BBS Oneshots

Imagination (Brohm)

He often talked to himself as a coping mechanism. It was some type of solace, used to push back the swell of memories floating about.

He often conjured him up to talk to, a figment of his imagination. That's what everyone told him. But he seemed so real, so touchable. Sometimes he would swear he felt the soft touch of fingers on his skin.

Of course, that's probably the reason he was stuck in this place.

No, that's not right. The reason he was stuck in this place was because he confided in his "friends". He told them his lover was still alive, that he came to him sometimes.

At first, though worried, they thought nothing of it. They brushed it off as one of the five stages of grief.

But when the third month rolled around, it became apparent that he honestly believed that the male was still there with him, and they began to ask questions.

The final straw was when they told him his boyfriend was dead, that he was gone and never coming back, to which the blonde responded with a lot of yelling, plates being thrown, and a mental breakdown unlike any other.

It got to the point where the cops had to be called, Bryce taken away, and his friends watching with worried looks and tears in their eyes.

The doctors deemed him unstable and dangerous.

But, for the past few months, he had learned his way around this place, physically and mentally.

He had every intention on getting out, and he almost did, too. Until the figment came back and the doctors noticed him talking to the corner of the room, sitting with his legs crossed and smiling sadly.

Bryce blamed him. He shouldn't have shown up when he was so close to escaping. And when the doctors told him he was dead, Bryce's eye twitched and a smile curled up his lips.

"Just because you can't see him doesn't mean he's dead."

That resulted in him being put on more medication, more therapy, more questions and prodding and condescending looks.

He hated it.

But, he didn't want to go over that memory, it was one he liked to tuck in the back of his mind and lock away, keep it in the dark for as long as possible.

He sat on his bed, reading silently, the book given to him by one of the nurses, who noticed his infatuation with reading.

Of course, he had read the damn thing 3 times already. He had requested a new one, but she told him she had gotten in enough trouble giving him the first.

Bryce was surprised the doctors didn't take it from him, but he wouldn't question it. He was only thankful that they had let him keep it, even if he had read it through quite a few times.

It probably had something to do with the fact that he was calmer, more reasonable, after reading. It made their job easier when having to confront Bryce.

Bryce skimmed through the pages, perfectly comfortable and content, happy, even, his eyes racing over the words, knowing them by heart. He always hesitated though, during this part of the book, because he knew what would happen.

He had been good about it the last two times. The first time he almost got his beloved book taken away, and after that, he tried his hardest to contain himself.

And he tried to prepare himself, he tried to skip over it, but this time, he couldn't. And everything was just fine until he read that one word. That one word that made him stop dead in his tracks, the one that always triggered his attacks.