Mental Hospital AU 1

It was almost lunchtime, by Brian's watch, and he thought he would kill the last few minutes before he could go taking care of some paperwork that had been sitting on his desk all morning. But he barely started on the first page when the buzzer went off at his desk -- incoming. He knew from the schedule that there was a new patient scheduled to arrive this afternoon, but that was two hours away. Either the patient was arriving early, or it was an urgent case coming in. He craned his neck to see the door, just instinct, but a moment later he was grabbing papers and buzzing the admitting doctor; he would see who it was soon enough, anyway.

When the door swung open, the admitting was standing a few careful feet away from the patient, who...who at first glance looked normal. Tall, almost too pretty, dressed in slacks and a white shirt so clean it practically glowed. Then Brian's practiced eye took in the clenched jaw and hairtrigger tension, the raw clenched hands, the fine tremors that were running through his body. No, not normal.

"Here you are, Justin," the admitting said quietly, gently. "Go on in, speak to Mr. Littrell."

"No," Justin bit out, staring at the floor. "I can't, it's dirty. It needs to be mopped. I can't believe a hospital would let things get this filthy." His voice was startlingly high and light, but again, there was that thread of almost-snapping hysteria in it.

Brian knew OCD when he saw it, even before someone handed him Justin's records. He flipped the folder open and clipped an admitting card to the inside. Usually his tactic with a situation like this would be to convince the patient that his shoes would protect him from the floor, but not once he glanced at Justin's records, where 'shoes' was even in big letters and underlined. One quick look back at the patient showed him that Justin's sneakers were as pristine as his shirt.

"It's okay," he said, giving him an encouraging smile. "You won't be here but a moment, Justin, then we'll get you inside."

Justin stood like a rock. "If the rest of the place is as disgusting as this, I'm not going anywhere near inside." He spoke with absolute conviction, like someone who was used to getting his way, almost imperious. Brian could see the frantic flicker of his eyes around the room, though. "No way." He took a step back from the threshold of the room, only to be neatly flanked by a male nurse, who herded him back towards Brian without touching him. "I'm not going in there until that floor is cleaned!"

"This it the part of the hospital that all kinds of people pass through all the time," said Brian gently, getting things in order as he talked. Insurance information was all there, everything was already set to go. "Once you get inside, it's sure to be more to your liking. I promise we'll get you through this as quickly as we can." And lucky for both of them there was very little left to do besides get a couple signatures and wait for someone -- no, wait, there he was already -- to usher Justin through the big double doors and into the hospital proper.

Though Brian would still be going on lunch a little bit later than planned.

"Justin," the admitting doctor said, more firmly, reaching for his arm, and THAT got a reaction.

Justin jerked away, actually into the room, shouting, "Don't TOUCH me! Don't!" and then freezing when he realized where he was standing. His shoulders slumped down and in, and he started wringing his hands, but he had clearly given up on his shoes, since he slowly shuffled towards Brian's desk. He didn't sit, though, and over his shoulder Brian could see the nurse's eyes rolling. Justin just stood, staring and scowling at Brian's desk, as his fingers twisted the dial on his watch. Four circuits forward, four back, over and over.

"Hi, Justin," said Brian, smiling again and meeting Justin's eyes, but only for a comfortable moment. "This is going to be real easy, so don't even worry about it. I already have your information here, so I just need to ask you a couple of questions, okay?" He didn't wait for a response; it was best with these things to just keep it moving briskly and get right on with the settling in. "Justin Timberlake, are you here through your own choice?"

He already knew what the answer should be, from Justin's records, but he had to ask.

"No. Maybe. No," Justin snapped out, shaking his head. "My mother made me. But it was my idea. I don't know." He stopped twisting his watch and started tapping his fingers on the seam of his pants. one-two-three-four-one-two-three-four. "I guess it's okay that I'm here." He glanced back over his shoulder at the door, like he was thinking of running for it, but didn't move.

That qualified as a yes for Brian's purposes, which was what he'd been expecting to hear. "Good," he said, friendly smile still on his face, not going anywhere. Not until Justin was out of the room. He pushed a piece of paper across the desk in front of Justin. "I just need you to sign here, then." He pushed the entire cup of pens the same way, making sure not to touch any of them before Justin did. Just in case.

Justin's fingers fluttered anxiously over the pens as he peered at them closely, then sighed and picked one out, holding it fastidiously between two fingers. "Where?" He demanded, looking at the papers. "What do these say anyway? Why do I have to sign these? How long am I staying?"

The admitting sighed and turned away from the doorway, and Brian overheard him muttering something to the nurse about hating bringing the goddamned psych cases up. Justin's face flushed red to the tips of his ears, and he bent and scribbled his name on the line without further complaint.

"It just says that you understand why you're here, and that you consent to it," said Brian gently. "It's nothing more complicated than that." He shot a look at the admitting as he took the paper back; he hated when people took work in the psych wing without having any genuine compassion for the kind of patients who came in. Brian wished him gone as soon as possible, and was glad Justin -- who looked like he was probably a sweet boy -- would be in the hands of a competent professional within minutes. "Thank you, Justin, and take care. I'm sure I'll see you around."

"Okay," Justin said, in a much smaller voice. Without the bravado he looked frankly terrified, but he squared his shoulders again and wound his watch--four right, four left--and nodded. "Thank you, ah, Mr. Littrell. Where do I go now? I'm, um, what do I do?"

Poor kid. Brian always felt for them when they came in, whether they were yelling or stony or just plain scared, like Justin. "Just go with the doctor," he assured him, gesturing at the admitting who was at least playing attention again. "He'll take you down a long hallway and through a couple of sets of doors and you'll be met there by the doctor and nurses who are going to be taking care of you. They'll explain everything to you and get you settled into your room. You have nothing to worry about, Justin, you'll be well taken care of here."

"Okay, thank you," Justin didn't sound all that confident, but he turned and headed back for the door, skirting carefully around a smudge on the floor, eyes front, hands clenched tightly at his sides again. The nurse said a quiet word to him without reaching out to touch, then walked at his side as he headed down the hallway, the admitting following them. The last Brian saw of him that day was the swinging doors closing behind Justin's back.

* * *

That Kevin freak was pacing the hallway again and it was driving Chris fucking nuts -- back and forth, walking, running, sometimes muttering to himself. The nurses should've done something about that, but they just fucking let him keep doing pacing. Say he wasn't hurting anyone. He was hurting *Chris*, though, as far as he was concerned. When the door to his room suddenly opened -- and *how* many times had Chris wished he could lock it? -- he was ready to yell at Kevin to get the hell out. But it wasn't Kevin.

"This will be your room," Dr. Morrow was saying, holding the door open so a kid could step through. Only he didn't, until he'd paused for a long moment and scanned the floor carefully. When he finally entered the room, it was with palpable reluctance, and he was clutching two bags in white-knuckled hands. "And this is your roommate Chris."

Justin nodded tightly, eyes moving from focus to focus in the room, though he did meet Chris's gaze for a long moment before moving on. "This room is dirty," he said, to Dr. Morrow, not letting go of his bags or moving from his spot. "I need a clean room. The other doctor promised it would be clean."

"The hell?" said Chris, looking around the room himself. It was fine. And the empty part of the room -- the part that had been empty for the last week -- was fucking spotless. "What's your problem, kid? I could eat off that floor, it's so clean."

Dr. Morrow gave him a look and Chris rolled his eyes, shutting up. "Justin, I think you'll find that the room is quite clean, once you get inside and get comfortable. Chris, you'll help him with that?"

"I'll *what*?" said Chris, but he sighed heavily. It was a lost cause. He'd had to break in roommates before, but nothing like this Justin kid. "All right, all right. I don't bite, Justin. Set your things down. You'll be here a while, after all."

Justin just clutched his bags closer, standing still and not touching anything. "There's lint on the bedspread," he pointed out, voice shaking a little. "I can't have any lint, it makes me sneeze. I'm not putting anything on that bed until the lint is gone."

Dr. Morrow dusted a quick hand over the bedspread, then herded Justin towards it. "There. I'll just leave you to get settled. Chris, don't forget group at three." He waved cheerfully and closed the door behind himself. Justin, looking suspicious still, settled his bags gingerly on the bed, and walked straight to the small sink, where he started furiously scrubbing his hands under the water without another look at Chris.

"I don't have cooties," he said, staring at him as he scrubbed his hands over and over and over. "Shit kid, you're gonna rub 'em raw if you keep that up." Chris had seen freaks like Justin come and go in the past; he'd been here for a while. But he'd never had to live with one. "No, I'm seriously, you will!" But Justin kept on, like he was pretending Chris wasn't there. "I can get you a brand new bedspread if you cut that shit out, you know."

Justin's scrubbing slowed, like he was thinking about that, but he didn't stop for another minute or so. Chris wondered if there was a specific number of rinse/lather rotations he had to do, and resolved to count next time. Just for something to do.

"A brand new one? Still in the wrapper from the store?" Justin was clearly intrigued, he stopped washing and dried his hands, over and over, on the paper towel, looking at Chris out of the corner of his eye. He was shifting from foot to foot, too. "How?"

Chris shrugged at him. "I'll just take it," he said. "I know where they keep them, I have other stuff from the storage room." He finally got up off his bed and opened his dresser drawer, pulling out a bottle of windex, a pillowcase, a half-roll of toilet paper. "Nothing much dangerous in there, they don't keep a real close eye on it all the time. Except the windex, but that wasn't supposed to be in there, someone just left it after cleaning the windows. Stupid fuck. So you want a blanket?"

"Yes, yes I do," Justin said, with an almost dreadful eagerness. "Do they have pillowcases too? Ones that haven't been used by other people ever? I can pay, I have money. And I need a mop, and some sponges. And more soap. Do we get alarm clocks here, too?" He sat gingerly on the wooden chair and looked down at his shoes with clear disgust. Reached down, then jerked his hand back. "I can't touch them, they're ruined," he said, sadly.

"What do you mean, they're ruined?" said Chris, back to staring at this guy again. "They're brand new. Are you nuts? Well, of course you are, you're here. If you don't want the shoes, can I have 'em?"

"I guess," Justin shrugged, frowning down at them still. "They're disgusting, though. Look at how dirty." He shuffled his feet like the mere sight of the shoes hurt him. "*You* don't seem like you're nuts at all. Are you leaving here soon or something? Are you fixed?" He looked at Chris directly for the first time, big blue eyes anxious and curious.

"No," snapped Chris, glancing away from them. That was the last answer he'd gotten, anyway, when the subject had come up. Too much shit was still happening. "I'm never leaving, they're going to keep me in here for-fucking-ever. Look kid, there's no dirt on those shoes. They're so clean they're practically blinding me. What's your deal?"

Justin shrank into himself, tucking his feet back under his chair. "They're dirty," he insisted, if more quietly. "There's dust on them. There can't be dust on them." He was wringing his hands again, turning his knuckles white with the pressure. "They can't keep us in here forever, can they? They have to let us go, once we're better? That's what my mom told me. She said I'd be home in no time at all."

"Yeah, and if we never get better?" Chris challenged him. "Then what? We're here until we're better, but what if we never get better, right?" Justin looked alarmed at the prospect. Well, good. "There's no damn dust on your shoes, Justin, and if there is, so what? The world's a dirty place."

"My shoes can't be dirty," Justin answered doggedly. "It makes my insides hurt when they are, I can't stand it. I, don't think I don't know that's wrong and weird, but I *can't,* Chris, okay? My shoes are really dirty right now. They made me walk over that floor, it was filthy. I almost threw up." He shuddered at the memory, and started winding his watch.

Chris just took a deep breath, to keep him calm and stable and okay. "Okay, but can't you just clean them, then? The floor can't have been *that* dirty, they clean it every day, sometimes more than once. And, uh, better your shoes than something like your socks or your feet, right?" It made sense to him, but from the look on Justin's face it was exactly the wrong thing. Chris wondered if he was going to have to get used to Justin going everywhere barefoot or something.

Justin's face was a mask of dismay. "My shoes *can't be dirty,*" he repeated, as if the change in emphasis would make everything clear to Chris. And he was obviously agitated, shifting in his seat and fidgeting with his perfectly pressed slacks, plucking at the crease. "The floor was filthy. I could see footprints, and dirt everywhere. I almost took my shoes off, but they didn't give me time."

"Okay," said Chris finally. Freak. "Okay, fine. How about you take them off, then, and get some of your shit unpacked. It's not like you're gonna be going home tomorrow. And then I guess I'm supposed to show you around or something. Session's not for two hours, meds not for almost four. Can you do that, at least?"

Chris had only just started coming out of his room again a couple of days ago. They'd rearranged the common room again, which was a pain in the ass. Probably to keep Kevin from jumping on top of the bookshelves anymore. He hated it when things changed so much when he was busy bottoming out.

Justin tipped his head a little, keeping his eye on Chris as he stood up gingerly and toed off his shoes, kicking them away without ever touching them with his hands. His overlarge feet in pure white socks were silent against the floor as he moved around the room, unpacking precisely folded shirts and jeans and underwear, unfolding them, shaking each item twice, then refolding them all. It was almost like a tic; his movements were jerky, like he couldn't help himself.

"Which meds?" He asked finally, breaking the fascinating silence. "I don't take meds, they make me even worse, or go to sleep all the time. At least the ones they've tried so far. What's session?"

"Therapy," said Chris, rolling his eyes. "Group therapy, which means pretty much everyone, as opposed to solo therapy, which means pretty much silence. I don't know what meds you're on, man, that's not my business. But just about everyone's on something. Even Nick. I guess you'll find out soon enough."

"Who's Nick? Is that one of the counselors?" Justin had finally finished folding his clothes, and started putting them away. No ritual for that, thank god, or Chris was worried he'd start screaming. But everything was stacked precisely and neatly and organized by color, and it all took a surprisingly short time to put away, just moments. Then Justin sat down on the chair again, and folded his hand between his knees, and stared at Chris. "Are they going to make me take drugs?"

Chris shrugged again and straightened his shirt a little. He was pretty much a slob, next to Justin. He was pretty much a slob next to a lot of people, though. "I don't know what they're gonna do with you," he said. "Don't even know what's wrong with you. But usually... usually there's drugs or some shit. And Nick, a counselor? Hah! He's just like the rest of us. 'Special' in his own way."

"I'm not special, I'm fucked up," Justin said, pretty mouth twisting bitterly. "I heard my stepdad telling my mom that last week, and that's when they decided to send me here. They'd already made me come home from college, when the doctors said I had severe OCD and they couldn't help me and I was hurting myself." Justin's fingers were constantly in motion, smoothing and picking and fiddling with things. "What's special about you, anyway? You look awful normal to me."

"I *am* normal right now," said Chris, staring at him and wondering how he kept from walking around with raw skin all the damn time. There was no point not telling Justin shit; he'd just find it all out from the other guys or from group anyway. "A couple weeks from now I'll be so up I'll be bouncing off the walls and you'll want to kill me. Maybe a couple weeks after that I'll probably be wanting to kill *myself* again. If I could find the energy. Maybe longer, maybe shorter, always happens." He shrugged, like it was nothing, like it hadn't completely fucked up his life. "They haven't found a way to control it yet that doesn't leave me a vegetable. So I stay here." And that was ignoring all the other shit that had spiralled off what the doctors lovingly referred to as his "central disorder".

"Wow." Justin's eyes had widened as Chris recited his litany, and he actually stopped twisting his watch knob for a few moments. "That sounds pretty bad. I read about that kind of thing in the magazine my mom subscribed to when I started counting. It's just a shame that you've got to stay in here all the time, not just when you're up and down. It must get awfully boring for you, being around c-c-crazy people all the time when you're not crazy." He looked down at his bare feet, at the way he'd tucked them up off the floor. "Is there at least stuff to do here besides take drugs and go to therapy?"

"Yeah, sure, there's stuff," said Chris. "We live here, after all, and we'd go even *more* fucking nuts without stuff to do. There's a TV, and books, and we can go outside and stuff. Mostly they want us to talk to each other. They're big on bonding around here, talking things through." He watched Justin pluck at his crease again. "Sometimes I think it's a bunch of shit, but they're nice to us. It isn't like all horror stories about electroshock or something. It's okay."

"They took away my cell phone," Justin blurted, out of the blue, it seemed like. "They said it would be a distraction or something, but I don't know. And they wouldn't let me keep my razor either. Or my mouthwash. I don't get some of the stuff they do already." He stopped fidgeting and sighed. "You're pretty nice, I don't think it'll be hard, talking to you. Are, are the others nice too? I don't like dealing with strangers much."

Chris snorted; it had been a while since he'd been called nice. Justin seemed pretty okay, though. "They're all weird," he said honestly. Weird like us, weird in different ways, whatever. Everyone here's got their own shit going on that they're trying to fix. But it's not bad, it's not terrible. You get used to it. You pretty much *have* to get used to everyone, when you go to group. They don't really let you get out of that unless you really, really can't go."

"Yeah, there's no straightjackets or anything," Justin agreed, and smiled, the first time Chris had seen anything but fear and anxiety on his face. "I thought that was a pretty good sign. And the three people I saw in the halls seemed to be okay, at least they were walking and talking and stuff. I was afraid it was going to be more like the movies." He shrugged a little. "I don't think I'm going to like this group thing, but as long as they have tv I'll be okay, I guess. I already want to go home, though."

"I hate group most of the time and I want my life back," said Chris frankly. "But whatever. You make do with what you've got. There's no *total* nutjobs here, except maybe Kevin, and he seems pretty harmless when he's not knocking bookshelves over and breaking stuff." Or wandering into other people's rooms. "They do let people out. Eventually. Sometimes. Like the guy who was my roommate before you. He left last week."

"Yeah?" Justin looked a little more hopeful at that. "Maybe I'll only be here a little while, then, and after they fix my head I can go back to school. I mean, I don't knock over bookshelves, at least." He got up again and moved around the room restlessly, not touching anything, just looking. There was still one back packed, sitting on the bed, and he didn't touch that either. "What did you do, before you came here? What are you going back to when *you* get out?"

Chris started tallying it up in his head. "I worked in a chicken barn, bagged groceries at a supermarket, slung burgers, hauled furniture, washed dumpsters, watched a factory nights... kept getting fired when I stopped showing up for a week. Got kicked out of high school too, same reason. I don't know *what* the fuck I'll do if I ever get out of here." He wished he could smoke in the hospital. "I don't even know who I'll be."

"Why'd you stop showing up? Oh, you said, when you get depressed." Justin nodded belatedly. "Well, when you get out you'll be someone who doesn't do that, right? So you'll be able to keep a job, anyway. That'll be something." He went back to the sink, started washing his hands again. "Do you live with your family or what? Girlfriend? I'm not trying to be nosy, I just think maybe it'll be easier if I feel like I know you. You can ask me stuff too."

It was like group was starting a couple hours early. "No," Chris said finally. "I don't have a girlfriend. Anymore. Do you? Have a family? Friends? Girlfriend? Boyfriend? Little puppy named Spot?"

"My puppy's name is George," Justin said solemnly, still washing away, scrubbing hard with the bar of soap and not looking at Chris. "I had a girlfriend for a week at college but I drove her crazy, she said, and she dumped me. I haven't, I mean, since I started getting worse..." He shrugged helplessly. "But I've got my mom and my stepdad and my little brothers at home."

"Am I going to have to put a timeshare on the sink?" Chris asked him. "Am I going to have to give you only, like, two minutes and hour so you don't do that all the time?"

Justin's shoulders flinched down and in and he ducked his head. "Don't," he said, muffled a little. "It'll get better, I promise, it's just bad when I'm in a strange place." He looked sideways at Chris, then. "Don't make me stop and I won't tell them about you taking stuff from the storage closet."

For about five seconds, Chris was furious. The he was impressed; that was something *he* would've done. "Fine," he agreed firmly. "But if you start bleeding, deal's off, I'm stopping you. All right?"

"I usually stop before then," Justin assured him, turning back to the sink. "The soap's all moisturized anyway." His hands moved quick and urgent under the water, rubbing together, but he finally, reluctantly, turned off the taps again and started drying. Almost reverently, he opened the second bag he'd brought and started placing the contents on the bare desk on his side of the room. Three scraps of paper, lined up parallel with each other. A framed family picture. a handful of bottlecaps, precisely placed into a stack. A small cup with pencils and pens inside, set right on the corner. Five ticket stubs. A stuffed animal wearing a basketball jersey. Justin was wholly absorbed in his task.

"So you must've come from a real nice place then, huh," said Chris, when the silence got too weird for him. He wasn't in a silence phase. "That's all your stuff?"

Justin jumped, then nodded. "It's my stuff from home." He shifted the stuffed animal a fraction of an inch to the right, then nodded, satisfied. "See, these are movies I went to with my mom and brothers, and I threw the stubs there and never moved them. And my picture has always been there, and this other stuff. All my other stuff I can just put in the drawers." He suited actions to words, stuffing a journal, some notebooks, a couple of magazines and other random items into the desk drawers almost carelessly.

"So, what, you're *never* gonna move that stuff?" said Chris, getting off the bed again to check it out. "At all? Not even a little bit? How *long* has it been like that?"

"I don't know, a while," Justin said, defensive. "It's where it's supposed to be, it doesn't need to be moved." He shifted away from Chris, leaving a wide cushion of space between them, and fluttered his hands nervously. as Chris inspected the desk. "Don't touch it, okay?"

"Right," said Chris, still staring at the precision with which everything had been placed. "That's weird. I mean, no offense or anything -- hey, I"m one to talk, right? -- but that's really fucking weird."

Justin scowled at him, temper finally showing. "I know it's weird, okay? If it wasn't weird I wouldn't be here, but it's the way I want it, so don't move it. All right?" He stomped towards the bed, but had to pause and brush the bedspread with his hands, all over, before he'd sit down on it.

"Don't you *want* to be normal?" Chris challenged him. "Don't you *want* it to not be like that?"

"It...yeah?" Justin's anger just washed away. "It seems like it would be nice, not to be like this, but every time I try to stop it *hurts*, it's like the worst itch you've ever had all over and inside, and I just..." he shrugged again. "I don't know."

"Yeah, I don't know either," said Chris. "I'm the one didn't even finish high school. But that's what the guys in the white coats do, they know things. What time is it, anyway? Since I happened to notice your watch." Because Justin had been oh so subtle drawing attention to it

"It's 2:48," Justin said, glancing at the door, then at the watch. "But I only know that because I can see the hall clock from here. My watch doesn't work, my mom took the battery out of it. She said she thought it would make me stop winding it." He glanced out the little door window again. "Now it's 2:49. And twelve seconds." He looked at Chris again. "Why? Are we going somewhere?"

"Session's at three," said Chris with a heavy sigh. "Time flies when you're... killing time. Did they tell you if you have to go to session today? They should've told you, I think..."

"They said, yeah, I was supposed to meet everyone. I don't want to. Think they will let me skip? Do they, they won't come get me and make me go?" Justin, who had been inching towards relaxed, was instantly wound up like a spring again, hands clenched.

"They'll make you go," said Chris grimly. "Unless you have a really, really good reason. And believe me, kid, you don't. Just... just sit next to me, all right? I'll look out for you, your first time. But session is annoying, not scary."

"On your first day, I bet it was both," Justin pointed out, fingers pick-pick-picking at his pants. "I'll sit right by you, yeah, that might help. Are they going to make me talk? Do you think? How's that supposed to help me stop with this, this stuff? My old therapist made me talk all the time, it never helped."

"Yeah, they'll make you talk," said Chris. "But mostly they make you listen." And the listening helped more than the talking, but Chris wouldn't be caught dead saying out loud that any of it helped. Not to the other guys, anyway.

Justin looked deeply skeptical, but jittered to his feet when Chris started making motions to leave. He didn't put his shoes back on--didn't even look in their direction--but he did pull socks on and then stand, indecisive, in the middle of the floor. "Will it be, will they let me..." he glanced down at his feet.

"What, Justin? Will they let you what? Go in socks? What?"

"Yeah, go in socks," Justin sighed, scowling at Chris's impatient bark. "Is the floor clean where we're going?" He grabbed a notebook and pen, and tucked them under his arm.

"It's as clean as you'll find anywhere in this place," said Chris. "Which has to be way, way cleaner than the floor were at your university. There isn't a test, you know. They aren't going to make you take notes."

"I like to be prepared," Justin shot back, almost primly. "And *cleaner* doesn't mean *clean*, you know. I think I'll just go like this." He moved towards the door, looking back at Chris. "It starts at three, right? That's very soon."

"Yeah, I'm glad I asked the time," said Chris. He almost considered changing his shirt, then *did* laugh at himself for even thinking it. "'Course, someone would've knocked anyway. You could go to session in your *pajamas* if you wanted, Justin, as long as you go."

Justin fidgeted by the door. "We shouldn't be late," he urged Chris, opening the door. "You have to show me where it is, too. I don't go outside in my pajamas, Chris, that's not hygenic." He started winding his watch again.

"Well," said Chris, unsurprised. "Just be prepared for other people to do it. Including me, once in a while. You're ready to go?"

"I'm ready," Justin said, glancing anxiously at the hall clock as he closed the door. "How far away is it? Will it take long to get there?" His sock feet were silent as he padded along at Chris's shoulder, never touching, but staying close. He stared around curiously at everything they passed; the other doors on the corridor, the bars on the windows of the big swinging doors into the other ward, the nurse's station. "Wait, where's the bathroom?"

"What?" said Chris, stopping dead in the middle of the hallway. "The bathroom? The bathroom's the other way, right the other way, Justin. Do you really have to go?"

Justin was picking at his fingers, and looked completely torn. "I can't be late," he pleaded with Chris, "But I just touched the wall...I have to wash my hands...is it far? What if I run?"

"You *what*?" said Chris. "Fuck. Just fuck, Justin. Okay, okay, if you run, and if you don't wash twenty million times, we'll still be on time. It's at the other end of the hall."

"You'll wait for me here?" Justin begged, already starting towards the direction Chris pointed. "Because I don't know where to go. Wait right here. I will be *right* back, I swear." He bolted down the hallway, slipping a little in his socks but graceful and athletic all the same.

Chris tapped his foot against the floor as he waited. Fucking kid, it was always something with him. He was lucky Chris was on an upswing and not a downswing, that was for damn sure. It was bad enough having to go to session without babysitting, too.

Justin actually made it back in much less time than Chris had been expecting--but then, Chris had been expecting to have to go get him. He was moving more reluctantly, but it seemed the compulsion to be on time won out over too much handwashing, because he jogged back up to Chris's side while they still had minutes to spare. "Thanks," he said breathlessly. "Now we're good, we can go."

"Just don't touch anything else you don't want to be touching," muttered Chris, leaning them on again. "Have you ever thought about investing in gloves?" The meeting room was down the hall, and around the corner, and down another hall. Chris had been there often enough to do it in his sleep.

"I tried that," Justin answered, grumpy. "I've tried everything. It was almost as bad as shoes, the gloves." He tagged along after Chris as they went through the last hall, but balked at the door. "Oh man, I don't know if I can do this."

"You have to, Justin," he said simply. "You're already right here, believe me, you have to. Now just go on in, before someone has to touch you to get you in."

Justin shuddered at the thought, and stepped reluctantly into the room. Familiar as a second home to Chris, but Justin was nervous and curious, staring around, standing uncertainly and clearly not sure where to go. "So, do we just." Chairs in a circle, and Justin was staring at them. "Do we sit anywhere? Or are there places?"

"Wherever," said Chris, shrugging indifferently. "Hell, you can sit on Nick's lap if you want to. Course, he might not like that much. Just pick someplace that... where you're not gonna weird out."

"I don't even know Nick," Justin said immediately, clearly scandalized. "I'm not going to sit on his *lap*." He tagged after Chris, sitting in the chair next to him and watching the others arrive. He was fidgeting again, but in a room full of fidgeters, Chris barely noticed any more. Chris nodded at Nick, who nodded back quietly, and at Steve, who just scowled at him. "Who's that," Justin whispered to him.

"Who's who?" asked Chris. When he faced Justin again, the kid was once again messing with the folds on his pants. "Who are you looking at?"

"Him." Justin tipped his head in Nick's direction, but without looking straight at him. "He looks normal too, just like you. Does he go up and down like you do?" Chris could see why Justin had picked him out of the crowd; Steve was grimacing and jerking his head around, and Ron had bandages all over his arms and face, and Kevin, well, Kevin wasn't even in the room yet.

"That's Nick,' said Chris, nodding at him again. Nick was obviously curious about Justin, too. "You'll have to ask *him* why he's here, I don't gossip about my friends."

"Okay," Justin nodded quickly, bobbing his head like it was on a string or something. "Okay, that's fine, I'll ask him or something. I wasn't trying to be, you know, all nosy or anything..." he trailed off, eyeing Chris sideways, clearly worried he'd managed to offend him already. Then he shrugged, though, and looked around the circle again. "Who's in charge?"

"Dr. Phillips, right now," said Chris. A couple more people trickled in. "It changes, sometimes, but she's been here the last while. She's nice. I'd say you'd like her, but you probably don't like anyone here right now."

"I like you okay," Justin answered quickly, smiling a little. "I'm not, it's not that I don't like people, you know. I used to have tons of friends." He shuffled his bare feet, silent reminders of what had changed. "It's just hard, is all, people don't really understand why I'm so weird."

"How can they, when you don't?" said Chris reasonably. Now that, at least, he knew all about. "How long have you...? Or, I guess you can wait to answer that until you introduce yourself. And you will get to introduce yourself."

Justin frowned a little at that, but sat still and watched as everyone started taking seats. He edged closer to Chris and farther from James, who sat on his other side, but other than that he seemed okay. "How much am I supposed to say when I introduce myself?" he whispered to Chris.

"Doesn't matter," said Chris, his head jerking up when he heard Dr. Phillips close the door. "Just answer stuff, or say what you're feeling like saying. That's what everyone else does."

"So I could sing a song or something?" Justin raised an eyebrow. "Whatever I want? I really don't understand this session thing. It doesn't seem helpful at all." He went silent when Dr. Phillips cleared her throat and looked around with a smile.

"Good afternoon, everyone. I can see we've got new faces here today, so why don't we start by going around the circle? Let's start with you, Nick."

Nick's head jerked up and Chris winced inside on his behalf. Nick hated going first. "Oh," he said, shifting in his chair awkwardly. Crossing his arms over his body. "Well. Uh. I had a pretty decent day. I, uh, talked to my mom."

"And how did that go?"

"Fine," he said shortly, which Chris knew meant anything but. "And I ate all my lunch. And that's it. Some else's turn?"

"Sure, Nick, we'll come back to you when you're more comfortable.."

Nick shook his hair back a little and scowled, slumping back. He clearly didn't want to be 'come back to'. But the next person leaned forward eagerly, all his facial expressions comically exaggerated, gesturing widely.

"I had a day pass, right? So I went off the grounds, I took the bus, and the minute I got off I bought this huge burger, right? And this GIRL, this girl working at the burger place picked me up right there and brought me home with her! She was all curvy, right, like, va-VOOM, and she had a mouth like, whoa, and--"

"*BULLSHIT*" Nick coughed into his hand, breaking into the flow of the story, and got a sharp look from Dr. Phillips, though when she spoke, it was to the storyteller.

"Joey, let's keep the introductions simple, okay? And we talked last time about stories that are good for session."

Joey was just looking at her blankly, like what she was saying to him didn't make any sense. At first, Chris thought it was all an act. He learned better. "I should skip that part?" Joey said finally, as Nick rolled his eyes.

"We can talk about that later," she said, never -- quite -- telling anyone not to talk. "Is there anything else you'd like to share?" Joey opened his mouth to go on but then shook his head. It was the first time Chris had seen him do that. "All right then," said Dr. Phillips. "We'll move on."

"Oh my god," Justin whispered next to Chris, still never quite touching him, because the next guy had his hand in his lap and that hand was moving. Subtly, but moving. It was an improvement, Chris thought, from when he'd used to put his hand *in* his pants, but he was still a little flushed and his eyes were a little heavy. They were also completely unfocused, like he didn't realize any of them were there.

"I read a book today," he said driftily, when Joey tapped him on the shoulder. "It had a lot of pages. It tasted like chalk when I chewed on the papers."

"He did," Joey confirmed, looking back at the Doctor. "He started eating them right there in the common room, and chewing 'em all sloppy and spitting everywhere, right? And the orderlies came in and started shouting and stuff and Howie just kept jerking off like always right there and-"

"Christsakes, Howie, knock it off!" Chris shouted out, slapping his hand on the side of his chair. That earned him a look from Dr. Phillips, but not so much as a reaction from Howie. "Do you even know we're here?"

"Chris," she said, as harshly as she ever said anything. "Enough. Howie. Howie..." But it was like he wasn't quite there. "What book were you reading?"

"He was reading War and Peace," Joey supplied helpfully. "An old copy with yellow papers and maybe it was even an antique copy or something, I dunno where he even got it, maybe it was a present from someone cause sometimes Howie gets visitors and they stay for a really, really long time..."

"Joey," said Dr. Phillips. "Let Howie answer for himself. Howie?"

Howie just blinked at her slowly. "It was a book," he said finally, seeming at least marginally more aware. "It was...it was big." He nodded, and his eyes drifted closed.

"They gave him more meds than usual," Joey said brightly, "on account of the eating the book and everything, he was superquiet before that, just reading and jerking off, you know, normal, and then with the ripping and the chewing and he wouldn't even share-"

"Okay, we'll come back to Howie, too," Dr. Phillips interjected firmly. "Next, please?" Next was James, who was sitting next to Justin, and Chris could almost feel Justin going rigid with tension at the knowledge that his turn was almost up.

James gave them a slow smile, and didn't quite meet anyone's eyes. "I watched the television," he said, his voice slow, too. "A movie where there was a fire, where everything burned. The house, the furniture, the dogs..."

"Now, James," she said patently. "You know you aren't supposed to be watching that sort of thing..."

"It was in the common room," he said, his eyes shifting in the other direction. "Someone else turned it on. I just got lucky, all that burning."

"And you're supposed to do what when that kind of programming comes on?" Dr. Phillips was making a note, but watching James, firm and kind. He shifted in his seat, smiled down at his hands.

"I'm supposed to change the channel. But I didn't, it was just a movie." He glanced at her, still smiling. "And someone left matches in the men's room, and I didn't even take them. I could have, so easy, but I didn't." Somehow, Chris didn't find that all that comforting, and neither did Dr. Phillips, apparently, since she made another note.

"That was very good," she praised him still, with an answering smile. "And that shows some great work on your self-control. Now, Justin?" She turned to him, and he froze. "You're new here. Welcome to group. Can you tell us a little about yourself?"

There was a long, silent moment, all eyes on Justin, who actually seemed to settle once he was the center of attention. "I'm Justin," he said quietly. "I want to get better and go home."

Her smile changed a little, grew kind and gentle. "That's what everyone here wants, Justin," he said. It didn't make Justin relax any.

"Just tell them about yourself," Chris encouraged him softly, this time getting a look of approval from Dr. Phillips. "She especially likes to hear how you're feeling, and how, like, self-aware you are. And take your time, cause I gotta go next."

That actually got a snort from Justin, and the tiniest grin, and Joey hooted and almost started talking again, only stopping when Nick kicked him lightly.

"I'm, well." Justin scratched his head nervously, and then started winding his watch. Four left, four right. Four left, four right. "I'm twenty. I'm in--I *was* in college, before I got weirder. I, um, I count things, and I wash my hands a lot, and I don't like it when people touch my stuff. I, they sent me home when I guess I flipped out a little. And then my folks sent me here, to get better. Mostly, I feel like shit about that." He looked at Chris again, as if waiting for prompting. "Is that enough?"

Chris thought Dr. Phillips would say something, but she left it in his hands. "Yeah, that's good, man," he said finally. He thought that was sufficiently encouraging. "You didn't tell me you flipped out--"

"Chris," Dr. Philips interrupted him. "That means it's your turn. Do you have anything you'd like to share?"

"Not really," he said, shifting position in his chair. She waited patiently, like she always did. The rest of the guys weren't so patient. "All right, fine. I'm okay, I'm feeling better, I'm here. Really, doesn't that say it all?"

"No, Chris," Joey said, in eerie imitation of how Dr. Phillips sounded, "how do you *feel*?" Even Howie smiled a little at that, though Chris thought it was probably mostly just that he'd managed to come without making a sound.

"Well, he's here, but he's not climbing people yet," James pointed out, smooth and sarcastic. "I'm guessing that means he's feeling okay. Not greatandFANTASTIC!" he made his eyes wide and bounced in his seat, then relaxed again, "but at least he's speaking again. Hooray."

"You're just mad 'cause you're not the funniest any more when Chris comes back," Nick piped up, then flushed.

"Hey, I had a dream about you, Chris, did I tell you?" said Joey, jumping up for a moment. "We were in your room and you were up up up and I reached for your--"

"Joey," said Dr. Phillips quickly. "Remember what we talked about? Perhaps that's something you might like to share with Chris in private."

"Or not," snorted Chris. "Okay, okay. I've just been... Justin is my new roommate, and I've been getting to know him and watching him wash his hands bloody."

"Has he stolen your underwear yet, Justin?" James asked casually.

"No," Justin said, instantly defensive but turning to Chris for support. "I told him not to touch my stuff, he hasn't touched my stuff. Nobody touches my stuff, and my hands aren't *bloody*." They were just raw around the cuticles.

"Chris doesn't know the difference between his stuff and other peoples' stuff sometimes," James answered, smirking. "Right, Chris? He especially likes dirty magazines and cleaning products."

"At least he doesn't set them on FIRE when he sees them," Nick said sharply, and Dr. Phillips clapped her hands, startling them all.

"Chris was talking," she said sternly, with a specially quelling look at James.

He gave her a sullen look, but he shut up. Still, his eyes were on Nick and Chris suspected that something would blow up later. He made a mental note to be there for it; at least Nick wasn't in a low spot too, but he could still use some backup when it came to James's attacks. And who knew what side Joey -- or any of the others -- might come in on.

"I was finished," Chris said firmly. "That's it. I'm feeling good enough to be here, and I haven't taken Justin's shit, and that's it."

"That's very good, Chris," said Dr. Phillips. Chris hated being treated like a child sometimes. "We'll move on then, just a few more left in the circle."

"I'm going home next week, probably," the next, much older man said, with noticeable pride and excitement. He was fidgeting much like Justin did, tapping his fingers in a pattern, though his was much slower and more controlled. "My girlfriend is throwing a party and everything. They finally got my meds balanced out." He beamed around the circle. "I left my bed unmade today and I even stepped on some sidewalk cracks and didn't realize it until after."

"Oh, that's excellent, John," Dr. Phillips applauded, completely sincere. It made Chris want to get released, just to get some of that praise. "Congratulations!"

He noticed Justin watching John with rapt attention, and very obvious longing. But he didn't say anything, and John didn't offer anything to him. Though Chris wouldn't be surprised if they spoke at some point during the next week, before John got to leave. John, who the meds worked for. Some things just weren't fucking fair.

"Thank you," said John, and a couple of other guys looked pleased for him as well.

"I'm getting out of here too," Kevin said abruptly, and no one stopped him since it was his turn next anyway. "Tomorrow, I'm getting out tomorrow. *They* told me so, and *they never lie*."

"Who?" Justin asked curiously, and James groaned and covered his eyes with a hand, and even Joey just shook his head before launching into his helpful monologue.

"He hears voices, like, all the time, in his head, and they're really fucked up. They tell him to do all kinds of weird crap and say things and sometimes he just *freaks* out, like, screaming and running around and then they come with the restrainers and everything and-"

"He's nuts," James cut in curtly. "And in here, that's saying something."

"Don't throw stones, your skin is glass and fragile," Kevin warned, with a surprisingly sweet and clear smile directly at James, before his head dropped and he started muttering again.

Justin's eyes grew wide and fearful for a moment, but he would learn, he would get used to it. The rest of them had after all. "Voices?" he said softly.

"Kevin has schitzophrenia, Justin," Dr. Phillips said calmly. "It's nothing to be afraid of."

"They tell me not to be afraid," said Kevin, a little louder, in between mutters that Chris -- that none of them -- couldn't make out. "They tell me to do what they say and everything will be okay. Do you hear them?"

"No, you nutcase, he doesn't hear them," said James. "That's just you."

"Kevin, we want you to listen to the voices out here for a little while," Dr. Phillips urged firmly. "Can you listen to us out here? Kevin, look at me, okay?"

"What kind of voices?" Justin whispered to Chris, clearly fascinated as well as concerned, as they watched Dr. Phillips draw Kevin out of his head-bobbing and muttering. "He doesn't hurt people, does he?"

"There," Dr. Phillips said before Chris could answer, smiling at Kevin, then at the rest of them. Kevin was quiet now, if not very focused, and he was holding onto his chair like he was afraid it would tip over, but he peered at Justin and smiled again as she kept speaking. "That's everyone. Welcome, Justin. Does anyone have anything they'd like to talk about today?"

"Me!" said Joey quickly. "I do! Do you want to hear the rest of the dream now? It doesn't get really interesting until I get Chris's pants off--"

"Joey, I think perhaps later--"

"Do you really have Animaniacs underwear, Chris? Cause you did in the dream an then I--"

"I don't," Chris interrupted him. "How 'bout you tell me this in private, huh, Joey? No one else wants to hear it."

Joey's mouth opened again, and then he actually visibly checked himself. He was obviously confused as to *why* Chris was asking, but he nodded all the same and sat back.

"Thank you, Joey, Chris," Dr. Phillips smiled at them both. "I think that's a great idea."

"Oh, I don't know, sounds like an interesting dream to *me*," Lance murmured, but Chris noticed he didn't say it loud enough for Joey to hear. "I've got my first day pass next week," he said, more loudly. "I'm going with the counselor group, but at least they're letting me out. My, ah, 'team' thinks I'm making great progress." He smirked a little, but seemed honestly excited.

"Well, we all think you're making good progress, James," Dr. Phillips said, nodding approvingly. "I hadn't been notified about that, yet. Congratulations."

"I'm going too," said Kevin. "There's something I'm supposed to do out there. It's important."

"Now, Kevin," said Dr. Phillips, obviously making a real effort to keep eye contact with him. "You know that's not true. You're not going out next week."

"But I have to," he said intensely, leaning forward and meeting her eyes, clasping her hand. "It's important."

His focus only lasted for a second, and then he was twitching his head away and rubbing his face, shaking his head again.

"He'll won't forget," Nick said, watching Kevin with a certain sad sympathy. "He's been talking about going out for something important all day. But he won't say what it is."

"Secret!" Kevin almost shouted, abrupt, and Justin jumped a mile next to Chris.

"Why is he yelling?" He asked plaintively, picking at the creases in his pants hard enough that Chris wondered if he was getting skin with the pinches.

"He does that," said Chris with a shrug as Kevin was muttering again, then was up out of his chair and pacing back and forth. "That's just how he is." Then he turned and put his hand on Justin's arm, to calm him down. Then he remembered that it would do anything but.

Justin jerked back so hard his chair screeched across the floor and he almost lost his balance, regaining it at the last moment and flushing scarlet, murmuring "sorry, sorry," to everyone as he put his chair back where it was, glancing guiltily at Chris.

"Hey, you do that even harder than Nick," Joey was grinning and almost clapping, like this was all a show. "Only Nick doesn't usually go that far, he just kind of goes stiff like a board and makes a face like Howie did that time when he had the cheese that was bad, you remember, Howie? And-"

Justin was shaking his head and still blushing, not looking at any of them, but scrubbing furiously with his fingertips at the place where Chris had touched him.

"Hey, you always make me talk about it when something like that happens," Nick complained to Dr. Phillips. "That's not fair."

"This is Justin's first time here," Dr. Phillips said calmly. Chris figured that was why she was so good at her job -- nothing fazed her. "So this time we'll let him choose whether he wants to say more or not."

"I had to talk my first time here," Nick went on.

"That was based on the recommendation of your therapist, Nick, you know that," she said. Nick had less trouble talking then than he did now, Chris thought. He wondered what that meant. "Justin?"

"I just like my personal space," Justin said in a low voice, shooting Nick a nasty little frown. "That's all. I don't want to talk about it. Just don't touch me."

"Don't worry, we won't," Lance said, dry as the desert, his whole attitude radiating 'what am I doing here with these crazy people?' again. "You might go through a window or something."

"Eyes of the soul," Howie sighed quietly, nodding, eyes almost open again. Joey patted his shoulder fondly, and Howie swayed. "Windows are the eyes of the soul. It says so in my books."

"Are you sure it goes like that?" frowned Nick. "I thought it was 'eyes are the windows...' nevermind." Howie wasn't with him at all anyway, and Nick knew it. Chris liked Nick more than the rest of these psychos. He could relate to him. "Whatever you say, Howie."

"It's okay, Justin," Dr. Phillips said. "Nobody's going to be touching you. Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?"

"Yes," Justin said tightly, now just clamping his fingers together. "I'm very sure, thank you ma'am." Lance snorted a little at that, but Justin was already ignoring Lance.

"All right. I understand it can be hard, opening up around people you don't know yet. Hopefully you'll feel more comfortable next time." Her smile at him was nonjudgemental, though, and Chris sighed a little in relief. "Now, last time we talked about setting personal goals and using our support systems--that's each other--to help us reach them. Now, John, since you'll be leaving us soon, why don't you tell us all a little about how you worked on this..."

Chris tuned her out, and spent the rest of the session keeping an eye on Nick and trying not to watch Howie play with himself. Though, he thought, Howie was probably the only one of them who regularly came out of group with a smile on his face. He wondered what it must be like to have Howie for a roommate, and by the time he'd stopped speculating it was just about time to go.

They were all free to find their way back to their own rooms, or to the common room, though there were a couple of nurses on standby to help with the tougher cases. Like Kevin, who had decided that he was going to stay right there in that chair and nothing was going to move him.

"Nick," said Chris, giving him a wave to get his attention. Nick was just standing there, his arms wrapped around himself, but he did shuffle closer when Chris called. "You okay?"

"I guess," he answered listlessly, shrugging one shoulder. "Tired, I think. Talking to my mom always wears me out." He looked sideways at Justin. "You got a new roommate, huh? That mean you won't be playing ping pong with me any more?"

"There's ping pong here?" Justin had followed Chris and was standing as close as he ever got with anyone, watching Nick with open curiosity and almost wistfulness. Chris wondered if he was missing friends. "Can anyone play?"

"Didn't they show you anything before they dumped you off in my room?" said Chris, looking back over his shoulder at him. "It's just a figure of speech anyway. Okay kids, we're going outside, Chris needs a cigarette." He tugged on Nick's sleeve and *didn't* touch Justin, and led the way to the door.

"Figure of speech for what," Justin asked doggedly, tagging along at their heels in his socks, carefully walking in the middle of the hallway. "They didn't show me anything at all, they just took me straight from that little room at the front to your room. Our room. Is there really ping pong? Is there a basketball hoop anywhere?" He checked. "I didn't bring my basketball shoes..."

"They don't really like us doing things where someone wins and someone loses," Nick said, not looking at Justin. "Anyway, you have to touch people when you play basketball."

"I could play by myself," Justin answered sadly.

That, of all things, tugged a little at Chris's heart. Which he tried not to let much get at, anymore. He was too good at destroying things when he let that happen. "Maybe they would let you if you asked," he said, pushing through the door into the courtyard. "But don't ask today. Earn some goodwill first. Now Nick, baby--" He had matches in one pocket and a cigarette in the other and he lit it with a profound sense of relief. "--talk to me. You eating?"

"Yes," Nick answered, a little too quickly. "You know they have someone watch me so I do." He stared at the sky, then the ground, then the sky again, and finally back at Chris. "Can I have one?"

"Are you supposed to be smoking?" Justin, Chris saw, didn't have any trouble at all stepping on the bare ground in his feet. Maybe it was just flooring.

Chris handed over a cigarette without question. He'd tried to smuggle some pot in last time he'd been out on a pass, but it hadn't gone very well. Cigarettes, at least, were permitted outside. "As much as anyone is," he told Justin aloud, offering him one, too. "Is anyone really *supposed* to be smoking?"

"Freak," said Nick affectionately, taking the matches from him. He was almost smiling. "It's good to see you again, Chris. I missed you this last while."

Justin shook his head at the offered cigarrette, his face scrunching in distate. "I saw a smoker's lung once at my school," he said. "I'd have to drink clorox or something after that to get my insides cleaned out. Ugh."

"Don't have one, then," Chris snapped a little, rolling his eyes as he cupped his hands to shield Nick's match. "Missed you too, Nicky," he added, offhandedly. "It's always nice to get back among the living."

"I tried to get in to spend time with you," Nick said, careful to blow the smoke away from Justin. He was considerate like that. "But, you know, you weren't seeing nobody, and you were on suicide watch and all..."

"I'm sorry," Chris interrupted him, sucking on the cigarette. "Justin? Don't tell the nurses I let Nick smoke, though, okay? *He's* not supposed to."

"Suicide watch?" Justin's eyes were big. "Wait, not any more though, right? I'm not supposed to watch you or anything, am I? I don't think I could do that, I don't know anything about suicide, no matter what my stepdad thinks..." he trailed off, and waved Chris's smoke away from his face. "And why can't Nick smoke, anyway? You're over 18."

"Smoking doesn't do your appetite any favours," admitted Chris. He never gave Nick more than one. "They'd never ask you to watch, Justin. They'd move you out for a while -- or move me out, probably, in your case. You like your stepdad?

"He's okay," Justin shrugged, still watching Nick. "How come everyone worries about you eating? You look okay to me. A little skinny, but nothing like dangerous." He waved his hand around again, more vaguely this time. "Anyway, what time is dinner?" Now that he was a little more familiar, Justin was just full of questions.

"Six o'clock exactly, for me, anyway," said Nick, watching Justin warily in return. Nick was more trusting than Chris was, but that wasn't saying all that much. "You really asking what my deal is? Cause if I answer, you have to, too. And more than you said at session."

Justin looked at Chris uncertainly, like he was unclear on the etiquette involved, but when Chris stayed silent he nodded reluctantly. "Okay. Mine's really boring, though, I'm warning you. It's almost nothing at all, I'll be going home soon, I bet." He nodded jerkily, like it had been rehearsed in his head, then fixed his eyes on Nick. "What's your deal?"

"It's just, like, an eating thing," said Nick, waving a hand vaguely. Like, sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't, and sometimes it's really fucked up and I puke up everything I eat. Or one time, I went running for five hours, to work off a piece of pie. It's kind of... a thing. I dunno. Sometimes it makes so much sense and sometimes the doctors make so much sense but it doesn't change anything. Okay, I'm done. Now you."

Justin stared at him for a long moment, hands twisting restlessly together, and then glanced at Chris again. "That's kind of fucked up," he offered, first. "I thought only chicks did that stuff. Me, I don't know. I've got, they call it severe OCD, I...everything has to be just right, just the proper way, or I can't stand it, my head starts pounding like it's going to explode. I don't like it when my shoes get dirty." He looked down at his socks. "I don't like it when anything gets dirty. My stepdad thought I was trying to kill myself by scraping off all my skin washing, but I wasn't, I wasn't! I just needed to get clean."

"I am not a fucking chick!" said Nick, dropping his cigarette butt to the ground and grinding his heel viciously into it. "I am NOT a fucking CHICK!"

Justin scrambled back, away from Nick and Chris both, and didn't stop until he was WELL out of reach. "I didn't say you were!" He protested, "I never! I just, you're OBVIOUSLY not a chick, Nick, god, you're clearly not, okay? It's just the only people I ever knew who stopped eating and stuff were girls. Before you. Because you're not a girl."

"Nice save," Chris murmured dryly, stepping closer to Nick and laying a hand on his arm. "Relax, kiddo," he said quietly. "You know he didn't mean anything."

"I get enough of that shit," muttered Nick, grinding his heel again for good measure. "I get enough of that shit from outside here and I get enough of that shit from my fucking FAMILY. All right?"

"I know," said Chris. "I know. It's all right, Nick. It's cool, we're cool."

Justin stayed away, skittish and wide-eyed, winding his watch with frantic fingers. He only approached again when Nick shrugged Chris's hand away with a little scowl, and muttered "okay, we're cool," and accepted the cigarrette Chris offered him as a peacemaking gesture.

"Sorry," Justin said, sounding more baffled than anything. "I won't ever say anything about chicks again, okay? I'm sorry."

"Nah, it's okay, it's okay," said Nick after a moment. "Chicks are cool, chicks are fine. I'm just not one and it would be fucking nice if certain people would remember that sometimes." He lit the cigarette. "Thanks, Chris."

"Last one," said Chris warningly, and he meant it, too. And he was going to sit next to Nick at dinner and hang out with him after, because there was something off about him and Chris was in decent enough shape to notice. "Come back, Justin, no one's gonna hurt you."

"I don't know that," Justin pointed out, pretty reasonably. "I only just met you today and we're in a psych ward. Maybe you're both psycho axe murderers and you are just lying to me." He did come closer, though, and his words were almost self-mocking. "You'd be a pretty hot chick," he offered Nick, then winced as he clearly realized they probably weren't the most tactful words he could have chosen. "Which you're not. Clearly! And I won't forget it."

Nick didn't blow up again, though. In fact, he grinned slightly, staring down at his hands. "That's not the worst thing anyone's said to me," he said. "Specially not with James and Kevin around. And fucking *Steve*. Man. When he's talking, his a right asshole. So c'mere. I swear I never actually killed anyone."

"A'right." Justin finally made it back to their side, and Chris did his best to hide his eyeroll. Babies, just babies. "Kevin actually talks? I mean, about other stuff than the voices in his head? He shook his head, tapped his toe on the dirt. One-two-three-four-one-two-three-four like a metronome. "This place is so strange. What time is it?"

"I don't know," said Chris. "Does it matter what time it is? People will tell us when we need to do things."

"It's after four," supplied Nick. "Sometimes Kevin's voices tell him to say things. All *kinds* of things. Weird shit or mean shit or... anything. I don't get his voices at all. I think there are a lot of different ones."

"Kevin seems a lot crazier than anyone else in here," Justin pointed out ingenuously. "Well, maybe Howie too, I've never seen..." he trailed off with a little flush. "Anyway. Maybe some of Kevin's voices are blind, if they're calling you a girl. And why do you want to be listening to something like voices anyway?" He crouched down, patted the dirt ten times with his flat palms, then stood up like he hadn't done anything out of the ordinary. "How long after four? Can I borrow your watch?"

"I don't have a watch," said Nick apologetically. "I just know it's after four because session ends at four. Does it really matter what time it is? Like, is that something that's important to you? Is it a THING?"

"Five o'clock is important," Justin said a little edgily, looking around like a clock might suddenly appear. "I have things I have to do at five. I wish my mom had let me get a watch." He fidgeted again.

"We have free time till six," Chris recited from memory, "then the dining room is open. Then more free time, supervised usually. It can get pretty boring in here, unless you brough playing cards or *some*thing to do."

Justin was fidgeting obviously, tapping his fingers against his leg. "What's five o'clock, then?" Nick asked him quietly. "Just let me finish this cigarette, then we'll go back inside, okay? It's not five yet. It can't be five yet, we haven't been out here that long."

"I have to brush my teeth," Justin said miserably. "And wash my face and change my, some of my clothes. Right at five. Then wash my hands and clip my fingernails." He was almost rigid with tension that almost looked like pain, and it looked like he was going to bolt for a clock at any moment. "But it's cool," he got out. "Don't rush or anything, I'm sure you're right, it's not even getting dark yet."

"So what happens if you do it at ten after five?" Nick asked him. Chris was pretty curious himself. "Does something bad happen? Is it really awful or something? I've never gotten that..."

"I don't know," Justin said evasively, "I'm always careful about times, I'm always home at five." He flushed at Chris's skeptical look. "Okay, almost always. I get...upset, when I'm not. Maybe panic a little bit. I *have* to do this stuff, I just have to, or everything goes bad."

"That must be real hard," said Nick. The cigarette was gone, though he was trying to make like it wasn't. "I can't even imagine. Are you a virgin?"

"What?" Justin stared at him, actually startled out of his fidgets. "No, I'm not, I've been with people. Lots of people." He actually sounded indignant. "I wasn't always a freak, you know. I wasn't this bad before. I had a girlfriend for a long time and everything, and at school, people, before. Are YOU?"

"I'm not the one who has a problem touching people," Nick snapped back him, dropping the second cigarette butt and grinding it the same way. "I was just ASKING."

"Okay, time to go back inside," Chris interrupted. "Someone, go find a clock."

Justin actually took time to make a face at Nick before bolting for the door, and Nick stuck his tongue out silently at Justin's retreating back before following him. Chris just shook his head, and trailed along behind them, only realizing that Justin had stopped in the hallway once the door closed behind him.

"It's only 4:45," he said, relief evident. "I have plenty of time to get back to the room. Which way do I go?"

Chris sighed and snatched hold of Nick's arm to bring him with them. "Just follow me," he said, started off down the hall. "It's really not hard. You just have to pay attention. What happens when I'm not around, after all? You gotta know this stuff."

"I've only been here a few hours," Justin complained. "All the hallways look the same." He trailed along close to Nick and Chris, and seemed to be making careful notes of the directions they turned. He didn't seem to have any trouble with the cracks in the tiling, but he WAS careful not to touch the walls. "Is your room close to ours?" He asked Nick.

"They're all close," said Nick with a little shrug. "I'm down the hall from you. All the rooms are in two hallways, that's the way the hospital is made. That's so they can keep an eye on us all, and stuff. Meds soon, too."

"I don't think they've got meds for me yet," Justin said uncertainly. "I mean. I met the doctor today and everything, but he didn't say anything about meds. What kind of meds can they put you on for not eating, anyway? Isn't that kind of a not-drugs thing? The ones they have for OCD just turn me into a zombie." He shivered a little. "I'd rather wash my hands and count a lot of things."

"I'm on antidepressants," said Nick succinctly. "There are different drugs for you to try, probably. There are always different kinds; I've been on, like, three different ones now." And he was still there, like Chris was. "Maybe not today, though. Maybe not until you spend some time with the doctor. I dunno."

"Did any of yours work?" Justin looked at him curiously. "Even for a little while?" He paused. "That's our door!" He hurried towards it, reaching for the doorknob, then hestitated, then grabbed it and swung it open. "I hate that they don't lock," he griped, glancing at the clock one more time before heading directly to the sink. "Anyone could come in here and touch all my stuff."

"Bad things happen behind locked doors," said Nick quietly. "I need to go back to my own room while they do rounds. Chris, I'll meet you both in the common room before dinner?" Chris nodded, and Nick gave him a soft kiss on the lips. "Okay. See you soon."

"Whoa." Justin's eyes met Chris's in the mirror as he washed mechanically, blinking rapidly and big with surprise. Then he ducked his head down again, scrubbing even harder, so that Chris could see the muscles in his forearms stand out with the effort. "What are rounds?" he asked, in a strained small voice.

"Rounds is when they bring the meds around," said Chris, closing the door to the room and crossing to his bed. "They like it better if we're in our rooms and they don't have to track us down. You okay? Relatively speaking?"

"I'm dirty," Justin fretted, shaking his head. "I have to change." He actually pulled his hands out of the sink and dried them on his towel very fast and very hard, and went for his dresser, pulling out underwear and socks and another t-shirt. "You, um. You kissed Nick." His voice was a question, and he slipped behind the wardrobe door, almost screened as he started to strip.

"Nick kissed me, really," said Chris, stretching out on the bed, shoes and all. "Yeah. Well. We do that sometimes and all. It's been a while. I haven't really been around for a while. That's not gonna weird you out, right?"

"Nooo," Justin said, consideringly. "No, I don't think so." He folded his jeans precisely, kept taking off his clothes. Each item was shaken out and folded just so. He stepped into clean underwear, pulled the shirt back on, then the jeans and socks. When he came back out, he looked exactly the same as he had before. "How long are you usually...not around, when you go? Nick seemed real happy to see you again."

"It depends," said Chris, rolling onto his side. He didn't really like to remember his down times. "This time it was almost two weeks. Two weeks at rock bottom, I mean, not even leaving the room. I had a roommate when I started and I didn't when it was over and I don't even really remember him leaving. It's pretty awful."

"But, you're here," Justin watched him as he started soaping his hands again. "Don't they help you? Can't they make you get up, or give you better drugs, or vitamins, or something? Aren't they supposed to be able to fix that kind of thing?"

"They're *trying*," said Chris bitterly. So many people he'd seen come and go, and he was the one who was still there, the one they hadn't been able to help yet. "They're keeping me alive. It's better than what would be happening to me if I *wasn't* here."

"I guess it's safe here," Justin agreed, quiet and uncertain. "And you know at least they're trying." He dropped his chin to his chest. "It's the only reason I said I'd come here. I just keep getting worse and worse and more and more compulsive and...and I'm so tired of it. But they'll help, here. My mom said."

Chris closed his eyes for a moment. "Yeah, they can help you here. You saw John, at session. He's going home, after all, and it probably won't be long before they've done the same for you, taught you how to control things like that. Maybe you're right, maybe you won't even need to be on all kinds of medication."

"You too, Chris," Justin insisted. "They'll find what works for you, too. I bet they're figuring it out right now, and you'll be out of here before me, even." He smiled a little. "Then I'll probably get some roommate like Kevin or whatever and I'll wish you were still here."

Chris snorted, blinking his eyes open to watch Justin watsh. it was almost mesmerizing. "Kevin doesn't have a roommate," he said. "But you could get stuck with Howie. And I bet that would be a lot more traumatizing than watching Nick kiss me."

Justin's ears turned pink. "Yeah," he said, shaking his head. "That would be weird. I mean, jerking off, people do it, but right out in public like that? Man." He dried his hands again, just as hard, then bent down to the sink and scrubbed at his face with water and soap. Dried, did it again, then stood back, looking at the clock. Relief washed over his face, and he finally relaxed a little. Almost the strangest thing was that he hadn't spilled a drop of water outside the sink.

"Howie doesn't understand public and private," said Chris, rolling onto his back again and staring at the ceiling. "He doesn't really... get, what it means to be around people. He doesn't connect at all. He'll probably be here for a really long time. Are you ready to go meet up with Nick, or is there other stuff you need to do?"

"Done," Justin said guiltily. He seemed a little weirded out by having Chris there for what Chris was pretty sure had been a private ritual before, but he shook it off. "We can go. But Howie...he reads books, right? That's what Joey was saying. And he talks and stuff, he just had a lot of meds today..." he looked at Chris uncertainly. "You mean he's like that all the time? Really?"

"No, not that bad," said Chris. "Not like today, today he was really gone. But to some degree, he doesn't... he doesn't 'get' it, like you and me do. He used to be worse, though. He's not stupid, he's just... disconnected."

"Huh." Justin seemed to process this. "You know, for a while there I thought I was the craziest person in the *world*." He shook his head. "I still do, a little, like when we were outside. But just being here, I don't know. It could be worse, I guess." He gave Chris a twisted little smile. "Don't you have to wait for meds, before we go? Or are you off 'em too?"

"That's why I'm lyin' here still," said Chris. "Waiting for rounds to make it this far. I'm on... fucked if I can even remember anymore. Something new again, to see if it helps this fucked up brain of mine. Believe me, kid, you're not the craziest person in the world. Not by far."

"That's kinda comforting, I guess." Justin brushed the bed with his hands, all over, then settled on it and watched Chris. "But I'm in here, so I'm definitely in the top five percent or whatever. I always wanted to be special." His smile twisted even more. "Maybe this one will fix your brain up, and you'll be normal all the time."

"I don't really expect to ever be normal all the time," Chris confessed to him, watching the doorknob slowly turn open. "I don't think that's possible. I just want it to be normal enough that I can handle it on my own, and don't have to be in here all the time in case I decide to off myself or something. I just don't want to go there anymore. Nick understands."

"Nick...he doesn't have what you have," Justin's brow furrowed, but he broke off as the door swung open and Tommy, the orderly, came through carrying a tray with plastic cups.

"Hey Chris. How's it going, man? Good to see you up and about." He set Chris's meds on the dresser, then another group of white paper cups on Justin's. "I'm Tommy," he introduced himself to Justin, "nice to meet you. Just take these down, and I'll be on my way."

"Huh, I guess they do have you on meds after all," said Chris, shooting his own back quickly. He never made a fuss about his meds. One of these days, *something* was bound to work out, and he was very much looking forward to that day. "What've you got him on, Tommy?"

"You'd have to ask at the nurses' station," he said apologetically. "I just bring them 'round."

Justin reached for his, pulled his hand back, reached again, and bit his lip hard. He finally ducked his head like a man going to his execution, and grabbed them, swallowing with a harsh gulp that *looked* painful. His eyes were watering when he turned, but Chris couldn't tell if it was just from having something stuck in his throat.

"Water," Tommy urged Justin gently, holding out the cup. "I need to watch you swallow, all right?"

Justin nodded miserably, swallowing the water more easily, and slumped down on the bed again as Tommy left the room with a wave at Chris and a "see you later!"

"Hey," said Chris, crossing over to Justin's bed but not touching him, not daring. "Hey. Hey, Justin, hey. You in there? It was just some pills, it's no big thing, kid. Just shit to make you better; they do know what they're doing. You ready to come to the common now?"

"The other pills were supposed to make me feel better too," Justin said blankly to the ceiling. "All they did was make me feel dead. Crazy is better than dead." He rolled his head and looked at Chris, blinking too much and too fast but not objecting to Chris standing so close. "Do I have to come to the common room? What's happening there? Is there stuff to do?"

"There's a TV," Chris offered him, reaching out a hand, letting Justin choose whether to touch him or not. It was fine for now, but Chris thought that maybe having to shit like that for his roommate was gonna get old. "And Nick. And books and games and stuff. Justin... they wouldn't give you the same stuff that made you feel dead. They have your records, they know better than that. It'll be something new and maybe it'll work."

Justin didn't touch his hand, but he did roll over and sit up. "I know," he finally sighed. "About the medication, I mean. But it's just, they've tried different stuff this last year, you know? And nothing's worked, and most of them have just made me fucked-up." He looked up at Chris. "There's one TV? For everyone? How does that work out?" He nibbled his lip a little. "The Lakers game is on this afternoon."

"A couple people have TVs in their rooms," said Chris, pulling his hand back again and sighing. "Most people aren't allowed to. The common room forces us to, like, socialize and stuff. It's supposed to be important. So yeah, just one TV. If you're coming, come, and if you're not, I'm gonna go spend some time with Nick, all right?"

"So..." Justin hesitated. "If you want to go spend time with Nick, you can go. I mean, I'm okay. I can go by myself to the common room." He pushed up to his feet, and stretched once, twice, three times, bent down and patted the floor with his hands ten times. "Will they let me watch the game, do you think? Everyone else?"

"I dunno," said Chris, backing up from him a step to be out of the way. "If that's what everyone wants to watch, I guess. Depends on who's there, and stuff. Why do you do that? That floor thing? You did that outside, too..."

Justin straightened up, and looked confused, then embarrassed. "I don't know," he mumbled. "It's just a thing. Like washing my hands, I guess. I don't even notice it any more." He headed for the sink, like talking about it had reminded him. "I'll come to the common room, then, and see who's there. We can come back to the room any time we want?"

"Whenever you want," Chris promised him. "They'll only make you come back out again to eat dinner. We do that together, too, mostly. Another one of their socialization things, to try to make us interact and be normal and stuff. They'll give you a schedule, probably, of when you're supposed to do stuff. Some people don't get a schedule, though. Some people they just go and get them when they're supposed to be doing stuff, cause they'll never remember or sometimes they just don't care."

"Like Howie, I bet," Justin said knowingly, "and Kevin. I *like* schedules, I hope they give me one and don't just run around making me go places." He sighed, and squared his shoulders, dried his hands, and headed for the door at Chris's heels, like a dog willing to follow but wary of a kick. "There's no hand-holding and singing Kumbaya, I hope," he muttered as they headed down the hallway. "I don't think I could handle that."

"I can guarantee you," said Chris, smirking, "that I've not once sung Kumbaya since I've been here. There may have been some handholding, but it was strictly voluntary. They'll probably give you a schedule, yeah, unless they're worried that you'll adhere to it *too* closely, or something, and freak out when something's even a minute late. You won't, right?"

Justin's silence was telling. "So, handholding," he finally ventured, steps slowing as they got closer to the common room. "Is that...is that usual here? I mean, there aren't any girls." His blush was almost audible in his voice. "I know you said you and Nick, sometimes, and...the others, too?"

"They do allow visitors," said Chris. "I mean, people's girlfriends come sometimes, to visit, and they're totally allowed to have sex. Mostly, except one guy, but that was special circumstances. I mean, we're all adults here, and we're not prisoners. And yeah, sometimes... sometimes people in here get together. Sometimes. It, like, just happens. Nick isn't my boyfriend, you know."

Justin tipped a noncommittal shoulder at him, almost glowing with embarrassment. "I didn't know," he admitted. "I never kissed people who weren't, you know, dating me. And stuff, so I just kind of figured." He started winding his watch as Chris reached for the door to the common room. "I didn't think they'd let girlfriends visit. It seems *just* like jail to me."

"It's not jail," Chris said again, but he knew where Justin was coming from. They couldn't just walk out; in that way it was the same. "You family can come visit, after this week. They know that, right? And friends and stuff. Not, like, overnight and stuff, and not while you have things scheduled, but still. You're lucky, you'll have people visit. Some people don't, you know. But at least Nick has me and I have him. Mostly."

Justin shrugged again. "We'll see," he muttered. "I don't think my mom wants to bring my little brothers near this place." He looked curiously around the common room, which was actually quite nice, with overstuffed armchairs and area rugs and shelves full of books. The television was small and mounted firmly on the wall, and there were no sharp corners in the room, but otherwise it looked almost like someone's living room. "This is kind of nice," he said, close at Chris's heels.

"It's comfortable," said Chris with a shrug. "As long as no one's acting up or anything. If someone's acting up, I can't be somewhere else fast enough. TV's not worth being around when Kevin's having a loud conversation with the friends in his head, or something." Someone had left a pen on the shelf near the door; Chris dropped it into his pocket. "So what do you want to do?"

"I don't know," Justin said, looking around and not moving. "What's, what's fun to do?" He looked tired, and stressed around his eyes, and badly in need of a distraction. His raw hands were clenching and unclenching again, but he did seem to relax a little when he saw Nick's blond head over the edge of the couch. "There's Nick. What's he doing?"

"Dunno," said Chris. "Reading, probably. He reads a lot, he's weird sometimes. Sometimes I think he reads things he shouldn't and that sets him off down a bad road again. But they try not to keep things in this room that'll do that. Still, I mean, it's hard to tell people not to read, you know? You could watch TV or something. Or talk to people. Or whatever."

"I don't want to talk to people," Justin said, right on the border of sulky, and followed Chris closely as he wandered over to Nick's side.

* * *

Chris's voice was very distinctive, and Nick knew the moment he walked into the room. He didn't look up, though, because he knew Chris's pretty new roommate would probably be right there, following him around. Nick thought he was kind of interesting, and awfully cute, and definitely competition for Chris's attention. Not that he'd admit that last part to himself, even.

"Hey, Carter." Chris's voice was always nice when he talked to Nick, and Nick appreciated it. "Whatcha doing?"

Nick held up the magazine he was looking at somewhat half-heartedly. "Nothing," he said, and squeezed himself up into a smaller ball to let the two of them sit down, if they wanted to. "Just sitting, and... nothing interesting. Hi."

Chris smiled down at him and Nick wanted to kiss him again, but Chris still wasn't entirely back to being his usual self again, and Nick didn't want to push things too hard. Chris needed to do what Chris needed to do in his own time.

Chris perched on the arm of the couch, but Justin stayed standing, in that rigid tense way he had like he was terrified to touch anything. It looked like a tiring way to live.

"Just showing the new kid around," Chris said, reaching out to turn the magazine so he could look at the cover more closely. "National Geographic? Fun. You can read all about seaweed. So, what's new around here? Did they get any new games, did anything at ALL interesting happen?"

"Nothing," said Nick, sighing. "Not a single thing. I just got here a few minutes ago, though, after Tommy came around. They're trying this new thing on me. I don't know. I don't think I like it much. It makes me feel... strange. Justin, are you going to sit?" Justin shook his head and stared at something, maybe the wall, maybe the TV, maybe the clock. "I've got some new babysitter at dinner; I guess Kelly is on maternity leave now. I hope it's not some total jerk."

"I bet it'll be fine," Chris said hopefully. Nick's last babysitter--the one before Kelly--really HAD been a jerk, and Nick knew Chris worried when he got upset at mealtimes. He just shrugged, though. "They're trying something new on Justin, too," Chris went on. "Just one more thing for you two to bond over."

"Mine isn't making me feel strange," Justin said jerkily, shaking his head and finally looking at them. "I'm not feeling anything at all just yet. Do you think anyone will care if I change the channel on the TV?"

"Is anyone watching?" asked Nick, lifting his head to look around. There were a couple of guys glued to the set, but he couldn't say if they were watching because they wanted to watch, or watching for something to do. "You can ask. Mostly people don't mind much, if you ask, unless it's something good, and dinner's in an hour or so anyway. And hey, you have to be on meds for, like, a couple days before they make you feel much, usually. Unless it's critical stuff, and no one around here has had a critical moment in--" He glanced at Chris for a moment. "Well, at least a week or two."

"Just try to make yourself at home, Justin," said Chris, gesturing at the whole room. "After all, it pretty much is."

Justin cringed a little, then took a deep breath and shook his head. "Okay," he said, "I'll ask, I guess. I really want to see the Lakers play." He took a few steps in the direction of the television, but no one looked at him. "Guys?" His voice was thin and strained. "Can I change the channel?"

"Not a fucking chance," one of the guys watching "Baywatch" said. Justin seemed to stand straighter.

"The Lakers game is on," Justin insisted, voice getting stronger, developing an edge. "I always watch the game. It's just an hour or so."

"Uh oh," Chris said, under his breath.

"We're not switching the damn channel to put the game on," said the other. Nick strained his neck to see who -- James, it looked like. That would make sense. "You can find out the score later; we're watching something here. Besides, no one else wants to see the game."

He was right about that, Nick thought, though he didn't much care *what* was on. "What's 'uh oh'?" he asked Chris softly, giving Justin a wary look.

"I'm already learning to pay attention when he says 'always,'" Chris answered, just as softly, watching them. "With him, it's usually literal. So far, anyway. I wonder if we're going to get to see what happens when his routine-" he broke off as Justin's voice went up an octave and a whole lot of decibels.

"It's just an HOUR. That's a RERUN, and the game is happening right NOW!" Nick saw a passing orderly pause at the raised voice, glance in curiously. "The game is time-sensitive, it doesn't make any sense for you to not let me watch it! We can change back during commercials!" Justin was leaning forward intensely, but still safely far from James's personal space.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" he said. "You just *got* here. You don't get to say what goes on the TV, specially when there are two of us and one of you." James was a quick study; he remembered what had happened in session today as well as Nick did, and reached out slowly as though he was going to grab Justin's shoulder.

"Justin," said Chris, but Nick could hear the futility in his voice. "Why don't you come over here and do something with us instead?"

Justin ignored him completely, just staring at James with a muscle in his jaw jumping, braced as if for a blow. When James actually touched him, though, a little shove, Justin shrieked like he'd been burned and leaped backwards. "FUCK!" He shouted at James, clenching his hands into fists. "I have to watch the GAME!"

"Well, at least I know why they kicked him out of college, now," Chris said conversationally to Nick. Nick looked around, just in time to see the orderly talking into his walkie-talkie, and back, just in time to see Justin start into a meltdown, hyperventilating and starting to turn red, making little movements towards the television like he almost couldn't help himself. James was laughing and blocking his way.

"God, James, stop it," said Nick, finally popping out of his seat and grabbing James's arm to pull him away. "Do you have to be such a dick? The guy is seriously freaking out, here."

"Yeah, I know," said James. "Isn't it great?"

Nick yanked him away, but far too late to prevent Justin from doing what Justin was going to do. Which was to completely, completely melt down.

"Justin," Chris was saying, clearly trying to get Justin focused back on him. "Come on, man, you have to get your shit together or they *are* gonna shoot you full of stuff that'll make you feel like a zombie for a while."

Justin was panting like he'd been running, sweating and shaking and staring at Chris like he was an alien. Nick almost went to his side, but stopped when Justin started making a noise, a high soft keening sound as he brought his fists up to his temples like his head was killing him. "I need to watch the game," he finally got out, and Nick bit his lip at the lost sound of his voice. He *did* let go of James, and step closer.

"Hey, Justin, hey," he said, quietly. "Listen up, I'm gonna tell you a secret. I've got a radio in my room. I'm not supposed to, it's a secret, but if you calm down you can come listen to the game in my room. It's almost the same, right?" Justin shook his head no, but did seem to be calming down a little.

"Justin, it's better than being shot up with some kind of sedative," Chris reminded him, blessedly calm and in control. Nick never said so, but sometimes he really liked Chris best at times like this, even before he really started going up again. "And Nick has a really nice room, he's got lots of stuff in it and he's made it comfortable and it's definitely not dirty.

Nick was going to comment on the relative dirtiness of his room, but one quick look from Chris quelled it. "It's the best I can do," he said quietly, just as the orderly's call for help was answered.

"What's going on in here, boys?" a nurse asked matter-of-factly from the door. James pointed almost gleefully at Justin.

"He's freaking on me," he said, and got a death glare from Chris in return.

Justin's breath was still hitching unevenly when the nurse came near, and he didn't seem to be able to quite control himself yet. He jerked away when she reached for his wrist, hands behind his back, and almost fell as he tried to scurry away.

"He's got a thing with being touched, he's new here, he's just kind of nervous," Chris explained, still blessedly calm. "I don't think he's freaking out, really." Justin was at least managing to stay silent, though his shakes were actually getting worse. The nurse raised a brow.

"I do have his medical history, Chris," she reminded him, not unkindly. "I have some idea what's the matter here. What was the trigger?"

"He... he wanted to watch the game," said Nick hesitantly, not sure if that was what she was asking for. "He, uh, he said he always watches the game. And instead of letting him, James had to be an asshole--" She frowned at him. "--and not only leave it on that stupid Baywatch rerun, but he touched him on purpose just to get a reaction."

"Ha, prove it."

"He doesn't need to, James," she said, making her way to Justin's side. "Justin, maybe it would be a good idea to stay in your room until dinner."

"But the GAME," he whispered desperately.

"I know," she nodded understandingly. "It's hard, I know, but if someone else is watching the television, you have to compromise. That's an important part of what you're going to learn here, and this is a wonderful place to start. Maybe something to help you calm down..."

"No!" Justin shouted, shaking even harder and eyes starting to tear up. "No, nothing to help me calm down, I don't-" his head snapped around the second the sound changed on the television, and he bolted for the couch without another word, staring avidly at the game.

Joey was standing by the television looking a little sheepish and a little nervous, and not looking at James. "He looked really upset," he said to no one at all, "and the yelling, and stuff, and it's his first day, right, so I kind of thought, you know?"

"That's very good of you, Joey," the nurse said, managing to sound both grudging and approving. Nick could get that, he'd been here long enough to know. It was a step back, for Justin to be allowed to watch the game, but a step forward for Joey to be able to let him. Everything was all about step backs and steps forward, like dancing. Nick didn't think he was a very good dancer.

"That was weird," he whispered to Chris, the room strangely quiet now that Justin wasn't freaking out. "Has he done that before, to you?"

"He only got here this afternoon," Chris reminded him. "No freaking out yet, this is a first for me. Man, he really comes apart at the seams." He settled onto the couch by Nick, small and slimmer than usual, like always after a down-spell. "And it's weird, 'cause he's such a normal kid when he's not being, you know, crazy. That really came out of left field."

Justin laughed happily at something the announcer said, storm clouds entirely gone now that whatever had been torturing him was settled.

Nick wrapped his arms around Chris comfortably; he didn't really care what was on TV, he just wanted things to be calm and not out of control anymore. "I don't even think he knows we're here anymore," he said softly. Justin's entire focus seemed to be on the game. "So hey, how are you doing, really?"

"I'm okay," Chris said automatcially, like he always did when people asked him. He leaned a little into Nick's arms, feeling small, but warming Nick up all down one side. "Justin's a good distraction. Something else to pay attention to, you know? And they're talking about this new drug that came out, it's in testing now. The doc said it looks good. So, you know." He tipped his head and looked at Nick. "You?"

Nick shrugged a little but. He told Chris more than he even told the doctors, but it still wasn't everything. "It's not good lately," he admitted finally. "We can... talk about it after dinner? You have time to spend time with me? Or... I guess with Justin and all... " He didn't want to get his hopes up. He'd spent the last couple weeks largely without Chris. He would cope. "I hope that drug works for you. You deserve a break, man."

"Justin can settle in all on his own," Chris said, with a wry little smile. "He's an interesting kid, but he's also kind of a pain in the ass. I'm all yours after dinner, anyway. Gonna sit by me at the table? I'm super-sick of eating things out of those paper bowls they were bringing me. I'm demanding utensils now and everything." He patted Nick's hand.

Chris usually sat by him at dinner anyway, when they were both there. He didn't really trust Nick's keepers to take care of him right. Nick didn't figure he needed yet another keeper, but it made Chris feel useful and it wasn't as though Nick didn't like having him around. Any time. "I think they'll give them to you," said Nick, because lack of utensils was actually a serious concern. "You're doing really good, Chris. You look really good. And I'm really, really glad you're back."

That got a genuine smile out of Chris, something Nick hadn't seen since Chris started the downward spiral weeks and weeks ago. His whole face changed and got warm and handsome and open and charming, and he wrapped his arms around Nick in return and gave him a solid squeeze. "I am back, yeah. I missed you too, kid, and now that I'm back, you can tell me all about the not-good stuff, right? Instead of letting it all sit in that busy head of yours." He squeezed again, then gave Nick a little slap on the shoulder. "I'm feeling ribs again, Nicky."

Nick closed his eyes and sighed. He was wearing a couple layers of clothing; Chris wouldn't have been feeling it if he wasn't looking for it. "I know," he said after a moment. "I'm sorry, Chris. I'm sorry. I know I said... I'm just sorry."

"Hsh," Chris scolded lightly. "Don't be sorry, just get better. See what happens when I'm not around to keep things on the right track?" His hand on Nick's side was gentle, though, and he tipped his forehead against Nick's. "What fun stuff did you do while I was away?" He glanced aside only when Justin yelped in pleasure at something on the TV; Joey, happily telling him a story, was being ignored and didn't seem to care at all.

"Not much," said Nick, snuggling closer against him, as much as he could. Chris was warm. "Nothing around here ever changes, Chris. Sometimes people come and sometimes people go and everything else just stays the same all the time. I stay the same all the time. You stay the same all the time. I'm starting to wonder what the point is..."

"The point is we're still alive and still trying," Chris responded promptly. "And anyway, who could leave all this? The fine food, the wonderful ambience, the fabulous staff. And the other guests are just the *best*." He rolled his eyes a little at Nick, who almost giggled. "Who do they have you rooming with now? Do you have the room to yourself since Ben checked out?"

"So far," said Nick, lifting his hand just to cross his fingers. "And now that you got Justin, I might have it to myself a little longer. Maybe. I hope. It's better when I'm in there alone." Except, he heard people say, it wasn't, because when he was alone he wallowed. But he didn't believe that, when he was alone, it gave him a chance to think, was all. "Or when you're in there with me."

The corner of Chris's mouth lifted in what was almost a sly grin. Chris wasn't quite back to grinning point yet, but he was getting there, clearly. "I'll agree with that second one. You spend too much time in there just sitting, when you don't have a roommate, though. You need to get out and about more." He sighed, fingers brushing Nick's hipbone. "I don't know what they were thinking, putting Justin in with me. He's very, very neurotic, and you know how nuts that makes me."

"Maybe they're trying to drive *you* out more," suggested Nick, glancing at Justin. He was barely even blinking, looked like. "And hey, I'm out now, right? I'm not sitting in there right now. I'm okay. Except for the not good things."

"Right, except for those," Chris sighed. "Well, if they want to drive me out, they're doing a great job. I'm already sick of the sound of the water running in our sink. He washes his hands constantly." He turned his head too, and looked at Justin. "He's a good kid, though. Hope they find the right meds and the right doctor for him. He's about your age, Nick, you should talk to him, hang out a little. Maybe you'll like him."

"Maybe," said Nick, looking at him again. He was kind of cute, but there was something about him... even as he was watching TV, he was tapping his fingers against his thigh. "If he's rooming with you, I'll get to know him like it or not. And nevermind session, where we get to know *everyone*. Why am I still here, Chris?"

"I don't know, kiddo," Chris said sadly. "Because they haven't found the magic words for you either, I guess. You and me, we're old timers now." The only person who had been there as long was Howie, and he barely counted. " But you're going to get better soon, I can tell. Already you're doing much better for much longer, you know. I can tell." He didn't mention the fact that Nick's ribs were under his thumb, and Nick was grateful. "Want to tell me what the not-good stuff is right now?"

"Now?" said Nick, eyes flicking from Justin back to Chris again. It was easier to say later.. and later, and later... "I... I told everyone, that I talked to mom." But it had started a long time before that. Maybe the *last* time she'd called. "That's never good."

"I bet. What'd she have to say this time?" Chris tipped his head back against the couch and watched Nick, never letting go of him. "All you said in session was that it was okay."

"My brother," said Nick, licking his lips. His mouth felt dry. "His career is starting to take off, you know? Which is... which is great for him, that's great. I hope he goes all the way."

"That's pretty cool," Chris nodded. "Did you get to talk to him? I know it's always great when you do. He's a great kid." Chris of course had only seen pictures and heard stories, but he'd heard a lot, Nick knew. "Gotta be hard, with your mom being how she is, though."

"No, no, didn't get to talk to him," said Nick slowly. He didn't know if he was going to get through this, telling Chris. He didn't know how. "And I probably won't. Mom... thinks it's probably best, if I'm not involved at all. You know, with me being where I am and all. And hey, she's probably right, it's probably for the best that they're not going to be calling anymore."

Chris went still. "They're not...what? Nick. That's part of your therapy." He turned a little in Nick's arms, looking at him incredulously. "It'll probably be *good* for you to not hear from that harpy bitch--sorry Nick--but they can't keep Aaron or your dad from calling you. That's part of your *therapy*."

"They're moving," Nick went on, eyes flicking shut again. Tight. "To the west coast. No forwarding address. And I know it is, Chris, I know it's part of my therapy, but it's... it'd kind of a relief. Is that sick? It's kind of a relief, to be rid of that complication."

"They still have to pay your bills," Chris pointed out, "but yeah, I understand. It's not like talking to them ever really helped much, at least not when your mom was around." He sighed a little as Justin jerked away from Joey, who had tried to get his attention by plucking at his sleeve. "There's nothing sick about being relieved."

"I thought maybe there was, that I was a little bit happy my family wouldn't be calling anymore. Even if it means they want to, like, pretend I don't exist. Am I really that bad, Chris? Am I really so terrible that they'd never want to see me again?"

"No, they're just crazy," Chris answered promptly. "And not in the fixable way like us. We've got broken things in our brains, but--you'll like this, my second-to-last roomate wrote it on our wall once--but some people have broken souls. I think they qualify. Also, your mom? Evil."

"Yeah, she kind of is," sighed Nick. That, at least, he knew to be true. "Everything still feels so out of control, Chris. Like I can't do anything to fix it. I don't know how, and nothing they tell me feels right."

"Hey, now, I'm the only one allowed to get paranoid around here," Chris scolded a little. "I know it *feels* wrong, but they know what they're talking about. And you know that's true, you've been here long enough. You've just got to keep trying, keep going. You're a lot better than you were when you got here, that's for sure."

"Sometimes I'm not so sure," murmured Nick. But he knew, at least, that Chris was probably more right than he was. That Chris could see him more clearly, just like he could see Chris more clearly. "I just want things to feel in control again. I wish that wasn't such a big thing. Tell me something happy, Chris."

"Hmm." Chris rocked back and forth a little, smiling. "Lessee. There's pot roast for dinner. My sister's going to have a baby, did I tell you? I'm gonna be an uncle, yep. They managed to keep me alive through another downcycle, and I'm back. And it looks like Joey's actually improving. All that, and J. Lo dumped Ben Affleck, too!"

"J Lo dumped Ben Affleck? Really?" said Nick, giving Chris a genuine smile. He didn't know what he would do if they ever lost Chris. "Chris! Tell me more about this baby! When did you find out?"

"Day before yesterday," Chris nodded, big smile on his face. "I still wasn't getting calls, but someone left a message with the nurse, who told me. It's one of the things that got me moving, I could've been there for a few more days." He shook his head. "I can't believe it. A baby. An UNCLE. She's going to visit as soon as she and he no-account fiancee get the money together to come up."

"I can get my... no, wait, I can't," Nick corrected himself. He couldn't talk to his brother and ask for money. He couldn't call his brother at all. "I hope she can come soon."

"She said you can only just even notice," Chris said, sounding excited. "I want her to come when I can feel kicking and stuff. That will be the cool part. So like, a couple months probably." He looked up as cheering signalled the end of the game, and Justin stood up, looking satisfied. Joey was still talking a mile a minute, and Lance was still sulking with his National Geographic in the corner, but it was almost dinnertime, and Nick could already feel himself dreading it.

"Maybe in a couple months," said Nick, forcing his mind away from the topic, "she won't have to come here. Maybe in a couple months you'll already be there, to see her."

"Yeah, right," Chris said, heavy on the sarcasm. "Only if I can figure out a way to FLY out of here by then. None of the meds have made a bit of difference, and there's only so much that counseling can do about this crazy brain of mine." He visibly gathered himself, though. "Anyway, like I said before, how could I leave all this?"

"Pretty easily, I would think," said Nick, with a bitter smile that he hoped looked better than it felt. "You said there were new meds, and..." The intercom crackled and Justin jumped. Nick knew they were calling dinner even before it happened. He just knew.

"Time to eat," Chris said almost cheerfully, and Justin brightened visibly, flocking back to their side even as he kept his regular distance from them physically. Joey tagged along after him, with an uncertain look at Lance. "C'mon, Nick, let's head in. Get the good stuff before the animals take it all."

"Is the food good here? I'm starving," Justin said eagerly. "Oh, I have to wash my hands first." He fled towards the hallway, moving fast and anxious, and Chris just shook his head.

"He's been thinking about washing his hands for a while," Joey piped up. "He was rubbing them over and over and over during the game. And not like Howie rubs himself but different. Over and over and over again and I think if he keeps doing that he's not going to have any skin left!"

Nick suspected that Joey was actually right for once; Justin was really kind of strange. It was a shame, because he looked like the kind of guy who would've been real popular, growing up. "I'm just having a little dinner," he announced. "You know how freak-outs make me lose my appetite, it's not a thing or anything."

"You know they're not going to let you do that," Chris said, a little sadly. "Not an option, baby. And it is a thing, you know that, it's always a thing with food, even if you think it isn't." He reached out and squeezed Nick's hand, gave it a little tug towards the dining room.

"There's lemon pie tonight," Joey announced happily. "I love lemon pie but Nick can have mine if he wants." He'd never understood Nick's thing with food, Nick knew, but he was friendly and aware enough to notice that sometimes Nick didn't eat, and it worried him in a vague way. "Nobody can lose their appetite on lemon pie."

Nick smiled at him because he was Joey, and he had to. Joey's constant good humour was one of the bright things about being in the hospital with him, even if Joey shared far, far too much without a second thought.

"That's sweet, Joey, but you can keep your own lemon pie," Nick assured him. "I'm sure they'll give me plenty to eat. *Believe* me, they will. Do we need to wait for Justin? Does he know the way? Or I guess, if he doesn't, someone will help him out..."

Chris looked uncertain, but then nodded. "Yeah. And you know you've got to get there on time, or the wardens get fussy. We don't need more fussy, today." He kept holding Nick's hand as he drew him towards the dining room. He squeezed his fingers again, reassuring and warm.

"Lemon pie is the BEST," Joey babbled happily, at their heels. "Especially when it's got all that white creamy stuff on the top. And when they give you the cherries on it too. I used to sing this song about cherry pie that I heard on the radio a lot, but then people said I wasn't supposed to especially not loud in grocery stores, so I had to stop, but I forgot all the time." Nick actually grinned, just for a moment, and so did Chris. "Some people are uptight about that kind of thing," he said, and gave Joey a pat on the arm. Chris was right that Nick couldn't really afford to be late to dinner, not when he had people watching over every morsel he put in his mouth. "I'm sure dinner is going to be great. I'm sure you'll enjoy it." Just as he was sure that it would be a struggle to get down every bite, especially with so many eyes on him. If only he could sneak the food back to his room or something.

"I don't know what uptight has to do with cherry pie," Joey went on, beaming at Nick when he patted his arm and giving him a spontaneous hug. "Howie sometimes says poems about cherries and then he gets all red and makes sounds, but that's different, I think, there arnen't any pies." He rubbed up on Nick like a friendly dog, then ran for the door to the cafeteria.

"They'd better not give me a spork," Chris grumped. "I'm not on suicide watch any more, I'm demanding a real fork. If only so I can actually eat that pie. Now I'm all hungry for pie." He twinkled his eyes a little at Nick. "It'll be painless, we can laugh at James the whole time and you won't even notice you're eating."

"It doesn't work like that," murmured Nick, not telling Chris anything he didn't already know. But the food smelled good, and it wasn't as though Nick didn't like food. Nick *liked* food an awful lot. "I'm really trying not to be a freak about this, you know," he said, but Chris knew that. Chris tried not to be a freak about his stuff, too. The whole reason they were both even in there was because trying just wasn't enough.

"I know," Chris answered, with a sigh. "I know. At least you can watch me eat, then, I'm starving." Chris always ate like it was his last meal in these between-times: when he was manic he didn't stop moving long enough to eat much, and when he was depressed he only ate what was forced down his throat. "You *are* getting better, Nick, I can see it."

The others were slowly trickling in from various parts of the ward; group meals were strongly encouraged, but there were nurses and orderlies around to keep order and make sure food-throwing was kept to a minimum. Nick's new minder waved them towards a side table.

Nick sighed and dragged his feet as they crossed the room together. Nick's food would be brought to him. Sometimes he got to choose portions, but not right now. "Hey," he said sullenly, slipping into his seat and slouching immediately.

"Nicky, sit up," Chris encouraged him, taking the seat next to him. There were still a couple of chairs left, enough for Justin if he wanted to sit with them. Which Nick was sure he would. "It'll be fine."

"Yeah, sure, whatever," mumbled Nick. Whatever smile Joey had put on his face, it was gone now.

"Hi, Nick," his babysitter, a nice-looking older lady, smiled at him. "You can smile, I promise it won't be that bad. I've even talked them into giving you some choices. I figure if you can't decide what you're going to eat, you're not going to get better. You'll just get used to having your food controlled for you." She patted his hand, and headed for the food service area.

"See? Definitely not a jerk. Don't sulk, it's not appealing," Chris commented, watching Justin sidle across the room towards them, nervously avoiding any strangers or reaching hands. "Anyway, you know they get like this when you stop eating. You *know* it's coming."

"I *hate* this," Nick spat out, anger bubbling up through him. But then he sighed and let it all drain away. It wasn't really worth the effort, and she seemed nice enough. Not that he really cared. "Hi Justin."

Justin stared at the chair and table like they were covered in vermin, then gingerly sat down. "How does this work?" he asked them earnestly. "Do we get to order things, like a restaurant?"

"Some people do," Chris snickered, looking over at Steven, who had his handler at his side, getting ready to select his food. "But us, we've gotta go get our own. It's just like highschool. Just go get what you want, the counter lady will serve it to you."

"There are other people touching the food?" Justin seemed completely horrified, and clenched his hands together, looking from Chris to Nick. "No way. They wouldn't, that's so disgusting."

"You have got to relax about that," Chris told him seriously. "People are going to be touching your stuff here, it's just the way things are."

"No," said Justin, shaking his head viciously. "That's not acceptable. That's not acceptable. That's *gross*, how can you eat that?" Justin was going to go very hungry if he didn't get used to it. "Isn't there any other choice?"

"No," said Nick quietly. "Sorry, man. You'll get used to it. It's not like they're sticking their hands in it or something. It's just like if your mom served you dinner. Your mom did serve you dinner before, right?"

That seemed to give Justin pause. "Yes," he finally said reluctantly. "But that was different. That was my mom." His stomach chose that moment to rumble loudly, though, and he pushed away from the table and made his way rather miserably to the line by the food.

"I *really* hope that medication works for him," Chris mumbled, watching Nick's helper return with his food. "He's ten times worse about this kind of thing than John ever was, you know?" He casually pocketed the fork from the table, and waited for the line to die down before getting his own food.

"Yeah, I kinda noticed," Nick murmured. His babysitter - he should probably ask her name at some point - would be back in about two seconds. Great. "John was in and outta here pretty quick, though, you know? Like... I don't even know if he needed to be in here, except for that thing where he kept hurting himself. But he didn't mean to."

"Yeah, no, he didn't," Chris shook his head. "At least Justin seems to be able to force himself to do stuff, though, even when it's something he doesn't want to do. Except for the schedule thing and the touching thing." He sighed as he looked at Nick's face. "It's not an execution, Nicky. It's just dinner. It'll be over before you know it." He slipped a warm arm around Nick's waist again, squeezing him.

Nick sighed as his plate was set down in front of him. It smelled fantastic. He desperately, desperately didn't want to eat it, but he knew he would. He would probably ask for seconds. But it wouldn't stay.

"Thanks," he said, and forced a smile for his babysitter, who sat down cheerfully on the other side of the table. "Looks good."

"Right full of nutrients," she said, "which you, my dear boy, are desperately needing. I've seen your chart, you know. I know all your secrets." She smiled and it was obviously meant to be disarming, but it just made Nick tense up.

"Don't," Chris murmured, shaking him lightly. "She doesn't mean it like that." He smiled charmingly at the babysitter, and extended his free hand. "Hi, I'm Chris, I eat with Nick."

"I'm Betty, and I eat with Nick too," she chuckled, taking his hand.

"You eat with Nick, and I'm going to go get some food for myself. Be right back, Nick." He rubbed a little circle on Nick's back and squeezed his shoulder gently before moving away from the table, just as Justin returned, carrying a tray, red-faced and stressed.

Nick really didn't know how to handle Justin at all, other than just be really soothing and not touch him or touch his things or touch his food or do anything when Justin didn't want it done. Easy.

"Hey Justin," he said mildly, taking a bite of his dinner under Betty's watchful eye. "Sit down, it's okay. The food is clean and good."

Justin sniffled and set his tray down, sitting carefully by it and not touching anything. "It smells good," he admitted, staring at his food like it would bite him back if he touched it. He glanced at Nick, seemed reassured by the fact that he was chewing, and lifted a tiny forkful to his mouth, gulping before chewing it.

"See, it's good," Betty said encouragingly, smiling at Justin, now. "Keep eating, you don't want to end up too skinny. You've got to keep your strength up." She looked meaningfully at Nick. "You too, Nickolas."

"I'm eating, I'm eating," Nick assured her, keeping his sigh purely inward. He really couldn't win around here, he couldn't not eat, because they were watching him, he couldn't burn it all off, because there was no gym, he couldn't take anything to get rid of it, because his medication was strictly regulated, he couldn't even binge, because his portions were regulated. He felt even more out of control here than he did before he'd come in.

"Good," said Betty approvingly, eating her own lunch while they were there, which made Nick feel a bit better about it. At least she wasn't *just* watching him. "There's pie for dessert, too."

"And it smells great, the pie," Chris said, slipping into his seat by Nick without making any fuss. "Joey's already stuffing his face with it, he talked the counter guy into giving him three slices." He shook his head, and started twirling pasta on his fork. He glanced at Nick's plate sideways, sighed a little, and started eating.

"It is good," Justin said grudgingly, though he was still clearly forcing his food down. "I usually only eat food that comes in boxes, or that my mom makes, but this is good."

"It's good it's good, cause it's all you're getting," said Chris, giving Justin a quick look that Nick almost didn't catch. "It's not like there's a corner store or something where you can pick up snacks."

"Too bad," muttered Nick under his breath, taking another bite. Then, louder, "Joey probably plans to give one of those pieces of pie to me. Sweet guy, really."

"One piece of pie," Betty said gently, but clearly meaning it. "Sweet friends aside, no eating outside mealtimes for you for a while yet."

"You binge and purge one little time," Chris sighed, with his customary dark, direct humor, a grin twisting his mouth. He patted Nick's leg again. "Don't worry, we won't let Joey's gift go to waste, I'm pretty sure I'll have room for it. And if not, I'll just leave it in Justin's bed."

"Oh my god," Justin said faintly, paling. "Don't you dare. Don't you touch my bed."

"He was kidding!" said Nick quickly, a bit disturbed at the sheer alarm on Justin's face. "Uh, right, Chris? Just a little joke." With Chris, one never really knew.

"I wouldn't have eaten it anyway," he mumbled a moment later, staring back at his place. "It doesn't make it any less sweet, though. Do I have to eat all of this, or just until I'm full? There was a ruckus in the common room before dinner, it made me less hungry."

"I brought you two entrees," Betty pointed out. "You can have whichever one you like, the pasta or the chicken, but the rest of it, yes, you have to eat it all. The portions are small."

Chris stopped staring at Justin bemusedly long enough to nod at Nick. "Yeah, that was a joke," he confirmed. "No food in bed, fine, fine. I'll just eat the pie then, because man, gotta reward joey somehow. A month ago he'd never have thought of saving you a piece of pie at all." He started eating quickly. "Now eat up, Nicky, so we can go play cards." He never left Nick alone for at least two hours after mealtimes, at least when he was around.

"Don't rush me!" said Nick, giving him a little elbow to the ribs, but he was smiling a little again. He could do this, he'd done it before, even if it made him feel weird and gross and wrong, he could do it. He wasn't Justin, after all. He wasn't going to flip out over some dinner. He took a bite of the pasta, like Chris was eating.

"Nick, Nick!" said Joey, dragging a chair halfway across the room so he could sit at their table. The screech of metal could probably be heard all the way outside their ward. "I told you about the pie, didn't I tell you about the pie? And I was *right* and here it is. You wanna hear how I got it?"

Nick discreetly shoved his own piece of pie in Chris's direction so he could accept the one from Joey, even though it had a thumbprint in it.

"You did good, Joe," Chris said, voice as warm as anything Nick had ever heard from him, and he threw an arm over Joey's shoulders as Joey beamed at them all. "That's some good-looking pie, right there."

"It's lemon, just like I said," Joey said proudly, "and they gave it to me just because I asked, 'cause remember how the doctor says we're supposed to ask? I remembered that and I asked for Nick, I said that Nick needed some more, and they didn't believe me at first because they thought I was gonna eat it *all*. But then I told them, no, no, it's for NICK, and they gave me TWO extra pieces, and here's yours, Nick!" He patted the table with both hands, almost drumming on it in his excitement. "It's *so* yummy!"

"I have to finish my dinner before I can eat it, though," Nick reminded him, but then Joey looked so crestfallen that Nick skipped right to the pie, taking a big bite. They encouraged him, after all, to eat how he felt like eating, as long as he ate it all. "That's *great* pie," he mumbled around the mouthful.

Joey looked pleased and, frankly, so did Chris. "You're both making me wish I'd skipped straight to *my* pie," he said. Not Justin, though. Justin was looking at them like they were all nuts, and carefully eating his meal one item at a time, making sure nothing was touching anything else.

Even Betty was looking quietly pleased as she finished her own meal and sat back to watch them.

"You've got pie on your face," Joey giggled, pointing at Nick. "It's on your face just like in the tv shows, only not as much, but just like that! My momma says it's bad to eat dessert before dinner but this pie is really good and now it's on your *face!*" He was almost shaking with giggles, completely without any note of malice in them.

"Here." Chris swiped the small crumb off with his thumb, genuinely smiling. "There, gone, better." Justin shuddered visibly as Chris stuck his thumb in his mouth to clean it off, but couldn't seem to look away.

"Did you know that Chris sucked Nick's penis in bathroom one time?" said Joey conversationally to Justin once he'd stopped giggling. Like it was the most ordinary topic of conversation in the world. "I know because Eric -- he's a guy that used to be here before? only he went away -- he walked in on them and heard them. Sometimes I think about that when--"

Chris coughed loudly to interrupt and Nick couldn't even swallow, he was so mortified. Sweet, sweet, completely addled and inappropriate Joey. Who hadn't quite grasped *that* part of what his doctor was trying to teach him.

Justin had stopped chewing and was just staring at them, saucer-eyed and with his mouth full and clearly unable to even blink.

"Joey's kind of like the news," Chris said conversationally, after a moment of complete and awful silence at the table, Joey looking puzzled. "Nothing's ever really private with him around. Remember that, young Justin." Chris sounded normal, but his cheeks were flaming red, and he looked like he couldn't decide if he'd rather laugh or hide.

"Why is Nick's face all red?" Joey wanted to know. "Is he sick?"

"I'm fine," Nick said once he'd finally forced the bite down. His own face had to look even worse than Chris's. "I'm... God, do I really need to finish all this?"

"Yes!" said Joey urgently. "Yes, because of the pie, Nick. Think of the pie! And everyone's always saying you need to eat more and look, there's all this food right here, you don't need to go hungry ever!"

Nick had to smile again, he just had to, even though it was weak. "Okay, Joey, okay. I'm eating."

"Is sucking on a penis like sucking on a lollipop?" Joey wanted to know.

Justin was still shellshocked, but Betty finally let out a generous laugh. "Oh my," he said, her eyes darting to each of them. "Oh my."

"Much better," Chris deadpanned to Joey, who nodded seriously, paying close attention. "It's even better because the lollipop doesn't care if you're sucking on it or not, but Nick, on the other hand-"

"Oh my GOD!" Justin finally got out, his face almost as red as Chris's still was, for all his sangfroid. "Oh my GOD you people are talking about this at the DINNER table! That's DISGUSTING! That's private!"

Joey flinched back, face falling, clearly not understanding anything but tone of voice.

Chris was immediately talking in a low voice to Joey, maybe explaining why Justin was angry, maybe just telling him not to pay attention to Justin because there was something wrong with him that made him upset a lot. Joey would probably get that.

Betty was wisely staying out of it for the moment, though Nick was sure that if things got out of hand she would take action. Right now it was just Joey being Joey and Justin... freaking out again.

"Yeah, it's private," he said finally, putting his fork down very carefully. "But Joey doesn't understand that and you can't just yell at him when he does things like that. Not unless you want Chris to yell at you every time you wash your hands. It's better to just go with it, Justin. Though Chris..." He turned to Chris and poked him in the side again, gently. "You don't need to be encouraging it at dinner. You could've answered later."

Justin chewed his lip, tipping a shoulder in a gesture that was almost embarrassed, almost apologetic, almost defiant all at once. "I, just. I don't know." He pushed his food away.

Chris pinched Joey's chin fondly, getting a beaming happy smile out of him again, and turned back to Nick. "Aww, it was funny," he said, ignoring Justin for the moment, though the tightness of his mouth was a danger sign. "Come on, we're in a room full of crazy people. You've gotta just go with it sometimes, let the funny out. Plus, it's not like I was lying."

"I want to try it," Joey said cheerfully, all upset seemingly forgotten. "I love lollipops."

"Me too!" Chris high-fived him.

"Yeah, it's funny," said Nick, "sure, but..." He nodded his head at Justin, and a moment later turned all his attention to him. "Seriously, Justin. People will go way out of their way to make things good for you here, but people are gonna say a lot of weird stuff around you. Look, nobody's touching you or nothing. Just eat your dinner before someone makes you, and be okay with this. Cause you can't not be."

Justin didn't look like he liked the sound of that, and he didn't start on his dinner yet. But he looked like he was at least thinking, so Nick relaxed.

"You remember my dream about you, Chris?" Joey piped up. "The one I was talking about before? It was all like a lollipop in that. Only I know no biting because that would hurt a lot. Wow, ow."

Chris rubbed his temples gently with his fingertips, looking vaguely pained. "I remember. We were gonna talk about that when there weren't other people around, remember? That's one of those private things again. Not bad, just private," he hastened to add, when Joey started to look crushed again. "Biting is bad, though," he remembered to put in, after a pause.

"How many licks does it take till you get to the cent-oh my god." Justin stopped singing softly and flushed and dropped his face into his hands. "This is just too strange."

"He knows the tootsie pop song!" Joey was thrilled. "Chris's was different from a tootsie pop in my dream though, it looked like one of those ones you get at the fair, all swirly stripy colors and big and round like that."

"There are no stripes," murmured Nick, smiling to himself, picking up his fork again under Betty's watchful eye. There would be no getting out of this mean, not even for reason of massive embarrassment.

"Joey," said Chris, beginning to sound just a little bit impatient. But maybe only to Nick's ears, who knew him well. "In private. I promise you can tell me, and maybe Nick, all about it later."

"But what about Justin?" said Joey, glancing at him. "Then he'd miss it."

"That's okay, that's okay," said Justin, picking at his food. And *still* nothing touched anything else, he was so careful. "You don't need to tell me about the dream. I'll sleep better not knowing."

"Private," Joey said finally, maybe not understanding the concept of private but reading Justin's tone pretty well. Sometimes, Joey was sharp like that. He was never stupid, he just didn't *get* things sometimes.

"Right," Justin said, finishing his pie and folding his napkin precisely in thirds, placing it to the left of his lunch tray. "Private. Exactly."

"Okay," Joey sighed, "but you're going to miss it." He pushed away from the table suddenly. "Look, there's Howie! I'm gonna go see if Howie is eating pie. Bye!" He headed off, somehow not tripping over anything or knocking anyone over, even with his singleminded motion.

"He's, like, four," Justin said, shaking his head. "Right? In his head somewhere he's the biggest four year old ever." He looked sideways at Chris and Nick. "It's really not a secret about you two, huh?"

"Should it be?" said Nick, discreetly breaking his food up into little bits and spreading it strategically around the plate so it looked more eaten than it was. "No, everyone knows. Everyone knows everything that happens in here, I think."

"And don't underestimate Joey," Chris added, shoveling down his own pie. Nick wanted to do that too. "He's not stupid or retarded or anything. He just doesn't... understand, some of the things that we take for granted. He just says what's in his head, no matter what it is."

"Nick," Betty said warningly, looking at his plate and then back at him. "Clear plates, remember. My son does that exact same thing when he doesn't want to eat his broccoli."

Justin glanced at Nick, but then stared back at Chris. "He's not retarded? Really? I guess, I don't know. He's so...whatever." He sighed a little. "He seems like he means well, though, and he was a lot of fun to watch the game with. I didn't mean to yell at him." He shrugged slightly again. "I guess you always know what he's thinking, at least."

"I think it's pretty safe to say that Joey doesn't have any secrets," said Chris, as Nick reluctantly started shoveling the mutilated food into his mouth. "Guy doesn't have a mean bone in his body, I swear, but that mouth of his gets him in lots of trouble. He's here for his own protection as much as anything, until he can be trained to clamp down on those thoughts a little. *If* he can be trained. It's a little hard when there's something, you know, missing, in that brain of his."

"I know how that feels," Justin agreed softly, ducking his head down and sounding genuinely sympathetic for the first time. "And he seems really happy anyway, even though he's got that part missing. Maybe the missing part keeps him from realizing there's anything wrong with him. I'm jealous, I think."

"Joey gets daypasses," Chris nodded. "He's not dangerous at all, he just needs minding. If you can stand the occasional embarrassment, he's a lot of fun to hang out with sometimes." He grinned fondly at Joey, who was obviously telling a story to an oblivious Howie, standing and waving his hands around and hopping excitedly. Chris polished off his pie, and Nick felt a warm small hand come to rest on his knee.

It didn't make it any easier to finish off his dinner, but then Nick didn't need any encouragement anymore. Didn't *want* any more encouragement, any more eyes on him. He went through this just about every day -- except for the good days -- and it was just so fucking exhausting. He cleaned off his plate, then reached for the pie. It still looked fantastic.

"Joey," he said finally, and Justin looked up at him curiously, "not only really doesn't understand there's anything wrong with him, but wonders why we all don't do the same thing as him. He doesn't understand private and he doesn't understand secrets."

"Sometimes I wonder if the guy isn't right, too," added Chris.

Justin made a little face. "He touched that," he reminded Nick as Nick took a bite of the pie. "I don't even understand how you can..." he shook his head. "God." Justin suddenly looked pale and exhausted and small, sitting properly at the table with everything in its place.

"After dinner it's free time," Chris said, also watching Justin. "The first little while here can be a lot to take. You can go hole up in our room for a while if you want, take a break, I'll find something else to do."

"I don't know. Okay. Maybe," said Justin after a moment. "Maybe I'll watch TV again. Maybe I'll sleep." He looked a little lost, without anything specific he had to do. "Is.. is it always gonna be like this, in here?"

"You get used to it," said Chris, squeezing Nick's knee. "And you'll do things with the doctors and it'll get easier for you. And before you know it, you'll be gone. Everyone gets to go home. 'Cept us lifers."

"Stop that," Nick said softly, looking at Chris. "They'll find something to make you better, you'll get out too. They *want* us to get better." Nick himself winced a little at the memory of his own release and month-later readmittance, thirty pounds lighter and raving.

"I guess so," Justin said again, looking around the room. "There's nothing...maybe I'll sleep. It's not sleep time yet, but I think I can anyway." He hid a yawn and started winding his watch. "How long have you been here, anyway? What's long in here? They won't tell me anything about when I can maybe go home."

Nick thought maybe Betty would say something, but she just stayed there watching them talk amongst themselves. Apparently her only concern really *was* making sure Nick took care of himself, unless there was an emergency. He had no doubt she was trained for that. Kelly had been, and had been called on more than once to take care of things.

"They don't know when you'll go home, until they've started to treat you," he said finally. "It depends on what's wrong, and how easily it's taken care of. Some people just need medication. Some people..." Need a lot more than that. There was no medication that would fix what was wrong with Nick, except maybe some antidepressants for part of it, and they hadn't found the right one of those yet, either. "It's different for everyone. They'll let you know."

"Yeah. And you'll find out what your schedule is, too, and that will help," Chris offered. "For me, it's mostly chemical, so they just keep swapping my drugs over and over trying to find something that will work. Nicky gets a ton more counseling. Once you get a routine I bet things'll get easier for you." He glanced at Nick, who was chewing his last bite of pie.

"There you go," Betty said comfortably, nodding at Nick. "All done, good job. Now, you know the rules. No restroom visits for two hours, and Tommy will take you to your room if you need anything." She pitched her voice low, so as not to carry.

"Wow." Justin looked at Nick. "I'd die if I couldn't wash my hands after I ate." He was, in fact, rubbing them together restlessly even then.

Nick just shrugged miserably. "If someone comes with me I can," he said, glancing at Chris. "They wouldn't do that to you, though, I think. You probably want to wash your hands right now, huh?" It wasn't a suggestion, exactly. It was more reading what was written all over Justin's face.

"I won't be back to the room for a while, Justin," added Chris. "I'm going to be with Nick. So you go whatever it is you need to do before going to sleep. You can find you way back okay?"

Justin nodded and stood, cleaning his part of the table fastidiously with his napkin and picking up his tray. "Thanks," he said quietly to Chris, fidgeting a little. "I, yeah. Thank you." He hurried away to deposit his tray, and Nick noticed that he didn't have any shoes on.

"I'm going to go walk the rounds," Betty told them, standing up herself. "Tommy's at the door if you need anything, Nick, and there's nothing on your schedule tonight at all, so you've got free time." She smiled at them both. "Have a good night."

"Thanks," Chris nodded at her, then slouched back in his chair as she left. "So, Nicky, what do you want to do now?"

"Let's get out of here," he said immediately, taking Chris's hand into his own as they got up from the table. "Let's go to the common for a while, okay? Maybe there'll be a movie on." Chris went with him easily out into the hallway. "Or actually... damn, I've really gotta piss like a racehorse, Chris. I'll just be a minute, I swear. How about I meet you in there?"

"Yeah, no," Chris said immediately, shaking his head and frowning. "What, you think I suddenly get stupid just cause I haven't been around for a couple of weeks?" He didn't let go of Nick's hand, even when Nick pulled. "You gotta piss, I'll come with you. You got nothing I ain't seen before, Carter."

"Come on, Chris," Nick pleaded with him. "It'll only be a few seconds even, I promise, I just gotta *go* and I'm so sick of people babysitting me, you know? Please?"

Chris wavered for a second, looking into Nick's eyes, but then shook his head. "I'll call Tommy if I gotta," he warned softly. "It's, you don't look right right now, and you've got to keep your food down. I promise I won't look, I'll just stand there with my eyes closed. It's not even like babysitting, I'll just be keeping a buddy company." He scratched at his arm uncomfortably.

"Fine, whatever," muttered Nick, looking away from him and staring at the cold, tile floor. Stupid Chris and stupid Tommy and stupid everyone. "Fuck. Let's just go to the common room, then. Whatever. I don't care."

Chris huffed a frustrated breath. "Like a racehorse, huh?" The sarcasm was almost tangible, but the fingers twisted with Nick's squeezed gently. "Come on, kiddo. Let's go watch some tv, I'll rub your neck, okay? It'll be all right."

"When?" muttered Nick, letting Chris tug *him* along this time. "When the fuck will it be all right, Chris? I've got all this fucking food sitting like a lump in my stomach and nothing's going right, ever."

"It'll digest soon enough," Chris assured him blithely. "Pretty soon you'll even be hungry again. Things are going right all the time, I mean, you've got my pretty face here again." He made a hideous face at Nick, sticking out his tongue and wiggling it around.

"Yeah, that's the one good thing," murmured Nick, leaning in closer to him. He thought about kissing him, hideous face and all, then thought maybe it was just nice to be touching him, for a little while. "I'm not very good company tonight."

"I'd argue that," Chris said simply, and tugged him into the common room and down onto 'their' couch, plopping down gracelessly almost on top of him. "Gonna tell me what's got you running for the bathroom again? I thought you'd stopped that."

"Look who it is." James was lounging in a chair, idly playing with an empty matchbook. "The lovebirds. Oh, Chris, we've *missed* you so *much* we couldn't *eat* without you." The smirk on his face matched the mocking tone.

"Fuckoff," snapped Nick, closing his eyes, trying to pretend he wasn't in a room full of fucking psychotics. He could feel Chris breathing. "I told you why," he said, dropping his voice almost to a whisper. "There's no point anyway. I'll probably just die in here."

"You probably won't," Chris pointed out. "More likely to die out there, really, since they're making sure you stay alive in here, and everything." He ignored James entirely, and wrapped himself comfortably around as much of Nick as he could reach. "You will get better. You can. People do, people with the same problems you have."

"Why should I get better?" asked Nick. James was snickering in the background still; he was hard to ignore. "What point is there, really? I have no family anymore. No friends out there to speak of. What's the point?"

"You could do it for YOU," Chris snorted mildly. He flipped the bird in James's direction, prompting more laughter. "Just a suggestion, of course, but that's who you'd probably do best doing it for anyway." He tipped his head so he could look into Nick's eyes. "The point is to get better, to beat it, to go out there and live a normal life."

Nick just shrugged at him. *He* didn't see much point to it, without a life to even go back to to be normal in. If he walked out of the hospital right at that moment, he didn't even know where he would go.

"I don't care, Chris," he said finally. "And I don't know why I should. I'm not like you, Chris. You have so much to do this for, and it's great that you're back on your feet again."

"For the next, oh, fifteen minutes, you bet," Chris said dryly, shaking Nick a little. "You should care because...you just should. Fuck, I know you're hearing this from your counselor every day, why am I repeating it to you?" He sighed and stretched out a little, propping his feet on the coffee table and crossing his ankles. "You've got plenty to do this for too, you know. You're still just a young'un, think of all the amazing stuff you can do once you get out."

"Like *what*?" said Nick incredulously. "Like live in a box on the street? Cause that's what I'm going to be doing, now that I don't have any family. Maybe... maybe I should just go back to my room for tonight."

"You can't, baby, not yet," Chris sighed, hanging on to him. "Or you can, but I'm coming with you. You won't be living in a box on the street, you know you've got friends and family who'll help. Worse comes to worst I'm pretty sure you can stay with MY family." He shook his head. "No wonder you weren't eating. Aren't those depression meds helping you at all?"

"They took me off them again," murmured Nick, blinking his eyes back open all the way. "Didn't I tell you? They were making me lose my appetite. So. They're starting something new in a week or so. Once I'm eating regular again, they said. Whatever that means, and whenever *that* might be."

"They should try something else," Chris muttered. "Not much use to you if you're not depressed but you still have no appetite, that's kind of counterproductive. Goddamn side effects, anyway." He poked Nick. "No, you didn't tell me, and you're supposed to, so I know to expect this kind of thing from you. I'm guessing eating regular will be when you're actually eating without being forced again."

"I wasn't being forced," said Nick. "I was just slow. And it was way too much, anyway. I totally wouldn't have eaten that pie if Joey hadn't brought it to me himself. He just... that boy just doesn't get not being okay." Which was actually a lovely, lovely thing, because he never treated any of them with any kind of pity. Just curiousity. "I thought I told you, Chris, honest. My stomach's just all tiny now. It really was too much. I feel sick."

Chris dropped a hand to Nick's belly and started rubbing gently, soothing little light circles. "It'll be all right. You ate about half what I did, you know, it's not like they're stuffing you like a veal or anything, here. And wasn't the pie good?" He shook his head with a little grin. "That Joey. He's a trip. That lollipop thing, whoa, he's thinking in new directions, too. I think we're going to have to keep an eye on him and Howie."

Nick just stared at him for a minute, his mouth dropping open in shock. "Oh shit," he breathed. "I didn't even think of that. Do you think we should...? It's Joey, you know? Can't we point him towards someone nicer, to try it out on? Like... did you maybe want to? Maybe? Since, well, you probably won't want to be with me and all..."

Chris shook his head, never stopping his rubbing. "Not me, though he does seem to be interested. He's too...I don't know. It would feel strange, Joey's like my little brother." He looked thoughtful. "You're right, though, he shouldn't start with Howie, who probably won't even realize he's there. Howie's NICE, you know, he's just, you know. I just can't think of anyone else around here who'd be right for Joey. Maybe Kevin. Joey seems to be friends with at least *some* of the voices in his head." He let his hand drift up until it was pressed over Nick's heart. "I want to be with you."

"You don't," said Nick quietly. "Not for real. And that's okay, Chris, really. Joey... Joey would probably quite cheerfully be with anyone who was here, and he wouldn't mind if they didn't respond. I should stop trying to look out for him, he's an adult. He knows what he wants."

Chris looked at him sideways with big serious eyes, almost too big for his face since he was so thin. "He doesn't, though, and he's not just any adult. He might not mind if they don't respond, but that doesn't mean he can't be hurt." He patted Nick's chest. "You should keep looking out for him. It's good for you, and him, and everyone. He's sweet, and so are you."

"He is sweet," agreed Nick. "Maybe Howie wouldn't be such a bad idea after all. And hey, we know he'd enjoy it. Repeatedly. So..." He sighed, ignoring the babble around him again. "It's not like he has a lot of options, in here. Kinda like you."

"I've got options," Chris protested automatically. "What, you saying I'm ugly and nobody wants me, Carter? THAT's nice. See if you get any anytime soon." He sniffed, mock-offended. "I think Joe should wait, though, till there's someone in here that would be genuinely good for him. He feels more than he lets on, I think, especially sex stuff, and I don't think he really *gets* it. Watching him get hurt would be like watching someone kick a puppy."

"Yeah, I do hope he waits," agreed Nick, shifting and trying to get comfortable. The food in his stomach was like lead, and no one was going to let him get rid of it. "Has to be his choice, though, if he wants to. I don't know how his brain works. Maybe he *is* waiting, and we just don't know it. Though he probably would've said..."

"Problem is, Joey doesn't really understand 'waiting,' either," Chris mused, still petting Nick almost automatically. "Oh well. It'll work itself out, I hope. It's funny, he's probably never in his life gonna give this as much thought as we just did." He propped his sharp chin on Nick's shoulder. "You know, the first thing I do when I start feeling alive again is jerk off. Makes me feel like Howie, but I can't help it, it's so nice to know it works again."

"So you're telling me you've been jerking off lately?" said Nick, curving an arm around Chris's slim body again. "Or are you telling me you're planning to, shortly? Either way, it's a good thing. I like it when the equipment's working."

"I did once already," Chris said solemnly, nodding against his shoulder. "Just to be sure everything really WAS. But it's a lot less fun when you're not there, so I only did it the once. I'm not quite back up to full speed, so I didn't want to waste any on flying solo." He relaxed into the bend of Nick's arm, and kissed the angle of his jaw.

"Jesus, get a ROOM, you two." Lance's voice was hard with exasperation, but the look he sent them looked almost like jealousy. "We don't want to be seeing that shit."

"Then go be somewhere else," Nick shot back, surprising himself a little. "You know *I* can't." Not for over an hour. Which was pretty okay because even though Chris was feeling it, Nick wasn't feeling sexy at *all*. Just... lonely, or something. It was good to just have Chris *there*, and especially not to be worrying about whether or not he would make it through the down cycle this time."

"Take him with you, and you can," James grumbled, but subsided when Chris turned his head and glared at him.

"Just leave it alone, James," Chris snapped. "God, something crawled up your butt and died today, you are SUCH a pain in my ass."

"No, that's Nick," James smirked. "Gonna give it to him good, Nicky, now that he's walking and talking again? Or do you like it better when he's pretending he's dead?"

"That's IT," Chris came up off the couch with a lunge, and only checked himself when the nurse at the table stood up and shouted a warning.

"Nice," said James, sitting stiffly in his seat still. "You've got some anger management issues there, I think. You should see someone about that."

"Ignore him," whispered Nick, trying to tug Chris back to him again. "Chris, you know he's an asshole. You know he's got his own shit to deal with. He just *wishes* he had someone as great as you paying all this attention to him."

Nick knew that Chris only gave in and settled back by him because of the nurse glaring and Chris's still-low energy level, but since he DID, that was all that really mattered. Chris was a ball of quivering anger at his side, though, until he took a couple of deep breaths and forced himself to calm. "Yeah, because my attention is clearly something to be jealous about," he finally said dryly, ignoring James entirely now and turning back to Nick. "I'd set him on fire, but he'd like it too much," he muttered lower.

Nick giggled and finally gave Chris a soft kiss. "Well, your attention means something to *me*," he said after a moment. "I warned you I wasn't going to be good company tonight. Things haven't been going right lately, Chris, at all. And I'm so tired of it."

"Well, I'm not really at my best either," Chris sighed, smiling against his mouth before letting him pull away. "It'll get better, Nick, you know. I know it's so hard to believe that when it feels like nothing will ever be good again, but if you keep trying, you'll get better. Does your doctor know you've been feeling so down, off your meds? Have you told them?"

Nick shrugged slightly. It had come up, in therapy, but he hadn't really said much about it. "It's pretty obvious, I think," he admitted finally. "How I'm feeling about everything, it's obvious. It's why they want to get me on new meds, once the eating is better. But I don't know... I think that might be a long time away."

"Sometimes it's good to tell them anyway," Chris suggested gently. "Sometimes stuff you think is obvious might not be, for them. I don't get that logic anyway...you're on the meds and you don't want to eat, but when you're OFF the meds you're depressed and try to throw everything up anyway. I guess they have their reasons, though." He shook his head. "Maybe the new meds won't kill your appetite. Wouldn't that be nice?"

Nick just shrugged again. "I don't know. Maybe. I'm still not sure there's much point to the whole thing anyway. May as well just leave me be and let nature run it's course."

Chris just sighed and looped his arms around Nick's waist again. "Now, that's not positive thinking, right there. You sound like me, three weeks ago." His little laugh didn't have much humor in it. "I think one catatonic depressive in any relationship is more than enough, and I've already got that spot filled. At least part of the time. And if I've gotta pour drugs down your throat myself to keep you from starving to death, I will."

"Chris... "he said slowly, shaking his head. "We met in the fucking loony bin, what exactly were you expecting?" Chris didn't crack a smile, though, and Nick wasn't really expecting him to. "You're not going to have to pour drugs down my throat. Maybe my body just doesn't want to eat."

"But your body DOES," Chris argued. "It's your brain that doesn't. Your body knows it needs food, just like the rest of us, and it wants to stay alive. You've just got some wires crossed upstairs, is all." He smoothed a palm down over Nick's hip, tapping his fingertips on Nick's hipbone. "Once you start getting them uncrossed, things will be better."

"I've been hearing that for a really long time, though," argued Nick. "Everyone says that. I don't know anymore. Maybe this is just the way it's supposed to be. Maybe I'm supposed to be this way and there's nothing anyone can do about it."

That seemed to stall Chris for a long moment, or at least he didn't have his normal snappy comeback. Finally he sighed deeply, and squeezed Nick, and loosened his grip a little. "I'm nobody to talk about this," he said quietly. "You know where I'm coming from and it's pretty much the same place, but you always tell *me* to hang in there and wait for the right cure to come along, so I can't exactly not tell you that, can I? And if you answer no, I'm SO going to throw it in your face the next time you try to take an exacto knife away from me."

"Yeah, but I'm *right*," said Nick, letting a faint smile cross his face as he met Chris's eyes. "Besides, Chris, you're totally worth curing. You're a great person. Maybe my shit is just natures way of, like, culling me from the herd. So to speak."

"There's no argument you can use for yourself that doesn't apply to me too, you wingnut," Chris smiled a little in response himself. "And if you look at it, we've already *been* culled, at least in a way. Temporarily, at least. Because we're not out there with the herd any more, and neither of us would still be alive if we weren't. I'm betting." He scratched idly at the thin silver scar on his wrist, before shaking his head. "Anyway, we've had this argument a million times, it never changes. Anything else interesting happen around here while I was away?"

"Not really, I don't think," Nick admitted, giving in a little. Chris was smart, and Chris was right. "There's someone new talking to Kevin, I think. A girl. He's never had girls in his head before. The doctor things it's interesting, but I don't think he knows what it means any more than I do. Except that it means he's probably not getting much better."

"Really? A girl? Wonder who it is." Chris looked fascinated for a moment. "Wonder what she tells him, if it sounds like what a real girl would say, or just like what Kevin IMAGINES a real girl would say. That's so strange." He shook his head. "Do you think KEVIN realizes there's something wrong with him? Or is he so crazy he doesn't even know he's crazy?"

"Well, he knows he's in a loony bin," said Nick slowly. "I'm not quite sure he knows why, though. Hey, you ever see that movie, about that math guy? Maybe Kevin thinks he's a secret agent in here or something. Infiltrating the mental hospital on some fantasy assignment.

"I think he'd try to be sneakier if he did," Chris answered thoughtfully, though his eyes were crinkling up with a hidden smile. "That math guy movie was pretty good. Too bad *I* can't be a misunderstood supergenius. Hey, maybe I am, and my genius is so misunderstood even I don't know I've got it!" He snickered, and tucked himself closer to Nick's side.

"Yeah, you're my supergenius," Nick teased him gently. "You're my supergenius who can read my mind and won't let me go to the bathroom. What time is it? Can we go back to my room yet? I think James is getting ready to start up again."

"I..." Chris checked his watch. "I think we should be all right now. It's been a while, and I'll be with you, and they know I won't let you wander around without supervision for another hour or so." He tugged gently at Nick's wrist. "Let's get away from him, anyway, before I punch his lights out and get into more trouble."

"We have to leave my door open if we go to my room," Nick reminded him with a heavy sigh. "For that hour. Maybe longer. Why can't people just let me be, you know? I'm not gonna be stupid, I'm just gonna do what's right."

"Ah." Chris stopped himself and visibly bit his tongue. "Throwing up isn't right," he finally said mildly. "I know you can't really see that, but that's because you're crazy. In your way, which is different from my way." Nick saw him quietly pocket a nice-looking pen someone had left on the table before they headed for the door, rubbing his fingers over the shape of it in his pocket. "We'll leave the door open, but I don't promise not to have my hands down your pants anyway," he warned with a little grin.

"Well, it'll give Joey something to talk about at session tomorrow, anyway," said Nick pragmatically. "I'm, uh. Not sure I'm entirely... I mean. This might go more smoothly if I had my hands down *your* pants, is all I'm saying." There was nothing to be embarassed about, between the two of them it happened with almost alarming regularity, but Nick still was. Then again, he hadn't been with Chris in a while, since before his last bad patch. So maybe the body would catch on to that.

"No pressure," Chris said casually, shrugging one shoulder. "We'll just see what happens, and no big deal if *nothing* does. I'm only at about 50% myself, so for all I know all we're gonna do is some necking. But that's really nice too." He padded down the hallway, leading Nick confidently towards his room, dodging a nurse and two doctors and greeting both with a familiar nod.

They were both a familiar sight in the hallways, Nick knew, and at least neither one of them was prone to raving so it was possible they were even favourites. "It's going to suck if I have to get a roommate again," he said. "I think Justin's already really bothered by our thing, you know?"

"Eh, he'll deal or he won't, it's no hair off my ass," Chris said dismissively, but he was chewing his lip and looked a little concerned. "I don't think he's disturbed by us being together so much as he is by the fact that sex is just messy," he went on, after a thoughtful pause. "Messy is NOT Justin's favorite thing, I can already tell. The whole idea just makes him shake. Poor kid."

"Yeah, he seems weirded out by *anyone* touching each other for fun," Nick had to agree. He led Chris into the room, and hated that he had to leave the door open behind them. People would check. "God help him if anyone ever tells him where babies come from. So..."

"So." Chris turned to face him, smiling just enough to crinkle his eyes. He tipped his head up, too, like he always had to, to look at Nick. "What's cookin', good lookin'? It's been a while." He raised one of Nick's hands in his and pressed an open-mouthed kiss right in the middle of his palm. Chris always said Nick's hands were his favorite part of Nick that weren't covered by clothes.

Nick smiled back softly, sitting down on the bed and tugging Chris with him. His room was messy, the way he liked it, and no one made him clean it up beyond the essentials. "You're so sweet," he murmured. "I missed you the whole time you were gone."

"I missed you too," Chris said, and Nick knew it was at least partially true, from the sincerity in his voice. "I came looking for you the minute they let me out." He curled up by Nick, drawing his feet off the floor and hooking them over Nick's ankles, just wrapping up in him. "And if we keep our clothes on, Joey won't even have anything to say in session," he murmured.

"He'll find something," insisted Nick. "And we both know he's curious enough to look, especially now that he's asking questions. Doesn't matter, though. He always has something to say and I always blush and James always snickers and that's just the way it is. That's just life, here."

"At least it's predictable," Chris pointed out with a smile. "I guess it doesn't matter at all, then, if I take off all your clothes and start licking? Since it'll all turn out the same anyway?" He grinned at Nick, and rested a hand on his waist, under his shirt. "And if James snickers, I'll just kick the shit out of him after lunch."

"You know you won't," sighed Nick, leaning into his touch instinctively. "You know they won't let you. I think James is due for some intensive therapy, though. They don't seem too happy with him right now."

"He's going to mess up that day pass he's so excited about if he's not careful," Chris agreed. "He's pissier than ever. Maybe a good asskicking is exactly what he needs, that clever little bastard. He's all twisty." Chris nibbled lightly on Nick's shoulder. "You, on the other hand, are the sweetest thing since Joey. You were great with Justin, too."

"I wasn't much of anything with Justin. That guy is... I don't even know what to do around him, you know? I kinda wish... I mostly kinda wish my family had been willing to put in in a private place, if I gotta go in, you know? With all people like me, and none like Lance or Kevin or Howie. But then... of course they would never be willing to do that."

"Ah, but then you'd never have met me, and then you wouldn't know what REAL crazy is like," Chris intoned, making a dramatic face. "But you're mellow and kind of mild and I think that's what Justin does well with. I don't know why they didn't put you in a private place, Nicky, I really don't. I never try to figure out why your relatives do anything, it just leads to more insantiy."

"Cause they would've had to pay actual money for it," muttered Nick. "And I'm not worth wasting money on, let alone anything more important to them. Like time. But yeah... I'm kinda glad I met you. And Joey. And... well, everyone, kinda. In a way."

"Yeah. It would have been nicer to meet over a beer in a bar somewhere, all things considered." Chris's nod bumped Nick's jaw. "It's like being in the military in here, though. You'll never forget. Unless you're Kevin, and you never remembered to begin with." He rubbed his thumb over the indent of Nick's waist, gently. "You're worth lots of important things, to the people who are smart enough to know it."

"And when we get out?" Nick prodded him cautiously. "*If* I get out? What happens to us then? Besides the whole part where I'll be sleeping on the street."

"You'll be sleeping...somewhere not the street, and I'll be right here in my cozy little institutional bed," Chris answered, mouth twisting. "I'm a lifer. But you'll get out and do great things, I can tell."

"All you need is the right meds," said Nick, giving him a nudge. "You know that. You totally together, you just got a chemical thing. Not like me..."

Chris just shrugged. "We're both a mess. You're just a little closer to normal, is all." He flopped back on Nick's bed and stared at the ceiling, stacking his hands under his head. "Ever wonder what it'll be like out there when we get out? I mean, daypasses, yeah, but it's not the same. Getting to eat wherever you want or go out drinking all night..." Chris had been there when NICK got there, he remembered, and that had been a long time ago. "Wonder if stuff'll be different."

"I was out," Nick reminded him, with an involuntary little shudder. "Remember? I got to eat whenever I wanted... work out as much as I liked... do what I chose to do..."

"Clearly bad timing," Chris said, glancing at him. "I mean, there's getting out when you're ready, and there's getting out because you got lucky with a gullible doc who believed your lines. Me, I don't want to play those games when I'm up, because I don't WANT to kill myself, and I can't when I'm down, because it's too much effort. So it'll be a while till I get out."

"Yeah, and maybe tomorrow they'll give you something and it'll be the exact right thing for your body and you'll do good," said Nick. "One of these days it's gonna happen. With me... there's not even that possibility. Of course, if my family cuts my insurance, i'll probably be bounced pretty quick. Do you think they'll disown me?"

"Not to sound too cold and unfeeling about it, but I think they're probably a lot more worried about you running around loose than they are about you tucked up safe and quiet in here, so, no, I don't think they'll cut your insurance OR disown you." Chris reached out and scratched the small of Nick's back where he was sitting; it was like he couldn't get enough of touching him.

Nick just sighed and nuzzled against him again. "I'm scared that when we get out of here you'll leave me too," he blurted out in the middle of a long silence. "And I know that's dumb, because we're not really together like that for you to *leave*, even, but... I know you can do so much better than me."

Chris was startled into silence, staring at Nick, then shaking his head. "I'm not...look. We're crazy people, we're in an insane asylum, and you're worried I'm gonna leave you? If and when we both get out?" He shook his head again. "Nick, if we do get out, I'm gonna *marry* you. But let's worry about that when it happens, okay?"

Nick blinked at him in surprise a few times. "But..." he said, trying to get his thoughts down into sentences. "But before... you always said... and you always wanted it casual... and I never even told you how much I... did you know?"

"We *are* casual," Chis said firmly, "we're not gonna be anything else in here, that's just sillly, when you could get better tomorrow and get out of here, or they find the right meds for me, or someone misses the drano under my bed, but it doesn't make sense to be anything but casual. This whole place is insane, we don't wanna be insaner." He slid his eyes sideways to Nick. "I didn't know."

"Oh," said Nick softly, and felt his cheeks begin to get hot again. He wondered for a flicker of a moment how hard it would be to get that drano. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Chris shrugged, looking uncomfortable. "I mean, now I know, and you know, and we'll...we'll get out of here someday, and we can be, whatever. Married. You think? If I don't get to the drano first, 'course." He shuffled a little, looking embarrassed.

"You're the good thing I got, Chris," said Nick. "My whole plan is to stick with you as long as you'll have me, I haven't thought much past that. If that makes this any less awkward."

Chris stared down at his hands. "I'll have you as long as...as long as this still works, and we're both still kicking," he finally said, softly for him. "C'mere." He tugged Nick close and wrapped his arms around his neck, leaning in for a long, slow, wet kiss. "Missed you," he whispered against Nick's mouth.

Nick wasn't so sure that Chris missed him, but he knew that he'd missed Chris and he wasn't going to turn down any opportunity to be with him this way. He just hadn't connected with anyone else in the hospital the way he had with Chris, no even counting the physical part that had come later. Chris's hands were trembling a little when they settled on his waist, and he was breathing a little too fast, when he finally pulled away and blinked at Nick in extreme close-up. His hands were still shaking. "Maybe this time the drugs will work and I won't go psycho on you," he mused. "But you understand, right? That I can't be serious when I never know what's going to happen in my head tomorrow, if I'll even be able to talk to you?"

"Chris, I get it," he said quietly. "I just spent a couple weeks without you. I know what it's like. Don't worry about it, okay? We both get it. You know what I can be like and I know what you can be like. And we can just let this be what it is."

Chris sighed a little breath and relaxed some, and leaned in for another kiss. "They should make a movie about us," he muttered. "I bet somebody would win an Oscar, the people that play nuts always get Oscars. 'They found love in the looney bin!' I want Colin Farrell to play me, he's short enough." He leaned back, almost smiling. "They couldn't find anyone pretty enough to play you, though."

"They'd probably mainstream it and turn my character into a girl," muttered Nick. "It would fit perfectly. And then I would sue and make lots of money and never have to rely on my family for anything ever again."

"See? It's a win-win situation," Chris said a little smugly. "The other option would be for you to, like, write a memoir that they turn into the movie, and then you could make money no matter what they did to your character." He settled more comfortably against Nick's shoulder. "I think the world's ready for the story of our crazy gay love. Your mom'd have kittens."

"She would," agreed Nick fervently. "Oh, she would. Do you think my brother's going to be famous, Chris? Like, really famous? That would be weird."

"It would be," Chris nodded. "Very weird. Just think, you could see him on the cover of magazines and junk." He looked at Nick curiously. "Can he really sing? What kind of famous is he going to be, do you think?"

"Yeah, he can sing," said Nick. "And he's a great little performer. He's got the drive to do it. He's... he's willing to do just about anything to make it big. Obviously. You know, that tell-all memoir is sounding better all the time. I'll even include all the dirty bits."

"Well, of course. Those are the GOOD parts." Chris grinned at him. "I bet once your brother gets famous, people will be banging down your door. Don't blame him too much, though, Nick. He's just a kid, you know, and your mom...she's got him all to herself, now."

"Yeah, I should stop thinking about them," agreed Nick. "He is a good kid. They're good people, it's me with all the problems. Can we close the door yet?" His eyes flicked up toward the door and, lo and behold, there was Joey standing right there, watching them and eating a piece of red licorice.

"Hi," Joey said, wiggling his fingers in a little wave. "Could you guys kiss some more? Because that was really nice, and it made me get this funny feeling in my stomach, you know, like when a girl kisses you or puts her hand right on your penis? Like that, only different, because nobody's got their hands-"

"Hi Joey," Chris broke in, smiling a little and shaking his head. "You're not the one with the problems," he murmured in Nick's ear, before turning back to Joey. "You need to tell people when you're watching them kiss," he went on.

"Why?" asked Joey, taking a bite of the licorice. "Does it make you kiss different?"

"Yeah, kind of," murmured Nick. "This is one of those things that's "private", Joey. You remember how the doctor talks about that?" Now would be a hell of a time for Joey to forget everything he'd learned about private. Which he did on almost a daily basis.

"No," Joey answered immediately, though he looked a little thoughtful. He stepped into the room, and offered Nick the half-eaten piece of licorice. "Look, licorice. You want some? It's really good."

"Oh dear," Chris said quietly, and his shoulders were shaking with suppressed giggles.

Nick elbowed Chris gently. "Thank you, Joey, but I'm not allowed to eat outside of mealtimes. So you can enjoy that licorice yourself." Joey didn't move from the center of the room, just kept on watching them.

"Do you guys want to come back to the common room and kiss in front of the television? It's more fun in there."

"No," Chris said, his voice sounding stifled and thick. He was still quivering, but he shook his head at Joey and tried to look stern. "Private is when things need to be between just two people, remember? If we were kissing in the common room, it wouldn't be private, and kissing is a private thing."

"But I'm here now." Joey looked puzzled, and watched them closely. "So that's not just two, but you were kissing before. I really think you should keep doing that, so I can have that nice feeling again, and maybe see you without your clothes off, and touching places." He snapped off another piece of licorice and chewed it.

For a moment, Nick was utterly speechless. "Um. We don't do that when other people are watching," he said finally.

"But you did in the bathroom that one time, remember?"

"But that wasn't on purpose. That's different."

Joey looked confused again, and opened his mouth to sleep, and Chris finally stifled his hysteria enough to say "Joey, NO," very clearly and firmly. "I know it seems silly to you, but we only take our clothes off when we're all by ourselves. That's just the way it is."

"Oh." Joey frowned, disappointed, and turned away. "That doesn't seem like a very sharing thing to do, though. Dr. Phillips says we should always think about sharing."

"That's a different kind of sharing," said NIck firmly, but not as firmly as Chris had. "Talk to her about maybe getting some movies to see, that would be okay. But not me and Chris. Okay?"

"I guess," said Joey, clearly not really understanding why they said no. Nick almost felt bad about doing it. "How about tomorrow?"

"No, not tomorrow either," Chris said more gently, and Nick caught a flash of sympathy in his eyes. For Joey, who made up stories about girls because they all thought he was strange and he didn't understand why, who probably hadn't been touched in a friendly way in a very long time. "How about you go hang out in the common room for a while, and I'll come out later and we can play cards?"

"Go fish?" Joey's face brightened.

"Go fish," Chris promised solemnly.

"Okay," said Joey. "Soon, right?"

"As soon as we're done," Nick promised him, too. "And whatever games you wanted." Go fish was the one game that everyone knew how to play, and would play with him; Joey knew about a hundred different games.

"Now?"

"No, not now," smiled Nick. "Soon."

"Soon," Joey nodded, heading for the door. When he was almost there, he paused and looked back at them. "Poker?"

"Yeah, we'll play poker with you, you card shark," Chris said affectionately. "Now shoo. And close the door behind you."

"But then I can't-"

"Joey," Chris warned, and Joey nodded and closed the door, with one last lingering look.

"Well," said Nick after a moment of blessed silence. "After that, I guess we *have* to make out for a while, or something." The closed door made that a much more appealing option, as did the fact that he could no longer feel the food lingering in his stomach. Though inside his head he could still feel it there.

Chris collapsed into giggles, mood as mercurial as always, and leaned on Nick as the laughter finally got free. "Oh god," he finally gasped. "Oh man. Sometimes I don't know what we'd do without Joey. That boy. We need to get him a nice girlfriend or something. Maybe he can date Kevin's new girl." He grinned up at Nick, and tugged him down till he was lying on the bed. "I think we should DEFINITELY make out. In honor of Joey's curiosity, and poker, and the closed door."

"Let's just forget the Joey incident ever happened," suggested Nick, wrapping one let around Chris's. "I'm feeling better now. If you wanted to... anything..."

"Oh, it was funny," Chris scolded, even as his eyes went heavy and soft and he melted against Nick's body. He wasn't his high-energy self, or his failing-energy self, but somewhere in between, and it was nice for Nick not to have to do either all the work or none of it. Chris's hands slipped under Nick's shirt as he lifted his mouth to be kissed. "I'm glad you're feeling better. You don't look quite as miserable, now."

"Well, you know me," murmured Nick. Unpredictable as hell, really, with about a hundred different factors messing with his moods. "And we take what we can get." He could feel Chris's fingers skittering over his ribs; it actually felt really nice. "What did you want, for today?"

"I want everything." Chris chuckled a little and nuzzled into nick's neck. "But what do YOU want? We should do something we're both happy with. You're the one's been all by himself for almost three weeks." He slipped a hand down the back of Nick's loose pants, and licked his throat, his mouth hot and hungry.

"We've both been," Nick murmured, happy and sad and needy at once. "Just in different ways. I want... I just want you here, and touching me, and anything else would be just a bonus. I've missed feeling you here, touching me the way... the way no one else ever would."

Chris made a little noise of agreement, not taking his mouth from Nick's skin long enough to speak, at least until he'd slipped both of his hands under Nick's clothes and had his palms flat on Nick's side and shoulder. Then he tipped his head back and looked Nick in the eyes.

"You have the most amazing skin," he said seriously. "It's like touching silk. Unbelievable."

"It's dry," said Nick softly, but he didn't really want to argue when Chris was saying such nice things about him. Not hard, anyway. "You, you look wonderful. Your eyes have this... I can see you're all there again. You're with me. You're seeing me."

"I'm back, baby," Chris agreed, chuckling wryly, still stroking Nick's skin. "Mostly, anyway. The minute I started being able to think again, I wondered how you were doing. Too thin, I see," he scolded gently, rubbing a thumb over one of Nick's ribs. "No wasting away while I'm gone, you know it makes me worry." He pressed his lips to the rise of Nick's collarbone.

"I try," said Nick, and that was all he could ever do or promise. In a place like this, there was no reason for them to lie to each other. Everything was already laid out on the table. "I missed you. I hope things will start going right now." Chris felt soft and warm too, where NIck touched him.

"They can really only go up from here," Chris smiled at him, pushing into his touches with more eagerness. "That's possibly the only good thing about hitting rock bottom on such a regular basis." He dragged his hands down Nick's back, scratching lightly, and snugged his hips up against Nick's with a little grind. "Ohhh."

Nick's body was definitely reacting to this, which was a huge relief. As much as Chris assured him it was always okay, he didn't want to disappoint him on their first time together in so long. "I think," he said slowly, "now that the door's closed, we should give some serious thought to nakedness."

"Oh, do you now?" Chris grinned at him wickedly. "Well, Mr. Carter, I think we can accomodate you there." His clever fingers started working at the buttons of Nick's shirt, then gently pushed it off his shoulders, sliding teasingly over his skin as he did. "Uh oh. We should put the towel on the door so no one interrupts. 'Specially if there's going to be nakedness."

"You do it," said Nick, giving Chris a gentle shove meant only to encourage. "I'm too comfortable right here. I might even keep getting naked while I wait..."

Chris nodded happily, clearly approving of that idea, and slipped off the bed, grabbing a towel as he went. His hair was standing in crazy spikes and his cheeks were flushed, and he pulled his shirt off over his head as he walked back to Nick.

"There. No interruptions, I hope." His eyes took in all of Nick, and his grin widened. "Gorgeous boy."

"As long as Joey doesn't get tired of waiting for us," agreed Nick, squirming a little under Chris's gaze. It was still hard to be looked at, even by him. "Did you want to make love to me maybe?" he suggested, only a little awkwardly. "I think that might... I think I might like that, today."

Chris's eyes lit up. It was one of his favorite things, Nick knew, and he always saw it as a special treat, since their respective issues and the lack of privacy often got in the way. "Yeah," he whispered, reaching out and trailing his fingers down Nick's chest, pinching a nipple lightly on his way. "I would like that too. A whole lot. Joey can just wait. You sure?"

Nick nodded slowly, but he was, he was sure. Something had happened between them today that was new and different and he wanted to celebrate it, somehow. And he wanted to feel as close to Chris as he could, to make up for so much time away. "Just go slow," he said, as though Chris would ever forget.

"Always," Chris promised, and he always did. In fact, was sometimes almost *too* careful, but now wasn't the time to mention it, not after such a long time away. "Do you still have stuff?" His fingers were circling Nick's navel now, dipping inside and then trailing lower, teasing lightly. He was tense, clearly excited and holding himself back a little.

"I must..." said Nick, trying to remember where he put things. It wasn't as though he'd been with anyone else. "I think, the dresser? Where they used to be? I think no one has disturbed anything there..." The staff did go through his things sometimes, just for his own protection, but he didn't think they had, lately.

"All right." Chris pulled himself away with visible reluctance, and went to rummage through Nick's top drawer. Nick saw him pause as he picked up a magazine, but then set it aside and came up with condoms and lube. "Thank goodness for your day passes," he said with a little smile. "Otherwise we'd be using moisturizer and ingenuity instead, and this is much easier."

"Don't you even joke about that," said Nick, wincing at the thought. This wasn't really an easy thing for him, but so worthwhile, when it was done right. He put his hand on his stomach as he waited for Chris to return, felt a softness there and closed his eyes. "I'm ready for you."

"Hmm." Chris dropped the lube and condoms on the bed; Nick could feel them hit, and then Chris's added weight made the bed sag. "It's not an execution," Chris whispered, closer to his ear than Nick was expecting, making him jump. Then there were fingers in the crease of his thigh, stroking and touching. "You don't have to worry. I'm gonna go slow. I'll make it good, Nicky."

"I know you will," he whispered back, letting himself relax under Chris's touch. It was just Chris, he was okay with Chris. "I want this, Chris, I really do. I've been wanting it for a while."

"Okay," Chris answered simply, never stopping with the little touches, starting to kiss down his neck and shoulder and chest. His hands were busy between Nick's legs, though, rubbing gently at the base of Nick's cock, stroking his thighs, generally just getting him used to being touched again. Chris had admitted once, in one of his hours-long manic babblefests, that he loved doing that when he'd come back from a long absence, that it was as much for his pleasure as for Nick's. Refreshing his sense memory, he'd called it.

It was good for Nick, too, and not just in a sexual sense. Good to get used to being touched again, to have someone else touch his body in intimate ways and not recoil and not comment and not tell him what he should or shouldn't do about it. He didn't do the same to Chris, though, or at least, not in the same way. His strokes were long and languid, covering broad areas of Chris's body, getting a sense of the wholeness of him.

Chris slowly relaxed, too, sliding closer to Nick, propped on one elbow as he licked a wet circle around Nick's nipple, then finally bit down lightly. He chuckled low when Nick's back arched involuntarily, and ran an approving thumb up the big vein in Nick's cock. "Taste good all over," he mumbled, finally shifting so he was leaning over Nick, dipping his head down to kiss his mouth as he settled his weight between Nick's spread thighs.

"It's the pie, I think," said Nick sagely. "Eating pie makes you taste good, I think. Do that some more?" He gave Chris a shy grin and Chris laughed in return, and Nick wasn't surprised that he was happy to oblige. Whenever Nick suggested himself that something nice like that be done to his body, Chris was quick to follow through. And vice versa, really.

"I can always tell when you like something," Chris said wisely, still grinning, "'cause your cheeks get all pink and your breath does this hiccup thing. It's great." He nipped again, a little more firmly this time, and reached down to cup Nick's balls in his palm, rolling them gently as he pressed out against Nick's knee. "Open up a little for me, baby," he murmured, showing patience that Nick had never seen him possess anywhere but in bed.

"I am," Nick protested, but at Chris's gentle request NIck's legs spread wider, letting him in closer. Chris lifted his face again and gave Nick a slippery kiss, and Nick closed his eyes and just enjoyed it.

"Mmm." Chris hummed happily, short beard scratching Nick's chin just a little as they kissed, and at the first press of Chris's thumb to the tender place behind his balls he almost jumped out of his skin. "Easy, easy," Chris mumbled, rubbing that same spot softly. "Feels okay?"

Chris's hands were warm and gentle, and it was good, it was nice. Nick knew what to expect. "I'm good," he murmured, and spread even wider for him once the initial surprise had passed. "It's all good."

"Hell YEAH it is," Chris agreed fervently, and his cheeks were pink and his breath coming short, just as much as Nick's. His fingers were even trembling a bit as he slipped them down further, and *he* huffed out a breath and his hips jerked when he finally brushed his fingers across Nick's ass. "So hot," he whispered against the hollow of Nick's throat, pressing in a little.

"Been a long time," breathed Nick, and he hesitated a moment before very hesitantly pushing back. He always forgot how nice it felt, when he was being too uptight for anything to feel good. "You remember how?" It was half teasing, half a bout of nerves.

"It's like riding a bike," Chris assured him with a little grin. "Only lots more fun." He slid a little further down Nick's body, changing the angle of his wrist, reaching for the lube. "Don't tense up," he said, nuzzling Nick's stomach, petting him more. His position, half-crouched between Nick's thighs and leaning over him, would have looked silly if he hadn't been so hard, and so intent and serious and hungry when he glanced down at his own hand.

"I'm not," said Nick, licking his lips, in a moment of clarity feeling very much glad he was alive. That Chris was alive. That they had come to meet. "I want this, Chris, so much. More all the time."

Chris just smiled in acknowledgement, and slid a slippery finger into Nick's body with no further fanfare, riding the arch and bend of Nick's body as he pressed Nick's prostate directly. "There you go," he said, satisfaction rich in his voice. "Sometimes having small hands does come in handy." His finger didn't hurt at all, not even when he turned it a little, then went back to the sweet spot.

"Oh, Chris," he breathed, and everything felt warm and tingly for a moment. And then another moment. And then just kept on. "More?" He pressed his heels into the bed and pushed back against Chris, just as much as he dared.

Chris was watching him with his mouth a little open, eyes wide and hungry, and nodded at Nick's request, slipping another finger in beside the first one, crooking them just right before Nick even really registered the quick slight sting and burn. "I'm just gonna," he said, almost apologetically, and then his mouth was closing over the slippery tip of Nick's cock, drawing it between his lips and licking the tip with his tongue.

"Oh!" said Nick, a little louder but never *really* loud, because privacy was such a scarce commodity. Even now, people were only leaving them be out of courtesy. "Chris, I..." He let out a soft moan, and relaxed back into the bed, let Chris do what he liked because he made Nick feel good like no one else could.

Chris couldn't talk, but he was making contented sounds and doing such amazing things with his mouth that Nick barely noticed him adding a third finger. When he spread and stretched them, though, Nick fanned a knee out wider, instinctively trying to ease the strain of stretching muscle, and Chris showed his approval with a hard, sucking pull. When he finally raised his head, his mouth was red and wet, and he still had three fingers deep inside Nick.

"Ready?" His voice was a little hoarse.

"Already was," said Nick, sucking in air and trying to be as ready as he could be, knowing what was coming. Trying not to tense up. He could feel himself twitch against Chris's fingers, then relax again as Chris kissed his hip gently. "I am, I am," Nick assured him. "Ready."

"Okay," Chris said against the thin skin of his hip, before pulling away and fumbling a little with the condom. Nick felt empty when he was gone, and reminded himself again that it felt *good*, that Chris always made it feel good. He tensed again when Chris gently lifted one of his legs up to his shoulder, reaching down between them to line himself up. He caught Nick's eyes, though, and held them with his. "I'll make it good," he repeated again, and nudged his hips forward.

Nick let out a slight whimper just because there *was* a stretch, at first, but Chris kept going, slowly and steadily, and got him past it with the least amount of trauma possible. "Oh," he said a moment later, when Chris was inside and they were *joined* and Nick remembered why they were doing this in the first place.

Chris paused for a long, breathless moment when he was finally all the way in, and blinked down at Nick, his pupils huge and his mouth a tight controlled line, his arms trembling a little from holding himself up over Nick. The pause drew out, Chris still motionless, Nick feeling his pulse thudding in his temples and throat and where he was stretched around Chris, and then Chris twisted his hips a little, not thrusting. "Fuck," he grunted, dropping his head. "So tight."

"Yeah," said Nick, an agreement and just an excuse to make a sound. He could feel the continued stretch of his body as Chris moved inside him, turned his body. "I like it."

Chris huffed a little laugh, closed his eyes, and pulled out a few inches before sinking back in deep, all the muscles along his flanks clenching and shifting with the motion. "I like it too," he said, strained and breathless. "Might not last too long, though. It's been a while." There was that little twist again, stretching Nick wider.

"S'okay," breathed Nick, clinging to Chris with his leg. "I just want it, Chris, I just want it for a little while. I don't care if... I just want this."

"'This' I can do," Chris nodded, and finally started to move in earnest, his teeth clamped tight on his lower lip, straining a little harder at the end of every thrust like he was trying to crawl inside Nick and stay. He started cursing, low and quiet, a few moments later, his voice almost reverent as he slipped a hand under Nick's ass and lifted a little, changing the angle and going even deeper. "Oh my holy..." he breathed, tremors rippling up his body, and his eyes flew to Nick's as his hips jerked and Nick felt him start to pulse.

"Oh!" he said himself, eyes widening as he watched Chris come. He hadn't himself, and wasn't sure he would, but that didn't matter. That wasn't what he was in it for. "Oh, Chris."

Chris bent his head, riding it out, looking like he was almost in pain as his body shook. "Holy fuck," he breathed as the tremors eased, raising his eyes to meet Nick's again. "Too fast," he breathed, and reached for Nick's cock, staying inside him, still hard, still panting a little. His hand was almost too tight, but he rubbed the pad of his thumb over the tip just right.

"It's okay, Chris," murmured Nick, shivering delightedly. He didn't exactly try to get him to stop, but he didn't want Chris to think he *had* to try to get Nick off.

Chris grinned, still looking drugged and stunned, starting to stroke Nick with intent. "It's definitely okay," he murmured, pressing Nick's knee back towards his chest, turning his head to nip at Nick's inner thigh. "I love your dick, you know."

Nick sighed softly and contentedly and let him, relaxing his body back again and sinking into his bed. Forgetting everything outside the bedroom for a brief, blissful moment.

"Yeah, baby." Chris almost purred, which would have sounded ridiculous in his light voice if he hadn't still been deep in Nick's ass, if his hand hadn't been doing wonderful and sinful things to Nick's cock, if his breath hadn't been fanning hot on Nick's skin. "Let go, Nicky," Chris urged. "Let yourself feel good. I wanna see you come." He moved back and slid out of Nick's body, replacing his softening dick with three fingers and pressing them in firmly.

Nick hadn't been expecting Chris to replace his dick with his fingers, and the wonderful shock of it sent tingles through his body. Even more than for himself, he wanted to do this for Chris, to let him feel like he'd done something wonderful for Nick.

"Oh," he breathed as the tingles hit him harder. "Chris, don't stop, don't stop--"

"Not gonna," Chris swore, voice thin again as he watched Nick avidly. "Might not ever, no matter what happens." That was just silly, but as he bent his wrist and started fingering Nick with clever little twists of his hand, Nick wished for a moment that it was true. He had a handful of the bedcover and one hand on Chris's shoulder and there would maybe be marks later, but Chris didn't seem to mind. In fact, he urged Nick on with little whispers about how hot Nick was like this, how pretty, how much Chris loved seeing him like that.

It was the words more than anything that send Nick over the edge, words like that said in a way that Nick couldn't help but believe them, at least for the moment. He gasped as he came, thrusting up into Chris's hand and clutching him so hard his hand ached.

"Oh yeah," Chris whispered almost reverently, never taking his eyes off Nick's face. "Beautiful." He kept stroking Nick, urging the last drops out of him, smiling the whole time despite the fact that Nick could see dimples in the skin of his shoulder where Nick's fingers had dug in. When Nick finally collapsed back on the bed, sprawling flat, Chris went with him, coming down carefully onto his body and just breathing with him.

"I can't believe we just did that," murmured Nick, eyes shooting towards the still-closed door for the first time in a long time. "I'm so glad. It was really nice."

Chris muttered something unintelligible into the skin of his shoulder, not lifting his head even when Nick shifted into a more comfortable position. When he opened his eyes, though, Nick could tell from the way his eyelashes tickled. "What do you mean, you can't believe we did that?" Chris's voice was a little wary. "I *can* get turned on even after I've been down for a while, you know, it's not unheard of."

"That's not what I meant," whispered Nick. "I just meant... it's like a dream, a good dream, to be able to do that again after so long. And to have it feel even better than I remembered."

Chris considered that, head tipped and eyes still wary, and then nodded once, rolling off of Nick to lay at his side, one hand still draped across his chest. "It was good," he admitted. "Seems to get better every time, and I don't think that's just my insanity talking. At least, I hope not."

"No, I don't think so," said Nick quietly. "Neither of us are the delusional type. I guess that means we should keep doing it, huh? Since it keeps getting better and better?"

A little grin kicked up the corner of Chris's mouth. "Guess so," he answered. "Pretty soon it'll get so good we'll just be blissed out all the time, we won't *need* drugs or therapy any more." He rolled to his side up to one elbow, and looked at Nick's face, strangely moody. "Shame we can't get any regular privacy. That might actually work."

"Well, we got *some*," said Nick, kissing him carefully. "Which is more than usual and was really, really nice. And if we can convince Joey that he'd make a great guard to station at our door to keep everyone out, we'd get even more." Nick wasn't at all sure how well that would work out, though. He imagined Joey opening the door every few minutes to ask them questions.

"Joey'd get into a play-by-play of what he thought we were doing in here, and before you knew it we'd have an audience," Chris pointed out, kissing Nick back briefly before pulling back to run a hand through his hair, making it stick up even more. "It was nice, but we should probably get dressed before we get company. Fucking non-locking doors."

"Oh, right," said Nick. He didn't want Joey to pull away yet but he always was, getting up and finding his clothes. "Yeah, I guess. That's probably a good idea. I mean... someone's always bound to come looking..." Still, though, it wasn't the sort of thing he wanted to end, when he was actually feeling good. Maybe Chris was lying about how good he thought Nick looked. Maybe he just wanted sex. "I guess Joey's waiting, too..."

"Yeah," Chris nodded almost too quickly, yanking his t-shirt over his head where he sat on the edge of the bed. "And you know he'll come back for us if he feels like we've been too long. If he even remembers we were supposed to play cards. You never can tell, with him." He handed Nick his shirt, a troubled little line between his brows. "You really need to eat more," he almost blurted.

Nick's face fell, and he quickly tugged the shirt on again to cover his body. "I'm sorry," he snapped back, looking away from Chris's face. "I'm trying. Maybe I should just... stay in here, while you play with Joey. Since you seem to want to get out of her as quick as you can and all."

He sensed Chris's flinch more than saw it, but when he glanced up Chris's face was smooth. "You should come with," he said mildly, wrapping his fingers around Nick's wrist in a loose hold. "And not just because you're not supposed to be alone yet. You'll just get into a funk if you sit here, and then you won't eat breakfast, and it'll all go downhill from there." His thumb rubbed gently at the sharp protrusion of Nick's wristbone.

Nick didn't really have the energy to tell him that the ball was already rolling downhill, and picking up speed. "Sure," he said finally, letting Chris pull him gently to his feet. If he didn't go, Chris would just go find a nurse to help and that would be even worse. "Was it honestly good for you, Chris?"

Chris looked at him sharply. "I told you, it just keeps getting better. It was fantastic, it blew my mind, you were *there*, you must know that." He reached down and buttoned Nick's jeans, growling a little under his breath at their looseness, lingering just a heartbeat over the zipper. "We're going to have to do it the other way soon," he said almost absently, taking Nick's hand and turning for the door. "I can barely remember what it feels like."

"If you want," said Nick, still cautiously. "I'll do it if that's what you want, Chris. it's only fair that you get to feel that good, too. If you like it. If you want to." He finally met Chris's eyes again, for a moment. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I don't get you," Chris shrugged as he replied simply, and opened the door to the hallway, leaving their quiet time behind. "You have done that before, right? I mean, for real, not just our playing around. You know it's amazing?" He could have been talking about playing "real" pool instead of their nerf version, for all the passing orderlies could tell.

"For real," said Nick dully, sighing. What they did was real to him, even if it wasn't serious. He couldn't understand how it couldn't be, for someone else. "Yeah, of course I have. I know it's great. I don't get you either, you know, sometimes."

"That's because I'm crazy," Chris answered with a smile that was only slightly bitter. "Just ask anyone. Good to know you've done it before, though, it can be tricky if you haven't." He sighed, bumped Nick a little with his hip. "Don't pout, Nicky. It's gorgeous, but it freaks me out."

"You're not crazy," muttered Nick, shaking his head at the floor. "And i'm not pouting. I'm just..." Well, he was pouting, but Chris wasn't supposed to comment on it. "Unhappy."

"Kiddo, if I'm not crazy, than what the fuck am I doing *here?*" Chris said wearily. "And why are you unhappy? Never mind, tell me later." He braced himself as Joey burst through the door of the common room, checking himself as he saw them standing in the corridor.

"There you are," he said brightly. "I was just coming to get you, because I figured you had to be done with all the sexy things by now, or maybe not, but either way I want to play cards with you, so you should have been done. Did you both get to have orgasms, were they good?"

"Private, Joey," Nick reminded him with a sigh. It just figured that Joey would pick that moment to show up again. "But yes, it was very good, and thank you for leaving us alone for a little while. We had a very good time together."

"Can I stay next time?" he asked. "Now that you've had your time alone?"

"No," Chris said, his lips twitching in that way that meant he was trying desperately not to laugh. "No, that's always going to be private, Joe, sorry, every single time we do it. Listen, how about we maybe talk about this, just the three of us, a little later when we're by ourselves? We want to make sure you understand some stuff." He threw a significant look at Nick. "About, about some of this stuff, and Howie, and good ideas and bad ideas, okay?"

"Is that going to be private, too?" Joey looked simultaneously confused and eager, like he wasn't sure exactly what was going on but was thrilled to be included. "We're going to do private stuff?"

"Right," said Nick cautiously, not wanting to give Joey the wrong idea. "We're going to have a private talk, just you and me and Chris, okay?"

"Talk?"

"Just talk," he confirmed. "We'll..." He looked at Chris for guidance for a moment, but Chris was letting him field it. "We'll tell you things and we'll answer your questions too, okay? The questions that we told you were private, before."

"I don't know why he doesn't just ask one of his many therapists," Chris muttered, but nodded when Joey looked at him inquiringly. "Yeah, Joe, we'll tell you stuff. But that's later, okay? Not now. Later."

"After we play cards," Joey said, with slow-dawning understanding. "Later then?"

"Yes!" Chris almost clapped his hands, and Joey beamed. "That's exactly right, Joey. Later is then. Now, let's go play poker, you can take all our fake money."

"Do you think I could use fake money to buy more pie for Nick tomorrow?" asked Joey, then looked very worried all of a sudden. "Will they *have* pie tomorrow?"

"If they don't, they'll have something else instead," Chris assured him, while Nick just blushed at Joey's generosity. Even if it didn't help his issues any.

"But pie is best," Joey argued, watching them both. "Pie made Nick smile today and he hasn't smiled in *weeks*, and people were worried 'cause he threw up in the gym bathroom only he got caught and someone yelled, and there was other stuff too, but pie still made him smile."

"Sweetheart," Chris said fondly, giving Joey's waist a quick squeeze. "We'll just have to make sure Nick smiles more, okay? You and me, that'll be our jobs." His eyes were dark with worry as he glanced at Nick, though.

Sometimes, Nick found Joey charming, in his innocent way. And sometimes, he wished he would just shut the fuck up and not tell Chris things he didn't need to know.

"I just wasn't feeling well for a while," he lied. He knew Chris would catch him in the lie; he hoped Joey wouldn't. "I'm doing much better now, I promise."

"Because of the pie?" Joey said hopefully, though he looked a little worried when he saw Chris's expression.

"I think the pie was definitely part of it," Chris said gently, patting Joey's arm and pushing him towards the common room door again. "Go on, get us a table and some cards. We'll be right behind you."

"But I already have a table and some cards!" Joey protested. "I'm already ready." He looked back at them over his shoulder, then, once he was certain they were following, went straight back into the common room with no further urging.

"It was just the once, Chris," Nick said softly, when it seemed like Chris was waiting for him to say something. "I told you I haven't been great, lately."

"It's never just the once," Chris whispered intensely, walking slowly after Joey and keeping Nick by his side. "No wonder they've got someone watching you so close all the time. What happened? When I, when I started to get bad again, you were doing pretty good, you were okay. Dammit, Nick. No one's been bringing you stuff, have they? Diet pills, laxatives, stuff like that? Don't lie to me." He was fidgeting with something, and Nick realized with a little start that it was Nick's watch.

"Chris..." said Nick, giving him a pained look. He hated it when Chris asked like that; he always felt like he had to answer. "No, nothing like that. Okay? It was just... I needed to, okay? I needed to. It's not all the time. Really, it's not."

Chris sighed and shook his head, but the look on his face was one of complete understanding. If there was one thing Chris understood, it was strange compulsions that other people didn't approve of. He handed Nick's watch back to him reluctantly. "Yeah, well. No more of that, even if I have to sit on you."

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