(Untitled)

[dysfunctionjnct]

Huang waits in the lobby of Arkham Asylum, reviewing updates to a few patients files as he does so. Though he's had reason as of late to mistrust staff, even other doctors, there wasn't any problem with letting Tony Hill assess one of his patients. Being a published author in their academic field is by no means a guarantee of sanity, but he's has

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[doctorhill]

Perhaps it isn't a common occurence, that a man, no matter how professional, would set aside the time and money to travel overseas for an assessment, but Tony has always approached things like these the same as he approaches all things concerned with the human psyche.

With near-obsessive zeal and enthusiasm. Coming to Gotham, the single most corrupted, rotten to the core capital of the western hemisphere, his expectations are as simple as he himself may seem at first glance. He has booked a room at one of the cheaper hotels in town, he survived the cab drive and paid for it - paying no attention to the fact he was ripped off - and now he's here. His shirt not quite as neatly tucked in as one might expect, his suit doesn't quite fit and from the look of it, it didn't fit when he got it back in the 'nineties.

He steps into the lobby carrying all the information he's procured on the patient, a certain John Constantine, and the circumstances under which he was put here...in a blue, see-through plastic bag.

"--lose the girl, get her arm, she's gone. Gone, gone, gone. To Hell? Maybe. You're convinced she is. No. No, you know."

Hm? Oh! Right. "Hello."

[dysfunctionjnct]

Compared to his daily interactions at Arkham, Tony is still something of a relief. He's coherent and seems unlikely to attack anyone, two big points right off the bat. The plastic bag (slight security risk, but in that suit, who was going to mug him?) and talking to himself reminds Huang of one or two professors he'd had. If he had the time and inclination to blog, this meeting would certainly merit an entry.

"Dr. Hill? I'm George Huang. Here are some notes from John's most recent session."

He offers Tony a manila folder with printouts inside. "If you'll follow me?"

[doctorhill]

"Yes." He takes the folder, flipping it open, already taking a peek. Then thwack, it's shut again. "Right."

He falls into step slightly behind his fellow psychiatrist, sneaking another peek at the contents of the folder. 'Convinced spirits of murder victims want to hurt him'. 'Protective circles'. Black magic. Wicca, druids, hedonism. Protective circles, all alone in the middle, everyone else on the outside looking in. Safe. Never safe. A prison within an asylum. Self-inflicted.

"Thank you for letting me come here. Oh, and you can call me Tony. Since we'll be working together."

Yes, that's plenty reason enough.

[dysfunctionjnct]

"Sure, Tony. Please call me George. We're only too glad to open our doors to the medical community. It's just rare that anybody actually takes us up on our offer. And despite some of our more flamboyant patients, John is actually one of the most interesting cases. I don't mind admitting professional insight is welcome."

He glances back at Tony, a thought occurring to him. "Actually, I had planned to stay up with him all night due to his sleeping problems, but depending on how today goes, perhaps you'd be more interested?"

[doctorhill]

"George." It's a good name. Easier to get right than Huang, too.

Flamboyant. Like the flower, or like, say, Gary Glitter? Hmm. 'Flamboyant'. It's a good word, nice and complex. "Yes. I understand you have the, uh, 'Joker' here as well as some of his acquaintances, for lack of a better word." And as interesting as the Joker seems, he isn't the focal point of Tony's current obsessive streak. One isolated incident is, where one man seems to have fallen victim to a serious nervous episode, and now suffers the consequences.

"Would you say he's malingering? Mister Constantine." Wait, he missed something. "Stay up all night?" He shrugs, eyebrows mimicking the rise and fall of his shoulders. "Sleep is for noobs, is that what the kids say these days?"

[dysfunctionjnct]

"... that doesn't seem to be the case, no." Possibly, Huang would not know what a noob was if one bit him in the ass. Not, presumably, that a noob would. Presumably.

"However dubious the details of the 'exorcism' incident are, his emotional response is very convincing. He tends to react to sedation very poorly, but in the past we've had to do it anyway due to suicide attempts. I'm convinced all night observation will yield more about his persistent auditory hallucinations while keeping him safe. I'm also very, very busy, unfortunately."

[doctorhill]

He nods, head bowed to better read the file, sidestepping a bypassing orderly person by pure luck. Coincidentally, the papers contained within the folder are already approaching a right mess.

"Then we'll just have to assume everything that happened, happened the way he believes it did." Is he being serious? It would seem so.

"If he has no other ways of communicating what actually happened, no other means of describing the events, who are we to tell him they didn't happen exactly the way he says? He may be a murderer, but from what I've read and heard, he's a killer with a conscience. It's more of a saving grace than most murderers've had that I've worked with."

[dysfunctionjnct]

Well, as long as Tony has no problems finding what he needs. You know, eventually.

"I do use the language of his beliefs, yes," Huang says cautiously, "it would be difficult to get anywhere by outright denying his story. I haven't ruled out the possibility he is a very talented actor, but Arkham is not necessarily a more desirable institution than Blackgate." Try really not, but if you're in solitary all the time you're a lot less likely to get shanked for killing and dismembering a kid.

"In any case, judge for yourself." He comes to a stop outside a door, checking the window and speaking through it. "John? You have a visitor. Can we take you to an observation room?"

... or are you going to do something disruptive? is the unspoken addition. He doesn't exactly approve, but perhaps speaking to someone willing to believe his story might help John just by itself.

[laughing_magus]

The walls here are too thin. John keeps telling them, but no one cares. He heard the men talking outside, but couldn't make out the words. He's glad to hear Huang, though. He'd gotten a little worried after another of the isolated patients got out. There was a lot of shouting and John had wondered if everyone involved made it out ok. He didn't care all that much, but it was something to think about other than what he's done and hating himself.

John has been curled in the center of the floor again, surrounded in the faded remains of his protective symbols. They haven't managed to fully scrub the last attempt away just yet.
He tentatively gets to his feet and makes his way to the door when he's told he has a visitor. Cheryl? They said Cheryl might visit... When he gets to the small window of his cell door, though, all that waits outside are Dr. Huang and...some stranger.

"Hmm? I suppose a field trip could be fun. Who's yer friend, squire? Don' think we've met."

[doctorhill]

"Tony." This one word holds more meaning than it technically should, or could, for that matter. And as he says it, looking through the glass pane, Tony's head tilts, rather like that of a big bird. But where a bird would only tilt its head, Tony's entire body seems to slant to the side for just one brief little second.

"I was invited to help you with your nightmares, John." Belatedly, "Can I call you John? I'd like to help, if I can. If you'll let me, of course."

These first few steps are always the most precarious ones. It is only after he's had time to watch, to study someone that he instinctively knows what to say, what to tell them; what works and what doesn't. Granted, sometimes not even that helps. Fortunately, he's willing to try, and try his very best.

[laughing_magus]

After a few months in Arkham, John's become largely skeptical that anyone is here to 'help' him in any way. So far, help with his nightmares has involved being drugged into an inescapable sleep that he often fears he'll never wake from. He wonders if this man's methods will be any different.

"John will do fine, yeah. 'M in no position t'stop you doing much of anything, Tony. Be my guest."
His laughter is strained and nervous. John's eyes watch every movement through the glass, studying his new doctor. There's a lingering visible intelligence to his eyes; a smug cleverness just under the fear and exhaustion and blood shot red lines. It's half the reason people think he's faking all of this. He's rough looking and painfully thin, but seems almost 'together', at least for the time being.

"Let us out, then, hmm? Could do with a change of scenery."
Mostly because he hopes to leave his ghosts behind in the cell. It's not a strong hope, but anything is better than being trapped alone with them.

[dysfunctionjnct]

Huang nods at the orderly who's come up beside them, and he opens the door to escort them to an observation room, where the more coherent are occasionally interviewed. There's the basic set up of a table and two chairs (Huang will elect to lean against the wall near the door), and a reinforced window with metal grating that allows some sun in, however weak. It's different from a solitary cell in the abundance of sharp corners and loose items, but still rather spartan.

[doctorhill]

"Well," Tony remarks, as they move along to the observation room. "That doesn't give me the right to do just anything. It's when we're in no position to stop people from hurting us, from bad things happening, that bad things happen. Cause and effect."

He's one tangential thought from going back to his mumbling, but changing scenery is distracting. It's interesting enough to keep him right then and there.

"Determinism. Do you know what determinism means, John?"

He sits down, setting his plastic bag down beside him on the floor, and leans back. Straight back, laid back. Throwback, but to what?

Constantine will find out very soon indeed, and Doctor Huang too, that Tony isn't quite like other people. For better or worse.

[laughing_magus]

"S'that so? Well, then, this seems a perfect place for some truly bad things."
He started thinking of Arkham as more of a cause than a solution some days ago.

When they get to the room and the door has been closed behind them. John takes his seat at one side of the table. The orderly frees him from the straight jacket and the body odor underneath is --unfortunate. John lets out a long sigh of relief and stretches his arms, getting out a lot of kinks. His arms and hands are marked over with scars. The reasons he has the jacket to begin with.

"Determinism? Soun's depressing, but I don' think 'm familiar."
He studies the new doctor. This man is not quite like any of the others he's talked with. At this point, though, different is good.

[doctorhill]

Watching the display with unconcealed interest, and what most resembles a deadpan expression, Tony notices a great many things. The odour is dismissed unconsciously as something all too obvious, but the scars are an entirely different matter. They don't strike him as suicide attempts, and yet that is one of the labels tacked onto this patient. 'Suicidal'. 'High suicide risk'. But that's all wrong, isn't it? He doesn't want to die.

"Determinism is a philosophical theory. It dictates that everything, from human cognition, behaviour, decisions, actions, everything is causally determined by what's happened before. Every event is the direct cause of a previous chain of events. It ties in with the concept of free will versus fate. Some determinists say that there is no free will, that everything is already predetermined, and that the past and present lead to an already determined future."

His lips turn into a thin line as he pauses for air. "Load of bloody rubbish, if you ask me."

Good to talk to a fellow Brit, isn't it?

[laughing_magus]

As he listens to the little encyclopedic lesson, John's face screws up into something of a sneer of distaste. He doesn't like the idea that his path is set. It forgives the awful things he's done, but it means there's more to come and no way to avoid any of it. He'd rather be responsible than have no free will.

"S'bollocks, yeah." And it is good to have another Brit to talk to. Even if this one's a little dodgy.
"Think I prefer synchronicity, m'self. Much rather see the pattern than be controlled by it, squire."
He smiles with a rough sort of laughter.