|
►
|
No.
14593
>>14558
continued!
(here there be porns)
-------
There was no such thing as silence in the asylum. Not even at night - no, especially not at night. The dark meant too many terrible things to too many people in here, and most of the inmates didn't go out of their way to suffer quietly. Over time, Edward had more or less gotten used to it. Enough to sleep through most of the noise, at least. But there was a marked difference between distant sounds and close ones, and the hard, shuddery breathing from the bunk below his tonight was more than a little distracting. When he'd ignored it for about as long as he could, he pushed himself up with a sigh, leaning over to peer down past the edge of the bed.
Jonathan lay atop the sheets, and even in the darkness of the room, Edward could make out the way he clung to them for dear life. He looked even more ungainly than usual, long and thin and taut; whatever they'd put him on had to be fraying his every nerve, and those nerves had never been entirely steady to start with. He usually did fine during the day, but nights were a different story. Still, even by those standards, he seemed especially bad right then.
They were friends, as much as anyone in that place was. And Edward wanted to get some sleep. He'd seen Jonathan through enough midnight paranoias to know how this worked by now, and so he was only mildly irritated as he climbed his way down and took a seat on the edge of the bed. Jonathan practically jumped, back hitting the wall, but seemed to calm a little when he realized who was there.
"Move over," Edward stated simply, and with Jonathan meekly complied. It had taken him some time to figure out how to calm his cellmate down, and it was still hit-or-miss, but he had a few good ideas by now. An arm went around his shoulders, and though he tensed as if ready to jerk away, Edward pulled him in and held the other man's body flush against his own.
"It's----no," Jonathan stammered vaguely, squirming; Edward only held him tighter in response, pressing Jonathan's head into his shoulder. Sure enough, he stopped fighting after a few moments like that, quieting back down to the shaky, breathless sounds he'd been making before. He was a mess, reminded Edward of some caged animal like this, all reflexes and fear.
"You're a doctor," he remarked, annoyance underscoring his words. "*You* could do a better job of medicating yourself, for god's sake."
Jonathan made a small, high noise that he didn't immediately recognize as a laugh.
"We-we're all patients here," he answered thinly, and Edward tried not to shiver, pulling Jonathan in a little closer. He felt warm, almost feverish - and that wasn't the only thing that caught his attention just then.
"Jonathan, are you---are you *hard*?"
"Side---side effect, I think," he mumbled, sounding plainly miserable. "My system, my nervous system is---I'm trying...I'm ignoring it," he finally managed, and Edward nodded, somewhat awkwardly patting his head.
"Have you gotten any sleep at all?" Now he was mostly just inventing conversation. He knew full well Jonathan hadn't slept, because *he* hadn't slept, but talking to him usually helped. Jonathan shook his head, lifting it just enough from Edward's shoulder to be audible, voice shaking against his neck.
"I don't---" A pause, clearing his throat, obviously trying his hardest to get through a sentence without sounding like a lunatic. He liked other people's fears; his own were something different, Edward had come to understand that much. "I don't want to," he finally stated, and Edward felt a spindly hand latch onto his shirt. "The things I see---"
"Dreams?"
Jonathan nodded, then shook his head, and Edward tried again.
"Nightmares?"
This time he just groaned, which Edward translated as 'yes', and pressed his head back into his shoulder. It felt rather like Jonathan was trying to disappear, to blend right into him. The persistent hardness pressing against his leg made that a little distracting, but if Jonathan was ignoring it, the least he could do was offer the same courtesy, and he bit back a sigh and smoothed a hand over his back. If whatever they'd dosed him with was enough to stimulate him so...thoroughly...then neither of them were going to get any sleep at this rate. Edward liked his sleep; he did his best not to mentally blame Jonathan for how the night was shaping up.
"They've been bad lately, then?" he murmured, more small talk to try and soothe Jonathan back down to reality. He liked to talk about the frightening things, he'd found - treated them like a home, safe and familiar. Edward didn't completely understand it, but he didn't need to.
"Bad," Jonathan echoed, fingers clenching in his cellmate's shirt. "Every time I, I close my eyes, they----the things I *see*," he said again, and again the tone of his voice chilled Edward to the bone.
"Tell me about them," he suggested. That was what the 'doctors' around here tried - great load of good it did them - and Jonathan looked up when he said it. His eyes were wide, tired-looking, and Edward nearly told him to forget about it before he ducked his head down again.
"Sometimes, the----the walls, and...the floor, the ceiling, it's all, it's all----made of things," he explained weakly, words muffled against Edward's shirt. "Invisible things, like ghosts, and I---" He stopped, shivered, and squirmed closer, the two of them entwined now; Edward cleared his throat and let him have the closeness, stifling any comments on the way Jonathan had just ground against his leg.
"And what?" he prompted, almost gently.
"I can see all of---all of it," Jonathan stammered, "but just me, and nobody else, but they're---they----" He trailed off with a choked little sound, pushing into Edward again, and that *couldn't* have been an accident, could it? This time, Edward didn't ask him to continue right away, trying to make sense of it. Reminding himself that this was Jonathan Crane, however, was also a reminder that there would be no making sense of this. He was visibly terrified, and he was rutting against Edward's leg, and the two weren't mutually exclusive at all.
"They frighten you," he murmured, sliding his hand away from Jonathan's hair and down the long angled lines of his body. He felt him jump when that hand carved out a space between them, cupping Jonathan's length through his pants, but after a moment he nodded and rocked against Edward's palm.
"S-sometimes, there's...there are shapes," he continued unsteadily, voice cracking a little. "Dark, like - they're birds," he amended, then nearly whimpered; Edward figured that was a good sign, somehow, and kept rubbing. "Crows, or---ravens, with---oh, *god*," he pleaded - to Edward or to the nightmares, he couldn't say. "With, with fangs, with claws, and...and..."
The more incoherent he got, the more insistently he pushed into Edward's hand, and when Jonathan trailed off again, he obligingly fumbled his way past the fabric of his pants, fingers finding skin. Jonathan nearly yelped.
"Tell me about the birds," he coaxed.
"They're---they're *everywhere*," Jonathan gasped out, almost a sob. "It's dark, because---because, their wings, they - it's all I can see, and they all come in closer and closer and oh god, oh *god*----they're going to---"
He never finished his sentence, because suddenly he was coming in Edward's hand, whole body shaking violently, fingers digging into his back, and the sounds he made could have been pleasure or terror. Or both. Edward saw him through it, letting him jerk and thrust and cry out till he slumped, spent, against him.
With Jonathan's still-trembling breaths warm against his neck, he drew back his hand and wiped it on the sheets, then shifted his shoulder to get a look at the other man's face. He looked...exhausted. Not frightened or tense, just completely spent. And true to that, his hand slowly loosened its white-knuckle grip on Edward's shirt, eventually going limp against his back.
Edward sighed. He couldn't very well be in Jonathan's bed come morning, or there'd be hell to pay. But there was no harm in staying there just a little longer, to be sure the drugs and nightmares were out of his system for now.
He moved his hand to Jonathan's back, fixed his gaze on the underside of the top bunk, and listened to the night.
--------
|
