Oct 7, 2023
Two girlies
Jaylynn Finch -> @frogsforthefrogwar
seen from Bangladesh
seen from United States
seen from Russia
seen from China
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Italy
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from Bangladesh
seen from United States
seen from Canada
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Canada
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from United Kingdom
Two girlies
Jaylynn Finch -> @frogsforthefrogwar
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Sidestep (Fallen Hero), Dr. Finch (Fallen Hero) Additional Tags: Retribution Spoilers, canon typical angst, references to suicidal thoughts, references to established relationships Series: Part 68 of How Not to Fall Summary:
Doctor Finch finally asks the question.
too much sun too soon
fallen hero fanfiction chargestep and therapy. this one is uh, long, sorry! ~4.8k words [ao3]
title from [Best to Hate the Man by Mermaidens]
–––
When Dr. Finch enters the room, she does so carefully. A notebook tucked under one arm, one hand holds a cup of coffee, the other a mug of hot chocolate. The steam curls off in twin trails, gently spun by the ceiling fan. She sets the chocolate down on the coffee table in front of you before settling into her own chair.
“Good morning, Ariadne,” Dr. Finch, smiles. “How have been doing this week?”
You give a weak smile and bend down to take the mug in your hands, feel singe of heat on your fingers contrast against the chill of the A/C. “I’m… I’m still here.”
“I’m glad you are.” You can’t pick up any duplicity there, but it’s hard to believe.
These sessions were supposed to be only once a month. That’s what you promised Ortega. And yet… here you are, two weeks after you last talk with Finch, having made an emergency appointment. After…
After last night.
You curl back into the chair, legs folded under you, bringing the mug close to your chest. “I don’t know that I am.”
Finch already has her notebook open, pen in one hand, coffee in the other. “Did you try the exercises I give you?”
“Yes.” You say immediately, then when Dr. Finch doesn’t say anything you take a sip of hot chocolate, let it burn your throat. “…no.”
Again, that frustrating lack of judgement as Finch watches you. “You’re not sure?”
You almost laugh, jostling the mug. “I don’t– I don’t deserve it.”
“To feel better?” Finch scribbles something in her notebook, the concern in her thoughts is cool, almost calming.
You bite your lip, nod your head.
“What makes you think you don’t deserve to feel better?” Finch glances down to her notepad– Writing? Doodling? Can’t tell from here. But you can still feel her focus on you.
Maybe the chocolate wasn’t the best idea after all. You can already feel the nausea eating at you. “There’s…. there’s a lot things. But…”
Finch waits for you to continue.
You squeeze your eyes shut hard enough to hurt. “I– I– I don’t know how to–” Your voice strains upwards. Sharp note. “To– to talk about it.”
That one’s true enough. You can’t exactly dump everything on this poor woman and expect to get away with it. So much effort to keep everything in, it’s like you lost the key to open the door again. But the rot is reaching critical mass; the stench is detectable from outside, strange pools of liquid leak out under the door.
“Why don’t we practice then?” She glances up at you again. “Whatever’s at the top of your mind. Doesn’t matter what.”
“Whatever’s at the top of…” You bite you lip. You mind’s gone blank now. You could laugh, or cry, or both. “Fuck.” You take a long drink from your mug. Put it back on the coffee table before drawing your knees up against your chest. Wrap your arms around your legs. “D–d–do you… know who–” you flinch, back away from the question, “w–what I am?”
You can only pick up professional curiosity behind Dr. Finch’s polite smile. “I’m happy to listen to whatever you want to share with me, Ariadne.”
“Y–yeah, well… I– I wasn’t…” you’re teetering on the edge here. How many years since you’ve had a conversation like this? Since anyone knew? You’re so tired of hiding. Of being alone. “I wasn’t uh– born a– uh– a woman.”
Finch scribbles something in her notebook and you can feel the anxiety twist in your gut. “Transgender…?”
Grip your legs tighter against you. “Y–y–yeah.”
“I’m honored you’ve decided to share this with me.”
That gets a sharp look from you, again, you can’t pick out any duplicity behind her words. If you were smarter, less desperate, you wouldn’t trust it. “D–d–don’t patronize me.”
“I’m being completely sincere.” Again, to your frustration, she appears to be telling the truth. “This is clearly a difficult subject for you, and I’m honored you’ve trusted me with it.”
“I–I–I just… need you to underst–stand the context,” you swallow, the tightness in your throat a pain, “when I– when I say I… k–k–kissed Ortega.”
“Again?”
You hiss and pull yourself tighter, hide your face behind your knees. “M–m-more then that…”
———
You put up a hand when the server turns to you, “I’m good. Not hungry today.”
“Ari…” Ortega looks over at you with upturned eyebrows. “Have you eaten today?”
You can feel your face heat up as you sink down in the seat. “Fine,” you hiss, “I’ll have the– the same as her.”
Ortega winks at the server again as she turns in her menu. You don’t need telepathy to know she’s got the poor kid hooked. God, you swear she’s gotten even worse compared to the old days.
Or maybe you’ve gotten more sensitive to it.
Ortega leans back with a smile as the server leans. “Feels homey here.”
“Y–you know, you c–c–could do this.” You prop your head up with an arm on the bar, “just retire, g–get a bar…” your smile grows sharp, “flirt with the c–customers all day…”
“I don’t flirt.” Ortega pointedly avoids looking at you as she fails to keep the grin off her face. There’s a twinge and her smile fades, “It’s moot anyway, I’m not retired any more. Blew that chance.”
You look up at her, trying to read the expression on her face. “You ever regret going back?” What do you need to do or say to get her to stop? She quit once, why can’t she quit again? Before she gets hurt.
Ortega’s response however is immediate, “Nope.” She gives you a look, “Do you regret retiring?”
You lean back from the table, focus on looking out the window. You should just lie, say everything’s fine. Nothing to worry about here but then you open your mouth and – “I… I–I don’t know. M–maybe.” You close your eyes and for a moment it feels like the weeks of sleepless nights might catch up with you, pull you under. Then you cringe, shake your head, feel the little pinpricks of pain courtesy your hand digging too tight into your leg.
“Ariadne…”
“D–don’t even start.”
“I’m not asking you to… unretire,” The smile has vanished from Ortega’s face, voice low. “Just to do something about it.”
Watch her from the corner of your eye. Still can’t understand it, why is she trying so hard? What does she care for? “Funny.” Try to keep your face blank, “Thought I was.”
“Is…” Ortega sighs and you catch her glancing around before focusing back on you. “Is the therapy helping any?”
“Oh.” You flinch, turn back from the window to stall for time with a drink from your glass. “I don’t know..” You gesture helplessly at the ceiling. “M–maybe? It’s… it’s a lot. I–I–I don’t want to talk about it right now… S–sorry.”
Still bad enough what you admitted to Dr. Finch. The razors, the bridge, the… all the little iterent thoughts like devils pulling at your head. Whispered promises of stopping, a way out: of ending, of no longer being. Maybe not in detail but – acknowledging it at all… it’s a raw nerve burning in open air now. Ortega’s already bad enough, she doesn’t need to know this.
“It’s fine,” Ortega lies. Always too curious for her own good. “I’m just happy you’re going.”
You narrow your eyes at her, “D–don’t rub it in, Ortega.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” She sips at her beer but her eyes betray the smile on her face.
“Liar.” You drum your fingers on the table, glance over the heads of the crowd towards the back of the restaurant. “How long do you th–think they’ll take?”
Ortega shrugs, a half smile on her face as she watches you. “The Old Fashioned always takes longer,” she explains, as if you could have forgotten.
“I know,” you cut her off, “they make the burger with actual beef.” You and Ortega must have eaten out at Hoots at least once a week those last two years. Too many nights together, just the two of you. This is starting to feel–
“I was feeling a little nostalgic.” Ortega shrugs, still smiling.
You huff and raise an eyebrow at her. “Oh, so it’s y–your fault.”
She laughs, “You ordered it too.”
“Also y–your fault.” You allow yourself a smirk, “You c–can… make it up to me later.” Oh, why did you say that?
A long, slow smile spreads across Ortega’s face until it reaches her eyes, “I wish you’d let me do exactly that.” It’s like she took that wink directed at the server, turned it up to 11 and put you on blast.
“Th–th–that’s not– um…” You bite your lip, and focus on the cars passing by outside, a tinge of heat on your face as your heart races.
“Mmm? Cat got your tongue, Ari?”
You slide down your seat, “J–j–just shut up. Think about w–what you’ll eat.” You hiss.
“Already am.”
You glance up at her and the smile alone is already is too much and then she winks at you and oh god –
You bury your face in your hands. Shouldn’t have taken off the sunglasses, you’re too exposed without them. “J–j–jesus Christ, Ortega…” What were you thinking, trying to flirt with Ortega? The woman has no sense of shame, and you? Far too much. God. Why can’t you be normal?
The laughter rings in your ears long after it ends. “You okay under there, Ari?”
“Oh,” your voice cracks, “j–j–just wishing I was d–d–dead is all.”
“What happened to all that earlier confidence?”
She hasn’t forgotten about the kiss at either the hospital or the beach, it appears. Neither have you, of course. Dreamed even.
“Th–this is– this is different.” Too real. Too out of your control. Ortega is a current and you’re along just along for the ride. “I–I–I’m trying…” You can’t keep doing this. This has to stop. You’re just setting her up for an even worst heartache down the line.
It isn’t fair, really. You’ve cast off their rules and you’re still as powerless as ever.
There’s an uneven smile on Ortega’s face. “Never thought I’d see the day.”
You glare at her, suspicious, from between your fingers. “See what day?”
She’s trying not to smile so brightly. Trying and failing. “Oh, well…” She gestures towards you. “You seem like you’re doing a lot better lately.”
You put your arms down, lean back unimpressed. “And what does that mean?”
“Well, you stopped dressing like a hobo for one–”
You gasp, throw your napkin at her, “W–what was wrong with th–the sweatshirts!?”
Ortega laughs as she grabs it out of the air. “–you certainly seem like you’re keeping busy these days, and…”
“And w–what, Ortega?”
She gives you a sly grin, one hand around her drink. “And you certainly seem to be getting back in shape.”
You feel your face warm up.
“Oh yeah,” she tilts her head towards you, “also, you’re smiling more.”
A hand shoots up to cover your mouth and you narrow your eyes at Ortega’s beaming face. “Shut up,” you hiss. “It’s y–y–your fault.”
“My fault?” Ortega laughs.
“It–it’s because you won’t leave me alone.” You jab an accusatory finger in her direction. “Always f–f–fussing, worrying…” Your hand wilts and you look away, her eyes on you suddenly too much. “And I don’t– don’t want you to worry.”
“Ari…?” Ortega’s voice sounds like she’s a million miles away. “Are you okay?”
You dig your nails into your arm, “I’m f–fine.” Your response is maybe a little too fast. Wince, then after a moment’s silence add: “I’m… glad we’re friends again. When you turn back to her, Ortega is looking straight at you with a small, sad smile. “W–what?”
“Nothing, I’m just… glad?”
“Glad?”
“To have you back?” She shrugs and rubs at the back of her neck. “It’s like I can finally… move on now. I don’t want to be the Marshal that screwed up and got half her team killed.”
Hands fiddle with the napkin in front of you and you don’t quite meet her eyes. “Ortega… It wasn’t–”
“Ari…” There’s a heavy sigh, “Let’s not do this right now.”
There’s a switch. You look up at her, “Julia?”
She straightens up as she looks over your shoulder, “And here’s our food!”
You frown. Let the server deliver the food. Chew your lip as Ortega broadens her smile, laughs a little too loudly with the server. Prod the hamburger in front of you. It’s huge. To say nothing of the generous pile of fries framing it on the plate. There’s no way you’re eating this all in one sitting, Ortega watching you or no.
But you’re getting distracted. “Th–this is new.” You say, once the server has left again.
That gets her attention, “What is?”
“You not w–wanting to talk about something.”
Her response is distant, defensive. “Well, everybody has things they don’t want to talk about.
“I guess th–that’s true.” As much as you want to push this harder, well, “I know I d–do.”
Now Ortega’s picking at her fries, as bad as you. “There’s a lot of shit I regret about back then. Thought I’d have to live with it forever.”
Regret?
She brightens up a little, “But now you’re here. And alive.”
“Like n–nothing ever changed.”
Did that come off too bitter? Ortega winces. “Or…” She twists a fry in her fingers, “maybe everything has.”
“Everything come out alright, girls?” The server is back and you have to fight to keep your face blank as Ortega smiles at him.
“It’s amazing, give my compliments to the cook, won’t you?” She winks and you could swear you feel the boy’s heart rate spike.
“And th–there’s something that hasn’t changed,” you mutter as the server leaves. You’d swear he’d float if he could.
“What?” Ortega frowns, like she doesn’t know what’s going on.
“Flirting with the– with the staff again?”
“What?” Picture of innocence? Please.
You grit your teeth. “Y–y–you know what I’m t–talking about Julia.” You should just drop this. Don’t let her get to you. In fact, why do you even care? You don’t. Care that is. Why would you? Absurd.
She hides her smile with another drink. “Why would you even, hm…”
“W–what?” You voice pitches up, “Even– even what?”
“Ariadne,” her smile is a little too broad for your liking and you can feel your face warm. “Are you jealous?”
“I– I don’t–” You sink down in your seat under Ortega’s full attention. “Y–you flirt with– with everybody. H–h–how am I s–supposed to– supposed to know w–what you mean?”
Ortega stays focused on you, but her expression shifts. Less confident, more guarded. “You can be pretty hard to read yourself, you know.”
You focus on the hamburger in front you, still untouched. Take a breath, in then out. “Th–there’s easy– easier ways of f–finding out.”
The hole of Ortega’s silence against the background dim of the bar feels overwhelming. You’re about to get up, make some excuse of needing to use the restroom when Ortega shifts in her seat too and you freeze. Look up at her.
She catches your eye, holds your gaze. “Alright.” She takes a breath, makes a face as she thinks. “Well, Ariadne, it would appear that I seem to be having a crush on you.”
“Oh.” You sit back down. It feels like you’ve been punched in the lungs, “fuck.” You bury your face in your hands again, feeling lightheaded. You’re going to wake up at any moment now. Right?
Ortega watches you with a wry look, “I don’t know how to interpret that.”
Slam your hands down on the table, narrowly avoid spilling your water. “F–f–fuck! Fine! Asshole! J–jackass! Y–y–you’re h–h–hot! Okay!?”
“Ariadne–”
You’re spiraling out of control now, hands holding on to the sides of your head. “Y–you’re r–r–really p–pretty and– and s–smart and k–kind and– and– and…” You glare at her, daring her to say something. “I–I–I c–c–can’t stop th–thinking about you!”
Ortega blinks. “Wow.”
Your face feels like it’s on fire and you slide down the seat. “F–f–fuck.”
“You went all-in there.”
“F–fuck you.”
“Only if you’re good.”
You blanche and look back up at her.
“I’m sorry, that was hard for you, I get it.” She’s not… smiling exactly, but there’s this soft glow on her face. The way her eyes focus on you and oh god. “Thank you.”
“Th–thank you?”
“For… I don’t know?” She laughs nervously, “For this? For saying something?”
This… this can’t really be happening. This isn’t how you imagined this conversation going in a million years. This isn’t something you deserve, and you’ve got one last card you can throw at her to prove it. “So… w–what about Jane?”
The expression on Julia’s face freezes. “Ah. You… you know about Jane then?”
“D–did you think I– that I wouldn’t?”
She winces, “It’s not exactly come up.”
It’s like grabbing the blade of a knife with your bare hands but you don’t let go. “Y–you go on d–dates to public events, Ortega.”
“Ah. That is true…”
You knew it. You knew this was too good to be true. Why would Ortega ever want to date something like you when there’s someone like Jane? Young, pretty, funnier, able to do things you never can.
“I hope she doesn’t take it too hard.”
Wait, what? You straighten up in your seat. “Huh?”
Ortega rubs her neck, avoiding your eyes. “I guess I haven’t really been fair to Jane. It’s just…”
“Just w–what?” What is she talking about?
“Nothing,” Ortega shakes her head in a way that makes you think it’s very much not nothing.
“W–wait. You’d… your seriously go–going to break up with her?” You feel faint again.
“We were never officially dating or anything,” Ortega protests, “But you or Jane? It’s no contest, Ari.”
“Just like that?” This is too wild.
“Look. You want the truth?” Ortega sighs, takes another drink. “I was trying to get over you.”
“Oh.” Your voice is quiet and your body feels entirely too light. “W–w–well. Th–that worked out, huh?”
The smile returns to her face, “Now I can enjoy fantasizing about kissing you, guilt free.”
“W–w–wait, what?”
———
Dr. Finch watches you with a soft smile as you lapse into silence. “I’m proud of you, Ariadne.”
You snap your head up, “wait? Why?” Fight back the temptation to just dig out the answer yourself.
Finch is writing something in her notebook but she pauses to smile at you again. “In the short time we’ve known each other, you’ve easily spent at least two-thirds of every session talking about Miss Ortega.”
Wait really?
“So,” Finch continues, “it’s been pretty clear to me you care about her a great deal. I’m glad to hear it’s both mutual and out in the open now.”
“B–but…”
“Yes?”
You press your head against your knees, fingers digging into your legs. “She… she doesn’t know.” Nausea again. Hands shaking, breathing a little too quickly.
Finch’s voice is calm, gentle. “Doesn’t know what?”
———
Like old times, Ortega insists on paying for you. You can’t hide the smile during your perfunctory argument. You feel light-headed, but in a good way. Like you could pull a Herald and float an inch off the ground. You don’t put up a fight when Ortega insists you take the rest of your dinner home with you. Maybe you will even finish eating later, like you promised you would.
Ortega follows behind you out of the bar as you gently shove the box into your purse. “Well,” she says, “I think that might be the best dinner I’ve had in months. But you know what would make an even better desert?”
You close your eyes as you knowingly step into the trap. “W–what?”
She glances at you, as smug as anything. “You.”
Even knowing it’s coming doesn’t stop your face from catching fire. You spin on your heel, intending to shush her with your finger. Instead she catches your hand by the wrist. “You’ve got some ketchup on your finger, Ari.”
Some kind of half-strangled squeak comes out of your throat as Ortega kisses the tip of your finger. There’s a flash of a smile at your reaction and she sucks your finger into her mouth – warm and soft and wet and oh fucking christ. You yank your hand back from her, ears burning as you stagger back a step.
Before you can collapse or fall over Ortega grabs your arm again and pulls you towards her and you fall against her instead into the street. “C–c–christ Julia…”
Ortega laughs, “Sorry, was that too forward?”
“J–j–just surprised.” You find yourself laughing too, and then relaxing against her chest, letting her arms hold you up.
“So then…?” She glances down at you, questioning and you find yourself brushing your hair back. Smile a little too widely. She smiles back and tugs you along. Past Hoots, and then down into the alleyway.
Back against brickwork, Ortega framed by the light, holding you there. You put a hand over hers on your shoulder. Heart pounding and you can’t think straight, can’t focus. It’s just you and her and you’re not running away from this, not this time. What have got yourself into girl?
You laugh first, light nervous energy thrumming across your limbs and then Ortega joins in. Laughter melts into touch and breath and you’re really doing this huh? Kissing Ortega again, your lips on her skin, between her teeth. It feels different, not an act of madness, a different kind of electricity coiling in your gut. Julia’s hand at your back, holding you steady, fingers brushing against bare skin under your shirt–
Your heart seizes and you freeze, one hand digging into her arm a little too tightly.
Ortega pulls back, letting go. “Ari? Are you alright? What happened?”
You run your hands down your front, tug your shirt down. Nothing can be exposed, nothing can be showing. “It’s f–f–fine.” Your hands are shaking in betrayal but there’s not a lot you can do about that. You messed up. You screwed up. What were you thinking. You can’t do this. Be this. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
She steps away, giving you space, “It’s obviously not fine, Ari… Did I do something wrong?”
“Y–y–your f–fine!” You hunch down, hugging yourself, struggling to remember your breathing exercises. “It–it–it isn’t your– your fault, I just– I just…” You feel dizzy, nauseous. Almost wish Julia would at least hold you, but she doesn’t, giving you space instead.
“It’s okay, Ari. You’re okay” She’s watching you with worried eyes and it’s a twist of the knife. Impossible not to pretend. You’re damaged. A weirdo, a freak. What kind of person reacts like this? Normal people don’t. People don’t.
How could you forget? What’s wrong with you? You’re a thing, a ghost. You’ve got no business getting involved with Julia like this, and now she can see it. Plain as day.
“It’s– It’s not,” your voice breaks, “I n–n–need to– need to go.”
This was a mistake.
You turn to escape and something pulls your arm, hold you back even as you tense up. Follow Julia’s hand up to her face, worried. Concerned. “Ari, talk to me. Please.”
Shake your hand free, still trembling. “I–I–I can’t. I just– I can’t. I–I’m sorry.”
———
You dig into your leg, finger tracing patterns. “And– and then I j–just ran.”
“I’m sorry that happened.” Dr. Finch says, quiet and honest as ever.
“I–I–I haven’t t–talked to her since.”
“Since?” Dr. Finch tilts her head, mind a careful, infuriating, blank.
“This was… was two w–weeks ago, now.”
“What prompted you to call me last night?”
“I…” You drift off, avoid her looking at you. You don’t want to admit to having stared at the bottle of kitchen bleach a little too long last night. Every attempt you’ve discussed has been safely in the past. Not immediate. What if she suggests something? Alerts someone? You can’t risk it.
So instead you say: “She– she keeps trying to contact me. W–w–wants to talk. About it.”
“I think it would good for you to do that.”
“W–why?” You snap back, “I–I’m just– just a drain on her. And– and now she knows.” You bite your lip. “M–maybe not exactly, b–but that I–I’m messed up. B–broken.”
“First,” Finch scribbles something down. “you’ve been through a lot in your life. That doesn’t make you ‘broken.’ And neither does being transgender. It’s okay to not always ‘be’ okay.”
You stay quiet. It’s easier than arguing. You wish it was true.
“Second, I’ll remind you who got you into this room to begin with. I sincerely doubt that the fact you are struggling at times is a surprise to Miss Ortega.”
This one you can’t leave alone. “I–I’m such a– such a burden on her though.” Not to mention her enemy as Adrestia. Not that you can confess that, even here.
“Has she ever said as such to you?”
You avoid Finch’s gaze. “N–n–no, but– she… she k–keeps saying I w–worry her.”
“And that bothers you.”
You look across the room at Finch, feeling helpless. “Yes?”
“Why?”
Your mouth feels dry, throat tight. You pull at your hair, avoiding look at Finch. “I–I… I don’t know. I…” You laugh, nervous energy overwhelming you. “I–I’m scared?”
“You’re scared of Ortega worrying about you?”
You laugh. “I– I guess I am.”
“Why?”
You stay quiet. Mind locked up in a silent panic. There’s an answer in there someone but it’s too terrible, too painful to grasp.
Finch shuffles some papers. “And now she has expressed interest in a relationship.”
“W–w–well…”
“Ariadne, have you ever been in a relationship before?”
Your heart freezes, and a tight smile forms on Dr. Finch’s face.
“Do you want to be? With Miss Ortega?”
“I… I don’t–” your voice pitches up, throat tight, “maybe?”
“We briefly talked about your being transgender before. Does that have something to do with why you find this so difficult?”
You choke back a laugh before it can turn into a sob. Yeah, sure, that’s one of the many impossibilities about this. You’d forgotten you were using that as the shield to even have this conversation.
Finch’s voice is quiet, “You don’t have to tell her anything you don’t want to Ari–”
“B–but–”
She holds up a finger, “this is clearly a sticking point for you. Perhaps telling Ortega is something you should consider. Once it’s out in the open, you’ll have a better idea how to proceed.”
Tell Ortega? And then where does it stop? You might as well ask her to ship you back to the Farm from the start and get it over with.
“Or… Or…” You grit you teeth, swallow hard. “I c–could just… avoid Ortega forever.”
Finch watches you with sad eyes and she really is trying her best. It’s not her fault she doesn’t have the full picture. “But is that going to make you happy, Ariadne?”
You don’t even laugh as you sink into the chair. “Th–that’s n–never mattered.”
Dr. Finch sighs and shuffles some papers, flipping through her notebook. Her frustration with you clear in her thoughts. “We’re about out of time for today, but I’d really like to continue this sooner rather than later.”
You watch her as she taps a pen against paper.
“How are you for this time next week? Would you be willing to meet then?”
Part of you wants to say no, but… she wants to help. She… cares somehow. As nonsensical as it is. It’s not like you’ll be busy that day now that you’re avoiding Ortega. Come to think of it, Ortega is sort of avoiding you too. It’s been a while since Jane’s seen her at the training dojo. Not looking forward to that conversation.
“Ariadne?” Dr. Finch is looking at you.
You cough, “Th–that’s fine. I’d… I’d like that.” Are you lying or telling the truth? You can never tell anymore.
Pssst...Dr. Finch wears polonium underpants.
I love @frogsforthefrogwar s Jaylynn so much! (Fixed with the proper name)
Session Number
Fandom: Fallen Hero: Rebirth (all disclaimers to @fallenhero-rebirth)
WC~ 2700
Pairings: Referenced Flystep (Herald/Richard)
Tags: your regularly scheduled therapy break, Dr. Finch, farm headcanons, retribution spoilers, safe for work, discussions of self worth, shaky descriptions of psychology
Dr. Finch is interested in Richard’s relationships with other people
-
Dr. Finch shifted, adjusting her legs and crossing them. Ran a hand over her notepad as though it could help smooth down those sharper bits that they kept snagging on. Richard could follow the line of thought on her mental map steadily enough to see where it was headed. Where the last stop for that session would be. If he let it end there.
Ah, beans.
“We haven’t spent too much time discussing your partner,” she opened with, giving him a quick glance up from her notepad. And then added on quietly: “We don’t need to use names, if you’re not comfortable with that,” but she knew. Finch wasn’t the sort to spend her time watching gossip tv shows, but she went to the grocery store. Newsstands and food stalls to grab a cup of coffee occasionally. And sometimes the headlines in the gossip rags propped out front of the checkout line were too bright to miss.
At least she had the decency to let him try and wiggle out from it. Richard felt his hands twist hard and could do nothing to stop them.
“Nope. We haven’t,” mouth tight and not poisonous yet. Yet. His tongue was filing itself down against the edges of his teeth—sharpening itself. Just in case. Of. In case of what? He wasn’t sure.
Dr. Finch paused, scribbled a few words, and then looked back at him. “We don’t need--,” she began to repeat again, silenced by his hand waving dismissively.
“We can talk about it,” which earned him a long silence from her. A gentler movement as she set her notebook aside. A sort of olive branch, were it not for the fact that Richard knew how keenly her memory worked if and when he didn’t slide in to remove his mistakes after a session. It was a display; she’d make her mental notes all the same. Still. It was appreciated that she was at least. Richard sighed. “What do you want to know?” and Dr. Finch smiled kindly, relaxing back into her chair.
“We can start with just telling me about them,” she suggested. There was an open door in that sentence, waiting for Richard to step through it. “How the two of you met, what you like about them. You’ve been together for almost as long as you’ve been coming to see me,” which was a sentence that barged into Richard’s mind, not even bothering to wipe it’s feet. Tracking mud and leaving a stink with it.
“Don’t act like you don’t know who he is,”
Finch had the decency to look sheepish as she nodded. “I didn’t want to make assumptions,” a mild defense, said more for the saying than for anything else. “Although, for the record, me knowing who he is doesn’t tell me much about why you like him,”
Fair.
“We met through Ricardo, a while ago,” timelines could be dangerous for someone as observant as Doctor Finch. “The first time I met him I thought he was obnoxious. All this…peppy boy scout energy,” the eye roll couldn’t be contained but Richard did his best to minimize it by looking over at the far wall. “He was just. He felt. Too bright, if that makes sense,”
Apparently it didn’t. Or Dr. Finch wanted an excuse to needle a bit more at that statement. “Can you explain what you mean by too bright feeling?” and. Alright, she made the mental map shift a bit to accommodate ‘bright’ as though he meant quick witted. With a question mark next to it. The request for explanation was a valid one.
“I mean. Have you ever gone,” he trailed. “Like when you leave a movie theater in the middle of the day. You go from this dark room where your eyes have adjusted and then step out into the sun—you can’t see straight and have to flinch and squint because everything’s too bright,” which didn’t help very much, but Dr. Finch adjusted the map again, plotting out a different route. And then waiting to see what he would say next. “So. So he was this sunshiny, annoying little poster boy. All blonde hair and Prince Charming smile. Like he’d stepped out of some PR manager’s wet dream. I thought he was fake and naïve and I didn’t like him very much when we first met,”
She smiled encouragingly. “And clearly that changed,” a softer nudge, one that made him snort.
“It did. After a while,” trying to parse out how much was too much to tell and how to. “I wanting to start working on trusting people,” a good mile marker, one that could offer Dr. Finch a more solid timeline to work with. Figure out the speed of the conversation with some quick mental math and. And reaching down for the clipboard again, to start writing her questions in case she misplaced any of them along the journey. “And he wanted to hang out,” he shrugged, deliberately avoiding anything that might key her more into the fact that he wasn’t just some old friend of Ortega’s. She already had her suspicions about who he might have been in a past life—no need to give her more to work with there. “Which…was hard. Because he really was. Is that bright and shiny. I mean, he’s not perfect, but,” he bit the bullet, stinging his teeth. Spit it out onto the carpet to sit between them, smoking and volatile. “Alright,”
“Alright?” Dr. Finch echoed, curiosity and caution lacing the word.
“I hated him when I first met him,” dredging up the past with an ancient net from depths he’d rather lie about and say didn’t exist. “It wasn’t just dislike. I hated him for how he made me feel about myself,”
To her credit, Dr. Finch didn’t immediately jump on that admission, instead her mind trying to sort into place the plethora of sources the hatred could come from. Coupled with what they’d been discussing of his ‘family life’ and ‘childhood’ she. Well, it was understandable that she’d think that.
“it wasn’t because he’s a guy,” Richard shuffled that answer out the door. “It was…. he felt shiny and clean. Fresh out of the box and worth every penny. And I’m,” he made a gesture with his hands, as though he could shuffle himself out of the door alongside Dr. Finch’s assumed homophobia. “Not. I never have been. So, I hated him for a while, so much so that,” how to say it without. The words stuck in Richard’s throat. “I got into a fight and ended up trying to hurt him,”
“A fight?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” quick and sharp. Forcing out another sigh. Ah. “But it was ugly and petty of me—not a shock I know, I’m such a friendly and open guy otherwise,” trying to mend any cut he may have made with light sarcasm. Dr. Finch’s attention stayed hard.
“And he still wanted to spend time with you afterwards?”
“Surprised me too,” and at least that could be honest. “He was mad about it; it’s not like he just let me—I apologized about it, but I don’t deserve him forgiving me for it,” too quiet. Too much towards. He cleared his throat and continued before Dr. Finch could open her mouth. “I still feel that way,” an admission that drug its claws in deep through the thin barrier of his throat. “Not hating him for it, obviously but. Like. I’m not putting him on a pedestal, I know it sounds like I am. But he’s just a better person than I am and I’ve. I can’t even compare to him, you know? I wouldn’t even dream of treating myself the way he treats me,”
There was no sign of acknowledgement from Dr. Finch. Not for a while, as she carefully wrote out her thoughts and pressed her lips thin. She knew about his issues with self-worth, so that wasn’t too surprising for her to hear about. And even though he’d been careful, some pips of recognition fired along her mental pathways. Reminding her of half caught whispers about trying to hurt himself. And worse.
“When did you first start feeling differently towards him?” she asked carefully.
Richard swallowed. “When we started hanging out together. Just us. And. I guess he was just,” the claws in his throat caught and began twisting. “He was happy to see me. And I couldn’t figure out any good reason he could have to actually want to be around me, when I kept being so rude and petty to him, but he kept. Showing up, kept expecting me to keep showing up. And we went to get coffee, nothing. Nothing big,” there was a pressure on his legs that his brain dimly recognized as his fingers gripping his thighs just above the knee. “It was just little things and it. I felt. It was nice to be around him. I felt better around him. Like I could be happy,” and that was too much. “Which I know is fucked up,” the profanity catching her attention. “Sitting here talking about how I hated him and how disgusting I am for wanting to stay with him even when I know,” Getting it out in the open how selfish it was of him not to call the whole thing off. Not to break it up and let Daniel. Let him.
“Richard.” Harsher than normal. Softening as she spoke. “There is nothing shameful or disgusting about wanting to feel happy,”
“There is if you’re ruining other people’s lives with it,”
A small pause. “What makes you think that you’re ruining his life?” quiet and measured. “Has he ever said anything to that effect?”
“No,” miserable and strained coming out of his chest. But it wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t like she knew. Could only work with what he told her and he certainly wasn’t about to. To. “But if he were with someone healthy—someone who wasn’t so broken, then,”
“You are not broken, Richard,”
“Says the woman getting paid to fix me,” too bitter but he couldn’t stop it. Dr. Finch took in a slow breath, not responding for a moment. They’d been over that before; it remained a sticking point even though he could see in her thoughts that she cared. Something in him continued to rail against it and scream that it was just her job. As soon as he walked out the door and his time was up, her willingness to deal with him would be over. Which was a good thing, ha. Proved she was a professional.
Which was when she hit him with a surprise hair pin turn. Not uncharted territory by far, but certainly not a destination that had been on her map. “From what you’ve described, and what you’re saying you feel with Herald, the way your family treated you has made it very difficult for you to know that you’re worthy of love,”
Well. That wasn’t fair. Because obviously. But admitting that she was right came with the admission that of the second half of her statement. That.
He’d left his face unmonitored. And she wasn’t stopping. “When it comes to these people in your life, Ortega and,” a slight pause “Herald. You become very agitated with yourself when you describe their roles in your life, as though the affection you feel for them is a source of negativity and shame,”
The way his stomach wanted to drop into his feet was sickeningly slow. A long and hideous slip. Not a surprising one—because in what way didn’t the Farm fuck him up. It felt like acid on his tongue.
“And?” he felt Finch’s mind start to gather itself. A little bit of tension winding itself tighter and tighter.
“And I believe that it’s fairly clear those feelings stem from fear,” she said gently, setting the clipboard down on the table. Speaking slowly and clearly. A presenter giving her final speech. “The first people in your life who were meant to show you love failed you. You describe your family as hating and resenting you, and that it continued well out of childhood. It set a precedent for and confirmed your developing emotions that you were unworthy of being cared about. That you didn’t have worth. And now that you’re an adult, you have no way of reconciling it when people do care about you. There’s medical evidence that shows if the neural pathways responsible for feeling safety and happiness aren’t reinforced at an early age, that they can literally degrade. Which means experiencing those feelings later on are not only much more difficult but are uncomfortable and even distressing. It can lead to a fear response,” a slight adjustment in her mind because, oh god, ah beans, his hands were clenched too tightly and he couldn’t sit still and. “None of those things are your fault. And it isn’t your fault now that you struggle with these feelings,”
A longer silence. No remark as he tried to relax his hands, only to find crescents of skin pulled up from his palms and the beginning beads of blood. He clasped them tightly together and ignored the sting.
“Was all that meant to convince me that I’m not broken?”
“It was meant to tell you that there are reasons you feel so scared and threatened by people caring about you, and that none of them are because you are unworthy of being loved,” she said, quiet and careful. Richard snorted. Full of rancid and bitter.
“Fine. So what?” there were hundreds of other questions beating at his teeth and he clenched down hard against them. What would she have to say when it wasn’t just a fight—that he’d hurt Daniel badly enough to send him to the hospital. To give him nightmares that went on to this day. That he’d lied to Ortega for years and still couldn’t find it in him to not want to. To not stop wanting to.
“So,” Dr. Finch began, drawing on her reserves of patience with a quiet sigh. “It means that for a long while, you’re going to continue feeling like you don’t deserve the things that make you happy. That you don’t deserve having anyone care about you. The good news is those pathways can be rebuilt. Those feelings can be learned again,”
Sure they could. By someone who was actually human. By someone with a functioning brain and not a malfunctioning. Someone who had had a childhood and not a programming chip, because real childhoods meant external forces. Teachers. Bus drivers. People from outside who would have treated him like a normal. Little bits and pieces. ‘The pathways can degrade’. As if they’d ever existed in the first place.
Apparently his silence went on for too long. “This has been an intense session, Richard. How are you feeling about it?”
He pressed his lips tight. “… angry,” and an even harder and cruel sounding bark of a laugh. “Which just confirms your theory, doesn’t it? The only way I know how to react to things is by breaking down and sobbing or by getting ‘agitated’,”
Not a full break. “It does help confirm it, Richard, yes,” measured and even. Clearly not wanting to upset him any further, but not willing to. To. “I won’t lie to you. Working on this will be difficult. It might be painful and frightening,”
“And what makes it worth it? What if,” couldn’t keep looking at her, had to turn his head down to the carpet. “What if you’re wrong? What if you find out something about me and it turns out that my family was right? And that I don’t deserve to be happy,” part of him registered her movement. “What if it turns out there’s no fixing me because I really am that awful?”
“That isn’t going to happen,” confident and clear and making him, for a brief second, want to lash out at her. “I can’t make you feel like it is going to be worth the struggle. And it isn’t going to be a magical switch that flips, and one day you’ll wake up and be able to accept that people do care about you. But you’ve made it this far—I don’t think you’re going to give up now,”
Back And Forth
Fandom: Fallen Hero: Rebirth (all disclaimers to @fallenhero-rebirth)
Pairing: Flystep (Herald/Richard)
WC~ 2700
Tags: spoilers, headcannon heavy, time shift, Dr. Finch, Herald, therapy sessions, references to mental illness, discussions of violence
Richard doesn’t want her dead.
-
Two months earlier
-
Dr. Finch had left the windows of her office open. Warmish sunlight filtered in, along with the general sounds of the city. Car horns, shouting. Construction workers. The smells of hot pavement and exhaust.
“I think we’re ready to start discussing your family life, Richard,” she crossed her legs and adjusted the notepad on her knee, balancing it.
Richard allowed the groan out of his mouth without any attempt to censor it. “Really?”
“Yes, really,” she replied, patient and soft. “You’ve been doing a good job of evading questions about them,” a light poke. She had no idea. It left a taste of stale moth balls in his mouth to do it, but he’d been wiping clean any mention of ‘family life’ at the end of each session it dared to surface in. Made her think, and she easily accepted, that he became fidgety and visibly upset at their mention. It wasn’t far from the truth of what actually tended to happen. “Whether we like it or not, the people who raised us will always have an impact on our adult lives,” like reading from a text book. Because she knew he relaxed more, became more open, when there was a degree of separation. That slight separation was erased. “Tell me a little about them, anything you feel comfortable saying,”
Anything he felt comfortable saying? The desire to remain stubbornly silent came and went. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d plucked memories out of her head. Richard resigned himself to feeling slimy for the rest of the day and sighed, leaning forward to put his elbows on his knees.
“It was strict,” he offered up. Not fully a lie, as if it would have made a difference.
“In what ways?” Finch prompted when he remained quiet. He shrugged and her brow furrowed slightly before coming to the conclusion that he wasn’t being deliberate. “Were there things like time schedules you had to keep?” giving an example and preparing her pen to make any notes about what he could offer her.
“Yeah,” Richard snorted hard and debated how he wanted to fit reality into a nicely shaped box. “They didn’t allow any deviation from it. Everything was on the schedule from how long you had to eat to when you were allowed to go to the bathroom,” the pen began moving. Quickly.
“How old were you when your parents first put you on a schedule like that?”
“As soon as they could enforce it,” Finch’s mind placed that as early, during the developmental stages of childhood. Her notes were a bit sloppier in their speed. And then they slowed, the doctor aware that her reactions were being observed.
“Did you have any free time. In the schedules your parents made you follow?”
“No,” he shook his head and fought back another bitter laugh. The idea of free time in the Farm was. Well, it felt absurd. What would he have even done with it? Watched the other Regenes go about their day? Watched the scientists or guards or trainers? Stared at the ceiling and dream of escape. And. Ah, well. Why not say so? “There was nothing I could have done even if they did give me time to myself,” Dr. Finch’s pen paused.
“We are talking about when you were a child?”
“Sure,” sort of. Childhood meant something different when the body you were using wasn’t already going through puberty while your mind was just coming to terms with shapes and the names of colors.
“Most,” Dr. Finch tried to slot that together. Richard caught the edge of needing to reread her chapters on child psychology before their next session. It wasn’t her specialty, after all. “Most children, when left alone, will play. Either with their environment or with imaginary friends. They might draw or come up with songs to occupy themselves,” the unspoken question asked if he did any of those things. Richard obligingly shook his head.
“Even if I’d had time to do anything like that, I don’t think they would have let me,” more. More deliberately slow note taking. “And before you ask, ‘playtime’,” he made air quotations “Was not part of the schedule,”
“What was part of it?” she leaned back in her chair then, a calculated gesture. Showing him that he had the floor. “When you were, let’s say, seven years old?”
“Wake up at six am,” he shrugged. “Brush your teeth, shower, go to the restroom, eat breakfast. Go,” he paused for half a second, smoothly disguised as needing a sip of water. “To class. Study and practice. Dinner, brush your teeth, go to the restroom. Go to sleep at nine at night. Rinse and repeat,” Dr. Finch finished writing a question for next session.
“A pretty full schedule,” meant to be an agreement. “Were you allowed to have friends over?”
“No,” and he could see the questions being loaded like bullets. Rapid fire. All aimed at him.
“Do you feel you had many friends?”
“I wasn’t allowed to have any friends,”
He stopped her before she could continue, picking a select few from the lineup. “We didn’t celebrate holidays. Or birthdays,” her thoughts turned. He followed right along, momentum more than an urge to reveal information driving him. “Punishments were regularly enforced. And no,” one she hadn’t been thinking of, but added a nice sarcastic flair. “Mommy didn’t ever hug me,”
Dr. Finch gave him half A Look that slid into something else. Fitting something in. He couldn’t see where. “Were you being facetious? Or did your parents never hold you as a child?”
The snort finally broke out. “No. God, no,” shaking his head and looking at the ground. Just in time to hear the pen back to its quick scribbling. “Skin to skin contact was grounds for,” a longer pause between the two of them, Dr. Finch’s mind scrambling but needing to let him finish. Forcing herself not to complete the thought for him in case it went somewhere she wasn’t expecting. Somewhere she was dreading. “Nothing good,” he ended lamely. Too close for comfort. Let her scrabble, for a moment.
His hands twisted over themselves, palms sliding over palms over the backs of his hands. Dr. Finch’s mind offered up a revelation for her own notes. It was an unkind one. Humans, especially children, needed touch. Things didn’t develop correctly when it was denied.
“Were you feel like you were close with either of your parents?” careful treading.
“No. As far as I’m concerned, I didn’t have a father,” which Finch noted as perhaps leading to his resentment towards authority figures. “And I hate my mother. I hated her then, too, but I didn’t know how to articulate it,”
“Did things change as you got older?” For better or worse. Her voice was quieter now. The things she knew about him, that she was allowed to remember about him, were surface level even for a therapist. He was out of the closet. He had trust and self-esteem issues. Alcohol abuse that he allowed her to think was slightly worse than it really was. She knew he struggled with suicidal thoughts from time to time. And she knew he knew Ricardo, a connection she had theories on but had never tacked down for certain. The chance to ask questions about his formative years was a rare one, in her mind.
Richard’s mouth moved without him telling it to. The half lie easy. “I ran away once. When I was a teenager. Spent some time on my own and got to experience…anything outside of their world. Made friends, even. Even though I was terrible at it,” he bit his lower lip, harder than he intended to. “I felt like I. Like I was learning who I was as a person for the first time. And then they found me, and dragged me back,” voice cracking despite his attempts to keep it level. Eyes still trained on the ground by her feet. “And things were a lot worse after that,”
She didn’t ask how, although she wanted to.
She didn’t ask for examples of how he was punished, but her mind was creative enough to offer up plenty of options.
Instead she asked, setting her notepad to her side, “Do you ever have contact with your family now?”
“No. They,” he took in a shuddering breath. One that signaled either he finish up or start crying. “They keep trying to contact me. To find me. They still want me to come back,” he clenched his teeth and couldn’t make himself relax his jaw. “And I refuse to,”
She didn’t say that that may have been for the best, because that wasn’t her professional opinion. Her professional opinion was:
“I think that’s enough for today, Richard. Let me get you another tissue,”
-
Daniel’s hand carried the weight of the world and brought all of it down on Richard’s shoulder.
Every cell in his body urged him forward. She was right there for goodness sake. Vulnerable. Weak. If not for Daniel’s hand, pinning him straight through to the core of the earth, it would have been too easy. To reach out with his hand. Reach out with his mind. And rip her apart, damn the consequences. Who needed revenge when she could be dead? So what if they always claimed it would kill him too? It wouldn’t be worst lie ever told. Certainly not by their standards. And if it was true?
If it was true.
That burying his hands deep into her brain and pulling would kill him too? Would. It would. Would it? Be so terrible? At least then Ricardo would have something tangible to…and Danny could mourn and then move on with his life. Could take care of. The idea of Edith waiting for him to come home, without ever recognizing that he wouldn’t, came with barbed wire that caught in his throat and dragged downward.
But still. But. Dogs could get new owners. Friends and lovers could find someone new to help heal the wounds. Move on to something better and only hurt when someone else brushed over whatever dark stain Richard would leave behind when the blood was cleared away. It would only hurt on those winter days and only in his knee. Daniel’s hand lightened. Fell away. Words. Saying something that Richard’s mind refused to register despite the eerie emptiness over taking it. He felt cold. In his hands and feet. His throat was dry and the dryness threatened to crack and bleed into his mouth, coating his tongue and staining his teeth and
“Do you want me to move her?” Daniel repeated loudly, slow and just a little impatient. Not directed at him. The Rat King was focused on the rapidly approaching fighting outside, allowing Richard a moment or two to remember how to speak.
“I don’t know what I want,” thin and reedy, a voice from somewhere dark inside him. The helmet changed the tone, increasing the confident reverb, but Richard knew how it sounded in his heart—scratched and ragged, dripping with ice water fear and hatred. Shivering on the gurney after a. It also wasn’t true. He just wanted this to be over. Couldn’t kill her and couldn’t stop wanting to see her dead. Couldn’t bring himself to look at Daniel.
An increasingly difficult feat once Daniel moved in front of him. His chest blocked the view of Regina completely.
“It wouldn’t make her right,” the words pushed themselves into Richard’s ears and stood on the doorstep of his brain, pounding loudly on the locked door. A few knelt down to shout through the mail slot. It took a great deal of effort to not shout back that he wasn’t home. “She would deserve it, Richard,” the air currents faltered, leaving Daniel’s thoughts spiraling and struggling in the stillness. Beating on, nonetheless. “After everything that she’s done to you. Allowed to happen to you and the people like you? Killing her would not make you a monster,” not advocating for the murder but making it clear. He wouldn’t stop it from happening. No last minute dragging Richard away or shouting about how he shouldn’t compromise that last part of himself. He had never killed before and neither had Richard.
“I want the,” mumbled, dragging their feet and nearly tripping over one another on their way out between his lips. “I want her to be held responsible,” he tried to swallow around the lump forming in his throat and nearly choked. “I--,” he wanted the world to see how evil she was. How disturbed. To see the things she had created and be repulsed. And even as he admitted it to himself, he had to admit it was a fantasy. What he could have was suffering. He could make her live each and every day in agony and the knowledge that he had done it to her. That she had been put into a place of torment by her own. Richard almost had to take a step back, smacked in the face by the surge of anger from Daniel’s mind.
“Do you want her to have a chance to defend herself?” Nausea clawed its way up and threatened to twist his throat into knots again. Richard swallowed hard against the need to vomit.
“No,” half a whisper, distorted by the modulator. Half terrible growl. Daniel visibly shuddered at the sound but his mind kicked away the fear of it.
“Do you want people to be inspired by the things she did? To agree with her and side against you? Because those people exist Richie, and I know you know that. We both know there are people who will see what she’s done and say to themselves that they could do it better. Smarter. Who want to learn what her work can teach them,” voice clear but cracking at the edges. “People who are going to look at the man that I love and agree with her that you’re not a person,” pain slipping through where the cracks were wide enough. Fear and anger and Daniel floating forward to put his hands on either side of the helmet, forehead touching the face plate and eyes sliding shut. “You didn’t deserve what she did to you. And you don’t deserve what will happen if,” voice trailing into silence. The gust was gone, leaving behind only broken tree branches and the taste of bile in Richard’s mouth.
If.
If he didn’t do something now. Left unspoken. Danny pulled in a breath with a sound that threatened to break Richard’s heart.
“Killing her won’t fix me,” without power or heat to it. Needing to get the words out of his mouth in any case. There was no fixing something like him. He might be able to mend. With time and patience and no small amount of blunt force super glue. To be repaired to some state of functionality, so long as the given definition of function was loose. Daniel didn’t dignify that with a response. He wasn’t so naïve as to think that it could. Or would. And both of them knew he wasn’t suggesting it. “And it won’t erase the things that she’s done,”
“No. It won’t.” an easy agreement. And the thoughts spinning through Daniel’s mind added on: but it might stop her from making them worse. “You told me once,” a darker cloud began obscuring some of Daniel’s thoughts. Easy enough to break through if Richard had had the drive to. He didn’t. “That if you wanted to, you could reach into someone’s mind and,” a hard pause and Daniel pulled his head back and way from the helmet, eyes opening to stare hard into the blank visor. “And damage them.” Not a question. Not asking for confirmation to the theory that Richard suddenly had access to. “I don’t know if it would be better than just ending her,” Daniel admitted with no small amount of hesitation.
It wouldn’t be better. For a person like Regina, losing control of her mind would be a fate worse than death.
Daniel’s hands left the helmet and fell back onto his shoulders. Richard could feel the internal conflict. Felt it echoed in the hollow valleys and canyons in his own chest. There was a crash outside; judging from the volume barely a block away. Outside, Boris was getting anxious.
“Do you want me move her?” Daniel repeated. Richard felt himself nodding. Always needed more time and never got nearly enough. It would have to be enough.
Five Count
Fandom: Fallen Hero: Rebirth (all disclaimers to @fallenhero-rebirth)
WC: ~3400
Pairing: Flystep (herald/richard)
Tags: retribution spoilers, established relationship, Dr. Finch, therapy, brief mentions of suicidal thoughts, canon typical self esteem issues, safe for you know
Richard struggles to do his homework.
-
Deep breaths.
Focus on one in. Ten seconds. One out, ten seconds through the exhale.
Ignore the way that one rib still wanted to catch and pull and. In, in, in, hold, out, out, out.
A thought at the front of his brain drove a sharp elbow into his side. Speaking. Words that he should probably be paying attention to.
“…that’s alright?” Across the low table, Dr. Finch adjusted her notebook on her knees and looked at him expectantly. Richard found, sharply and without any reason to accompany it, that he wanted nothing to do with her thoughts. The room around them came into sharper focus; a defense mechanism. If he focused on everything else there would be no way to focus on her.
Somewhere in a colder corner of his thoughts, shaking hands began slamming shutters in icy windows.
There were ringed stains on the table—glasses of water on the patient side. Slightly darker circles from the Doctor’s coffee. Faint. Only really visible if you were looking for them. A box of tissues on the small side table, half empty. Off brand. Huh. Office spaces always had the same sort of back of the throat toner and warm paper and bad carpet smells. A therapist’s office was apparently no different. An attempt had been made to make the space more relaxing, diffuser sticks sat in the far corner by her desk. Probably lavender. Too far away to. “Richard?”
“Sorry. I uh,” something stuck in his throat, and for the first time in a long time it felt more physical than not. Maybe scheduling physical therapy and Dr. Finch in the same day had been a bad move. “There’s a lot. I was just a million miles away,” trying to be anywhere but here.
Dr. Finch regarded that statement carefully, watching to see if the other shoe was going to drop. When it didn’t, she nodded gently. “Any sort of accident, however minor, can be very stressful. I know you said earlier that you weren’t interested in talking about it, but,”
“I’m not,” maybe a little more forceful than necessary. He didn’t want to talk about the fake car accident, that was true, he just hadn’t anticipated that Dr. Finch would be so willing to try and tackle the bigger issue. Had hoped distantly that she’d ease into it. Softer than she.
His mind helpfully supplied the rest of the sentence he’d blocked out. I’d like to take some time, she’d said, to discuss your feelings of self-worth. If that’s alright?
“You’re sure?” it was a gentle pressure. An experimental fingertip to a fresh bruise. Without looking Richard could feel eyes on the real bruises. Deep yellow and purple and sick green. Eyes on his lips pressed tightly together like a disapproving teacher catching students passing notes. He hadn’t had time to make a dental appointment yet; the snapped incisor showed whenever he spoke. Last time Dr. Finch checked, 2014 Toyota corolla’s didn’t use fists.
“Yeah, I’ll be alright,” couldn’t even sound like he had convinced himself. “Not much to talk about anyway,” Richard felt the creeping urge to bounce his knee and resisted only because the nauseating ache from his hip was too strong to let it. Fingers twisted between his knees as if to compensate. Knuckles cracked. “It was my own fault, so it’s not like I can even be upset about,” ah, beans, he shouldn’t have said that. Finch had straightened up, so slow and cautious that it was practically a beacon in the dark for what was coming. And was scribbling in a very deliberate not-rapid-at-all, what are you talking about, way.
“Richard,” ah, beans. “When you say it was your own fault,” ah, beans. He could reach in. Devious little thought, that. Reach in and ah, no, he’d never said that. In fact, look at the time, their session was almost. “What did you mean?” he wasn’t going to do that. It was seductive but sat uneasily on his skin like thick motor oil. Wouldn’t sink in no matter how long he left it to sit.
“I uh. You know, was jay walking,” he waved what he hoped was a dismissive hand. It was hard not to project. Not to leak out whatever emotion would be most convenient to get Finch’s attention off of him. But that was the point, wasn’t it? She couldn’t help if he didn’t let her in. The truth of that didn’t make it any easier to realize that she was wiping her feet on the door mat and going to be making comments about his wallpaper. “Being stupid. I darted into the street, so I deserved to get hit,” really shouldn’t have said that. He could feel her attention softening. A conscious dulling of her focus.
“Do you think that because you committed a minor offense, the jay walking, that you deserved physical injury as a punishment?” she spoke in a measured tone. Metered syllables. She wasn’t about to call out his lie about the accident but it was clear in the way that she spoke about it. Her tone of voice. Her.
“No,” Richard felt the lie in his broken tooth. “No, I mean. It was my. Getting hit was nobody’s fault but my own. If I had been more. If I’d been careful from the start, I wouldn’t have gotten hurt,” and then Richard had to try not to vomit because Dr. Finch’s thoughts grew a fraction louder, loud enough to be heard, and she was connecting a dot or two and oh, they’d never really discussed it, but he did have a partner? Oh, and ‘deserving being hit’ because ‘he wasn’t being careful’ and. “No. No, look. There’s a police report any everything,” a harsher lie, but one that Richard packed into a mental grappling hook and shot straight between Finch’s temples. “I was at fault for crossing the street where I shouldn’t have,”
Dr. Finch made furrowed her brow ever so slightly as the lie settled in. Folded itself along the creases of her brain and was accepted. Her thoughts rounded back.
“Do you think any person who does something wrong deserves to get hurt?”
“No,” and Richard could feel where she was headed but couldn’t bring himself to cut her off.
“No? But you do believe that you did?”
“Some people do deserve to get hurt,” he felt her next question coming and tightened his shoulders against it. It made the spaces between his vertebrae ache. “As a consequence. Like. If you rob a bank you run the risk of getting shot by the police, right? So if you do get shot, it’s your own fault for robbing the bank in the first place,”
“Robbing a bank and crossing the street are a little different from one another,” Dr. Finch pointed out, but gently. “So villains. ‘Bad guys’ deserve to get hurt?” it gathered in Richard’s esophagus, bulbous and sour.
“You know what? Yeah. Sure. They do,”
Dr. Finch’s next look was long and steady and softer than heat rising from the pavement in the summer evenings. “Do you think of yourself as a villain, Richard? Do you think you’re a ‘bad guy’?”
There was no way to answer that. At least, not in any way that could satisfy both of them. He certainly wasn’t the worst villain to ever hit Los Diablos, he didn’t think he could even make the top ten—especially once things like heartbreak or the nanosurge were counted. But his exploits were news. Politicians were aware that he was watching them and the city absolutely wanted his ass behind bars, if only to save their checkbooks. But he was still. If Steel or Argent or, hell, even the LDPD caught Mad Dog just right one day. If he slipped up a little too much? Getting arrested or killed was just a consequence of his own choices. He did deserve it, if it came to that.
So. Alright. Villain? Sure. Bad Guy? Less of struggle, because of course he was. He was an escaped Frankenstein-esque science project, who had stolen a woman’s body for his own uses and then manipulated not one but two of his opposing number into caring about him. Had somehow managed to lie and cheat his way into ruining the life of one of them so severely that Daniel didn’t even. Wouldn’t even.
Apparently the silence was lasting a bit too long for Dr. Finch’s liking.
“I wanted to try an exercise today, but our time for this session is almost out. I do think, however,” she paused and then seemed to come to a decision, nodding to herself for emphasis. “I do think it’s something you can work on in your own time,” She flipped over a page and produced a sheet of paper with several parallel lines on it, each line numbered carefully down the left hand side. “If you can, I want you to go home and list your favorite parts about yourself,”
Richard felt his mind go blank.
“What.”
“They don’t have to be all right at once, and you don’t need to force it. You can even go back and change things. But before our next session I’d like to see if you can think of five things you genuinely like about yourself,” Five things. Exactly half of Richard scoffed and the other half stared at its own feet in complete and wretched defeat. Only five verses five whole, separate, unique things. Huh.
“Can I start with ‘I’m only slightly freakishly tall’?”
“You can also put ‘funny’, since you want to make jokes about it,”
“Right.”
--
The page sat on blank on the surface of the island in the kitchen and Richard had every intention of leaving it there until judgement day. The next session? Oh, he must have forgotten it, left in a rush and all. Spilled water all over the dang thing. Like an eight year old explaining that the family dog had eaten his homework.
Richard leaned back as much as was comfortable against the kitchen island and swallowed a groan. Five things. Should not be difficult. He couldn’t put that he was tall, because although it wasn’t a bad thing it did get him more attention than he wanted. Couldn’t put that he was psychic because, ah ha, Finch didn’t know about that. Yet. Writing down ‘I make sure people don’t die when I bomb buildings’ probably wasn’t going to go over very well. With Finch or the police, patient confidentiality be damned. She wasn’t paid that well. He didn’t think.
He uh. Cared? About other people? Sure. That was why he lied to Ricardo for a decade and had snapped Daniel’s kneecap in half and then fucked him without telling him who he really was. Yeah, no. Couldn’t put that down. He ‘wasn’t violent’ was also a rather large falsehood. He just wasn’t as violent as he could be. He was damned hard to kill. He hoped. Again, cockroach-like survival skills probably didn’t meet Dr. Finch’s sniff test. Good at keeping secrets? Ah, lying. An unselfish lover. Lying to Daniel those first few times notwithstanding, he might actually be able to swing that one. It still didn’t go on the list.
Dr. Finch didn’t need to know about his bedroom.
He looked non-threatening. That thought vacillated wildly in his own head between ‘I look like someone’s deadbeat uncle’ and ‘I don’t look like a guy who beats his boyfriend’. But. Again. How to word it on paper in a way that wouldn’t make Dr. Finch go ‘and why is looking gentle so important?’
He kept his apartment clean. Spotless. Unhinged paranoia could do that to a man. Hard to hide bugs when he knew every scuff and every stray carpet fiber and scrubbed the walls religiously. But. No. He could put that one down.
Organized.
Neat handwriting and everything.
Okay. He had one.
There were about twenty lines on the page in total. Despite Finch having only asked for five, Richard could feel the rest of those parallels glaring up at him. Empty spaces just waiting for him to walk back into Dr. Finch’s office and have to come up with fifteen more, on the spot.
Leave the future for the future. Right now he just needed four more.
He was. Was he smart? It didn’t really feel like he was. Not anymore at least. He wasn’t a slack jawed idiot. Great. He was good in a fight—again, not the sort of thing Dr. Finch probably expected to see on the paper and especially not after he’d shown up to the last appointment covered in bruises and missing half a tooth.
Richard didn’t turn around when the front door’s many locks began snicking open. He’d had to learn to stop using the chain lock as well, but his fingers still twitched for it every time he shut the door. It was one of Daniel’s many kindnesses that he used the front door. He could have very easily flown onto the balcony and come in through there. But that would require Richard to leave that door unlocked. And neither of them trusted him to do that, not quite yet.
“Hey,” Daniel’s voice was steady and familiar and slipped into his own head like snow melt. Richard felt his hands flipping the paper over without telling them to and turned slowly, trying not to wrench his hip any more than was necessary. Let himself lean back gently on the counter top.
“Hey,” and he watched as Daniel hesitated by the door, redoing the locks. Fluttering thoughts grouping around each one to make sure it was secure. Including the chain. Jesus, he didn’t deserve him.
When the last click hit home, Daniel turned with a small smile and floated further into the apartment. There was something on his mind; his thoughts dipped and rose a little haphazardly. Richard didn’t pry. “How’d it go today?”
“Not terrible,” Richard allowed. Physical therapy turned out to be worlds easier when it involved someone who actually knew what they were doing and weren’t out to get a machine back up to snuff for inspections. He’d left the office sore and exhausted but in a manageable way. Was gonna be stiffer than one of Ricardo’s suit collars in the morning though. “I saw Argent there,”
“Oh yeah!” Daniel’s eyes lit up with a pleased grin. The swell of his thoughts matched the expression and the feeling of it hooked into the corners of Richard’s mouth and tried to pull upwards. “She goes there a lot! And always said they do really good work. I figured that you wouldn’t. Er. Couldn’t see one of the Rangers’ docs, so you could go where she does,”
“Thanks, Danny,” he offered back, meaning it.
“And how did the rest of it go? With Dr. Finch, I mean,”
“Fine,” Richard tried not to cut the word hard and seemed to succeed. Daniel rose an inch and drifted into the kitchen properly, thoughts still doing their subtle dodge and dart. Oh, something very much on his mind. “She didn’t buy the car accident story but she also didn’t press it,”
“Oh, good,” very much on his. Ah. “I. Found the note you left me,” no beating around the bush then. Dusty pink rose up on his cheekbones and Richard felt a flush raising to match it. “It was. I liked it,” and his thoughts were bustling around it now—the memory of it, at least. A small slip of paper hidden up just above Richard’s own height and right about at where Daniel may have caught a glimpse of it. It he’d been looking. Floating at the right space. “It was sweet,”
“It was just,” just a little note. Something small because he couldn’t seem to make himself do anything worthwhile anymore. The confessions were out of the way and the lies had been exposed and now all that was left was the rather small and frankly unexciting reality of him. “Thought it would be nice,”
“It was,” Daniel confirmed again and Richard couldn’t do anything to stop the small hiccups of warmth spreading up through his chest. When Richard finally managed to look up enough to make eye contact, Daniel had drifted close enough to lean in for a gentle kiss. Soft and warm and oh? Hands on his shoulders and then one on the back of his neck and. Danny’s forehead against his own. Without telling them to, Richard’s hands had found Daniel’s waist and were drawing him in. “I didn’t know you wrote poetry,” he pressed the words against the corner of Richard’s mouth.
“Don’t let Ortega find out. I have a reputation to protect,” the wink he threw out landed and earned him another quick peck. The wind currents hadn’t died down in his head though. Richard felt the thoughts slipping against his radar like leaves along a branch.
“Mhm, sure,” a subtle lift. Just enough to get a better look.
“Something else on your mind, lover boy?”
Daniel flushed again but didn’t pull away. “Yes,” he waited and Richard got the distinct impression that he was waiting to see if Richard could pick up on it in his head. He could have. He didn’t. “I. Uh. Wanted your opinion on something,” another pause.
Richard fidgeted slightly against the counter, relieving some of the weight on his hip but shifting his rib in a way that made him want to hiss. “Okay,” a different release of weight and Daniel’s hands left his neck and shoulder and found his own hands instead. It suddenly felt like they were too warm and going to start sweating at any second. A strange and unwelcome brush of tension. “Danny?”
“It’s. The lease on my apartment is ending soon. At the end of next month. And I,” he glanced around and Richard felt the way his thumb rubbed against the back of his hand and. “I wanted to know if you think I should renew it. Or if, um,” or if he should move in here.
Which would be a terrible idea. The press would have a field day if they managed to find out that Herald had moved in with the mysterious benefactor they’d all harped on a few months ago and then forgotten about. And the Rangers’ PR team would have to deal with. If it meant that. And that could—would—bring so much attention onto Richard. Onto where he lived. There would be eyes on him until the next big thing, but still. Eyes that found him once could find him again. And that would put Danny even higher on the radar of anyone else that had Richard in their sights. And sure, Daniel practically already did live with him. Most nights. Most mornings. Most. And. But. Wasn’t that just getting so close to. To. It may have been miles or it may have been baby steps, but it was still edging closer to.
To that temptation of permanency. Hard to plan for the permanent future when all you can count on is your own death. Was your own death. There was suddenly a great deal more time stretching out before him than Richard had ever let himself consider.
And the last thought that sidled in through the gathering throng and began whispering into onlooker’s ears was that Richard would like it. His thoughts were already warming to the idea of this being their home and as quickly as they warmed they sent ice water through his veins. Their home. Toeing dangerously close to a line that Richard hadn’t even wanted to acknowledge existed. His mind began railing against every other part of himself that argued back that. That it would. It would be wrong, more than wrong it would be disturbed, to ask Daniel to make that sort of commitment to ruining his life like that and. And. Anxiety, subtle concern, not wanting to press, not wanting not to press.
“But. I mean, if it’s not something that,”
“I’d like that,” traitorous mouth, treasonous tongue. Daniel dipped for a moment as the realization sunk in and then beamed. He’d been expecting rejection, Richard realized with a sick sort of wonder. Daniel had been waiting for him to say no, but had been hoping for.
The wave hit Richard like a full body blast of warm air. “You would?” the feeling of it clogged up his throat and his sinuses and he managed a soft:
“Yeah, I. Yes,”