[OOC]

Hey guys! It's Adriana, Harding's mun. Feel free to comment here if you need to talk to me about something. :)

He's back again.

(He's not sure he can help it.)

But every time someone mentions Vera--every time Nurse Ratched sneers--every time someone makes a comment--he remembers a smile, and a kiss, and--

Well.

It doesn't hurt so much.

Two weeks later, he stands up.

"I hate you," he wants to tell Nurse Ratched, but it doesn't come out right; the words hide in his hands instead, long fingers covering his mouth.

But at least he knows his name.

It's a start.

He doesn't--he doesn't know where he is.

He thinks he should; it looks familiar, vaguely, like a decades-old memory, like his seventh birthday.

("I don't want it," he'd said of the football, and knew it was a mistake.)

He sees her orange nails and her big breasts come close and he shudders and he closes his eyes

and

he goes back to sleep.

Harding remembers first explaining the Shock Shop to McMurphy: "Completely painless," he'd said, and it was true.

But you never wanted another one.

"You know," he says, turning to dark, cruel-faced aide beside him, "I don't think--"

They force him, back-first, through the door.