damned_institute | Day 39: Doctor's Office 6 (Dr. Wilson) [Fourth Shift]

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sasuke,
wilson

Day 39: Doctor's Office 6 (Dr. Wilson) [Fourth Shift]

While his morning session hadn't gone as well as the ones from yesterday, it also hadn't gone nearly as bad as he'd thought it would when Allelujah had first walked into the room. The young man had been wary, but once he'd realized that all of the information was going to be put on the table, he'd quickly opened up. Not completely, by any means, and there had been no sign of Hallelujah, but that was probably for the best. It sounded like the patient became violent when the personality switched, and Wilson probably wasn't prepared to deal with something like that on his own.

He would just have to hope they could make more progress next week. For now, Wilson was letting his lunch settle as he waited for his afternoon patients to come in. Well, it was actually just one patient, since apparently the other one had already been discharged. It was no skin off his back, and obviously good for the patient.

He'd made a drive down to Doyleton for lunch out of a need to stretch his legs (and also because he had to admit that the other doctors here weren't the best company). House also had been hard to track down lately. Usually they were in and out of each other's offices, but it was difficult to pull the same stunts here. He was just going to have to hope that his friend didn't get into too much trouble. For now, all Wilson could do was wait for Sean Li to show up.

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After a day like that, Sasuke had expected his nurse to be every bit as perkily gleeful about leading him to the doctor's office as she had been about leading him to a set of people he really would have preferred not to have to deal with. He wasn't wrong, either, because her voice when she announced therapy was even chirpier than usual.

Sasuke shook off her arm when she led him into the room and stood stiffly, waiting for Muraki's voice. There was no way to really tell what to expect -- beyond creepiness and infuriating -- so Sasuke didn't bother looking for a chair.

His nurse receded with some banal warning to behave himself that Sasuke largely ignored.

Just like Aubrey, this Sean Li was a patient who had been transferred to him from another doctor who had left the institute. It got Wilson wondering about when he and House would get to go back to Princeton-Plainsboro, but the phone reception here was terrible and so he hadn't been able to get a hold of Cuddy. Which was strange, especially since she wasn't responding to any emails either.

His guess was that she was intentionally avoiding them since she knew that if House got a hold of her, he would probably be able to convince her to let them return early.

Wilson was thinking it over when the transferred patient was brought in - like Allelujah, he remained standing.

"Good afternoon, Sean," Wilson greeted even though he knew he was taking a risk by using that name. "I'm Dr. Wilson, and I'm taking over your therapy since Dr. Muraki has left the hospital. Why don't you have a seat?"

The voice that spoke wasn't what Sasuke expected at all. The man almost sounded normal. Sasuke's expression shifted into surprise despite himself, remaining that way as he was informed that Muraki had left the hospital.

Was this some kind of trick? Something Muraki had schemed up in pursuit of some twisted end? Out of all of the day staff, Sasuke's so-called therapist had been the closest link to the Institute of the night, though he had been (or at least appeared) fully human. Sasuke had learned by now not to relax even in the slightest while this office -- letting his guard down last time had resulted in being drugged to uselessness.

"Where has Muraki gone?" Sasuke demanded, ignoring the offer to sit for now and remaining tense. "When did he go?"

The reaction was understandable, but it was going to get old fast if he had to go through this each time that he got a transfer patient. It would have been easier to deal with if he actually had the pertinent information, but all Wilson could do was give the young man some vague answers.

"I have no idea where he's gone. All I have in your file is a note that you were going to be transferred to me. I'd assume he went back to whatever hospital he was visiting from, but that's just a guess." Wilson knew next to nothing about Dr. Muraki, after all. He'd seen the man around once or twice, and that was about the extent of it.

"I'm not sure when he left, either. Some time between last week and today, obviously, but that's all I can tell you." So he had next to no information, in other words. The patients would have been much more willing to trust him if he knew a little more, but obviously Landel's didn't operate that way, and he was almost always kept in the dark. Just like the patients...

[gyah, sorry for fail! >___>;]

The new doctor didn't know where Muraki had gone, or even when -- or was he just not telling Sasuke? The man sounded pleasant enough, but there was no way of discerning a person's motives by his demeanour. There was more than one person here from Sasuke's world alone who could stand as perfect examples of that lesson.

There was only one thing the doctor had said that was of interest: "Visiting?" Sasuke asked, frowning. "Are many of the doctors here only on a temporary basis?"

If that was true, there were a number of implications that could be interesting.

The question took Wilson by surprise. Was that so shocking? He realized that the set-up was a divergence from the norm, but it wasn't that out of the ordinary. For some reason, he had just assumed that all of the doctors were in the same situation as himself and House, but maybe that wasn't the case.

Even if it wasn't, though - why was the patient so curious about it? There was a chance he was asking for the sake of it. It was likely that Sean was desperate for any information having to do with the world outside the institute after being stuck here for so long.

"Well, that's the case for me," he explained. "And for at least one of the other doctors. I can't claim that's how it works for everyone, though."

This one didn't know much, did he? If Sasuke remembered correctly, there weren't that many doctor's offices in the Institute. There couldn't be a large number of these supposed therapists -- unless they shared offices, but given the sort of thing Muraki had kept in his office Sasuke had his doubts. And now that he thought about it, the very first doctor he'd had here had left as well.

A high turnover rate for both doctors and patients, then. It bore consideration.

"Where were you before you came here?" Sasuke asked. Even if this new doctor didn't seem to know much, he was at least willing to answer questions.

Considering how disconnected from the real world these patients were, Wilson doubted that Sean would actually recognize the name, but he might as well give it anyway. He didn't think there was any harm in it. He supposed there was a chance that when the patient was eventually released he might try to track Wilson down there, but he seriously doubted that.

Only House had luck that bad.

"Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital," he responded, searching to see if the young man recognized it nonetheless. He wondered if he should admit to his actual emphasis, but that hadn't turned out so well in the past. Oncologist turned temporary psychologist? It didn't have that great of a ring to it.

"Where is that in relation to this place?" Sasuke asked. The patients in the Institute had no sense of the geography around here, the scope of the land in which they were living and how large it might be.

Wilson was right in doubting whether Sasuke knew the name of the place, because it meant absolutely nothing to him. What Sasuke was interested in knowing was whether the doctors might in fact be from different worlds as well -- something he'd nearly forgotten had been brought back to his attention with this switch in doctors. Muraki and Sasuke's first doctor hadn't seemed to tally with each other in the least.

In which case ... the apparent individuality of the doctors here as compared to the staff might be something worthy of note. For now, though, he'd start with more reasonable questions.

Right as Wilson opened his mouth to answer, his mind screeched to a stop as he realized that he wasn't entirely sure. They were out in the middle of nowhere here - how close could they be to the city center of Jersey? But no, it couldn't be far. He hadn't taken a plane, had he?

Of course not.

"Maybe an hour to two hour drive," he said with a shrug, the words spilling out before he could belabor the question any further. That seemed right, and he felt himself calm into an understanding once he had answered.

A 'drive'? Sasuke had heard the travel to Doyleton referred to as such. Assuming that transport moved at the same rate as whatever this Wilson was talking about, this place couldn't be that far.

Which meant that this might actually be someone familiar with the area around the Institute. "What's the area around the Institute like?"

This really wasn't supposed to be an interrogation, but hopefully Wilson could steer the conversation back around to the patient soon enough. For now, telling the young man what he wanted to know would probably be the best way to earn his trust, or at least his cooperation.

"Have you not been down to Doyleton before?" he asked. The boy had been here for a while, so he should have gone on the Saturday trips unless he had been detained for some reason -- bad behavior, maybe? "You get a pretty good look at the area on the way down there." He made that drive every day (well, except for his days off), so he knew that the surrounding forest and mountains were visible. Plus the town itself.

Sasuke blinked, and then frowned. Surely it was in his file that he had been blinded by the Institute 'for his own good'? Sasuke had been asleep for the most part on the only Doyleton trip that he'd gone on while he could see, and what he had noticed of the surroundings wasn't much more than the fact that it was wooded in areas.

And when he'd next gone to the town, he'd already been too useless to even be able to assess the surrounding area on his own. Sasuke's posture had tensed slightly by the time he spoke again.

"I was blinded by the Institute," he said. Tone short and factual, the same way he'd informed anyone else who had asked. "What I saw of the area before then was limited."

Wilson's initial response was disbelief, but as he examined the boy over the desk and dipped his head down a little to get a better look at Sean's eyes, he saw that it was true. There was no awareness, they were completely clouded over, and now the doctor was getting that sense that the boy wasn't really looking at him.

The implication that the institute was responsible was definitely worrisome, but it was possible that it was just paranoia. Was the blindness connected to the mental illness? It was much more common for someone to go mute due to trauma...

"I see," he said, shuffling through his papers for Sean's file and then finding the mention of his blindness tucked behind some other documents. No matter how he looked at it, blinding someone didn't seem like it could do any good. It was the sort of ridiculous "cure" that House might have come up with.

"How have you been handling that?"

Now that Sasuke thought about it, more than a few of the people he'd met had realised almost immediately that there was something wrong with his sight. Even if it had more to do with his increasingly habitual lack of actually facing the person he was speaking with than perhaps the physical appearance of his eyes, failing to notice something like that was kind of strange.

Maybe Wilson was just unobservant? Or maybe black eyes with white pupils were normal in this world. Or Wilson's world. Whichever.

"As well as can be expected," Sasuke answered, more than a little stiffly. And then without losing much of the stiffness -- and partially because the last thing he wanted to do was wind up drawn into an actual discussion of how he was handling being blind (being dependent) -- "Did you know a Professor Oak? He was a doctor here when I first arrived."

[[Gotcha. 8Db]]

That made it obvious that Sean wasn't going to give him even an inch when it came to his actual feelings about anything. After dismissing the question, the boy was back to asking one of his own, and Wilson had to hold back a sigh. He wasn't just here to field the kid's questions, but he would have to run out of them eventually.

"I know the name, but we only met in passing. The only other doctor I know particularly well is Dr. House," he explained. Maybe that would shave off any further questions on that topic.

"What did you and your previous doctors discuss?" he asked, trying to furtively press the boy. It wasn't like he had suddenly switched to talking about something else, so maybe he would get at least a shred of personal information out of Sean.

Dr. House -- not a name Sasuke had heard, but then again, it wasn't like the rest of the staff ran around gossiping about the doctors in the same way they seemed to do about the patients. Sasuke noted the name, although he wasn't yet sure how he'd use the information.

One thing was sure; he definitely would.

Even if it seemed that Wilson wanted to be the one asking questions now. "I was informed of my supposed real life," Sasuke said, tone carefully flat -- and then, testing: "Oak mentioned some kind of creature called Pokemon as if they were involved in my life, but Muraki's story didn't tally with it in the least."

"That's... I..." Wilson frowned. The word Pokemon rang a vague bell, but it wasn't something he could place right now, and he doubted that Sean's life had anything to do with them, or it, or whatever it was.

"I'd say that Muraki was probably more accurate than Oak," he finished, paging through the boy's file just to double-check himself. He could have added that some of the doctors around here seemed a little off themselves, but telling a patient something like that would have been in pretty bad form.

"Now, is there anything you can tell me about yourself?" he continued, wanting to get more control of this session if he could. It was good enough that the patient was talking, but Wilson was hoping they could make a little more progress. "I can't really answer any more of your questions unless you cooperate some, too," he explained.

So that made two against one in terms of Oak's story not tallying with anyone else's. Sasuke almost wished the man were still around so that he could have asked him more. The fact that Wilson and Muraki had both dismissed the 'Pokemon' outright where Oak had actually claimed that the entire world was filled with them made little sense.

If Oak had been a patient and come from a different world, then -- what if he had? Sasuke blinked once, considering the idea, and then Wilson spoke again. It was apparent that Sasuke had to exchange something in order to receive further information.

"What do you want to know?"

In the end, it seemed like Sean was a practical kid. Rather than arguing the point with Wilson, he just accepted it and was willing to comply. While he wasn't offering up information without prompting like Aubrey, this session could have been much worse.

"What are your thoughts on your situation here? Most of the patients that come through here make that pretty clear from the start, but all you've done is ask questions. I guess I'd just like to get a better feel of where you're coming from."

He needed to establish a baseline, piece together Sean's position and feelings and then work from there.

Sasuke's thoughts on his situation here? Sasuke couldn't recall if he'd ever actually been asked that by the staff here -- not in any genuine way, certainly. Even if Muraki might have asked as a formality, he had been for the most part intent on trying to win the conversational war, and Sasuke too intent on not letting him do so, for there ever to be any kind of real answer.

Not that there could be much of a real answer in the first place, not to a member of a staff that believed this place was legitimate.

"I've been here longer than most," Sasuke explained shortly. "I've had more time to adjust. It's --" incredibly frustrating. "Different from what I am accustomed to."

And at the same time eerily familiar.

Wilson wasn't expecting more than guarded answers at this point. The boy was very closed off, and it made him wonder what had instilled that in Sean, but it wasn't something he would be figuring out for a while yet, if ever. Probably not, considering how often patients left before he really got to know them.

Still, he was good at picking important bits out of even the smallest amounts of information. He was no House - he couldn't analyze the look in someone's eye, or what they were wearing - but he was a good conversationalist, at least.

"What are you accustomed to, then?" he asked. There were details in the file, of course, but he would rather hear it straight from Sean's mouth.

Was that supposed to be a trick question? Sasuke narrowed his eyes slightly, trying to judge. If he spoke about Sound, it might lose him any rapport with this doctor, since it would seem as if he were still crazy. At the same time, if he spoke about the normal life he was supposed to have led, Wilson might ask for more details.

Which Sasuke didn't actually have, since Muraki had explained the vague plot of what had happened without providing specifics.

"More freedom," he said finally, settling on something neutral enough, and trying to make it sound as if his answers should have been obvious. "Not being blind. Among other things."

The answers were obvious, and Wilson had to keep a rein on his frustration. This kid was painfully closed off, and he wasn't sure how to coax him to say even a little more.

"Well, those are all givens," he said, pointing it out even though he was sure Sean was well aware. "There's got to be more to it than that, right?

"Though if you'd rather not talk about it..." He tried to think of another topic, figuring it would be best to give Sean some options. "Have you made any friends here?" he asked.

At least Wilson was smart enough to realise that Sasuke had only stated the obvious. For the first time in a while Sasuke wished he could see the man's face. With Muraki he'd known what expressions to expect, and with most of the patients Sasuke didn't much bother with trying to be subtle or hide his business.

Here, though, it was necessary to remain on guard. Even if the doctors weren't quite the mindless extensions of Landel the other staff seemed to be, they doubtless reported to him in some way.

Sasuke didn't want to discuss the other differences (lacking chakra, lacking any kind of power -- being this weak), though. That left the other question, which was ... frankly kind of stupid, but a better option overall.

"I've met various people," he allowed. "I wouldn't call them friends."

Even though the follow-up question was an obvious one (and it made Wilson feel like a shrink on a television drama or something, which actually wasn't so bad), he asked it anyway. "Then what would you call them?"

Some sort of anti-social behavior seemed like an easy assumption to make. The boy was guarded, and Wilson doubted that he was any friendlier around people who weren't doctors and who he therefore had no reason to be suspicious of.

Unless he was suspicious of everyone, in which case paranoia became more likely. Or rather, it became the cause.

Sasuke had an inkling that mentioning the word he actually used to describe the people he knew here would probably not go over too well -- what need would a patient in a mental hospital have of allies, after all? Nonetheless, Sasuke wasn't about to call any of the other patients his friends, not least because that was a type of bond he'd long given up in favour of pursuing his first, most important one.

But what was the term he could use to put Wilson at ease -- "Acquaintances," he concluded. "I've only known the people here for a brief time, with the exception of --"

He'd nearly said people from my world, but the correction came with a vehemence he hadn't planned: "My brother."

That was a fair enough answer. It did often take a while to make real friends, and Wilson had to admit that he didn't even know if his closest friend counted as one. He couldn't imagine it was easy to meet up and chat in a place like this, and the fact that all of them were suffering from mental problems most likely put up even more obstacles.

Granted, most of them seemed able to maintain a certain amount of stability from what he had seen, but who knew how they acted around each other?

The mention of a brother was surprising, and Wilson wondered if that had been noted in the file. He hadn't had much time to look it over. He ignored the brief recollection of Daniel and moved on. "Your brother... How do you feel about him being here? Do the two of you get along?" He knew that sibling relationships could range from closer than friends to very, very nasty, so he was prepared for a variety of responses.

... how did Sasuke and Itachi get along? Was their history of confrontation within the Institute -- and the supposed delusions of their past -- not in the files? Or was Wilson just being deliberately obtuse? Sasuke couldn't be sure, too accustomed to people who were excessively straightforward or obviously un-straightforward to be able to fully interpret this particular style of, well, niceness.

The closest approximation he had was Kakashi, but at least he was used to Kakashi's manner of speaking and had some ability to pick out clues from his phrasing and tone. Wilson was a wild card so far.

"I didn't expect him," Sasuke said, carefully keeping his tone completely blank and not quite answering the question. "Muraki informed me that he was unlike me in that he was mentally well."

... which abruptly made Sasuke realise that surely the consensus amongst the delusions of the shinobi here hadn't gone unnoticed. Frowning slightly, he switched back to the offensive: "It's strange that he was perfectly fine and now fully shares my delusions, isn't it?"

There had been a few notes in the file, but it wasn't as detailed as Wilson would have liked, and he figured it would be more helpful to get the information straight from the patient. Granted, House's "everybody lies" mantra flitted through his head from time to time, but he wasn't as much of a subscriber to it.

Granted, these mental patients could be lying without even meaning to, but he was keeping that in mind.

The question had an accusatory tone to it, but Wilson wasn't sure why. It wasn't like he had caused Sean's brother to suddenly go crazy, after all.

"Maybe a little, but mental illness is often hereditary. It may have just presented in him later on. Have the two of you been able to talk, or has the staff keeping you away from each other?" There was a mention in the file that there might be trouble if the two were allowed to interact, but who knew what the real implications of that was?

It was obvious that this Wilson hadn't run into any of the other shinobi here -- but if he'd been here long enough to remember Oak, surely he'd run into this strange consistency amongst the patients' stories before. It was one thing if he were stupid like Oak seemed to have been, or clearly not really interested in helping any of the patients like Muraki; Wilson was actually trying to present himself as a real doctor.

Sasuke's frown only deepened with Wilson's next question about Itachi. It was true -- despite the fact of it going against everything that had been fact in Sasuke's life until now -- that the only time he'd run into Itachi during the day had been a situation where he had been forced to ignore Itachi. Which was ridiculous but perhaps a useful thing; if Sasuke could find Itachi again, the man might not be expecting an attack based on their first meeting.

Maybe. Then again, Itachi was a flawless ninja. Doubtless he knew the rules by heart and knew to expect the unexpected in any situation.

"We spoke once," Sasuke said stiffly, making it more than obvious that he didn't want to talk about Itachi with his tone and with his change of subject: "You don't find it strange that not only does my brother share the delusional life I supposedly invented, but at least three or four other patients? That's not a normal thing, is it?"

Sean was making it loud and clear that he didn't want to talk about his brother any further, and so Wilson figured it might be for the best if the two siblings did keep their meetings to a minimum. The staff was probably already taking care of that if they had only spoken once.

As the boy kept talking, Wilson was presented with a problem that he had heard about a few times in the past, and he unfortunately didn't have any better explanation now than he did back then.

"No, it's not... I mean, I suppose it's possible, but it definitely stands out. I can't say I have any good reason for it." He knew that Landel's was meant for patients who had some serious problems, though, which made it even more peculiar that so many of them came off as almost stable.

He glanced down at his watch and sighed. "Unfortunately, it looks like our time is up. I'll see you next week?" Unless one of them was gone by then. It was entirely possible.

Huh -- Wilson actually admitted to not having a reason for the strange coincidence. And the way he'd phrased that meant that he must have noticed the phenomenon in other patients, or that other patients must have brought it to his attention before.

Perhaps this doctor could be used.

For the first time he could remember, Sasuke was annoyed that 'therapy' was over. Hopefully Wilson would still be here next week as well; it sounded like he'd managed to last a while in Landel's.

"I'll look forward to it," he said -- because it was true -- and stood at the sound of his nurse knocking at the door, come to escort the useless blind patient to the last shift of the day.

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Day 39: Doctor's Office 6 (Dr. Wilson) [Fourth Shift]

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