As always, Rukia felt a chill of apprehension when the Head Doctor announced that new patients would be arriving. Would it be anyone else she knew? What if Ichigo was back
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A visitor? This was certainly unexpected. Recluse sat down in the waiting room, taking a look through the periodicals available. All of them were hopelessly dated, as really should have been expected.
Recluse wasn't worried. He hadn't held any emotional attachments to anyone in decades. The person he hated most in the world was already here. He'd been controlled enough to keep from snapping Marcus' neck thus far. This certainly wouldn't be a problem...
It was always very easy to spot her older brother in a crowd, especially since he towered several inches above the crowd, and even seated he was easy to pick out.
She smiled at him as soon as she saw him. "Jake."
She wasn't really sure what to expect, she had never expected her older brother to go crazy like this.
Recluse tensed slightly as he spotted his visitor. Her. He had to take the few seconds before she spoke to get himself fully under control. She was long dead in his home dimension. That was all that mattered.
But still, seeing his sister, one of the people that had ruined so many of his plans, who had betrayed him... It took a monumental ammount of willpower to project an outward appearance of calm. "Monica. How are things?"
What a boring name. Recluse shook his head slightly, looking embarrassed. "Yes, I'm sorry. This place isn't the least bit conductive to restoring sanity." Which was especially true at the moment, but his actual reasoning behind the statement would probably end up with getting sedated if he described it in full to 'Mary'.
"They have such a good reputation though! And the doctors here really know what they're doing. They manage to turn around quite a number of patients that come in here with problems. I'm sure you're going to get better."
Maybe he just needed a little morale boost. Her big brother probably hated this place, and while she could sympathize, he did need to get better.
"A few, maybe, but I hardly think that a patient population composed entirely of delusional individuals is all that helpful. With very little to do, the most interesting pastime is reinforcing each other's fantasies." And Landel was certainly not competent as a doctor or an evil mastermind.
"The vast majority of the patients are under the belief that they have been kidnapped, and that monsters attack them at night. The staff do little or nothing to rectify the situation, and so the whole problem is left to fester, and the delusions become reinforced." Recluse did not respond well to pep talks, especially when they were entirely without basis in fact.
It was hard to argue with results, though, and Landels did make people better.
"You can't all have fantasies that line up," Mary objected. It just didn't make sense for everyone to share the same delusions. Similar ones, possibly, but this was a place that specialized in this type of disorder.
"The rest of the patient population seems to think they can. But, with only my word as evidence, I can't really prove anything at the moment. So, there's no point in trying." It would just make him sound like a complete paranoid schizophrenic. Which might be the fake diagnosis they had given him, and he'd rather not reinforce that image with anyone.
"How are things, really? I didn't really get much of an answer last time I asked." He made a very good show of actually caring.
"That's good..." He certainly wasn't going to answer this question truthfully at all. 'Everything's fine. I've been polite, so my doctor hasn't tried to eat me yet.' No, that would go over badly. But, still. This wouldn't be entertaining at all unless he could find some way of making her react.
"It's absolutely dead boring here. It might not be so bad if the library had a proper selection. I've only seen Dr. Lecter once during my time here, but it was... alright. He's a little strange." The way that Lecter had suggested that Recluse had attempted suicide was quite irritating, for one.
"Dr. Lecter has a very good set of credentials, though. And he might just seem odd because you haven't dealt with this kind of doctor before," She had expected Jake to be bored here, but he was much safer here than running around outside.
"Hopefully you'll get out soon." Aside from calling her by the wrong name at the start, he seemed to be sane, but there was no telling, really. It had taken her a while to notice anything was wrong.
The lack of reaction was slightly dissapointing. "Yes, I'd heard of him before. And by odd, I meant more specifically that he offered me a glass of scotch, and made some...fairly rude comments." Oh, and Dr. Lecter had at least seemed to be of the opinion that the large numbers of 'dilusional' patients in one facility was odd. Recluse was momentarilly amused by the idea of sending 'Mary' to go talk to Dr. Lecter in person, but he doubted he could make it happen.
"I'd hope so, but with that embarassing moment at the beginning of this, I doubt it." He had to tell Marcus about this visit. "I'd like to get things set straight, but they haven't given me anything to help remember. I have no way to tell what out of my memories is real and what isn't." Recluse had never been even close to an actual mental hospital before, but it seemed unlikely that the way Landel's acted during the day was at all like a real facility would.
Mary was quite honestly surprised by the fact that Dr. Lecter would offer her brother some scotch. That sounded more than a little unprofessional.
"They probably don't want to make it too much of a shock, and ease you into reality gradually..." It wasn't the most convincing argument, but she knew that Jake was not the type to be ordered into believing something.
"You just need to stop this whole negative attitude. You're saying you want to get out, but it sounds like you're making excuses about why you aren't better yet."
"Well, I know I don't gave a good grip on reality." Your presence doesn't help, for one. "If I can't even get your name right without prompting, then things certainly aren't alright." And I refuse to drop the negative attitude. Positive thinking never got a villain anywhere. Recluse was finding it slightly more difficult to keep his act consistent, but he was still doing his very best to act as if he was just a normal, faliable human, and didn't believe rightly that he was Tartaros incarnate.
"But you're getting better," Mary insisted, reaching out to place her hand over Jake's. "It will get better, next time I visit, you'll be able to remember, and you'll get better and you'll be that much closer to getting out of here."
"And you make sure Marcus is taking care of himself too, alright? It's just horrible that you're both in here," Hopefully Marcus wouldn't be this negative. "Do you know what doctor he has?"
Recluse wasn't worried. He hadn't held any emotional attachments to anyone in decades. The person he hated most in the world was already here. He'd been controlled enough to keep from snapping Marcus' neck thus far. This certainly wouldn't be a problem...
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She smiled at him as soon as she saw him. "Jake."
She wasn't really sure what to expect, she had never expected her older brother to go crazy like this.
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But still, seeing his sister, one of the people that had ruined so many of his plans, who had betrayed him... It took a monumental ammount of willpower to project an outward appearance of calm. "Monica. How are things?"
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"But things are going as well as they can."
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Maybe he just needed a little morale boost. Her big brother probably hated this place, and while she could sympathize, he did need to get better.
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"The vast majority of the patients are under the belief that they have been kidnapped, and that monsters attack them at night. The staff do little or nothing to rectify the situation, and so the whole problem is left to fester, and the delusions become reinforced." Recluse did not respond well to pep talks, especially when they were entirely without basis in fact.
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"You can't all have fantasies that line up," Mary objected. It just didn't make sense for everyone to share the same delusions. Similar ones, possibly, but this was a place that specialized in this type of disorder.
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"How are things, really? I didn't really get much of an answer last time I asked." He made a very good show of actually caring.
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"The paper is doing well, and I'm doing well," Mary was telling the truth here, for the most part.
"But I want to know how you're doing, and what you think of your doctor."
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"It's absolutely dead boring here. It might not be so bad if the library had a proper selection. I've only seen Dr. Lecter once during my time here, but it was... alright. He's a little strange." The way that Lecter had suggested that Recluse had attempted suicide was quite irritating, for one.
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"Hopefully you'll get out soon." Aside from calling her by the wrong name at the start, he seemed to be sane, but there was no telling, really. It had taken her a while to notice anything was wrong.
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"I'd hope so, but with that embarassing moment at the beginning of this, I doubt it." He had to tell Marcus about this visit. "I'd like to get things set straight, but they haven't given me anything to help remember. I have no way to tell what out of my memories is real and what isn't." Recluse had never been even close to an actual mental hospital before, but it seemed unlikely that the way Landel's acted during the day was at all like a real facility would.
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"They probably don't want to make it too much of a shock, and ease you into reality gradually..." It wasn't the most convincing argument, but she knew that Jake was not the type to be ordered into believing something.
"You just need to stop this whole negative attitude. You're saying you want to get out, but it sounds like you're making excuses about why you aren't better yet."
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"And you make sure Marcus is taking care of himself too, alright? It's just horrible that you're both in here," Hopefully Marcus wouldn't be this negative. "Do you know what doctor he has?"
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