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[is-the-walrus.livejournal.com]

When; September 13, evening (backdated)
Rating; Uh.  Let’s say PG?
Characters; Henry Letham (is_the_walrus) and Jonathan Crane (is_fear_itself )
Summary; Henry has an appointment with the good doctor.

Building 1, apartment number 263.  Henry repeated Crane’s location in his mind as he made his way across the City.  He had thought he had written it down after making the appointment, but if he had, the evidence was nowhere in sight. 

It didn’t matter, anyway.  He would either find the right apartment or he wouldn’t; either way, he doubted anything would come of it.  Crane didn’t seem like a bad kind of person, but he hardly seemed ready to fix anyone’s head.  Henry half-suspected he was a little crazy himself, what with the obsession with phobias.  Then again, maybe a crazy doctor would be more helpful than a sane one.  Sam had been sane—to begin with, anyway—and that hadn’t ended well.

Henry entered building one.  Why had he made this appointment again?  It wasn’t as if he could walk in and say, “Hey, I hear voices and the world changes.  By the way, I died three times and might have killed everyone I loved.”

Or maybe that was the way to go.  Get right to the point.  If Crane didn’t kick him out after that, then maybe the doctor could help him.

Apartment 263.  The door came up sooner than Henry had expected.  He entertained the idea of going back to Richard’s flat and playing dumb if Crane asked why he didn’t show up, and his feet started leading him away from the door…

He knocked.

 

Comments

[is-fear-itself.livejournal.com]

One of the apartments that Crane owned was normal. Well, as normal as a disinterested bachelor genius could keep it, anyway. There wasn't too much garbage or laundry, and the bedroom, living room, bathroom and small, cozy-and-functional office that served as his interview room were all up to code. The other apartment was something else entirely, and that was why he didn't invite company that wasn't fond of costumes and theme-names to that one.

That was also why he scrambled out of that room at the knock, turning to make sure the door was closed, and then--after a quick glance into the mirror to make sure he hadn't done something inane, like leaving the mask on--headed for the door.

He wouldn't make another mess of this. No. He would prove he COULD counsel, that he could acceptably approach problems from a real-world perspective and offer real-world solutions, even in a land besieged by accusations and paranoia. He, Doctor Jonathan Crane, was the savior of the ages, and he was not going to let anyone tell him otherwise.

He put on his most cheerful smile, and opened the door.

[is-the-walrus.livejournal.com]

Henry had never met a psychiatrist who was happy to see him. At the first meetings, he could feel them analyzing him, judging him, deciding he really was crazy and beyond help. After that, they knew him well enough to have genuine reasons to be unhappy.

The smile, then, was unexpected and unnerving, and it took Henry a moment to respond appropriately. “Hey. You’re the doctor, right?”

[is-fear-itself.livejournal.com]

Jonathan was so used to the mask by now that a poker face was extraordinarily difficult--it was just something he didn't think about. The smile was genuine enough, however. He really did like this sort of thing, particularly when he was permitted to show off how very good he was at his chosen field.

"Call me Jonathan, if you like." No need to tell him the Board had taken away his license, of course. "Please, come in. Would you like something to drink? I was in the middle of, ah...planning a reception for a friend of mine, tomorrow."

This, naturally, translated to 'mixing a concoction of fear-gas for a purple-caped crusader'.

[is-the-walrus.livejournal.com]

"Sure, thanks." Henry entered the apartment and took a brief look around. No, no straight jackets, no conspicuous needles. Not that he'd ever had a doctor jump him and shove him in a straight jacket, but caution never hurt anyone.

"No, 'm fine," he added. That last part sounded odd, though, considering the replies Crane got through the network. "Didn't know you had a friend here."

[is-fear-itself.livejournal.com]

"All right." Crane was trying not to seem too excited, but it had been so long since he'd done this, and he felt like a young boy on Christmas Eve. He gestured to the half open door of his office, inside which was a small leather couch, a high backed chair, and a desk with several notepads and a small cross--styled as a paperweight, it looked like.

"Fr-...Oh, well, it may be a loose term. She--and I--are from the same home city, we have a certain kinship." Crane made a gesture with one hand that seemed to indicate dismissal, or abandonment of responsibility to the heavens, "I may be too ...strange for most. A feeling I share with some of my patients, perhaps."

[is-the-walrus.livejournal.com]

Henry nodded, only half-listening. Crane certainly seemed... enthusiastic. Didn't most psychiatrists just do it for the money?

He entered the office, steering clear of the cross-shaped paperweight. The City was kind of an afterlife, after all--maybe God was still pissed off about the suicide thing. "How're you strange? Stranger'n most people here, I mean."

[is-fear-itself.livejournal.com]

Crane sat in the chair, fiddling around in one of the drawers to find a pencil and a small digital tape recorder - necessities in his field - and then looked up at Henry with a small smile.

"I get the feeling that someone who could blow up their sun is much more wholesome and acceptable than someone who could get inside their heads and--possibly make them see things about themselves that they never thought they'd need to face. Things they didn't know were there."

He paused, chewing on the pencil's end, and then added, "Most people would be surprised to learn precisely how little they know about themselves. Once you've stripped away hobbies--personal favorites, family, and environment--well, what's left?"

[is-the-walrus.livejournal.com]

"Well, yeah." Henry sat on the couch, kind of amused by the thought. "You know what everyone's really afraid of is themselves... what's really in their heads. Who gives a fuck if someone blows up the sun?"

He watched Crane. Okay, so maybe the doctor was weird. There was something slightly off about him, but Henry couldn't put a finger on what it was. Closeted pervert? Maybe, but who wasn't? Except Sam, but Sam wasn't real when it came down to it.

Henry brought his mind back to Crane's words. "You're the shrink. Tell me what's left."

[is-fear-itself.livejournal.com]

"Absolutely correct." This time it was in the tone of a pedagogue, instead of a psychiatrist--a kind of pride in a clever student, instead of the doctor lording it up over the patient.

He eyed the ceiling, and began to doodle on his notebook. A bat. A crow. Half of a harvest moon--and then he looked up at Henry intently.

"Fear." Jon pursed his lips, tapping the eraser on the notepad. "Fear is the most basic, primal urge... our first friend, our first teacher... our motivator in nearly all things--save love, and even then--some people are just afraid to be alone."

[is-the-walrus.livejournal.com]

Henry leaned forward, eying Crane's notebook. Given the choice between art and psychology, he'd take art--especially when the psychology option was quickly turning into a lecture about fear. The doctor obviously had some kind of hang-up.

"That's it? Fear and maybe love? No anger? Sadness?" Henry stopped himself before he could add 'horniness' to that list in Richard's honor. That was probably reducible to fear, or at least insecurity. Maybe Richard was the one who needed the psychiatric help.

[is-fear-itself.livejournal.com]

Jonathan sighed quietly, sketching out a rough hand with thin fingers--looked up again, and tilted it more, so that Henry could see.

"Oh, anger exists--in its best forms, it exists to inflict fear on its enemies. And sadness-..." Crane trailed off, reading Henry's body language a little more closely.

"You're not here to be lectured, of course. I'm sorry." He tried another smile, renewing his vow that he would not allow this one to fail--feeling inside the shifting of something dark and scarecrow-shaped, retreating...

"Tell me why you think you need my help."

[is-the-walrus.livejournal.com]

"Not bad," Henry said in assessment of Crane's doodles. There were art majors who did worse and congratulated themselves on a job well done.

He rested his forearms on his knees and examined the carpet in Crane's office, resisting the urge to check on the cross paperweight even though he could almost feel it moving closer. "Hey, it's a free session, right? Lecture away."

Henry had to think about what to tell Crane. The condensed version seemed a little too out there. He turned his attention to the cuffs of his jacket. "I'm crazy. Don't you fix that?" His hand reached into his pocket for a cigarette almost of its own volition. "You mind if I smoke?"

[is-fear-itself.livejournal.com]

"Why thank you," Crane held the notebook out to him almost absently, followed by a fresh pencil. "Do you draw?"

He watched Henry worry at his jacket, and then smiled at the first question, before addressing the second. "Go ahead. ...I don't think 'crazy' actually exists. There are adaptive thought processes and maladaptive ones. Put... simplistically, the things that interfere with the way you want to run your life are the things I try to fix."

[is-the-walrus.livejournal.com]

Henry paused before taking both notebook and pencil. "Yeah, sometimes," he answered. "Usually paint, though."

He set the pencil down in favor of a cigarette, concentrating on what Crane was saying (and thank God, the paperweight was right where it was supposed to be). No such thing as crazy? Maybe the doctor hadn't seen crazy before. Maybe Crane was nuts himself and didn't want to admit it. Whatever the case was, Henry sort of liked him; most psychiatrists had a way of talking down to their patients, but Crane didn't.

Mind steadied by the buzz of nicotine, Henry replied, "So... not knowin' what's real. That's just maladaptive? 'Cause it interferes a lot."

[is-fear-itself.livejournal.com]

Crane smiled. "Art therapy is a rather recent and progressive way to explore your feelings... Possibly within your comfort zone."

He folded his legs and sat back, tapping against the desk. He had a spare mask in there, folded away neatly, and a beaten-up hat, just in case.

"Elaborate, won't you? In which instances don't you know 'what's real'?"

[is-the-walrus.livejournal.com]

Henry pinched the smoldering end of his cigarette between two fingers to put it out, trying to line up the words in his head before saying them out loud. "Instances...? It's more an all the time thing. Worse sometimes than others."

He paused and watched Crane's face for a moment. So far, so good.

"You ever think this City isn't real?" Henry continued. "Doesn't make sense, does it? People from ev'rywhere, some dead... the fuckin' curses. There's all this... magic, and circumstance, and it's more like a weird dream than anything real."

[is-fear-itself.livejournal.com]

"Fascinating," Crane murmured, a faint smile chasing the corners of his face. He'd truly missed this side of the table; it was no fun to be on the other side, being constantly told why he was doing things that weren't accurate observations at all.

The smile vanished at the second sentence, as he reached a shocking conclusion--perhaps the City wasn't real! Quickly, though, he tried to compose himself.

"One could say the same thing about life, however. It is a bizarre series of circumstances. Reality's sole redeeming factor seems to be that it is consistently bizarre." He paused, and asked, "And you're opposed to taking any sort of medicine whatsoever."

[is-the-walrus.livejournal.com]

Henry suspected Crane was enjoying his job too much. That smile was nothing short of creepy as Hell.

"Listen, I dunno where you're from, but where I'm from, people're supposed to stay dead, and curses don't happen." Of course, just because they were supposed to stay dead didn't mean that they did--at least not for everyone. Henry shook his head in response to the last. "No medicine."