Disclaimer: I own nothing, except my twisted imagination.

A/N: This fic is not meant to offend anyone or cause some outrageous revolt. It is simply another product of three options: too much smutty imagination, too much time on my hands to help it thrive.

Pairing: Oliver Thredson/Lana Winters.

American Horror Story: Asylum

A Residual Haunting

Chapter Seven

Slipping in and out of recurrent nightmares is often like reliving the haunted presence of a memory that's fresh as though it happened yesterday or one that's since been lost within the recesses of the mind, forgotten to time. And under sedation, these nightmares are often at their worst, their blurred edges blending so perfectly with reality until you've realized it's hard to wake up from a nightmare if you were never asleep to begin with. Oliver had always known the medication at the facility was questionable, but the staff had begun doubling up his dosage being administered recently in effort to help wean him off the reporter while he weathered out his long days in confinement. But thankfully to Oliver's advantage, those moments lost within the hazy push and pull of the never ending river of his dreams were now coming to an end.

The clanking of locks followed by the brightest of white light streamed into the small cell and an orderly peered cautiously inside the black, empty space. He took two steps in when suddenly Oliver's head leaned out beyond the darkness and into the line of light, catching the orderly off guard. Carefully, Carl looked the taller man up and down, his eyes wandering over the dingy strait jacket he still wore to make sure it was still in place.

"Hello, Carl…." Oliver said quietly, the tiniest smile playing over his lips and the orderly watched as he emerged completely into view. "I was beginning to think I was left for dead in this hole, but I'm glad to see someone still gives a shit."

"That's why it's called solitary, Oliver." Carl said matter-of-factly after Oliver gave him a rather dark and foreboding glare then casually walked deeper into his cell.

He then watched as the retired doctor plopped down on the floor in a corner and lay down, rolling onto his back and propping his dirty socked feet up high against the wall and crossed his long legs nonchalantly like a child without a care in the world. Oliver knew it was most likely time for his medication again, but he wasn't quite ready. Not yet... If he wanted him to take it, he was going to have to work for it by coming over to make him take it. At least the excitement of subdued defiance would get his blood pumping.

"You disappoint me, Carl." Oliver began as he watched from the floor as Carl walked over and looked down into his dark eyes. "After working in this asylum for so many years, I thought you of all people would understand that this tiny little cell isn't the actual punishment. No, it's not the punishment at all…. It's our minds that keep us imprisoned within ourselves. All day long it records and organizes information from our environment during consciousness and later, the most powerful organ in the human body responsible for protecting us against ourselves turns against us by switching those recorded events into nightmares while we sleep… The majority of the brain shuts down and our body enters a period of temporary paralysis, trapping us in our own bodies and forcing us to relive whatever our mind has collected and turning it into demented 'stories'".

"What's your point, Doc?" Carl said with annoyance, looking over the length of the man strewn over the floor with precautionary practice before beginning the task of unbuckling the strait jacket.

"While I lay here in this cell in the dark, listening all day to the cruelty and mistreatment bouncing across these walls, the solace I once thought of as sleep replays those moments for me all over again... Now just think about being trapped alone all this time inside these walls with those 'stories' of this place and what they could do." Oliver said quietly as he stared up at the ceiling, looking on at the shapes of light cast across it from the hall and the slanted bend of Carl's shadow along the walls. "The brain is quite the horrifying place, Carl, if you think about it."

"Well if it wasn't, we wouldn't have someone like you now would we, Thredson?" The orderly responded with a sarcastic smile and leaned down, making quick work of removing the jacket. "Come on, let's get you out of this thing so we can get out of here."

Oliver glared at the orderly out of the side of his eyes, a heavy sigh escaping his nose as Carl pulled him up from the floor and to his feet. With a shake of his shoulders, the confining jacket fell to the floor and he stretched, feeling the strain of unused muscles in his arms screaming in protest under his skin. Reaching down, he snatched up his sweater and slid it on. Carl looked on in a quiet curiosity as the doctor tucked in his blue uniform shirt while smoothing the wrinkles out, straightened his collar perfectly back into place, and buttoned the cuffs at his wrists and he swore it seemed as if in Oliver's mind he were still wearing one of his well tailored suits. Oliver moved to side step the orderly and exit the cell, more than eager to seek out a bath, when an arm shot out to bar his passage. Confused, Oliver eyes met the orderly once more.

"You ain't gonna be so eager to leave this little nest here once you find out what Sister Eunice has in store for you." Carl muttered and attempted to pull Oliver's hands behind his back for cuffing.

"What are you talking about? I've probably been in here for two weeks and based on civil standards, I've served enough time here." Oliver argued, his brows crinkling with confusion and irritation.

"Yeah well, you ain't calling the shots around here no more, Doc." Carl commented.

Jerking his wrists free, Oliver turned on him and backed up towards the open doorway in disbelief of the never ending cycle of torture until he bumped into a solid mass of a man behind him. His eyes widened when a thick arm wound around his neck and he immediately pulled and twisted for freedom. Carl looked on with a rather amused expression as both men tussled about for several minutes, his eyes locked with Oliver's as he listened to his struggled breaths and quiet wheezing through the narrow passage of his windpipe underneath the strong forearm threatening to crush it.

Seconds often feel like hours when you suddenly have so few of them left and Oliver felt himself grow light headed from the lack of adequate oxygen to his brain and his hands grasped and clawed at the strong, muscled forearm around his neck until his strength waned. Carl shook his head with mock pity as Oliver's hands finally fell to dangle loosely at his sides and his body sagged towards the floor.

After a long moment, the blackness filling Oliver's eyes slowly began to clear and he dazedly felt the cold cement of the floor outside his cell slam against his cheek as he was dropped harshly to the floor, his glasses sliding off his face and out of reach. After a moment, he took a deep breath followed by a fit of coughs, his chest gulping mouthfuls of the air that was ripped away from his lungs after his struggle within the brutish orderly's arms.

Dimly, he saw the white shoes of one of the men walk around his sluggishly moving body and kneel down in front of his face though he wasn't sure who.

"C'mon, Thredson… You didn't really think your little field trip to solitary would be all you'd get after the stunt you pulled on Winters, did ya? If so, you disappoint me too."

A pair of hands turned Oliver onto his back and he gazed up into the white hallway light dangling above that blocked out the orderly's face. A tight grip found its way under both his arms and lifted him slightly up from the floor. Immediately he began to thrash about, shoving the orderly behind him backward against the wall, but he wasn't able to get far when a burst of white pain shot through his nose from the crack of a fist.

Through his daze, Oliver watched as his body was then dragged down the length of the hallway by his arms, the white rubber at the bottom of his shoes leaving stray skid marks along the floor like a trail of breadcrumbs to where he hoped someone would find what he imagined to be his broken body left behind once they were done with it.

By the time his dark eyes reopened, Oliver hissed loudly through his teeth and immediately brought his hands up to his face to pinch the bridge of his nose with his fingers as blistering pain shot through his nasal canal from an apparent beating he barely remembered receiving. The clinking of cold metal around his wrists as they moved led him to deduce that he was handcuffed. Carefully he touched his face, feeling the area for blood, fractured or broken bone, but thankfully there was none found. Once again, the reminiscence of the situation filled him with an immediate frustration and a lasting sadness as the memories of his childhood reared to the forefront of his mind in reminder of the many times he'd been bullied and beaten as a small child by his classmates because he was 'different'.

Blinking several times to clear the build of tears of pain from his eyes, Oliver suddenly shot straight up in realization that he was reclining in an empty tub in what appeared to be the facility's hydrotherapy room. With a wince, he carefully shifted to get up, but his eyes shot open completely when he heard a sharp and abrupt voice.

"Not so fast…"

Turning with a confused expression in the direction of the sound, his eyebrows furrowed at seeing the distorted yet familiar fiery red hair and slender frame of his appointed young doctor. With a roll of his eyes, his hand dropped from his face and he slowly settled himself back down to a more comfortable sitting position.

"Oh great… You're here." he said with obvious sarcasm and watched her closely as she crossed the room towards him, her black heels tapping over the floor until she stood directly in front of him.

The young doctor folded her arms and stared directly down into his eyes.

"How do you expect me to take you seriously and even begin to question whether or not you're improving when you can't even give my therapy longer than a day's worth of consideration?" she asked, the irritation more than evident. "I can't help you if you won't let me."

Oliver groaned aloud and leaned his head back against the tub, sagging himself further down into it and closed his eyes. The doctor watched him reach up and run a hand down the side of his face in frustration, seeing the questioning look on his face the moment he realized his eyeglasses were missing. She knew he didn't want to hear any of what she had to say right now, but it wasn't as if he had somewhere else to be.

"You're wasting your time… Isn't there someone else around here you could pester for treatment? I'm sure the head banger in the common room would love a little chat with someone else aside from that brick wall." he finally replied in a deep, bored tone.

Dropping his hands in his lap, his eyes suddenly widened and he looked down at himself, snapping out of his disorientation at the sensation of skin against skin to discover the orderlies had stripped him of all forms of clothing completely. She took a seat on the edge of the tub and Oliver curled over on his side with humility, his bound hands covering his exposed nether regions. His nostrils flared with anger and his eyes flashed as he glared up at the doctor, "What's happened? And how long have you been sitting here watching me like this?"

"Vulnerability isn't very becoming of you, Oliver. In fact it's quite different when you're on the receiving end, isn't it?" the doctor questioned and looked down at him out of the corner of her eyes. "Cuffed hands, stripped of your last shred of dignity, all while someone you loathe watches you squirm and you're powerless to stop it. The similarity of this situation and what you did to Miss. Winters is strikingly familiar…. But don't worry, this is as far as I'll go."

When he simply glared back in silence, she sighed as reached into the lapel of her suit jacket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, "For a minute, I didn't think you'd ever come to. Right now it's 10:00 a.m. You've been out for the past 2 hours and you missed for our session at 8:00... Your little resistance episode this morning has thrown us off track so right now, you'll be getting a double dose of therapy here with me and the water therapy in that tub."

He watched her incredulously as she pressed a white stick from the pack between her red lips, lit it and puffed out a little circle of white smoke. Oliver watched the tiny cloud drift lazily in the air towards the ceiling, its shape wobbling about until it dissipated.

"Don't you realize you could possibly be granted parole one day?" she asked quietly, her green eyes flitting back to his own and she tapped her cigarette, letting the buildup of ashes scatter from the cherry at the end. "Of course you're nowhere fit to run the streets anytime soon, but perhaps with the appropriate treatment and with an extensive amount of time, you could one day return to a piece of the life you lost…."

When he responded with a puzzled look, she continued, "Oh come on, Oliver… You used to work for the state for Christ's sake. The system works in mysterious ways, you know this."

With a heavy sigh, Oliver leaned his head back against the edge of the dingy tub, his eyes searching the ceiling for answers that weren't scribbled in the cement above his head. After all these weeks, she still didn't get it. Finally he chucked quietly to himself.

"If all I have is you as my anchor then I'm in for a long wait… So why the rush?" he queried with a small dark smile.

"Well here's a news flash, Oliver. You have been appointed to me and you will continue to receive treatment whether you want it or not because that's what they pay me for. I know you still believe you're the better psychiatrist, but this is where you and I differ…" she began and crossed her legs, leaning over the edge of the tub to peer down into his dark eyes and recapture his attention. "I see you for what you really are… You became a psychiatrist to see if others minds were as twisted as yours and that you weren't alone in your suffering rather than to help them because you shared the same conflict."

"I beg your pardon-" he began, his thick brows knotting together as his held titled to meet her gaze.

"I used to be like you at first." she interrupted, her eyes narrowing with a level of contempt he'd never seen her wear. "You took this profession so seriously when you arrived here… Gallivanting about declaring the unlawful treatment around this place and attempts to provide suitable treatment for these patients. I did too… But look how far this place has come since your reign and mine. Do you ever wonder why that is?"

Oliver cocked a thick eyebrow at her.

"We both know the truth. This is becoming a ridiculous profession no matter where you go and you know it. The only people that actually take it seriously are the upper class who can afford to pay someone to listen to their problems. They don't want advice; they want someone to tell them what to do with their pathetic lives that are falling apart at the seams because they made such horrendous life choices. And this place only used us as a smoke screen."

Oliver watched her lean back and took a deep puff of her cigarette as she stared across the room, the wheels in her mind turning but to what purpose he wondered.

"Well I guess you've got it all figured out for yourself, don't you?" he finally responded in a low voice, the disgust lacing his tongue that she would have the audacity to compare herself to him in the first place. "You're right about one thing, we are different in ways you will never understand. It's your job not to be judgmental. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you've failed miserably. These people don't have anyone else to help them except you. I may be a monster, but I took my Hippocratic Oath seriously."

"Says Bloody Face…." she added.

The rage behind Oliver's narrowed eyes flickered and he looked away, effectively ending the conversation. The young doctor finally sighed in slight relief, her face softening at the fact that her little hidden agenda of a test had in fact proven that somewhere in there, amongst his problematic infatuations and sociopathic tendencies, he still held onto a portion of the passionate doctor he once was, that there was possibly still hope for this man.

"You know, I'd have hoped that you would come to appreciate this time we have together rather than some of the other primitive forms of treatment around here, but… suit yourself. You're going to wish you had when the water goes on." she told him honestly. "And for the record… your report doesn't quite do you justice because you're exceptional at hiding your true self until you're ready for someone to see it."

She flicked her cigarette onto the damp cement, stubbing it out with her black heel and moved to walk away and signal the nurses to begin the water therapy when Oliver's hand suddenly shot out from the tub, grabbing her wrist tightly. Her smaller body jerked backward towards the tub, smacking her against it and she let out a yelp as she slid to the floor.

Quickly Oliver rose from the tub as naked as the day as he was born and stepped out. He'd had enough. He was tired of being a toy for the orderlies and staff's enjoyment. The small doctor slid to the floor, her confident and egotistical façade now washed to the floor around her feet like he'd just thrown a bucket of water in her direction. The barely contained fear she expressed when she felt his hand grip her wrist blossomed over her face as she stared, wide eyed up at him, wrought with true terror that the cuffs around his wrist did little to thwart his strength. Desperately she pulled against his grip, her heels scraping and sliding frantically against the wet concrete in effort to gain leverage as Oliver gripped the front of her jacket and pulled her up before his face.

"You've got much to learn if you think these petty games of cognitive dissonance that you enjoy playing around with so much are going to get you what you want out of me…" he jeered, his white teeth bared with anger. "Don't you get it! If I wanted out of here, I could've easily found a way as so many have done before if I truly wanted to. But what's the point when the very thing I need is in here with me now?"

"Oliver, you're hurting me!" she whimpered, the pounding of her heart thundering in her ears as she stared directly into his dark chocolate eyes.

"I know…" he responded, his anger escalating at the fact that she wasn't even listening to a word he'd said. She was treating him with complete disregard like…. like… like her. And suddenly the face of the reporter that escaped his basement crept through his mind like a slow poison as it usually did every waking hour of his day.

The young doctor's legs kicked, sending a black heel slipping from her foot and to the floor with a clatter as Oliver dragged her body with him by her jacket. Finally the scream burning at the back of her throat belted out the moment he smashed her backward into the delousing shower at the back of the room.

When the orderlies rushed inside, Oliver let her drop to the floor at his feet finally as if nothing was happening and backed up, raising his bound hands up lazily in front of him as a sign of non-aggression. His eyes however never left the doctor sitting on the floor at his bare feet inside the shower surrounded by rusted metal bars curved inward like a rib cage waiting to snap shut with her still inside.

She waited quietly, brushing her red locks out of her eyes, her breath heavy as she hurriedly straightened her suit jacket and ran her fingers through her hair to regain her composure while the orderlies forced Oliver back down into the tub, covering it with the grey cloth to secure him underneath it. Not until she witnessed the little prick of a needle containing a sedative being thrust into the skin of his arm did she finally stand.

One of the orderly's rushed up to her, questioning if she had been hurt, but she angrily brushed him off, "I'm fine!"

Oliver watched with mild amusement as the orderly backed off while the medication drifted through his blood stream, filling him once again with a strange and weighty sense of euphoria, softly blurring the edges of his vision.

The moment the straps were tied securely around the tub to lock him down underneath and the orderlies had exited the room, the young doctor took a deep breath and stalked up to him once more after regaining her composure, her walk awkward and wobbly from her missing shoe.

"Despite what you think, I'm not afraid of you…" she whispered with a slight coldness he could've imagined himself to be proud of if he weren't still idly fuming.

"How many times do tell yourself that until you believe it?" he said quietly, his low voice rumbling lazily about the room. "Especially now knowing that I could possibly get out of here whenever I please, I wonder how many times it takes before you're able to fall asleep tonight."

She narrowed her eyes at him, furious and reached behind the tub, twisting the silver nozzle with a loud squeak, cranking the temperature up ten degrees. Oliver's eyes widened and he winced, his mouth dropping open as hot water rushed into the tub, searing his exposed skin.

"May as well get comfy… It's going to be a long two hours." he heard her say under her breath somewhere within the encompassing heat of the water and the fog of the drug taking its full effect and this time he hoped to find some semblance of a dreamless sleep.

His eyes grew heavy and eventually his head tilted back, thumping against the rim of the tub and he was out. After slipping her foot back inside her shoe, the doctor sat on the edge of the tub once more, looking at him closely now that she felt comfortable enough to be within this close vicinity again.

"It's a shame what you've become…. So intelligent, so full of potential, so promising... And so handsome." her green eyes trailed up his exposed throat, over the smooth contours of his face, and his short damp hair. "You had the world at your fingertips and you let it escape your grasp. What a waste."

Slowly she reached up to brush a dark stray stand of hair from his forehead then reached into her breast pocket, pulling out his black rimmed glasses. An orderly had brought them to her after his resistance to comply with his next round of treatment this morning.

It had been foolish, she knew, to have a session with him without maximum restraint seeing as she was well aware he was more than dangerous, but part of her also knew he had probably done this for just the thrill out of sheer boredom to get her to back off. Though she couldn't tell if he truly wanted to hurt her seeing as he could have killed her inside that shower.

But he didn't.

And that alone was the reason why she was so eager to take on his case in the first place. There were so many unknown unknowns to be dealt with inside his mind that were right at her fingertips. To imagine how far she could go after being the only doctor willing to endure it all to gain the knowledge that most in this profession could only dream to obtain. Who needed unproven case studies or even biographical films with loosely based serial killers acclaimed as "true stories" when you had the real thing within a contained environment to study?

"If circumstances were different, I bet you'd have loved to skin me alive if you could." she whispered and reached up, carefully sliding his eyeglasses into place over his nose while he slept. "Well, not today."

She stood up, dusting off her black skirt and set her still full pack of cigarettes, minus one stick, and her lighter atop the cloth covering the tub he was in for him to have when he returned to the rest of the populace in the common room later today. It appeared in his own twisted way, and to her satisfaction, he'd earned them.

====To be Continued=====

A/N: WELL! Kind of wasn't expecting this to come out this way, but oh well! Seems like everyone is developing their own hidden agendas it seems. Funny how that happens... I blame the fact that there are too many people running amuck inside my brain. And with Oliver Thredson as one of them, anything is possible. Thank you for the reviews and followers of this story! I hope this was a chapter you all enjoyed and I'm sorry to the guest who asked if I could update as their xmas present. I've wanted to get this update sooner for everyone, but it's been a busy holiday season! XD