Author's Note:
This is not 100% canon, it's not meant to be. It's just something I had thought of and wanted to write it down. Enjoy!
"Ruben Victoriano." The psychiatrist read the name out loud. He had looked over this particular patient's file several times. Dr. Lang was one of the best when it came to treating criminally insane patients; he had seen everything. Or, at least he thought he had, until today. He had just started working at the Bridgemont Sanitarium, it was his first week here and he was meeting all his new patients. The staff had warned him about "Ruvik", saying that he was unlike most the others.
Several of the patients he had already met didn't speak much, in fact, they just sat in the chair across from his desk and drooled, staring in to space. The Sanitarium used electroshock therapy and it, more often than not, left the patients as hollow shells. However, they never put Ruben through that particular kind of therapy. Dr. Lang was curious why.
A light knock echoed through his office and he got to his feet. "Come in." He called from behind his desk. A security guard opened the door and walked in, followed by a man in a white coat with a hood. His clothes were dirty and tattered. He wore no shirt under his open coat, and his pants weren't buttoned; they were also torn on both legs at the bottom, making them look like shorts. He didn't have any shoes on.
As strange as his clothes were, they weren't what stood out about Ruben's appearance. His pale white skin was badly burned all over his body. He had scars and sores that covered most of his face, down his neck, on to his chest, stomach, arms, and legs. He gave off a strange scent, a mixture of sterilizing medicines and blood. The doctor's stomach turned as he watched his patient enter the room. He had read his file and knew that he had been in a fire, but he wasn't prepared for this.
He took a deep, steadying breath and gestured to the chair across from his desk. "Mr. Victoriano, please, sit." The hooded man turned his attention to his doctor.
"Ruvik." His voice was deep and monotone, his words clear. The doctor nodded slightly, it had said in his file that he preferred that name.
"I'm Dr. Lang." The doctor introduced himself as Ruvik sat in the appointed chair. The three guards that had brought him to Lang's office all stood in the back of the room. Three guards? The doctor noticed that there was one too many, all the other patients only had two.
"Are you going to cure me, doctor?" Ruvik asked with the faintest of smiles playing on his burned lips.
"I think we both know that's not an option." He said seriously, his job wasn't to cure anyone. The men and women that were sent to Bridgemont Sanitarium were all clinically and criminally insane, destined to never join regular society again. "Ruvik, why don't you tell me about your childhood?" He suggested. Ruvik remained silent, he only stared at the doctor, his pale silver tinted eyes boring in to Lang's. "I've read about you in your file but I'd like to hear your story in your own words." He encouraged.
"Do you think I'm evil, doctor?" Ruvik asked with a tilt of his head, his eyes never leaving the doctor's.
"I think you are not well." Lang answered as he threaded his fingers together as he placed them in his lap. His chair squeaked as he sat back.
"Did you know the last doctor killed himself?" Ruvik questioned. Lang had heard that rumor. "Late one night, after he had relations with a female patient, he came back here and hung himself." Ruvik looked up at the ceiling, Dr. Lang followed his eyes to a wooden beam that stretched across the room. The ceiling was high, if he had hung himself he had to have put a chair on the desk to do so. Dr. Lang felt a chill spread through his body but ignored it. He had dealt with Ruvik's kind before, he knew that he was just trying to intimidate him.
"We're not here to discuss your previous doctor. We're here for you." He said, trying to make it sound like he actually cared about the insane bastard in front of him. Ruvik held his gaze for a moment, testing the doctor. Lang didn't look away.
"I never had any friends." Ruvik began. "I suppose I had always been…" He paused, looking for the right word. "Disturbed." He watched the doctors reaction, Lang didn't give him much to go on. He continued, "my sister was the only one that ever played with me. My parents didn't care and the other kids in town never came to my house, and I never went to theirs."
"You think your parents didn't care about you?" Dr. Lang clarified.
"I know they didn't." He watched as Lang scribbled a couple notes. "My parents were far wealthier than anyone in town. We lived in the biggest house and the townspeople resented us for it. My parents only associated with the highest caliber of men, and I was just a child. Foolish and annoying. To be seen and not heard." Ruvik's attention wavered and he stopped speaking, his eyes squinting as he looked out the window. It was a beautifully sunny day, it looked warm and inviting. Ruvik looked back to the doctor, a frown on his face. "It's too bright." He said with a scowl.
Lang waved a hand towards the window while he locked eyes with one of the guards. The man walked over and shut the blinds, engulfing the room in darkness. It took a moment for Dr. Lang's eyes to focus, but as he looked at the man sitting across from him, he was sure he saw a sinister smile. He clicked on the lamp that stood next to his desk, his eyes never leaving Ruvik's face. The room was lit with a warm but dull, yellow glow, Ruvik's expression was blank. Lang shuddered unconsciously.
"Laura was the only one that liked me." Ruvik continued as if he hadn't stopped speaking. "She would play with me from sunrise to sunset, and then some." Dr. Lang watched to see if he could find any traces of emotion on Ruvik's face, but if he felt any, he hid them well. "But you're not interested in that." He said with a glint in his eye. The doctor was about to contradict him but Ruvik continued speaking before he could. "You want to know about my obsession." Ruvik paused and Lang nodded.
"Whatever you want to talk about."
"I don't want to talk about any of it." He informed the doctor. "But if I don't, I get punished for bad behavior." He paused for a moment, then began again. "They tell me I have an obsessive personality. I crave knowledge." He admitted. "Once my mind is set on something I pursue it thoroughly. My biggest obsession is the human brain." He paused again, taking a deep breath before speaking. "I would spend hours, locked away in my room, reading everything I could about how human brains work. But it wasn't enough, I needed to see it for myself."
"I started with a chicken that I had stolen from a farm in town. It was still alive when I cracked its skull open. It had a tiny brain, so small that it was hardly worth looking at. A couple nights later I stole a cat. For months I would sneak out and find some kind of animal that I could open up and study. That's when the townspeople started to talk." Ruvik rubbed his covered arm and winced slightly at the pain. His wounds were always bothering him, every movement made them rub against his coat, causing them to itch, terribly, but whenever he went to scratch, it always caused more pain than the itch.
"What did they talk about?" Lang asked, hoping to keep Ruvik speaking.
"About the psycho that was decapitating their livestock." Ruvik's mouth turned upwards in to a slight smile. "One night, the farmer's wife saw me chop the head off a pig. The following morning her husband paid my parents a visit. He told them that I was murdering his livestock and he demanded I stop. Of course, he also wanted compensation. My parents denied it, claimed I was innocent and sent the man away."
"Did he ever come back?"
"Eventually. But not to my parents. I'll get to that in a moment." Ruvik promised as he continued his story. "After the farmer had accused me of those crimes, my parents started watching me closely, for the first time in my life. They began giving me piano lessons to distract me from my unhealthy obsession with biology. It never worked, my thirst for knowledge wasn't quenched." Ruvik met the doctor's eyes and held his gaze. "It still isn't."
Dr. Lang wrote a couple more notes on the notepad he was holding. OCD, sadistic tendencies, sociopath. The doctor looked up from his notes, Ruvik was watching him. "Please, continue." He encouraged and Ruvik breathed an impatient sigh.
"I stayed away from the farm for a while, I didn't want to get caught. My days were spent focusing on my piano lessons, my nights on lobotomies." He tapped his cheek just below his eye with a burnt finger. "But one day, Laura and I ventured outside to an old barn in the middle of a sunflower field. We played inside for hours. We'd climb a ladder to the second floor and jump down in to a pile of straw. We pretended that we were captives on a pirate ship, being forced to walk the plank." His gaze dropped to his lap and he fell silent.
Dr. Lang waited for him to continue. He had heard that Ruvik was a difficult patient but it seemed he was quite the opposite. He had been very forth coming with his story and Dr. Lang didn't want to upset him so he held his tongue, patiently waiting.
"The townspeople barricaded us inside as they lit the barn on fire. They threw flaming bottles in to the windows and everything burned so quickly." Ruvik continued, his eyes and head still lowered. "The heat was nauseating and the air was thick, we coughed and choked, the smoke filling our lungs. Laura kept her head, much better than I did. She led me to a window and boosted me out. She pushed me through the flames and out of the barn. I fell to the ground and rolled to put the flames out. My entire body hurt but I knew I had to get away."
Ruvik stopped speaking again, his brow furrowing in anger. Dr. Lang noted his behavior as Ruvik continued, "I hid in the sunflower field and waited for my sister to climb out the window. I could hear her screaming, crying desperately as the barn burned and collapsed around her. And then, suddenly, her screams stopped. Her silence was worse than her screams. I knew then that I would never see her again." Ruvik raised his head and looked squarely at the doctor. "I tried my best to make it home but the fire had burned me and the smoke filled my lungs. I didn't make it far before I collapsed. The last thing I remember was seeing the sunflowers burning around me."
Another long silence fell upon the room. Ruvik seemed to be battling with his emotions as his face contorted from anger to despair and back to anger. Lang scribbled his notes quickly while he observed the man across from him, he didn't want to miss anything.
"My parents locked me away in their home, claiming that I had died with Laura in the fire. I felt like I had. I'm sure a part of me did die that day." He locked eyes with Lang. "The part of me that cared about anyone but myself." Lang held his gaze, determined not to lose against Ruvik's staring contest. Finally, Ruvik looked away and Lang almost breathed a sigh of relief, but he stopped himself before he did.
"My father tended my burns for a while, then eventually brought in a doctor that had taken an oath of secrecy, my existence couldn't be known. I grew up in almost complete solitude, my only interactions were with my father and the doctor. I don't think my mother was even aware that I was still alive." He gave a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders and took a deep breath before speaking. "Eventually I continued my research. When I was able to move around on my own I started sneaking back in to town to get more test subjects. I stole several more pigs before the farmer caught me. It was extremely dark that night and I didn't even notice him approaching. He had a shovel in his hands and a horrified look on his face when he saw it was me."
Ruvik smiled at the thought of the terror in the farmer's eyes. "He was certain that his little barn fire had killed me, but there I was, bound from head to toe in bandages, covered in pig's blood." The doctor watched as Ruvik's smile grew, a cold sweat coming over him. "It had been a couple years and I was a lot bigger than I was before. He hesitated, but I didn't. I slit his throat before he realized I was holding a knife. The look in his eyes was… refreshing." Ruvik inhaled deeply through his nose. "After what he did to Laura, I never even considered that killing him was a bad thing.
"I cut his head off and took it home. I didn't bother with the pig, I had something better. That first crack with the mallet, his skull fracturing, was music to my ears. Sweeter than anything I could play on the piano." Ruvik smiled like the thought was comforting. "I poked and prodded his brain for hours, until my father came. He was horrified to see what I had done. He locked me in my room and left me there with no food and no one to change my soiled bandages. After a week I finally broke my way out. It was late at night and the mansion was dark. I made my way to my parents' bedroom…"
He stopped talking, glanced at the wall clock and sighed. "Anyway, I killed them. It was very satisfying." He said hurriedly. Lang looked at the clock too, he only had a couple minutes left with Ruvik. Silently, he thanked God. He didn't know how much longer he could bear to be in the same room as the burned man in front of him.
"Rube—Ruvik, I'll stop you there. Thank you for your cooperation." The doctor stood and the guards stepped forward. "I look forward to meeting with you again." He said as the three security guards guided Ruvik out of the room. Once the door closed behind them and the doctor was alone he let out the breath he had been holding. A shiver went down his spine and he hurried to open the blinds and let the sun shine in, the room suddenly felt very cold. He stared at the beautiful scene outside of the window for a moment, trying to collect his thoughts and calm his nerves.
There was something so unsettling about the way Ruvik spoke. He spoke of such atrocities with a zen-like calmness that made every hair on Lang's arms stand straight up. He shook his head vigorously before turning his back to the window. His eyes widened in horror as he saw a message written in blood along the side of his desk where Ruvik had been sitting. It read: "You're mine."
The doctor never met with Ruvik again. Later, it was heard, that after quitting the very next day, he had driven his car off the side of a cliff, dying instantly upon impact. His head was found, severed from his body, a few feet away.