Chapter Text
He lies on the concrete floor and studies the darkness behind his eyelids, trying to remember who he is. The pain and the drugs between them are doing a damn fine job of hiding it, but he knows he'll get there, just like he got there last time, and the time before. Start with his name. Everyone has a name, right? And he's someone, so he has a name, too.
Whatever it is.
Outside his cell, the sun is rising, turning the darkness pink even through his closed eyes. The tiny window is more of a break in the cinderblock that someone decided would be cheaper to slap bars into than fix, but it lets in enough light to tell him roughly what time it is and how long he's been lying here. Not that it much matters whether it's 6 AM or 3 PM. It's not like he's got somewhere to be.
A commotion in the hallway outside penetrates the fog in his head. He listens to it approach, not curious enough to move until someone laughs. That pops his eyes open fast, because it's entirely the wrong kind of laugh. Actually, it's entirely the right kind of laugh under normal circumstance, but his current circumstances are hardly normal. In these circumstances? It's wrong-with-a-capital-R. It's not a manic laugh that might as well be sobbing, and it's not a nervous giggle hoping to slip by unnoticed. This is the full-body laugh of someone who's just heard the funniest damn joke of his life and is hoping someone will ask what it is so he can share.
What's your name? he asks himself again, trying to concentrate, but when he hears another laugh like the first, curiosity wins over exhaustion and pain.
Getting to his feet is a production, one whose actors and crew have all gone on strike. Roll over. Put hands under shoulders. Push. Push harder. Ignore the pain. One knee up. Then the other. Push again. Grab the wall for support.
On his knees, leaning heavily against the wall, he seriously considers letting gravity take over to drop him back to the floor. Is this really worth it? His curiosity insists that it is, while his body insists that it isn't. He knows curiosity has gotten him in trouble in the past even if he can't remember how any more than he can remember his name.
"Up," he whispers, and lurches to his feet.
The wall is a good friend, and he takes advantage of it, circling the cell rather than crossing it directly, so he can keep one hand on the cinderblocks. Not that the cell is large whichever way he goes, but he really doesn't want to arrive at the door face first. By the time his staggering steps have carried him around, his head has mostly stopped spinning and he presses his face to the bars on the door's tiny window without cracking his skull against them.
Just in time to watch the strangest procession he's seen since he came here. Or at least, he thinks it's the strangest, though he'll have to check back once he remembers who he is. Maybe he has seen something stranger?
Whatever, he tells his rambling thoughts. Stick with strange, not strangest.
The guards are bringing in another prisoner. That, in and of itself, is not terribly strange; he's seen a few come and go (hasn't he?) in his time here. The new prisoner is already wearing the same scrubs as the rest of them, and his hands are cuffed behind his back, his feet bare and his ankles manacled so he's limited to an old-man shuffle. He's fucking gorgeous, even with a black eye and a split lip and a thin mustache that doesn't look nearly as ridiculous as it should, but that's not what's so interesting.
What makes him so strange (strange, stranger, strangest?) is the grin on his face and the swagger in his step. Who swaggers wearing manacles? Who could do it, let alone would want to?
This guy, apparently.
He has to be high, even if his gaze is sharp as it takes in his surroundings. There's no other explanation for it, because nobody sober would turn to the guard holding his left arm and crack a joke, not in a place like this. The guard on the receiving end of the joke is also clearly a little alarmed by the lunatic he's escorting, his eyes jumping left and right as if in search of someone who will sympathize with him for being stuck with a prisoner who doesn't know his lines.
Doesn't know his lines. The phrase reverberates in his head, like it means something, like it's a clue to the name he's forgotten he was trying to remember. There's a play. Yes. Sets, actors, a stage. Not his job...a hobby. He presses his forehead harder against the bars as the new prisoner is escorted into the cell directly across from him and left there. The guards look decidedly relieved as they walk away.
"Pssst!" The new guy is smiling at him, face against the bars of the window of his own cell door. "Name's Randle P. McMurphy. You?"
And just like that, everything snaps back into place. "Cullen Rutherford." He blinks in surprise and momentary confusion, like he's just woken up and someone flicked on the lights.
"Pleasure," McMurphy says, which really isn't helping Cullen's disorientation. This isn't a fucking cocktail party.
Cullen takes a deep breath, and a few more things float to the top of his brain. Randle P. McMurphy? A snort slips out. Yeah, right. "Watch out for Nurse Ratched," he says, and is rewarded with a grin that's probably illegal in fifteen states. Not that it will matter, if neither of them ever makes it back state-side.
"Pssst!" McMurphy (or whoever he is) is watching him intently, and Cullen realizes he's clenching his jaw, thinking about being stuck here for the rest of his life. "Fuck 'em, right?"
Easy for him to say. He's been here five minutes. Cullen's been here... "What's today?"
"Not sure. I was out for a while. April eighth or ninth."
More than three weeks. Not so long, in the grand scheme of things. Not seven months, not yet.
I don't know if I can do this again, he thinks. The trembling starts in his hands, working its way up his arms and into his chest.
"Rutherford!" McMurphy's not smiling now. His eyes are intent on Cullen's, who finds himself trying to decide what color they are. Not that the shitty lighting in the hallway is great for that, but he'd rather think about a hot guy's face than about how long he'll be here. "What-"
From the far end of the hallway, out of sight, one of the guards yells, "No talking."
Real fast and with another grin, McMurphy says, "Picture 'em naked," like that stupid advice from some public speaking class is going to help against men with guns.
I'd rather picture you naked, Cullen thinks. McMurphy's grin turns to a smirk, as if he's read the thought right off Cullen's face, and then he drops out of sight.
Cullen lets himself slide down the door, turning as he goes so he ends up sitting against it, forehead on his knees and arms wrapped loosely around his shins. Three weeks. Fuck.
But at least he has a name again.