These Halls Are Never Empty

"So, Bill, tell me, has anything new happened?"

Bill shook his head. Another session with the therapist. Joy.

Bill was pretty positive that Tom's attitude was seeping into his personality just a little bit. He now found himself thinking things sarcastically, far more than he used to, and with very little literal words. Tom had been teaching him slang, giving him new words to play with, and quite possibly his most favorite, taught him every swear word he knew and it's meaning.

Bill was now far from the innocent kid he used to be on the inside. His personality hadn't changed in the slightest, he was still a paranoid teenager who desperately avoided human contact as much as he could, but the way he thought changed.

One thing continually nagged at Bill's mind since Tom had told Bill of the news that he was staying.

Bill felt weirdly nauseated with himself because he had hugged Tom. He didn't regret it, not in the least. But his ideal of human contact being bad and unnecessary was tested and he didn't like it. He had upset the delicate balance of his existence and it made him worried and anxious. He figured he was a bit obsessive-compulsive in this aspect. Something small had been corrupted and it had driven him over the edge.

"Nothing new, really? How odd."

Bill almost snorted. He was a patient in the psychiatric ward of a hospital who had no family and only two friends. He wasn't allowed to leave the hospital, and hadn't left the fifth floor since he was a child. What was to be expected in his life? He'd maybe cured cancer in his lonely little room?

"I've drawn several new pictures. Does that count?"

"It does! What have you drawn?"

"A butterfly."

The shrink actually looked shocked. "I thought you only drew people or inanimate objects?"

"It flew in my window the other day. I had to draw it, it was so perfect. Untouched and pure."

"And it stayed in your room for that long?" The shrink knew how long it took Bill to draw, and he didn't believe a butterfly would sit for hours on end.

Bill shook his head. "But I figured if they're symmetrical, I could have just drawn one side and mirrored it to the other."

"Insightful."

Bill nodded. The shrink looked at the clock. "My goodness, we did start late today. Our time's almost up! You are free to leave if you wish."

Bill nodded, stood up and started walking to the door. He was almost to the door when he paused.

"May you do something for me?"

The shrink looked up. "Depends on what it is."

Bill hesitated, unsure if he could handle disappointment if the shrink said no. He finally took in a breath and typed. "Can I have a large roll of white paper? For drawing things life-sized?"

The shrink smiled. "I will see what I can do."

Bill felt happy at the optimism in the shrink's tone. He nodded once and then left the room, walking quickly to the stairs. No one ever used the stairs, and he also felt a little heart quickening, three-flight walk would be the perfect way to get the blood flowing to his brain for meditation.

~+~

"So what exactly do you wish to accomplish with this?"

Bill shrugged as he sat next to Tom on his bed, staring at the large roll of white paper that the shrink had gotten for Bill. He had only waited one day and he had bounced around his room happily when he got it.

Tom made a contemplative face. "So, what do you think you'll do with it?"

Bill looked at Tom and raised his eyebrow at him. Tom glanced at him and laughed.

"You're right, that is a stupid question."

You think?

"Hey now, I don't want the phrases I taught you used against me."

Who am I going to use them against, then? Leila?

"I don't see why not."

I do! Leila's way too sweet to use sarcasm against.

Tom pretended to look hurt. "And I'm not sweet?"

Again, Bill gave Tom the look. And, again, Tom laughed.

"Smart little fucker."

Blue-collar fucker.

"Hey now, I am not going to be blue collar for long. I am getting out of here as soon as school starts. By then, I'll be eighteen."

We are of a single mindset.

Tom stared at the paper for a good ten seconds before actually responding. "You sound like a philosopher or some other shit. What do you mean, single mindset? You get out when you're eighteen too?"

Bill nodded enthusiastically. On his next visit to the shrink, he'd ask the day and then ask for a calendar, so he could mark days off.

"I thought they just kept you here."

Bill shook his head. Being seventeen, I am still a ward of the state. I can be kept here even if it is against my will, because that is what they believe is best for me. Therefore, legally, when I turn eighteen, I can refuse care and leave.

"Do you have money saved somewhere? Family that would take you in? What's your plan?"

Bill paused.

Tom nearly scoffed. "You don't have a plan?"

Bill bit his lip and snorted. One of the last movies he remembered seeing was Mulan, and that was because he had snuck down to pediatric care, and Tom's outburst reminded him of Mushu riding the featherless hawk like a horse, yelling at Mulan.

"What's so funny?"

A memory. And I hadn't thought about a plan.

"Jesus Christ, for such a smart person, that was kind of a stupid mistake."

Bill flushed a deep red. It was a stupid mistake. He thought he could just waltz out into the world and he would be well on his own with an apartment and money. He though everything would be laid out for him.

Tom's voice of reason had made him think otherwise.

A sudden thought occurred to Bill. What about you?

Tom's face screamed confusion. "What about me? I'll be with my mom and dad still, I don't make enough here to move out."

No, I meant, what about me with you? I could stay with you until I find my feet.

Tom couldn't find it in him to correct Bill's incorrect colloquialism. "I don't know, we don't have a guest room."

Bill shrugged. Leila will take me. So there. Problem solved.

Tom smiled and nudged Bill's shoulder with his own. "What makes you think she'd take you? Besides, what if you get out before her?"

I'll sleep on your couch.

"You just can't get my house of your head, can you?"

Bill shrugged. In all honesty, he couldn't. What he remembered of his house was nothing in the slightest to be proud of, and when he tried his hardest to picture Tom's house, even after he'd asked him to describe it detail, right down to any dust on the floor paneling, he just couldn't come up with a good enough image.

This infuriated him. His imagination was seriously letting him down.

"Whatever, it doesn't matter. So, back to the gigantic roll of paper. Any ideas popping around? Are you going to draw a tree or something?"

Bill thought about it. He could have drawn a tree - there were several across the street that he could see from his window - but he could also draw something else.

Tom snapped his fingers twice underneath Bill's nose. "Earth to spaz, Earth to spaz, come in spaz. Wake up, dude, are you having a vision or something?"

Bill blinked. Sorry for zoning out. I was thinking.

"You sure about that? Because honestly, it looked like the wheels were spinning but the hamster was dead."

Bill rolled his eyes over dramatically. My hamsters are completely healthy and well, thank you.

"I'm going to refrain from pointing out the complete weirdness of that statement."

Suit yourself.

Tom smiled lazily, which made Bill inexplicably shiver, and then stretched. "Mind if I use the bathroom? I'm going to explode if I don't."

Bill waved a hand to it lazily and Tom thanked him. He jumped up and walked over to it, and almost as soon as he closed the door, a sudden thought struck Bill. An idea of what he wanted to do with all that white paper.

He jumped up and quickly started unrolling it. Eyeballing the length quickly, he came to the conclusion that it was long enough. He carefully tore it off, then grabbed the medical strength tape he had and began taping it to the wall that connected to the bathroom. He had only one corner to secure when Tom walked out of the bathroom.

"Bill?" He poked his head around the small corner and saw Bill finishing his job. "What are you doing?"

Bill swept past Tom and grabbed several boxes out of his cupboard, one of them the bright red Speak 'n Spell. He gently placed the boxes, which had his drawing utensils in it, on the ground, then began to type into the small red toy.

He was almost done with what he wanted to say when an annoying beeping sounded in the room. Tom sighed and dug into his pocket, extracting his beeper. He groaned.

"Jesus Christ, what is this, barfing kid day? This is like the third time in an hour!"

Bill looked a bit crestfallen. He turned off his Speak 'n Spell and plopped down in the middle of the floor, propping his chin up with his hands. Well, there went his idea of drawing a life-sized Tom. His memory only went so far.

Tom looked down at him and crouched in front of him. "Hey, cheer up! You have a whole roll of white paper and... well, enough charcoal sticks for an army. You can keep entertained."

Bill nodded, his eyes dead. It had been like this for the past week. The very second that Bill decided he wanted to do something with Tom, the very second he had a brilliant idea that involved the dreaded boy, Tom's beeper would go off and he would be forced to leave Bill alone. Though Leila would occasionally show up and chat with him, her company came in a very far second to Tom's company.

Truly, Tom was the only person that Bill trusted almost completely. He didn't trust him one hundred percent (he doubted he could ever trust someone wholly) but he trusted him enough to be comfortable around him.

Tom lifted Bill's chin up with two fingers. "Look at me, Bill."

Bill's eyes remained downcast. He wasn't scared of meeting Tom's gaze, he did that on a regular basis. He was irritated that he was being touched and he was nervous about Tom seeing into his eyes and then seeing through him.

He feared it more than many things.

"Bill," Tom said a little more firmly this time. "Look at me, stop acting like a child."

Though Bill wanted to continue acting like a child, he considered himself more mature than that and looked at Tom with whatever dignity he could gain. He could only imagine that he looked like a deer in the headlights.

"It is not the end of the world. Listen, I was thinking about chang-"

Tom's beeper went off again. He groaned angrily. "Fucking fine, I'm coming, bastard little kids." He sighed and looked down. "I guess I'll tell you later. Now, go on, make something I'd be proud to look at."

He stood up and walked out. Bill continued to sit on the floor, his skin a veritable wildfire where Tom had touched. He couldn't explain why. He only knew that his skin was on fire from Tom's touch and it made no sense. That just really ground his gears.

He fluidly jumped up and grabbed his sketchbook and slid over to his charcoals, hastily grabbing one. He sat down and started scribbling away, deciding to keep going on a stupid drawing he had abandoned long ago.

He didn't believe it existed, really, the emotion. He'd seen no indication that it did, not in his almost eighteen years of life. He had seen something else, though, and that was what he was channeling. He'd seen this emotion in action plenty of times when his father believed that Bill wasn't there. He paused in his drawing and stared blankly at the wall, his expression nondescript. He wasn't sure how to feel about those times, so he simply didn't feel, but he did think about them, and his thoughts weren't too kind.

He shook his head slightly and began drawing again, slower this time, so as not to destroy it. He had done that before. Began drawing something but done it so fast that it looked like a pile of scratches on top of each other instead of a picture.

The picture was starting to clearly look like what he wanted. While he finished, he mulled over his emotions. One stuck out above the rest when he did some rudimentary elimination, the one emotion he was positive he was feeling, irregardless of what he wanted to feel, or how he should have felt. Not the emotion Leila would have said he had. The emotion he knew he couldn't feel.

Lust over love.

~+~

When Tom came in the next morning, yawning widely, he saw Seth in the locker room, undressing slowly, a look of both exhaustion and upset on his face. Tom had to ask.

"Seth, is something bothering you?"

"Hmm? Oh, no, not really, just a little tired is all."

Tom didn't believe it for a second. "I see. So, how's your family? Your wife and kid doing okay?"

"Yeah, Sandy and Tara are doing fine. I guess Tara's learning letter shapes right now. Sandy says that they all sort of look like blobby ghosts but she's getting better."

"I have no room to judge, my letters still look like blobby ghosts."

Seth laughed, then yawned. "Yeah. Man, I've been dying lately. I'm dragging."

Tom couldn't take it anymore. "Seth, are you upset that you can't see all this stuff yourself? I know you must be pretty dead during the day, and then you can't see your daughter all that much."

Seth shrugged. "Yeah, kind of. She's growing up and I can't seem to catch a glimpse of it. I need more than a play-by-play, you know?"

"Yeah. Look, Seth, I was thinking the other day, and I was wondering if you would like to switch schedules with me."

Seth looked taken aback. "Like... you taking the nightshift?"

Tom nodded. "I'm young, I have no life whatsoever, I have no family other than my mom and stepdad, and it seems like you're missing out on a lot of your daughter's life. I figure if you take the morning shift, you could develop a regular pattern. Sleep at night when you're supposed to, work in the mornings, spend the afternoon with your wife and daughter."

"It seems logical. Are there any ulterior motives to this?"

"Cross my heart, hope to die, I have no motives behind this other than seeing you a happier man. I've given up my criminal ways for good. On my honor." Tom gave a two-fingered Boy Scout salute.

Seth thought about it for a good five minutes before he finally sighed. "You're a saint, Tom, really. When do you want to make the switch?"

Tom shrugged. "Makes no difference to me. You pick."

"Could we start it tomorrow?"

"Whatever you think. Are you just gonna start my shift after yours or do you want me to come in tonight? I, personally, would rather just go in to the night shift tonight. I don't care."

"That would be easier on me. Thank you, Tom, thank you so much. You're an amazing person."

Tom actually blushed. "Shut up, it's no big deal."

Seth smiled, then nudged Tom's shoulder. "Get to work, kid, those halls don't clean themselves!"

Tom smiled and walked out of the locker room, happy about his good deed.

~+~

Tom opened Bill's door gently and noticed that there was no noise inside. Usually, Bill was up by this time, bouncing around, scribbling away, or doing yoga, but now it was just dead. Tom panicked for a moment, thinking maybe Bill had been transferred to a real institution or had run away. But those worried melted when his eyes traveled across Bill's bed and saw the boy twisted up on the sheets, dead asleep.

Tom smiled and walked over to him, nearly laughing at the sketchpad on top of Bill's chest and the stick of charcoal in his right hand. He pulled the stick away from Bill's hand and set it gently on his side table, then grabbed the sketchpad.

Before looking at it, Tom stared at Bill for a little bit. Bill rarely ever looked peaceful in his waking. Some form of extreme emotion was always on his face, usually fear, upset, or worry, sometime stubbornness, but here, his face was emotionless, serene, carefree. Tom gently rubbed the pad of his thumb across Bill's cheekbone, a gentle caress, just for the hell of it.

Tom put the sketchbook on the table and then noticed the drawing it had on it. It wasn't anything elaborate or flashy or even intricately detailed, but it conveyed something. Tom was sure that this had probably been some silly little drawing Bill had just gotten the urge to draw before he fell asleep, but for some strange reason, it tugged at Tom's heart.

It didn't have a title (Bill never titled anything of his) but Tom felt this one needed a name. The title was obvious, really. The picture clearly displayed the kind of love a husband and wife shared. Tom had to wonder who Bill had modeled it after.

He grabbed the charcoal stick, flipped the page, and wrote three words on the back of the page that held a drawing of two hands, holding each other warmly.

Me and you

~+~

"And you traded shifts with him?"

Tom nodded as he sprayed a window with Windex. It was dusty and he had nothing better to do.

The hospital director pursed his lips. "Well, now, isn't that something."

"If I have to write a form or whatever to say we changed shifts, I will. It's no big. I just figured that it would be better for him if he could work in the morning and then spend the afternoon with his family." Tom paused, then looked at the director. "Was I not supposed to trade with him? Oh, jeez, I'm sorry!"

The hospital director held up his hands. "Oh, no, no, calm down, it's nothing like that! I'm just shocked that you would do something like this! I've been rereading your case file, they gave me one when you started here, and I'm just overwhelmed by how different you've become. It said you were snobby, dark, rude, and selfish. I've seen you become a totally different person."

Tom was flabbergasted. "I have a case file?"

The director laughed. "You get one when you get arrested."

Tom blinked. "Mine must be huge."

"Not really. Only a few feet wide."

This time, Tom laughed. "Well, I'm glad someone took their time to write about me. If that's not flattery, I don't know what is."

"Indeed. Well, Tom, I just wanted to say that, well, I speak for everyone here when I say we're proud to have you here. And I personally, am proud of the way you've changed."

Tom's smile was so wide his face hurt. "Thank you."

~+~

As if Bill had been waiting for him, Tom was jerked by his wrist into Bill's room the second he opened the door. He stumbled and fell to one knee, quickly standing up again.

"Well, hello to you too. I don't normally throw my friends around the room when I greet them, however."

Bill marched right over to him and shoved his sketchbook in his face, on a nearly blank page, making Tom look at it.

"So I titled the picture. It seemed to fit. You can take it off if you want."

Bill flipped to the page covered with his scribbles, the page he had been using to talk to Tom, and wrote.

Did you look at any of the other pictures?

"What? No, of course not! The only reason I saw that one was because you left it on that page. I'm not a snoop, never have been."

Bill visibly calmed down. His shoulders relaxed slightly and the angry fire in his eyes went out. He was back to the silent, scared Bill that Tom knew.

Bill nodded, as if to say 'okay, I believe you.'

Tom held a hand out. Bill gripped it and hoisted the dreadlocked boy up. They stood face to face. Tom's face fell.

"Aw, no way!"

Bill's face read confusion. He didn't understand why Tom was so upset. Did he forget something?

Tom put a hand on the top of his head and tried to keep it as level as possible as he moved it over to Bill's head. The side of his hand touched Bill's forehead.

"Dude! You're taller than I am!"

Well, that made the hand thing make sense. Bill let out a small snort, the closest thing he could make to a laugh.

"Oh, shut up, I have been taller than most everybody my entire life, and now you're just like... damn!"

Bill snorted again. He walked over to his bed and plopped down on it, crossing his legs. Tom followed him, leaning back on his elbows.

"You know, I was thinking about this the other day. You can't speak, that's accepted. But, can you like whisper or anything? Because whispering is just, like, air coming out, right? You could actually talk to me, and stuff."

Bill shook his head and licked his lips.

Tom's eyebrows furrowed. "Why not? Is it just like the inability to make your mouth form the words?"

Bill rolled his eyes and mouthed a complete sentence. You're stupid, I hope you know.

"Point taken. So, why can't you whisper?"

Bill started writing. Whispering, too, uses vocal chords. Any sound that comes from the mouth, whispering, talking, even laughing, uses your vocal chords. I can't whisper.

"Is that why you snort instead of laugh."

I snort because you're stupid.

"Gee, thanks. Okay, so, whispering is out of the question. Well, dammit. I was all ready to hear your voice."

Bill's stomach clenched. He felt awful. Tom seemed truly disappointed, and Bill had only himself to blame. No one else had made his vocal chords stop working. He had basically told them to never sound again and that is what they did. He was a stupid child, and now he couldn't do a thing about it.

"Hey, don't look so surly. Your face will... no, scratch that. If your face was going to freeze that way, it would have done it already."

Bill rolled his eyes and hopped off the bed, nimbly placing his hands on the floor and standing on them, for absolutely no reason. Perhaps just to, again, show off in front of Tom.

Tom gently nudged Bill with the toe of his shoe. Bill wobbled for a moment but regained composure and hopped back up on his feet. He glared at Tom, who was smiling.

"It was a twitch."

~+~

"Don't lie!"

Bill gave Leila a look that screamed she was moronic. She shot one back.

"I know when you're lying to me, Bill. Face the facts."

You were supposed to be on my side and be sympathetic towards me feelings.

Bill knew this would happen. He knew Leila would go all mushy on him and tell him he was feeling the exact emotion he knew he wasn't.

"Last time I checked, I was being sympathetic towards your feelings. I don't believe that all you're feeling is lust. If it were, you'd feel it a lot more. I simply don't believe that you're the kind of person who feels lust."

I'm not the kind of person who feels love, either.

"Pardon my French. Bullshit."

Bill's eyes went wide. Leila had never cursed before.

"You may not think you did, but you loved your parents. That's why you wanted them to hear you. You told me this story, remember? You may not love them anymore, I'm sure you don't, but you feel it now. And you're scared of it. You're afraid that if you embrace these feelings, Tom will do exactly what your parents did."

Bill felt his eyes well up. Here Leila was, preaching to him about what he was feeling, and worse, talking about his parents. Today was just awful.

Leila tapped the picture he had shown her. He had drawn the picture in attempt to get rid of his emotions. Needless to say, it didn't work. "I truly don't believe you drew this because you felt lust, Bill. I really don't. You love him, and there's no way around it."

I can't tell him.

"I don't think you should, at least not yet. Now, look here." Leila started wiping his eyes. "You have no idea that he doesn't feel the same. He stayed here to be with you, didn't he?"

Bill nodded.

"Only time will tell, Bill. Only time will tell."

As Leila consoled Bill more, at Tom's house, Tom was having a little alone time while his parents were out.

It had been a while since he'd had a good wank, and he was so very happy he was having one now. He needed on.

Tom was the sort of guy who thought about people while he jerked off. He needed a stimulus, and even when he was heavy into it, he still needed something to think about.

He had been thinking about Nicole Scherzinger, Jessica Alba, people like that, and he was very, very close. Only a few more strokes and he'd see stars.

He was about to fall right over the edge, the scene from the movie Swordfish where Halle Berry showed off the girls playing in his mind, when all of a sudden, Bill was shoved right to the front of his mind, from that morning, when he was peacefully sleeping.

Tom gasped and came hotly, breathing heavily as Bill's image was wiped away as soon as it had come.

Tom panicked. He had just come while thinking about Bill. Thinking about a guy. Thinking about a guy who never smiled, couldn't speak, could draw better than any professional artist could, had deep, brown eyes, nice, arching eyebrows, and...

Oh no.