2spooky: The All-Saints Pyschiatric Hospital

[bluezone]

Four cases of beer, a bet, and a dare. That was how it all started.

The beer had been Tecate and it'd been bought by someone's older brother, since not a one of them was older than seventeen. The bet had been that the Heat wouldn't win against OKC, and in fact would lose by at least fifteen points. The dare had been at the discretion of the winner. Aomine had had way too many of the beers, had claimed that Miami would win, and had scoffed at the idea that any dare would be too tough for him to see through.

A day later, while still nursing the worst kind of hangover, he was cursing himself, his asshole friends, and the fucking failure of the Heat defense for his current situation.

All-Saints Psychiatric Hospital hadn't been a hospital since the 50s; supposedly it'd just been records storage before finally being shuttered for good sometime in the 1980s. Now, it was a derelict ghost sitting on the edge of new suburban sprawl, it's crumbling facade obscured by trees, an overpass, a hill, and distance. Once you got past the high fence and heavy, bolted gate, you might as well have been in another world, one overrun with grass, weeds, twisted shrubs, and patchy trees. There'd been a cobblestone drive, once, now a river of potholes and ugly, standing water, and there'd been a grand entryway with stone steps and metal handrails, all of it twisted and crumbling now, reduced to crumbling concrete and rebar.

Inside, it's a fucking tomb. It's cracked tile and peeling wallpaper with long streaks of black mold; it's graffiti and broken glass, and rotted doors hanging off rusted hinges; it's a single, abandoned hospital bed, it's padding slashed open, laying on its side near a set of doors that says OFFICES. It's utter silence, except for a faraway dripping and Aomine's own pounding heart.

He just has to go to the second landing. The stairs off the main atrium were secure and sound, he'd been told, and there was an observation deck up top that looked down on the dusty, cracked reception desks. All he had to do was walk up, take a few selfies, make a video shot down the long, dark hallway toward the first ward, and then get the fuck out.

His hand tight around the smartphone in his pocket, Aomine hustled toward the grand, wide stairs littered with leaves and garbage, and pretended that he wasn't fucking terrified.

At the very least, it was still daylight outside; it was 10 AM on a balmy Saturday in Spring.

Comments

[psalmed]

Despite the hour, the hospital seems in a perpetual state of twilight. The skylights have long ago been covered in algae, casting a greenish glow when the sun gets bright enough, and whatever other debris has been left on a crumbling roof for years and years. The place smells damp. Like decay, like clothing washed and then never allowed to properly dry out.

The atrium and reception desk have obviously been the most frequent targets of vandals. There's spray paint on some of the fixtures; the words and symbols cut off abruptly like the paint had run out all at once or like the artists had to leave in a hurry.

Papers are on the floor, glued there by moisture and people standing on them. There are a few holes in the wall from looters looking for valuable metal piping. But mostly, it's oddly quiet. There's the screech of birds outside and the sound of bugs that will be nearly deafening by summer. Inside the structure it seems like the world is on mute.

At least, until there are glass bottles that go flying, clinking together as they roll across the hall. They had been on the landing, a popular place for teenagers to sit and drink and throw the empty bottles down to try to make them shatter on a specific tile.

As Aomine climbs the stairs, they roll down. One by one in a neat row, coming to rest at the foot of the staircase. And, somewhere down the darkened hall, there are the faint sounds of music that seems grossly out of place.

It's probably just the wind making those sounds, or pushing the bottles down the steps. Except the windows are closed and barred. The feeling of a gentle brush against Aomine's arm is probably a change in the air currents.

[bluezone]

Wind. Weight. Rats. His own uncertain steps. Those are all reasons the bottles could move. Maybe not like that, not exactly, maybe not in a row, but shit like that happens. It's not impossible. He could just be unlucky. He could just be freaking out.

The music, though.

The music wasn't something that could just happen.

Halfway up the stairs, he stopped. Froze right in place, every hair on the back of his neck standing on end. Goosebumps ran up his arm, a cool sensation prickling on his skin that was - had to be - the same wind that made the bottles roll. Because, when he looked, there was no one there; it was just him, on the landing, in the dim light, his palms sweaty and the faint, faint music ringing in his ears. The crawling fear was an unwelcome visitor, lurching slowly up into his throat and into his brain, and he felt, for just a moment, that he didn't give a shit about sticking to the bet. He should just leave.

...but that'd be just what those assholes would want, wouldn't it?

Aomine clenched his jaw.

"You fuckers."

It'd be easy. Set up a phone and some portable speakers, play some stupid old-timey music, in one of the other rooms, and then record Aomine hauling ass out of the hospital. They could post it online later and he'd never live it down. The ace of the basketball team, running like a little baby.

Like hell he's running.

What he did instead was clench his fists, too, and stomp the rest of the way up the stairs. On the landing, he didn't take out his phone; rather, he turned his head this way and that, trying to find the source of the sound, and decided on the long hall to his right. It was as dark as the rest of the place, covered in cracks and scattered leaves, but it had to be stable, right? Especially if those dicks were hiding down there.

He started off, walking quickly, shoulders tight. "I know you fucks are back there. Did you really think I'd fall for this kind of corny bullshit?"

[psalmed]

The hallways Aomine goes down has seen less traffic in the previous years. People usually don't make it this far and if they break in they tend to stay in the main atrium rather than venturing down a darkened hallway.

There are a few wheelchairs and other devices in the hallway, all with rust, all in varying states of decay. He'll pass offices, the drawers torn out of the desks and patient files scattered everywhere. Something that had been a sitting room before rats gnawed away at the furniture and now the stuffed armchair seems to be moving with a hundred little bodies.

The music seems to be getting further away, moving down the hall. Sometimes there are footsteps, walking alongside Aomine, and the touch against his arm only grows firmer. The wind is now escorting him down this hallway.

A room with sunnily painted furniture appears to be the turning point. The music is louder, but not a thing is disturbed, even the strips of paint slowly peeling off the walls. If Aomine turns around the room across the hall is in much worse shape. The promise of grandeur in the window frames and railings that has been caged over.

Then, next to his ear, a soft laugh. Gentle and sweet, and the feel of something running through his hair and down his body, checking him for weapons or coaxing him along. The music sounds like the radio can't quite catch the signal...except there is no radio in the room, and no source for the noise.

And, of course, there's a chiding whisper. "Do not yell." But it seems to come from right next to his ear, with the appropriate whisper of air against his skin. Outside the room, a wheelchair slowly bumps into the door facing.

[bluezone]

Perversely, he didn't want to believe, even if everything about him, from his attitude to the time he swore his grandmother hovering at the foot of his bed two years after she did, was primed to believe. He didn't want to, because if he did, then he'd run anyway, and he'd have to admit that it was real, all of it, the wind and the music and the whispers and his own pitiful reaction to them. If he didn't believe, then he could stomp around the hallways, take a few angry pictures, and then, if he didn't find his friends - though he would, because how could it be anyone else - just leave, like he planned to in the first place.

And for some little while, he was able to keep it up. He was able to stay angry, to listen just to the hard banging of his feet on the beaten floor. He was able to dodge around the abandoned equipment, though he pulled the edges of his jacket close so that nothing would snag on them. He was able to keep down the rolling nausea when he spotted that chair and he was able, for a moment, to think that everything was fine, because there was sunlight again, streaming through the stained, dusty windows. He was fine. He was fine.

He was fine.

He was fine.

He was fine, and a woman whispered in his ear.

"Shit!"

The tension in him snapped and Aomine jumped forward and spun around, a hand on his ear and his heart going a mile a minute. His eyes flicked to the wheelchair, but there was a moment of just incomprehension: it looked like all the others, and hadn't it been there to begin with? Had he really heard that whisper and before it, a laugh.

It's me, it's me, I'm just freaking out -

"The fuck was that...?"

He couldn't help but whisper back, a hand still on his head, the other clenched into a tight fist. His thoughts turned and churned and he thought of the window, how it'd pulled at his clothes, how it'd pressed and moved, and...the windows were closed. All the windows were closed.

They'd been closed the whole time.

"Fuck." He swallowed and immediately began to walk back the way he'd come, back down the hall, away from the rooms, away from the music. "Fuck fuck fuck - "

[psalmed]

"Stop." It's a command. Whispered again and sounding like it is far away. The voice was still sweet but there was more of a note of power to it. "Stop, you have to stay."

The voice was sweet. Coaxing. It sounded like it was coming from far away but the sensation was still there. Lips pressed against the shell of an ear. Aomine's arm wrapped around by another body.

It disappeared as he moved. Back down the hall. But the laughter was back again and he would see golden hair and a white dress. The figure scampered from room to room and if he looked closely he would see a woman. Beckoning.

Of course, the fact that the doors at the end of the hall have closed would help convince him to stay. The doors had seemed stuck open permanently on rusted hinges but now the doors have shut (without a sound) and locked.

"This way!" It was almost like his friends were hiding from him. Laughing at the way he'd run and telling him where they were hiding. Except the voice was unfamiliar, and all the abandoned wheelchairs and gurneys suddenly slam to either side of the hall to clear a pathway.

[bluezone]

That's a -

Where did she come from? What the fuck.

How -

Aomine's blood seemed to run cold in his veins and dragged at his mind because of it, his thoughts turning muddled and confused. It wasn't something he could help; it had to be normal, this reaction. What kind of human could immediately comprehend what they were seeing? He was cold, and shocked, and yet his skin burned, prickling with needles where he could swear someone real, someone solid, actually touched him.

He made for the way out, first. Even with a woman in white flitting at the edges of his vision, Aomine's panic response was solid. He lunged for the exit, turning a fast walk into an out-of-control sprint that ended when he slammed into the closed door. His breath rushing in and out of him, so hot it burned his cold throat, he first clawed, and then yanked at the door, though the beaten, rusted knob, which should have been torn out of the rotted wood, didn't so much as turn slightly in his hands. The hinges didn't even creak. the whole thing might as well have been made out of solid concrete for all that it moved.

This way.

Aomine's head swung back around, his shoulders tight and sweat trickling down his temple. He jumped when every piece of trashed equipment crashed aside at once and his wild "Fuck! echoed up and down the hallway.

It's her.

She's doing this.

It's her.

Rage blossomed in his chest, because rage had always been easier and far more welcome than fear. Aomine's lips pulled back off his teeth and he pulled his hands away from the door - he'd scraped them, there was a little blood from abrasions on his palms - and turned them into fists. He ran a second time, this time toward the woman, toward the last doorway she had gone into, mindless anger going far to bury his terror.

"Get the fuck back here-!!"

[psalmed]

There was a wash of emotion. Pity, sympathy as Aomine slammed into the doors. Of course the doors don't move, as solid and secure as they had been new though Aomine would probably swear there hadn't been a lock on them when he passed them before.

"This way," The voice repeated. The figure seemed utterly unaware of him, walking calmly just ahead. It weaved into a room and then appeared in another. The music was back, getting louder.

The chase is only a matter of moments. Down one hall and back over toward the room with the pretty furniture. Another turn and there is an entirely new hall. The paint stops peeling, begins looking smoother and newer as he runs.

Aomine caught up with her easily. A pretty face, framed by golden tendrils of hair that had escaped the bun, turned to look at him. "What are you doing? Come back to your room..."

If he touched her, the room would change. From the rotted remains of a hospital room to something newer. Light streaming in whole stained glass and a bed firmly bolted to the middle of the floor.

He might see, after a moment, that she had on a uniform. Her face was still relaxed, gentle. Probably the opposite of what he was feeling.

[bluezone]

She was very beautiful. That seemed to be the most jarring thing, because his mind had begun to piece together the worst kinds of images possible: maimed women, monsters with holes for faces, corpses with exposed bones and empty eyesockets. Everything else was clashing together in his head, driven by panic and adrenaline and the most basic of animal responses, and yet his higher brain function could still make out the woman, older than him but young still, and the silken frame her hair made around her face, and the smoothness of her skin, and just how white her uniform was, impeccably clean and pressed.

The rest of the scene filled in only belatedly. He realized that the hall had changed, that paint and paper rolled back up onto the walls as though time were running in reverse. Rats had scampered backwards and out of sight into holes that pressed together and disappeared; shattered glass had risen up and refitted itself into lighting fixtures, which after a few moments flickered back on. Little by little, the decay had faded, blurring out of sight while he'd been so singularly distracted.

"What..."

In his pocket, his phone was hot. He didn't notice, and wouldn't have known that the screen was flickering, full of black streaks of static.

"What the fuck, who are..."

He was scared, still. Of course he was scared. But she was beautiful and she was...she was right there, wasn't she? She was. She was, and all he had to do was reach out and grab her wrist -

His fingertips brushed her sleeve and it was like someone snapped their fingers in his head. There was a crack, almost electric, and his ears popped. He made a shocked sound and recoiled and pressed both hands to his ears, because out of everything, it was how the noise changed that got to him. That music, the radio from before...it was clear, suddenly. No more distance, no more distortion. It was all clear.

"Fuck, shit!"

It was all gone, now. The room was normal. Old. As solid as he was.

The fuck is going on--

[psalmed]

"Lia. What is your name?" Her voice was as kind as it had been. After he touched her she reached out to pet his hair. But his heart was pounding and he looked almost ready to be ill.

The room was bright and clean. She nudged him toward it gently with the same touch he felt going up the stairs. Matter of fact and careful but with the force that there could be no argument.

There was an orderly behind him. A big presence, warm this time, and the man is an expert about slipping a needle into someone's neck without much injury. Lia frowned a moment, expression visible as Aomine could feel the beefy arm, thick as a tree, close around him and then the sharp pain at his neck. "Is that really necessary..."

Of course it is. The young man is close to panic and the language he is using. Highly improper. Aomine would feel warm, heavy from the drug but it probably wasn't enough to knock him out completely. Still, Lia wrapped her arms around him to help him into the bedroom.

It was clean. Linens on the bed were fresh. The music was loud and bright and cheerful, but it only half covered the sound of someone down the hallway screaming in pain.

Aomine was big and Lia grunted at the effort used to pull him into the bedroom and let him brace himself against a railing. "We will take good care of you, monsieur."

[bluezone]

He didn't tell her his name. He was in the middle of recoiling from her hand, horrified despite - or maybe because of - her calmness and alarmed but the matter-of-factness in her touch. She acted like this was normal. She acted like she was so sure, and he had no idea what was going on, no idea at all, he had to get out and--

"Ah, ow, son of a...!"

He'd backed right into someone else. Someone huge, which was fucking saying something, considering that Aomine himself was over six feet.

"...bitch!"

He felt a sting, small but hot, and lurched in the guy's arms, for a moment nothing more than an animal caught in a trap. The orderly would have to endure banged knees and raw scrapes down his arm, if not a busted lip from how Aomine swung his head. There was a solid five minutes of struggling in fact, before he began to feel it: a sensation like lead going through his bloodstream. It pulled his limbs down, made his struggles slower, harder, until he was hanging off that thick arm, not being held.

He heard someone screaming. The noise entered his ears through a wall of cotton, his brain now hot for different reasons.

It seemed, to him, that no time passed at all before his knees bumped into the bed. The arm was gone; it was just the woman now, and her lilting accent. He groped blindly and found metal to hold on to, which he tried, then, to use to pull himself away from her. He tried to stay angry, using it to tighten his grip and force his arms to move, but it was hard; the confusion tripped him up, the heat slowed him down, and the fear was inching back, awful and inevitable.

"No, no, the fuck...don't touch me - "

Unbalanced, his weight toppled against the bed railing and his phone fell out of his pocket. It was on, but the screen was only black.

[psalmed]

"The doctors will not like you to use such language." Lia would not like to see what the doctors would do to cure it, either. They have all certainly heard much worse. Servicemen do pick up dirty language during their time in war and who can begrudge them that?

She watched him struggle. The orderly shakes Aomine like a rag doll, as though he is not much taller than Lia or much heavier until, at last, the struggles stopped. Lia has seen worse but it's always so sad and he seems so young .

"No one will hurt you here. I will not hurt you. Are you sick? Do you have a family?" She pet his hair again, heedless of his warning until he nearly fell. Again, Lia caught him. Again, the scream sounded down the hallway like someone was being slowly and tortuously murdered.

She did spot the phone. Blue-green eyes focused on the little device and she frowned, leaning to pick it up. She pushed a few of the buttons, then tucked it away into her apron when she couldn't get it to do anything. A mystery to figure out later. But what else did he have on him?

It was easier to embrace him from behind. Her face was pressed into his back, rather than over his shoulder, but she had more control over his weakened limbs as she started to untuck his shirt and undo his trousers. Such unusual clothing, as well. "Were you in the army?"

[bluezone]

The army...?

What the fuck is she even...

He'd been drugged, he realized. No idea with what. His head was mainly clear, just hot and packed full of wool, so he could think and speak. But moving was incredibly difficult, and moving with any surety pretty much impossible. He would've slid to the floor if not for the woman's arms and as it was, he was left leaning heavily against the railing and the foot of the bed. If he moved at all, he'd just fall again, and he didn't know if he'd be able to get up.

"No...way. The fuck...are you talking about...?" His words come with the same amount of difficulty, not because he didn't know what to say, but because it was hard to make his throat and his mouth work like he wanted them to. He had to talk slowly and deliberately. "I'm in school. I'm not sick."

He could feel her cheek. She was warm. Real, somehow. As real as he was. Aomine shuddered in spite of himself, disturbed and confused. He heard the rustling of cloth before he realized his shirt was moving against his skin and, alarmed all over again, he reached down to try and tug his shirt back down. His fingers were clumsy and didn't seem capable of actually getting a grip on the fabric.

"Hey, shit, stop it - "

He wished the screaming would stop, too. It was chasing away the last of his rage, leaving him vulnerable.

"Get off me, I'm not sick, this place isn't even a hospital--"

Because it was abandoned. It was a wreck. She wasn't really here.

[psalmed]

"Your mouth," Lia warned again, reaching up to place her fingers against his lips. She tapped them in another warning before resuming her job. "You do not remember? You came wandering up. Frightened and screaming." She shook her head, pulling his shirt up and slowly working it off one arm, letting him replace the hand on the bed frame before she took his other hand.

"This place is a hospital. You are here so you can get better. Do you remember your name? Family we might try to get into contact with?" Lia had to try. Over and over, repeating the questions as though she might receive more than his bad attitude. Men really were so difficult when it came to this but they grew even worse when it was an orderly trying to change them.

Lia finally got the shirt off, only pausing a few times to wrap her arms around his naked waist to pull him more upright and remind him how to stand. "What school do you go to?" Could he really be that young? Surely he had parents somewhere. Parents who would be looking for him.

Her fingers skimmed down his back. He was in shape enough to be returning from the military. His hips were thin, easy to work his pants over but actually getting him to step out of the fabric would be tricky. "Do not fight me. You will like who comes in here even less." There was an orderly hovering still, obviously not happy with gauze stuffed up his nose and a scowl on his face.

"Could let him trade places with Roberts," The orderly offered and the scream abruptly cut off. The silence was somehow worse. Aomine and Lia both could probably only assume that had been Roberts screaming.

[bluezone]

"No I didn't." He'd jumped the fence. He'd kicked in the door, ignoring the new lock on useless, rusted handles. "I was just...this whole place, it's abandoned, there's nobody here--hey!"

Aomine's difficult but absolutely certain protests were interrupted. His arms, independent of his protests, were easy to move; he could barely control them himself. He was up, but wobbly, and the cool air against his hot skin - he was sweating now, from all the exertion as well as visible and ongoing distress - made him shiver. Stunned, he grabbed for his pants, and almost fell, the terror and denial suddenly, if temporarily, displaced by a far more mundane emotions: embarrassment and shame.

He was almost naked. There were just his briefs, which no man anywhere wanted to be caught in.

"Knock it off! Give me back my no." He reached for, and failed, to grab his pants before they slid to the floor. The motion was unwise: he fell for real this time, right onto the bed, his ankles tangled up in his clothing and caught by his shoes. The clean sheets, at least, are things he can grab on to, this time in a slightly more successful attempt to crawl away.

That was all he cared about, getting away - except for a slurred growl aimed at the orderly, and a jump as the screaming suddenly came to an end.

Cold slammed into the pit of Aomine's stomach. "You all...you're not real. That wasn't real."

[psalmed]

"Monsieur..." But Lia simply looked sad. She watched him as he fell and crawled and raved like he had lost all leave of his senses. She had come to work at a hospital, accepting the pitiable of God's creatures and he was exemplifying that.

She waved off the orderly as he took a step into the room. She could manage this. Surely God made her the nurse without a thing to do when this boy arrived for a reason. And he is a boy, when she thinks about it. He can't be much older than her little brother and he's so very frightened.

"But you are here, with us. You came to this hospital and there was a reason for it. We have checked you in and we will help you. You have to let us help you." Of course Lia knew there was little sense in bargaining with the patients here. They didn't often understand or didn't care, trapped in their own delusions.

Lia grabbed him by the hips, unable to stop herself from marveling at his underwear for just a moment. Elastic...and the fabric looked relatively new. Was he perhaps a wealthy son dropped off? She didn't see any physical injury on him, at the least. Still, she pulled him back toward her and started to remove his briefs even with him face down and clawing the bed to get away. "Only until a doctor does his evaluation," She soothed. "Only until then and it is just us here..."

She was attempting comfort. A touch down his back or to his thighs as a nurse outside yelled for assistance and a door slammed. Normal sounds, but certainly they could be frightening. The orderly had already pulled out the padded restraints and Lia was starting to think he had been right to do so.

[bluezone]

Aomine shook his head. As calm as she sounded, as real as the bed felt, as much as it looked like the room was just built yesterday, it wasn't...it wasn't real.

...but what was it then, if not that? He didn't have an answer. "No. No no no. You're crazy. You're fucking crazy, this isn't a hospital."

There were her hands again. Aomine jumped, surprised, and then squirmed, realizing by now what she was after. His heart raced and his face got hot, his expression full of alarm and boyish panic. "Stop! Hands off!! Don't--"

His fucking underwear.

They didn't go easily. They were tight to begin with and as sluggishly as he was moving, he could still press his legs together. He even managed to curl his fingers in the elastic, which necessitated some pulling, and caused a momentary tug-of-war. There was no strength in his grip, though, and eventually there was a snap of elastic against his skin, and then they were out of his reach and off his body entirely. He was naked.

Aomine yelped, this time. He wriggled a hand under his body to cover himself and resumed a much stronger effort to get away from her, enough so that he was able to get his shoulders over to other side of the bed, if not yet the rest of his body. He was able to grab the windowsill and start to pull himself up. There weren't bars on this one; if he banged it hard enough, maybe -

"You're crazy! You're crazy!"

The elastic wasn't the only thing that snapped. It all came rushing back, the panic and the terror, hastened by the slammed door and a look over his shoulder at what both Lia and the orderly were doing.

"None of this is real-!"

[psalmed]

Lia was at a loss for a moment. Aomine went wild, naked, screaming. Protesting the basic facts. That they weren't crazy, that this was a hospital. She let him go, let him claw his way to the windows. She had hoped he would like this room. It was a nicer room, private, with a good view...

Ultimately she has to have the orderly step in. Aomine is weakened by the sedative but he's still large and it takes two of them to pull him back to the bed. Lia had mercy on him enough to throw a pillow over his groin as they wrestled him onto his back on a mattress that, while not soft, was at least not straw on a hard frame.

"We will make you well," Lia whispered to him, laying on top of his chest, crawling over him as the orderly started fitting restraints. Two around his wrists, two around his ankles. Shackled to the bedframe and all the slack removed from the ties.

Lia said a prayer, silently. For the writhing, obviously mad boy dropped off on their doorstep. Who could have abandoned him here? At first she had thought it was not so bad, not so hopeless, but it seemed mania had set in in truth.

"I promise," She repeated. "Only stop this." Stop fighting. Even with the drugs he bucked and struggled an impressive amount. Was he going for the window to jump out of it? Lia can not imagine what madness has gripped him. "I will do whatever I can to help you."

[bluezone]

He couldn't keep it up forever. With his heart going as fast as it was and his breathing that shallow, he was going to collapse eventually. It took time and the weight of two people for Aomine to finally fall back, black swirling at the edge of his vision. If he knew a little more about medicine, he would realize that was he was hyperventilating; as it was, he just thought he was out of his mind. Trapped, and going crazy for real.

Panting, eyes wild, he twisted his arms in their restraints, his fear so thick that it was a real thing, choking him. Nooooo, no no no -

He groaned, jaw tight, and twisted his head back, feeling sick. He thought of that morning, when he'd popped two Aspirin and groaned through his hangover; he thought of breakfast, and the text he'd gotten on his phone about the bet; he thought of how he'd been able to hear the cars from the overpass all the way up until the moment he went through those dilapidated doors downstairs.

"This isn't real," he said again, his teeth clenched bitterly tight. He'd closed his eyes, but yanked them open again now.

He looked at the woman. Lia. She kept speaking to him, soft and sure. Sad? He didn't know.

"This isn't real. You're not here."

Though she had been, hadn't she? That'd been her voice. Her touches. He'd seen her flitting through those empty, broken rooms.

"You're a ghost. You're dead."

It seemed obvious, now. The uniform. The music. The radiator next to his bed and the things that she said.

[psalmed]

It startled her. The words slipping out of his mouth that had suddenly become more personal. You're dead. A threat? A promise? Another delusion? Lia was not certain but she was certain that he was to a breaking point.

Once his arms and legs were held down she lifted up, perched with one knee against his hip and the other on the edge of the bed. Hands reached out and she stroked his chest, massaging muscles that were seizing up. "Shhh. You have to breathe. Please."

It wasn't working. Aomine's commotion had roused another nurse to bring in equipment for the room. An IV, bags of drugs, but Lia only had eyes for the teenager who seemed so utterly panicked. Nothing she could say would help but perhaps with time when he was left here...

"No one here is dead. We will help you. You will understand. I promise." He would understand, less, the way the other nurse was starting an IV in his restrained arm but Lia tipped his face, cupping it in her hands to make him focus on her. "Breathe with me. In for five seconds and then blow out..."

[bluezone]

His chest jumped under her touch. It was a strikingly intimate gesture, at least to him; he wasn't the type to get touchy-feely with a lot of people, and despite the interest girls at school had shown him, he only had eyes for basketball and only an interest in getting in trouble. Her hands felt comfortingly cool compared to the hot buzzing in his skin, enough to distract him and enough to get him looking at her more clearly instead of entirely through a haze of panic and terror.

She really was very beautiful. When he thought about it, she might have been one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen.

"No. I saw you."

He said again, insistent. His voice had dropped from a yell to just harsh, hoarse words; his throat was hurting.

"You weren't there. You were just wind. Just - "

Her hands were cool, too, and felt wonderful on his skin. It was almost like he had a fever, now, and maybe he did, with the way he was sweating and shaking. He felt exposed and hideously vulnerable, and flinched when he felt the light pinch in the crook of his arm. He shuddered and struggled, though it was feeble, this time, and he though he tried to look past her to see what the other nurse was doing, his eyes inevitably went back to Lia's face.

He might not have followed her directions exactly, but his breathing got longer and deeper, and marginally easier.

"- don't. Make her stop."

Whatever was in those bags, he didn't want it -

[psalmed]

Lia's heart swelled and ached at his words. So young and lost and hurt. She couldn't help but think of D'Eon, of her baby brother, of what care she might want someone to give him if he was in such a state.

"I found you outside," Lia repeated again, patient. She kept stroking his face, trying to at least comfort him. "I was there outside with the wind." Was that what he had meant? She wasn't sure that either, but every time Aomine flinched she guided his attention back to her.

He had been too wild to trust. As badly as she wanted to release him. He was raving in a true badness. He had a fever. He had told her she was dead. He simply couldn't be released. "You will feel better, sweet boy," Lia repeated lightly. "You are such a trouble to me but I do not think you mean it." And from that point on, the blue-haired boy was going to be Trouble.

The drugs were no doubt the usual things. Calming drugs and nutrients and sometimes Lia thought something a little extra was put in for punishment but she didn't look too closely. "I will be back tonight to check on you, yes?"

Lia leaned closer as they finished up. She took his clothes, folding them, tucking them away and then she whispered in his ear. The same sensation as when he had been all alone. "You do not want to make the orderlies or the doctors angry." But before he could question that bit of advice she was already hurrying out of the room.

[bluezone]

I will be back tonight.

Which meant, he'd be left here. Strapped to his bed, a needle in his arm and fluid dripping down from the bag that was suspended next to his bed.

Aomine shook his head vigorously, or as vigorously as the sedative and her hands would allow. He wanted to make it angry, maybe a thread, but it ended up only looking fearful. "Don't, stop, don't go - "

But she was moving already, out of the door and out of sight, just like his clothes were gone, and any last proof as to what was happening at all. He barked out a noise, some choked sound of anger and terror, and tried to struggle once again, pulling with his arms and his legs, lurching back and forth on the bed.

"Don't! Don't leave me here!"

Panic cracked in his voice, made him cough, and he had to stop and hack, groaning in distress and disbelief.

"I'm not sick!!"

But no one was listening.

[psalmed]

The day had to pass slowly for Aomine. Nurses, none of them Lia, would stop to look at him. One placed a blanket over him. Another offered him water. But they didn't speak, clearly trying to get rounds done as quickly as possible. Of course there was the fact that, if he stared long enough, the paint would start to feel and the glass of the windows break out.

Lia was back in the evening. She had stolen away all of the valuables their newest patient came with. His clothing, including his underwear, was safely folded and put in a box underneath her bed. The odd little device had taken some time before Lia decided she didn't know what it was, but she kept that as well.

It was dark when she came back. She didn't have her apron on and had her hair in a less severe braid. Of course there was an orderly outside. Of course she had to have a sharp conversation with him. Their gazes drifted to Aomine a few times during the course of the argument.

When she reached Aomine her face was sad and tired, but she still smiled at him and pet his face as tenderly as if he were a newly hatched bird. Gentleness. It was what he deserved, what all these pitiful souls needed and surely a bit of compassion might make all the difference. His cries as she left had tormented her all day. "How is my Trouble doing?"

[bluezone]

Sometime in the afternoon, when his voice had been worn to nothing and he'd been so exhausted he could barely lift a finger, Aomine had finally passed out. He'd gotten a little bit quieter before that; whatever was in his drip had done a great deal to dull his nerves and increase the weight of the wool in his head. He'd have flashes of panic and anger and raw, helpless horror, but they were brief, just spikes of emotion that rose out of a flat, dark sea, and then they would disappear again. Sometimes he would scream; sometimes he would moan. Sometimes he would twist and growl and pant, his disbelief and his helplessness driving him until it really did feel like he was as crazy as they thought he was.

That kind of activity couldn't be sustained. He'd worn himself out eventually, not long after lunch time, and had lapsed into bone-tired unconsciousness despite all his best efforts to stay awake.

When he woke up again, he wasn't sure where he was. He was beyond groggy, his eyelids so heavy he could only open them a sliver. He couldn't move, and he couldn't remember why. His muscles were stiff and sore, like he'd been playing for hours, or like he'd gotten into a fight, and he couldn't move them. He tried, and leather would squeak softly, and the bed frame would rattle quietly. His throat was unbelievably parched, dry as a desert and cracking with each breath, and yet he was sweaty at the same time, his skin warm and clammy. His heart was thumping, quickly and quietly, and he shivered reflexively when someone touched his cheek.

He didn't know - or rather, had forgotten - about the sheet, and about how he was wearing nothing at all underneath it. Because of that, it did absolutely nothing to hide the fact that he was half-hard, that buzzing, confused heat pooling worryingly in his groin. He'd been nursing an erection off and on for the last hour of his sleep, the slow feed of drugs from his drip settling in his bloodstream at last.

Aomine's response was a difficult "Nnnn..." of sound, and some restless motion in his face and shoulders.

"Hn...what..."

[psalmed]

"You can not keep biting people. They will put a label on you. Il mord. He bites." Lia laughed a bit however, softly. He felt feverish and she took a cup from nearby, making certain it was water before finding a spoon. She put the water to his lips, a spoonful at a time, to be certain he wasn't choking.

The orderly was glowering from the doorway. Lia frowned again, petting that unusual hair of his. "I will need a name to call you by since you still will not tell me yours."

It was only then she glanced down. Realized that the thin sheet was not concealing much. Of course. Men had urges like that, especially upon waking up. Aomine's pupils were still dilated, but at least she could rouse him to semi-consciousness. "I do not think you are feeling much better. But you gave them quite the struggle, so they say."

Lia should not have been proud. She was a bit horrified as well, however. She wanted him to have better care when she was not with him. "Will you speak to me without yelling?"