#🚨white coat alert🚨

[thankstothe]

Doctors support each other 🫧👏🕔👍

[taeyongtime]

pre: ace of fools

genre: joker!au + partly inspired by this lovely fanart

group & member: NCT’s Taeyong

word count: 4.8k

🚨:  explicit language, violent theme, self-harm, psychological dysfunction... read at own discretion.  

brief synopsis: “The fool is the strongest not because he knows nothing but because he has always been ridiculed as the stupid one when in fact he knows everything and a little bit more.”

A cold chill creeps down your spine when you approach the rusted gates of the Neo City Asylum, your assigned facility after finishing your internship and residency at the city’s general hospital since making it through the tenuously laborious years of medical school. You’d heard of the rumored screams at night and tortured souls of the institution’s long-time residents but thought little of it the moment you received the notice in the mail. It was just another mental hospital, a hospital that required extra hands on the job and you happened to be available since you lived a block or so from the foot of the hill the institution was built on—an equation that was easy to solve when you were a convenient solution to solving the problem.

“I don’t understand why you all are giving me that look,” you had said to your fellow interns when they heard of your dispatch. “I’m sure it’s not as bad as they say it is.”

It turns out to possibly be even worse than you had anticipated when you find out you’ve been assigned to Unit 127 of the acclaimed facility, the psychiatric ward that housed some of the most dangerously deranged criminals from within city boundaries to date. 

—

“Have you continued keeping count of the days since you entered this hellhole?”

“Hellhole?” An amused chuckle leaves his mouth. “Not even the city’s grandest five-star hotels have enough to accommodate my needs.”

“You need to get a hold of yourself, Mister T.”

Squeaking iron alerts of a foreign presence in his cell and he quickly mutters goodbye at the adjacent wall before sitting up in his cot to greet today’s visitors.

—

The first time you met him happened rather unexpectedly, your bad navigational skills rendering you entering the wrong cell on this side of the hall—one that’s barred and resembles most like a prison rather than the neutrally colored tones of the asylum’s interior. Drab gray wallpaper paired with security cameras installed at every corner of the hall, it takes only the simplest of brains to deduce that the residents of Unit 127 were the more dangerous and potentially most damaged ones in the entire facility and you had managed to enter the wrong cell of all things. 

“Oh hello.”

“Are you…” 

You look down at your clipboard, squinting. 

“Are you Nakamoto Yuta?”

He laughs, shaking his head. 

“One door down.”

You apologize profusely and notice his hair’s a shade of rich forest green, a color that offsets the dullness of his cell tremendously. 

“Dyed it myself, Doctor. And the eyes.”

The wide grin on his face catches you off guard and you stumble, flinching when he moves forward to stop you from losing your footing and falling onto his cot. One eye of emerald winks playfully at you while the other dark iris blinks while studying you in concern.

“Careful. I’d be in so much trouble if you had fallen because of me.”

“T… Thank you.” You regain your footing and stand at a loss as he maintains a passive stare at your white coat and clipboard in hand. 

“I… I’d better go,” you say at last. “My patient is waiting.”

“Of course.”

His calmness is slightly frightening and you sneak another peek before leaving his cell, but not before turning back to ask for his name. 

“What’s your name?”

He grins. “Lee Taeyong. I hope I can see you again soon.”

—

New doctor, mister T?

Taeyong tilts his head to the side. 

“Who?”

She’s a sweet one. A low chuckle tickles his ear. Probably will fall for your sweet words rather easily. 

“Ah, her.” Taeyong shifts to sit with his back against the wall. “She does seem like a total sweetheart, you know.”

I haven’t seen her so I don’t know.

“You should meet her. I’ll introduce you.”

“On second thought,” he backtracks, “I’m going to keep Sweetheart Doctor to myself.”

“Who are you talking to, Lee Taeyong?”

Taeyong turns to the little open window above the iron door and grins. 

“Me, myself, and I, Sir.”

“Delusional bastard,” the guard mutters before slamming the window shut, leaving Taeyong alone in his cell again.

“Delusional bastard I am,” Taeyong retorts, eyes darkening with a hint of mockery. “But more aware than any of you ignorant sheep.”

A soft three-tap rhythm catches his attention and a smile plays around his mouth as he grabs the metal drinking cup sitting on the nightstand, tapping the bottom of the cup against the wall in a steady one-two-seven tap in response. 

“What’s the deal, Jung Jaehyun?”

The sound of his friend’s voice fills his eardrums.  

“Who was that, mister T? New doctor?”

“Mockery detected.”

“Care to share more details with the rest of the fellows?”

Taeyong shrugs. “Sure.”

He winces as the base of his neck begins to vibrate, the previously implanted transmitter within the skin making his head spin and it receives the transmitted signals from up to five doors down. 

“That’s my doctor you’re talking about!” a new voice exclaims. “Isn’t she cute?”

“Yuta, you have absolutely zero manners,” Jaehyun scolds. “Interrupting when it’s not your turn to speak!”

“I saw a glance of her earlier,” a third voice offers helpfully, joined by a fourth that enthusiastically pestered for more information. “She seems very nice.”

“Johnny, you couldn’t have seen her when you’re all the way down there while Taeyong’s at the very front,” Yuta grumbles. “And shut up, she’s my doctor.”

Jaehyun refuses to shut up and Taeyong sighs heavily at all the bickering going on in his head. 

“Let me speak.”

All commotion dies down immediately and Taeyong places his cup down on the hard mattress of his cot before speaking again. 

“I don’t know how she could’ve mixed up my cell with Yuta’s but she seems rather sweet.”

“Of course.”

“Shut up, Doyoung, you’re the nosiest one here.”

The one known as Doyoung scoffs and Taeyong hums, a peaceful sound that becomes twice as menacing after leaving his mouth. 

“I look forward to getting to know her if she’s going to be coming around here more often.”

—

“You wanted to see me?”

Taeyong nods and gestures at the single chair next to his cot. 

“Please.”

“Are you feeling unwell?” you ask, getting straight to the point. 

“If that’s what I need to say to get to see you, then yes, I feel like an absolute piece of shit. 

“But seeing you makes me feel better already, so I suppose you’re a wonder pill of your own right.”

“Are you… flirting with me?” you ask bravely. 

“Not at all,” Taeyong muses, fingers twirling along his temple. “I just can’t seem to reckon when I’m being proper and when my behavior has gone too far, Doctor. Something’s gone loose up here and I’m quite unhinged, if I do say so myself.”

“When did this all begin?”

A smile lights up his face. “We’ll have to go back to a very very long time ago for that… back to when I first picked up a knife to slash the throat of the murderer who killed my entire family in the span of a single night.”

◆

“You must think I’m a sociopath,” Taeyong chuckles when he finishes. “I’ve gotten that plenty of times.”

“I… How did you even manage to not get caught until now?” He’d given you nearly 30 names of people he’s killed and all dying in a multitude of ways: decapitation, gunshot wounds, stab wounds, asphyxiation, forceful head trauma… your stomach had churned at the imagery of dismembered limbs and pools of blood that you had to sit out for a whole hour before you were feeling fine enough to talk to him again.

“I don’t know,” he answers. “Even a mastermind has his moments of downfall and I just happened to fall this time.”

You glance at your watch and get up from your seat, a look of puzzled confusion, anger, and sympathy all mixed into one on your face. As an aspiring doctor, you know you weren’t supposed to sympathize with a patient, but his story was simply too much to brush off as a concoction aimed to garner at your sympathy. The pain of losing family and regret at the addiction he developed for killing sprees was too tangible to possibly be all lies, especially not when there had been the body language to prove it. Words may lie but the subtlety in a person’s body language revealed their truest thoughts, and the drooped shoulders, scrunched stature, and flattened affect when recalling the memories were more than enough for you to toss away the labeling of his behavior as feigned emotions. 

You weren’t his doctor and he wasn’t your patient, but you were determined to be another source of support for him if he needed it. 

“Goodbye, Taeyong. I’ll be here if you need me again.”

“Goodbye, Sweet Doctor.”

—

 Taeyong grins the moment you exit his cell, humming delightedly as he lays down on his cot. 

“Mixing a little bit of truth into the lies is always the best way to turn everything into interpretable truth.”

—

You find yourself completely obsessed with Taeyong, or Mister T as your colleagues sometimes refer to him as based on his eerie similarity to the green-haired Joker familiar in the world of superhero comics. The man was deranged and quite frankly not in the best mental state, but in all your visits to see him he’s been nothing but sweet to you and that’s when you knew you had it bad. Not daring to call it love but convinced it was more than just friendship, you could almost feel the swelling of your heart whenever you thought of him and it was driving you closer to the brink of insanity with each following day. 

“Y/N, your report! Where is it?”

You blink and let out an exclamation of disbelief at seeing the random cluster of letters in the last paragraph of your report, a collection of mumbo-jumbo on the screen that made no sense at all to the human eye. 

“I… In a minute!”

Your superior mutters something you can’t catch and you tie up your hair, fingers deleting the string of nonsense and wrapping up the required report you had started two hours ago.

◆

“You came to see me again.”

A flushed warmth heating up your cheeks, you reach into the pockets of your doctor’s coat and hand over a handful of chocolates. 

“For you,” you offer. “I heard you like sweets.”

“You are too kind,” Taeyong smiles, a toothy grin that melts your innards at an unprecedented speed. “Do you give these to all your patients?”

“… These ones I especially got for you.”

“Oh.” He picks one out and studies the blue wrapper. 

“What’s the difference between this one and the red?”

“Blue is milk chocolate, red is dark, and the silver is white chocolate.”

Unwrapping the blue one, he pops the chocolate into his mouth and closes his eyes, savoring the taste. 

“Delicious.”

You smile. “Thank goodness.”

Giving you a thumbs up, he reaches for another and the alarmed gasp that leaves your mouth echoes in the empty cell. 

“Are those…”

“Sometimes everything becomes too painful,” Taeyong says calmly, readjusting the cuff on his sleeve. “I needed a way to stop the ringing in my head.”

“… May I?”

He cheerfully extends his arm towards you and you nearly burst into tears at the thin lines marked along his inner wrist. 

“Are you crying, Doctor?”

You note the wetness in your eyes and compose yourself, blinking furiously. 

“N-No. Something just got in my eye.”

“You’re quite softhearted,” Taeyong gathers up the rest of the chocolates. “Can I keep all of these or do you need some for your other patients?”

“You can keep those, I have more.”

He nods and you eye the camera in the upper lefthand corner of his cell. If only it weren’t there…

“Can I give you a hug?” he chirps. “As a thank you for the chocolates?”

“S-Sure.”

He goes in for the hug and you know the moment he wrapped his arms around you that this was what you wanted. To be able to give him comfort when he needed it, to hug him and be held by him and maybe even kiss him…

“Would you help me with something, Doctor?” he whispers quietly into your ear. “Two things, actually.”

You flinch and nod ever so slightly, aware of the camera capturing your every move. 

“I’d like you to disable all the cameras in this corner of the psychiatric ward and also get me a gun.”

The abrupt inhale of breath has you wheezing and a guard pokes his head in to check on you, returning to his post after receiving the confirmation that you were fine. 

“A toy gun,” Taeyong explains, giggling at your misinterpretation. “Not allowed to have real ones here.”

“I’ll have to consult my superior about it but I think it should be fine.” You glance at the camera again, unsure if you were capable of pulling off such a feat. 

“One out of the two is good enough for me.”

Curling your hands into fists, you shake your head and give him a smile. 

“Two out of two is better.”

A grin lights up Taeyong’s face and he sighs in relief. 

“You have no idea how grateful I am for your existence right now, Doctor.”

—

On your next free Saturday, you find yourself standing outside of the store that Taeyong had given you directions for, strictly repeating to yourself that you had to go to this specific store for his toy gun. It was a bit difficult to find, but after stumbling along a few corners like you usually did, you managed to find the correct sign and tentatively push open the wooden door. Biting your lips at the dimness of the interior when it was still broad daylight, you wonder if this is conventional for a typical joke shop, thoughts cut off at the sudden whisper in your ear. 

“Who sent you and how did you find this place?”

The low voice paired with the feeling of something hard against your head has you frozen, and you gulp when you spot the barrel of the pistol pressed directly against your temple.

“U-Um, please… please don’t shoot me.”

The gun presses closer to your forehead and you hear the clicking of the safety mechanism going off. 

“Please.”

A scream rips through the store when the trigger goes off, a popping sound that follows with streams of rainbow confetti once you realize you were still alive and in one piece.

“Fooled ya,” comes the sly tone after your scream. “You nearly broke my ears, miss.”

Another voice joins the first and snickers. “Good one, Mark.”

“There are… two of you?” you echo.

The one with the toy gun spins it before tucking it back onto his pocket. 

“I’m Mark, and this is my business partner Haechan.”

“I was told there’d only be one of you.”

Haechan frowns and snaps his fingers. “It’s like him to always forget about me.”

“Who, Haechan?”

“Taeyongie sent her, no doubt about it.”

“Yes, Taeyong sent me,” you chime in, backing up when they turn their eyes towards you.

“Quite intimate, her and Mister T,” Mark notes.

“I wonder,” Haechan murmurs, casting another suspicious glance your way.

Uneasy at their stares, you take out the slip of paper in your jacket pocket and hand it over. 

“I was told to give this to Mark.”

Mark snatches the slip from your grasp and a grin settles on his face after skimming the contents. 

“Oh, wow! Haechan, look!” 

He hands it over to his friend and the latter gasps as well.

“Amazing!”

“Um,” you begin. “So when can I—”

“Next weekend,” Mark speaks up, scribbling into the notebook on the glass counter with a black ink pen. “Come back here next week and we’ll have it ready good as new!”

“How do you know Taeyongie?” Haechan asks you curiously.

“I’m a doctor at the Neo City Asylum,” you answer.

“Oh. Do you like him?”

“He’s very nice to me even though I’m not his doctor and I’ve really enjoyed our conversations together.”

“And your patient?”

“His name is Yuta.”

“Yuta must try to feel you up on the daily then if you’re his doctor.”

“Haechan, we’re in the presence of a lady!” Mark snaps. “Language!”

The boy mumbles an apology and you forgive him, quite entertained by him and his golden-haired friend who was currently fiddling with the toy gun he had used on you when you entered their shop.

Your head turns at all the contraptions and other wonky things that you didn’t have a name for, intrigued at the variety of items available. 

“Is there anything here more recognizable that I can pick out for myself?”

“Oh, yes!” Mark hurries out from the counter and in through a door that must be the backroom, the boxes kicked out a clear sign that that was were they stored their inventory. “Yes, of course!”

“Here, you can have this!”

You study the silver band dropped onto your palm curiously, the shining turquoise a bright splash of color in the darkness of the shop. 

“Is this a mood ring?”

“Yup! Free of charge, miss!”

“Oh no I couldn’t, not when—”

“Keep it,” Haechan speaks up, giving you a wide smile. “It looks nice on you.”

You rub at the gem in between the band and grin at the shifting turquoise that now settles as a solid green. 

“It is quite beautiful...”

Mark and Haechan both smile and you bid them a warm goodbye with the ringed hand after another ten minutes of simple conversation, leaving behind your phone number so they can contact you when the toy gun you needed is ready for pickup.

“Lucky Taeyongie picked a dense one to act as his carrier pigeon,” Mark sighs in relief after it was only him and Haechan in their shop again. “Literally only those who know us come here and they all got thrown behind bars.”

“Why did you give her the ring?” Haechan complains. “You didn’t even take payment for it.”

“I thought it’d be a nice welcoming gift,” Mark shoots back. “Plus, I think she can be our new Queen.”

“Really?”

Mark closes his eyes and hums in delight at recalling the memory. 

“She wants him to want her as much as she wants him and it’s really amusing now that I think back on it.”

—

You return to the facility with a parcel in hand, two weeks later, the guard by security check opening it up and frowning upon first inspection of the toy gun. 

“Weapons are not allowed, Doctor.”

“Oh, it’s not real,” you point out, picking it up and pulling the trigger. “See?”

A rainbow stream of confetti rains down on the floor and he grunts before letting you pass. 

“Thank you!”

Whistling a happy tune, you enter your desk in the office and pick up your clipboard before heading to Unit 127, making a quick stop at Taeyong’s cell before seeing your own patient.

“I have this for you,” you begin, discreetly handing over the package.

He opens the parcel and grins at the sight of the toy gun. 

“You managed to get it!”

“The two teenagers that run the place were very nice.”

Taeyong’s mouth widens and loud laughter echoes across the cell. 

“Them? Nice?”

“Yes…”

Confused, you stare at his heaving chest and smile awkwardly as he wipes at his eye. 

“Um, the cameras... I think I got it.”

“Really?”

You offer a thumbs up, earning yourself another warm smile from the emerald Joker. 

“You really are something else, Doctor.”

—

Midway into your daily progress report, you hear the blaring of the security alarm through your headphones, taking them off in panic as one of your colleagues rush in. 

“What’s going on?” 

“T-There… get out! Not safe—”

His words cut short by a loud bang, you hurry over and scream at seeing the pool of blood forming by the side of his head. The tip of your heel soaks into the puddle of red and you back up in fright, eyes widening at the sound of more bullets from down the hall. 

“S-Security… Security… call…”

You locate the nearest phone and hover your fingers over the keypad to dial when the window in the pantry room suddenly bursts into a waterfall of glass shards, shrill laughter spooking you to the bone. You hurriedly duck underneath the nearest desk to avoid any bullets and make yourself as small and concealable as possible, not wanting to give any clues to the intruders that there was still someone alive on the premises.

“What do you see, Johnny?”

You hear a deeper voice respond to the question. 

“A face.”

“Oh, is it pretty?”

One hand covers over your mouth and you breathe shallow breaths to not make too much noise from your hiding place. 

Go away, go away…

“Very pretty.” A hand slams down on the desk you were under and you scream at the lazy smile that greets you as you get pulled to the light. 

“Yes pretty or no pretty?”

“Let me go!”

Johnny grabs you by the chin and tilts your face as he inspects your profile. You recognize your own patient next to him, the grin on Yuta’s face widening by the minute upon putting an identifier to your face.

“Look, isn’t my doctor the prettiest?”

“Not bad. A few blemishes here and there but still very pretty.”

“You’re seeing things, you idiot. She’s fucking beautiful!”

As Johnny and Yuta bicker about the condition of your skin, you attempt to back away without catching their attention but another figure blocks your way, waggling a finger in scolding. 

“Nuh-uh, not a single step, honey.”

More firing gunshots and hands cover over your mouth, your mind blank as you stare frightened at the screams heard from down the hall. Everything was fine when you arrived for work today and now a hospital-wide killing spree…

“Shut the fuck up before I rip both your tongues out.”

The command shuts them up in a snap and you flinch. Blood running cold at the figure that steps into the fray, you squirm against your apprehender to no avail, head spinning in processing what had just happened. 

He told me he wanted to see me. He said he wanted a toy gun, not a real one.

Taeyong licks his lips in anticipation as he stares at the empty office, grinning widely once his gaze lands on you. 

“My sweet doctor, you freed us all!”

Voice muffled against the hand keeping you silent, you shake your head furiously and Taeyong gestures for your captor to remove his hold; a series of wheezes leave your mouth at the much-needed oxygen for your constricted lungs. 

“Doyoung, are the cameras really off as the sweet doctor said they are?”

Your captor reaches into the pocket of his black leather jacket and scans the device in his hands.

“Yup. Jaehyun took care of the guard and has full control of the control panel.”

“How did this happen?” you sob quietly, unable to comprehend the reality of the bloodied facility.

Taeyong takes out a gun from behind him, the same toy gun you had gotten for him at the joke shop, firing at the potted plant by the water dispenser and giggling at the shattering porcelain that followed. 

“The… I got you a toy gun. Mark even tested it out in front of me and it only let out confetti, not… not a…”

Eyes shifty, he holds the barrel directly level to the center of your forehead. 

“Bang!���

The trigger clicks. You brace yourself for the fatal blow but it doesn’t happen. The only sound following the pulled trigger is another fit of mad giggling and you open one eye to find a small red flag at the muzzle of the gun, not smoke from a freshly fired bullet. 

“Fooled ya.”

The intercom clicks on and Jaehyun’s voice plays from the speakers. 

“The van just pulled up and drove into the lot, Mister T.”

“Perfect!” 

Winking his one green eye at you, he turns to Johnny and tells him to clean up while Yuta google-eyes you with unsettling enthusiasm, skittering over to take another look at you.

“So pretty,” he sighs dreamily.  “So very, very pretty.”

“Not yours,” Doyoung snaps, slapping Yuta’s hand away.  

“Please let me go,” you beg them. “I… I promise I won’t say anything to the police, you and the rest of your group, I’ll… I’ll stay quiet, I promise.”

“Nope,” Doyoung says firmly. “Only the dead can truly stay silent.”

“T-The dead?”

Taeyong waves for Doyoung and Yuta to leave, the latter grinning as he slaps Taeyong on the back before following Doyoung out. As who was quite obviously the ringleader of the trope of killers makes his way closer towards you, you force yourself to move away until you feel the edge of a corner dig into your back, stopping you in your tracks and tripping up your balance.  

“Watch it,” he murmurs, reaching out a hand to help you like he did when you first met. “I’m going to be in so much trouble if you had fallen because of me.”

You remain silent as Taeyong’s fingers graze your face, the subtle touches dizzying. 

“Poor thing,” he murmurs, clicking his tongue in disapproval. “Not used to being used like this, aren’t you?”

“I wanted to help you,” you sob. “I thought I was helping you.”

“You’ve helped me tremendously, Doctor. Helped me and my friends escape from this hellhole that wants us dead.”

“Not like this. Not… This was not what I expected at all.”

“I’m not sorry at all for breaking your expectations, my dear.” You wince at the pressure of his skeletal fingers digging into your skin. “But I do have a proposition for you.”

“W-What do you want with me?”

“I want you... to join me as my Queen.”

“You’re deranged,” you speak up, gathering the courage to spit in his face. Whatever feelings of love you had for him before now turned into fear and disgust. “I would never!”

“I’m not giving you a choice, I’m rather informing you of the involuntary.”

“No! Y-You can’t do this!”

Hysterical giggling fills your ears and you flinch as he leans in close, eyes boring into your own while a low smirk plays around his mouth. 

“I know you want me and want me to want you, so let’s make it easy for the both of us, yeah?” 

“Let me go! Let me—”

Your limp body falls gracefully onto his arms and Taeyong sighs, studying the closed eyes and pair of irresistible lips. Pressing a soft kiss by the side of your mouth, he tosses aside the chloroform-soaked cloth onto the floor, carrying you with him out of the fallen hospital. 

“I hate to do this but I’m going to have to hurt you very badly, my sweet doctor. Very, very badly.”

—

“Is she awake?”

“I hope so, those aromatherapy scent bottles were very expensive and I don’t have enough for myself now.”

Her eyes blink open and she scowls at the sight of the two that could almost pass for twins if it weren’t for the lack of shared blood. 

“What do you want?”

“Thought you’d like to know that I fixed your ring.” 

Mark hands over a silver band with a glass gemstone at the center. “Try it, it should work now.”

She rubs a finger over the stone and smiles at the shift from green to blue. 

“Thank you!”

“Why don’t you just get a real ring?” Haechan asks with a snort. “Those things are just cheap trinkets we overcharge to stupid people who can’t tell the difference between quality and absolute trash.”

“Well, this is the first item I’ve ever received since joining,” she retorts, sitting up and twirling her ponytail in one hand. “It has sen-ti-men-tal value. Do you know what that is?” 

Haechan rolls his eyes and mumbles something inaudible before clinging onto Mark. 

“She’s bullying me.”

“There’s nothing you can do about it,” Mark laughs. “Otherwise Taeyongie will have your head for not letting her poke fun at you.”

“I want to keep my head, thank you very much.” 

A sharp rapping of the door startles all three of you and Doyoung pokes his head in, smiling at seeing her awake. 

“Mister T wants to see his Queen.”

“Oh, goody!” She fixes the ring onto her finger tightly and reaches into her pocket for a stick of gum, popping the stick of sugar into her mouth and giggling as she blows a bubble of pink. Two more bubbles are blown before she gives up on the art of blowing bubbles from chewing gum, a kick to her step in the run down the hall to meet with her beloved Joker, the Ace of all Fools.