Jesus Candy [JUSTICE]

[jake]

with your halo slipping down
to choke you now

Solitary confinement. Three whole days. It would have been incredibly quiet and lonely if he didn't have the voices to keep him company. Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel. Just when he thought he was in for seventy-two hours of of pain-staking solitude they shattered the silence with their angelic words of praise and adoration. They applaud him for his heroic display of righteousness on that fateful afternoon in the showers and they told him God was pleased with him. So very impressed with his work. It brought tears to his eyes and he hung on their every sylable. He'd done it. Despite being surrounded by people who lived to stop him from carrying out his Lord's orders he managed to complete a successful exorcism. The demon Mammon was back in Hell where it belonged and a human soul was saved all thanks to Jeremiah Andrews. The angel Jeremiah Andrews, beloved servant of God almighty. They could lock him up, pump him full of drugs, tell him he was crazy, but there was nothing -absolutely nothing- that could drag him down from his cloud nine high. Jeremiah spent the entire duration of his punishment in a euphoric daze of religious psychosis. The hours seemed to fly by so fast, too fast, and before he knew it his holy expirience was over. He almost didn't want to leave when the guards came back to unlock the door of his cell.

They unbuckled his straitjacket and feeling slowly returned to his arms. Like a man on a mission he immediately started thinking about the guy he had exorcised. Justice, that was the mortal's name, wasn't it? He figured it was since Mammon tried to masquerade under it. It was a cool name, he had to admit. A noble sort of name that stood for something good. He wondered how the guy's recovery was going and if the demon had returned to oppress him. That happened sometimes but hopefully not this time. Hopefully it had been banished to a level of Hell so deep it could never claw its way back out. He'd pray for that.

Before he had a chance to do anything he was ushered into a small room where he found his mother waiting eagerly to see him and his brother looking like he would rather be anywhere else. She brought Jeremiah candy, he brought Jeremiah nothing but a crappy attitude. Jeremiah sat down and did the visitting thing for about an hour or so before getting up to leave. He wished his mother wouldn't come but she insisted. Every stinking week. Sometimes more than twice a week. Occasionally she'd drag an aggrivated Jed along to make her institutionalized son feel like his family still gave two shits about him. His mother was once the most important person in his life but now he regarded her with contempt. She betrayed him. She let them take him away and she refused to tell the doctors he was sane enough to leave. What kind of mother would do that to her son? Her perfectly normal, functional son? He wished she would follow her husband's example and just leave him alone. His father may have been an asshole but at least he was honest about how he felt toward his son. Scratch that. Disowned son. He didn't show up during visitting hours pretending he cared when he didn't.

Jeremiah was on his way back to his room when all of a sudden he noticed that the room beside his was no longer empty. Through the corner of his eye he caught a shock of blonde hair. He blinked in surprise and did a double-take. When he peered through the doorway and saw the asian he couldn't believe his eyes. What luck. Now he'd be able to keep a closer eye on Justice just in case any demons returned to torment him. His face lit up and he walked inside. "Justice! Can you believe this? We're neighbours! What are the odds, right?" He shook his head in disbelief and approached the other man. "And I was just about to go looking for you too.."

[justice]

After what Justice referred to as “the attack”, life had gone along pretty normally. Sure, his head had been threatening to spilt itself in two ever since, and that hurt like hell, but it wasn’t until yesterday that the asylum staff had decided to bump him up to high profile. He supposed it was for having the lighter, even though he hadn’t used it. It had taken a lot of self-restraint not to take it out in the middle of the night and add more burn scars to his arms, but that would be too noticeable; they would have taken it away before Justice figured out something better to do with it. They should have been proud of him for not using it, not mad at him for stealing it in the first place. They shouldn’t have bumped him up to high profile, he didn’t deserve the title. The thought brought a smirk to his lips. The title; like it was something noble. Something that every patient wanted. Sure, it granted him a lot of alone time, seeing as he was constantly being banished to his room and most of the other patients left him alone, but… compared to the other high profiles, Justice was as innocent as a princess. This hallway was full of murderers and cannibals and… Jeremiahs. That was his new name for delusional people, it honestly was. Because Jeremiah was the craziest fuck he’d met so far, like he led the army of schizos to their domination of the asylum. Justice tugged at a strand of his hair and sighed, sitting up.

He had been splayed across the mattress like a dead body, because that was pretty much how he slept these days. There was no room to stretch out, but at least he didn’t have a roommate to annoy him. The new high profile look around the room, his eyes dead. This place really was depressing, and he was forced to admit to himself that he would rather have a roommate than be a high profile with all the “benefits”. He didn’t even have enough energy in him to be surprised at his little discovery. Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he stood up and wandered over to the little shelf thing where a seemingly endless pile of scrubs was kept. He said endless because it was spontaneously restocked each day, not because it was large. After all, they couldn’t have him… well, doing whatever he could do with a large pile of pajama-like clothing. He didn’t have enough creativity in him to think of anything he could do with them, though. He needed to go outside and get active, maybe run around the yard a few times, but he couldn’t bring himself to walk out the door. It was the first week all over again; the solitary confinement that he put himself in, just in his room instead of the padded ones. He sighed, changing into the scrubs, then cracking the door open a few inches to let some air in.

He sat back on his bed, hands clasped on his knees. He hated to say it, but he really did want some company. A roommate, maybe even a visitor. Not like anyone visited him. His family had long since given up on him, and all of his friends from outside were terrified of what he might do. It wasn’t like he had changed or anything, right? He had been a pyromaniac when he was still their friend, but he guessed now that they knew, maybe things were different. They were afraid of him. Him, the pathetic high profile that couldn’t even bring himself to punch anybody. Hell, some nights in college he had gone out and bought a lighter, playing with it for a while before going back to the dorms, always sure to discard of it before he got back on campus. He had been careful, he had controlled himself, and then it had all fallen apart and he had been thrown in here. Now apathetic Justice was unraveling, getting depressed, close to lifeless. Soon enough he would be a zombie, like most of the other patients. Maybe once he was completely emotionless again they would bring him back down to medium profile, maybe get him a roommate. Not that anyone would want a zombie as a roommate, and once he was mindless enough to go back to medium, he probably wouldn’t even notice the people around him.

He hated this room, despised it with whatever fragments of his heart were left. He turned and punched the wall as hard as he could, then sank to the floor, cradling his now throbbing hand. They would probably just inject him with more pain meds and tell him to sleep, like they hadn’t done that a thousand times already for his head. He hated the drugs, hated how they made him feel so… vulnerable. Like a child, they made it so he couldn’t fight, couldn’t even think. Not like he could do either of those before, but… whatever, it was useless pondering on it. He curled up his knees up to his chest, face hidden in his hands. Oh, if only he had been in a corner. He would have looked perfectly emo, someone could have taken a picture of him and put it on a Lucid Manor brochure. Not that anyone would believe that it truly showed what happened to people here. After all, wasn’t this paradise? Wasn’t this a castle where they helped all the twisted princesses get back into their respective stories? By the time all the tangled threads were sorted out and the pretty pictures drawn, the outside world had changed. If anyone ever did get out of this place, it wasn’t like people would want them back, right? They were just lab rats, the mentally insane. They could never be cured, so they should just be shut up in here. Because by the time they were deemed sane, everyone would know them as “those people that were shut up in the asylum”. They would be forever portrayed as insane, even if they were cured. So what was the use in trying to get out?

Justice heard footsteps, but still didn’t look up from behind his hands. It was probably just a guard come to check on him or something. They would see him sitting across from the door like a dead person and bring him to the hospital wing, inject him with drugs and make him sleep. Bring it on, just get it over with already. He wanted this hell in his head to end. When he heard the door open, he automatically shrank back into the wall, trying to make himself look smaller. It wasn’t that hard, seeing as he was already short for someone his age. But the voice that spoke was enthusiastic and young, not the gruff and apathetic voice of his new guard. Justice looked up, surprise and something else flickering in his eyes when he saw Jeremiah standing in the doorway. No, it wasn’t fear, though there may have been a bit of that somewhere in there too. The something else was anger, lots of it. Jeremiah had made him take out the lighter, Jeremiah had humiliated him in front of a hoard of other patients, Jeremiah had hurt his head, Jeremiah was the reason he was high profile in his first place. Yet he still couldn’t stand up to confront the younger man, couldn’t bring himself to give him the punch in the gut that he deserved.

”Neighbors?” he asked, his voice uncaring. The question at the end was flat, not at all curious like it should have been. He didn’t ask why Jeremiah had wanted to go looking for him. It was to hurt him again, right? Jeremiah was insane, that was why he was locked in here, right? He just wanted to hurt Justice more, and for some reason, Justice didn’t protest. He didn’t have enough energy to try and call a guard, just shrank a bit further back into the wall. Jeremiah could kill him if he wanted to, Justice didn’t care anymore. Bring it on. Death was better than this hell that was lurking on the edges of his mind, waiting to pounce on him again as soon as he was alone. Jeremiah could do whatever he wanted. Of course, their guards that were now both standing by the door would probably stop them before anything happened.

notes Sorry it’s so long! And sorry that Justice is do damn depressed e.e

[jake]

with your halo slipping down
to choke you now

This place did things to people. Changed them. As oblivious as Jeremiah might have seemed a lot of the time he was aware of that much. Sometimes it was for the better and patients improved, other times they only sank deeper into their madness. The latter is what he saw more often than not and his empathetic heart went out to these broken souls. Nobody could quite put their finger on it but they would all tell you the same thing - that there was something about Lucid Manor that just seemed to suck the life out of people. Some said it was the harsh and extensive treatments, others claimed that the patients crumbled under the fierce expectation to get better and give the world-renowned institution a good name. Jeremiah had formed his own opinion about what was to blame and that was.. you guessed it, the bloody demons. This hospital was tainted by an unseen evil that lurked within its walls and it fed on the anguish of everyone inside, leaving its weaker-willed inhabitants drained. When Justice looked up at Jeremiah with those dead eyes of his he knew them being neighbours had been more than just a coincidence. It was divine intervention. The Lord put Justice in his path for more than just the company. Justice obviously needed him and it was becoming more and more apparent to Jeremiah that the work of an angel was never done.

Jeremiah nodded and walked inside the room. "Yep. Your room is right next to mine, talk about luck huh?" He crouched down in front of the blonde guy, lively brown doe eyes meeting vacant pools of lifelessness. He smiled. "Anyway, I wanted to see how you were doing after the exorcism.. if you were okay. Mammon hasn't come back to oppress you, has he?" If it weren't for the crazy talk about exorcisms and Mammons he might have sounded like a doctor making his rounds with a patient. Come to think of it, he would have probably made an astonishingly great psychiatrist had he not lost his marbles. The good kind, one of few that would actually care about each individual patient. Not like that callous husk Damian Lucid or sadistic bastard Rathebone. His saintliness and professionality would have probably been comparable to a gary-stu. The sickeningly perfect kind that seemed almost too good to be true. Jeremiah blinked when he suddenly remembered the bag of treats he was given during visiting hours. "Oh, um.." He offered the bag to the guy sitting across from him like he thought it would somehow make everything better. Like it was supposed to be some unsaid condolence for beating the living fuck out of him. "My mother brought these for me but I'd like you to have them."

[justice]

Why wasn’t Jeremiah hurting him? His eyes widened slightly as he started talking, perfectly calm, maybe even nice. Wasn’t Jeremiah here to hurt him? Wasn’t he back to finish what he had been thrown in Solitary Confinement for? Of course, the two guards by the door would probably stop him but… Justice didn’t care. He had cared three days ago, when his life was on the line, but now Jeremiah was deciding not to lay a hand on him when he wanted to die. Talk about irony. Why couldn’t Jeremiah try to kill him again? Even a failed attempt would liven up this meaningless existence that Justice was currently inhabiting. If Jeremiah wasn’t going to attack him, then Justice didn’t want him to be this close. He wanted him to leave, but… at the same time, he wanted the younger man to stay. He was lonely in this odd version of solitary confinement that he had brought upon himself, and he wanted company. So he stood up, walking the short distance between where he had been sitting and the bed, sitting on the edge and watching his guard. He hadn’t shown any sign that he minded Justice’s room being invaded, though he did tense up a bit when Jeremiah had gotten so close to Justice. Yeah, like Justice was some kid that needed to be protected. Maybe he knew what Justice didn’t; that suddenly and inexplicably, Jeremiah Andrews had become les of a threat for Justice. He would have to figure out why eventually.

”Listen, kid, I don’t like it when you’re so close to me,” he said, his voice not reflecting any of the life that was starting to spark in his eyes. Justice didn’t comment on the exorcism bit of his speech. Had he been ‘exorcised’? Was that why Jeremiah didn’t pose as a threat anymore? Though, he mentioned something about some complicated name coming back… Life flared in his eyes at the thought. Maybe he could get the ‘angel’ to kill him if he thought the demon was back. But that would require too much effort. The life didn’t die down, though. It remained in his expression as he watched Jeremiah warily, still sitting on his bed. Well, it couldn’t really be called a bed. It was a rusted metal frame with some sort of thin mattress on top of it and a few sheets that served as blankets. Yeah, what a great bed. He put his hands over his face again, messy blonde hair sticking up around his head like some sort of halo. He hadn’t gotten to combing it when Jeremiah had raided his room, so it would stay like this until he did.

He stared absently at the bag of candy that he had left on the floor. It probably had rat poisoning or something in it, that either Jeremiah or his mother had put in. Probably his mother. Who wouldn’t want to kill a son like him? He was annoying and delusional, and it probably cost a lot of money to have him shut up in here. She could just kill off Jeremiah and save her family a lot of money, right? That was what Justice would do if he had something like Jeremiah as a son. Of course, the new high profile didn’t know much about the younger man’s family, and Jeremiah didn’t know much about Justice’s. It was better that way. Justice’s past life was a private thing that he held close to his heart, but only because it was his enemy. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, right? ”Why don’t you go back to your room, kid?” he asked, his voice still dead and his eyes slowly going the same way. Jeremiah wasn’t going to hurt him, wasn’t going to end his miserable existence. He didn’t need to be here, then.

It had been more interesting when Justice had been a demon.

[jake]

with your halo slipping down
to choke you now

Jeremiah's eyes followed the older male as he stood up and wandered over to the bed. He had left the bag of lollies on the floor where he once sat and Jeremiah wondered why he didn't take it. Why he didn't even so much as open it up to see what might have been inside. Most people would have taken the obvious hint that their company wasn't wanted but Jeremiah was not most people. He overlooked it, grabbing the bag and standing up. His guard watched him carefully when he started to approach Justice. He was just about to join his fellow patient on the bed but he decided against it when Justice opened his mouth to let him know that he didn't like it when he got too close to him. Jeremiah could understand that. After all, Justice wasn't the first person to make it apparent that his closeness made him uncomfortable. Physical boundaries weren't always very clear to him and he had a tendency to invade people's personal bubbles. What he didn't understand was why Justice had called him "kid" when he was the younger one, or at least, that's what Jeremiah thought until right at this very moment. Maybe it was the guy's slight stature or youthful effeminate features that made Jeremiah assume he was older than Justice. The nineteen year-old nodded and took a step back from the other, awkwardly granting him the space he desired. Unfortunately for Justice it probably wasn't enough. He now stood maybe a few feet away from the bed at most directly across from the man he had "saved" a few days before.

He caught the flash of emotion in the other patient's eyes. As to what particular emotion it was, he couldn't be certain. It was only so noticeable to the schizophrenic because it lit up a pair of eyes that were dull and devoid of nothing other than apathy only seconds prior. Jeremiah's natural inclinations made him want to plop down beside Justice and loop a comforting arm around him whilst asking if anything was wrong but he fought that instinct. He watched as the blonde man's face sunk into his hands and he wondered if he had any injuries or residual pain from the afternoon he exorcised him. He knew how rough he'd been with the poor guy. Such brutality was necessary to drive the demons out efficiently but unfortunately it often left the hosts feeling a little worse for wear in the aftermath. It was okay though because Jeremiah was an angel and angels had remarkable healing abilities. If Justice happened to still be hurting he would put those powers to use and everything would be just fine.. right? He had a way of rationalizing every bad thing he ever did. His mind would create bandaids in the form of delusions to cover every wrong he would commit. It was alright to beat the hell out of a person because he or she wasn't actually a person, he was still stuck in this mental hospital not because he was crazy but because Satan probably had influence over the staff, ect, ect. Sadly, the only person who really believed these lies upon lies was the liar himself.

His smile faltered when Justice spoke again. "Go back to my room, already? But.. I've only just got here and I still need to see how you're doing. Are you hurt? If you have any injuries I can heal them, you know. It would only take me a minute." Jeremiah's grin returned to his face and he looked at the older man with a hopeful expression.