Disclaimer: This story, though maybe not in this chapter but in subsequent chapters, will have celebrities in it. I have no knowledge of their sexuality and this is not intended to imply their sexuality. This is all from my own mind. Scary!! People actually get a glimpse into my mind!!!
Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, Angel and all related characters created by Joss Whedon. Copyright 20th Century Fox.
Batman, and all related characters created by Bob Kane. Copyright DC Comics and Warner Bros.
X-MEN, and all related characters created by Stan Lee. Copyright Marvel Comics and 20th Century Fox.
Star Trek and all related characters created by Gene Roddenberry. Copyright Paramount Studios.
I don't know for sure if I will use all the above elements, but just in case, I have myself covered.
In this story, which has been floating around in my head most of my life, you will find many universes merging, as the above copyrights reveal. I hope you all enjoy this. I appreciate any feedback that you may want to give. This story doesn't deal so much with sex, sex, sex, but more of my feelings that I struggled with and am starting to come to terms with. Part of his background is mine. I do hope that you enjoy it!!!
Any emails you send, please tell me what chapter you are commenting on. Thanks.
jmsotc@yahoo.com
Chapter 33 Psych by Proxy
On my first day back to work, I found a full load to do. I had used the rest of my sick time to study and catch up to the rest of my college classes. I had read all the material, written two papers and still was angry with the rest of the world for what had happened to me.
Debbie greeted me at the elevators. "Good morning, Eric. It's good to see you."
"Good morning, Debbie," I said with a smile. As I learned at an In-Service training once: Fake it till you make it. I was faking my happiness. "What's on the agenda for today?"
"Well, we have Michael, Rochelle, Tina and David."
Rochelle lost her mom to cancer two months ago. I remember the first time I met her when I was out at Debbie's desk. She seemed so brave, able to take on the whole world. She had to be brave, though. Her dad had a hard time dealing with it.
Michael, seven, had lots of discipline problems and was very aggressive. They were quick to label him ADD at the school he attended and wanted him medicated. It wasn't ADD. I requested he be transferred to another school, one whose nurse would work with his parents and I to help Michael. The previous school would not budge on their opinion of ADD. Michael's parents were able to get him into a new school and things started to improve. It may have just been the students who contributed greatly to his aggression.
Tina, thirteen, was dealing with some stuff, as well. Her parents divorced after her father came out to her mother and her. Her mother had a really hard time accepting it and believed it to be her fault her husband "turned" gay. Tina had a hard time adjusting to his not being around, though it's neither her fault nor her dad's. He wants to be in her life, as I took the liberty of talking to him one time. Tina's mother, however, does not want him to talk to Tina. She believes he will "make her gay", though I have no idea how that can be done. There were days I wish it could be, but it can't.
After I had seen all three, David came in.
"Hi, David."
"Hey. How are you doing? I heard you had emergency surgery."
"I'm doing okay. Thanks for asking."
We moved to the usual couch and chair positions and talked.
"How's Mike?"
"That's why I came to talk to you. He is constantly getting worse. The doctors are talking about putting him in the hospital. His breathing is getting worse. We used to walk all the time. There's this great place where we can hold hands and not worry about people getting freaked about it."
That statement made me happy, truly happy, for David. But the fact that he and his boyfriend had to hide upset me.
"We used to walk a mile or two easily. Now a mile is too much. We pretty much walk down to the waterfalls and sit on the wooden bench. It's nice that we have a place to see that has nice scenery, but the fact he can't walk too much bothers me."
"I don't blame you. It would make me angry. How is Michael doing with this?"
"He thinks that good things have come because of this illness. A foundation was set up named after him to help those who suffered from his medical condition. They are doing lots of research and kids are being helped because of the research. Michael is happy about that."
"And yet this good that is being done still doesn't help you feel better about the situation."
"No, it doesn't."
"How does that make you feel?"
"Powerless. Helpless. Hopeless. I'm watching someone I care about slowly deteriorate." David moved a hand up and wiped a tear. "And there's nothing I can do to stop it."
I moved to the couch and rubbed his back.
"What good is it to have these things, to have someone, and not be able to help them?"
David leaned over to me and I embraced him. He needed to feel someone be strong for him. He has been strong for his boyfriend and now he needed that strength available to him.
"Helping someone, David, isn't always helping someone to overcome. It can be helping them get through something, even if getting through it means things change, whether it's by not loving someone anymore, or moving through a trauma or victimization, or even death."
"But how am I going to go on without him? He's been so much to me. He gave me the strength to come out. He believed in me when no one else did. What am I going to do?"
I couldn't answer him. I didn't have the answer. I so wanted to give him words of hope and encouragement. I wanted to give him words to believe in. But I couldn't. I didn't have any answers for him.
David and I must have sat there most of the session with him crying and me holding him and crying. Here was a young man being forced to grow up early. He was being exposed to something he should not have to be exposed to, death of a lover. Most people would have looked at him and said, "He's young. He'll get over it and find someone else." But I highly doubted he would ever get over it. He may recover enough to go on with his life, but he would never get over the death of someone he cares about so much.
Eventually, David finished crying and was ready to face the world again. I knew he wouldn't be completely finished crying, but he had the strength he needed to go on a little farther for Michael.
"Hey, David. Does Michael want to talk to me? I'll make a house call if he does."
"I'll ask him."
David gave me a hug then left.
I gathered my things and left for school. I wasn't hungry so I went to school early and headed for the library to do some last minute rereading. I found a table and sat, spreading everything out on the table. I tend to take up as much room I'm allowed when I work.
"Hey, stranger."
I looked up to see Brian looking down at me. "Hi, Brian. How are you?"
"I'm okay. Been better. Classes have been kind of rough lately."
"Want to talk about it?"
"Nah. You're busy."
"No, it's okay. I'm just doing some last minute rereading stuff. It's okay."
Brian sat down next to me.
"It's just I'm trying to get really good grades. I want to do well here. But my mom wants me to do all this extra stuff for her and with her that she can handle on her own. Once in a while I can help, but it's almost every night."
"You should tell her. I'm sure she wants you to do well in school, as well."
"Not really. She thinks it's a big waste of time. My dad would have wanted me to go to college and be what I wanted but my mom doesn't. She wants me to take over the family business."
"What is the family business?"
Just then the fire alarm went off. Brian and I both stood up and looked around to see where the fire was. The sprinklers kicked on all over the library. Students were running toward the exits in a panic. Surprisingly Brian was pretty cool in this situation.
"I'll look for the fire and see if I can help put it out. You make sure everyone gets out."
"Okay," and Brian went off to check for students.
I ran toward a back room to see if the fire might be in there. It wasn't. As I checked behind closed doors, I ended up finding the fire in an archives section. I grabbed an extinguisher and sprayed the fire. It wasn't that big. What could have caused all the sprinklers to go off?
"The Firefly!" I said.
"Not likely," said a very familiar female voice.
I turned. "Mrs. Freeze!"
"Sure am," she said. "And who are you?"
"Just a student," I said.
"And where did you hear my name?"
"I overheard someone use that name in describing the person who froze some offices awhile ago."
"Riiiiight," she said. She whipped out her gun and fired. I found myself looking through an ice casket. "Chill out here for a while. I've got things to do."
She left the room. I had to do something. I couldn't hold my breath forever. Slowly, I began to panic. I was going to suffocate. Suddenly I got very warm and the ice shattered out as if by explosion. I knew I had to do something, but I didn't have my Bat-suit. What could I do?
I ran out to see her freezing the shelves. She was doing lots of damage to something very important: information. I had to stop her. I raised my hand only to be frozen again. Then, her son stepped in my eyesight and walked up to his mother. He was clearly upset about something by his body language. But I didn't know what about. Mrs. Freeze put her finger in his face and he turned away reprimanded.
I couldn't breathe, for the second time today. I tried to concentrate as my fear of dying grew. By concentrating I was able to melt a hole in front of my mouth so I could breathe. Then, I relaxed and slowly, my skin warmed. I was out of immediate danger and the warming of my body would melt the ice.
Mrs. Freeze did her damage and left. Her son was gone as well. I felt footsteps through the ice. Someone was walking in the room. Suddenly, a gloved fist came around and hit the ice in my face. I felt the ice crack and fall away. I took deep gulps of air, as the hole I made earlier was very small and only allowed a small flow of oxygen.
"Oh, it's you," a familiar voice said.
"Nice to see you, too, Logan." I looked over and saw him in his mask and suit. He hit the ice in several other places and it shattered. "My, you're strong."
"It's the Adamantium ."
"Ada-what?"
"My skeleton is lined with a metal called Adamantium . It's a very durable metal."
"Congratulations," I said. I really had no idea what to say. I thought about making a joke about the difficulty he has walking through a metal detector, but he has always been temperamental. It would not suit right now.
"Who did this?"
"Mrs. Freeze."
"Mrs. What?"
"Mrs. Freeze. Batman encountered her a short while ago. She managed to get away last time."
"Looks like she managed to get away twice. Whose side are you on, anyway?"
I just threw him a dirty look then looked around. "Did everyone get out okay?"
"I guess so. You were the only one in here."
"Good," I replied.
I went over to the table my work was sitting on and found all my books gone. "Where are my books?"
"What?"
"My books were on this table. I wonder where they are."
"Maybe Miss Popsicle wanted to get a higher education."
"If she did, she wouldn't want to freeze all these shelves and steal my books and notes. I admit I'm a good note-taker, but my notes are freshman information. They don't have more than basic stuff in them."
I headed to the door and heard the sirens of police and fire engines. I'm sure ambulances wouldn't be too far away. "Wolverine, you better..." I turned around and he was gone.
Stepping into the sun, I found my books lying in a pile on the grass. I went over and grabbed them up and looked around. "Where's Brian?"
An hour later, I was in class. The administration couldn't see any reason to shut down the rest of the school because of a mishap in the library. It was fine with me. I had been out of school for a week and couldn't stand it. I wanted to get my degree. I needed to.
Professor Shankle entered the class and began her lecture. Ten minutes into the lesson, I heard the door open. Preparing myself for the worst, I turned and saw Brian enter. He walked up and sat down next to me.
"Hey," I said.
"Hi."
"Where have you been?"
"Out cold."
"What?"
"I fainted behind the library. I guess adrenaline kept me going until I realized everyone was out of the building. Once I knew everyone was safe, I was able to think about what I did. I fainted."
"Sorry," I really didn't know what to say. "I won't tell anyone."
"Thanks."
The rest of the class time was listening to Professor Amelia Shankle discuss biochemistry, stuff that was all Greek to me. I took the best notes I possibly could.
When class was over, Brian and I met in the hallway. We were going to our writing class. Alan shared that class with us. Brian was strangely quiet the walk to class. Alan met us in the hall and we went to Mr. Barr's class.
"Good afternoon, class," Mr. Barr greeted. "I hope everyone wrote their poem's for today. We are going to read them in class to kind of give everyone a break, especially with the excitement earlier today.
"Anyone care to start us off?"
Brian raised his hand. Mr. Barr went over and took his paper. He moved to the front of the room.
Parent Perfect
Parents are strange to the eye and the mind
Some are caring, loving and kind
Some give all to protect those they love
And stand up for their children when push comes to shove
Parents are strange to touch and to hear
Loving their kids they want to be near
They take time out of their busy day
To help out their offspring, they go out of their way.
I wish all parents truly cared for their own
Working hard to supply them a home.
Some have children, not planning to
Some could care less about knowing what to do
Cold-hearted and stir crazy
Laying around being lazy
What can we do for them?
Nothing.
They are parents
And they are perfect
I hope that I'm not parent perfect.
I looked over at Brian. It started out as a good poem about the love of parents but kind of deadened towards the end. I wanted to ask him about it, but Mr. Barr had other plans.
"Interesting piece, Brian."
"Thanks."
"Anyone else care to go?" Alan raised his hand. "Okay, Mr. Shreck. Let me have yours." Alan handed Mr. Barr his paper. Mr. Barr cleared his throat.
Buzzards
Mr. Barr looked up. "The name of your poem is 'Buzzards'?"
"Yes, sir," Alan said proudly.
"Okay."
Buzzards
They swoop around
In the night.
They sit calmly
And watch
They can be found with associates
Or found all alone
What could they want?
Why do they attack me?
I've done nothing wrong
Yet they search me out
Elevators
Water
Air
Buzzards are everywhere.
The entire class looked around at Alan. I think half of them were trying to figure out what the poem meant. The rest didn't even want to try. I just looked over at Alan.
Mr. Barr continued on reading others' poems.
When class was over, I headed home.
To Be Continued...
As you can tell, I'm not a poet. Ha, ha, ha. Did I do okay? More good stuff coming up. Oh, and every time I post a ten chapter (i.e. 10, 20, 30) I will be sending an update that I have posted it in case some of you are wondering. I know some of you check every day or two for new postings. I appreciate your faithfulness to my story. If you know of anyone who might like my story or who has read it but hasn't emailed me, encourage him or her to do so. I would love to hear from all my readers whether you like the story or writing or not. I love getting feedback! And I will always respond. My readers will attest to it.
More to come...