David had finally managed to get the sweater on while walking, pushing his head through the hole by the time they were outside. The sweater was huge and bulky on him, but he didn't mind. It was warm and soft. It smelled nice too. He fixed his glasses, looking around. How long had it been since he was outside like this?
Jeff's little smile got broader, and he fell back a few steps to stand beside David, watching his face carefully.
The yard was fenced in, though the little picket fence could hardly be called a fence. It could easily be jumped over. But Jeff started to explain that going near the fence would have dire consiquences, though he didn't explain why. And Rowan made sure that David was always within arms reach.
"So, David," Jeff began finally, though his tone was friendlier and less clinical. "How was Superjail?"
"Superjail?" David looked away from his surroundings and stared at Jeff for a moment before turning his attention to his half hidden hands. He shrugged. "It's fine," he muttered. They never believed him anyway, why should he tell them? He knew he shouldn't recognize the name the doctor kept calling him, but he was too tired to keep fighting it. He was the warden but no one cared.
Jeff nodded, looking thoughtfully to the clear blue sky as they walked over the lawn. "Just fine?" he pressed casually, a little cloud of breath forming and disappearing. "You seemed very excited about it a while ago."
"It..." David bit his lip, hesitating to follow. He glanced over at the intimidating Rowan before he followed Jeff. "It was nearly in pieces when I went back...but it's fixed now..." His memory was fuzzy, but that much he remembered. "I have to go back, though, or it'll just get bad again," he added quickly.
"What about your life here? Is it going how you would like?" Jeff asked, putting his hands in his pockets as they walked, Rowan casting a shadow over them both.
"I don't want a life here," David said under his breath, folding his arms across his chest while he walked slowly, eyes set on the ground. "This isn't where I belong..."
Jeff was quiet again. It took him a few more yards to speak. "When did you first go to Superjail?"
"I don't remember," he answered quietly, having been lost in thought during the silent part of the walk.
"How old were you when your father died?" Jeff asked as they passed a patient with a dull, dreamy look and another doctor who was trying to get words out of her.
David looked up, brows furrowed. They had this conversation before. Or something like it. He didn't like talking about his father. Those years weren't exactly pleasant memories. "I was five."
"And you inherited his prison?" Jeff continued, appreciating that David was willing to talk.
"Yes," David muttered, scratching his arm. "But I didn't do anything with it. The other people in charge ran it while I made plans for Superjail."
"When did you start building it?" Jeff asked, looking over to David, who looked even smaller and skinnier in Rowan's giant sweater.
"I didn't really build it...it just happened..." David shrugged. "I had a model of it and I kind of let it go for a few years when I got older and went to school. I never forgot about it, though. It's complicated and I don't remember everything." Probably the damn medication, he thought. At least he did't take the medicine offered to him earlier. Maybe he'd start thinking more clearly soon.
"When did you meet Alice? And Jared?" Jeff continued casually enough.
David stopped walking. "Why do you want to know about this?" He rubbed at his face. He didn't want to keep thinking that far back. It always hurt his head.
Jeff looked David over. "Do you not want to tell me?""
"What is the point of me telling you anything?" David quipped, though he shrank back after he snapped, staring down at the ground again. "You think they're all lies anyway..."
"If it's real to you, then it's real enough," Jeff told him. "Every life we live can be a fabrication, or the life we have can be the only one," he said rather cryptically.
David didn't look up, keeping his head down while he tried to remember. "I think...Jailbot found them for me...people no one would really notice were gone. Superjail was ready." He chewed his bottom lip, ignoring the throbbing in his head. "I gave them a choice, though...but since jobs were hard to get for them in the real world, they stayed. I know they thought I was crazy, but everything worked out..."
"And Jailbot is...?" Jeff asked. He'd heard David rave about Jailbot, but his origins were a mystery.
"He's my robot. I created him before I made Superjail," David answered, sounding more confident. "I thought of them both when I was five and I learned how to build him when I was older."
"Does he run Superjail when you're gone?"
David looked up, staring at Jeff like he was the crazy one. "God, no. While I was gone they had to hide him away before he destroyed everything searching for me. He's programmed to protect me and to capture new inmates and runaways. Jailbot would never be able to run Superjail. Superjail needs a warden present to function. Jailbot is just a machine."
"Is that why you can't be away from it? Superjail, I mean."
David nodded quietly, slightly shivering when he felt a breeze blow past him. "It's my home, too. I made it. I need it as much as it needs me."
"But there's some one messing with it," Jeff stated more then asked. "Some one who keeps disrupting your home. Tell me who it is."
"I already know who all is doing it," David muttered, rubbing an eye tiredly with his shaky hand. "It's the Twins. They mess around with everything. They never used to be this bad, though...I can't make them stop."
"The Twins?" Jeff thought back to what he had witnessed of David's delusions. "What are they doing exactly?"
"Causing chaos. They mess with everything in Superjail. They always find something that could sabotage it and I have to fix it when it's over. I tried fighting them once..." He stared down at his hands, as if he could see the blood. "I...ended up back here..." He curled his fingers into fists, frustrated. "I hate them."
"Where did they come from?" Jeff asked, though Rowan tapped his shoulder lightly. Jeff nodded and steered them back towards the asylum.
"I don't know..." David muttered, trying to calm down while he followed slowly. He didn't want to go back. just the thought of the straight jacket made him feel anxious. He remembered the twins showing him where they came form, but he refused to believe it. It was just another trick.
"Did Jailbot fetch them for you as well?"
"No." David shook his head. "No, they just appeared one day. They were supposed to be inmates...but they can come and go as they please. Superjail doesn't affect them."
"Do they have control over it like you do?" Jeff asked, a hint of challenge in his tone.
David shook his head again, curling his fingers into the long sleeves of the sweater. "Only I control Superjail. They just try to break it."
"Superjail or your control?"
"Superjail..." Right? He never thought of it that way. He frowned. He didn't want to talk about it anymore. He just wanted to go back. He was the warden - not David. David wasn't his name. His real name was lost.
Jeff conceded to let David go quiet. He opened the door to the asylum, gesturing for David to enter first.
He hesitated, but eventually stepped inside. He was almost instantly freezing again. He didn't want to have to take off the sweater and put on the jacket, but he knew it was coming the more he walked.
When they made it back to David's cell, Jeff opened the door and let David and himself inside, Rowan staying outside so he could lock them in.
"No tricks," Jeff warned, lifting the jangling straight jacket.
"Why do I even need that?" David pressed, glaring at the horrible thing, stalling while he kept the sweater on. It was so cold inside the room.
"It's to keep you from hurting yourself or me," Jeff explained, "You become... aggressive," he said awkwardly.
David blinked, trying to understand. He got aggressive? Sure, he would lose his temper sometimes but...
Rowan probably wanted his sweater back. He sighed, finally pulling it off, his hospital gown rising and showing bruises in several different places.
Jeff noticed the bruises. He wondered if David remembered where they came from. He pointed to David's abdomen. "Those bruises, how did you get them?"
He frowned, pulling the hospital gown down now that he had the sweater hanging over his arm. "I don't want to talk about it."
Jeff nodded, of course he'd be embarassed. He wondered what had happened in Superjail while he got those bruises, and if it was much different than what had happened in the asylum.
He held out the jacket for David to get into.
David was glad the doctor hadn't insisted on an answer, but looking back at the straight jacket just completely ate away at his mood. He walked towards it, his hands twitching, knowing they would be immobilized again.
"Would you like Rowan to help you get into this?" Jeff asked, indicating the jacket and David's nervous hands.
He bit down on his lip, shaking his head. It wasn't like he was afraid of Rowan. He just wanted to do this by himself. He was tired of feeling so helpless. Still, he hesitated to get any closer to the forboding jacket. "Can't I stay out of it just a little longer?"
Jeff tilted his head, thinking. "I suppose there's no need for you to go back in right away," he said thoughtfully.
David lowered his arms and sighed with relief. Good. "I do have to give Rowan's sweater back, though," he added, holding it out to the doctor.
Jeff took it and folded it on top of the jacket. "Would you like to talk? I can't leave you in here alone without the jacket," he said, going to the door and knocking. Rowan opened it came into the room. "You can sit, Rowan. You need to be here just in case, though." He told the tall, muscular man.
Rowan sat against the far wall, his eyes alert.
David didn't really want to talk. He didn't even want to acknowledge his own name. He hated it when Jeff said it. Warden was his name - he remembered that. He frowned, looking between the doctor and the nurse and just stayed where he was. There was only one thing that kept bothering him in his mind that he had to ask. "Why am I here?"
Jeff draped Rowan's sweater and the straight jacket across the nurse's knees and turned back to David. "You had become catatonic. You didn't move for three days. Your land lady found you, and you were brought here. We've done our best to take care of you, and we would liike to let you back into the outside world, but you have to get better first."
His mind kept switching images in his head and he closed his eyes tightly before he opened them again. "Im fine," he said finally. "I'm not doing anything crazy and I'm not catatonic, so why can't I just leave now?"
"This is a good day, David. You're not always this lucid," Jeff admitted. "We haven't spoken for weeks. You've been trapped in your own head for that long."
"I wasn't in my head," he snapped, knowing very well that he was in Superjail during that time, if not longer. "How can I believe anything you say? For fuck's sake, you keep me locked up in a room that practically has nothing. That could drive anyone into their head!" It was clear that he was frustrated and he ran his hands through his hair, breathing a heavy sigh. "I just want to go home." Superjaill. The apartment. It didn't matter. As long as it wasn't here. He could already feel the tears in his eyes starting to form.
"I'm sorry, David, I really am. But you are a danger to yourself and society, and I can't release you," he said, tiredly exasperated. He ran his hand through his own hair, rubbing his eyes. "Until you get better and you appear before a panel of Doctors who deem you healthy, you can't go anywhere outisde the asylum."
David laughed weakly. Of course. God, how he hated how this world worked. He leaned against the wall, rubbing his arms when he felt the cold chill return. "If Superjail is all in my head, then why is it that the things that happen there reflect here as well?" He looked up at Jeff, glaring at him. "You saw the bruises. I got them in a fight in Superjail. Explain that." He was daring Jeff to tell him soemthing different.
Jeff was quiet, thoughtful, frustrated and a little guilty. "Those bruises were from...experimental treatment," he admitted finally.
"What?" David stared, his face paler than usual. There was no way what that man said was true. He shook his head, refusing to believe that. "Bullshit. You are just making that up. What the hell kind of a purpose would breaking my ribs have for 'experimental treatment'?"
Jeff shook his head, sitting on the floor. "Experimental generally means illegal."
David shook his own head, not wanting to listen to any more of this. He was so angry right now he could barely see. His fingers curled into fists at his side. "If what you say is true you have no right to keep me here. You should be going to jail," he spat, lifting his head back to glare hatefully at Jeff. "Why the hell should I trust you now? Any of you? You're all the sick ones, not me." He tried to suppress the shaking. He hadn't taken the medication Rowan had set out earlier with his meal.
He didn't want to think about the insident that took place after he had been beaten...because if that was true...
David felt sick and unbunched his hands and slid to the floor, holding his head, tears flooding his vision. "Oh, God..."
"Rowan, strap him up," Jeff said quietly, and Rowan rose solemnly from the floor, gently unfolding the jacket and taking David's wrists. "I assure you I had nothing to do with that procedure. Nothing voluntary. And I am doing my best to get the people who approved it where they belong," Jeff explained.
"Don't, please-" David choked out a sob, trembling and pathetically trying to get his wrists free. He didn't want back into that thing. He didn't want it to happen again. He gritted his teeth, forcefully trying to keep himself from screaming. It wouldn't do him any good and he knew it. Why was this happening to him?
Rowan looked back at Jeff, who nodded. Rowan took on a stony look, no emotion showing on his face as he forced David into the jacket, Jeff standing impassivley to one side. Rowan strapped the jacket over the struggling man, and with a touch that revealed his own inner turmoil he and Jeff left the cell, locking the door behind themselves.