just a vague idea…but what about escaping the psych ward with eddie :3
Okaay i hear you anon, loud and clear. i tried to keep it short but you know how i am haha (it got out of my hands, it wrote itself alone)
warnings: shitty parents, mentions of blood, murder and descriptions of wounds. let me know if i missed something
word count: 3,8K
a/n: as you can see, i don't know how to write a short blurb (i could say that is impossible)
The white walls of the windowless room seemed to close in and shrink the more you looked at them, with only a single bed made entirely of iron as company since your parents decided you were too much of a burden to carry and abandoned you in that psychiatric hospital, claiming you were insane. As expected, you didn't take the news very well — which perhaps further solidified the accusations of insanity — and you lashed out at your parents the moment the words left their mouths like poison.
The nurses sedated you immediately and brought you to this drab, colorless room. But not for long.
You smiled at the thought that soon you would be free from that place and those disgusting people; he had promised that you two would escape and be together without anyone to interfere. And he never broke a promise, you knew that very well.
You met him in the first week you arrived. For the first few days in your new captivity, you refused to leave your room; the nurses brought you food and medication while you languished in bed. But the pampering didn't last long; they soon tired of the special treatment and said that if you wanted to eat, you'd have to go to the cafeteria like the others.
“The other patients eat in the cafeteria, but this little princess wants us to keep bringing her food as if we were her servants?” The short, plump nurse who looked like a teapot cursed as she watched you lying motionless in bed. “If you don't want to starve to death, princess, I suggest you get your lazy, useless ass out of bed and go to the cafeteria.” And she slammed the metal door of the room shut.
After much deliberation, you concluded that you didn't want to die in that place. Even though the desire was dangerously strong, you refused to die there and be buried as an indigent, because that's how everyone there treated the patients: indigents, disgusting insects who didn't deserve pity or even the slightest act of humanity.
As you walked through the pastel blue-walled corridors trying to find the cafeteria, something—someone, to be more precise—caught your attention, making you stop and stare.
A man, dressed in a white jumpsuit just like yours, sat on a bench surrounded by at least five burly nurses who seemed to avoid looking at him for some reason. From where you were, you couldn't see him very well, both because of the nurse in front of him and because he had his head down, his curly brown hair cascading over his shoulders and covering his face. One of the nurses in front of him moved aside as if on command, and you could finally see the rest of him.
What appeared to be some kind of belts restrained his arms, which were crossed over his stomach; a row of about six belts restricted the movement of his upper limbs. Looking at his legs, a chain bound his ankles together, probably to prevent him from running.
As if sensing your gaze burning into him, the man raised his head and stared directly at you, making your eyes widen.
A muzzle.
He wore a black muzzle that appeared to be made of leather, covering from his nose to his chin. An oval hole with small iron bars allowed you to see his rosy mouth in a firm line, and a buckle closure at ear level.
Before you could analyze him any further, Nurse Teapot magically appeared beside you and, with a steely grip on your bicep, dragged you to the cafeteria while mocking you for finally leaving the room.
And for a long time you couldn't get him out of your head. In the cafeteria while eating and looking around for him, on the way back to your room and passing by where he had been sitting earlier, not even when the room doors were locked later that night and you were alone in bed staring at the white ceiling. You couldn't stop thinking about that man.
Questions hung in the air: who was that man? Why did he wear a muzzle? Why couldn't you stop thinking about him? And… And why did you feel that intense heat in your lower abdomen when you thought about the muzzle?
Without even knowing it, your questions — and many others — would be answered in the coming months of your stay.
Eddie Munson, that was his name. You found out after bothering one of the burly nurses you had seen with him that day.
"That man… The one with—" The nurse turned to you impatiently.
“The one with the muzzle? Eddie Munson, remember that name and run every time you hear it.” You nodded.
You ran. Toward him, toward sin in human form.
And God… It was the best thing you ever did.
For the rest of the week after that conversation, you searched every corner of the hospital for him, but there was no sign of him. It was as if he had only existed in the brief moment you were out of the room.
Frustrated at not finding him, you decided to take a walk in the garden at the back of the hospital. The building that housed you and many other patients was located on the outskirts of the city, in an area surrounded by a dense forest that stretched for kilometers, followed by a long stretch of dirt road that led to the highway leading in and out of the city.
The garden consisted of a strip of green grass the length of two athletic fields combined, with stone statues that were supposed to be angels but looked more like deformed and haunting devils, a large, aged fountain with dark, greenish water, covered in slime, and small plants that snaked through the fountain's structure.
As you walked, you looked around and observed the patients scattered across the green area and the nurses breathing down each of their necks. As you gazed at the forest and the treetops, something caught your eye, a glimpse of something in the trees—or beyond them, you weren't sure. Out of the corner of your eye, Lottie—an elderly patient who had been left by her family for the same reason as you—approached and stopped behind you, running one hand through your hair.
“Don't attract the nurses' attention. Pretend we're chatting about something silly, and look away from the trees.” Lottie ran her fingers through the strands of hair she had parted.
You looked away and focused your gaze on one of the nearby bushes. “What's beyond the trees?” A fake smile spread across your lips as you noticed a nearby nurse.
“Another unit of this same hospital,” she replied softly as she worked on your hair. "A prison for degenerates, as they call it. A maximum-security containment unit for psychotic patients or those with more severe disorders who have committed some type of crime; they are kept in a windowless concrete building surrounded by guards twenty-four hours a day."
"The boy that I—"
"Shh, smile and nod." She interrupted, pointing to a strand of your hair just as a nurse slowly walked past you both and observed them. “Your hair is beautiful, like a princess’s. Are you a princess?” You smiled and nodded, playing along. The nurse shook her head and walked away.
“They think I’m a demented old woman who thinks I’m still a child, that’s what my daughters said when they left me here,” the woman explained.
“That boy you’re looking for, Eddie Munson, is in that building.” You let out a sigh of relief. “He came to this unit first. I remember him; we were in the same ward together for the first few days before we were assigned to specific wards.” Her hands paused for a few seconds before she continued.
“That boy… There was something in his eyes, many said he had the eyes of the Devil. He had beautiful brown eyes that reminded me of the chocolate my grandchildren always had in their hands, but there was something more to them.” Her hands went to your shoulders, turning you towards her.
“Let’s take a walk.” She smiled and linked her arm with yours, starting to walk through the garden.
"It wasn't something hidden, no… He kept whatever it was to himself, not out of fear or caution, but waiting for the right opportunity." She resumed speaking while you just listened.
“During the week I was in that ward with him, I never saw him sleep even once. I remember getting up in the middle of the night and looking through the glass door, he was there, standing inside the room looking down the hallway with those eyes full of something that gives me chills when I remember. Before I was taken to my permanent ward, I looked for him again, but he had already been taken.” Lottie fell silent, contemplating something as you slowed your pace.
She sighed and gave in. “That same day I overheard two nurses talking about him. They said he had been transferred to the maximum containment unit due to the high level of danger he posed to everyone here at the hospital, and the reason he came here first was that one of the people responsible for transporting him and another patient mixed up their files and gave his to the administration of this unit instead of the other.” She stopped and turned to face you with an expression bordering on contained horror and apprehension.
“They said he massacred almost sixty students from his school, deaths so horrific and brutal that I don’t have the courage to violate the memory of those people. When he was caught, he showed no remorse, only smiled and said the police had arrived too late.” She held your hands and squeezed tightly.
“That boy carried death in his eyes, and he did it with pride. Why do you think he spent sleepless nights watching that corridor?”
He didn’t want to escape. “He wanted to…” You began, and she nodded.
“He wanted to kill again, he longed for it and was preparing. On the last night in that ward, before going to sleep, I saw him before entering the room; he was smiling as if it were the happiest day of his life. And his eyes… His eyes—I swear on everything that is most sacred to me, but his eyes were black and full of death, as if it were a warning.” Your eyes widened as you tried to absorb all that new information.
“They noticed the switch before he could do anything, and maybe that’s why I’m still here alive telling you this.” The sun was setting on the horizon and the sky was darkening; the nurses had begun to take the patients inside the hospital.
“Lottie, it’s time to go back, dear.” The nurse from earlier approached and spoke with feigned sympathy.
The old woman looked at you and smiled. “She’ll walk with me. She’s a princess.” She spoke like a child, and you nodded, walking with her to the entrance and down the corridor.
Lottie turned to you before proceeding to the room. “After spending so much time in a place like this, you learn to play their game with the cards that you have, and if you’re clever enough… you win.” A sudden implication that didn’t go unnoticed.
You saw him again days later, when you ventured into the forest when none of the nurses were looking and followed it to the edge. A steel wall about twenty meters high separated the forest from the containment unit.
You stood there, partially hidden by the foliage of the nearby trees and bushes, observing the building. It was a lifeless, gray concrete box, no windows in sight — exactly as Lottie had said — and silent, as if it were deserted. No guards in sight, and no entrance or exit.
The sound of some nearby birds flapping in flight made you turn your head to the side and see the serious face of the one you were looking for — muzzle and all — mere inches from yours. Your eyes widened, and you had to restrain yourself from screaming and attracting the guards from the other unit.
He stared at you intensely and attentively, as if mapping your face. His eyes — incredibly brown and mesmerizing — wandered over your face and body without any expression, not even that deathly look Lottie mentioned, which was good, right?
Up close you could observe him meticulously; his dark brown hair fell past his strong, broad shoulders and cascaded perfectly in soft waves of curls; he had a straight scar running from his eyebrow to below his eye, its whitish color, lighter than his pale skin, indicating it was from a very old wound. His eyes were truly magnificent, large and round with long, dark eyelashes adorning them, brown like chocolate and devoid of emotion. His rosy mouth also had a scar on the left corner, irregular and straight, seemingly from the same fight as the one on his eyebrow.
You held his gaze until a nearby noise reminded you of where you were. You turned and ran back into the forest, careful not to attract attention. And for a second, you swear you heard his laughter.
The next day, you were in the garden again, staring blankly and wandering through the grass, thinking about what had happened the day before, when a movement in the nearby trees caught your attention. Something was moving; you could see a silhouette hidden in the foliage, but you couldn't identify what it was.
Then the silhouette moved, revealing the identity of what was hiding. Eddie, with his arms restrained and the muzzle over his face, was just a few meters away from you, watching. For minutes you stared at each other, until he gestured minimally with his head towards the forest as if he wanted you to follow him, and disappeared among the trees.
You looked around to check if any nurses were paying attention and stealthily slipped into the trees to look for him. You found him leaning against a tree, meticulously observing his surroundings. Eddie turned towards another part of the forest, and you followed him without question.
After walking for a few minutes, you arrived at a small, rocky stream. The vegetation there was low-lying and full of wildflowers. You approached the stream and noticed a number of small fish swimming together, some plants, and more rocks on the bank.
The sound of something metallic falling onto the soft earth made you turn around and come face to face with Eddie, and at his feet, the muzzle and the set of straps that bound his arms.
You frowned and twisted your mouth as you thought about how he had gotten rid of those things in such a short time and with his arms tied. He noticed your expression and a slight smile began to appear on his lips.
“They’re easy to remove. At first they gave me a little trouble, but now I can remove them in five minutes.” He smiled and raised an eyebrow. “It would have been less if you had the decency to offer to help me.” He shrugged as you stared at him, jaw dropped.
"Uh, how—How did you get out of there?" Your mind was still trying to comprehend how he ended up standing there in front of you.
“The important question isn’t how I got in or out, but how you intend to escape from here without having the slightest idea of what you’re doing.” He stared at you and crossed his arms, moving closer until he was almost face to face with you.
“You wouldn’t have gone to the forest if you didn’t want to escape.” He began circling you like a predator. “And you wouldn’t have gone there if someone hadn’t told you what’s beyond the forest.” He stopped behind you and leaned down until he was at ear level; you could feel his warm breath gently licking the shell of your ear.
“I saw you talking to that old woman the other day in the garden.” His soft, deep voice made you close your eyes and take a deep breath, your hands gripping the fabric of your overalls. “Was she the one who told you how to escape through the forest?”
“N-No.” A broken, almost whisper escaped your lips. You felt him step back and move again, this time stopping in front of you.
“No?” His eyes held a weight and intensity that made you confess right then and there.
“I-I asked about you.” The tremor in your voice was evident, and you could see his posture changing. “I saw you at the hospital and I was curious to know who you were.” A small lie. You weren't going to tell him that you became obsessed with finding him at that hospital and that you interrogated almost everyone, all while unable to sleep thinking about him.
His eyes softened, and a slight smile appeared on his lips. “You liked me.” His words drained the color from your face. He raised one hand and touched your cheek delicately, as if you were made of the finest, most fragile porcelain. “I want you for myself.” It wasn't a request, nor a suggestion. It was a decision.
His words warmed your body as if your entire inside was on fire; his touch on your cheek was like gasoline being poured, fueling the fire growing inside you.
“I hate this place. I want to be free again, no matter where.” Your eyes never left his; they stared at you as if you were the center of the universe.
"I'm going to take you away from here and we're going to run away together to a place far, far away, a place that's just ours, where I can have you all to myself." His possessiveness should scare you, given that you barely know each other, but for some reason, you feel relieved by it.
You closed your eyes and tilted your face toward his hand, longing for more of his touch, and smiled.
His lips met yours before you could even think, enveloping them in a kiss, claiming them uniquely his and for him alone. His warm tongue traced the seam of your lips, which parted as yours met his, your wet muscles intertwining as if knots binding you together.
You broke the kiss, and when you opened your eyes, you could finally see in his eyes what Lottie had seen, but this time with something more.
Death and Fire. And both for you.
You two talked until the sun began to set, and he led you back to the garden without anyone seeing.
Eddie told you about how he ended up in the maximum security unit, and contrary to what you thought, it wasn't the first time he had killed. Before those people, there had been many more, but you didn't care.
He wore that muzzle as a security measure imposed by the guards. He explained that he had bitten off a nurse's jugular vein in his first week there, and since then none of the staff trusted him without all that restraint.
You planned the escape route. Eddie knew the forest and the surrounding area like the back of his hand, but he had never escaped because there was no reason to.
“I went almost to the city, but I always came back because I had no reason to return or to leave here. But now I have you, and if you're going to escape, I will too.” He had confessed while looking into your eyes and hugging you.
Days passed, and you continued to meet in the forest to plan your escape, which always ended in an intense makeout session with him taking you right there on the forest floor.
On the day of the escape, he instructed you not to go into the forest and to pretend to be in pain so the nurses would take you to the infirmary. And you did as he said, claiming to feel severe pain in your body and asking for a doctor.
The nurses took you to the infirmary and ordered you to stay there until the next day to be examined. The infirmary had two robust nurses guarding the door from the inside; besides that, there was no other form of security.
You fell asleep while waiting for him and were awakened by a hand caressing your hair and a soft voice speaking in your ear.
“Wake up, my precious. The path is clear for us.” You blinked slowly until your eyes focused on the figure hovering above your face. Eddie. Bloodied and with a psychotic look in his eyes.
“How did you get in?” Your sleepy mind was still trying to process that you were awake.
“Shh, don’t worry about it, my love. Come on, we have to go before the others realize what happened.” He helped you up as you shook off the sleepiness and stood. That’s when you noticed the two nurses behind him, lying on the floor in pools of blood.
You let Eddie guide you to the exit of the infirmary and couldn’t help but look at the two bodies, with cuts to their necks so deep they had almost severed their heads. Only then did you realize that your beloved was carrying a bloody machete and a rifle.
“Where did you get these things?” He looked at you for a second and continued to guide you through the corridors until you reached the garden. With the area clear, you both ran into the woods hand in hand and headed in the opposite direction from the hospital and the security unit.
As you ran, he looked at you with a crazy glint in his eyes. “I killed everyone in the building, the guards and the patients.” He said it as if it were a joke. “I set it on fire before leaving; when the building explodes it will attract attention, and we need to be far away.”
He stopped running and turned to you, cupping your face in his hands. “I burned all the records so they wouldn’t find us, and do you know what I found in the hospital office?” His voice was heavy with something dark. “A transfer order. They were going to transfer you in a week. They were going to take you away from me.” His jaw was clenched, and his teeth gnashed with hatred. You placed your hands on his face.
“No one will take me away from you. We’re going to run away and never come back to this damned city.” You gave him a quick peck and you both ran through the forest until you reached a dirt road.
Before you could continue, an explosion followed by an orange flash made you turn and face the treetops, seeing the fire and smoke in the distance.
Eddie squeezed your hand and you looked at him. “The path is open for us, my love. I have you, the rest doesn’t matter.”
You didn’t know where you were going, but you were sure of one thing: there was no longer a “you” without him. And losing yourself in him seemed the only way to stay, because freedom only exists where you exist together.