Who: Aiden & Wren When: Pre-zombie days Where: Hospital for Mental Health What: Wren meets Aiden Rating: PG-13 - R? Mental health issues, mentions of abuse, possibly violence and language
Just before medication and just after therapy found an inhabitant of the hospital for mental health wired and on a frayed nerve. Mortimer hated therapy because the way the nice doctor man tried to carve new thought processes into the already carved rock that was his brain, hurt. He hadn't needed to be restrained or sedated this time, but he'd been released unhappy and red-eyed from crying fits, hunched over into himself, his arms crossed where he'd once clutched at a soft and formless stuffed teddy to his chest. This 'teddy' was an old cloth covered thing, more an elongated cylinder like a draught excluder than an actual doll, but it had served to comfort the disturbed patients in the psych ward for years without causing injury through small parts or popped stitches and it was a staple in the common room for those who needed a cuddle.
The problem was, a lot of the people there needed a cuddle, and the place that Mortimer tried to go to for comfort was already in use. The girl he went up to - as the patients weren't segregated in this common room - had lashed out at Mortimer when he'd tried to ask for the toy and he'd retreated in defeat, still hugging himself. He looked about looking lost, his mind pushing him in no direction while it tried to recover from what the therapist had been trying to teach him and what the man in the room had taught him; he shook his head like he needed to shake something out of it and then wandered about, searching for something that no one should give.
He looked over at the residents, patients who he knew wouldn't like him going near them and those that he didn't want to go near and his gaze stopped on an unknown but vaguely familiar face momentarily, mostly because it looked so sad. A lot of the patients looked sad when they weren't clouded in mania or angry depression, but something about this guy, his gentle looking hands and the mouth that Mort was sure would turn up into a nice smile if it could, something panged even his labyrinth shackled heart. He didn't think he'd ever spoken to the man, but he'd seen him in passing, had chattered while he was in the room once or twice, at least he thought. He'd never approached him one of them tended to be whisked away for something or other and as soon as people were out of Mort's line of sight he tended to forget them but still, something about this one stuck. It wasn't even the man's height, which dwarfed Mortimer's 5'1" by over a foot (and he had only another inch to grow before his growth tapered off), or his width or the strong arms - when Mort looked at him he saw something that he wanted to pull into him like the doll, only this time he wanted to make pain go away for the other person.
He stepped back though as a noise caught his attention and he was immediately captivated by one of the recently transferred patients with mild OCD who was dragging their fingernail back and forth over the edge of the table. He flitted closer by inches, like some kind of bird, and stopped just over the patient's shoulder. "How do you do that?" he asked, fascinated because the idea had never occurred to him.
This was a mistake as Mort found when he was shoved by the back of the chair hitting his stomach and confronted with an angry man who did not seem in the mood for conversation. "Get the fuck off me man, I ain't no fag." he growled with no information about why Mortimer was really there. The boy misunderstood and got to his knees before the new patient from where he'd fallen as he'd been pushed. "You don't have to be, I can do it anyway." he promised, sickeningly sincere but blank. The guy with OCD recoiled at first but then raised his hand for a backhand that would fall right across the smaller boy's face, the orderlies slow to respond to the ruckus, Mortimer just sitting there to watch it coming.