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hopip99 · 2 years

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A/N: I'm officially on the fanfic train. It's going to be intense, so buckle in. Any feedback on my work would be much appreciated as well!

Masterlist

Disclaimer: Please read the warnings for this story. It is intense and touches on some very heavy subjects.

Summary: After being subjected to a nearly lethal dose of Darkenfloxx, Y/N is still feeling the side effects long past when they should've subsided. Jeff is there to help put her back together when she finally shatters and shares what happened.

WC: 2508

WARNINGS: Angst (like it's barely hurt/comfort... it's mostly just hurt), unethical testing of fictional drugs, mentions of sexual assault (nothing explicit but enough to be alarming), suicidal ideation, PTSD

An Unending Nightmare

Darkenfloxx was the worst drug the prisoners at Spiderhead could be exposed to. Every time, without fail, it forced the subject to relive their worst nightmares as though they were happening in that moment. For the most part, testing of Darkenfloxx was disbanded because the subjects became violent and may become a threat to others and themselves. That was until Y/N came along, and Steve Abnesti insisted on testing the horrid drug on someone convicted of a crime that they should never have been. Y/N had been assaulted on her way home from work one night and had killed her attacker before fleeing because he had threatened to follow her home and kill her if she didn’t continue to listen to him in that dark alleyway. When she was arrested, she pled not guilty but was still charged with involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to two years in prison. She’d applied for the Spiderhead program, knowing it should be objectively better than spending those years in a state penitentiary. For the most part, she was right. At least, she was until she had been tricked into trusting Steve Abnesti and sat in the uncomfortably bright white room used for testing.

“Alright, Y/N, this is your last test for the week. Permission to start drip?” Steve asks in his ever-charming voice without giving her any details on which drug she’d be testing that day since she was alone.

“Acknowledge,” she says without hesitation, unable to see the nod he’d given Mark nor the look of discomfort on Mark’s face as he administered the highest dose of Darkenfloxx he could without it being lethal. The effects were almost immediate. Y/N felt the creeping buzz of anxiety and panic prickle her skin before seeping deeper into her bones. It was the same feeling she’d had that night when she thought she was forced to take a life to be sure she could live. “I… Make it stop, please,” she began pleading as her surroundings shifted from the bright white room to the dimly lit alley she had always walked down to get home. The minutes started to feel like hours as she began hyperventilating, the feeling of that man’s hand taking up residence on her skin again. “Please make it stop,” she screams pleadingly, the vivid memory of her torn clothes and bruised body overtaking her reality at that moment. The Darkenfloxx wasn’t making her relive her crime, as it did with many of the others, because her worst memory was what had led up to her crime—hours' worth of events replayed in her head in a few short minutes.

Steve only gives Mark the okay to stop administering the Darkenfloxx when Y/N has begun to claw at the skin of her arms hard enough to draw blood. Unfortunately, the effects of the Darkenfloxx have not subsided as quickly as they came on, as Mark has to half carry her back to her room while everyone else is asleep so as not to arouse suspicion. Y/N can’t sleep that night, and she just sits on the floor of her private shower, fully clothed and with scalding hot water running all night.

How she doesn’t have any burns the next morning is a mystery, but she gets up and puts on a brave face. She is thankful that her long-sleeved shirts had come out of the wash the day before. She pulls on a black long-sleeve shirt with a pair of shorts to hide her scabbing arms from prying eyes, but there is no hiding the dark circles under her eyes.

Her movement is stiff and slow as she walks towards the kitchen to start her snack duties. She even takes her time pulling out what she needs for snack until she hears Jeff’s approaching footsteps. At that moment, she forces herself to move at her usual pace and put on a convincing enough smile. “Hey, Jeff,” she says, forcing herself to sound chipper as she usually does. Jeff doesn’t buy the fake tone.

“Hey, Y/N, you alright?” he asks softly, stepping beside her to help with the snacks.

“Yeah, I’m alright. I just didn’t sleep well last night, is all. They took me on a field trip yesterday, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it.” She surprises herself with how easily the lie rolls off her tongue, but it is only a half lie because she couldn’t stop thinking about what she experienced the night before. She hasn’t even stopped feeling the effects of the Darkenfloxx yet. Her skin is still vibrating with panic even though she’s standing next to the only person in the entirety of Spiderhead who can make her feel safe. If he doesn’t believe her, he doesn’t say as much. Instead, he just accepts her words with a slight nod.

“Alright. Then let’s get snack done so we have some free time,” he says with a half smile, bumping her arm playfully. Y/N nods and forces a smile even though the contact brings her back into the flashbacks the Darkenfloxx had induced the night before.

Her breath catches in her chest in a way that is nearly excruciating, but she plays it off with a cough and a proclamation of “I’m alright, just inhaled wrong.” Jeff gives her a look of utter disbelief but makes no attempt to dispute her words. Instead, he lets her tell him nothing is bothering her, and they set to work making the snacks. It doesn’t take them any longer than expected to finish preparing the snacks or any longer than expected to hand them out. As soon as they finish handing out the snacks, Y/N collects the plates from Jeff. “I’m going to go wash these. You go enjoy some extra free time, and I’ll join you as soon as I’m done,” she murmurs, her voice trembling. She doesn’t wait for a response, and he doesn’t follow. He just stares after, feeling completely confused.

The next few days pass in the same manner, and the side effects of the Darkenfloxx do not subside. Steve and Mark constantly check up on her when everyone else is asleep, or they call her to the testing room just to ask her what she's feeling day after day. When a week and a half passed, Y/N had not managed more than three restless hours of sleep a night. She’s sitting in the blinding white of the testing room for a final debriefing to see if the effects of that high dose of Darkenfloxx had finally subsided: they did not.

“I’m so sorry you’re still feeling the effects of the Darkenfloxx, Y/N. Just for the sake of data, I need you to tell me one more time what you're feeling. We’re going to administer Verbaluce to help you express what you’re experiencing. Acknowledge?” Steve asks his tone kind and laced with what could only be described as forced concern. Not the Y/N knew that.

“Yeah, whatever, acknowledge,” she mutters, sinking deep in the chair as she waits for the effects of the Verbaluce to kick in. Once the drug kicks in, she can’t help but immediately start speaking everything on her mind. “It’s the worst feeling in the world, Steve. Everyone else that I know says they relive the crime they committed that got them here. I don’t. I relive the hours leading up to my crime on repeat. I can still feel the callouses on that man’s hands; I can hear the sound of my top tearing, and I can feel it pressing against my skin. I haven’t stopped reliving that moment since you administered the Darkenfloxx nearly two weeks ago,” she spouts loudly and sucks in a sharp breath as tears start to fill her eyes. “I’m so exhausted. I barely sleep anymore, and it isn’t restful when I manage to get a few hours. The only people I normally feel comfortable around make me jumpy now, and I know they’re confused and worried, but they never pressure me for answers. I don’t want to make them worry, but living every day like I’m still on the Darkenfloxx is getting to be too much. No one knows you’ve been hiding anything sharp every night so I don’t get to them. They don’t know that there's no longer anything I can tie clothes or bedding to in my room. Anything that I could’ve used to end this suffering has been ripped away from me. And you won’t give me anything to counteract the Darkenfloxx yet. Not Luvactin. Not Laffodil. I just need something so that I can sleep, or I need you to let me die,” she nearly screams, her voice hoarse and wavering as tears stream down her face. “Whatever you have to do, please just make it stop. I can’t live like this anymore.”

Mark pales at her words and quickly terminates the Verbaluce drip before standing up to escort her back to her room. “We can’t let this go on much longer, Steve. As soon as this week is over, we need to give her one of the other drugs that will bring an end to the effects of the Darkenfloxx. It was a mistake administering that high of a dosage, especially on someone that has a clear case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.” Steve nods in agreement, and Mark quickly takes Y/N back to her room. She spends the night staring at her ceiling, letting her tears fall until she’s physically incapable of crying anymore. The next day, she is late for snack duty for the first time, and she gives Jeff some unconvincing excuse that she can’t even remember. She disappears to an empty decompression room when they're done cleaning up. Primarily, the room is used for reading when the prisoners don’t want to read in the common area or the room.

That is the last straw for Jeff. He’s been biting his tongue for a week. A week of seeing the dark circles under her eyes grow and darken to an alarming extent. A week of seeing her eyes and cheeks puffy and red with tear stains down the sides of her face. A week of her jumping any time he touches her or gets too close when she can’t see him. A week of her wearing long sleeves that are clearly sticking to her arms. A week of her making up excuses to be alone. A week of her being brought to her room late, he wasn’t sleeping until he was sure that she was in the safety of her room. A week of her lying about what tests they’ve been doing because there is no way she went on four field trips in a week. He takes a deep breath and follows her into the decompression room, kneeling next to her. “Talk to me, sweetheart. I can’t help you if you keep bottling this up,” he says gently, making no move to reach out for her because reaching out had scared her a lot through the last week and a half. Those words are all it takes for the dam to burst, though, and Y/N dissolves into a sobbing mess as she moves closer to him.

He quickly shifts into a sitting position, Y/N settling between his legs as she buries her face into his chest and tightly grips his t-shirt in her fists. “Y/N,” he murmurs shakily, his heart breaking at the sight of her in such distress.

“It’s awful, Jeff. I want to die, and they’ve taken everything away that could help me die,” she sobs, and his heart shatters. He wraps his arms tightly around her, feeling her body tense in response, though she slowly relaxes against him over the next few minutes.

“Tell me what happened, Y/N. I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart. I’ll do whatever it takes to help you feel better,” he whispers, rubbing a hand up and down her back to soothe her. She stays quiet for at least 20 minutes after that, giving herself time to calm down before attempting to speak. Jeff doesn’t push her to talk. He simply gives her all the time she needs before she speaks.

“The first day I seemed off a week and a half ago,” she rasps, “I didn’t go on a field trip the night before. I was in the testing room. Darkenfloxx. They gave me the maximum dose they could without it being lethal.” Those words alone were enough to start a fire in Jeff’s veins. He’d been among those who tested Darkenfloxx in the initial trials, and he maintained that it made his blood feel like it was on fire and that it was like reliving his worst moment on repeat while the drip was on. Hearing that Y/N, the sweet girl who ended up at Spiderhead because she was imprisoned for defending herself, had been subjected to Darkenfloxx at that high of a dose makes Jeff want to march right up to Steve Abnesti and tear him a new one. He doesn’t, though. He knows picking a fight will only extend his sentence, and it won’t help the girl falling apart in his embrace. Just when he thinks he can’t hurt for her any further, she tells him every detail of what she has been reliving, and it grinds the pieces of his already shattered heart into dust.

“I’m right here. I’ve got you. You’re safe. I’ll protect you,” he murmurs repeatedly, kissing her temple gently. “You’re safe, sweetheart. I’ve got you. Whatever you need. I’m right here,” he promises.

“I’m so tired, Jeff,” she whispers into the damp fabric of his shirt. I just want to sleep,” she murmurs, her voice already slowing as she starts drifting off against his chest. Even though she’s still on edge and terrified, Jeff’s sturdy frame and the smell of his soap on his skin soothe her and lull her to sleep for the first time in nearly two weeks.

“Sleep, sweetheart. I’ll be right here when you wake up. If you have nightmares, I’ll be right here to comfort you until you can go back to sleep. I promise. Just try and rest sweetheart,” he murmurs as she drifts the rest of the way into the welcoming embrace of sleep. Jeff stays true to his word even though he moves them back to her room after an hour, wanting to ensure she is as comfortable as possible. Steve doesn’t even interfere as he usually would. He simply notes how Jeff and Y/N interact and stores that information for later use. For the first time since she was given the Darkenfloxx, Y/N sleeps almost through the night and is lulled back to sleep by Jeff following an intense nightmare. She’s not back to normal, but she’s less jumpy, and Jeff is glued to her side every moment he can be. He plans to stay there until he’s sure that she is okay again.

Taglist: @milestellersimp

#spiderhead #jeff fic #angst #hurt/comfort #Spiderhead fic #Spiderhead fanfiction #miles teller #miles teller fanfiction #miles teller fic #movie #movie fanfiction

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