Hi! So I just finished writing Lord of Lost Causes so I'm trying out a few new story ideas. I'm not sure if I'm going to continue this. I'm going to see which ones I like of the three ideas I have. So this may be a one-shot but it could also develop into a full blown story!
Summary: Grand Line home for the criminally insane is a new mental institution for a unique kind of crazy. When it receives some new patient's things start to get a little hectic. Especially considering Luffy, a hyperactive schizophrenic, inexplicably knows everyone's name without ever meeting them. He claims he knows them from a past life, but that's impossible. Right? Is he really crazy or is there more going on here?
"Two new patients?" Shanks asked.
His new boss Smoker nodded, "Brothers, their a real piece of work. The older one is suspected for fifteen different counts of arson, many resulting in death and injury."
Shanks winced, that sounded pretty bad. "And the other one?"
"Luffy? He's still a minor, but he's already got multiple counts of street brawling, shoplifting and assault.
"Sounds like they should be in juvie and jail, not a mental institution." He pointed out
Smoker shrugged, "It's not that simple, on top of being a pyromaniac the older one is most likely suicidal, while the younger one is schizophrenic. One of the worst cases I've seen too. If I'm speaking honestly their both a mess."
"Is it really that bad?"
"See for yourself, you're evaluating them." Smoker said moving aside so Shanks could pass.
Shanks frowned nervously, but for the most part kept his mouth shut as they unlatched the door. Two orderlies followed him inside, sticking close to the walls.
Two boys, both with black hair sat on the single bed, the only one in the room. They didn't so much as look up as he entered.
Unsure how to continue he sat down on the lone chair, near the doorway. "Hi boys," He greeted, forcing his usual smile to replace the unsure frown he had been wearing up until that point. "My name is Shanks, I will be your new doctor."
At the mention of his name the younger one looked up, his eyes huge and brimming with unshed tears.
"Shanks?"
The man nodded unsure of what had brought on the reaction.
In a flash the younger boy leapt at him, reaching out for any kind of contact. He must have forgotten the chain on his ankle as he tumbled down to the hard ground, landing ungracefully on his stomach. Still, he struggled to reach the older man, thrashing about, trying to get free. The older boy called out to him but his concern fell on deaf ears.
"Shanks," The kid called to him, "Please."
His tone was so full of sadness it made his chest ache. But there was nothing he could do for the kid. Smoker was right, he really was crazy. He watched helplessly as the orderlies rushed to the fallen kid, pinning him in place so they could inject him with a sedative.
The entire time the older boy screamed at them to stop. He tried to fight them off but that only resulted in getting pinned to the bed.
"Leave Luffy alone!" He screamed as he helplessly watched his younger brother get dragged out of the room. When it became clear he could do nothing to save his younger brother his gaze quickly turned to the red haired man.
"This is your fault." He said coldly.
…
"And that's how my first day went!" Shanks said as he slumped down in his seat. His coffee sat beside him on the table untouched. It was probably cold by now.
"Sounds rough," The blond said.
Shanks nodded glumly, "You have no idea."
A few seconds passed in awkward silence as he looked up at the blond haired boy. "Who are you again?"
He rolled his eyes, "Sabo, my name's Sabo. I'm your new intern."
"I don't need an intern I need a therapist."
"Well, don't hold your breath. I heard that therapists are something of a rarity in mental institutes."
Shanks looked up at the boy frowning. He couldn't be older then collage age. "You're a sarcastic one aren't you?"
Sabo shrugged, "It passes the time." He said simply. "And until you get a proper therapist, Dr. Shanks, you're stuck with me."
He felt the corners of his mouth creeping up into a smile. He sort of liked this kid, which meant he was going to be inhumanly cruel to him and see what happened.
"Well, if you're so eager to help out how about you go do the morning checkup for the two of them? Spread your worldly wisdom around a bit more."
"Wow, your too kind," He said dryly, "and this wouldn't have anything to do with the older one scaring you?"
"Why of course not my dear underling, how dare you accuse me of such?" Shanks said, fake shock in his eyes. "Can't you see all this paperwork I have to do?"
Sabo looked at him in disbelief, "You're doing a cross word."
"Yes, I know, maybe you can help me? What's a five letter word for get out?"
"Leave." Sabo supplied helpfully as he ducked out of the room before the man could throw something at him.
In the privacy of his office Shanks smiled, he definitely liked the kid. He had spunk.
"Aw, teasing children, one of the joys of life."
Well his first day of interning was going great. A whole thirty minutes in and his boss had already delegated his workload to him. Swell.
Now he got to go see a kid who apparently scared the crap out of a grown man, this was bound to be fun. Sabo probably should be a little more intimidated, after all this kid had murdered people. His file said he burned them to a crisp. But despite his cushioned upbringing Sabo had definitely been involved in some crap in his short life. He had seen things that made adults uncomfortable. 'Street wise' as they liked to call it. So he was pretty sure he could handle two kids. And if he couldn't he had mace and a switch blade in his back pocket… yea he was street wise all right.
He knocked on the heavy metal door, waiting for a reply. When he got none he unlocked it, carefully slipping inside.
The room was practically barren, except for a chair, desk and a bed. The younger boy on the bed didn't so much as flinch as Sabo came in. The older one, Ace, was at the desk at the time. However upon Sabo's arrival he quickly crossed the room to sit on the bed.
"Hey!" He greeted brightly, unsure of what else to do.
The boy raised an eyebrow questioningly at him but remained silent.
Taking that as a good sign Sabo edged closer to the two of them. "My names Sabo, I'm that hungover red haired guys Intern. Or …sort of his slave the more I think about it."
That earned him a small grin of amusement from Ace, but it was quickly replaced by mistrust. "Aren't you supposed to be accompanied by orderlies?"
Sabo shrugged, "Probably, I wasn't really listening at orientation."
"Well that's comforting," Ace said dryly, "Was their no informational pamphlet?" His voice dripped with sarcasm which Sabo ignored.
"Hey, I skimmed it." He protested, "It was really long though. Like six pages."
Ace raised his eyebrow again.
"And really tiny print," Sabo continued, using his fingers to show him just how tiny that print was.
Ace smirked as he leaned back on the bed, finally relaxing a little bit.
The gesture was hauntingly familiar for some reason. It made Sabo inexplicably sad. Which was unusual for him as it took a lot for something to bother him at all, let alone to this degree.
"Do I know you from somewhere?"
Ace shrugged, "Now you're sounding like Luffy."
"Who?"
Ace gestured to the sleeping boy below him. Sabo realized in horror that he was covered in bandages.
"What happened to him?"
"Your boss," Ace said with a cold look. Whatever humor he had from their previous reaction was gone in a flash. He was once again the angry boy who scared Shanks.
Sabo chewed his lip unsure what to say next. This was backwards progress.
"He did this?"
Ace shook his head, "Luffy saw him and had a fit. It took the doctors hours to calm him down."
"Plus a freaking baseball bat, was that really necessary?"
Ace smirked once again, "They say he got out of control. That he was going to hurt somebody if they didn't stop him."
"And what do you say?"
He watched as Ace's grin twisted into a mischievous smirk, "I'm crazy remember, you shouldn't listen to what I say."
"Well, according to my schedule I've got to check on you and your brother every hour every day for the foreseeable future so you better say something or this is going to get awkward quickly."
"Oh don't worry," Ace said grinning darkly, "Luffy will do the talking for the both of us, he is quite the little chatterbox when you get him going."
"Well theirs something to look forward to," Sabo said sarcastically, "If he doesn't attack me that is."
To his surprise Ace actually laughed, "Yea right, he's not the one that attacks people, you're getting him confused with me."
It was his turn to be confused now, "but he tried…with Shanks."
"No, he was trying to hug him, there's a big difference. Trust me you'll know when he's about to attack someone."
"Hug him? Why?" Sabo asked still confused. "Does he know him somehow?"
Ace shrugged noncommittally, "who knows. He claims he does, but then again he is Schizophrenic so not everything he says can be taken at face value."
"Is that so Mr. I-burnt-a-building down."
"Ha look at you actually reading our patient files, and here I was starting to think you were unqualified."
"Well, it was only three pages," Sabo said as he walked back across the room to the door. "And it had pictures."
He hesitated with his hand on the knob, "see you in an hour." He wasn't expecting a reply so he was surprised when he got one.
"Yea, sure." Ace told him, his gaze had already shifted back to his brother.
Sabo smirked as he left the room. That wasn't as bad as he thought it would be.
Zoro was NOT having a good day. He doubted it was about to improve. He leaned back in his chair regarding the man in front of him wearily. Smoker, that's what he had said his name was.
"For the last time I'm not crazy."
"You got into a street brawl," A girl with dark hair and glasses said. She had been introduced as his secretary, her name was Tashi or something like that. Zoro wasn't really listening.
"So?" He challenged them.
"With actual swords? Three of them, you looked ridiculous."
"So put me in prison, but for the last time I'm not crazy."
The girl was about to say something but Smoker put up a silencing hand. "Usually I would agree with you. Despite the swords you don't seem all that quacked to me. That being said you failed the psych evaluation, pretty badly from the sounds of it. It's an order from the higher ups, for the time being you're not going anywhere."
"On what grounds? Bringing swords to a gun fight?" Zoro cried in outrage.
"Dissociative Amnesia," Tashigi said, "You start to wonder off and the next thing you know you come to and have no idea where you are. This coupled with your violent tendencies and attempts to maul people with swords it is more than enough for us to keep you here."
He opened his mouth to protest but closed it again, it wouldn't do any good. They seemed pretty convinced. Who would have thought that his knack for getting lost would get him put in an institution? Honestly jail was looking pretty good right now.
Sabo sighed as he pulled off his scrubs, changing them out for street clothes. He threw them into his locker slamming the door roughly. It had been a long day, although not as bad as he thought it would be. He was a little excited to see what tomorrow would bring, even though most of that excitement was actually well concealed fear.
In all honesty this wasn't exactly how he wanted to be spending his free time. He had done it, in large part, as an attempt to escape from under his families thumb. It had been a small act of defiance but it had earned him a week locked in his room, which he of course escaped from. Still though, even small victories counted. Maybe his family would finally give up on him. Why they hadn't yet was a mystery.
"You look troubled."
He jumped up surprised to find a girl standing behind him.
Her short hair was a majestic shade of strawberry golden. She was a petite, tiny boned girl but Sabo didn't doubt she could pack quite the punch if the situation called for it. She was dressed in the same scrubs he had just changed out of, meaning she was an intern as well. And from the looks of it her day had gone just about as well as his.
She shifted her weight, putting her hands on her hips to signal he was staring.
"It's nothing," he said turning away, "It's been a long day."
"I'll say," She yawned, "my shift ran late so I missed my bus, and on top of that my stupid locker won't open." She glared at the rusted lock like it was going to shake open from guilt alone. "Now I'm stuck like this," she gestured to her loose scrubs, which were unfortunately stained with what looked like someone's lunch.
Sabo stared at her in surprise for a second. Something about her standing there, an irritated look on her face, covered in a crazy person's lunch made an unfamiliar feeling bubble up in his chest.
A moment of silence passed between the two before he broke out into laughter, clutching his aching chest as he doubled over. He couldn't remember the last time he laughed this hard… or at all. He was sure she was going to hit him for laughing at her. The kind of girls he was forced to hang around with reacted as such when they thought they were being insulted. He couldn't even count the number of times he had gotten slapped, punched or pushed for telling them they had something in their teeth. A stunt like this would probably land him in the ER.
But to his vast surprise instead of doing anything of the sorts she began to laugh as well. Just as hard as he was.
"It's not that funny," She insisted between giggles.
"Sure it's not," He promised trying to stand up straight again.
"God," She said leaning back against the lockers, "who the heck is going to let me on a bus looking like this? I don't even have my wallet or my phone, it's in my stupid locker. Sensing the grin threatening to break out on his face, she wacked him on the shoulder playfully.
"Don't you dare start laughing again," She threatened, unable to hide the smile, "If you do I will start laughing as well and then where will we be?"
"Probably still here," He said trying his best to somber up, "At least it will solve your transportation problem."
"As tempting as that sounds I would rather you lend me your phone so I can call my mom."
"I've got something better," He said with a mischievous smirk.
"Oh? And what would that be?"
He held up his keys, still grinning, "a car."
She stared at the keys for a second before meeting his calm blue eyes with darker sapphire ones.
"Koala," She offered, a soft smile on her childish face.
"Sabo," he said giving her a small bow.
She snatched the keys from his still grip with a smile, "I'm driving," She informed him before taking off out the door.
He stared at her in surprise, although not in shock. Somehow he felt she might do something like that.
"You wish," He yelled as he took off after her.
Sengoku stood in front of the council. Everything about his posture screamed military despite the fact that he ran a mental institution.
"How is it looking?"
"Progress is going as well as could be expected," He answered calmly.
"Have any patients showed signs of remembering?"
He nodded, "Yes, two of them seem to have complete memories of their past life. While none of the others show any sign, we are still keeping a watchful eye on them. We can't be too careful."
He paused for a moment waiting for a reply, when he didn't get one he continued, "What would you like me to do with the two of them?"
"Nothing for now… monitor them closely. There is nothing they can do, even with their memories."
"As you wish," He nodded and exited the room without another word.
So…anyway, who do you think the other patient with their memories intact is? One of them is obviously Luffy, but who is the other? I also wanted to put pairing in, for the first time ever. They are not going to be a major point in the story, more like a little sub-plot. Definitely Sabo X Koala and either Zoro X Tashgi or Zoro X Kuina I sort of want to do Law X Kid but I might get eaten alive if I try haha. Anyway if you want it to continue just tell me! Either way I hope you like my other ideas as well!
