Chapter Text
This was one of the biggest moments of Jared’s life.
He stared up at the giant brick building and cowered as it towered over him in an intimidating way and he gulped. He was kind of not looking forward to this but it was an opportunity that Jared just couldn’t pass up.
Jared was a senior in high school and for his senior project he decided to choose something that he could for his major when it was time for him to go to college. And the major he planned on choosing was Psychology, so here he was standing in front of Broughton hospital the local and main mental institution in his hometown.
He would have been fine finding a local doctor’s office to do his project at but his dad had swooped in and recommended that Jared do something more challenging and ended up calling his friend who was a doctor at Broughton.
Jared took a deep breath and nodded to himself in an encouraging way before pulling up his big boy pants and walking into the creepy building. He was greeted with cream colored walls and marble floors, a long desk in the center of the room and he walked up with a shaky smile “hi um I’m Jared Padalecki and I’m supposed to start volunteering today?”
The lady in front of him was wearing light blue scrubs and greeted him with a smile “yes nice to meet you were so glad you’ve decided to help us out! If you’ll follow me ill lead you to Doctor Brown’s office and he’ll give you some instructions.”
So he followed the cheery nurse, whose name tag told him was Heather, down the long halls and up a giant staircase. By the time they made it to the third floor Jared was panting breathlessly to himself, why couldn’t they have taken the elevator?
She knocked on a door, sent him one last smile and pushed him through. Doctor Brown looked up with a thin smile “Jared my boy! It’s good to see you, how’ve you been?”
Jared nodded and came to sit in front of him “good…” he answered before smiling awkwardly.
But Doctor Brown didn’t seem to notice; he smiled again and pulled out a white folder “ok now I know you’re here for your senior project and that’s great were happy to have you. Now what I’m wanting you to do is walk around, maybe get to know some of the patients and follow Doctor Hall when she does her one on one sessions so you get a little experience and then maybe you can talk to some of the patients on your own. Now if you’ll follow me.”
Jared barley stifled a groan as he followed Doctor Brown a flight of stairs down and to a giant room that seemed to be a lounge. The lounge was filled with chairs, couches and some TV’s… there were tables set up holding game boards and the room was filled with patients.
Jared’s skin shivered with panic, he had never been so nervous in his life.
What if he got attacked? What if he didn’t understand them? Oh god what if he went crazy?
“Jared this is Sandy, and she’s our head volunteer she’s been doing it since she was 15 and she’s hoping to be a nurse.”
Jared snapped out of his thoughts and turned to see a short brown haired girl with tan skin and she smiled at him “hey Jared nice to meet you.”
“You to,” he nodded to her.
“Ok Jared I’m now gonna leave you in the capable hands of Sandy and she’ll point you in the right direction.” Doctor Brown smiled and gave Jared’s shoulder a soft slap before leaving Jared alone with Sandy.
Sandy smiled at him “you seem nervous?”
Jared gave her a weak smile “is it that obvious?”
She laughed softly and nodded her head “just a bit, but don’t worry it’s not that bad I mean I won’t lie there’s absolutely moments when you know you’re in the nut house but it’s good. Now I’m here if you need anything I know it’s probably gonna seem a little odd at first but you’ll get the hand of it!”
“Ok so now I… talk to them?”
“Yeah go around, find someone and see if you can communicate to them, don’t get discouraged if they don’t talk back they probably won’t.”
Jared frowned and pointed “who’s that?”
At a table in the back sat a man no older than 25, his head was down and he was dressed in black sweat pants and a white t-shirt. Jared couldn’t see his face but he could tell he had dirty blonde hair and pale skin.
When Sandy turned her head in search of whom Jared was pointing to her face dropped and she shook her head. “Try and stay away from him alright? That’s Jensen and he…well he doesn’t like to be messed with ok?”
Jared frowned in confusion and cocked his head in question “but why? I mean what’s wrong with him?”
Sandy sighs and looks around cautiously before stepping closer “what isn’t wrong with him. Jensen is…well he’s a special case. He was brought here 5 years ago…to name them out he has antisocial personality disorder, schizophrenia, his bi-polar, Frotteuristic Disorder, Sexual Sadism, and if you ask me just plain crazy. His bad news Jared I mean seriously bad, a couple months ago he attacked a nurse here and almost killed her.”
Jared’s eyes widened in terror “what? How?”
“He knocked her on the ground when she wasn’t paying attention and started slamming her head against the floor; it took 3 guards to get him off her.”
Jared let out a shaky breath and shook his head “may I ask what Frotteuristic Disorder is?”
Sandy bit her lip and leaned closer “it means he…well basically it’s a sexual disorder which means he likes to rub against people…sometimes unconsenting people.”
Jared blushed all the way down to his toes, his face a bright scarlet as he cleared his throat “unconsenting? Has he raped people?”
“That’s one of the reasons his even here. Apparently he raped a young boy and when he was brought to court they had a doctor do tests on him and discovered all his illnesses. His parents said they had been trying to get him help for years, and when he was younger he was on medication but once he turned 18 there was nothing they could do and he stopped taking them. So with the court and his parents’ permission Jensen will probably be locked in here for the rest of his life.”
Jared looked back over to Jensen with a totally new perspective. Jared knew coming in here there would be people beyond help, people that might not even be human anymore or maybe some who took crazy to a whole new level but never did he think that someone so normal looking was so unbelievably vicious .