Scott always thought the place he hated most was any hospital, or any place resembleing a hospital for that matter, but if he were to look down deepest into himself he'd probably find out that the place he hated even more than hospitals was any place that was old and grey and had dusty windows and dusty floors and basically the place he hated most was the Alaska State Home for Foundlings.
He had good reasons to, though. Very good ones. When he was a few months shy of eight years old and he walked up those steps with his crutches and his older brother and the clothes on his back, he thought that that day would be the first day of the rest of his life. As far as he was concerned, his history started the day he woke up in the St. John's hospital children's ward and was told his family was dead and he'd been asleep for almost a year.
The door was opened, and Alex and Scott were greeted by a proffesoinal looking man in a grey suit with greying hair who somewhat resembled Father John Mulcahy from M*A*S*H. Scott gulped, and he looked over at his Brother, who looked at him and smiled and said "Cheer up, Scotty!" Thought it was obvious Alex himself wasn't cheery and neither was Scott and as the man who remebled Father John Mulcahy lead them to room they'd be sleeping in and they sat down on their respective beds, reality hit them- They were now completely alone in the world.
After a few days to a week of getting used to the place, the two brothers were lead out to the front office where they were greeted by various men in suits who explained to them once again that their family were dead and that they'd be staying at this orphanage until they were adopted, which seemed likely for Alex but not as likely for Scott because Scott had a broken brain and he was not very smart and he was starting to get these strange twitches in his face and would sometimes make sounds he wasn't purposely making and it wasn't gaining him any popularity. Being on crutches was already painting him as the local cripple though he swore to himself he'd be able to walk properly again in the next six months, even if the doctors inisted it'd be a year at the least.
Eventually once that almost a year had passed and he could for the most part walk on his own, and he'd been beaten up many times and his brother had taken just as many beatings for him, they were shoved into a car and told they were going to see more doctors, new doctors, psycha.. psychatrists... psychologists? 'Cologists? What were they called? The brain doctors.
There was a man who this time looked like Major. Frank Burns frm M*A*S*H if he was a evil scientist, and a young looking woman with long blonde hair who was skinny as a pole and pale as snow and both of the boys thought they were both rather creepy, though the woman would give them mints and gum and things like that so neither of them really minded.
Scott would mostly see the man, and Alex would see the woman and their usual visit would involve Scott sitting on the ground and playing with Lego and talking to the man who was named Mr. Nathaniel and their conversations would usually be along the lines of;
"How old are you, Scott?"
"Eight."
"Where do you live?"
"'Laska. Alassssska. Alaska."
"Do you have nightmares, Scott?"
"'Dunno, probably."
"What're they about, if you do have them?"
"Fire. Lostsha fire."
"Lotsha?"
"Lotsha it."
"What does that mean, is that slang?"
"Naw, it just means there's a big number of it."
And sometimes Scott would blank and forget what he was saying and where he was and what year it was and he'd feel like he was on the verge of collapse, but he never did and he was thankful for it and he'd ask him about that stuff, too, and eventually he got told he had more things wrong with him than he thought, "Autism" and "Tourettes Syndrome" and that he was "Traumatized" And all sorts of things like that, and he thought it was a lot of things for someone who was only eight years old to have so he disregarded it completely.
Meanwhile, Alex would see the woman, who was only 19 or 20 years old surpsingly and who's name was Emma Frost, PHD, and being older by three years he would get asked real questions and the woman would expect mature answers from him;
"How old are you, Alex?"
"Eleven, Ma'am."
"Where do you live?"
"Alaska State Home for Foundlings."
"Tell me about your childhood.. before the crash. Has your brother always been so, uhm.. Hmm, well, dull, to be frank about it, he's a darling but he's.."
And then she'd ask more questions along those lines and she'd give Alex candy and mints and they'd sit there and wait for Scott and Alex thought it was somewhat like being bribed for information but if these people could increase their chances for adoption somehow someway by making issues with their heads better than so be it.
Eventually, with Alex being unable to sleep at night, mostly due to that every night Scott would wake up crying and get scared and crawl into Alex's bed and Alex would have to hold him and pet his hair and tell him everything was alright until he was asleep and then Alex would lie there awake, and though he blamed Scott's nightmares on his inability to sleep in reality, at least according to his doctor, it was a case of insomnia and just before turning 12 years old he found himself being put on Melatonin, which was supposed to be helping him sleep but.. really wasn't.
In fact, for about three days Alex was wide wide awake, almost as if his brain was in overdrive, and two of these three days he spent throwing up more than he ever had before and probably ever will, so he was very swiftly taken off of it and since, with both of them being seemingly allergic to every medication given whether it painkillers or anything else, when Scott was 10 and Alex was 13 they were introduced to a very very nice woman named Robyn Hanover who was apparently their 'caseworker' or something along those lines, and as she'd told Scott she was apparently a specialist in working with kids like them and there were others like them in many ways and in a few short weeks the two boys had grown to see this woman as a sort of Mother figure, which they supposed was the intention.
There was something strange about the woman though, about her eyes. They were an unnatural green and just looking at them made you feel a strange sway so they tended to avoid looking her in the eyes when speaking, though both the boys did this anyways no matter who they were talking with.
Eventually, enough of the many passing teachers that taught the children at the orphanage had noted that Scott wasn't doing well and he'd forget too much and he couldn't concentrate, and although as far as anyone knew he didn't have ADHD (Though, Alex did) or ADD or anything along those lines, Ms. Frost and Mr. Nathaniel had been talking and decided that, despite all the previous issues with medication both boys had had, they'd be putting Scott on the drug Ritalin, which Alex knew about because he'd been offered it but didn't want to take it as at the time he had just gotten off Melatonin and he very much didn't want a repeat of what happened with that.
"Ritalin...? For Scott?" Robyn questioned, carefully reading over the bottle as she sat in her office with the two boys.
Scott was busy watching M*A*S*H on the TV, the channels showed it a lot and he watched it a lot in hospital when he was awake and he continued to watch it whenever he could even if he didn't really like it that much, and Alex was sitting sipping away at a can of coke.
"Yep.. I think it's a bad idea, I mean.. but, if it's what the adults think'll help 'im, then so be it." Alex sighed, nudging his brother slightly.
"Yeah... shut up, Ahlex, 'm watching this."
"Rude. Anyway, like.. it's a bad idea. What do you think, Ma'am?"
"Please, don't bother with the formalities, you know I hate it, Alex."
"Yes, Robyn."
"That's better. I think considering you twos medical history, it's an awful idea, who knows what it could do to him.." She moved the bottle to view more information on the back of it, the pills inside rattling as she did so. "I was surpirsed it took them so long to take you off Melatonin. Sometimes it seems like those psychatrists of yours are trying to kill you."
"Maybe the orphanage is payin' them off to kill us 'cuz we're stuck here and no one'll adopt us." Alex finished the can of drink, putting it down rather hard on the table.
"More like no one'll adopt Me, dude. 'S 'cuz I'm brain damaged, you've had four or five families wantin' you, but you've just refused to go." Scott turned around from the black and white TV set, resting his arms on the back of the chair.
"Yeah, whatever. Got anymore coke, Robyn?"
"Nope, that was it. You're only allowed one of those a day- anyway, with the ritalin.. Alex, come closer."
Alex scooted forward, "Yeah?"
Robyn whispered to him; "We're going to let Scott take it for a while, see what it does to him, because, who knows.. but if he shows any signs of, anything, we're taking him off it, okay?"
"Yep. Sounds good."
"Good." Robyn stood up, walked over to Scott, and ruffled his hair, "So,-"
"Don't touch th- Eerk.. Don't touch the hair."
"Sorry, didn't mean to mess up your pomp, Elvis."
"It's not a pompadaour... anyway, wassit? Erk. You're putting me on stupid pills?"
"No- Scott, these'll.. help."
And Robyn explained to Scott about what these pills would do and Scott accepted it and by the morning he was sitting in his room with Alex and a glass of water and had taken them and they didn't do anything at all, or make him feel different, but after a few weeks he was getting sick from it, very sick, so he threw the bottle in his bottom drawer and went on with his life as if it had never happened and was soon exactly as he was but not sick.
Soon after, the orphanage was holding one of their usual days where they'd get families in to 'inspect the goods' as Alex liked to put it, except this one was unique in that they were allowed to have the children they'd taken a liking to stay with them for the weekend, and Alex had been picked to stay with one of these families, as he had many times before, but Scott, as usual hadn't been picked, and he knew full well the reason was all the diagnoses he had and that he was brain damaged and not very smart, and he'd had more than enough of it.
When Alex left that afternoon to go see these potential new parents, Scott, being the only one left in the orphanage aside from a few staff members, angrily paced around his room, to him, he had been abandoned. Would Alex be coming back? Last time this happened, Robyn was there at least to keep him company, but god knows where she was right now.
"Think 'm stupid, do they." He grumbled, his pacing quickening, "Think 'm real dumb, try to put me on pills. Alex doesn't think I'm dumb. But maybe he does, he probably does." He got down on the floor and swiftly opened the drawer that was previously mentioned and found the half full bottle of medication and got several ideas in his head that to his 11-year-old mind seemed fantastic and would "really show them".
Later that night as Scotty sat there alone he looked at the bottle, and opened the lid and downed the whole lot of them and at first he didn't feel anything but eventually he felt a strange sensation and got a sudden urge to do one of the stupidest things he'd done in his life.
He got up, he put on his coat and his sneakers and through somewhat of a haze he stumbled down the stairs and looked over his shoulder compulsively, thinking there was something watching him, and once he'd made it outside he went to the nearby garage and found himself a container of fuel. There to power the emergency generator, but, they wouldn't be needing that anymore. Not after what he was going to do.
He made a lap around the orphanage, spilling the fuel as he did to, purposely of course, and then he made extra sure to douse the steps and doorway until all of it was empty and he threw the red plastic canister aside.
A hand reached into his coat pocket, and out came a box of matches and he lit one, and he threw it and before he knew it he was standing in a circle of flame, pure flame. It reminded him of his younger childhood, but he couldn't quite work out why. He stood there, and he watched, and he heard a car pull up behind him and a woman yell out his name "Scott!" and he turned around and saw Robyn, with Alex, who was at this time fourteen, who had apparently been called after a staff member had caught him taking all those pills and soon he found himself overly disorientated and he was on the ground, coughing and heaving and everything was black and he felt his brother's hand touch his shoulder and from there on it was nothing.
He somewhat hoped he was dead.
