But We're The Same, Darling
Chapter 1
sfw, our new lesbian story!
cw: mental hospital setting, mistreatment of mentally ill, stigma, transphobia
Mar looked around, the walls were barren and clean but the atmosphere felt filthy. They felt isolated the moment they stepped into the building. They sat in a standard-looking waiting room for a hospital, nothing about it was particularly special or stood out. They could hear their parents mumbling to one of the doctors in the next room over, they could only seem to make out their mother’s sobs. Mar sat there looking at their feet, twiddling with their fingers. They felt terrible for what they had done, they wished that everything could go back to normal, but they knew that they wouldn’t be going home for a long time.
Their mother and father came out of the room, their mother was blotting her eyes with a handkerchief and their father's brow was furrowed, wrinkles deeply creased his forehead.
They never had the best relationship with their parents but they were going to miss them.
“Mary, I’m sorry honey, but this is gonna fix you sugar, please write us” Mar scowled, they hated their name, they never really felt the urge to be feminine and preferred to present themselves in a more neutral and androgynous way. However, they were often forced to be ‘ladylike’, wear dresses, makeup, and needed to be well-mannered.
Mars's father turned to their mother, “Come on, let's go honey” he turned back to Mar “Goodbye Mary..” they took each other’s hand and disappeared out the door.
“Wait, wait, no stop it please Mother please don’t leave me, Father.. Please I promise I’ll be good please just let me go home!” Mar yelped and screeched and crawled but the nurses held them back. “Mama, Papa, p-please don’t leave me.” they were choking on their tears and saliva. All they could do was stare at the logo located on the nurses’ breast pockets reading ROCHESTER NEW YORK SANATORIUM FOR THE MENTALLY UNWELL.
Mar felt a sharp pain in their side, all they could process was a syringe deep in their skin, everything started to go foggy and blurry, everything was one big haze. They pulled the syringe out, a thin ribbon of blood coming out from where the needle was located, and then nothing. They couldn’t remember a thing after that, just haze and darkness.
They woke up in an unfamiliar room like the rest of the place. They could hear a faint scratching and screaming deeper within the walls. They were strapped down tightly in a chair. The room was blank and eerie, it unsettled them as the waiting room had. There was nothing but an oil lamp in the corner of the room which made it very dimly lit due to the lack of windows. A large desk was just placed far enough away from them to reach, it looked old and worn out, and there were scratches on their side, perhaps from previous encounters with past patients. A sturdy red chair sat across from them, it looked a lot more comfortable than the one they were forcibly sat in.
A man walks into the room, the way he is dressed -the long white sleek lab coat clinging to his body- and the way that he carries himself shows his upper status, Mar knows that he must be one of the head doctors, or generally important for that matter.
“Dr. Sceleratus or Dr. S, it's a pleasure to meet you Ms…” he looks down at a chart attached to his paperclip “Mary.”
Mar shows him a look of disgust on their face and wrinkles their nose at him, Mar knows that their stubbornness was one of the reasons that they were stuck here in the first place but can't help but grimace at their name that they ask not to be called by so many times.
Dr. Sceleratus cocks his head, a sadistic smirk appearing on his face but just as quickly disappears. He sits down across from Mar and crosses one leg over the other, seemingly infatuated with the chart on the clipboard. Mar couldn’t see the sheet but they could tell that he was thoroughly reading it from the way he was underlining each word with his finger. He stops, smiles, and composes himself.
“Quite an interesting one we have here, we're gonna take very good care of you here, you’ll be back at home in no time.” Mar felt like there was something off about the doctor, although they couldn’t place their finger exactly on what it was that was bothering them, they knew that their voice was off, it sounded much too high pitched for a man’s.
He laces his fingers together forming a bridge for his chin to rest on.
“ I know you don’t know me but I’ve learned so much about you from this little sheet right here”
Mar stared at him with blank and angry eyes, the oil lamp highlighted their soft facial features.
“ Obsessive-compulsive disorder, hysteria, and.. Homosexuality and in-compliance with femininity.”
Mar could do nothing but stare at the doctor. They couldn’t utter a word.
“Let me tell you a little secret sweetie, we are quite similar per se… so let’s stick together, I can help you get out of here even”
“What are you talking about, I don’t understand”
“Its ok darling you’ll find out soon enough, let me take care of you” he snickered
“W-what?” Mar pulled and tugged at their restraints trying to get themselves free to no avail.
He left behind an echo of sharp shoes hitting the hard floor behind him, his lab coat flowing and following along with him as we walked out of the room.
Mar was so confused and scared, all they wanted to do was get away from this place. An old, decrepit, and tired-looking nurse came into the room. “Look, if you continue to be violent we are gonna have to use harsher methods on you” the nurse snapped “So I suggest you be a good little thing and behave.”
Mar nodded and they were set free of their restraints just to have the bony and cold hand of the nurse wrap around their arm pulling them out of a different door than where Dr. S went.
They then were stripped of their clothes and their dignity having to put on a pale and washed-out blue hospital gown and matching blue socks. The nurse snickered when they saw their body. They had used bandages to wrap their chest, previous bruises from this technique stuck out from where the bandages met skin.
“What’s this, we can’t be having this, you look like a boy”
Mar didn’t have the energy to fight people anymore, they allowed their bandages to be taken away, and they didn’t want to get in trouble, compliance was the fastest way to get out of here, right?
They don’t remember much after that, they felt like their body wasn’t there like they were watching themselves from a different perspective. They remember seeing other people looking at them, they must have been the other patients, no one talked to them and they talked to no one. Before they knew it the whole day had passed.
“Time for lights out” a different nurse from before spat, this one short and chubby.
Mar was pushed into their room. They sat down on their bed, the pillow was much too thin to allow any support and the blankets had been worn, there was no one that they could keep warm. They got into bed and wanted to escape into sleep when another patient was pushed in.
She was beautiful. She had thick and curly dark brown hair and the most beautiful skin. Her face was symmetrical and she had full lips and big doe eyes. Mar couldn’t help but blush at the sight of her. The nurse scowled at them and slammed the door behind her.
“Um hi, I haven’t gotten a roommate yet this whole time, my name is Cassandra” She seemed a bit on the shy side and was picking at the skin on her fingers, not making eye contact as she introduced herself.
“They said that they would put me with another patient because I’m a boy, well I’m not really a boy, I’m a girl, I really want to be a girl and I feel like a girl inside but I know that’s it not right, they tell me that if I keep my therapy up and keep praying that God will save me from my sins. Ah, I keep on rambling again, sorry, um what’s your name?”
“M-mar,” Mar excitedly went up to her and grabbed her hands in theirs “I feel the same way, well not the same but I understand how you feel” Cassandra's face was flushed from the closeness between them, tears burned the corners of Mar’s eyes “Finally someone who can understand me.” Mar let out a laugh and let go of Cassandra’s hands.
“I don’t understand” Mar wiped their face from their tears “Why would they put us together..”
“Perhaps to make us normal, you will act more like a girl and I will act more like a boy” Cassandra fidgeted and looked at the ground.
“I don’t like boys, I am a homosexual” Mar said with some shame in their voice.
“Neither do I”
“Well then I guess that’s just another similarity between us” Mar giggled “Let’s go to bed, I don’t want to get yelled out anymore today”
They both got into their bed and faced the opposite way from each other.
“I know I just met you but you make me feel less alone, I think we are gonna be good friends, good night” Mar was trying to hide the fact that they had started to cry again.
“Good night”