the asylum meme

[alkali]

 Meme, Interrupted


"People ask, How did you get in there? What they really want to know is if they are likely to end up in there as well. I can't answer the real question. All I can tell them is, It's easy."


Well, you've really done it now. You're in a mental institution. Maybe it's a modern facility with a therapy garden, compassionate staff members, and a warm environment meant to help nurse people back to health, or maybe it's a glorified dungeon where the government shoves people they don't want to deal with and patients are abused by staff. Regardless of what it is, you're there, and it doesn't look like they're planning on letting you out any time soon.

Maybe you're actually not supposed to be there and you're trying to arrange for your release. Maybe you actually are meant to be there and you're struggling with your illness. Maybe you're not a patient at all and you're just there to visit or earn your paycheck. It's up to you.

Rules:

1. Post with your character's name, canon, and your preferences on the subject bar, and set up the situation.
2. Tag other people. Are you a visitor? A staff member? A fellow patient? A hallucination? It's your choice.
3. Have fun!

Comments

[moriarty_was_real]

"You do have just enough of the 'strange mystic guru' thing going on. Any more and I'd have to write you off as a kook. Any less and I'd have to write you off as a foolish mortal with no advice to offer."

Jim sat, though looking at the food in front of him managed to put him in a passively contemplative state. This wasn't the sort of food Jack would cook.

[aodhagan]

Spearing a still just this side of crunchy whole pea pod and a sliver of the red rimed pork, he made sure to get some of the sauce, which his former instructor would have pronounced just right.

"Let me guess, as an evil genius for a better tomorrow, you do not eat meat?"

[moriarty_was_real]

Jim didn't bother to look up. "Jack used to cook for me." Jack also used to tell him to shut the fuck up and eat his goddamn food.

Jim picked up a fork and began to do so. Even if he managed to provoke this urbane creature into being insistent, it just wouldn't be the same.

[aodhagan]

Had managed to pull one memory out of the broad forehead, couldn't tell if it was good or bad just yet. "Did you like his cooking?"

[moriarty_was_real]

Even thinking about it for awhile, Jim couldn't come up with a definite answer. "I don't know. I never paid attention to what it was. Why would I? He had it under control. He didn't need me interfering in the process."

[aodhagan]

"If you did not notice it, then why did he do it? Had that been discussed or decided on beforehand?"

A summer squash a little bit too hot, he took a sip of the iced tea to cool his tongue. In that question he was assuming a lot, and he kept coming back to the statement of Jim saying he had killed someone, this particular someone.

[moriarty_was_real]

"I never really understood why." He examined his current forkful soberly. Maybe that was the problem.

"I've let the whiskey wear off. Maybe that's why I'm back to not feeling anything."

[aodhagan]

"Drinking your tea will help." The honey rum tasted good, it sweetened the tea, while not packing the punch that straight whiskey did. "Cooking can be social, both in the preparation and in eating it together. It can be a gift to someone else if they are busy and do not have the time. Or just a survival skill. Which was it?"

[moriarty_was_real]

"There are myriad other possible reasons of course, each colored with cultural nuances and personal significance." Tea, then. Jim drank some tea, noting the odd flavor.

"When it comes to Jack's specific reasons? I still don't know."

[aodhagan]

"If you or anyone else didn't cook, then he was fending for himself. If the meal was shared with you, then caring for your needs as well and providing company. Were you busy with something else while he prepared a meal? This would allow the pair of you to do two things at once. What am I missing?" having not been there, but giving ideas that might spark reasons.

[moriarty_was_real]

"Reasons are different than motivations. None of the actual practical reasons apply, we've always had people to do all of that kind of thing for us." People whose skills were comparable to those of the one who had prepared the meal in front of him now.

"Your rational cleverness might be worth something to most people, but it's quite useless to me. I don't need lessons in how to think, I'm here to understand what it is to feel. They did teach you about that kind of thing in school, didn't they?"

[aodhagan]

"I am aware of the difference and one usually leads to the other. If you were fed, this may have been a showing of care, especially if there were others to do it." Looked at the fork hovering over the bowl, "You were cajoled to eat as well."

[moriarty_was_real]

"An effort which produced mixed results."

Jim added a little more coldness to the retort than strictly necessary. Let the therapist analyze his own behavior all he wanted, but listening to him root through Jack's actions made the patient just a little bit defensive. Much worse, any suggestion that he could play surrogate to even the most impersonal of their interactions rankled.

His fork stayed frozen right where it was.

[aodhagan]

To eat or not wasn't the question, it was only one more indicator. Aodhagán, who could be described as a greyhound, lean and active, kept eating and talking between swallows. "He cared enough to try to get you to eat, fed you food he made, which is a very strong indicator of care. What else did he do to show you this?" What could Jim recognize?"

[moriarty_was_real]

"He died for me." The little signs and hints might be meaningful, somehow, but they weren't what kept Jim Moriarty up at night.

[aodhagan]

"Little things that led to a big thing." A very big thing. Waited for the tone that said he was being obvious again. Except what was obvious to Jim wasn't necessarily recognized by him Also, Jim said that he had killed Jack. May have been in the way, a life saved by stepping in front of danger. Couldn't remember anything in his new threads about this man and such an accident. Considering the trial, this would have made the news.

[moriarty_was_real]

Wouldn't the nice doctor know by now that the truly momentous events in the lives of the exceptionally cunning never made the news?

No, there was no condescending tone this time. Knowing and understanding were very separate, and he was actively struggling with understanding. He turned the details over in his mind.

"He did love me, or at least he believed he did. Do you think it's possible that I loved him back, even though I didn't realize it?"

[aodhagan]

He died for me.
"He must have thought you did."
Or whatever it was, whatever this man Jack received, was enough.
He did not know, could not speak for the man, could only give reassurance where it could be found.

Being in a similar position with his sister, he could understand. Irene would never think that he loved her merely for the fact that she was his sister. His affection for her always had to be proven.