Marin Author Pairing Rating Subject

Institutionalized Part 4

Maybe he'll start talking to me more...

~~~~~~~~~~~

As I sit on my bed, idly twiddling my thumbs, I must grant myself one thing: Time out is not as bad as seclusion. Time out is spent in your room, a place that's familiar and not claustrophobically small, even if it is a tiny cell-like room with one window.

I'm in there for, I'm guessing, ten or fifteen minutes before Heero opens my door. He tells me I can leave now. I shrug and continue twiddling my thumbs. I don't really feel like leaving this room, now that I'm used to it. I'm beginning to like the silence of being alone.

Out of my room, people are everywhere I turn. They're constantly moving around and talking and the walls are a sickly off-white color that starts to get on your nerves when you look too closely at it. Perhaps I'm going stir crazy, cabin fever, although it's a little early for that. It's only my second day here. Or is it my third? Keeping track of time is already becoming a difficulty.

Heero sits down on his bed across from me and our gazes lock. He looks as if he's expecting something. Probably expecting me to chatter like my usual self. Unfortunately, I don't feel like my usual self, and I don't feel like talking much. That's a first for me.

I think this place is slowly getting to me. Being in here reminds you that you've got problems. All I ever think to myself anymore is 'You're crazy! That's why you're locked up!' It's a neverending affirmation to me. It's become my mantra. Being around crazy people, it rubs off on you, and I'm beginning to wonder if maybe I'm becoming just as crazy as all those other patients out there. Or maybe I'm just beginning to show my true self; what it's really like inside my head.

It takes me a moment to realize that Heero is now sitting next to me on my bed. I must have been too caught up in my thoughts to notice. He's staring at me. His eyes are such a wonderfully dark blue. I've never really paid much attention to eye color before I met Heero. I begin to feel uncomfortable under the weight of his stare, but I still don't feel like breaking the silence.

"Why did you do that?" Simple enough question, yet the answer is so difficult to conjure up.

"I don't know." I shrug, "I guess I just didn't want him to punch you. It didn't hurt too bad. No need to thank me or anything." I hadn't meant for that to come out like that, or for it to sound so sarcastic. I feel like shit immediately afterwards, and he seems to be sneering at my attitude.

"Hn. It wouldn't have hurt me, either. I stopped feeling pain years ago." This guy's getting weirder by the minute. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy to lie, but I'm always willing to call someone's bluff.

"Bullshit. Everyone feels pain."

"Not me." I expect him to start sneering or laughing anytime soon, but not the slightest hint of emotion crosses his face. Maybe he's serious.

"Prove it." Ha, got him there. There is no way to prove it in here. There's no way we can hurt ourselves. They don't give us the chance.

He shrugs in a very nonchalant way, as if to shrug off the very weight of my immature idea. "Ninmu Ryoukai."

Mission accepted, my ass. What is this guy playing at? He gets up from my bed and exits the room. I follow him down the hall and into the living room.

A few people are sitting around drinking the cheap coffee that tastes like mud. You can only have the coffee if you're seventeen or older. If you're eighteen, you can smoke in the living room. They're not too health-conscious here. There's one girl sitting alone in a corner, curled up on the small, orange sofa, sipping her lukewarm coffee and smoking a ragged cigarette with a long trail of ashes at the tip.

Heero walks over to stand in front of the girl, who doesn't even acknowledge our presence. He grabs the cigarette out of her hand and tips the ashes off into the ashtray resting on the girl's knee. She stares at him like he's crazy, but doesn't offer up a protest.

Heero turns and faces me, looking very serious. He takes a drag on the cigarette and exhales the smoke, forming rings in the air that rise and drift off into nothingness. He then does something very disgusting, and very unexpected. He holds his arm out, palm up, and stabs the cigarette into the flesh of his wrist. I sneer as the scent of burning skin reaches my nose. I can hear the sizzling of the cigarette tip as it burns his wrist.

I look up at Heero's face, searching for any sign of distress, yet there is none, and I find myself totally freaked out by this fact. "What the hell is wrong with you!? What are you, some kind of sociopath?" I slap the cigarette away from his wrist and it goes skidding along the floor.

Heero begins to glare at me, and I can feel myself wanting to back away, but I stand my ground proudly. "You told me to prove that I feel no pain."

"Well, why the fuck did you take me so literally? I didn't tell you to set yourself on fire, you damn freak!" That was a mistake. I really shouldn't have said that. I can see it in Heero's eyes, which are steadily beginning to flame with rage. I have the worst feeling I'm about to die.

"Heero Yuy. Did you just put a cigarette out on your arm?" I turn to see a plump-looking nurse in the doorway. Next to her is a short little boy with glasses. He looks about twelve years old, although he must be at least fourteen to be here with the adolesents. Normally, I'd be angry that he'd just tattled on us, but I find myself silently thanking him, because he may have just prevented my murder.

Heero nods very seriously at the nurse, but refuses to take his glare off of me.

The nurse flings her husky arms up into the air, exasperated. "You see!? This is why we shouldn't allow smoking on the adolesent's unit! Come with me, and let's put some ice on it. Then you're going for a time out."

Heero sneers at the nurse. "I don't need ice." He follows the nurse out into the hallway, and I can feel a great weight lifted from my shoulders when the door wheezes and clicks shut behind him.

The girl on the couch next to me is lighting another cigarette, and the smell of it is making me nausious. I leave the living room and head over to the tv room, hoping that by the time Heero's released from time out, he's calmed down a bit and no longer wants to kill me.

~~~~~~~~~

Qautre and Trowa are sitting in front of the tv, completely absorbed in the news telecast being shown. They rarely let us watch anything in here besides news and nature shows. It gets boring.

I stand in front of the tv and flick it off. Quatre raises his eyebrows at me and Trowa seems completely uninterested. "Don't you guys ever get bored doing nothing?"

They stare at me. I stare back. After about five minutes, of staring, when I feel I can no longer stand still in front of these zombies, I leave the room. On my way out, I hear Qautre comment, "He's weird."

Yeah right! Like *I'm* the weird one! Just because I'd rather do something than allow myself to turn into a zombie in front of the tv.

~~~~~~~~~~~

As I walk back and forth in the living room and peer over a few shoulders to eye the different games people are playing, a nurse enters the room carrying a tray. She stops at each table and hands each patient a small cup with a pill or two in it and a cup of water. I try to ignore this. I'd rather not watch as they dope up all of my fellow patients. I'd like to ignore it forever, but the nurse chooses to stop in front of me and hold out a cup with a small blue pill clicking about inside it.

"What's this?" I stare up at her like she's the crazy one in the group. Like I'm really going to take this shit of my own free will.

"Antidepressant." I was diagnosed wtih depression, yes, but I had no idea they were going to start me on some medication without my telling me. I take the cup and tilt my head back. The pill goes clinking down into my mouth and I take a couple sips of water.

The nurse smiles at me, takes my cups, and walks away. After she's moved on to the next patient, I reach into my mouth and take the pill out from under my tongue. I palm it as I walk to the bathroom and toss it into the toilet.

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