Outside Wants In by Lau

Shoving his hair out of his face, Darren heard the tap of his shoes echo down the linoleum corridor. He had nearly turned around at the front desk, nearly thrown Karl's begging, Ben's yelling, Lee's silent pleas out the window. He didn't need this. He couldn't take this. It was bad enough being seen in a place like this, let alone being forced into it. But before he could turn heel and run, a nurse had seen him, ushered him kindly through the hallways. She had pointed out the wing he was in now and left him there, withdrawing herself and her nurses uniform Darren imagined came straight from World War II, with its crisp white hat and skirt. She had a name tag that said "Andrea" and the lettering was peeling, but she didn't look like she had been in a place like this for too long.

Darren was glad the people here were nice.

He listened to his patent leather wingtips, saw the fluorescent lights flashing off of their military polish. He had felt the need to come well-dressed this morning, but now he just felt like he was at a funeral.

He stopped at the first door and stared at the inscription, running over the indented letters with his gaze.

Behringer Psychiatric Institute Room 274
JONES, D.

Darren expected screaming, straight jackets, people strapped to beds, sedated. Pajamas at least, bathrobes and slippered feet and that vacant look in the eye, shuffling around abandoned hallways looking for lost marbles.

But staring through the small window cut into the door, Darren saw none of this. He saw a pinhole shot of a nice room, a real bed, and a desk strewn with paper. His curiosity piqued, Darren opened the door with a cold, shaking hand.

Daniel sat staring out the window. No straight jacket. No pajamas. He was wearing old jeans, comfortably tattered, and a long-sleeved gray t-shirt with the logo worn off from numerous washings. His hair was cut short again, not like Darren's own shaggy locks, and had faded to a rich brown.

Darren was totally unprepared for his former bandmate to turn and stare.

"I thought you were the nurse," Daniel said with mild surprise. The first words theyd spoken in almost three years. Darren studied him, frozen in the threshold.

"Come in, and stop staring at me," Daniel commanded with a wave of one long-fingered hand. "What were you expecting, speaking in tongues?" He turned to consider the side wall. "Maybe the entire side filled up with unintelligible scribblings..."

Darren followed the other man's gaze, double checking that the wall was blank, except for a few institute-supplied portraits of flowers. He moved mutely, feeling foolish in his suit once more, and sat in a chair by the bed. Across the room from Daniel.

"Now, what can I do for you?" Daniel asked.

Darren was still staring at him. Daniel drummed his fingers restlessly on the wood of the messy desk.

"When I heard..." Darren started, drifting off.

"You had to come and see," Daniel mused, repeating what the others had said, all of them. Some had come out of a sense of duty, some to ask him to come home. "You've lost your accent. You don't sound like yourself."

"I've been living in San Francisco," Darren replied, stumbling over this normal conversation. In the following silence, he could feel Daniels eyes on him, soaking him in. He felt the same way, like he was trying to store up new memories and images in their limited time together. Because this time could be nothing other than limited. It had to be. "You look..." Darren started again, studying the plush carpeting on the floor. "You don't look crazy." It slipped out.

"You're too skinny," Daniel stated matter-of-factly. "Have you been eating enough?" The elder man looked as he had in their early days together, almost deathly gaunt. Stress lines creased his eyes and shouted from his mouth when he frowned. Which he was doing now. "You frown too much."

Darren didn't say anything. Daniel let the silence pass and continued in his line of thought.

"It's been a while since Ive spoken with anyone. Let's see. I don't look crazy. Would that have been easier for you?" Daniel asked.

Darren looked up, staring sharply. But Daniel's question had been sincere, almost pitying. Not angry. "Yes," he answered honestly. "I didn't know what to expect. Karl made me...Karl convinced me to come."

"But now you wish you hadn't." Daniel supplied.

"It's not that," Darren protested, but he still wasn't sure what he was really doing in this mental hospital himself. When he had first heard, he was horrified, then outraged, that Daniel had checked himself into a mental institution. And then he was scared.

"So what was it?" Daniel asked, padding across the room in his socks to stand in front of Darren. Not too close, but near enough to be physically demanding of a straight answer.

"I had to know if it was because of me," Darren said coldly, knowing just how conceited it sounded, but that there was no other way to ask.

Daniel sat down on the bed, their knees a foot apart. "I was self-admitted Darren, not carted in for stalking and repeated suicide attempts. I've been here for a year, eleven months, and twenty days; I like it here. It's quiet. And now, after all this time, after all of three years apart, you want to know if I'm here because of you?"

Again, not angry. Just questioning. Curious. Incredulous.

Too much silence from Darren. "I missed you," Daniel admitted, giving a brief smile that Darren looked up just in time to catch.

"I shouldn't have come here," Darren said miserably. "I just needed to see you again. Three years is too long."

"Did you just find out?"

"No," Darren shook his head. "No, I've known for a while."

Silence.

"How long is a while?" Daniel needled.

"A year. More." Darren felt like a heel, stared at the institute-portraits, the ugly flowers glaring back at him.

"Do you still write?"

Darren nodded slowly, staring at his silver cufflinks. "Do you?"

Daniel looked toward the desk, strewn with reams of paper. "I try," he replied, but then relented. "Well, not at first. I had to prove to them that I wasnt a hazard to myself or others, to quote Andrea. But eventually they gave me a lot that most patients wouldn't have." He looked at his hands solemnly. "You know, what you were expecting, the crazies from the movies and TV...that's not uncommon. But we have some perfectly normal people around here, too."

"If they're perfectly normal, why are they in mental hospitals?" Darren asked pointedly.

"Sometimes they need to get away," Daniel answered with a smile. "And sometimes they do it just to piss people off."

Darren stared at him. "And why did you do it?"

"Why did you come?"

"I already told you that," Darren said, gripping the armrest on his chair. His manicure pressed hard into the wood.

"You told me why you wanted to come. You didn't tell me what actually got you through the door." Daniel paused, tapping his knee for a moment, as if lost in thought. "Are you and Karl
lovers?"

Pressing back into the chair, Darren blinked for a moment. "Excuse me?"

The patient made a helpless gesture. "It's an explanation, isn't it? Doing your duty to your boyfriend." Darren still remained in horrified silence. Daniel suppressed a grin and forged onward. "Or is it that you haven't taken a lover since me? Something tragic like that? Wanted to mend things up and have a go again?"

"You ARE crazy." Darren blurted.

Daniel cocked an eyebrow and smiled broadly. "There we go." He leaned far forward, his face inches away from his visitor. "Who says I'm not crazy? Dont judge a book by its cover, Mr. Hayes."

Trying to distance himself from the hovering face in front of him, Darren pressed his skull against the wall. No retreat. "Are you crazy?"

"Do I look crazy?"

"Is this a test?"

Daniel pulled back, resting his chin in his hand. "Could you be any more self-centered? Of course this isn't a test. I'm not crazy. I don't feel crazy. I'm not here because I wanted to see how long it would take for you to notice, though the timing is quite extensive. Nor am I here to lure you back into my life. I want you to remember that you came here of your own free will. I told the others I didn't want to see you, and they coerced you anyway. Clear?"

Darren nodded, shocked. Daniel hadn't wanted to see him?

"Good," Daniel said and sighed, staring off to the side. "I quit smoking, you know," he added in a different tone.

Unsure as to how else to reply, Darren cleared his throat. "Good for you," he said in a tone he hoped wasnt too chipper.

Daniel grinned and looked back at him out of the corner of his eye. "Yeah, well, hospital regulations and all that."

"So..." Darren started, unsure how to begin again. "How have you been?"

Daniel laughed quietly. "Thats a bit trite, Darren. Come on. Try again."

"Ah..." Darren faltered, his eyes drifting across the room. "Do you miss it?"

"It?" Daniel echoed.

"The outside world." Darren said tentatively. How far could you push a mental patient? How did you define someone like the man sitting in front of him, so different yet so exactly the same as when he'd seen him last.

"The outside world." Daniel mused, leaning back until he toppled backward onto the bed. He clasped his hands across his stomach, staring at the ceiling. "I miss driving." He angled his sight down the length of his body to Darren's face. "Do you drive?"

"Some. Driven, mostly." With everything that he said, Darren felt worse and worse. How had he not seen himself before? How had he let himself get this far without Daniel to keep him in check?

"You should drive while you still can." Daniel advised, eyes back on the ceiling. "With the music loud. Really loud. So you can only feel the car, not hear it. Did you ever drive stick?"

The question threw Darren. "Um...a little."

Daniel made a noise of disappointment. "I'd like to go for a drive," he mourned quietly.

"I drove here," Darren offered lamely, grasping at the fraying conversation.

"You know what else I miss?" Daniel propped himself up on his elbows. "I miss the coast. At night."

Darren felt a shiver course through him. They had spent many nights at the shore-

"-watching the stars," Daniel interrupted his thought. "And other things."

"Other things?" Darren asked, his throat dry.

"Swimming," Daniel sighed the word. "You never were much of a swimmer, though. Had to practically cart you into the damn lake."

"Then why are you here?" Darren asked angrily, disappointment welling as a gaping sore in his chest.

Darren gave him a look that mixed amusement with surprise. "I'm here because you wouldn't leave me alone anywhere else. Well, you and everyone else. I suppose it's not entirely your fault."

"How kind." Darren muttered.

"Oh, now, dont start sulking again." Daniel hefted himself up into an upright position and drew his legs up onto the bed, leaning an elbow on each knee. "If you had a head on your shoulders, you would join me."

"Join you? In a loony bin?" Darren let his incredulity to the surface for the first time.

"Feels good to be honest, doesn't it?" Daniel bit off another smile. "Yes, the loony bin. You look like you could use a vacation."

"I'm fine, thank you."

"You need a sandwich, boy. That's why you really came here."

Sarcasm. "For food?"

"Ha," Daniel replied, half-serious. "For vacation."

Daniel stood and walked to the middle of the room, and then turned. "You should stay."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you." Darren didn't know why he'd said it. It sounded right. It sounded angry. It made no sense in the context of the conversation.

"Actually, yes." Daniel smiled his brilliant smile and reached his arms out to the other man. "I've missed you. You've missed me, or you wouldn't be here. It shouldn't be this easy, but it is."

"You're very calm about all this."

"You have a lot of time to train calmness into your system when you're alone this long," Daniel said with only a trace of sadness. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

"I would." Darren said. "I like my emotions, thank you."

"I like your emotions, too," Daniel said with a wink. "But it's your decision, of course."

Darren stood, smoothing his pants and his shirt almost mechanically. "Well. I'll be in touch then, Daniel." He stepped across the room and extended a hand.

Daniel stared at the appendage. "What is that?"

Coughing awkwardly, Darren stabbed at the answer. "My hand?"

"Put that filthy thing away." Daniel demanded, and Darren dropped his hand ungracefully. "It's full body contact or nothing at all. Formalities look cheap and wrinkled on you, Darren." He smiled.  "Now shoo, before my you catch my insanity. I've got a schedule to maintain here."

Darren couldnt believe he was being dismissed from a lonely, insane man's ward. He peered at Daniel bizarrely, and reeled himself toward the door. Daniel watched him go, arms crossed across his chest. Darren cracked the door and stepped through, glancing again down the linoleum corridor. With a sigh, he straightened his tie and raised his head to step back into the real world.

"Darren," came a call from behind him, and he turned to see Daniel watching him, a watery expression on his face. "Thank you."

Darren nodded, not sure what else to say. He turned to leave again, and then, as if an afterthought, faced the patient again.  "Could I maybe...come next week?"

A laugh exploded from the depths of Daniels fluid expression, and he made a dismissive motion with one hand, running the other through his hair. "You'll come back whether you want to or not."