Chapter Text
A/N: New story! As you might have guessed, this is an Oleander-centric, multi-chaptered prequel to the first game. Uh, and though I am posting this on Valentine's Day, there are no pairings in this story. Thank you to BabyCharmander for the fic title, and I hope you guys like it!
The closer he got to the island, the worse—and, at the same time, the more promising—it appeared.
Remote, secluded, and yet close enough to the camp that it would only be about an hour's round trip of hard rowing (or about forty-five minutes, with telekinetic prowess). He was near enough to the island now that from this angle he could no longer even see the single, skinny tower rising up from the center; it vanished into the dark, overcast sky.
The lake was rough out here, tall waves striking his canoe and threatening to tip it. The little island he was nearing was made of jagged rocks and seemed almost entirely unapproachable. He was able to spot a snow-covered beach with old flood lamps shining onto the ground, but there was no sign of a dock or anywhere else to safely tether a boat.
This wasn't exactly convenient. At the same time, all the inconvenience in the world was better than giving any possible onlookers an easy way to follow him.
With a twitch of his hand at his temple he directed the canoe forward, cutting a slough through the icy water in a straight line to the beach and urging it on faster. In minutes the hull ground against the rough shoreline. He hauled himself out, taking care not to set foot in the cold lake water, and heaved the canoe up onto the beach.
It was harder than he had expected. Admiral Cruller had done good work on the canoes. They were sturdy, heavy, and they definitely didn't like to be dragged along dry land through several inches of snow.
Grunting, he narrowed his eyes, pressed two fingers to his forehead, and focused all his mental energy on the boat; it lifted clear of the water in sync with a wave of his trembling hand, drifted forward several feet to a cliff wall at the other end of the beach, and toppled down next to it in a spray of sand and snow.
His hand fell to his side.
You wouldn't have dropped it if you practiced more often, he snarled internally, eying the canoe in frustrated distaste. He made a mental note to add telekinesis practice to his daily training regimen.
He stomped up to the cliff wall and craned his neck upwards to peer at the top.
There was no easy way up there. At least, not for him, when levitation was by far his weakest ability. After all, was it a crime to want to keep his feet firmly on the ground, where they belonged? And no, Vodello, he thought, gritting his teeth, I don't care how tall you think it makes me look.
With a grunt he jumped and managed to heave himself up onto the lowest ledge on the cliffside, and from there he was able to clamber up the rest of the way. He wasn't an army general for nothin', no way. He reached the top of the cliff with a huff and brushed himself free of snow and debris, once again taking stock of his surroundings.
Geez, how had this place even operated in the old days? The sheer cliff he'd just scaled was met with an overgrown path that led straight to a fancy, wrought iron gate, one door hanging lopsided on its hinges. As far as he could tell, there would have been no way for either staff or inmates to enter or exit this place without breaking their necks.
At least there was a gate. A gate was good. Gates could be locked and guarded.
He pushed his way through the gate with an eerie creak and found himself in a dark courtyard, noisy with the raucous cawing of crows. There was an abundance of them here, standing out from the snow like ink on a pillowcase, glaring at him with beady black eyes. Their cries meant nothing to him, though they were all probably calling him a wide variety of nasty names for intruding on their territory, if he could only understand them the way he could understand small animals with fur.
"Shoo," he said gruffly to one of them, waving it off. It snapped at his fingers and then took flight in a flurry of dark feathers.
An eerie silence fell as he crossed the courtyard, broken only by the crunch of his boots in the snow and the occasional rustling of feathers. A fountain with a statue on top stood in the middle of the place, large and imposing. It probably represented the asylum's founder, Houston Thorney.
Beyond that were steps leading up to the large front doors of the asylum itself. They appeared to have been boarded up at one point, likely when the asylum was closed, but had since been pried back open by someone.
No turning back now.
Placing his hand firmly on the handle, he pushed the doors open with a creak akin to the one produced by the gates outside. He stepped into the dim entrance, his footsteps echoing off the walls of the barren room. The doors closed behind him again and he was left, standing very still, in near complete darkness.
Rustling. The shivering mental presences of other human beings. Someone else was here.
"Show yourselves!" Oleander barked as his eyes adjusted, well aware that he was the one who had just intruded in this place.
"No, no, no, no, no, no," a fragile-sounding, disembodied voice whimpered in the darkness. "Not there, can't you see it's a trap? They've got you right where they want you!"
On instinct he glanced down at his boots, on the alert for anything from a tripwire to a land mine, but he detected nothing.
"Watch out for the bayonets!" the voice cried. "Those creeps brought knives to a gunfight!"
Unable to locate the speaker, he decided that the words weren't directed to him, though there seemed to be no one here besides himself and the delusional man who thought he was surrounded by bayonets.
As soon as he had this thought, a pair of milky eyes blinked at him out the darkness, the scant light glinting off yellowed teeth. "Well, well, who's this, then?"
There was a click, and a dim light flickered on to reveal an absurdly ugly man with thick lips, dark, greasy hair framing the tallest forehead Oleander had ever seen, eyes that looked half-blind, and his upper torso bound in a straitjacket.
The new light's source was a little desk lamp, the chain still swinging. Oleander was slightly appalled to realize that this man must have craned his neck forward and pulled the chain with his teeth to turn on the light.
"We so rarely get visitors to our quaint little home, eh, General?" the man continued.
Oleander started. "How'd you—?"
"Intruders are not permitted on ze battlefield!" someone said, his voice bearing a strong (and quite possibly fake) French accent. A man with impossibly long legs stepped into the light behind the desk, standing ramrod straight, a Napoleon hat sitting askew on his head, his eyes unfocused and his arms strapped across his chest in a straitjacket as well. "Zis man must leave immediatement!"
Yep, definitely a fake accent.
"I'd say we hear him out first," the man sitting behind the desk drawled, leaning back in his chair and propping up his feet on the table. "I'm bored enough, I'm up for anything at the moment. And frankly, this is the most interesting thing that's happened in at least a year. Which is just sad."
The man with the Napoleon hat dropped out of his stance, hunching over and fixing his now-focused eyes intently on Oleander. "Sure, sure, yeah," he said, in the same voice that Oleander had heard crying about traps and bayonets. He took on a pleading tone. "Have you come to get us out of here? I'd really like to get out of this place, yeah. I can't deal with all the must and the dampness around here—"
The other man rolled his eyes. "Fred, for once could you shut up for a moment?"
"Who are you people?" Oleander grunted, approaching the desk and cutting to the chase before the two could bicker any longer and waste even more of his time.
The filmy-eyed man gave a crooked smile. "Crispin Whytehead, Head Orderly, at your service."
The Orderly was in a straitjacket? That was a new one.
The other man sprang upright again. "And I am Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of all of France!"
Oleander fixed him with a glare. "I doubt that."
"Uh, it's Fred, actually." The man sank meekly back into his hunched posture. "Just- just call me Fred. If I ever call myself emperor of anything, you can go ahead and punch me in the face."
"Noted," Crispin said. He raised a brow at Oleander. "And you are?"
"Oleander. Morceau Oleander." He sniffed. "I came with a business proposition. Who else is in this place?"
Crispin shrugged. "Oh, you know, just a few stragglers here and there from the good old days. No one you'd be interested in, I'm sure. Hopefully you aren't here to see that actress who's always looking for applause from flowerpots."
"I'm more looking for someone with a medical degree." Oleander leaned forward, his living eye glinting as much as the one made of glass.
"Obviously, that would be me," Crispin said. "Since I am definitely the Orderly."
Oleander narrowed his eyes. "Yeah, sure. The rumors I've heard didn't say anything about a short guy with a forehead that takes up his entire face—"
"Oh, look who's talking about being short," Crispin snorted. "I can't see three feet in front of my face, and even I can tell you're barely able to look over the desk on your tiptoes. I could have you kicked out of here, you know. Our good friend Mr. Teglee upstairs can be persuaded at times to drag someone out to the lake by their earlobes—"
Without warning, Fred burst into loud, French-accented laughter. "This is it, men! CHARGE! VIVE LA FRANCE!"
He spun around with a twirl of his makeshift cape and darted into the darkness of the lobby.
"So," Crispin said, as if nothing had happened, "where were we?"
This plan, in which Oleander had had full confidence not half an hour ago, was dissipating fast.
"My business proposition," he said again. "I'm looking to hire someone, and I think you know exactly who I'm talking about."
"Hmmm. Perhaps." Crispin looked smug, waggling one foot. "Though I'm pretty sure the person you're looking for no longer has a medical degree, if he ever did."
"I want to see him."
"The good doctor doesn't like visitors." Crispin peeled his lips back, baring his teeth in what he might have considered a smile. "If I were you, I'd trundle back down into whatever hole you crawled out of and consider myself lucky I still had my tongue. Thank you, and good day."
"Listen here." Oleander leaned across the desk and snagged Crispin's collar in his fist, dragging the man toward him. "I'm not asking. I want to talk to this Doctor Whatever. If you won't take me, then I'll scale this godforsaken asylum to find him myself and break down his door, after I break your face. More than it already is. Is that understood?"
Crispin struggled to pull himself away without the use of his arms, unable to do more than flop across the tabletop. "By all means," he choked. "I—had no idea you had such a pervasive deathwish."
"So you'll take me to him?" Oleander hoisted the man up higher, the effort straining his arms.
"Whatever you—want," Crispin said, his voice cracking, and Oleander released him. He hit the table with a thump and sagged over it, wheezing. "It's- it's your funeral, not mine."
"I can take care of myself."
"Of course," Crispin said, pushing himself off the desk and still breathing heavily, his scraggly hair flapping over his eyes. He staggered around toward Oleander. "That's what—everyone says. Now just—just let me get some air back into my lungs, and I'll take you right up to the doctor."
Fred approached them once again, eyes wide. "Wait, wait, you're going to see… him? Crispin, didn't you tell this guy what happened to the last guy who went up to see that crazy doctor?"
"I've given him fair warning," Crispin said with a shrug. His breathing had eased up, though he still didn't sound remotely healthy. "It doesn't matter to me whether he lives or dies, now does it?"
"But—I just—" Fred winced sharply, looking at something past the two of them. "Ooh, no, that's not fair! You can't treat my guys like that! Look, can't we call a truce? Come on, truce! For five minutes!"
"And we've lost him again," Crispin said idly, and flicked his dull eyes to Oleander. "Listen, potato man with the two free arms, why don't you go turn off that light? I doubt you'll be coming back down here."
A bit ruffled at the phrase "potato man," Oleander sidled back to the desk, tugged the lamp's chain from as high up as he could to avoid the area where Crispin's mouth had presumably been, and switched off the light.
"Now we'll go," Crispin said, as Oleander rejoined him.
"Why are you both sitting around here in the dark, anyway?" he asked.
Crispin cracked a stilted smile. "Why, I'm half blind. What do I need light for? As for him…" He nodded back toward Fred. "He opens his eyes and all he sees is war, day in and day out. A little darkness never bothers him."
Oleander's good eye slid over to the man, marching back and forth in a militaristic way, head held high as he barked commands in French at an army only he could see.
That's not you, he told himself. Your battles aren't fought in your own head.
That will never be you.
Crispin led him back out the front doors to a rusted, metal cage-like structure outside.
"This lift will take you right up to the presidential suite," he said. "Dr. Caligosto Loboto will be thrilled to meet you there. Or not. Either way, I expect this is goodbye."
Oleander glanced up. And up. And up. Still, he couldn't see the top of the tower.
He was not the biggest fan of heights. They would never deter him from his mission, but he knew he would never, say, enjoy them.
"What's he look like?" he asked. "This Loboto guy."
"Ohhh, I think you'll know him when you see him," Crispin replied. "Try not to make a mess if you make it back down here. I hate having to clean up the patients' messes."
With that, he turned, and trudged back into the building.
Oleander clambered into the elevator, swinging the door shut behind him with a clang. The elevator shuddered, then shot straight up. The wind whistled by his ears. Looking out across the lake, he could see lights from the main lodge down at Whispering Rock Psychic Summer camp, the only building he had left illuminated before heading out earlier that evening.
The camp was empty at the moment, of course, aside from Cruller, who was either holed up down in his hideaway cave or doing some odd job around the dark grounds. Nein had been around a few days ago, but upon arriving he'd barely uttered a greeting before disappearing down into his lab and never leaving, somehow getting Cruller to deliver meals to him. Now he was gone again, off on some mission in the field, and as the camp offered no winter sessions, there were no kids around either.
Oleander tried to recall what life had been like before he'd been assigned to babysit a summer camp full of children who could barely be persuaded to attempt a single pull-up, let alone perform one. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd been out on a real mission. It must have been a few days before he'd been shunted over to this job.
Too many aggressive tendencies, they'd said. Can't be trusted to handle field work. Let's see how you do around children for a while.
That had been years ago. No one seemed inclined to invite him back.
It's better than paperwork, a small part of him pointed out. It was true. He could have been stuck with a desk job. Unless they'd decided he couldn't be trusted with that, either. Well, he'd show them. Once he put this plan into motion, he'd show them all.
It seemed like no time at all before the elevator jerked to a halt, and Oleander turned his back on the lights of the camp. Gritting his teeth against the chill, he swung open the metal door and stepped out onto the rickety spiral staircase that led up to the large, brain-shaped enclosure at the top of the tallest tower of Thorney Towers Home for the Disturbed.