Madhouse Rock
Author: Wicked R
Disclaimers: characters and the universe belongs to the WB.
Rating: PG.
Genre: angst/parody/romance.
Summary/Set: Cole enters Piper's mind in an AU Brain Drain, season 4, Charmed. Traditional pairings.
The point of this is? Just playing.
Cole came to suddenly and found himself unable to move. In fact, he could feel his muscles relaxing and tightening, but something was holding him down. He opened his eyes to find himself in the attic of the manor, but apart from the windows and the shape of the room, it all looked different, mostly white and quite empty. He tried to remember how could this all be possible, but the last thing he could recall was telling Leo that the only way to locate the Source and save Piper was if he let himself shot down and hauled to the Source by the bounty hunters. Their medium intensity energy ball had no chance of killing him, but the place on his chest and his arm where it hit him was still itchy. He was incapable of doing anything against that either as he was strapped down in a chair similar to a dentist's chair in the middle of the attic and neither his will to shimmer or form energy balls had produced any effects. It all made no sense to him and he seriously thought about the possibility of having gone mad, when a group of six or seven people, all dressed in white, entered.
One of the younger ones, dressed a little differently then the rest, stepped closer to him and lifted a writing pad from next to the chair he was tied onto, "Cole Turner, age 32, delusional, been in the Halliwell Mental Health Institution for over a year, diagnosis: severe dual personality disorder. When hallucinating, claims to be a powerful demon called Belthazor. With the second personality's inappropriate emotional picture, lack of morals and it's tendencies to the psychopath, he has to be kept in a secure unit for life."
"I recommend the students to approach him only when he is in restraints," an older doctor with grey hair directed them from the back, motioning them outside, that Cole identified as the Source's most commonly assumed human form, "he is not as strong as he claims his demon self to be, but we usually need two or three orderlies to restrain him. That is why he is usually sedated through electric shock therapy. I think he is still confused and disorientated from the last one."
Recognising him, Cole started to struggle against his restraints once more, "what is this place? What did you do with Piper?"
"Piper?" The Source turned back from the door, suddenly interested.
"That is strange," the young doctor who had previously talked explained to the students, "he usually only asks about Phoebe. She's another patient, with manic depression. If we don't have our security at the highest level, we always find them on top of each other," he laughed.
The Source leaned closer to Cole to take a better look and the others came nearer to him too.
That's when he noticed Leo in the back, in similar clothing as the others, "Leo, I don't understand anything. What's happening? Orb us out from here."
"Orb? He does behave bizarrely today," the man that looked like Leo agreed, "he usually calls me Dr. Wyatt and I don't play much of a role in his unreality. Don't tell me Piper makes him play those magic games as well along with Phoebe. I mean, isn't he in isolation most of the time?"
"Everybody out. I'll deal with it," the Source suggested. When the rest complied with the instructions of the so called chief attendant of the hospital and only the two of them remained in the attic, his face turned from serious to outright grim, "Belthazor! I don't know how you could've got into my manipulation of Piper's brain as an agent with own will and not my pawn, perhaps it was because you were brought to my chambers unconscious at a crucial moment of my mind melt with her and your consciousness got sucked in too, but I can't compromise my plan with cutting the connection. You need to stay where you are. How about some more electric shock treatment?" He fitted two metal plates on either side of his head, buckled them into place with a band that hurt his temples as it pressed down, and put a wire between his teeth that Cole could do not much else with than bite, given the way it was fixed onto him. Then, the human looking demon pressed a lever and left the room.
There was a short silence, then a device started shrilling and crackling with blue light, every flicker of the immense jolt thrashing him until he was convinced his bones would break into pieces and the sap will fly out of him similarly to a coconut being split…
------------
When he woke up again, there were no bands attached to his head. Nevertheless, his body, legs and wrist was still strapped down on a bed. It was quite dark, and the cell he was in was quite small, but he was quite sure from the way the walls looked that it was in the basement of the manor, even if it was reshaped. And if so, in reality he was still lying unconscious on the ground of the Source's underworld chambers, his consciousness trapped in Piper's manipulated mind. Nonetheless, that wasn't a reason to stay put and not try anything. He had to find the representation of Piper in her dream and stop her doing whatever the Source wanted her to do, or, at least get out of this place where the Source had obviously concentrated his energies. On the other hand, moving either physically or magically seemed impossible. For hours, he could do nothing but listen to the dreadful unanswered screams of the imaginary mental hospital…suddenly, the door opened and he tensed. He would do everything he could to stop anybody torture him again. The belts he was tied down with loosened up instead. But his waist was immediately straddled by two legs and he was silenced with a passionate kiss, with somebody virtually sitting on him. The passion didn't let up, if anything, it became stronger. The woman on top of him suddenly broke the kiss.
"Phoebe Halliwell," he panted, out of breath, "am I happy to see you! Except, wait a minute, I hope the Source didn't capture you too. How did you get in here?"
"Same as usual," the woman tilted her head and dug out some chocolate from her pockets, "I let the orderly touch me to allow me down. But what is this non sense with the Halliwell name? Since when are you playing Piper's game? Don't you know my name?" She chattered, obviously in the manic faze of her illness.
"What? What the hell is wrong with you? Oh, no, you are part of the illusion the Source is creating," Cole said mostly to himself disappointedly. According to their deceiver, only him, Piper and the Source himself where the only real players inside her brain.
"Huh?" The illusion that looked like Phoebe hit him on the shoulder angrily. It hurt. But then she made a sad face and sat down next to him, "oh, no, your memories. The shocks make you forget. They want you to forget. But don't forget me, oh, they gonna make you forget me."
"Where is Piper?" Cole tried to at least make use of the occasion in some way.
"Piper? She stays in the same room as me? My grey, dim, loveless room. Don't you remember? Why do you want Piper?"
"Let's go up to your room."
"Why? Your bed is bigger…"
"Listen, I need to take Piper out of here, away from the influence…"
"Doctor says she only needs to say a spell and she would be healed, allowed to go. I wish they told me that. I would say that spell. Take me instead!"
"No. "
"Why?" She pressed annoyingly.
"Because you don't exist? God, and you've been made mad too. Now be a good girl and show me to your room."
"We can't move now. It's bed check again in thirty seconds, don't you remember anything? There is a bed check every half an hour."
True enough, right after Phoebe pulled the covers over him and hid curled up between his legs, he could hear somebody wandering down, opening and shutting windows. When he heard the small window of his door move, he pretended to be snoring. Two minutes later he placed Phoebe's gown back on her and pulled her with him to the door, "key?"
"You don't deserve it tonight," she placed it in his palm sadly, not insisting with the undressing him anymore.
Their way from the oddly arranged chambers in the basement to the second floor was easy as Phoebe towed him though secret doors he would've never thought existed, but he was going to ask about their existence in the real manor, once he got out of here.
Piper seemed to be sleeping peacefully, in direct contradiction with what was going on in her mind.
"Wake up!" Cole ran over to her and shook her, "please wake up," with no reactions from the witch, he grabbed her and pulled her upper body close to him, "wake up, I need to know you're all right," he spoke as loudly as he thought was feasible without the orderlies hearing him.
Piper moaned quietly, opened her eyes a little, "Phoebe…Cole…what you guys doing?" Then shut her eyes again, completely oblivious to her surroundings.
"I said wake up!" Cole hauled her out of bed and brusquely placed her on the floor, "fight that tranquillizer!"
Piper was hit by a wave of light-headedness and she hand onto Cole's neck with one hand, while giving a smile to Phoebe, "I had the strangest dream. We were patients in a madhouse and…"
"Get your hands away from my boyfriend!" Phoebe pulled her back to sit on her bed.
"Eeee…it wasn't a nightmare," Cole supplied, "it was an induced dream by the Source.
"Why you wanna confuse me?" Piper said sadly, "the Source doesn't exist," she was drained, her vision blurred.
"Listen to me Piper," Cole sounded more desperate than crazy, "get us out of here, you're the only one that can."
"I tried…my powers don't work. I must not have any powers at all. I imagined it."
"No, Piper, my powers don't work either. Now, the Source wants you to say a spell. That must mean that spells would work."
"No. I tried one yesterday," she glanced at the pouting Phoebe in the corner, "besides, she is mad."
"Yes, she is mad, but you're not," Cole insisted, "think of a spell. Any spell. Some of them must work at least. Come on."
"Come on, let me sleep," the illusion Paige moaned from her bed, and threw her pillow at him.
"I can't remember anything without the book," Piper held.
"Where's the book, Phoebe?" Cole urged.
"You wanna play with the book? Here's the book!" She bent down and produced a note book with the "Book Of Shadows" scribbled on it and threw it on Cole as well angrily, "but don't ask me again for keys!"
The fake book, however counterfeit, however, didn't touch Cole, but bounced back from its trajectory, glowing in a yellow light and sizzling back towards Cole's shoulders where it would've landed if it could have.
"See!" Cole barked, "I can't touch the book! Or the book can't touch me. Whatever…some things are magical even here, so try something for God's sake! Source must be resting right now. It takes enormous energy to keep up such a huge illusion."
Piper jumped up, with new energy, leaning down for the booklet, and started chanting immediately, "blood to blood
I summon thee.
Blood to blood,
Here to me."
Paige looked up from her bed, similarly sleepy as before, "what terrible terrible clothes are these?"
Phoebe smiled and jumped to hug both Cole and Piper, "oh, God, Leo said he lost you?"
"Phoebe?" Cole wondered.
"Yeah, I summoned the real them to me," Piper explained.
"Well, wherever this is, how about getting out?" Paige stood closer and gave her hands to her sisters. They started in unison, "the power of three will set us free, the power of three will set us free…"
Phoebe freaked out in Piper's real room in the manor, when all three of them landed there, "where's Cole?"
"Source must still have him. He is not in my head, but he's still physically down there," Piper guessed, "but it should work if you summon him."
Phoebe took a big breath, "magic forces black and white,
Reach out through space and light.
Be he far or be he near,
Bring us the demon Belthazor here."
Right enough, he arrived, clothes ragged and breathless, "just in time. He was about to kill me for injuring him badly."
"You did?" Phoebe jumped on him, "so, he's gone for now isn't he? First time in a long time. I think we should take advantage of that."
"Why, Ms. Halliwell, are you trying to seduce me?" Cole responded to her teasing touch and pulled her close.
"Always," she took him by hand and led him to her room.
The End.