Warning: This story contains extremely serious matters pertaining to depression, self harm, and suicidal topics. In no way shape or form is the topic being exploited and should not be taken lightly. However, if you cannot handle these sorts of themes, I please urge you not to read as this meant to be a light story, but that does not mean there won't be light parts to it as this is after all BTR verse.
Author's Notes: Alright, so I am finally posting my first BTR story. Now, I have been writing fanfiction for years, however, I haven't posted anything in quite some time, and this is my first break out piece for the BTR genre. And as far as first pieces go, I know this is a pretty heavy one to start with. Now, I want you all to understand that sometimes my pieces are dark and serious and other times they are light and fluffy. If anything they will always contain slash and mature themes. That is probably the only constant I will ever have. Also, this story is AU if you can't tell from the description and so the characters might be a little OOC.
Oh, and just so you know, I don't really know how to work on one story at a time, so if I don't update your favorite in a while, check out my page, I've probably been working on something new or old, depending on when you read this.
Anyway, on that note, thank you for taking the time to read this first chapter and I hope you like it. Review if you do.
Lonely: the word itself was characterized by the feeling of being alone. As if the word didn't seem depressing enough, there were times when Logan would look at the word and just see a big gaping, black hole of nothingness with no end. He hated the word. Not only because it was just a dark word, but because it was the very word that described every day of his life; unfortunately, that was just how it was, and in seventeen years, he had never known another feeling.
Logan's father was a renowned brain surgeon who was constantly traveling the country, with the occasional international trip, to give lectures or attend conventions, and thus he was rarely, if ever at home. And a part of Logan wondered if his father only visited on major holiday's – not including Logan's birthday – was because of him since his mother had died because of complications after giving birth to him. He had never known the woman, and he believed that her death was partially his fault, and for that reason, he never really knew his dad either.
Obviously, growing up, his dad had been around a bit more frequently, as he wasn't quite as well known back then, because he worked at the nearest major hospital, but Logan was still left with a nanny growing up. That woman had only been the constant thing in his life until his father felt that he was old enough to take care of himself, which for Logan, had been around age nine.
Since then he had walked himself to school, walked himself home, made sure he got his homework done, and made himself dinner. In just about any other parents' eyes, that was no way for a child to grow up. But Logan never complained. He remained silent whenever his father would be there for short periods, never protesting to a single trip or cancellation of plans that Logan had set up for the two of them. By the time he was twelve, Logan stopped trying to get his father to stick around; he had slowly become bitter towards the man, despite his constant attempts to impress him, and had decided that he was better off alone.
Recently however, the isolation of loneliness had begun to weigh on him. He was seventeen and rarely if ever left the house; if he did, it was for trips to the grocery store. Yes, Logan had gone to school, but nobody ever wanted to be his friend. He was the weird, quiet, nerdy kid that people would merely glance at and then not bother a second thought towards him. It was even that way with his teachers even though he got the highest grades in every class. At sixteen, he resorted to getting his G.E.D. and left behind the restricting confines of high school.
But Logan was seventeen, turning eighteen soon, and he had yet to apply to any colleges. It wasn't that he didn't think he would get into any of them, but he was just, in all honesty, scared. Any college worth going to was far from Minnesota, far from the home that he had gotten so attached to, that he felt so safe inside because there was no one here to ignore him, here, he could believe that he was truly alone in the universe, and it was here that he could believe the lie that it was him that rejected the world, not the other way around.
That was no way for anyone to live, and Logan realized that one rainy night about three months before his eighteenth birthday. When that realization came about, he decided to change that fact; unfortunately for him, his father had chosen that night to make a spontaneous visit to see his son, thus ensuring that his son's plan was instantly derailed.
The first thing that Logan became consciously aware of was the consistent beeping off to his side, soon followed by the fluorescent lights pressing against his eyelids. He groaned slightly as he slowly opened his eyes, trying to figure out where he was. Logan noted that he was lying in a rather stiff bed, and everything surrounding seemed unnaturally white, yet at the same time, unnaturally mellow.
It took a few more moments for the almost eighteen year old to realize that he was lying in a hospital bed. His first initial reaction was panic which caused him to shoot up from the bed wildly looking around. There was no one in the; there was no one there to explain to him what had happened. The last thing he remembered…
Logan looked down at his wrists and surely enough soft white bandages were wound tightly around them. A small, choked sound sputtered from Logan's mouth at the thought of the jagged cuts that lay beneath them. No, no, this was wrong. He wasn't supposed to be here, he wasn't supposed to be alive. What had happened?
As if to answer him, the door to his room opened and in walked a woman who appeared to be in her late twenties or early thirties. "Ah, good, Mr. Mitchell, you're awake," she said, giving him a bright smile.
The brunette let out an irritated huff. Was this woman delusional? It had to be clear what had happened to get him here so wouldn't she realize that the last thing he would find good in this world was being awake? However, it wasn't in Logan's nature to be snappy and so he kept his mouth shut and looked at her. She seemed to sense his frustration though.
"Okay, well I think it's good that you're awake, and hopefully, you'll agree with me on that matter soon enough. My name is Dr. Kelly Wainwright, and you are my newest patient. I'm going to fill you because I'm sure you have a lot of questions. Around eight o'clock last night you were rushed into the ER, after a 911 call from your father, with severe blood loss from both of your wrists. Obviously you were stabilized, and your recovery was monitored throughout the night. It is about four in the afternoon now."
Dr. Wainwright looked at him, her expression hiding whatever she might have been thinking as she waited for any sort of reaction from Logan. However, he merely raised one hand and rubbed at his eyes. "Is my dad still here," he asked in a tired voice.
The doctor bit her lip and shook her head, "unfortunately, he left a few hours ago. Your father had a flight to catch." Logan could hear the slight bitter tone in her voice, "however, he has given us clear instructions on what he wants, and his permission when we feel to be released."
Logan sighed, knowing that this would be the first of many, "and what instructions did my father give exactly?"
This time the doctor allowed a small ounce of worry to pass through her expression. "That's where it gets a bit tricky. Your father has expressed that he wants you to participate in some sort of rehabilitation. However, Mr. Mitchell doesn't want you in any sort of center or hospital psych. However, as your doctor, I advised him that you needed to be under constant surveillance for at least a month."
"At least a month," Logan interrupted, his voice unusually loud for him, "that's ridiculous. Can't you just keep under watch here for a couple of days and let me go?"
"Mr. Mitchell," Dr. Wainwright started, "do you understand the severity of what you did? You attempted to take your own life. We need to make sure that you're okay before we leave you alone." And sensing that Logan was going to protest once more, she quickly continued speaking. "As per your father's request, you will held here for a few days, and when you are released, someone will accompany you home and will live with you for a month to monitor your behavior. When that month is up, your file will be reviewed and then it will be decided whether you truly to go into a rehabilitation center or if you're stable enough to function on your own all you'll have to do is attend weekly sessions with a psychiatrist for whatever amount of time is needed."
Logan blinked a few times. What in the world was this woman saying? That some stranger was going to be living with him 24/7 for a month? The last thing he wanted was for some person, probably a creepy old guy, to come into his home and stare at him like a monkey in a zoo waiting for him to fling poop. "No," was all he could muster.
Dr. Wainwright sighed, "I was afraid of that. But it is the agreement that the hospital and your father have reached. And since you are still a minor, the law gives you no choice."
"So someone," Logan said, echoing her word, "is going to come live me with to make sure that I don't go off the edge again?" The doctor nodded her response to the question. "Why don't you just put a whole bunch of cameras in my house? Make a reality show out of it! You're taking away my privacy! My rights!"
"You gave up your rights when you tried to give up your life," she told him, her voice stern and the look on her face silencing the teen. Most doctors didn't speak that way to their patients, but most doctors were not Kelly Wainwright. All she wanted to do was help him, and because she could tell he was stubborn, bedside manner wasn't going to cut it.
Two days, Logan spent in the hospital with his only visitors being his doctor and a few different nurses. He was rather uncooperative over those days as he was not at all happy with the situation going on. And when he had tried to talk to his father over the phone, the man had merely told Logan that the stunt he pulled was not going to be taken lightly and that was that. The other thing that peeved Logan was that Dr. Wainwright had explained to him that they were actually a bit short staffed in the psych department at the hospital and so part of his stay there was because they were in search of someone they felt would be suitable enough for the month long stay. It was halfway through the second day when Logan was informed that someone had been found and the next morning he would be allowed to go home. He wasn't excited.
Logan spent most of the night before tossing and turning, trying to contemplate what it would be like to physically live with someone for a month. The last time he had anyone stay in the house with him longer than five days had been when he was thirteen and his father had been at a conference here in Minnesota, and even then, he had only been there for short periods of the day. Logan was going to have to adjust to an entirely new way of life.
Things didn't look better in the morning when a wheelchair was wheeled into his room. However, Logan was quickly distracted from the wheelchair by the person clutching onto the handles. He was tall and blonde, and even from across the room, the brunette could see how green his eyes were. Now, Logan had long ago determined that he was into guys after watching Titanic one night when he was fifteen and wishing that he had been in the backseat of that car instead of Rose. However, whoever this guy was, Leonardo DiCaprio definitely paled in comparison.
The nurse or the orderly, or whoever this new guy was, must have realized that Logan was staring at him because a strange look passed over his face. "What is it? Do I have a milk mustache or something from breakfast?"
Logan let out a strange and nervous chuckle which caused the guy to beam. "Well, you can laugh. That's a start. But really…do I have something on my face?"
"N-no," Logan said, stumbling over the single word, watching, still mesmerized, as they guy's face relaxed.
"Awesome, now, I'm going to unhook you from all of these creepy machines and you're going to hop into this chair for me and we'll head down to the car that's waiting for you."
That sentence seemed to bring the teenager slamming back into reality because he snorted. "I don't need a chair. I can walk."
The blonde shrugged as he moved to the brunette to take him off of the machines. "Doesn't matter; it is hospital policy for you to be wheeled around until you are out the front door."
Logan folded his arms across his chest stubbornly, not caring that he was acting like he was five. "Well that's a stupid policy. I can walk myself out of here."
Opening his mouth, a firm crease in the blonde's forehead, he went to challenge when Dr. Wainwright walked in to check on her patient before she left. "Kelly, will you please tell him that he has to get in the stupid wheelchair."
The woman sighed, "how many times do I have to tell you Kendall, when you're here, its Dr. Wainwright. This internship was a favor; don't make me regret it." At that, she turned to Logan, "and you do have to get in the wheelchair. I'm sorry. It's just until Kendall gets you to the car so that the two of you can head home."
Logan sighed, but then paused at realizing what his doctor had just said. "Wait, the two of us?"
Kendall raised a finger, "did I forget to explain that part?"
Dr. Wainwright groaned and smacked the blonde on the back of the head, "yes, you did. Logan, this is Kendall Knight, he's a first year grad student in psychology, and he's an intern here. …He's also the only person we could spare to take care of you for the next month."
He stared. There was no way this was right. "You cannot be serious."
"He meets your father's qualifications," she said with a slightly apologetic shrug, "and he's willing. And we figured that you'd be more comfortable with someone your own age. This will work out, I promise. Now get in the chair."
Still a little stunned, Logan finally seceded and climbed out of the bed and into the chair. "Do I at least get to change clothes?"
"Nope," Kendall said as he made sure that the boy was secure in the chair, "you can't wear what you came here in because it's all bloody."
"Kendall," Dr. Wainwright snapped sharply, "sensitivity; we talked about this."
The blonde sighed and grumbled something inaudible before steering Logan out the door. Logan meanwhile had to keep from grumbling to himself as he felt like an invalid being wheeled out of the hospital by someone that was basically going to play babysitter to him for a month. A slow, agonizing death was exactly the opposite of what Logan had wanted, and it seemed as if these next four weeks were going to be exactly that.