Day 64: Doctor's Office 6 [Third Shift]

[oncologist]

Having to work on a Sunday might have been something that Wilson complained about, if it wasn't for the fact that his schedule here was always so light. Even when he'd had a heavier schedule back at Princeton-Plainsboro, he couldn't say that working on Sundays was a thing that never happened. He couldn't count the number of times that he'd sacrificed his free time to go into the office and do paperwork or dictations or whatever else needed to be done.

It was part of being a doctor, honestly. Anyone who didn't think that their life was going to get consumed by it was probably delusional.

That being said, Wilson felt he'd done a decent job of keeping his interactions with the patients strictly professional. He could have tried to track down some of them in Doyleton yesterday, for instance, but he'd refrained. The idea of getting too tangled up with a mental patient was something even he wasn't about to get involved with.

Despite having to come in on a Sunday, though, Wilson was only needed after lunch, and so he was working on a full stomach as he entered his office and sat down at his desk. Today he would be seeing two patients: Jude, or Allelujah, the man with the split personality -- and someone new, a Watanabe Yori. Wilson got his files in order and then waited, curious to see who would walk through the doors first.

Comments

[unpriest]

Last night...did not quite sit well with him. Seishin remembered that one of the buses had crashed into a tree on the way back to the institute, and he recalled the last rays of the sun disappearing behind the trees as night fell while the bus was still being repaired. He remembered being horrified at the nurses' transformations into things unspeakable, his stomach twisting when he saw the last traces of their humanity disappear, replaced by monstrous and nightmarish features.

And the next thing the novelist knew was the white ceiling of his room. It had already become a familiar sight in the mornings during the past week, without ever knowing how he had returned to his room. Now was hardly an exception, but the fact that he could not recall what had happened after the nurses had transformed...it worried him.

But Seishin was not allowed any time to ponder the issue when a nurse entered his room. "Rise and shine, Mr. Watanabe!" she commented cheerfully, "You've already slept through half of the day, but you really need to get up now. You wouldn't want to be late for your doctor's appointment, would you?"

A few corridors later, Seishin found himself entering the office of a Dr. James Wilson -- or so the name upon the door told him. One might have thought he had plenty of experience with doctors, once having been a best friend of one, but he wasn't quite sure what exactly was expected of him -- or what he should be expecting of this 'therapy' in a place like this. Discussing personal things with what was essentially a stranger would have seemed awkward and uncomfortable under normal circumstances, but the current one could hardly be defined as such.

Hesitantly, he remained standing at the door until he was told otherwise.

[oncologist]

As it turned out, the first patient to show up was the one who he'd never seen before. While it might have been easier to warm up with the patient he'd already had a few sessions with, Wilson didn't mind too much either way.

It was always hard to know how a session would go just from a first impression, but Wilson noted the patient's reserved body language and uncertainty. It wasn't a good sign, but he knew how to handle these situations.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Watanabe. Would you mind coming in and taking a seat? I'm Dr. Wilson." He nodded to the nurse, giving her the go-ahead to take her leave so they could be left alone. Most of the patients didn't seem to think much of the nurses, so removing her from the situation would hopefully help Mr. Watanabe to relax.

[unpriest]

This man used the same name as the nurses did. Seishin did not understand the point of giving him a different name to begin with, but he guessed it was as incomprehensible as this facade of a mental hospital. The military may be gone, but they had left their mark. Why did they bother with keeping up appearances? Why this...therapy?

Seishin nodded before moving over to the chair across the room's other occupant. It might have been rude to remain silent, but he was unsure of what to say. He sat down quietly, folding his hands on his lap.

[oncologist]

Well, this one was talkative, was he? Wilson fought the urge to sigh. At least with his own patients back at Princeton-Plainsboro, it hadn't been hard to get them to open up about what was wrong with them. But that was a physical illness, something that they had little reason to feel shame over. With mental patients, it was much more like pulling teeth, trying to get them to open up.

"I understand this is your first time here," he said as he cleared his throat, "so I just wanted to give you an idea of what this is all about. While I can't claim I'll be able to help you recover from your condition, I'm here to discuss with you anything that's bothering you or anything that's making you anxious -- anything you want to, really."

He didn't think it was going to be easy to get this patient started, but maybe they could find some topic that wasn't off-limits.

[unpriest]

"...My aplogies," he said politely, his voice quiet, "I'm afraid I don't have anything in particular to discuss."

Seishin realized he was not exactly making it easy for the man sitting across from him, but whatever that bothered the former priest was not anything Dr. Wilson could help with. Even if he could, Seishin would not have told him, which was perhaps more indicative of things than he realized. There...were things no one around him had ever known or realized. He had done the unforgivable, but he was never truly part of Sotoba, was he? He had been playing a role others had enforced on him, after all.

And he had gone from one cage into another...but if Dr. Wilson was anything like the nurses, there was hardly any use in sharing his experiences.

[oncologist]

This guy wasn't making it easy on him, was it? Wilson dragged a hand through his hair and glanced down at the patient's file, but seeing how he was still fairly new here, there wasn't much to go on.

Of course, he'd had enough difficult patients over the weeks that he had an idea of how to handle these situations by now, and so the silence only stretched out for a little longer before he spoke up again. "All right, well, let's start here. Why do you think you've been placed in Landel's?"

It seemed like a lot of patients didn't quite understand why they were here in the first place, because they were still delusional. If he could try to draw that out of Mr. Watanabe, they'd at least have a point to kick off from.

[unpriest]

Seishin had never been comfortable talking about himself. Usually, he was able to gloss over the topic with replies people wanted to hear; that, yes, he was doing fine. Polite smiles came easily, no matter how fake they were. No one had cared much beyond the light chats, as long as he continued to do what was to be expected of a junior priest. He was free to experience despair and emptiness, to resent that small village and its habit to force expectations on others despite their own wishes, as long as he showed no outward sign of it.

The man sitting across him, whether he was as ignorant as the nurses or not, proved to be more difficult. What was he supposed to answer? Seishin had an idea why one would send him to a mental hospital, or at least according to the facade they maintained; the nurses who had checked his bandages indicated that he apparently could not be trusted to leave his injuries alone. They had been healed after the night of te coliseum, but the former priest had not forgotten: clearly, they believed he was prone to self-destructive behaviour.

And considering his past actions, he guessed it was not much of a stress.

However, attempted suicides was not a topic Seishin was willing to discuss. Nonetheless, the daytime version of this place clearly insisted he needed help with recovering from his 'mental illness'. It was highly unlikely he would discover the real reason behind his stay here during this conversation, so after a significant pause he settled for a safer answer, one that was in line with their facade and likely what they wanted to hear. Interesting, how he would continue this habit.

"I assume it is because I am ill." The details were but guesswork based on his interaction with the nurses, but the former priest didn't feel the need to share them.

[oncologist]

Having to wait so long for an answer that honestly made Wilson think "well, duh" was a little bit disappointing. Mr. Watanabe was turning out to be even more difficult that he'd prepared for, and Wilson didn't know if the patient was deliberately messing with him or if he was just that out of touch.

This wasn't something he could back off from, though, or they'd just end up sitting here in awkward silence for the rest of the time. So he decided to push forward.

"Well, yes, all of you have to have some sort of mental illness," he said, managing to keep a polite tone despite the fact that he was getting a little impatient. "But how do you feel? Do you think it makes sense for you to be here, or do you feel like it's just some big mistake?" With mental patients there was a whole spectrum with how self-aware they could be, after all.

[unpriest]

[ooc: 'not much of a stretch instead of 'not much of a stress' orz]

Seishin was already beginning to loathe this, which was probably unfair to the man sitting across from him if he was anything like the nurses, who didn't know any better. But he had never liked the idea of opening up to some random stranger, much less one who was possibly in league with the one keeping him here. He wanted to leave this office, yet his passive demeanor prevented him from asking if he could.

Even if he wanted to argue against his supposed lack of sanity, it would have been futile. All there was left was either playing along, or remaining silent. Unlike Wilson, Seishin would have been fine with the latter option.

Sunako had been the only person he had truly spoken with, but even that had been limited. She had asked, he had answered because he felt she could understand. They were kindred souls, drawn to one another because both of them were beyond salvation.

"I guess it doesn't really matter what I think or feel," he answered. It never did. This place, in whatever form it chose to appear in, was no different.

[oncologist]

While that was an evasive answer if he'd ever heard one, and somewhat frustrating if only because Wilson was basically trying to get blood from a stone at this point, he still saw an opening that he could build on.

Maybe he actually was getting the hang of dealing with mental patients, since he got the feeling he was better at this than he'd been when he'd first started a month or so ago. He didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but he couldn't dwell on it too much at the moment.

"It doesn't matter what you think or feel?" he echoed as a frown wrinkled his face. "Why would you say that? Why do you think you don't matter?" That already hinted at some problems with self-worth, and depending on how severe those were, Wilson could understand why Mr. Watanabe might have ended up here.

[tender_cruelty]

His condition had worsened throughout the previous day and it had been all that he could do to protect himself once the buses had stopped and the birds had attacked. The creatures that he had destroyed only a few nights previously had proven more than he could handle when wracked with shivers that he couldn't control. A fever. He'd never had a fever before and it scared him how weak he felt when he woke up the next morning. Dizziness overtook him when he stood and the food was entirely unappetising, even though he knew that he should eat to keep up his strength.

He spent the first two shifts silent and miserable and hoping that Badou would be there just for some company to lighten his mood. Nothing. And then, worse than that, the nurse came to him.

"What?" he growled when she grabbed him, forcing himself not to lash out at her.

She frowned. "Therapy dear. Did you forget?"

and so he found himself once more in the room of that doctor, curled up on the couch because he felt too ill to sit as stiffly as he normally did and it was at least comfortable.

[oncologist]

Having only just finished up his session with Mr. Watanabe -- or Seishin, as he'd called himself -- Wilson glanced up when a nurse escorted Jude inside. The man looked, to be honest, pretty horrible, and his nurse drew forward to explain that he'd been suffering from a sickness that had been passing through the patient body for the past few days.

Wilson nodded his understanding and dismissed the nurse, having no problem with letting Jude lay down on the couch this time around.

In reality, dealing with a physical illness was much more his specialty, and so Wilson decided to start there. Maybe it wasn't his job here, but he couldn't exactly ignore it, either.

"I'm sorry to hear you haven't been feeling well," he started. "What symptoms have you been suffering from?"

[tender_cruelty]

Allelujah stared at him blearily for a moment wondering why light suddenly hurt to be around. He had suffered through pain before; he'd had his head cut open and needles and wires stuck in there, had bruises and broken bones and concussions, and still, this was horrible. As for the symptoms, he really just wanted to say 'everything' and leave it at that. But no-one else had shown any concern, not even a few painkillers, not that they'd work on him anyway.

How had humans not died out by now if they had to deal with this regularly?

"Fever," he began, muttering the words with all of the sullen dislike he could muster at the moment. It was not, even he had to admit, up to their usual standards. "Headache, everywhere ache. My eyeballs ache and I think the brain surgery hurt less. I can't eat because thinking about food makes me feel worse."

[oncologist]

It was a whole laundry list of things, and if there was something Wilson was used to, it was people complaining about pain. His instinct was to think about what sort of cancer that might have been indicative of, but he knew that this had nothing to do with that. It was still second nature, even if he'd been away from his actual job for months now.

"Sounds like the flu," he said after a pause. "The fever and nausea, especially. Honestly, you should probably be in bed." Chances were that Allelujah was contagious, after all, and the nurses here should have known that it was better to quarantine the particularly sick patients.

But he wasn't supposed to be giving medical advice to the staff here.

"I can give you something to ease up on the symptoms, but drinking lots of fluid and getting rest is most important right now." He could recite all of that almost without thinking about it, and in a way it was nice to be back in his comfort area.

[tender_cruelty]

The flu. Allelujah just stared at him for a moment, slightly perplexed by such a mundane answer. He'd seen people in Celestial Being with the flu, of course, although not since becoming a Gundam Meister, but he had never been subjected to it himself. "You're wrong," he said bluntly. "I don't get sick. I've never been sick so this is something worse. It has to be." He broke off to cough, which made his chest ache and his head hurt then turned his bitter gaze towards Wilson once again.

"How do you people deal with this?" he asked frustrated by the whole experience. "You get sick so often how do you ever get anything done?" Why hadn't people died out by now? They were slow and sickly and while he hated what he had been made into, the torture that he had gone through, he couldn't deny that it had made him stronger.

[oncologist]

That wasn't the sort of response he'd been expecting. Jude was honestly acting as if he had never been sick before in his life, and he was speaking about it so seriously that he had to believe it down to his core. That, of course, was more or less impossible. That was the thing about illness -- it affected everyone, except in very rare cases.

Wilson figured it was much more likely that Jude's outlook on this was due to his mental illness rather than because he was some kind of medical impossibility, though.

"If you've never been sick before, you'd have a hard time diagnosing yourself, wouldn't you? And I wouldn't say the average person gets sick that often. A healthy person probably only falls ill once or twice a year." He was usually dealing with patients who were much, much sicker than that, and some of them still managed to function and get things done, so Jude's perspective was laughable, to say the least. Getting worked up over a fever and some body aches was pretty ridiculous when Wilson was used to patients who had terminal illnesses.

[tender_cruelty]

Allelujah's fingers twitched, and he wanted nothing more than to grab the doctor by the collar, by the throat, and shake him until he saw the truth about this place. He was blind, so blind to be able to overlook what was going on here. How could people be so stupid? "I don't get sick," he hissed. "I'm twenty, years old, I think, and I have never once been ill. Getting sick once is too much."

He leaned back against the couch, stubbornly looking away from the doctor, lips pressed into a hard line. "If I'm sick, then I'm useless. If I'm sick then I can't fight and I don't have a purpose if I can't fight."

[oncologist]

This was the closest that Wilson had seen Jude get to anger since they'd started having these sessions, and he had to wonder if he was going to see Hallelujah for himself at this point. Granted, Jude had told him that his other personality only came to the forefront when he had to do something he didn't have the strength to take care of himself, and this situation didn't really fit that.

It was probably for the better. From what Wilson understood, Hallelujah was violent, and he didn't want to be put in a position where he had to call the orderlies in.

But what Jude said next stood out, mainly because Wilson couldn't see the sense to it. "If you can't fight? But you haven't had the chance to fight since you arrived here, have you?" It was true that being sick prevented someone from doing all sorts of things, but since when had this patient put so much stock into fighting?