The Nightmare Box (3/?)
Title: The Nightmare Box (3/?)
Author:
xx_anarchy_xxor
synthetic_tales
Rating: R
Pairing: Frank/Mikey
Disclaimer: I own nothing but merchandice and an overactive imagination
Summary: His head was filled with possible ideas of what it could be, where it came from, what was in it, but every time he voiced them his new baby brother would start crying...
Warnings: AU
Author's Note: Inspired by Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted and Mrs. Clark's story.
Part 1 // Part 2
On March 23rd 1993 Gerard was sectioned. The men in white coats that Mikey always thought didn’t really exist knocked on the front door. The mother led them down to the basement, to her son’s shared room, where they were sat on Mikey’s bed. Gerard was leaning into his thin frame, grabbing at his clothes. Mikey had his arm around Gerard’s shoulders making him feel safe from the nightmare that tormented him, which no one else understood or could even being to contemplate understanding. The men in white coats, carrying the smell of powdery drugs and disinfectant, pulled the brothers apart. Mikey’s shirt ripped with the force that Gerard held on with.
“No!” Gerard yelled, the first coherent word in six months. “Don’t let them take me! Mikey! Stop them!”
Family instinct kicked in and Mikey grabbed his frantic brother, pulling him back into the safe cradle that had become his arms. He began to sob into the collar of Mikey’s shirt, completely unashamed.
“Michael, the men have to take him,” his mother tried to explain. She looked worn out by the past six months, having to deal with something she’d never thought could happen. This was the only solution they had left, to try and regain as normal life as possible. To make all the circulating rumours about them go away.
“Why? It’s not his fault!” Mikey pleaded, all the time hearing his brother whisper his name through deep sobs. “You can’t just send him away!”
“We have no other choice.”
“WE? I have nothing to do with this!”
To say Mikey didn’t cling on would be a lie. To say that Gerard didn’t fight to stay in the cradle would be a bigger one but the men in white coats were professionals, more than used to having a fighter on their hands. They subdued him and carried him outside to their vehicle. Curtains twitched. Stories were started. Mikey tried to run after them but his mother kept him at bay. Through the glass of the van their eyes locked. The dead stare that had haunted his dreams wasn’t there. It was replaced with fear of the unknown. Mikey looked up at his mother, staring straight ahead as the van drove away into the distance, into the unknown, and he shook his head.
“You should be locked away,” he spat.
Life for the remaining Ways did get back to normal, well as normal as it can when you know that one of you is incarcerated in a padded cell. Mikey didn’t speak to his mother. He remained outraged that she had locked his brother away, her own son, just because he became an inconvenience. The house was filled with rigid silence. Mikey had nothing nice to say so he didn’t say anything at all. His mother did try though. Her questions just remained unanswered as Mikey either glared at her or ignored her completely. He just wanted his brother back. The one person who just understood. The kids at school stayed away from him altogether, their parent’s told them the partially fabricated stories and they fully believed them. Each story was a little different but no matter what was said it made no one want to go near him. Mikey wasn’t sure if it was a good or a bad thing.
He just knew that once a month he could visit Gerard without his mother ever finding out.
At first he didn’t know where Gerard was being held, he took a wild guess and it paid off.
The asylum had the same smell as the men in white coats. Powdery drugs and disinfectant, though if you could smell human misery that would have been the main stench. Mikey was searched at the front desk, sent through a metal detector and asked to remove his belt buckle, his shoelaces, to leave his backpack with the receptionist. If it would be used as a weapon or a means of suicide it was left with the receptionist. White lined everything. It was like a sinister version of heaven but instead of angels there were doctors, therapist, psychologies and nurses dispensing drugs like candy to the poor inmates, the few welcomed through the gates of this ‘heaven’, free of voluntarily conscious sin. The meeting room wasn’t white. It was grey like rain clouds. A long table stretched through the middle of the room, a sheet of perspex separating the two sides, holes drills out of it smaller than your pinkie finger. Both sides had metal chairs bolted to the floor. Mikey sat in the chair on his side, nervous to see what had become of his brother.
To be honest he wasn’t that surprised.
Gerard was lead through to the other part of the room in an aqua green shirt and pants combo, like in hospitals, made of the same material as surgical gowns. A doctor stood in the corner of the room, a taser strapped to his belt. Just in case. Gerard almost smiled when he saw Mikey, his only visitor. He kept glancing at his hands in his lap and they twisted and turned. Like his stomach. To Mikey it now defiantly looked like his brother had cancer. He was much thinner than he remembered and the nurses had shaved his hair off, presumably so he couldn’t hurt himself by pulling it out. The gown style clothes hung off him, his cheeks looked more hollow. His eyes didn’t look so dead but they certainly weren’t alive.
“Hey,” Mikey said quietly. Gerard continued to stare at his hands. Mikey was prepared for this. “If you could see yourself now you’d punch yourself. You always said you’d never end up in the mad house; you’d never be that guy at the end of the horror movie who gets dragged away kicking and screaming because of what’s happened. I know you’re still in there somewhere Gerard. Please just be you again!”
For a second it looked like Mikey’s words had sunk in. Gerard raised his almost bald head to look at him. Their eyes met. The living and the dead matching in colour. Gerard only sneezed. The doctor leaning against the wall tensed up before relaxing again, yet always on alert.
It was then Mikey learnt never to get his hopes up.
He didn’t give up though. That fact that Gerard had said his name, begging him for help when he was dragged away was enough of a sign for Mikey to know he was still alive. The brother he knew wasn’t entirely dead. Yet. Every month Mikey went to see Gerard, told him tales from the outside world that weren’t to harsh, things their mom had done to get him to talk to her again, things he’d done at school with his new found freedom, what he planned to do when he was older.
Every one-sided conversation ended with the same promise.
“I’ll be back next month. Promise.”
Gerard would smile at that. Only when Mikey wasn’t looking.
Once a week Gerard would have an hour long session with the asylum’s juvenile therapist Dr. Iero. Long sleeves always covered his colourful arms and high collars covered his neck. His father told him not to get tattoos so high up but the rebel in him didn’t listen. Dr. Iero didn’t want to get rid of them; they just became an inconvenience when he was at work. Most of his patients stared at the ones on his hands during their sessions, or at the ceiling, never really looking at him which was the main point. Eye contact creates an emotion. Emotions are good no matter what they are because it proves that you’re still human and can be saved from your psychological ailment. Working with a patient that won’t respond to you is frustrating. Working with a patient who is over responsive is also frustrating. The trick is finding a balance between the two.
Gerard was one of his less responsive patients. He would sit in the chair and just stare at the doctor, who wasn’t really sure if he was staring at him or out of the window behind him. It was hard to tell sometimes. Dr. Iero asked his questions and they seemed to fly straight past Gerard as he continued to stare.
That was until Gerard grabbed his hands, taking in the colours and the patterns and the shapes. He smiled shyly.
Any emotion is better than no emotion. It shows you’re still human.
It shows you're still real.
Author:
xx_anarchy_xxor
synthetic_tales
Rating: R
Pairing: Frank/Mikey
Disclaimer: I own nothing but merchandice and an overactive imagination
Summary: His head was filled with possible ideas of what it could be, where it came from, what was in it, but every time he voiced them his new baby brother would start crying...
Warnings: AU
Author's Note: Inspired by Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted and Mrs. Clark's story.
Part 1 // Part 2
On March 23rd 1993 Gerard was sectioned. The men in white coats that Mikey always thought didn’t really exist knocked on the front door. The mother led them down to the basement, to her son’s shared room, where they were sat on Mikey’s bed. Gerard was leaning into his thin frame, grabbing at his clothes. Mikey had his arm around Gerard’s shoulders making him feel safe from the nightmare that tormented him, which no one else understood or could even being to contemplate understanding. The men in white coats, carrying the smell of powdery drugs and disinfectant, pulled the brothers apart. Mikey’s shirt ripped with the force that Gerard held on with.
“No!” Gerard yelled, the first coherent word in six months. “Don’t let them take me! Mikey! Stop them!”
Family instinct kicked in and Mikey grabbed his frantic brother, pulling him back into the safe cradle that had become his arms. He began to sob into the collar of Mikey’s shirt, completely unashamed.
“Michael, the men have to take him,” his mother tried to explain. She looked worn out by the past six months, having to deal with something she’d never thought could happen. This was the only solution they had left, to try and regain as normal life as possible. To make all the circulating rumours about them go away.
“Why? It’s not his fault!” Mikey pleaded, all the time hearing his brother whisper his name through deep sobs. “You can’t just send him away!”
“We have no other choice.”
“WE? I have nothing to do with this!”
To say Mikey didn’t cling on would be a lie. To say that Gerard didn’t fight to stay in the cradle would be a bigger one but the men in white coats were professionals, more than used to having a fighter on their hands. They subdued him and carried him outside to their vehicle. Curtains twitched. Stories were started. Mikey tried to run after them but his mother kept him at bay. Through the glass of the van their eyes locked. The dead stare that had haunted his dreams wasn’t there. It was replaced with fear of the unknown. Mikey looked up at his mother, staring straight ahead as the van drove away into the distance, into the unknown, and he shook his head.
“You should be locked away,” he spat.
Life for the remaining Ways did get back to normal, well as normal as it can when you know that one of you is incarcerated in a padded cell. Mikey didn’t speak to his mother. He remained outraged that she had locked his brother away, her own son, just because he became an inconvenience. The house was filled with rigid silence. Mikey had nothing nice to say so he didn’t say anything at all. His mother did try though. Her questions just remained unanswered as Mikey either glared at her or ignored her completely. He just wanted his brother back. The one person who just understood. The kids at school stayed away from him altogether, their parent’s told them the partially fabricated stories and they fully believed them. Each story was a little different but no matter what was said it made no one want to go near him. Mikey wasn’t sure if it was a good or a bad thing.
He just knew that once a month he could visit Gerard without his mother ever finding out.
At first he didn’t know where Gerard was being held, he took a wild guess and it paid off.
The asylum had the same smell as the men in white coats. Powdery drugs and disinfectant, though if you could smell human misery that would have been the main stench. Mikey was searched at the front desk, sent through a metal detector and asked to remove his belt buckle, his shoelaces, to leave his backpack with the receptionist. If it would be used as a weapon or a means of suicide it was left with the receptionist. White lined everything. It was like a sinister version of heaven but instead of angels there were doctors, therapist, psychologies and nurses dispensing drugs like candy to the poor inmates, the few welcomed through the gates of this ‘heaven’, free of voluntarily conscious sin. The meeting room wasn’t white. It was grey like rain clouds. A long table stretched through the middle of the room, a sheet of perspex separating the two sides, holes drills out of it smaller than your pinkie finger. Both sides had metal chairs bolted to the floor. Mikey sat in the chair on his side, nervous to see what had become of his brother.
To be honest he wasn’t that surprised.
Gerard was lead through to the other part of the room in an aqua green shirt and pants combo, like in hospitals, made of the same material as surgical gowns. A doctor stood in the corner of the room, a taser strapped to his belt. Just in case. Gerard almost smiled when he saw Mikey, his only visitor. He kept glancing at his hands in his lap and they twisted and turned. Like his stomach. To Mikey it now defiantly looked like his brother had cancer. He was much thinner than he remembered and the nurses had shaved his hair off, presumably so he couldn’t hurt himself by pulling it out. The gown style clothes hung off him, his cheeks looked more hollow. His eyes didn’t look so dead but they certainly weren’t alive.
“Hey,” Mikey said quietly. Gerard continued to stare at his hands. Mikey was prepared for this. “If you could see yourself now you’d punch yourself. You always said you’d never end up in the mad house; you’d never be that guy at the end of the horror movie who gets dragged away kicking and screaming because of what’s happened. I know you’re still in there somewhere Gerard. Please just be you again!”
For a second it looked like Mikey’s words had sunk in. Gerard raised his almost bald head to look at him. Their eyes met. The living and the dead matching in colour. Gerard only sneezed. The doctor leaning against the wall tensed up before relaxing again, yet always on alert.
It was then Mikey learnt never to get his hopes up.
He didn’t give up though. That fact that Gerard had said his name, begging him for help when he was dragged away was enough of a sign for Mikey to know he was still alive. The brother he knew wasn’t entirely dead. Yet. Every month Mikey went to see Gerard, told him tales from the outside world that weren’t to harsh, things their mom had done to get him to talk to her again, things he’d done at school with his new found freedom, what he planned to do when he was older.
Every one-sided conversation ended with the same promise.
“I’ll be back next month. Promise.”
Gerard would smile at that. Only when Mikey wasn’t looking.
Once a week Gerard would have an hour long session with the asylum’s juvenile therapist Dr. Iero. Long sleeves always covered his colourful arms and high collars covered his neck. His father told him not to get tattoos so high up but the rebel in him didn’t listen. Dr. Iero didn’t want to get rid of them; they just became an inconvenience when he was at work. Most of his patients stared at the ones on his hands during their sessions, or at the ceiling, never really looking at him which was the main point. Eye contact creates an emotion. Emotions are good no matter what they are because it proves that you’re still human and can be saved from your psychological ailment. Working with a patient that won’t respond to you is frustrating. Working with a patient who is over responsive is also frustrating. The trick is finding a balance between the two.
Gerard was one of his less responsive patients. He would sit in the chair and just stare at the doctor, who wasn’t really sure if he was staring at him or out of the window behind him. It was hard to tell sometimes. Dr. Iero asked his questions and they seemed to fly straight past Gerard as he continued to stare.
That was until Gerard grabbed his hands, taking in the colours and the patterns and the shapes. He smiled shyly.
Any emotion is better than no emotion. It shows you’re still human.
It shows you're still real.