(no subject)
Title: Been Picked Up And Been Sedated
Pairings: Vague permutations of Gabe and William and Travis.
Rating: Suitable for those over the age of sixteen.
Warnings: Graphically described suicidal ideation and suicide attempt, reference to past suicide attempts, mental illness, drug use, ableist language.
Note: Thanks to romanticalgirl for editing and suggestions. Also thanks to the moderators and to hc_bingo for allowing me to use this story as a fill for the suicide attempt square on my card.
Summary: Psychiatric hospital AU. Travis' only hope is to reach out to the two people who are just as damaged as he is.
Travis measures his time by pill dosage. He has Adderall and Xanax to start the morning, Dexedrine for the afternoon, more Xanax to counteract the stimulants as needed, and at the end of the day there's Seconal to help him get to sleep. His whole life is a carefully orchestrated chemical balance.
Just keeping himself in a state of equilibrium is exhausting. He goes through the day like he's made of glass, trying to guard against any stray shock, and by the time he gets home he's too tired to sleep or eat. It's all he can do to make sure the dog gets fed and walked.
The other guys at work think that he just likes to keep to himself, or maybe that he's a snob or something. Really, except for Matt, nobody knows him that well. Matt is the exception, but they've known each other since high school. Matt might have his suspicions about Travis, but he's got a girlfriend and a baby and their lives don't intersect as much as they once did.
Every morning when his alarm goes off, it just means another day of the same shit.
*****
He's thought about doing it, off and on, since he was fifteen. The only thing that stopped him was that he wanted to do it right. He's been to enough funerals to know how it hurts to lose someone at first. He knows how hard it is to deal with what's left behind. When his cousin passed it took months to sort through his shit and deal with the creditors.
He's a lot more organized than Isaiah was, though. He's got an apartment, a dog, about a thousand canvases in varying degrees of completion. The apartment's a rental, so after he's gone the landlord can just put it right back on the market without much fuss. His family can divide up the paintings; the quantity of canvases makes it less likely that people will fight over them. The dog is the one thing he's worried about.
He doesn't want to die without making sure that someone's out there to look after Stitch. If he thinks about Stitch going to some kill shelter where he gets locked up and never played with, his throat starts to close up. For a while, the thought of what would happen to Stitch was the only thing that kept him going.
Finally he realizes that he's been overthinking things. Stitch is good with kids; he's been letting Zooey drool on him since the day she was born. There's no way that Matt would let anyone take the dog away, not when he knows how much Stitch means to Travis.
After that, everything falls into place.
*****
On Friday, he finishes up the project and sends the files over to the art director. She looks them over and tells him that the client will be pleased with what he's done. She says, "You can relax now that this is finished."
After work, he goes to the store and picks up dog food and booze. He goes back to the apartment, puts everything in its place, and then takes Stitch for a walk. He stays out for a long time and lets Stitch sniff every single lamp post.
He puts the spare key under the welcome mat when he gets back. He brings Stitch back up to the apartment and puts him in the bathroom with some food and water and his favorite chew toy, the monkey one. He sits on the edge of the shower, watching Stitch get settled, and tells him how things are going to be better, next time around it'll be better, and then he has to leave because he's getting sentimental and that's dangerous. He doesn't want to talk himself out of this.
He goes out to the couch. He picks up his phone and texts Matt, Pick up Stitch when you get a chance. Keys in the reg place. He turns off the phone and puts it on the table, opens the Scotch and takes a swig. It burns his throat for a second and tears come to his eyes, but then it goes away. He uncaps the Seconal.
His first thought is that he can just throw them all back and swallow them like TicTacs, but he doesn't really want to think about actually holding the pills in his hand and choking them back. Instead he taps three into his palm and sends them down on a wave of Scotch. He likes this better; there's a mindless repetition that makes it easy to focus. He taps, swigs, swallows and taps again.
He's got a good month's supply to pick from, but he thinks he'll be good if he even gets through half that much. He's just going to go until he starts to get drowsy, and then he'll fall asleep and that will be the end of it.
It seems to take a long time, but finally his eyes start getting heavy. He puts the bottle on the floor and lies down. He closes his eyes and doesn't think.
The couch starts to spin while he's hovering on the edge of sleep. He rolls over heavily onto his side, but the couch just spins faster. He realizes he's fucked something up when his stomach starts to lurch. He should have tried to eat something before he started this, maybe, but he didn't and now he's going to be very sick real soon.
He can't go into the bathroom because Stitch is in there, and he's too fucked up to even try to make it to the kitchen sink. He manages to grab the wastebasket right before he starts retching, and somewhere in the part of his brain that's still detached from what's going on, he's thinking, Well, this is a hell of a thing.
The pills clink when they hit the bottom of the metal wastebasket. His vision is hazy but he can still see an ugly slurry of bile and blood and Seconal coating the sides, pills that hadn't even gotten a chance to start dissolving before he lost them, and he thinks, Fuck, I needed those.
The dry heaves have barely started when he realizes that he's going to pass out. He pushes the wastebasket aside and prays it stays upright because that's going to be a bitch to clean up. He tries to get back to the couch but his legs won't work right. He rises halfway to his knees and then pitches forward onto the floor, head landing in the crook of his arm before the world goes dark.
*****
There's something in his nose. He smells plastic and sanitizer, and his throat feels raw. He tries to swat at whatever's in his nose, and then he hears the rustle of his elbow on bedsheets and his stomach twists. He keeps his eyes closed, because he doesn't want to open them and have things be confirmed, he just wants to keep them shut and pretend.
"Travis," he hears his father say.
He can't deny it any longer, so he opens his eyes. Pops is sitting across from him. His eyes are red and his hands grip the edge of Travis' hospital bed tightly.
Travis thinks, You fucking asshole, you don't even know how to kill yourself right.
"Matt called the ambulance," his father says. His voice is low and controlled, and Travis doesn't know what's running behind it. He doesn't say anything.
"Travis," his father says again. Travis looks at him. "They said if they'd hadn't gotten there when they did, you'd be on life support now. Did you think, after what happened to your cousin -" He cuts himself off.
Of course Matt called an ambulance. That was where Travis fucked up, texting instead of just emailing him at work. Because even when they don't cross paths as much, Matt knows him inside and out. Of course Travis hadn't thought about that because he's a fucking failure.
"Matt's got the dog," Pops says, back to controlled again. "He'll look after him. And…your mom and I think you should stay somewhere for a while."
Travis gets it. Someone told Pops that he's crazy and that's why Pops isn't ripping him a new one right now. Because you can't get angry at unpredictable crazy people unless they're thoroughly restrained.
"The company put you on medical leave," Pops says. "We'll find somewhere that can help you."
Travis doesn't answer. He's tired and he just doesn't give a shit.
"Travis."
"Fine," Travis says, and turns his face to the wall.
*****
The protocol for transportation, when moving from intensive care to a nice cushy psychiatric lockdown unit, is an ambulance ride. Pops comes with him, bringing along some of Travis' clothes and a bunch of insurance papers. The driver says, when they're sitting among the defibrillators and oxygen masks, "Nice day for a ride, isn't it?"
Pops stares at him. The driver mumbles something and looks back at the road.
Travis' bones hurt. He's been flooded with saline and activated charcoal and it wiped out his chemical equilibrium. The hospital kept giving him the Adderall and they decided to stick him on Lexapro for the hell of it, but they showed a massive lack of consideration for his carefully orchestrated mix of uppers and downers and benzos, and he's feeling the loss.
The ambulance comes to a stop. After a minute the driver comes and opens the back to let them get out. Travis sees red brick and a gravel walkway and some trees and figures that's going to be his last look at the outside world. He follows his father into Admitting.
They start asking questions in the office and Travis freezes over the paperwork. He knows what they want. They're asking him to dredge up all the pieces of his past that brought him here, to offer an orderly explanation of what happened, but he hasn't got one. They try to prompt him into laying everything out, but he doesn't know what to say.
The third time they ask and he's unable to answer, they turn things over to his father. Somehow Pops is able to give them a fairly cohesive account. Travis nods when Pops looks at him for confirmation.
Pops hugs him before they take him away, after all the papers are signed. He promises to visit, to tell Travis' mom to come by. Travis has a feeling that his mother's horror of hospitals makes the request kind of useless, but he nods. He thinks Pops is waiting to leave so he can cry.
They bring him into a room where they make him take his clothes off so they can search him for any suicide-friendly items; his sneakers get confiscated because the laces look iffy. All the walls seem to be the exact same shade of blue-gray. They're telling him about visiting hours and where the smoking area is, and he keeps staring at the walls, flat latex paint cracking at the corners, and it's all he can do to put his clothes back on and nod at them until they stop talking.
They bring him to the unit where he's going to be staying. The orderly says, "It's quiet right now because group's going on, but you'll meet everyone soon enough," before punching in the code to unlock the doors.
Travis manages to register the hallways, the nurses' station and a central area with a TV, but that's about all he can process. His room is large and artificially bright, with three beds and a bathroom. He holds himself upright while they wind down the spiel, which finishes with the orderly saying that someone will be by to check on him in half an hour, and then it's over.
He falls asleep on top of the bedcovers.
*****
Things keep happening to him. His whole body hurts, and the door to the room keeps opening and closing. He gets pills in a paper cup and swallows them. Sometimes he hears someone who sounds like a doctor saying things like intravenous and nasogastric and sometimes there are two different people, but they mostly just mumble over him. He can't understand what they're saying so he doesn't care who they are or if they're real.
He wakes up to an orderly standing over the bed and calling his name. The throbbing in his bones has slowed to a dull ache, and he's able to keep his eyes open for a while.
The orderly says, "Travis, my name is David and I'm here to take you to lunch."
Travis doesn't say anything. David doesn't seem to notice. "It's mostly voluntary here, unless you don't eat. Then what happens is we transfer you to Medical and you eat through a tube in your nose, which I promise you is not nice."
He doesn't think he can go through another round of everyone's explanations and procedures. He nods and unpeels himself from his sheets.
It takes five minutes to get out of bed. He gets dizzy when he stands up all the way and David has to guide him out into the hall. There are some people milling around, but they're mostly either staring into space or talking to themselves and they don't pay him any mind.
By the time he gets into a chair in the dining area, he's sweaty and exhausted. Eating seems like more of a hassle than it's worth, but he doesn't have the will to protest. He gets through a plate of something and David says, "Now, isn't that better?"
Travis stares at the table. David just keeps talking. "So, feel like watching TV? Maybe another day."
David guides him back to the room and then leaves after telling him that someone will be by to take him to dinner. Travis lies back down. The food feels heavy in the pit of his stomach. It just serves as another reminder that he's still alive.
*****
"I still think he's dead," someone says.
"I saw him in the dining room yesterday. He was eating toast. He's not dead."
Travis sort of recognizes the voices; they're the ones who've been murmuring over him. They sound a little clearer today. One of them has a soft Midwestern voice and the other one has a mix of New Jersey and some sort of faded Latin accent.
"Might be a zombie," the Latin one says. "People can make zombies. His lashes are really fuckin' long. They look like spiders. Spiders on his eyelids."
"Gabe, leave him alone. You keep encroaching on him," Midwest says.
"I'm not. He's got a tattoo on his neck. There's more than one."
"If you get in his personal space and they catch you, you'll get written up."
"Checks aren't for another ten minutes," Latin says. "He moved!"
"Gabe. If you want to watch Broadwalk Empire tonight, you need to go reserve the television so you don't lose your spot."
"Shit," Latin says, and there's a rush of air on Travis' face from the departure. Midwest doesn't say anything else, though Travis can feel himself being considered. Eventually he hears book pages being turned, very slowly, but the attention doesn't waver.
*****
He takes more pills. Sometimes an orderly comes and walks him to the dining area where he eats things he doesn't taste. Midwest and Latin talk in the night, sometimes to him and sometimes to each other.
"Hey, big dude," Latin says. "We're going to group. You should come with us."
Travis doesn't know what he's talking about. Latin says, "Hey, it's cool. I'm not a doctor, so you can listen to me. You're starting to grow mold there." There's a rustling noise and Travis feels breath on his face. "Hello?"
"Gabe, don't bother him," Midwest says from somewhere in the corner.
"I'm not. I'm just looking. Big dude?" A finger taps rapidly on Travis' shoulder. "You still alive?"
"Don't poke him," says Midwest sharply. "That's awful. Stop it."
"Oh," Latin says. The tapping turns to patting. "I'm sorry. I forgot."
"Gabe. You're doing it again. You need to get out of people's personal space, shit."
"Sorry, sorry, sorry," Latin says in Travis' ear, and there's the sound of denim scraping on linoleum. "Sorry, Billvy."
"Forget about it," Midwest says. "You go ahead and I'll see you there, okay?"
"Okay."
There's silence for a while. Then Travis hears Midwest telling him, "You're never going to get out of here if you don't cooperate with them."
*****
Latin is named Gabe, and Midwest is probably named William; Travis isn't too sure because Gabe calls him a thousand different things almost interchangeably: Billvy, Bill, William, Will. Travis doesn't know why either of them is interested in him.
Gabe likes to plant himself fairly close to Travis' bed and talk at considerable speed before his attention span runs out and he wanders off. William's a little more awkward but he still comes over and asks concerned questions - if Travis is warm enough or if he wants a glass of water. Travis isn't used to being fussed over.
Travis wants to just keep his eyes shut forever. But then Gabe thumps down next to his head and sings, "'Our favorite patient, display impatience, disease-covered Puget Sound,'" and it's loud and close enough that Travis turns and opens his eyes.
Gabe doesn't look like Travis expected. He's got an ugly-looking bruise that covers the right side of his face in greens and yellows and blues. They stare at each other.
"Bill!" Gabe says. "Billvy! He looked at me! I saw him!"
"What?" William says from the corner of the room. He's sitting cross-legged on his bed, scribbling in a notebook.
"I brought him back," Gabe says. "I brought you back." His face is very close to Travis and his eyes are very big.
Travis manages to gain some space by squirming backward and propping his back against the wall, just as William stands up and looks at him. He's got shaggy brown hair that needs to be cut. He says, "Oh."
"I brought him back!" Gabe says. "I brought him back from the dead."
"Gabe, move back. Give him some space."
"It's all about energy," Gabe says. "Energy flows through my body and -"
"Or maybe you just annoyed him so much that he had to get away," William says tartly. He edges around the bed, examining Travis while still keeping his distance. "He's freaked out. Look at him."
Gabe's eyes flash. He scratches his neck agitatedly but gets up and sits on his own bed. Travis rolls onto his stomach and rests his chin in the crook of his arm, watching. He catches a whiff of himself when he moves his arm; he smells like old sweat and dirty clothes.
William says, peering out from behind his hair, "Hello. I'm William. What's your name?"
He isn't sure if he can answer or not. He tries to open his mouth and say his name but his throat closes on him and all he can manage is a croak.
"Don't sweat it," Gabe says, abruptly coming out of his sulk. "Everyone talks too much anyway. I'm Gabe. We're all roomies."
Travis takes a closer look at the room. The walls are beige, and the beds, also beige, are set up against them. There's one narrow window showing a little scrap of sky. There's a desk with a phone against the far wall.
"We lucked out and got that," Gabe says when he sees Travis looking. "Most places don't let you have a phone. They think the crazies are going to call all their friends to bust them out."
"When's Dr. Hartmann coming again, Gabe?" William says.
"I don't know, what time's it now? Hey, maybe I'll get to go for a walk. I can't stay inside forever. Maybe when you're up to it we can go outside," he says to Travis. "There are birds and shit outside."
"How about you cross that road when you come to it?" William says.
"Okay," Gabe says. "I should go out and wait for him. He's coming in like five minutes. Then I'll get him to take me outside." He springs up and then he's out the door.
"He means well, really," William says to Travis. "He's just…it can be a little much at first. It's good to see you up, though. Do you need some time to yourself?"
The way they've been talking, he's had nothing but time to himself since he got here, but still, being awake is really fucking tiring. He nods.
"Okay," William says. He drops back onto his bed and reaches for the notebook. His sleeve slips down as he picks it up; there's a gauze bandage wrapped around his wrist. "We're not going anywhere."
*****
He wants to talk but he can't. He doesn't know if it's because he's been sleeping twenty hours a day and that fucked him up, or if his brain just decided it'd had enough of speech and shut down. It would be fine if he didn't have to deal with anyone else, but he's got the staff in his face and he has no idea what to do with them.
It seems like it should be easy enough to say, "No, vegetarian," when they stick a plate of chicken in front of him in the dining area, but nothing comes out when he opens his mouth, and it's easier to just go hungry. The staff move around like they know what they're doing, quick and official, and it leaves him out of the loop.
Eventually he realizes that he smells. He hasn't showered or shaved in he doesn't know how long, and the smell of his own body is getting gross. He has no idea what to do. When William or Gabe shower, they get one of the staff to turn on the water and then stand by the bathroom door, probably to keep an eye on things. He doesn't know how he's going to manage to do that. It seems like too many steps to take.
He stands in the middle of the room, rubbing his fingers over the back of his sticky neck, trying to figure out where to go next, and then Gabe bustles into the room, whistling. "Hey," he says. "How's it going? Did Billvy go see his shrink?"
William left ten minutes ago with a woman carrying an official-looking notepad. Travis shrugs.
"I never know when she's coming," Gabe complains. "She's hot. I could get with her. What's the matter with you, anyway?"
It's embarrassing, but the only thing he can rely on at the moment is charades. He makes scrubbing motions over his chest.
"Need the shower?" Gabe asks. Travis nods. "I'll ask for you when they come around in a couple minutes. Think you can hang on that long?"
He shrugs. He makes shaving motions. Gabe says, "Shaving's a pain in the ass. They need to haul out the fuckin' cart, you know, and there's a thing with gloves and shit. But if you really want it, I'll let them know."
It sounds like too much hassle. He shakes his head. Gabe says, "Good choice. I'd grow a mustache if I could get away with it but it makes me look creepy. Why are mustaches always creepy? That's fucked up."
One of the orderlies stops by the door, saying, "Checks." Gabe waves his hands around and says, "Yo, can he grab a shower? He told me he wanted one."
"Travis?" the orderly says. Travis nods.
"Okay, I'm doing checks, but I'll ask Vince to come by and supervise. He'll be by in a minute."
"Oh, come on, dude," Gabe says. "Look at him, he's filthy. Have a heart."
"I've got to do my job too, Gabe," the orderly says wearily. "Five minutes."
"Slime of bureaucracy," Gabe says.
"Yes, Gabe, that's it exactly," says the orderly and goes on to the next room.
"Hey, if you don't want to walk out of there with your cock hanging out, you should grab a change of clothes," Gabe says to Travis. "Or maybe you want to wear what you've got on. I wouldn't, though, if you want my opinion about it. They're getting a little funky. Rick James funky."
Travis realizes that he has no idea where the clothes Pops brought for him are. Gabe must see him looking confused, because he says, "They stuck your shit in the dresser over there. Better check to make sure you have all of it."
Someone comes by with soap and shampoo and towels just as Travis manages to find a clean set of clothes. He says, "You can leave your dirty clothes in the bathroom and we'll throw them in the laundry for you."
Travis thinks if he has to strip off in front of the orderly that he's going to have to reconsider showering, but luckily he just goes to turn the water on and then comes outside, saying, "I'm going to check in on you in about ten minutes." Travis goes in, puts the clean clothes aside and takes off his dirty clothes, dumping them on top of the toilet.
The water isn't as hot as he likes it and the soap has a weird industrial smell, but at least he doesn't feel like he just crawled out of a sewer anymore. He gets out and looks at himself in the mirror. The beard's kind of going Grizzly Adams on him, but he'll save that for another day. He looks for a toothbrush but can't find one, so he just turns on the sink and sucks some water into his mouth, swishing it around and spitting it out. His teeth feel a little better.
"All set?" the orderly asks when Travis emerges, and within five seconds he's gone and swept up the dirty clothes, whipped the sheets off Travis' bed and disappeared.
"He was sneaky," Gabe says. "Thought he'd change the sheets too. Can't turn your back around here." Travis sits on his bare mattress. "Oh, come on. Don't do that. Don't sit there like a hobo. I have granola bars, you should have some."
Travis looks at him. Gabe gestures him over and then starts rattling around under his bed. "Do you like apricots? I had ones with chocolate chips, but they're all gone now. These are pretty good, though." He brings out a box of something that looks organic and extracts a bar.
Travis sits on the edge of Gabe's bed. Gabe breaks the granola in half and passes it to him. "Maybe we can get you a notepad to write shit on. Or flashcards. That'd be cool."
Travis takes a bite and chews slowly. The apricot bits stick to his teeth but otherwise it's okay.
*****
It seems likely that the orderly who's meant to be escorting him to lunch isn't going to show up, and no one else seems to notice. Travis has been standing near the door pondering whether he can actually make the trip by himself (it's not like the food is great, but he's actually hungry for once and it's something to do), but he's not making it. When he actually tries to break going outside the room and down to the dining area into steps, there seems to be about four thousand of them and it's too much.
"I can ask one of them to come by," William says. "There was just a shift change. Someone can get over here."
Gabe says angrily, "By the time they get off their asses, there won't be any food left."
"Gabe -"
"Fuck this," Gabe says, just as Travis is resigning himself to going hungry. "Someone dropped the ball. You can come with me. We'll walk arm in arm and pretend we're on the fuckin' French Riviera."
"That could work," William says. "Travis, do you think that's okay?"
He thinks about it. Gabe's a little excessive, but the buddy system makes things a little less overwhelming, and it's nice to have someone looking out for him. He nods.
"Awesome," Gabe says and hooks his arm with Travis'. "Will, are you coming?"
"In a couple of minutes," William says. "I've got some stuff to do around here." He scrapes his hair back and ties it into a bun.
Gabe strides out with him and walks him down the hall. "I hope they have something decent. Bill says that the meat-eaters get it just as bad as we do, but I think he's just trying to make me feel better. Salad's okay, though. You should have some salad. Is that tabbouleh?" He maneuvers around a guy staring at the salad bar and grabs a serving spoon.
There's an orderly standing by the wall watching Gabe get the plates together. When Gabe finishes she says, "Gabe, you know Travis needs someone to walk him to the dining area."
"Yeah, and it's me," Gabe says. "One of your guys didn't show up. What am I supposed to do, let him starve? If he gets any skinnier he'll disappear. Don't blame me for your staff fuckups."
She looks from him to Travis. Gabe says, "Has he been violent? Has he been a problem? He just needs someone to help him out. I can help him."
She thinks for a minute. "I'll let Dr. Abrams know. But next time, if someone doesn't show up, let us know, okay? Nobody's going to let you go hungry," she tells Travis.
Gabe grunts. He leads Travis to a table. Travis picks up his fork.
"They're okay, really," Gabe says, watching the orderly settle back against the wall. "They're just used to dealing with crazy people. If someone hits them with logic, they fuckin' fall apart. Do you want tea? I just grabbed the juice because it was there. Or is it okay?"
He nods. Gabe looks satisfied and starts picking at his tabbouleh.
The dining area's about half-full. Travis sees William enter, hands in his pockets. When he gets a plate together he goes to an empty table by the far wall and sits down, keeping his eyes on his plate.
"Billvy's got his own thing going on," Gabe says. "Don't take it personally. I like having lunch with you. We should do it again."
*****
Travis guesses that the hospital has some sort of art program, because when William wanders into the room, Gabe says, "What did you make?"
"It's not very good," William says. "I was never an art guy."
"I want to see," Gabe says. "C'mon, let me see."
William lays a piece of paper on the dresser and Gabe snatches it up. "It's a little man," he says. "A little dude wearing a hat."
"It's an armadillo," William says, looking pained.
"Oh. Well, I probably need glasses," Gabe says. "It's good though. What kind of paint is this?"
"Acrylic? I don't know. I think so." William glances at Travis. "Do you - I'm not showing off, I just -"
Travis nods. Gabe passes him the paper. It's already going stiff from the drying paint. Whatever's on the paper looks nothing like an armadillo, but the brushstrokes are very careful and deliberate.
"They were all out of the color I wanted for the sky," William says. "It was blue, but it had some weird name. It sounded Catholic."
"Monastral blue," Travis says.
It startles all of them. William and Gabe stare blankly at him with their mouths open. Travis thinks he probably looks the same way. He hadn't even known he was still capable of speech.
"Dude," Gabe says.
"Travis?" William says carefully. "Did you just…talk?"
"I think so," Travis says. He looks at William's painting. "You've got an indigo sky instead."
"Yeah?" William says.
"Yeah."
"We ought to fuckin' celebrate this occasion," Gabe says. "Although you scared the shit out of me. Give a little warning next time you want to talk, huh?" He smiles.
"Okay," Travis says. He holds out the painting to William. Gabe says, "Hey, I didn't even get to see it hardly. Give it to me."
Travis offers and Gabe snatches it. William sighs tolerantly and slings himself down on his bed just as they come around for checks.
*****
Now that he's talking and moving around, the staff takes more of an interest in him. Every time someone comes to the room for checks, they tell him about when group is or where the gym is located or something. They back off on escorting him through the halls though.
"They want me to see one of the psychiatrists here," he tells Gabe at lunch.
"Which one?" Gabe says. "There are a lot of people who work here. Hard to keep track."
Travis shrugs. "One of them."
"Yeah, one of them," Gabe says and snorts. He pushes his rice around on his plate. Gabe tends to either bolt through his food or ignore it. Travis wonders if that's because the bruise on his face - which is fading but still looks pretty ugly - makes it hard to chew.
"You can always see your own doctor," Gabe says. "My guy comes in like once a week to check to see that I haven't gone nuts in here. It's easier when you can talk to someone you know."
"Oh," Travis says. "Okay."
"Do you have a shrink? Maybe you don't have a shrink. Do you?"
He shakes his head.
"Yeah?" Gabe says. "Well, how'd you wind up in here then?"
"I don't know," Travis says. "Shit happened to me."
"Well, I know what that's like."
It's the first time Gabe's ever referred to how he got into the hospital, and Travis is curious. "How did you get in here?"
"Misunderstanding," Gabe says. "I don't blame anyone for it, you know. Everyone's got a job to do. I just wish I'd known about the security around the observation deck."
"Observation deck?" Travis says.
"Yeah, the one downtown. Big fuckin' office building?"
Something tells Travis that this conversation is about to get out of control. "Yeah."
"It wasn't their fault," Gabe stresses. "They didn't know who I was. Shit wouldn't have gotten out of hand otherwise."
Travis doesn't say anything. Gabe doesn't seem to notice. "See, I realized that God had chosen me, and I had to fulfill that purpose, and I had to do it quickly. But they didn't know that God had chosen me, or they wouldn't have tried to stop me, because they were just doing their jobs, you know? So that's where I failed, but then I realized that maybe it was a test, and really God wanted me to be here. He wanted me to help those who couldn't help themselves."
"Oh," Travis says. Gabe is vibrating and almost incandescent. "You want some ice cream?" Travis asks, because he doesn't know what else to say.
Gabe makes a face. "They only have strawberry left. I don't like strawberry."
"Okay," Travis says.
Gabe can't sit still for the rest of the lunch hour, and he rushes off as soon as people start to leave. Travis makes his way back to the room; he sees Gabe standing by the nurses' station and trying to charm the staff into doing something for him.
William is sitting cross-legged on his bed when Travis comes in. He looks Travis up and down and says, "I bet you just got the Gabe speech. The one about how he's God's messenger?"
"Uh-huh," Travis says. He drops onto his bed. "I asked how he wound up here."
"That'll do it," William says. "He told me the same thing, sort of. I guess he used to be a lot worse. Fighting with the staff and keeping everyone up all night with what he said were recitations from the Torah. He's calmed down since then."
"I didn't know," Travis says.
"Gabe looks a lot stronger than he really is," William says. "I usually just change the subject if he starts talking about it. He didn't scare you, did he?"
Travis shakes his head. William looks like he wants to say something else, but instead he just pushes a hank of hair out of his eyes. Travis can see some ugly-looking stitches running up his wrist, poking out of the sleeve of his shirt.
*****
Travis has an appointment with one of the staff psychiatrists. He comes up to the ward to walk Travis to his office, which Travis is thankful for. Navigating through hallways he doesn't know is daunting.
The psychiatrist's name is Dr. Ok. He asks the usual preliminary questions at first. The last time Travis heard these questions was when he was admitted, and then he had Pops do the heavy lifting for him. He has a feeling that he's not going to be able to get through this on his own, but he can't put together a sentence that would convey that to this doctor. He tries to stick with yes and no, and if he gets asked for details, to keep them as noncommittal as possible. He still freezes up a little when Dr. Ok asks about his mother's drinking and then about the deaths in his family. Luckily he doesn't seem like he's in a hurry to get through this shit.
"Now, you weren't really talking much at all until recently, right?" Dr. Ok asks.
"Nah," Travis says.
"Why do you think that is?"
"I don't know," he says. "Just didn't have anything to talk about."
"Do you think you have more to say now?"
"I don't know."
"You know, up on the unit, they have group meetings every morning. It's good practice, even if you just feel like listening."
Travis shakes his head.
"You don't like that?"
"Not really."
"Why's that?"
"I've got this feeling," Travis says, "that if I look too deep I'll find out that there's nothing left of me."
*****
Gabe sometimes comes and reports if the common room has any new books or board games that can eventually be smuggled into their room. Travis' ears perk up when he wanders in and announces that there's a stack of manga in there. He quizzes Gabe on what titles, but Gabe's attention span doesn't reach that far. He wanders off before Travis can get any definitive answers.
"I can go check for you," William tells him. "Or…maybe you'd like to come with me? We can go slowly."
Travis isn't sure if he's offering out of sympathy or because he actually wants Travis' company. Both Gabe and William seem to know that he needs a push to get him started, that it's easier for him when he's got someone leading the way. So he nods and says, "Yeah, thanks," and William smiles brightly at him. He follows William to the door.
One of the patients in the next room starts yelling, a rush of frantic noise that doesn't make sense, and there's a rush from around the nurses' station. Orderlies start flying by the doorway just as William steps outside. Travis says, "Hey, careful," and grabs William's shoulder so he doesn't get knocked over.
William goes white to the lips. Travis thinks it's because of the noise - the woman next door keeps screaming and the orderlies are shouting at her - but then William twitches Travis' hand off his shoulder. For a second he looks like he's going to keep going, haul ass down the hallway, but then he scuttles back into the room and folds himself up on his bed.
Travis has no idea what just happened. It's something he did, but he doesn't know what. William is shaking and trying, unsuccessfully, to talk to him; he can't get his breath and the words are garbled.
"I'll get someone," Travis says, because he knows there must be people at the nurses' station, people with access to meds, people who know what they're doing. William shakes his head no, no, no, and Travis wants to do something reassuring but touching William is probably a horrible idea, so he goes and sits at the foot of William's bed while he calms down.
Travis thinks that someone will at least come around for checks and see that William needs help, but whatever's happening next door takes precedence. William presses the heels of his hands against his eyes and says, "I'm sorry."
Travis doesn't say anything.
"It's not your fault," William says. "I - this is going to sound crazy."
Travis looks around at the walls.
William laughs and it sounds jittery and hysterical. "Well, I guess it would have to. You ever play that game when you're a kid, where you need to walk on the dining room chairs because the floor is lava?"
He nods. "Well, that's me," William says. "I'm the lava."
It makes sense, in retrospect. He'd sort of thought that William's aloofness was protection against the rest of them; it hadn't occurred to him that William might have been trying to protect everyone else, instead.
"I know I should have said something," William says. "I just - it's embarrassing. And I fucked up your comic books. I really wanted to help."
"Another time?" Travis says.
"Yeah, okay."
He says, because he feels like he has to, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to freak you out."
"Don't blame yourself for my OCD," William says. "Ask Gabe to tell you how many times I started hyperventilating because he got touchy with me. The man is an inveterate poker."
"Yeah," Travis says. "You sure you don't want me to get someone?"
William shakes his head. "I'm supposed to be getting better. My therapist comes in all the time to do exposures with me. I can't afford for her to think that I'm backsliding. I'll never get out of here."
"Okay," Travis says. If he sounds unsure, William doesn't say anything about it.
*****
He gets a call from Pops asking if he can come up for visiting day. It's the first time he's talked to his father since he was admitted. He knows he's got an obligation to act like a good son, especially considering where he is, so he says okay. Pops asks if he needs anything and he tells him no.
When he sees Dr. Ok that afternoon, he asks if Travis is worried about having a conversation about what happened. Which is a damn joke, because if he knows his father the only way they'll ever talk about what happened is if they both get shit-faced drunk and Travis initiates the conversation, which he won't and which is exactly how it should be. He doesn't think Dr. Ok will understand that, though, so he just says no.
William is freaking out, quietly. He spends the evening before visiting day chewing on his fingernails and straightening things that don't need to be straightened. In group he'd said that his rituals sometimes came back at weird times, usually when they were absolutely unneeded.
Out of all of them, Gabe is the only one who seems to be all right with the idea of visiting day. He's been on the phone for half an hour reading from his list of things that he wants his housemate to bring to the hospital. Occasionally he picks his head up and demands to know what Travis and William want.
"I want a cheesesteak," William says finally.
"Oh, fuck off. I'm not having my friend drive ninety minutes so you can eat a poor murdered cow. Yo," he says into the phone receiver, "you know what else I need? Pita chips. The cinnamon and sugar ones. Yeah, those." He spends another ten minutes throwing out alternate products and generally being bossy, and then he hangs up and looks around the room, smiling brightly.
On visiting day, Travis is coming back from the common room when he meets Gabe's housemate. Pops isn't coming for another forty minutes and he was hoping he could either watch TV or read until he got there. That doesn't happen.
"Travie, this is Pete," Gabe tells him. "He brought me a whole bunch of shit."
Gabe's housemate is tiny. He looks Travis up and down and smiles. He starts to stick his hand out, but then pulls it back.
Gabe nudges him. "Pete, this is Travis. William's my other roommate."
"Ohhh," Pete says, and puts his hand out for Travis to shake. "I'm still keeping track of who's who. Hey. Wow, dude, you're tall."
"No, you're just short," Gabe says.
"Oh, right."
"Is your dad here yet?" Gabe asks. "I can put aside some crackers or something if you want anything to eat."
"Not yet," Travis says. The orderlies start coming around with meds.
"We're blocking traffic here," Gabe says. "Pete, wanna see the art therapy room?"
"Wouldn't miss it," Pete says. "It was nice to meet you, Travis." Travis smiles and nods.
Pops shows up eventually and they go for a walk in the enclosed garden at the back of the hospital (Travis' grounds privileges are limited, but at least they're not stuck staring at each other in the common room). On the way there they pass William and two people who Travis thinks are William's mother and stepfather. His mother is smiling determinedly and his stepfather looks concerned. William is standing apart from them. Travis waves and William waves back, but they don't stop to chat.
Pops tells him about work and his latest girlfriend and they very deliberately avoid the subject of what happened. The only time they come close is when Pops asks, "Has your mother been up to see you?"
"She's not going to come," Travis says. "It's not her kind of place."
Pops considers that very carefully before he says, "I guess not. She's…not doing so great," which probably means that she's drinking again, and it's not what Travis wants to hear but he can't do anything about it.
At the end of the visit Pops says, "Well, tell me if you need anything," and for a second it feels like something important is going to happen, but then it passes. So Travis says goodbye and then he goes back to the room and stuffs his face into his pillow.
He spends some time lying there by himself. Eventually William comes back into the room and stuffs his own face into his own pillow. Travis doesn't say anything for a while.
"Not great?" he asks finally.
"No," William says. "It was okay until they were going to leave and my mom started crying. My stepdad got mad at me because Mom was crying, so she got mad at him because he was mad at me, and then I thought it was best that I leave."
"Shit," Travis says.
"I agree."
They spend a little time staring at the walls until Gabe gets back from distributing his food all over the ward, takes one look at both of them and says, "So, visiting day sucked?"
"Yeah," William and Travis say.
"Shit," Gabe says.
*****
"I think they're going to let me out of here soon," Gabe tells him when they're playing poker in the common room. Gabe's better at cards than he is but it's not like they're playing with actual money.
"That's cool," Travis says. "Have they told you when?"
Gabe shakes his head. "My shrink's been talking about setting up an aftercare program lately, which means I'm not going to be here much longer. Plus I think I'm better. Do you think I'm better?"
"You haven't been as much of a jackass in group."
"Oh, come on, I wasn't that bad."
"You're lucky you didn't wind up getting thrown into isolation."
"Nah, they wouldn't have done that," Gabe says. "I get even more obnoxious when I'm by myself. "
"Damn."
"You wouldn't believe it, but it's true. Have they talked to you about you getting out?"
Dr. Ok had asked how he wanted to spend his time once he got released. Travis has a feeling that his insurance is probably making noise about how much time he's spent in here. "A little."
"Got any plans?"
"Don't know," Travis says. "I never thought about the future much. Waking up in the morning and thinking this shit again was as far as I got. Hard to start over from that."
Gabe gives him a look, which probably means that he was listening. Gabe listens a lot more now that they've got his meds stabilized. He nudges Travis' foot with his and says, "I raise."
Part 2
Pairings: Vague permutations of Gabe and William and Travis.
Rating: Suitable for those over the age of sixteen.
Warnings: Graphically described suicidal ideation and suicide attempt, reference to past suicide attempts, mental illness, drug use, ableist language.
Note: Thanks to romanticalgirl for editing and suggestions. Also thanks to the moderators and to hc_bingo for allowing me to use this story as a fill for the suicide attempt square on my card.
Summary: Psychiatric hospital AU. Travis' only hope is to reach out to the two people who are just as damaged as he is.
Travis measures his time by pill dosage. He has Adderall and Xanax to start the morning, Dexedrine for the afternoon, more Xanax to counteract the stimulants as needed, and at the end of the day there's Seconal to help him get to sleep. His whole life is a carefully orchestrated chemical balance.
Just keeping himself in a state of equilibrium is exhausting. He goes through the day like he's made of glass, trying to guard against any stray shock, and by the time he gets home he's too tired to sleep or eat. It's all he can do to make sure the dog gets fed and walked.
The other guys at work think that he just likes to keep to himself, or maybe that he's a snob or something. Really, except for Matt, nobody knows him that well. Matt is the exception, but they've known each other since high school. Matt might have his suspicions about Travis, but he's got a girlfriend and a baby and their lives don't intersect as much as they once did.
Every morning when his alarm goes off, it just means another day of the same shit.
*****
He's thought about doing it, off and on, since he was fifteen. The only thing that stopped him was that he wanted to do it right. He's been to enough funerals to know how it hurts to lose someone at first. He knows how hard it is to deal with what's left behind. When his cousin passed it took months to sort through his shit and deal with the creditors.
He's a lot more organized than Isaiah was, though. He's got an apartment, a dog, about a thousand canvases in varying degrees of completion. The apartment's a rental, so after he's gone the landlord can just put it right back on the market without much fuss. His family can divide up the paintings; the quantity of canvases makes it less likely that people will fight over them. The dog is the one thing he's worried about.
He doesn't want to die without making sure that someone's out there to look after Stitch. If he thinks about Stitch going to some kill shelter where he gets locked up and never played with, his throat starts to close up. For a while, the thought of what would happen to Stitch was the only thing that kept him going.
Finally he realizes that he's been overthinking things. Stitch is good with kids; he's been letting Zooey drool on him since the day she was born. There's no way that Matt would let anyone take the dog away, not when he knows how much Stitch means to Travis.
After that, everything falls into place.
*****
On Friday, he finishes up the project and sends the files over to the art director. She looks them over and tells him that the client will be pleased with what he's done. She says, "You can relax now that this is finished."
After work, he goes to the store and picks up dog food and booze. He goes back to the apartment, puts everything in its place, and then takes Stitch for a walk. He stays out for a long time and lets Stitch sniff every single lamp post.
He puts the spare key under the welcome mat when he gets back. He brings Stitch back up to the apartment and puts him in the bathroom with some food and water and his favorite chew toy, the monkey one. He sits on the edge of the shower, watching Stitch get settled, and tells him how things are going to be better, next time around it'll be better, and then he has to leave because he's getting sentimental and that's dangerous. He doesn't want to talk himself out of this.
He goes out to the couch. He picks up his phone and texts Matt, Pick up Stitch when you get a chance. Keys in the reg place. He turns off the phone and puts it on the table, opens the Scotch and takes a swig. It burns his throat for a second and tears come to his eyes, but then it goes away. He uncaps the Seconal.
His first thought is that he can just throw them all back and swallow them like TicTacs, but he doesn't really want to think about actually holding the pills in his hand and choking them back. Instead he taps three into his palm and sends them down on a wave of Scotch. He likes this better; there's a mindless repetition that makes it easy to focus. He taps, swigs, swallows and taps again.
He's got a good month's supply to pick from, but he thinks he'll be good if he even gets through half that much. He's just going to go until he starts to get drowsy, and then he'll fall asleep and that will be the end of it.
It seems to take a long time, but finally his eyes start getting heavy. He puts the bottle on the floor and lies down. He closes his eyes and doesn't think.
The couch starts to spin while he's hovering on the edge of sleep. He rolls over heavily onto his side, but the couch just spins faster. He realizes he's fucked something up when his stomach starts to lurch. He should have tried to eat something before he started this, maybe, but he didn't and now he's going to be very sick real soon.
He can't go into the bathroom because Stitch is in there, and he's too fucked up to even try to make it to the kitchen sink. He manages to grab the wastebasket right before he starts retching, and somewhere in the part of his brain that's still detached from what's going on, he's thinking, Well, this is a hell of a thing.
The pills clink when they hit the bottom of the metal wastebasket. His vision is hazy but he can still see an ugly slurry of bile and blood and Seconal coating the sides, pills that hadn't even gotten a chance to start dissolving before he lost them, and he thinks, Fuck, I needed those.
The dry heaves have barely started when he realizes that he's going to pass out. He pushes the wastebasket aside and prays it stays upright because that's going to be a bitch to clean up. He tries to get back to the couch but his legs won't work right. He rises halfway to his knees and then pitches forward onto the floor, head landing in the crook of his arm before the world goes dark.
*****
There's something in his nose. He smells plastic and sanitizer, and his throat feels raw. He tries to swat at whatever's in his nose, and then he hears the rustle of his elbow on bedsheets and his stomach twists. He keeps his eyes closed, because he doesn't want to open them and have things be confirmed, he just wants to keep them shut and pretend.
"Travis," he hears his father say.
He can't deny it any longer, so he opens his eyes. Pops is sitting across from him. His eyes are red and his hands grip the edge of Travis' hospital bed tightly.
Travis thinks, You fucking asshole, you don't even know how to kill yourself right.
"Matt called the ambulance," his father says. His voice is low and controlled, and Travis doesn't know what's running behind it. He doesn't say anything.
"Travis," his father says again. Travis looks at him. "They said if they'd hadn't gotten there when they did, you'd be on life support now. Did you think, after what happened to your cousin -" He cuts himself off.
Of course Matt called an ambulance. That was where Travis fucked up, texting instead of just emailing him at work. Because even when they don't cross paths as much, Matt knows him inside and out. Of course Travis hadn't thought about that because he's a fucking failure.
"Matt's got the dog," Pops says, back to controlled again. "He'll look after him. And…your mom and I think you should stay somewhere for a while."
Travis gets it. Someone told Pops that he's crazy and that's why Pops isn't ripping him a new one right now. Because you can't get angry at unpredictable crazy people unless they're thoroughly restrained.
"The company put you on medical leave," Pops says. "We'll find somewhere that can help you."
Travis doesn't answer. He's tired and he just doesn't give a shit.
"Travis."
"Fine," Travis says, and turns his face to the wall.
*****
The protocol for transportation, when moving from intensive care to a nice cushy psychiatric lockdown unit, is an ambulance ride. Pops comes with him, bringing along some of Travis' clothes and a bunch of insurance papers. The driver says, when they're sitting among the defibrillators and oxygen masks, "Nice day for a ride, isn't it?"
Pops stares at him. The driver mumbles something and looks back at the road.
Travis' bones hurt. He's been flooded with saline and activated charcoal and it wiped out his chemical equilibrium. The hospital kept giving him the Adderall and they decided to stick him on Lexapro for the hell of it, but they showed a massive lack of consideration for his carefully orchestrated mix of uppers and downers and benzos, and he's feeling the loss.
The ambulance comes to a stop. After a minute the driver comes and opens the back to let them get out. Travis sees red brick and a gravel walkway and some trees and figures that's going to be his last look at the outside world. He follows his father into Admitting.
They start asking questions in the office and Travis freezes over the paperwork. He knows what they want. They're asking him to dredge up all the pieces of his past that brought him here, to offer an orderly explanation of what happened, but he hasn't got one. They try to prompt him into laying everything out, but he doesn't know what to say.
The third time they ask and he's unable to answer, they turn things over to his father. Somehow Pops is able to give them a fairly cohesive account. Travis nods when Pops looks at him for confirmation.
Pops hugs him before they take him away, after all the papers are signed. He promises to visit, to tell Travis' mom to come by. Travis has a feeling that his mother's horror of hospitals makes the request kind of useless, but he nods. He thinks Pops is waiting to leave so he can cry.
They bring him into a room where they make him take his clothes off so they can search him for any suicide-friendly items; his sneakers get confiscated because the laces look iffy. All the walls seem to be the exact same shade of blue-gray. They're telling him about visiting hours and where the smoking area is, and he keeps staring at the walls, flat latex paint cracking at the corners, and it's all he can do to put his clothes back on and nod at them until they stop talking.
They bring him to the unit where he's going to be staying. The orderly says, "It's quiet right now because group's going on, but you'll meet everyone soon enough," before punching in the code to unlock the doors.
Travis manages to register the hallways, the nurses' station and a central area with a TV, but that's about all he can process. His room is large and artificially bright, with three beds and a bathroom. He holds himself upright while they wind down the spiel, which finishes with the orderly saying that someone will be by to check on him in half an hour, and then it's over.
He falls asleep on top of the bedcovers.
*****
Things keep happening to him. His whole body hurts, and the door to the room keeps opening and closing. He gets pills in a paper cup and swallows them. Sometimes he hears someone who sounds like a doctor saying things like intravenous and nasogastric and sometimes there are two different people, but they mostly just mumble over him. He can't understand what they're saying so he doesn't care who they are or if they're real.
He wakes up to an orderly standing over the bed and calling his name. The throbbing in his bones has slowed to a dull ache, and he's able to keep his eyes open for a while.
The orderly says, "Travis, my name is David and I'm here to take you to lunch."
Travis doesn't say anything. David doesn't seem to notice. "It's mostly voluntary here, unless you don't eat. Then what happens is we transfer you to Medical and you eat through a tube in your nose, which I promise you is not nice."
He doesn't think he can go through another round of everyone's explanations and procedures. He nods and unpeels himself from his sheets.
It takes five minutes to get out of bed. He gets dizzy when he stands up all the way and David has to guide him out into the hall. There are some people milling around, but they're mostly either staring into space or talking to themselves and they don't pay him any mind.
By the time he gets into a chair in the dining area, he's sweaty and exhausted. Eating seems like more of a hassle than it's worth, but he doesn't have the will to protest. He gets through a plate of something and David says, "Now, isn't that better?"
Travis stares at the table. David just keeps talking. "So, feel like watching TV? Maybe another day."
David guides him back to the room and then leaves after telling him that someone will be by to take him to dinner. Travis lies back down. The food feels heavy in the pit of his stomach. It just serves as another reminder that he's still alive.
*****
"I still think he's dead," someone says.
"I saw him in the dining room yesterday. He was eating toast. He's not dead."
Travis sort of recognizes the voices; they're the ones who've been murmuring over him. They sound a little clearer today. One of them has a soft Midwestern voice and the other one has a mix of New Jersey and some sort of faded Latin accent.
"Might be a zombie," the Latin one says. "People can make zombies. His lashes are really fuckin' long. They look like spiders. Spiders on his eyelids."
"Gabe, leave him alone. You keep encroaching on him," Midwest says.
"I'm not. He's got a tattoo on his neck. There's more than one."
"If you get in his personal space and they catch you, you'll get written up."
"Checks aren't for another ten minutes," Latin says. "He moved!"
"Gabe. If you want to watch Broadwalk Empire tonight, you need to go reserve the television so you don't lose your spot."
"Shit," Latin says, and there's a rush of air on Travis' face from the departure. Midwest doesn't say anything else, though Travis can feel himself being considered. Eventually he hears book pages being turned, very slowly, but the attention doesn't waver.
*****
He takes more pills. Sometimes an orderly comes and walks him to the dining area where he eats things he doesn't taste. Midwest and Latin talk in the night, sometimes to him and sometimes to each other.
"Hey, big dude," Latin says. "We're going to group. You should come with us."
Travis doesn't know what he's talking about. Latin says, "Hey, it's cool. I'm not a doctor, so you can listen to me. You're starting to grow mold there." There's a rustling noise and Travis feels breath on his face. "Hello?"
"Gabe, don't bother him," Midwest says from somewhere in the corner.
"I'm not. I'm just looking. Big dude?" A finger taps rapidly on Travis' shoulder. "You still alive?"
"Don't poke him," says Midwest sharply. "That's awful. Stop it."
"Oh," Latin says. The tapping turns to patting. "I'm sorry. I forgot."
"Gabe. You're doing it again. You need to get out of people's personal space, shit."
"Sorry, sorry, sorry," Latin says in Travis' ear, and there's the sound of denim scraping on linoleum. "Sorry, Billvy."
"Forget about it," Midwest says. "You go ahead and I'll see you there, okay?"
"Okay."
There's silence for a while. Then Travis hears Midwest telling him, "You're never going to get out of here if you don't cooperate with them."
*****
Latin is named Gabe, and Midwest is probably named William; Travis isn't too sure because Gabe calls him a thousand different things almost interchangeably: Billvy, Bill, William, Will. Travis doesn't know why either of them is interested in him.
Gabe likes to plant himself fairly close to Travis' bed and talk at considerable speed before his attention span runs out and he wanders off. William's a little more awkward but he still comes over and asks concerned questions - if Travis is warm enough or if he wants a glass of water. Travis isn't used to being fussed over.
Travis wants to just keep his eyes shut forever. But then Gabe thumps down next to his head and sings, "'Our favorite patient, display impatience, disease-covered Puget Sound,'" and it's loud and close enough that Travis turns and opens his eyes.
Gabe doesn't look like Travis expected. He's got an ugly-looking bruise that covers the right side of his face in greens and yellows and blues. They stare at each other.
"Bill!" Gabe says. "Billvy! He looked at me! I saw him!"
"What?" William says from the corner of the room. He's sitting cross-legged on his bed, scribbling in a notebook.
"I brought him back," Gabe says. "I brought you back." His face is very close to Travis and his eyes are very big.
Travis manages to gain some space by squirming backward and propping his back against the wall, just as William stands up and looks at him. He's got shaggy brown hair that needs to be cut. He says, "Oh."
"I brought him back!" Gabe says. "I brought him back from the dead."
"Gabe, move back. Give him some space."
"It's all about energy," Gabe says. "Energy flows through my body and -"
"Or maybe you just annoyed him so much that he had to get away," William says tartly. He edges around the bed, examining Travis while still keeping his distance. "He's freaked out. Look at him."
Gabe's eyes flash. He scratches his neck agitatedly but gets up and sits on his own bed. Travis rolls onto his stomach and rests his chin in the crook of his arm, watching. He catches a whiff of himself when he moves his arm; he smells like old sweat and dirty clothes.
William says, peering out from behind his hair, "Hello. I'm William. What's your name?"
He isn't sure if he can answer or not. He tries to open his mouth and say his name but his throat closes on him and all he can manage is a croak.
"Don't sweat it," Gabe says, abruptly coming out of his sulk. "Everyone talks too much anyway. I'm Gabe. We're all roomies."
Travis takes a closer look at the room. The walls are beige, and the beds, also beige, are set up against them. There's one narrow window showing a little scrap of sky. There's a desk with a phone against the far wall.
"We lucked out and got that," Gabe says when he sees Travis looking. "Most places don't let you have a phone. They think the crazies are going to call all their friends to bust them out."
"When's Dr. Hartmann coming again, Gabe?" William says.
"I don't know, what time's it now? Hey, maybe I'll get to go for a walk. I can't stay inside forever. Maybe when you're up to it we can go outside," he says to Travis. "There are birds and shit outside."
"How about you cross that road when you come to it?" William says.
"Okay," Gabe says. "I should go out and wait for him. He's coming in like five minutes. Then I'll get him to take me outside." He springs up and then he's out the door.
"He means well, really," William says to Travis. "He's just…it can be a little much at first. It's good to see you up, though. Do you need some time to yourself?"
The way they've been talking, he's had nothing but time to himself since he got here, but still, being awake is really fucking tiring. He nods.
"Okay," William says. He drops back onto his bed and reaches for the notebook. His sleeve slips down as he picks it up; there's a gauze bandage wrapped around his wrist. "We're not going anywhere."
*****
He wants to talk but he can't. He doesn't know if it's because he's been sleeping twenty hours a day and that fucked him up, or if his brain just decided it'd had enough of speech and shut down. It would be fine if he didn't have to deal with anyone else, but he's got the staff in his face and he has no idea what to do with them.
It seems like it should be easy enough to say, "No, vegetarian," when they stick a plate of chicken in front of him in the dining area, but nothing comes out when he opens his mouth, and it's easier to just go hungry. The staff move around like they know what they're doing, quick and official, and it leaves him out of the loop.
Eventually he realizes that he smells. He hasn't showered or shaved in he doesn't know how long, and the smell of his own body is getting gross. He has no idea what to do. When William or Gabe shower, they get one of the staff to turn on the water and then stand by the bathroom door, probably to keep an eye on things. He doesn't know how he's going to manage to do that. It seems like too many steps to take.
He stands in the middle of the room, rubbing his fingers over the back of his sticky neck, trying to figure out where to go next, and then Gabe bustles into the room, whistling. "Hey," he says. "How's it going? Did Billvy go see his shrink?"
William left ten minutes ago with a woman carrying an official-looking notepad. Travis shrugs.
"I never know when she's coming," Gabe complains. "She's hot. I could get with her. What's the matter with you, anyway?"
It's embarrassing, but the only thing he can rely on at the moment is charades. He makes scrubbing motions over his chest.
"Need the shower?" Gabe asks. Travis nods. "I'll ask for you when they come around in a couple minutes. Think you can hang on that long?"
He shrugs. He makes shaving motions. Gabe says, "Shaving's a pain in the ass. They need to haul out the fuckin' cart, you know, and there's a thing with gloves and shit. But if you really want it, I'll let them know."
It sounds like too much hassle. He shakes his head. Gabe says, "Good choice. I'd grow a mustache if I could get away with it but it makes me look creepy. Why are mustaches always creepy? That's fucked up."
One of the orderlies stops by the door, saying, "Checks." Gabe waves his hands around and says, "Yo, can he grab a shower? He told me he wanted one."
"Travis?" the orderly says. Travis nods.
"Okay, I'm doing checks, but I'll ask Vince to come by and supervise. He'll be by in a minute."
"Oh, come on, dude," Gabe says. "Look at him, he's filthy. Have a heart."
"I've got to do my job too, Gabe," the orderly says wearily. "Five minutes."
"Slime of bureaucracy," Gabe says.
"Yes, Gabe, that's it exactly," says the orderly and goes on to the next room.
"Hey, if you don't want to walk out of there with your cock hanging out, you should grab a change of clothes," Gabe says to Travis. "Or maybe you want to wear what you've got on. I wouldn't, though, if you want my opinion about it. They're getting a little funky. Rick James funky."
Travis realizes that he has no idea where the clothes Pops brought for him are. Gabe must see him looking confused, because he says, "They stuck your shit in the dresser over there. Better check to make sure you have all of it."
Someone comes by with soap and shampoo and towels just as Travis manages to find a clean set of clothes. He says, "You can leave your dirty clothes in the bathroom and we'll throw them in the laundry for you."
Travis thinks if he has to strip off in front of the orderly that he's going to have to reconsider showering, but luckily he just goes to turn the water on and then comes outside, saying, "I'm going to check in on you in about ten minutes." Travis goes in, puts the clean clothes aside and takes off his dirty clothes, dumping them on top of the toilet.
The water isn't as hot as he likes it and the soap has a weird industrial smell, but at least he doesn't feel like he just crawled out of a sewer anymore. He gets out and looks at himself in the mirror. The beard's kind of going Grizzly Adams on him, but he'll save that for another day. He looks for a toothbrush but can't find one, so he just turns on the sink and sucks some water into his mouth, swishing it around and spitting it out. His teeth feel a little better.
"All set?" the orderly asks when Travis emerges, and within five seconds he's gone and swept up the dirty clothes, whipped the sheets off Travis' bed and disappeared.
"He was sneaky," Gabe says. "Thought he'd change the sheets too. Can't turn your back around here." Travis sits on his bare mattress. "Oh, come on. Don't do that. Don't sit there like a hobo. I have granola bars, you should have some."
Travis looks at him. Gabe gestures him over and then starts rattling around under his bed. "Do you like apricots? I had ones with chocolate chips, but they're all gone now. These are pretty good, though." He brings out a box of something that looks organic and extracts a bar.
Travis sits on the edge of Gabe's bed. Gabe breaks the granola in half and passes it to him. "Maybe we can get you a notepad to write shit on. Or flashcards. That'd be cool."
Travis takes a bite and chews slowly. The apricot bits stick to his teeth but otherwise it's okay.
*****
It seems likely that the orderly who's meant to be escorting him to lunch isn't going to show up, and no one else seems to notice. Travis has been standing near the door pondering whether he can actually make the trip by himself (it's not like the food is great, but he's actually hungry for once and it's something to do), but he's not making it. When he actually tries to break going outside the room and down to the dining area into steps, there seems to be about four thousand of them and it's too much.
"I can ask one of them to come by," William says. "There was just a shift change. Someone can get over here."
Gabe says angrily, "By the time they get off their asses, there won't be any food left."
"Gabe -"
"Fuck this," Gabe says, just as Travis is resigning himself to going hungry. "Someone dropped the ball. You can come with me. We'll walk arm in arm and pretend we're on the fuckin' French Riviera."
"That could work," William says. "Travis, do you think that's okay?"
He thinks about it. Gabe's a little excessive, but the buddy system makes things a little less overwhelming, and it's nice to have someone looking out for him. He nods.
"Awesome," Gabe says and hooks his arm with Travis'. "Will, are you coming?"
"In a couple of minutes," William says. "I've got some stuff to do around here." He scrapes his hair back and ties it into a bun.
Gabe strides out with him and walks him down the hall. "I hope they have something decent. Bill says that the meat-eaters get it just as bad as we do, but I think he's just trying to make me feel better. Salad's okay, though. You should have some salad. Is that tabbouleh?" He maneuvers around a guy staring at the salad bar and grabs a serving spoon.
There's an orderly standing by the wall watching Gabe get the plates together. When Gabe finishes she says, "Gabe, you know Travis needs someone to walk him to the dining area."
"Yeah, and it's me," Gabe says. "One of your guys didn't show up. What am I supposed to do, let him starve? If he gets any skinnier he'll disappear. Don't blame me for your staff fuckups."
She looks from him to Travis. Gabe says, "Has he been violent? Has he been a problem? He just needs someone to help him out. I can help him."
She thinks for a minute. "I'll let Dr. Abrams know. But next time, if someone doesn't show up, let us know, okay? Nobody's going to let you go hungry," she tells Travis.
Gabe grunts. He leads Travis to a table. Travis picks up his fork.
"They're okay, really," Gabe says, watching the orderly settle back against the wall. "They're just used to dealing with crazy people. If someone hits them with logic, they fuckin' fall apart. Do you want tea? I just grabbed the juice because it was there. Or is it okay?"
He nods. Gabe looks satisfied and starts picking at his tabbouleh.
The dining area's about half-full. Travis sees William enter, hands in his pockets. When he gets a plate together he goes to an empty table by the far wall and sits down, keeping his eyes on his plate.
"Billvy's got his own thing going on," Gabe says. "Don't take it personally. I like having lunch with you. We should do it again."
*****
Travis guesses that the hospital has some sort of art program, because when William wanders into the room, Gabe says, "What did you make?"
"It's not very good," William says. "I was never an art guy."
"I want to see," Gabe says. "C'mon, let me see."
William lays a piece of paper on the dresser and Gabe snatches it up. "It's a little man," he says. "A little dude wearing a hat."
"It's an armadillo," William says, looking pained.
"Oh. Well, I probably need glasses," Gabe says. "It's good though. What kind of paint is this?"
"Acrylic? I don't know. I think so." William glances at Travis. "Do you - I'm not showing off, I just -"
Travis nods. Gabe passes him the paper. It's already going stiff from the drying paint. Whatever's on the paper looks nothing like an armadillo, but the brushstrokes are very careful and deliberate.
"They were all out of the color I wanted for the sky," William says. "It was blue, but it had some weird name. It sounded Catholic."
"Monastral blue," Travis says.
It startles all of them. William and Gabe stare blankly at him with their mouths open. Travis thinks he probably looks the same way. He hadn't even known he was still capable of speech.
"Dude," Gabe says.
"Travis?" William says carefully. "Did you just…talk?"
"I think so," Travis says. He looks at William's painting. "You've got an indigo sky instead."
"Yeah?" William says.
"Yeah."
"We ought to fuckin' celebrate this occasion," Gabe says. "Although you scared the shit out of me. Give a little warning next time you want to talk, huh?" He smiles.
"Okay," Travis says. He holds out the painting to William. Gabe says, "Hey, I didn't even get to see it hardly. Give it to me."
Travis offers and Gabe snatches it. William sighs tolerantly and slings himself down on his bed just as they come around for checks.
*****
Now that he's talking and moving around, the staff takes more of an interest in him. Every time someone comes to the room for checks, they tell him about when group is or where the gym is located or something. They back off on escorting him through the halls though.
"They want me to see one of the psychiatrists here," he tells Gabe at lunch.
"Which one?" Gabe says. "There are a lot of people who work here. Hard to keep track."
Travis shrugs. "One of them."
"Yeah, one of them," Gabe says and snorts. He pushes his rice around on his plate. Gabe tends to either bolt through his food or ignore it. Travis wonders if that's because the bruise on his face - which is fading but still looks pretty ugly - makes it hard to chew.
"You can always see your own doctor," Gabe says. "My guy comes in like once a week to check to see that I haven't gone nuts in here. It's easier when you can talk to someone you know."
"Oh," Travis says. "Okay."
"Do you have a shrink? Maybe you don't have a shrink. Do you?"
He shakes his head.
"Yeah?" Gabe says. "Well, how'd you wind up in here then?"
"I don't know," Travis says. "Shit happened to me."
"Well, I know what that's like."
It's the first time Gabe's ever referred to how he got into the hospital, and Travis is curious. "How did you get in here?"
"Misunderstanding," Gabe says. "I don't blame anyone for it, you know. Everyone's got a job to do. I just wish I'd known about the security around the observation deck."
"Observation deck?" Travis says.
"Yeah, the one downtown. Big fuckin' office building?"
Something tells Travis that this conversation is about to get out of control. "Yeah."
"It wasn't their fault," Gabe stresses. "They didn't know who I was. Shit wouldn't have gotten out of hand otherwise."
Travis doesn't say anything. Gabe doesn't seem to notice. "See, I realized that God had chosen me, and I had to fulfill that purpose, and I had to do it quickly. But they didn't know that God had chosen me, or they wouldn't have tried to stop me, because they were just doing their jobs, you know? So that's where I failed, but then I realized that maybe it was a test, and really God wanted me to be here. He wanted me to help those who couldn't help themselves."
"Oh," Travis says. Gabe is vibrating and almost incandescent. "You want some ice cream?" Travis asks, because he doesn't know what else to say.
Gabe makes a face. "They only have strawberry left. I don't like strawberry."
"Okay," Travis says.
Gabe can't sit still for the rest of the lunch hour, and he rushes off as soon as people start to leave. Travis makes his way back to the room; he sees Gabe standing by the nurses' station and trying to charm the staff into doing something for him.
William is sitting cross-legged on his bed when Travis comes in. He looks Travis up and down and says, "I bet you just got the Gabe speech. The one about how he's God's messenger?"
"Uh-huh," Travis says. He drops onto his bed. "I asked how he wound up here."
"That'll do it," William says. "He told me the same thing, sort of. I guess he used to be a lot worse. Fighting with the staff and keeping everyone up all night with what he said were recitations from the Torah. He's calmed down since then."
"I didn't know," Travis says.
"Gabe looks a lot stronger than he really is," William says. "I usually just change the subject if he starts talking about it. He didn't scare you, did he?"
Travis shakes his head. William looks like he wants to say something else, but instead he just pushes a hank of hair out of his eyes. Travis can see some ugly-looking stitches running up his wrist, poking out of the sleeve of his shirt.
*****
Travis has an appointment with one of the staff psychiatrists. He comes up to the ward to walk Travis to his office, which Travis is thankful for. Navigating through hallways he doesn't know is daunting.
The psychiatrist's name is Dr. Ok. He asks the usual preliminary questions at first. The last time Travis heard these questions was when he was admitted, and then he had Pops do the heavy lifting for him. He has a feeling that he's not going to be able to get through this on his own, but he can't put together a sentence that would convey that to this doctor. He tries to stick with yes and no, and if he gets asked for details, to keep them as noncommittal as possible. He still freezes up a little when Dr. Ok asks about his mother's drinking and then about the deaths in his family. Luckily he doesn't seem like he's in a hurry to get through this shit.
"Now, you weren't really talking much at all until recently, right?" Dr. Ok asks.
"Nah," Travis says.
"Why do you think that is?"
"I don't know," he says. "Just didn't have anything to talk about."
"Do you think you have more to say now?"
"I don't know."
"You know, up on the unit, they have group meetings every morning. It's good practice, even if you just feel like listening."
Travis shakes his head.
"You don't like that?"
"Not really."
"Why's that?"
"I've got this feeling," Travis says, "that if I look too deep I'll find out that there's nothing left of me."
*****
Gabe sometimes comes and reports if the common room has any new books or board games that can eventually be smuggled into their room. Travis' ears perk up when he wanders in and announces that there's a stack of manga in there. He quizzes Gabe on what titles, but Gabe's attention span doesn't reach that far. He wanders off before Travis can get any definitive answers.
"I can go check for you," William tells him. "Or…maybe you'd like to come with me? We can go slowly."
Travis isn't sure if he's offering out of sympathy or because he actually wants Travis' company. Both Gabe and William seem to know that he needs a push to get him started, that it's easier for him when he's got someone leading the way. So he nods and says, "Yeah, thanks," and William smiles brightly at him. He follows William to the door.
One of the patients in the next room starts yelling, a rush of frantic noise that doesn't make sense, and there's a rush from around the nurses' station. Orderlies start flying by the doorway just as William steps outside. Travis says, "Hey, careful," and grabs William's shoulder so he doesn't get knocked over.
William goes white to the lips. Travis thinks it's because of the noise - the woman next door keeps screaming and the orderlies are shouting at her - but then William twitches Travis' hand off his shoulder. For a second he looks like he's going to keep going, haul ass down the hallway, but then he scuttles back into the room and folds himself up on his bed.
Travis has no idea what just happened. It's something he did, but he doesn't know what. William is shaking and trying, unsuccessfully, to talk to him; he can't get his breath and the words are garbled.
"I'll get someone," Travis says, because he knows there must be people at the nurses' station, people with access to meds, people who know what they're doing. William shakes his head no, no, no, and Travis wants to do something reassuring but touching William is probably a horrible idea, so he goes and sits at the foot of William's bed while he calms down.
Travis thinks that someone will at least come around for checks and see that William needs help, but whatever's happening next door takes precedence. William presses the heels of his hands against his eyes and says, "I'm sorry."
Travis doesn't say anything.
"It's not your fault," William says. "I - this is going to sound crazy."
Travis looks around at the walls.
William laughs and it sounds jittery and hysterical. "Well, I guess it would have to. You ever play that game when you're a kid, where you need to walk on the dining room chairs because the floor is lava?"
He nods. "Well, that's me," William says. "I'm the lava."
It makes sense, in retrospect. He'd sort of thought that William's aloofness was protection against the rest of them; it hadn't occurred to him that William might have been trying to protect everyone else, instead.
"I know I should have said something," William says. "I just - it's embarrassing. And I fucked up your comic books. I really wanted to help."
"Another time?" Travis says.
"Yeah, okay."
He says, because he feels like he has to, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to freak you out."
"Don't blame yourself for my OCD," William says. "Ask Gabe to tell you how many times I started hyperventilating because he got touchy with me. The man is an inveterate poker."
"Yeah," Travis says. "You sure you don't want me to get someone?"
William shakes his head. "I'm supposed to be getting better. My therapist comes in all the time to do exposures with me. I can't afford for her to think that I'm backsliding. I'll never get out of here."
"Okay," Travis says. If he sounds unsure, William doesn't say anything about it.
*****
He gets a call from Pops asking if he can come up for visiting day. It's the first time he's talked to his father since he was admitted. He knows he's got an obligation to act like a good son, especially considering where he is, so he says okay. Pops asks if he needs anything and he tells him no.
When he sees Dr. Ok that afternoon, he asks if Travis is worried about having a conversation about what happened. Which is a damn joke, because if he knows his father the only way they'll ever talk about what happened is if they both get shit-faced drunk and Travis initiates the conversation, which he won't and which is exactly how it should be. He doesn't think Dr. Ok will understand that, though, so he just says no.
William is freaking out, quietly. He spends the evening before visiting day chewing on his fingernails and straightening things that don't need to be straightened. In group he'd said that his rituals sometimes came back at weird times, usually when they were absolutely unneeded.
Out of all of them, Gabe is the only one who seems to be all right with the idea of visiting day. He's been on the phone for half an hour reading from his list of things that he wants his housemate to bring to the hospital. Occasionally he picks his head up and demands to know what Travis and William want.
"I want a cheesesteak," William says finally.
"Oh, fuck off. I'm not having my friend drive ninety minutes so you can eat a poor murdered cow. Yo," he says into the phone receiver, "you know what else I need? Pita chips. The cinnamon and sugar ones. Yeah, those." He spends another ten minutes throwing out alternate products and generally being bossy, and then he hangs up and looks around the room, smiling brightly.
On visiting day, Travis is coming back from the common room when he meets Gabe's housemate. Pops isn't coming for another forty minutes and he was hoping he could either watch TV or read until he got there. That doesn't happen.
"Travie, this is Pete," Gabe tells him. "He brought me a whole bunch of shit."
Gabe's housemate is tiny. He looks Travis up and down and smiles. He starts to stick his hand out, but then pulls it back.
Gabe nudges him. "Pete, this is Travis. William's my other roommate."
"Ohhh," Pete says, and puts his hand out for Travis to shake. "I'm still keeping track of who's who. Hey. Wow, dude, you're tall."
"No, you're just short," Gabe says.
"Oh, right."
"Is your dad here yet?" Gabe asks. "I can put aside some crackers or something if you want anything to eat."
"Not yet," Travis says. The orderlies start coming around with meds.
"We're blocking traffic here," Gabe says. "Pete, wanna see the art therapy room?"
"Wouldn't miss it," Pete says. "It was nice to meet you, Travis." Travis smiles and nods.
Pops shows up eventually and they go for a walk in the enclosed garden at the back of the hospital (Travis' grounds privileges are limited, but at least they're not stuck staring at each other in the common room). On the way there they pass William and two people who Travis thinks are William's mother and stepfather. His mother is smiling determinedly and his stepfather looks concerned. William is standing apart from them. Travis waves and William waves back, but they don't stop to chat.
Pops tells him about work and his latest girlfriend and they very deliberately avoid the subject of what happened. The only time they come close is when Pops asks, "Has your mother been up to see you?"
"She's not going to come," Travis says. "It's not her kind of place."
Pops considers that very carefully before he says, "I guess not. She's…not doing so great," which probably means that she's drinking again, and it's not what Travis wants to hear but he can't do anything about it.
At the end of the visit Pops says, "Well, tell me if you need anything," and for a second it feels like something important is going to happen, but then it passes. So Travis says goodbye and then he goes back to the room and stuffs his face into his pillow.
He spends some time lying there by himself. Eventually William comes back into the room and stuffs his own face into his own pillow. Travis doesn't say anything for a while.
"Not great?" he asks finally.
"No," William says. "It was okay until they were going to leave and my mom started crying. My stepdad got mad at me because Mom was crying, so she got mad at him because he was mad at me, and then I thought it was best that I leave."
"Shit," Travis says.
"I agree."
They spend a little time staring at the walls until Gabe gets back from distributing his food all over the ward, takes one look at both of them and says, "So, visiting day sucked?"
"Yeah," William and Travis say.
"Shit," Gabe says.
*****
"I think they're going to let me out of here soon," Gabe tells him when they're playing poker in the common room. Gabe's better at cards than he is but it's not like they're playing with actual money.
"That's cool," Travis says. "Have they told you when?"
Gabe shakes his head. "My shrink's been talking about setting up an aftercare program lately, which means I'm not going to be here much longer. Plus I think I'm better. Do you think I'm better?"
"You haven't been as much of a jackass in group."
"Oh, come on, I wasn't that bad."
"You're lucky you didn't wind up getting thrown into isolation."
"Nah, they wouldn't have done that," Gabe says. "I get even more obnoxious when I'm by myself. "
"Damn."
"You wouldn't believe it, but it's true. Have they talked to you about you getting out?"
Dr. Ok had asked how he wanted to spend his time once he got released. Travis has a feeling that his insurance is probably making noise about how much time he's spent in here. "A little."
"Got any plans?"
"Don't know," Travis says. "I never thought about the future much. Waking up in the morning and thinking this shit again was as far as I got. Hard to start over from that."
Gabe gives him a look, which probably means that he was listening. Gabe listens a lot more now that they've got his meds stabilized. He nudges Travis' foot with his and says, "I raise."
Part 2