InsaneJournal

Who: Jack R and Liam R
What: A visit
Where: Jack's office -> Jack's Car -> Hospital
When: After this
Warnings/Rating: Liam losing it. Language.



The phone call had been expected, especially after Jack had seen the news of her arrest. Checking the caller ID, he stepped into his office before going to meet his next patient. "Jack," he answered as soon as he heard the question. When the rest came out, Jack simply nodded. "Yeah, I've got a four open. I'll have Shelly put you down, all right? Do you need the directions again?"

Fresh air and a slight breeze greeted him as he stepped outside, quiet for a long while before he shook his head in the negative. “No, I think I can find the place just fine,” Liam said quietly, and then the phone went dead, tucked away in his pocket as he stepped towards the curb, hand out to hail a passing cab. The appointment was nearly two hours away, giving him plenty of time to spare, so much so that he could almost walk there and still make it on time, but Liam wanted nothing to do with so much silence on his hands. So he stepped into the cab and gave the address, settling back with his hands folded in front of him, his attention out the window as the sights of the city during the day passed him by.

Inside, Liam made his way to Jack’s offices, a sight that was becoming more and more familiar as the weeks had trickled by, days filled with paranoia, evenings with nightmares. Liam had always considered himself to be a rather stable personality, but everything with Tristan had thrown that into a place filled with doubt. He wasn’t sure of anything any longer, and that lack of confidence, the worry that plagued him, the nightmares that followed him well into his waking hours, it all curled in around him, making the world something he doubted. Combined with the encounter with Tristan, drugged and not herself, and Liam had to wonder if anything in this world was certain.

These were the thoughts that slipped through his mind as he sat in the waiting room, tucked back with his back against the wall, hands laced together, one knee bouncing up and down as he stared across the room, a silent thing though it was clear he was far from a relaxed thing. The tension in his face was easy to see, the way the skin was drawn tighter over cheekbones, the growth of beard that covered his cheeks and chin. He was still very much Liam, but not the man he had been months earlier. There was something else inside of him, something dark and angry, chewing at his insides, something distinctly not him.

Leaning back with his head against the wall, Liam let his eyes close, a deep breath drawn in, released, something to ease the tension, though it did nothing to help him. I’m inside you, that little voice murmured. His shoulders hunched up, eyes scrunched tight. “You are not inside of me,” he muttered, loud enough to be heard.

Finishing up with his current patient, Jack led them out of the patient room and back to the waiting room as he usually did. What caught his attention was the fact that Liam was there, not looking quite like himself. The muttering was something else entirely. Frowning, Jack took a step closer. "Liam?" There was still another fifteen minutes before four but given the way the other man looked -- Jack wouldn't wait.

"Do you want to go ahead and come back now?" He could have Shelly walk Spot if the dog needed to go out. Something told him that Liam needed him more right now.

Liam looked up, not at the sound of Jack coming into the waiting room, but at the sound of his name, those bright blue eyes bloodshot. Slowly, his shoulders sank down, a glance given to the clock that hung on the wall before he looked back towards Jack, giving a small nod of his head. He got up to his feet, tried to ease some of the tension from his body, failing at even that as he moved towards the other man. “Thanks for fitting me in,” Liam said, managing a smile as he shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his faded blue jeans. “I could have - could have waited, but thank you.”

"No, I had it open," Jack said easily, smiling as he held the door open for the other man. Something was wrong, it was written all over Liam's body language. The tension, the way his shoulders hunched forward... All of it was wrong. "How have you been, Liam?" He asked, voice quiet as he joined the other man in walking down the hallway to his patient room.

Liam stayed to Jack’s side, a step behind, waiting until they were in the quiet of the hallway before he said even a word more. “Do you want my honest answer or the one I would offer people to be polite?” There was the smallest tinge of amusement in his voice, though it was hollow at best. That visit to the hospital where Tristan had been kept had not been one of Liam’s better ideas. Seeing her that way, so unlike how she had been before, so very different, it had affected him in a way he wasn’t entirely prepared for. That anger that twisted inside of him, that crawling, shifting thing that had turned up inside of him in response, it was new, unexpected, strange to experience. Pulling one hand out of his pocket, Liam scratched at his stomach, long and hard, trying to satisfy an itch that he couldn’t begin to touch.

"The honest one, always." Once they entered the room, Jack shut the door quietly behind them. With this particular patient there was no worry that he would be combative, constantly fighting against him. He offered Liam the couch before he settled into his chair, both feet tucked up as he sat down indian style to face the man across from him. "Always. There's a place for being polite, but I would rather hear the truth from you." How else was he going to help?

Part of Liam wanted to refuse the offer of the couch, wanting to pace the room instead, anything to burn off some of the energy that had built up, crawling around inside of him. But something inside told him that it was better to sit, to at least try and relax for a moment. Then there was only Jack’s question hanging in the air between them, impossible to ignore any longer. “I’m not doing very well at all,” Liam finally said, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, one leg bouncing up and down in a frantic rhythm. “I went and saw her. At the hospital. I knew it was bad to go, but I thought I should, and it was a bad idea, and there’s something wrong with her.” Of course there had been something wrong with her, but that wasn’t the thing that Liam was talking about just then.

That crawling, creeping energy became too much for him to stand, and Liam eventually got to his feet, pacing one side of the room, quick strides, heavy and sure.

"She's in the hospital?" Jack asked. Her arrest had been on the news, and he knew it shouldn't surprise him to find out she was in a hospital. "A -- was she hurt?" Or was it a mental institution? Given what Liam had told him of Tristan before, it wouldn't be a huge guess to assume she was where she could receive psychiatric care. Wherever she was, Jack knew it wasn't his place to worry about her, not when Liam was up and moving around like he was.

“Mental hospital. Drugs and restraints and...Getting care like she’s going to get better.” There was disgust in his voice, plain and simple, and Liam reached up, shoving a hand back through his hair. “She doesn’t even remember what she did,” he said a moment later, turning towards Jack, distressed. “She didn’t remember who I was. And they’re fucking concerned about her, as if she should be the one to be concerned about!” Liam’s voice had gone something close to shrill near the end of his tirade, a shudder working its way through him, that anger rolling and boiling inside.

Mental hospital. Given everything that he had learned about this woman in the days prior, Jack wasn't surprised, nor was he surprised when Liam mentioned that she couldn't remember. While he didn't know her exact diagnosis, they would have prescribed her something, possibly several somethings, that might impede her ability to remember. But she wasn't his focus, nor his patient. His patient was in front of him, pacing, shrill, obviously distressed. "If she's in a hospital, they have to make her safe, Liam. There are nurses, techs, other patients that they need to ensure the safety of."

“Why isn’t she in jail? She killed someone, Jack. Promised to kill me if she saw me again!” Liam took a sharp turn on one heel, pacing back in the direction he had come from, one hand slipping up to tangle in his dark hair, giving a hard tug to it before he stopped, his shoulders heaving with his heavy breath. “I wanted to hurt her, Jack. When she started screaming at me, like I was the bad guy, I wanted to hurt her. To... to shut her up. Make the screaming stop. That’s not like me. It’s not like me at all.” He was facing the wall, fingers massaging his scalp as though it would relieve some of the tension, remembering his conversation with Sam, the tone that had invaded her voice at what he had told her, and he wasn’t sure if he should say that to Jack. “I don’t feel like myself anymore,” Liam murmured, leaning towards the wall, forehead pressed against the cool surface. “I feel like someone else. Something else. I don’t like it.”

There weren't many times when Jack got that sense of wrongness, but he had it now, like the world wasn't quite in sync. Something was very much wrong with Liam and it was more than the nightmares, more than the stalking that the woman, Tristan, had put him through. "If they identified her as someone needing psychiatric care, they would have moved her into a facility, Liam," he explained quietly, calmly. "So she won't harm anyone else." Then, as he studied the other man, the rapid moves and the agitation that marked every line of his body, Jack asked, "Who do you feel like?"

So she won’t harm anyone else. The statement made Liam want to laugh, though something inside him told him that was the wrong reaction to have right then. “She wouldn’t harm someone locked up in a jail cell and left to rot,” Liam muttered instead, turning as he flattened himself against the wall, looking over towards where Jack sat in his chair, perfect as you could please. It made him long for those days when he could sit like that, without worrying, without thinking about what new horror was waiting around the corner for him. “And I feel like she’s somewhere in me. Because she wasn’t there on that bed when I went and saw her. That wasn’t Tristan. That was- that was someone else entirely. All vulnerable and clueless, Tristan wasn’t anything like that.” His lips twisted, a sneer, before his face relaxed yet again. “That anger I felt towards her, that wasn’t me. Maybe it was her. She always said she was in me, that even if she was gone, she’d be here, and I think she was right, Jack. And that scares me.”

That gave Jack pause, but he did his best not to show it. "You know that's not possible, Liam. She can't just put herself inside you," he said calmly. But the sneer, the anger, Liam's insistence that it wasn't him, none of these were a sign of anything good.

Liam sunk down against the wall as Jack spoke, knees close to his chest, head in his hands. “So it’s all in my head then, is that what you’re saying?” Because what other conclusion was he to draw from the words ‘it’s not possible’. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, trying to make some sense of everything that he was feeling. That crawling sensation, that feeling of being so off. It had been building for days upon days, and then seeing Tristan like that, so not her, not how she was supposed to be, it was as though something inside him had shifted. “Can I just... just have something to help me sleep? Maybe I’m just tired, maybe I’m just...” Because he didn’t want to think about the alternatives.

"I'm saying it's not possible for her to put herself in you," he said quietly, still as implacable as he had been earlier, even as he watched Liam sink down to the floor. But then, what came after was nearly as alarming. The disjointed words, the willingness to sink into sleep when Jack could remember Liam fighting about it before. "Liam." He paused, waiting for those eyes to meet his before he continued. "I think it might be best if you went into observation. At the hospital."

Liam looked up towards Jack slowly, blue eyes bloodshot, tired, and for a moment, he simply stared at the other man, not quite comprehending what was being said. Observation? Hospital? His brow furrowed down at that and then slowly, he gave a shake of his head. “I don’t- no. I’m not crazy, Jack. I don’t need to be in a hospital like her. I just... I need to sleep. And get her out of me. I’ll be fine in time.” Because hospitals meant that something in him was wrong, and it wasn’t that he had a particular aversion towards them, but the thought being brought up, that it was something being considered, set him on edge in a way he wasn’t prepared for.

There was that comment again, like Tristan was inside Liam. "It's only a twenty four hour observation Liam. It's not like -- Tristan. It's observation only. To ensure you're all right." It was a mid point between what Jack could do here in the office and a full commitment to a psychiatric ward. And this way, if something did happen, they would have the full resources of the hospital in order to take care of Liam, instead of what Jack had in his office.

His hands fell away from his head, limp against his bent knees, blue eyes tracking away from Jack, not liking the prospect of this. “I am all right,” Liam insisted, pushing himself up to his feet, eyes averted away from the doctor. Coming here hadn’t been the best idea he had ever had, he felt. Doctors. Hospitals. Crazy like her. Next thing you knew, he’d be killing someone, just like her, following that same path, and that thought shook him through and through.

Abruptly, Liam turned on his heel towards the door. “I should go. I’m sorry I bothered you. I - I’ll figure this out on my own. Okay? No hospitals. I’ll be fine. I’ll get her out, and it’ll be like it never happened, and then we’ll both feel really silly that we even had to talk about this later.” The words came out quickly, strung together in tight little bunches as he made his way towards the door.

"Liam." And he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt that letting Liam go out that door was going to be bad for someone. Either for Liam or for someone else and he wasn't going to put that on either of their consciences. Moving quickly to his side, Jack shook his head. "Liam stop. I want you to listen to me. Look at me."

He had gotten within feet of the door when Jack called out his name, and something about the tone of the other man’s voice had him pausing, though he made no motion to retreat back into the room. Gaze fixed on the floor, he listened as Jack moved towards him, turning towards him at the sound of his name once again, meeting his gaze. Liam had a feeling he wasn’t going to like anything that Jack had to say this time around.

"I want you to go," he said quietly, not reaching for the other man to stop him. "You know what she's done to you and now you feel as if she's inside you. I know you wouldn't want to hurt anyone and I don't want to see you be hurt further. This is only for your safety. You'll go in, you'll be monitored while I prescribe some things that are going to help you sleep and feel better and if everything goes as it should, you'll be out of the hospital tomorrow and feeling better. Do you understand everything I've said?"

“I’m not going to hurt anyone!” Liam all but snapped at Jack in response, taking a step back in the defensive, though it led him further away from the exit. “And if that’s all it is, why can’t you just... you just give me whatever it is you want to give me and I go home. We don’t have to bother with the hospital, and everything else, and it’ll just be... it’ll be easier.” Panic was writ all over his face, and right then, more than ever, Liam wanted to be home. Not home at the Villas with Nick, or home with Seven, if that could even be classified as home yet, but back home home. To Mississippi, to his mother, to the stability and predictability those familiar surroundings brought him. Just thinking of his mama and all that strength that was wrapped up in her had Liam pulling his arms around himself, stumbling back until he could sit heavily on the couch. He didn’t want to think of Tristan, of the scars he bore from her, inside and out. Didn’t want to think about anything. The world needed to stop, let him catch his breath, catch up to where everything and everyone was.

As these thoughts, these fears and worries washed over him, Liam leaned forward towards his thighs, a sob escaping him though he quickly pressed his lips together to keep quiet, hands lacing together at the back of his neck, curled in against himself.

The snapping, the sheer range of emotions from defensive to anger to pleading to this, watching Liam curl in against himself -- there was an element of compassion that no training, no amount of years and patients could ever change. Jack felt it then, a twinge, but he didn't let himself get caught up in Liam's emotions. Couldn't. This was the best choice and as long as Liam stabilized and his behavior returned to a more normal pattern, he'd be released at the end of those 24 hours. If need be, Jack could stretch it to a 72 hour observation, but if things did not get better after that -- he would worry about that when and if that time came. "This is a voluntary thing, Liam. I would very much feel better if you said yes."

“And if I don’t say yes? If I leave? If I go home? What then?” There was a tightness to his voice, something thin and brittle that spoke of that thin edge he walked on between snapping and staying steady. “You keep saying it’s voluntary, but you - you’re not giving me another choice. There is no ‘you can do this or do this’, it’s just the hospital. And I don’t - Fuck. Jack. I’m just tired. That’s all. Just some sleep.” A pause as he turned towards the other man, peering out from along side his arm. “Please.”

"I'm not committing you. I want you to go in for observation." Jack paused, looking down at Liam as he sat down beside him. "You've admitted that you wanted to hurt her, a woman who was incapable of hurting you in her current state. And I know she's harmed you before, but she was restrained and incapable of harming you in those few moments. You've said that you feel like she's inside you. So, yes, I want you to do this. I want you to go to the hospital or I'm going to do as the law requires me to do and call the authorities as soon as you leave because I don't want to see you harm anyone, including yourself."

There was something about the way Jack spoke right then, and had he been in a better place, without everything that had happened weighing down on his shoulders, he might have been able to find some worth in those words. But as it was, they seemed so empty and shallow that Liam had to laugh. “She’s harmed me before,” he deadpanned, getting up to his feet slowly, unfolding and straightening to his full height before he pulled down one side of his pants, down slightly over narrowed hips that were narrower than they should have been, revealing the two letters that were carved into the skin of his hip. “Harmed me? She’s all but cut herself into me, Jack. This? This isn’t coming out. This isn’t going away.” Letting his pants go back to place, Liam strode away, shoving his hands through his hair once more. It felt like a roller coaster ride that he couldn’t get off of. Ups and downs, twists and turns. “So if I don’t go, you’re going to call the cops on me,” Liam said softly. “And you call this voluntary.”

The movement up had his brows drawing together, worried, but he didn't draw away from the initials that were carved into Liam's flesh. Christ. That woman was a piece of work and Jack could only hope that they kept her wherever she needed to be for a long time. "She's harmed you, Liam. Hurt you," he repeated quietly. "If there is another solution that I could live with, I'd tell you. If I thought it was safe for you to go home and be alone, I wouldn't stop you. If I thought that there was any other way, we'd be doing that. I want you to understand this is to keep you safe too, Liam. It's not to hurt you."

There was another few moments of pacing, those same swift, hard strides from earlier, before Liam said another word. “So. So I either go with you. Or you call the police on me, and they end up arresting me or some insane shit like that.” His jaw clenched tight, teeth grinding together, and he could almost hear Tristan cackling in the back of his head about how she had won, look at him now, a picture of instability that she had all but created. The thought had him growling at the air, unaware of how it might look to Jack.

Growling in the middle of his office was not the way to convince Jack that there might be a third option. After a moment of it, he quietly pointed out, "Liam? You're growling."

Jack’s voice brought him back to the here and now and he turned sharply towards Jack, blue eyes wide, for a moment unsure what it was that Jack meant. And then the realisation that he had been doing that aloud came to him in a rush. He covered his eyes with one hand, a laugh escaping him. “So long as you take me, I’ll go,” Liam said with an uneven tone to his voice. He had no inclination to deal with the cops and anything that brought with it. Twenty-four hours. He could handle that. He would get through that, one way or another.

Jack nodded. "I'll take you. And I'll be with you most of the time." The nearest hospital he had privileges at and as his primary, Jack could stay the observation period. There were sleep rooms when he needed to sleep, but he wouldn't be going home tonight. He offered the other man a small smile as he stood up. This time, he was the one to open the door, and he went down the hall quickly to grab his keys, as well as to tell Shelly to cancel his appointments for the next two days, rescheduling them if possible, but outright cancelling them if not. Spot was under her desk and he gave the dog a pat on the head. "Take him home with you tonight?" He asked. She nodded and he turned back to Liam. "Ready?"

When Jack left, Liam watched the empty doorway for several moments before he moved towards it as well, emerging in the hallway with an uncertainty that was wholly unlike him. He wondered if there were people he needed to call, or did he need to go home, get a change of clothes, his toothbrush and toothpaste, but something didn’t have him asking. Instead he slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans and gave Jack the smallest of nods. He wasn’t ready, but he’d go now that he had agreed to do it.

Closing the distance between them, Liam hesitated just feet away, something coming to mind. “Can - can you let Sam know? I told her I’d call when I was done.”

Jack nodded as they stepped out of his office and took the elevator down to the ground level. "I can call Sam. Is there anyone else you want me to call?" They'd have all the basic necessities at the hospital, but they weren't likely to give Liam a razor or scissors if he wanted to shave. The walk to his car, a nondescript white Corolla, was a quick one. He hit the button on his key to unlock the doors and offered the passenger side to Liam. "If you want anything from home, just let me know. I'll ask her if she can pick it up. Or Shelly."

There was this growing pit of nausea in his stomach with every step they took that brought them closer to this inevitability. Liam was quiet as he settled into the passenger seat and drew the seat belt over his shoulder, his hand shaking as he pressed the buckle in to secure it. “How likely would they let me keep anything I asked for?” Liam asked quietly, sinking further down into the seat as though he could disappear into it. Twenty four hours. He could live without a lot of things that long, so he didn’t see a need to ask for anything from home. This time tomorrow, he’d be out. Home. And maybe, just maybe, he could put all of this behind him. “No, I don’t need anything. I just - let’s just get this over with, please? Before I get out of this car and catch the nearest cab home.”

Jack nodded as he slid into the driver's seat, buckled his own belt, and started the car. "It depends on what you wanted. They'll let you keep your clothes but make you empty your pockets," he explained. "When I take you in, they're going to take your vitals, perhaps start an IV. That's standard. When they do that, I'm going to call admissions so they know what you're coming in for." Knowing what would happen was the best way to make sure someone was less afraid of something. It didn't always work that way but there was no harm in telling Liam any of this.

As Jack explained the process, that nausea in his stomach did nothing to ease itself. It felt like some sort of living nightmare, the worst-case scenario, the sort of thing that wasn’t supposed to happen to him. His throat had gone dry, his chest tight, and as the car moved down the road, Liam turned towards the door, pressing his forehead against it, each breath coming harder and faster than the one preceding it. He could hear her up there, laughing at his weakness, crowing about how she was the one that had brought him to this point. And all he could think right then was that everything she had said? She was right.

A quick glance over confirmed that yes, Liam was breathing harder. On the way to a panic attack? "Liam? What's your favorite childhood memory?" Something to distract him, to get him thinking about something other than what was going on in his own mind. "Did you have pets? Did you ever wish you did?"

“I, I really don’t know,” Liam responded after a moment, his thoughts too fragmented to really think about what Jack was asking or even why. “I didn’t have pets. Mama was allergic, so no pets. I didn’t really care one way or another.” The words came quickly, but the question did its job, drawing him back to the here and now, his breath evening out, albeit slowly. Lifting his head from the window, Liam turned to look towards Jack, studying his profile for a moment before he sank back into his seat, trying to hold on to the calm that had touched him, if only for a moment. “I don’t know if I can do this, Jack,” Liam finally said. “I’m not even there, and I feel like I’m going to start crying. I don’t cry. I don’t do things like that.”

It wasn't an easy decision to make as Jack pulled into the parking lot of the hospital and parked the car. For a moment he simply stared out of the windshield before turning to look at Liam. "Tell me what you're concerned about, in detail."

As the car pulled to a stop, Liam glanced towards the building, his brow furrowing down as he studied it, shaking his head as sunk down further into his seat, long-fingered hands coming up to cover his face. “I don’t know. I’m afraid there’s something really wrong with me, and once they find out, they’re not going to let me out. That I’m going to end up like her. Strapped to a bed and unable to even remember my name.” His voice broke at the end of it, a hiccup of emotion.

"But you aren't here," Jack said quietly. "You haven't killed anyone. You haven't mutilated their body and kept their heart in your refrigerator," he pointed out. "But I am concerned that you think she's inside you. That's not healthy for you, Liam. I know you wouldn't want to hurt anyone, but you're acting erratic and not yourself. I'd be remiss if I said that I was perfectly fine with it and let you go out the door while you're in this state." He paused, followed Liam's gaze out the window. "I won't order you to remain any longer than you have to, Liam. You have my word on that."

Slowly, Liam drew his hands away from his face, letting them fall heavily into his lap as he looked out the window, everything that rested in front of him seeming bigger than he could handle. “Can we just do this?” Liam asked, his voice quiet, flat. “Before I get out of this car and make a run for the nearest bus to take me home?” Because that agitation in his system, that clawing sensation that itched and scratched at his insides, it was becoming harder and harder to control. One hand lifted, pressing at his stomach, scratching over the fabric of his shirt. “Please. I just. Let’s just. Please.”

Jack thought the hand on his stomach was just a sign of nerves and nodded. "Let's go." Hitting the switch, he unlocked the doors and stepped out, keys in hand. He waited for Liam to join him before walking up to the emergency entrance, side by side.