multiversallogs | [ closed ] I think something dark's living down in my heart.

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[ closed ] I think something dark's living down in my heart.

Who: Wolfgang, Benji, later Benny
What: Wolfgang goes off his meds, has a major psychotic break, and then tries to pretend nothing happened.
Where: Nawiedzonydom, Badside; later, Madrasati
When: Some nebulous point after the Spatters raid/riots?
Warnings: Drug use, body horror, self-injury, mental illness, psychiatric abuse of children.

Wolfgang's behaviour has always been a little erratic, but for the most part he is predictable. He likes to have a routine, as difficult as that is to work around how much he sleeps - sometimes half his day or more - so when he's suddenly awake all the time, it's pretty noticeable. He has these moodswings of manic energy, waking up at 3 in the morning and cleaning or taking things apart, putting them back together, pacing on the roof. He has long conversations with birds and the moon. He addresses people who aren't in the room and flinches every time he passes a mirror; in fact, he's covered up every mirror in his room. He won't look through windows in the dark. Sometimes he says things that make no sense and he'll either give up and withdraw or continue trying, obviously pained with the effort of it. But these are little things and they occur very far apart; in between, he's fine. Normal. He goes to work every day. He certainly looks a lot less sick than he normally does and he even mentions that he feels better than he has in months.

At one point he goes to a party and about midnight frantically calls Benji six times over the period of about a half an hour, begging her to come pick him up, becoming more and more incoherent until he is literally speaking nonsense. The train ride home is a miserable affair for him; he flinches at things out of the corner of his eye, hands over his face like he can block them out that way. He's panicked, pupils dilated, sweating, jaw clenched - obviously on something but he won't (or can't) answer what. What comes out of his mouth is word salad. Disorganised nonsense. It barely sounds like English. The exception is when he starts scratching at his skin, growing increasingly more distressed, get them out, get it out! like there's something under there and he doesn't stop digging into his skin until he's bleeding, crying, seeing something under his skin that just isn't there. He clamps his hands over his ears and whines like he's trying to block something out, but there's nothing there. At one point he mutters something about they won't stop talking, stop talking, shut up, shut up, shut up shut up shut up, over and over. He thinks "they" put "them" inside of him and he keeps trying to get "them" out. A few times, she can see what he sees - fleshy movement under his skin, like there are bugs crawling under there. All the lights in the house keep flickering on and off, phantoms appearing in dark corners and vanishing if looked at too closely, and outside it keeps varying between thunder and snow. It's dark all morning.

He finally passes out around noon and sleeps for half a day. The sun rises.

He vanishes into his room after that for three days - the door is gone, too, just a solid wall where it was, like it was never there - and when he finally emerges he behaves conspicuously normally, aggressively pretending that nothing happened, but slinking around with the air of someone who knows they're guilty of something and are hoping everyone else will just ignore it. Deciding to put some of that guilt to practical use, he's been cleaning the kitchen all day, in jeans and a tank top, scrubbing the floor on his hands and knees with a vigor that borders on manic the longer he's at it.

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Benji is ill-equipped to help.

Help in any real sense, anyway. It's not an unfamiliar feeling for her, let us be honest, there are a lot of things in life that are much bigger than what her efforts can handle for all that she feels weirdly responsible to try and handle, which-- doesn't make it better, when it comes to someone she cares about. It is purely out of respect, and maybe some selfish fear that Wolfgang would withdraw from her all the more if he knew, that Benji does not simply call Dr. Vanessza Bernát without asking, which could be unpracticed and bad instinct. It's a good thing that Wolfgang re-emerges when he does, or she might have anyway, just out of an effort to feel a little less powerless.

She knows if she says anything right away, it will be because she is upset and she is upset because she is worried, and that's not actually a reason why Wolfgang should want to help himself. Instead, Benji goes out, because they need food anyway, and comes back with an eclectic mix of necessities, some baking things like flour and dried fruits, brown sugar and English...-style biscuit. Dark denim practically painted onto skinny legs, and light wool that goes down to her knees, all navy and grey, appears around the corner of the kitchen, and she doesn't say anything at first -- things get set down clumsy on the counter rather than put away as usual.

The scrape of scrubbing brush is at an uncomfortable crescendo, but it feels patronising to physically interfere. She finds a place to lean, watching, maybe hoping for eye contact judging by the tip of her head.

He sees her feet first, pauses for a moment mid-gesture like he's not sure what to do. He's not even sure how long he's been at this. It's easy to tune out with repetitive physical labour, that's why he's good at jobs doing things like this. He doesn't have to think.

Wolfgang never manages eye contact for long, even with people he likes - he can get a few seconds in before his eyes slide lower or to the side and he ends up talking to someone's chin or else something invisible to their immediate left. When he looks up, he gets about a half a second in before he flinches and looks back down, at his hands which are slightly red from gripping the brush too tightly, at the floor which is pretty spotless by now, he could have given up a half hour ago.

After what feels like forever he sits back on his legs and exhales. This is the cleanest their kitchen has ever been, given Mermaid and also how many pets are in this house. He looks surprised, when did this happen?

Someone has to say something. He manages another second of eye contact. "Sorry," he says, finally, as if that's the problem, that he inconvenienced her.

Making him speak first is probably one of the meaner things Benji can do, but it seems important anyway. When it's an apology-- of course it's an apology-- she purses her lips a little. She steps forward, then, some of the other cleaning tools that Wolfgang isn't clutching to place next to the sink, emptying dirty water into it, all done kind of gently and helpfully as opposed to attempting passive aggression.

Although the jury's out on whether she succeeds. She isn't trying to convey irritation, because she isn't irritated.

At a loss, maybe. "You don't need to apologise for anything," she says, a little firmly. "Maybe that should be me, because I can't just--" You know, play along. Ignore things. Stay out of it. Including in dreaming, for all that Wolfgang probably didn't notice gentle attempts to invite herself over; the wall he built months ago is a strong thing, in that realm of 'magic' she doesn't quite access.

A hand fusses through her dark hair, turning back to him. Maybe also sorry that she can't just wave a dreamwalker wand and fix every problem. "How are you feeling today?" she asks, as if the stripped down, sparkling kitchen is not a glaring answer.

"Fine," he says, which is such an obvious lie it's almost insulting. Of course he's miserable and terrified, of course he feels like shit, of course he would rather have stayed in his room feeling sick, trying not to throw up, realising he has a problem and digging through his drawers looking for any pills he might have stashed and forgotten about. He can play all he wants at pretending none of this ever happened, is happening, but he's always been a shit liar.

He doesn't know what to do with his hands now. His eyes - he's looking everywhere but at her - fall on the things on the counter, he could put that way. Be useful. Instead he feels nailed here. He doesn't even know what to say, except that apologising again is both inadequate and irritating. He's been lying to himself and everyone around him for so long - aware that other people have mostly been playing along, knowing he's been hiding something - that without being able to successfully hide behind a veneer of fineness has him at a total loss. He might as well be naked.

Take it one thing at a time, then. He stands up, wincing, his knees feel locked into position. The sun's streaming in through the closed window, bathing the whole room in a light so bright it washes everything out, it must be noon or early afternoon. That feels wrong. It ought to be raining or something. He wrings his hands, opens his mouth, closes it - he can't think of anything to say.

It's weird, sometimes, how Wolfgang's soul can feel so old, echoed through many, but in other ways he isn't. Benji doesn't think about it very carefully when she steps nearer as he stands, her hands moving like she might help him up -- but inevitably not, watching him, just ready.

"You always seem much further away than you actually are," she comments, finally stepping in front of him with a little more determination than she has, prior, and her hands go out to find his. Still keeping gentle, though, studying a little the over-red skin of his fingers and maybe the state of his nails. "Like an optical illusion. Except maybe the illusion is the other way around to that."

She tips a look up at him, betraying more hesitation than she'd like. "You aren't fine. It worries me. Don't say sorry, it's not your fault."

Wolfgang would rather sink into the floor and die than have this conversation. He's embarrassed that she saw, embarrassed he let himself get to this point - what if Mermaid had seen, what if. Why did he stop taking them? He was fine before. It had sounded like a good idea at the time - the healthy, responsible decision, like he'd decided to stop drinking so much or take up running again.

He can still hear them, but they're quiet, with a tinny quality like they're on the other end of the phone. He had gotten so used to tuning them out.

"I'll be fine." He looks down at her hands, still refusing to make eye contact, knowing that he's still lying and he winces as he says it. It's so hard to say anything; his throat works convulsively but for a long time, no sound comes out. But he owes her. He can't just pull that shit around her and then say sorry and go hide in his room and pretend like they're not friends, that he doesn't care. It's not fair and she deserves an explanation.

Finally, in a low voice, barely audible: "I stop taking my meds."

Benji nods, as if this is a thing she can sympathise with or understand -- she is at least listening and has enough eye contact for the both of them, really. Even after failing to read the details of Wolfgang's condition in his hands, she chooses to keep a hold of them in a light tangle -- she could probably be shaken off rather easily. Her nails are ever blunt, fingers decorated with one hoop of braided silver, wrists long and bare and bony.

"Can I ask why?" --could just be 'why?', but it's not so much about whether Benji thinks she deserves an answer so much as that she isn't sure if Wolfgang will have one.

Edited 2012-08-19 13:11 (UTC)

"They were making me sick."

His constant sleeping, dizziness, nausea, his headaches, sometimes migraines - symptoms that shift depending on what he's taking, but something is always there. He's the first one to get sick with whatever bug is going around and the last one to get well from it. He's put up with it for months, or he must have because he's never been like this before. He's never let anyone see him taking them, although he has a pill splitter on his dresser and there was once an empty bottle in the trash, the label scratched out.

He's not going to mention I think I've been having seizures, it sounds dramatic even if it's true. That's why he hasn't said anything: he doesn't want this much attention.

His fingers twitch, but he doesn't withdraw, his eyes moving from her hands to the floor and nowhere else. "It's fine. I'll be fine. I just - find new ones." Find them.

Mhm isn't doubtful -- in fact, she agrees, that he needs to find new ones. Finally, she withdraws a little, mostly to allow for space now that he's-- actually talking to her some. And also to retrieve her CiD out of her pocket, although doesn't immediately do anything with it, fingers just finding something to do as she considers him.

"I mentioned her before--"

Benji stops, orders her thoughts because people aren't psychic enough to follow tangents, starts again, taking a lean against kitchen counters, ankles crossing. "There's this nice doctor I met when I first came here. I needed to find a specific kind of negation treatment because of my power, I said about it before. They don't, um, have it here really, but they had things like it, and she was--

"Nice. Good, I mean. And she kind of made sure I didn't have to..." What's a good and neat way to say that she offered to doctor Benji off the books? "...do a lot of paperwork. Do you know Madrasati?"

He goes pale, which is a feat considering how pale he was before. The force of his fear - speaking of being psychic enough - is strong enough to literally embed itself in the walls, visions of what he remembers broadcasted on there.

Institutionalization. Experimental surgeries, mutilation. Lobotomization. Actual padded walls, straitjackets. Electric shocks. Later, adolescent wards in sickly hospital beige, orderlies too close at night, isolation rooms, it looks like a prison cell. Being twelve or thirteen, dragged screaming away from her crying parents, injected with something to go to sleep and waking up restrained. A constant, running thread of powerless victimization and most of the people he remembers being are children.

The fact that he knows it isn't like that anymore isn't enough to temper his fear of doctors. He knows, rationally, that it's a job like any other and people do it for money, sometimes out of a genuine desire to help; they're not sadists or mad scientists, they don't kidnap children and brainwash them. And he's not a child, he has the ability to get up and walk away, to say no, to decide who he sees, to sign things on his own behalf.

Knowing this is not enough.

"I can't," he croaks. This is the first time since she's come in that he's looked up longer than a second, and fear is written plainly all over his face.

Edited (I CAUGHT YOU, TYPO, CAN'T ESCAPE) 2012-08-20 01:18 (UTC)

At first sign of magically projected imagery, Benji compulsively glances towards it -- there's been enough haunting-like magic knocking around the corners of the house lately for it to not feel new. The CiD is neglected in her hands, which are still, and it's probably a testament to her particular skillset that she's amazingly unflinching when it comes to watching horror films. Particularly ones that originate from someone's head.

"You can," she insists, gently, looking back at him-- visibly a little tense at magical display and what it means. It's hard to insist that someone you care for do something that scares them. "You could just talk to her, on the phone. Or she could come here. Or I could go with you. I wouldn't let this," a glance to the walls, back to him, "happen to you."

Which is true, and has precedent, but she has her limitations when it comes to sharing her thoughts. Everyone involved is too awake.

There's a long pause, a delay between his reactions like it takes him longer to understand what she's saying. He is obviously trying to pull himself together, the images he's projecting flickering, going away, then coming back, uncertain like he is. He trusts her.

But.

"They'll lock me up." Considering how his last experience being locked up in Baedal went - it's not an unreasonable fear. Then again, he never talks about that, like he never talks about how he has to take mystery pills to keep himself from flipping out and thinking someone implanted things under his skin.

Wolfgang wraps his arms around himself, nails digging into his arms, defensive. He's rationalizing. He has a million excuses why he can't or shouldn't, but the truth is it's just that much easier to be ignorant, to not be validated with no, you're magic but neither be at risk of hearing yes, you're crazy.

Wolfgang has a million excuses as to why he can't or shouldn't. Benji only really has one as to why he can or should, which can come down to a matter of being outnumbered, or sounding repetitive. She worries her bottom lip with teeth as she watches him think and process and finally speak again. Him specifically, too, her interest kept focused off the walls as the images dwindle, fade, re-emerge.

It's quickly becoming clear, though, that sometimes someone can't just help themselves, and that's mental illness, the location of the injury. It isn't easy. Seeing the innerworkings of this in dreaming is a little different than confronted with it in plain reality. It's good, actually, the knowledge that she won't actually let him get to another point of psychotic break -- good in that she can hold onto it. Any other option isn't available.

"She isn't 'they'. She's a woman who could get you the medication you need to function, and nothing more than that. And that's what's going to happen. Madrasati is an independent--thing that wants to help people like you and I, because people like your they exist. Everywhere. I've seen it too, but it won't happen to you now, okay?"

"I'm not xenian." Pause. "I can't afford it." He has a job - of sorts - playing Barbie for Penelope Lane, but the city doesn't pick up his health care tab like it will for most people and he already knows how expensive imported drugs are, he's been struggling to pay for them for almost a year.

A year. Fuck.

But these are excuses and not even very good ones; it's not exactly like he has a lot of choice here, what's he going to do, just not take them anymore, go completely mad? Fuck one of his "friends" for drugs he's not sure will help, hope they don't start wondering why he's asking them for antipsychotics? There's a very real voice in his head saying it's pointless anyway, you're useless, you can't even get out of bed reliably, they should just put you down like a sick dog and he swats around his head like he can make it stop that way, go away.

He starts to pace from one side of the kitchen to the other, chewing his thumbnail down to a stub or else pressing his nails into his skin until he leaves little white indents in his skin. He's sweating, a pale grey colour, and every time he thinks you need to see a doctor his stomach feels like it's about to drop out from under him.

There is a stony kind of silence from Benji for a moment. I'm not xenian. It's weird that it hurts, somehow, completely out of left field and possibly completely irrational, but intense enough for a moment that she simply keeps her mouth shut and sets eye lasers to stun before looking at the floor.

Left over sentiment from another world. It should be left there too, she knows. Also she's the older one here, damnit, even if she feels like Wolfgang has enough wisdom of age that she could fall in if she stares for too long. She clears her throat, and her voice is still gentle, if unyielding, fingertips rapping against the kitchen countertop. "I'm sure she'll accommodate you. I came here with even less than you have now, but I still needed help. I think there are a lot of other things you can't afford either."

Like disappearing into his room for three days and all that that entails. It's a steep price. "Will you at least, please, consider it?"

Wolfgang keeps pacing, grinding his teeth, his tension physically painful.

All his ghosts, his other-selves, the ones playing on the walls like shadow puppets, they're real but not real. He can't get a grip on which is which. It felt real. At the time, it all felt horribly real, and he only knows it wasn't because he woke up and it was gone, nothing in his skin, different voices, no figures standing in the corner and everyone's faces were approximately the way they are (he assumes) supposed to look.

He sits down after a while at the kitchen table, his head in his hands, white-knuckled, staring intensely at the grain of the wood. He is thinking about how fucking hard he had to work to get this after how many times he had the rug swept out from under him entirely, the despair he felt when they let him out and he found he had nothing again, and he knows this is how they get you in Baedal, this is how they make you invested enough to stop caring about leaving and what the Militia is doing to people less fortunate, but - this is his. This almost-stability. It took three years to get here. More than anything, he balks at letting it slip through his fingers.

He looks at her from under his hair, face desperate. "You won't let them take me to the hospital." More question than statement, because he trusts her but the fear is still there.

This premature sense of relief is something Benji struggles to keep out of her expression, because that is only sort of an answer, and people are changeable. Still. She follows him to the table, there, perching at the edge of adjacent chair, her hands at a tangle between her knees. Having simply, silently, watched him think, it's impossible for her to say what goes on in his head now, she has that sense of not knowing if she's done this right, but maybe there isn't a right way to do this at all.

"No, I won't let them," she says, ever barely audible but very serious all the same.

Wolfgang would rather crawl under the back porch and lie down and wait to die there like a sick dog. It's not an option, but a fantasy he entertains for a moment nonetheless.

He runs his hands through his hair, but they get stuck halfway because he hasn't really brushed it and it turns into a poofy bird's nest when he doesn't, and he has to extract them with a wince. He's so tense he looks like he's going to break. Finally, in a low voice, almost defeated: "Okay."

Benji permits herself a smile at that answer, sedate as it is, even if Wolfgang looks like he's about to skitter apart, a wax statue prepared to break beneath the barest hint of pressure. "Okay," she echoes. She's tense herself, and she tips her head as if to rid herself of said tension, from neck, spine, shoulders.

"Do you need anything for now? I'm not sure if you like tea or tolerate it when I make it."

Which is a source of mild amusement, every other time, and translates into her tone now. She isn't sure if he wants to be alone -- or needs to be alone, rather, if her presence is furtherly constructive, or if she should go away and call Dr. Bernàt.

Wolfgang makes the effort to smile - he doesn't quite manage it, but there's that, at least. "I'm fine." His stomach feels like it's in little knots and trying to put something into it probably won't end well. He's pretty sure he's not going to actually be sick, but he's not going to risk it.

Anxious, he wrings his hands painfully, needing something to do with them. He finally settles on trying to put his hair in order. At least he's staying in one place and isn't retreating, hiding again.

It's pretty early in the day, and if Baedal sports any kind of rush hour, Benji Ryans and Wolfgang Einhorn are fractionally evading it while the air is still very crisp from a cool evening. The walk to Echomire is not long, and if given opportunity, Benji prefers to do so than navigate the train system. The river is a peaceful presence of their left, and Benji freely leads the way, quiet but alert, boot heels clicking on cobblestone and dressed in blue wide-knit and denim, favouring fabrics that both drown and cling to her.

She's talked to Dr. Bernàt a day prior, and scheduled the appointment, spoke in quiet and slightly fretful tones about why she-- it's not for me, a friend of mine-- needs it.

Madrasati, to her, is familiar and welcoming, but it does have a stately, imposing vibe in the dim morning, pavement leading up to its old brick mouth, well-kept garden on either side. Her hand seeks out Wolfgang's without much in the way of thought as they approach.

Imposing is a good word for it; intimidating is better. Institutions frighten him, another gift from his Awakening he would rather do without. He hesitates, wavering, pale and sweating and his hand tightening around hers until it threatens to cut off the circulation.

"My name is Uri," he says, voice low and thick. It's the first thing he's said all morning, despite having stalled as long as he could before coming here, worried people would stare at him or, more accurately, notice him, if he left the house. He tried to get dressed but he's not up to his usual standards and it's worsening his anxiety. "I thought you should know."

It is with tremendous effort that he manages to make it through the door without digging his heels in or turning and fleeing. And it makes him feel like an idiot that the urge is even there, because he knows it's irrational and he can't make it just stop by willing it away the way he can transform space, time and matter through willpower alone. He says nothing else when they walk through the halls towards the clinic here.

His head is very quiet. When it gets like this, it enables him to dismiss it as not being a problem. Obviously he's fine, he's clearly functioning because he left the house, or maybe this time it will just go away on its own like a cold, and he should have just stayed home, he doesn't need help, it's fine.

Edited 2012-08-31 09:05 (UTC)

Although Madrasati is first and foremost intended as a school, it offers a broader range of social services and the clinic is more than equipped for everything up to relatively major surgery-- but those rooms aren't, mercifully, the first thing anyone coming in for an appointment has to see. There's a quiet reception and waiting area, and then there's Dr Bernát, professionally nonthreatening in sweater and pencil skirt, smiling.

“Wolfgang,” she says, by way of greeting, her voice pitched so as not to startle. “I'm Dr Bernát - you can call me Vanessza, if you'd like, and if you would like to have Benji come through with you into my office, she can. You can follow me?”

Name revelations are met with silence, but not non-response -- she looks up at him with some surprise. Pleased. Her hand squeezes his back in an understated positivity that Wolfgang, or Uri, can take as he will, and they enter the building together, Benji leading them for the clinic.

And she doesn't let go of his hand once they meet Vanessza, the doctor offered a wan smile. This is where she stops leading, but remains easily led -- she can wait out here but imagines she might not be, and keeps fingers for now tangled with Wolfgang's.

Wolfgang does not let go of Benji's hand, which answers that, and follows Dr Bernát into her office. Out of habit, his eyes immediately go towards the doors, the windows, vents -- assessing possible quick escape routes, potential dangers. This is not unusual in Baedal, at least not in this cohort, but it is pretty telling. He sits where he's indicated to sit and then says nothing even though he thinks he ought to. For a moment, he's not sure if he can.

This is a bad idea. He's fine. He can handle it on his own. He should have gone to Kahnde, quietly, given him a list of new drugs like he's been doing before, he's been paying for all the others since his family can afford to pay off the stelanmancers. ("What the hell is olanzapine?" "It's like an antidepressant..." "So what, you're like, depressed?" "Well, not on olanzapine.") No one would have to know. It's not like it's going to matter in a year or so anyway.

"I'm fine," he ends up blurting out. Then, "I mean, I'm not sick."

He hears voices outside the door, but he's not sure what they're saying. It doesn't strike him as unusual, this is a public institution, it's just distracting. It doesn't occur to him that they might not be real.

Edited 2012-09-02 09:47 (UTC)

Benevenuta considers that as she sits down, taking her notepad in one hand and finding the pen she was using earlier with the other. She lets it sit a moment, thoughtful - she's not a psychiatrist or psychologist, this isn't her particular area of expertise, but she's got experience as a general practitioner making referrals and medication decisions with patients in similar need, she knows more or less what she's doing. There's always the concern that she'll be the wrong fit, more of a concern in a limited-resource city like Baedal...

“All right. I'm going to take notes during this appointment,” she says, displaying the notepad to him - there's nothing written there yet besides the name she was given for him and the date. “If you want to see what I am writing at any point, or if you would like a copy for yourself afterwards, I'll share that with you. Why don't we start from why you came in today?”

Proclamations of I'm fine get a glance -- a very subtle one, out the corner of her eye, but Benji isn't sure she ought to talk immediately. She has already spoken to Benevenuta, and so sits quietly, at least for the time being, hands folding between her knees and taking on the same quiet and vaguely ignorable quality of furniture, if furniture were capable of listening and interjecting given reason.

A hand travels up, fidgeting with the thin silver chain at her neck.

Wolfgang doesn't really know where to start. Gears are whirring, something's going on in his head, but for a long time he doesn't speak, trying to sort through what he wants to say versus what he is able to say.

"I stop taking my meds." He runs his hand through his hair, touches his face. "I took them to... to make the shit stop. But they made me sick, sleeping all the time, so I stop, and..." He frowns. "I don't know. I took something. Something happened. I don't really remember. That's never happened before," he's quick to add. "With... I thought it was just weed."

He winces and won't look at Benji. He knows it's irresponsible but he's never had this reaction before, it's only helped him in the past -- soothed his anxiety, gotten his appetite back, relieved the nausea and headaches that came with his pills.

"I..." This is extremely difficult to say; he's been avoiding saying it for years, hasn't spoken to anyone about it because he is afraid that giving voice to it is what makes it real. When he swallows, it looks painful. "I hear things other people don't hear. I see things other people don't see."

He won't say that aren't real, because how can you tell? How can anyone tell?

If she were sitting in her office in Paris- her response would be different, she's privately aware. In Baedal, she has to allow for the possibility that they are real - or at least that they might indicate something other than what her medical training conventionally suggests. It doesn't warrant not treating someone who plainly needs help, but it does necessitate a slightly more extensive testing procedure than she's accustomed to prescribing.

Which is going to have to be delicately handled, she can tell.

“It must be a very scary, very difficult thing to do, to come here today,” she says, resting her pen against the notepad. “I hope that you're going to be glad you did come. I am going to do everything that I can to help you find out why that is, and what we can do for you. Can you tell me more about what you do remember happening? Maybe tell me about before and after. Were you at home? Was Benji with you?”

There's no searching glance dealt Wolfgang's way at confession to drug use -- it's filed away as something important to factor into the future, but emotional or intellectual reaction is more or less put on hold.

Honesty in place of I'm fine has this affect. But Benji listens just as keen to Vanessza's words, even if this exchange is not intended for her. She wants to know that Wolfgang will be okay, maybe, that the doctor she recommended will try.

And tell him so. She tips a look to Wolfgang, knowing the gaps in memory, the uncertainty he has, but giving him a chance to answer before she can supply anything.

"I went out... everything was fine, then I -- I kept seeing this mist, it looked like the Fog, but no one else saw it, they didn't believe me. I thought, because I'm... different... that maybe they just don't see it. It scared me.

"Benji came and got me. They followed me on the train, they had -- they put something in me. I mean, I thought they did. I felt it moving. When I look later, it's gone.

"Someone was talking to me. I heard them before, but I... they never yelled at me before, but they were. They sounded scared, they said I -- that I did something wrong. I couldn't think. They were saying bad things about my friends. They wouldn't stop talking, I couldn't hear anything, just... shouting." He scrubs his hands over his face. "I fell asleep, I guess. When I woke up, it all stops."

Her notes continue a few moments after Wolfgang's stopped talking, but she's careful not to seem to be ignoring him in favour of them - her focus is on him, more.

“How long have you been off your last medication?” she asks, quietly.

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[ closed ] I think something dark's living down in my heart.

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tw: psychiatric abuse, child abuse

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