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Broken Wings	By : crystalwind Category: Final Fantasy VII > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 643 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 5
- 6
Warnings: language, crazy people

Chapter Five – Sessions

Winter, 2008
“Let’s talk about your mother today.”
Reno stared. “Why do you want to talk about her?”
Dr. Gast frowned, resting his elbows on the edge of his desk. “Well, she’s the one person we haven’t really discussed. Didn’t she ever try to stop your father?”
Reno snorted, flexing his arms in the straitjacket and scowling at the ground. “Of course not. She was too busy working or whatever to care what was happening to me. She never cared.”
“How did it make you feel, to have her ignore you that way? She’s your mother, she’s the one who should have protected you from anything, right?”
“It made me feel fan-fucking-tastic, Doc,” Reno sneered. “How the fuck do you think it made me feel? I already told you I felt like I deserved it; she just made it worse.”
“And how do you feel about her now?”
Reno’s gaze was dark, staring up at him from beneath the fringe of his bangs. “You said it… She’s the one who was supposed to protect me. She could have stopped it if she’d bothered to try.” He huffed, turning to glare at the wall. “I hate her.”
Gast frowned, observing his patient. He had seen many expressions on the boy’s face over the past few months, but this cold disregard was a new one. He sighed after a moment; it was, unfortunately, an emotion that he couldn’t really find fault with. Reno would eventually have to deal with his animosity towards his mother, but his opinion towards her was natural and, while not necessarily healthy, far more stable and manageable than most of his other problems. “All right, I suppose we can worry about that one later. Is there anything else you’d like to discuss today?”
Reno quirked an eyebrow at him. “You make it sound as though I wanted to discuss any of this.”
Gast settled back in his chair, tapping his fingers against the armrest. “Do you still feel that the so-called ‘little victories’ aren’t worth it, that you’ll never get well enough to be released? You’ve been making a lot of progress, you know.”
Reno frowned, tucking his chin and pulling his knees up to his chest. “I don’t know…” He shrugged uncomfortably. “I like not having to wear the mask any more… but I’m still in this jacket, still on lockdown up here on the fourth floor. Walking out the front door is pretty far away… and I don’t really have anything waiting for me out there anyway. Is there really any point to ‘getting well’ again?”
Dr. Gast sighed, wondering what the best response would be. Few patients on this floor were ever able to reach this point in their therapy, and only one, a former patient of his, had ever actually made it to the point of being released. It was a hard thing, giving a patient hope for the future without outright lying to them, and Gast didn’t want to ruin the fragile bonds of trust that he’d managed to build with the boy.
Reno, watching him, sighed. “Guess your silence says it all, huh? There’s not really nay hope for me.”
Gast frowned, leaning forward again. “That’s not true, Reno. You don’t realize how rare it is for a patient on this level of the facility to even reach the point that you’re at now. But it’s easy to lose hope when you only have the little victories to go by. Not everyone has the ability to move beyond their problems and get out of this place, but the ones who do get so caught up in what’s wrong with them that they lose sight of the bigger picture, and they forget that those small victories will eventually lead to something better. They give up, and then they lose any chance that they ever had.
“But you, Reno, you have the capacity to heal, to make yourself better. You just have to keep reminding yourself, every day, that there’s more for you than these blank walls that you see every day. You have to accept the little things as the victories that they are, instead of just focusing on how small they seem.
“As for what waits for you outside of these walls, who can say? I won’t lie to you and say that every child in the foster system gets adopted. As a teenager with a rough past, your chances may be smaller than most. That doesn’t mean that it’s hopeless though, and it’s always up to you how you let that sort of thing affect you. Even if you don’t get adopted, that doesn’t mean that you can’t build a good life for yourself.”
“How am I supposed to build anything good for myself or have any kind of hope when I’ve spent the past four years thinking I was worthless?”
“That’s what I’m here to help you with.”
Reno sighed, glancing up at the clock. “Lunch time.”
“Right.” Gast watched as the orderlies led Reno away, shutting off the recorder. At least now Reno was thinking about his path to rehabilitation; it was time to speak to the facility Director and see about giving the boy some more privileges. If he could start dispensing with the straitjacket and some of the sedatives, it might give Reno the extra boost he needed to start actively working towards his freedom.

The “cafeteria” was Reno’s favorite place to go on the fourth floor. True, he had to be hand-fed because of his straitjacket, and after he ate they would sedate him so that they could remove the jacket and let his arms recover for a little while, but while he was still “sober,” the large dining area was the most entertaining place he’d ever seen. There were crazy people there.
Oh sure, he knew that he wasn’t exactly the picture of sanity, or else he wouldn’t be here tied up in a straitjacket and stoned out of his mind half the time, and he knew that he was a terrible person for being amused at the others’ expenses, but there was some seriously weird shit to see up here in the maximum security ward.
He always started with the orderlies. He figured you had to be a special kind of person to want to stand around babysitting the mentally incompetent all day, and most of the orderlies didn’t disappoint his expectations. They were one and all muscle-bound men, to the point where Reno figured the hospital either had a great gym or a great deal on steroids. Once you got past the muscles, few of them had much going for them in the way of the looks department, and at least half of them were some of the most socially awkward people Reno had ever seen. He always spent the first few minutes of being in the cafeteria observing them with a barely-hidden smirk on his face, trying not to laugh as he watched the awkward ones try to hold conversations.
After sniggering at the orderlies for a while, Reno went on to observe the other patients. Some of them he truly felt sorry for; they were kept in straitjackets just like him, several in masks, but they were kept so numbed with sedatives and anti-psychotics that they simply sat there in a depressed haze, allowing themselves to be fed mindlessly. Others were far more lively and entertaining. Some of them sang while they were there – loudly and generally badly. Others spent the entire time cursing – at themselves, at the orderlies, at the other patients – and Reno used these opportunities to update his own vocabulary. A select few were allowed to be without straitjackets, and they tended to go from hurling insults at people to hurling food, which Reno thought was hilarious… particularly when an unobservant orderly got splattered.
Reno’s own daytime orderlies, Frank and Sam, were remarkably tolerant of him, despite the fact that he spent a great deal of time laughing at the orderlies. He wasn’t sure if they just pitied him or actually somewhat liked him, but he generally did his best to avoid laughing when they were the ones being insulted or covered in applesauce. In repayment, they generally did their best to bring him food that he liked, and to try and keep being spoon-fed from being as humiliating as possible. He figured it was an acceptable trade-off.

“The orderlies tell me that you’ve been doing very well lately; the Director has agreed that we can begin dispensing with your sedatives at mealtimes.”
“Oh yeah? So I can start feeding myself then?” Reno grinned, but Dr. Gast shook his head.
“The orderlies also tell me that you find it highly amusing when some of the other patients begin flinging their food around the cafeteria. I’m not sure that I’m ready to deal with you trying to start food fights just yet.”
Reno sank back down in the couch, muttering under his breath. Gast couldn’t help but chuckle.

Reno was excited to be able to move his arms without the “aid” of sedatives, even if he did still need someone else to feed him. He spent his “free time” drumming on the table, tapping his fingers, and poking Frank in the side whenever the orderly wasn’t looking, snickering at Frank’s exasperated sighs.
Sam was the first one who got the idea to bring in paper and crayons – possibly because he was worried that Reno would start messing with him next. Reno was delighted, drawing pictures of the orderlies, the other patients, and Dr. Gast. After a quick consult with the doctor, Frank even started taping the pictures up on Reno’s walls for him.
After several days, however, even coloring began to get old. Reno began staging Crayon Wars, the primary and secondary colors versus the tertiary colors, and his loud antics quickly drew a small crowd of the other unrestrained patients. The Wars ended quickly though, when one of Reno’s favorite “food-flingers” stole the red crayon and tried to eat it. The orderlies quickly found themselves trying to break up a frantic fight, with the primary colors’ “supporters” extremely upset over the murder of one of their colors. Reno didn’t help by laughing hysterically through the whole thing, and Gast decreed that any coloring would now have to be done in Reno’s room before lights out.

“He’s been doing very well without his sedatives, but he’s getting restless. He has a lot more energy now, and walking in the halls isn’t doing enough to burn it off.”
The Director sighed, rereading the report about the Crayon War fight in the cafeteria. Many of the patients who had been involved had refused to calm down, and they were now sedated and sleeping in their rooms. If there was a repeat of the incident, it could have serious repercussions on many of the patients’ treatments.
“Very well, you have my permission. He can go without the jacket if you feel it’s safe, but he is to be closely monitored at all times.”
“Understood, Sir.”

When Reno was led out of his room the next day, he immediately started to turn left, expecting to be taken to Dr. Gast’s office for one of his sessions. He was startled, therefore, when Sam grabbed his arm and Frank took a shoulder, turning him the other direction. He was even more confused when they walked right past the cafeteria, turning down a hallway that Reno had never been allowed to use before, even on his nightly exercise walks. When they turned another corner and he spotted the elevator in front of him, his heart began to pound rapidly.
Dr. Gast was waiting for him on the first floor, keys for the straitjacket in his hand and a reassuring smile on his face. He had a pair of running shoes in his other hand, and the orderlies guided him over to a chair so that he could sit down. It was the first pair of shoes he’d worn in several months, and he stumbled a little when he stood up again, unused to the feeling. He walked slowly at first, still hesitant and confused, but when they walked into the lobby, and he realized that they were heading for the front door, he picked up the pace, almost tripping over his shoes again.
Gast laughed this time, catching his arm before he fell. “Relax, Reno. You’ll get there faster if you don’t fall along the way.” Reno rolled his eyes, figuring there was probably a deeper meaning hidden in there somewhere, but he slowed down again, glancing up briefly at the doctor.
“Are we going somewhere today?”
Gast shook his head. “No, just outside. Normally patients are only allowed grounds privileges if they’re on the third floor or lower, but I got special permission from the Director to bring you outside. We won’t get to stay out long today, since this is just a probationary run, but if you do well today and the rest of the week, I’ll be allowed to extend your time out here.”
Reno frowned, thinking about it. “Is this because of the fight yesterday?”
Dr. Gast smiled wryly. “Let’s just say that you’ve got a little too much energy compared to what we’re used to up there, and the Director is worried that the other patients might have their treatments disrupted.”
Reno smiled a little, and then they were at the door. He paused hesitantly at the threshold, looking outside. This was his first trip outside since his last trip to the main hospital, and that had hardly counted. The fourth floor didn’t even have windows, and he was surprised to find himself with a nervous fluttering in the pit of his stomach at the sight of the blue skies. He looked over at Dr. Gast again, unable to completely hide the apprehension in his eyes. Gast gave him an encouraging smile, and stepped forward to open the door.

The cool breeze against his skin was amazing. Reno stared, almost overwhelmed, and barely reacted when Frank removed his straitjacket and replaced it with a light windbreaker. It was turning out to be an unseasonably warm winter, and if Reno hadn’t known better, he would have thought it was early Fall. The breeze was crisp but not biting, and the leaves in all their multicolored hues were still on the trees. Reno smiled, taking a deep breath of fresh air before hopping quickly down the steps, seemingly forgetting that he had company.
Walking back inside when his “recess” was over was the hardest thing that he’d ever had to do.

A/N:
Sorry for such a long time between updates! Flight school has sucked away my life lol. Aaaand… sorry for the kind of crappy ending there. I wanted to write more about his first trip outside, but the words just weren’t coming -sigh-
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Broken Wings