Fic: The Patient
Title: The Patient
Author: liveforforever
Fandoms: Life on Mars
Rating: Brown Cortina? Correct me if I'm wrong.
Pairing: None
Word Count: 1,495
Spoilers: None at all really.
Summary: "It's funny, he'd always kinda liked white before, you know?"
Warnings: This is kinda dark people. Implied character death. So if that's not your cup of tea then don't drink it :D
Story behind the cut:
The Patient
It’s funny, he’d always kind of liked white before, you know? It was clean, sterile. Healthy. There was something off with it admittedly, some echo of intimidation, a reflection in the surface of the colour that he couldn’t quite make out but it was vague, no details, just a gut feeling and so easily overlooked.
He’s figured it out now.
White is judgement. It’s strict and firm and unrelenting. Watching, and listening to everything but seeing only what it wants to see, hearing only what it expects to hear.
And it’s everywhere.
It’s on every wall he’s allowed to see, it’s on his sheets, on his plates, on his utensils, on his furniture, on the people that keep him here. It’s in their fake and condescending smiles as they serve his meals and on their coats as they inject the fight right out of him. It oozes from them. It’s even almost on him and the other people not like him, but not quite. It’s as if their not clean enough to wear it, not pure enough or good. Not right.
They get grey. Pale and consistent and it’s somehow worse than white, as much as he hates it, because it marks them as less. It sets them apart; as clear as a brand and as impossible to be rid of. It’s driving him insane.
Ha! God almighty. Is that irony? ‘It’s driving him insane’ How spectacularly fitting. Probably shouldn’t have laughed out loud though.
Not that it makes much difference in here but it doesn’t help. They’re all glancing at him now. Twats. Like they’ve never laughed at something in their head but Oh no! It becomes something else entirely when a group of strangers informs them that this mind is broken! Then it’s not allowed. It’s not normal then. Even if everyone else in the whole of this screwed up, twisted, bitch of a world does it, the Lessers in Grey make it weird. Naturally.
Anyway. There are other colours he doesn’t like now. Many, in fact. Brown, like metal and speed. Tan, like camel coats and fag ends. Blue, like skies he can’t bloody reach and eyes that just don’t see. Green, like freshness and grass and things he can’t have.
Red though. Red is different. Red means something else these days. Oh yeah, it used to mean sleeplessness and confusion and sheer, unrelenting terror. Not anymore. Nothing really scares him anymore. He has nothing left to lose and there’s no one, not in white or tan or any other colour, who can take from him. No. Red is different now. Now it means company and understanding and fight. It means he can stop pretending.
It’s also him, apparently. Or at least that’s what Vicious Van Gough told him. That’s not actually his name of course, it’s just apt. He ‘sees people's colours’.
A right nutter.
“D’yer know what you are, Stranger?” he’d hissed that time. He’d leapt out, hadn’t he? Meant to be restrained or sedated at all times but they thought he was getting better. They were obviously wrong but then that’s hardly news, is it?. He’d just finished pushing his fish fingers round the plate and had staggered up to empty it when Vicious up and attacked him. Rammed him straight back into the white cafeteria table, sending rippling waves of pain through his ribs and clawing a heavy hand around the back of his neck to keep his face pushed against the disinfected surface.
“D’yer know what you are?” he’d hissed, pressed up behind him “I’ve been watching.” And he’d struggled of course, but it’s not easy to throw a man like Vicious off you when you’re still partially sedated. “You’re red.” He’d stopped fighting then and started listening. “All the time. It hums around you. Can’t you hear it?” He couldn’t. He couldn’t really hear anything beyond the laboured drag of air in and out of his own lungs and the voice whispering in his ear. “It’s so loud” it whined “All. The. Time.” Pressing him harder into the plastic with each word “So loud. And it screams! Oh god, when they’re here, when they come, it screams! It’s so loud, so bright.” Panted against the shell of his ear “So angry.”
The Whites had come then, bursting through the moment like cops in a raid, hands everywhere on the both of them, wrenching them apart. “So out of place.” slipped into the air beside his ear before Vicious was torn away.
He’d turned slowly, not disturbing the fingers probing inelegantly for injury. “You’re not meant to be here. You’re not allowed to be here!” and he’d watched him get sedated and wheeled away, stared through the suit who explained that the “outburst” was “an anomaly” and was “being dealt with”. Nodded and murmured agreeably until he let him pass and spent everyday since looking at white and thinking of red.
It must have been two weeks since then because it’s come around again. That feeling. He no longer counts days or bothers with hours. He has people to do that for him. No, his life exists in only 2 states outside of sleep now: in Their presence and alone. It’s a cycle and today he knows, somehow, that it’s coming round again.
And he hates it. More than everything else he has left, he hates it. Being herded into a safe room as they watch, a pulsing explosion of colour in his white world. Bringing all the things they took from him in in more ways than they can understand. It’s a violation of his senses; colour on their bodies, emotion in their voices, cut grass and coffee scenting the air around them in tastes and smells, comforting gestures, touching each other. As though they’re the ones that need comfort. The anger just floods him in those moments, muting whatever words are spoken to him and focusing his awareness solely on that unseeing blue, and it’s only then, looking back, that Vicious’ words really make sense to him. Because he does see red. And it is in him. He’s pretty sure that it pulses from him, subtler than than the explosion in front of him but far more deadly. Filling the room so that they can all feel it, breathe it in and he hopes they choke on it.
He’s not going to go see them today, he’s decided. He’s staying here. You see, some time ago someone in Grey broke someone in White’s radio. Shattered it, burst it right up into angry little shards. And the Whites, they didn’t move quickly enough. Didn’t pick up all the pieces, didn’t clean up their mess and he snatched one up. He’s been nursing it for days. His fingers are raw from caressing it.
Today’s the day he uses it. He’s been waiting, biding his time and something is telling him they’re about to turn up, about to bring him forward to face his explosion and now’s the time.
He’s at the cafeteria table again. They let them in even when it’s not meal time because it keeps them happy, acts as a sort of common room and he’s sitting in his usual place grazing the shard against the soft skin inside his elbow. Up and down now, under the table, from elbow to wrist, pressing a little harder each time.
Vicious is watching him, naturally, he always is, but he doesn’t pay him any attention. He knows what he sees; the red is dimmed. It’s retreated under the surface, hot and smooth and shifting under his skin.
And then they’re coming for him. The explosions arrived and it’s waiting and they’ve come to bring him before it and all at once he presses harder, meaning it. Vicious starts cooing something from where he watches, distracting them, purposely, howling and growling and grinning like a maniac.
He grins back and tips himself off his seat, lands softly and it’s awhile before they notice. The world is ebbing and flowing around him by the time they act. There’s probably screaming but his friend is back and she’s humming over it.
“Look, Sam” she soothes and smiles contentedly at him “Look what you’ve done.” And he does. He turns his head and sees his red invading the white, battling it, winning. And he’s not angry anymore because the world is already crimson and he’s already giving all he has, staining this hell with what’s his, invading and conquering. Even when tan, like camel coats and fag ends, floods in he’s not angry. And he’s smiling triumphantly into unseeing blue when it happens. The White, that oppressive, judgemental white rises over the face in front of him, drains all other colour from it and settles there, as strict and firm and unrelenting under that skin as it was on the walls and sheets and people, sinking in like realisation.
How spectacularly fitting, he thinks as the battle fades to black. Probably shouldn’t laugh out loud though. Not that it makes much difference in here.
A/N:
Please comment! I'm new to this so any comments, constructive or otherwise, would be appreciated :D
Please read and review!
Enjoy:)
Author: liveforforever
Fandoms: Life on Mars
Rating: Brown Cortina? Correct me if I'm wrong.
Pairing: None
Word Count: 1,495
Spoilers: None at all really.
Summary: "It's funny, he'd always kinda liked white before, you know?"
Warnings: This is kinda dark people. Implied character death. So if that's not your cup of tea then don't drink it :D
Story behind the cut:
The Patient
It’s funny, he’d always kind of liked white before, you know? It was clean, sterile. Healthy. There was something off with it admittedly, some echo of intimidation, a reflection in the surface of the colour that he couldn’t quite make out but it was vague, no details, just a gut feeling and so easily overlooked.
He’s figured it out now.
White is judgement. It’s strict and firm and unrelenting. Watching, and listening to everything but seeing only what it wants to see, hearing only what it expects to hear.
And it’s everywhere.
It’s on every wall he’s allowed to see, it’s on his sheets, on his plates, on his utensils, on his furniture, on the people that keep him here. It’s in their fake and condescending smiles as they serve his meals and on their coats as they inject the fight right out of him. It oozes from them. It’s even almost on him and the other people not like him, but not quite. It’s as if their not clean enough to wear it, not pure enough or good. Not right.
They get grey. Pale and consistent and it’s somehow worse than white, as much as he hates it, because it marks them as less. It sets them apart; as clear as a brand and as impossible to be rid of. It’s driving him insane.
Ha! God almighty. Is that irony? ‘It’s driving him insane’ How spectacularly fitting. Probably shouldn’t have laughed out loud though.
Not that it makes much difference in here but it doesn’t help. They’re all glancing at him now. Twats. Like they’ve never laughed at something in their head but Oh no! It becomes something else entirely when a group of strangers informs them that this mind is broken! Then it’s not allowed. It’s not normal then. Even if everyone else in the whole of this screwed up, twisted, bitch of a world does it, the Lessers in Grey make it weird. Naturally.
Anyway. There are other colours he doesn’t like now. Many, in fact. Brown, like metal and speed. Tan, like camel coats and fag ends. Blue, like skies he can’t bloody reach and eyes that just don’t see. Green, like freshness and grass and things he can’t have.
Red though. Red is different. Red means something else these days. Oh yeah, it used to mean sleeplessness and confusion and sheer, unrelenting terror. Not anymore. Nothing really scares him anymore. He has nothing left to lose and there’s no one, not in white or tan or any other colour, who can take from him. No. Red is different now. Now it means company and understanding and fight. It means he can stop pretending.
It’s also him, apparently. Or at least that’s what Vicious Van Gough told him. That’s not actually his name of course, it’s just apt. He ‘sees people's colours’.
A right nutter.
“D’yer know what you are, Stranger?” he’d hissed that time. He’d leapt out, hadn’t he? Meant to be restrained or sedated at all times but they thought he was getting better. They were obviously wrong but then that’s hardly news, is it?. He’d just finished pushing his fish fingers round the plate and had staggered up to empty it when Vicious up and attacked him. Rammed him straight back into the white cafeteria table, sending rippling waves of pain through his ribs and clawing a heavy hand around the back of his neck to keep his face pushed against the disinfected surface.
“D’yer know what you are?” he’d hissed, pressed up behind him “I’ve been watching.” And he’d struggled of course, but it’s not easy to throw a man like Vicious off you when you’re still partially sedated. “You’re red.” He’d stopped fighting then and started listening. “All the time. It hums around you. Can’t you hear it?” He couldn’t. He couldn’t really hear anything beyond the laboured drag of air in and out of his own lungs and the voice whispering in his ear. “It’s so loud” it whined “All. The. Time.” Pressing him harder into the plastic with each word “So loud. And it screams! Oh god, when they’re here, when they come, it screams! It’s so loud, so bright.” Panted against the shell of his ear “So angry.”
The Whites had come then, bursting through the moment like cops in a raid, hands everywhere on the both of them, wrenching them apart. “So out of place.” slipped into the air beside his ear before Vicious was torn away.
He’d turned slowly, not disturbing the fingers probing inelegantly for injury. “You’re not meant to be here. You’re not allowed to be here!” and he’d watched him get sedated and wheeled away, stared through the suit who explained that the “outburst” was “an anomaly” and was “being dealt with”. Nodded and murmured agreeably until he let him pass and spent everyday since looking at white and thinking of red.
It must have been two weeks since then because it’s come around again. That feeling. He no longer counts days or bothers with hours. He has people to do that for him. No, his life exists in only 2 states outside of sleep now: in Their presence and alone. It’s a cycle and today he knows, somehow, that it’s coming round again.
And he hates it. More than everything else he has left, he hates it. Being herded into a safe room as they watch, a pulsing explosion of colour in his white world. Bringing all the things they took from him in in more ways than they can understand. It’s a violation of his senses; colour on their bodies, emotion in their voices, cut grass and coffee scenting the air around them in tastes and smells, comforting gestures, touching each other. As though they’re the ones that need comfort. The anger just floods him in those moments, muting whatever words are spoken to him and focusing his awareness solely on that unseeing blue, and it’s only then, looking back, that Vicious’ words really make sense to him. Because he does see red. And it is in him. He’s pretty sure that it pulses from him, subtler than than the explosion in front of him but far more deadly. Filling the room so that they can all feel it, breathe it in and he hopes they choke on it.
He’s not going to go see them today, he’s decided. He’s staying here. You see, some time ago someone in Grey broke someone in White’s radio. Shattered it, burst it right up into angry little shards. And the Whites, they didn’t move quickly enough. Didn’t pick up all the pieces, didn’t clean up their mess and he snatched one up. He’s been nursing it for days. His fingers are raw from caressing it.
Today’s the day he uses it. He’s been waiting, biding his time and something is telling him they’re about to turn up, about to bring him forward to face his explosion and now’s the time.
He’s at the cafeteria table again. They let them in even when it’s not meal time because it keeps them happy, acts as a sort of common room and he’s sitting in his usual place grazing the shard against the soft skin inside his elbow. Up and down now, under the table, from elbow to wrist, pressing a little harder each time.
Vicious is watching him, naturally, he always is, but he doesn’t pay him any attention. He knows what he sees; the red is dimmed. It’s retreated under the surface, hot and smooth and shifting under his skin.
And then they’re coming for him. The explosions arrived and it’s waiting and they’ve come to bring him before it and all at once he presses harder, meaning it. Vicious starts cooing something from where he watches, distracting them, purposely, howling and growling and grinning like a maniac.
He grins back and tips himself off his seat, lands softly and it’s awhile before they notice. The world is ebbing and flowing around him by the time they act. There’s probably screaming but his friend is back and she’s humming over it.
“Look, Sam” she soothes and smiles contentedly at him “Look what you’ve done.” And he does. He turns his head and sees his red invading the white, battling it, winning. And he’s not angry anymore because the world is already crimson and he’s already giving all he has, staining this hell with what’s his, invading and conquering. Even when tan, like camel coats and fag ends, floods in he’s not angry. And he’s smiling triumphantly into unseeing blue when it happens. The White, that oppressive, judgemental white rises over the face in front of him, drains all other colour from it and settles there, as strict and firm and unrelenting under that skin as it was on the walls and sheets and people, sinking in like realisation.
How spectacularly fitting, he thinks as the battle fades to black. Probably shouldn’t laugh out loud though. Not that it makes much difference in here.
A/N:
Please comment! I'm new to this so any comments, constructive or otherwise, would be appreciated :D
Please read and review!
Enjoy:)