Author's Brief Note: I'd like to thank you for all positive feedbacks and immense support in the first chapter which was rather prologue. Do not get me wrong, however, it's not my second nature to write with a fictional character x reader book which is slightly difficult task, due to the POVs or rather altering the perspective. It truly means a lot to me and it keeps me refreshed to update this book more often. Moreover, Wings of Light's new chapter hasn't been started yet and so I'm keeping your wits about the mild delay in its regular updates, in fact, I'm supposed to update it once a week. 

✟ I hope you like and enjoy the second chapter where the interesting part begins after the foreshadowing retrospection! ✟

--- *** ---

--- A Few Hours Later or So ---

Your dryly chapped, roseate lips were far from ebullient to curl after your strawberry-coloured tongue conjugates vowels and syllables in one meaningful word at least. Solely jaded, lifeless groans, barely benumbed escaping your tongue after the bar fight, the confront with Cole and the orderlies dressing you up from your grunge outfit with dark ripped, bloody-stained jeans, midnight black chiffon long-sleeved shirt and dark leather jacket into a rigidly shapeless, tiresome patient gown with its rigid hem flaring across your knees. You were mildly tipsy after consuming a sufficient quantity of beer to quench even headstrongly inebriating you.

The beauty coma just stopped in a halt once your brittle eyelids fluttered like wings opened at the partly austere, dull ward with a couple of yards space. The incessant choir of blinking your {E/C} jewels, emitting a helplessly lifeless groan gutturally, subsequently you came to the conclusion that you weren't all alone in the ward at all. The company of the senior nun, visually readable in her appearance between her fifties and early sixties with a fistful of gilded, silky locks of her coiffed mane framed her round full profile was far from a warm welcome for you. Literally embarrassingly shamefacing and challenging for you. An eerie flat line blurred every pattern of glee or sorrow, spread across her rosy-coloured, attractively cherub lips. Her smoky quartz jewels were fixated on your {S/C}, crestfallen complexion which no longer were battered with merry and shining smiles, soft textures of mirth glinting your {E/C} embers and blazing them more vibrant than the sunlight. Within persistent series of blinks, your vision cleansed abruptly and you had a better access to study your surroundings in the seconds of lethal silence where you weren't the protagonist to initiate the conversation, nor the stern sister of the church, seating on the chair by your right side.

Glancing forward, onward and backward, or rather spinning your {E/C} embers to survey each undiscovered corner of the cell, blazed with childlike inquisitiveness and bewilderment in the same time, you licked bashfully girlish your lips after twirling and spiraling your strawberry-coloured tongue in the exact axis. The cell where you're imprisoned was poorly furnished with nothing else than a tattered, smeared in filth bed sheets and blanket with feculent whiteness which wasn't as sheer as a brilliantly glimmering diamond. Briefly, you can tell you were imprisoned in a mental institution for criminally insane and it was one of the most infamous mental institutions in the small city of Massachusetts, Briarcliff.

The last thing you recalled from your tempest of thoughts' memories was the bar fight and how Cole taught a lesson to you and your only loyal, true friends in one of the cheapest bars of Boston. Explicitly damaging your cells with the sorely fresh, morbid memories of your former drug boss, who found you with Dana, Barb and Frederic nowhere else and got his own revenge with almost kicking your buckets in front of the customers and bartender.

"You had an accident, Miss!" The Boston lilt highlighted the head nun of Briarcliff, folding her legs, contoured with the rigidly woolly shapeless hem of her dark, conservative habit, whereas her fingers knitted in the relaxedly fashioned in balled fists petite, palish hands. Scarcely there was any quantity of foreshadowing the real motive why your freedom was rather strictly confined even worse. Deprived from contemplating the true notion of light and joining the general population's society with the complacent freedom, flapping its own golden, angelic wings, you squinted up at the sister of the church, holding her gaze steadily since your parents have taught you whenever somebody's turn was to utter a single vowel and syllable in a symphony together at least, thereafter the best thing you could do was the eye contact's stability, maintaining the adequate politeness in your manners even with your worst foe. The drums, brattling vigorously in your ribcage were parallel to the significantly murderous increased heart rate with the vortex of questions, swirling and twirling in your train of thoughts and the formal situation of facing much older adult, whose position was on much higher tier than yours.

"Sister, I know who's responsible why I look like a total crap," Stammer limping backward and forward in your throat, quirk creased across your {EB/C} eyebrows in choir, whereas your front ivory teeth nibbled on the raw spot of your lower lip. "But why I'm here? What I've done?" The smoothness in your Maryland lilt punctured your grave curiosity to seek the answers you're looking for.

"You're involved in a bar fight with yar friends and you almost killed a man, who claims to be a scientist." What it exasperated you more than anything was what your former boss exaggerating to Jude over the false charge which has nothing to do with the reality. Your former boss was your biggest foe at the moment emphatically even more turning the others against you who are nothing else than strangers with belligerence towards you. Namely judging you by its book cover without hearing your story and the essential reason what exasperated the drug cook. Incredulity contoured your youthful facial features, raising an arch of your eyebrow at Jude's coldhearted, emotionless monologue though it didn't matter the timbre as much as the stark truth.

In the meanwhile, heinous ire was pulsating in your petite-frame, although you were strapped on the patient bed, depriving the freedom of your ankles, wrists, biceps and neck's muscles to be reproductive. All you could think of as a scenario that was a conspiracy to be deprived from the freedom which you pearly cherished even more than escaping the vicious claws of the authorities back in Silver Spring, Maryland. Adrenaline was pumping into your veins recurringly. Restlessness stiffened your confined muscles.

"That's impossible, Sister! It's true I was involved in a bar fight," What it baffled you even more was the inhumane pain, pricking your overall figure and sensing the sequence of the mauve tints, black eye, dried blood patchy uneven spots where the bleeding was refreshingly unfold. A heavy sigh flushed your chest, stilling your flickered up gaze at the older woman. "But I haven't almost killed that man who claims to be a scientist. It's lies on top of lies what he claims." Meanwhile, the older woman's wrinkles weight stretched with the crinkles, cusping her dark, thin eyebrows whilst shaking her head in solemn disagreement, modicum of agreement wasn't readable on her facial attributes. "He's a drug cook and a predator, who has illegally pornographic photos of underaged girls and women without their consent."

"Even when I'd like to hear yar story, Miss {Y/N}, I'm afraid I can't believe any quantity of what are ya currently telling me!" The Bostonian's fists were fashioned in balled, grasping the rigidly wool texture, grazing itchily beneath her delicate spider fingers until an antagonistically ferocious, impulsive growl coursed through your throat, coarsening your attributes momentarily.

"Jesus, Sister!" The inward, smoothly hoarse hiss droned your throat, throughout verbal vibrations dancing in your throat muscles. "Get me a Bible to swear on, if that's what it takes."

"I don't like by the way yar speaking to me, young Miss! Don't make me perform an electroshock therapy on you on the morning after," All of a sudden, what it was oblivious for the Bostonian was the presence of one more soul, stepping inside the ward after meekly, resiliently silent shut the rusty, old door behind him and approaching his right hand in striding with tiptoeing. You glanced at the tall, masculine figure which was donned in the dark, wool attires of the clergy. It didn't look familiar to you at all, in fact, you knew so far that Sister Jude and the Monsignor were running together the madhouse with an iron fist and the barbaric tortures behind the dull, lifelessly grayish walls featuring the morbidity and the genuine notion of nightmare as falsely accused and pseudo-immoral. In spite of Boston was far from foreign for you after dwelling in the small city of Massachusetts a year ago, your fair knowledge about Briarcliff wasn't bittersweetly disappointing. "Monsignor!" At the moment, the older lady turned to the visibly younger man, whose pristinely meaty, masculinely strong fingers of one of his hands was clawing her shoulder consolingly, nudging her to attract her attention and avert her gawk from you promptly. Her elderly appealing facial attributes promptly softened after facing her own boss, who seemed quite young, compared to her as if their age gap could be approximately a decade or a decade and a half at least. Vaguely sheening, pearly smile adorned her face and blurring any quantity of fury and sorrow, indicating her current expression.

Further, what your nimble instincts could echo as inner voices to you were that the priest and Sister Jude deemed as more than just business partners and you could closely observe how their mannerism in the body language and facial expressions are playing out in front of you. The amalgamation of friendship and unrequited love glimmered thousand patterns of perplexion in your gawk, opening your mouth in a soft O after your sensitive, flexible nostrils flared quietly and inhaling the pungent, appalling reek of urine, poor hygiene, bleach, human waste and heavy medicaments wafted across your nose momentarily even when you came to your senses.

The intensifying silence that was arching between the both pious members of the clergy nonplus you as if you didn't have another alternative except to keep yourself quiet before Timothy was the second witness of getting you in trouble for blasphemy or immorally wrong behavior. It overflowed like crystal-blue cataract in the small room for a half a minute just before the intension didn't level out to the highest, most divine tiers. Last but not least, the silence and the discord which seemed to foreshadow during the hush between Jude and Timothy clearly allowed you to survey warily the photogenic man of the cloth unless his chocolate brown irises didn't meet yours.

First and foremost, his height was approximately 6'0 by judging how quite tall he was compared to the blonde. His skin tone was alabaster pale and giving you a first prompt that he wasn't an American at all. His charming facial features didn't carry any weight of wrinkles, sketching his lower eyelids and cheeks with exception the light-heavy wrinkles due to the inexorable aging process and the dark circles under his chocolate brown irises, implying to the insomnia he's been through, the immense stress due to his persistent hard work as a clergyman. Benevolence and nonchalance textured smoothly his parchment, youthful complexion. His short chestnut hair was neatly trimmed and smartened to cap his head. By judging his vision, you'd determine his true age was between his thirties and early forties unless his true age was acknowledged somehow.

"Jude, Jude," The honeyed, English lilt, accentuating the ambitious Monsignor's, whereas his delicate fingers manipulated to work on kneading her shoulder consolingly yet, ducked his head to maintain the eye contact with his right hand. "Don't!"

"What I mustn't do, according to ya? The blasphemy should be punished brutally with an electroshock therapy or at least a couple of canes." In the meanwhile, pout twisted upon her rosy-coloured, cherub lips strangely enticingly for your {E/C} eyes, still wondering whether if Timothy was still sincere to persuade the pious woman of the cloth's radical intentions of castigating you with an electroshock therapy, in order to boil your brains and subsequently transmuting you in a mindless zombie and lurching around. "It's intolerable, Monsignor! Tell me!"

"Tell me what is that barbarian side of yours! I thought you will be strongly against Dr. Arden's experiments and so forth."

"Due to the fact I'm strongly against whatever he does to the patients, that doesn't mean I can't treat the patients in similar way unless their disobedience reaches the highest levels of arrogance." In the interim, your blank, glassy gawk was darted to the both members of the church which had strong discords with one another, whereas your berry-coloured tongue clicked silently, timidly. On one hand, you weren't fan of dramas and heated debates. On other hand, it intoxicated your other side how sadistically relishing was when somebody was standing for you and putting your foe or dislike on the right track, in spite of your tribulations were different compared to the confront with the head nun of the madhouse and you were all alone to cope with any tribulation that blocked your path to success and continuation.

"Jude, I'm afraid the new patient's story deserves to be listened and therefore to schedule her therapy in less aggravating way!" Suddenly a flabbergasted gasp slipped from your tongue, reluctant to die on your tongue in the oblivion and quirking an eyebrow quizzically at Timothy. Judging his British lilt, emphasizing his stern, nevertheless, calm caution with authoritative timbre, you were completely sure he's a European and most of all, British emigrant. You were beyond mesmerized by his well-educated eloquence, smoothly constructing the words in a rational exclaimation. Your {E/C} pools were mistily transfixed mostly on the clergyman, almost forgetting about the clash with the former promiscuous nightclub singer. Licking greedily your chapped lips idly, you sensed the protection from nobody else than a representative of the opposite sex you covet for years was far from a reverie. Of course, Frederic protected you during the old high school days even opted to protect you, Barb and Dana from your former drug boss and cook Cole! There was a ginormous difference between the man of the cloth and Frederic's notion of protective nature nonetheless.

"But it's slightly late for tonight to listen to her story, Timothy! Don't ya think?" In the interval, the former promiscuous jazz nightclub singer lifted her petite, creamy hand from her crotch with the flattened clammy area of her palm to muffle the mere, jaded yawn, fanning with her mint-stained breath the delicate skin of her palm, lingering her honey brown orbs on the cocoa brown. "Tomorrow in the morning! After everybody are awake to be sober enough to have a fine talk face-to-face in my office." Throughout her monologue, Judy crossed her arms to indicate her seriousness even when her disagreements with the love of her life were clearly obvious.

"For you," With a heavy sigh, flushing his nose, Timothy rubbed encouragingly kind her shoulder and squeezing it faintly, in order to convince her to flee the antagonizing territory and have a rational discussion with you. "Yes! Otherwise in my case, no! You shall better go rest and collect through the night extra energy and freshness for the next morning, Jude!" Although the Bostonian didn't have any intentions of fleeing the cell unless she was done with the dirty work, she docilely, humbly lifted up her rear from the chair and turned to the ambitious man of the cloth, managing to maintain an appropriate distance with him, due to the fact, they were already married to God for countlessly unknown years and their bodies and each cell, each muscle, each bone truly belonged to God and the holiness. An irritated pout parted upon the older lady's rosy-coloured, plumpish lips, slightly ducking her head. "Tomorrow it will be day to have an adequate talk with Miss {Y/N}, trust me!"

Shivers and paroxysm violently prickled with electrifying goosebumps your arms and legs' epidermis, exposed to the common, hypodermically chilly climate that was clouding the asylum's atmosphere. The elating eloquence tingling melodious tunes into your ears whenever the British compatriot's words were trickling like after rain droplets from his mouth was enticing you after the bar fight, the capricious customers' complaints and the nun's bitter rebuke, brightly contrasting to the shrilling symphony of inner voices, amalgamating in your whirlpool of thoughts dynamically.

"As ya say, Monsignor! Good night and I'm trusting ya with my life to be careful! I don't want her to attack or harm ya." Wickedly infernal chuckle clicked the roof of your mouth, solely distinctive for you unlike the both older adults after earning their glimpses for a split second. "Take care, Timothy!" After drawing the love of her life in a tight, kindhearted hug as her alabaster arms were snaked around his amusingly muscular, broad shoulders.

"So as you, my rare bird! I promise everything will be fine. All you need is to be calm." Seconds before the holy woman to retire to the abysmal, dimly illuminated hallway, they broke off the hug and taking their time to admire one another's faces. Timothy's optimism and realism feuded Jude's pessimism, despite the British compatriot didn't seem to have any malicious intentions at all. "{Y/N}, you okay?"

"I guess." Rusty, hoarse groan dripped from your mouth after your neck muscles constricted due to the strap's tightness, leashing you after a salty lump bubbled up in your throat and managing to gulp it. This time, you had the ultimate opportunity to challenge yourself with gazing at the British aristocrat's parchment complexion.

"You look like a beaten dog. Oh God!" What it disgustingly abhorred the director of the facility was the consequences of the bar fight, mapping your petite-frame, muffling the spontaneous gasp with his colossal, veiny hand. "Who's responsible for all this?"

"I doubt it you want to believe me, Father!" After clearing your throat with a dry, half-hearted cough, you didn't avert your {E/C} jewels from his smoky quartz embers, blazing childlike, diplomatic curiosity. A despondent frown flattened downward your dry, sorely cracked lips. "Even if you want to believe me, I'm sure I'll end in the solitary sooner than later." The sheer sarcasm, dancing in your emphasis didn't break Timothy's facial expression as well, whilst his baby pinkish, visually soft as satin lips seized in a purse.

"Sister Jude is slightly stricter when it comes up to new patients even to the least obedient ones! I'm afraid you won't end in the solitary unless your behavior is far from acceptable."

"I don't care how strict she appears to be, because I can see that from miles." Deep breath coursing from the top of your brittle lungs, you bit your lower lip and pointlessly your ivory teeth was scrapping the sensitive skin of your roseate lip. "But let's start with the story since you insist to listen to me! I was in one of the bars tonight, hanging out with my friends Barb Summer, Dana Schwartz and Frederic Blake and drinking beer until my former boss as I and my pals used to be drug dealers and spreading drugs in Silver Spring, Maryland," The frequent blinking choir of your eyelids almost ceased the fresh moistness of tears to buddle your lower eyelids and roll on your cheeks. You weren't a keen fan of making scenes with blubbering uncontrollably in public even in front of strangers unless you isolated yourself or somebody trusted was by your side to cry on his shoulder. "His name was Cole. He used to boss me and my pals to spread his cooked product and earn an immense wealth especially when I lived with my grandparents after my parents passed away from cancer. One day when I was still seventeen-year-old and Frederic pried in his personal belongings, what he found was more than disturbing. Pornographic photographs of underaged girls and women without their consent were taken and we just quitted this business. The police were constantly looking for us even me and I know what a disgrace I was for my family with that business, but I couldn't help and participating so that to make a big amount of money for our survival, instead relying on my grandparents' small pension which could hardly feed three of us." The devotional clergyman was all ears, attentively listening your monologue, composed soundtrack of stammers and emotions, measured in the monologue's length. "That prick taught us a lesson for betraying him with the business and I don't want even to look in the mirror what a freak I alook like."

"You don't deserve this even if you quit this business for your own good, {Y/N}!" Blush tinged your well-sculptured, chubby cheeks after eavesdropping the silver-tongued emphasis of your name, vaguely beaming at him which was certainly impossible, factly, nobody is prone to believe you, nor to be responsible for treating you differently unlike the other staff members and lunatics. "I believe you!" Suddenly your muscles and bones sedatingly paralyzed under the spell of his spellbinding firmness in his utterance, managing his mammoth, amusingly warm hand to paw your petite, weathered hand and providing comfort and warmness which you yearned for a long time. Incredulity brushed with somber colours your attributes. How does it come on earth only one person especially the Monsignor believing you from whom you expected to be even worse than Sister Jude? Especially in an antagonizing ambience, where there was no mercy and no chances of fleeing this unholy place. You were far from talkative and mirthful to peel a word. You were speechless.

"You believe me? Is that some kind of a joke?"

"Not at all, {Y/N}! Amusing or not, I'm the only one who truly believes you and doubts what the others say about you." His pristinely warm, comforting fingers managed to knead your weathered, rigid knuckles, providing consolation and warmness. Your heart raced at his enticing touch which you have never pictured as a scenario, in fact, he's a holy man and his entire identity genuinely belonged to God even when his distance from the holy world and realm were somewhat successful attempts to overlook God's judgmental, fiercely piercing glares, casted on both of you. "I'll try my best to find a way to arrange your release even when the Cardinal and Sister Jude would tear me off and the law would reckon my days." Little did you know how sincere Timothy was beyond his promise, although the modicum of belief you want to pour in your naïve side of your character. "I'll make sure the electroshock therapies and everything else that means harm to you will be banished from your stay there. After all, you don't seem quite malicious and being capable of anything immoral!" Benevolently soft, reassuring smile bloomed on his pale-pinkish lips, softening his handsome facial features immediately as you melted in his friendliness and the glowing chocolate brown orbs, wearing thousand patterns of serenity. "Chin up, {Y/N}! Relax and we will see on the next morning! Stay strong and don't pressure yourself!" At the moment, the coldness swaddled your elvish hand after his fingers no longer lingered on your weathered flesh and heading to the rusty door, although his heart ached to spend series of hours with you in the starless night and slowly but surely mustering up in your company. He didn't seem viciously self-centered and sadistic priest at all, despite your lacking enthusiasm in the religion and attending church. "Good night, {Y/N}!"

"Good night, Monsignor!" Within a several seconds, the cell was completely desolated and the rusty door swung shut in a slam, thereafter locked up in a single click and the lights were turned off, obscuring the light to bath the pitch-black darkness that blanketed you. The smile still lingered on your face after fluttering shut your eyelids to collect extra sleep.