Title: Things To Do in L.A. When You're Insane
Warning: Incest
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: None of them belong to me -- I'm just doing my best to make sure their memories never die.
Summary: A patient at the Veterans' Association hospital in Los Angeles meets two fellow patients to whom he has an unusual connection.
Author's Notes: For this crossover to work, I'm supposing that the A-Team season 5 & the whole
deal with Stockwell never happened. The story takes place in the late 1980s.
He sighed, throwing off his blankets and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. These times were the worst. He missed his friends on a regular basis, but he particularly hated it when they had to spend so much time away. *Then again*, he thought, *I'm pretty lucky. At least I get to see them every now and then. There are guys in here who haven't seen anybody who wasn't a doctor, nurse, orderly, or patient in over a decade.*
He rose onto his legs, stretching again to his full height. He heard a noise outside and approached the window to see a bus stop by the VA's entrance. The vehicle was about half full with people, some just sitting and others moving around wildly. A white-coated figure disembarked first and met up with one of the VA's doctors.
Murdock was distracted by a knocking at his door. He turned and grinned at the nurse.
"Mornin' Liza!"
"Good morning, Murdock. Did you sleep well?"
"You know me," he drawled, "I sleep like a baby in a snowstorm. What's with the bus outside?"
"Budget cuts in a neighbouring county forced it to close one of it's hospitals. They asked if anyplace nearby could take some of their patients and the administrator said we had a few empty beds."
"I don't know about this, Liza. I just don't think I could take this many at once."
The nurse grinned at him. Despite his own multitude of problems, Murdock always tried to help out his fellow patients, particularly new patients who needed help adjusting to life at the VA. "Don't worry. We'll all be here to give you a hand. We wouldn't exactly be doing our jobs if we let you do them for us all the time."
Murdock grinned back before the nurse left to continue her rounds. By the time he turned back for the window, most of the new patients had been unloaded from the bus and escorted into the VA. He sighed and, without bothering to change out of his pyjamas, left his room for the cafeteria. If he was going to have to deal with a new load of patients, he was going to do so on a full stomach.
* * *
Murdock was just finishing off the last few bites of the scrambled eggs on his plate when he saw a strange man with VA issue pyjamas wander into the cafeteria. The guy looked pretty harmless. He had dark brown hair and matching eyes that peered out from a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. The only thing that broke the man's 'normal' appearance was the silvery material wrapped around his ankles that peeked out from under his pyjama bottoms.
Murdock put on his best grin as the man approached. "Hey! You're new here, aren't you? Sit down for a sec -- the seat's got your name right on it."
The man stopped next to his table and bent over to examine the seat. "Hey, you're right!" the man exclaimed, surprisingly pleased. Murdock kept himself from giggling -- so many people had etched their names into that bench that unless someone had a really unusual name, it was most likely there.
As the man sat down, Murdock watched his every move, trying to get an idea of what he'd done -- or not done -- to end up in the VA. Something about the man seemed vaguely familiar, though he couldn't quite put his finger on what that could have been.
"The name's H.M. Murdock, but you can call me Murdock."
"Hi. My name's Hank. Hank Stone. It's nice to meet you." The man's face lit up in a smile as he stretched his hand out to Murdock.
Murdock warmly shook the outstretched hand. "Same here. So, what brings you to our lovely establishment?"
"Nothing, really. I just needed a break from things."
"Oh, that's good. I was just wondering if you were one of those guys who tries to kill themselves or something."
"Oh, no. I'd never do something like that."
"So did you come here yourself?"
"No, my family thought it would be best for me to take some time away from things."
"Oh? Why'd they do that?"
"I tried to kill myself."
Murdock choked on his last bite of scrambled eggs, but still managed to stifle his laugh.
"So, why are you here?" Hank asked. "You seem like a really nice guy."
"Well, I spent a wee bit of time in Vietnam and left my sanity behind. You mind if I ask a silly question?."
"No. Go ahead."
"What's with the stuff on your ankles?"
"Oh, that. It protects me from the doctors, especially this one guy. He's always trying to drill into my brain. Do you like poetry?"
"Do I like poetry? Sure I do," Murdock drawled. "Let's see. There once was an ugly mudsucker..."
* * *
Murdock walked back to his room with a smile on his face. After he'd helped Hank find his way around the ward, he'd helped out a couple of other new patients. Afterward, he'd gotten news from one of the nurses that some of the patients had been taken to the more high-security wards, so he wouldn't have to worry about them.
He whistled a few bars of a song he liked to sing with the Face-man. Just before he got to his door, he noticed someone was in the White Room. The White Room was a padded room used to keep highly unstable patients for short periods of time. He walked up to the door and stood next to the orderly on duty, looking inside at the surprisingly familiar straight-jacketed figure.
"Hey, Gary, I know that guy!"
"Are you sure of that, Murdock? He just got here this morning."
"I know that. He came into the caf and sat with me for a bit. Said his name was Hank."
"Well, according to our records, his name is Dennis."
Murdock nodded. It wasn't the first time he'd seen multiple personalities. He had quite a few himself. "You know how long he's gonna be in there?"
"Well, he's been quiet for the last hour. I think it's safe to take him back to his room."
Murdock watched as Gary the orderly called in one of his co-workers, and together they prepared to lead the man out of the White Room and down the hall toward the highest security ward.
As they led the man off, Murdock called out to the patient. "Hey, Hank! You get yourself better now, ok?"
The man stopped and the orderlies stopped with him. Slowly, he turned to look at Murdock with a dangerous smile on his face. "Don't worry about me. They *love* people like me."
The three men continued on their way down the hall, and Murdock could do nothing but shrug. What the hell does that mean? he wondered.
He set the thought aside and headed back to his room.
* * *
Murdock awoke and shot out of his bed. He held his hands over his ears to drown out the screams of the sirens that rang from outside the hospital. Looking out the window, he spotted a number of police cars following an ambulance to the VA's entrance. Much to his surprise, the ambulance doors were opened and left that way, with nobody but the paramedics coming out.
A few moments later, a gurney was wheeled out by a number of orderlies. He watched silently as the paramedics pulled away the bloody sheet overtop of the motionless body, turned their faces away in horror, then laid the sheet back over the body.
A knock at his door made him jump. He turned to see Liza motioning him to the door.
"Murdock, you don't want to be looking at what's outside. You should go back to bed."
"What happened, Liza?"
"I shouldn't tell you. It will just upset you, especially since you're not going to be able to leave your room for a few days."
"What do you mean? What's going on here, Liza?"
"Murdock, all I'll tell you is that there's been an escape from the high-security ward. None of us have ever seen anything like this. We'll be keeping all of you in your rooms for a few days until we know it's safe for you to come out." She turned away for a moment, looking down the hall. "I'm sorry, but I've got to go. Are you going to be okay, Murdock?"
He nodded and watched as she rushed down the hall. This was beyond unusual. The orderlies at the VA had been trained to manage even the most dangerous patients. Some of the guys that had come back from Vietnam had been so scarred on the inside that all they wanted to do was hit back at the world, and the orderlies were supposed to have been trained to handle that.
Whoever this was, he was no soldier. What this man was, Murdock was afraid to find out.
* * *
*Thunk.*
Murdock whistled a few bars of a song he used to sing in Vietnam.
*Thunk.*
His mind wandered, wondering what his friends were doing.
*Thunk.*
A knock at the door startled him and he almost didn't catch the tennis ball he'd been throwing up against the ceiling. At the window peered an all-too-familiar face, and for once in his life, Murdock didn't know what to do. He'd thought the man was harmless when they'd first met in the cafeteria, but harmless people didn't spend time in the white room. If all the patients were locked in their rooms, and Hank/Dennis was at his door...
"Hey, Murdock! How are you doing?" the man asked enthusiastically.
"Umm, I'm okay, muchacho. What are you doing out there, man?"
"Oh, my friend let me out."
*Yeah,* Murdock thought. *The one that got himself killed.* "What do you want? We're all supposed to be staying in our rooms?"
"I know, but I needed to talk to somebody. I need help with a friend of mine, and if I go to the doctors or nurses, they're just going to take him away. Please? Will you help me?"
Murdock's resolve began to melt at the pleading voice. He looked into the man's eyes through the glass and saw no trace of the evil that was running loose in the VA. He played the last card his heart would let him play.
"As I said, muchacho, they locked us in. I couldn't go out and help you even if I wanted to."
The man's face split into a goofy grin. "Don't worry, Murdock. I can open the door."
Murdock watched as the man pulled something from his pyjama top and started fiddling with the lock on the door. Within seconds, he heard a click as the door was unlocked. The man opened the door and held his hand out to Murdock.
"Come on. He needs our help."
Taking a deep breath, Murdock took the man's hand and allowed himself to be led away from his room.
"Hey, were you a thief in a past life?" Murdock couldn't help but ask.
"I don't think so. Maybe I just knew one."
Murdock tried to keep his worry at bay. He'd spent many years acting crazy, and almost as many years actually *being* crazy. This night, however, he was afraid he was about to find out what true insanity was.
The dark-haired man stopped in front of a door, opening it and letting Murdock in before he closed it behind them.
"Okay, now I'd better warn you, he doesn't look that good. I left him in the bathroom to clean up a little."
The bathroom door was opened and Murdock looked around the corner to see what was inside. His entire body froze up at the sight within.
The water in the bathtub was a dark red. Murdock watched, hypnotized, as a hand scooped up a handful of water, only to let it strain through his fingers. A face identical to that of the man next to Murdock watched the bloody water trickle from his palm, any expression on his face marred by the streaks of blood that mingled with his dark hair and pale skin.
Murdock's eyes finally left the figure in the bathtub to take in the entire room with its blood-streaked floor, and rested on a pile of clothes draped over the toilet. However, after a moment, he realized that those weren't clothes on the fixture. He felt bile rising into his throat as he concluded that it was indeed what he suspected it to be: a pile of human flesh.
He almost jumped as a hand rested on his shoulder.
"He isn't doing too well, is he?"
"I'm guessing this kind of thing isn't normal for your brother?"
"My brother? Which one? And what do they have to do with any of this?"
"You mean there's another one after him?" Murdock asked, motioning to the man in the tub.
"What? You think he's my brother? No, my brothers are in Michigan. Why would you think he's my brother?"
"I think it has something to do with the fact that you look a lot alike."
"Oh. Well, that's okay then." The man, who was indeed the Hank Murdock had met in the cafeteria, took a step into the bathroom. "Dennis, how are you doing?"
"I'm fine," the man answered in a frighteningly calm voice that sounded exactly like Hank's. It sent shivers down Murdock's spine. "Why'd you bring him?"
"I thought he could help you. You don't look well."
The cold eyes turned to glare at Hank. "I don't need anyone's help. Leave me alone."
Murdock grabbed onto Hank's arm and started pulling him out of the room. "Come on, Hank. It's not wise to anger the guy."
Hank tried to pull away from Murdock, worried about the man in the tub, but Murdock wouldn't let go for fear of the man's safety. As Murdock tried to pull harder on the man's arm, the figure in the tub sprung out of the water and flung himself at the Captain. Murdock found himself pushed up hard against the wall with an arm crushing his neck.
"Nobody hurts him but me, you got that?" the man said, his voice full of unspoken threats.
"Come on, Dennis," Hank said, trying to pull at the arm that was slowly choking off Murdock's air supply. "He's not gonna hurt me, or you. Listen to him talk and maybe he'll be as familiar to you as he is to me, and we are to each other."
The arm slid away from Murdock's neck and he took in a grateful breath of air. "Thanks Muchacho. Your friend and I were getting a little tight there."
The two men turned identical raised eyebrows on each other. "Spanish?" Dennis asked, surprised.
"Yep. I told you he was familiar," Hank replied, grinning. He grabbed onto Murdock's arm and pulled him over to the bed, sitting them both down on the small mattress. He looked into Murdock's eyes for several moments, then looked up at Dennis. "I think it's starting to come back to me, you know? I can see it."
"You couldn't see it if it was right in front of you," the standing man scoffed. A hand reached out, and fingers ran through Murdock's thinning hair, turning his head so that the two pairs of brown eyes met. Murdock shivered, however this time it was for an altogether different reason as he saw the lust-filled look in Dennis' eyes. "I'd say it's time we got to know each other better."
Murdock and Hank watched, hypnotized, as Dennis moved away to the bathroom, grabbed a towel from the rack, and began soaking up the blood-tinged water from his skin. Murdock trembled as he felt a gentle hand caress his back and soft breath tickle the skin beneath his ear.
"You haven't remembered yet," Hank's soft voice asked, "have you?" Murdock shook his head. "That's okay. I can see a part of you *does* remember. The rest will come to you."
Hank's lips pressed against Murdock's neck, moving from one side to the next until they'd grasped an earlobe, suckling softly. Through heavy-lidded eyes, Murdock saw Dennis discard his towel and walk back toward the bed.
"Hank. Clothes. Now," the pale man commanded.
The man removed his glasses first, then began unbuttoning his pyjama top. As the body beneath was revealed, Murdock's eyes widened at the realization that the silvery material the man wore was not restricted to his ankles, but in fact covered most of his body.
Dennis smirked. "You just couldn't get away from the silly armour, now could you."
"And you couldn't stay away from being a blood-thirsty killer. This is my protection."
"Yeah, and it's still useless. Take it off."
Pouting, Hank began removing the tin foil that was wrapped around him. Dennis walked over to a nearby dresser and picked up a long knife that had been lying on the surface. He brought the tip against Murdock's cheek and slid the flat side of the blade along his skin.
"You're not gonna hurt him, are you Dennis?" Hank had finished discarding his 'armour' and was now standing at Dennis' back, a hand on the identical man's shoulder. The only way Murdock could tell the two apart was the glossy sheen of Dennis' wet hair and the manic look in his eyes.
"No. You were right. He's one of us, and I couldn't hurt him any more than I could hurt you."
The blade slid under the neck of the black t-shirt Murdock was wearing and easily sliced through the image of Gumby on the material. Hank moved away from Dennis and walked around the bed, settling on the mattress behind Murdock. He gently pulled the man down to the mattress, then moved in to capture Murdock's lips with his own. As the two men were occupied, Dennis used the blade to rid Murdock of his shorts so that the three of them were as naked as the day they were born.
Murdock, reacting instinctively, rolled onto his side to face Hank and wrapped his arms around the slim waist. Somehow the action, as well as the feel of the man in his arms, felt too familiar, too comforting... He felt Dennis settle in behind him, a hand tracing along first his arm then Hank's as a pair of teeth nibbled along his neck and shoulder blades. Murdock's mouth moved away from Hank's to slide along the man's jaw as Hank raised his head so his lips could meet Dennis'.
The three men entwined on the small hospital bed, taking turns tasting each other until Dennis moved down to take Hank's cock in his mouth. Hank gasped into Murdock's mouth at the sensation.
The pilot's damaged mind tried to grasp onto something that could tell him what was happening here, why lying here with these two men, whom he suspected were more insane than he was, felt so natural.
As Hank's lips traveled down his chest, he ceased to care. He closed his eyes as the gentle man's lips wrapped around his cock, no longer aware of anything in the world but a perfectly wet suction where it did him most good.
He shifted out of his lustful haze as he heard Dennis order Hank to raise onto his hands and knees, and noticed the man did so without releasing his hold on Murdock. His eyes slid open in time to see the dangerous man thrust into his twin, the sensations around his cock intensifying at the sight.
Only moments later, Murdock felt his mind explode, lying back boneless against the hospital-issue sheets and shivering at the sudden chill against his exposed flesh until Hank's body finally slid next to his, wrapping himself around him and warming him all the way through. Dennis' hand crept over his head and stroked his hair, and as his eyes blinked open, he saw its owner smile at him as if attempting compassion but not quite succeeding.
"Welcome home, brother."
With only the bathroom light left to light the room, the three men slept, absorbed in memories not quite their own...
* * *
The bedroom door creaked open, allowing a thin veil of light to enter the dark room. Two sleepy heads rose from their pillows to watch a figure drag itself through the doorway. After several moments, something fell onto the small bed between those of the room's other occupants, bringing them to full wakefulness.
"Jox?" one of them whispered. It's only response was a light sniffling. A body scrambled out of its bed as two sets of eyes became accustomed to seeing in the darkness.
"How is he?" another other voice spoke.
"I don't know, give me a moment." For a minute there was no sound but the heavy breathing of the room's third occupant. "I don't like this, Jett."
"Neither do I," the teenage boy spoke as he too rose from his bed to join his brothers. "But you know how Dad gets."
"Yeah, I do, though you shouldn't talk... you and your 'games' aren't that much better." The speaker grew quiet as a hand clutched his night shirt so tightly he could barely breathe.
"Don't you dare even insinuate that I'm as bad as Dad."
"I know you're not," the other responded, his hands forcing his brother's away from his neck, "I just hate seeing him in pain, any pain."
"Will you two just shut up," a third voice mumbled from beneath them. "I'm fine Jace, so stop worrying."
Jace gently rubbed a hand over his other brother's back. "Don't lie to me, Jox."
"Dad was just a little mad, that's all," Joxer said, his voice slurring as his tears fell harder. "He'll be fine in the morning. He has to..."
Jace lied down alongside his brother and wrapped an arm around the crying boy's waist, tucking his face into a shaking shoulder. "It's okay, Jox. We're here, aren't we Jett." Jace's only response was movement on the uncomfortable mattress and another arm wrapping itself around Joxer's shoulders. He placed a loving kiss on the back of Joxer's neck. "We'll always take care of you, Jox." A finger rubbed along Jace's upper arm and he rose his head to meet Jett's eyes. No words were spoken yet a million thoughts were exchanged. Moving softly, both teens' lips met over their brother's wet face.
"Someday..." Jett murmured as he rested back onto the crowded mattress. "Anyone who hurts either of you will die by my hand."
"Except Dad," Joxer's sleepy voice said as he pressed his lips into his brother's neck, feeling Jace's body moulding to his own.
"Yeah," Jett voiced in resignation. "Except Dad."
* * *
"H.M.?"
The fog began to lift from Murdock's consciousness until he was finally able to recognize the voice that was speaking his name. "Liza? What-what happened? Where am I?"
His eyes opened on her worried frown. "How much do you remember, Murdock?"
In a flash, the events of the last night came back. He moved to sit up, only to find his wrists bound with some sort of medical tape. He looked up at the nurse, his eyes more worried than hers had been. "Where's Hank? And..."
"Hank's fine," she reassured, her hands beginning the process of unbinding his wrists. "Another patient was trying to break him out. We managed to get Hank back and we'll be moving him to another hospital any day now."
"And the other guy?"
Her eyes refused to meet his. "Don't you worry about him. Whether or not we catch him, we'll make sure he never gets in here again."
He nodded his understanding and waited for her to finish with his hands. So Dennis had escaped. He guiltily discovered he was relieved that at least one of them was free, though he supposed as the sanest of them all that it should have been him. He forced himself not to laugh out loud at the thought of his being considered sane in any measure.
As he was finally freed and led back to his room, he noticed the increased number of police officers in the VA. With a start, he recognized an all too familiar face among the crowd and put on an evil grin, waving to a very grumpy-looking Colonel Decker.
Days later, the hospital had calmed considerably and the patients were finally allowed out of their rooms. As he was playing one of his video games in his room, Murdock heard a tapping at his window and immediately rose to answer it, expecting it to be his friends come to free him for another mission. However, the face that met him was the last he'd expected.
"Dennis, what are you doing here? They're looking all over for you."
"I just wanted to check on you and Hank, make sure they're not mistreating you guys. Sorry 'bout tying you up, by the way, but I had to make them think you weren't with us."
"Why didn't you just ask me to go with you? It would have been much easier."
"Maybe. You're not the one I'm worried about. They'll let you out soon enough -- you *are* saner than us, after all. But Hank, I needed to get him out. I'm just sorry I couldn't."
"Wait here a sec, okay?" When Dennis nodded, Murdock ran to one of his dressers, pulled out a piece of material and carried it back to the window. He detached the screen and tossed the cloth down to Dennis. "You better go, man. They'll catch onto your visit any moment now. I've kept them on their toes."
"I bet you did," Dennis said as he examined the cloth, a yellow t-shirt with red writing. *Bring back the dodo.* "You take care of yourself, okay?"
"Don't worry about me. I've got a good group of guys doing that already. You just keep an eye on Hank."
"Until next time, brother," Dennis said before he slipped into the bushes and away from the hospital.
Just as Murdock had finished resealing the screen from the window, his door was opened to admit one of the nurses. "Murdock, Doctor Templeton is waiting for you out front. It seems we forgot about your appointment to visit with him at the Baracan institute..."
Murdock grinned devilishly, knowing there was no such institute and that 'Dr. Templeton' was in fact his best friend, come to take him away from the VA. Excitedly, he followed the nurse out to the front desk.
As he took off with Face in the man's Corvette, he slipped into a Spanish accent that was sure to
annoy the inimitable Mr. Peck. Life was back to normal, as it should be. Somehow, however, he
doubted it would ever be the same.
The End