Paranoid (A Beatles Fanfiction)

Sound Of Madness

Brian sat in the waiting room filling out George's medical forums while George was off having God-knows-what done to him. Brian had filled out most of the paper but there was one part that confused him. Brian took the forum up to a nurse that sat behind the waiting room desk.

"Excuse me," Brian said, "I'm Brian Epstein, I'm The Beatles manager and George Harrison was admitted here a while ago. I'm his emergency contact as you know, and I had a question." "Yes?" "Well, under medications, it shows that George is on three medications I've never been aware of that he's been on. He hasn't notified me that there's been a change to
his medication and I'm supposed to know what type of medication he's on." The nurse was confused. "Are you sure he was never on it in the past? He's supposed to notify you if there's any change to his medical history."

She took the clil board from Brian and looked it over. "Mr. Epstein, I'm going to take this back to the Doctor. You've filled out everything so fine but you can't check "okay" on the patient medication part of you don't know what he's on. I'll take this to the Doctor or whoever is working with George and I'll also find out what's going on." Brian nodded. "Thank you, ma'am." And with that she left down a hallway and went up a flight of stairs, hopeful to come back with some information on George.

Brian sat back in one of those uncomfortable plastic chairs that had the large hole cut out in the back. He leaned back and sighed, pissed off to the extreme but trying to maintain his cool.

Why would George not tell him about him being put on medication? Why was George hiding it? Surely to God he must have known to tell Brian if he's on anything. Brian had to deal with Ringo's sleeping pills & pain pills so he was used to having to make sure someone got their medication. Could George not trust him? Why though?

Brian sat and thought for a while, watching the clock and trying to calm down his anger towards George, towards that nurse, towards himself. He wondered if he could blame this on Ringo somehow.

About twenty minutes later, the waiting room door opened and in came three Beatles and a stressed looking roadie. Mal approached Brian first, handing him the keys to his car. "I'm going to catch a ride home. Neil said he'd pick me up. I think I've been coming down with a stomach virus for a while so I'm going to rest up, but call if anything happens." Brian took the keys, "I will. See you later on."

Mal left the waiting room and the second he did, the three ran to Brian and gave him no personal space whatsoever. "Brian, oh my God we have to tell you something." John panicked. Brian stayed calm. "Yes?" John laid the black medicine bag on Brian's lap and said, "We stopped at the hotel. We picked up George's medication just in case the Doctors needed it."

Brian's eyes went dark. "John, how long have you known about his medication?" Six eyes turned to him as he tried to think. "Um, a few months." "Then why didn't you tell me about this!" Brian yelled through gritted teeth. "Well you being our emergency contact and all I thought you would have known!" Brian stood up, shoving the three away from him. Brian's whole demeanor seemed to change. "John! How can you not notify me of something like this! I didn't know!" "Well I didn't know that you didn't know!" John shot back. "So don't get on my fuckin' case, Brian. I don't want to hear about it. I really don't. You're our emergency contact so you're the one who's supposed to know everything about our medications we're on or even how much bloody acne cream one of us has to take!"

Everything was silent. John's voice softened. "It's not my fault, it's not yours, it's George's fault for not telling you in the first place." Brian nodded, "And the bleedin' second he wakes up we're going to confront him about it. I can't believe how selfish he is for hiding something from us."

"Uh Bri?" Ringo spoke up, "You may want to look at the medication before you make plans of goin' in and yellin' at him. He could be triggered." "Triggered?" "Uh yeah." Paul mumbled. "You see, we looked at George's medication on the ride over and...well. He's on some heavy stuff." John rolled his eyes. "Since Paul can't spit it out, I'll say it. Brian, George is on three medications for depression, anxiety and...fuck, schizophrenia. He hallucinates at night and day, develops these weird habits and things and just...there's so much shit he does and doesn't do. I've always thought he was depressed but damnit, schizophrenia? But yeah...you can look at the medication yourself."

Brian was shell shocked. He stood like a stone, or a log. Just, still and numb. Almost unresponsive. "Paul," he whispered, "hand me the bag." Paul was quiet for a second and then stuttered, "Uh, um, okay." Paul stuck the bag in Brian's hand and gingerly, Brian zipped open the bag and pulled out three bottles. His eyes seemed to look straight through the small words in-written on the bottles. Brian finally snapped out of whatever the hell he was sucked into and sighed. "Boys..." he started, "I'm so, so sorry. I see you four as sons and I can't believe I've failed one of you like this. I can't believe I never noticed anything or asked any of you how you were or have even attempted to see how you're doing or feeling. I'm just...fuck."

Brian slumped down on a nearby chair and allowed a few tears to fall. "And it's my fault," he sniffed, "my fucking FAULT!" Brian stood up and threw the bottles, some pills flying out of the Paxil. "Brian!" John yelled. Brian tried to gain control of his breathing again. Failing. "I'm so fucking sorry." He sobbed. "I should have went through his things or found that stupid little bag earlier and we wouldn't even be here and maybe if I had been there more he wouldn't be here and..."

John did something that surprised everyone; he ran forward and hugged Brian. He grabbed him tight and shoved his head right into the crook of his neck. "Brian," John whispered, "it's not your fucking fault, okay? It's George's. And we're not gonna force him to speak or explain anything as soon as he wakes up. I've never had to deal with someone that has these problems George has so it's going to be an experience in it's own, alright? You do so much for us, Ep. And we could never repay you enough. You are a father to us. And you haven't failed. It's not your fault. Please just calm down. We need to be strong for him. We could easily trigger something if we act like emotional wrecks around him. Hell I want to cry as much as anyone here but someone has to be strong for George." Brian pulled back a bit and managed a small smile, "You're right." Brian sniffed and John put an arm around him while he calmed down.

Moments later, the nurse that was there earlier came running down the hallway to the waiting room. She stopped a moment, looking down at the ground of pill bottles and a few pills laying about. She was going to ask what happened but now was not the time.

"Mr. Epstein, please follow me and hurry. Something just happened with George. The emergency lever was pulled a few moments ago in George's room and I'm not sure what's going on."

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