Lost
 
Author: Lilithangel
 
Email: abchainey@xtra.co.nz
 
Website: www.livejournal.com/users/lilithbint
 
Fandom: AtS post NFA
 
Characters: Spike, OC
 
Genre: gen, angst.
 
Rating/warnings: R, for references to violence and sex.
 
Summary: for writerconuk banner challenge, written for Sueworld2003’s banner here http://community.livejournal.com/writerconuk/27556.html#cutid1 and her fic specifics:
Characters - Spike and anyone you want. An original one would be nice.
Season - Anything you desire!
Rating - R/NC17 at author's discretion
Must have - A amnesiac Spike in a mental hospital unable to remember who, or what he is, except for brief 'flashes' (oo-err).
Spike has shanshu’d and has no memories of who he was except in his nightmares.

* * * * *
 
The light was too bright but when he screamed they only made it brighter so he kept his eyes closed until the memory fragments were clear enough to frighten him more and he had to open his eyes again.
 
Then it would begin again.
 
In between there were faces and voices that got mixed up with the memories making conversation impossible even if he could understand what they wanted of him.
 
Sometimes there was sharp pain followed by blessed darkness that never lasted long enough to bring him peace.  And he would wake up smelling clean and back in the tight confines of the “it’s for your own safety” black leather that wasn’t his black leather.
 
He remembered golden hair matted with blood. Black hair with blood stained red lips.  Brown hair and brown eyes fading away to a tainted blue.  Always there was the blood and the screams that weren’t always his.
 
Plunging teeth and cock into body after body, begging always begging and he was laughing.  Fear and rage and an awful hunger that frightened him because of how much he wanted it.
 
He didn’t want the memories or the ever present taste of blood in his mouth.  He didn’t want the gruel they forced down his throat each day no matter how much his body wanted it.
 
* * * * *
 
“How are we feeling today William?”
 
“Just peachy doc, how are we?”
 
“Are we going to eat today?”
 
“I don’t know, what’s on the menu?”  The doctor ignored William’s sarcasm as the orderly removed the straitjacket and let him stretch his arms and hands before placing the tray with the stew and plastic spoon in his lap.  “Oh look mystery meat,” William said with overdone enthusiasm.
 
The doctor settled in a chair opposite, “have you had any more dreams?”  William forced a spoonful of food down and shook his head.  “Jim said you were restless during the night, are you sure there were no more dreams.”
 
“There was a pea under my mattress,” William replied.  He had finally figured out that telling them his dreams of pain and blood only got him fed more drugs that caused more dreams that he really didn’t want.  “I think I dreamt of China.”  Little girls with sharp swords, feeling the pop of her neck between his hands.  The beautiful woman with the demon face who licked the girl’s blood from him.  “I don’t think I speak Chinese though.”
 
The doctor nodded to the orderly who took the tray from him.  “Would you like to go for a walk?”
 
Blank white corridors, see-through doors, more pain.  Escaping to the outside only lead to more pain.
 
“Sure doc.”  William concentrated on standing without wobbling on legs more used to crabbing into a corner to hide than walking.
 
It took all his strength not to flinch away from the daylight in the big room full of crazies like him.  The tiny window in room had been the subject of many nightmares in the beginning with his hands burning and angels with monstrous faces pulling him into darkness.
 
He knew the sun wouldn’t hurt him but he still flinched.  He knew the doctor saw it so he stepped into the room.
 
“Why don’t you watch some television,” the doctor suggested leading him over to a chair without waiting for his answer.  “Stephen will take you back to your room in a little while.”
 
William concentrated on ignoring the others in the room and stared at the television screen.  It was showing some sort of travel show obviously mainstream shows were considered too overstimulating for the nutters.
 
They were going on a tour through America with a perky blonde who was all tits and teeth.  She was all excited to show them L.A at night.  Flashes of memories that couldn’t be memories burst into William’s mind.  People that might have been friends or enemies he couldn’t tell and more blood.  He forced himself not to react outwardly fingernails biting deep into his palms to stay in control.
 
Finally the show moved to another part of America and he was able to relax.  He waited until Stephen had taken him back to his room and this time not put him back into the straitjacket.  He smiled in thanks for the small relief and when the door was closed he absently licked the crescents of blood from his palms not letting his mind tell him how familiar the taste was.
 
* * * * *
 
He didn’t need the straitjacket very often anymore only when the memories that weren’t memories woke him screaming.  The doctor assured him they weren’t real memories that such terrors only existed in his mind and he wanted to believe that.  He wanted to believe that there was only the ordinary outside the walls that his madness could be cured and he could walk safely in the sun.  He just didn’t know if it was true yet.
 
The doctor told him he was ready for visitors.  He didn’t know if he was supposed to remember anyone but the doctor assured him that he probably wouldn’t.  She had been the one that found him lost and wandering the city.  Apparently she asked after his progress regularly and the doctor thought it would helpful for him to interact with someone from the outside world.
 
So he sat in the visitors room scrubbed and tidied waiting for someone who might know him or might not.
 
“Hi William, I’m Sue.” A woman sat down next to him.  She looked about as nervous as he did but she had understanding eyes.  When he looked at her it felt like she knew pain and fear.  “I found you do you remember?”
 
He shook his head, “did you know me before?”
 
“No,” she said, “I had seen you a couple of times and you looked so lost.   Then one night I found you in the rain you were crying and saying things that didn’t make any sense so I got help.”
 
“The doctor said you called me William.”
 
“It was a name you used I didn’t know if it was your name or somebody else but you didn’t have any ID on you.” She smiled sadly.  “Are you feeling better do you know who you are now?”
 
“Nothing,” he said with a shake of his head, “I do feel better thank you, just there’s nothing except pain and nightmares and loneliness,” he confessed.
 
“I’m sorry,” she said, “maybe I shouldn’t have come.”
 
“No, I’m glad you did.  It’s nice to have someone to talk to, someone from outside,” he said.  “Can we talk about ordinary things?”
 
“Like what?” she said with a smile.
 
“Tell me about yourself, what you do, why you stopped to help someone you didn’t know.  If you don’t mind that is,” he said realising how much like prying it was to ask such things.
 
“I don’t mind.  I’m an artist, a sculptor I work in theatre and television,” she said, “and normally I wouldn’t stop, it’s not safe, but you looked so lost and so sad.”
 
They talked for about half an hour.  Well she talked and he listened drinking in the little things that she told him that seemed so alien somehow but seemed to push aside the dark memories fill his mind up briefly with lightness.
 
“Would you come again?” he asked when the orderly came over to escort her out.
 
“Would you like me to?” Sue asked smiling when he nodded shyly, “then I’ll see you next week.”
 
He wasn’t sure if she would return but she did and each week from then on.  Telling him tales about her theatre and television work, describing what she was working on with her art and it helped fill a longing in him tugged at other memories beyond the ones of pain and blood.
 
“I remember poetry and music,” he said at one point and the next week she brought him an anthology of poetry which was like finding old friends and made the doctor smile with approval.
 
Sue visited every week and brought him new books.  He participated in the therapy groups and learnt to bury the dreams with words.
 
Sue took him walking in the hospital garden.  It took three goes before he could walk out the door and his body ached with the need to run, but he didn’t.  He had a brief memory of another day in the sunlight without pain and a blonde girl who he knew meant everything at one point.  Pain and joy she had been important.
 
It took two weeks for him to leave his room again.  Three days before they would even take the hated/needed leather and buckles off his body when he tried to tear the flesh off down to his heart.
 
It was four weeks before Sue returned face sombre and eyes sad.  He hated that he had frightened her made her wary of him.  But the shadows lifted when she saw him smile and he knew she forgave him even if he didn’t deserve it.
 
They walked in the garden and this time he pushed aside the memories of people he didn’t want to remember and focused instead on the clouds and the flowers.
 
Each day, each step was easier and there came nights where he didn’t dream at all.
 
“They’re going to let me out,” he told Sue one day as they sat on his favourite bench in the garden.
 
“That’s wonderful,” she said, “are you nervous?”
 
“Yeah.” He nodded, “I don’t know this world or my place in it.  I still don’t know who I am or what I was or if anyone is even looking for me, but I can’t stay here forever.”
 
“You’ll have one person out there at least.” Sue placed a comforting hand on his.
 
“The doc has got me set up in some sort of halfway house and some start up money but I’ll have to do something soon to find out who I was or something.  Without ID I can’t get a bank account or a benefit or anything.”
 
“We’ll sort something out I promise,” Sue said, “but let’s focus on the good shall we?  You’re better and you’re getting out.”
 
“Yeah I am,” he smiled.
 
* * * * *
 
It was a big bright world and it terrified him, but he had his words and he had his friend.  He managed to find some work from people who just wanted a strong back and were happy to pay cash and a few jobs at an art school Sue knew.  Even though he felt that being naked had never bothered him it was still strange to sit so still in a room full of people and let them see him.
 
He sweet talked a couple of the drawings out of some of the class amazed at what they saw.
 
It wasn’t an easy existence but it was a peace he had never felt before.  The nights were the hardest but Sue was always there at the end of the phone and sometimes she let him be there for her too and he liked that.
 
It was the simple things he enjoyed the most.  Although the sun felt wonderful he found himself drawn to the moments between night and day, dawn and sunset when the world changed.
 
Then one day his world changed again.  One day he saw an old poster on a subway wall.  A picture of someone he knew he should recognise, blond and young and hard it was a person he didn’t see in the mirror but it was him.
 
“Have you seen this man?  Reward offered, please call.”
 

TBC…