Source Of Sorrow [BoyXBoy]

.:11:.

"You are making absolutely no progress with him!" Dr Jardine exclaimed, her dark hair falling in front of her eyes like a draped curtain as her small frame leaned across her desk to throw me a firm glare. Her face was so close to mine that I could smell her girly, cherry lip balm.

"Yes, I am," I fought back, with just as much passion. "Alex told me that his dreams are going away and if that's not progress, then I don't know what is."

"This is not just about the dreams, though. I want all of it gone," she snapped, adequately slumping back down in her leather seat, while I felt uncomfortable in mine. It was so strange to be around such luxurious objects, when I had spent the previous weeks surrounded by sick hospital colours and the palest of whites, which all of the patients wore. Even at home, we never owned anything of great cost and the most expensive item we had was probably the single car. I felt uneasy in Dr Jardine's office: that was why I was never keen on coming in here. Also, it always meant bad news.

"You can't just get rid of a mental disorder and you should know that best, considering you're the psychologist out of the two of us."

I was perplexed by my own sudden confidence, but I truly felt that Alex's condition was becoming more controllable. He was not as bubbly and spontaneous anymore but, instead, he acted like a normal person, which was great. I would fight for his well-being even if it meant that I would have to stay here for another ten years. I truly cared about him, however the woman opposite me decided to ignore my extremely valid point and fight for her opinion anyway.

"If I don't see an obvious change within the next week, you are leaving this place and we will find someone who will do a better job," she warned.

"You can't do that!" I argued, my eyes widening. It was not even about the job or the money anymore; I just did not want to leave Alex by himself. It seemed like I was only here for him now, and nothing else mattered. He even made my nightmares go away! Yes, they were replaced with sexual fantasies of him, but they were certainly better than dreaming of my sister getting murdered by Joe.

Yes, Joe. A couple of days ago, I had experienced another one of the nightmares (obviously Alex could not make all of them go away, but most). This one carried on further than the previous, which explained many of my unanswered queries. Just as my sister, May, had dropped the phone to the ground, I heard her agonising screams over the scratchy phone line. It was a chilling sound and I did not enjoy recalling it in the slightest, but I remembered a specific detail about the tortured screams. She was yelling the name 'Joe'. Not necessarily that, but phrases like 'Joe, stop!' or even 'Jack, help me! It's Joe!'. And I knew exactly who Joe was.

Joe Barakat: my brother. That was all I remembered about him – that we were siblings. I could almost imagine us being very close and doing all of those cheesy brotherly things, but I had no way to know that so it was only a mindless fantasy. No one ever spoke of him at home, as if he did not exist at all or even saying his name was the greatest of sins. I had another brother, but he was out in college, so I did not see much of him, but I knew that he was not Joe. Joe was different. However he was a distant, incomplete memory, which I used to block out altogether but, now, I simply had no idea why. I was in denial about the fact that Joe could hurt his own sister and it lead me to questioning my on sanity.

People say that dreams are recollections of previous events and bundles of memories, but I highly doubted that theory as once I dreamt of having long, violet, tentacles in place of my arms, and that, sure as hell, never happened. And, if it did, than why am I not famous for being the octopus-man yet?

So, I simply came to the conclusion that my mind was playing tricks on me and it was not certainly Joe who was responsible for May's murder. Hell, she probably wasn't even murdered! This was surely just one of my disorders talking to me in the form of a vivid and realistic bunch of fabricated, chronological images. They made sense in my head, and not in real life – much like everything, these days.

And so, Dr Jardine gave me a final warning about having a week to cure Alex further then shooed me out of the room. That woman was evidently more mad than some of the patients at the mental institution, but I obeyed her orders and went on a mission to find my best friend.

With no surprise, I came across him while entering my room. We were hanging out there before Dr Jardine, ever so rudely, pulled me out, so I guessed that he decided to wait until I returned from my talk. The cheerful boy greeted me with a warm smile, which I had learned to love. It was, in full honesty, my second favourite thing in the world – the first being his laugh. Alex was one of those boy who was truly amazing without even realising it and I envied that. I wanted to be as confident and careless as he was - sometimes I actually wanted my disorders to be gone! – but that was not me. The real me was the one who was fucked up in the head, but lived through it with a smile on his face.

"Hey!" Alex grinned from ear to ear, sitting up from his previous position on my bed and I promenaded over to him. I collapsed down on to the mattress next to the boy, utterly frustrated with how Dr Jardine was complicating things, but I had to face the truth. I could not live in this perfect utopian world, where Alex and I were always together; could do basically all we wanted; and had everything given to us. That was not real life. Real life was not as simple.

I pulled Alex back down next to me, so that we were both laying on the bed and I softly rested my head against his chest, draping my arm across his stomach. I felt comforted by the smooth motion of his chest rising and falling, and the faint sound of his rhythmic heartbeat gave me a sense of security.

"Are you okay?" My best friend questioned, catching on to the fact that I was not as enthusiastic as I was before the meeting with the dreaded woman. I had assumed that she was different from the other doctors here, but I was wrong. She did not care about the wellbeing of her patients; at the end of the day, all she wanted was a paycheck.

"No, Dr Jardine is going to make me leave," I informed him with sincerity. I could feel Alex's body stiffen below me and even his chest grew motionless for a couple of seconds, as if he had forgotten how to breathe.

"Why would she make you leave?" He whispered, unmistakable hurt in his angelic voice.

"She thinks I'm not doing a good job with curing you and she wants someone else, who could do the job better," I explained. "If she doesn't see changes in you, within a week, she'll send me away."

"Is that woman mad?" Alex exclaimed, voicing my previous thoughts. "You are helping me. Actually, you're the only one who is helping me right now. The doctors are just making it worse with all of the bullshit talk about how they understand me, when they really don't. You actually care!" He pushed himself up so that we flipped over and I was underneath him, and I could have sworn that my breath got caught in my throat and my heartbeat sped up. Alex loomed over me, keeping himself up with the help of his elbows on either side of my head. His face was inches away from mine. "I need you, Jack."

And, with those words, Alex lowered himself and softly pressed his warm lips against mine.