don’t like my ex. Uhura?”
Uhura wrinkled her nose as she thought. “Idiots,” she finished simply, with a sly glance to Kirk that passed over Nero.
“Care to elaborate?”
She sighed. “Because they’re annoying and don’t give up.”
Gaila thought hard too, biting her lip and twirling her hair. “No sex?” she tried, but McCoy shook his head. “Oh, this is hard. I don’t know, I like everything!” Everyone looked at her, her shoulders sagging as she rolled her eyes. “Okay, there was that one guy who turned me down last year - he was an ass, anyway.”
“Not my family,” Hikaru began, “but the fact that they don’t accept me as I am. Also, no onions.”
Pavel laughed, covered his mouth. “Russian orphanage because they aren’t friendly there. And summer heat here is unbearable.”
Nero was practically dancing in his seat with his arm raised. “Spock,” he spit, stuck his tongue out. “And sizes that are too small because seriously we’re not all size zero. Or five.”
“Why don’t you like Spock?”
Nero huffed. “Because he’s a Vulcan and a pain in the ass with all his I-don’t-feel-and-I-am-better-than-you crap.”
“Uh, right.” McCoy scratched the back of his head. “Spock?”
Spock closed his eyes and took a moment to answer. “Meat, for obvious reasons, and people who cannot keep silent. Even when they sleep.” Here he opened his eyes and looked straight at Jim.
“I can’t really help how I sleep, Spock,” Jim spat, arms crossing self-consciously. Not like he meant to dream. “I don’t like dreams,” he said to the doctor. “My stepdad, because he’s a dick.”
Jim let his breath hitch for a moment before he continued. “I don’t like needles, authority figures - including police and people in charge - and, on occasion, myself. Also, I hate band-aids because they never stick.”
“Why don’t you like yourself?” Gaila questioned, wide-eyed.
Of course that would be the only thing they heard. Jim rolled his eyes. “It’s only on occasion. And I’m a teenager - I’m allowed to hate myself every now and then.”
Nero sniffed the air, lifted an arched brow. “Doctor, I smell blood.”
Spock nodded in agreement and looked at Jim, who swallowed and widened his eyes dramatically. “I believe James sustained damage last night.”
Gaila gasped, hand to her chest. “What were you doing?”
“I was trying to meditate,” Spock replied, nonplussed. “He, however, was acting as a ravenous animal.”
Gaila slapped Uhura’s arm. “I told you!”
Jim slapped himself. “Wrong choice of words, Spock. Now they think I’m some kind of animal in bed.”
“Aren’t you?”
Spock just wasn’t getting it.
Nero was squealing.
Gaila looked about ready to pass out.
Jim leaned forward, not like it made much difference, and mock whispered, “They think we have a sexual relationship.”
“Certainly not.”
“Jim.”
Everyone turned their attention to Doctor McCoy, who was frowning and looking at Jim’s arms.
“What happened?”
“I told you: bandages don’t stick.”
“They broke open?”
Everyone watched in confusion as Jim shrugged and winced as he held his arms against himself, drew himself up in his chair. He was small enough to fit, they realized, and he seemed like a child doing it. He was a child.
“Damn it, Jim, I can’t help if you don’t talk,” McCoy added, rubbing a hand down his face. He felt tired, too tired to deal with this kind of withdrawal, but he couldn’t help it. This was his job, and these kids needed him.
“Last night,” Spock said quietly. “He hit the wall while he slept. He did not notice.”
“Jim. Let me see your arms.” It was a kindly voice, something a friend might say, but Jim shook his head, hid his face in his arms. McCoy said it with a bit more firmness. “Jim.”
He winced and held out his hands, his arms still covered in his sleeves, spots of red appearing and disappearing. McCoy frowned, rolled up one of the sleeves, gasped and rolled up the other. Everyone was looking but nobody said anything.
Jim didn’t need to look, knew what to expect. Old scars and new, still pink, and dark red lacerations that still bled; his wrists seeped slowly, sluggishly.
As the doctor patched him up, nobody looked at him.
Nobody looked at him for the rest of the day.
-
The art teacher was being a bitch again, and it wasn’t his fault that she was too stupid to figure out that he was painting things about space and not about sex.
“What the hell is wrong with you? Just paint something with meaning. This has no meaning. Are you even listening?”
Jim was trying to hold his temper, but her words were making it hard. The paint brush broke in his grip. Before he could swing, though, one of the other nurse came in, all smiles and looking for him.
“Jim? There’s someone here to see you.”
The first thought was that maybe it was his mom, or maybe his brother, so he went without question, glad to be rid of the bitch for at least a few moments.
The visitor room was private, with no windows, just a few chairs and a table and a door that was usually closed, like it was when he got there. His stomach was nervous, but he ignored it, smiling at the nurse as she told him he only had twenty minutes. She closed the door behind him before he could tell her not to, and by then, it was too late.
Frank stood before him. Or sat, rather, grinning like the man that he had known when Winona had first brought him over. Jim wanted to back away, to scream for help or something, but he was stuck, frozen in time and he didn’t want to be.
Especially not with this man.
“Jim, it’s good to see you buddy. Are you doing well?” He was smiling, and that made Jim’s blood run cold. “Look, about that - I didn’t mean it, okay? It was just a misunderstanding. And you’re a creative kid, you know? Inventive.”
No, this man was not there, telling him it was all just a misunderstanding, just a mess that he dreamed up, that none of it had been real. He knew what had happened, had felt it, still had the scars to prove it.
Frank was beside him before he could think to move away, hand on his shoulder and moving lower. “See, this isn’t even real now.” He took one of Jim’s hands, put it inside his zipper, pressed into him. Frank moved his hand into Jim’s pants, put his fingers on flesh, and then Jim flipped, screamed and flailed.
He didn’t know what happened, but by the time the nurse came back, Frank was bloody and unconscious and Jim was on him, still punching even though he was crying and shaking. The nurse tried to pull him off, but he fought even more.
Security came, sedated him, put him in a jacket and threw him into solitary confinement.
Jim fought the whole way until he passed out.
-
It was middle of the night, it had to be, because it was dark outside and the halls were silent. Jim sat in the middle of the cell, turned and twisted until he could free himself from the jacket. It took some time, but he worked out of it.
His nails dug into to skin freshly healed, and his teeth tore at bandages recently replaced.
Jim felt the blood pool in his mouth, pool around him as he lay on his side.
Frank wouldn’t get him again, never again.
Part Two