Crazy Love, Vol II (Josh)

[Joshua Bernstein]

Josh had heard the way Sean spoke of Robert, affectionate but also admiring. He knew how devastated he'd been when Robert had finally passed away, though the older telepath had been gone long before that. Much like his father. And he knew that Sean sought to emulate his mentor. He had, as far as Josh was concerned, done a fine job of that.

His friend's compliments caused his lips to twitch into a smile, though it didn't last very long, demolished by the revelation that he sometimes hurt his friend. In a way, that was expected, because he knew realistically that people who cared about one another were in the best position to hurt one another and people were imperfect enough that this would happen and also because he knew his actions recently couldn't do anything but. And when he said disappoint there had been a whole slew of words that stood in for, including hurt.

Sean's paraphrasing of what he'd just said, given in that patient tone, made him feel worse. "Yes." He confessed, turning his head slightly so that he could squint out the window. The other man had predicted tears, but Josh had really hoped they wouldn't happen. Especially not over hearing something he'd just said rephrased.

He allowed silence to overtake them, though that was no respite; he felt obligated to continue talking. After all, that was what they were there for, painful or not. He felt as if he were failing in his attempts to talk, clear the air, repair their friendship. He wasn't good at this.

"Thank you. I know you've said so. I am, too." He tried to keep his voice even, though this was a difficult task. One of the reasons he hated emotional discussions was just how hard a time he had keeping those emotions reigned in. "I just.... I guess you could say I don't really understand when, ahhh, when....when I still hold it against me."

By the end of that confession his voice had gotten soft, and he fidgeted uneasily. This was not going well at all.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

From the corner of his eye, Sean could see the other man’s face fall from his admission of hurt. The telepath had expected that, but it was necessary to lay this out between them; honesty was necessary now, even when it was painful. “I don’t mean to make you feel bad.” That wasn’t his aim in this; that was, in fact, why he had enabled Josh in avoiding this for so long.

The telepath took another deep breath, this one more ragged than the last, entirely because he was responding to the other man’s emotional turmoil, his self-deprecating thoughts. It pained him to see his friend in pain this way. He lifted one hand from the steering wheel and let it rest on the other man’s arm. “I couldn’t do that to you. I couldn’t do it back then and I couldn’t do it now.” He rubbed the other man’s bicep gently with his thumb. “You’re one of my dating criteria, did you know that? I don’t date anyone who isn’t able to accept us.” That was true; anyone who failed to understand the importance of his friendship with Josh had no future with the telepath. But Josh never asked him about his relationships beyond the cursory, and thus he had no reason to know.

At the end of that confession, Sean asked a one word question. His tone held no judgment, but the answer, the reason, was important. It wasn’t the underlying purpose of this discussion, but it was exceedingly important. “Why?”

He would hold off on what else he had to say until he had an answer to that.

[Joshua Bernstein]

Josh accepted Sean's reassurances with a pained smile. He hadn't really thought Sean was purposefully looking to shame him, because that wasn't the type of person his friend was and also because of the astute observation earlier in this dialog about Josh's own need for atonement, but that didn't stop him from feeling guilty. Hurting Sean hadn't been his intention, though he could see why he had. Now. Realizing after the fact only made him feel more idiotic; he should have seen this earlier. And knowing now that he was part of Sean's dating criteria definitely made his reaction to Dr. Jones seem ridiculous.

He was definitely mentally calling into question the telepath's earlier comment that he was smart.

The touch was both comforting, in that it made the verbal assurances more real, and uncomfortable because it was too emotionally intimate. That conflict of feelings was one of the biggest issues in his relationship with Sean. He should have ended that conflict decades ago, but he'd avoided addressing any of their issues head on and Sean had enabled that.

Now he had to discuss them, after thirty years of awkwardness and two months of drama. He had to discuss them because that one simple question could only be answered by admitting things he had tried to keep to himself, because burdening his friend with them would be unfair and selfish and wrong.

He rubbed his temple with one hand, echoing his friend's sigh. "This is where you realize I'm a creepy fool." He began miserably. This was where he expected everything to fall apart irreparably. There was a reason he didn't talk about this. Ever.

"I don't....regret very much." Even his more absurd antics were rarely met with regret, except possibly those pictures with Danny, which were mortifying, or the arson, which would have been potentially damaging to his career if Sean hadn't stepped in. "But that is one of them." He didn't clarify what that was; it was, after all, the topic of discussion at present.

"You already know....you know my reasonings. It wasn't an easy choice and, ahh, I guess you could say I, ahhh, I feel like I made the wrong one."

He glanced over at Sean surreptitiously for a moment before hurriedly looking away. "So uhhh that's...why. I'm sorry. I didn't...I didn't want to umm to...creep you out. Especially since...since it's my fault so umm...you can call me skeavy now."

That was a word he heard frequently from his nieces specifically, when they thought someone was being creepy. He thought it was applicable in this situation.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

The telepath denied that with a shake of his head. “There’s nothing you could do that would make me think you creepy.” Theoretically, yes since Sean was not completely amoral, but in no reality would Josh ever engage in such conduct. Sean was certain of that. Still, to give him his space, his hand moved from Josh’s arm, resuming its place on the steering wheel.

Then he settled in to listen. Sean also had little in life he regretted, due to his life philosophy of trying to only do that which he could face the next morning. He knew his friend was similar. Still, the following admission was unexpected.

Sean was well aware of the other man’s reasons for ending their relationship, because that entire day was burned into his memory. That was why he hadn’t pressured the other man to have uncomfortable discussions; he was afraid of smothering him, as Josh had complained at the time. As the other man explained why he couldn’t forgive himself for what had happened, Sean tightened his hand on the steering wheel.

And he was silent.

He stared out at the highway in front of them, processing that because it wasn’t what he had expected when he had initiated the conversation. Processing that because other aspects of his friend’s behavior made far more sense in that context. Finally, he relaxed his grip on the steering wheel and half asked and half stated, “You’ve been jealous.”

He took a deep breath, ragged again, and asked, “Do you know what happened after that day?”

[Joshua Bernstein]

For a moment, Josh was afraid that Sean wasn't going to say anything at all to his confession. Truthfully, he would have preferred immediate horror to the emotional limbo of having his statement outright ignored, would have rather been kicked out of the car than have Sean say nothing. But just when the silence was beginning to be unbearable Sean spoke.

He winced at the observation that he'd been jealous, but it was a fact he couldn't deny. "I...can't say I'm proud of that fact..." He had, until this point, been avoiding the subject of Dr. Jones, but this seemed an opportune moment to add, "I know I was a jerk to Dr. Jones. I really shouldn't have been and...your criteria....I uhh....he must fit it so....do you think he'll forgive me? I suppose I should try to repair things with your partner." He avoided things like being friends with people Sean was dating, and he couldn't say he was at all looking forward to changing that pattern, but it was the mature and responsible thing to do, a fact that this conversation was forcing him to realize.

He hadn't been paying attention to the course they were on, too wrapped up in their conversation, but one glance out the window told him he hadn't the foggiest idea where they were anymore. This wasn't Pilot Ridge or Burlington.

The next question was a change of pace, the first query that didn't require him to explain his feelings, but the trepidation he'd felt from the moment he'd seen Sean's car in his driveway hadn't yet evaporated. Instead his sense of foreboding only increased.

"Well..." He answered hesitantly. "You....you visited Vermont." Greg had told him that much, though it hadn't been a surprise. It wasn't as if they were going to stay in an apartment together after breaking up. However, whatever specific incident Sean was alluding to (and it was clear there was something) he wasn't aware of what it could be. After Sean had returned from Vermont Greg had gravitated toward Sean -- unsurprising in light of the fact that Sean had been his friend first -- and Josh hadn't talked much with either upperclassmen until later, when he and Sean had resumed their friendship.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

The psychiatrist kept his attention on the road; he wouldn’t let them get lost on this journey. Not when they already had this to contend with. And he listened to the other man’s admission that he had, in fact, been jealous in his behavior. That confirmed the connections that Sean was now making regarding everything. He sighed wearily at hearing Griff called his partner, and he replied, “I’m sure he will; he was only trying to be friendly, and I think he would appreciate an apology. But he isn’t my partner; we’re not dating any longer.” Which was the additional absurdity in all of this; there was no longer any reason for Josh to be jealous.

Sean wet his lips, since this would be the longest he had spoken since the car ride began. “Do you remember what I told you about the nightmares I used to get?” The nightmares of drowning, the falling dreams that were common enough but then ended with him hitting the water and gasping for air, only to have water fill his lungs and burn him from the inside out, before he died. Living with him when he had the dreams and the insomnia had made Josh privy to that information. “I stopped having them for a time. Instead, I dreamed about being drawn and quartered.”

While his friend wasn’t an expert on dream symbolism, he assumed he could understand the implications of that imagery.

“I’m not telling you this to hurt you, but I need you to understand. I’ve been keeping this to myself for so long.” He sighed then, turning to look at the other man; his expression was open, non-judgmental, despite the contents of his words. “For a long time, I thought there was something inherently wrong with me. That I was killing the person who meant most to me in the world, and I was afraid.”

[Joshua Bernstein]

Josh wasn't looking forward to apologizing to Dr. Jones. He hated apologizing. But if he didn't apologize he would feel worse, and he really clearly had been in the wrong in this situation.

He wasn't expecting to hear that the Welshman and Sean were no longer dating, however; that revelation caused even more knots in his stomach. Not only had he been horrifically rude to Griff, he'd ruined Sean's relationship in the process. Because he couldn't handle the fact that he'd already ruined his own.

"Oh." He said after a moment, and then, "I'm sorry." Sorry that yet another of Sean's relationships fell through, sorry that it was his fault, sorry that he'd been deliberately hostile to someone who was trying to be his friend. "If ahh if you don't mind, could you umm give me his number sometime? I don't know how else to get in touch with him to apologize."

Then the point came, the revelation that Sean's dreams had shifted to a different kind of death. And no amount of reassurances from the telepath could stop him from shifting again, guilt eating him up inside.

"I had no idea." He whispered. And how could he? Sean had never told him. He'd mentioned the drowning, but never the other. "There was never anything wrong with you. I was scared because I was losing myself and I didn't know how else to deal with it."

Because even then the act of discussing the problem was terrifying.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

“It’s all right.” Truly, it was. Sean liked Griff a great deal, but it hadn’t been right at the time; they were still friends. Griff had been kind enough to share his sandwiches and listen to him when he’d come to apologize and had needed a sympathetic ear. “And I’ll be happy to give you his number.” It was programmed into Sean’s phone, and he could give it to the other man at another time. When it wouldn’t interrupt their conversation.

While the telepath had assumed that Josh would feel guilty upon hearing this – and was why he had never mentioned it for the past few decades – it was a necessary revelation; they had agreed to honesty tonight. He turned to look at him again, eyes seeking the other man’s. He spoke to absolve. “I know. I never told you.”

He took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair. “I know you were scared. I hadn’t wanted to make you lose yourself, but what was happening was so natural to me. It hadn’t happened with the other people I’d dated, but none of them had been quite so serious. So I went to Vermont and talked to Robert; he helped to put some of it in perspective, and I vowed to myself to never do it again.”

For what good that had done him in subsequent relationships.

[Joshua Bernstein]

Josh caught Sean's eye and, somehow, managed not to look away despite the anxiety that continued to coil in the pit of his stomach. At least Sean was acknowledging that there wasn't any reasonable way he could have known about his nightmares.

He was uncertain how to respond to the remainder of the confession. He was aware. in an abstract sense, about the telepathic merge because Sean had mentioned it before, but knowing how something worked hadn't equipped him for actually experiencing it, and he'd panicked.

"What did Robert tell you?" He was genuinely curious. From Sean's resolution he would hazard a guess that the older man had told Sean that it was natural but something non-telepaths had difficulty coping with, and really in his case that had been correct. It had been a mixed blessing, really; it was nice, knowing that Sean knew his thoughts. But it was so easy to rely on that, and, after a point, the fact that they spent every second of free time together had been wearing. Not that he didn't enjoy spending time with Sean, he did. And he was as much to blame for their codependency as his friend; after all, he found it painful to be apart too. Even after breaking up, he'd felt ill. But he'd also felt that it was necessary, particularly given his conversation with Matt about healthy relationships.

"I've done nothing but hurt you, haven't I." He realized despondently. Thirty three years of friendship and he'd managed to do all the wrong things. Wasn't that a pleasant revelation.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

The other man’s assessment of Robert’s advice was fairly accurate, given that he hadn’t been a party to the conversation, and he wasn’t a telepath. Sean’s gaze returned to the road and he increased his speed slightly, maneuvering around one of the surrounding vehicles. Because he had promised honesty, he would go into detail about what was otherwise a private conversation. “He assured me that nobody, not even a telepath, could die from a broken heart. He promised that it would get easier with time, and that there was no reason that I wouldn’t find someone to share my life with because he had done that.” Robert had always told him that Sean could do anything he had done. “He told me that my instincts were different but no less valid than any non-psychic’s.”

Then his friend spoke and he immediately turned to look at him, briefly, because he couldn’t keep his attention from the road for too long.

“No, of course not,” Sean said immediately, and he shook his head, denying the suggestion. Josh had managed to miss his point in sharing this; he hadn’t intended to make Josh feel worse about the situation. He wanted them to have a common frame of reference for this discussion, and this was the telepath’s life they were discussing now, his experiences and needs and thoughts and fears.

“You make me happy. I looked forward to every visit when you were still living in New York.” The telepath’s expression was earnest as he met Josh’s eyes. “I was excited when you moved here, although I wished the circumstances were better.” He took another deep breath before he continued, “I’ve been hurt, yes, and I wanted you to know because of what happened the other day. But there are so many good times.”

He shook his head again, wanting to impress understanding on his friend. “If you didn’t make me happy, I wouldn’t react to vehemently to the thought of not being friends.”

[Joshua Bernstein]

As was usually the case, Sean's position was reasonable. There really wasn't any reason to keep him as a friend if his company wasn't desirable.

A small smile formed on his lips, however, at the telepath's reassurances. "I'm sure it doesn't come as a surprise that I convinced mom to move to Vermont because you were here."

He felt much less creepy about that now that he'd been told his friend had been excited, as well. "The retirement communities in the City are horrendously expensive, so I didn't have to rely on your presence alone to convince her. I don't know if she would have accepted the idea, otherwise. She loves you, but ahhh...." But she still hadn't any notion of what Sean's relationship with her son had been. She would not have been pleased had she known.

Oddly enough, now that he'd confessed to his sins, as it were, he felt a sense of relief. It wasn't overwhelming, and there was an undercurrent of anxiety that remained, but it was now clear that even after everything that had happened and everything he'd told Sean, the telepath was still willing to be his friend.

"So...." He wanted to ask where they were going, as he thought he'd just seen a rest stop out of the corner of his eye, and rest stops meant that state borders had been passed. But that might be seen as diverting attention away from the reason Sean had requested this car ride. "Ah, so....I....what....umm....was there anything else you wanted to discuss?"

He didn't think they needed to rehash the other day, but if Sean wanted to he would.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

“I assumed as much,” the telepath admitted. Josh had never said so outright, but there were other options beyond Burlington Vermont for retirement communities. Even outside of the city, there were suburbs in New York, there was Boston, there was Philadelphia...the options were numerous.

He also understood precisely what the other man was saying. Charlotte Bernstein had taken Sean in as one of her own, in a way, and he was fond of her just as she was of him. But he wasn’t her son. He was glad that Josh had manage to convince her, and that, in turn, the other man had been able to move here as well. Even if it had indirectly resulted in his friend’s brutal assault.

Sean knew precisely where they were, and state lines had been crossed; he was unconcerned. And he assumed that his friend could trust him not to take him out to a mysterious cabin ala a mafia hitman, and not to get them lost either.

And because they had covered difficult emotional territory, there was more information available now than there had been before the conversation had begun. That was what emboldened the telepath to say, “I still love you.”

[Joshua Bernstein]

Josh did, in fact, trust Sean not to drive to some remote place and kill him. That was so far outside the realm of what he thought the telepath was capable of that it didn't even cross his mind that might be a possibility.

However, Sean's next words were equally unexpected.

"....What?" He gaped, the question slipping out automatically, though he'd heard perfectly well. Even after everything that had happen, all the pain he'd put Sean through and he still was willing to say that.

He covered his head with one hand and began to laugh, slightly hysterical. If there was one thing he was learning from this car trip, it was that he was his own worst enemy.

"And I felt so creepy and weird being still interested in someone I'd broken up with." He managed after his laughter had died away. "I can't believe this, I....wait, no, I'm sorry. I'm still being creepy, aren't I? I shouldn't assume....if you're only talking friendship love I'll accept that."

[Dr. Sean Neville]

It certainly hadn’t been Sean’s intention to make the other man hysterical, although that hadn’t been outside the realm of possibility. He waited for his friend to process what he’d said; after the other man’s admissions, Sean didn’t have to worry about outright rejection and thus there was no anxiety on his part.

Then, when Josh had apparently processed what he’d said, he managed to talk himself in circles. He turned to look at Josh briefly, and said, “I’m not reading your mind.” That was evident by the fact that he had been surprised by some of what Josh said, and that he hadn’t responded to any of the other man’s thoughts.

“Since I’m not, I don’t know whether you think I wake up in bed with my other friends. I don’t, for the record.” He wasn’t offended, and he was trying to help the other man process this through vague humor.

His lip twitched slightly, although it hardly qualified as a smile. Despite it all, this was too heavy a conversation to smile through, even with a fond declaration. “I’ve told you before that I love you. I realize that it’s happened primarily when we’re drunk or I’m under a great deal of stress, but that doesn’t make it less real.”

[Joshua Bernstein]

It had never crossed Josh's mind that Sean might wake up in bed with his other friends; in fact, he was rather sure he would have known if that happened, since the telepath informed him even of his one night stand with Danny. The implications of this had never sunk in, however. Not until that very moment.

"...Oh." He murmured, suddenly enlightened. He had always been convinced that their was no possibility of romantic reconciliation, that breaking up had made that inconceivable. And yet, if he were interpreting this correctly his friend was telling him that there was.

It had only taken three decades to find that out.

"You know." He offered finally, straightening slightly, "if you...if you were amenable to trying again I would try to communicate better."

That had been the biggest problem, after all, as partners and then later as friends. He could see that clearly now, and he was willing to make that effort, if Sean would accept.