Introduction

Anyone can enter someone else's mind, with the right tools of course. Now why would someone want to enter someone else's mind? The answer is simple really, to fix them. Sometimes it's because of a reoccurring nightmare that hampers working or an annoying nervous tick. Then there are times that it's to help uncover a repressed memory or to help repress one.

Then there are a few, the ones who actually do the work. To be of sound mind means you can't enter another's. The mind is a very strange being. It is both collective and individual. And in that, to connect to one, you can connect to all. However, only those with mental issues can access the network. No one is sure why but it is speculated that once a mind is 'cured' it closes itself off to prevent further damage.

The people who do the 'cleaning up' aren't people who are 'insane' nor are they 'sane' either. They are generally people with suppressed mental issues that are too numerous or too uncomfortable for another person to handle. They train with a 'partner' until they are ready to take on their own issues.

At first, your partner is merely there to help you with your missions. By the time one is ready to 'fix' themselves, they are closely bonded both mentally and emotionally to their partner. Here the true importance of a partner comes in. The partner is there incase you should 'forget' your physical body in exchange for your mental. This could be not only disastrous but lethal. Only someone who knows your psyche as well as your partner would be able to bring you back.

But what does the second partner do when the first is finished? What happens if they stray? No one really knows. Somehow, the failure of one partner becomes the failure of the other. Failure means death on both of their accounts.

Very few people ever live through the process.

So why do something so dangerous?

AN: If you can't tell, this is an AU. All the partnerships have remained. There will be more information about the world and how things word in the next chapter. Totally inspired by the awesome game, Psychonauts. All of the mind-mentality thing was made up as I typed it and has no basis in any kind of fact, legend, or myth that I can think of. The next chapter contains some explicit material that might be cut out. Feel free to give your input on that. It will still be there, just implied instead of ya know, written out.

Also, if spiders freak you out, you might not want to read it..Eheh. I love spiders.