The first time I used the ECT machine on Adler, I almost couldn't believe how simple it was. He was as quiet and as meek as a tamed mouse, although to be fair, Isbell lurking like the Angel of Popped Eyeballs in the background may have had something to do with that. I never forgot the mouthguard with Adler, and I was administering ECT at least twice a day, every day. I always chatted to him about this and that - the weather, although I barely saw more of it than he did - things I'd read, things I'd done. He never responded to my questions. He never spoke at all, he had stopped singing a long time ago, and every time I came in, he was lying in the same position, flat on his back with his one eye staring listlessly at the ceiling. Part of me, a very large part, was pretty glad about that, and I won't lie about it. Things went so much easier when they didn't struggle.
On the fifth day of treatment, however, he broke tradition.
"Axl doesn't come anymore." He spoke those words as I was pulling my gloves on, chattering about my old pet dog Bonnie and how she'd once tried to eat my entire school bag as opposed to my homework. At his words, I snapped the rubber against my wrist with flourish, doing a good job of hiding my surprise.
"No, he doesn't," I agreed carefully, peering at him. He had the bandage around his eye today, and he turned to look at me, scratching delicately at the edge of the fabric.
"Good," he said, and suddenly something flared in his good eye. "I hate him."
I pulled my chair up next to the bed and sat. "Why's that, Steven?"
He blinked slowly at me. His mouth twisted. I waited.
"Steven?" I prodded after a minute or two. "What...?"
His eye rolled and landed on Isbell, who was leaning against the far wall chewing a cigarette.
"Oh, don't mind me," he said, flashing a sickening smile at Adler, cigarette dangling from between his teeth. "I can keep a secret."
"Isbell - " I began.
"No."
I bit the inside of my cheek as Adler nibbled his lip and looked at me, agonised.
"Whisper in my ear," I suggested.
"Sexual contact with test subjects is not widely encouraged at Basalt, Saul."
"Shut up," I snapped over my shoulder, turning back to see Adler's wide eyes still trained on Isbell. He didn't twitch a single muscle.
"Steven, it's OK," I encouraged, leaning forward slightly. "What's bothering you? Talk to me."
Squirming, he wrung his hands in his lap, that good eye rolling and rolling hopelessly in its socket.
"Nothing!" he spat at last. "I love it here. I - "
The mattress groaned as he drove his knuckles into it, bouncing slightly with the force of the effort. He was biting down on his tongue and emitting a sound like a groan and a growl, flinching wildly away from my attempts to soothe him.
"Are we about to have a problem, Adler?" Isbell's voice was perfectly toneless, yet sharp, slicing effortlessly through the other man's droning. He froze, withdrawing into himself. "No problem," he croaked, unmoving, that one eye rolling and rolling. "No problem, no problem, no problem..."
His voice trailed off, but his mouth kept moving, silently chanting right up until I had to put the mouthguard in. When the ECT was over and I'd given him his drink of water, I lingered, made a few attempts at striking up a conversation, but he wouldn't bite. I had to give up.
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Project X
FanficThe thing about worry, and fear in general, is that it comes and goes as it pleases, and sometimes it waits quietly, curled up in your bones, not pulsing enough to really make you good and scared, but pulsing just enough to remind you that it's ther...