Oversight
Pairing: Kit Walker x reader
OC: None
Warnings: Mention and innuendo of abuse, torture (nothing too graphic)
Words: 2k9
-> Requested
Part. II, Part. III
Briarcliff Manor could change anyone who stepped inside, whether they wanted to or not. The horrors perpetrated there would drive the sanest man in the world mad.
Sitting in one of the dayroom armchairs, head tipped back, your gaze remained fixed on the decrepit painting on the ceiling. The world could be crumbling around you, nothing would stop your eyes from wandering up there. Not even the unusual screams that rose up like cries of madness across the room.
However, something did catch your attention. As you straightened up, the chair's legs hit the floor with a thud. Usually, this uncomfortable noise never reached your ears. It was muffled by the annoying voice from the old music player. But not this time. Taking a few steps into the center of the room, your mind attempted to understand what was out of the ordinary.
Deep groans rose up as two men fought. One of them was Spivey, a violent and dangerous man that no sane person would ever want to meet. You had dealt with him when you arrived, another memory from Briarcliff that would haunt you for the rest of your life. The mere mention of his name triggered a deeply unexpected reaction in you.
All around, a movement of euphoria possessed the other residents who were screaming and pushing you. The whole place seemed to be in the grip of a strange psychosis, before your eyes, the walls were getting dangerously close, the floor was shaking under your feet and almost made you lose your balance. The room collapsed on you at the same time as the shrill sound of the whistle that never left Sister Jude's neck. In response, you simply crouched down. Your hands holding your head, palms resting on the very spot where the electrodes had left a few burns on your temples. The saltiness of your sweat made the simple efflorescence even more painful.
The darkness of your closed eyes seemed to help your mind to sort things out. The time appeared to be very long until Sister Mary-Eunice came to get you.
"Y/N, it's time to go back to your room." Her hand, the antithesis of Jude's softness, stroked your back slowly. Seeing that you didn't respond, she made one of your hands come off your head so she could pull you, ever so gently, out of your slumber. Your room, what a ridiculous name they could use for the cell you were in. It had neither the comfort nor the security of a real bedroom. No. Briarcliff was a prison.
No sooner had the lights gone out than your cheek stuck to the cold, metal grate of the door.
"Shelley? Shelley can you hear me?" Your cell was relatively far from the door from which members of the administration would come to peek in from time to time. Therefore, chatting with your female neighbors was more than easy.
"Always, Y/N, always" Shelley liked to be noticed and, unlike you, she didn't bother to whisper knowing full well that someone would come up to her and demand silence.
"What happened?”
"Bloody Face got into a fight, and you freaked out!"
"Spivey started it!" In a cell a little further away, Grace had heard Shelley's words and was trying to defend her new best friend. However, what she didn't know was that the mere mention of his name was enough to trigger a new wave of panic that would overwhelm you from head to toe.
From then on, you could no longer hear your comrade's reprimands towards Grace. Your hands found their way back to your wounded temples and your back slid along the cold door until you found yourself in a sitting position. Breathing in and out deeply, your mind forced itself out of the horrors of Briarcliff and simulated the sunlight reflecting off the green waters of Lake Ontario. The night was just beginning, and it already promised to be a long one.
Whether a member of the administration or an inmate, everyone eventually lost track of time. During the first few months of internment, the image of your parents walking alone down the steps of the asylum would play over and over in your mind and haunt your nights. Soon, sadness gave way to fear, and fear to anger. Far from being mentally unstable, you had tried several times to escape. Through the kitchens, through the main door under a relatively convincing disguise but nothing had ever worked and the consequences of these multiple attempts had left marks that would probably never disappear. Reason had finally taken over your desire for freedom, you tried to cling to past images that were gradually beginning to fade.
In the dayroom, you found your place in the chair, your eyes still focused on the ceiling you had seen collapse the day before. Behind you, Pepper was stroking your hair on her own. The general atmosphere seemed less heavy. A few feet away from you, seated at a table, Grace appeared to be conspiring with the stranger everyone called Bloody Face. After a few minutes, the young woman's voice rose a little more as she began to introduce a few people. Pepper, Shelley, Daniel, Miles and... you.
"She's Y/N. She's pretty nice, very helpful. Her mom saw her kissing a girl, that's why she's here. The marks on her forehead? It's electroshock." From your seat, you could only perceive the sound of Grace's voice, but not the one she was speaking to. "At first it was to cure her, but then it became like a game to punish her. Yeah, the doc is kind of a sadist." Your last session was several weeks ago.
Grace was right. At first, Dr. Arden used electroshock to silence your pseudo same-sex attraction. At first there were a lot of sessions, but eventually they were spaced out until they almost disappeared from your schedule. But Sister Jude had found a more effective way to tame you than her cane. As Pepper moved your hair back, the marks were more visible than ever and Grace's comment brought out a sense of shame. Thanking the young woman for her attention, you eventually stood up to join the conspirators. Grabbing a chair as you passed, the sound of your feet scraping on the floor was muted by the music filling the room. Once within reach, you took your seat as if nothing had happened, resting your elbows on the wooded surface.
"Y/N, meet Kit Walker." Your gaze, filled with suspicion, had not left his face since you settled around the table. In an innocuous gesture, he held his hand out in front of you as visitors did when they came into contact with Monsignor Timothy or Dr. Arden. Your eyes fell on his hand, physical contact between patients was totally forbidden at Briarcliff, although some did not hesitate to do much worse than just shake your hand.
"I think he's waiting for you to shake his hand. Y/N?" For a few minutes, your mind had been lost in conjecture. He had been evaluating all the reasons why Kit might want to take your hand in his. Grace's words made you stop to think, and after checking that no one important was in the room, you finally let him take your hand.
"I'm not crazy, you know" you stammered after he let go. His eyes had finally met yours, and though he was a newcomer, he seemed different from the other residents. "It's this place that drives you crazy. The manor, and the people who run it." Naturally, your gaze had landed on the record player that continuously played the same song. A tune that penetrated your mind so well that even at night you could hear it tormenting you. Grace did most of the talking, asking questions here and there so that you could get to know each other without it seeming suspicious to either you or him. Although Shelley was your closest friend at Briarcliff, Grace was usually a pleasant person to have a conversation with.
As you began to slightly enjoy the conversation you were engaged in, a chill ran down your spine as the sound of Sister Jude's heels echoed in the distance.
"You should split up." You tossed before returning to your chair as if to make it a habit. As Jude entered the common room, her cold gaze swept the room, startling all the residents. Lowering your eyes, the sight of her nun's outfit meant that she stopped her walk in front of you.
"Get up, Y/N" As you complied, you desperately tried to figure out what you could have done wrong, but even as you replayed the previous days in your mind, nothing came up. For several months, your gaze had been avoiding Jude's, and it was obvious to all who witnessed the scene that she was the absolute master of this place. Those slightly dry, work-damaged fingers pushed your hair away from your face, allowing Kit, from the spot he had not left, to get a clear view of the scarlet burns left by the electrodes. Without uttering a word, or making a single additional gesture, Jude turned away to continue her inspection, finding the small detail that would allow her to vent the anger she had been repressing and dared not acknowledge.
Over the next few days, your chair remained empty. You and Kit seemed to have a lot in common, so the more you talked, the harder it was to believe the Bloody Face story. The vast majority of your exchanges were about life outside, all the things you had missed during your confinement. His garage, your lake, all the places you had both had the chance to visit were in the spotlight. Then quickly, the discussion turned to more intimate topics.
"I had tried to run away, to answer the call of the wind that was calling me through the windows of the common room. No doubt in the sheer spirit of defiance I wished to leave Briarcliff as I had entered it, through the front door." Kit and you were ensconced in a dark corner of the kitchen, during bread-making hours, the others working while you were able to wander away for a while without anyone knowing. Your knees curled up against each other's chests, you were bound to one another by the contact of your arms.
"A woman had walked in a few days earlier, her civilian clothes still lying on the floor of the laundry room where the poor woman had changed."
"The poor woman?" Kit interrupted you, he had made a habit of cutting you off to ask questions or react to what you were explaining to him.
"She died some time after she arrived, I think. I took her clothes and left mine in their place before walking as confidently as I could to the door. But Sister Jude was watching from her perch and as you can imagine she recognized me. As this was not my first attempt, she decided that her cane would do nothing to make me see reason."
"So it was Arden who carried out the sentence?" You nodded in response, before touching your temples to indirectly let him know which way his punishment had gone. Without looking at him, you noticed that Kit had lowered his head. His arm then wrapped around you in a gesture of comfort, and before you had time to think of anything, your head was resting on his shoulder. The silence, pleasant and expected, enveloped the place and made the scene even more enjoyable than it already was. But Kit broke that precious silence.
"They will not torment you from now on, I promise you.”
For you, this promise was just words in the wind. The same kind of words your mother had said to you the day she abandoned you at Briarcliff. And little did you know how far Kit was willing to go to help you.
A few days after your talk, you were on bread duty with Pepper. She wasn't the talkative type, but you got along just fine. Soon Kit joined you after he had checked into the common room and a discussion about the breads you were making began almost instantly. Even in front of the young woman you spoke freely. Finishing shaping the last loaf, you stored it on the cupboard where the others also lay next to the glass jars of flour and seeds never really used since your arrival. Back in front of your work surface you set about picking up the rest of the flour scattered on the work surface.
A debate about the afternoon's activities had just begun, you had in mind to learn to play chess, without a chessboard, and Kit wanted you instead to represent on the sheets of the common room the lake you had told him so much about. Bickering ensued under the amused gaze of Pepper, who couldn't help but laugh occasionally. To signify your childish reluctance, a small jet of flour arrived in his face and streaked his brown hair with whitish dandruff. Obviously, as a good player, Kit decided to take revenge and, in an attempt to dodge, your body backed up before hitting the cupboard which, aged by the years, almost crushed you by tilting forward.
The sound echoed throughout the room, and it was only a matter of minutes before Sister Jude was informed of your mistake. The loaves, shaped by Pepper and you over the course of the morning, were crushed into a shapeless dough that had become inedible from contact with the dusty kitchen floor. The pots had shattered, spilling rye, wheat, flour and the glass they were formed from onto the floor. Finally, the cupboard itself had not withstood the fall.
At this sight, your body became petrified. Your hands clasped against your mouth, your throat tightened, tears began to flow down your cheeks. She was going to kill you, you couldn't stand another session whether it was in her office with a cane or in the doctor's unsanitary office with electrodes. Briarcliff was going to be your final resting place. As if to prepare you for what lay ahead, your heart began to pound in your temples as if they were going to explode under the strain. The accelerated beats warmed your body and the sweat that beaded on your forehead stung your burns.
The wait seemed endless. Pepper hid under the table, aware that Jude's anger would be stronger than ever. Kit put his hand on the small of your back as a slight tremor began to set in. He tried to comfort you but you couldn't hear him, so his hands left your back to rest on your cheeks and force you to look at him.
“Remember, I promised you…"
When Jude arrived accompanied by a few guards and Dr. Arden alarmed by the noise, your back was to them, unable to sustain their stares. In her most threatening voice, she ordered Pepper to join the others in a hurry before inspecting what could be saved... which was almost nothing. The tears had stopped flowing, but your cheeks were rosy and left little doubt as to what had happened. Having no tangible evidence, however, the Briarcliff director asked the question anyway.
“Who did this ?” Her gaze fixed on you, she was only waiting for your confession to carry out her sentence and let the doctor express his sadistic side. You were ready to answer, the words would come out one after the other and you would accept your punishment... like the previous ones. But just as you opened your mouth, Kit's voice broke the silence again.
"Me. I lost my balance and hit the cupboard. I'm the one who knocked it over, it was an accident." From where he stood, his story didn't hold up and Jude knew it very well. Her face then seemed to close in more. She looked at you for a few moments, imagining that you would, in turn, confess the truth. But no sound came out of your mouth, nothing, despite your attempts. She then signaled to the two guards to take the young man to her office. Turning your head towards him, his expression betrayed concern, but he tried by all means to hide it. Jude took a few steps and stopped a few inches away.
"Well girl, you just added cowardice to your list of failings.”
She then ordered you to clean up the mess you had left behind, and as you did so, your mind could only think of Kit. And all the things she would do to him in your place. Guilt and sadness were now mixed together. Your return to the common room was particularly bleak until dinnertime when, with Shelley's help, you managed to sneak into the men's wing.
After a few seconds of searching, you finally found him. Lying in the back of his cell, his arms shackled by a straitjacket, his face swollen from abuse, Kit seemed to be trying to get some rest. Not wishing to disturb him, you decided to leave but his voice called out to you.
"Why did you do that?" You asked, already knowing the answer. The young man straightened up with difficulty, letting out a few groans of pain here and there. His eyes then met yours and no hard feelings were readable.
"I always keep my promises."
