dreamlikenewyork | "When I look into my nephew's eyes..."

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"When I look into my nephew's eyes..."

Who: Sam and Justin Campbell with a side order of Dad
What: When the going gets tough, you still have to uncle
Where: Older Children's Unit, Mount Sinai
When: After THIS

Despite the fact Sam had been feeling shellshocked, numb, and alone, ultimately, there was someone more important in all of this than how he was feeling. Justin. His beautiful, yet damaged, nephew who needed more love than he would ever understand he deserved. It was common place now that Justin tended to hate being in the hospital after his suicide attempts. It was like shackling him to a strong reminder that he was sick and not normal. This time, there was no choice but to keep him in. He had an infection in his blood, that had come from an infection somewhere else in his body. He had been ill, but didn't recognise the good from the bad because he had become acclimatised to feeling poorly. Sam's heart felt like it was broken, and in a way he wasn't sure he had really felt before. Justin nearly committed suicide in front of him, and as well as the same pain they all felt with his previous near-misses, Sam suddenly felt like his own life had a big hole in it...

It had opened the healed over wounds inside of losing his own three unborn babies.

He just hadn't said that to anyone. He knew it was low down on the priority, all things considered. And he was more than okay with that. He expected to shake the grief once it crept back inside him. He really thought he had peace over it all, thinking of it as a 'not meant to be' sort of thing. Apparently life and death was never as simple as that. Apparently the near-miss death of your brother's beautiful son was a stark reminder of these things.

He knew he had to go see Justin. Only, when he got there, Mark met him in the hospital corridor and said Justin had passed out in the Rainbow Room in the middle of all the kids. Instead of the sick little munchkins getting freaked out, however, Justin came-to with a little guy who worshipped him as an idol hugging his arm, rubbing his chest and telling him it hurt less when you were sleeping. Justin ended up finally crying over what he had been through, and most of the staff were crying too. Justin was put back to bed and didn't want to see anyone. Mark said he and Gen were trying to respect that for him for a little while, but thought that seeing Sam might help, considering he had been there with him through the worst.

Justin wasn't sleeping when he got there, but he looked wrecked. His iPad was lying on his chest, and he had his earbuds in, probably listening to music to help him. It was his best form of therapy. When he saw Sam, he took the earbuds out. Sam gave him a soft smile and went over to sit on the side of his bed. "I love you, mate. I'm glad you could stay with us. The world wouldn't be the same without you."

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Justin gave a tired nod when his Uncle Sam was there beside him. Despite how messed up he could be with the bipolar, one thing he did know now was that he was very much loved and very much cared about. After spending years with a mother who didn't give a fuck about him, and grandparents who didn't know how to care for him in the way he needed to be cared for, he didn't take any of this for granted. It was just that after these episodes, he didn't really want to be touched or analysed. He needed time separate from everything so his mind could shut down and reboot itself. It was the only way he could cope. As much as people wanted to be near him and see for themselves that he was still breathing, it was just too overwhelming for him.

"I'm sorry I scared you, Uncle Sam," he finally said, the words barely more than a whisper. "I don't remember it all, but I remember when you held my hand. You held it, and you told me I wasn't alone, and you weren't going to let go. I wish I could stop it when I get sick like that. Everything in my head is just... going all so fast, and I want it to stop. I want everything to stop."

"You have nothing to be sorry for, sweetheart. Not a damn thing. I know you wish you could turn it off, but you can't. All of us, we just have to deal with it. Just like you deal with it. You're fighting an incredibly hard battle, mate. I know it feels like you're fighting it alone, but I promise you, we're all here for you. No one is angry at you. Not me, not your dad, no one. I know sometimes it can feel like you're alone, but you aren't," Sam promised, taking Justin's hand to hold. He was glad Justin had some sort of concept that Sam was there with him. Initially, he had been able to tell Justin realised he had been up there on the roof with him, but as soon as Sam tried to get him away from the ledge, everything exacerbated badly.

He was such a sweet kid. Sam loved him more than words could say. He really was Mark all over. It was understandable that he could be mistaken for being Sam's son too, considering he and Mark were really identical. If Sam kept his hair shorter like Mark did, there would be cases of mistaken identity all over again. All Sam saw when he looked at Justin was Mark. "How's your head feeling now? You dad told me you passed out visiting with the kids in the Rainbow Room, so I know you must be feeling physically rough."

"Tired. My head feels tired," Justin mumbled. He looked down at his Uncle Sam's hand holding his, and swallowed. He didn't say anything else for a length of time that could be considered an awkward silence in any other circumstance. His family did understand this stuff, though. At least, they understood the external of it the best he could. He knew by now that everyone probably knew what happened, and that was a big reason why he walled his emotions and needed time to run and hide for awhile. He needed the still and the silence, so he could hear his mind again, when it wasn't all fast-forwarded static he could make no sense of; just wanting to run away from it.

His grip tightened around his uncle's hand, going from a tender hold to a desperate grip. "Uncle Sam, I... can I tell you something? There's something I..." He cut off with a tiny shake of his head. Eyes averted downwards, but despite the eye contact being broken, he was still clutching at his uncle's hand. "Everyone thinks I'm better. I'm a failure."

Of course his head felt tired. It probably felt akin to a physical serious head injury. Just because there was no signs of injury outwardly, that didn't mean the pain and suffering wasn't there. Sam had been planning on following that line of conversation with his nephew, keeping it easy for Justin to follow, but at the same time, reminding him he was still on his side, no matter what happened. That was why he had come here. Seeing Justin now like this again, he knew deep in his heart he couldn't just up and go back to Doctors Without Boarders, despite feeling like that was for the best because he was lost and lonely here. The first time, no one knew about Justin. Mark hadn't had a heart attack, and was trying to do his best to be there for the son he never knew. Everything had changed now.

But then Justin was trying to say something to him here, and Sam could see it was something serious. "You can tell me anything, mate. Anything, anytime. Big, small, in between." Justin's grip was firm, with a desperate strength that he didn't look like he should even have right now. That told Sam even more that this was hard. "What do you think you've failed at, sweetheart? No one's going to be mad or upset. You can tell me."

Justin let go of his uncle's hand then, and before he could talk himself out of it, he pushed the hospital blankets down and slowly balled the hem of the gown up into his hands to pull it up. He had boxer-briefs on, but surrounding his underwear, across his upper thighs and lower abdomen were ragged slices in his skin. The ones on his thighs were healing up, but one of the deeper wounds on his stomach was red, hot, and badly infected. He started to cry. "I couldn't tell anyone. I didn't want to disappoint anyone. They all think I got better. I keep trying to stop, but I can't. I try to stay busy to stop thinking about it, but it hasn't always worked. I keep screwing up and failing. I'm too much hassle for everyone. If I wasn't here anymore, no one would ever have to worry about me doing this stuff when they think I'm better."

Now he had finally told someone, he couldn't hide how much pain he was in with it. It was burning hot pain at his stomach, but he had just kept covering it up, dressing and undressing for work, over and over. Then he cut more to try to balance out the pain, but when he did, he felt guilty. When he ended up in the hospital and they told him he had a blood infection, he hadn't wanted to let anyone come near him to examine him. He let them do blood and urine tests, but he wouldn't let anyone take his clothes off. He had been hysterical when anyone tried to get close to him, so they didn't push it. Alone, he had changed into the hospital gown. He had been hiding it for a long time now.

Sam was a doctor, and it was hard for him not to immediately panic seeing this. He couldn't forget he was Justin's uncle here when Justin was confiding in him like this, and lock himself into doctor mode. He couldn't hit the nurse call button either to get Nathan right in here to get these wounds cleaned and treated. The one on Justin's stomach was a complete mess, and Sam didn't even need to look at it closely to see it was the source of the septicaemia. All around the wound, the skin was red and inflamed. The wound itself was weeping and deep. Instead, he was going to have to try to juggle two roles here, because even if Justin had a lot of broad spectrum antibiotics being fed into his system via IV here, they had to treat the source if it was this bad.

"You're not a failure, sweetheart. I know that might be hard for you to hear and absorb, but this isn't failure. This is a symptom of an illness, and I know your dad would really want to know. He's on your side, mate. You're a team. He won't want you fighting this alone. That looks really sore, Jus. Will you let me clean it up for you and have a closer look? I'll try to be as quick and as gentle as I can, I promise," he said softly. It had to be extremely painful. Justin hadn't said when he did this, but it didn't mattered. What mattered was he did, and it was badly infected. It needed to be cleaned and dressed. It would probably need ongoing redressings for a little while until the infection cleared. This could have killed him. But that was the last thing Sam was going to say to his nephew right now.

Justin nodded just a little. The tears were still streaming down his face, and he tried to wipe at the, but it was only an automatic response. He couldn't stop them coming right now, no matter how hard he tried. This was something only his immediately family and Will knew about. None of his friends knew, and he had never giving consent for anyone to tell anyone. Generally, he was okay with people talking about what he had been through because in the end, that helped them understand more. It wasn't just him going through this. He knew it was traumatic for everyone he loved too, and he would never begrudge them feeling how they felt. But that was also why he was terrified to tell his dad things, because his dad had a heart attack from stress and worry over him. Justin didn't want to kill his dad.

But this was something he was struggling to cease. He had for awhile. Self-harming was something he had been doing since he was about eleven years old. First it started with deliberately doing things like pressing the fork prongs into his palm while he ate, or seeing what it felt like to burn his hand with a magnifying glass held to the sun. It stepped up to having his showers too hot and cutting his fingers in biology class with the dissecting scalpels. It did eventually elevate to suicidal thoughts that he had all the time and couldn't turn off. They were soon accompanied by racing thoughts, all of bad things that the self-harm helped stop. Or the deep depressions where he felt like his whole body was wrapped in cement and he couldn't move. Those were the days he wanted to kill himself. "I didn't mean for it to get this bad. I didn't know it could make me this sick," he said tearfully, because now he had revealed it, he was terrified hew as going to die from it. A weird concept for someone to understand of a kid who just tried to suicide.

Sam was stroking his fingers softly through Justin's hair. "Shh, I know, mate. I know," he murmuring, kissing Justin's head. His mind was racing now trying to figure out what the next move should be. Justin was a kid at risk of serious harm, so he had a legal obligation to report what he was revealing. He didn't want to destroy the trust Justin had in him as an uncle, though. With that in mind, he knew he needed to work with Justin here, and make sure he still had some power over his own choices. There was nothing worse for a person suffering pain and trauma to have more and more power stripped from them when they already felt like they had none.

"Justin, will you let me tell your dad? I know you don't want to worry him or stress him out because of his heart, but not knowing is so much harder for him than when he knows and can be here for you. All he wants is to be here to care for you, mate." He was examining the worst of the cuts on Justin's stomach. "This must be so painful, sweetheart. Have you not said anything because you feel like you deserve this pain? You need medicine to help. We can get this cleaned up and you'll feel so much more comfortable. You don't have to be in pain," he said, and this time he was choking up, tears misting his eyes.

"It doesn't... I don't..." Justin was trying to explain that, to him, it wasn't just pain like other people felt. But he didn't know how to explain it, so all he managed was the tears coming harder and putting his hands over his face because it was frustrating to not be able to tell other people what was going on in his mind. It was almost like being bound and gagged, where you were trying to talk, but couldn't. Only, it was bound and gagged in his head, where things were broken and scarred. It kept coming back here; a stark and harsh reminder that he was a sick kid with a mental illness and an abusive past. Nothing would ever erase that. He would have times he was better, and even doing really well, where life felt pretty normal... or at least a normal he could cope with. But sometimes too he would lose his grip on everything and fall again, just like now.

The crying was to the point where he couldn't talk. He was just sobbing and still trying to be completely swallowed up by his hands so he didn't need to face anything. He sobbed out a choked, "Okay." As terrified as he always was that he would kill his dad with another heart attack, he really wanted his dad right now. He didn't really want to hide anything from him, he just got scared all the time that he was ruining his dad's life and coming into it was the worst thing he could have done.

The way Justin was crying, Sam was worried he was going to make himself sick. He didn't want to leave his side, but it was vital that he did briefly. He quickly went over to the door of the room and looked out to find Mark still pacing back and forth like he had been when Sam arrived. "Mark!" he called out, gesturing for his brother to come to the room. Mark didn't need to be asked twice before he was coming. Sam wanted to prepare his brother for this, but there was no chance for that. It was better to know what had happened than for Mark to worry about trying to guess what part of his son got an infection bad enough to cause septicaemia.

He just led Mark over to Justin. He put his hand gently on Justin's shoulder. "Justin, your dad's here. We're going to show him the cuts, okay? It's okay, you don't need to be scared. We'll get everything cleaned up and dressed, and get you some painkillers. I know it hurts, kiddo. It's going to be okay." Justin was understandably a mess, but now he had this breakthrough, they could put out all the stops to try to get him back on track. Sam met Mark's eyes with a silent warning to try to keep it together for now. He pulled the hem of the gown up again where it had fallen back over Justin's stomach after he lost his hold of it to hide his face in his hands.

Mark didn't need any explanations of what was going on. He had a sick kid, it was inevitable there would be times that he just needed to get it, without needing everything spelled out. Justin was in tears. Not just crying, but those heartbreaking sobs that Mark had seen him locked in many times before. You never wanted your kid to get to the point where they were in that much pain and that upset they lost the ability to speak because they were crying so hard. Wishing it not to be was pointless when you had a child who had suffered as much as Justin had. He was going to have times where his mind made living just that bit too hard and he lost his footing. It didn't matter anymore who helped Justin have these breakthroughs in his illness during the dark times. Whether it was Mark, or Gen, or Sam, or James, or Nate, or Will... it just did not matter, so long as someone was there to catch him when he fell. This time, it had been Sam, and as angry as Mark had been at himself and let the anger be misdirected to his twin, now, he was so fucking grateful Sam had run to Justin's aid as soon as he heard something terrible was happening.

Seeing the cuts on Justin's stomach and thighs, Mark's breath caught in his throat in a sharp gasp that he couldn't stop. This was it. Justin had been self-harming again, the cuts on his stomach were clearly terribly infected. Mark had been thinking Justin hadn't self-harmed in a long time, but really, it just meant there had been no sign of it. Some parents might zero right in on the wounds and fly off the handle about how terrible they looked. Mark wasn't your general parent. He was one who had been to hell and back with his kid more than once. "Justin? It's okay, son. Come here," he said softly, gently prying Justin's hand from his face so he could fold his son in a tender hug. "I love you. Look at me. I'm okay. I'm not going to have a heart attack. You can talk to me. You can talk to me about anything."

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"When I look into my nephew's eyes..."

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