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open_flameCharacters: Liz Sherman, Dr. Marsh. Mentions of Jack Harkness.
Fandom: Hellboy, Torchwood (Bump in the Night Verse)
Setting: Bellemie Hospital. The night of this thread.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1200
Prompt:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
scifi_muses Vol2 week36
Lightning Crashes – Live: the angel opens her eyes/ the confusion sets in/ before the doctor can even close the door.
AN: Crazy!Liz always breaks my heart. I know, I’ve ended a fic like this before. So sue me.
“You’ve had a lot of excitement today, are you sure you wouldn’t like to postpone until tomorrow?” Doctor Marsh’s subtle accent was more soothing than usual. Normally it reminded Liz of England, which reminded her of Wales, which reminded her of Cardiff, which reminded her of him. Her mind worked in curious ways since she came to Bellemie hospital, bouncing from one frantic thought to the next even more so than before she committed herself.
Liz shook her head and rubbed her wrist with her fingertips. The rubber bands that circled it were loose, a sign she’d been using the negative reinforcement technique more than she was meant to.
“Dr. Miller doesn’t want to see me, huh?” Liz stared at her wrist, her index finger gently tapping the welt she’d made that evening after not one, but two visits that shook her to her core.
“He has requested…a new patient schedule, yes.” Marsh’s words were soft-spoken, almost afraid. No one else would talk to Liz anymore. Every time they got to the core of the problem, the reason for her emotional instability the next thing that happened called for fire extinguishers, and the doctors were getting quite tired of replacing their suits.
“I can’t hurt you just by talking to you.” Liz spat as the band in her wrist snapped clean in two and flew across the room. One of the pair of orderlies walked over and picked the strip of rubber up, handing it to Marsh. His eyes met Liz’s with a level of hate that she had unfortunately grown used to.
“I am aware of this, Elizabeth. Regardless, perhaps now it not the time for talking.” She pulled out a clipboard and a simple pen, sliding them across the table to Liz. The girl with dark hair and even darker rings under her eyes scoffed and raised her head. “What, you want me to write a story?”
“A letter. One you will never send.” Marsh leaned back in the chair and sighed. They had tried everything, everything to find the source of Liz’s imbalance, the reason that she would make such great progress, and then suddenly falter so close to the finish line. This exercise was more often than not pointless, but they were running out of options short of locking Liz in a rubber room for the rest of her days. She wasn’t crazy, not by the standard definition. She was however, unstable to the point of dangerous. More dangerous than anyone else they’d ever seen.
“What’s the point then?” Liz wrapped her fingers around the pen, gently rolling it between her palms. She was anxious. She wanted more drugs. She wanted to sleep, even if they had to pump her full of sedative to make it happen.
“You are writing it for you. To help you identify those factors in your life that are beneficial, and those that are not.” Marsh reached her hand across the table and slid the clipboard closer to Liz, her expression blank.
“Factors?” Liz raised a brow inquisitively, though she knew exactly what her therapist meant. People.
“Yes. Now, I’d like you to write to the most important people in your life, the ones who have influenced you the most. Tell them what you have never been able to say before, what you feel would not be right or decent or would hurt them in anyway. Tell them what you’ve always been to afraid to say.”
Liz cleared her throat, and stared at the page before her for minutes, maybe even longer. Finally she looked up at her doctor, her teeth almost cutting her lip as she realized what she would need to do to complete this exercise.
“I’ll need more paper.” She asked softly.
A stack of paper was soon laid before her and she scribbled in her tight little script for what felt like years.
Dear Mom….
Dear Dad….
Dear Broom….
Dear Kate….
Dear Abe….
Dear Kitty….
Dear Clay….
Dear Red …
The stacks of pages grew as Doctor Marsh went to refresh her coffee time and time again.
“Done.” Liz pushed them to the woman and sighed, annoyed. “Can I go? I’m tired.”
Marsh looked the pages over, studying each before filing them away. She folded her hands in front of her and gave Liz a look much like a parent catching a child out after curfew.
“And the last one…?” She asked point blank.
“What last one?” Liz dismissed her question, though her voice cracked and her eyes stung as she thought about who Dr. Marsh meant.
“The man in the wool coat who visited you this evening?” She said, deliberately avoiding the name or the title of the man in question. She knew it would cause a bad reaction from Liz. It always did.
“He’s not important. You said I had to write to the important people, and I did.” Liz hissed as she stood. “I want to go back to my room. Now.”
Doctor Marsh tensed as the orderlies moved closer to the patient. The fire retardant straight jacket was at the ready, as were the fire extinguishers and the sedatives. These were necessary precautions given Liz’s history.
“Very well. You may go.” Marsh said. She knew very well that once Liz decided a session was over, the session was over.
Liz stared at the ceiling of her room for hours, like she did most nights. The lithium clouded her mind in that way she would never admit she really enjoyed. It was easy to not think when she was on drugs. She liked easy.
Sleep didn’t come, and as soon as the orderly passed her room to check on her, she pulled a notebook from under her bed and a chewed up pencil from the coil that bound it.
She sighed, looking over at the pictures on the wall of her friends and co-workers. He wasn’t there. He was always so adamant about not having his picture taken, no matter what. The one shot she had gotten when she was 11, magically disappeared one day. She never did have the guts to ask him about that.
It was no matter; she didn’t need a picture to remember him. She had every part of him she’d ever seen memorized. His eyes, his hair, his jaw, his hands, his lips, what brief and often shocking contact she’d had with them, and more than anything, his smell. Just the thought of it made so many feelings thoughts and regrets come raging into the front her mind. They were vivid, painful and somehow so exciting all at once.
The tears poured out of her eyes, the ones that had been building for hours. The things he said to her that night echoed in her mind. It was the truth, he was never one to lie to her, and he promised he never would. He was telling her the truth when he broke her heart. He was the final link for her, the one thing that she’d thought she’d never be able to give up on, and now…
“I’m not worth it….”
She covered her head with her pillow until the tears stopped. Her throat was raw from crying and her fingers shook. She rolled on her stomach, frantically searching for the pencil as she smoothed the paper out before pressed the lead to it, her fingers moving after a moment of hesitation.
Dear Jack…
Fandom: Hellboy, Torchwood (Bump in the Night Verse)
Setting: Bellemie Hospital. The night of this thread.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1200
Prompt:
scifi_muses Vol2 week36Lightning Crashes – Live: the angel opens her eyes/ the confusion sets in/ before the doctor can even close the door.
AN: Crazy!Liz always breaks my heart. I know, I’ve ended a fic like this before. So sue me.
“You’ve had a lot of excitement today, are you sure you wouldn’t like to postpone until tomorrow?” Doctor Marsh’s subtle accent was more soothing than usual. Normally it reminded Liz of England, which reminded her of Wales, which reminded her of Cardiff, which reminded her of him. Her mind worked in curious ways since she came to Bellemie hospital, bouncing from one frantic thought to the next even more so than before she committed herself.
Liz shook her head and rubbed her wrist with her fingertips. The rubber bands that circled it were loose, a sign she’d been using the negative reinforcement technique more than she was meant to.
“Dr. Miller doesn’t want to see me, huh?” Liz stared at her wrist, her index finger gently tapping the welt she’d made that evening after not one, but two visits that shook her to her core.
“He has requested…a new patient schedule, yes.” Marsh’s words were soft-spoken, almost afraid. No one else would talk to Liz anymore. Every time they got to the core of the problem, the reason for her emotional instability the next thing that happened called for fire extinguishers, and the doctors were getting quite tired of replacing their suits.
“I can’t hurt you just by talking to you.” Liz spat as the band in her wrist snapped clean in two and flew across the room. One of the pair of orderlies walked over and picked the strip of rubber up, handing it to Marsh. His eyes met Liz’s with a level of hate that she had unfortunately grown used to.
“I am aware of this, Elizabeth. Regardless, perhaps now it not the time for talking.” She pulled out a clipboard and a simple pen, sliding them across the table to Liz. The girl with dark hair and even darker rings under her eyes scoffed and raised her head. “What, you want me to write a story?”
“A letter. One you will never send.” Marsh leaned back in the chair and sighed. They had tried everything, everything to find the source of Liz’s imbalance, the reason that she would make such great progress, and then suddenly falter so close to the finish line. This exercise was more often than not pointless, but they were running out of options short of locking Liz in a rubber room for the rest of her days. She wasn’t crazy, not by the standard definition. She was however, unstable to the point of dangerous. More dangerous than anyone else they’d ever seen.
“What’s the point then?” Liz wrapped her fingers around the pen, gently rolling it between her palms. She was anxious. She wanted more drugs. She wanted to sleep, even if they had to pump her full of sedative to make it happen.
“You are writing it for you. To help you identify those factors in your life that are beneficial, and those that are not.” Marsh reached her hand across the table and slid the clipboard closer to Liz, her expression blank.
“Factors?” Liz raised a brow inquisitively, though she knew exactly what her therapist meant. People.
“Yes. Now, I’d like you to write to the most important people in your life, the ones who have influenced you the most. Tell them what you have never been able to say before, what you feel would not be right or decent or would hurt them in anyway. Tell them what you’ve always been to afraid to say.”
Liz cleared her throat, and stared at the page before her for minutes, maybe even longer. Finally she looked up at her doctor, her teeth almost cutting her lip as she realized what she would need to do to complete this exercise.
“I’ll need more paper.” She asked softly.
A stack of paper was soon laid before her and she scribbled in her tight little script for what felt like years.
Dear Mom….
Dear Dad….
Dear Broom….
Dear Kate….
Dear Abe….
Dear Kitty….
Dear Clay….
Dear Red …
The stacks of pages grew as Doctor Marsh went to refresh her coffee time and time again.
“Done.” Liz pushed them to the woman and sighed, annoyed. “Can I go? I’m tired.”
Marsh looked the pages over, studying each before filing them away. She folded her hands in front of her and gave Liz a look much like a parent catching a child out after curfew.
“And the last one…?” She asked point blank.
“What last one?” Liz dismissed her question, though her voice cracked and her eyes stung as she thought about who Dr. Marsh meant.
“The man in the wool coat who visited you this evening?” She said, deliberately avoiding the name or the title of the man in question. She knew it would cause a bad reaction from Liz. It always did.
“He’s not important. You said I had to write to the important people, and I did.” Liz hissed as she stood. “I want to go back to my room. Now.”
Doctor Marsh tensed as the orderlies moved closer to the patient. The fire retardant straight jacket was at the ready, as were the fire extinguishers and the sedatives. These were necessary precautions given Liz’s history.
“Very well. You may go.” Marsh said. She knew very well that once Liz decided a session was over, the session was over.
Liz stared at the ceiling of her room for hours, like she did most nights. The lithium clouded her mind in that way she would never admit she really enjoyed. It was easy to not think when she was on drugs. She liked easy.
Sleep didn’t come, and as soon as the orderly passed her room to check on her, she pulled a notebook from under her bed and a chewed up pencil from the coil that bound it.
She sighed, looking over at the pictures on the wall of her friends and co-workers. He wasn’t there. He was always so adamant about not having his picture taken, no matter what. The one shot she had gotten when she was 11, magically disappeared one day. She never did have the guts to ask him about that.
It was no matter; she didn’t need a picture to remember him. She had every part of him she’d ever seen memorized. His eyes, his hair, his jaw, his hands, his lips, what brief and often shocking contact she’d had with them, and more than anything, his smell. Just the thought of it made so many feelings thoughts and regrets come raging into the front her mind. They were vivid, painful and somehow so exciting all at once.
The tears poured out of her eyes, the ones that had been building for hours. The things he said to her that night echoed in her mind. It was the truth, he was never one to lie to her, and he promised he never would. He was telling her the truth when he broke her heart. He was the final link for her, the one thing that she’d thought she’d never be able to give up on, and now…
“I’m not worth it….”
She covered her head with her pillow until the tears stopped. Her throat was raw from crying and her fingers shook. She rolled on her stomach, frantically searching for the pencil as she smoothed the paper out before pressed the lead to it, her fingers moving after a moment of hesitation.
Dear Jack…
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