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Maybe it sounded conceited, or desperate, but CaptainPuffy simply enjoyed being kind.
She’d never understood how some withheld their compassion, their love - gripping it with whitening fingers and only doling it out occasionally. She had more than enough compassion to go around, and so she threw it like it was confetti.
Her kindness was given in many different ways, all tailored to the people she gave it to. It was shown in shoulder brushes for Jack Manifold, flowers for Niki - granola bars for Tubbo, grins and coos for Michael, insignificant puns for Ranboo. She had to be careful, Puffy knew, for the lingering traumas and nightmares that lay like a shadow across the server could be triggered at any moment, and she would not be known for causing breakdowns.
When talk of a therapy service began rising on the wind, an idea murmured hopefully between members of the server in passing, she was immediately on board - building a cozy building near Purpled’s UFO. Devouring books on body language, learning how to speak in sign, and discovering the requirements that came with knowing people’s fears like that.
It was slow, at first. Tubbo visited occasionally, nudged primarily by Ranboo (though he refused to go himself, saying that “I can’t remember anything anyway,” ignoring how concerning that was) and bringing Michael for safety.
Callahan came next, which was admittedly a surprise. Through sign language and journaling, he told her of how Dream’s carefully planned spiral had been too painful for him, so he’d merely disappeared. Apparently, he lived in a cottage in the clouds, accompanied by a figure called “XD” occasionally, and Callahan watched.
Sam was the first to set up regular appointments - every Thursday, he’d come and sit with her and allow her to paint his nails while he spoke about the prison. She’d asked him, at some point, why he spoke about “The Warden” as if he was a different person, and watched as his shoulders tensed.
“The Warden is complicated, Puffy - he’s me, I’m him, but I would’ve never cut off Ponk’s arm, and the Warden did. I would never be able to listen to the maddened ramblings of Dream, or handle his stupid cries and desperation to see Tommy, or George - but the Warden handles it, and I let him.” Sam’s voice had shaken as he spoke, so Puffy had simply run a finger over one of his and jotted a note down.
The second person to set up regular appointments was Tommy, after the prison, though he left a note instead of coming directly to her as Sam had.
Their first session had been interesting , to say the least. Tommy had sat in silence for the majority of it, fingers playing distantly over one of the fidgets she kept in there, seemingly lost in thought. Eventually though, he’d looked back at her with a murmur of “Tubbo and Ranboo wanted me to come, but I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do.”
And she’d explained it to him, her job in its entirety. Tommy, she figured, was used to adults lying to him, and she did not want to become another figure like that. So Puffy explained confidentiality requirements, her general aim with the office, all of her thoughts surrounding it. Yet after letting her speak for fifteen minutes, the only question Tommy had for her was “Why?”
He’d left after asking, leaving only a whispered promise that he’d be back, and Puffy wanted to cry at the simplicity of it all. Of course he wouldn’t understand, he’d never been given kindness without strings attached, but the idea of that was enough to make the Captain choke up.
The next person to visit was George, panicked and teary-eyed. “I watched them die, Puffy, and then I woke up but their blood was still on my clothes, and the sword was still in Ghostbur’s hands,” he’d told her, words spilling over each other with the speed at which he was talking. “I don’t know what’s real anymore, Niki kept asking me if I was still asleep and I don’t know, I just don’t know-”
He’d broken off into tears then, so Puffy had weaved around her desk to wrap him in a hug. He sunk into it, hands trailing awkwardly at his sides before they’d risen to join the hug as well.
“You’re real, George,” she’d muttered. “You’re not dreaming. You’re real, and I’m real, and we’re here together, alright?”
George had just nodded at her, so she’d given him a list of grounding techniques and things that would never appear in dreams, had let him sit in her office and read one of her books until he’d felt able to leave.
Puffy was glad to help, of course - nobody ever helped each other, or themselves for that matter, and she was determined to make them. And still, the knowledge of the traumas, the worries and the responses, the unhealthy coping mechanisms - it was enough to make her head spin.
Sam’s desperate ramblings about “I killed him, Puffy, the Warden didn’t rescue him and now he’s - he’s got that fucking white streak, and he can’t look at me without jumping back,” and Tubbo’s guilt over exiling Tommy, Niki’s desperation to be heard, Jack’s insistence that he wasn’t touchstarved - it all began fading into itself, and the voices of her clients started haunting Puffy’s dreams and her nightmares.
“I’m not touch starved, Puffy - I’ve never needed physical touch, why would I start now?”
“Even George wasn’t upset over it, I should’ve known that Dream was trying to isolate Tommy and break him, but I let him bully me into it and I don’t know if I’ll ever get the pre-Exile Tommy back, Puffy.”
“None of them ever listen to me! I have to silence all of them, force them to listen to me so they actually hear what I’m saying-”
Puffy wanted to scream, but everyone she talked to left her office with slightly more bounce in their step, so she continued. Who cared if she didn’t have any outlet to talk about her own emotions, let alone process the feelings of others?
There was only one thing CaptainPuffy would not do, and that was to betray confidentiality.