damned_institute | Day 40: Doctor's Office 6 (Dr. Wilson) [Fourth Shift]

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Day 40: Doctor's Office 6 (Dr. Wilson) [Fourth Shift]

Things could have gone better with Max, but they also could have gone much, much worse. Wilson was willing to take a somewhat awkward, tense session over a downright terrible one. As for his next two patients (the last two for this week), one was completely new to him while the other one would be a follow-up. He would have preferred the new patient have a shift to herself, but he had little say in how the scheduling worked in this place.

As for the returning patient, Wilson remembered Kyle well. The boy possibly had some sort of personality disorder, but unlike Allelujah-Hallelujah from earlier, he hadn't been aware of his other personality. Wilson had to wonder if the boy had made any effort to keep track of his moods and his memory to see if things didn't add up, but he supposed it wouldn't be long before he found out. The boy had been agreeable last time, so unless he was in a bad mood today (like Max), things should go smoothly. The new patient was a mystery, but Wilson did his best to keep an open mind.

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Wilson hadn't been prepared for that. It was honestly kind of creepy, though House would have made fun of him for thinking so. There always had to be a logical explanation. The father had faked his death, it was part of Kyle's illness, something.

Now Kyle's claim that he hadn't seen the man for a while made some more sense, but everything else was in question. It was hard to imagine that Kyle had been mentally ill from a young age-- it would have been noticed far earlier than now, not to mention it was very rare for insanity to present in young children.

Still, Kyle hadn't specified an actual period of time. Wilson cleared his throat and eyed the boy.

"How long ago, exactly?"

[Sorry for the late-late-late reply! Do you mind backthreading enough to wrap things up?]

Kaito glanced at Dr. Wilson briefly, but then averted his eyes, taking great interest in the floor instead.

"Eight years ago," he answered after a moment. How strange to have been just talking about this to Yukari the other day, and now to be talking about it again. "There was a, uh... work-related accident."

He shook his head, and then faced Wilson again. "He was a magician, and I wanted to be just like him. I've always been following in his footsteps, but when he showed up this week, apparently alive, he was... well... a little different."

Eight years was definitely long enough that Kyle's belief that his father had died most likely wasn't tied to his illness. Wilson found it hard to believe that the boy had been suffering from it for that long, which meant that either his father had faked his death somehow, or Kyle was distorting his sense of his past and childhood due to his more recent mental problems.

Still, the kid was being surprisingly open about his supposedly dead father, and so Wilson decided to hear him out for now. This was obviously important and probably had some relation to the boy's condition, so the doctor planned on finding out as much as he could.

Wanting to follow in one's father's footsteps was a normal enough feeling, although a magician wasn't the most run-of-the-mill occupation. But Wilson straightened when Kyle mentioned that his father was "different" now.

"What do you mean by that?" It was the obvious question to ask, but that at least meant that Kyle should be prepared to respond.

Kaito was quiet for a moment, debating what to say and how much to say. It was easier to talk about his dad since he'd talked to Yukari about him so recently, but this was one of the doctors here. One of the staff. One of them.

"He looked like I remember," he ended up saying. "He acted a lot like I remember, too. But there were things about him that weren't right... For one, he claimed to be a detective."

If Dr. Wilson had known Kuroba Toichi, and really known him, he would have known how ridiculous the idea being a detective was. As it was, Kaito just hoped the doctor would be able to take his word of it being not right.

While Wilson didn't know the man, he did know some of the details of Kyle's life. It was listed that the boy's father was a detective, just as he said, but Wilson had just heard that Kyle looked up to his parent for a different reason.

"He says he's a detective, but you think he's a thief," Wilson remarked. "I guess there's a pretty big difference there," he continued with a slight smile. Maybe it wasn't the best idea to be joking about something like that, but patients generally felt more comfortable if they were able to see that their doctor was a person rather than a figure. And people joked.

"So, why do you think this happened? Who's wrong, him or you?" Wilson figured Kyle would insist he was right (most people functioned on the belief that they were), but it would be interesting to judge his answer anyway.

Kaito tensed. Of course it stood to reason that they knew about what his dad really did since they knew what he really did, but it was a bit of a shock to hear it, regardless. But since the doctor knew about Kid, it seemed like he at least was able to understand why it was so crazy for his dad to claiming to be a detective...

He tried to calm himself, focusing on the change in his dad and trying to push any panic over Kid to the side.

"Why do I think this happened?" Kaito echoed. "Honestly, I don't know. I've been trying to figure it out. But I don't think I'm the one who's wrong."

"Why's that?" Wilson followed up, not wanting to lose the momentum of this line of questioning now that they were getting somewhere. It might not lead anywhere all that interesting, but there was still that possibility.

"I mean, if anyone was looking at this situation as an outsider, I'm pretty sure most people would side with your father as being the right one. I can't put words in your mouth, but I'd think that being in this place would shake someone's confidence a little... So how are you so sure?" Instead of accusatory, Wilson only seemed curious. A lot of the patients here had strong resolves, which he hadn't been expecting.

It might be that they were just that delusional, but he didn't like to write things off so easily.

"It's a little difficult to explain, since you're not one of us," Kaito said. He wondered briefly how much Dr. Wilson really knew about what was going on here, whatever that truly was. "Sure, to you or anyone else outside of the patient body, we're just a bunch of crazies. And if I were on the outside looking in, I'd probably think the same thing because I wouldn't know any better. But being in here and being told that we're crazy..."

He was quiet for a moment, trying to decide on the best way to explain it. "It just doesn't feel quite right. Last week you said I'm supposed to have multiple personalities, right? I can't just take that kind of thing on faith, not when I've got a whole life's worth of memories that have nothing to do with this 'Kyle Crowe' person you all are claiming I am. I just... I know who I am, the same way that you know who you are."

It was more than just that, though. "And... Correct me if I'm wrong, but delusions aren't normally shared, right?"

So it sounded like Kyle hadn't noticed anything that would have indicated that he had another personality over the past week. Wilson knew that didn't rule it out, necessarily, but it did mean that he had to consider other options more carefully. Not that he had any good ideas at the moment, but he knew that sometimes these things took time.

Kyle (or Kaito) definitely sounded sure of himself, and lucid on top of it, but Wilson had to believe that the boy wouldn't be here unless he needed to be. What would be the point of institutionalizing people who weren't insane?

The question about shared delusions was one he got often, so Wilson at least had a prepared response. "Not normally, no, but it has been known to happen. It would definitely have to be the case here," he agreed.

Even though Dr. Wilson said that shared delusions were "definitely" the case here, Kaito had a hard time believing it. After all, he hadn't really known Hattori before coming here, yet he'd heard of the detective (and seen him around a few times) and Hattori knew of Kid. And Kudou, well... Kudou was a whole 'nother story.

His reply to Dr. Wilson was an unconvinced-sounding, "Hmm... If you say so. But if you ask me, sharing a delusion is harder to swallow than it not being a delusion."

Unless the doctor could provide compelling evidence to prove that people who had never really met could share the same knowledge, like of Kid's latest heist, Kaito would cling to the belief that said knowledge was proof that he wasn't crazy.

Maybe Kyle had a point, especially considering the scale that some of these shared delusions seemed to be on, but the boy's theory still didn't make any sense.

"I can see where you're coming from, but what point would there be in institutionalizing people who aren't actually crazy?" he asked with a frown. There was no way that sort of thing would happen without there being repercussions, so Kyle really was crazy if he thought that something like that hadn't caught people's attention by now. It would have been all over the news...

Besides, Wilson couldn't really bring himself to believe that he would be working for such a place. He had to admit that there were some strange aspects of Landel's, but not that weird.

Kaito had been wondering the same thing himself, or something close to it. Why them? Why were the people who were here here, instead of other people?

"Beats me," he had to admit, looking a little sullen about it. It was a good question, the point of it all... He just wished he had some idea of the answer. What were they trying to do? "I'll get back to you on that."

That wasn't much of an answer, but apparently both of them were clueless on that. Logic indicated that in that case, it just didn't make sense, but he wasn't going to get into an argument like that right now.

Besides, it looked like their conversation thread was running out, and it wasn't too long before his next patient would be along, if he was judging the time right.

"Well, you do that," he said with a nod, and he somehow managed to not seem sarcastic about it. One of Wilson's skills, as it were. "Looks like our time is about up. I'll see you next week?"

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Day 40: Doctor's Office 6 (Dr. Wilson) [Fourth Shift]

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