Winning His War

11

Andrew's POV

Barrett sat in front of me as we lounged around my office in my new practice. I had purposefully kept from a few open slots in my schedule in case a few of my regulars needed me but ever since Liam and his boyfriends got a handle on their problems, I haven't had much need for them.

Now I used these open slots to catch up on paper work or to read new studies but today I used the time to grill Barrett.

The second my last client left for the hour I had waved Barrett in from the waiting room and now he sat here, being more quiet now that I've ever had seen him be. His eyes bounced around the room and I could tell his excited smile seemed a bit duller than usual.

"Why do I feel like I'm about to be interrogated," Barrett asked after a while of me staring at me.

"Does Jem have those nightmares often?"

"He would literally kill me if he knew we were talking about this."

"You're being dramatic," I said with an eye roll out of pure instinct until I thought about it. Jem wasn't like the other violent clients I had. As much as I didn't like the thought but I wouldn't be surprised if Jem has already killed before.

Still even if he's killed random people, I doubted he would hurt his own friend.

"No I'm not. He hates when people talk about it, or react to it, hell he doesn't even like people helping him wake up." Barrett sighed as he rubbed his face tiredly. "Please just drop it."

"Has he tried taking anything? I could get him samples if you think you could get him to take them."

"Listen, Jem isn't the kind of guy who accepts help, no matter how bad he needs it. Just let it go."

"Just sit here and watch him suffer? I'm not really in the business of doing that."

"Why do you even care," he asked, his wide eyes suddenly glaring at me. "You only got here a few days ago and before that you hardly even knew him. You don't get to play caring therapist just because you're here now."

My eyes shifted to the desk at those words.

Liam's boyfriend had said something similar to me when we were still in the adjusting period. I had thought I was getting better at coming off more sincere but I guess I still had room to grow in that area.

"It's been days," I sighed after a while. "Patrick and I haven't seen him since it happened. Have you and Devon even seen him?"

"I don't need to see him to know he's fine."

I huffed at his answer.

"You aren't going to let this go, are you," Barrett sighed after a while of me seething in silence.

"No."

Barrett scoffed at that, his eyes shooting around the room at random again.

"Please just do yourself a favor and don't bring it up around Jem. He always does this after one of his really bad nightmares. If you bring it up when he finally decides to come around, he's just going to take off again. He doesn't like people seeing him weak and in his head, this is as weak as he can get.

"Dev and I can't get it through his head that he's being stupid but when he finally gets his head out his ass, he's going to want to pretend like it never happened. Just play along. Let everything go back to how it was before and be happy that it will be over this quickly. These 'episodes' have lasted months before."

"I'm a therapist. I can't just sit there while someone is suffering from because of their own mind."

"You'll have to learn if you want Jem to come off his high horse and act like normal again."