Work Text:
“Alright,”
She had switched out the lavender diffusers. He’d never been able to smell them but he could feel a thought brushing up that another patient had complained. Instead there was a small ceramic thing, plugged into her desk, melting wax and letting out a faint hint of something lemon adjacent.
“Alright?” he repeated and let himself glance back at her. The mood was. Shifted. Not terribly different, but enough to be noticed. By both of them.
His limp right arm sat heavy next to his side, the world’s most slender elephant, taking up all the spare space in the room.
Dr. Finch slowly lowered her notepad, an action that Richard’s mind was well familiar with and not terribly long ago labeled as a display of. Of good will. A declaration of intention. Extending the hand to show it was weaponless.
She was an ally. A.
Didn’t know her outside of work, obviously. Friend wasn’t the word but.
He was in a better mood than he could remember being in at any of their sessions and the good doctor was more than keen enough to pick up on it. A hunting dog, bred by hundreds of generations to pick up on any fluctuations in the scent trail.
Richard was briefly treated to the sight of himself through her eyes as she evaluated the posture, the way his left hand still curled and tried to twist with the right, despite missing its match.
The way his shoulders angled down without fully slouching. It took far too much self-control to not rip off the bandage of pseudoscience covering the fact that she knew how he held himself. Knew when it was nerves and when it was anger or shame or when it was tangible physical discomfort. Not trying to write body language into a diagnosis but reading from the familiarity of it. Knowing things about him.
Something subtle was different and she wasn’t sure what.
Well. That made the both of them.
A pivot, heel striking hard on the stage to sharply turn to where she was directing the dance.
“Was it another car?” No amusement in her voice. A cautious thread of it playing through her thoughts, a single note from a lonely flute, trying to carry a tune and unsure if it would be joined by any other woodwinds any time soon. Afraid to push too hard because. Obviously. But bridges had been built, shaky suspension bridges with suspect looking rope. But bridges all the same. Leading to.
Richard didn’t wait for intermission, pulling hard out of her head and leaving the ballet before it could fully begin. Trying to leave the concert.
Finch wasn’t the sort to hate her patients. Dislike, certainly. And there were plenty of sessions that ended before they began. Plenty where Richard could feel her annoyance being packaged away into professional concern and labeled ‘A Long Day at Work’ before being shelved for future review.
There were plenty of his own sessions in that prim packaging.
But it was still a sharp tremble of surprise, somewhere in the space between his lungs, that Doctor Finch didn’t hate their appointments. That she was trying to joke with him, even a little bit.
“Now who’s trying to diffuse tension by forcing humor?” face blank. As blank as he could make it. She wasn’t his friend. An ally. It would have been too much effort not to make it sound like a joke in return.
“Did it feel forced?” a clarinet of sincerity joining the flute, a stronger sound if only for being deeper in register. The eyes on him softened. “But you make a fair point,” Smile not entirely guilty despite how fleeting it was. “It’s not a laughing matter that you’ve been hurt again,” seriousness coming down in a heavy blanket. Warmth. “The injury to your arm—,”
“Will heal. I…the doctors say it’ll heal,” mostly. Sort of. Richard shrugged as much as he could with his left shoulder. It was the truth, even if he could tell that…could feel from the physical therapist’s thoughts that she wasn’t certain he’d ever get full motion back. Likely would never write again with that hand. Or at least not well.
Not like he ever wrote anything worth reading anyway. Suicide notes and. The little love poems he liked to leave for Daniel wormed their way through the ventricles to start strangling his heart. He could type them. Or something. As long as he could throw a decent punch with it, fine motor skills could. They weren’t really needed.
The lie settled uneasily between his molars.
Just had to work on his left hand, the muscles there already sore from the increase in use.
And while she wasn’t satisfied with the answer, her questions about the incredibly upsetting injuries melded nicely into the theme of what she wanted to talk about. Which.
Ah, beans, that couldn’t bode well.
“If you say so,” not taking an inch of what he was giving. “We’ve made a lot of progress over the past few months,” A neutral statement. Somewhere a conductor raised her hands. There were stringed instruments coming up to rest on shoulders. Bows being readied. “I want to know if you’re ready to talk about how you,” her thoughts arrived in Richard’s head before her mouth could finish the question, brass being brought up and lungs being filled. “How you and Ortega met one another,”
How do you know Ricardo Former Marshal Current Ranger Charge Ortega? How is it you’re dating Herald of the Rangers?
Not asking, but oh, so close to. So close to asking what sort of person he was that he had access to friends like these. She wasn’t an idiot.
Because Richard had always—aha—sidestepped those question and hand waved and, at his worst, plucked out those slippery fish from her stream of thought. Dr. Finch was under the impression that they’d simply always run out of time focusing on Richard’s myriad of other issues before they could tackle the.
The hero question.
There were plenty of signs. Not just his in his bruises but in the slant of his mouth when they discussed morality and the. Hm. Nope, not going to acknowledge either the savior or the guilt or the martyr complexes that she had long grown used to seeing the trickles of. Even with him doing his best to keep them from breaking the surface.
The hero question remained.
A stubborn salmon swimming upstream, ready to go to its death for the greater cause of making even more stubborn questions that he had no good answer for. No good lie for.
Richard could feel her gaze returning to the limp right arm like a bad allergic reaction, threatening to swell his throat shut. The cough was blamed on the chest wound and not the way he wanted to curl into a ball. To curl his fingers around her conductor’s baton and rip it away from her palm.
Richard heard his mouth threatening to make a scene out in the concert hall’s lobby.
“I used to,” more confirmation, again, that it hadn’t been Themmy forcing the words out. They’d claimed that they could sometimes feel it, in the way the wind shifted and ice hardened, what his thoughts were up to. How he wanted to say or do things before an insipid blackness would drench over his mind. Clench the musculature of his head and chest tight. They said it was terrible to be in there when it happened. Only slightly less terrible when he. When his mouth would fight the good fight that his mind couldn’t quite put its fists up for. “I used to work with him,”
The return nod was subtle, another few instruments warming up, keeping the volume low and steady. A sharp note as one of the. The big one? The big violin. The cello. Began.
Somewhere in the wings, dancers were doing last minute stretches.
“When you worked with him,” choosing her words carefully, surveying her options. Freestyling what she hoped would be a working arrangement. “Was it the same sort of work that you’re doing now?” There was a fucking list. A fucking list in her head and how had he missed it? How many times had he strolled into her mind and missed the list on the bulletin board. Names, shorter and shorter every time. Who he could have been, somewhere in a past life. The same life, separated by years and layers of trauma her shovels had yet to pierce.
Less of a wince, more of baring teeth. Down at the carpet, focus on the carpet. Breathe and focus on the physical. It was cleaned recently but there was still a dull path, walked by dozens of other shoes, worn into the fibers. Fraying and wearing them down, staining them ever so faintly. From the door to the couch that he sat on and back, a closed loop. A repeating circle.
Was?
No.
Absolutely not. He’d been Charge’s sidekick. A right hand. An up and too eager, too stupid, too ready to risk his neck and. He hadn’t been whatever he was now. And. Well, it was a good thing, wasn’t it? That he wasn’t trying to hide behind a mask of good intentions. Didn’t say that he was a good person or try to act like his motivations were anything besides.
Selfishness and narcissism and. “Richard?” a gentle push.
An ugly thought, one that sent his mind to covering mirrors to keep it from seeing itself, from coming to realization, perked up and began doing its make up. Readying for a debut. Why was he working towards exposing the farm? What did he hope to gain? Was he really still so naïve as to think it would make a difference? To think people would care?
Mad Dog didn’t kill. And months ago, it must have been months, Finch had asked if he was a bad guy and if he deserved to be punished and that answer had been yes and it was still yes because he had done terrible things. There were still plans to do more.
But he’d rescued those people with Chen and took steps to make sure no one was hurt. And he didn’t want death but something even worse for those who had tortured him. He did fucking community service.
And.
He hadn’t been able to stop himself from encouraging that other regene. Hilda. From hissing in the plane that it was worth it. That she should risk everything to leap into the great unknown. It would be worth it.
Broken ribs and hips and shoulders and a mind that turned in on itself and ate itself in the night and.
It was worth it.
And then he’d left all of them to die at the hands of the Catastrofiend because he’d lost. Every scientist but also every innocent soul trapped within those damned walls and he heard the knuckles on his right hand crack before he felt them. Left hand twisted hard and sharp and making the joints bulge against the skin.
Squeaking. Doctor Finch leaning forward gently and the springs in her chair shifting with the jolting movement. Concern. A faint, oh a faint glimmer of regret? At asking, as she wasn’t certain that now wasn’t too soon for. Well. No, she was certain now. A push too far. Mouth twisting to ask if. To apologize for.
“So, he didn’t tell you who I used to be?” Sliding his left hand away from his right and feeling slickness there.
Which brought the ballet to an end quicker than pulling the fire alarm. Finch shook her head, slow and thoughtful. Settling back in, gaze trained on his hand before she forced herself to look back to his face.
“No,” reaching for the notepad. Reaching for a sword. Hopefully still fighting on his side. “We’ve discussed this before Richard,” patient but firm. Pressing in again. Ricardo had only called him a friend. One who needed a little bit of help. Friend and little being key words that didn’t fit into any lock Finch had been able to find for months. “He’s respected your privacy. The same as I do, you know. I don’t discuss my patients outside of work,” outside of her office. Outside of. An olive branch. Ready to end the session if he needed it.
But.
There was still a pen in her hand, a blade ready for the execution.
Something snagged slightly. Richard let it. She knew the name. “I used to be his sidekick. A vigilante,”
Still. Faster than he wanted it to be. Neurons firing and connections snapping from point to point and. Fighting back a sense of pride at having figured him out. Even if it hadn’t been too difficult to put the pieces together. There had been plenty of evidence to work with.
Ah, beans. Out before he could wrangle it back in. “But that was before I tried to kill myself.” The first time. Finch had the decency to flinch, even if only in her eyebrows and the corners of her lips. And. No, there went the rest of the face. A cousin to pity, one that the rest of the family no longer spoke to. Always made holiday dinners so fucking. They’d talked briefly about it. As far as she could remember, it had been brief. And intense.
Neither of them had the courage at the moment to approach that ticking package. Not this session. Thank whatever passed for a higher power for that.
Her thoughts aimed back at the question at hand.
It wasn’t as if Charge had been in the habit of keeping plucky young wards at his side. Not, apparently, in the habit of destroying himself over their deaths or letting guilt and grief consume him to the point of.
“You’re Sidestep,” not needing the confirmation. Not inviting it in, but letting the unspoken question sidle in all the same and sit next to him, pressing in against his bad hip. Sudden claws sinking in deep to the flesh of his thigh and wrenching loose the meat. He’d gone out of a window and she’d seen the funeral on television. What had happened? There had been.
Questions about his new injuries. Old injuries. Old scars that she occasionally caught glimpses of when he wasn’t being careful and the light hit just right and. All of them were rapidly being redrafted, the symphony rearranged frantically. Changes in key and tempo and. Slowing. Steadying herself.
Deliberate motions. The notebook going back to her side—a click of a pen being placed back on the table. Small displays. Meaningful. Wanting them to be meaningful. Wanting them to matter to him, to show she wasn’t.
To show that she was. “Richard,” not here to hurt him with this. Not intentionally, even if they both knew that it still was slicing along tendons.
“I was,” too sharp, cutting into his palm and not the sting of pain but he could feel flesh curling under the nails of his left hand. Shoulder screaming with the tension in his upper back, desperate to coil in on himself and block any of this. To reach out and stop this. To drag it back from her mind and shift the topic and keep it. Away, out, they were not talking about this. “Not anymore,”
They were not going to discuss this.
This would stay and dead and buried the way that neither he nor Anathema had managed to or.
“I think this is something we might want to discuss at a future session,” when she’d had time to gather her thoughts. Prepare her armies. Practice the tonal changes and make sure her dancers had warmed up. Not a completely foreign dance. She had worked with heroes before. Had worked with people who had risked their lives and seen friends die and blamed themselves. Someone who was supposed to be dead was a new one.
Her mind already connecting what he had told her about his ‘childhood’. About being retaken after running away. Was he talking about after the incident with Heartbreak? After he tried to kill himself. Because he had admitted that the people he’d been raised by, even her generous mind stuttered around calling them a family, had. They had found him. And either Marshal Charge and the rangers had held a funeral for him thinking he was dead.
Or they had known. Her thoughts squirmed with the notion, like salt on a slug. Richard could feel it in the beds of his fingernails. Had known and faked a death. Hadn’t Richard had gone on for so long at the beginning about how Ortega was only his friend out of guilt. “It’s going to be very intense when we do,” not a new revelation to her, but more of the layers of impact were suddenly, vibrantly available to her.
The sharp laugh was out, more of a bark than anything else, making her own shoulders rise before they could fall again. Needles of sympathy slid under his fingernails.
Not crying. But all the other signs were there. His next inhale shook like a weathervane in a hurricane. All metallic vibrato, threatening to snap at whichever weak joint failed first. Probably his shoulder. It was freshest. A box of tissues had manifested at his side, an unpleasant ghost raising up from the fabric of reality.
Doctor Finch’s hand retreating. “How are you feeling with all this?”
“I don’t know,” A lie. Automatic, tight enough between his teeth to shred itself. He adjusted and spat out the remains. “Bad,” another huffed laugh, sickle sharp on the consonants. Lips curling to mask how his fingers twitched and wanted to snap themselves again. Down at the carpet, focus on the carpet. Focus on the flinch sting deep ache in his shoulder and hip and. “Awful. Exposed. You know, I wasn’t this morning? I was having a good day. I wanted to tell you that I’m getting married, and instead we’re talking about this,” not a joke. Nothing humorous in the tone or the way he wanted to reach in deep to his own maw and. All accusatory.
All.
How dare no. No. Not that.
Finch’s thoughts adjusted to the hairpin turn, but only barely. A flint spark of surprise before.
Bitterness for bitterness’ sake. Bile collecting in the space under his tongue. He’d been in a good mood and. Stupid of him to think it could be allowed to stand. Even without the other known entities in his head, there were still plenty of other coiling eels wriggling around in the shadows. “And I’ve reconnected with an old friend. Someone I never thought I’d get to see again, because of the whole,” pressing his lips thin and jerking the conversation hard to the left. Other hands on the steering wheel. Other hands pressing into the plastic. He’d wanted to talk about personhood.
About what made him himself if he was losing his urge to kill himself and how did he know where he stopped and the other personalities began and would the people he loved still want him if he wasn’t himself anymore. “But, no, let’s go ahead and talk about how I’m supposed to be,” cutting himself off hard.
Slamming brakes, breaking, mental tires peeling.
Knowing it was unfair of him and sinking his hands in deep to stop it.
Hard enough to creak in his ribs. Clenching his jaw tight enough to make his cheek flutter with the effort. Exhale through his nose. Inhale steadily and ignore how her thoughts had resettled themselves. Ignore. Eyes clenched tight shut but he could still feel the shift. Feel the way her mind was moving closer and. Sitting next to him on the couch. Not touching. But the hesitation was there, pulling up old mental note cards that physical touch helped him.
“Sorry,” croaking in the back of his throat, coughing into his fist to try and clear it loose.
“It’s an upsetting topic,” but not apologizing for it. Even if there were a few distant notes of guilt, they were shuffled back into the sheet music. It was her job to occasionally be upsetting. To tug at the tangle in a patient’s mind meant occasionally tightening a knot. But Richard bringing up. It was immediately, accurately, identified as a guilt trip and placed aside to be rescheduled for better weather. He had apologized for it.
Topics for other days.
A pause, heavy with. Not doubt, but. “We still have some time,” because he hadn’t gone in, yet. Hadn’t placed a finger on the minutes hand of her mental clock and sped the session up. Yet. “But I think it would be best if we left off here today,” hand hovering, intending on. Waiting to see. Before settling her hand on his back, just between his shoulder blades. “But next time I think we should talk about those good developments, Richard. I’m so happy to hear,” he tuned her out. Not hard, but enough. Enough to let the feeling of her hand actually sink into something comforting. For the moment.
Next time. Always time next time to talk about the things that didn’t hurt, wasn’t there?