Fic: Asylum

[csi_sanders1129]

Title: Asylum
Chapters: 1/1
Author: csi_sanders1129
Genre: Drama. Angst. Hurt/Comfort.
Ratings: T
Word Count: 2,100
Pairings/Characters: Jason Morgan, Damian Spinelli
Synopsis: He could still remember the day that Spinelli disappeared. Like it was yesterday.
Comments: Written as commentfic that got out of control for suerum. Ugh, GH characters aren’t mine, those that are I don’t particularly care to keep. Reviews are loved. Enjoy!

It took him six months to track down Spinelli.

He could still remember the day he disappeared. Like it was yesterday. He'd come home to an empty Penthouse, quiet and dark, it wasn't right from the moment he'd entered. Nothing was in disarray, nothing was missing from Spinelli's possessions in the regrettably pink room. No note, no e-mail, no voicemail. Nothing. He'd looked everywhere, talked to everyone, but no one had seen the quirky computer hacker all day. After a while, Jason thought maybe he'd just had enough, finally gotten smart and left while he still had the chance. It hurt, losing Spinelli – they'd just started this unnamable thing together, where Spinelli would slip into Jason's room after a particularly messy situation with rival mobsters or the always interfering Johnny – but he pushed such feelings aside. He was Jason Morgan, Spinelli's Stone Cold, and so he put up his emotionless-robot-façade and tried to move on. There was no evidence to suggest anything nefarious had happened.

But, he was wrong. So, so, so, so unfathomably wrong. He had to be wrong. Because there was no way Spinelli would have ended up like this otherwise.

He found Spinelli in Turkey, off all inexplicable places. A Turkish Prison for the Clinically Insane, to be more specific. He'd had to bribe four different people just to verify that someone matching Spinelli's general description was there at all. And it took another eight rather considerable monetary incentives to gain access to the place.

He'd taken the first flight he could get, didn't even stop to find a hostel to stay in, just went straight to the prison. Jason was torn on what he wanted to find there. On the one hand, if Spinelli was there Jason would know where he was, could fix this and find out what had happened. On the other, that would mean something, something bad, had happened and Spinelli had ended up somewhere terrible.

A guard– one Jason had paid off – Berker, his name was, waved him through the main gates and motioned him toward a set of double doors that led him into what was essentially just a row of cages too small to comfortably house anyone excepting someone roughly the size of a small child. The guard walked beside him, scowling at the inmates as they passed by cell after cell. No one was familiar, none of them were Spinelli.

"No one else?" He asked, aware that the guard knew marginal amounts of English.

"Infirmary." The guard grunted and pointed down the hall to another set of double doors.

Now he really hoped Spinelli wasn't here.

But, he was.

Kind of.

He seemed caved in on himself, skinny and sickly pale. He was dirty and he had bruises all over, it seemed. A busted lip, and a nurse was wrapping his wrist in an elastic bandage.

"Spinelli." He said softly, barely audible in the cold room. How could this have happened? How could Spinelli end up here? Who'd done this to him?

Spinelli's head shot up at Jason's muted call. Eyes – one of them blackened, both of them red and puffy – wide and terrified. He squirmed away from the nurse's touch and tried to get up, but a move from Berker stopped him, froze him in his tracks.

"He leaves with me." Jason said, voice harsh and hiding edges of panic he couldn't let Spinelli hear. "I'll pay you whatever you want, but he's not staying here."

"Talk to the Boss." Berker said, shrugging in such a way that Jason knew this went over the guard's head.

The nurse was less inclined to agree. "Nonsense. The boy is insane." She said, waving dismissively at Spinelli. "He must stay. He has paranoid delusions, continues to get in fights with the others, rambles endlessly or says nothing at all… He cannot function in the real world."

"Then I'll see to it that he gets whatever help he needs when I take him home." Jason growled out.

"Have to go. Boss will be in soon to talk." Berker told him, one hand curling around Spinelli's shoulder to lead him out of the room. Spinelli winced, kept his eyes on Jason, begging for escape.

"I'll bring you home, I promise." He said quietly.

It took him two more days to reach an agreement with the Warden at the Turkish Asylum. Jason would pay a staggering fee and Spinelli - or whatever name he was here under – would be released. Escaped, the warden would say, if asked.

Berker brought Spinelli to him late that night just outside of the prison compound. He had a car waiting to take them to the airstrip where a private jet would take them back to New York. They had him in a straight-jacket, which Jason promptly removed.

"Spinelli," he said, once Berker had left them. He found himself tackled by the hacker, arms thrown around his shoulders as Spinelli all out sobbed against his shoulder. "I've got you, it's okay. We're going home." He assured the younger man, a hand moving carefully over his back.

Spinelli said nothing the entire trip back. He just clung to Jason's side and occasionally cried or whimpered in pain. By the time they'd gotten back to Port Charles, to the penthouse, Spinelli looked even more exhausted than he had in the infirmary, but he seemed scared to fall asleep. As they got out of the car outside of 122 Harbor View Drive, Spinelli stumbled so Jason acted accordingly.

"C'mon, then." Jason whispered, hefting Spinelli's terrifyingly light form into his arms and maneuvering him through the building until they reached their home. "We'll get you cleaned up quick, yeah? Get a nice, hot bath, get some food, check out your injuries." He didn't want to go to the hospital just yet – not until Spinelli knew he was safe again and that he wouldn't be locked up again. If Spinelli's injuries were worse than he'd thought, he'd call Robin over.

Jason left Spinelli alone to shower – as much as he didn't want to. It didn't feel right, leaving him in a room on his own again after what Jason had gotten him out of, but he didn't want to alarm Spinelli by sticking around and hovering. So, instead, he grabbed up a pair of pajama pants from Spinelli's dresser (they'd been baggy before, he'd be swimming in them now) and a t-shirt for him to change into and left them for the hacker. Then he went about fixing something to eat since he was bound and determined to make sure Spinelli did eat something. And then, he waited. And waited, and still Spinelli did not appear.

"Hey, Spin," Jason called out, knocking lightly on the bathroom door. When no answer came, he went in anyway, found Spinelli just sitting in the tub with cold and dirty water. "Spinelli," he said again, and this time he drew Spinelli's attention. "You alright?"

Spinelli shook his head, eyes staring into the watery depths of the bathtub.

Jason knelt down beside it, flipped a switch and let the dirty water drain before filling it back up again with warm water. He took it upon himself this time, to scrub the remaining dirt and grime off of Spinelli's skin, out of his hair, careful – always wary – of bruises and injuries. "You're okay," he whispered, over and over and over again. "You're safe now. I won't let anything happen."

Spinelli just sat there in near-catatonia, pliant and silent as Jason shifted him about and eventually pulled him out of the tub to dry him off and tug clothes over his head.

As he went, Jason took inventory of the injuries he found on Spinelli. Bruises nearly everywhere, in varying stages of healing (God, how long had he been in that place?), the busted lip and the blackened eye were starting to heal, the wrist that he'd seen the nurse wrap up the other day was in need of a cast as it was obviously broken, there were rings of red skin around Spinelli's ankles and wrists like he'd been restrained, too. And then there was the skinny as all hell thing. He could see ribs where he hadn't before. Spinelli had a general sickly-pallor about him and he still hadn't said anything.

"Spinelli," he said, as he led the unresponsive boy downstairs. "Hey, come on, talk to me. Say something." He requested, settling Spinelli in a chair in the kitchen. Spinelli pushed the provided food away. "Come on, eat something. Say something. Please."

Spinelli just frowned and stared at the table.

Okay, that was it. Something was wrong, way worse than he thought if Spinelli was this out of it. "I'm calling Robin, okay? I don't know how to help you…"

That got Spinelli's undivided attention. "No." He said, voice broken and hoarse as he forced the single word out. He coughed and cleared his throat. "No, no hospital, no doctors. Just… not yet."

"Alright." Jason agreed, warily watching the way Spinelli cradled his injured arm against his chest. They would get that dealt with soon, but for now, he nudged the plate of food back towards the hacker. "You really need to eat something."

Reluctantly, Spinelli nodded and did as told. After just a moment of picking at the food, though, Spinelli's focus shifted. "…How'd you find me?"

"Not easily." Jason responded. "I finally got a lead about Turkey."

"Oh." Spinelli said simply, picking absently at the food before him. He wasn't hungry. He was never hungry anymore. He'd learned not to be. Just like he'd forgotten what it felt like to be warm and clean until he'd returned to Casa de Stone Cold.

"Why'd you leave?" Jason asked, even though he kind of really meant 'Why did you leave me?'

Spinelli frowned at him in confusion, rubbing absently at his busted lip with his uninjured hand and abandoning his meal once again. "The Jackal would never... I did not leave Port Charles of my own free will, Stone Cold. I was taken, kidnapped, by men on Zacchara's payroll. After a while, they had me committed to… where you found me."

Fury, anger, betrayal, guilt. All of those and more flashed in Jason's eyes. Spinelli had been taken and Jason hadn't even known? He'd been shoved around and tied up and beaten by a bunch of thugs before they'd dumped him in an insane asylum to be tortured further? Because Jason hadn't known?

His hands curled into tight fists, ready to hunt down anyone who had anything even remotely to do with the gross injustice carried out against Spinelli because of his ties to the Corinthos-Morgan organization.

"I… I didn't…" Jason couldn't even begin to know what to say in response to his own failure. He'd let this happen to Spinelli, hadn't found him sooner, faster. Hadn't even known he wanted to be found.

Spinelli shook his head. "Not your fault. I... made sure there wasn't any evidence of what happened. They wanted me to call you, tell you they had me so you'd fall into a trap, but your loyal Jackal gave them an old number and eventually they gave up on getting you."

"What?" He countered, unwilling to believe that he'd heard what he just had. Spinelli had willingly suffered at the hands of his kidnappers to protect him?

"A few injuries to both mind and body were worth it if it meant protecting you from what would have been a fatal snare, as you have protected me more times than I can count." Spinelli said, sounding like he was almost convinced of his own words.

Jason shook his head. Nothing was worth whatever Spinelli had suffered through. Certainly not his own life. He should have been there to protect Spinelli – when they'd gotten more involved he'd sworn to do as much, if only to himself – and he had failed.

Obviously catching onto his mentor's internal dilemma, Spinelli pushed away from the table, standing shakily. "It… it doesn't matter." He said, rather lied. "It's over. Done. Could we… could we just maybe go lay down, sleep?"

Jason forced thoughts of retaliation and payback away. Spinelli was what he needed to focus on. "Yeah." He agreed, his hand gently landing on Spinelli's shoulder as he led the younger back towards the stairs. "Sleep'll help you out. And in the morning we'll get your wrist fixed up, make sure you're okay."

And maybe they'd eventually do what Spinelli wanted. They'd move on.