We Are Bulletproof

"Heh. It's not really a disorder. At least, it's not recognized by the DSM."

No, it wasn't but it was still something weird going on in his brain. It was just that there was no therapy for it, no real cure, no medication to make it all go away. Privately, in all the time he'd been spending with people like Liam, he wondered if there was anything that really helped any of them. The therapies they were given, the medications... sometimes it did so little for these people that Silas felt like the whole psychology branch was a bunch of quacks.

"It's basically what I said. I don't feel like I belong in my own life. Have you ever looked at your own parents and felt like they weren't yours? Have you ever gone to school and thought that you didn't belong there? Even this job. I feel like I'm playing pretend in somebody else's life."

"That's sweet," he said but his expression remained the same. Sweet as it was, one couldn't live just based on other people. That was how he interpreted it; Liam was only alive because he remembered his lover. Still, sweet and romantic as all that was, a person had to wake up and live for themselves--not other people.

But maybe it was easy for Silas to say as much when he was standing on the other side of the glass.

"That's such a broad question. What do you want to know?"

"What?" Silas blinked. Observing his own life? That wasn't quite what he... "What?" he said again. "No. That's not..."

Silas raised a brow. So, the mentally ill ex-patient was calling him fucking crazy? He was pretty sure it wasn't meant as an insult the way Liam said it but he still bristled at the words.

Hard to keep bristling when somebody opens up about suicide, though. Silas lowered his gaze, then slid it aside. This was the not-so-easy part of the job. It was just as important what Silas said as what Liam said and he couldn't ever get all defensive--not on somebody who was already skating rail thin.

"You're not a pussy," he said. "You just had a dark moment. Everybody has those. But sometimes, for one instant, the pain is so great that it blinds you to everything else... everything you once thought was important, you forget those things. Maybe you even think you lost them. But think back on your life. When you had those dark thoughts. Think about what it would have been like if you ended it there. Or there. Or there. Something made it worth staying around after all, right?"

"It's basically what it sounds like," he said as he crossed his arms and leaned slightly forward. Before everything, Silas used to be a psychology student. It was his way of playing detective into his own life just as much as it was playing detective to other people.

All his life, he could feel something in other people, something that drew him toward the brokenhearted to mend them and something that repelled him when he felt that somebody was wrong. Something was wrong with some people, like they didn't have that feeling, like they had no heart or soul. Something like that.

It wasn't easy to see it but he could feel it. Some people were different. Some in a good way, but some definitely in a bad way.

Liam here was just broken. He didn't seem to be missing that important component inside him. If anything, his pain made it clear he had a heart to break.

So Silas could talk about this with him; it was a good way to build confidence.

"It's not a recognized mental illness," he explained, "but it's this deep seated feeling that something in your life is fake... Like you're a fraud. I feel like that. Like I'm living somebody else's life."

Silas shook his head.

"Not quite how it works." He didn't read any files or anything like that. Those were all confidential and Silas wasn't a doctor per se. He was a volunteer when it came to this work. Not the bookstore stuff but the helping people out by employing them in his bookstore.

Resting his hip against the nearby accountant's desk, Silas kicked aside the pile of flattened boxes near his feet. He regarded Liam for a moment, then slid his hands back onto the desk behind him, perching more securely on the end.

"Ever heard of impostor syndrome?"

Silas turned his head toward Liam and grinned at his laugh. Good; his stupid blundering words actually made the misery dude sound happy for once. That was all Silas needed to hear. He continued to grin, shrugging his shoulders as he picked up the now empty box and punched the bottom so he could break it down and flatten it.

"I mean, aren't we all a little fucked up?"

"Hm..." He tilted his head as he pulled a couple more books out of the dusty box. Looking over the ones he had, he noted that none of them were creepy or bound with human flesh. Not that the book from before had been but... He cast a look over at it. A chill ran down his spine and he shook it off.

"It's been almost two years now," he said. "So not that long. It's really more for you." That sounded strange. "People who need help getting through the past. Working here helps, I think."

"Maybe that's why? Because he loves you?" He tried not to sound too flippant about it because Liam seemed pretty cracked up about his boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend, rather. It was a shame, really. Silas never understood why people became so locked on a single person for their whole life. If Liam could change the direction of his heart, maybe he wouldn't feel so much pain.

"There's always a way to fix it," Silas said, but he uncrossed his arms and headed back to the door of the shop, propping it open and stepping aside to let Liam go on ahead.

"But yeah, I think work's a better focus for you right now."

Okay. Silas blinked as Liam exploded and then tore out of the store. For a moment, Silas remained where he was, books in hand. Then he set the books down and figured that Liam would shoo him away if he didn't want to keep talking.

When he stepped outside, he stepped right into a cloud of smoke. Coughing, he waved the smoke away and then regarded Liam as he lowered his hand.

"Feeling any better?"

Ah. The normal life was making him cagey. Silas stroked his own jaw for a moment, nodding. That made sense, coming from Liam. One moment he was living life on the edge and the next he was hospitalized. However, he was hospitalized for trying to take his own life so how good could that past life of his be for him?

The two concepts were so wildly different, though. Liam was going crazy because things were too normal but he also wanted Silas to somehow make the hurt go away. It was part of Silas' job as a volunteer with the local rehab program but... That was a much bigger job than Liam made it sound.

Ah, he was trying to practice. That was where the hurt came in. Silas leaned his hip against the counter and crossed his arms, regarding Liam.

"All right," he said. That was why he was here, after all. "What hurts?"

"You don't feel welcome here?" Silas asked. Hadn't he made Liam as comfortable as possible? No, no. This wasn't about him and he knew it. It was just a surprising revelation when he thought Liam was doing pretty well with him.

"Most people aren't," he said after a moment of silence. Because it was true--most people really weren't great at communicating their feelings. It didn't help that people often didn't even know their own emotions in order to give them names or words that somebody else might understand.

"But you won't get any better at it if you don't practice, you know."

Silas could talk about medication and therapy until he was blue in the face but he was not a full doctor. He had been a psychology student but was now currently only an aide. He wasn't considered a medical professional but he knew enough about medications to know what to watch for in Liam, to make sure he stayed on the straight and narrow.

"It will get better," he assured him as he dug out a couple more books. At least these seemed more standard from the looks of them. No more of those ominous old looking books with the strange voices coming from it. Just thinking about them made Silas' neck crawl.

"Well," Silas propped himself against the edge of his front desk, setting a romance novel with heaving bosoms down beside him. "Is it changing the way you want it to?"

"Uh, yeah," he said. "I'm not even sure I want to sell it."

Which didn't mean he wanted to keep it by any means. It was just that it seemed dangerous and irresponsible to put that kind of thing back on the market. Even if it was a prank, it was kind of a dirty one. It left Silas with an unsettling feeling and it was obvious that it had gotten to Liam, too.

"Your meds are helping you, not making you worse," Silas reminded Liam. As long as he kept taking them, he would be fine. He wouldn't try what he did before--which landed him here with Silas.

"It's just that book. Something's wrong with it."

He was just going to outright say it. There was definitely something up with it. Silas was a half believer in the occult. Weird things had happened around him and he was a pretty good judge of character so he had no reason not to trust his gut.

While Liam looked through the book, Silas peeked into the box to fish out another handful of books. These ones weren't nearly as interesting as the one Liam was flipping through. They looked like pretty standard mystery novels. Mystery novels and romance novels: the bread and butter of any used bookstore.

Then he heard it. At first, he thought it was the mere whisper of pages but then the whispers began to form sounds. It was a language he still didn't understand but it was definitely the sound of voices. Sharply, Silas looked up.

"You heard it too?" he asked, then reached out and grabbed the book, slamming it shut. The sounds died as soon as the pages were clamped closed. Silas stared at Liam, wondering what they'd just experienced together.

"It must be some kind of prank."

The closed sign was facing out of the window of the used bookstore but the lights were still on. Inside, two men were working on sifting through several boxes of donations in order to shelf them in their appropriate places.

Turning a book over in his hand, Silas wondered how to categorize it. Since it was in some weird language he didn't know, he wasn't sure what to do with it. That was the kicker about owning a used bookstore. It meant that he had a lot of books to deal with and sometimes they came in mystery languages.

Looking up from the box he was rummaging around in, he looked over at Liam. Then he held the book up, waving it in front of Liam's face.

"Hey, do you know what language this is?"