Hey guys! Sorry about not updating for a bit there, things got a little busy around here but we're back on track now :)
Still don't own Misfits, still loving playing in the playground.
A certain character in this chapter will remind you of a certain someone from our favorite show, in fact, you'll find a few characters like that in this fic. It's done for a reason that you'll find out near the end of this fic so before I get any... *this person is Nathan...* I know, it's intentional lol
...
"Hey, mate, you gotta light?"
With a slight flinch, Simon glances up from his spot on the bench. Each day the patients are allowed outside for their daily dose of air and recreational activities, a means of keeping the somewhat sane around here still in their right minds. After being cooped up so long, people start to go a little crazier than usual. He wonders if that might be part of the reason someone is speaking to him, they've lost a little more of their sanity. No one's talked to him since he got here.
He stares up at this bloke who's now looking down at him, with his wild, curly hair and the large scar across his eye and upper lip, and he blinks rapidly in surprise. He maybe even questions his safety for a second as the guy takes a seat across from him and smiles.
"You one of those deaf mentals?"
Barely a minute into the conversation and he already has someone questioning him, poking at him. "No," he manages to splutter.
"All right, then. Lets try this again. Have you got a light?"
"I- I don't smoke."
"Did your voice just crack? Are you going through puberty?" He laughs, a somewhat obnoxious sound. "Classic. Hey, man, gotta do something 'round here to keep you grounded. You know where I can get some coke?"
Simon's eyes widen and he takes a quick look around to make sure no one's heard what he's just said. The last thing he needs is someone associating him with something like that. "N- no, I-"
He laughs again. "You're an easy fella to take the piss out of. Worst habit I got is right here," he says, waving the cigarette around in Simon's face. "Keeps me stress free. Except no one here that I've asked seems to have a lighter. It's bullocks. One of these nurses has got to be holding. Miss B in the cafeteria, she looks like a right chain smoker. Have to be to survive this place. Your staring's a little uncomfortable, man."
Shocked, he thinks. He's just so shocked at how much this bloke has said to him in such a short amount of time. Let alone the fact that it's him that it's being said to.
For the briefest of moments, his thoughts take him to the way his friendship with Matt first came to be, a kid he didn't know sitting down next to him at lunch, striking up a conversation, the way this guy is doing now. Of course he then thinks of how things ended with Matt and the rage that's always there, just under the surface bubbles up. Suspicion strikes like a snake and he looks up at the guy with a hard stare. "What do you want?" he asks. "Why are you talking to me?"
The guy sits back with a look of surprise. "Now there's no need for the attitude. What's up yours?" He lowers his brow, eyeing him carefully. It makes Simon uncomfortable. "You one of those bi- polar fellas this place is loaded up with?"
"No," he answers tersely.
"Well, you're looking like a right mental. Should probably get those mood swings checked out."
Simon glances down at the table and shuffles his feet against the pavement. "No one here... talks to me."
"You do look a little weird. I might have steered clear of you, too, if I wasn't wanting a smoke so bad. S' the only real reason I came over here if I'm being honest."
The taunt is a small sting to his insides. Weird is definitely not the worst of things that have been said to him. He peeks up to find the guy smiling at him and his defense lowers slightly. It doesn't feel like he's trying to be cruel to Simon, just that his mouth gets ahead of his brain.
"I'm Simon," he says suddenly, before he can stop himself, but not before he can regret doing it. He didn't ask for his name. Why did he tell him his name? Why can't he just go away?
The guy stares at him for a long moment, tilting his head ever so slightly. Then his eyes widen. "I knew it was you! You're that kid from group that tried to off himself, aren't you?"
His throat constricts. He has to remind himself to breathe. That's what he'd been working on in counseling, how to make it through the panic attacks by taking deep breaths in through his mouth, and letting it out through his nose. It was a tip from the Doctor Lewis- who he still doesn't talk to. But he takes her advice, though he'd never admit to her. He may not give anything in return, but he does listen to her. He does the breathing thing a couple times, keeping his gaze on the table until he doesn't feel so out of touch. Then he nods, slowly.
"Jesus, that's fucked up. I've heard the nurses talk about you, you know. They call you the quiet one. On account of you never talking in group, ya know? Why is that, that you don't talk? You're talking a lot now. Why'd you try and kill yourself?"
He can feel his lip twitch in annoyance. "You ask a lot of personal questions," he says, trying to keep the anger from his voice. He doesn't like anyone, especially someone he doesn't know, being in his business. This isn't just business, though. This is his life. It's not something he wants picked apart by someone he doesn't even know.
"Hey, man, just trying to make conversation."
"I... I gave you my name. You could, give me yours. I- if you want."
He waits for the no to come. To be told to fuck off. To be belittled with cruel words or maybe even a slap to the head. He braces himself for the pain to return to his chest at another rejection and he nearly hates this guy for coming over and talking to him at all, for giving him hope, making him believe that things could get better in a place like this. That maybe he could make a friend and wouldn't be so alone.
"Jack."
He looks up, blinking hard. "What?"
"Don't do that eye shit, it's creepy. Name's Jack."
Simon holds his hand out and Jack scoffs.
"I'm not here for none of that pussy hand holding shit, put that away."
He cracks a small grin and lowers his hand. "You shared in group... that you tried to kill someone."
Jack's head snaps up, eyes widening, and Simon can tell he caught him off guard- a look he feels isn't one Jack gives very often. He doesn't seem like the kind of fella easily taken by surprise. "You remember that?"
He nods. "Is that how you got..." He gestures towards Jack's face. "Your scars."
Raising his hand, Jack runs his fingers over the raised skin above his lip and smiles widely. It makes the scar stretch wide. "Ah," he points at Simon,"Now who's getting personal? I see how it is, trying to get me to talk about myself so you don't have to talk about you. Well, it ain't gonna work."
Simon shakes his head. "That's not what I was-"
Jack laughs. "I'm just fuckin' with ya, Jesus. Okay, how's bout this. I'll tell ya where these bad boys came from, and then you have to tell me why ya tried to kill yourself. Deal?"
He has to think about this for a long moment. As Jack said, he hasn't talked in group, hasn't shared why he was there, or what he'd tried to do to himself. Of course, word still gets around in a place like this, doctors and nurses talk, patients overhear. He'd heard plenty himself about the girl from group who was slowly starving herself to death. There's no real privacy.
But to really open up to someone else about everything? He knows what it could mean for himself. Peeking up at Jack, he finds himself asking, "Will you pick on me? I- if I tell you, I mean.."
"Sammy-"
"Simon."
"Simon, whatever. Is that the kind of person you take me for? A bully?" He scoffs. "I must say I'm rather offended. Hey, fatty!" He calls out to someone over Simon's shoulder. "Yeah, you with the fag. Throw me your lighter."
"What? Why?" whoever it is yells back.
"Just do it, ya big twat."
"Fucker," they call back, and a second later something comes whizzing just past Simon's head, nailing Jack in the chest.
"Good day to you, too!" he hollers, grabbing the lighter and pulling the smoke out from behind his ear. He quickly lights it and takes a deep drag, letting the smoke exit his mouth in a row of rings. Simon watches as they rise into the air, growing wider until the wind blows them apart.
Jack snaps his fingers, drawing his attention back to him. "All right, weird kid... just think of this like good 'ol group therapy. They'd be so proud of us, wouldn't they. We're gonna share."
...
"Wake up!"
He jerks awake with a start, eyes opening and staring up into the darkness just as a hand comes down hard against his mouth. His heartbeat accelerates at the spike of fear that hits him. He's heard the stories from the male patients about this place, listened to them talk about what happens when the lights go out and there's a vastly different male to female ratio about this place. Things happen in the dark. Not to mention that he's already had one bad encounter with someone here. It's enough to instantly send him into a panic.
His first instinct is to pull away, but whoever it is places a hand on his chest, as well. He's about a second away from beginning to flail when they tell him, "Calm down, mental. It's just me."
It takes a moment for his mind to register that he knows this voice. Slowly, he looks to the side of him, sight adjusted to the dark enough by this point to see Jack grinning down at him. He shakes his head a couple times in an attempt to make him let go.
"I'm only going to move my hand if you swear you won't yell."
He closes his eyes and takes a deep, exasperated breath. Jack, he's beginning to see, isn't the brightest. Instead, he nods his head and waits until Jack has taken his hands entirely off him.
"Why..." He takes another breath and lets it out in a small huff. "Why would I yell?"
Jack shrugs. "I don't know, it just sounded like the right thing to say. So, uh, anyway, hi."
Simon pushes himself up to his elbows, the fog of sleep still mildly clouding his thoughts. "What are you doing? In my room?"
"Oh, you know, figured I'd come on down here and we could have us a little slumber party. Braid each other's hair, cuddle up in bed, swap some emotional but very inspiring stories about ourselves." When Simon just stares at him dumbstruck, Jack scoffs. "Come on, Sammy-"
"Simon," he interrupts.
"Sure," he says with a wave of his hand. Then, a moment later, he's seating himself on the end of Simon's bed and propping his feet up on them. Simon manages to fight the urge to ask him to please remove them. After all, he's never had someone go out of their way to come visit with him. "So here's the thing," Jack says with a sigh. "I'm gonna need your help."
It doesn't register at first, the thought that someone needs him, the idea that someone would want his help with anything. He's confused and still finding himself suspicious and cautious with Jack's intentions. For all he knows, Jack's trying to rope him into something just to get him in trouble. "What?" he asks, sitting up the rest of the way.
"Yeah, you're going to be my wing- man."
"What?" he repeats.
There's no mistaking Jack rolling his eyes. "You know, a comrade, a fellow mate, someone to watch my back, a-"
"I- I know what a wing- man is," he cuts in. "I- I just meant, why... are you asking me?"
Jack leans back and stares at him for a moment, making Simon feel like he's being scrutinized and he shrinks back a little under the pressure of it. "We can be mates, right?" Jack asks, then. "You and me. I mean, I don't know a lot about you Sammy, but you seem trust worthy. And I'm going to go do something and that something means I need someone that I can trust there with me. That person is you, right? I can trust you?"
Now he's just nervous. Clearly wherever this is leading may not have a good outcome judging by the way Jack is talking about it, like it's something bad. Trouble. And what's worse is that he can't bring himself to say he wants no part in whatever it may be. He's too curious. Nervous and curious, and just so damn glad to have someone talking to him. "I... guess? Why?"
"Good!" he says, slapping at Simon's knee. "You're going to help me raid the med room."
"What?!" he whispers, in a not so whispering voice at all, really.
"Oh, that's good, weird- kid. Talk a little louder why don't you, I don't think they heard you down in security! Jesus fuck, keep it down!"
He hangs his head a moment and mutters an apology. Jack is quick to let it go, something he's noticing about him. He doesn't seem to hold onto things, too busy cracking on to the next thing at hand.
"Okay, you ready to hear how this goes?" Simon nods and Jack smiles. "So get this," he leans forward, like he's getting really into this, and Simon almost wants to smile. "Every Tuesday night, between midnight and one, there's a shift switch. Nurse Jackie gets replaced by Nurse Roberts. You remember her, the one who wouldn't go out of her way to give me a light? So, anyway, maybe I'm the only one who's noticed, but there's a good twenty minutes there when no one is at the desk. It's entirely empty."
Simon stares at him, saying nothing, until Jack groans. "Come on, kid. Put the pieces together, I know you're smart enough. We're going to go down there during that time switch and steal some meds. You're going to come with me and help me keep an eye out. Got it now?"
He nods, letting the idea of it sink in. He would be helping partake in something that could get them both put in solitary confinement for a few days. They talked about that place a lot in here, that room, the quiet one with the soft foam on the walls. The one they put you in when you did something really bad. Or when you were just too crazy to interact with others in the unit. He recalls walking past it one day, and how that big metal door had sent chills down his spine. Even the thought of ending up in there terrified him. And now here he was thinking about doing something that could get him tossed in it.
Then again, there was the other side of the coin with this situation. The one where he'd be doing something with Jack, someone who said he trusted him. Who referred to him as his mate. He asks himself if those things are really enough to make him go through with it, if he's that desperate to find a niche in this place with someone. "Okay," he says a beat later. "I'll help you."
Jack pumps his fist and makes a grunting noise, which causes him to smile. "Great! Good, thanks, mate."
Another beat, and a different thought comes to him. "There are cameras," he says slowly. "In the halls. They'll be able to see our faces. We'll get caught!"
"All right now, spazz, down a notch. Already got that covered." Jack pulls a hood up over his head from his sweater and grins at him. "Lets go play ninjas."
…...
He has to admit, the prospect of doing this act sounded much better back in his room, and sounds terrible now that he's actually creeping down the hall doing it. Jack, however, seems to have none of those thoughts, as he stays ducked and sprinting down the hall, only looking over his shoulder every so often to make sure Simon is behind him and indeed still following. This was only after he stopped a few times and tried to make up excuses to go back to his room.
Simon's never been one for acting out of turn, for acting out at all, really. He got detention once for forgetting his homework and had carried on to his parents for a good two weeks about how sorry he was until they were telling him that they didn't care what he did wrong if he would just stop that. It was probably true, too. They so little paid attention to him at all that he probably could have gotten away with more, if that pesky thing known as his conscious wasn't always sneaking up on him. His sister always said he had a superhero complex, the need to always do good. He couldn't say he disagreed with her.
He spends the rest of the way to their destination thinking he shouldn't have done this.
Getting caught up in his thoughts, he doesn't notice when Jack stops before rounding a corner and he slams into him. Jack groans and turns around. "You're really working at getting us caught, aren't ya?"
"We'll probably get caught anyway," he mutters.
"With that sort of attitude, sure!" He rolls his eyes and faces forward again. "Just take it easy, kid. Nurse Jackie's getting ready to leave. No one else is around. We got this."
Simon holds his breath, chest tightening a bit as he waits for what happens next. He has to stop himself from crying out when Jack leaves him there, bounding out from their spot against the wall. Simon rushes forward, stopping just at the edge of the corner and catching Jack's feet as he falls over the counter. He bites back a small laugh as Jack pokes his eyes over the counter and gives him a thumbs up. Then he's turning around and heading towards the open med room. He looks over his shoulder one more time before slipping inside.
It's hard for Simon to recall the last time his adrenaline was pumping this hard. The night he went to burn down Matt's house, perhaps? All he knows is he's fighting the urge to cheer Jack on. Which could be why he loses track of the job he was supposed to be doing, and is suddenly hearing someone call out, "Hey! What are you doing in there? Hey!"
Jack comes scrambling out of the room like a mad man, pillowcase in his hand and a panic in his eyes. He and Simon simultaneously look down the hall to find Nurse Roberts rushing down the hall towards them, as fast as her short legs will carry her. Jack looks back at Simon, looking like a deer in the headlights.
"Come on!" Simon whisper- yells, waving him over.
Jack gives Nurse Roberts one more look before jumping/falling over the counter. His lanky legs seem to trip him up a bit as he struggles to his feet, reminding Simon of a giraffe. He rushes towards Simon, that freaked out expression on his face, until he's reaching out and grabbing hold of him, dragging him along. Simon nearly falls over himself.
"Stop!" Someone yells out from behind them.
"Stellar wing-man skills!" Jack hisses at him, continuing to pull him along. Simon manages to look down long enough to see the pillowcase and notice that it's making a rattling sound.
"You stole a pillowcase of pills?!" he all but cries.
"Maybe," Jack retorts. "Now's not the time for lectures, fail look- out."
Guards are close behind them, Simon can hear their keys rattling as they run to catch up. Thankfully he and Jack manage to stay ahead long enough to crash into his door and rush inside.
"Take your hood off, take your hood off!" Jack breathes out, tugging at it. Simon rushes to pull it off. "Okay, get in bed!"
"What about you?"
"Sheets are long enough to hide me under it. Hurry up!" He pushes Simon towards the bed and Simon barely has time to blink before Jack's disappeared. He's good, Simon thinks, rushing to climb into bed as he hears boots approaching outside his door. There's only a beat between him getting under the covers and facing the wall and the door to his room opening. He tightens his legs around the sweat shirt tucked between his knees and does his best to slow his breathing so it looks like he's asleep.
He cringes a bit as the footsteps come into the room, and holds his breath as they get closer to the bed.
"Think we got him," someone out in the hall calls.
Simon's brows pinch together as he turns over in his head the idea that they possibly found someone else going to commit the same crime. Or maybe just being out of bed and about at the wrong time? Either way, a few seconds later the footsteps lead away from the bed, the door shuts, and his room is shrouded in darkness once more. Simon tremors under his sheets, turning onto his back to stare up at the ceiling. It's another good ten minutes before Jack even crawls out from under the bed. When he pokes his head over the edge and whispers a "boo," Simon jumps and curses at him.
"Well, that's no way to talk to a friend you nearly got put in permanent solitary, now is it?" Jack slowly pulls himself up to a standing position and plops down on the edge of Simon's bed with a sigh. "So that was fun. And by fun I mean I don't think I'm going to invite you on another outing again. But, I think it was still worth it this once."
"Do you think they'll figure out it was us?"
Jack waves his hand dismissively. "They're all a bunch of stupid twats. It's doubtful. But if they do, I can always just say it was all your idea and get slack on the punishment." At Simon's wide, panicked expression, he laughs. "Still just as gullible. Good to know. I'll have a lot of fun with you, I'm guessing."
Simon shakes his head. "I can't... believe we did that," he breathes out. "W- what are you going to do with all those pills?"
He smiles and taps his chin a couple times. "Well, we do share a ward with the addicts... could always sell 'em off and make a buck. Or," he draws the word out, "I can just hold on to 'em myself and take 'em as I see fit so I can get a good high going. Suppose it would work real well during group or therapy, be too zoned out to have to listen to all that wank."
"I thought, you said you only smoke."
"Pills don't count, man."
Simon nods like the notion somehow makes sense to him.
"Well, anyhow, it's been interesting but I have to say it's time for this stealthy bastard to take his prizes and get to bed. Catch ya on the outside, kid." Jack gives his knee a final, parting pat, before standing up from the bed and tip-toeing across the room.
"Jack," he finds himself calling out before he can bite the words down. He turns around to look at him. "Thanks," Simon tells him quietly. "For-"
"No problem," Jack cuts in. "What'r mates for and all that jazz." He gives him a smile, that scar stretching over the skin once more and Simon thinks, would never say, he knows, that he finds Jack nice to look at. Jack wears his imperfection proudly, without shame, and he admires that. Wishes he had that himself.
Light fills the room for the briefest of moments as Jack slowly opens the door and slips outside his room. Then he's alone again, except... just this once, it doesn't feel so lonely.
…...
Jack is his mate.
Simon says it to himself a lot, turns the words over in his head, tastes it on his tongue when the moments are tough and he smiles. It feels good, having Jack. Having someone. He and Jack hang out during meals and in the rec room, outside when it's not pissing down. And they talk, a lot.
Jack tells him that it was a fight that brought him here, a scuffle with his mom's abusive boyfriend, in fact.
"The fucker stabbed me in the face with my own knife," Jack tell him. "I got me mum in the middle of it all, screaming her arse off and pleading with me to stop and shit, so I listened. Bad idea that was. Soon as I drop the knife and walk away, that arsehole picked it up and charged me. Lucky he missed my eye so I could finish him off."
Jack has no problem giving out the gruesome details of what he did to the guy in return. "Put him in the hospital, I did," he informs him. Originally they were going to arrest him, but his mom managed to get him a plea. He was deemed mentally unstable and they sent him to the unit. "Twenty seven stitches," he tells Simon. "And I don't regret it one. fucking. bit." He smiles and the scar stretches and Simon can see that it's true, can feel it. But it doesn't scare him. He thinks, if Jack wanted to hurt him, he could, but he hasn't. Simon gets the feeling, trusts it enough, that Jack wouldn't.
It takes some time, but Simon finally musters up the courage and tells him everything about Matt, not just the minor stuff they'd shared during the first conversation they had. These talks go deeper than that. He tells him things he wouldn't have expected to, about all the bad things Matt said and did, about his suicide attempt- that's the hardest thing to talk about. But Jack listens and makes comments here and there, calling Matt a pussy or a twat, making Simon feel better about the whole mess. He even threatens to beat his ass when they finally leave their unit prison.
He finds comfort in Jack, even when he's being his loud, obnoxious self... or calling him by the wrong name. Because Jack shows he cares in his own ways, like getting the group therapist off his back by referring to him as a cock-loving fucker whenever he picks on Simon to talk during group therapy. On even better days, he saves him the green Jello on Jello day because he remembers it's his favorite.
He thinks Jack's lonely, too. Though he knows it's not something he'd ever share with him. They talk, but there are no teary confessions, no sentimental comments. Jack is Jack, and Simon is Simon, and they're very different, but a lot the same, and that's okay.
And sure, sometimes Jack's a right pain in the ass but, to Simon, he's someone he can look to when it feels like the whole world is going to fall in on him.
Jack is always there when Simon needs him... until one day he's not.
Suicide, the halls whisper. They echo with the words.
He's coming out of therapy, just walking out of therapy when he hears it. The kid with the scar on his face had some pills stashed in his room, whole bunch of them. They found him on the floor, puked everywhere, eyes wide open.
He stands outside Jack's room and he thinks to himself, it isn't right. It's not right. It can't be right. Jack's body is brought out on a stretcher, buried beneath a sheet too white and Simon has to muster all the strength he has not to ask them to take it off, to let him see. He half-contemplates tearing it off himself. It's strange to him, this bubbling rage that takes over, the stabbing ache in his chest that makes him want to scream until his lungs shatter and tear down the walls around him. That make him want to march into that room and scoop up whatever's left of the carnage and ingest it himself. To feel what Jack felt. To feel something himself.
Because before the anger and pain even has time to settle, the numb wraps itself around him, as well. He gets sick with it all. Throws up, a lot. He wants to cry but doesn't. Beats his legs 'til they bruise instead and lies awake at night wondering why.
He wonders how he didn't know, how he couldn't just see it. Jack always looked happy... alive. He acted as though nothing could touch him, like he were invincible. Simon wonders if anyone could see the pain on his face when things were as bad as they were for him, or if he had just learned to hide it as well as Jack did. Mostly he just asks why.
The answers never come.
Simon's paper cardboard riddled with holes. He's alone all over again, truly alone. The silence seeps back in until he's sure he's so quiet he's disappeared from the world
...
So, yeah, hope that was all right.
Leave some love, please :)