Therapy Day
Langston was looking at the live feed from the small TV in his office. He happened to be watching the news conference of the protests outside of police station when the camera rushed to a sun blinded Brick. A shock of worry pierced his chest. Brick was not supposed to be brought outside like this. The camera was focused between the reporter and Brick so Langston couldn't see who the officer escorting Brick was.
As worried as he was, he couldn't deny the growing curiosity of what Brick would say with the city watching him so intently. His worry and fear slowly faded and instead felt swelling pride at Bricks words. Brick was speaking a truth the entire city was blinded to. The use of the girls for crime never sat well with him, but he couldn't argue against it. The city had indeed become safe, but nobody ever seemed to think in the long term. The speech was short, but Langston absorbed the words. He watched Brick finish and tell the escort they should get to his appointment.
Langston shut the television off and waited for the tell tale signs of Brick passing his office to the interrogation room they used for the boys therapy sessions. He could see the colored silhouette pass his frosted translucent window, but he never saw the escorting officer come back to the door to inform him Brick was ready to be seen.
Langston grabbed his crutch and walked to the door. He opened it and looked down the hall, but no officer was present. He walked back into his office, and grabbed his cup of coffee. Brick would have to be ready by now.
To add to the problem Brick was alone in the room. He was still in his restraints with a chain restraining his hands in front of him nailed to the floor. Which led Langston to believe the officer knew Bricks protocol, but decided to take him outside anyways, and was smart enough to disappear once Brick was in place.
Brick himself was looking at the chains as Langston hobbled past. Setting his cup on the table he smiled. "Good morning Brick, it's wonderful to see you."
Brick in turn said nothing as he stared dead set at the chains holding his wrists.
"I saw what you said on the news." He continued as he sat before the boy taking a long sip from his cup.
Bricks eyes flitted to the cup for a second, then slowly back down to his chains. "Any chance I could get a cup?" Brick asked after a silent pause.
"Do you want cream or sugar?" He asked.
"Three sugar packets would be fine." He said in a small voice. Langston stood up and hobbled back to the door. The sound of his crutch squeaking against the tile made Brick uncomfortable. He heard Langston ask a passing cop for a fresh coffee and hobbled back.
"Why are you using a crutch?" Brick asked when Langston retook his seat.
"I have to get practice in. my prosthetic is still being made. I'll be using a crutch as I get used to it." He said smiling softly at the boy.
"Why not use a wheelchair? It cannot be easy getting around." Brick asked eyes still on his chains.
"What can I say, I like taking the hard way." Langston said.
"The stupid way more like it." Brick said. "You were in a fire, what a week ago? Lost a leg, and should be in a hospital bed resting."
"Oh god no, I don't want to deal with that bill." Langston said with a chuckle as he fished out a small white pill bottle and placed a small tablet in his mouth before taking a long drink form his cup. After a gasp for air he spoke again, "The wheelchair is for the hotel. The crutch is for work."
"What do you mean?" Brick asked, but before he could get an answer a cop appeared at the door with a steaming foam cup in his hand. Langston waved the cop to Brick and the officer placed in on the table in front of the youth then departed with out saying a word.
"Was that the officer who retrieved you?" Langston asked when it was just the two of them again.
"No, I don't know who the officer was, but I know it wasn't him. Weirdly enough I cant remember what the officer looked like." Brick said furrowing his brow annoyed with himself.
"Doesn't matter, but back to your question. I don't want people to think I'm unfit, so when I'm at work I use the crutch. When I'm alone in my hotel room I use the chair."
"I think people might give you the excuse you were in a fire recently." Brick said as he drank his own coffee.
"I didn't want to take the chance, this is too important to me to leave any questions about my physical state to the doubters." Langston said smiling warmly to the youth.
"Why?" Brick asked confused.
"Why what?" Langston asked matching his confusion.
"Why is anything important about this. Hell, what even is important here?" He asked avoiding eye contact.
"Helping you is what's important, Brick. I thought you would know that?" Langston said with surprise. "I don't want you to be another resident. I'm here to make sure you know I'm in your corner."
"But why?" Brick asked with venom he didn't know he had. "I killed someone, didn't I? I'm to be put on trial, and considering I am indeed guilty, locked away. Isn't that how the justice system is supposed to work?"
"I personally don't want to see you locked up, and after hearing about your physical state I do not believe you consciously took a life, so in my eyes you're more innocent than not."
"And why? Why would you think that?" He asked with his eyes locked to the chains afraid of the answer.
"Because I care about you Brick. As well as you're brothers. I have grown to care deeply in making sure you're not locked away and given the chance to grow." Langston said, but was interuppted by Brick.
"And why is that?" Brick asked desperation filling his voice. "I have had some time to think about a lot of things inside my cell since waking up. I am sure of a few things." He said finally looking at Langston with a hard glare. "I must be alone now. I will probably be locked away, and I have to deal with that. Lastly the man who has helped me the most seems wildly fascinated to do so, and this man didn't even tell me his first name. I learned it by visiting his hospital while he laid burnt, bandaged, and missing a leg. This man, has helped me get an education, helped me get back my freedom, bought my brother a car, and took my brothers out to dinner like a family, but I have no idea why?"
Langston looked at the boy with a brow raised as Brick kept going. "So what I'm not sure of is why? Are you planning on writing a book? Detailing how you changed this savage boy and his brothers to heroes? And if I go back you lose your book deal?"
"I suppose a book like that might sell actually, but no Brick there isn't a book." Langston said with a smirk.
"Then for once, doc. Tell me about yourself. Why should I trust you to have my best interests at heart." Brick said, unaware of where all this came from.
"Yeah, that's fair. You're not used to seeing anyone go so far for your sole benefit. Suspicion would be expected from a man too willing to give." The doctor said as he wiped his mouth with his hand, ready to tell a story he hasn't told anyone before. "I guess I should start with my high school ambitions."
Brick raised a brow and watched the man shake his head and look down at his coffee. "You see Brick, when I was in school I wasn't interested in girls, parties, or even club activities. I had good grades, and was on track for a scholarship. My high school mind was obsessed with horror movies. I was in high school in the 80s, all the best monsters were out, and the new face of horror was shaping into something more sinister. The psychopath. It was true in movies as well books, and in 1988 a book featuring a man who was a genius cannibal came out. I fell in love with the character inside the book. I wanted to meet him, know him. I wanted to beat him." Langston said with a flair of his hand. "So I decided I was going to do everything to get into law enforcement as a psychologist. I had the grades, the grit and the determination to do it. As I think I've shown." He said with a light chuckle waving his hand around the room as if the room proved his point.
"So I pushed my studies even further. I had little friends, and littler still in the way of distractions until I came to Townsville. I made it into the Townsville University medical program. I was on track to getting into my undergrad to specialize in psychology, and was working double time to get my masters in criminology. All things were set for me." Langston said taking a pause to sip from his coffee.
"I sense an until coming up." Brick said watching the man with interest.
"Yes Brick, until." Langston said with a chuckle, "Until 1991. When a movie came out for the book I fell in such love with. I met someone there at the then new theater. Waiting in line with my copy of the prequel book hanging under my arm I met a fellow student named Danny." Langston gave a small choke as he said his name. Indeed it was a name he hadn't said out loud in nearly 20 years, and it almost felt an effort to push the name back out as if it had fallen under debris and required a great deal of force to speak it into existence.
"He was an older student, already starting his undergrad, and had like me fallen in love with the stories written under our arms. We were fast friends, and more. So much more." Langston said feeling the familiar sting in his eyes as he remembered him.
"Wait, so you're," Brick said with a pause unsure how to word it without unintentionally offending the man. "Gay?"
"Perhaps, Danny was the first person I ever felt like I loved, but I cannot say for certain had our genders been any different that I still wouldn't have loved him." He said wiping the mist from his left eye. "Tell me Brick, does it bother you knowing this now?"
"Nah," Brick said leaning back easily, "I just wasn't expecting it, but nothing wrong with that."
"I'm glad that's how most people think now, but back then it wasn't so easy. It's better now, not perfect, but better. Back then though, it was rough. We had the advantage of being in similar classes, and nobody thought twice about us hanging around the other so much. When we moved in together we said it was the thrifty thing to do. Two psych students living together and saving money, and while sure that wasn't a lie, the main reason was so we could be together." Langston said taking another sip.
"The funny thing about our relationship was, I wanted to meet the next FBI most wanted. I wanted to find him, lock him up and be a hero. Danny, he wanted to make me irrelevant. He didn't want to see the next most wanted, he wanted to prevent the next most wanted. He was going to study child psychology and help whatever children he could so they didn't become this dark celebrity of infamy in the future." He said letting go of his coffee and wringing his hands. "I don't doubt he would have made that change either. Some kid may have grown up to become yet another monster in this conga line of madness the news make so important."
"So what happened?" Brick asked looking at the man who was seemingly breaking down in front of him.
"Well, we were together a year or so in that apartment, and he had a free day while I had class. He was walking through the downtown section, and was grabbed by a man." Langstons was grabbing one hand with such force from the other that his hands were turning white from the pressure as he continued. "I would later learn all this, but it was a mugging. He had a tiny revolver, and threw my Danny into a corner in the alley. The man was jumpy, and somehow he thought Danny was going to attack him. So he shot him three times. Two in the head, and one in the neck."
Brick looked on in horror as Erik's eyes became downcast and his voice filled with mourning. "I was pulled out of class, everyone knew I was his roommate and had to identify the body. The image still haunts me. Over the next few weeks I became a husk of myself. We weren't rich, but we weren't in financial trouble either, so I sat up every night wondering what Danny could have done to scare the man. Then one day I got my answer."
"How do you mean?" Asked Brick.
"The man who shot him turned himself in. I was called down to see the interview tapes, they figured a good friend of Danny would be able to find a way of relaying this to his family without breaking them. I never did find that way. I try to keep in touch, but his mom never speaks to me, and his dad died a few years prior, but I'm rambling. If the man in those tapes is to be believed, Danny was talking to him. He was trying to get the man help. He was calming down, and had lowered his gun, when Danny reached behind him. Thinking he was grabbing a gun or a knife the man panicked and fired. When he realized it was just his wallet, he panicked more, grabbed the few bills he had in his wallet, about 34 dollars in total I believe, and ran."
Langston's voice grew angry and graveled as he spoke. "The tape didn't help me any. 34 bucks. That's what my Danny's life was to that man. A tank of gas, a sandwich and a coffee?" He yelled to nobody forgetting for a moment who he was retelling this story to. "I spent even more nights awake, and fueling myself with so much coffee to get through my classes. Eventually developing the addiction to these cups of liquid ambition. One night, though something clicked. I was ranting against him, how he could just trust lunatics, and try to see the good in everyone. That made it click. Danny was going to help him, give him the money, probably tell him how to get some help, and probably never even tell the cops, but he must have moved too fast, and that ended him. He died, in a cold alley alone, because he believed in his values, and goal of correcting people before they became the next monster." Langston said with a somber voice.
"I wanted to honor him. I miss him to this day, and have many sleepless nights. I never left that apartment we had together, staying there until it nearly burnt to the ground. Now that I think about it, there should be a box of stuff I saved from him, you might have saved. I'll have to see if it's still there." He said getting lost in his thoughts, "but anyways, I wanted to honor him. I loved that man, and his ability to see the good in everyone, so I switched my studies to focus on child psychology, and eventually got hired onto the juvenile department in this precinct."
"So what happened to the man? The shooter?" Brick asked.
"When he turned himself in, he was also holding a number of pills. He got life in prison. He's due for probation soon, but for now, he lives here. I see him once in a while. He doesn't know me, nor my voice, but I see him. I forgave him, not for his sake but Danny's."
"So the reason you wanted to help me and my brothers so bad?" Brick asked.
"Was to honor the spirit of the man I loved. When I learned you were to be captured I volunteered to take on your case. I wanted to help you three, and shape you three into better citizens. I knew you just needed some guidance, and I felt like I could carry on his dream through us all."
Brick lowered his head, "I'm sorry. I never knew all this about you. I shouldn't have assumed you had a motive as a book."
"My life, or sexuality was never part of your rehabilitation. Though I guess not knowing my first name all these years is a little weird." He said with a hearty laugh. "So Brick, we still have some work to do, and time to work. Let me ask you, do you think you willingly took her life?" He asked.
"I," He took a breath to form the words, "I have no regrets killing her, but no. I didn't remember killing her until I woke up in the cell." Brick went on to explain how he remembered the night, but something was different. Nothing he remembered was remembered in first person. All his memories seemed to be almost third person. He couldn't remember what he heard when Blossom showed up. Only remembering anger and, much harsher, fear.
"You were afraid?" He asked.
"Yeah, or I think I was. It's just a feeling, or a memory of a feeling." Brick said with a furrowed brow. "All I can really recall was diving into a pond," Brick started but was interrupted.
"A pond? Why?" Langston asked.
"Oh Sedusa loses the ability to control her hair if it gets wet. She had her snakelike hair wrapped around my neck, and I knew the nearby pond would help me." Brick said with a head tilt. An image of her file popped in his head for a moment. "Wait, how did I know that?" He asked inside his head. There was no mention of it in her file.
"How were you so sure of the pond's location?" Langston asked holding his eyes up as he recalled what he read in the police report. "True you were near the park when you discovered her hideout, but you were closer to the docks then the park."
Brick looked down at the chains with hidden worry flooding his mind. "I don't know, I just pushed myself to get her into the pond. It was my," Brick took a moment with a flash of worry on his face. "It was my only thought."
"So what happened next?"
"That's where my memory gets fuzzy, I had grabbed her, then" He said looking for the right word. "It was like static. Something just made me very angry, and very afraid. I couldn't tell you what." He said looking the man in the eye. "After that I just remember fighting the girls, and my brothers."
"Do you remember how it ended?"
"No, I just remember putting Blossom through a tree, then nothing. I woke up in a cell." Brick said.
"I see, that's quite concerning." Langston said with a furrowed brow.
"Whatcha thinking Doc?" Brick asked.
"I don't yet know, there seems to be a missing piece. Something isn't adding up." Langston said while writing on the notepad he had. "There is too much going on even today to get the whole picture. The fact you have such holes in your memory frightens me. As well as the fact you seem to be unmoved by taking a life. Why is that?"
Brick took a second to think about it, "I don't know. It wasn't my intent. I wanted to put her in a cell." Bricks eyes floated up to the mans gaze. "However, her being dead doesn't interfere with my grander plan."
"What plan?" Langston asked.
"I guess there isn't harm in blabbing now." Brick said with a sigh, "After we took that first monster out I saw Blossom and her sisters looking shocked. It was something that I hated at first. Seeing that look, made me sure they thought me and my brothers are weak. It was always trickery that beat us, and my strength was growing far quicker then hers, and they still thought us weak. I wanted revenge, but that contract wasn't worth breaking, so I decided to play a tricky game myself." Brick said looking back down to the chains. "Originally it was just to remove the girls as heroes. Take the mantle away from them and drive them made with my own success."
"I take it the endgame wasn't for you to end up at my tables, so how has your greater end goal not been ruined?" Langston asked. He had a feeling this was the plan from the start. When Brick suddenly wanted to be a hero he figured it was to outdo the girls, but decided to give Brick a chance.
"The end goal was removing the girls as heroes. I still did that. Whether I remain in chains or not, the city shouldn't be using heroes, and finally take it upon themselves to fight crime." Brick said with a shrug. "I don't care if I have to martyr myself for it. Those girls..." Brick paused. Langston figured he would finish the sentence with were beaten, but when Brick spoke he surprised him. "They should be free." Brick said with a small somber smile.
Langston smiled in return and looked at his empty cup. "Brick, I still doubt you're a threat consciously, but you are indeed a threat in some capacity." Brick grimaced at the words but held steadfast. "I will be assessing you, and giving an accurate statement to the courts. We will have some time to figure out the rest of the picture, but I think I'm sure of a few things. first, you became the best hero I have ever met." Langston said with a wide smile, "A hero doesn't just save somebody, doesn't just protect people, they make themselves obsolete. A true hero makes sure people don't rely on them, but build those around them up." Langston said maintaining his smile, "and second, I don't think you belong here. So with the time available to us, help me make sure what I tell the courts sheds a good light on you. So will you help me?"
Brick looked at him, "I'll do what I can, but I did take a life. I belong here, and even if I didn't I don't have a place outside."
"What do you mean?" Langston asked.
"With what I did, and what I did to them, I cannot see my brothers, the girls, or Blossom wanting me around. So where is my place in the world? If not in here?" Brick said, and Langston saw a flicker of fear in the boys eye as he spoke.
"I haven't spoken to your brothers yet, and I cannot speak on behalf of them or the girls, but I don't think you're alone." He took a moment to inspect his watch, he had a lot to do still for the day, "We will have to call this session a little short." He said grabbing his crutch and standing up. "When we speak next I want to know more about a lot of things," Blossom was the first person he wanted to speak to Brick about, "so what I want you to do, is try to stop taking it so hard on yourself Brick. This is a problem, and no problem will be solved with the mentality created when you arrived to it. So take a breath, and try to remember anything else from that night." With that, he bid Brick farewell for the day, and had a trusted officer return Brick to his cell.
He asked security to review tapes to see who escorted Brick outside, but the footage was corrupted. It did nothing to settle his growing nerves. Someone was making sure Brick had his moment on television. Whether or not Brick said what he was hoping wasn't the problem, it was the fact he had enough sway to work his will in the station. He had the news on the entire day and listened to Mayor Bellum tell how a start up R and D company Darkstar innovations was going to be working with city. The police records for the company were proving innocent. The two founders were brother in laws, and genius inventors. As well as being too young for them to be involved, Langston took them off his list of suspects. He thought at first maybe they wanted Brick to speak to the public, they seemed to be benefiting from it, but it was highly unlikely.
Langston finished his reports for the day and using the crutch hobbled to the taxi waiting for him outside. He walked into his hotel room, and tried to push the thoughts away as he scouted online for a new place to live. He spent the night in his wheelchair, and found the pain medicine to work well for his sleep.
He had woken up to his usual alarm and proceeded to get ready for work. He called a taxi to take him to a nearby diner and after breakfast made his way to the station. He had another day of questioning the boy to try and figure out what part of the puzzle he was missing. It felt so obvious, but his mind kept going hazy whenever he felt like he was on the right track.
Grumbling to himself as he walked into the station he was greeted by Jerome. They exchanged pleasantries and Langston made his way to the elevator where he proceeded to his office.
His office wasn't locked as it should have been, and was worried the chief was waiting for him to deliver some bad news. He pushed the door open and saw Blossom sitting in front of his desk. She turned around and smiled at him, "Dr. Langston," She greeted with a smile, she gestured to the nearby coffee pot, "I was told you usually start your day with a cup of coffee. I made you some hoping to get a word with you."
He moved past her to his desk as she grabbed a mug and poured him a cup. "You don't have to do that you know." He said as she returned to the desk placing the mug on his table.
"I know, I just wanted to." She said sitting down at the chair.
He shook his head and smiled, "So, miss Utonium. What do I owe this honor? You can't be hear just to speak with a man you barely know."
"That's exactly what I came here to do, that and drop this off." She said lifting a brown paper into her lap.
"What's that exactly?" He asked.
"Something for Brick. The thought if him in that cell is heartbreaking. I got him a few things to make it better, and to talk to him." She said.
"Miss Utonium, Brick isn't allowed to see you, his brothers, or your sisters." He said seeing her disappointment grow. "What would you want to talk to him about?" She looked at him unsure of what to say, "I'm trying to help him, if you have some information that could help him, I implore you to tell me."
She took a breath, her grip on the bag apparent, and spoke. "Brick was used as a puppet. I know what happened that night."