Just a head's up that this prompt turned out super dark and is possibly triggering for some people. That being said, I actually like it!
Prompt: AU
Rating: M
"Hitsugaya-san?"
He tries to focus on the sound of her voice, the floating, blurred image that is her face. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth, and he clacks it experimentally a few times.
"Hitsugaya-san? It's Rangiku. Remember me? Hitsugaya-san, they had to sedate you."
He wishes she would stop saying his name so fucking much. He can hear her perfectly fine.
The busty nurse's face slowly comes into focus. She's smiling at him, though Toshiro can see the pity in her eyes. "The first night's always the hardest, Hitsugaya-san. It'll get better."
Like she would know. She gets to go home every night. She isn't stuck in this hellhole. He sits up in his cot, the effects of whatever they gave them slowly disappearing. The disgustingly strong smell of sterility makes him nauseous. "Don't call me that."
The nurse's smile falters, and she glances quickly at his chart. "Oh! I'm sorry, Taicho."
He says nothing, merely resists the urge to squint against all of the whiteness.
The nurse—Rangiku, she said—holds a tiny plastic cup out to him that rattles when she shakes it. More medication. Of course.
He eyes her cooly, refusing to take it. He would not willingly go along with his poisoning. There is nothing wrong with him.
"Taicho, just take them," Rangiku says, sighing in exasperation. "You don't want a repeat of last night, do you?" Flashes of fear, of being prodded with multiple needles as he clawed against his restraints. "Besides, if you don't take your medicine, you can't join the others. Do you really want to sit here by yourself?"
He looks around the tiny room. Tiny barred window, bed, white walls, white floor, white white. He takes the cup from her, slides the poison onto his tongue. Allows Rangiku to check his mouth and make sure he swallowed.
"Great!" she exclaims, smiling at him again. He wonders how such a nice, bubbly person ended up in a place like this. "Let's go meet the others."
~.~.~
"Everyone has already taken their medication, like you," Rangiku chirps as she leads him down a few hallways. "Still, try not to make any sudden movements. Don't want to startle anyone."
He wants to scream, wants to pound his fists on something in frustration. This was the deal his lawyer had gotten him? Being dropped in with the fucking loonies? For a crime he didn't even commit. He would have rather gone to jail.
"Here we go!" the nurse says cheerily, opening a door. He is immediately hit with the smell of food and bleach. "Behave, or I'll have to come and get you. After breakfast, someone will take you to talk to your doctor."
And then she is gone, and he's left in a strange cafeteria with strange people who happen to be insane.
The guard at the door points him towards a line, and he doesn't bother protesting, just gets in it. He pretends not to notice that the guy in front of him is muttering agitatedly to himself. Toshiro merely accepts his breakfast from a lady in a hairnet and minds his own damn business.
He heads toward the most empty table, occupied only by a dark-haired girl boredly stirring her oatmeal, and sits down with a few seats between them.
But the girl looks at him, pointedly curious, and slides her tray over until it touches his. "I haven't seen you around here before," she says, closing the remaining distance between them.
He thinks about ignoring her, not wanting to fraternize with lunatics. But as he looks at her—jet black hair, cropped reasonably at the shoulders; large onyx eyes; the same baggy outfit he and all patients wore, but with long sleeves—he wonders what could possibly be wrong with her. "Do you know everyone here?"
"Pretty much." She smiles, and it brightens up her face significantly. "I've been here a long time."
She says it so matter-of-factly that his spoon pauses on its way to his mouth. He wonders if it's rude to ask just how long.
"So." Her own spoon scrapes the bottom of the bowl, signaling the end of her oatmeal. "What are you in for?"
He blinks in surprise.
The girl takes his silence for confusion. "Why'd they put you in the looney bin?" she clarifies.
"Why are you here?" he counters.
She shrugs. "I supposedly see delusions. Hear voices."
He shifts uncomfortably. "…and do these voices talk to you?"
"What else would voices do?" she snorts.
He can't help the tugging of his lips. It really was a dumb question. "Supposedly," he says quietly. Cautiously. "Supposedly, I killed my grandmother."
Her smile fades, face turning serious. She tilts her head. "Well, did you?"
He stares into his bowl, into the lumpy mess he is expected to eat. He is no longer hungry. "Not intentionally."
He doesn't see her reaction—doesn't dare to look up. But he hears her stand.
"I definitely hear voices," she whispers into his ear, her breath quick and hot.
His eyes snap to her then, but she's already picking up her tray. "I'm Karin, by the way."
"Toshiro," he tells her retreating back, and just when he thinks she didn't hear him, she looks over her shoulder and smiles.
~.~.~
His therapist is a curvy woman with purple hair and golden eyes that are strangely kind. He can tell she's working up to asking him about the accident, and it irritates him, though he knows she's only trying to do her job. She has to ask him these questions, and legally he has to be here, but he doesn't have to answer shit.
"How are you feeling today, Toshiro?"
"Fine."
She readjusts her cateye spectacles. "Is there anything you want to talk about?"
"No."
~.~.~
"I hear you got Yoruichi," she says, dropping down onto the couch next to him. "Lucky."
It's the free period after dinner and before they're all locked back up, and he is watching but not really watching the children's show one of the nurses turned the small television to. He wants to change the channel, but patients are apparently not allowed remote control rights.
Really, he just wants to be left alone so that he can reflect on how pathetic his life is. But while the other patients don't seem to care about him one way or another, Karin is inexplicably interested in him. She sat next to him in group therapy, plucked fries off of his plate at dinner. And now, when he just wants to watch cartoon animals and feel sorry for himself, she lifts her feet into his lap as if it is the most natural thing in the world.
And he finds he doesn't mind.
"I have Urahara," she informs him, opening a book. "He's much crazier than I supposedly am. I should be his therapist." She smirks, eyes glittering. "Our therapists are fucking, you know. Worst kept secret of the place."
"No touching," one of the guards says in a bored voice.
She rolls her eyes, then slowly slips her feet to the floor.
~.~.~
"Karin-chan?" Rangiku smiles, but it is definitely sad. "She's been here since she was a child."
"Why?" he asks, taking the plastic cup from her without a fight.
The blonde hesitates, but seems to see no harm in telling him. Karin's past is common knowledge. "While she was away at soccer camp, her house caught fire, and her whole family died. She hasn't moved past that."
He swallows the pills and lifts his tongue without having to be asked.
~.~.~
"Do you understand that Bleach is a videogame?"
He stares resolutely at a stain in the carpet. He wonders what made it—if Shihoin-sensei spilled coffee and never noticed, or if a pen exploded. Maybe it was left by another patient, one who wanted something to distract themselves from lies.
"You aren't a shinigami captain, Toshiro," she says evenly. "Soul Society does not exist."
"To you, maybe," he mutters, "Since you abandoned it." He wants to suck the words back into his mouth. Silence is the best answer to her psychoanalytical bullshit.
This seems to catch the therapist off-guard, and she taps her pen against her notepad, interested. "I haven't abandoned anything, Toshiro. It's not real. I don't have any powers, and neither do you." She pauses. "You understand how your grandmother died, don't you?"
He sees her then, skin tinged an unnatural blue, and so so cold—
"She was smothered, Toshiro."
He doesn't say anything, just focuses on the stain. What could have possibly made it?
Yoruichi sighs, rubs her temples. Flips a little through his chart and changes tactics. "How often did you play the videogame? Did your foster sister play with you?"
He flinches, and he hates himself for it.
"Toshiro?"
His teeth lock together, and he doesn't look up again until the session is over.
~.~.~
"I didn't mean to do it," he admits softly. They've been allowed outside, and he and Karin sit on a bench, watching the sun filter through the trees. "I couldn't control my reiatsu. I didn't mean to freeze her to death. I kept telling people, but no one would believe me."
Their hands are hidden between them, Karin's thumb rubbing idle circles over his knuckles. "No one ever listens." She sighs. "They keep trying to tell me my family's dead. Mother, father, brother, twin sister. Dead. But how can they be dead when I hear them everyday, when I see them?" She pauses, inclining her head towards him. "Maybe they are dead. Maybe they went to Soul Society, but they visit me. And no one else can see spirits like we can, so they slapped a 'crazy' title on my forehead."
He's overwhelmed by emotion then, is overjoyed at finally being believed and not dismissed. He leans over and kisses her, and she doesn't hesitate to kiss him back, all tongue and teeth.
"No touching!" a guard barks from across the yard.
She retracts her lips, but rests her forehead against his for a moment. They breathe each other in.
They separate.
~.~.~
He is laying in bed, staring at the ceiling and waiting for his medication to throw him into a dreamless sleep, when the door to his room slowly opens. It is after hours, and no one should be entering his room until the next morning, so he truly relieved when he sees it's only her. "What are you doing here?" he hisses.
She grins, shuts the door behind her. Though she wears the same standard-issue outfit and her hair is mussed, she looks ethereal in what little moonlight his tiny window allows. "I just wanted to visit you."
"How did you get in here?" He scoots over, making room for her on his bed.
She gives him a sly look. "You forget I've been here a long time." She slides in beside him. "These doors are only locked from the inside, and the guy that's supposed to be watching the cameras is usually catching up on his soaps instead."
He's baffled. "But how did you get out of your room?"
She smiles against his neck. "Long time," she repeats in a whisper, and then suddenly her hand is going down down, fingers toying with the waistband of his pants.
He freezes, inhaling sharply as she wraps her hand around him.
It'll be fun.
Spots start to swirl his vision, his heart pounding in his ears. He can't seem to get enough air.
I know you like it, Shiro-chan. Doesn't it feel good?
"Hey."
Shhhhh
"Hey!" And then suddenly her face is in front of him, slowly sliding into focus. Her grip is tight on his jaw, forcing him to focus on her eyes. "Hey, look at me. Breathe. Just breathe."
He does, shallowly. "I'm sorry."
"No, I am." She slides a hand through her hair, holds it there. "I thought you would like it. Are you okay?"
Her eyes are soft, concerned, and he is reminded for the hundredth time that she is not Momo.
"I'm fine," he whispers, reaching for her. His kiss surprises her, his intensity more so.
"Are you sure?" she mumbles against his tongue. "We don't have to…"
In response, he crushes her to him, removing all the space between them.
She smirks. "Let's try this again, then."
To his surprise, a trial lick along the length of him causes an involuntary buck of his hips.
No.
Not Momo at all.
~.~.~
It happens on a relatively quiet day.
He is watching another show intended for children. It's either that or watch the weather; those are apparently the only stations considered non-triggering. In his opinion, Karin has been in the bathroom for too long, so he heads to Rangiku, who is currently stuck on babysitting duty, and asks for a bathroom key.
She gives it to him with a smile, her attention quickly returning to her fashion magazine.
He heads down the small hallway where the bathrooms are, and passes the one marked "male". Instead, he quietly knocks on the door of its female counterpart. "Karin?" he whispers through the door. "Are you okay in there?"
When there is no answer, he easily turns the handle. Freezes.
She is sitting on the floor, squished in between the toilet and the sink, a faraway look on her face. After being constantly surrounded by white, he finds the red strangely welcome, alluring. It is on the tile floor, staining her shirt, her pants. It is running through her fingers, a scarlet trail.
They lock eyes. She smiles, and it takes his breath away.
"Hey!" Rangiku's voice, coming closer. "No hanky panky. Your bathroom is over there, mister—" And then she sees, and the words die in her throat. Rangiku yells, pushes him out of the way. Picks up the jagged remnants of the plastic spoon Karin used to slash her wrists to ribbons.
The nurse is crying, frantically grabbing paper towels and pressing them to Karin's wrists, trying to stop the bleeding. Her hands stain crimson. "No," she sobs. "You were getting better, Karin-chan. I thought you were getting better…"
More attendants rush down the hall, ordering Toshiro back to the recreation room. He is pushed back, and then later, someone locks him back into his cell.
~.~.~
That night, it is a male nurse that comes in to give him his medication.
"What happened to my nurse?" he asks.
The nurse frowns. "Ran decided to take a little vacation. I'll be attending you for a while."
He doesn't like this at all, but he dutifully swallows the pills so that the other man will go away.
~.~.~
Four days later, it is he who visits her.
Karin has been put on lockdown, considered a danger to herself and others, and has thus been confined to her room. So, he reasons, since she can't come out, he'll just have to go to her.
He sticks a wad of chewing gum in the lock, so that the door is unable to close all the way, and waits for the nurse to give him his meds and leave him be. After he slips past security—who, as Karin said, is too engrossed in his mini-television to notice him—he heads straight for her room, opening the door as quietly as possible.
She is in bed, and doesn't speak when he enters, merely scoots over. She's pale, bandaged up to the elbow, and has dark bags under her eyes. "Toshiro," she slurs, patting the spot next to her and wrapping her arms around him when he complies. Whatever medication she was on before, it's likely been doubled. "Missed you."
"I missed you too," he replies. He kisses her forehead, runs a hand over her hair. "Did you see them?"
"Of course!" She smiles into his neck, content. "That's when they visit me most."
His fingers run patterns over her shoulder. "What did they say?"
"What they always say," she breathes dreamily. "They want me to join them."
~.~.~
"I really don't think you should be seeing her, Toshiro."
He stares at that stain, feeling lighter than he had in a long time. He can feel how annoyed his therapist was getting, how anxious.
"I just feel that the relationship isn't healthy. It's toxic to your recovery, and to hers."
Who is she to judge anyway? Yoruichi is just as fucked up as he is, but more deluded about it. Ignoring her birthright, fleeing Soul Society, all so she can shack up with some other quack doctor and tell him how fucked up he is every day at ten o'clock.
Maybe he actually is really crazy. But he has Karin. And with company, the dissension into madness isn't so bad a journey.
"Toshiro."
He smiles at the carpet.
~.~.~
They eat, stealing glances at each other above their soup.
His hand snakes around, and his fingers lovingly trace the scars up her arms, some much older than others. She leans her head onto his shoulder.
"What part of no touching don't you understand!"
Their fingers interlock, lingering, before drifting away.