Broken Glass
Kel drove aimlessly, uncertain of what to do next. All his life, everything had always had some semblance of order, some protocol to follow in even the most dire of situations. But nothing and no one had ever prepared him for a clusterfuck like this. He felt like his life had turned to silt, and it was all slipping through his fingers, no matter how tightly he tried to hold on to what was left.
He nearly rolled through a red light, only stopping when a passing tanker blared its horn as he passed through the crosswalk. He jammed to a stop, sending the cold food next to him crashing to the floor. "Jesus." He looked around. No one else on the street. He jerked the car into reverse, putting himself firmly behind the limit line, and stared at the signal. The light turned green, and though Kel was staring right at it, had seen it change, he didn't see it. All he could see was the afterimage of his companion, his dearest friend, his lover, holding some poor child down.
A car zoomed past Kel on his right, and he jumped, suddenly aware of his surroundings again. He shook himself from his daze and finally went through the intersection on a stale yellow light. Once safely across, he cut across the two oncoming lanes without signaling or any real awareness of approaching vehicles, to an empty parking lot just ahead, and tried to get a hold of himself. Regaining control proved to be more difficult than he'd expected. He gripped the wheel as deep shudders shook down his spine, shudders so deep the whole car rocked with the force of his tremors. He was exhausted, much too tired to drive, but he was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by factories and industry.
He looped a fast, wide turn in the empty lot and slammed to a stop when his front tires thunked back onto the sidewalk. Cursing softly but extensively, he jammed the car out of gear and sat back in his seat, spent. He had a wide view of the intersection that he'd ambled through, and a clear view up and down the sidewalk on either side of him. The only lights to be seen were the handful of streetlights that marked an inverted path of the road in the darkness. The businesses were shut down for the evening, and the workers had all gone. He watched the street despondently, and realized that there had been no other cars traveling that road. He'd left the scene of Stan's crime feeling lost and alone, and now the universe was being the ultimate prick, and making his predicament literal. "Well now, that's just perfect." The sound of his own voice, deep and resonant, was a grounding force. He wasn't normally one for talking to himself, but if ever there was a time to start, this looked to be about it. "First thing's first." He gripped the steering wheel in sweat slicked hands, and put the car back in gear. "Find a bed."
He pulled back onto the street and drove fast, too fast, in the same direction he'd already been going. He knew he was bound to hit civilization some time, and he'd have a better chance of finding a motor inn up ahead than he would backtracking. Sure enough, the industry began to give way to housing and markets and gas stations. In the distance, he could see a tall sign made of brightly colored blocks stacked one on top of the other, covered with heavy black lettering that hearkened back to his youth. The sign was garish and ugly against the starry black sky, but it did it's job - he gunned the engine, hooked a left into the narrow driveway under the signage, and pulled gratefully into the motel's parking lot.
The room was clean, which was really all Kel cared about. He dragged himself and the remains of his ruined anniversary feast into the room, shut and triple bolted the door, and collapsed onto the bed fully clothed. He could see a hairline crack near the the light fixture in the ceiling, and wondered mildly if the thing might come crashing down on his head in the night.
This was not how he'd envisioned his first Saturday night off in years.
Now that there was no more danger of death by police brutality or auto collision, Kelly found that there was nothing to keep his mind from grasping at every good and sweet memory he'd ever had of Stanford and seeing the foul, twisted truth behind it all.
How the hell could he have been so blind?
His eyes began to burn with hurt and shame, but Kelly had never been much of a crier. He blinked back unshed tears and forced himself into a seated position. "Physician, heal thyself." His only thought was to kick off boots and lose the coat and tie so he could get under the covers, but his belly gurgled insistently. He paused, vaguely surprised to realize that he was hungry. He supposed he shouldn't have been surprised - he'd certainly been hungry before... before.
He picked through the smashed boxes of takeout, determined to make the best of a massively fucked situation. The food was alright, though it would have been better hot. And whole. And not after his whole life had been grand slammed out of the damned park. But it was good enough to quell his hunger.
The wine, on the other hand, was a disgrace. It was hot, which made it taste syrupy instead of crisply sweet. But the alcohol fuzzed his mind and blotted the sharpness of memory. Made it easier to stop thinking for a minute, to stop the searing hurt.
He lost interest in the food quickly enough, having put an end to the hunger pangs, but he stuck it out with the bottle of wine, nursing it while he watched the Movie of the Week. Still, the bottle was empty all too soon, and he found himself wishing for just a little extra, a nightcap, to send him off to sleep in a black haze. He stuffed his feet back into his boots and staggered out into the night in search of a late night pharmacy that might have a little of what he needed.
He didn't have to go far. He found a strip mall with a small liquor store tucked away in the corner, manned by tiny old man tucked away in the corner of the store. Kel pretended to shop for groceries and toiletries, but he gave up the pretense when a dirty, swaying woman dressed in rags sloshed right up to the counter and demanded a fifth of bourbon. The old man sold her a bottle with no fuss and tucked himself away in the corner again. Kel watched the woman stumble out into the night, half afraid she might hurt herself.
"Help you, young fella?"
Kel frowned and looked around, confused. There was no one else in the... oh. He looked at the little old man and felt heat rising to his face. An inkling of a thought tried to solidify in the fog of Kel's mind, and he bucked against it. "You got wine?"
"You got ID?"
Kel blinked, perplexed. "Uh, yeah?" He scowled at the old man. "Do you usually wear glasses?"
"Don't sass me!"
Kel recoiled slightly, but he grimaced and approached the counter and pulled out his wallet. He threw down his driver's license and glared at the old man. The old man ignored Kel's impatience and held the license up to the light. He turned it this way and that, rubbed forcefully at the flimsy piece of paper, and scratched lightly at the edge of the identifying photograph. When Kel began to protest the rough treatment, the old man snapped his head up and gave him the evil eye. "This says M.D. You take this from your father?"
"Jesus fucking Christ, this has been the worst night of my fucking life, and all I want is a fucking bottle of wine so I can get a little sleep. Yes, it says M.D., and no, I didn't take it from my father. If you don't wanna sell me your wine, that's fine, but my money is as good as that drunken lady's, and you sold her what could be her death sentence. Now gimme my damned driver's license back before I beat the hell outta you."
The old man blinked, but he put the license back in Kel's hand and pointed to the coolers closest to the counter. They were full of chilled wine, and there were several varieties of unchilled wine on the nearest shelf. Kel selected a variety of bottles, unsure of how much he'd need to get himself comfortably on to sleep, and carried them to the old man. He half expected another fight, but his purchases were rung up with the same quiet disinterest the old man had shown the woman. Kel snatched his bag and stomped out, huffing his way back up the block to his hotel room.
Once inside, he set his bottles up in a row on the edge of the sink that faced the bed. He looked at his reflection in the giant plate mirror above the sink, a mirror that he supposed was meant to make the room feel more spacious. It didn't, it just looked like the contractors were idiots who forgot to put the damned sink inside the bathroom. His face was drawn and pale. His stubble looked almost blue-black against the pallor of his skin. How in the hell did that old man think he was underage?
Stan sure as hell didn't seem to suffer from that illusion anymore.
Kelly got out of his clothes, suddenly feeling horribly claustrophobic. He didn't stop until he was divested of every stitch, and was shivering in the chill of the room. Chardonnay would warm him. He popped the cork and guzzled it down like it was soda. His head swam and his step faltered, but he was still cold. Merlot. Merlot was dark and rich, like blood. It tasted a little like blood going down, a slight tang, like the bottle had been lined with lead. It brought a quick flush to his cheeks, like someone lit a fire too close to his face, but the heat died almost as soon as he drained the bottle. A chianti and a moscato soon followed, guzzled in near record time.
He dropped the empty moscato bottle by his feet and stared at his reflection. A stupid, stupid man stared back at him, red faced and red eyed and too drunk to stand up straight. "Who's a boy now? Who's a little boy now?" The world slipped a little to one side, and he took a stumbling step closer to the sink, to keep from falling off the edge of the universe. His skin was bluish white in some places, purplish red in others, and covered in a slick sheen all over. His belly stuck out like the nose of a steam engine train, and it hurt like hell. "Of course it hurts, you idiot, you drank four bottles of wine."
The four bottles of wine promptly returned with the force of a fully pressurized fire hose. He was terribly sick in the sink for what felt like hours, before his legs crumpled underneath him, and he crashed to the floor, half dead with grief.
A tight stream of sunlight pierced the blackness behind Kel's eyelids. He whimpered and tried to turn away from it, tried to turn in on himself to get away from the burn, but it was too late. The heat and light had touched some primal portion of his brain, and activated that ancient alarm system that said 'get the fuck up before you piss yourself you dumb fuck'. He groaned and slowly opened his eyes.
How the hell did he get on the floor?
Who's floor was this?
Wine bottles?
Oh. Oh.
Kel lay there, paralyzed by the memory of having drunk himself into oblivion, the memory of what made him do something so incredibly stupid to his own body. He was a doctor, he knew better than to drink like that. He could have died from alcohol poisoning. (Assuming some kind of venereal disease he hadn't even known to check for didn't get him first.)
"Good God, somebody help me." His voice was a harsh whisper, rough with the reality of sleep and bile, and the imaginings of sawdust and cotton. His tongue felt like it was ten times too big for his mouth, and he couldn't work up enough spit to swallow. His head pounded, a deep, resonant thud-dump thud-dump thud-dump, in time with his quickening pulse. He heaved onto his side and rolled heavily onto his belly, and winced more at the sound than the feeling of his bare skin slapping the small section of tiled floor nearest the sink. He lay there for a moment, struggling to work up the strength to get to his feet, but it wouldn't come. He gave up in desperation and began crawling hand over hand to the tiny door that housed the toilet and shower.
He managed to squeeze himself inside the tiny, windowless room, and pulled himself into the tub face first. He struggled to twist onto his back, and then lay there, panting, holding his head, trying not to sob aloud, and marveling at the sensation of tears leaking down the sides of his face into the thick, dark patches of hair before it spread into his ears. Then he marveled at the wet warmth spreading over one leg, and realized belatedly that he had indeed pissed himself. A bitter laugh escaped him, and then the flood gates opened, and out poured all the tears he'd been unable to cry the night before. The crying made his head pound harder, which brought his nausea back to the very edge of pained tolerance, but it didn't seem to matter. He couldn't stop. He was choking on the pain of realizing he absolutely hated the man he was so deeply in love with.
Finally, though, the tears subsided, and the pain lessened. He'd grown numb, and with that numbness grew silence. He felt like he might never speak again. After all, what was there to say? Oh, don't mind me I just found out I'm in love with a pedophile, and I think he might kinda like me back.
Kel's skin was suddenly too hot and tight on his flesh. He clawed at his belly, his shoulders, his chest, trying his damnedest to hook his immaculately trimmed fingernails into constricting skin, but to no avail. He sat up suddenly and vomited, though there was next to nothing in his gut expel. He watched the bile and urine mix and run lazily down the drain, and turned on the tap to help rinse the mess out. At first, the icy water sent him scurrying to the back of the tub. But the cool stream on his angry, red skin felt wonderful, like a new beginning - a baptism. He braced himself against the tile wall and got to his feet, switched the spigot to spray through the shower head, and ducked under the too-cold spray.
He stood there, teeth clattering, body trembling, but he didn't turn on the heat, didn't duck away from the cold. He had to wash it off. He wasn't even sure what 'it' was, only that it had to come off, that it was pressing in on him, tying him down, burning him up. He closed his eyes and tried to will the sensation away, but instead all he got was sense memories. Being held, petted, stroked. The sound of a soft breath in his ear, the featherlight puff of steam on his neck, his back.
Kel reached for the soap and began to scrub furiously. Stop touching me, stop touching me, don't you ever fucking touch me again. But no one was touching him. No one had touched him for a painfully long time, not really. Then in a flash of self awareness, he understood. No amount of scrubbing would take the taint of Stanford's hands away from Kelly's body. Kelly shut down, and Doctor Brackett quietly took over. Behavioral Therapy.
Dr. Brackett had heard a primer on the benefits of incorporating behavioral therapy techniques by non-psych physicians in a whole-body medicine seminar a couple years back. The idea was that some patients needed help adjusting to major life changes brought on by chronic illness or emergency trauma, and that the sooner they got that help, the better. Doctors the world over always prescribed large, imposing lists of lifestyle changes patients were expected to make in order to extend their lives, but patients were often discharged wondering how exactly they were supposed to implement those changes, and most patients didn't want the stigma of finding a headshrink to help them make a random list into a set of habits. The lecture explained how all medical professionals, from the operating surgeon down to the orderlies who brought in lunch, could use behavioral therapy early in the recovery process. It talked about replacing old habits with new ones, replacing old ways of thinking with new scripts, matching certain thoughts to altered attitudes. A young woman whose sense of self worth came directly from her looks wouldn't make it very far if she left the burn unit with severe facial scarring and no way to find something else positive about herself to focus on. A man with heart disease couldn't afford to continue to look at skydiving as a relaxing daily activity, and a patient with sudden onset diabetes had to learn to be okay with scheduling a diet and sticking to that schedule.
A man who couldn't stand the feeling of his own skin had to relearn how to live inside it. But how? Find the root of the problem. What makes the patient unable to stand his own dermis? Sense memory. Replace the sense memory. Simplest way to do that? Repeat the basics of the activity that created the sense memory, but change the circumstances, especially circumstances directly related to the patient's level of control. The patient has to take control of the situation.
Dr. Brackett shut the water off and stepped out of the bath, and out of the tiny room, still dripping wet, still considering the problem at hand. Not his problem. He didn't have problems like this. The problems he had were administrative bullshit that came with supervising any portion of a County facility. This problem belonged to some hypothetical patient, a patient that didn't know how to reinsert himself back into his own life.
First thing was the problem of time. The patient needed time, time to develop a viable solution, time to enact the solution. The patient needed to take time off work.
Some small part of him was alarmed that he hadn't thought to call the hospital immediately upon waking, but the cool, numb, clinical part of him simply moved on auto-pilot. He picked up the phone and dialed the emergency ward's admissions desk. "This is Dr. Brackett. Give me Dr. Early, please," he said to the pleasant young woman who answered. He couldn't place her voice, though Dr. Brackett knew every nurse that moved through his halls, at least on a superficial basis. It didn't matter. Dr. Brackett's staff was always efficient and professional. She would route the call appropriately.
A moment later the tinny hold music clicked off, and a familiar smoky voice picked up the phone. "Dr. Brackett? Joe's with a patient right now - are you all right? We've been calling your house for hours now, and nobody's ans-"
"I'm fine, Dix." That same small voice protested, but he ignored it. He was fine. Fine enough, anyhow. "A... family emergency has come up. I won't be in today."
There was a sigh at the other end, and he knew she wanted to ask him to reconsider, but he also knew she didn't have the authority to make that kind of request. "Any instructions?"
"Just keep doing what you do."
"Will you be in tomorrow?"
That threw Dr. Brackett. The hand that pressed the phone to his ear began to shake ever so slightly. He gripped the receiver tighter and pressed it to his head hard enough to leave a red circle on the edge of his ear. "I... I hope so. I'll let you know before my shift begins." Dix was silent. "I promise."
Another sigh. "Okay. Is there anything-"
"I'm fine." He could just make out the sounds of someone conferring with the paramedics, the familiar sounds of static and clipped radio jargon wafting in over the line. "You'd better get going."
"Call me if you need anything, Kel." Then someone called Dix, and the phone clanked, and the line went dead, and Kel was all alone, without even the armor of his medical knowledge to bolster him.
He hung up the phone and sat on the bed, still damp and slightly chilly, and tried to consider his problem again. He was no closer to a solution than before - if anything, he was further, because all attempts at clinical detachment were gone, used to keep Dixie calm and away from the crux of his emotional turmoil. He needed time, and now he had it, a whole day of it, but that wouldn't be worth a hill of beans if he didn't come up with... something else. Something to take his mind off Stan's hands on his back.
The memory snapped back into Kel sharply, his lover's - ex-lover's - hands sliding up and down that boy's back on a bed they'd shared for twenty damned years, hands that slid up and down Kel's own back in a different bed, in a tiny, hot two room loft just off Hill Street, mere minutes before he was supposed to be taking a biology midterm. He'd protested, he was angry, he'd missed an important test, but Stan had told him there would be others, and Stan had been right. There'd been plenty of other tests, and in the end, Kel was in charge of an entire ward in a large and well respected public hospital, and everything had turned out alright. Except it hadn't been alright, because Kel wasn't supposed to be squirming under Stan's touch, he was supposed to be in a classroom. Or his parent's house for dinner. Or an important off-campus lecture. So many places Kel was supposed to be while he was giving in to Stan's relentless charm.
And now Kel was supposed to be at work. But Stan wasn't there to hold him down - not physically, anyway. He had a whole day to do whatever the fuck he wanted. He had a whole day to let someone else hold him d- no. He had a whole day to give himself over to another. Maybe. Maybe he could do that.
He nodded to himself. He started to congratulate himself on a successful diagnosis and treatment plan, but his mouth wouldn't move. No more idle talk. He was fresh out of words. Instead, he dressed himself (a difficult task with shower damp skin), cleaned up the bottles still strewn all over the room (an equally difficult task with so damned many bottles scattered all over the floor), checked out of the room, and hit the road again. He needed to return to the root of this mess, the place where this all started: that disgusting cowboy dive where Stan had picked him up one night when he was avoiding studying. Kel pointed his car southwest, to Downtown Los Angeles.