Idle Hands

The institute is fairly pleasant. An old fashioned building set in grounds that they are allowed out into under watchful, armed supervision.

He gets bored very quickly.

* *

He cannot play as much as he wants to. Not with all the eyes watching everything he does all the time. Not when these people will have access to his files and know what he’s done elsewhere.

He had managed one quick game soon after he was transferred; something that did the double duty of taking the edge off his nerves and underlining to the rest of the patients who he was. What he was capable of.

He hadn’t been overly punished for it. No matter what he’d done before, this was obviously an accident. Self defence.

Because no one would have been able to calculate the angle of a shove to deliberately crack the soft egg-shell of the temple against that sharp table corner, would they? Especially injured, trailing a broken limb like a surrender flag of helplessness.

(And that had been harder than he thought to manage: bracing his forearm between the fixed table and the wall, letting his body fall heavy forward and hearing, feeling that painful snap.)

There was slight surprise as Fuller had never attacked another inmate before. First time for every first offence, though, and Fuller had favoured the young, innocent look in his victims before being caught, hadn’t he? (As he had known from the man’s first lingering glance at him. It had made him so easy to trap.)

A medical examination after he’d been found in the room with the body – huddled in a corner, trembling – had shown bruises along with the broken arm: contusions, damage… tearing. He could not be blamed for fighting back.

(After being taken back to his new ward he had clenched his inner muscles and felt that delicious ache of rough use and thought of Fuller panting, hook-caught, after him into the storage room. Allowed the dead, dark smile to come into his eyes where only his fellow prisoners could see and saw them shrink back from him as he had known they would.)

* *

The others know him after that. Knew what it was they were locked up. Like recognises like, and predators always prefer to go after prey rather than kin.

They see his weapons, the others. The doctors, even the guards, are soon taken in by the wide eyes, the slight stature; the breath of innocence. But the others see beneath to the teeth and claws and stay away, affording him little opportunity for fun.

With the lack of easy companions he doesn’t dare play very often. If caught that would mean a loss of the privileges he has so reluctantly been granted. But not all of the gamekeepers are as blind to the wolf under his lambskin as the rest, and that does give him some room to amuse himself. And to have something to talk about.

* *

His calls are watched – privilege does not extend to privacy – but he and his correspondent are old hands at this dance of subtext now. He settles himself into the bolted-down chair set in front of the caged monitor screen and smiles at the face waiting there.

“My friend, it is good to see you again. I hope you are well?”

Dark eyes meet his and the other inclines his head. “Yes, I am in good health. I trust you are the same?”

The familiar opening move, showing none of himself. No offering to betray weakness. He is sometimes very sorry he never got to play chess with this man when he was still free of these walls.

He nods but lets his smile dim a little. “Yes, I am. Although…” lets the smile fall away completely now “Something unfortunate happened here at the institute the other day”

“Oh?”

It is like watching a grandmaster. No-one else would be able to see the eager spark in that cold gaze; know how much his friend wants to hear what he has to say. He looks down and lets a tiny tremor into his voice “Yes. One of the orderlies here. There was a commotion with one of the other – the other patients. They were upset and it was on the second floor, out on the corridor, on the landing by the stairs, and the orderly he didn’t look where he was stepping and he fell. He tripped and fell down the stairs”

He looks back up, eyes wide “I saw him. He broke his neck. A terrible accident”

And it had taken so little to achieve.

Just making sure the other patient had his fit in that particular spot, when the cleaning had left the floor still slick and shiny. Meeting the orderly’s eyes from several careful paces away and suddenly letting all that he was, all that he wanted loose into his eyes and his smile.

And then all he had to do was watch the man cringe. Flinch back and stagger and fall.

The hardest part had been closing his eyes to the delightful ruin , so nobody would see his pleasure shine through.

He lets it gleam now though. Locks eyes with his friend and knows the other man can read everything he’s left unsaid. The other man’s eyes go wide, then heavy lidded with satisfaction and the silence lasts just a beat too long before his friend says, low, “Terrible indeed. It seems we both have had… disagreeable things happen to those around us recently”

He hugs his glee to himself, makes his eyes go round to imitate sympathy and settles back to hear of the latest ‘accident’ at his friend’s workplace.

He does look forward to these little chats.