some die looking for a hand to hold

[gramarye]

Who: Wolfgang and OPEN
What: Antipsychotic medications have been known to exacerbate psychosis. There is a risk of permanent chemical dependence leading to symptoms worse than before treatment began.
Where: Badside, Mog Hill, Echomire, Brock Marsh, Raven's Gate, Chimer
When: Veerdi-Shundi
Notes: FEEL FREE TO SKIP THE OP it's me tl;dring. Thread starters in comments, if none of those work just... post whatever and I'll roll with it. Also, a polyvore.
Warnings: Medical/health care. For real. Specifically, this post touches on symptoms of mental illness, drug dependence, side effects and withdrawal, medical treatment, and seizures. Very possibly TW for suicidal ideation.

He's halfway down the block before he realises he left his body behind.

Panicked, he runs and hides, waits for whatever this is to end. It doesn't. He slinks back to his bedroom at five in the morning, watching his body sleep, pacing the length of the room and wondering if he can get back inside. Eventually, it becomes less terrifying, but it is frustrating to be outside of his body while the flesh sleeps and unable to do anything -- unable to touch anything, to speak to anyone, to even be seen. It further blurs the line between dream and reality; which is which? Which really happened?

It was supposed to get better. He was supposed to Awaken and this would stop. He'd be fine, he could stop taking the meds, he could get his life back, everything would be like it used to -- when he was young and wild and free and knew he could do anything he wanted, whenever he wanted. Only this time, he wouldn't have to be so lonely; people would understand...

Instead, it's getting worse. When he's not on them, he can't tell the voices apart, can't tell what's real and what's in his head, feels smothered under the weight of the irrational thoughts that plague him. He argues with people who aren't there in public, not realising he's the only one who can see them, or that maybe they're not there at all. He gets random pains -- swift, shock-like ones and longer-lasting muscle pain, stiffness in his neck, long-lasting headaches that aspirin doesn't fix. His hands shake so hard he can't use them. When he's on them, the side effects now outweigh the benefits. The sedative effect of antipsychotics makes day-to-day living harder when he is already sleeping thirteen hours a day. He falls asleep anywhere, at any time -- on the train, at work, in bars -- but no matter how much he sleeps, it's never enough. He is losing time. He'll sit down and the next thing he knows, the sun is much lower, or else it's dark out, and he's confused and disoriented. Once, he wakes up on the floor of his living room with a paintbrush still in his hand, and his entire body feels as if it was just tazed, just one giant, sore muscle, and there's blood in his mouth -- he bit through his cheek.

It only happens once, but it's enough to thoroughly scare the shit out of him.

Above all else, though, it makes it clear that no matter how many times he smiles and says "fine, thank you, how are you," he is not functioning. He is consistently late for work, if he manages to go at all, and when he gets back to his house, he has barely enough energy to collapse on the mattress he set up in the living room, and then he sleeps the rest of the day. He needs a drink -- or six -- just to get through the day, and if he has to go outside and socialise like a normal human being, he takes stimulants. After the incident last week, he has stopped answering his CiD, and he quits one job, gets fired from another, and stops showing up for the third. Having free time again is nice. It's not much, a few hours between sleep, and even then he doesn't use it very effectively. Does some work on the house. Reads, when he can muster up the energy, the big medical texts he borrowed from a public library.

Does not like what he finds.

Clozapine has been shown to lower seizure threshold and produce significant EEG changes. Although not a commonly used drug, both clinical neurophysiology technologists and interpreting electroencephalographers need to be aware of the effects of clozapine on the EEG...

CNS Effects of Haloperidol
Insomnia, restlessness, anxiety, euphoria, agitation, drowsiness, depression, lethargy, headache, confusion, vertigo, grand mal seizures, exacerbation of psychotic symptoms including hallucinations, and catatonic-like behavioral states...

The words keep ringing in his head, over and over. He has to read it over and over again because it takes that long for anything to sink in -- he sees the words, but he can't make any sense of them, and when he finally does, he just sits there quietly and thinks about what they mean. He is not sure how long that takes.

Maybe he should tell someone.

He thinks about that, those words still at the forefront of his mind, when he drags himself out of bed, forces himself to get dressed, and leaves the house, like maybe if he just goes out and does something, he'll be okay. He has always been able to push through this before. It has been one thing after another all year, and he thinks maybe it's indicative of some kind of personal failing that he can't take it in stride like the rest of the city. He has never been strong -- he thinks -- and ten years later he has been made more brittle by a lifetime of expectations and disappointments, by the slow reveal of an unjust world he is completely powerless in.

And it has been following him into his dreams. The old nightmares -- memories of past lives, people he's been before. Some he's had before and some he hasn't, but they're all familiar because they all really happened, except something is wrong in them this time. The way the trees begin to curl in on themselves when he looks at them too long. The patterns of spiderwebs, reflecting rainbow from morning dew, too unnaturally perfectly round. The thin lines of clouds curling inwards, inwards.

Always in a spiral.

Every time it interrupts the dreams he knows he should be paying attention to, knocks him out of the memory and into awareness, but still dreaming. No. He runs from them instead, swinging from memory to memory like handholds, but when he sees it again he misses the mark and falls. No. This is real running, the background warping behind him and he has to get away, really away, because he's not even safe here and he can't tell if this is real. He only jerks to a stop because there is nowhere else to run, he's standing on the edge of a cliff that is wrong because there's nothing behind him except more ocean. The sea, all around. Deep, open water, impossibly grey.

There is more than one way to go. He looks upwards, but he can see the clouds beginning to move, twisting and starting to spiral, and -- No. Just one. He jumps.

Seven miles under the surface, there is no light. No sight. No sound. No smell. No feeling. He can taste salt water sometimes, but that fades eventually. Above him there are hundreds of pounds of pressure threatening to collapse or explode his body, but that fades, too, until there is nothing but this -- drifting in blackness, enveloped in it like an isolation tank. A Ganzfeld cocoon.

Safe. The only safe place there is.

But in the waking world he wanders around like a zombie, hollow-eyed, closer to broken than anything else and too tired to fight anymore. He would just go under, if he could.

This is his last-ditch effort to find a way to believe that not everything in the world is evil.

Comments

[wontturntofoam]

Shrieky looks slightly shocked. He hadn't meant to alarm Wolfgang, but it's clear enough that he has done, whether intending to or not. Dropping his hand from Wolfgang, he reaches up to press his palm across his chest, feeling the thrum of his heartbeat against his own hand, trying to indicate that he had been breathless, or he would have opened the conversation differently. "I scared you. I'm sorry."

He's still breathing heavily, and there's a frown crossing his features now. Was there some reason why the other man was so on edge? Had something happened? Shrieky straightens up slightly, and tilts his head back, looking up at him, "Are you all right?"

[gramarye]

"I'm --" Fine is so far from true it would almost be funny, if anything were funny right now. He changes what he was about to say, fairly sure his lying is not up to par right now, but still caring enough to try. "Yes. I think. Just distracted. Sorry."

Someday he will stop apologising for his existence; today is not that day, apparently.

He focuses, trying to smile -- and not quite succeeding, but he hopes he at least makes his face look less... something. Sad or lost. He is also going to redirect this conversation away from himself, so: "Were you swimming?" Well, he's wet. Brilliant deduction, Wolfgang.

[wontturntofoam]

His lying isn't up to par. The smile isn't a smile, and he doesn't look distracted so much as...

...Shrieky searches for the word for it, sad doesn't quite cover what he thinks he sees in Wolfgang's expression. It seems like something heavier than sadness. Something that runs deeper than just sadness seems to acknowledge.

He steps a little closer to Wolfgang, his expression soft and concerned, "Could I take you to buy some food, maybe? Or something to drink?" He folds his arms across his stomach, still frowning slightly, "I was swimming. It was nice, but unremarkable."

[gramarye]

His automatic reaction is to be all oh, no, that's fine, which. Is ridiculous, he was going to get a drink (or twelve) anyway and Shrieky is his friend, this is what you do with friends. "Um... sure."

Concerned Looks put Wolfgang on edge, which he knows is ridiculous and unfair. If he could just say no, I'm not okay, it would be different, but instead he feels the need to maintain this illusion that literally no one else is buying because he thinks it's more polite this way. He's angry at himself for not being able to shield other people from it better.

He shifts from one foot to another, trying to pull it together. He used to be able to do this. "Ah, I don't... there's a pub down this street, I think." That seems more respectable than just a bar, and he really is going to try not to get as drunk as he had initially planned on.

[wontturntofoam]

"Thank you." A pub is a good place. He'll order food, and Wolfgang can eat, and then he will definitely have a hot chocolate, and if Wolfgang wants to get drunk then he can get drunk, and Shrieky can keep an eye on him and make sure he gets home all right.

It doesn't seem like he's doing enough though. Not really. Not when Wolfgang's so clearly unhappy, and he's already managed to alarm him by running up and smacking him on the hand.

Shrieky tries to think of things that would make him feel better. Being noticed, being wanted, being liked. Shrieky isn't certain that putting heaps of attention onto Wolfgang was the kind of thing that he would appreciate, so instead, he asks: "It's completely alright if the answer is no, or if this is a strange thing to ask, but could I hold your hand? While we walk there, I mean?"

He isn't certain how else to do this, but he wants to... make his fondness of the other man obvious and manifest in some way, without actually going so far as to make Wolfgang uncomfortable. Even if making Wolfgang uncomfortable is clearly his specialty.

[gramarye]

Wolfgang pauses to think about the last time he let someone touch him like that -- he must have been fifteen, maybe sixteen. Touching him at all, more recent, but still years ago. There was a gap in there of several years before anyone wanted to; before that, just two, and one of them had already grown too old for it except sometimes, and then he spoiled it with a kind of grudging fine, I guess display of burgeoning machismo. Adolescence is hard on everyone.

Generally speaking when people want to touch him it's because they want a precursor to other kinds of touching -- and that scares him. He doesn't think that's where this is coming from, so it's different. The point is, there's a kind of comfort in being touched that he hasn't let himself experience in years because he's been too afraid of other people's motives.

He is not sure if he's capable of being comforted in that way, but he can try.

"Okay," he says, finally, with the pause there indicative of his actually having thought about it and not just giving an answer either way to be polite. After another pause -- this one much shorter -- he holds out one of his large hands, the brandless one, the right one.

He is reasonably certain this isn't going to hurt or make him explode, it's just. Been a long time.

[wontturntofoam]

Shrieky reaches to take Wolfgang's hand, and carefully laces his fingers with the other man's before giving a slight, reassuring squeeze. He's never actually held hands with someone before, and he feels strangely guilty about the fact that Wolfgang's fingers are warmer than his are.

He glances up, just to check that this is all alright, and nothing untoward is coming of it for Wolfgang, before offering him a very slight smile.

"My name is Conway, by the way. Most often, I just tell people to call me Mermaid, but my name is Conway."

Without context, this probably doesn't seem like the grand show of trust and fondness that is intended, but Shrieky only knows so many ways to try and make people feel liked, and this is one of them. He glances down the street, towards where Wolfgang indicated the pub was, then back to Wolfgang, "Shall we go now?"

[gramarye]

Wolfgang winces. "I'm such a spaz. I never asked, did I?" He sounds genuinely regretful -- he recalls a couple times when he realised I never asked for his name, like the incident with the manticore, and every time resolved to ask next time, and... forgot. He feels like a bad friend. "Thank you for telling me."

He walks slow for him; his legs are roughly a mile long and he tends to outpace people otherwise. Holding hands feels strange. Not bad, just strange.

"Uri," he says abruptly. "Well -- it's Wolfgang here, but my parents called me Uri." Fair is fair. It's not like it matters if anyone knows here, it's not really a secret, he just hasn't gotten around to telling anyone else, except once in a dream.

[wontturntofoam]

Shrieky laughs, not that Wolfgang's said anything particularly funny, he's just happy, and he wants to undo the regret in his tone, "I'm glad that you didn't ask! It's something-- quite private, I feel. At home only one person called me Conway, and if you'd asked me before I knew you, I would have just told you Mermaid. Then, maybe you would have asked why I didn't have a proper name, or you would have said that I should be called Merman, and when I first arrived here it was a conversation which would have made me very uncomfortable."

It was a conversation he'd had over and over again, before getting accustomed to it, and never having to go through it with Wolfgang was one of many reasons why Shrieky liked him.

"I'm very glad to know you, Uri. Than you for telling me as well." He probably walks a little more slowly even than most people Wolfgang needs to pace himself for. Despite his courageous dash down the street, he's still not quite confident when it comes to walking, and he keeps his eyes low as they progress, wary of upcoming steps and unevenness in the road ahead.

[gramarye]

"Merman?" He looks surprised. "I thought 'mermaid' was just the name of the species. You know, like ladybug. Or human."

After a while, his grip tightens while the rest of him relaxes. This isn't scary. He doesn't feel threatened, or pressured, or bad, or like he should feel bad because this isn't properly adult.

Fuck adult, though, frankly, he feels like shit and he decides right then he's not going to let himself be made to feel bad for trying to not feel like shit.

The pub is a nice, respectable little place, just above working class, and not the kind of place he would come to on his own time -- he tends to favour rougher establishments, either the ones for people genuinely down on their luck or the tourist spots for eccentric new money hipsters, because no one pays attention to anyone in the former and he doesn't have to pay for his own drinks in the latter. But this is nice. Quiet-ish.

[wontturntofoam]

"I thought so too. It was just what people called me, anyway. People here think it means I want to be a lady." Shrieky replies, somewhat sullenly.

He doesn't think about the strengthening of Wolfgang's grip on his hand, until they get to the pub, and he has to use his left hand to push open the door. Then he's suddenly hyper aware of how comfortable this has been, and he's a little reluctant to let his hand slide free of Wolfgang's, even though realistically, he needs his hands to carry things like drinks and to reach into his pockets for money and the like.

"Do you need one of those?" Shrieky gestures towards a pile of nicely printed paper menus sitting quite close to the door. He tends to order food by waiting until he sees someone else with something he wants, and then telling a member of staff that he wants it, but he has noticed that this isn't what most people do, and he would really like to give Wolfgang some food. He seems as though he needs nourishing.

[gramarye]

"No," he says -- he's not planning on eating anything. He can't remember the last time he did, but he's certain it must have been a reasonable amount of time ago. (He would be wrong.)

Wolfgang lets go of him and sits, looking slightly dazed -- he's not high, but it's hard for him to focus on anything today between the lack of sleep and how he feels dead inside, like someone scooped out all his insides and left them somewhere on a cliffside in Flag Hill. When he props his chin in his right hand, it's mostly to keep his head upright.

"People can be jerks," he says slowly, mostly in response to what they were talking about earlier, but the long delay is odd. He's been thinking a lot about gender, lately.

[wontturntofoam]

Someone walks past with cake and Shrieky has to take a moment to neglect Wolfgang to ask what it is and can they have some? It takes a few minutes for him to wrangle the conversation towards a waitress, and pretty soon she's taken down an order for an unspecified quantity of cake, and waiting for a drinks order from Wolfgang.

Once she's moved on, he settles back into the booth, attention re-affixed to his friend. "People can be jerks." He agrees, then pauses, because really, that's not all there is to it anymore, "But, I find that is not unanimously the case anymore. People can also be very kind."

Who'd have thought?

[gramarye]

Wolfgang asks for a beer when what he would really like is a double whiskey. It's late enough that that wouldn't be weird, but. He's not going to get as drunk as he wants around someone who knows him. The other week was embarrassing enough, thanks.

"Mm." It's hard for him right now to remember that, that there is kindness in the world -- little boys who read the same story to you patiently over and over even though you're old enough to read it yourself; the beach at the height of summer and how no one looked twice at those new (to him) displays of easy affection; the feeling of learning something new and doing it right, knowing that it can only be used to help people; the generosity of the human spirit in the face of adversity, and the incredible bravery of average people.

Everything he thinks of is tainted. White men in expensive suits, speaking English over him like he can't hear them. The way certain awful words came curling out of the ugly sneer of children's mouths, homo, they said, mitromem, noshekh kariot. IDF soldiers looking tired and bored at the checkpoints to the West Bank. The police arresting peaceful protestors and ignoring bombs thrown into poor neighbourhoods. The Militia broadcasts.

He closes his eyes. "Tell me something good."

[wontturntofoam]

Shrieky orders a hot chocolate with his cake, because today seems like it should be a pretty chocolate centric day to him. Once the waitress is gone, he considers Wolfgang's question with a little more thought.

"When I first got here, the first person who I met, after the people who let me out? Carried me down the stairs of the Valhalla Inn, and held my arm so I wouldn't fall over, because I didn't know how to walk." He leans back, staring at the table before him, remembering this, "I'd never been inside before, I'd never walked through a town before, I'd never drank anything before, and he did all of these things with me, when I couldn't do anything for him. He had scars on his face, and I think he'd been hurt or imprisoned, in some way, but he didn't think it was right to hate humanity."

Thinking about that first meeting, only a few months ago now, makes his chest feel tight, and when Shrieky continues, he has to struggle to contain the emotion leaking into his voice, "I didn't know that it was even possible, for somebody to be so kind. To be treated with so much regard. But the people here, who would do such things for you, are countless."

[gramarye]

He keeps his eyes closed for a long time, his face braced in his hands, and for a moment it's like he didn't even hear, he's so still. Then he stirs abruptly, his eyes opening, briefly unfocused. He tries to smile again and it's not quite there, but something in his face is less panicked. "Thank you."

Wolfgang shifts subtly, focusing again on where he is instead of wherever he just went inside his head. "There are an awful lot of nice people in our cohort, yes." He puts his hands down on the table, takes a breath, lets it out. He's okay. He'll make himself be okay, if he has to. "It's... hard to remember sometimes. How much good there is in the world."

He thinks about saying it. I'm sick. Shrieky doesn't have the context most other people here do -- there's none of the stigma that would come with it. Even the thought of it makes him nauseated, as if giving voice to it will finally make it real. Like if he just keeps denying it, it will go away on its own.

He doesn't.

[wontturntofoam]

Shrieky watches Wolfgang, as he slowly, slowly seems to unfold from himself. He could list more good things. Like a kind boy who told him about what the stars meant here, when he needed to be talked too, or the same boy taking him to museums, and coming to rescue him from giant marauding cats...

But he doesn't, instead, Shrieky leans his cheek against the palm of his hands, watching Wolfgang for a moment longer, before asking, "Uri, has something bad happened to you?"

The question isn't pitying. He doesn't want to make it sound as if there's something wrong with Wolfgang. His tone is neutral, and more soft than is entirely usual for him. It's an invitation to talk, rather than anything more.

[gramarye]

He laughs lowly although there is zero humour in it. "A lot of bad things have happened. To everyone."

So he's not special, so he has no right to complain, because really what does he have to complain about? He's alive, he has a place to live, he has work -- of a sort. He knows it's irrational to think this way, he would never once suggest to anyone else that their problems aren't important because they're not starving in the streets, but. Knowing and believing aren't the same thing.

He picks something less personal. "There was a demon out in Howl Barrow." Was. "It hurt a lot of people. Kids." He stares at his hand, eyes tracing the curve of the scar. "I've seen a lot of evil things -- I mean really evil, not just... bad. It wasn't that different. I'm different. It used to be easy -- make the evil thing go away, and then things were better, but... things don't get better here. They don't really get better anywhere. It's just -- this," he touches the scar on his forehead lightly, "all the time, everywhere."

[wontturntofoam]

"A demon?" This conversation... is so far beyond the realms of Shrieky's understanding of the world, that it leaves him feeling somewhat adrift. He doesn't know how you can tell the difference, between really evil, and regular bad, he doesn't know how you can ever make it go away, and he knows that the idea of anything ever getting better has always been a desolate one to him.

"I don't... I don't think that can be right. About it always being terrible, everywhere. I used to think it was, but now I'm sitting here with you, and we are talking and having a drink, and even though you are sad I don't think that there's anything really evil here." Cake and hot chocolate and beer all arrive at once, but Shrieky doesn't look away from Wolfgang, "So, there's one place, and one time, where it isn't, and where it doesn't have to be."

[gramarye]

"I know. -- I mean, I know that. In my head, I know it, but I can't believe -- it's all I can think about, and I just -- there's something wrong with me." That's more than he intended to say but he can feel the encroaching knife-edge of panic and it's making him careless; he knows if he doesn't reel it in he's going to blurt out every thought currently stewing in his head and that will definitely make anyone think he is crazy -- irrational, paranoid, incoherent, out of touch with reality. He shuts up a moment, slumping back in his seat, and tries to breathe and calm down. It's fine, he's fine, he can handle this.

He stares at his beer without touching it, dead-eyed, and wishes again that it were stronger. Dimly he is aware that this is becoming a problem, his habit of using liquor as a crutch, and that he needs to cool it before he finds himself unable to stop, but. It's hard to turn down anything that offers any relief.

[wontturntofoam]

It takes him a moment to formulate a response to that, because... it's hard for him to entirely fathom the idea of there being something wrong with Wolfgang. It occurs to him, after a moment, that Wolfgang might mean... an injury or a sufferance, rather than a failing, and he doesn't want to dismiss that either.

"Do you need... is there any way that you can be helped? That, what is wrong with you can be mended?" He glances down at Wolfgang's beer, following the other man's gaze, before flicking his eyes back up to his face, "I think that you're wonderful. You know that, of course? Even if it seems as though things are bad now, there is much more in you than just the thing that is wrong."

[gramarye]

"I hate doctors." He runs his hands over his eyes. No. That's not right. Rationally he knows that most of them are perfectly capable people with pretty impressive skills who are largely concerned with helping people or getting paid -- sometimes both -- and that the experiences he remembers but which didn't actually happen to him are just a series of unfortunate circumstances.

"No. I don't trust them. And they scare me." He's not sure why that's so hard to say, but it is. "And I can't afford it, and..." Now it just sounds like he's making excuses, so he stops, leans forward again, braces his head in his hands. He still looks and sounds sad, but his mouth turns up at the corner. "I know. I'm sorry I'm -- like this. Thank you for saying so."

[wontturntofoam]

"I've never met a doctor." Shrieky confesses. He still feels somewhat adrift in this conversation, as if he's climbing up the edge of a cliff face, searching for footholds, and constantly aware that the wrong move could ruin everything, "But I think that probably, it is normal not to trust them? They need to know an awful lot of things, in order to do their job, and you need to put a lot of faith in them. I think that doubting someone like that, is probably not something that you should feel bad about."

He picks up his fork, and stabs experimentally at his cake, "Is there no one else who could help you though? I have found that... for most people, Baedal has things which would never be found in their own worlds? Perhaps there are people here who could help you, without being Doctors?" Scooping up a little forkful of the cake, he pauses, before popping it into his mouth, "And I like you, however you are. There isn't anything for you to apologise for!"

[gramarye]

"I don't know." He finally takes a drink. "I don't think so." The alternatives he can think of are fucking with his head with magic, which -- no.

Wolfgang shifts uncomfortably, now more just playing absently with the bottle. "Sorry," he says, about apologising, which... is not him being cheeky, but he catches himself, winces, opens his mouth, then closes it firmly. Apologising for apologising for apologising may be utterly ridiculous but so is he, and he could very well get caught in some kind of infinite loop.