Day 53: Doctor's Office 6 (Dr. Wilson) [Second Shift]

[oncological.livejournal.com]

As Wilson walked the same path toward his office, he couldn't help feeling like he would just be stuck in this same wacky position for forever. He knew that he was being melodramatic and ridiculous, and that he really hadn't been here all that long in the first place, but there was just so much that was odd about the job and that made him wonder why the hell House had left him here -- and wasn't even answering his calls.

But he was no conspiracy theorist, and he just needed to take it one day at a time, even if he tended to count down the days until he left. Of course, he didn't have a concrete date, but...

The good thing was that this morning he would be seeing Max Vyer, or ZEX, who was one of his most longstanding patients. It was always good to have someone who he could see more than a few times, but it was also depressing if it turned out that Max was only doing worse and worse as the days went by. Granted, he knew that with any ailment, physical or mental, people tended to get worse before they got better, and so he just needed to be patient.

Easier said than done, of course, but he got situated in his office nonetheless and waited for the man to show up.

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[wantsyourzex.livejournal.com]

While his breakfast may have been pleasant enough, his mood quickly darkened when he checked the bulletin board. Tanaka had vanished... which left him as the only remaining sentient here who actually knew how things were. From his universe, as other people put it. His Captain, the Syreen, the Spathi... given that Hayes had yet to reply to the notice about Tanaka's disappearance, it was likely that he was gone as well. There was no reason at this point to assume otherwise. Not with his luck.

Everyone here seemed to leave eventually. Except for him.

It was with mixed feelings that he learned he'd be seeing Dr. Wilson again. At least Wilson hadn't vanished without warning, but given that Wilson seemed determined to convince him that he was insane...

Perhaps he could get some information from him, if nothing else. Presumably he knew more about the goings-on of the institute than other patients, at least on the administrative side. Perhaps ZEX could learn who was gone and who had stayed, although it'd be a small comfort.

He sat down, already feeling exhausted and worn without even saying a word to him. With each passing day, the possibility for escape and return to his original body seemed more and more impossible, and the weight of that knowledge grew heavier. ZEX let out a long sigh. "Do you know which patients get released?"

[oncological.livejournal.com]

Wilson had seen this particular patient enough times that he was able to read his body language and general demeanor rather well. Granted, it wouldn't take a genius to tell that the man was worn down, though it was a more longstanding weariness, something that had been working away at him for a while. Rather than having something immediate that he was distressed over, he just seemed exhausted.

The fact that he opened up the conversation was good, but it was only to ask a question that Wilson had been forced to answer in an unsatisfactory way so many times already. He awkwardly grabbed for a stack of papers and straightened them out before turning to his patient's files.

"Only if they were patients of mine," he explained. "I'm not given access to the information on every patient here at the hospital, so if they were seeing a different doctor I wouldn't have a way of knowing." Which was ridiculous -- even the nurses knew -- but he'd gone over in his head what was wrong with this hospital a number of times already.

[wantsyourzex.livejournal.com]

Not quite the answer he'd been hoping for, but he couldn't say that it wasn't what he'd been expecting. A straight answer was almost impossible to get in this place.

"I see." ZEX tried not to sound too disappointed. A moment, and he sighed again. "Someone that I knew has vanished... been released." From the notice he'd read on the board, Tanaka hadn't even died gloriously in battle, as he no doubt would have wanted. Just vanished, quietly, like he'd never been there at all. "One of the last remaining people here who..." And a reminder to himself that Wilson believed him insane, and that his life was a construct. "One of the others here who corroborated my story... I may be the only one left now. I just wanted more solid confirmation..."

No doubt Wilson would try and use this opportunity to convince him that he was mad again, which wasn't the direction he wanted this to go. ZEX sighed again, pressing a hand to his forehead and touching the scar over his eye. "No one here seems to stay for long... it seems pointless to form relationships with anyone." Alliances, really, arrangements that would protect him at night, but Wilson wouldn't listen to that. "In one way, nothing here seems permanent... and in another way, nothing seems to change. Nothing I do seems to make a difference either way."

ZEX sighed, glancing to one side as one of those invisible pests darted at him. "It feels like I have no agency here." Quieter. "It gets harder each day to find the motivation to keep trying at all..."

[oncological.livejournal.com]

Despite the fact that he had given such a lame answer, it had somehow spurred ZEX into spilling a whole lot of details about how he was feeling at the moment. His words seemed to be matching the observations that Wilson had already made about his mood; he was losing hope.

One thing at a time, though. Wilson held back a sigh, staring the man right in the eye to make it clear that he was being heard, at least by someone. "First of all, a good way to see if other patients are here is to ask the nurses. They'll at least be able to look it up for you." He knew that a lot of the patients had an aversion to the nurses, but in this case they could be helpful.

Inwardly, Wilson thought that it was probably a good thing that there were no longer any other people around who would be able to feed into ZEX's delusions and make him feel like he was in the right. "Anyway, if they're gone it just shows that they've been successful. I'm sure they're waiting for you now. You don't need to worry about agency here, because this place is meant to help you, not the other way around. If you just try to be cooperative, there will eventually be results."

However, the man's point about not being able to make friends very easily was one that was well-taken, and yet Wilson couldn't completely agree with him. "I know it's hard to get attached to people here only to have them get better and leave you, but just remember that they are getting better. You have to be happy for them instead of letting it get to you, as hard as that might sound."

[wantsyourzex.livejournal.com]

Eye contact was comfortingly familiar, and something that came easily to ZEX, although it made Wilson's words no easier to hear. Just what he'd expected... still resolute in his belief that ZEX was mad, still convinced that he should follow the others into apparent oblivion. Wilson's blindness to the true nature of this place made most of his advice less than useful. A shame since he was one of the few people here that had stayed.

"I'll make a note to ask them about it later, then..." Might as well confirm for sure that he was alone here.

It'd be pointless to argue about the true fate of his old allies... Wilson would have his own explanations, much like when ZEX had first discussed his unwanted surgery. "I dislike feeling helpless." ZEX blinked slowly. "Shouldn't I have some input on what's happening to me? I'm not a subject to be pushed from experiment to experiment to see what lasts... and yet, I feel that no one here is actually listening to anything I have to say. Nothing changes. The staff here has been doing what they think will help me 'recover' for some time now... and I'm still here. One would think a change in approach might be in order." ZEX crossed his wrists, as close an approximation to the VUX body language he was going for as he could get. "I can't have been your most troublesome patient, correct? I don't feel like I've been 'uncooperative'." And there was a touch of bitterness at that; he'd had that particular adjective applied to him before, and he'd agreed with it no more back then. "I just don't want to be what you tell me I am. And from what I've heard of who he was, I don't know why any rational person would want to be him. We could not be more dissimilar. I'd think that bettering myself through a 'delusion'," and ZEX would have done finger quotes had he known what they were, but instead just twitched the muscles around his eyes, "would be an overall improvement."

ZEX waved an arm in a lazy circle, fending off an invisible creature in what he hoped was a nonchalant way. "It's hard to be happy for them when I have no idea what happened to them. They never come back to visit, they never contact me, no one talks about them... it's like they never existed." A moment, and his mouth twitched. "Not entirely conducive to mental or emotional stability, I think you'll agree."

[oncological.livejournal.com]

Once more, ZEX started to vent at him, dumping all of his thoughts out in a composed but almost annoyed way. He was frustrated with his lack of progress, and understandably so. Wilson didn't want to be patronizing, but it was a difficult subject to handle delicately. Still, the good thing was that ZEX was talking so much. He wasn't closing in on himself and refusing to share how he felt, and even if those feelings were problematic, what they needed to do was deal with them sooner rather than later.
"First of all, your friends are all out there. I thought you mentioned having a visitor to me before?" But maybe it wasn't someone who had once been here in this place with him. "Either way, I can do what I can to try and contact them and see if the staff can arrange for one of them to come visit. It's definitely something that's been done before."

He imagined there was some concern about having recovered patients returning to the hospital, seeing how it might cause old thoughts and feelings to be dredged up, but if the person was personally comfortable with it, then why not? He could at least attempt to pull some strings...

"As for everything else, I realize that you're frustrated and don't necessarily even want to get better, but they aren't just going to let you walk out. I'm sure you know that better than anyone. And even if they did? The world you'd see out there wouldn't be the one you're familiar with." ZEX wouldn't be out in space, and he wouldn't be a VUX or whatever it was called. Nothing would be fixed if he stayed in this delusion of his.

"Also, while I can't change the methods they use here, what I want you to know is that I am listening to what you have to say. I know I can't do as much as you'd like, but that doesn't mean I'm not hearing what you're saying." He needed that, at the least, to be absolutely clear.

[wantsyourzex.livejournal.com]

ZEX reached for where his trunk would have been, grabbing vaguely at his chest. "Yes, I was visited by Sub-commander DAX some time ago..." Which always tended to be rather depressing, and he still couldn't reconcile DAX's voice with what he was, or how he got here, or what he was doing, or why he'd be working with them, and he closed his eye in an attempt to sort out his thoughts. "But he was never a patient here... none of those who have been 'released' have come to see me. My Captain did reappear one night, quite miraculously I thought..." A moment, and ZEX sighed. "But he was gone again by the morning. I'm not sure he was even really there to begin with."

He hadn't missed Wilson's offer though, and he tried awkwardly to smile at him, as little as he might have felt like doing so. "I'd appreciate that very much... it might be helpful to see how they are faring on the outside..." Doubtful that they'd actually been released, since ZEX knew he wasn't crazy, but perhaps it might give him more insight into what had happened with DAX.

Wilson did bring up a valid point about leaving here... ZEX had often planned to escape with the others, who knew more about this world, and intended to be back in his own form at that time. Or perhaps they'd find a way to open the portal that had taken him here in the first place, since it couldn't have been a one-way trip. Telling Wilson any of that seemed pointless at best. "That is true, I'm not familiar with the world outside..." But he couldn't quite bring himself to pretend that it was because he was insane, rather than because he'd been forcibly transported and transformed. "To me, this feels like an impasse... surrender to you, or be trapped in an eternal stalemate, wasting resources and time until..."

He sighed. He was sure Wilson's offer to listen was sincere... although he'd only hear things that agreed with his worldview. "It's exhausting, expending so much effort and not feeling like you're making a difference." But there was always common ground somewhere, something to talk about, and there was a touch of wryness to his tone. "At least having only one eye now makes things somewhat easier than before."

[oncological.livejournal.com]

Right, that had been the man's name. Whether or not he'd been a patient was really up to discussion, since there was always a possibility that he'd just been discharged before ZEX had been admitted. Still, that likely wasn't the sort of thing that ZEX wanted to hear about, and so Wilson kept the thought to himself. It seemed clear that the man wanted to see friends who had been here with him and were gone now, so...

Grabbing for a pad of paper, Wilson ripped off a sheet and then fished a pen out of his desk drawer. He extended both to the patient. "Would you mind writing down the names of the people you'd like to see? That way I can at least know who to ask after. No one can force them to come here if they don't want to, of course, and that might be the case if they have bad memories associated with this place." And who wouldn't, if it was where they'd been held while insane?

He didn't like how the patient seemed to have given up hope for any option, whether it was to remain stubborn about thinking he was ZEX or making an effort to get better. He frowned down at his desk, holding back a sigh. "I can see how that would be frustrating," he agreed, "but giving up on any option won't get you anywhere. I'm sure you know that."

Wilson had to wonder if prescribing some sort of anti-depressant would help, but he really didn't feel qualified to do something like that. He would be playing with someone's brain chemistry, and he wasn't really ready or prepared to make that kind of decision. "But you never know," he said instead. "Maybe you'll start to get used to that world, if you see more of it." Doyleton was only a taste, after all.

[wantsyourzex.livejournal.com]

"Yes, of course..." ZEX took the proffered paper and pen, and was quite willing to begin writing when something occurred to him. "Ah... I'm more familiar with... our 'other' names than our 'real' ones." And it wasn't hard to tell that ZEX didn't agree with those assessments. "Do you think they might be tracked down regardless? Surely they must have kept some records on such things here..."

Either way, there was something comforting about writing down their names in careful VUX script down the page. While his penmanship might have been terrible, the letters at least were still VUX letters. His Captain, Talana the Syreen, Fwiffo the Spathi, Tanaka the Shofixti, Commander Hayes... then ZEX went back up the sheet, and after a moment of thought, wrote "Teisel Bonne" beside his Captain's name. He wasn't sure if Teisel had been released or not, but he hadn't seen him in so long that it seemed more likely than not. And if Teisel was still here, maybe the nurses could tell him that ZEX was looking for him. He'd... enjoyed Teisel, and found he was missing him more than he thought he might. He added a few other names... Xellos, Xigbar, Asch, Van...

Wilson seemed tired as well. ZEX liked to think that perhaps he was aware, somewhere, of his part in all of this, and was somewhat penitent for it, as all people who wronged ZEX should be. The weight of carrying out this place's enforced delusions perhaps weighing heavily on the human. But it was most likely wishful thinking. It was easy to mimic Wilson's body language, although he didn't hold back his sigh. "What options do I have, exactly? I've presented my viewpoint... what's yours? I know you want me to 'get better', but is that the only option, or are there others in your mind?"

Getting used to this world... ZEX smiled a little at that, only slightly forced. He waved an arm, twitched as something jerked at him from the shadows only to vanish. "Growing accustomed to this place... it'd be easier if it felt more solid." A moment. "I'm still hallucinating, after all... that hasn't changed. In fact, they only seem to grow worse as time goes on..."