Evan Peters Imagines

Just Call Me A Basket Case - TL

Just Call Me A Basket Case - Reader x Tate Langdon

Y/n's least favorite day of the week? Tuesdays.

It wasn't common for people to hate Tuesdays, usually Mondays got all of the fury from people's groggy minds. But not with this resentful teenager. She would get into debates with anyone and everyone about why Tuesday was the worst day of the week. There were the obvious reason, like how nothing good ever happened on a Tuesday, or how the weekend was still so far away if it was a Tuesday- not that she had anything ever planned for her weekends- but there was one thing that stood out more than any other as to why she hated Tuesdays. Those were the days that she was exploited.

Her mind would be put on display for the psychiatrist to analyze, and she'd be given some pills without a second thought before being told to 'run along'. She wouldn't mind it so much if they treated her more like a human and less like an experiment, but she couldn't expect that. After all, main reason as to why she was here was because she had someone speaking to her... someone who wasn't visible. Yup. She heard voices. It could be worse, she supposed, but her misery was terrible in its own right.

And so, when she woke up on this Tuesday morning with a splitting migraine and a note on the table informing her that she'd have to walk to her appointment, in the rain, she did not expect anything different than any other miserable Tuesday that came from her life.

She got dressed for the day, making sure to wear a warm sweater that covered every burn mark and bruise on her arms, before beginning her walk towards her new hell.

"I'm glad you're such a fucking help!" Y/n lifted her head from her spot in the hallway to the girl who ran angrily from the shrink's office. She felt her eyes widening as the girl stormed off, and when the shrink called for the next patient to come in, Y/n almost felt the urge to disperse. She tried not to, however, and only slammed her head against the wall once more.

"First time?"

It was a gentle voice, with an undertone of something sinister, and it was coming from her left. Y/n turned to stare at this person, who looked at the wall ahead of him, but still somehow gave off the air that he was talking to her.

Y/n, who almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity of his question, just scoffed. "Hardly. You?" Nagging at the back of her mind was a quiet voice, teasing her gently that he wasn't talking to her, that he would find someone much more interesting to have conversations with.

The guy shrugged, "I lost count after a while. It's almost like... it's a filter. You see a new guy, who gives you these bright pills that are supposed to stop the problems, then it doesn't work, your family blames the guy, and gives you a new one, just to repeat the goddamn cycle!" He slammed his hand roughly on the ground before turning to her with a casual, almost calculating, look. "What's your name?"

"Y/n. Yours?" Y/n asked, feeling that- for the first time in a long time- someone actually understood the things she did.

He held out a hand to her, "I'm Tate."

After shaking hands, both allowed their eyes to go back to the wall in front of them, only their breathing as any indicator as to their life. Y/n, never one for silence as it allowed the voices to grow louder and demand more, turned to him again. "What are you in for?"

This was a murky-water question. Tate could lie, Y/n knew, because this wasn't exactly the place for show-and-tell during recess. He had problems, obviously, and it was possible that he wouldn't be open to exploiting them to her, but this was the only way to keep her calm, whether she got shot down or not.

Tate never turned his head from the wall, but his eyes darted over to her face. He took in her bedraggled looks before sighing and yanking up his sleeves, allowing her to see the littering of rows of scars. "What do you think?"

"Oh." Y/n was quiet again for a moment, but she felt like this should be an equivalent exchange, or something of the sort, and blurted out, "I'm here because my brain never shuts up. I mean, I hear voices, and they constantly talk to me, and they're always telling me to do terrible things that I don't want to do. Well, sometimes. Sometimes, I want to do exactly what those voices say." She didn't admit it allowed, but it wasn't just sometimes. In all reality, she liked what her voices said. Unfortunately, however, society did not and this forced her to keep quiet about it all.

"Why don't you?" Tate asked, raising an eyebrow to her as he reclined farther into his seat. "Seems like it makes you happy. That's all basket cases like us can pine for, any more. We're fucked from the moment we're born, after all, and so the idea of a 'happy moment' is nearly foreign to us. Might as well appreciate it when it comes along."

Nothing else was spoken verbally between them after that, but it seemed like they were speaking through their souls, because they were so similar. Y/n hummed quietly to one of her favorite songs as she waited for her turn, only to jolt when Tate's name was called.

He stood up slowly, saluting her before swaggering slowly into the shrink's office. Y/n rubbed her hands against the wood of her seat, almost allowing herself to feel the realness of what just happened between them. However, her hand hesitated when she felt something coarse in between her fingertips.

She pulled it up slowly, gawking at the fact that he had managed to give her his phone number without moving from his seat at all.