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Daniel couldn’t breathe. He felt as if his life was being sucked out of him, along with the air in his lungs. He felt like he was underwater, drowning slowly and nobody was coming to save him. He thought he should have been losing consciousness, but he was still awake and suffering.
In a flash, the air returned, and Daniel was gasping for breath. He looked around him. Everything was pitch black, except for a small pinprick of light far away. Daniel started walking towards it, his pace growing quicker and quicker.
Despite the light being far away, it only took a matter of seconds for Daniel to reach it. The light engulfed him, and everything was white for several seconds. Finally, pictures started to appear around him. They were just of empty rooms. Daniel knew all of them well. Some were from home, some from the hospital, others from various places he visited often.
Daniel began to hear voices. They were all voices he’d heard before, from his schizophrenic episodes. They were telling him to do things that would kill him. However, they weren’t in his head like usual. They were coming from somewhere else.
“Hang yourself on that light. Take all of those pills. Slit your throat.” The voices kept repeating this and other variations of it, and they got louder and louder. Daniel looked into the pictures of rooms, only to find himself walking into them and carrying out the voices’ wishes. In the hospital’s common room, he watched as he hanged himself with bedsheets. In another, he found him in his kitchen, using a knife to slit his wrists, and so forth.
Daniel watched helplessly as he killed himself in several different ways, finally shutting the voices out and making them happy. But then he started hearing the voices in his own head telling him the same things. He was in his own scenario. He was in the back part of Dr. Joseph’s office where the medication was kept. He lost control of his body as he walked over to the pills, taking a handful of one bottle and swallowing them. Daniel panicked, not wanting to kill himself. It was too late. Daniel got dizzy, no longer able to stand up. He felt nauseous as the contents of his stomach spilled into the floor in front of him. Everything got dimmer and dimmer until Daniel knew this was the end. Everything went black.
Daniel shot upright in bed, drenched in sweat and panting for air. He looked around him. It was the middle of the night and he was safely in his room in the hospital. He had no way of knowing what time it was, but everything was still dark.
Daniel felt numb and panicked. Everything felt as real as the voices he heard when he was awake some days. Everything felt real in the nightmare. If someone were to tell him everything he’d seen in that dream was real, he’d certainly believe them.
Daniel had these dreams once a month or so. They didn’t necessarily happen often, but they weren’t uncommon either. Quite frankly, he got sick of them rather quickly. He’d never told anyone about them- not even Jack.
For the first half of the day Daniel was silent, shooken up by the nightmare he’d had. CJ tried to get him to talk, but to no avail. Sebastian tried talking to him too, but Daniel didn’t say anything. He was simply too tangled up in his state of panic he’d experienced during the night, which he couldn’t shake off for the life of him.
“Daniel, are you sure you’re okay?” CJ asked as both Daniel and Sebastian picked at their pancakes.
Daniel nodded absentmindedly, still not speaking.
Daniel made a note to tell Dr. Joseph about his dream, but quickly realized a flaw in that plan. If Dr. Joseph knew about the nightmare, he might think Daniel wasn’t healthy enough to go home. Daniel really didn’t want to delay leaving the hospital, so he made the decision to not tell Dr. Joseph about the dream.
He did go to see him after breakfast anyways, as it was mandatory. He shuffled into his office to see the man, who was smiling as always. It was a little odd how cheery he always was.
“Hello, Daniel,” he greeted.
“Hi,” Daniel replied weakly, not 100% up for talking.
“Alright, let’s run through the usual questions real quick. Do you feel like hurting yourself, or anyone else?”
“No.”
“How are you eating?”
“Fine.”
“How are you sleeping.”
“Could be better.”
“Rate how happy you are on a scale of one to ten.”
“Seven…ish.”
Dr. Joseph made note of everything he said.
“So do you know why you haven’t been sleeping that well?” he asked Daniel.
“No, I don’t think it’s anything concerning though.”
“Alright then, but let me know if you can’t sleep very well tonight. Is there anything else in specific you want to discuss?”
“No.”
Dr. Joseph carried on with whatever else he had planned for their meeting until the session was over and Daniel left to attend his other therapy groups.
After several of those and the meet with Dr. Joseph, Daniel was fine for speaking again. It was a little difficult to stay in that state of mind when he was surrounded by so much positivity.
Around noon, patients were paraded down to the cafeteria for lunch. Daniel and CJ sat at their usual table, Sebastian not joining them that day. Daniel figured since it was just the two of them, it would be the perfect time to ask him out.
After a few minutes of conversation, Daniel had finally worked up the courage to ask.
“Hey… CJ?” he started slow and unsure.
“Yeah?”
“Would you like to maybe, uh, be my boyfriend?” Daniel said the last part quietly, clearly nervous.
“Of course I would,” CJ answered, showcasing the most beautiful smile Daniel had ever seen.
Daniel’s eyes went wide, not quite believing CJ’s answer. It was odd, since he knew the feelings were mutual between them, but he was still mildly shocked.
“Really?” Daniel questioned, grinning a bit.
“Really,” CJ replied, his own smile never faltering.
Daniel let out a breath of relief he didn’t even know he was holding. “That’s… That’s great.”
He couldn’t seem to form any other words despite his efforts, so he just left it at that.
As the meal wrapped up several minutes later, Daniel was still shocked into quietness. He wasn’t completely silent, but he was getting a bit awkward and shy. He’d had boyfriends before (and a girlfriend during a stage of denial) but he was always a bit awkward during the first day or two. He wasn’t sure why, but that was just how he was. CJ never questioned it, and Daniel was thankful for that. It was an odd thing to try and explain.
Daniel and CJ had a few minutes before their next therapy session, which they spent talking over various things. Daniel slowly became more comfortable around CJ as he got more comfortable with thinking of him as his boyfriend rather than his friend.
Daniel was never one for PDA (seeing it or displaying it), but he had to admit that they’d nearly gotten scolded several times throughout the day for physical contact. They hadn’t actually been caught, but there were a couple close calls. He found that being with CJ was simply perfect despite the fact that they’d actually only been together less than a day. He supposed nothing could ruin this for him.
“Did Dr. Joseph ever tell you exactly when you’re getting out?” CJ asked Daniel.
Daniel felt awful talking about his own upcoming release date, because he knew how much CJ hated the place and how much he wanted to leave. Anyone would know, since he brought it up so often. He really was miserable there, and Daniel was going to have to leave him alone in the hospital.
“No, he didn’t. He’s just been saying sometime this week,” Daniel replied.
CJ nodded but didn’t say anything, letting the two fall into a deep silence. Daniel wanted to say something to break it, but nothing came to mind. He considered bringing up his nightmare, but he decided against it. It had remained in the back of his mind all day, and it was slowly killing him. He was honestly a bit scared to sleep at night because of it. After a moment longer of worrying about it, he realized the two were still sitting it a slightly uncomfortable silence.
Luckily, neither boy had to break it, as it was time to head off to their group therapy sessions. Not much eventful happened in between that time and visitation time. A middle aged man who was there for depression started talking about his family and ended up crying, but that wasn’t actually that unusual. After a few sessions it was visitation hour, where the same man was reunited with his wife children for a while.
Daniel was more than excited to see Jack had showed up to visit him. It had been a couple of days since they’d seen each other, and Daniel had realized during his stay here he was far too attached to Jack. However, he didn’t particularly see it as something that needed to be fixed right away.
“Hey, Jack!” Daniel said excitedly.
“Hi,” Jack answered with quite a bit less enthusiasm.
Daniel picked up on it and wondered if Jack was sick of him or something. It probably was really an inconvenience to have to visit him in a hospital. What if Jack was sick of him? He probably was. He most certainly was sick of him. Daniel felt horrible all of sudden for making Jack feel like he had to come all the way out here two or three times a week just to see him for an hour.
“Are you okay?” Jack asked him, noting Daniel hadn’t said anything and looked a bit pale.
“Yeah, I’m perfectly fine,” Daniel answered, perking up.
Jack didn’t question anything, and Daniel found himself over thinking that as well. Two weeks ago Jack would have known something was up and said something about it, and kept pressing it until Daniel told him about whatever was bothering him or told him he didn’t want to talk about it. He wasn’t doing that anymore, and it really stung.
“Anyways, how’s your week been so far?” Daniel asked, switching subjects.
“Pretty good, I murdered a family in the Sims. What about yours?” Jack answered.
“Not nearly as fun,” Daniel joked. “Same shit every day. But…”
“But?” Jack pressed impatiently after Daniel trailed off.
“I have a boyfriend now!” Daniel said enthusiastically.
Instead of being happy for him, Jack just looked confused. “You’ve been here a week and a half, Dani.”
Daniel became significantly less excited. “Yeah, but I mean…” he trailed off in a defeated tone.
“Plus, if he’s in here, isn’t he like, mentally ill?”
Daniel didn’t have anything to say to that. CJ really was perfectly fine now, they were just keeping him in the hospital for whatever reason.
“I’m sorry, but it’s true,” Jack defended himself.
Daniel didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t his best friend, and he didn’t know what was wrong with him. Daniel understood being in a bad mood, but this simply was not Jack.
Jack ended up leaving early, which Daniel was partially grateful for. He didn’t think he could handle being around Jack when he was honestly just being a sort of negative prick.
Daniel carried on with the rest of his day afterwards, trying to forget about his friend. It didn’t particularly work, but nobody seemed to notice anything wrong with him.
After a while, Daniel found an excuse to go to his room a bit early, as he was done with human interaction for the day. He found he was having trouble sleeping due to the nightmare he’d experienced the previous night, but after an hour and a half was able to doze off into a deep sleep.
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