There wasn't much to distinguish it from any other hospital lobby. Information desk and gift shop, a few sitting areas, the perfunctory health warnings and information posters on the wall. Only a few non-employees were milling around or chatting in quiet groups more fitting for a house of god than a house of medicine. Altogether too boring and, he hoped, too easy.

The woman behind the information desk continued to move the cursor around on the computer screen, effectively ignoring him. He doubted that she was actually doing any hospital work. More likely there was a game of solitaire going on. He cleared his throat for the second time and the woman continued to focus on the screen. Connie was a dominant man used to getting what he wanted without much question. Had always been. For the most part people recognized that quality in him and acquiesced without even realizing it. The world was teeming with submissive beings, and that just made things all that much easier for Connie. The blond bitch at Kinnetik was an exception.  Even though she had grated on his very last nerve, he at least admired the fact that she could piss him off to his face.

This little mouse behind the desk, however, was not an exception. She was merely a place filler. Not worth time or consideration. Connie reached across the waist high barrier and placed his hand on the monitor, turning it away from the woman's gaze and toward him enough to see that, indeed, there was a game of solitaire going on. 

"It's refreshing to see the American work ethic in practice," he commented dryly, taking in the sheepishly stunned look on the place holder's face.

"Excuse me, sir, but you can't..." she began to make her complaint at Connie's actions.

"But I can." Tapping his hand lightly on the monitor, he continued. "This is such an important task that you completely ignore a concerned family member seeking information about a patient's room number?"

"Um...no, sir. Who are you here to see?" She quickly brought up the patient information access screen.

"Mr. Brian Kinney."

The woman's fingers hesitantly clicked over the keys, hunt and peck fashion, as Connie watched the still exposed screen closely. Flustered at this man's arrogance, and a bit embarrassed at having been so easily caught wasting time, the woman clicked through various pages. Connie's gaze never left the screen, even as the woman insincerely apologized, relaying that the patient was in a visitor-restricted room.  But he knew that already. He had seen the flag on the patient page. He had also seen the room number.

"I understand," Connie sighed. "It's not your fault. You were, after all, only doing your job." The woman glared at him as he walked away, smirking.

*******

"I was about the same age as Gus is now."

Justin's hand stilled over the unfinished sketch of Trick playfully twining a lock of hair between nimble fingers. After the earlier session, Justin had been compelled to draw Brian's alters - to document this painful journey. And he felt somehow guilty for that need. Laying aside the pencil and paper, he touched his partner's hand.

"I was about six, I think," Brian continued, his eyes focused on something Justin couldn't see, an abandoned magazine lying across his legs. Justin said nothing, knowing this wasn't about Brian's need to be validated by him. This was just about the telling.

"I can't believe I never remembered that. I had a damned dog, Jus." Painful confusion shadowed Brian's beautiful face as he struggled with the memory. "I... killed him." 

Brian's gaze never shifted, fixed on a phantom of one horrific moment.

"It wasn't our house. There was tile. We never had tile. It was cold, dark." He narrowed his eyes and raised his head slightly, as if toward the phantom image. "Dirty... I was so glad to see the light come on, but petrified by it ... ‘cause... Christ! I don't know! It's all just bits... pieces."

The young man moved to sit on the side of the bed with his lover. He would give anything - anything - to feel this for Brian. To just allow him a single fucking moment of feeling safe. He reached up and stroked the back of Brian's head, willing any ounce of strength he could into the man who leaned into the touch.

"I think I was asleep when they came in. On the floor... I heard Patches crying and somebody said ‘fucking dog' and shoved him toward me and made me..." He did close his eyes then, as he buried his face in his partner's chest. "Jesus Christ, Jus... They LEFT me there. With Patches... They turned out the fucking light and left me there in the dark with his... his..." Great sobs wracked Brian's shoulders as Justin held him, his own tears running onto dark chestnut hair.  

"I'm here, Bri," he whispered. "And I love you so fucking much."

Afternoon had become evening and Brian now slept, cocooned in Justin's arms, their bodies pressed tightly against each other on the small bed. His body exhausted, his soul so goddamned weary, the young man still found sleep eluding him. His artist's mind kept painting pictures of a tortured young Brian, huddling in the dark, terrified of what he had been made to do - abandoned to guilt and pain and fear in dark isolation. With the dead body of the pet he had just killed.

FUCKERS!

His mind screamed out his rage and he knew the only thing keeping him tethered to his own sanity was the soul of the man beside him. The kindest soul he had ever known. While the kindness seeped out of Justin's. Leeched out by motherfucking monsters, one heartbreaking revelation at a time. They had stolen Brian's entire fucking life! Justin vowed silently to his beautiful, gentle man that, if any of them were still alive, he would kill them himself.

*******

Dr. Alice McCarthy re-read her file notations for accuracy before finally closing the folder and placing it in her locked cabinet. She leaned back in her chair, removed the clip holding her hair in a twist and then took off her shoes. It had been a long, long day. Most of the issues she had run up against were run of the mill in her job - readjustments to meds, overly protective or in denial family members, panic attacks - but there had been a lot of them today.

And then there was Brian Kinney. This man was perhaps the most fascinating patient she had encountered in her career. The diagnosis wasn't that unusual for her to give. She had spent quite some time studying and treating patients diagnosed with DID, unlike many psychiatrists. She knew the rarity of it, but she also knew the instances of it. However Brian was... different. She suspected that he would finally discover a low number of alters. At least that's what the evidence has shown so far.  He had long periods of singularity and extended instances of rapid switching. He presented for treatment during an extended period of rapid switching in desperate need of some kind of stabilization. On paper, it was all fairly cut and dried.

What she found the most fascinating of all, however, was the pure protectiveness toward Brian that she had seen in each alter she encountered. So far none of them had been the least bit antagonistic to or defensive against him. She knew he created them to protect himself from the gross abuse, to escape. But they became protection personified. In so many cases, she knew, alters could evidence severely negative qualities. At the very least there was ‘discord in the family'. That had apparently not happened in Brian's case. Any discord appeared to be from external factors. That spoke well for a positive future.

And regarding that future... Was it time to release him? See him on an outpatient basis? She had been debating that question since Brian's mood had elevated and the generalized anxiety had eased off. The medications were working well. The switching was less frequent and less unsettling, usually occurring during therapy. When it did happen in a non-supportive environment, he was learning to resist, to recognize the signs. Brian had a superior support system in his partner and work associates. He was much less defensive about therapy itself and had begun to recognize the value it could provide to his recovery.  Most importantly, she didn't feel he was a danger to himself at this time.

Yes, she decided. I'll mention it to him in the morning.  She retrieved the file from the drawer and made new notations.

*******

When they had entered the doctor's office the next morning Brian and Justin both related the additional memories Brian had experienced the night before. Those had actually triggered a few more memories during the night, equally as frightening but less graphic.

"I don't even know if the things took place on the same day, weeks or months apart. It's just... fragmented stuff. Bits and pieces. Flashes of things I'd really like to think were some kind of sick delusion." Brian wiped his brow, the exertion of simply telling this causing him to sweat. "But they're not, are they?"

"Probably not," the doctor responded quietly.

"I could feel it more than see it. Like my body remembers better than my mind. A slap, a kick, being bound. And always dark. I could hear myself...begging. And then I just... didn't anymore." The last words were almost whispered, but seemed to echo in the quiet of the room. Brian's face showed how difficult the words had been to speak. He didn't say another word for several long, silent minutes.

"I remember... words... Sonny Boy up top... and I don't want to know what they mean. I don't want to know." His eyes were tightly shut, his head slightly back and turned to the side.

"You do know, though. Don't you?" The practiced calm in the doctor's voice gave away nothing of the pain she was herself feeling. She knew it would get to this point and she could see Brian struggling against what he knew.

Brian sighed. "Fuck, yeah. I know." He shifted slightly in his seat. "My body sure as shit knows."

They all sat silently, waiting. For Brian to continue. For him to process what he was feeling. He said as much with his silence as his words would say. Moments. Minutes. Silence.

"He... they... raped me."

 The truth - his truth - was spoken. And the world was changed, again.

"Yeah," was the only thing she could say.

He sat, silent again, for more than five minutes. Just remembering to breathe. Inhale. Exhale.

Raped.

A word he had always known. A word he just now fully understood.

"They raped me," he repeated. "They fucking raped me."

"Monsters exist, and sometimes we know them." The doctor paused briefly, unsure of Brian's reaction to her next question. "Who were they, Brian?"

Pain shot through Brian and he wrapped his arms around his stomach. He could feel that small commanding tug in the back of his mind, that gentle nudge to step aside and rest now. "Not now," he said quietly to himself. "I have to do this. Please." The tug eased and he heard that lilting brogue and a quiet sing-song voice in unison. "Brother." He nodded, just once.

"The kings. My fa... Jack... Connie." He gave a strange little smile. "I don't know if there was anyone else. Just... the fucking kings."

Justin had been sitting, speechless, hearing the truth that would never make sense to him. Knowing the truth and accepting that it made sense were different things. He had known. Just as Brian had known. But... now it was out there. Real. Not a phantom. He knew it was Jack and he had suspected the other man. And he thought back to that first night with Brian and the hollow look in his eyes.

But I don't remember anymore.

He felt fingers entwining with his, squeezing. I remember now, Sunshine, they said.

"Brian?" The doctor's voice pulled him back. He had said it.

"Yeah?"

"This was not your fault. They did this, Brian. They were wrong."

"I'll believe that...someday. Maybe."

"You were a child, Brian. A very vulnerable, small boy. You did nothing wrong." She had to impress this upon the man. Rape victims - survivors - so often felt as if they had done something wrong. "They did this. Not you. You were strong, you found a way to survive."

The alters. He had found a way to survive. They had taken it on themselves. "They call me ‘brother'," he said.

"Who?" Dr. McCarthy was confused by the abrupt change of subject. She saw Justin look at his partner questioningly, obviously confused as well.

"The alters. They call me ‘brother'," Brian responded. "I can hear them, in a way."

"They are communicating with you? That's amazing!" Brian's anxiety at revealing this was eased by the smile on the doctor's face.

"I didn't know if that was normal."

Dr. McCarthy let out a small laugh. "Brian, nothing about this situation is normal. But it is okay. It's a positive step. With communication it can be much easier to resist switching. And I noticed that you did that just now - resisted the switch."

Brian shrugged. "One, or two, wanted me to leave, to let them handle the... rape. I told them I needed to do this. They backed off." It sounded so insane, even to his own ears. Christ, he was crazy.

"There's something I want to discuss with you, and you've just given me even more reason to do so today." Brian was making amazing strides in dealing with, coming to terms with his diagnosis and his trauma. It was time. Noticing the concerned look on the faces of both men, she quickly added. "This is a good thing, I believe... Brian, you've been in the hospital for over two weeks. Even with your diagnosis, the main concern I had was stabilizing your emotional state. With help from the medications and therapy, and a hell of a lot of hard work on your part, that has pretty much been accomplished. I think it's time for you to return home."

"What? You're releasing him?" Justin was elated and worried at the same time. God he wanted Brian home. But... was he ready?

"You're serious?" God, please let her be serious, he thought to himself.

"Yes, and yes. You would still, of course, need to see me frequently on an outpatient basis and keep taking your medication. But you have made an amazing amount of progress, in great part, I believe, due to the supportive and protective nature of your alters. They are working with you now, allowing you access to them, and them to you. It will be difficult, but I don't think you need to be here any longer."

Brian laughed and gathered Justin into a strong embrace. "We're going home, Sunshine. We're going home."